The Big Smoke Page 14

  Kevin slumped against the wall. 'Danica might.'

  'She might,' the Needle conceded with a nod.

  'Do you think the girl is the trap?' Yoshi asked.

  'I've seen VS do this before,' Kevin said. 'They put a blood trace in. Follow along behind. Wipe everyone out.'

  'Your amulet has deadened any signal, though,' the Needle said. 'Plus, I've worked a little mojo of my own. My tattoos don't just look pretty.'

  'I hate to say this,' Kevin said, 'but the risk is too great.'

  'There is another consideration,' the Needle said. 'I believe you're right, that Maximilian put her in bedlam. She's awash with Max's blood and all the lives he's taken. Who knows what secrets slipped out with the rest of his evil old life? You want a way into the tower? You want to know who the enemy of your enemy is? She can tell you. Maybe. If she's brought back.'

  'My offer still stands, pal,' Yoshi said. 'My boss can keep Danica safe.'

  'Why would he, or she, do that?'

  'He. He hopes her famed blood-magic can find someone who's missing. No one else has been able to.'

  'Did you ask Mira?'

  'Before the bedlam, you mean? Danica is, by all accounts, the more powerful. Besides, my boss and Maximilian have history.'

  'And what are you offering?'

  'Haven. If she agrees to meet my boss, regardless of whether she can find his missing person or not, he will help her re-establish herself anywhere in the world. Or, if she wants to work with him, she will have his absolute protection.'

  'I don't think she's the lackey kind of woman.'

  'Haven, then. That's got to be attractive to someone who's lost everything and is on the run.'

  Kevin looked away, a vision of Mel in front of him, her pale skin pockmarked with bites and bullet holes, her eyes staring. His fault.

  'And I get as much firepower as you can supply.'

  Yoshi nodded.

  'This missing person — what's the deal? Danica won't help your boss hunt someone's head.'

  'The details are only for Danica.'

  'Listen,' Kevin said. 'I'm stumbling around in the dark here. No one is telling me jack shit and it's getting people killed. Killed, and worse. If you want me to help you convince her, then I need to know what your boss wants. It must be important if he's willing to risk going up against Maximilian.'

  'He thinks so.'

  'Well?'

  'It's a long story.'

  'We've got all afternoon.'

  Yoshi held up his hands in surrender. 'Okay, have it your way. It's like this: my boss, Rodan, had a sister. Has a sister; called Brigitte. A long time ago — a very long time ago — she and he were made vampire. But she was the squeeze of an asshole by the name of Uhgrau. He's a magician, of sorts. He feeds on the blood of witches, preferably ones from his own family. Yeah, I told you he was an asshole. The short of it is this: Uhgrau holds Brigitte as security; Uhgrau does little jobs for Rodan, Rodan does little jobs for Uhgrau. What Rodan would really like is to find Brigitte and cut his co-dependence on Uhgrau entirely. He's hoping that Danica will trace Brigitte's location.'

  'She'd need a sample of her blood, for starters.'

  'Rodan has it. To prove that Brigitte is still alive, Uhgrau gave him a special kind of jar with her blood in it. While it glows, she's still alive. But no one has been able to use it to track her down.'

  'And if Danica can? This Uhgrau isn't going to give his edge up without a fight.'

  'Danica has only to find her. Rodan will worry about retrieval. Which will be interesting.'

  'When you people say things are interesting, that usually means all hell's about to break loose.'

  'Fucking A.'

  'It's taking a big risk, isn't it, pissing off Uhgrau and Max?'

  'Rodan will piss off anyone if it means even half a chance of getting Brigitte back. That's what families do, I guess.'

  'I guess so. I'll ask Danica. But I hope you've got a plan B, if she says no.'

  THIRTY-TWO

  That night, Kevin went up to the shopping centre's roof — it felt important to have open sky above him; he would've loved to have had earth under him, too, but there was nowhere nearby he could sit and be sure of being undisturbed. The sky would have to be enough.

  Legs crossed, hands in his lap, he closed his eyes and focused on Kala. His blood was in her, and they'd agreed that, while no phone numbers would be exchanged, the blood link between creator and created would remain open. He couldn't think of her as his daughter, or his servant; he didn't know how to think about her, now she was blood of his blood, as Danica so poetically described it.

  He reached out, feeling for Kala's presence: her breath, her voice, her essence. And found her — on a beach under the sharp leaves of a melaleuca, watching white caps by moonlight, her two red-eyes playing guitar by a campfire on the beach.

  His forehead throbbed with concentration, his blood churned as he manifested his doppelganger. He'd never tried this over such a distance.

  The serenade stopped on an abrupt off-note as the red-eyes scrambled to their feet. They were hazy on the edge of his vision, but Kala was more solid: cut-off shorts, singlet and jacket, fringe playing across her forehead in the breeze. She looked beautiful, arms around raised knees; moonlight striking an emerald gleam from her eyes. He remembered — felt — being with her, in her, her blood and body as one with his. But that had been before the showdown with Mira. Before Kala had gone over the cliff and he'd had to bring her across to save her. He still wasn't convinced he'd made the right decision.

  He walked the doppelganger toward her, hands by his side, palms out. The fake Kevin flickered as his concentration ebbed and flowed.

  'Hey, Kala.'

  'Still kicking, then.'

  'Still pissed with me, then.'

  She huffed.

  'You aren't still in Cairns.'

  'Of course not. We left as soon as your tail light had gone round the corner.'

  'I'd never betray you.'

  'You've still got blood in your veins, haven't you? Look, just forget it. What do you want?'

  'Well, there's this bloke in Sydney called Rodan.'

  'I've heard of him. Their version of Max von Shitter.'

  'He wants to ask Danica a favour.'

  'Tell him to send her an email.'

  'Please. It's important.'

  'Gonna help you on your crusade, is he?'

  'There's a problem.'

  'Of course there is.'

  'There's this girl—'

  'That was quick work.'

  'It's not like that.'

  'Of course it isn't.'

  'She's in bedlam.'

  'So?'

  'Danica could cure her.'

  'Maybe. Why should she?'

  'Protection. Rodan's offering a ticket to anywhere. If Dee helps the girl, and if she hears — just hears — Rodan's offer.'

  'So this girl, she isn't actually Rodan's project. She's yours. Another casualty of your vengeance kick. We told you—'

  'It's horrible, Kala. Max did it.'

  'He did, did he?' She looked through the doppelganger, out to sea. 'I'll ask Dee.'

  'You want my number?' he asked.

  'Oh, I've got your number. Fine, give it to me.'

  He relayed the number of the mobile the Needle had provided. She repeated it.

  'Go away,' she said.

  He did.

  She rang in the morning and told him where to meet and when. She hung up before he could say thanks.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Reece remembers the heat. Trapped in the cab of the broken-down four-wheel-drive, run out of something due to sabotage, the heat slowly roasting… her.

  The hunger is hotter than hot. It ravages her where she lies on the back seat, cooking from the inside, cooking from the out. Her body is a mass of pain, broken bones without the wherewithal to heal; sliced and bruised skin. The sun sears through the windows. She is a husk, home to hunger; to that incredibly hollow need that o
nly the red rush can fill.

  Reece sits up front, vile cigarette smoke invading her nose and throat and lungs, a clogging cancer. There is dust in her wounds and her mouth, her eyes. She is the earth after drought, after bushfire.

  She needs the red rain.

  How they clamour, those ghosts within. Her control seared into nothing; they ravage and roam, a furious mob chanting for blood.

  If only she'd taken Mother when she could. Drunk on victory, cruel with lust. Take the victory; rub the defeated faces in the glory later.

  She knows he knows, can smell the fear, the alertness, the gun oil. His tension vibrates through the seat, through the floor, through the air.

  She will not kill him. She will not sate herself with his blood. Not his. Not after all these years. It would be like eating a pet dog.

  The heat increases. The hollowness increases. The need increases.

  He gets out of the car. Hot air rushes in, a flash of brightness. She moans. Is surprised to hear the noise.

  A car. Voices. She coils. She hopes, in her desperation, that he isn't the one to open that door.

  A shout. The door opens. Pure sunlight blasts her. She lunges. And there is molten heat in her mouth and under her claws. She is swimming in the sun. She sinks, and sinks, and sinks.

  Around her in the redness, the ghosts dance like solar flares.

  They will have blood.

  Reece surfaced.

  The solar blindness shrank, to reveal cream walls, ceiling, sheets.

  Hospital.

  He retched, reached for water and drank straight from the plastic container. When he lowered it, a crimson drip splashed into the water and evaporated into nothingness. And then another. He wiped his nose and the back of his hand came away smeared red.

  There were two tubes in his arm: one clear, one scarlet.

  He was on the eleventh floor of Thorn; Hospitaller Tran's kingdom. There, only three beds away, was the door to the isolation area where Mira was housed. In the bed next to his, Nigel flipped through a magazine of surfboards and girls in bikinis.

  'Welcome back, boss.'

  Boss. Better than dude.

  'The other two?' he asked.

  Nigel shook his head, flipped a page. 'Like you said, boss — they weren't red-eyes.'

  A nurse approached. 'Awake at last.'

  She checked his tubes. His temperature. His blood pressure and pulse. Maybe the anaesthetic had run out, because in the time it took her to ask him how he felt, his body went from general numbness to feeling as if he'd been caught in a hail storm of cricket balls. But hot.

  He'd been dreaming; of being Mira in the outback, after they'd been done over by Matheson. She'd never let on just how close to the edge she'd been. Not until Felicity had arrived with the reinforcements, and Mira had killed the first trooper to open the door. It'd taken four of them to get her staked out. By then the soldier's throat was a ragged mess, his blood soaking into the dry earth. And when they'd taken out the stake, back here in that security ward, she'd been gone. Deep, deep in bedlam.

  'Click here,' the nurse said, pushing a handgrip into his palm. 'It'll help.'

  'You right, boss?' Nigel asked.

  Reece clicked. The nurse smiled encouragement. 'It's okay, you can't OD. It's measured.'

  He clicked again, then asked Nigel, kind of hazy in the brightness, 'And the girl?'

  'They got her, just like you said.'

  The nurse said, 'Well, I'll leave you to talk.'

  'How long?'

  'About twenty-four hours, boss. They tagged you good.'

  'I remember... You dragged me across the road. Through the traffic.'

  'Yeah. Once they had the girl, they kinda lost interest. Quick thinking, that, pushing the trolley out. Guess that's why you were a Hunter, eh?'

  'I guess.' He fell back against the pillows and hit the button a couple more times, waiting for the meds to kick in.

  When he opened his eyes again, Nigel was gone and Marshall was standing over him.

  'They told me you were awake.'

  'They lied.'

  She sat on the edge of the bed. The nurse hurried over, exchanged glances with Marshall; the nurse left. Marshall's fingers thrummed a discordant beat; she wanted a cigarette, he guessed. A bourbon, too. He reached for the water jug and she poured him a glass. In this light, her eyes were a deep brown, hard as timber. The real stuff. No veneer.

  'We were never going to come out looking good on this one, Reece. It was only luck that I heard you'd been seconded and was able to get a support team sent out in time.'

  'Nine lives, that's me.' Which struck a chord, a memory, of Petersen. When? More lives than a black cat, Reecey. When? Downstairs, arriving? Or up here in some post-surgery, post-transfusion haze?

  'I don't suppose you know what happens next?' she asked.

  He didn't, and she topped up his glass.

  'Petersen and Newman have been reassigned to special duties. A squad of GS has been sent on a mission too secret for me to know about. And Heinrich is pissing blood about something to do with his Fallschirmjaeger.'

  'Petersen? I think he came by to gloat. Cleaning up my mess.'

  'I wouldn't bet on it. He'd been staking out that abandoned coffee roasters' warehouse in the Valley ever since the poet's moll spilled the beans.'

  Reece pulled himself upright. 'Not the sharpest pencil in the box, but his kind always survives.'

  'We may have another problem. This was found at the scene of the ambush.' She showed him a silver brooch in the shape of a dancing skeleton with top hat and cane.

  'Viscounts? I didn't think there were any left.'

  'Rebuilding, it would seem. And helping the Romantics; or fucking them over. We know that Melpomene helped Matheson kidnap Rabbit from the roller derby.'

  'So did that Snipe of the Needle's, I bet. She was there at the tattoo shop; she was there at the cemetery. No, this is the Needle at work. Sowing red herrings.'

  'That a pun, Reece?'

  'Yeah, I'm in stitches.'

  She smiled, and it touched her eyes, a trace of honey. 'Good to see you haven't lost your humour. You'll need it.'

  'Oh.'

  'Officially, you're on sick leave. Unofficially, I agree with you. The Needle is up to something. We also found this at the scene of the ambush.' She unfolded a piece of paper from her pocket. A photo printout of a gun lying on bitumen with a yellow square with a number 14 next to it. 'From the same batch as the ones you identified from the Debacle. Whoever armed Taipan's gang to go up against Jasmine Turner also armed the streeters who rolled you yesterday.'

  'I traced those guns — they were meant for a military depot outside Sydney. Rodan?'

  'Troops depleted, no Strigoi…' Her gaze flicked to the isolation ward and back to him.

  'And the vultures are gathering,' he finished. 'Any idea about where Four Arms fits into this?'

  'He's got no form. I can't even imagine where you'd hide a thing like that.'

  'And then there's the motorcyclist from the graveyard. More skill than most streeters.' He sought out his med unit and gave it a jab. 'Do you get the feeling that there's more than two sides to this coin?'

  'There always is in our world. Boxes within boxes within boxes. You know, no one would think the worse of you if you took retirement — voluntary retirement. Not after what you've been through.'

  'Matheson is still out there.' He paused, clicked the pain meds again, dying for a smoke. 'So, what do you want me to do?'

  'First things first.' She stood, looked around, then turned off the drip and pulled the needle from his arm. She kept one finger on the puncture. She raised her other hand to her mouth. A wet ripping sound, like someone biting into a soft apple, and then she was offering the wound to him, blood seeping along the edges. 'Here, Reece, have some of the good stuff.'

  It was very good indeed.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The van was nondescript, white, with rust around the wheel arches and the beginning
of a knock in the engine that Kevin found unsettling. He did not want to be riding in a vehicle that broke down in the middle of the day. He'd had quite enough daylight for the time being. He could not forgive poor maintenance. Still, the rendezvous Kala had outlined was less than four hours north of Brisbane and it would not require them to travel in the daytime. She had been that kind.

  Bella drove and Ambrose rode in the back with Blake and Yoshi. The red-eyes wore bulletproof vests under their shirts and coats. They had the windows wound down, warm air blasting through in what passed for air conditioning in the vehicle. Greaser had wanted to come but the Needle had overruled her — the job needed red-eyes, he said. Besides, she would be more use in the city; he had tasks needing doing, suited to her skills. Melpomene was Blake's offspring and his responsibility; it was a job for the Romantics.

  It sounded like someone washing their hands, but Kevin kept his mouth shut.

  They drove north after sunset, past pine forests and cane farms, the highway narrowing as they left the Sunshine Coast's outposts to a lane each way with nothing but a white line separating them. The traffic lessened the further they got from Brissie, but it was early enough that the trucks hadn't taken over entirely.

  There were ghosts on the highway, flashing past like roadside reflectors, glaring white and red in the headlights. Taipan's life. Kala's. Maroochydore, Nambour, the slow wind through Gympie, then turning off through Maryborough's quiet streets and lonely traffic lights; heading toward the coast.

  Kevin clamped down, willing the restless blood to be still.

  Taipan and Kala had met near here; Taipan had grown up at this farm.

  They pulled up at the end of a zigzag series of narrow bitumen roads hemmed by barren cane fields, lined with dry grass and crooked power poles and stunted wattle trees. The eastern horizon glowed like a false dawn with the long, thin strip that was the seaside town of Hervey Bay; the dim parabola of its poor inland cousin Maryborough lit the west. The full moon was climbing high, its light rendered irrelevant by the cities' sickly wash.

  'This is it, huh,' Yoshi said, eyeing the house from behind Kevin's shoulder; and Blake asked with unmistakable nervousness, 'Are we there?'; and Kevin told them both, 'Yes.'