The Big Smoke. Jason Nahrung
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of his family.
How to forget the fact that his mother had been consumed, probably lingered still, an album of experience kept alive inside her killer's bloodstream.
How to turn his back while this place, these people — these creatures — remained.
Pale-barked trees shaded the pavement. He took comfort in the many darknesses where street lights and glowing shop fronts didn't reach. Hands in pockets, hood up, shoulders slumped, he hunched in a doorway; a metal grille sealed the door but left enough space in the entrance to shield him from the light.
On the other side of the street, towered Thorn — all dark concrete and black glass. A red warning light blinked atop a spire. The tower had been named for a fortress of old. That memory too nestled deep, an aside, but he clung to it as an omen; the Teutonic fortress had fallen. He regarded the tower, hoping for history to repeat. He was struck by the memory of a movie, of people with guns, lots of guns, kicking open doors and battling their way to the upmost floors, of righting wrongs, of saving the world.
Thorn had a wall, a forecourt, armed guards and many, many floors. There would be no kicking down of doors. He would need to be cleverer than that.
Kevin returned to the car and found it untouched, unguarded. So far, so good. He turned the ignition, felt the instant comfort of the motor's rumble, the chassis' vibration; the suppressed power under the bonnet.
Now to find the one they called the Needle.
The city was bigger than he remembered. He had been here once, his own memories less useful than the memories of the others residing within him. Brisbane was quite the haystack. But he had time.
As long as no one knew he was here, he had all the time he needed. All the time his hunger would allow.
TWO
'I hope this won't take long, Reece. I go on duty at nine.'
Felicity's voice followed him up the stairwell, echoing with their footsteps. The air tasted stale; the warehouse had been shut up for a long time, and Reece's occasional visits had done little to freshen the place.
'You still on the soup van?' he asked.
'It could be worse.'
'Ticket collector.'
'You haven't fallen that far. Yet.' Half humour, half warning. Fair enough. He hadn't told her why he'd called her here. It wasn't just the heat that'd made her take her jacket off. Basic training made a point of warning them how hard it was to pull a Staker from a shoulder sling; it was either that, though, or stick out like dog's balls in a trench coat if one was to conceal the metal tube.
He was in civvies today. Jeans, button-up shirt, leather jacket and Broncos cap. Sword in scabbard held in one sweaty hand.
She drew level with him. 'You're still hunting Matheson? Is that what this is about?'
'Kind of. I figure he's up north. Far north. Fuel thefts, some clothing, a couple of sightings of the Monaro.'
'You and that damn car.'
'It'll turn up. Whether he'll be with it is the thing.'
He paused at a landing, catching his breath. He was too old for this. And getting older by the day.
She waited beside him, her freckles glowing with exertion, her hair pulled back in a tight, short ponytail. She carried her jacket over one arm, exposing the double shoulder holsters for sidearm and Staker, her tightly stretched blouse he had to remind his eyes not to linger on. They'd been partners, after all; of sorts. Still were; of sorts.
Felicity had proven capable in the outback, when they'd been tracking Taipan's gang of outlaw vampires. So capable, Mira had taken a shine to the plucky Hunter.
That relationship linked them now in this conspiracy: save Mira, save themselves.
'So what is this about?' Felicity asked.
'All in good time. Have you heard anything about Mira?'
'She's still under wraps, still borderline bedlam. Though I think the doc's sugar coating it, for the Old Man's sake.'
The Old Man. That was an understatement. Maximilian von Schiller was centuries old, a product of his time. By all accounts, he was struggling to keep up with modern developments, and concepts such as democracy and women's lib. He relied on his vampiric daughter to help him cope, using her blood magic in his service. The power had come from her mother, Danica: Danica the betrayer, who had, tired of death and politics, fled Maximilian's organisation. The disastrous attempt to recapture her at Jasmine Turner's outback property had forced them to this risky course of action.
Reece had been there when Mira had fallen, one of the most horrible sights he'd ever seen. And after decades in her service, that was saying something.
Mira, injured and craving blood, had killed one of her own and taken his life into herself. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. Unable to navigate the storm of the lives she'd absorbed, she'd lapsed into the coma-like state, a prisoner in her own overcrowded mind.
Reece shrugged away the memory and resumed clomping, until they emerged on the roof. He blinked, the sun staring at him from the west where it hung low over the mountains, swollen and dirty red as it glowered through a haze of pollution.
Felicity reached for her sunglasses, then almost dropped them as she saw the figure tied to a rusting air-conditioning unit.
'Jesus, Reece, you've had him up here all day?' She stared around at the surrounding buildings. Over-exposed, aren't you?'
'There's no one around.' The building, one of the highest in this part of South Brisbane, was empty; one of many waiting for the urban renewal creeping out from the city like a slow wave of chrome, glass and lattes.
'Batcatcher? Aerial?'
'No reason for the foxes to be this far south. And the chances of airpol taking their cameras off the highways long enough to notice is remote. No money in it.'
She walked to the prisoner.
Bhagwan's groans were barely audible. Bone showed through the blistered flesh; he looked like a log that had rolled off a fire, black and grey and veined with soot. And there was the smell.
'Is this how you did it, back when you were a real copper?'
Ouch. 'We were more subtle back then. And the crims were more ordinary.'
She looked at him, biting her lip in that endearing manner. 'Was it worth it?'
'He gave me a name.'
'Do you believe him?'
'No reason not to.'
And I'm here because?'
'To witness. You found him, after all.'
She looked around again. The city's lights were coming on, warning lights flashing, a slick Legoland of dark and light burnished by the sunset. Buildings reflected blood.
'If anyone saw—'
'We'd know it. I only called you in so you could know it was over.'
'Noble of you.'
'Despite the popular misconception, chivalry is not quite dead.'
Felicity had found Bhagwan staked out in a hidey hole in the wreckage of Jasmine Turner's place, one of few survivors of the clusterfuck referred to around Thorn as "The Debacle". She'd smuggled him away, desperate to find some advantage in the disaster that had befallen them.
Reece drew the standard-issue broadsword, a cheap replacement for his Hunter's blade — a personal gift from Mira — that was probably rusting away somewhere out west.
'It's time for Bhaggy to go back to being dead,' he said.
Felicity nodded, her arms folded across her chest.
The blade cut through the throat as though it were dry grass and clanged