Walking Shadows (17 page)

"Lissa?"

"Evan." It came out as a semi-squeak. And that's an 'F' for Melissa Wilson in trying to
sound nonchalant. "How did it go today?"

"Fine. It looks like I'll be free tomorrow to see you. For coffee." A long pause.
"Or something." And then he laughed, all self-deprecating, like he'd been teen-angsting
about this call himself. "I mean coffee or dinner or just a talk."

"Or something sounds good too."

Another laugh. "Can I call you in the morning to tee up a time and place?"

"Sure. Yes. Please."

"Good. I'm looking forward to it." A few more inane goodbyes were said, showing our
mutual reluctance to hang up. A slow inhale-exhale then, to calm myself down. It didn't work very
well. I was too exhilarated.

"You okay?" Gary stood close by, speaking quietly, "Your heart rate has gone
weird."

"I have never been better." I grinned at him and did a kind of skip-dance back to the
table. "Is it my turn again?"

"Tina's," he corrected me. "You're all fizzy again."

"That's me," I agreed, "Ms Effervescence." Impulsively, I kissed him on the
cheek and whispered, "I've got a date. Maybe a proper dinner date."

"We still doing a movie next week?"

"You betcha."

Gary nodded, satisfied. Then he cocked his head, listening to the new song on the jukebox.
"Is that the Beatles?"

"Oasis," Mez told him.

"They're good."

Mez grinned. "I'll make you a deal, Gary. You teach me how to play decent pool; I'll
introduce you to a whole bunch of new bands."

Gary frowned over his cue tip like he was considering it seriously. "Deal," he
announced at last.

He was getting better at this matter of making friends.

In the late afternoon we called it quits. Mez had arranged a phone interview with a bass
guitarist for one of the street mags, and Drew and Tina had plans for dinner and a movie at one of
Melbourne's summertime outdoor cinemas. I wanted to be home for Kate's return. Proposals were made
and accepted to meet next weekend so Gary could give all of us lessons.

Tina managed to sneak in a kiss on Gary's cheek before we escaped. She looked faintly startled,
probably at the strange coolness of his skin, and ended by rubbing a hand affectionately against his
arm, like she was trying to rub warmth into him.

Walking out of the alley, Gary brushed his fingers over the spot where her lips had pressed
against him. "What was that about?"

Time for another round of Pointing Out the Bleeding Obvious. "She was flirting with you,
Gary."

"Flirting." He absorbed that. "With me?"

"Yep."

"Why?"

"She thinks you're cute."

"What's a bear?"

"Aaaah. Men with a stocky physique, usually on the hairy side."

"And Drew likes 'bears'. Men. Built like me."

"Hairy men like you, yeah."

He absorbed that too, then asked: "What does adorkable mean?"

"Ah. It means dorky, in an adorable way." It occurred to me that guys might not be
terribly thrilled with the description.

"And they meant me?"

"Yep."

"Why?" He sounded absolutely dumbfounded, like it was an impossible equation in
theoretical physics.

This did not call for a flippant response. "Tina's into smart nerdy guys. A lot of girls
are. Geek is the new black."

"So. She, um, she thinks I'm an adorkable, smart, nerdy guy?"

"Yes." I snuck a sideways glance at him. By the streetlights I supposed I could see
what she meant. Cuddly, with a nice face, when the lights were too dim to see how pale he was, and
how lifeless his eyes. Maybe if Tina saw him in sunlight she'd be less enamoured.

Gary's expression had shifted from puzzled to aggravated. "One of the things I liked about
being a vampire was that I didn't have to try to work out dating any more." He sighed.

"Do you want me to tell her to leave you alone?"

And then the aggravation turned into something else. I don't know what. "Ah. Maybe. Yeah. I
think so. Probably."

"You don't sound too sure. You want me to encourage her?"

"No! No. No, no, no." I was not the only one discomfited by that, then. He paused at
the intersection with Little Bourke Street. "It's just I don't think anyone's ever flirted with
me before."

"Seriously?"

"Um, no. Still, it was kind of," he glanced down the alley to the entrance,
"weird. You better, um, tell her to back off. I, just, em, I..."

This was a whole new level of inarticulate; both fascinating and painful to watch. "I'll
tell her you're not dating at the moment."

"Thanks." The frightened look faded from his expression.

"You don't have to come on Friday."

"Oh, but I want to do that." A half-smile emerged, "I like the idea of teaching
them how to play pool. I think I can do that." He squinted at my skip-step beside him.
"What?"

Flinging my arms wide I cavorted a little. "It's good to be spreading the happy."

"You mean 'happiness'."

"Yes, I do. The happy and the happiness. I'm like Tinkerbell, sprinkling the fairy dust of
social cohesion."

"But not of good grammar."

"You're a maths geek. What know you of good grammar?"

"Is this about that date you've got, still?"

"Yep."

"Hmm."

It's difficult to tell with Gary sometimes, but it seemed likely he was laughing at me on the
inside. I stuck my tongue out at him and he shrugged a 'who me?' gesture, which confirmed my deep
suspicions.

Passing the alley that led to the Gold Bug, Gary paused, cocking his head.

"Hang on," he said, and darted out of sight down the narrow roadway. I caught a glimpse
of him leaping easily over the tape that demarcated the zone for official investigation.

Naturally, I followed him.

Gary had paused outside the Gold Bug and was looking towards the roof with strained
attention.

"What is it?"

"I told you to wait."

"You said 'hang on'. Totally different thing." I peered roofward too, but could make
nothing out. The strong smell of burnt things was in the air. Wood. Carpet. Brick. You wouldn't
think that bricks would burn, or that they'd have a smell, but they do. I hate it that I know that.
There was the faint smell of other things. Organic things. I worked on blanking that out.

"What is it?" I asked again.

"Someone's here," said Gary, and hauled on the door. It opened with a squeak of
complaint. Soot crumbled away from the frame. Gary stepped cautiously towards the stairs while I
allowed my sight to adjust to the gloom. It didn't look so bad from here. Smoke and water damage,
sure, but structurally intact thus far.

The stairs down to the bar felt stable. Nevertheless, I tried to step as precisely in Gary's wake
as I could. As we reached the bottom, I detected the sound of indistinct voices that Gary had
already heard. One voice was an irritated burr, the second commenting in short, clipped bursts.

"It's probably just Magdalene and Mundy," I whispered into the darkness at Gary's back,
"Counting their losses."

"I know that
now
. Shhh. I'm trying to hear what they're saying."

The main bar was no longer a bar. It was a black hole into which bits of the upper floor were
still occasionally falling. The sounds were coming from above as Magdalene and Mundy edged around
what was left of the blood club. I strained to see through the shadows and patter of falling soot
for sight of them, following the faint traces as they walked. The dull tap of a heel on wood; the
clink of broken glass swept aside; the faint swish of cloth against cloth; a murmured voice; a stiff
reply.

The sudden, solid shapes dropping through the hole where the ceiling used to be sent me back
against the blackened walls, swallowing a startled squeak. Magdalene landed easily, paused to sweep
her hands over her voluminous skirt, settling the folds of cloth impatiently into place. Mundy
landed so lightly beside her he was like a cat made out of smoke. His trousers and shirt were grimy
and ash-streaked all up one side, where his hand was missing.

Magdalene and Mundy regarded us with a surly lack of surprise.

"What are you doing here?" Magdalene wanted to know.

"We were passing and I heard something crash," said Gary. "I thought I ought to
check it out, just in case the hunters were here."

Bloody hell, Gary.
If I'd known what he was thinking I wouldn't have let him come down
here without a fight.

Mundy scowled and Magdalene cast a calculating glance at him. "Some difficulty existed in
getting through the window," she said, "The floor was unsound." Meaning, I
extrapolated from the state of Mundy's clothes, that he had gone through the floorboards.

As though perceiving my mental picture of that mishap, Mundy shot me a venomous, 'I'll get you'
look that struck me with its covert violence. When had he progressed from merely disliking me to
hating me utterly?

"So," I said, turning to Magdalene to cover my sudden anxiety, "Any further news
on your stalkers?"

Again she gave that acerbic sideways glance at Mundy.

"They are not your concern," said Mundy coldly.

"So everyone keeps saying," I said. "What I want to know, though, since no-one
else seems to be asking, is who 'they' are, and how they knew where to find any of you?"

Gary blinked at me, then looked squarely at Mundy. "Yeah. How did they know that?"

Magdalene smirked knowingly at Mundy. "Go on, Mundy," she said,
"confess."

Mundy's expression was fury stymied by chagrin. Magdalene's nasty grin only widened.

"There are always two of them," he began grudgingly, shying away from that crucial
question. "They have been hunting us for centuries."

"Nothing melodramatic, then." I felt like I'd stumbled into an old Hammer Horror film.
"And the reason they found you?"

"The letters," explained Magdalene, filling Mundy's ongoing silence. "All those
letters he writes, to all of us and to his cronies in the dear old motherland. Always wanting to be
in charge of things, directing events, knowing what is going on with everyone, constantly. Only the
wrong letter was found at the wrong time - when the hunters brought down Elizabeth, last year in
Edinburgh wasn't it? And found your long letters of instruction and request."

"After your follies last year," Mundy snarled over the top of her, "I made it
clear to them that game was to be had in the Colonies."

"And then they found your diary and your address book, after you so thoughtfully left them
behind when they made you run for your life."

Mundy hissed - actually hissed - at her, his face spasming with anger. Magdalene fell into
self-satisfied silence.

"You had an
address book
?" I asked. His shamed rage flared dangerously again,
and I dropped my gaze to avoid provoking him further. Mundy was, I reminded myself, several hundred
years old, and he probably needed all the mnemonic aids he could get. Plus, I don't imagine he ever
thought that it would be possible for someone to get hold of the damned thing. To attack him at
home, mutilate him, steal his secrets. It would be inconceivable to him.

Then I thought of those things happening to Gary, in his home, where he should be safe, and all
sympathy was crushed.

"Be grateful," Mundy said, with a slow curl of the lip, "I had not yet recorded
your mother's name in it."

"My?" I halted in confusion. Why on earth did he have my mother's address?

"Charming woman. She reminds me of you."

It hardly hurt, coming from him. Mundy was cruel on reflex, and the jibe didn't have the
cut-to-bleeding quality it had when my father said it.

"How do you even know about her?" I demanded.

"You may thank Magdalene for passing on her details."

Which Magdalene had no doubt claimed from Angela Priestley at some point before Priestley's
death. Mundy wasn't the only control freak in this town.

"Great. Putting aside the fact you're now my mother's penfriend, can we focus on the present
issue? Our hunters have opportunity. Do they have motive and method?"

They looked at me like I was speaking Martian. Gary, who spoke Detective, considered the issue.
"I suppose the
why
isn't so hard to work out."

"I suppose not, but between you lot there must be more information about the people behind
this."

"Those in the best position to learn have not survived to share their intelligence."
Mundy reminded me of a dog trying to defend his territory.
He's lost a lot of authority over this
address book affair, along with his hand.

"I've been doing some research of my own," I offered.

"Have you, now?" Magdalene turned to me, twitching her skirts out of the way of a
blackened beam on the floor. "And what have you learned?"

"That wherever your guys come from, they or people like them have been operating for a long
time. Since at least the early 1700s."

"This we knew," said Mundy ill-temperedly. His sneer reminded me way too much of my
ex-boyfriend Toby, and his whole 'you are a stupid little girl and you don't know anything worth
knowing' shtick that I had, incredibly, believed for far too long.

"Did you know one of the guys who were here on Friday was called Abe?"

"I do not see that it is relevant or useful," he said dismissively.

"Or that there are references to a father sacrificing his son Abraham to make an instrument
of God's wrath?"

Mundy and Magdalene were now talking in low, irritated tones. My insolent glare raised no
response.

Gary leant in close to my ear to whisper: "Where'd you find that out?"

"I'd be a lousy researcher if I hadn't found out something by now, if it was there to be
found."

"I have letters in my collection," Gary continued, his voice tight, "talking about
a guy called Abraham." At my questioning expression, he continued. "Someone I knew once
gave me her letters before she… died. Stuff from the 1790s and into the early nineteenth
century. About these hunters, one called Abraham. A kid, it said."