Blood & Dust

by Jason Nahrung

  Kevin shook his head.

  She pressed down on the scar. 'How about now?' Fresh blood welled where her nails sliced the skin.

  Kevin squirmed, making the manacles rattle.

  Mira licked her fingers, wrinkled her nose in distaste. 'Cow. It never does the job. Don't you agree?' Her fingers trawled across his stomach, his hip, his thigh. 'I suppose Nigel filled your head with ideas of what we might do with you. You're probably imagining yourself like a grilled steak; or maybe your mother dead and drained, or worse.'

  He squirmed, aware of the response her actions were eliciting from his traitorous body.

  'Still some blood in the system, then,' Mira leered. Her nails scratched through his pubic hair, stroked his swelling cock. She bent to lap droplets of blood from his chest, then stepped back, reached under her skirt and slipped off a pair of black knickers, stumbling once as they caught on the heel of her boot.

  'Don't misunderstand me, Grease Monkey; I'm all in favour of the stick. But there are times when the carrot can also be effective.'

  She climbed upon the table and straddled him. One hand teased his cock to full erection, the other kneaded her breast, then slid up her throat to her mouth. She sucked her fingers, then bit down. He glimpsed the curve of fangs in her upper jaw, then could focus only on the scarlet winding down her fingers into her palm. She dripped blood on his face. For a long, long moment, he managed to resist, keeping his lips tightly shut. The blood fragrance swamped him as the drops sank into his starving flesh.

  Her other hand gripped the sides of his mouth. 'Don't play hard to get it. Not after all that we've been through together.'

  Against his will, he opened his mouth, hungry to swallow. She let him lick her fingers, then thrust them into his mouth like bloody lollipops. He sucked hard, trying to get down to the bone. Felt his gums pinch as his fangs extended. She pulled her fingers away before he could munch them.

  'No biting the hand that feeds.' Her hand locked on his jaw, making him stare up at her. 'Not when I'm being so kind.'

  Mira impaled herself on his cock. Kevin groaned as she closed around him. Her fingers stroked his hair, his face. She buried him inside her until their groins rubbed against each other with delicious friction.

  Her breath clouded over his face, the reflection of his own desire looking back at him, distorted and foreign in her chartreuse eyes. She kissed him hungrily. The musky aroma of sex enveloped him; sex and blood. She gave him her wrist and buried her fangs in his neck. Her flesh parted under his teeth and bliss, boiling and fervid, exploded through him. And inside his mind…

  A door explodes into splinters and a flock of razor-winged seagulls with blood-dripping beaks fly out like bats leaving a cave, all backlit by a deep purple glow. Mira's poppet hobbles out on bird-like legs, glorying in her freedom. Swollen storm clouds race in, looking like cancerous lungs riven with violet lightning veins.

  'Give me all you've got,' she shouts, and the clouds tear open. A thousand shrieking faces trailing intestines swoop at him like kites driven by a hurricane. Blood rains down. The poppet swells, grows, opens its mouth and lifts its elongating arms to embrace the deluge. Mira dances like a ballerina, fully fleshed and coated in crimson.

  She sees him, then, and drops to all fours, fangs glinting, but she turns her back and opens her legs. 'You know you want this,' she says, her words like thunder. 'Blood calls to blood. Give me all you've got.' Fangs snap like scissors inside the wide pink lips of her cunt.

  Naked, he runs, his hard-on banging against his thighs, blood dribbling into his mouth where the rain has left him saturated. She pounces, a jaguar in scarlet with maroon eyes, and Kevin screams. He's on his back and his legs and arms are bound and she fucks him and…

  drinks herself

  drinks Kala

  drinks Taipan

  drinks Danica

  His blood drains into Mira, squirting with every twitch of his cock, pumping with every beat of his heart. All his secrets, his very essence, emptying into Mira, who clings to him like a tick. His climax is the vilest sensation he has ever felt, not because he doesn't want it, but because he does.

  And all the time, she's laughing at him, coz he's so very easy.

  Back arched, Mira rammed herself on to his dying prick until she shuddered her last. Rivulets of blood ran from the corners of her mouth, spotting her breasts where, sometime, she'd torn her singlet down and left deep scratches in her chest. Her tattoo was a vivid, liquid logo on her tit. His chest was a mess of bloody cuts; his neck throbbed with bites.

  Kevin's senses reeled, Mira's voice indistinct through the maelstrom of lives swirling in his bloodstream. But the threat penetrated the riot. He tried desperately to focus.

  He was on the bed at Whitby Downs, a prisoner; no seagulls, no storm, no blood rain. But Mira…

  Give me all you've got

  You're only young, Kevin

  It was perfect

  I'll be at the gorge till the end of the week

  'Well, that was interesting. What is it about you boys and your mothers? Your mothers and your girls. And your fathers.' Smiling, so smug, she wiped a droplet of blood from her chest and licked it from her fingertip, then nodded to herself before asking him, 'Now which gorge would that be?' She slapped his face. 'I'm talking to you, Kevvie. Pay attention.'

  He spat at her, a globule of sticky crimson that splattered against her chest.

  'Don't go changing the subject,' she said, 'as tasty as that might be. Tell me about the gorge.'

  He turned his face away, shame and despair ushering him back into the crazy carousel of Mira's lifestream. He hoped for some truth to emerge, for some weapon with which to destroy her, but all he tasted, all he experienced, was death. Pointless bloody death.

  She scooped up his spittle and licked her finger, then did the same for the tendril of drool on his chin. 'No, he must think I'm stupid. Why would Taipan tell you that, when he must've known you'd be caught. That I'd find out. It's either a trap or a feint. And Mother - Mother has given me nothing.' She slapped him again, seized his chin so she could stare into him, their noses almost touching. 'You have no idea where they are, do you?'

  Kevin strained, but he couldn't break free.

  Mira chuckled as she sat back, her weight uncomfortable on his thighs. 'So what do I do with you now?' She tapped her jaw with one finger, pursed her lips as though considering the conundrum. 'What ever will I do with you and your mother now that you're both expendable?'

  He tugged against the cuffs, desperate to get his hands on her. 'Don't you dare hurt her!'

  'What if I did? They're just cattle, boy, ours for the taking. On that score, Taipan is right. If only he'd learned some prudence.'

  Mira slowly stepped off the table, a rider dismounting after a long day in the saddle. She pulled her singlet back into shape and retrieved his pendant from where it had fallen. Her face was bloated, the whites of her eyes heavily veined, her lustrous lips full to the point of bursting. If only he could pinch one between his teeth and pop it like a cherry tomato, taste that juice she'd stolen from him. Take back all the lifestream that she'd absorbed.

  A hesitant tapping on the door sparked a frown. Hunter. Poker-faced as he took in his blood-splattered mistress; surely the myxo could smell the sex, so strong it was gagging. Nigel peeked around Hunter's side, grinning like a sideshow clown.

  'We have a visitor.' A nod at Kevin, the hint of a wince, so fast Kevin thought he might've mistaken it. 'The girlfriend.'

  Kevin's despair threatened to drag him through the floor. If it was Meg - God, it could just as easily be Kala - if it was either of them, or his mother, even, and they brought her here to see him like this.

  'She's alone?' Mira said.

  'So I'm told. Turner's put her in with the widow.'

  'Quite the collection we're getting.' She looked at Kevin, considering, stroking the blood bracelets on her wrist. 'I didn't think she was coming, not after her surprise meeting with the grease monkey. Unless
her delicious little talk with Don Juan here has left her upset and confused. I can just imagine her, can't you? In her bedroom, pacing, her tender heart breaking. Her beloved with some wild woman, ranting, raving - until finally she can't stand it any longer. So she grabs a bag of goodies for mummy dearest, as requested, and comes out to see what the grease monkey was so upset about. Could that be it, I wonder?'

  Kevin begged. 'Don't - please - just let her go. Let them both go. You've got what you wanted.'

  'Trust me, this is most definitely not what I wanted. Well, let's go have a chat with young Meg.' She wrapped her cape around herself. 'And here's me, all out of carrot. Just the stick left.' She bent slowly, her face ruddy with his blood, and picked up something from the floor. 'Here, something to remember me by.' She stuffed her knickers in his mouth and sauntered out. The door shut. The lock turned.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Kevin rode the black horse of despair through the fragments of lifestream that tried to enfold him. He had failed utterly; had given up the Night Riders, had caused his mother and Meg to be captured, had left Kala in the bush to face Mira's hounds. Mira had broken him and taken everything. Why had Meg come out to Whitby Downs? What would Mira do to her? And how much time had she already had to do it? He had no idea how long he'd been here. How much frustration would Mira want to take out on them all now that she knew Taipan wasn't coming? The phrase 'cut and run' kept cycling through his mind.

  Again, he jerked against his bindings.

  Useless.

  'Pale, ain'tcha?'

  It took a moment for Kevin to realise Taipan wasn't just some splinter of past life memory, but was actually standing by the bed, staring at his naked body. 'And cold, too, by the looks,' the biker said with a full grin.

  After a bit of huffing, Kevin managed to spit his impromptu gag on to the table. 'What are you doing here, you bastard?'

  'In maybe a minute, that door there is gonna open and you're gonna get a chance to get outta this place. Thought you'd like some warnin' so you could make yourself presentable.'

  Kevin shook his chains.

  'Oh well, as nature made you then.' He walked over, sniffing. 'Glad to see you bin enjoyin' yourself, though. I reckon that Mira, she's taken a shine to you. Our little secret, eh?'

  'Fuck you.'

  'You sure you got the energy after all that moanin' and thrashin' you bin doin'?'

  'Why are you even here?'

  'That Mira, she was right 'bout one thing, eh. I did reckon you'd get nicked. So I hitched a ride in ya blood here so I could take a good gander 'round the place.'

  'You arsehole. You set me up.'

  'I think of myself more as one of them opportunists. Anyways, I got some stuff I gotta do. Oh, there was one thing that bloodhag got wrong, but. If it does all go to shit, we are all meetin' up at the gorge. Kala knows the one and I reckon you do, too. I'd like to say I was bein' a clever dick, tellin' you mob the truth and expectin' that psycho bitch to think it was a lie, but the truth is, I just kinda fucked up. No matter. Mother'll be gone soon as you can spit, so it's just us if ya new girlfriend decides to take a look.' He winked, chuckled again at Kevin's nudity, and walked through the wall.

  Kevin blinked, trying to work out if the biker had even been there at all or if it was just some weird hallucination.

  The door opened and Kala entered. Behind her, Acacia stood beside Nigel, a hand gripping his arm at the elbow, a handgun pressed to his nape. He didn't look happy.

  'Jesus, Kev, are you all right?' Kala asked.

  'No,' he said, aware of his soiled nakedness.

  She picked the panties up between thumb and finger and raised her eyebrows at him.

  'Not mine,' he mumbled.

  She laughed and threw them on the floor. 'I didn't think they were your size.'

  Underneath the levity, he could see her concern, her doubt. What could he say: it was torture, honest? Covered in hickeys and his spent cock still glistening and sticky pink.

  'C'mon,' Acacia said, 'time for a group hug when we're outta here.'

  Kala began undoing the shackles. 'You can tell me about it later.'

  'I'd rather not,' Kevin said, sitting up and rubbing his wrists. 'What the hell are you doing here?'

  'Was hoofing it back to town when I saw a car comin'. Took a risk. Turned out it was your girl and, amazingly, she didn't run me down. Gutsy, that one; comin' out to see for herself what you were on about. Drove me back to town so I could call Mother, only to find that this mob' - she jerked a thumb at Acacia - 'had been followin' us. Your girl agreed to sneak us in.'

  'A set up,' Kevin said.

  'A back-up,' Acacia said. 'Besides, I wanted to make sure this girl here didn't do anything stupid.'

  'Didn't do a very good job, did you? Lucky for me.' Kevin slid off the table, his knees weak. Mira had taken more than she'd given.

  Kala hugged him, her body warm and reassuring. He gripped her tightly and nodded over her shoulder at Nigel. 'You found a friend, I see.'

  'He's been very helpful,' Acacia said. 'Your mum and young Meg are in a room at the far side of the house.'

  'Let's hope Mira hasn't got to them yet.'

  'You gonna go like that?' Acacia asked.

  He turned to Nigel. 'You're about my size, eh?'

  They stripped the surfie - his pants and shirt fitted Kevin reasonably well but the shoes weren't happening - and threw him on the table, then snapped the cuffs shut. Nigel whimpered, offering no resistance, but gave a little gulp as Acacia threw the keys out the window.

  'You're not gonna - you know?' Kevin drew a finger across his throat.

  Acacia sniffed. 'He's made his bed.'

  'You were almost right, back at the Crawfords',' Kevin told Nigel as he forced Mira's knickers into his mouth. 'It is easy to work out the difference between master and servant. It's all about who wears the panties.'

  Kala grabbed Kevin's arm. 'Sorry to break up the reunion but we're on a kind of schedule here.' She held up a set of car keys with a miniature surfboard hanging from the ring. Nigel stared painful death at them.

  'Surf's up, eh.' Kevin followed the women to the homestead's back verandah.

  'This way, I think,' Acacia said, jerking her head toward the right. She listened at a closed door. Shook her head.

  They crept around a corner where the verandah had been enclosed to make more rooms. Light shone from under a door. Kevin heard voices; Meg's, definitely, as nervous as hell if the quaver was any indication. He took a breath and turned the handle as Acacia kept watch. Kala pressed close, her pistol poised.

  He pushed the door gently, the gap revealed Meg, sitting, legs pressed together, hands clasping a tea cup, looking every bit the debutante. His mother came into view, looking exhausted in a chair, her face drooping, eyes dark, skin waxen. Jeans and cardigan, tea on a table beside her, hands in her lap. Neither of them had noticed him yet, they were staring at the wall Kevin couldn't see. Relief washed through him. They were both okay.

  The door swung open to reveal the rest of the room; a small one, crowded with two chairs, a sewing machine and - Jasmine Turner.

  She stood by a curtained window at his mother's side, looking, if anything, impatient as she placed a hand on his mother's shoulder.

  'Well don't just stand there in the doorway, young man. Come in.'

  'Kev!' Meg's cup crashed to the floor. 'Run! It's a trap!'

  His mother looked at him, trying to focus, her expression one of pure confusion. What the hell had they done to her? 'Kevin? You're back already. Did you win?'

  Kala pushed Kevin from behind. He stumbled into Meg as she stood, an awkward bump of groping hands and overbalancing. Kala levelled her pistol. Jasmine lunged, a blur in the corner of Kevin's vision. Kala cried out as the sound of the slap cracked across the room. The gun thumped against a wall, then bounced across the floor. Jasmine pushed Kala in the chest. It seemed the slightest of gestures, but Kala flew backward out of the room.

  Jasmine slammed the doo
r shut, then grabbed Kevin by the throat and spun him around. The door shuddered with his impact. 'Does Mira know you're out? She promised me no hassles.' Her eyes narrowed.

  'Let them go,' he said, his voice barely escaping her grip.

  'That was never going to happen.' Jasmine slammed Kevin into the door again, drew back a hand that glinted as though her fingers were tipped with diamonds.

  Meg threw tea in Jasmine's face. The woman spluttered. Her backhand smacked against Meg's cheek like a whip. She reeled over the chair and crashed into the wall.

  Kevin punched Jasmine. And again. Like hitting a sack of flour.

  Gunfire sounded from outside.

  The door pushed against him as someone tried to open it. Jasmine forced him hard against it.

  Jasmine's face filled his vision, her eyes blazing with fury, lips pulled back to reveal her rottweiler fangs. He just got his hands up in time to stop her from tearing out his throat. It was like pushing against a steamroller.

  'I like your mother,' she told him. 'She tastes of sunshine.'

  An explosion deafened him. Blood sprayed his face.

  Jasmine stared through him, the slightest wrinkle of confusion dimpling her forehead. Her grip relaxed and she crumpled at his feet.

  His mother stood to one side, Kala's handgun in her grip.

  'Mum! Mum!' He crushed her to him, feeling bones. How had she lost so much weight? Over her shoulder, he saw Meg, sprawled and moaning.

  'She was not a nice woman,' his mother said. 'Did she hurt you, son?'

  'I'm fine, Mum.' He knelt beside Meg, found a pulse. Started to lift her.

  Acacia and Kala burst in and slammed the door.

  'We heard a shot,' Kala asked. 'Is she-'

  'Just knocked down. Mum did for Jasmine.'

  'Nice going, Mrs Mum,' Acacia said, then prodded at a wound in her own shoulder. 'Fuck, that stings.' She ejected the clip of her handgun and replaced it with another from her jeans pocket. 'You right to go, handsome?'

  'Meg's hurt,' he said.