Blood & Dust (18 page)

'What?' Kevin said. 'You're gonna dump me here?'

'How long?' Bhagwan asked Taipan.

'I bin keepin' him lean. A week at most.'

'Hot?'

Taipan shook his head. 'Lukewarm at best. I'm the hot property 'round here.'

'I don't know if I have the resources for that,' Bhagwan said, flashing an apologetic grimace in
Kevin's direction.

'You mean you don't wanna share ya myxos,' Taipan said. 'I thought you was weaning yourself.'

Bhagwan rubbed his forearms, first one, then the other. 'Of course, but still, it's a delicate
balance. This one is - no offence, young man - still so raw. So passionate.'

'And you're so very serene here in Shangri La. Beef prices getting you down?'

'I don't want to kill,' Kevin said.

'Admirable,' Bhagwan said. 'We do kill the occasional cow - fresh meat, for the help.'

'Gotta keep the help healthy, eh, Bhaggy,' said Taipan.

'We don't kill here. We take as little as we must. We give them only what they need. This is not
some decadent sty.'

'That'd be the royal
we
,' Taipan said with a wink to Kevin. 'The hermit, some call him;
probably why VS tolerates him. Just a lonely little bloodmuncher keepin' his own little stud - as
long as he supplies all the cow juice the master wants. Go on, Bhaggy: show the young fella ya
trophies.'

The man hesitated, then pushed a sleeve up to show a pattern of thin scars making a ladder on his
forearm.

Kevin frowned.

'Mementoes,' Bhagwan said, 'reminders of my weakness.' He tugged the sleeve back down.

Kevin felt his undamaged chest. 'I thought we healed as good as new.'

'Silver nitrate.' Bhagwan's voice was low, as though offering a kernel of forbidden knowledge.
'Laced into the wound. Keeps it from going smooth. One for every time I succumb.'

Taipan snorted. 'As if carryin' their ghosts in your noggin' ain't enough.'

'I know a guy in Brisbane,' Bhagwan said, ignoring the biker, 'who does it for a living - scars,
tattoos. Mixes blood and other stuff to make the ink. Does great work. Just ask my red-eyes, they'll
show you.'

'I bet they will,' Taipan said. 'You'd think a bloke that good could make himself look prettier,
wouldn'tcha? Ugly bugger, that Needle. Cunnin' but.'

Anger flashed in Bhagwan's eyes, quickly fading as Taipan stood. 'Some wear their memories, their
failures, on the outside.'

'So when was you in the big smoke, Bhagwan?'

'Years ago,' he said as the biker loomed over him. 'I haven't seen the Needle in years.'

'Still, good of him to let you know about Jasmine's settin' up shop out west, eh?' Taipan sat
next to Bhagwan, an arm around his shoulder. The man shrank away. 'So how is business, Bhaggy? VS
still payin' top dollar for ya moo juice? Maybe lookin' for some spilt beans on the side?'

'Jasmine's move into primary production is no threat to me.'

'No? Sure you didn't think that maybe I'd dust her for you, to get at me sister? Or maybe that if
you gave VS me head on a plate, they'd let you keep ya little farm goin'?'

'You know I don't operate that way, Taipan.' He gestured at the others at the table. 'Your
people, Budgie and Co., they've been here for a day already. There's been no Gespenstenstaffel
busting down doors, has there? We've been nothing if not accommodating.'

'I'll drink to that,' Budgie said, raising a glass, but there was a nasty edge to his voice.

'So why stop now?' Taipan continued as though Budgie hadn't spoken, as though he didn't have an
entire pack gathered around the table. 'This young fella wouldn't eat much, wouldya fella?'

Bhagwan's face tightened, his words coming out like a tyre losing air. 'I don't take sides, you
know that. I give VS their blood, I give it to you. You all leave me alone. That's the deal.'

'And all I'm askin' is that you share ya even-handedness with this young fella here, till his
system's had a good flushin' and he's ready to hit the road. Never to be seen by you, or me, again.'

'And you're leaving-'

'Sunset. First thing.'

Bhagwan darted a look at Kevin, then back at Taipan as the biker disengaged and picked up his
glass. 'Maybe.' He glanced toward the kitchen as a woman's laugh cut the air.

'I like ya myxo,' Taipan said. 'She smells like, like golden syrup. 'Member that stuff? Come in
tins, eh. Usedta eat it by the gallon.'

Bhagwan crumpled. 'Sure, sure, the pup can stay. But you're going, right? Sundown. No tearing up
the town, no going into Rocky to raise merry hell.'

'Glad to hear it,' Taipan said. 'A week, Bhaggy, just till he's clean.'

'You made him - how clean can he possibly get?'

'Cleanish, then. He's got a hard-on to go back west, set up a business, have some kids. White
picket fence, all'a that.'

Bhagwan smiled weakly.

Reg, setting down a fresh jug of cows' blood, laughed. 'The great Aussie dream.' He clanged his
glass against Kevin's empty mug.

Kevin extricated himself from the gathering. His fate appeared to have been decided; he had no
interest in what further mayhem Taipan was planning. He walked into the kitchen to tell Kala the
good news, but his presence immediately shut down the conversation where a gaggle of red-eyes sat
eating and drinking around a Formica table. The scents rushed around him - food, wine, beer.

'Did you want more?' Bhagwan's woman asked, and the man added cheekily, 'Light or heavy?'

'Just returning my glass.'

'Sink's there, knock yourself out,' the woman said. The man stared at him, calculating.

'Okay, Kevvie?' Kala asked over a half-demolished plate of T-bone and vegies.

Taipan loomed in the doorway behind him. 'Bedtime, kids. And whitefella,' he said, looking at
Kala, 'Bhagwan says you can stay. He'll get you a set of wheels when it's time to go. All right?'

As if he had a choice.

Kala's face was a blank mask as she rose. Penny slouched up after her, looking exhausted still.

'C'mon,' Taipan said. 'We're campin' in the quarters, there. Bhaggy don't want us upsettin' his
"ambience".'

They marched onto the veranda, Taipan's hand on Kala's neck, guiding her, and Reg - his face as
red as a stoplight
- with his arm around Penny's shoulders.

'I'll be down in a minute,' Kevin said.

'Suit yourself,' Taipan said, 'but don't stay up too late. Wouldn't wanna get Bhaggy's nose outta
joint.'

Eventually, with pink staining the sky, the male red-eye fetched Kevin. The man looked weary and
dark-eyed; he smelled of sex and fresh blood. Kevin thought he detected Reg's scent on him, but
maybe that was a holdover from having had his helmeted nose pushed into the biker's back for hours.
The man's shirt was open almost to the navel. A tattoo showed over his heart - one of those loopy
Egyptian crosses in tarnished silver.

'Hear you'll be staying with us for a time,' the man said, reaching out his hand. The red-eye had
a firm grip, a work-rough palm and fingers. A touch of wolfbite coloured his cheeks; a four-dot
pattern like Penny's decorated his throat above his collar. Kevin followed him to one of two
ramshackle quarters sitting side by side near a set of stockyards. A horseshoe hung over the door of
one.

'Budgie's bunch is in that one,' the man said, pointing to the hut without the shoe. 'Your boss
wants you in this one. With him.'

'About your boss,' Kevin said, 'everyone says Bhagwan's a veggo, but he drinks your - human -
blood.'

'It's a renewable resource, y'know.'

'But he cuts himself when he does it. As though it's wrong.'

'It's hard for him to admit he needs it.' The man shrugged, as though they were talking about an
eccentric aunt rather than a creature existing on the blood of others. 'I don't mind.'

'Is it worth it?'

'I get this.' He pulled his shirt open to show the curvy cross etched into his skin.

'You got a tattoo?' Kevin asked, suspecting he was being toyed with.

'You are a little virgin, aren't you?' The man stood close to Kevin, a hand cupping his cheek.
His eyes were red spots, hypnotising. 'How old do you think I am?' His hips pushed against Kevin,
backing him up against the veranda rail. Beer, musky sex, his steak dinner, his blood, Reg and his
road-stained leather. The man's blood, his desire, rising to the surface. His hand, rough on Kevin's
cheek. His eyes, huge, twin bloody moons filling Kevin's vision. His voice, husky, saying, 'He
drinks, I drink. It's a win-win situation.'

But,
Kevin thought,
variety is the spice of life
.

The door thumped open behind them. The man started, dropped his hand, but didn't move back. He
looked over Kevin's shoulder toward the door, from where the stench of Taipan's freshly lit
cigarette rolled down.

'Givin' me boy a lesson there, myxo?'

'He did ask,' the man said, hands on his hips.

'Well, you can give him all the answers he can handle after we've gone,' Taipan said. 'Now piss
off.'

The man gave a surly smile and stalked off toward the main house.

'Get inside before you make Kala jealous,' Taipan told Kevin. 'Last night together and all'a
that.'

Kevin shook his head, groggy with confusion. Normally, if a bloke had bailed him up like that,
he'd have given him a thrashing. But all he'd wanted to do to this fella was - taste him. He rubbed
his forearms as they crawled with the thought of Bhagwan's scars. He'd have to watch himself around
Bhagwan and his pair of misfits. Still, they couldn't be worse than Taipan's bloody gang. Could
they?

Oh-four-hundred on Saturday morning. Not even twelve hours since the men with the
clipboards had given Mira's helicopter the thumbs up. Which meant he'd been released from the
veritable banishment of hanging around the workshop getting in people's way, a brooding symbol of
their mistress's displeasure. On the plus side, he had caught up on some much-needed sleep, reading
and drinking, interrupted only by calls for updates from the Strigoi and invitations from smart-arse
technicians to look at pieces of incomprehensible machinery. The guns, though: those had been cool.

The alarm buzzed again and Reece slammed the clock, only to realise, finally, that it was his
intercom making the racket.

Up. Yawning, fur-tongued, he hit the answer button. Yes?

Shit.

Yes, Strigoi. Right away, Strigoi. Three bags full, Strigoi.

And my, wasn't she excited. Someone was in for a bollocking.

Unshaved and clad in full kit, he made his way to the helipad, pronto. There, squatting on its
skids like a malignant beetle, the matt black machine looked even deadlier than it had under lights
in the workshop. The waxing half moon hung low over the hills in the west, weak in comparison to the
city's wattage.

There were few stars, not like that amazing starscape he'd seen out west. A view like that, you
could almost understand the attraction of living in the middle of nowhere. Almost.

Mira met him on the roof. The hilts of her swords poked out of the gap where she held her
cape-like Driza-Bone shut against the downdraft of the rotor blades. A squad of Gespenstenstaffel
already huddled inside, armed with automatic weapons and standard issue broadswords.

'Bit early for a test flight, isn't it?' he asked, shouting over the engine noise, squinting into
the wind. 'First light's less than an hour.'

'I've had a most pleasant dream,' she told him. 'I'm fairly certain I know where Taipan and the
grease monkey are holed up. Problem is, Taipan's getting ready to ditch the boy, which means-'

'Not very fatherly,' Reece said.

'Which means,' she continued, her irritation clear, but quickly passing as she ushered him to the
door and her excitement took over again, shining green and bright in her eyes, 'this is my last
chance to catch that slimy little biker. Now stop annoying me and get on board. I have to get back
into that grease monkey's head and make sure he doesn't go anywhere before we get there. Daylight or
not, Reece, we are going to kill more than a few birds with this stone.'

The wooden walls pulsate with a dark violet glow; it's as though the cabin has been
enfolded within a heart, purplish light streaming through its membranes as the beat makes the floor
reverberate. As Kevin's eyes adjust, he sees Mira standing behind Meg, slowly peeling off the girl's
blouse to reveal her lacy bra, the generous swell of breast. Meg bites her lip as Mira's hands strip
back the cloth to show her stomach, navel, knickers.

'Jesus, Meg,' Kevin says. 'Where are your strides?'

Meg smiles. 'Where are yours, Kev?' She kisses Mira as her blouse folds like a sleeping dove
around her naked ankles.

Kevin looks down. Naked. He's naked in the dorm, but none of Taipan's gang are around. It's just
the three of them. The three of them and a white shape propped on a sofa.

'That's right,
Liebchen
,' Mira says. 'Just us. Don't worry about that silly slut. She died
happy.'

The white shape comes into focus - a sheet covering someone sitting on the old sofa. It slips
down, revealing the head and torso of the girl the Night Riders killed, still in her bloodstained
nightdress. She looks at Kevin, her mouth open silently. He smells again the burning hair and wants
to vomit. The girl dissolves into ash.

'I said not to worry about her,' Mira says, her voice crackling with command. 'Watch us. Stay
with us.'

A gash appears on Kevin's arm and bleeds silver. He grabs the wound, but then another appears,
and another, climbing up his arm. Then they vanish.

'Pay attention,' Mira says.

Her lips run down Meg's throat, across her shoulder. She eases the bra strap off, leaving a
depression. Licks it. Meg sighs, holds her bra to her chest as the strap slides down her bicep. Mira
slips the other strap down and pulls Meg's hands away to let the garment fall. Meg's nipples are
hard points. Mira cups the girl's breasts, making her lean back, eyes closed, lips parted and
glistening. Mira bites down and Meg cries out. Blood washes from her shoulder, across her breasts. A
line of crimson wriggles across her stomach, slowly staining her knickers.