Walking Shadows (31 page)

Gary stood looking like a stuffed specimen at a museum. A muscle in Kate's cheek twitched as her
gaze fell away from his.

"Um." Gary shuffled his feet. "Thank you."

"Lissa told me about your collection. I hope you haven't already got these."

"I can smell chocolate," he said, puzzled.

"I went to one of the really good chocolatiers and got some for you."

"I can't eat it."

"Lissa said you liked the scent of things. I thought you might like it."

"Um, I do." He took the parcel gingerly from her, as though it was ticking.
"Thanks."

"You're welcome." Another deep breath. "I'll leave you to it. I'll talk to you in
a while, sis." Kate departed rapidly for her own room. Gary turned towards me, regarding the
parcel with mystification.

"Look what Kate gave me," he said wonderingly.

"I can see." I was nearly as gobsmacked as he was.

He slid down into his new favourite place on the floor next to my bed and set the parcel on the
floor beside him. "Look at all that ribbon."

Kate had gone to town on the wrapping. Expensive gold and silver foil paper. Two different
coloured ribbons around it, ending in a wild cascade of purple and gold flowing curlicues. I was a
bit envious. Kate had never given me a present that looked so sumptuous.

"Are you going to open it?"

"I think I'll just look at it for a while." He threw a pleased look my way.
"Smells good, though, doesn't it?"

Bless Kate. The chocolate had been a thoughtful touch.

I sipped my tea. When I'd reached the bottom of the teacup I felt refreshed and filled with
renewed curiosity. "What did you do with yourself all day, anyway?"

"Read. Watched TV. Stuff."

"Stuff?"

"I made some phone calls."

"Oh? To?"

"Smith."

"I see." After everything he'd just told me about his former career as a bag man and
euthanaser-for-hire I didn't, really.

"He can track down the house in St Kilda from my
description, he says."

"He really just has to look for the one with the smashed-down door."

"Yeah. And, he can use his connections to find out who rented it out. Track them down maybe.
He said that he'd do that so that Magdalene and Mundy could, um, take care of business."

Those last four words did not sound good. "Is that why you called him? So Magdalene and
Mundy could 'take care of business'?"

Gary's expression was grim. "They're trying to kill us all, Lissa. They've succeeded a
couple of times already. They came close with Mundy and too close with me. I'm sick of sitting
around waiting for it to happen."

A long, uncomfortable silence.

"Are you mad at me?"

"Yes."

Gary nodded and started to rise.

"No. Gary. Sit down. Look. I get it. They're bastards."

"They hurt you," he said angrily, "I'm not going to let them do that again. It's
good you're not going to work tomorrow. You're safer here."

"So are you."

"I've got to go home sometime, Lissa."

"Not while that pair are out there."

"All my stuff is there. And I want to check my email."

"You can do that from here. I'll show you."

"Lissa…"

"Will you at least wait until Magdalene and Mundy have… have taken care of
business?"

"It'll be Magdalene and Smith, actually," Gary said, "She says Mundy's still
sulking about his arm."

"Has Mundy told you to…?"

"No." An angry scowl. "I've killed vampires who want to die. No-one else. They
don't ask. I certainly don't offer."

"Good. I'm glad," I said quietly.

"Me too." He scrubbed his hand through his hair, his grimace resolving into
resignation. "Can I really check my email from here?"

He fetched my laptop and we sat together while I logged onto his service. I was curious to see
who he got mail from. It turned out he had a mailbox full of horror fiction and science newsgroup
posts and spam. He had trouble with the trackpad so I plugged in the mouse and left him to it while
I went to the kitchen.

I picked up my bag and the cordless phone and took them into the bathroom. I turned on the shower
full blast, sat on the closed toilet seat, dug up Evan's mobile number from the card he'd given me,
and called him.

"They're coming after you," I whispered when I heard his voice. Evan tried to speak but
I overrode him, "Shut up. They're getting their gangster friends to track you down. Get out of
town. If you're not here hurting people they haven't got any reason to hunt you."

"Lissa, I need to talk to you."

"Evan, what you need to do is get out of Melbourne. I don't care where. They're going to
protect themselves however they can, and they'll kill you if they get the chance. Go home to your
son."

"I need to know about that friend of yours…"

"You leave Gary alone, you hear me? Whatever you choose to do, you leave him and me
alone."

"Lissa!"

"You're a lying shit, but I don't want them to kill you, got it? Leave town. Don't ever come
back."

Part of me wanted to take those last words back. I was hung up on the guy; but I'm not stupid or
suicidal. I ended the call.

When I turned, Kate was there. I hadn't heard her come in.

"Lissa, what are you doing?"

"I'm trying to stop a murder. Well. Several murders."

The flippant tone I had been aiming for was clearly beyond my skill. Kate blanched, and I nearly
dropped the phone, my hands were trembling so hard. I tried a different approach. "It'll be
over soon, one way or the other." The idea did not offer much comfort.

Kate closed her hand over mine, and her eyes looked right inside me, into the mess in my head,
past all the grief and loss and fear. "You can't save everyone," she said quietly.

"I can try."

She smiled affectionately. "You're a little bit crazy, sis. Don't…" she faltered,
found her voice again, "don't get yourself killed. I wouldn't know what to do if you
died."

I wound my arms around her and pressed my face against her chest. She dropped her cheek to rest
it on the top of my head, holding me tightly. It hurt all my bruises. I would not have let go of her
if the world was ending.

Kate has a pretty good idea of comfort food, and 20 minutes later we were ensconced on the living
room sofa with a cup of liqueur-laced hot chocolate and some chocolate coated biscuits, watching a
favourite old romantic comedy and giggling at Katharine Hepburn being daffy. When I shivered, Kate
disappeared into my bedroom and returned with a blanket and Gary.

Gary sat on the floor near my feet, his back against the sofa and assumed what I reassured Kate
was a companionable silence.

Kate frowned when Gary stated in the middle of a scene that he remembered seeing this film with
his mother "a few months after I… you know, died." I shoved him, short and sharp, in
the back with my foot and he threw a confused glance at me.

"I wanted to see
Bonnie and Clyde
," he continued, "And she really wanted to
see
Dr Dolittle
, so we split the difference and caught this instead."

"I thought you only watched vampire films," said Kate bemusedly.

"Only professionally," he said with a twitch of a smile, "Otherwise I watch and
read whatever's on. I don't sleep, I've got to do something with myself. Besides, Mum liked the
flicks and Dad wasn't so keen, so I used to go with her."

Which is more than he'd ever told me about his mother.

"Why didn't your Dad like movies?" Kate was sitting forward, giving full rein to her
curiosity now she'd decided Gary was no longer a pestilence.

"He said he preferred non-fiction. He was a history teacher. He read biographies,
mainly."

"It must have made his head hurt when he found out about vampires."

"Only to start with. Once the evidence was irrefutable I think he just moved it from the
'myth' column to the 'real' and adjusted. He was good at adjusting."

I could see Kate trying to imagine someone taking it all on board so practically.

"Though Mum was worried I was going to go all evil, for a while."

"She was?"

"Well, Dad was an atheist anyway, so he didn't have any religious hang-ups about it. Mum was
more an agnostic. After a few months, she got used to it. To me." He shrugged. I could hardly
imagine anyone living with Gary for more than a week without concluding that he was about as evil as
a business sock.

Even knowing what I did now, about his life since dying, the things he'd done, it was impossible
to think of Gary as evil. If anything, it made him more human.

"So, do you own any of those movies I got you?"

Gary looked sheepish, "I haven't opened it yet. I'm saving it for, um, later."

"Most of them are brand new releases. I figured you wouldn't have them yet."

"Great!" Gary perked up. "I usually have to wait until they're on special. Is that
Swedish one about the kids there?"

"That was the first one the shop assistant recommended."

Gary grinned at her, "Thanks."

Kate's muscles tensed and I wondered what had set her off this time. Then I realised that when
Gary grinned like that, his normally unobtrusive pointed canines were more evident. His smile
faltered self-consciously.

Kate exhaled slowly, calming herself. "You're welcome, Gary. Sorry about that, I'm still
adjusting."

"Yeah," he nodded, "Took me a while as well."

That engendered a meditative look from Kate, and Gary relaxed again.

They were getting on. Good. Ridiculous, however, was the sudden
frisson
of jealousy I felt
about it.

Gary grinned at me and tapped my foot. "You up for a monster movie festival in the next few
weeks, when all this other stuff is cleared up?"

Trust Gary to point out the elephant in the room, with a torch on high beam. Strangely, it made
me feel better. I was still the one he invited to his house to watch movie marathons, after all.

"You betcha," I agreed.

"Does that mean you're not mad at me anymore?"

I shoved him in the back again with my foot, playful-hard, like I used to do tussling with Paul.
He tapped me, hard, on the foot again. "Ow!" I snatched my foot back.

His brow creased anxiously, so I dug my toe into his back to show it hadn't been as bad as all
that. He tried to shift aside but I toe-jabbed him again. Then he wrapped his hand around my ankle,
and wouldn't let go.

"Do you reckon Evan's going to take your advice and leave town?" he asked.

"Bloody hell, Gary," I said, wriggling against his grip, "eavesdropping
again."

"A bit," he conceded, holding gently but firmly.

"Do you mind I called him?"

Gary let go of my foot. "Not really. I wish he'd just go away. That'd be best."

It would be. The idea made me hurt.

Then Gary reached up and ruffled my fringe gingerly. The tip of his tongue was sticking out the
side of his mouth while he concentrated on not being too rough. I laughed and batted at his hand,
and he grinned and tugged on a lock of my hair before letting go.

"Are you two always like this?"

Gary and I looked at Kate looking at us. Gary's expression dissolved into a kind of abashed guilt
and I couldn't stop laughing at it.

"This or running like the clappers for our lives, eh Gary?"

"Most of the time we just watch movies," he protested in an aggrieved tone.
"Really."

"Watch Hepburn and Tracy," I instructed firmly.

Gary grinned and settled against the sofa again. On the cushions, I leaned against Kate, who
draped an arm across my shoulders.

"You guys are weird." She sounded half-troubled, half-amused.

"No we're not," I countered. "It's just our lives that are weird."

I woke up in my own bed, in my rocket ship pyjamas, having managed with Kate's help
to change. Gary, I gathered, had spent the night finishing
Great Expectations
in the living
room.

By the time I had showered and climbed into a loose fitting skirt and top for my first day of
official recuperation, Kate had made three cups of plunger coffee and started on herb-dusted poached
eggs for breakfast.

Watching Gary periodically sniffing at his cup of black plunger coffee made me wish I'd thought
of making one for him before. Kate was so good at the little touches.

Still limping, I laid the table for three. Kate dished out two plates of eggs and a shallow dish
of herbs and spices, inviting Gary up to the table. He hesitated for a long minute, as though this
was a strange and alien ritual he wasn't sure how to perform. Finally, edgily, he sat down between
us with his coffee.

"What's that?" he asked, peering at the eggs.

"Dukkah," I said, pushing the extra dish towards him so he could sample its scent.
"It's a spice mix. Thyme, hazelnuts, sesame seeds and some other stuff."

"And it's good on eggs?"

"Very good on eggs," Kate assured him.

All very cosy and family-like.

"I was thinking I'd go home today," said Gary, with a sideways glance at Kate.

A forkful of my breakfast tumbled to the table and the fork hovered mid-air, but protest was
forestalled by Kate.

"You can stay a day or two longer," she said, watching me carefully, "I don't
mind. I'd rather not induce another of Lissa's panic attacks."

"Sure." Gary nodded firmly. "Thanks again for the films, by the way. I didn't have
any of those ones."

"Good to hear it. Lissa, I have to get off to work now. I'll catch you tonight.

I ceased brushing crumbs from my shirt long enough to nod at her.

"Make sure you rest. Films and books, not running like the clappers today," she
instructed.

"Couldn't get the speed up anyway," I assured her with a lopsided grin.

She quite rightly didn't find that funny. She dropped a kiss on the top of my head and left.

Gary sat staring into his cooling cup of coffee while I finished breakfast.