Men shouted. Bodies fell.
A man stood above him. The light shifted as he raised the bat over his head.
Kevin punched the man's knee and was rewarded with the snapping of bone, a scream. The man fell next to him, hands to his ruined joint. His bat rolled on the floor.
Kevin got to his feet to find three men swarming Yoshi. Another lay on the floor. Kevin grabbed the nearest still standing and hurled him across the room, scattering a table and chairs like ten pins. A second man turned to face him and Kevin broke his jaw with a punch, then sent him to the floor with a blow to the guts and one to the back of the head on his way down, just for good measure.
Yoshi felled the last punter then munched on his throat — just a quick skoll more out of spite than need. When he'd done slurping, he stood, unsteady, and only then pulled a pocketknife out of his gut. He dropped it to the floor. It stuck, point first, juddering.
Yoshi wiped his mouth on his sleeve. 'That didn't work out quite the way I planned.' Blood soaked his shirt; his face was flushed, his voice slurred. He weaved to the nearest pot plant and pissed a red stream, gave a sigh as he zipped up.
Kevin couldn't talk yet, just nodded, slowly, his head aching. Two, three of the guys on the ground were bleeding from nasty gashes.
'I'll get a jug for Mel.' Yoshi went to the bar where the barmaid cowered out of sight. He reached across to jerk something from her hand — a telephone — and traced the line to the base where he ripped the cord out. 'Something with a lid,' he told her. She crawled to a fridge and handed him a bottle of soft drink. He emptied it on the floor as he walked back, retrieved the pocketknife and made a hell of a mess bleeding one of the men into the bottle.
Sirens sounded by the time he was finished. The bar girl had fled.
Yoshi stood at the pool table, feeling for Jessie's pulse.
'Okay?' Kevin asked. He knew she was a nice enough girl, worked part-time at a servo on the edge of town, fucked Billy regularly and Streak occasionally, liked to sing karaoke — could've been all right if her parents had paid for lessons.
Her throat was a ruined mess, the table dark with blood.
Yoshi shook his head. 'We can't leave her looking like this.'
A man groaned and Yoshi told Kevin to see if he had wheels.
'Beggars can't be choosers,' Kevin told Yoshi, holding up a set of Ford keys, in time to see him grinding a broken glass into Jessie's wounded neck.
Yoshi licked his fingers, wiped his bloodstained mouth. 'Time to go.'
'Should we, you know, clean up?' Kevin asked.
Yoshi shook his head. 'Give VS something to do while we make our getaway.' He winked.
Kevin's gut lurched. He was happy to get out into the open air.
'Glad we took a change of clothes.' Yoshi pulled at his sodden shirt. 'These didn't last long.'
They found the car easily enough, a sedan with a dent in the rear panel.
Kevin drove the short distance to their hideout. Mel was exactly where they'd left her, staring at the sky through a barred window high on the wall. They fed her the blood, which she drank with little evidence of tasting and even less effect. Kevin cleaned the spill from her cheek and throat. He thought she might've noticed him, as he touched her, a look of pleading, of desperation, but then the shutters came down again. She shuddered once and let herself be led to the car and made to lie down on the back seat.
'How long to Brisbane?' Yoshi asked.
'Three, four hours if we take the highway, but I think we should go the long way. They'll be looking for this, once the driver tells them.'
'And you're sure you want to go back?'
'That's where Mira is.'
'Is she worth all this? Those people on the island, your friend in the back here?'
'They're the reason I can't stop.'
'If you change your mind, I think Rodan would offer you haven. I'd vouch for you.'
'So I could kill for him?'
'It rarely comes to that. Besides, for him, for you: what's the difference?' Yoshi glanced at a passing car, lowered his gun as it went past. 'What are you going to do if you manage to kill Mira? You thought about what comes next?'
'I'll worry about that when it's done.'
'Think about my offer, pal. Eternity's a long time to carry a grudge.'
'This won't last that long. I can promise you that.'
Kevin drove west. The temptation to keep driving and not stop until he'd reached home was magnetic. But there was nothing for him out there, and Yoshi's offer had less appeal. All that mattered to him was in Brisbane. He owed too many people to turn back now.
Once he'd put a good distance between them and Maryborough, he turned south for the big smoke.
Mira was all he had, now, but Yoshi's words haunted him. 'What would he have when she was gone?
FORTY-NINE
Reece tried not to yawn as he waited in the reception on 13. He'd got bugger-all sleep. Thorn was an angry ant nest, the death of Danica and the Fallschirmjaeger having dropped a massive shit brick right in the middle of it. He'd been on the streets all day, hunting the Needle, Matheson, anyone who might shed light on what the bloody hell was going on. That he had Maximilian and Marshall breathing down his neck and Heinrich, Campbell and half the Hunters all trying to wring it, didn't help. He almost envied Mira her bedlam; or at least the isolation it provided from the septic politics of Thorn.
Speak of the devil. Campbell, a sneer behind his smile, entered the room, with the head of Public Relations, Monica Bishop, in tow, like a dag on a sheep's arse. Their Familiares accompanied them — personal assistants in Campbell-speak. But then, Campbell was the sort of poser who wore glasses when he didn't need to, all part of his corporate facade. Bishop paused, wiping a lick of bleached fringe from her eyes, to say hello. 'How's life on two treating you, Reece? Too bad about that; you were a good Hunter, even if we didn't see much of you.'
Hypocrite: Bishop had hated that Reece, nominally a Hunter, had effectively been seconded to Mira's service from the moment she'd brought him into the organisation. A loose cannon, he'd been called.
'I heard Petersen bit the dust on Fraser,' Reece offered.
'No concern of Security, I assure you.'
'No, it was a GS operation, wasn't it? Although, were your Hunters calling the shots?'
She glared, and he had to give her points for retaining her composure in the face of an epic failure. But then, she was head of PR: hiding shit under rugs was her job.
One of the Familiares — like penguins, they were, almost identical in corporate chic suits and haircuts — tapped the tablet he cradled. 'Almost seven.'
Campbell asked the Familiare behind the desk: 'He in?'
'Waiting. You're the first to arrive.'
The group had reached the boardroom door when Christian Jensen bustled in, also trailing a suit with Bluetooth headpiece and tablet.
'Got enough toilet rolls?' Campbell asked. 'There's shit all over the fan.'
Jensen actually looked up at the ceiling. As Trappier, the organisation's logistics were his concern; his finger was on every ream of office paper, every loo roll, every box of ammo that entered the building. With his short-cropped blond hair artfully tousled and his jacket pulled tight across his narrow shoulders, he tried to look nonchalant despite his gaffe, but he couldn't stop playing with his cuffs and adjusting his tie. Another military failure must've put a dent in his balance book. Marshall's arrival saved him from trying to find a witty rejoinder to Campbell's remark.
'We having the meeting in the foyer?' she asked, and winked at Reece as she followed the others in. Jensen, the oldest of the bunch, barely came up to her shoulder.
The door had shut when Hospitaller Tran, a Familiare and Vee arrived. Tran made small talk with the Familiare on desk duty about who was and wasn't in already, and what mood the Old Man might be in. Vee hovered, as expressionless as a mannequin, matching Reece's stare.
'Are you refreshments?' Vee asked finally.
&
nbsp; 'Cleaner, I think,' Reece said. 'You know how messy the Old Man gets when he's angry.'
Tran stiffened and pointedly ignored Reece as he led the other two toward the boardroom. Vee had not been assigned a personal assistant.
Reece wanted to ask how Mira was, if there'd been any improvement, but he wouldn't give them the satisfaction of ignoring him.
They went in.
The Familiare resumed her typing — the von Schiller machine, churning twenty-four-seven. Always night-time somewhere. Reece checked the time.
The meeting should've started by now. No Heinrich. Had he entered by another door?
If not, the Old Man wouldn't be impressed.
Reece had arrived early, just in case; as well as to get a bo-beep at the board, try to gauge the lay of the land. Not that he had expected any great revelations: they'd had too much time to perfect their poker faces.
Then the door was hurled open and Heinrich charged past, no lackey in tow, clearly not happy with the hand he'd been dealt. There was shouting from behind the boardroom door, words indistinct: might've been Crete, crate. Casualties, definitely.
The shouting stopped. After a while, the Familiare's phone buzzed. She answered. 'They're ready for you.'
He went in.
The room was thick with tension.
Maximilian sat at the head of the table, facing the door along the length of the table. The shutters were closed behind him, cutting off the city view.
An empty seat occupied a space to his left. Mira's customary place: not a department head, per se, but as Strigoi, she sat at the head of the table with her father. Vee stood behind the chair, a sure sign Maximilian had yet to give up on his daughter's recovery. Reece suppressed a smile, imagining how much the slight must've rankled Vee. Before she'd done a runner, Danica had occupied the post at Maximilian's left. That she would never do so again made the emptiness palpable.
No one looked at that chair, not even Vee, who kept their hands in front of them and expression suitably downcast. They could afford to be reverent, with the role of Strigoi so much closer in the aftermath of last night's disaster on Fraser Island.
Heinrich sat at Maximilian's right. Arranged around the table were the rest of the board: down one side, Campbell, Tran and Bishop; and facing them, Marshall and Jensen.
Familiares stood in the wings, tablet computers and Bluetooth headsets at the ready. Maximilian was the only exception: he also had two vampire bodyguards. Both wore combat armour and had Gothic crosses on their lapels, the ends shaped like sword tips.
Jensen gave a dry cough; rings sparkled in the downlights as he motioned for his Familiare to top up his goblet. Lazy git, Reece thought.
'Hunter,' Maximilian said, his words echoed by the soft tapping of a typist's fingers where she recorded the minutes. Quaint; the room was bound to be wired for sound and video, but Max was old school.
'We were discussing the matter of Kevin Matheson. In fact, there will be an extraordinary council meeting in two nights' time to discuss certain events directly related to him. We were thinking of offering a seat on the council to any peasant who can bring him in; on ice.'
Reece said nothing.
'What do you think?' Maximilian said into the silence, spitting out think as though it had tobacco on it.
'An effective bounty, my lord.'
Marshall looked up from the pen that had been occupying her attention. 'Do you think he will come here? His maker was Taipan, after all: a nomad.'
Heinrich said, 'A nomad who eluded Bishop's Hunters for thirty years.'
'It was more like forty, wasn't it?' Marshall said, off-handedly. Jensen stifled a chuckle.
Bishop shrugged, as if to say, what's a decade between vampires.
Campbell reminded them that they still had men in the field, looking for Matheson.
Maximilian said to Reece, 'He will return, won't he?'
'I should think so, my lord Hochmeister,' Reece said.
'And why is that?' Marshall asked.
'Two reasons, Madam Marshall. The first: he blames Mira for the death of his family. And secondly: he has nowhere else to go.'
'Then we kill him,' Heinrich said, 'With Danica dead, the boy is no longer of any use to us. He is just a threat. Put the word out to all the vassals, all the villeins. More territory, or a council seat for whoever brings us his head.'
Campbell, smiling, wiped his glasses with leisurely swipes of his handkerchief, said, 'All in favour?'
Hands went up. Heinrich leaned back, apparently satisfied. 'It's unanimous, then. Kevin Matheson is now persona non grata. By Thursday night's council meeting, he will be a prisoner or dead.'
FIFTY
The morning was deep, dark, quiet when Kevin pulled into the car park of a shopping centre in a northern suburb of chain stores and car yards. He got out, stretched.
'You be all right?' Yoshi asked as he took Kevin's place in the driver's seat.
'Sure. What about you? Only a few hours till sun-up.'
'We'll be fine.' Yoshi looked into the back seat, as though to make sure Mel was still under the blanket they had stolen along the way. 'Call me when you're done and I'll let you know how she's going.'
'Take it easy,' Kevin said.
The car reversed, turned and was gone; heading toward the west to avoid the highway and the toll roads where detection would be more likely.
Kevin found a working pay phone and dropped coins taken from the console of the stolen car.
Greaser answered just when Kevin was about to hang up.
'It's me.'
'Hello, me. I thought you might be dead.'
'Sorry to disappoint you.'
'Early days. I might get to keep the car yet.'
'You're a macabre little fucker, aren't you?'
'Big word for a bumpkin. You been swotting up on the beach?'
'I do read, you know.' Comics and car magazines, mostly, but he wasn't letting her know that.
Greaser asked where he was and he told her, and she said she'd be there in forty at the most.
It was a long wait. Vehicles cruised by occasionally; once, an ambulance with lights flashing but no siren. Two teenage boys walked with hands thrust in pockets and heads down. If he was a smoker, this would be the time, but he wasn't, so all he could do was slouch in a doorway and try not to think too much. Keep looking forward.
Easier said than done when ghosts lived inside him. Ghosts so real they might have been flesh and blood, their lives overwhelming. The girl at the pub — he could feel her dying. The only consolation was that she would fade; he hadn't taken her soul. Not like Nicola, the girl at Rockhampton.
He could, with the flick of a mental switch, cast himself into Nicola's life; incidents, moments. The sun on her face, a lover's hand, the taste of fairy floss at the local show, the smell of horse after a day's riding, the burn in the muscles of her legs.
Kevin rubbed his eyes, so tired; pressed against his eyelids to drive Nicola from his mind.
Yoshi had been manic. He had been manic.
Is this what vengeance — justice — looked like?
Danica had told him not to go. Now she was dead. Kala had washed her hands of him. Who was left to see, let alone care, if he lived or died?
A black Monaro pulled into the car park. It flashed its headlights, but Kevin was already on his way. It felt good to move, to focus. Greaser sat behind the wheel, smiling like she'd just bought the best Chrissie present evah!
'What do you think?' she asked.
'It's black.'
'Good job, eh?'
She'd put a scoop on the front, a wing on the back.
'Yeah,' he said. 'Good job.' He dumped his sword in the boot, then told her, 'Shove over.'
She grimaced, but did as she was told. 'Where's Mel?'
'With Yoshi. Danica; it didn't go well. Yoshi knows someone who might be able to help. A long shot, but at least Mel will be safe.'
'Oh.' She turned away, wiped an eye, and her voice was subdued w
hen she said, 'He was all right, eh, for a Yank.'
'I need to talk to the Needle.'
'That's a bit of a problem. He's missing. None of us knows where he is.'
Kevin sat, hands on wheel, mind paralysed. All avenues seemed to be dead ends. 'You've really got no idea where the Needle is?'
'I've spent the past two days checking all the haunts. Nothing.'
'But you don't think he's shot through.'
'We were his family; that's what he called us. He wouldn't abandon us.'
'And you would've heard if he'd been caught, right?' he said.
'I guess.'
'Okay.' Breathe. Think. 'Back to the start,' Kevin said. 'The mole who told the Needle about Jasmine. Heard anything more about that?'
'Nup.'
'Two of Bhagwan's people had silver tattoos. Who else has them?'
'Just about every streeter has Needle's tatts. They like to wear their allegiance close to the bone, you know. But the VS aren't allowed. Contamination, they call it.'
'Are you absolutely sure no VS got a tattoo from the Needle recently?'
'I'm not his secretary, all right, but I know who would know: Silver and Argent.'
'Let me guess: they're missing, too?'
'No. They're with the studio. Up on the mountain.'
Kevin put the car into gear. 'Let's go then.'
FIFTY-ONE
Reece was dismissed and told to wait in reception, but the meeting didn't go much longer. Marshall collected him on the way through and he fell into step beside her, her Familiare trailing behind.
'What did I miss?'
'Heinrich posturing about the loss of his precious Fallschirmjaeger, threatening to clear the streets with a whiff of grapeshot. Campbell pushing to get more villeins upgraded to vassals as a way of boosting our forces.'
'Foxes guarding the hen house.'
When they reached the lift, she told her Familiare to take the next one. Then she asked Reece if he'd had a chance to read the reports she'd emailed him during the day.
He had, in the pub where he'd had his lunch. The first was a weighty dossier about the "engagement on K'gari/Fraser Island". The second, a string of incident reports about gang violence and vampire-suggestive graffiti in the city. The street art was adolescent strutting. The bashings, a somewhat more serious sign of Maximilian's control being undermined.
The Big Smoke Page 20
