Blood & Dust

by Jason Nahrung

'Now the car,' Jasmine said.

  Willa gave Kevin a stare that was part plea, part warning, and left.

  Jasmine frowned as she watched the girl leave, then walked to the mantel and lifted down the timber spike. She tapped it in her hand as though it was a policeman's baton.

  'Family,' she said, more to herself with a half-smile. 'Our greatest hope, our deepest despair. You know, I did warn Maximilian. I told him his daughter's appetites weren't sustainable. And once Danica left, well, it was only a matter of time. Sad, really.'

  She paused at the door and pointed to the body on the floor. 'We found him trying to sneak off. Help yourself to a drink, if you can wring any more out of him.' Jasmine walked out, as though from a ballroom rather than a ruined house.

  Kevin checked the body. Nigel, stripped to his shorts. A duffel bag lay nearby, its contents tumbled on the floor: clothes, a dagger in a sheath, and a resealable plastic bag of what looked like dried grass. A set of car keys on a silver key ring showing sun and moon combined. Kevin snatched them up; he took the dagger as well. Nigel's chest barely rose, his throat and arms marred with fresh wounds. His wrists showed raw patches where he'd fought the manacles Kevin had left him in. Someone had let him go, but he hadn't got far. Kevin wondered what had happened to Mira's knickers.

  Kevin sat back down beside his mother. Wished to God that she could tell him what to do now. She'd been drained, he realised. Maybe she'd been shot, too; there was a suspicious blood stain high on her chest where the blanket was pulled back a little. But her pallor was recognisable to him now, and what a comment that was on his life, that he could even know such a thing. Exsanguination, they called it. Bled to death.

  Someone - Jasmine or Mira or someone else entirely - had finished her.

  She tastes of sunshine

  That was never going to happen

  You've got time, Kevin, you're only young

  Someone had taken her life and her memories.

  Takin' somethin' and keepin' it are two different things

  On her dead body, he promised her that he would have her back. How, he wasn't so sure. Clearly he was no match for Jasmine, nor Mira. Not yet.

  FIFTY-TWO

  He'd found his gear from the Commodore scattered across a desk in a nearby room - bargain, to be wearing his own clothes and boots. Nice to be well dressed for a funeral, a procession of one.

  He drove north, his mother's body on the back seat, buckled down with the sash belt.

  Ahead, he saw flashing lights and he slowed. His Commodore was being winched onto a flatbed - called in from EnCy, most likely, since neither he nor his father was able to take the call. The scene was painted in orange from the tow truck's lights; red and blue from a cop car, the four-wheel-drive from the Siding.

  He saw Smithy yawning as he wrote in a notebook. The constable - he'd been in the cricket team, medium-pacer and handy with the willow in the middle order - watched the Monaro drive past but made no attempt to stop him, and was back talking to someone sitting in the cop car's passenger seat when Kevin accelerated away.

  If Smithy had stopped him…

  His stomach growled.

  He drove faster.

  He'd feasted at the homestead on those two myxos, and yet his hunger was already stirring. It was as though, now that he'd plunged into it, he couldn't go back. Like trying to drink cask after a diet of fine wine, he supposed. Hey Smithy, how about a bottle of red to go?

  Once he'd got his mum in the car, once he'd searched the house and satisfied himself that it was empty, once he was ready to leave, then he'd gone to check on Nigel. That's what he told himself. To check on him. Just to check on him.

  Help yourself to a drink, if you can wring any more out of him.

  But the surfie had gone. Crept away like a dying dog, under the house most likely; God knew there were enough hidey-holes with all that damage. How long would it be before someone went out to the abandoned station to find, well, that would be the question, wouldn't it? What headlines would explain the inexplicable?

  He drove.

  Déjà vu struck as he steered the Monaro over the train line.

  You're a vampire

  Piss off

  BANG

  He shrugged off the past and drove on, around to the rear of the silo. The Sandman was parked out of sight of the road. The passenger's door was open, the cabin light off, but he didn't need it to recognise the shape of Meg sitting in the seat, leaning against the doorframe, her feet on the ground. Kala stood, arms crossed, against the bonnet. The urge to stop, to reverse, to turn around and just drive, seized him, but all he did was slow and then pull up near the panel van.

  The girls walked over. Kala waited near his door, Meg a little behind her. She looked scared, hunched inside her coat.

  He took a moment to find some calm, then stepped out of the car. Kala glanced at Meg, then off into the dark then back to him.

  'Brought you somethin',' he said, handing over the keys to the Monaro. Their fingers touched as she cupped her hand to take them. She wrapped her arms around him.

  'Didn't know if you'd make it,' she murmured.

  'I did.' Taipan. Hidden in the shadow of the shed, standing with a motorcycle - a rugged dirt bike covered in dust. A match flared. Taipan's face looked like black marble as he lit his cigarette.

  Kala pulled back.

  'Kev,' Meg said. One side of her face was swollen into an almighty bruise, her eye a puffy slit.

  'I didn't know what to do with-' Kala said, but he cut her off.

  'It's okay. How you travellin', Megs?'

  'Wake me up when we get there?' Her voice sounded fragile, like the rattle of glass from a broken windshield.

  'I tried to explain what I could,' Kala said.

  Kevin imagined the two women in the car together. Meg, human Meg, dumped into the deep end with her life on the line, had acted - she'd distracted Jasmine and saved him, even though it meant she'd been smacked down, hurt. She was a hell of a girl, Megs. She would be safer without him.

  'Did you find Diana?' Meg asked.

  'She's in the car.'

  Kala quizzed him with her look, the concern in her expression making him ache, then checked inside the Monaro. 'Oh, Kevvie. I'm so sorry.'

  'What is it?' Meg asked. 'What's happened?'

  'She - they - she didn't make it.' And he stood there, a statue in his grief, and Kala's hand was on his shoulder.

  Meg took a single step forward. 'God,' she said. 'These people.' And turned away as Taipan joined them. His jacket was little more than rags of leather over his bare chest; he wore a pair of baggy GS trousers rolled up over his boots. His flesh showed fresh scars and bald burn patches. His skin was pulled taut across his bones. Meg's instinct to stay away from him was on the money.

  Taipan looked in the car, then across the roof at Kevin.

  'Jasmine or Mira?'

  He shrugged a dunno. 'Does it matter?'

  'It should. Know where they are?' He looked over his shoulder, toward the highway.

  'Mira had already left. Jasmine and Willa have gone, too.'

  'Any idea where?'

  He hesitated, then admitted, 'Jasmine, to the gorge. Mira, back to Brissie, I think.'

  Taipan swore, threw his cigarette and ground it into the dirt with the heel of his boot.

  'What does it matter? I thought you said Danica wasn't there?'

  'She insisted on waitin' till dawn. Then that girl of 'Cacia's gonna drive her out.' He swore again, muttered, 'Even if we lost, I didn't think they'd go there tonight.'

  'What about the hotline?' Kala asked.

  'Dead since you called home,' he said, 'even if she was in range. I can't shadow walk, either, coz I made her shield me out, just in case I ended up on the table like Romeo there.' His green-glowing eyes fixed on Kevin. 'How much head start they got, you figger?'

  'Mira, a couple of hours, maybe. Jasmine, not long before me.'

  'So we still got time. How many guns with Jasmine?'

&
nbsp; 'Just Willa, I think. But there's somethin' else.'

  A nod to continue, clearly braced for bad news.

  'Willa knew the place; she knows where to go. Mira had her fangs in me, Tai. She might know about the gorge, too.'

  'What is it with you and that woman, eh?' He sighed, rubbed at his hair. 'So, that old bitch for sure, the bloodhag maybe.

  Gonna be almost dawn by the time we can get there, but it's plenny rough. That bloodhag mightn't find Mother before we do. Whaddya think, Kay?'

  'Kevvie?' Kala asked.

  'My mum's in there.' He pointed at the car helplessly.

  'Kev, what's happening?' Meg stood by his side. 'What are they talking about?'

  He looked at Taipan, pleading.

  'My mum-'

  'Ain't goin' nowhere. But them what did this - they'll be gone soon. Back to the big smoke where we can't get at 'em. Scott free. With Mother's - with Danica's - head on a spike. And your mum in their veins, eh.'

  'Can't I just-'

  'She ain't here, fella. She'll be long gone by now. But here's a question for you: what's more important - who buries her, or how well she rests, eh?'

  She tastes of sunshine

  Kevin nodded, once, a single acknowledgement, a statement of intent.

  'Kev, come back with me.' Meg gripped his arm, pushing herself against him. He smelled that mix of scents that was Meg. He smelled her fear. Her blood, there in that still-healing wound in her throat where the veins bulged dark blue, and there where it stormclouded around her swollen eye. 'We can start over - in Brissie, maybe. Plenty of garages there, Kev. A fresh start. Please.'

  'Sounds like a good deal, fella,' Taipan said, but he was looking at Kala, whose mouth was set in a firm line as she stared at her boot. 'Of course, that Von Schiller mob runs the joint. You'd hafta bend over for 'em eventually. Maybe catch up with that Mira, eh? Get a cosy little threesome goin' with ya girl there.'

  'You are so disgusting,' Meg told him.

  'What do I do with Mum?' he asked, and turned to Meg. 'Can you take her? Keep her safe for me, till I can come back and bury her? Can you do that for me?'

  'And what then, Kev? What are you going to do then?'

  'I have no fucking idea.'

  'Stay with me, baby. Please. We can bury her together. We can-'

  'I gotta stop them, Meg. The ones who did all this. So you'll be safe. So no-one will have to go through this again. Do you understand?'

  'You're going with him? With her?'

  'I'm going for Mum. For Dad. For me and you.'

  She studied him, and he thought for a moment she was going to say something else, a new argument, maybe simply a 'fuck you'. But she pulled herself straighter and looked at him square and said, 'Sure. What do you want me to do?'

  'Kala, do you mind if Meg takes the Monaro?' He didn't want to touch the body again. Didn't want his mother out here, in front of them all, a piece of luggage, dead meat, to be manhandled into a storage shed till they found some use for it.

  'Sure.' Kala handed him the car keys with all the solemnity of a priest dolling out a wafer.

  Taipan cleared his throat. 'Prob'ly for the best that we take the shaggin' wagon anyway. Should make it by dawn, but still, plenny comfy in the back, there, if we get caught out.'

  'I can do the dirt thing,' Kevin said.

  Taipan nodded. 'Still, we'll take the wagon, eh? Gravel road most of the way. Don't wanna knock that Monaro round too much. It's a classic.'

  And that, Kevin thought, was called sinking the boot in. The three of them all locked inside each other's blood. No secrets. Where could Meg possibly fit inside their sad, sick triangle? Who better than these two to go charging off with on a suicide mission?

  He climbed in the Monaro and leaned over to his mother, kissed her cold cheek. 'I'll be back,' he vowed. 'Just got some chores to take care of, okay?' He grabbed the rifle from the back seat.

  'Nice gat,' Taipan said.

  'It was my father's.' He held it tight.

  'I shoulda grabbed somethin' from that fella who gave me his bike, eh. Couldn'ta bin thinkin' straight. Guess gettin' blowed up'll do that to a fella.'

  Meg got in and fired up the Monaro. She looked up at him, her face so wan in the dash light. He squinted as she switched the headlights to high beam. By the time his eyes had adjusted, she'd turned around the silo and was headed for the Siding.

  'Good woman, that,' Taipan said.

  'Yeah,' Kevin said.

  Taipan took the keys from Kala and told them to get in. 'It'll be rough road once we leave the bitumen, but if we're lucky, they won't find Mother before we get there.'

  'And when we get there?' Kevin asked.

  'Well, that'll be interestin', won't it?'

  Kevin shrugged away the unsettling echo with Jasmine's comment, barely an hour old. This was not the time to tell Taipan that he sounded like his mother.

  They pulled into a servo closed for the night and stole fuel and jerry cans. There was no petrol, no nothing where they were headed. Kala took food and toiletries and a fresh T-shirt with a crappy tourist logo on it; she tied it off around her waist. She nabbed a shirt for Taipan, too, but he tossed it, intent on rolling a cigarette. Kevin didn't protest. Next to the things he'd done, this theft barely rated. He cleaned his teeth with a gargle of Coke. Morning was mere hours away.

  'This is gonna be tight,' Taipan said as they headed east, bouncing along a gravel road toward a hazy line of hills hunched along the horizon. The moon, only the barest of slivers short of full, hung low in the west, as though lingering to light their way till the sun rose.

  'She might have left already.'

  'She said she'd wait. Might even hang 'round till tomorra, knowin' her.'

  'Well, they might not find her straight away,' Kevin said. 'She might see them coming and find a place to hide.'

  Taipan concentrated on the road through his cigarette fog. 'Not from the likes of us, she won't.'

  'Better than bloodhounds, huh? God, I don't understand how someone with your sense of smell can stand that stink.'

  'What stink?'

  There was no radio reception out here and Kevin had already thrown out the few CDs he'd found in the Sandman, as though they were contaminated rather than just plain shit. Nigel's taste was in his arse. Should've nicked some new discs from the servo; too late, now. Wished he had his mp3 player, but he hadn't found it with his gear at Jasmine's; it had either gone up in smoke or been impounded with the Commodore.

  'I don't think she'd hold it against you,' Kala offered.

  'Who? Mum?'

  'Mother, I was thinking. Danica. If you'd stayed behind with your girl. Not your fight and all that.'

  'But it is. It became my fight the moment Hunter pulled up in the driveway.'

  'I'm glad you stayed,' she said.

  'I never even seen where me dad's buried,' he said softly.

  Kala squeezed his shoulder. 'We can go later, with your mum, yeah?'

  'Later,' he said.

  'Later,' Taipan snorted, and coaxed more speed from the shuddering vehicle.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Mira had lost the plot. What had started out as a simple police action aimed at apprehending a bunch of Rogues had turned into some kind of vendetta - may, in fact, always have been a vendetta masquerading as some kind of justice. She'd played him, had played him from the first day they'd met and she'd asked him if he thought he, as a detective, could find her mother, and he'd said yes because he'd known that to say no was to die there in that West End flat.

  'Can't this bucket go any faster?' Mira asked. The four-wheel-drive shuddered across the corrugation of the gravel road.

  'We aren't exactly doing the school run here,' Reece said. 'But we're not far away.'

  His satellite phone shrilled and he twisted in his seat so Mira could pluck it from his belt.

  'It's Felicity,' she told him as she listened intently, her expression growing angrier by the minute. Finally she lowered the phone, gripping
it so tightly he thought she was going to crush it.

  'Someone is playing clever and it isn't us,' she said.

  'What's up?'

  'Felicity says she was out with her policeman friend and the tow truck, getting the grease monkey's car. What does she see drive past other than the Monaro - the one that up until tonight has been sitting in Jasmine's shed. So she rings the homestead to check who's driving it because she knows no-one is meant to be.'

  Bloody oath, they weren't. He'd locked the keys away himself.

  'And there's no answer. So she drives back to the homestead and everyone's gone. There's no sign of Jasmine or Heather and the Jag's gone. She's about to leave and she sees a movement, over in the shed where the farm vehicles are parked, and she finds the judas there, all bled out. And he tells her, without any persuasion at all, that the grease monkey came back to fetch his mother. Came back, bundled his dead mother into the Monaro and left.

  'But before he left, he had a pleasant chat with Turner and Co., and Nigel thinks, he thinks because he was bleeding out on the floor at the time, but he thinks he heard them talking about the gorge. Saying that Taipan isn't dead. That that sonofabitch is on his way here.

  'Now, what do you make of all that, Reece?'

  'I think we pull over and wait for reinforcements. If Taipan or young Matheson are on their way - Jasmine, too, for that matter - this is the most likely way they'll come. We could take them out here on the road before any of them get within coo-ee of the gorge, leaving Danica, if she's even there, stranded. Dawn is only a couple of hours away. We can call back our men. I can lead them in during the day. Jasmine, Taipan, Matheson - none of them will be able to interfere as long as the sun is up.'

  Mira rubbed her forehead, as though weary and a little disappointed. She held up a finger, indicating a eureka moment. 'Or, I can ring your new partner and tell her to call back those men of ours and have them all meet us at the gorge, but you and I can make sure we get there first. So that when Taipan, Kevin, Jasmine Turner or fucking Saint Nicklaus arrives, all they find is us with Mother on ice and a firing squad coming up behind. How does that grab you?'