Walking Shadows

by Narrelle M. Harris

  "So. You all go hide in a safe house. Then what?"

  "Then we go hunting," said Smith, with a wide, wolfish grin.

  The idea did not make me feel better.

  "You need to go now, girl," Magdalene said abruptly. Gary and I exchanged a glance. "Not him," she said. "He needs some details."

  A protest formed and withered, unspoken, on my lips at the sight of Mundy's bared teeth. The sick lurch in my gut cut off any other communication. Mundy really, really hated me.

  "You go," Gary said quietly, "I'll see you later."

  It took a lot of effort to turn my back on them, walk to the stairs, and climb up carefully to the early evening daylight above. My skin crawled, like it was trying to get up the stairs ahead of me.

  As the fresh air hit my lungs, and the heat and light burned away the dread, I knew two things for certain. I did not want Gary's wellbeing left in the hands of that pack of sadistic parasites; and I was going to have to ask Kate for a gargantuan favour.

  CHAPTER 14

  The asking of massive favours requires groundwork. When I got home I started by putting all my crap away - stationery, shoes, half-read books and magazines, correspondence, uni pamphlets and printouts. I did the dishes I hadn't bothered with all weekend. I made dinner - a Moroccan tagine full of spices, black olives and saffron.

  I cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen. Swept. Vacuumed. I even dusted; and even the TV screen. If I'd had time I would've bought flowers for the living room and Kate's bedroom. Though perhaps it was as well I didn't have time; that might have been laying it on with a trowel. However, I did arrange all the things I'd bought for her in a pretty parcel inside a bright red gift bag.

  With the tagine baking and everything else shiny and in its place, I took some time out to play with all my pretty technology. Oh the joys of full time employment! I tucked myself onto the sofa with my laptop, logged into our wireless account and burrowed into the pixel universe for book reviews and music downloads. I bought an album I had heard at Gary's place. The band was in his collection via a relevant music video, but I liked even the non-fanged songs. I was debating whether I needed more show tunes when Kate arrived.

  Oscar hurtled into the room just ahead of her, making excited whiffling noises as he flung his little tan body into my lap. I had to deposit my laptop swiftly on the coffee table to make room for his wriggling welcome. His short, curly hair - evidence of his half Maltese, half Shihtzu heritage - was springy and soft and smelled faintly of grass and shampoo.

  Close behind, Kate literally waltzed into the living room. She twirled, dropped her bag, whirled again, all the while humming 'I Could Have Danced All Night'. I'd never seen her so happy.

  "The weekend was a success?"

  "It was wonderful," she ruffled Oscar's head, joggling his ears affectionately, "Despite this one finding a puddle of mud this morning and practically marinating in it. Little wretch. We had to give him a bath before we left the farm."

  Oscar, unrepentant, whiffled excitedly and tried to lick her face, then gave up and resumed licking mine. Kate danced away from him, so he leapt onto the floor to do little pirouettes around her. "Anthony's parents are delightful," she went on, "I was horribly nervous but they were lovely. His mum is so funny! And Oscar loved the vineyard, didn't you boy?" Oscar wagged his whole body in agreement.

  She grinned cheekily at me. "And if you're the one who tried to call me on Saturday afternoon, I'm not sorry I didn't answer the phone. We were much too busy having fun, so I turned it off." She giggled. "And I left it off."

  "Wicked girl," I chided with a laugh. Kate is the most responsible person I know. Hyper-responsible, really. It isn't good for her. She never turns her phone off, and it was funny looking at her acting like she was so naughty to have done it.

  "I know!" Her feet started capering again. "Actually, I tried to turn it on again but Anthony hid the phone from me, so I gave up."

  "Surely you had better things to do."

  "Much better," she agreed with a husky tone that made me laugh again. I approved of Anthony and would continue to do so for as long he made her sparkle like this.

  "How was your weekend?" Kate asked, coming back to the couch.

  "Not yet. Tell me all about yours." I rearranged limbs and technology to make room for her and she bounced into position. I intended to avoid all but the most severely edited version of my own weekend. I wasn't ready to talk about Ballarat yet. If ever. Some things Kate did not need to know. I might admit to Evan, though. I grinned at that sunshiny thought. "I want to know all about you and Anthony!"

  Kate blushed. It made her beautiful.

  "Lissa, he's wonderful. I'm in love."

  "Good for you." We embraced, clinging to each other for joy instead of comfort, for a change.

  "He said he loves me too." Her elated laugh caught in her throat.

  "So he should, if he's got any sense," I said.

  She dashed at the tears in her eyes. "How stupid am I? Crying when I'm so happy."

  "Maybe joy needs a way out," I said, taking a wisp of her hair and tucking it behind her ear, "If you keep dancing I bet you stop crying."

  She threw herself off the sofa and did another pirouette. Oscar started dancing with her again, springing up and down at her heels. I watched the pair of them, basking in the moment. These are the times we live for.

  "Your turn. How did you cope this weekend without your big sister to look after you?"

  I snorted good naturedly at the very idea that she in any way looked after me, though she did, in all the best and most important ways.

  "I went to Ballarat on Saturday, a little day trip." That was all I was prepared to say on that subject at the moment, "And yesterday I went to the St Kilda markets." I found I wasn't quite ready to talk about Evan. "Actually, I've got something for you!"

  I dashed to my room to pick up the scarlet gift bag. From it, Kate withdrew a pair of delicate, luminescently purple earrings and a matching bracelet along with the bag of lilac-scented cedar roses from Sovereign Hill.

  Kate held one of the roses in her fingertips and closed her eyes to inhale the aroma. Her smile was almost enough to exorcise the curse of Alberto's ending from the memory of where I'd bought them.

  "They remind me of Nanna," she said. She placed one of them on our memory table.

  She paused, then spoke with the way-too-innocuous tone that meant she was trying to subtly introduce an unpleasant topic. Kate had never mastered the art of being nonchalant about discussing things like, for example, our parents. "I don't suppose you got a call from Dad this weekend?"

  I'd darn near forgotten. Now I was reminded I couldn't bring myself to be angry with her for giving him my number. "As it happens, yeah. He said he was in town this week. Talked about doing dinner."

  A pensive pause followed.

  "Actually, he's in town tonight," said Kate. "He called while I was heading home. We thought maybe we could meet about seven for a drink. Coffee or chai or something. Is that all right?"

  "I don't know", I said, which was true. I was not ready for this. I hadn't got myself steeled for 'later' let alone 'right away'.

  "I need to ask a favour, Kate," I blurted out suddenly, as though my brain was trying to divert me from the thought of seeing my Dad again. "It's about Gary."

  Kate's expression became wary. She tolerated Gary, at best.

  "There are things going on for him right now," I continued, excising large chunks of backstory as I went, "and he might need a place to stay for a few nights."

  "Doesn't he have his own place?" she said stiffly.

  "He does, but he might have to move out for a little while. I thought he could doss here for the duration."

  Silence again. Less pensive, more mulish.

  "It's not like he'll eat us out of house and home." Perhaps not the best sales pitch. "Or put down roots and snore all day on the couch. He'll probably just read and watch TV. You'd hardly even notice him."

  "Lissa, I'm pretty sur
e I'll notice a vampire living in our flat."

  Ploughing on, I said, "Maybe Anthony could take Oscar for a few days. He likes dogs doesn't he?" I was hardly going to let my poor dog spend a week locked in the bathroom to curb his natural and appropriate tendency to want to bite what he viewed as A Danger.

  "I don't understand why you would even want to do this."

  "I know."

  I held my breath. Kate exhaled slowly, proving she'd been doing the same. Finally, she said, "Will you come tonight? Give Dad a chance?"

  "Yes." A firm, unhesitating yes. In exchange for giving my friend a safe place to stay, I'd face Dad.

  "When is Gary coming?"

  "I haven't asked him yet. I wanted to talk to you first. Maybe tomorrow night or the night after. For a few days. A week at the most."

  Kate frowned.

  "You could stay with Anthony too, if you liked," I offered.

  "There is no way I'm leaving you alone at home with a vampire," she asserted angrily.

  "He can come then?"

  "What will you get up to if I say no?"

  I'd thought about that too. Renting a place short term was an option, but I didn't like the idea. I wanted Gary to be safe from people who couldn't enter without an invitation. I recognised the air of hysterical compulsion about this and I didn't care. People I loved and took my eye off for half a second when things got bad had a tendency to die on me. I had honestly thought that Gary was the one person in my life I would never have to worry about on that score. Clearly, everything they said about 'assume' was true.

  Kate took my non-response as some kind of admission that I would get up to no good, and she was probably right. "He can stay," she conceded gruffly, "Unless he does something gross."

  I wound my arms around her in a massive, grateful hug. "Thank you." I had expected more of a fight, and I had expected to lose. Instead, everything was under control.

  "I don't understand you, Lissa. Why do you want to do this?" She sounded upset.

  "He's in trouble."

  "Let him deal with it."

  "I can't. Besides, I owe him. He saved my life once." Kate drew back to stare at me. I thought about it. Mundy. Tug. The fire at Priestley's place. Friday's fire at the club. "Four times, actually."

  Kate's face was white. "Why did he need to save your life?"

  "Because I insisted on sticking my nose into dangerous places," I said. "Mostly when I was trying to find out what happened to Daniel." The less said about Friday night the better.

  "Oh."

  "He protected me. I know you don't like him. I understand why. But it's my turn now. I want to keep him safe."

  She made a half-hearted snort of derision. "What do you need to protect a vampire from?"

  No answer to that would be the slightest bit reassuring.

  "Has he got a teenaged cheerleading slayer chasing him?" her tone was jocular, but the look on my face was a dead giveaway. "Oh shit, he has?"

  "He's not a cheerleader. As far as I know."

  "There's a real slayer?" Kate processed that for a minute. "I suppose if vampires are real, they must be too."

  "Yeah. And I don't want him getting his hands on Gary. This 'real slayer' is just another indiscriminate killer, sis. "

  "If you say so."

  "I do."

  Kate's brow creased in worry. "Don't do anything stupid."

  "As if."

  Her face was a dictionary definition of scepticism and I couldn't blame her. Doing stupid things seemed to be my specialty. But this wasn't stupid. This was saving a life. Or an almost-life. It was saving a friend, at least.

  The truth of it struck me. I had to save my friend. From arbitrary killers, from Mundy's machinations, from a fate like Alberto's. Gary had been a solid, reliable centre in my world for months and now something threatened to take him away from me.

  Well, not if I could help it. Too many people had been taken away from me. I was not losing this one. Not. Not!

  My hands were curling into fists at my side, my jaw tightened. My insides were unspooling, then suddenly winding tight again. Too much going on, not enough body to contain it all. Death and passion and terror and love and loss and…

  … and Kate, who had been laughing and dancing five minutes ago, now pale and drawn and worried and sad. My fault. I made my hands flex and splay out of their fists, made myself breathe.

  "Katie." My voice wobbled. "Be happy again. I didn't want you to stop dancing. Not ever."

  She could have said a dozen snide things. Instead, she found a smile for me. "I worry about you, sis."

  "I'm okay. As long as you are."

  "I'm better than okay." Her smile got that glow back and widened. "He really loves me, Lissa."

  "Of course he does, Katie. I mean, look at you. You're incredible."

  That made her laugh. I never used to tell her things like that.

  "Be careful, Lissa. I need you to be okay too."

  "I will."

  She nodded, as though my word was enough, which made me determined that it would be.

  "Time to go soon," said Kate, breaking the moment, "Do you want to eat before we go out or when we get back?"

  Dad. Right. That was a hell of an appetite suppressant. "After is fine."

  She disappeared into the bathroom and I returned to my laptop to send Gary an email that alternative accommodation was available. I made sure I didn't word it as an outright invitation.

  Half an hour later, leaving Oscar at home with treats and refreshment, we followed the path to the riverfront. The promenade above the Yarra was busy with the usual early Sunday evening crowd, a mix of tourists with their stranger-in-a-new-town alertness; and Melburnians with their not-quite-taking-it-for-granted insouciance.

  This part of town is dressier than my old haunts of Carlton and Brunswick. The place was replete with the requisite number of well-heeled culture hawks supping before the evening's concerts and theatre in the arts precinct; the stylishly-casual bar-hoppers getting in early for a cocktail before a night of serious drinking; and deliberately dressed-down city-dwellers grabbing dinner at one of the Southgate restaurants. A scattering of buskers, some of them with actual talent, rounded off the ensemble.

  Kate kept anxiously scouring the oncoming foot traffic as though afraid she wouldn't recognise Dad when she saw him. "Things aren't going well for Dad," she said, "I read yesterday that he's filing for bankruptcy."

  I avoid newspapers. I've had enough bad news in my life without seeking out other people's horror stories. The papers must have loved this bit of gossip about our once-famous parent. Dad's imminent bankruptcy didn't surprise me in the least. Neither he nor Mum had ever been good with money.

  Kate had wisely chosen a ground-floor bistro for the rendezvous. The outdoor seats were arranged on a wooden deck interspersed with umbrellas and smooth metal railings. Making a getaway would be relatively easy should the need arise.

  A waitress with bleached-blonde hair, an eyebrow piercing and a tattoo on her wrist that read 'awake and unafraid' brought a carafe of chilled water.

  We waited.

  "He's here," Kate whispered tensely, and she waved across the deck towards the riverside path.

  My first thought, watching him cross the promenade, was that he looked shorter in real life. Deflated. Bill Wilson, the charming, roguish tennis player, looked like something that had been left out-of-doors too long. His dark, wavy hair was peppered with grey and his skin, always deeply tanned when we were growing up, was ruddy with broken capillaries. He looked tired and old. He was only 58.

  My second thought was surprise that I didn't feel anything stronger on seeing him in the flesh for the first time in three years. The days when I adored my father were long gone.

  Mostly, I felt numb; almost like when I used to shut down and turn to marble when things got too much, only this time I was remembering to interact with the outside world. Maybe this was how it was for me these days, now I'd stopped running away. I couldn't tell if it
was an improvement.

  Dad sat opposite us with a tentative smile.

  "Hello Melissa, Kate. It is so good to see you both. Thank you for meeting with me."

  A twinge of something stirred under the marble, then was still. His bright blue eyes were dark ringed and filled with dejection, despite his attempts at routine chit-chat. Belinda and Paul had both had those same vivid blue eyes. They'd had that bruised, sleepless look at the end, too. Paul had once had Dad's casual charisma. That glamour had deserted him long before the drug overdose finally got him. That's what Dad looked like now. I was glad for the emotional exhaustion that kept me numb, otherwise it would have made me ill with dread.

  Kate rose to kiss his cheek. I thrust a hand across the table and shook his in a professional manner.

  The tattooed waitress returned and we ordered coffee. Dad kept looking at the menu but made no move to order food. The waitress left. Finally, without looking up, he said: "I'm sorry about Saturday, Melissa." When I didn't reply, he flattened the menu on the table, spread his hands across it, like it was anchoring him, and raised his eyes enough to meet mine. "I was," he stopped, swallowed. "No excuses. I'm sorry."

  "Thanks, I appreciate that." I said, and I did. Sober, non-excuse-laden apologies were rare. Dad relaxed slightly. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Kate's mouth compressing in an unhappy line as she twigged to the reason for his apology.

  Coffee arrived. We fell to small talk. Kate and I talked about work, our study plans and our dog. Dad talked about moving back to Australia from Holland and finding work as a tennis coach at a posh sports club in Brighton.

  "I was hoping," he finally said, diffidently, "To meet your young man sometime, Kate."

  "I'd like that too, Dad."

  "I could buy dinner for everyone."

  "There's no need for that."

  "There is," Dad disagreed gently.

  "With your financial situation…"

  He bristled faintly, then subsided. "That's business finances, sweetheart. I'm allowed living expenses. And I'd very much like to take you all to dinner."

  "Well, that would be nice."