Crackers nodded. “But don’t be forgettin’ what we talked about.”
Skye nodded solemnly. “Magic always has a cost. Whenever something is given…”
“Somethin’ll be taken. That’s right. Guard it well. It’s the best protection anyone could ’ope to ’ave when the beast comes callin’.”
“The beast?” Skye felt a sudden chill in the pit of her stomach.
“Ne’er forget that evil is all ’round us. But,” Crackers patted the hand that held the medallion. “You keep ’old o’ this an’ remember, good is ’ere too. You jus’ ’ave to look a smidge ’arder. One day, a darkness’ll come an’ with it, an ’orror more chillin’ than any lightnin’ storm. It’ll come lookin’ for a person. A source o’ pure goodness an’ light. That light’ll carry tremendous power. Nothin’ the world ’as e’er before seen. An’ if’n we don’t protect it, it’ll be turned to darkness an’ evil’ll triumph. Me pa told me this story, an’ ’is pa before him, an’ so on, all with the passin’ of the medallion. Whoever ’olds this’ll know the truth when everyone else sees lies. Keep it ’idden. Protect yerself an’ the other kiddies ’ere. Ye may feel you’ve been forgotten, but don’t let that be what ye think o’ yerselves.”
“Is this just a story, Crackers. Or is it true?”
“O’ course it’s a story. But why would that mean it weren’t true?”
Chapter 14
En Gote Absolvo
“Unit 237, we have a report of a disturbance in your area. Be advised, possible domestic dispute.”
Solomon punched in the keys of his dashboard computer. “I got it, switch. I’m just around the corner. ETA thirty seconds. I will update when possible.”
The GPS indicated a small standard brick house. It was a quiet street in the early afternoon—not the typical time for domestic disputes. Solomon slowed to a cautious stop and exited the car, eyes sweeping back and forth across the premises, keeping a lookout for anything suspicious. Everything seemed peaceful, but he had been fooled before.
He double checked the number on the mail box. This was the correct house.
Out of the corner of his eye, Solomon noticed a neighbour’s door open and a man, woman and two children stepped out.
Solomon held up his badge and waved at them to return to their house, but the man frantically beckoned him over.
“Did you phone in the disturbance?” Solomon put his badge away as he reached them.
“Yeah… Look we don’t like making a fuss. It’s just that there were some really strange noises there last night.”
“Last night? Why didn’t you call then? What kinds of noises?”
“Groaning, moaning. Things being thrown and broken.”
Solomon noticed they’d only answered the last question so he rephrased. “And why did you only call now?”
“We wanted to call last night, but…you know, it might just be them having a good time. But then this morning we noticed, um, an Aboriginal lurking around. We heard him break in and I don’t think they’ve left.”
Solomon resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the obvious racism, but it was his duty to make sure everything was okay. “I’ll check it out. You and your family go back inside, yeah? Don’t want anything happening to you.”
Solomon stalked the side of the house and checked the wooden gate. Locked. He ran his eyes over the windows that were high enough that he’d need to stand on tiptoe to see into the house. The insides of the windowpanes appeared to be covered by something…caked-on dust or cobwebs or something.
Strange. The house itself was relatively modern, maybe ten or so years old. Foxtel connection on the roof looked brand spankin’ new. But, well, something was a touch off. Solomon made his way to the front door and gave his well-rehearsed knock.
The door creaked inward with the raps of his knuckles. It wasn’t latched. He pushed it gently open and a gush of freezing air hit him. Curiouser and curiouser, he thought, remembering his Alice and Wonderland. “Hello? Police. Anyone home?”
The sight of blood in the corridor was enough to make him unholster his gun. A long stretch of twin stains began a foot in front of him and drag marks extended back to the second door on the right. Drag marks. Solomon knew he should call for backup immediately, but that rarely did any good anymore, and every second could mean life and death to anyone beyond that door. He took a slow step forward and flicked his eyes over the scene, his breath forming like a mist in front of him with every exhale. Why is it so fucking cold in here? He worked to try to decipher the visible clues. The victim was attacked and tried to escape, probably crawling towards the door and was pulled back into the room. There was blood spatter on the lower side of the wall, and finger marks.
He thought better of leaving this unreported, and took a couple of steps backward toward the door to radio in, hoping the distance would be enough to make it quieter, less obvious. “Despatch, I need backup now. Possible homicide. Will case the rest of the house,” he whispered hoarsely into his shoulder walkie-talkie. In the good old days, despatch would’ve told him to wait for backup. But things had really declined the past few years. He was not surprised to receive no acknowledgement.
He moved his gun across the face of the first room, but that looked untouched. He moved on slowly to the second room, prepared himself after testing the door with a brief nudge. Closed, possibly locked.
Solomon launched a kick just beside the door knob, springing the door free. The room was small, occupied by an inconspicuous double bed. The window drapes were lowered completely, the dim light from the outside giving the bottom edge a red highlight. It took his eyes several seconds to adjust to the dark, but when they did, he noticed where the blood stains had gone. They had turned to hand prints alone, placed one after the other on the bed, going up to the head board and further up the wall. It was as if the victim had walked on their hands. But that couldn’t be possible.
He clicked his walkie talkie before drawing in a breath and jerking a step back. He shone his mini torch at the ceiling, confirming what he saw but couldn’t explain. A naked woman suspended from the ceiling by her wrists alone, the backs of her hands flat against the ceiling. Blood from the wounds in her wrists and hands trickled down her body and dripped from her toes. Her ashen face was a mask of sheer terror, her eyes sunken, yet a raspy keening sound escaped from her. But, what…? She’s clearly dead, and has been for some time. Solomon doubted his sanity. She couldn’t have made that sound, but there it was again, as if the room itself was amplifying it.
The confusion turned to dread, and bile worked its sudden way up into his throat. He gasped for air, trying to tamp down the sick and the fear when a crunching noise behind him made him snap his head around towards the door. Someone was moving behind him. Instincts kicked in and Solomon sprinted towards the running figure.
“Police! Freeze or I’ll fire!”
He plugged the wall with two shots, and that stopped the runner. “Hands behind your head. On your knees!”
The figure turned very slowly, but raised his hands up and lowered himself to a kneeling position. With more light spilling in from the open front door, Solomon could take his appearance in. He was barely a youth. Probably not a day over ten or eleven.
Solomon rattled off his rights and pressed him to the ground, the dark skin of the boy’s arms felt like ice, clicking the handcuffs in place. The welcome sound of police and ambulance sirens blared in the distance, growing ever louder. The family that had reported the incident were out in front of their house again, as, Solomon noticed, were other neighbours as well, all rubbernecking at the situation, wondering what the hell had occurred inside the house.
Solomon wondered the same thing.
Chapter 15
Plan B
“Tell me what you see,” Koha said, looking straight ahead. He was perched in a tree, with Matt sitting beside him.
Roughly thirty meters away, a very drunk couple walked arm in arm across the street. The man was having trouble
standing, trying not to dry heave. They stopped in the middle of the pedestrian crossing and a car skidded to a halt in front of them and blared its horn. The woman screamed and flipped off the driver.
“Nothing unusual. It’s late in Redfern after all… Ow! Did you just hit me with a boomerang?”
“Pay attention.” Koha stowed the weapon under his jacket. “You’re supposed to learn, so learn.”
“A pissed couple! That’s what I see.”
“What else? Go deeper.”
“Deeper? What the…fine. She’s…not as pissed as him. He’s in need of a dunny.”
Koha held in a breath. Matt was not getting it. “Which of them went in the club first?”
“How should I…wait…I guess he did. Yeah, I remember seeing her go in about ten minutes ago. Why?”
“Tell me which of them is the vampire.”
Finally, he had Matt’s attention. “What?”
“One of them is about to die. One of them is leading the other away to be killed. Which one?”
“You…I… How should I know?”
“There are signs. If you know what to look for. I’d hurry. Time’s a wastin’.”
“Wait…you’re not going to stop—”
“Nope. You are.” Koha handed him a knife. “Weigh it up and make a choice. I just hope it’s the right one.”
Matt stared, eyes huge. “What the fuck do you expect me to do?”
“Work it out. If he was already in the club, then she went in, now they’ve both come out drunk. So who is the vampire?”
Matt appeared to come up with the answer quickly, but double checked himself. “Her.”
“Why?”
“She wasn’t drunk when she went in. So she couldn’t possibly be that drunk after only a few minutes. She’s pulling a fast one on him.”
“Let’s go.”
Koha slid off the branch and crept low behind some dense trees, Matt close behind, as they followed the vampire and her prey. Koha could pick up some of the conversation but he wasn’t listening to the content, only timing the attack. He flicked his hand up to Matt, indicating they should stand and walk. Do not give anything away that might alert her. This one was young, raw. Her lust for blood outweighed anything else. Matt had made a lot of noise in keeping up with Koha, but she hadn’t noticed. Koha could hear the longing and hunger in her voice as she prattled off whatever it was to keep her drunken slab of meat conscious and expectant of sex.
Koha held up a hand and Matt stopped just behind him. The couple had found the corner of a park where no one was around. A section of concrete floor where children would play handball. The vampire’s breathless words had almost turned to ravings. She was hungry. Koha circled his finger around to the right, and Matt followed the direction.
Wait…something was wrong. Koha looked at the vampire, almost ready to strike—even her date knew something was wrong. But Koha sensed another presence in the direction Matt was walking. Matt’s eyes were on the female. He had no idea something was waiting for him in thick brush just ahead. Koha tried to indicate, to signal, but Matt wasn’t watching. Koha focused on the dark space now only a metre or so in front of Matt. The leaves rustled. Koha clicked open the clip on his belt containing his waratah-dusted boomerang with its slightly serrated steel edging. His eyes locked on to nothing but what his instinct and experience told him was there.
A figure burst out in front of Matt. Another female vampire, screaming in her own raging hunger, yet just as her feet touched the ground and hands gripped Matt’s shoulders, Koha’s boomerang had severed her head from her body. The corpse and Matt fell to the asphalt, the knife he’d been gripping clattered on the ground beside him.
The other vampire only just turned to see what had happened, snarling over Matt’s prone form.
Koha stood and walked forward into her line of sight and cracked his knuckles. “Oi! She-bitch.”
The snarling beast looked from Matt to Koha and faced the latter, perhaps thinking he was the biggest threat. She screamed in pain and dropped to the ground, frantically reaching behind her for the boomerang that had returned and was now embedded in her back. Matt threw off the headless corpse and sprang to his feet. In a single movement, he raised and flung the knife directly into the back of the female’s head.
“That won’t kill it,” Koha warned.
“But it will shut her up. What the hell happened back there? Did you know what I was walking into?”
“Only at the last minute.”
“Why didn’t you fucking say anything?”
Koha scoffed. “You whine like a donkey. I’ll never understand how you managed to kill these things or why the Night Mother wants you trained now.”
“Yeah, well I have no idea who or what this Night Mother even is. All I know is I woke up in a weird place, again. Got told I would be hunting vampires, again. And I had little to no choice in the matter, again.”
“What the Mother wants, she gets.”
“Who is she?”
“I dunno.” Koha shrugged. “She’s been our leader since before I was a kid.”
“What does she look like?”
“I dunno.” Koha repeated himself a little louder this time. “I’ve never seen her face. Why do you care what she looks like?”
“How do you know you can trust her?”
“She brought the mobs together. We were destitute, lost and fighting amongst ourselves. Now, we have a purpose. We are growing. The night walkers still outnumber us, but we are more than a pain in their arse now. You should be grateful to her. She’s the only reason you’re alive. We could’ve left you around that fire.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sick and tired of being used for other’s games. No one gives me answers. Fuck the Night Mother.”
Koha collected the boomerang from her back, lowering it to his side. “Watch yourself.”
“Watch what? I’m tired of walking on eggshells around here. I wake up to find you hovering over my bed, You tell me I’ve been taken by the Forgotten on the orders of some tart that no one has seen, and then I’m sent out to kill more vampires with you. Honestly that’s the best part. I’m just supposed to accept this and that’s it?”
“You don’t have to accept shit. It’s your chance to do something useful for a change. I don’t know you, but I can figure you out. You’ve got a mozzie up your clacker about some chick that was probably killed by a vamp, aye?”
His reaction told Koha that he wasn’t exactly right, but he was closer than a shot in the dark should’ve allowed. “You like killing these things way too much. One of the keys is to not feel emotion. This isn’t a job, it’s a choice. But for you, it’s personal?”
Matt nodded. “One vamp that I wish I could hunt. He moved in on the girl I love. I would be really happy to severe his head from his body.”
“Finally we’re getting somewhere. Who is it?”
“Dante Delavega. He cost me my girlfriend and my legs. I got one of them back because of wolves, but I got no chance of getting her back while he is still around.”
Koha let out a bark like laugh. “I’ve heard of that cat. He’s the big shot now, isn’t he?” Koha didn’t wait for a response before continuing. “Well, you’ll have a hard time of it.”
“I staked him once.”
Koha let out another laugh. “You watch too many movies.”
“So I’ve heard. If I ever find out where he lives I won’t make the same mistake again.”
“He lives in a fortress apparently.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Nah, just heard stories. Never seen him. But he would be one hell of a trophy.”
“So why don’t we go there? Right now?”
“Because we’ve got bigger things to worry about.”
“Like what?”
“This thing that’s killing women. That’s what the Night Mother tells us to focus on, so we focus on it. You need to be broken in and we can’t afford you taking your sweet-arse time with this. You gotta
get ready fast.”
“I’ve killed vampires before!”
“Yeah, yeah, when you was all fucked up on Dream State. But that’s outta your system and you’ve become sloppy as shit.”
“So what am I doing here then?”
“You’re here because it’s my job to get you better. To make you a hunter. Trust me, it ain’t my first choice, but I do what I gotta do for my mob.”
“How are you going to know I’m ready?”
“When you kill your first vampire with us. We’re gonna give you the chance to do it right this time.”
Something between a smile and a smirk crossed over his face. “Let’s get started then.”
“Here.” Koha tossed the boomerang to him, and he promptly dropped it.
“Oh, great.”
“It’s Matt, right? You like being called that?” Koha asked.
“Yeah.”
“Look, Matt, you can be a gifted hunter, given time. You can bring out what’s already inside you, and bring it out faster because you can train yourself for it. The key is confidence. Believe in yourself and you will be surprised how far you can go.”
Koha picked up the vampire and steadied her on her feet. “Aim for her neck, use a side action to make it come back.”
The vampire was coming around and she moved out of the way as the boomerang sailed past her, and fell to the ground.
“I’ll get it,” Matt said, as Koha jogged over, punched and wrestled the vampire into a sitting position against the wall.
“I’m sure you will,” Koha said, walking over to him. “But how’s about you try and hit one well, first? Now don’t forget, bullets will not stop a vampire for long. The best you can do with a pistol is slow them down, either to give you time to get away or to then finish them off with a machete or sword. A shotgun or fully automatic rifle might be enough to remove a limb or their head, but you’d have to get so close to do it it’s not really worth mentioning. The boomerang is best for beheading or otherwise damaging from a distance. Right now, let’s focus on the points that bleed heaviest on the body.”
Shadow Chaser (Undeadly Secrets Book 3) Page 10