Walking Shadows

by Narrelle M. Harris

  Evan spoke gently, firmly, like you would to a crazed dog. "Abe, calm down."

  "Look. She is here. More of God's great joke." Abe waved the gun vaguely, then steadied it and pointed it at me. "If I have you, your unholy consort will come to me."

  I stepped backwards.

  Abe fired.

  Evan was shouting at Abe before I was aware of the burning in my upper arm. I sensed movement as Evan got between me and Abe and the burning became agony.

  And then I felt arms close around me; and a lurch as I rose high, then came down on the other side of the cyclone fence.

  Gary began to put me down, and I slapped at him with the arm that was not a fireball of pain. "No, no, keep going. Run. Abe is…" I couldn't get anything else out.

  Gary scooped me up again, turned, ran. My fingers curled into his shirt and I clung, as best I could.

  Then he stopped again and I would have hit him some more except I couldn't move very well.

  "You're bleeding," Gary said. "A lot."

  I shivered.

  "Hold on," he said.

  The pavement was warm against my back. I could smell blood. Cordite too, and I wasn't happy to know that I knew that scent now. I tried not to whimper when Gary tore my shirt sleeve up to the shoulder, or when I felt his mouth on the wound. It hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt…

  "Damn," muttered Gary.

  Not a good sound to hear under the circumstances.

  "The bullet's still in there."

  Could people bleed to death from a flesh wound? I didn't read those kinds of books. I suppose I had arteries there. God. Oh God. How many more ways was I going to try to die this week?

  "This might hurt."

  A flippant reply was nowhere to be found. Instead, I gasped and whimpered again when Gary sucked at the wound, hard. Harder. I cried out and he wouldn't stop, then I begged him to, and he wouldn't, and then he was coughing. I heard him spit, then his mouth was at the wound again, doing that thing he does. Licking the hole and all the mangled capillaries and veins. The muscle. The skin. Gross but soothing.

  It tingled, deep inside my arm. Already it wasn't so bad. The agony retracted blessedly to a sharp ache.

  "Got it." Gary sounded very pleased with himself.

  As my breathing became less laboured, I opened my eyes. Gary's skin was pink and flushed, his eyes bright. Blood was smudged on his lower lip. "We have to get out of here, Gary."

  Sirens were close, now. The place would surely be teeming with police soon. I didn't have the energy or the will to explain anything.

  Gary scooped me up again and leapt straight up onto a rooftop. He moved swiftly without running; probably to ensure he didn't drop me.

  Gary crossed several houses diagonally this way, jumping to sheds and occasionally carrying me gingerly as he tightrope-walked fences. Finally, he was back on street level and the sound of sirens was behind us. Maybe we had escaped them.

  "There!"

  Abe's voice was unmistakable. He was half carrying Evan as he chased us across the rooftops, streets away still, no doubt following the blood trail I'd left. I could see Evan was arguing futilely with Abe. The boy wasn't listening.

  Gary ran on and I clung to him, trying to think of some way out of this mess.

  Then abruptly, Gary stopped running. He paused, looked around, and strode up a paved path to the door of a large stone building.

  "Get in there."

  "Gary, what?" My head was all confusion and fear, for him, for me.

  Gary rattled the door handle, then braced his hand around it and shoved. Wood splintered. The door swung open.

  "It's all we've got. You'll be safe inside. Abe can't get you in there." Gary shoved me, semi-gently, into the dark interior.

  Staggering, I leaned against the wall for support. That's when I saw the table, laden with booklets and pamphlets. The notices on the wall for choir practice and bible study groups. The modernist font surmounted by a plain crucifix.

  Gary had found a church for me to hide in. It didn't leave many options for him.

  "Gary!"

  Gary glanced behind him. "It's all I can think of."

  He was flushed with my blood, having sucked out lead and soot and bits of shirt, his brain all sparky with it, and this was the best he could do?

  "For God's sake, Gary, run!"

  Too late. Abe and Evan were on the street, then coming down the path towards us.

  "Stay away." Gary pressed as far back as he could into the open door frame, but halted as though the barrier were physical.

  Evan's voice carried across the summer-dry lawn. "Please, Hooper, we have to talk. We need to know…"

  "Leave me alone!" The note of panic in Gary's voice was unmistakable now. I turned on Evan.

  "Get the hell away from him!"

  "I understand why you're afraid," Evan began.

  Abe's voice cut over his. "How did you do it? How is it possible that God has given you the grace to do this thing and not me? I am his servant. I do his work. I deserve his grace. I do."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You entered," continued Abe, devastated, "uninvited. How is that possible? You are the damned, and you can do this. I am God's instrument, and I cannot. Why?"

  Gary, rigid with tension and with nowhere left to run, emitted a harsh bark of laughter. "You could if you wanted to."

  That old line. I remembered Gary, Mundy and Magdalene standing in front of the door to the Chinese Mission Church in Melbourne, where I had hidden from Magdalene's attempt to kill me, all of them looking self-conscious and defiant, saying they could come in if they wanted to. And I remembered Gary's explanation - that the choice to be undead was not about heaven or hell, but rejection. They rejected humanity and the choice to be part of something. They could enter any church or temple or mosque they liked - but it would mean they had chosen to embrace the world again, to be part of the thing they had forsaken.

  Gary, to our knowledge, was the only vampire who had ever defied that wisdom. He had walked into my house all those months ago, and chosen to be part of my life. And mere days ago, he had stepped into Evan's house to help me, due to that same choice.

  Abe took a painful, limping step towards Gary. "Tell me, or I will kill you, I swear it."

  The tension in the following beat of silence was almost palpable. Gary's head moved slightly, as though he dare not risk glancing back at me. His right hand reached behind him into the air.

  I stepped towards him to take his hand and face whatever came next. But before I could reach him…

  "Come and get me, then," Gary said, and took a step backwards, across the threshold, into the church foyer.

  Abe gave a terrible cry and lurched towards us. Evan moved with him. I lunged for Gary myself, but I was dizzy and exhausted, and I only brushed against his shirt-tail as he stumbled, turned, took a handful of steps across the foyer and paused at the inside door to the chapel.

  "Don't," I heard Evan say, "you won't survive it. No-one ever has."

  Gary's eyes fell on mine briefly.

  "Don't do it," I said.

  "There's nowhere else," Gary said.

  Then he stepped into the chapel.

  CHAPTER 23

  I thought Gary would pause and shiver, like he did when he stepped into my home. But a place of community is a bigger idea than just one friend's house, or even one enemy's. The shaking began with the first step. On the second, Gary's shoulders twitched violently.

  On the third he toppled, convulsing, to the beige carpet.

  I ran to him with an idea of dragging him out of the chapel. He thrashed about and I couldn't get hold of him. I heard Evan's footsteps behind me and I threw wild punches at him. "Get away from him!" My fist jabbed against Evan's thigh, the shock jarring up into my wound, and he backed off.

  Gary had ceased thrashing and now he was almost rigid, shuddering uncontrollably. I seized handfuls of his shirt and strained to pull him towards the door. Maybe a handspan of progress w
as made before another wave of convulsions loosened my grip. I scrambled for another hold, heaved. It hurt my arm, but he wasn't as heavy as he looked - lacking several litres of blood will do that for you. However, he was strong as his body contorted in the throes of whatever it was.

  His lips were drawn back and his eyes scrunched shut. Pink foam flecked his lips and chin - my blood, surely. Shifting behind the foam was a surge of red-black, viscous fluid, roiling inside him like boiling tar, as though trying to break free from some compelling force and flee his body.

  And I stamped down panic. He would die if I panicked. I had to stay calm and focused, and get him out of there.

  Evan approached again, so I jerked my elbow back as hard as I could. The elbow connected satisfyingly with his sensitive parts and he fell back, swearing.

  Crouching for better leverage, I grabbed Gary. While he was in the rictus stage of this thing that was killing him, I gained almost half a metre. Then I leaned out of the way of his flailing arms as another bout of thrashing took him.

  When I grabbed him again I was both terrified and heartened when his eyes opened. Droplets of blood had leaked from them, like scarlet tears. He looked so frightened. I didn't have time to shatter into bits at how much it hurt to see him so scared.

  Evan stubbornly came closer. I turned on him, and he held his hands up placatingly. "Let me help."

  "Fuck off." My arms were hooked under Gary's armpits as I pulled again. At a bad angle, I staggered and fell.

  Gary's lips twitched, then said, voice rasping: "I don't want…"

  "You're not going to die," I told him. I got a better grip, heaved again. Fell again.

  Evan's hands closed around Gary's upper arm. I dug my nails into his wrists and put all my strength into drawing blood, making him let go, and succeeded only briefly. I was preparing to bite him, when Gary looked at Evan with narrowed, pain-filled eyes.

  "My choice," Gary said raggedly. "I die…my way."

  "You don't have to die at all, you moron. I'm not trying to kill you. I keep telling you, I just want to talk." And he heaved on Gary's arm just as another wave of convulsions struck.

  It finally sank in that Evan really was trying to help, and I leapt on that opportunity. I could beat the bastard back with a rock from the footpath if I had to, once Gary was outside again.

  Gritting my teeth against the throbbing pain in my arm, I got behind Gary, hooked my hands under his armpits and pulled. Evan lifted his feet. Between us we dragged Gary to the door of the chapel, across the foyer and the threshold, and outside.

  The little strength I had left gave out and I sank to the warm footpath, Gary slumped against me. Evan tried to move him, and I slapped his arms, then punched them to make him let go. He did. I was vaguely aware that he took his place next to Abe, helping the boy stand on his one good leg, and that Abe had been watching from the doorway all along, unable to enter the church.

  Panting for breath, I sat on the path, Gary collapsed against my torso. Not moving. Eyes closed. Blood was drying in a rivulet from the edge of his mouth to his chin. Beads of it were pooled in the hollows under his eyes. My blood. All over him.

  "Gary?"

  Nothing. No breath. Of course, there wouldn't be. But not the faintest movement of any kind. The apparent boiling of his blood had ceased and he was as quiescent as stone.

  "Gary? Wake up."

  I shook him gingerly, then more forcefully. "Gary?"

  Running my hands over his face, I brushed at the blood at first, then simply rested my fingers on his pale, cold cheek. Thinking how I had made such a big deal in my head about him being undead, and realising at last that it was not the same as dead. Actually, really dead and gone, gone, gone. His body had not been truly alive, but his mind had still lived in there, and he had tried so hard to be more than he was.

  My heart split open and everything in it fell, endlessly, leaving me too empty for tears. I hadn't known I could be so empty and hurt so much.

  And then Gary's eyes opened.

  A tortured breath - mine, like I'd forgotten how to breathe and only now remembered - and he blinked, dazed, his brow furrowed in bewilderment and pain.

  He wasn't dead. At least, and I nearly laughed with the relief of it, no more than usual.

  "Gary?"

  He blinked again. He stared uncomprehendingly at me for a long moment. Then he winced and lurched sideways, landing on his hands and knees, and swaying.

  I tried to tell him he was all right, but my voice didn't work properly. All the words were broken up by the grief in my throat that didn't know yet that it was no longer needed. I couldn't get up, couldn't move, exhaustion and physical pain pinning me down.

  Gary tried to rise, failed. He sat where he was, defeated. Evan offered his hand. Gary flinched, too weak to move. "Do it, then," he said.

  "I'm not going to kill you, Hooper."

  Gary closed his eyes and shook his head. He did not look reassured or angry. He looked bereft of hope.

  Abe limped towards Gary, then his knees folded and he sat opposite him. All of Giorgio's blood that had driven him to madness at the derelict house seemed to have burned away. He and Gary regarded each other like lost souls.

  "I could not enter the house of God," said Abe brokenly. "I am meant to be His instrument. My work is His work. That is what my father told me. That is why I submitted to be made. To do God's work. But I cannot enter God's house."

  "You don't want to enter. Not enough."

  "No," admitted Abe, "I am afraid of God."

  "I'm not surprised."

  "You are not afraid of Him."

  "Can't be worse than what I've already got."

  "Yet He rejects you. God will not take you back."

  "No," Gary slumped.

  "And if He will not have you, who can at least enter His house, He will certainly not have me."

  Gary raised his bleak gaze to meet Abe's. "I can't speak for God. I've never seen any sign there is one."

  Evan was watching them closely, eyes flicking from one to the other. "How did you make yourself do it?" he asked into the strained space, voice flat and hard.

  Gary blinked at him. "I don't know."

  "It wasn't the first time," I blurted out. Gary pulled a face, unhappy with my revelation. Abe and Evan both looked at me in surprise, like they'd forgotten I was there. "Gary's been coming into my house uninvited for almost a year." I bit my tongue on the I told you he was different that hovered between us.

  The information seemed to hurt Abe more than ever. Evan was thoughtful. "Working your way up to churches, huh?"

  "Not on purpose," Gary said. "I thought you were going to kill me."

  "And the other night, at my house?"

  "You were going to kill her."

  "No," the denial was harsh, distraught. "Never."

  "You'd already hurt her," Gary said, his expression grim.

  "Evan did not hurt her," Abe said quietly. "I did. She is the consort of the devil."

  Gary snorted in an incredulous laugh. "You're a crazy bastard. Lissa's about as opposite to evil as you can get. You're the ones who keep killing people."

  Evan's face was awash with anguish and regret.

  "You were right," he said, "I apologise. For everything."

  I wanted to tell him that his apologies were too late and utterly useless to me, after the hell he had put me through this week. That I still hated him.

  What I said was: "Thanks for helping with Gary, just now."

  He grimaced.

  Abe turned to Evan. "There is no reward for us, is there?"

  "No." The planes of Evan's bruised face were sharp with all kinds of pain. "I don't think so."

  Abe nodded faintly and turned back to Gary. "I wish I knew how you did this thing. Or I wish I knew why I cannot."

  Gary's brows drew together in misery.

  "It is time to end this godless mission." Abe lifted his face once more to Evan. "Please. I want to stop now, Evan."

  Evan dro
pped his hand to Abe's white-blond hair and patted the boy's head awkwardly. "Don't think about that now, Abe."

  "When you started this, and took Miles's place, you said there might be an end to it. You swore it to me."

  "I only meant to save myself, as you said."

  "That does not matter. Not if I want to go."

  "If it's what you really want."

  "It is." Abe's expression softened with hope, then clouded again. "I do not think I can do it by myself."

  "I wouldn't let you," said Evan gently. "You're my responsibility."

  "Your burden."

  "No, Abe."

  "I am." Abe nursed his twisted arm, the hollows of his eternally young face, with its bullet-wound furrow, dark and pitiful. "Your father will be furious."

  "Livid," agreed Evan. "Maybe I won't go home for a while."

  "It is his life wasted too."

  "Our fathers have a lot to answer for."

  "Yes. At least your son will be spared this farce. That will make this easier for you."

  By the look on his face, Evan didn't really think so. Not in the ways that counted.

  Gary stirred. He dragged the back of his hand across his face, spreading blood. He stared at the scarlet marks on his skin, then determinedly away from them to Evan. "You can't do it here."

  "We'll find somewhere," said Evan.

  "I've got a shed. It's private. I've got… stuff you can use."

  "You said…" I tried to speak, and a half-sob obliterated the sentence. I tried again. "Gary, you said you wouldn't do that anymore."

  Gary stared at me, his expression nearly blank. I reached out to touch his cheek, to wipe more of my blood from his face with the pad of my thumb. Burrowing into my satchel, still with me, I withdrew a pack of tissues. I spat on the corner of one and wiped blood from under his eyes and the corner of his mouth. He let me.

  "Wouldn't do what?" asked Evan.

  "Kill vampires," replied Gary quietly. "Not even if they want me to."

  "You don't have to," Evan said. "That's for me."

  The shift in mood was peculiar, yet somehow also right. Gary and I had given up being in fear for our lives and adopted instead a weary acceptance of the unspoken truce. Perhaps we were all too hurt and exhausted to maintain the required emotional pitch. As I cleaned the last rivulet of dried blood from Gary's face, I thought I'd never seen him so drawn.