Walking Shadows (6 page)

Compulsively, I stepped away from him, saying defiantly: "I hear you could use a hand."
A cheap shot, but it wiped that mocking smile off his face. Unfortunately, the snarl that replaced
it displayed his pointed teeth. My throat tingled in another ghost scar, where Mundy had tried to
eat me. My second bite. He looked ready to try again.

Way to go Lissa. Piss off the bad-ass vampire.
I didn't dare look away from him, as though
staying eyeball-to-eyeball was the only way to stop him from lunging for my throat. Feverishly, I
tried to think of a ploy to change the subject from 'let's eat the irritating girl' to, well,
anything else at all.

Mundy and Magdalene both tensed, hearing something. I kept my gaze on Mundy's, not game to take
the risk of breaking eye contact. Next there was a thump and the sound of someone walking over the
crackling ground cover.

"Oh. Um. Hi." Gary appeared to have missed all the vital signs and wandered into our
midst, hands in the pockets of his jeans. He looked around, as though surprised and stuck for words.
"Did I miss something?"

"Only the usual," My breath hitched halfway through the last word. I wished snappy
comebacks were half as easy as they look in the movies.

"Mundy." Gary nodded at him, casual as you please, as though Mundy showing up now was
expected and right. For all that, Gary made a point of walking up to me, standing between me and
Mundy.

Mundy regarded him speculatively and relaxed slightly. Switching from hunter-mode back to
watcher. Deciding that, for now, biting me was more trouble than he could be bothered with, if Gary
was going to make a fuss about it.

"Your little friend is being terribly
sweet
," said Magdalene, "She thinks
we should help Thomas." She nodded at the wreckage. Gary's eyes widened at the sight.

"You should help him," I said, heartily sick of these foul people.

"Why?" Magdalene sounded genuinely puzzled.

"Because he's your..." What? Friend, colleague, partner? It was oh so clear he was none
of those.

"He's one of you," I tried, and Mundy
actually laughed.

"What do you suggest we do then?" asked Magdalene.

"You could take him somewhere; let his bones mend."

"Yes. We could do that," she said reasonably. "What do you think, Mundy?"

"Oh yes. I believe that would be satisfactory for all concerned."

"Shall I?"

"This isn't a bloody
joke
." Bad enough that they were cruel without them trying
to be
funny
about it.

"There's nothing we can do," Gary muttered beside me. "He's... His mind is not,
um, there."

I thought I could detect fear in him.

"I suppose he's what you'd call a zombie now. He's just a body that won't die. Bits of his
brain have gone. Literally. Even if the bones mend," Gary continued quietly, "all those
memories and functions are gone. There's no coming back from it."

"What's going to happen to him?"

Magdalene gave me an indecipherable look before stepping up to Thomas. I thought she was going to
kick him again. He obviously thought so too - he cringed.

He was right to.

She shoved him hard, sending him sprawling in the dirt and detritus, then punched down into his
torso with all her considerable strength, through the burnt tatters of his clothes and the blistered
skin and muscle.

Thomas tried to get away but he had no purchase and the second strike broke bone. Thomas moaned
in pain and fear and confusion.

"Shut up, Thomas." She squeezed her hand into his chest and paused, a vile grin on her
face.

Gary shifted uneasily as though deciding whether to intervene. "Don't do that," he said
gruffly.

"Do what?" But she was smiling.

"Don't play."

But it's so much more interesting," she said.

"I'll remember that, if I ever have to do for you."

The anger in his voice startled me. More surprisingly, it startled Magdalene. Gary never worried
her. Not ever.

She squeezed her fist and pulled, and Thomas's heart was torn out of his chest with a faint
sucking sound. Red-black fluid ran like thick honey back into the hole in his torso. His eyes were
wide open, his slack jaw working around sounds that might have been 'please'. She closed her fist
and the lump of meat split like rotten leather. She dropped it. In Thomas's body, the fluid began to
move and coalesce, and finally ooze out of the cavity and onto the ground. In minutes it had
disappeared.

"He was getting to be a nuisance anyway," Magdalene said firmly.

"We have to burn the body," Gary insisted. "It's the only way to be
sure."

"You are an obsessive," interrupted Mundy. "That happened once. Only
once."

"Would you want it to be you?"

"I'll make sure of it," said Magdalene tiredly. She looked meaningfully at the
ready-to-hand bonfire of the Gold Bug. She bent, picked up the mangled remains of the heart, and
threw it through the open window two floors up, with perfect aim.

I glanced back at Thomas's body, shrivelling the way spiders do when they're dead. Bloodless and
empty, the mummified shell simply collapsed in on itself.

True death was probably kinder than being a
zombie.
But that didn't make me feel any
better.

Between Mundy's severed hand, Thomas's immolation and the attack on the Gold Bug,
there was absolutely no doubt by now that Melbourne's vampire community was being targeted. Whoever
was looking down the gun sights, I couldn't say I blamed them.

On the other hand, indiscriminate slaughter was in no way on the list of things I was prepared to
put up with. Not even of people I didn't like, and not without a fight. The fact that Gary, someone
I very much did like, was potentially on that hit list was absolutely untenable.

Before I could launch into demands for an explanation, however, Gary remembered our original
errand. He pried the blue bag out of my hands - it surprised me how tightly I'd been holding on to
it - and held it out to Mundy. Thinking about anything other than Thomas seemed to be high on
everyone's agenda.

"Um. I found this. We packed it. Lissa did. To preserve it. In case, you know, it wasn't too
late."

Mundy took the bag gingerly and did not say thank you. I saw the way the stump of his right arm
twitched, as though it was reaching for the zipper. I looked at Mundy properly for the first time.
His pale, handsome face still made him look like an evil poet; a Dorian Grey, hundreds of years old,
whose corrupted portrait was hidden behind his cold eyes. But now he was lopsided, with the sleeve
of his shirt flapping at the end of the stump, like he didn't know what to do with it.

The absent hand was a shape made of space, and it wasn't cool-tragic like Luke Skywalker, or
comic-villain like Captain Hook. It was cruel-horrible, like he was still trying to pick up things
with it, only realising at the last second his fingers were no longer there.

After a moment, he said to Gary, "Still bringing your pet with you, I see." He could
still squeeze a lot of contempt into very few words.

Gary hesitated a moment. "Do you want me to help you open that?" he asked with curious
neutrality. "You might find it difficult."

Magdalene snickered in vile appreciation of the dig and Mundy's expression hardened. There was no
suave way to do this, so he put the bag on the ground, kneeled on the corner to anchor it and ripped
the top of it open.

The hand looked terrible when he took it out, withered and discoloured. Mundy's expression was
briefly desolate, then studiously bland. He put the arm on top of the tattered bag, shoved his
dangling shirtsleeve up over the stump until the ends were trapped under his armpit, then drew a
folding knife from his pocket. He had to pry one of the blades open with his teeth.

Having finally extracted the longest of the blades, Mundy scored a deep cut across the stump of
his arm, then another, wincing only slightly as he opened the already mutilated limb. It didn't
bleed, of course, but I could see the movement of the thick non-human blood in the cuts.

Then Mundy picked up what was left of his hand and held it against the fresh cuts. He moved it
this way and that, as though it was a piece of a puzzle and only needed the right angle to click it
into place. His expression remained set, but the agitated motion of the limb in his hand betrayed
him.

Feeling pity for the old bastard confused me.

"It's too late, Mundy," I heard Magdalene say, the personification of
schadenfreude
. "It's too decayed. It won't take."

Mundy's reply was a strangled grunt. "Look," she continued, "it's closing up
again."

Gary pulled a face of nervous sympathy as he watched. But sympathy of any kind was glaringly
absent from Magdalene. She strode over to Mundy.

"It's a waste of time," she said, snatching the hand from him and, astonishingly, she
pitched it with vicious accuracy through the second floor window into the flames of the burning bar.
Open-mouthed at the brazen cruelty of it, I studied Mundy's response to this violation. His gaze was
fixed on the smoke pouring from the window.

The smell and the smoke were terrible. They were nothing compared to the stark look on Mundy's
face.

He must have felt me watching him, as an instant later his expression was shuttered. He stood
straight, with his back to that awful fire, and directed a glare at Gary. Any trace of vulnerability
or loss was frostbitten to death in that look.

In Gary's current mood a stare-off seemed inevitable, but Gary was suddenly quiescent. I didn't
like the change. I was getting well past frightened now. I was far into pissed-off territory and
preparing to sign a six year lease.

"Is someone going to tell me what the hell is going on? Who were those guys? Why are they
trying to kill you?"

In the library, that tone of voice would have got me instant respect, even from the rowdy
after-school teenaged boys. Here it earned me a collection of disdainful expressions. I looked
defiant daggers back at them. Mundy and Magdalene looked about ready to put in some heavy duty
ignoring. Only a cat can ignore a human more efficiently than a vampire.

Gary wasn't much help, except for the strange look he gave me, mingled with a modicum of concern.
I think he was always amazed when I defied vampires who weren't him. If I'd had more sense than
indignation, it would have amazed me too.

"Don't come the snooty King of the Undead with me, you asshat," I said to Mundy.
"These bastards nearly killed you, pretty much did for Thomas, and they set fire to the Gold
Bug. It looks like they're winning so far, and the two of you are way too calm to know nothing about
it. So what gives?"

"It is none of your concern," said Mundy stiffly.

"It is if they're going to come after Gary."

Mundy and Magdalene exchanged looks.

"She's not
his
pet, Mundy," said Magdalene, "I think he's the lapdog now.
She's keeping him on a blood leash."

"It would explain much," said Mundy, raising an eyebrow. "Gary is not as he was.
He has betrayed so much
emotion
these past months." He said 'emotion' like Gary had done
something dirty.

Magdalene's lips quirked in derisive humour. "The young ones do sometimes mistake the blood
rush for actual feelings. Being such a late starter, he is perhaps more confused than most."

"What is that foul expression Smith likes to use?" Mundy wondered.

Magdalene's lips quirked in derisive humour. I got the feeling the two of them were participating
in some pointed double act aimed at needling me. "Ah, yes. Gary, you are meant to… suck
around."

Gary didn't even bother to protest this time, though I nearly did. Of course I knew what they
were all talking about by now. I'm slow sometimes, but I'm not stupid. And it was utterly ludicrous.
Gary had never bitten me. The only time he'd even tasted my blood was when he had saved my life 10
months ago. Oh, and 15 minutes ago when he'd stuck my finger in his mouth. I wiggled my fingers
carefully. The injuries had sealed and only the faintest dents remained as evidence of Thomas's
bite.

So why did they keep saying it? Was Gary… drinking? Maybe he was, as it had been so
graphically put, sucking around. I caught his sidelong glance towards me before he looked away. No,
I thought. That's not it.

"And it explains why he hasn't been so available lately for any of our little errands,"
continued Magdalene. She transferred her flat gaze to Gary. "Her blood is making you excitable,
Gary. It is so typical of you to get muddled. You are meant to be the one in charge. You are
supposed to spread your favours."

Mundy's lip curled. "Show some care, Hooper. You are simply a neutered consort. Women of her
ilk only desire a companion they can rely on not to die. If not that, then you are just to pass the
time, until she finds a breathing man."

Gary sighed and ignored the whole thing. I decided that, on balance, it was best to follow suit.
This was not a discussion I wanted to have with them until I'd first had one with Gary.

Besides, I didn't want to get into the whole 'until she finds a breathing man' part. My
boyfriendless state was all right by me thanks, and not the result of necrophiliac pining. It's just
that when you end up in the middle of a bloodbath more or less because your last boyfriend has
dumped you, and then the loveliest boy you've ever seen in your life gets murdered by an undead
psychopath; it kind of takes the wind out of your dating sails.

Bluntness, I decided, was the best way forward. God knows neither I nor they were any good at
subtlety. "Who is trying to kill you?"

"The situation does not concern you," said Mundy.

"Bullshit."

He gave me one of his most offended looks. Sometimes I swear just to make him twitch. Instead of
making some old-man fuddy-duddy comment about me being a guttersnipe, he turned his back on me.