Walking Shadows (25 page)

Abe took Paterson by the back of the neck, held him upright by his hair, and stabbed again,
leaving the knife in the dead heart this time. He let go and Paterson dropped like a stone. Abe
knelt over him, took the knife handle and began working it back and forth, making the wound
larger.

Paterson's eyes were wide and devoid of any other reaction.
Please don't be feeling that
,
I thought.
Be dead, be dead.

When Abe was satisfied with the hole he'd made, he took the knife out. He fished in the hole with
his fingers to pull out the broken needle, which he handed to Evan. Then he shoved his hand into the
cavity. Moments later Abe wrenched his fist out of Paterson's chest, the vampire's withered heart
trapped in his hand.

"Repent," he said. Abe squeezed his fist, mashing the heart into leathery pieces. He
wiped his hand clean on Paterson's supermarket smock.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. This is what they had intended for Gary. This is what Evan
wanted to do to my friend. And what, I could barely bring myself to think, did they intend to do
with me?

Abe cocked his head, listening. "Sirens."

Evan nodded. He crouched over Paterson's sunken body. From another pocket he took a flask and
emptied the contents into the hole where the heart used to be. He lit a match and dropped it in.

Abe quelled me with a glance when I started to move. He walked over to me, and I curled into
myself, trying to make myself smaller. I didn't know what else to do.

"Don't hurt her," said Evan quickly, "We need her."

"Why?"

"She was at Hooper's place. Now here. She knows things we need to know."

Evan stood beside me, his body radiating heat from his exertions. My teeth started to chatter. I
could smell the smoke from the fire in Paterson's body, and I couldn't bear to open my eyes to it,
so I kept them screwed shut.

"Carefully," said Evan. "There's no need to hurt her."

Another whimper bubbled inside me, and then it died, burnt up in a rising tide of outrage and
fury.

Bastards. Contemptible, cowardly, utter bastards. Hunting people down for slaughter like they
didn't matter, not caring who they hurt or killed on the way. I didn't know Paterson, or Frank.
Maybe they were both killers too. But maybe Frank, like poor dead Jack, had been nice to his mother.
Or to cats. Maybe Paterson only drank from idiot volunteers and paid his rent on time and tried to
hang on to whatever he'd wanted immortality for in the first place.

Whatever they deserved, this cold-blooded death was not it. Murder did not justify murder.

I knew Gary didn't deserve it.

I knew I didn't deserve it.

Abe's hands closed over my arms to raise me up, and I fought like the devil. I kicked, scratched,
punched. When that had no effect, I swore violently, still struggling, and tried to bite him. My
teeth snapped painfully shut on air.

A ringing slap to the side of my head sent me sprawling and shut me up for a second.

"Abe, don't!" Evan spoke sharply to the boy, then tried a kinder tone on me. "Calm
down, Lissa. It'll be easier."

Like I wanted to make it easier for the prick. From the floor, I scrabbled towards the living
room, thinking I might be able to find a poker in the fireplace to use as a weapon. I could still
smell Paterson burning, the stench mingled now with the smell of burning linoleum.

A hand closed around the back of my shirt and hauled me, choking, to my feet. I twisted
frantically in Abe's grip, earning myself another clout, and a protest from Evan. The world spun. I
felt a tug on my shirt and heard cloth tear. Then the feel of the ragged strip of cloth being
wrapped around my wrists, binding them.

Another ripping sound, and a wad of cloth was stuffed into my mouth, another strip tied over the
top of it around my head.

I pushed at it with my tongue, terrified of suffocating. I started to fight again.

Evan grabbed me by the chin and glared into my eyes. His green eyes, that I had thought so
beautiful, were cold and angry. They made me afraid.

"Please, Lissa, don't fight. You are making this so much harder than it has to be," he
said.

My booted feet lashed out and caught his shin with a satisfying clunk of leather on bone. He
hopped away, swearing, yelling for Abe to get me the hell out of the house, and I was dragged out
into the night.

Sirens in the distance came closer. I couldn't tell if they were for the police or
the fire brigade. The sight of a red glow through the kitchen window indicated both would be needed
before long.

Abe slung me over his shoulder. I kicked and squirmed, earning myself another cuff behind the ear
that, this time, shut me up properly. I had to concentrate on not throwing up. With the gag in it
would surely kill me. Only rock stars choke to death on their own vomit, I told myself furiously;
not librarians.

"Stop
doing
that," Evan told him harshly. How nice to know he didn't like his -
I suppose it must be 'cousin' - hitting me. "I'll meet you at the house."

A lurch and Abe was off, leaping effortlessly over fences and dashing across darkened back yards.
Dogs barked wildly in our wake, though none ever got close enough to bite the little prick. I
couldn't see much, and what I could see didn't make sense from my upside-down perspective. Abe was
so fast that if anyone saw us, we were gone before they could work out what we were.

I wished I were unconscious so I could escape the dizzying motion, the nausea and the dread.
Sometimes I clung to Abe's clothes with my bound hands, afraid of falling. Sometimes he put me down.
I couldn't even try to run. Before I could get my legs to work, he'd drag me to my feet again, throw
me over his shoulder like a sack of rice. Nothing else was clear, not direction or time.

Finally, he put me down and didn't pick me up again, and I sat there, a knotted up ball of rage
and terror.

Gary had finally listened to me and run. I was glad. Happy. Terrified. Furious that he'd taken
off and left me there. I wanted him with me, so I wouldn't be going through this all on my own.

The thought of Kate made me crumple further in on myself, my anger flagging with the terrible
knowledge that we'd been fighting the last time I saw her. About vampires. So stupid. I hadn't even
left a note.

Abe grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled me to my feet. He yanked me to one side, and I saw
Evan had joined us. He unlocked the door I hadn't even realised was at my back.

Abe hauled me inside and Evan followed us in, turning to lock the door again.

He dropped me into an armchair. Instantly, I drew my feet up, as though saving myself from the
monsters underneath it. But I could see the monsters standing in front of me, arms folded,
considering me coldly. Everything I wanted to ask was stuck in my throat, behind that wad of torn
cloth.

"We're not going to hurt you," said Evan, "We don't kill living people."

I stared at him, thinking of Jack and Frank. He must have remembered those casualties, as he
added, "When we can help it." He leaned over and jerked the binding over my mouth down,
then stuck his finger between my teeth to dislodge the wad of cloth. I tried to bite him, but he was
too fast. He gave me a disappointed look and dropped the cloth onto the floor.

My breath hissed in over my teeth and I still couldn't speak.

"You're part of their community," Evan said mildly, all business, "You know where
they hide. I want you to tell me."

I found my voice. "Fuck off."

He smiled tiredly.

"You do realise what you're protecting, don't you? What they are, what they do?"

My eyes went to young Abe, then away.

"Abe's a bit different. Aren't you, Abe?"

"Aye, sir." Abe said, then he lost interest in us. He lifted his shirt instead, to look
at the holes in his skin. They were mostly closed now. Absent-mindedly, he dug a forefinger into the
largest of them, wriggled it and worked his thumb in. He pulled out a dark pellet and regarded it
with distaste.

"I'll see to that in a minute," said Evan, agitated.

I launched myself towards the door and ploughed into the ground with Abe's steely hand around my
ankle. My shoulders, ribs, head hurt, and with my hands still bound I couldn't find any more fight.
I began to yell for help. Abe grabbed my jaw and forced it closed again.

Panting, I lay on the floor, eyes tight shut, then wide, wide open at the man who crouched next
to me.

"You're going to hurt yourself," said Evan quietly, "And you're being
silly."

"You're holding me prisoner," I bit out, "And he keeps hitting me."

"I'm sorry," he said, which wasn't much use to me. "Abe, if you hit her
again..." He left the threat hanging, perhaps to hide the fact that there was no real threat
there. "Help her up."

Abe pulled me halfway to my feet and I stiffened as Evan fished in my pockets, pulling out my
wallet, keys, tram ticket, phone. The ticket, keys and wallet he dropped on the table. The phone he
examined, bringing up the contact list.

What now? I tried to remember what I'd told him about family and friends.

When he put the phone in his pocket I didn't know whether or not to be relieved. On the one hand,
he wasn't dragging Kate into this awful mess. On the other, there was no way I could use it to call
for help.

Abe let go and I folded to the ground. Evan offered me a hand and I glared at him.

He sighed. "Suit yourself."

He crossed the room to a small suitcase resting on a round dining table. He picked through it and
came back with a long, wicked-looking pair of tweezers. He gestured at Abe, who lifted his shirt
again. Evan dug the tweezers into the holes and plucked out two more bullets. The holes closed and
Abe dropped the shirt over his torso.

"How many more to kill?" asked Abe.

"I'm not sure," said Evan, crossing back to the table to drop the tweezers inside the
bag, "I want to get Mundy at least. And the woman. Magdalene."

"Home, then?"

"Maybe."

Abe stuck a finger through one of the holes in his shirt.

"Go and change," said Evan. Abe obeyed, disappearing down the hall.

Evan faced me again. For a moment, his expression was all sorrow and loss. "Lissa. How could
you be involved in this? I thought you were different. Better. I thought…"

"What? That you'd track me down and use me to find your victims?"

"God, no. When we met I hadn't the faintest idea that you could have anything to do with
it." The sorrow vanished, replaced by disgust and a dark scowl. "I had no idea you
collaborated with the undead."

"As opposed to you and your cousin. Though that's not actually your cousin, is it?"

"Only in a manner of speaking. Abe is more of a family heirloom."

"What does that mean? What are you?"

He smiled thinly. "A man with a mission. A holy mission, I'm reliably informed."

Warily, I got to my feet, almost losing my balance due to my tied hands. Everything ached.

The debilitating terror was subsiding and I realised that I wasn't in immediate danger. Gary was
out of harm's way and I was probably the only one from the Elsternwick house who didn't know where
to find the second safe house. Evan and his family heirloom had kidnapped the wrong person. For a
pair of hunters, one of whom had presumably been at it for centuries, they were pretty
amateurish.

The part of my anger that was fuelled by fear was ebbing, and I could think more cool-headedly
now. That was important. I had to think my way out of this damned mess. It had been very clearly
established that I was never going to fight my way out of it.

"I don't know where they've gone," I said, "I'm not part of Mundy's
crowd."

The impulse to swear at the sceptical look in Evan's eye was strong. I quashed it. I needed to
stay calm, to keep
him
calm, so I could seek my chances while Abe was out of the room.

"Evan!" A strident cry came from down the hall. Evan sighed.

"Stay put," he said and left to see what he was needed for.

His departure confirmed my status as no threat whatsoever, and annoyed the hell out of me. I got
up and while I used my teeth to loosen the knots on the cloth around my wrists, I limped around my
prison.

The first thing I checked was the front door. Deadlocked. No doubt Evan had the key. Damn. I
resumed prowling.

We were in a stand-alone house. Bedrooms and the bathroom must be down the corridor where Abe had
withdrawn. The kitchen, dining room and living room at this end of the house were open-plan. Cheaply
furnished, with a small old-model TV and cheap DVD player in one corner. It was a fully-furnished
holiday rental house probably. Certainly no modern homeowner would have such crappy home
entertainment gear.

A very expensive laptop hooked up to an external drive sat on the coffee table. It was in sleep
mode and needed a password. I couldn't imagine where to start to have a snowball's chance in hell of
guessing it before Evan returned. Real life is a lot less serendipitous than the movies.

Instead, I tested all the windows. Locked, with those burglar-proof devices that couldn't be
moved without a key.

The kitchen proved to be stranger and no more helpful. The benches and stovetop were covered in
pots, beakers, foil and trays and looked like a film set of a home-bake drug lab. The idea that Evan
was a slayer with a crack dealership on the side was too bizarre to contemplate. I couldn't work out
which of the two activities I found most repugnant. Instead, I looked in the understocked kitchen
cupboards and drawers, without finding anything useful. I did find some jars full of white powder
and a bin full of empty painkiller boxes, which supported the increasingly probable theory that Evan
made pocket money cooking up DIY heroin. Another reason to hate him in the already full 'I Hate
Evan' ledger.