A Fire in the Shell: Circle of Nine Trilogy 3

by Josephine Pennicott

  Ishran turned slowly onto his side and looked at Sati. Their eyes connected. She saw the shock of recognition bring fresh blood to his face, and with a thrill of triumph, she saw joy pulse life into his eyes. He sat up, a dark flower unfolding in the bed. There was a faint, red rash on his throat. He wore items of jewellery unfamiliar to Sati. A silver talisman on a leather thong around his wrist, shells shining and black, hung from his ears. He was naked, his body thinner than she remembered. He was flabbier, his stomach bloated from the artificial preservatives they ate on the Blue Planet. White, sickly, he had never looked better.

  A note sounded in Sati, rising from her being, a sound of pure joy. Frantically she beat against the window with her wings. She had to get to him. He opened the window and she rushed in with the night, hastily transforming herself before him mid-flight. Feathers became hair, claws became nails. She threw herself at him, aghast at the low hum of his vibration. He had remained for too long on the Blue Planet. She had to break the angoli’s spell. She had to warn him, inform him of his Hosthatch’s death. The role he had dreaded taking all his life was now vacant and waiting for him, and the Glazrmhom was on her way to kill him.

  His kylon was hard against her, and an answering fire responded in her loins. She wanted their union to be here. Hard, quick and urgent, while she still retained some of her bird essence. Here, in this rumpled room among the desperate stinking air that reeked of Bluites. From the bed, weak red rays pulsated, telling her of recent encounters with Bluite women. To Sati, the room was perfect with its hungry, feasting flies. Ishran was weaker than she had ever known him before. The dark game Charmonzhla was playing with them was draining his energy. His vulnerability was arousing her. She was eager to couple with him, to demonstrate her strength.

  She pushed him roughly back onto the bed, shaking her long dark hair about her face, snarling, watching with satisfaction as his kylon unfurled. She grabbed the stem of his kylon roughly, murmuring with pleasure as she drew the velvety petals to her mouth. By the time she finished with him, he would never desire to leave her again. He screamed aloud as she forced his kylon inside her.

  ‘Holla, ho!’

  The cry rang out in the hushed silence of the bush. Veronica was on her feet and running, pushing her way through scrub, stumbling over rocks and ferns. All she felt was an instinctive desire to get away from the sound of that terrible horn and cry. Sobbing, she half stumbled along darkened paths, longing to scream out for help, but unwilling to attract attention to herself.

  ‘Holla, ho!’

  She screamed, then fastened her hands over her mouth as she fled. Panicking, she wondered whether it would be better to squash herself behind a darkened log and hope they wouldn’t be able to find her, but her body pushed her to keep moving forwards, to get away from that horrible sound. A city girl, Veronica found it difficult to believe how dark it could get in the bush, and how disorientating that darkness could be. It seemed to her the bush had taken on a life of its own, not hostile, but indifferent as she crashed through its territory. The bush waited, seeming to hold its breath.

  All was silent for a few moments, and the silence was even more terrifying than the sound of the horn and the cry. Then came the noise of a pack of hounds howling in excitement, and Veronica couldn’t contain herself. She screamed at the top of her lungs. It seemed impossible that her life was being threatened in this way. Just yesterday she had been pushing her way on crowded city streets, competing for the best assignments on Australia Tonight. Life had been planned, simple, controlled. Now she was involved in something she didn’t understand. Her mind filled with terror. Oh God, please God. Just spare me. Don’t let this happen to me! I will do anything for you. I promise. I will spread your word everywhere. Bargains made. Too little, too late. The bush seemed to mock her.

  A tree. She leant against it for a brief second, attempting to get her bearings, her breath painful in her chest. Where was the town? Were there no houses on these lonely tracks? No solitary night walkers? The tree moved and she saw it was a huge beast, something like a bear. It seemed to swipe at her with a lethal paw. The claws on its hands were nearly as long as her arm. She screamed, and the thing froze, became still. A tree again. Or was it? She backed away from it slowly, convinced her mind had snapped. An image came to her of an old teddy bear she had owned as a child. Jimmy. She hadn’t thought of Jimmy for years, with his broken button eyes, his soft body that she had pulled bits from over the years. It was shocking to remember him so clearly out here in this dark, hungry bushland.

  ‘When your life ends today, what point was there to any of it? What part did you enjoy?’ Emily Robson’s taunting words came back to her and she began to cry She was so tired, and so afraid. Drained and exhausted, she felt she couldn’t run any further. Why not give in? Her old teddy bear whispered to her. Dying is not so bad, the pain won’t last for long. The bush is going to hold you while they hunt you down. Why not give in? Aren’t you tired of running? Of living?

  There was a giggle from the nearby bushes. A sly, knowing chuckle. Veronica could just make out a dark shape, the size of a teenage boy, perched on a rock above her head. He was looking down at her. He giggled again, and lifted a long white finger to his lips to hush her. She couldn’t make out his face, but she knew that his eyes were not human. The top of his head was entwined with leaves and flowers, and two horns pushed their way through his foliage decoration.

  His full mouth was as red as berries, his eyes as feral as night, and a scent came from him, repellent yet intoxicating. He was crouched amid a pile of leaves. A small furred animal lay dead at his feet. A possum? A wild cat? Now his red berry mouth was explained. He raised a set of pipes to his lips, gripped by nails long, black and curling, with dark hair covering some of the fingers. The first few notes spilled out into the night. His eyes were in shallow, wild eyes that smoked with memory, eyes she could not make out. But they watched her, she knew that. He knew her, as he knew the dreams of leaves and stones. He controlled the darkness with his playing, he pulled the night closer to them, with the sound of his pan pipes.

  Veronica knew it she remained to listen to his music, she would be lost forever. This being was forged of nightmares, of shadows and pain. He would play until her mind had snapped, and she became like the small dead animal, beady eyes bright and staring, blood sticky and coagulated on its coat. Its little paws remained upwards, as if in worship, or a vain attempt to push the darkness away. She backed away slowly from the seduction of the sound, her hands held out in front of her as if she too could push it away, as if she could control the chilling melody.

  One step backwards, two steps backwards, her eyes never leaving its face, the musky animal scent of it in her nose. And yet somehow she felt as if she was the intruder and not he, that the bushland barely tolerated her. It knew and welcomed this impossible creature. Three steps backwards, then four.

  A confused impression. The night had broken up and split into different beings. The bush teemed with life forms. What she had taken to be trees were huge shaggy beasts with claws, and now tiny winged beings advanced towards her. The night had a thousand eyes, a thousand hearts, teeth and claws. She screamed. The fifth step took her over the edge. She realised her mistake, too late. She went stumbling over the cliff, trying in vain to grab an outgrowing tree or shrub. Free fall seemed to last forever. Over and over she went, a disorientating, sickening, twisting in the frigid air, screaming as she fell. Beings were flying around her, eyes glowing. She saw the button eyes of Jimmy as she fell. There are easier ways to die, he said. But you have been honoured, Veronica. Human sacrifice is not murder. He came to her, flying on huge owl wings through the night, and pressed his soft teddy bear body against her. She lost consciousness as she held him. Flying for eternity down that cold, star-filled night. She was still holding him when they landed headfirst on the rocks at the bottom of the canyon, her head shattering, her bones breaking. She did not wake.

  At the precise moment Veronica splinter
ed onto the rocks, Theresa jerked her head up. She had been trying to do a tarot spread in her bedroom, cross-legged on the floral quilt that had come with the house. Once she would have laughed at such a sight. Herself, face serious, fanning out the cards, feeling their crisp energy and the secrets contained within their symbolism. She spread them out again and studied them — the Devil, the Tower, Eight of cups. Knight of swords. The cards did not belong to her, she had stolen them from Minette. They had been stored carefully in a dingy lacquered box, wrapped in a black lace shawl that smelt of roses, and stored in Minette’s tower of shoe boxes in her overflowing wardrobe. She had done intermittent readings for her housemates, most of which were vaguely positive.

  Theresa liked the cards because the images sparked off pictures in her mind. She did not bother with any known spreads, preferring to select nine cards and meditate upon them. Minette would not have been happy with her borrowing the deck; everything was supposedly shared at Light Vision, but it was a sentiment not often practised. Minette and Sophie had learnt to tolerate Theresa since the night they had the ritual. Their dislike for her was now complicated by fear and tainted by sympathy. They wouldn’t have been happy to know she often went through their wardrobes, their journals, their drawers filled with their cheap cotton G-strings, the scented bags of lavender placed among their underwear like Victorian maidens. Theresa did not see her actions as snooping, to her it was survival and essential that she should know her enemy.

  Now her head snapped upwards as she listened for the sound she imagined she had heard outside. The baying of hounds. The wind. A short, shocking sensation of herself falling through the night from a great height, her body bursting open on rocks. She paused, her hands stroking the cards, a small line creased on her forehead. The bush was hungry tonight. The night was restless. Blood was spilt. She began to concentrate on the cards again, too afraid to cross to the windows to look out at the night, afraid of what would be revealed to her in the garden of shadows.

  There was a knock on her door and Lazariel entered. His face was creased, as if he had been asleep. His upper back bulged with the wings he had sprouted in the ritual. ‘I was just going downstairs for a cup of tea, want one?’ His eyes went to the spread tarot cards.

  ‘Something is happening in the bush. I felt a girl die,’ Theresa said. It was an open invitation. He walked into the room, looking curiously masculine in his jeans and black jumper with holes in the sleeves. His hair hung loose down his back. He had the courage to do what she had not, to cross to the window and view the night. He studied it in silence.

  ‘This place is cold and filled with shadows,’ he said. ‘At least in Sydney there is light.’ Another image came to her. The members of Light Vision holding flaming torches, attempting to see into the blackness of night. Great wings flapping in the dark.

  ‘Was she a girl you knew?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ She let the cards fall, alarmed at the probing way he looked at her, at the interest he displayed in her. For the first time she became aware of her room, and what it revealed or hid about her. A half-empty bottle of perfume she had stolen from a local store, dirty underwear and stockings piled in a corner. Drawings she had been working on, great birds with feet of fire, creatures with open screaming mouths, enormous claws and penises, intricate shells, a man with the head of a stag. Her name, written thousands of times on pieces of paper. He could read the spaces of the room. He could translate the silences. Exposed, she attempted to retreat into herself.

  ‘If she was a stranger, then don’t worry. People die every day in these mountains. Every single bloody day I pick up the paper and read someone has walked off the cliff, or thrown themselves from a cliff, or been attacked and left to die in the mountains. I read about fires in houses, and shootings, both accidental and murderous. Wild dogs, fatal allergies to bee stings, viruses where no drug can contain the swelling of the body. Cancers, old age. There’s a thousand ways to die in these mountains. Your stranger died quickly probably, if the night was kind.’

  Theresa nodded, dismayed at the flow of his words that seemed to imply a friendship, an intimacy. ‘Her head burst,’ she said, touching her face. ‘I felt her.’ She could feel the heat of his presence. He did not belong in her room, with its white walls, its coloured crayons, her childish scribbling. She imagined he would cross to her bed, hold her head back and kiss her, as people kissed on television. Then she would lie spread-eagled beneath him as he pumped away. The thought brought her a small thrill. No, he was turning away, his interest no doubt diverted to Sophie and Minette who would be sprawled on the sofa downstairs, bored as they waited for Ishran to take them to his bed. Her eyes kept returning to the bulge in his upper back and she imagined what it would feel like to lie beneath him as he placed his wings over her.

  ‘Milk and sugar?’ he asked.

  ‘Just milk.’

  He left the room silently. She stared at the door, her body throbbing with desire. The wind had begun again, she could hear it shaking the trees outside. She pressed her hand against herself, against the source of the desire and came secretly, privately, like hot fire in her hands, whispering his name as she did so. Outside the night closed silently around the house.

  A bushwalker discovered the stranger’s body the following day. She did not have to lie long among the armies of invading insects, rats, and mice. Walking along the clifftop, he noticed an unusual flash of white in the bush below. His binoculars, previously employed in observing a pair of gang-gang cockatoos, were trained on the spot. Violent death was instantly recognisable. The shell that remained of Veronica lay sprawled and bloody, a shocking tragic doll in an alien, plant dollhouse. A helicopter flew over the mountain, its blades slicing the air in lethal swishes. Vans brought men with overalls and grim expressions. The police came too, followed closely by the media.

  All of these activities had a natural flow, a jerky rhythm of its own that the bushland and its creatures had observed many times before. They could almost have described to each other the sequence of events. Another helicopter came swishing over the top of them, this one with small figures hanging from the side, cameras trained on the scene below.

  The blowflies had arrived early to lay thousands of their minute eggs on the body. Fleshflies joined the cotillion. The flies were accompanied by the devil’s coach horse, which began attacking and eating the other insects attracted to Veronica’s corpse. Dozens of cockroaches had been running over the body all night and morning, leaving little blood trails in all directions. They were gradually consuming the bleached hair, pulling it out by the shaft.

  A couple walked a large German shepherd along the cliff. She wore a bright red scarf in her dark hair. He wore a plaid cap. The woman’s hands went to her mouth, and they drew closer together when they saw in the distance the object of attention. The couple were turned back by the police. The branches of a large gum tree rustled menacingly, but nobody paid it any attention, focused as they were on the body. Small scurrying figures spoke into mobiles, lit cigarettes and clustered in groups to talk. It was a cold and crisp morning, too heartbreakingly beautiful to sustain words like suicide and murder, now passing between one to another of the figures. Four men fastened ropes around themselves. They bounced against the sides of the cliff face as they descended, looking like oversized spiders on a thread. Their booted feet kicked against the cliff face dislodging rocks and debris, as the crushed body waited patiently below. Finally, they reached her. Silent faces and active cameras watched them from high above. The harsh cry of a kookaburra sounded. Then another, and another, until the mountains were filled with mocking bird cries.

  A police officer’s hand shook as he wrote out a report and he blamed it on the chill. His colleague chewed an apple as he watched the abseilers place the girl’s body into a body sling. Detached body parts were gathered into separate bags. The workers took their time, everything measured, photographed and recorded.

  The task done, the body was pulled slowly to the waiting crowd a
bove. Media jostled each other for prime positions to film the sling as it ascended, slowly turning in the light as it came nearer. Like a gift, an offering of an ancient mummy resurrected from a forgotten valley. If Veronica was aware in some other dimension, she would have been horrified to see Lisa Wallace, eyes wide, lips glossed in Tangerine and hair styled like the CNN anchors, hurriedly doing an improvised piece to camera.

  Inspector Richard Owens, due to retire and counting the days, hurriedly checked his reflection in the car mirror, mentally going over his prepared statement. He cursed when he saw one of the old women from the village, Emily Robson, standing in the back of the crowd, fascinated by the activities of the search and rescue people. The old bitch looks as if she’s relishing every moment. He made a mental note to get one of the policemen to tell her to piss off.

  The body was now poised on the edge of the precipice. Locks of blood-splattered blonde hair had escaped their bindings and were hanging out the back of the sling. Poor little kid. Whoever the stranger was, she was somebody’s child. Her life had come to this tragic end, in pieces at the bottom of a cliff. Perhaps some backpacker who hadn’t realised how treacherous the overlook could be? Or worse, someone who found it easier to fly from the mountains rather than face the pain of living? She would be far from the first who had chosen to do so in the mountains.

  A flock of rosellas, beautiful in their greens, blues and reds, rose into the air. He drank in their beauty before moving towards the covered body, Emily Robson forgotten for now. There had been too many unexplained deaths in this area in the last decade. He would be relieved when he could surrender his post and retire, work on the poems that bubbled in his cells and screamed to be expressed. He had thought about transferring to the warmth of Queensland, every year his arthritis seemed to get more painful, but the mountains were in his blood. There were times when he felt as if he was cut off from the rest of the world, imprisoned within the scenic beauty of the village towns.