Blood & Dust

by Jason Nahrung

  He has an impression of flat plains and a wide road and distant hills and forcing himself to defy the pain wracking his body to sit up and focus. A life-sized statue of a grey, hunch-backed bull on the median strip. One of the guards tells him to lie down, but he ignores the thug's command and watches the city slide by. It's hot, the kind of summer day that sucks the moisture out of you and leaves you feeling like a husk, like a cicada shell, empty and split and ready to crumble and drift away on the wind. He's about ready to drift away. Wishes he could. He wants to ask them to turn up the air con but he has no spit, can make no words. He is a shell filled with pain and fear and he knows the worst is yet to come.

  A wide brown river with muddy banks is spanned by two bridges. A handful of boats - half-cabins and tinnies, another with sails - bob on the water. It all looks so peaceful and mundane. Hard to believe he's about to die. His bladder is painfully full.

  The car turns upstream and parks in an alley. His captors haul him out, none too gently, and he finds the air to give a cry. They're wearing suits, with identical haircuts that suggest they're cops or soldiers. Wide shoulders, cold eyes. Gespenstenstaffel for sure.

  They drag him through a rear entrance choked with plastic crates and crumpled boxes and an overflowing steel bin. He glimpses stainless steel benches, hanging pots and a seriously large refrigerator.

  They enter an elevator, the guards filling it with their mass. One presses against him and he hopes it's the guard's pistol digging into this hip. Still got a sense of humour. You go, girl. One holds him against the wall as the elevator slows and the door opens. A rough hand gropes his breast. His gut heaves and he tells himself to be still: these two are myxos and he can't take them. They march him to the end of the corridor. One knocks on a door and is told immediately to enter.

  The penthouse is spacious, cool and dark, the curtains closed, the air conditioning cranked up. Goosebumps rise on his arms. He wants to sink into the plush carpet and disappear.

  Mira turns, a glass in hand. She wears a silk robe over black sports underwear. She has amazing calves, the bitch. Another cop looks up from a table of radios, hand at his shoulder holster-

  Hunter!

  Kevin's knowledge jerks him inside Kala's experience; he almost misses Mira ask:'What have we here?'

  'One of the sluts hanging out with the Night Riders,' a guard tells her. 'She had these on her.' He dumps a bunch of stuff on the table and pulls a dagger from the collection: 'Had this pig sticker in her boot.'

  'A girl can't be too careful these days.' Mira shakes her head in mock disappointment. 'Put her on the couch and keep searching. Taipan can't have gone far.'

  The guards seat him none too gently, then leave.

  Hunter walks over to sift the items on the table. He pushes the dagger to one side, then dangles a set of keys. 'The Monaro? It's your ride, isn't it?'

  He says nothing, but his heart contracts at the sight of the Mexican key ring in the hands of Mira's red-eye. Thinks about snatching the dagger and driving it into the man's eye, but the distance is too great, his legs too weak.

  And now Mira leans in close enough for him to smell the wine on her breath. 'I do hope we didn't kill Taipan. Did we?'

  He shrugs.

  'You're the one who rescued the grease monkey, aren't you? After he'd taken a chunk out of his pretty little girlfriend. How's he getting along? Made friends with Taipan?'

  He seals his lips, forces his teeth together. He really needs to pee.

  'I'm told the grease monkey has taken a shine to you. That you've been suckling him. How does Taipan like sharing his squeeze with a white boy?'

  'I'm no-one's squeeze,' he says, the anger - the fear - bursting forth despite himself.

  Kevin suffers a moment of odd confusion, hearing the words, experiencing the attraction - the affection - Kala has for him.

  'No?' Mira seizes his arm so fast, so hard it makes him squeal. She grabs the dagger from the table. A deft slash opens his skin - he flinches, but she holds him firm as she dribbles blood into her empty glass, then sips.

  'Mm, I taste - let me see - a little bit of black, a little bit of white. The grease monkey's fed from you, but you haven't tasted him. Not yet. You think he likes you but you aren't getting your hopes up because you know he's got a girlfriend and he is a bit of a mummy's boy. Is that about right? You wish you could get away from your boyfriend but you're afraid to, because you don't want to get old. Not yet, anyway.

  'Stupid girl. Why do you choose to stay one of the herd when Taipan has offered you immortality? When you could be so much more than they?'

  'Fuck you, bitch.' The words come out slow and thin and resigned, but at least they come out.

  'What a splendid idea.' Mira's hand is on his throat, pinning him despite his desperate, feeble punches and kicks. Mira's other hand slashes and rips away his ragged clothing, heedless of how much damage is done to the skin underneath. Mira seizes the silver cross and tears it from his ear. 'Nice,' she says, and throws it on the table before lapping at the wound. Hunter takes a two-way radio out on to the balcony.

  The door snicks shut, leaving him alone with the woman.

  Mira forces him down into the sofa and kisses him hard-

  Kevin suffers double visions as seeing - enduring - Kala's rape recalls:

  Taipan over him. Blood on his mouth. Teeth in his flesh. And then, black skin under his lips. Rich, rich blood

  Mira pinning him, her teeth in his throat, her blood in his mouth reaching all the way into his soul like liquid cancer -

  His heart thuds in his chest, his stomach heaves, his skin crawls with a million filthy roaches

  Mira drinks and then forces her blood into Kala's mouth and Kevin again tastes Mira's life, that incredible array of death and disaster, pleasure and pain. And something more. Something insidious.

  She has paid a second visit to Kala's lifestream and she has left something behind. Something for him.

  The bloodlock snaps open.

  Kevin is jolted out of Kala's lifestream into something else altogether:

  A vision. A nightmare. It's so strong he can smell Mira; he can taste her.

  He tries to slam the door on her, send her back to that room in his head. She's too strong, her blood entwined in Kala's and his in hers:

  Contact.

  A purple sunset tints a square timber arch lilac. Kevin knows the gateway - he's driven past it plenty of times. Whitby Downs.

  The gateway shrinks, grows a middle cricket stump to become a wicket, the lintel becoming rough bails. Kevin is bowling. At the striker's end, Taipan waits, incongruous in whites, tapping the pitch with his bat in preparation. Kala waits at the non-striker's end. Meg is wicket-keeper; his mother is at gully. There are no other fielders. The stands are empty.

  Kevin checks the scoreboard: Night Riders are nine batsmen down and need four runs to snatch the win from Von Schiller. There are three balls remaining. Kevin pushes off from his mark, striding out into his full pace.

  The umpire's white coat flutters around his ankles and Kevin notices the umpie is wearing leather boots. Shit. He can't see her face, but he knows who the umpire is. Hardly impartial.

  He steams in, jams his front foot down just inside the crease and rolls his shoulder, fires the delivery down. Nasty little bouncer, a bold move; if Taipan gets under that, he could send it all the way, a four or a six, game over. But the ball jags a crack in the pitch and hangs low. The willow sails over the top and the ball smacks Taipan on the ribs, right over the heart. He drops the bat. Falls to his knees. Blood stains his whites, pouring from the hole in his chest. The umpire's finger comes up: he's out.

  Meg and his mother hoist Kevin on their shoulders for a victory lap. When he looks back as they leave the oval, he sees the umpire has used the stumps to stake Taipan and Kala out on the pitch, the sticks shoved through their ankles and wrists. Victory, with two balls remaining.

  He doesn't need to hear the on-field commentary to understand the meaning o
f this bizarre cricket match. Blood calls to blood.

  He's got three days to deliver Taipan to Whitby Downs, or his mother and Meg are dead.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Rage sent Kevin hurtling out of Kala's blood memories, back to the surface of his own consciousness.

  'What is it?' she asked. 'What did you see?'

  The pendant Danica gave him had turned uncomfortably warm against his skin. 'Mira used you to send me a message, the bitch. She knew you'd find me. That I'd drink from you. She says she's got my mum, and Meg, too.' He groaned, hands to his forehead. 'She wants to trade them for Taipan.' He stumbled out of the ute and slammed the door, beat his hands on the roof, turned and leaned back, fighting for breath, fighting the claustrophobic fear. The night was huge, the plains stretching out, but he felt as if he was in a box. A coffin.

  Kala laid a hand his shoulder. 'Are you sure she told the truth? That it wasn't just a warning? A dream?'

  'It felt like truth.'

  Kala startled, eyes wide, the red centres flaring and expanding, as she looked at something by the tailgate. He turned as she hunched into him.

  Taipan.

  'You mob didn't get too far. Run outta fuel or outta guts?'

  'How did you catch up to us?' He hadn't heard a vehicle, a bike.

  'I got me ways.'

  Kala relaxed her grip, stood a little away. 'He's shadow walking.'

  'He's what?'

  'He's not really here.'

  'Real enough,' Taipan said, stepping closer, his boots silent on the bitumen.

  'What do you want?' Kevin asked. He studied the man, looking for signs that he was just some kind of projection or hologram. Nothing.

  'We're movin' on. But Mother says it's safe for Kala to come back. You too, if you want. Train you up proper. Give you a chance out here, with or without us.'

  'I can't,' Kevin said. His voice broke. 'They've got my mum, and my girlfriend.'

  'Now why would they do that? What makes you so important, eh?'

  'They're offering a trade.'

  'Ah,' Taipan said. 'Mother?'

  'You.'

  'Same thing. Either way, no deal.'

  'I didn't expect so.'

  'You could help him,' Kala told Taipan.

  'By walkin' into a trap again? Let me think about that. Nah.'

  'Prick.'

  'So what're you gonna do, fella?'

  'I should hand you over.'

  'Should you? I guess it might stop this happenin' to some other bastard, eh. You'd be doing the world a favour, maybe. Whaddya think, Kay?'

  Kala looked away, chewing on her lip.

  'You've thought about this, then,' Kevin said. 'That maybe you don't deserve to be here.'

  'Not up to me to say who does and who don't. I ain't that clever. But I figger I got the same right as anyone else. Not many of us get a choice about whether we want to be here or not, but since I am here, I reckon I'll hang 'round for a bit. Guess I'm selfish that way.'

  'I'm gonna go home and keep my family safe. From Mira and from you.'

  'Sure you don't want me to come hold ya hand?'

  Mira wanted Taipan - would it really be so bad to give him to her? Maybe she'd throw in some kind of vampire maintenance manual. Oil change every 10,000 kilometres or six months, whichever came first.

  'Don't tempt me. You do what you have to, and I'll do the same. But I'm not giving anyone to Mira's mob. From what I saw of what they did to Kala, they're no better than you lot.'

  'That's a compliment if ever I heard one. It's suicide, y'know.'

  'They're my family.'

  'Not any more.'

  'They're going to die.'

  'That's gonna happen anyway. The only question is how and when.'

  'Well, my answer is, not now, and not at the hands of those cunts.'

  'I tried to get my sister out of it and what did it get me? A stake in the heart.'

  'I'm not expecting my mother will try to kill me.'

  'Mothers have been known to give up their kids. Whether they wanted to or not.'

  'My mind's made up.'

  'Kay?'

  'I'm not letting him go by himself.'

  'Bravo.' Taipan clapped, a single impact of hand against hand, but no sound came from it. 'You got a new fix, eh.'

  'You're the one runnin' away while Kev's gonna go up against Mira. Why don't you take responsibility for the mess you've made and help him?'

  'Hey, they ain't my mob. Besides, I didn't ask for this curse, any more than the fella there did.'

  'Jesus, let's play pass the parcel, why don't we.'

  'Not like you to put yourself on the line, Kala. This fella must be gettin' to you, eh.'

  'You are such a-'

  'Nice guy, I know, I hear it alla time. I'll be at the gorge till the end of the week, in case you see sense.' He stepped backward, hesitated. 'And whitefella, just remember that the earth is your friend, eh?' He gave a knowing wink that left Kevin puzzled. Took another step and vanished as though he'd never been there at all.

  'Nice trick,' Kevin said.

  'He's the only one I know who can do it.'

  'Doesn't look like he'll be teaching it to me.'

  'You might already know, just, you know, you don't know that you know. Y'know?'

  He laughed, and she laughed, and he said, 'All I know is that I know nothin'. That, and that you're drivin'.'

  They ran out of night before they reached Barlow's Siding, so Kala pulled off the road and parked where a gully shielded them from the road. Kevin took refuge in the ute's cab under a tarp that Kala found in the large tool box in the tray.

  'All our cars have something like this,' she told him. 'Kinda makes you wish for Nigel's Sandman, eh?'

  'Or your Monaro.'

  'Yeah, or my Monaro. I hope those bastards are looking after it. God, I hope that surfie's not driving it,' she said, and shut him in the cabin.

  Kevin remembered all those warnings about locking pets and kids in cars, so wound down the window, even if he felt fairly certain that those warnings no longer applied to him. He lay there, constrained by the thick plastic, sunlight blasting down on his cage, locked in his own head with the memory of the dream sent to him, of his family and friends being held prisoner.

  When the sun was low enough for him to risk emerging, he found Kala huddled on a patch of grass in the shade of a tree, a dusty water cooler nearby. She sat up as he approached, stretching, like a cat in a patch of sun. He had an urge to sit with her so she could lie with her head in his lap.

  Meg's hair shines in the sunlight, golden against the denim of his jeans, and a magpie trills and she says they can go anywhere, with him being a mechanic and all, and he asks why they'd go anywhere when everything they need is here, and she asks, smiling, her teeth bright and eyes sparkling with tease, that hasn't he ever wanted more than this mosquito-plagued billabong and scrappy ghost gum, and he says that's fine, it'll rain sometime and then there'll be yellowbelly as well, and she says she isn't planning on going anywhere, they're young, there's no rush, but doesn't he sometimes wish that maybe there was more, and he says if there is he doesn't need it because all he needs is her, besides, he isn't going to leave his parents to run the servo by themselves, and she says that's all the more reason to see something of the world before they settle down and have babies.

  He sat down, legs shaky, just out of easy reach of Kala.

  'You sleep okay?' she asked.

  'A little. You?'

  'A little. You look distracted.'

  'I won't ever have children, will I?'

  'Where did that come from?'

  'Just something I was wondering.'

  'No, you can't have children. Not the regular way, anyway. You'd think the blood would make super sperm, wouldn't you, but I guess nature has some sense of justice.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Can you imagine a vampire foetus? What it'd do to the mother?'

  The baby, all teeth and claws, bursting out throu
gh its mother's - through Meg's - stomach. Alien, much? He shivered. 'A simple no would've done.'

  'How about I drive?' Kala asked.

  'Sure. I'll buy you dinner when we get there.'

  'At the very least,' she said, offering a grin.

  'It's not far. Another hour or so.'

  'Good. I hope you're cashed up. I am very hungry, Kevvie.'

  The way she said 'very hungry', with that look from under her lashes, it made his balls tighten, and he laughed. Laughing felt good, and he tried to cling to that joy of light flirtation, as though they were going on a date, but the closer they got to Barlow's Siding, the harder it got, and by the time they were approaching his home, laughter was the furthest thing from his mind.

  'Kevin? Earth to Kevin - are you receiving me?'

  'Hey? Sorry, I was miles way.'

  'Ah-huh. So, what's the plan?'

  'Check if Mira was telling the truth. That's the first thing. Then, well, I guess if she's got Mum or Meg or both, I'll have to get them out.'

  'Just you?'

  'You can drive.'

  'Gee, thanks. But seriously. You're sure Jasmine has them?'

  'That's what the dream said.'

  'How much do you know about her?'

  'Bits and pieces. I mean, before all this crazy shit happened, we just knew that someone had bought Whitby Downs. Some eccentric bird from the coast who swans around in a Jaguar, of all things. She turned it into some kind of fancy rehab joint, that's what people said. Got its own chopper pad and everything, so the rich and famously fucked-up don't have to be seen by us yokels. We called it the asylum. It still runs sheep, though, and cattle. They buy groceries and stuff in town. Hey, maybe I could sneak in that way and smuggle Mum out?'

  'Have a lot of late night shopping in Upper Bum Fuck, do you? Sorry, I know it's your home. I mean, I'm from the sticks, too; I can't throw stones. But, it's like, y'know, how long do you want to wait for them to run out of eggs or whatever?'

  'Fair enough. So what do you know about the joint?'