Blood & Dust (38 page)

You're going outside?

Goin' to ground
Wink

The earth is your friend

As the biker's thoughts swirled through his own, he found himself making a
connection he had never expected. Kevin's desperate bid to save his mother found an echo in Taipan's
life, but this girl was young and beautiful and dressed in white. She was the reason beyond all
reason, the one saving grace, the one driving need. Lying in the embrace of the earth, Kevin thought
he felt the planet quake with the intensity of Taipan's love for his sister.

Reece stood in the kitchen, washing down painkillers with rum. The rogue bitch had
clocked him a beauty. If he'd been mortal, truly mortal, the blow would've killed him. But the laugh
was on her, right?

Boom-crash.

Maximilian von Schiller wasn't laughing. The Big V's rant crackled from the telephone Mira held
at a distance, as though he might reach down the line and rip her brain out through her ear.

Felicity leaned against the door jamb. She'd been disappointed to have missed the battle and now
she was doing her damndest to ignore the body still leaking blood on the floor. The light from the
kerosene lamp on the bench softened her features. She gave him a raised-eyebrow look as Maximilian
hit a high note. The gesture made him feel so very old.

Mira clamped a hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, 'He loved his helicopter. I have to buy
him a new one.' She rolled her eyes and Reece and Felicity shared a conspiratorial grin, but they
both knew the shit was dripping from the fan. Mira hung up and walked over to Reece. 'Well, that
went well. Pour me one of those.' She swilled the rum, spat it into the sink, leaving a pink tinge.
Not his, thankfully, and he hadn't been game to ask her for a top-up. He'd have to rely on
paracetamol to fix his aches.

'Now, where was I? Oh, yes.' She'd been interrogating a wounded red-eye when Maximilian had rung;
she'd killed the hippie through distraction or irritation, but not before she'd found something in
his lifestream. Mira scribbled an address on a notebook. 'Send a squad to check this place. The
nest. Near Stonehenge.' She gave Reece a smile.

'We don't have a full squad, Strigoi.'

'Then send
someone
, Reece. I need to find Mother!' She stood, locked in desperation and
fury, the change of mood so sudden and dangerous that Reece dared only nod and say, 'Of course.'

'Is there
any
good news?' Mira asked.

'I just got here with the swag from the mechanic's car,' Felicity said. 'Nothing in it to suggest
where Dani- where Dee might be hiding.'

'Get the judas or someone to get rid of the grease monkey's gear. No trace. And this, too.' She
kicked the body on the floor. 'Reece?'

'We still have Matheson's mother, though she's in rough shape. Took two to the chest. The Night
Riders have been largely eradicated, but it's cost us. Also, we've lost an outrider during the
search outside the fence - dead, bike stolen.'

'So at least one got out, other than the two in the panel van. The grease monkey?'

'Haven't found his body yet.'

Mira took a pendant from her pocket and dangled it in front of her, then turned around so
Felicity could tie it at her neck. 'You won't. He's still alive, I'm certain of it. I can't get a
lock, though. We've got no idea where he might be headed. Unless - hit me again.'

Reece poured her another shot. She swallowed this one, and tasted it for a long time, nodding to
herself. A slow grin twisted her tight lips.

'Is there a plan?' he prodded eventually.

'Oh, yes. Our lord and master wants us back in 'Bane, as fast as we can drive. Us and all our
men.' She snorted. 'With a kiss on Jasmine's arse on the way out, for all the trouble we've caused.'

'She can't stay here, surely?' Felicity said. 'Someone must've noticed all this kerfuffle.'

'Like who? Anyway, it's Jasmine's choice,' Mira said. 'We're footing the costs. You're staying
here, my dear, to oversee the grand kiss-and-make up.'

Felicity looked away in a huff.

'Trust me, you're better off. My advice would be to make the clean-up take as long as you can,
certainly till the dust has settled back at Schloss Unhappy. You'll probably end up being promoted.
God knows there's enough vacancies.'

'I'll make a start now,' Felicity said. 'Make sure Smithy's hunt for Matheson doesn't come this
way. I'm meeting him at the Commodore once the tow truck from Nancy has arrived.'

'Nancy? What's that?'

'En-Cee,' she said. 'As in North Collinsvale. The nearest shithole to this one. Barlow's Siding
seems to have lost its only garage.'

'"Nancy",' Reece said. 'You going native on us, Flick?'

'Don't call me that. And not bloody likely. I haven't heard a tune more recent than 1960 since I
got here.'

'Get yourself a player,' Mira said. 'And stay in touch.' The girl left and Mira turned to Reece.
'Gets into your blood, doesn't she?'

He shrugged.

'Give the men their marching orders while I make nice with the lady of the house. Keep a car for
you and me.'

'Just us?' He tried not to let his depression show. It was going to be a long trip without a
relief driver. Mira didn't drive. She'd done pretty well at keeping herself updated, but that skill
set was one she hadn't mastered. Word was, Maximilian couldn't even use a smart phone, let alone an
ATM. And they fancied themselves the top of the food chain.

'Don't be like that, Reece.
Vater
said we had to go home but he didn't say which route to
take.' She fingered the pendant dangling above her breasts. 'You and I will take a small detour. We
should be able to get there by dawn.'

'By dawn?' He checked his watch. 'How far away is this place?'

'Not that far. This one's personal; just you and me. Of course, if that makes you uneasy, I could
take
Flick
.'

'Where are we going, Strigoi? What should I expect?'

'Pack a full kit and a good pair of hiking shoes. There's a gorge I want to check out.'

The earth grew quiet. No explosions. No voices. No footfalls. How much time had
passed, Kevin had no idea. It could've been centuries. It could've been seconds. But he couldn't
stay. Up there, the enemy had his mother, and Acacia and Taipan and everyone - everyone - was gone.
He was the night watchman - it was up to him.

He rose, quietly, dirt sloughing from him, his body aching where wounds remained tender, where
hunger clawed at his hollow gut. Cool night air wrapped around him, the ground at his back, stars
overhead. Silence; no birds, no licking of flame, no engines or conversation.

Wait.

A creak of timber. Muttered words. The spark of a lighter and the burst of cigarette smell. Not
Taipan's noxious roll-your-owns, but the more cutting reek of a tailor-made penetrating the smell of
blood and burnt timber, gunpowder and guts. He ignored the memory of another razed ruin, of emerging
from the earth at the rear of the service station to find his world in ashes.

Someone was close by, and Kevin was lying on the ground, naked.

He rolled over to take a better look around. None of the spotlights were on; there were no lights
at all, just moonlight masking the battlefield in shadows and, at the house, one window glowing
orange. The people he'd heard were there, two of them, on the shattered remains of the veranda. He
crawled into the garage and found the clothes he'd stashed; he'd be barefoot, but at least he
wouldn't be creeping around with his old fella swinging in the wind.

Once he was dressed, he sneaked over to the house, then stood to squint through the gap between
the veranda floor and bottom rail. Two guards stood at the front door - a man and woman in denim and
checked shirts; him with a pump-action shotgun, her with a rifle. Bhagwan's myxos. That glow in the
window - candle or lantern, he guessed. The front stairs looked as if someone had taken a giant
sledge hammer to them: a jagged hole, timbers strewn everywhere, the roof sagging, the iron twisted
out of shape.

'How much longer?' the woman asked.

'When she says,' the man answered, words a blue cloud driven by stress, the gun cradled in his
arm as he took another suck on his flaring cigarette.

The woman reached to share a drag. 'What if the neighbours heard the battle?'

'There's no-one within coo-ee.'

'Noise travels at night.'

'We're fine.' He took his cigarette back. 'Better than that lot, anyway.'

'Jesus,' she said. 'Couldn't they have buried them or something before they left?'

Kevin edged around so he could see the front yard.

Jesus indeed.

Hippie lay there, buried in a tangled pile of bodies; the man's sightless eyes stared at the sky
from a face caked in ash, dirt and blood. Kevin recognised a Lions footy jersey thrown on the mound,
but there was no body. All that remained of the front gate was a crater, lopsided posts and
scattered rails. The Jeep was a smouldering beetle frame, the chopper little more than a dead
bonfire stack outside the fence. The carcasses of cattle littered the area. Bizarrely, one
grey-skinned bullock munched on grass in the far corner of the yard, oblivious to the destruction.

Kevin wondered how to get inside. Could he jump the rail and get to the guards before they gunned
him down? A single shot would bring all manner of hell down on him. Would the rear be guarded? The
windows? His gut churned, his vision blurring momentarily. The two guards radiated heat. Human heat.
He could all but hear their hearts. He realised just how tired, how hurt, how
hungry
he was.
He needed a distraction, just to buy him the time to get to them.

He sifted through Taipan's blood memories. He had the earth; what about the shadow walk? Taipan
appearing on the road, and again in the hut where Mira had kept him trussed. Could he - yes, he
could do that.

His heart beat to the rhythm of clap sticks, his breath was a didgeridoo. He felt a piece of
himself break free and appear out by the Jeep. His doppelganger advanced slowly, jerkily. His vision
doubled, making him reel: watching himself walk toward the house, watching himself watch himself
walk toward the house.

Christ, but it was hard work.

Finally, he managed to separate the images, to focus on controlling the doppelganger without
being in its head.

'Who's that?' the woman asked, the words jagged, the gun coming up to her shoulder.

'Markson?' the man suggested, taking a firm bite of his cigarette as he hefted the shotgun. He
walked cautiously to the ruined stairs.

'What would he be doing back here?'

'Markson?' he called, but quietly, too quietly to carry the distance.

The woman walked to his side, rifle held in readiness. 'That isn't Markson. Jesus, who is that?'

Kevin lifted himself over the rail-

'Where'd he go?' the man asked, alarmed.

-hit the floor with a soft
thunk
of bare feet.

'He just vanished!' The woman, nearer to Kevin, gasped in confusion, and turned, acknowledging
that sound, that movement behind her-

Kevin jabbed her in the chin. A crack. Her gun clattered on the floor as she tumbled off the
veranda and thumped into the ground. The man stared at her. Kevin snatched the shotgun away, then
slammed the butt into the man's face. The myxo landed hard on his arse up against a veranda post.
Blood dribbled from his nose.

Kevin swayed, his mind floating from the effort of summoning the doppelganger, from the adrenalin
rush, from the elation. He slumped to his knees in front of the myxo. The man's hand rose, feebly,
lips forming a 'who' or perhaps 'what the fuck', but the words never came.

Kevin swallowed them.

He opened that man's throat and he feasted, barely tasting the fear and the pain and the anguish.
Not caring that last night this man and that unconscious woman had been in love, planning how best
to fully stock Jasmine's property, to milk the herd of its blood and transport it to Brisbane to
feed the insatiable Von Schiller machine.

In the myxo's blood, Kevin found that Bhagwan had reportedly been dusted, that Mira and what
remained of her troops had left an hour or more ago in separate vehicles, that this pair were in
fact the last of Jasmine's retainers on the property. It was only their fear of Mira, of Jasmine, of
age, that had kept them here.

And the blood told him what he most wanted to know - that Jasmine and Willa were still here; that
the old girl was acting weird, sitting in the lounge with her living dead doll, the judas surfie and
the boy's -
Kevin's
- mother.

Kevin managed to stop before he drained him.

He did not want the man's soul inside of him.

The hunger led him down to the woman. He opened her throat, too. When he was done, when he could
move again, when his body was fat and warm and no longer aching, with his fangs retracted and the
bloody smears cooling on his cheeks, he fought back the pressing need to piss, his bladder distended
so tightly it felt as if it would burst like an over-ripe fig. But all he could think of was being
caught beside these two bodies with his cock in his hand. He sneaked, sluggish but alert, with the
shotgun to the front door to listen, and realised only then that he could've sealed those wounds
he'd made. A little dab of his own blood would've done the job. But he didn't want to be in them,
any more than he wanted them in him. He locked their phantasmal lives into rooms in his mind, as
Danica had taught him; locked them away with his guilt and wondered which would fade faster.

Taipan would be proud; Kevin would figure out how he felt about it later. Once he'd rescued his
mother. Once he'd put all this far behind him.

One wall of the lounge room gaped open, jagged edged, the ceiling fallen, the
window shattered, the curtain a burnt rag. The piano lay at an angle, the stool kicked into a corner
with a pile of broken, blackened wood. The stench of burnt things made the air thick; a dusty halo
glimmered around the kerosene lantern sitting on the mantel.