Damon looked up from his hand. "Is how I survived."
"Go on."
"I'm a druid, like those who summoned the Fire. At least, I used to be. I fell out from them a long time ago." He paused to study his hand again. "I was there, Bill. Right there when this thing came to life. The Order of Gaia murdered their families to bring it into our world, but I couldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. Not to Diana, not to the kids. We could have found another way."
"How does the phoenix come into it?"
"Like I said, I was a druid. I used magical techniques to safeguard me and my family from anything the Order might try. It worked, Bill, it worked, but not the way I'd hoped." Damon searched Bill's face. The older man was poker-faced. "To seal the protection runes, I used totem magic. My totem was the phoenix."
"Totem?"
"A sacred animal or spirit. They make powerful guardians. I chose the phoenix to protect me from the fire magic, and it did. When the Order lost control of the Fire elemental, it devoured them. It devoured me, too. Ran straight over me like a runaway road train burning at ten thousand degrees. By buggery, it hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, too."
"So how'd you survive?" Doubt crept onto Bill's face.
"The Fire split me in two, body and soul. It ripped the phoenix from me, and with it, almost all of my magical intuition. It left the flesh and bone me dazed in its wake while my phoenix followed the Fire. I don't know why." He paused "All I know is I won't be whole until I catch the phoenix again."
"And your family?"
"They all took totem spirits to protect them, but the magic wasn't strong enough. Maybe it was too strong? Who knows? When the Fire blazed through Perth, it struck our house like a nuclear blast. My family's physical bodies were incinerated in a heartbeat, just like everyone else. I found them huddled together in the remnants of our house. They were fused together in a pile of charred bones. Their spirits came to me at sunset."
"Ghosts?"
"Wolves. The totem magic saved their essences, their souls, I guess, but they were little more than ghosts as you say. Something must have gone wrong when the Fire claimed them. Toby's totem somehow gained control and they were all transformed into shadow wolves. Must have played on Diana's mind, the darkness, the wolves. The darkness of wolves ..." Damon trailed off as the shadows of the jarrah trees lengthened and ran together.
"So where are they now, your family?" Bill scanned the road and the nearby bush.
"They come at dusk, staying from the moment the sun touches horizon until it completely disappears from the sky. They appear every sunset."
"And the rest of the time?"
"When they first appeared to me, I was overwhelmed with relief. I knew once I regained my phoenix, I'd be able to restore them to life. But then they told me of their existence. A prison, a limbo between the realms of life and death. At first, they were scared, and we did our best to snatch conversations in those few precious moments of sunset. I tried to reassure them that everything would turn out okay, and at first they believed me, but eventually their prison took its toll. It eroded their minds. Made them desperate. Or maybe it was the totem magic. They no longer believed my assurances, and they never quite caught sight of the phoenix as it always renewed its cycle and gained too much ground on me by the time my family arrived."
Damon paused to inspect the gouge in his hand.
"In the end, they began hunting me. I can't recall when the savagery kicked in, whether it was before or after that very first hunt. Toby tore a piece out of my leg. Diana would have taken my hand if not for the sunset that day." He held up his recently mauled hand and rolled back his sleeve. The flesh of his wrist was puckered and scarred, obvious even under the layer of ash. "They came to believe that killing me would undo their condition, or at least set them free into death. They've been relentless ever since. There's nothing I can do now except get out of their way at dusk until I catch the phoenix and hopefully release them."
A gust of wind tugged at Damon's clothes and brought with it an unexpected chill. The ever-so-faint tang of brine reminded him of days at Scarborough beach with the kids.
"Come on," Damon said. "The sun's getting low. We have to hurry."
Bill cast glances around at the shadows as if wary they would spring to life. He made to unsling his rifle.
"Come on." Damon repeated. "That'll do you no good. Got to get to Mundaring before the sun sets. There will be shelter there."
Bill left his rifle slung over his shoulder and fell into a fast jog beside Damon. Their collective footfalls were an irregular rhythm filling the silence.
The afternoon shadows lengthened by the step as they made slow progress towards Mundaring. The sun's glare and the sudden intensity of the heat rising from the road were a wall that was difficult to push through. Even with his hopes high, his skin tingling, and with the phoenix feeling so tantalisingly close, Damon was forced to expend what little energy he had in reserve.
The uphill jog sapped Damon's strength but took a greater toll on Bill. The older man was flagging. Beads of perspiration were gathered on his brow, which he absently wiped every dozen steps or so. The water drum on Bill's back sloshed as though he had trapped a wave unable to finally break upon the shore. Bill stank with the heat and exertion.
With the sun dipping below the tree line into the haze, the sky burned a brown-orange. Bare minutes remained before the sun made contact with the horizon. Damon strained with every step to reach the next husk of a town but it was still hidden by the next rise.
"We have to hustle, Bill" he stammered.
Bill tried to comply by picking up the pace, but he lasted only two dozen meters before falling back into a jog.
"Move it!" Damon glanced to either side of the road, searching for an easy tree to climb, a sturdy hiding spot, or anything that would outlast his family. The blackened gums and jarrahs mocked him with their high branches.
"Hold your horses. I've gotta get my breath," Bill puffed. His pace slowed further.
The sun drifted dangerously close to the horizon, floating below the spiny canopy that lined the rise.
"Drop the water. We're not gonna make it!" Damon's voice was shrill. "We're so close."
Wild-eyed, Bill shouldered his way out of the straps and allowed the water drum to crash to the road. It thudded and echoed like an ominous rubber bell and then gathered momentum as it rolled diagonally across the road. The water inside swirled around the drum as if it were desperate to find a way to escape. The drum wobbled onto the gravel shoulder of the highway and came to rest in a depression at the base of a scorched traffic sign. A curled orange corner on the sign suggested it could have been a warning for motorists to watch for wildlife, mostly likely roos. After the drum came to rest, the water lapped at the sides as though waving goodbye.
Although free of the drum, Bill's pace was still laboured, and as they reached the top of the rise, he began favouring his left leg. The first outlying dwellings of Mundaring were a few hundred meters down the slope and halfway up the next rise.
Damon sighed, closed his eyes, and sprinted for the nearest house that appeared to have its walls mostly intact. Bill did his best to keep up but his run became more of a lope the faster they descended. In his peripheral vision, Damon noticed him slowly falling away. Soon, Bill was ragged breaths and an uneven pounding of boots on the asphalt somewhere behind him.
The first of the dusk howls, raw and full of rage, sent a cold shudder through his muscles.
The dwelling was still a couple of hundred meters away. Damon glanced back at Bill and ahead to the building once more. In that moment, as his family emerged half-formed from the darkness and battled to wriggle free of tree-bound shadows nearby, as the sun was a single yellow-orange hole burrowed through the land and the sky, watching, unblinking, he understood that his months of chasing the phoenix, his hopes and dreams for restoring his family, all of his sacrifices, were finally about to come to an end.
"Bill," he said. He slowed to a jog and then c
ame to a standstill. "Get out of here. It's me they want."
"Look!" Bill stammered. "Isn't that your bird up ahead?" He pointed to the sun.
Sure enough, something bright and wavery blazed at the very top of the next ridge, where the highway gouged a path through the tree line. The phoenix was nearly indistinguishable from the sun itself, but it burned with a bright white-yellow flame, a fierce counterpoint to the duller orange of the sun around it. For the briefest of moments, the thrill of victory fluttered through Damon's chest, but Diana's howl cut that flutter dead.
Toby and Jen's howls answered their mother. After months of being hunted, Damon recognized Toby's call as short, sharp grunts, as though he were too impatient for a protracted howl. Jen's, on the other hand, chilled him to the core. Her cry was like a dirge, a stab in the heart. Every time he heard it, part of him almost surrendered to his family's teeth. This time, he didn't allow his shoulders to slump. Salvation was almost within reach.
Diana and Jen were poised to team up on the right, each not yet free of their imprisoning shadows. Toby in his impatience had shaken himself free. On spying his Dad and Bill, he streaked like a black arrow towards them.
"Diana! Look there!" Damon pointed to the dwindling form of the phoenix ahead. "I told you it was real!"
Toby continued to bear down on them with inhuman speed.
"Toby, son. Look. I can save you. Save you all!" Damon waved arm toward the phoenix. "Come on! Look, damn it!"
A dozen meters away, Toby showed no sign of slowing. He was lost to the hunt, his jaws slavering, each bound forward matched by a primordial grunt.
"It's not workin', mate." Bill unslung his rifle.
Damon took a fleeting look at the phoenix and back to Toby. Diana and Jen, too, were sprinting between the shadows of the trees, gaining with each stride on Toby.
Damon allowed his shoulders to slump.
"Run, you bastard! Run!" Bill shouted. He'd already broken into stride. "Find your friggin' bird!"
Startled at the intensity of Bill's voice and the iron-hard resolve in his eyes, Damon turned and bolted for the trees.
The black form of Toby bounded up to and past Bill, intent only on his father, his quarry, but crashed to the asphalt in a soundless heap of shadow as Bill swung his rifle by the muzzle and clipped the wolf's back leg.
"Find your phoenix!" Bill shouted, an instant before Diana bowled into his back. Man and wolf skidded along the road in a tangle. The two tumbled in a pile of snarls and swearing, but the swearing turned to screams as Diana's jaws found their way to Bill's soft arms and stomach. He flailed like a man on fire, discharging his rifle with a terrible boom that shook the entire valley, but his screams only grew louder as Diana snapped at him with preternaturally sharp jaws. Screaming gave way to gurgling as Diana ripped at the man without mercy, tearing at every shred of flesh in a glut too brutal for Damon to watch.
Jen did not pause to join the slaughter or nudge her ungainly brother back to his feet. She was focused solely on her father, allowing Damon no time to turn and fight for Bill's ebbing life. With Jen homing in like a heat-seeking shadow, Damon dove deeper into the trees, weaving between trunks to gain him the vital few moments to sunset.
As Damon ducked and weaved, Jen momentarily vanished behind trunks and branches, blinking out of existence altogether in those fractions of a second when she crossed a shadow. Jen was hard on his heels when his foot caught on uneven ground and he stumbled.
The wind was driven from Damon's chest when he slammed into the rocks and dirt. Pain flared in his ribs. White stars flashed before his eyes, blinding him for the briefest of moments. He managed to scramble onto his back as Jen leapt upon him with her jagged maw open for the kill.
Fortune favoured him as Jen struck. His hands were thrown up in defence, and on instinct, he caught her by the throat. Her jaws stopped short of his face by only centimetres. Her body was freezing cold, numbing his hands as he held her at bay as best as he could. She snapped and struggled for a killing blow but was denied as the sun dipped out of view and the light around them faded.
Jen howled her mournful cry at the sky one last time as she became lighter and more insubstantial. In that moment, Damon managed to turn her head down to face him. Staring into those dark eyes was like plunging into an abyss, but he sensed something of his little girl in them, too.
"The phoenix is real," he said. "I love you."
But if she'd heard or understand, he couldn't know, for she had faded with the twilight. He was left grasping at nothing but the cool air of the coming night and a wearying quest that had ground down his hope and had now cost the life of the only other man on the entire godforsaken continent.
#
Perth was once the jewel of the west, the City of Lights, a thriving metropolis forged from successive mining booms. As Damon trudged his way through Fire-levelled suburbs, past gutted malls and the remnants of schools, shops, and houses, the full nightmare of Hilda's tragic plan was hammered home.
The last time he'd visited his hometown, he had sifted through the still-smouldering rubble of his neighbourhood to find the charred remains of his acquaintances, friends, and finally, his family. That same evening, the spiritual remains of Diana, Toby, and Jen had manifested in their wolf forms for the very first time.
"The darkness of wolves," he muttered to himself as he skittered a piece of tin across the road as he jogged.
He took in the devastation of Perth afresh as he mouthed the words repeatedly. The darkness of wolves. Over two million men, women, and children of Perth incinerated in their homes, in their cars, the stench of their cremation as ever-present now as it was months ago. Thirty million more lives across mainland Australia snuffed out in an inescapable wave of panic, heat, and smoke. The death of an entire continent, an entire culture. No more meat pies and Waltzing Matilda. No more Eagles and Dockers derbies, no more One Day Internationals. No more Tim Winton or Bryce Courtney. All that remained was the blood on his hands, the ruin of a civilization, a phoenix, and the darkness of wolves.
He had inadvertently allowed death free rein. Little wonder the totem magic had not worked properly. Toby's totem was the most primal, the closest embodiment of the carnage that took hold of his family and consumed them, along with every other living soul in this forsaken land. Toby in his ignorance understood the magic at its basest. Death had enveloped the land, blackened the spirit of Gaia, and with it, warped his family.
Damon picked up speed again, spurred on and repulsed by the callousness in which Diana had ripped Bill's life away.
In the morning, Damon had passed the ruins of their house in the foothills. He did not dare to stop, though, for fear the phoenix would reach the coast and extinguish itself before he could catch it. Instead, he jogged past with his head bowed, remembering his family as they had once been, their gentle smiles, their ungracious arguments. His thoughts had turned to Bill then, too, imagining the house he would have kept, wondering how he had lived and what kind of a man he had been in more ordinary times.
Damon had taken the time to bury Bill during night. It was hard work for a shallow grave, and time he could ill afford, but if he could not pause to mourn the passing of a friend, a man who had saved his life, perhaps the last survivor—other than him—of the sunburnt country, then what kind of a man was he? Knowing little more than Bill's name, and embarrassed because of it, Damon had vowed at Bill's grave that he would fulfil his dying wish and finally capture his phoenix to make everything right.
Now, Damon seemed prisoner to an eternal afternoon. His clearest moments were always as the sun was setting, as the phoenix dawdled in its trek and the gap between body and soul closed to its narrowest.
He had trekked through the ashes of the suburbs, crossed the broken lines of highways, and the sunken depression of the Mitchell Freeway that cut through Perth north to south.
The sky had become an even shade of orange, the sun a piercing gold-white globe filling his field of vision. Every step brought
him rejuvenation, a tingling sense of power. Closer to his phoenix.
In the eastern suburbs, the thin strip of smashed civilization between the Freeway and the coast, he abandoned the roads and instead trudged directly along the Fire's final path. It had held a remarkably straight course on its second visit to Perth, barrelling through the already levelled suburbs of Leederville, Innaloo, and Doubleview.
Hill and valley gave way to a huge swath of blackened earth. It was as though a comet had plummeted through the coastal suburbs, tearing a half-mile wide gash in its passing.
As the sky burned from orange to crimson, the sun dipping ever lower to the horizon ahead, Damon caught sight of the phoenix for what he knew to be the final time. It was perhaps half a kilometre ahead, lazily trailing wavering air and flame behind it. Ahead of it, he could spy the sheared-off remains of the old Observation City tower, a solitary monolith that had once dominated the skyline of Perth's northern coast. The cloven hotel and vitrified sands of Scarborough beach at its base marked the Fire's terminus into the Indian Ocean.
Once again, Damon's life became a footrace. This time, on Bill's life and his family's, he was determined to win. He cast off his canteens and unclipped any extraneous gear, allowing it all to clank to the ground. It was just him and the phoenix now. Thoughts of anything but these moments, the hammering of his heart and footfalls crunching on debris, were unheeded and lost.
Sweat and sludge stung his eyes but he paid them little mind, focused solely on the bright and insubstantial form of the phoenix blazing towards the beach. He blinked his eyes to clear his vision. Fleeting memories played through his mind, weaving reality and mirage together.
Shadows had stretched taut between the jutting remains of homes, looming long and jagged into the runnel of the Fire's passage.
With the phoenix fully formed and clearer in his sight than he had ever imagined, its flaming trail so close it practically warmed his face, images of Jen and Toby, his little darling and terrible rascal, played through his mind like cosmic snapshots held by invisible hands. Diana's face formed welcome but unbidden between them, superimposed with the phoenix in its gentle flight.
Apocrypha Sequence: Inferno Page 10