Taipan stood over him. 'Whaddya think you're doin', fella?'
Kevin couldn't say a word, couldn't even lift a finger. The fury of being once again helpless threatened to burst his skin. He seethed as he was carted back into the living room like a bale of hay and dumped on the floor next to the family. He landed on whatever Taipan had jabbed into him, sending a sharp pain slicing into his back. His head lolled to the side, revealing the young girl next to him, whimpering, her arms pulling her legs tight against her bloodstained chest. He wished with all his might that the stake would send him into oblivion, but his body fought, the blood fought. He stayed painfully awake, life and death fighting a tug-of-war for his heart; he stayed awake and powerless as Reg approached the girl again. She offered the barest of resistance as Reg pushed her down. He forced her legs apart and buried his fangs in her groin.
'Man, this is awesome shit,' he said, teeth outlined in gore. 'There's horse riding, swimming, tennis. And a boyfriend - a girlfriend, too! I love this women's tennis.' He punched Kevin's arm. 'Can't believe you don't want some of this. It's not like you can just go do this shit for yourself. Not anymore. Here, have a taste.'
He bent over Kevin, pried his jaws open and dribbled a fresh mouthful of blood into his throat. Kevin choked, but even staked out, he felt the blood being absorbed by his system; by his very cells. Sluggish, though; not like the lightning he'd felt when he'd fed from Kala. He experienced none of the lifestream that Reg was bragging about; nothing but the torpid warmth and the horrible sensation of drowning.
Acacia lifted her face from the father's femoral. 'Reggie, you fuckwit. That fella's not gonna get nothin' out of that. Not with that spike in his pump.'
'Fuck,' Reg said, sitting up and wiping his mouth. 'I should just piss on him. That's all this gutless pup is worth. I gotta take a leak.'
He walked out and Kevin heard the waterfall.
'Shut the door at least,' Acacia shouted. 'Fucking yob.'
'That fella's on the money, but,' Taipan said, rolling off the mother, her throat one tattered gash. 'I ain't tasted sunshine like this in a long time. Bin livin' too quiet in the nest.' He crawled over to the girl and bit into her arm, then went to the father and whispered something to Acacia before he drank from him, too.
Reg came back and went for the girl again. 'Shit, she's done. Oh, well, still got room for some boy juice.'
He called Penny to bring in the son.
'You must have hollow legs,' Taipan said. He hoisted himself up against the sofa, licking blood from his fingers. The mother sat silent and still above him.
'I'm a growing lad, what can I say? Penny!'
She brought the boy in, hands on his shoulders. The lad stumbled along as though he was sleepwalking. Welts on his face showed where a hand had been clamped over his mouth.
'Bleed that young'un,' Taipan told Reg. 'Bleed him and wait for it to settle.'
'What's it matter? Blood is blood.'
'You don't want that kid stuff in ya head, I'm tellin' you.'
'I don't get it.'
'And you don't wanna. The little buggers feel everythin' so intense-like. It'll do ya head in. Penny, see if you can't find some bottles or jugs or somethin'. We'll bag what Reggie can't finish off, eh.'
The snivelling boy - he couldn't have been much more than ten - stood in Reggie's light grip like a calf in the crush while Penny fetched a couple of plastic jugs. Reg slit the boy's throat and held him over the containers.
Kevin couldn't even close his eyes. Couldn't even scream.
Finally, it was over. Reg rolled the body onto the floor and picked up the smallest of the containers, the first to have filled, and tasted the blood. He screwed up his face. 'Might as well be that hospital shit. It's not much better than moo juice.'
'It's the right way to do it,' Taipan said. 'Bag 'em,' he told Penny, and she took the containers away.
The vampires lolled around the room, faces turned beetroot, eyes bloodshot.
'I need to piss something fierce,' Reg said, dragging himself to his feet and waddling for the loo again.
'You keep an eye on 'em while we water the horse, eh?' Taipan said to Kevin as he stepped over him. The biker walked slowly, his skin an oily, bruised black. Kevin heard him open an outside door. Acacia leaned against the wall near the toilet door, swearing at Reg to hurry up.
The three of them had only just returned, vague presences outside Kevin's vision, when he heard Kala swear. She crouched over him.
'What have you done?' she asked Taipan, and then shouted over her shoulder, 'Jesus, Penny, why didn't you tell me?'
Penny stood behind the sofa, Hippie behind her. 'Didn't seem important,' she said, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
'Think I'll go move those cars around, maybe have a smoke,' Hippie said. 'Call me if there's brew.'
'It's okay, Kala,' Taipan said. 'The whitefella just needed to calm down a bit. He ain't no good to no-one if he don't eat.'
'You're a pig, you know that?'
'Oink,' he said, and dug around in his clothes for his tobacco pouch.
Kala rolled Kevin over and withdrew the object that had stilled his heart. He gasped as his body shuddered back into action.
She rolled him gently onto his back, then wiped off the knife and skidded it across the floor out of the way. 'Take it easy, Kevvie. You're fine.'
He shook his head, unable to talk. The smell of blood, piss and shit surrounded him. He inched away from Kala; the scent of her cut through the miasma, made him want to hold her hard and fast.
Meg, the blood streaming from her neck, her face twisted into a mask of horror
'It takes some getting used to. There's plenty of normal tucker in the pantry if you wanna fill up on something.'
'There's baggies in the fridge,' Penny said. She crouched beside Reg, where he slumped in an armchair. 'You got something for me, baby? You can spare a drop or three, right?'
He pushed her away. 'Later, Penny; I'm digestin'.'
She stood quickly and stalked out. A door slammed.
'I'm gonna go rinse off,' Acacia said, and padded off down the hallway.
Kevin lay very still amid the carnage, staring at the ceiling, anywhere but at those bodies. Tears pricked his eyes, ran warm down his cheeks.
Kala wiped the tears away. The back of her fingers were smeared with red. 'Kev. Can I get you something?'
He shook his head violently. His gut was a tight ball, caught somewhere between ravenous hunger and the urgent need to throw up.
'Hippie reckons we're, like, the planet's defenders or something,' Reg said as Taipan passed him a cigarette. 'The people, they're the disease, and we're like those anti-thingies that attack it.'
'Antibodies?' Kala suggested.
'Yeah, that's the things. Anti-bodies. That's us.'
'No,' Kevin said, sitting up so he could see the biker properly. 'You're - we're - more like a cancer.'
'What are you on about?' Reg asked. 'You don't know nothin'.'
'I know about cancer. They cut a great chunk of it out of my mum.'
His father, an arm around his shoulders, the smell of the hospital all around, the walls so bright it was like they were in a spotlight, just the two of them. It's in her womb, son. They're gonna have to take it out. And then the tears, tracking down those leathered cheeks, the grip on his shoulders so tight, suffocatingly tight, and for no reason he could name, Kevin was crying, too.
'Antibodies attack the invading cells,' he said, pushing past the memory, the moment, so fresh, so now he felt the tears budding. 'But you guys are attacking the healthy ones.'
'Let's get this straight,' Taipan said. 'That lot you're losin' blood over, they was all gonna die anyway. Cancer, maybe, like you say. Or a car wreck. Old age. Us mob, we don't hafta worry 'bout that stuff. All we done here is speed things up a bit. So maybe you should be countin' ya blessin's, eh?'
'Blessings? So how do you know that kid or his sister wouldn't have grown up to cure cancer? Who are
you to judge who should die and who shouldn't?'
'We're nature, fella. That's who we are. Nature don't care which town it knocks down with a cyclone, which town it floods. We're nature, and God help them who get in our way.'
'You're wrong,' Kevin said.
'Killing is a last resort,' Kala said, her gaze darting from Taipan to Kevin.
'You can always go veggo,' Reg said.
'That's what Bhagwan'd say,' Taipan said.
'Who's Bhagwan?' Kevin asked.
'The guru of veggo,' Reg said with a snort.
'You'll meet him at The Farm,' Taipan said. 'Him and his little myxo pets.'
'Bhagwan doesn't kill humans,' Kala said.
'But he still needs what they got,' Taipan said, tapping his forehead. 'There ain't no gettin' around that.'
'But he doesn't kill,' Kala repeated.
Kevin wanted to ask more - who was Bhagwan and what was this veggo business and what did people have that the vampires needed - but exhaustion claimed him. It was all too much. He needed silence. He needed to get away.
Outside, magpies warbled and crows called, plovers gave their staccato cry. The dawn chorus was tuning up.
Kala grabbed Kevin's arm. 'You don't have to kill.'
'Get some sleep,' Taipan ordered. The heat of a new day teased at the horizon outside the walls. 'We got a long drive tonight if we're gonna make The Farm.'
'You're wrong,' Kevin repeated, but no-one was listening, too busy arguing over who was going to sleep where and who was going to have the next wash. 'We're not natural,' Kevin murmured to himself. 'We're not nature.' Nature doesn't cry.
'C'mon, let's go lie down.' Kala led him down a hall into what he guessed had been the son's room. He tried to ignore the model airplanes hanging from the ceiling. Kala sat on the bed and gestured for him to sit with her. Her eyes were dark-rimmed, her shoulders slumped. She pushed him down gently, then lay beside him.
'Won't he be angry if you're in here with me?'
'With a bellyful? Nah.' She stroked his cheek. 'I'm so sorry. You believe that, don't you?'
'Not your fault,' he said.
'That's not how it should be done. Not when you're so raw. God, I hate him so much sometimes.'
'Me too,' he said, his hunger stalking him. It would be so easy to open her arm. To feed.
'You'll have to do it eventually,' she said, her voice soft.
It jarred him, took him a moment to realise she hadn't been reading his mind, just continuing her conversation.
'But I'll do what I can to help you through. Till you're ready. Variety really is the spice of life, I'm afraid.'
He clasped her hand, well away from his face. She couldn't carry him; not with Taipan feeding from her as well. Eventually, if she was telling him true, he'd need more than she could give him. Variety.
'They use us up,' she murmured. 'Our lives become ordinary, y'know. Can you imagine what it's like to share your blood with a person, to be that close to them, and to know as you're doing it exactly what they really think of you?'
'How do you-?'
She pulled her hand free and held it to his lips. He froze, afraid to even draw breath. Her flesh…
'No more questions. There's plenty of time for that tomorrow. We all need to sleep now.' She rested her head against his shoulder. Her breathing deepened.
Kevin stared at the ceiling as Kala slept, waves of anguish rolling through him - anguish and disgust. Voices filtered through the walls. Sometimes they laughed, even after what they had done. It was a mercy when the voices finally subsided and silence settled over the house. But her words haunted him. What made him think that, in the long run, he would turn out to be any different?
TWENTY-ONE
'Bane,' she said, spitting out the word. Mira always called Brisbane that. She hated the city, hated every sun-drenched square inch of the place. Reece didn't mind it so much. Brissie was home, after all. He was used to the humidity and the long, boiling summers with their long, boiling days. But then, he was only a red-eye, a serf, a leech. He could still swim between the flags if he wanted to cool off.
The chartered helicopter arrowed in across the sprawling city, the lights below spread out like a glittering melanoma fading to black in the forested western ranges. They approached the centre of the corruption, where light-chequered towers of silvered glass winked red warnings from their rooftops and the meandering river flowed oily and striped with reflected lights.
Mira had been quiet for most of the flight, staring out into the dark, the reflected glimmer of her eyes like purplish nebulae on the glass. Contemplating what she'd tell her boss when they landed? Or how she'd punish Reece for having dropped the ball in the first place? Long memories, vampires; they knew how to hold a grudge.
Mostly, though, she looked as tired as he felt, and just a little haunted.
'Strigoi?'
Nothing. Just that stare, down at the city lights, as though she could burn the place down with her gaze.
'Mira?'
'Tell them to be quiet, Reece; I'm thinking.'
'Hey?' They were alone in the cabin, the crew sealed off in the cockpit.
She looked around then, eyes wide, lips quivering, and a hand moved to her temple as though to exorcise a headache. The red glimmer faded from her eyes, replaced by a flash of pale green as they caught the uncertain light. Then the concrete curtain descended and she snapped, 'What is it, Reece?'
'The Big V didn't know about any of this, did he? Not till that roadhouse went up.'
'I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Hunter Reece.'
'How pissed is Maximilian that you used Turner as bait?'
'I am Strigoi. I do what I please. And I do not explain it to red-eyes.'
'And yet you've allowed Taipan and the newborn to ride away into the sunset.'
'Allowed?'
He indicated her wrist, and she stilled the subconscious act of twisting at her scarred bracelets.
'What are you waiting for? Who are you waiting for?'
'You're a clever boy, Reece. You work it out.'
In for a penny, in for a pound. 'You're going for Dee, aren't you.' Which was as close to her name as anyone was game to get, such was the scandal around Danica's defection. Humiliating for Maximilian, devastating for Mira.
Danica, she of the purple eyes. The reason he'd stumbled onto Mira's nightmare world. Danica, running, and Mira, with his bullet in her chest, getting up off the floor.
He wondered if Mira, too, was revisiting that incident that had brought the two of them together. That had, in some ways, kept them together.
An encouraging half smile turned cold as she said, 'The Night Riders call her Mother. Did you know that?'
'You expect Kevin Matheson to lead you to Taipan, and Taipan to lead you to her.'
'That's method. What about motive, my clever detective?'
'Political favour. Revenge. Both.'
'You think I've gone behind my master's back to pursue some kind of personal agenda that the eradication of the Night Riders would more than justify.'
'Something like that.'
'With deductive reasoning like that, it's amazing she's managed to elude you for all these years.'
The pilot announced their imminent arrival, saving Reece the effort of trying to find a riposte. He'd nailed it, though; Mira was up to something and she'd been caught out. Now they were all in the dog house.
'So what do you think of Felicity?' Mira asked without looking at him.
'Nice freckles.'
She rolled the comment around, as though savouring the girl's blood once more, and turned to him. 'Given any thought to retirement, Reece?'
'Have you, Strigoi?'
She chuckled. 'Yours or mine?'
The chopper landed on the roof of the Von Schiller Industries tower, a combined business and residential building not quite managing to gets its head above the crowd. A full squad of the elite Gespenstenstaffel formed an escort into the building as Reece and Mira alight
ed.
'Boss has rolled out the red carpet for you, Strigoi.' Reece's words were all but lost in the downdraft and howl of the departing chopper.
'Subtle, as ever,' she answered.
They stepped into the antechamber and waited for the door to seal behind the guards before hitting the elevator button. The doors opened instantly.
'We're going to Two, then we'll report in,' Mira told the escort, and the leader said no problems, they'd take the next one. So she wasn't in that much trouble; one benefit of working for your old man. But the warning was clear.
'Boss can wait till I've got my face on,' Mira said - to the escort, or to Reece, or herself, as the doors slid shut.
'No sign of our bird,' Reece said, changing the topic. He didn't want to be the meat in that particular shit sandwich. Not if the two most powerful vampires in the city - in the state, maybe even the whole country - were going to lock horns.
'Working on it out at Caboolture,' she said. 'More privacy there.'
Her thumbprint and keycard took them to the second floor. Not even Reece had clearance to access that floor - not the second, nor several others in the basement levels. Few vampires trusted the vulnerability of altitude, but Mira preferred a room with a view - not too high, mind.
The elevator's voice sounded bored as it announced their arrival.
'Strigoi?'
'You're off the hook for tonight, Reece. Report to the maintenance shed. If his highness wants to question you personally about the Rogue's escape, I'll call you. Otherwise, get me my helicopter. I need that chopper the instant they make contact with - with her.'
Reece rode the elevator up one floor - Mira liked her Favourite to be close by - and made his way to his quarters. The apartment was best described as cosy, furnished with all the hotel-like charm the corporation could muster. At least it had a balcony - if he craned the right way, he could see the winking warning lights on the aerials stuck like acupuncture needles into the spine of Mt Coot-tha. He hadn't bothered with personal touches: no memorabilia of the life before had been allowed, and the life of now offered little worth remembering. Certainly not lately. His presence was marked chiefly by a shelf of paperbacks - thrillers and crime, mostly - and a handful of CDs he rarely listened to. Never had quite come to grips with the digital stuff; it was probably the copper in him, but he liked things that he could touch.
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