Blood & Dust

by Jason Nahrung

  They reached his cabin and she said, 'Home again. You'd better stay put this time. Tai has got them thinking you're some kind of spy. No one will go against Danica, but still, accidents happen. Just keep your head down. No creeping around. She's gonna help you, you'll see.'

  'Is all this bullshit why you don't want to be like us?'

  'Seriously, as much as I love Acacia and want to be with her, I'm more use as a red-eye than a full blood. Maybe later, when I've got no choice.'

  'Is that why Kala never said yes?'

  'You'd have to ask her.'

  'I wish I could.'

  'Look, I'd better get back. But I'll drop in on you before morning, okay?'

  Inside the cabin, the silence felt oppressive. He liked Cassie. He envied her relationship with Acacia. He acknowledged, and it made him feel like a piece of shit but the fact was undeniable, that after all that blood, all that fear, her simple companionship meant he really wanted to taste her. Danica's blood had stilled the voices but stoked his hunger. He prowled, restless; decisions were being made without him - he'd failed, yet again, to take control of his own life. He paused occasionally to look toward the powwow, unable to see anyone, thinking that this was how a circus animal must feel, waiting for its chance to perform, aggravated by some sense that this was not where it belonged.

  It was close to sunrise when there was a knock at the door. He slammed the louvre shut and pulled the heavy curtains, feeling as though he'd been caught looking at something he shouldn't.

  Cassie was outside. No lynch mob. That was something.

  'They done? What's the plan?' he asked. Do I live? Do I get to leave?

  'Jury's out, but we're definitely moving on. Here, more food.' Cassie hoisted a carafe topped with pink foam in one hand while retrieving a velvet bag from a pocket with the other. 'And Mother wants you to have this.'

  Kevin thanked her and she said good night. He drained the carafe, then emptied the contents of the little bag on to the bedspread. The talisman was a round metal disc, much the same as the one Taipan wore. It was etched with a five-pointed star. Embedded in the centre was an egg-shaped locket, about the size of a five-cent piece, soldered shut. The metal felt warm. He wasn't used to wearing jewellery and wasn't comfortable about trying to sleep with it on, but there was something about Danica's calm assurance. Probably her eyes, he thought. You don't mess with people with weird eyes. With the pendant looped around his neck on its leather cord, he slid under the sheets, suddenly aware of just how tired he was. Eventually, he slept. He didn't feel the pendant, and he did not dream.

  THIRTY-SIX

  The chopper carved through the night like a shark through sea water. Riding with Mira and a squad of jackals in the light-proofed cabin, Reece could barely merit they were moving. But moving they were, back to Barlow's Siding, back to where this particular wheel had begun to turn. He fingered the Monaro's keys in his pocket; tried not to think of Dave and all the bloody mess since.

  Mira jerked back to awareness in the seat next to him, the purplish glimmer in her eyes fading fast; there was a flash of typical vampire chartreuse before she looked at him directly, revealing the deep brown irises a Labrador would be jealous of. Her fingers reflexively traced the fourth blood bracelet on her left wrist.

  'No dice?' he asked.

  'What?'

  'You were trying to trace Matheson, weren't you?'

  'Yes. Yes, of course. But no, nothing.'

  'And the girl, Kala?'

  She shook her head. 'Not unexpected. She's awake, distrustful. All I got, apart from a bucket of angst, was a vague impression of a tall man with a saddle, a cowboy perhaps-'

  'A jackeroo maybe?'

  'And standing stones.'

  'Standing stones?'

  'You don't have an Australian word for that?'

  'We're not big on them here. The Devil's Marbles? But that's miles away, over in the NT.'

  'She might have some Celt in her, how would I know? You'd expect cave paintings from someone like her, wouldn't you? Maybe a dance around a campfire.'

  Reece pulled his mobile and hit the map.

  'Here,' he said, blowing up a portion of Queensland with swipes of his fingertips. 'Is this what she might've meant?'

  'Stonehenge? Really? What next, an Eiffel Tower?'

  'No stone monuments but, you know, if the name fits. Shall we check it out?'

  'Ask the pilot where we are.'

  Reece hit the mic to talk to the flight deck. They were twenty minutes from Whitby Downs, slightly farther from Stonehenge, but, the pilot said, there was a no-fly zone in the area due to the Jindalee radar installation.

  'I don't think it's worth the hassle,' Reece told Mira. 'There's a lot of country out there and we'd be relying on you being able to get a hit from Kala. For all we know, they've taken her out by now.'

  'No, I'd know if she was dead. It is only natural the Night Riders will be suspicious of her. They will expect me to have tried a bloodlink and they will be satisfied when they find it. All I need is for her to survive long enough to deliver the message.'

  'And if she doesn't?'

  'Then, Reece, we are well and truly up, what do you Australians say? Shit creek.'

  'With or without the paddle?'

  'That's why I like to keep you around. You have so many quaint expressions.'

  What slang did Felicity have up her sleeve? He imagined she'd be excited at their return and another chance to impress. 'We could send in the troops to sweep the area. After the ruckus back in Rocky, it wouldn't be hard to explain a ground search for Taipan.'

  'We hardly have the manpower for that. No, we'll let the plan run its course. They'll come to us.'

  'And you're sure we can trust Turner? That it wasn't her who set Dave and me up?'

  'Bhagwan tipped off Taipan early.' She jerked her head toward the rear of the cabin, where a body bag lay on the floor between Bhagwan's two red-eyes. 'I don't know how he heard that Jasmine was setting up out here - for a veggo, he had a very good grip on his mind - but the word reached the Night Riders before we were ready.'

  'Home ground advantage, I suppose.'

  Her hand fisted. 'We should have sent more men with you. Should've known Taipan wouldn't be out there by himself, regardless of Jasmine's assurances.'

  Which was, he suspected, as much of an apology as he'd get. 'Hindsight, eh.'

  'It'll wear you down, especially when you've got as much of it as we have.'

  'And Dee?'

  'One domino at a time, Reece. Kevin Matheson first, then Taipan, then the bloodbitch.' She snatched his wrist, so hard it hurt, her face tight with desperation. 'And no more mistakes. We - I - can't afford to waste any more time. We roll them up, and then we all get to go home to live happily ever after.'

  Reece's headset crackled with the news they were close to Whitby Downs. Mira released him.

  'Happily ever after,' she repeated.

  He clenched the car keys in his pocket. He'd been hoping to claim the Monaro as a spoil of war, once the dust had settled, but Mira was offering a lot more than that. A lot more. Now all he had to do was work out how he felt about that.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Under a swirling purple sky, Taipan bears down on him, all dirt and blood and maleness. Like being buried under iron flesh. Kevin pushes and punches. Futile. He screams as fangs tear into him and his life - his essence - is snatched away in great, greedy gulps. When he is spent, his body drained, there remains the humiliation of hot, slick flesh pushed against him. The blood flows. He swallows it down, his turn to feast, his need overcoming all else and driving him into the red bliss. But this is not the unrestrained torrent; this is the measured dose - this much and no more, regardless of how much more he wants. He could drink a lake, feels as though his legs are hollow and endless, running all the way to the core of the planet, maybe spilling out the other side, two long streamers of liquid crimson floating into space. He drinks until the tap is turned off, the tit withdrawn. He lies, fuming,
starving, as the images come; the memories made of tastes and smells and hidden emotions. They come with the rush of a cyclone, spinning, brutalising, howling. Lives upon lives, carried like flotsam in the scarlet cascade. He is lashed to the mast in a heaving sea of lives cut short. Death swamps him, fills his lungs, stings his eyes and flesh, saturates his very cells.

  And then comes peace.

  He lies on the shore, warmed by the gaze of velvet eyes like twin suns in a lavender sky. The eye of the storm. The sea stilled, the banshee howl subsided; the dead returned to their graves, uneasy, but still. He basks in the soft light.

  Danica is a phantom at his side. She urges him to stand. There is something yet to do. He rises, reluctant to leave his rest, and follows her gentle instructions.

  Slowly, surely, he builds a wall across the frozen sea. In the wall he makes doors, and behind each he locks the voices and the faces and the deathly pallor; the laughter, anger and tears.

  'Leave plenty of space for more,' Danica advises.

  The words drift by, seagulls wheeling against a lilac sky. The wall stretches on forever.

  Nicola falls on the ground at his feet. She's in her nightshirt and knickers, hair mussed, face tear-stricken, lips twisted with panic and glistening with drool. Her heartbeat fills the world; her body is hotter than the sun. The flow of her blood sounds like a waterfall. She screams as he tries to pick her up.

  Danica points and he pushes the girl in that direction. She stumbles through the door.

  Iraq is…

  The door swings shut with an echoing click, and then there's silence.

  'And now: Mira.'

  The name shakes the world.

  Seagulls turn to steel, wings sharp as they dive about him. He crouches under the onslaught, skin opening with a hundred beaks and claws and razor wingtips. His blood pools. The birds dive into the puddle, flapping and squawking, melting and melding together. A shape forms, head then shoulders, chest, hips; her skin bubbling with wings and beaks as the birds mould into place. She stands, curves dripping blood like strawberry sauce. Great wings, as thin as a bat's, flap out behind her and then transform into her unmistakable cape.

  A vase shatters, the sound of the world ending. Blood traces jagged slow-motion lightning bolts across the sky. Mira's fingers stretch like roots and wrap around him, penetrating like thorns into his flesh. Her fangs are those of a sabre tooth, dripping ichor. Her nipples stare at him, silvered seagulls' eyes. Her cunt is a clam-like beak, clacking open and shut as she reels him in.

  He darts forward, latches his fangs around her left tit and sucks hard. Her other nipple pours with blood in sympathy; he grips it hard, fingertips sinking into the flesh, as she tries to dislodge him. She writhes, jaws snapping on air above his head, but the ground is rock, trapping her feet, and his hold is unshakeable as he guzzles her down. Seagulls covered in afterbirth push out of her left wrist and fall dead to the ground. She shrinks, tendril grips shrivelling.

  Kevin sucks her blood furiously. Mira gets smaller and smaller till he's draining the very last of the juice from a desiccated baby doll, arms and legs as spindly as bird legs; skin cracked like a clay pan; hair like spinifex cropped short above those blazing red eyes. He ignores her furious stare and carries the weightless husk to the nearest door and throws it inside. The last thing he sees before swinging the door shut is those eyes, burning in the dark-

  Kevin surfaced from the meditation. They'd started the sessions in the late afternoon, and now it was night. This latest trip had seemed to last years, rather than scant hours.

  Danica sat before him, legs crossed, hands clasping his. Breathing three beats in, three beats out. A curl of incense smoke writhed past her elbow. Her eyes opened, fading from purple to green to brown. 'How do you feel?'

  'Exhausted. But good. Better.'

  She studied his eyes, looking into him. Kevin felt a prickle in his forehead, nothing more. She smiled. 'Good, very good. You have an aptitude.' She unfolded from her sitting position like a flower opening, only letting go his hands when they stood face to face. 'That's enough for now. Keep practising; it'll become automatic with time.'

  'I appreciate what you've done. I can't hear any of them.'

  Iraq is…

  He shut the door softly.

  'If you avoid killing, the rooms will remain empty. The memories will be like visitors, rather than tenants, and will leave in time.'

  'Works for me.' Kevin pulled on his boots as Danica packed away her gear. 'So what-'

  She held up a hand and stared off into space, a sign he had come to recognise that her mind was otherwise engaged. The yapping of dogs, like Morse code, carried through the walls. Danica blinked, smiled. 'You were asking?'

  'Was that a message? Anything about Kala? My family?'

  'Come. We have visitors.'

  Danica sent him out the front while she went to the kitchen to put the kettle on. The cool night slowly penetrated his skin as he basked in the crisp air, the stars beaming, pregnant moon reassuringly bright and serene. A battered ute - bullbar, row of spotties across the top of the cab - wormed its way down from the front gate as Kevin stepped onto the veranda. Byely and Cherny trotted alongside the vehicle. He squinted in the headlight glare, eyes adjusting quickly, and then again as the ute pulled up near the stairs and the lights were killed, leaving him in the dimness of the moon and the hallway light beaming through the open door behind him.

  Taipan and Acacia emerged from the garage. Taipan was stripped to the waist, Acacia shrugging a jacket on over a singlet. They reeked of oil and grease, familiar smells from a lifetime ago. The dogs sniffed around the ute.

  Hippie emerged from the driver's side, hands busy patting the dogs. 'Wow, a reception committee. But where's the grog, you dumb mutts, eh?'

  The passenger door opened and Kala stepped out. She looked exhausted, hunched inside a heavy ex-army coat. She wore a grey tracksuit under it. Her hair was a matted nest, her face streaked with the muddy tracks of tears.

  'Hey,' she said.

  Kevin moved to hug her, stopped, aware of people watching; of Taipan looming between them like a thundercloud.

  'So you made it, eh?' the biker said.

  'No thanks to you.'

  'Couldn't stay,' Taipan said. 'The place was too hot. Plus that Mira had her hooks in the boy, eh. Had to get him out of her reach; it was either Mother or the choppin' block.'

  'Yeah, right, you were so concerned about Kevin's welfare, I'm sure.' She brushed his hand away. 'I need a shower and a pee. Thanks for the lift, Hippie.' She handed him back his jacket and stalked off, brushing past Kevin with barely a look.

  'How did you find her?' Kevin asked.

  'She rang the hotline,' Hippie said. 'Mother set up a rendezvous in Longreach and sent me to pick her up.'

  Taipan rounded on Hippie: 'Didn't think to tell me, eh?'

  'Mother said go. I went.'

  'Did the girl say how she got away?'

  'Kept her head down and hitched, I gather. Didn't say much, just that it had been pretty tight.'

  'I gotta talk to that girl,' Taipan said, and stalked off.

  'Tai,' Acacia called, but he didn't look back. 'You sure you weren't followed?' she asked Hippie as he lit a cigarette.

  'Nah, I would've noticed.'

  A shout - a scream! - came from inside the house.

  Byely, leg cocked on the front wheel, yapped like a car alarm.

  Kevin raced into the living room.

  Taipan held Kala from behind, his teeth in her neck. Furious and weeping, she kicked futilely at his ankles, raked his forearms with her nails.

  'Let her go, arsehole,' Kevin yelled, and charged. Taipan looked up in surprise. Kevin fired a punch past Kala's face that connected squarely with Taipan's gory jaw. The biker staggered backward, dragging Kala off balance. Kevin closed in but Acacia grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms to his side. He swore at her to let him go.

  Taipan threw Kala to the floor and advanced on Kevin.
>
  A carafe of blood shattered against the wall, leaving a massive stain, slowly dripping as though the wall itself were bleeding. Everyone stopped.

  Danica stood in the doorway, her face dark with fury. 'What the hell is going on here?'

  Outside, the dogs were going ballistic, claws scrabbling at the front door. Acacia released Kevin and he knelt beside Kala, but she pulled away. He looked to the others for help, but no-one moved. Cassie appeared behind Danica, then hurried away.

  'There better be a damn good reason for this,' Danica said, crossing her arms. 'I was fond of that jug.'

  She waved a hand and the dogs fell silent, the air in the room turning thick and ominous in the sudden quiet.

  Taipan pointed at Kala where she slumped on the floor, one hand pressed to the gash in her neck. 'Tell 'em where ya earring is, Kay. The one ya white mum gave you.'

  Kala covered her ear with one hand. Kevin hadn't noticed the little silver cross was missing. He should've, though; Taipan had. But then, he hadn't known her mother had given it to her, either. Despite what he'd seen in her blood, he realised he didn't know her very well at all. And clearly, not as well as Taipan.

  Cassie entered the room and handed Kevin a tea towel; he held it to Kala's wound. He felt her blood on his skin; felt the smell invade his nose, his throat, his lungs. She wouldn't meet his eyes but she pulled the towel in tight, trapping his hand under hers.

  'No way did she sneak past VS and the cops,' Taipan declared, his voice vibrating with disgust. 'She had to cut herself a deal.'

  'Bullshit.' Kevin held onto Kala, willing her to say something to prove Taipan wrong. 'Kala would never sell us out. She's human - it would've been easy for her to get through, easier than for us. She wouldn't have had to kill anyone.'

  Danica stepped in front of Kala and faced the crowd. 'Tai and Kevin can stay. Everyone else - out.'

  'Are they coming for us?' Acacia asked, reaching out to hold Cassie's hand.

  'How would I know?' Kala said bitterly. 'I'm a sender, not a receiver.'

  'I said out,' Danica ordered.

  When the door had closed behind them, she asked tenderly, 'Kala?'