Blood & Dust (44 page)

'I won't fight you, my daughter,' Danica whispered.

'Then you can watch these two die. Tell me, did you have any pet names for them?'

Danica knelt by Cassie's body, then reached out, her hands bloody. 'Please, Daughter - enough.
You can have me, if that's what you want. We'll be together, just the two of us, family again. But
leave these people alone. Leave them to be free.'

'Free? Free to pillage and rape? To burn and destroy and bring us all into the light?' She
glanced up, paused to reef her hood over her head. Then she stalked toward Kevin.

Behind him, Kala's breathing was shallow, her fingers curling and uncurling. He staggered to meet
Mira, the HeartStopper behind his back, knowing he had only the one chance.

'Stop!' Danica reached for Mira, fingers clenched as though pulling on reins.

Mira paused mid-stride, stiffened, then pushed through with a shake of her head.

'Assume the position, Grease Monkey. It'll be easier if you don't move. Necks are tough, you
know.' She drew the sword back.

He lunged.

She caught him, holding him one-handed against her chest as he fell against her, and reversed her
grip ready to plunge the sword into him.

He reefed at the rim of her vest, then stabbed the staker into her side, angling upward. The
staker bucked as it fired.

Mira stumbled back and he sagged. The sword clanged to the ground as she clutched her side

- the inch of steel in Taipan's chest -

and stumbled to one knee. She clawed at the buckles of her vest until she was able to hurl the
flexible carapace away.

Kevin's blood burned as he fought to reach her, to stand, to finish this.

'I will kill you for this, Grease Monkey,' Mira told him through gritted teeth as she dug at her
flesh. 'I will make you eat this spike.'

Danica reached out to Mira as though holding her head between her hands.

Blood trickled from Mira's eyes, her nose, the corners of her mouth. A stain spread across her
groin. Her skin glistened with a red sheen. She clawed at her chest. Her top tore under her nails;
she pressed her palm against the bubbling crimson and silver on her left breast.

Kevin picked up Cassie's sword and advanced, one leaden step at a time.

Mira reached for him, for his blood. She clasped her left wrist with her red right hand and one
of the scar bracelets turned fluid, an evil worm squirming under her flesh. He saw through Mira's
eyes:

His mother on the couch, fighting futilely, as his/Mira's fangs opened her flesh and her life
flowed into him/her

Himself through his mother's eyes, attacking Meg

Fleeing, bloodstained and monstrous, with Kala

And he felt:

That horrible dagger in his heart of a child turned to monster. Of a child he
still loved

That incredible depth of hate for this woman who was killing him/her

He shrugged out of whatever spell Mira had cast, surfaced from his mother's
second-hand lifestream, and stumbled forward, and heard Kala shouting so faintly, and heard Danica,
felt her inside his mind pushing at him, trying to stay his hand, but his hate was a bushfire and he
blazed through it all.

He thrust down at Mira, thrust down at the woman who'd killed his mother, who'd consumed her
life's memories. He would drain her, drain her to the last drop, and he would have his mother back.

He stabbed - stabbed through the resistance of flesh using all his desperate strength.

When his vision cleared, he was looking at Danica, transfixed on his blade.

Dark blood poured from her mouth.

Mira grabbed him from behind. 'Like mother, like son,' she snarled as she bore him down. 'Little
rays of sunshine.'

Her fangs sank into his shoulder. He fought to stay upright, his eyes locked on Danica's as she
toppled backward, her hands working to remove that great iron weight from her body.

He'd kill Mira for tricking him. He'd tear the bitch's head off. If only he could get her off
him! If only she didn't kill him first.

'I will take you as I took your mother,' she said in his ear, her arms locked tightly around him.
Her gory fangs flashed in the corner of his vision. 'And then I will
consume
your precious
Danica and even your little half-breed whore over there, if she's got anything left, and we'll all
be together. Forever. Won't that be
nice
.'

Her teeth found his flesh again and he screamed.

She jerked sideways. Her fangs ripped a chunk out of his flesh as she was dragged away. Her
momentum carried him with her, knocking him to the ground as she lost her grip on him. Kevin rolled
free; rolled free in time to see Mira and Kala locked in each other's embrace. They reeled in some
sick dance as Kala, her dagger in Mira's back, steered them over the edge of the cliff.

And where they fell, in the space they left behind, he saw sunlight bathing the cliff opposite.
He saw two people sitting there on a rocky projection, holding hands over the body of a third. He
saw them crumbling like sandcastles in the surf. Then he was screaming, screaming,
screaming…

When Kevin came to his senses, he was on his knees being cradled by Danica, her
bloody wrist to his mouth.

'Better?' She pulled away, leaving him swaying.

'A little. What just happened?'

'Blood calls to blood,' she said.

'Taipan?'

'You tell me.'

Where Taipan had been, that shadowy presence inside his head, there was nothing. A sensation of
lightness, but also of emptiness. He shook his head, then levered himself to his feet. 'Kala? Mira?'

She pointed to the cliff.

Swearing, he lurched past Cassie's body to the edge. Sunlight bathed the other side of the gorge.
The cliff where he'd seen Taipan was bare but for a few piles of clothing. Vertigo struck. He was
high up, very high. Could even Mira have survived a fall like that? Maybe she'd hit a dead tree, was
lying impaled down there by a sapling through the chest. Or maybe Kala was. Movement caught his
attention. Mira, like a giant fly, crawling up the rock wall, scrabbling from hand hold to hand
hold. She called, inside him; she wanted him so!

Step forward, come to me.

He gritted his teeth with the effort of resistance. Could feel Danica in his blood, that fresh
infusion sparking the lessons she'd taught him.

Lock her away. Lock her out. Do not take a step.

Mira was closer, her eyes shining purple, her face ruddy and sheened with bloody sweat.

A bullet took her in the shoulder. For an instant, she held on. Then gravity peeled her away. She
arced down, swallowed in the trees at the base of the cliff with a distant crack and thump.

Kevin shook himself free of her influence and stepped back from the rim. Danica stood beside him,
Reece's pistol still pointed down the cliff, his sword in her other hand.

'Can you see Kala?' she asked.

'No.'

'Take it,' she said, passing him the pistol. 'I hate these things. And this.'

He sheathed the sword and holstered the pistol. 'How do I get down there?'

'Climb.' She glanced at the sky, so light, so hot, and considered dead Cassie for a moment. Then
she crouched on the cliff edge and lowered herself.

'Trust the blood,' she said. 'Let it guide you. Try it without your boots.'

Awkward. But he did as she said and followed her, letting his instincts guide his feet and hands
despite the sword swinging from his hip, the ground threatening to rise up and smack him like a
cockroach. They reached a scree slope dotted with boulders, wrapped in vine, peppered with saplings
that offered darker shade. His muscles ached, his face felt as if he was running a fever. Danica
slid down nearby. Her skin was pulled tight across her cheekbones; her eyes were black pits lit by
green embers.

'There,' she said, pointing.

Kala had landed in a young tree and snapped through its branches to lay crumpled at the base.

Mira stood over her.

He pulled the pistol. 'Leave her alone!'

'She's got nothing I need.' Mira leaned against the tree trunk, one arm dangling limply,
squinting with the loss of her sunglasses. She looked like a bug bounced off a car windshield. But
she had her pistol pointed at them, however unsteadily.

'You can't beat both of us,' Danica said. 'It's over.'

Mira shook her head and lowered the pistol with a look of relief, as though she'd been lifting a
great weight. 'Looks like you've got a choice, Grease Monkey. You might be able to take me. You
might be able to save her. But you certainly can't do both.' She backed away, hobbling down the
slope where the trees were thicker. The vegetation quickly hid her from view. For just an instant,
he felt Mira's rage, her despair.

'She's gone,' he told Danica, and scrambled to Kala.

'For now,' Danica said.

'Kala?' He felt for her pulse. 'Still alive.' He looked at Danica where she pulled up behind him
in a flurry of pebbles, a nearby vine tearing at her cloak. She pulled at it angrily and adjusted
for maximum shade.

'Can you help her?' he asked.

'She's too badly hurt to heal. Only one of
us
could come back from that sort of injury.'

'I don't know if she'd want that.'

'I am the last person to advise on who to save, if saving is the right word. You knew her best.
It's your decision.'

'Kala? Kala? What should I do?'

Breathing so thin, so soft, her bloodstained chest barely rising. In her fist, his pendant,
clutched so tight he was afraid to open her fingers to take it. Holding on, he thought.
She's
holding on. To me
. He opened a fresh cut on her arm with his dagger and fed, taking her into him
in small, careful slurps. He had to fight to keep his hunger at bay. Danica's powerful blood had got
him up and moving, but he was badly hurt. He needed more.

'She must have a foot in both worlds,' Danica cautioned. 'Not too little, not too much.'

He felt Kala's life, its myriad joys and pains, felt her energy fading. Heard the birds so loud,
the crows raucous and echoing; he wanted to swear at them, but his mouth was filled with her blood,
his lips were sealed to her flesh, his teeth buried in her. She faltered. Her heartbeat losing
rhythm, striving, striving, then failing.

He bled for her. Willed her to live.
Live.

In the corner of his vision, he saw Danica nod. 'The seed has taken. You've done well.'

Kevin collapsed, exhausted.

'We need to get her out of the sunlight. The Rover's too far away, more's the pity: we could use
the decant. She'll be hungry when she wakes, too.'

'I got nothin' left,' he said. 'Let me at least bind these wounds. She's bled enough.'

Scratches. This is heavier kadaicha. All the way to the soul.

He opened the first-aid kit he'd taken from Hunter. Bandages, but nowhere near
enough, and two vials, metal, stoppered. He opened them cautiously. Blood. The scent thickened,
achingly familiar. Mira's blood, stale but unmistakable. Emergency rations for her Favourite.

'Not for her,' Danica said, a restraining hand on his shoulder. 'Not while she's in the change.
Yours and yours alone.'

He drained the vials. And saw, as through a fog:

Mira stumbling through the bush

Huddled under her coat

Desperation and panic driving her as the sun lashed her

Still running. Good.

He shut her out.

He had to get Kala to safety, and then he had to go home. Home to bury his mother. To work out
what he was going to do next. He looked at Kala, bruised and bloodied and bandaged, one foot in
death and one in the unlife, the half life. Would she thank him or curse him?

They had to go the long way, clambering like drunks back up the ridge and across to the cave.
Handprints in white and ochre, outlines of kangaroos and more obscure animals, decorated the walls.
He retrieved Cassie's body - so horrible, carrying her severed head, those eyes and the dust and the
blood, her lips open in a sigh, a glimpse of tongue. It was a relief to cover her with his shirt
then crawl as far away as he could.

They made Kala comfortable far at the back where the musk of animals and dust enveloped them, the
air cool and dark. The three of them spent the day there, each in their own private world of hurt,
waiting for the night to fall so they could start again.

The dusty ochre ball of the rising sun blazed low in the east. Reece squinted
against the glare as he dug the first-aid kit from the glove compartment and swallowed both vials of
decanted Type O. He thumped his head against the headrest as the rush filtered through him. Nowhere
near as good as straight from the vein, a little vinegary due to the anti-coagulant needed to keep
the blood viable, but still, better than nothing.

He found the water bottle, rinsed and spat.

What a fucking disaster.

He lit a cigarette. West, to the main road, and then - north to Cairns? Would that be far enough
away from Brissie to be off VS's radar? What about Darwin, those long monsoon summers? Perth, all on
its lonesome on the west coast. If Mira was alive, she still had his blood in that bracelet of hers.
She could find him, no problems at all. He'd thought occasionally about cutting that hand off, but
then, the fucking thing probably would've choked him to death all by itself.

He started the engine and hit the air-con, then the radio. Nothing but static. He'd seen the
aerials torn off, he remembered now. No matter. He could always stop in a town and phone it in: sit
rep and retirement at the same time. What about the Jag? The shaggin' wagon? Turner had the keys to
the Jaguar; if Matheson and Co. survived their run-in with Mira, they'd earned their ride. If Mira
won out, well, at least she'd have a shady spot to wait for Felicity to turn up with the troops.

The four-wheel-drive rolled forward and he turned the wheel, bringing it around in an arc to head
west.