Blood & Dust (31 page)

'Sorry, I shouldn't have called it that. She's at Whitby Downs.'

Kala gave a sharp intake of breath as she took his hand.

'What's she doing there?' Kevin asked.

'Kind of came out of the blue. She rang earlier, asked me to fetch some fresh clothes for her. I
guess it's just as well she didn't come with me. I wonder what Di would've thought, seeing you here
- with her.'

Kala spoke, her hand reaching around Kevin's waist. 'Seeing her son with a black girl, do you
mean?'

'Seeing her son with a girl who isn't me.'

'Meg, it's um,' his voice failed.

'What is it, Kevin?'

He felt both women staring at him.

'It's complicated.'

Meg crossed her arms. 'Try me.'

'I - I'm different. Things have happened. Shit, I don't even know where to start.' He ran his
hands through his hair, smelled Kala on his fingers. He crossed his arms, felt Kala step back.

'How about you begin with why you're sneaking around your own house in the dark - with her.'

Kala said, 'It's hard for them to understand. They have to experience it, to see it for
themselves. Even then they find it hard to believe. They'll make up any number of stories rather
than accept the truth.'

'Why is she talking about me like I'm not even here?' Meg asked.

'Jesus,' Kevin said. 'Look, I can't do this, not now. Shit's happening. I need to get to Mum.
Meg, you need to leave. Get out of the Siding, at least for a little while.'

'You're kidding, right? A week ago you were begging me not to go.'

'Things have changed.'

'No kidding.' She fired a laser stare at Kala. 'I don't know where you've been this past week or
so, but I've been here, looking after your mother. Once they let me out of the hospital.'

She pointed to the bandage on her throat. 'They said I almost died, Kevin.' She paused, then
rammed it home: 'The police aren't looking for
me
. No, I'm not going anywhere until you've
told me what's going on; why you attacked us.' She pointed again to her bandaged neck. 'Left a wound
like a mad dog, the doctor said. Then this
woman
turned up and ran off with you. Not a word.
Not a phone call. Your mum's sick to death with worry.'

He sat down on the arm of nearby chair, his face in his hands. Kala stood behind him, at the
corner of his vision, embracing herself as though the room had turned very, very cold. Her scent
folded around him like a cloak.

Tears glistened in Meg's eyes. She walked over to him, her gaze holding his. She stood in front
of him, her hands cupping his face.

'I love you, Kevin Matheson. I love you and I'm telling you now that there's nothing we can't
work out. You say it's complicated, so let's go down to the cop shop and sort it out. Right now.
Turn yourself in. Get it cleaned up. Because I know you, and I know if you've done things, bad
things, wrong things, that you've done them for a bloody good reason. That you had no choice. All we
have to do is tell Smithy and he can clear it all up. How about it, Kev?'

The tears came in a gush and his jaw quivered so much he couldn't speak. He held her hand, tried
to keep his gaze from the bandage. 'Meg, I-'

She pulled her hand from his and wiped his cheek and held the fingers up in the light. 'Oh my
God, Kevin, what's happened to you? You're bleeding.'

He wiped his cheeks and saw the smear of crimson on his fingers. 'Like I said, Meg. It's
complicated.'

She poked a finger at Kala. 'What has this bitch done to you?'

'It's not her fault.'

'We really should go,' Kala said. 'We've been here too long as it is.'

'Are you going to go, Kevin? Just run away again?'

He stood, pushing Meg back with gentle pressure on her arms. 'I do have to go. I have to. To keep
you safe.'

'I'm sorry - but can you please explain how running around the countryside with this black slut
is keeping me safe?'

'Don't call her that.'

'So you're defending her now? You're pathetic. Both of you.' She snatched up the bag. 'I'm
getting your mother her clothes. Unless you want to take them to her and explain yourself? How would
you like that?'

'Jesus, Meg.' Kevin jumped to his feet and grabbed her by the wrists. 'Promise you won't go out
there. You have to stay away from Whitby Downs, do you hear me?'

'Why?'

'They're bad people, Meg. Really bad.'

'They're looking after your mother.'

'She's a prisoner, a hostage.'

'Let go of me!'

He released her, stepped back while she massaged her forearms, one at a time.

'Are you hearing yourself? I can't stand any more of this. Not tonight. I'll come back for the
clothes once you two have finished - whatever it is you're doing.'

They moved quickly once Meg had driven off. Kevin packed while Kala washed off two
days' worth of road dirt and blood. He sifted the kitchen for food, then scoured the other rooms for
a few possessions he might need. Clothes, his mobile phone, wallet, his father's .243 and a box of
ammo from the gun safe. Almost felt himself again, no longer a man without cash and licence. But the
rifle, well, that was the sinister element, the fact of his new reality. It wasn't kangaroo and wild
pig he'd be hunting. He left his house keys.

Kala dressed in a combination of his mother's and his clothes. A marked improvement over the
tracksuit Mira had turfed her out of Rockhampton with.

'I still need the camping gear,' he told her as she went over his inventory.

'Want me to bring the ute around while you finish up?'

'Nah, we're taking the Commodore.'

'You don't think it's too hot?'

'The ute can barely hit 100 going downhill.'

'Fair call,' she conceded.

'Besides, we'll have tunes.' He held up his mp3 player. 'You like Acca Dacca, don'tcha?'

'Oh dear.'

He winked, but he was painfully aware that the odds were against him, that they might never even
get to use half the stuff he'd just collected. Not if he failed to save his mother. He couldn't wait
to get behind the wheel of the Commodore and crank the stereo to high heaven. He had a desperate
craving to hear
Highway to Hell
.

Jasmine Turner had kept her last name. Not many did. It usually was the first thing
to be shed, a farewell to the past and a hello to the new, incomprehensible future. Most would give
up their mortal names - their mortal lives - entirely as they reinvented themselves; some would do
it over and over again. Ziggy Stardust had nothing on them. But not Turner and not Maximilian von
Schiller, who used the past as an anchor, grasping its stability but sacrificing flexibility and,
with it, the capacity for forgiveness. Old vampires bore old grudges and, standing again in the
living room of Whitby Downs, Reece found himself eager to get the hell out of there before a whole
flock of pigeons came home to roost. Despite Mira's assurances that Turner would not dare upset
Maximilian's apple cart, he just couldn't bring himself to trust the old bitch.

She sat facing him, holding court from a high-backed chair near the empty fireplace. The heat of
the day lingered in the room, though it had been cooling off outside when Reece had ducked out for
his sundowner cigarette. Through the window behind Turner's shoulder, out past the machinery shed
and the chopper pad and the boundary fence, the paddocks were fading into the darkness. He didn't
like that hill out there. It provided too much cover for someone approaching the house. Not that
anyone had yet. No, since they'd arrived two nights ago, there had been a whole lotta nothing out
there, and the tension was starting to tell.

'How much longer are you people going to be here?' Turner asked as Nigel, looking sour in his
black trousers and white shirt, did a circuit with a tray of drinks. Reece and Felicity, nominally
guarding the door, waved him away. Heather, Turner's piece of crumpet, sat at the piano looking
demure, also not drinking.

'You mean you don't like the guests I brought you?' Mira asked, taking a glass. She occupied an
armchair as far from the windows, and Turner, as she could.

'That
veggo
was of no use to me.'

'Oh, Jasmine, I thought you two would've had notes on farming, and things, to compare. I do hope
his offsiders are more to your taste.'

Turner wasn't a bloodhag but she was wily. It had taken a full night of sampling Bhagwan's
red-eyes to decide Mira hadn't planted them to spy on her; Reece was surprised either had enough
blood left to donate to this soiree. Turner had had no such qualms about the widow Matheson, the
poor woman, and had been spending most of her spare time with her.

'We're trying to run a business here,' Turner said. 'Hard enough to do in an inbred town like
this without your goon squad scaring the cattle and displacing my musterers.'

Reece could understand where she was coming from. The place was definitely overcrowded. An extra
squad of Gespenstenstaffel and two of mundane VS Security goons had arrived by road from Brisbane,
forcing Turner to send most of her workers away until the situation was resolved. The tower must've
been feeling pretty empty; no wonder Maximilian was pushing Mira to wrap this up quickly.

'I would be only too happy to leave you to get back to farming cow juice and peddling stolen
lifestreams, if only you could've divined the location of the Night Riders' hidey hole from Bhagwan
or his red-eyes.' Mira raised her glass. 'Tasty, by the way.'

'And now you have yet another body on her way here. Yet another one to account for when this
situation
has been
resolved
.'

'But I thought you and the widow were getting along well, Jasmine. A nice long lifestream for
your customers - the whole outback experience for them to sink their fangs into. I'm sure young Meg
will also have a certain flavour. She did say she was coming, didn't she, Felicity?'

'Tonight, after work, once she's collected the widow's gear. Which would be any time now, I
guess.'

'It doesn't matter how many you bring out here,' Turner said, making her point by getting to her
feet. She stood behind Heather, her hands on the pianist's shoulders as though drawing self-control
from her too-tense body. 'The mother, the girlfriend, the pet dog - it doesn't matter. The fact is,
the boy isn't coming. Face it. Either your mole didn't deliver, or the boy was too smart to fall for
such an obvious trap. He and his black tramp are long gone.'

'Oh, Kala delivered it, all right. I felt the connection last night. Faint, but I did feel it.
The grease monkey still has two days' play remaining until I "call stumps". I don't mind
sharing quarters with my Hunter, here, and I take it you don't mind having your
offsider
in
the coffin with you? It's only for a couple of nights more, I assure you.'

'It's unseemly,' Turner said. 'An abuse of my arrangement with your
master
. I am a
locutor, not some bailiwick for his lordship's empire.'

'If you'd delivered the biker on ice instead of insisting my men drive all the way out here, none
of this would've happened.'

'If you'd been more efficient at setting me up as your honey trap, this wouldn't be happening,'
Turner snapped.

Mira's mouth opened to retort, but she froze, distracted as though by something no one else could
hear. A bee or a fly, maybe; there was no shortage of flies, though they usually buggered off after
sundown.

Mira sprang to her feet. 'Felicity, Reece - let's take a reconnaissance flight, shall we? Give
Locutor
Turner her house back for a spell. She has so many guests to entertain, we shouldn't
take up all her attention.'

'You and that infernal machine,' Turner said. 'Spooking the stock, making tongues wag in the
town.'

Mira put her almost empty glass back on Nigel's tray. 'Get the pilot, Reece; I'll join you out
there. This red-eye piss goes right through me.'

Kevin drove south, AC/DC blaring fit to shake the car's doors. The repetitive beat
pounded like a wrecking ball at the hard concrete of his fear. He sang along to
Jailbreak
and
hoped he had better luck than the hapless escapee in that song. Tried to gee himself up with
Hell's Bells
, but stumbled over the line about dying young.

He was trying to convince himself that he was indeed
TNT
when he had to brake hard to
avoid overshooting the turnoff to Whitby Downs. Penny; poor Penny. Would he avenge her, or join her?

Kala turned the music down. 'You okay there, Angus?'

He overlooked the fact that Angus didn't sing - maybe that was her point. 'More of a Bon man,
myself.'

'Then don't drink too much.'

He huffed, wondering if there was a more serious message to her gag, and turned into the
property.

Iron letters spelt out the station's name, dangling on chains from a new-looking plain grey-steel
mailbox. Farther back from the road, insubstantial in the headlights, loomed a weather-worn timber
arch with the almost illegible property name carved into it. A shiver passed through him as he
recalled Mira's blood message.

'No guards,' Kevin said.

'Not out here.'

Kevin eyed the box. 'Maybe I could sneak in with whoever collects the mail.'

'Only if they wait till night time. C'mon, let's take a squiz. There's a good spot, a windmill-'

'How do you know that?'

'I've been here before, remember.'

'Of course you have. I never even thought of that until now. All of you - you came here to rescue
Taipan, and then you shot the shit out of the servo. You killed my dad. You killed me. Jesus Christ,
Kala, you lot even killed the dogs!' He turned off the engine and twisted in his seat to face her
front-on. 'Which one were you, out there on the bikes while we were lying dead on the floor?'

'I was there. I did my share; I admit it. But we weren't after you and we weren't after your
dad.'