Bad Cow

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Bad Cow Page 21

by Andrew Hindle


  “But this place got done by a travelling Buddhist,” Little Phil said. “It can’t be that much of a big deal to holy up a place.”

  “That’s different,” Gabriel shook his heavy, shaggy head. “This place was turned into usable holy ground from standard unholy nothing, yes. It’s doable – it’s just an obscure combination of rites and … well, a sort of purity of spiritual belief, it doesn’t need to be linked to any particular organised religion.

  “To reconsecrate a church or someplace with a thumping big building on it already, though, a beacon for Angels, a big old dent in the belief-faith fabric … it’s different. A place that’s been soiled is a much harder job. You’d be better off just building and blessing a whole new church.”

  “Alright,” Seam said, “so the new Demon came to Preston Point Anglican, soiled it, and Barry … went dormant?” Gabriel nodded. “How long ago? We haven’t seen him since … Tuesday,” he realised with rising dismay. “Saw him Tuesday night, and he wasn’t in the church Wednesday evening when I went to see him.”

  “I don’t know when it happened, but I guess it was around then,” Gabriel replied. He eyed Seam. “Last night, you mentioned Barry was acting strangely on Tuesday? Drunk, but not normal-drunk?”

  “Yeah,” Little Phil said as Seam nodded, “he was woozy. And his wings kept flopping around.”

  “It was probably happening already by then,” Gabriel said grimly. “The church would have been violated before that, so spending the day there, while it drained away, would have left him a bit loopy.”

  “He was gone from the church on Wednesday,” Seam said, “and the coffin, the Vampire girl, was gone when I went to check again yesterday afternoon. Maybe it was gone before that too, I didn’t check. Father Bryant said–”

  “–That the Metropolitan Cemeteries Board came and took the coffin away with all the paperwork,” Gabriel said. “Yes, I did my own detective work last night. I’m fairly sure the Demon went in, dragged Barry out of there under cover of daylight – he would have used hired hands, of course, since he couldn’t touch him – then later on they flummoxed the vicar with red tape and took the coffin with the pupating Vampire. I’m just not certain why,” he went on with a scowl only a face of his ancient build could pull off. “That part of it still doesn’t add up, but I guess it makes sense if there are Vampires involved, they’d consider the girl to be something of an asset. She’d been turned by Canon and he was in the process of guiding her to be an Imago when he died, so she’d have a better chance than most to avoid degeneration. That alone might make her valuable to the other Imago.”

  “Any idea where he got taken?” Nutter asked.

  Seam saw Gabriel was looking at him again, almost expectantly.

  “The nightclub,” Seam said with a sense of inevitability. “Das Wampyr’s.”

  “Bingo,” the Archangel growled. “Our new Demon’s got a flair for the dramatic, and he’s obviously got backing from some Imago or other. They’re not exactly known for their subtlety either.”

  “Did you go and check it out?” Seam asked.

  “Not yet,” Gabriel said. “If the Demon is there, it’s dangerous.”

  “Big opening tonight,” Phil reminded them.

  “Demons and Angels,” Nutter said.

  Gabriel snorted. “Subtle, like I said,” he glanced at Nutter and Phil, then back to Seam. “There’s more,” he said.

  “More?” Seam said, his inevitable feeling deepening.

  “I think one of your fellow mortals went after the coffin,” Gabriel said, sounding even more than usual like he didn’t want to be having this conversation. His shoulders slumped in his thick dark robe. “Followed it to the nightclub.”

  “Tommo,” Nutter and Seam said together.

  “Haven’t heard from him,” Phil said, “he was meant to be joining us this arvo for a game, and then come to the club with us after dark when Nails could join us. He didn’t show, which was a real bugger because he had the bloody stumps,” he cleared his throat. “Probably beside the point right now,” he concluded in a mumble.

  “Tommo’s the only one with the free drink token,” Seam said, as if to one-up Phil’s tangentiality.

  The Archangel set the pewter wizard back on a shelf. “Chances are, if he went in there yesterday, and hasn’t come out…”

  “You reckon they’re holding him?” Nutter asked.

  “You reckon they’ve killed him?” Seam added.

  “I know this probably sounds dumb, but why don’t we just call the whallopers?” Little Phil asked.

  “If you mean the police, that’s not actually a stupid idea,” Gabriel said. “The Imago make human organised criminals and corporate scumbags seem like amateurs, but once there’s actual hostages and missing people among the general population … an Imago would generally be circumspect about it, make sure any people it killed were the sorts nobody will miss … they’re not far from the ordinary Vampire model in that regard. But they can be stupid in new territories, they can get cocky in isolated backwaters–”

  “Steady on,” Little Phil said.

  “–and this place is both,” Gabriel concluded bluntly. “Add to that, if this new Demon is calling the shots, he – or she – is likely to feel pretty invincible. He’ll be making plenty of dumb decisions.”

  “So, police?” Phil prompted.

  “Sure. Get them interested in the place. Tell them that guys from the club came and took a body from a church. Tell them to look into the paperwork the vicar was given. It’ll probably check out, but get them to check. Get them to check out the club, tell them your friend went missing in there and you suspect foul play. The more police attention, the more distracted the owners are going to be tonight. The more they’re watching the police or paying them off to look the other way, the less they’ll be watching us.”

  “‘Us’?” Seam said.

  ZOOBSUCKERS

  If anyone had asked the Sheepbreezers back in May or early June whether they’d all be turning up to a nightclub opening in Devil’s horns, as much red clothing as they could find, and in a couple of cases full Angel-or-arguably-Fairy regalia, the Sheepbreezers most likely would have had a good laugh about it.

  But then, it was amazing the trouble and expense the boys would go to, just to avoid a $6 entry fee. It wasn’t even seven o’clock yet, a ridiculously early hour for nightclubbing, but the lure of a new club was strong and there were already crowds, and a developing queue out the front of the building. At present, however, it was moving swiftly. Dwamps was a structure that took a lot of filling. By eight o’clock, Seam estimated, there would be gridlock, strict one-out one-in population control, and a line halfway up Parry street.

  Little Phil, with the self-confidence of a man who had spent his entire adult life above the two-metre mark and a lot of it beyond the hundred-and-thirty-kilo mark, had gone the whole hog and donned a pair of tinsel-rimmed gauze wings from an ill-advised photo shoot they’d done with his son, the erstwhile Litler, when the baby was a few months old. Phil had garnished the costume with a coathanger halo decorated with more tinsel, and was wearing a Guinness shirt with a large harp printed on it in case the wings and halo were not credentials enough. And if that wasn’t satisfactory, as Phil himself had said, he had a big invisible bag of garn fuck yerself to round out the ensemble.

  Most of the others had gone with Devil costumes because it was easier and somewhat less flossy, although Nutter had opted for a halo of actual Christmas lights that he could switch on for short periods before the battery connection started getting too hot for comfort. As soon as one of the bulbs blew, he further warned them, it was all over and none of them would work.

  Seam was the only other Sheepbreezer who’d decided to show solidarity with their absent Angelic teammate by dressing as one of the Good Guys. He’d done so in what he liked to think was good symbolic style, dressed in a spare Cullem’s Nails overall he’d liberated from Barry’s worldly possessions with help from Nurse Chloë who
was acting as arbiter of the estate until such time as the final paperwork was concluded and Auntie Carol could finish dying in peace. He’d actually been looking for additional Nintendo games but the overall had caught his eye. It had a strangely comforting smell of hot metal that no amount of washing could get out, as well as a strange feeling of Barryness that Seam wasn’t sure he wanted to discuss with the others. He’d added cardboard wings with a bit of fluffy stuffing glued on, and a cap even though it wasn’t an old Coca-Cola hat, and everyone who was in on the joke agreed it was brilliant.

  Still, they all got in and began milling through the crowds towards the bar, gawking at the impressive renovation job the owners had done in such a short time.

  The building had always been a large, blocky structure of four storeys, wrapped in bands of dirty neon that had changed colour and style over the years but had basically been there since neon tubing was made available to the mass market. In its Night Train incarnation, the building had been black, its insides dark and cramped and smoky. Now, the outside of the structure was a pallid white beneath new green neons, the paint almost fresh enough to stick to unwary visitors’ clothes.

  And inside, the chambers of the old building’s heart had been opened out into a great sweeping helix of staircases and bars and dance floors, some fenced in with wrought iron and others walled with heavy-duty perspex. At least one of the upper areas was floored with the transparent stuff as well, although Seam had an idea this hadn’t been particularly well thought-through. It was a small thoroughfare and not particularly visible from the level below much less the ground floor, but a small crowd of whistling, hooting men had already gathered underneath it to watch unsuspecting or exhibitionistic women crossing from one end of the stretch to the other.

  The bars, stairs and outer walls of the vaulting space were decorated in a pale gothic style that should have clashed awfully with the light shows, neon bar-signs and other furnishings, but somehow fit quite well.

  “Nice,” Nutter said loudly over the thumping music.

  “And there’s cops everywhere,” Little Phil added. He nodded over at a pair of uniformed officers strolling along one side of the central ground-floor room, and an even more obtrusive pair of plainclothes policemen looking like something out of an old public service announcement about the dangers of disco. Phil nodded, a pleased expression on his broad face – he’d told Seam he’d made a couple of anonymous calls and shared information about the club and their missing friend. Apparently the police’s consequent promises to check up on the club had been on the level. Little Phil chuckled. “Look at that pair of zoobsuckers.”

  Gabriel didn’t give them much time for sightseeing.

  “They’re downstairs,” he said, appearing between Seam and Phil with a whump of displaced air. The Archangel moved fast, practically invisible but not seeming to disturb any of his surroundings or the crowds with his bow-wave. In fact, the very fact that he was there in the nightclub seemed to be going unnoticed by everyone but the Sheepbreezers. Oh, the occasional person jostled him or gave him a fleeting look of puzzlement on his or her way to the bar, and one small group of rather prematurely drunk guests who applauded him on his monkey Angel suit and statement about evolution and reconciling science with church dogma. “Yeah, that’s what I did,” the Archangel growled, somehow making his voice perfectly audible over the music. “I reconciled the Hell out of that thing you just said.”

  “Who’s downstairs?” Seam, not so blessed – quite literally, he supposed – in the vocal department, was forced to shout.

  “Laetitia, Barry, couple of human thugs, a room full of blood that I’m pretty sure belonged inside your friend Tommo,” Gabriel said, blunt as ever.

  “Tommo’s … dead?” Seam said, and Gabriel grabbed his upper arm roughly as he reeled a little. “Are you sure?”

  “Not a hundred percent,” Gabriel said, as Little Phil took Seam’s other arm in a reassuring grip-and-pat. “But look, it’s probable, okay? I’m sorry.”

  “What about the Demon,” Seam shouted, “and the Vampires?” in many ways it was, he reflected disjointedly, a good thing the music was so loud. It wasn’t a question he would have dared shout so loudly under most other circumstances. He didn’t want to think about Tommo at that moment. For now, no matter what Gabriel said, he was just missing. Shit – for now, he was just running late. Seam knew this wasn’t really the case, but until he was confronted with a reality not dictated by an Archangel, he decided he was going to treat it as unconfirmed. It was the only way he could think of to continue functioning in what he knew was a life-threatening situation.

  “No sign of the Demon,” Gabriel replied, “but we can’t sense Demons anyway, so we’re all on our own with that one. There’s at least one Vampire upstairs, but he’s occupied by the police,” he gave Little Phil an appreciative nod. “I didn’t get a good look at him and I’m not getting much of a … scent, I guess you could say, because the Demon’s sort of blanded everything down in this area. I’m not sure if it’s one of the big European or American Imago moving in on Canon’s turf, or one of his random projects stepping into daddy’s shoes.”

  “What do we do?” Seam asked. Most of the guys, evidently opting to treat the reality in which Tommo was dead as being suspect much like Seam had decided to do, were eyeing the nearest bar yearningly. Seam had to admit he probably would have felt better about their circumstances if he’d had more than a quick belt from Phil’s hip flask in the fast-moving entry queue.

  “I’m going to take Laetitia out of here,” Gabriel declared. “Barry saved her for a reason, and I’ll do what I can to rehabilitate her. If nothing else, she can die as a human, with her family. Taking Laetitia might help to draw out the Vampires. You,” he gestured at the Sheepbreezers, “get a couple of those cops and show them the room with the blood. It’s down those stairs, along past some storage shelves and halfway down a ventilation and wiring tunnel.”

  They’d discussed this, of course, at considerable length that afternoon. “And then Barry?” Seam asked.

  “Barry and the thugs are the next level down, but going for Barry will bring the Demon out of hiding,” Gabriel warned. “And even though he – or she – is new to all this, I’m pretty sure he can subdue the lot of you, and all the cops in this place, without breaking a sweat. So – like we discussed.”

  Seam nodded. What they’d discussed was bringing the full force of police attention down on the nightclub, getting it closed before it got too busy, and evacuating the people. At some point, the Demon would make an appearance and move Barry – there would be nothing any human would be able to do about that so they weren’t to try to interfere, but Gabriel was confident that if the Demon carried the helpless Angel away using his spooky Demon-powers, the Archangel would then be able to track him. Becausse Demons weren’t the only ones who could soil the personal space of others.

  If the Demon didn’t move Barry personally, they could take him out of the club under cover of the general police shutdown, and Gabriel would start the process of trying to fix him up.

  Seam got the impression that the Archangel was not confident about Plan B’s chances of success.

  Nutter, meanwhile, was looking at the stairs Gabriel had pointed to. “How are we supposed to get past Fat Atreyu?” he yelled, gesturing surreptitiously towards the practically-cubic shape of an indoor security guard who was dressed in what was evidently some sort of olde-worlde style. The combination of shirtlessness, baggy bare-chest vest, gold chains, camouflage pants and combat boots was … haunting.

  Gabriel glanced at the security guard, then at the Sheepbreezers.

  “Mister Little Phil Hedlin here outweighs Fat Atreyu by ten kilograms and overtops him by fifteen centimetres,” he said, “and there’s six more of you. Plus, the jackass is standing right on the top of that staircase. Any one of you could nudge him off there.”

  “You want us to push him down the steps?” Nutter shouted, wide-eyed.

  Gabriel gust
ed a sigh. “Fine,” he said, “just head over there, you’ll only have a few seconds to go down before more security turns up. This is a pretty tight ship.”

  Before Seam could yell anything else, the Archangel blurred away with another whump and a brief ruffle of wings and clothes. At almost precisely the same moment, the shockingly-costumed security guard vanished too.

  “Bloody Hell,” Little Phil said, and straightened his halo.

  The Sheepbreezers headed for the stairs at a determined mosey.

  SOILED

  Gabriel surged out into the night through the delivery truck access doors, holding the black-and-silver coffin against his chest. He took to the sky, sweeping almost vertically upwards before curving across the city skyline once he was above the smell of seaweed and car exhaust.

  He came back down outside Karma Fairies, swept in through the conscientiously-unlocked door, and set the coffin down in the tie-dye-crowded rear of the store. Then he straightened, grunted, and passed a gnarled hand in front of his eyes. He felt strange, but it was probably just a result of spending too long in this Demon-toilet of a city.

  “Let’s see if we can get you to sleep,” he said, and pulled the lid off the coffin.

  The girl inside was already asleep, her mouth slightly agape and her fangs jutting out far enough to give her cheeks a slightly sunken look. She was trembling as if in a fever, but she had fed – and fed well. It was the same blood, from the smell of it, as the stuff on the floor in the room where he’d found her. The fact that so much had spilled, and so much had evidently ended up inside this pupating Vampire, made Gabriel certain – as if he hadn’t been already – that Barry’s friend was dead.

 

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