The Reformed Vampire Support Group (22 page)

He woke up to find himself already handcuffed, with Dermid sitting on his legs and Barry measuring out a stiff dose of anaesthetic. ‘You know the drill, mate,’ said Barry, before plunging a loaded syringe into Reuben’s left buttock.

The McKinnons spent about fifteen minutes upstairs with Reuben. Meanwhile Nefley and Father Ramon lay in the living room, gagged, handcuffed, and forcibly drugged. Nefley blacked out quickly; despite his generous gut and double chin, he isn’t a big man, and
he’d been given a generous dose of knockout drops. The priest, however, succumbed more gradually. He was still conscious when Barry wandered past, growling into his mobile phone.

It just so happened that Barry was talking to an American millionaire named Forrest Darwell – the same man who had offered to buy Reuben for a hundred thousand dollars. Darwell ran his own illegal werewolf fights in Colorado. He had been visiting various countries in the southern hemisphere, looking for more ‘stock’, and had been most impressed with Reuben’s fighting ability. But Barry had refused to sell Reuben for less than half a million dollars. And since Darwell wasn’t willing to pay that much, he’d flown to the Philippines in search of cheaper options.

Now he was Barry’s last hope. The McKinnons were on the run; a hostile group had discovered their nasty little secret, and news of the discovery might very well have leaked out. As far as Barry was concerned, Wolgaroo Corner was no longer safe. He wanted to start afresh somewhere.

To do that, however, he needed money. And Reuben Schneider was not only the McKinnons’ most valuable asset – he was also a walking time bomb. Testimony from the abused werewolf would be enough to put Barry in jail for life. That was why Reuben had to be prevented from approaching the police with his story. It was also why the McKinnons were fully prepared to kill Father Ramon. Even if he didn’t go to the police (having apparently committed a double homicide), the priest was still a potential witness. There was nothing to prevent him from getting drunk, one night, and spilling his guts to a loose-lipped friend. He had to be silenced somehow, or the McKinnons would never rest easy.

As for Nefley Irving – well, Nefley had got in the way. He’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The McKinnons had sent at least three people to their deaths in the pit at Wolgaroo; they
weren’t particularly worried about one extra corpse, especially since their plan was to make everything look like an accident. They’d been intending to kill Father Ramon with an overdose of tranquillisers, until Barry saw what passed for a stove in the presbytery kitchen. Then it became obvious to him that the entire house could be blown up. In Barry’s view, no investigator would ever suspect arson once it was established that Father Ramon had been using fifty-year-old appliances. And any traces of foul play would be turned to ash in the subsequent fire.

You may recall that when Dave and I found Father Ramon, he was in bed, asleep, with no ropes or handcuffs restraining him. This was part of Barry’s carefully thought-out scheme. Once the priest had lost consciousness, he was freed from his bonds and carried upstairs, where the McKinnons left him lying with his quilt tucked under his chin. It was all meant to look perfectly innocent. Even if Father Ramon wasn’t burnt to a crisp, the smoke or the gas would certainly kill him. And the pill bottle left by his bed would convince any suspicious detectives that he had dosed
himself
with barbiturates – or so Barry was hoping. As far as Barry was concerned, every base had been covered.

But he was wrong, of course. For one thing, he didn’t check the garage. For another, he neglected to lower his voice during his conversation with Forrest Darwell. The priest heard every word that Barry uttered – and therefore became privy to several important facts. Reuben was being sold to someone called Darwell, for a great deal of money. Mr Darwell would be returning to Australia on a plane that was scheduled to arrive in Sydney the next morning, at half-past eight. And the ‘delivery’ of Mr Darwell’s purchase would then be arranged over the phone.

Until that time, however, the McKinnons would have to hide out somewhere.

It was lucky that Barry decided to discuss the alternatives with his son as they untied Nefley Irving. ‘Gimme his keys,’ Barry said to Dermid, unaware that Father Ramon was still conscious. Barry went on to explain that the keys would give them access to Nefley’s flat. ‘We’ll hole up there tonight,’ Barry decreed, ‘and piss off early, before anyone comes sniffin’ around.’

‘I dunno.’ Dermid sounded unconvinced. ‘Couldn’t we just sleep in the ute?’

‘What? All three of us?’ Barry sneered. ‘We’ll have the kid, dozy.’

‘Oh. Yeah.’

‘If I take this guy’s wallet, no one’ll know who he is,’ Barry declared, as he pocketed Nefley’s identification. ‘And if he doesn’t end up totally barbecued, they still won’t figure out his name until we’re long gone. Don’t worry. I’ve got it all sorted.’

You can imagine how Father Ramon felt, upon hearing this. He remembers thinking vaguely:
They’re going to set us on fire. I have to get up
. But his eyes were already closed, and a deadly numbness was creeping over him. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak.

The last thing he heard, before he went under, was Dermid’s loudly voiced complaint about Nefley’s flat. ‘All that bloody Goth stuff gives me the creeps,’ Dermid grumbled. ‘I hate that stuff. How am I going to sleep in a room full of skulls and crosses and shit?’ Then darkness descended, and the nagging, nasal monologue simply faded away.

You’ve probably worked
out by now that Nefley Irving was the mysterious stranger upstairs in the presbytery. He wasn’t a homeless person at all; he was Casimir Kucynski’s murderer. But Dave and I didn’t realise that. So we loaded him into Father Ramon’s grey sedan, which Dave had parked near the back door of the presbytery.

And after Father Ramon had also been manoeuvred into the sedan’s back seat, Dave drove to my place, wearing Father Ramon’s sunglasses. We were lucky poor Dave was even capable of driving, after our struggle to get two massive dead weights down those presbytery stairs. I sat in the front passenger seat – shielding my eyes from the glare of passing headlights – while our two unconscious passengers made snuffling noises behind us. We reached our destination at 7.15. Dave had barely pulled up to the kerb when a flock of people started to spill out of Mum’s house: Mum and Sanford, Horace, Gladys, George. I had phoned Sanford before leaving the presbytery, to make sure everything was all right back home, so he knew what to expect.

When he reached the car, he immediately plunged inside it to get a better look at its drugged occupants.

‘Where’s that bottle of pills?’ he barked at me, without even
saying hello. I shut the front passenger door, then passed him the little plastic vial that I’d found by Father Ramon’s bed. Though I’d already told Sanford that the vial wasn’t labelled, he wanted to inspect it anyway.

He tucked it into his pocket just as Mum threw her arms around my neck.

‘Thank God!’ she wheezed. ‘Thank God you came home!’

‘It’s okay, Mum. I’m fine.’

‘What a nightmare!’

‘Yeah. It was.’

‘I won’t let it happen again, darl. Not
ever
. No more bloody wild-goose chases for you.’

‘What the hell is going on, anyway?’ asked Horace. He was still dressed in his ridiculous black cape and frockcoat; I realised that no one else had changed so much as a pair of socks since Tuesday, either. ‘Who’s the bald bloke?’ he added. ‘Have we worked that out yet?’

‘No,’ said Dave, slamming the driver’s door. ‘But we have to get him inside, no matter who he is. Just give me a hand; I can’t do this on my own.’

‘Yes, both of you take care of our guest,’ Sanford instructed, from the back of the car. ‘George, you can help me carry Father Ramon.’

‘And make it quick,’ my mother added. ‘Or we’ll have the whole neighbourhood out here, stickybeaking.’

She promptly hustled me into the house ahead of Gladys – who had already started to whine about the cold night air. Bridget was waiting for us in the vestibule, leaning on a cane. She greeted me with a paper-dry kiss and an inquiry about my health.

‘You don’t look well,’ she quavered. ‘Your colour’s not good.’

I refrained from pointing out that my colour was never good,
even at the best of times. Instead I muttered something about missing breakfast the previous night.

‘Yeah, we heard about that,’ said Mum. ‘Father Ramon told me you had to leave the guinea pigs. I’ll get you one right now, shall I? And your supplements, as well.’

Instead of answering her question, I asked one of my own. ‘So you’ve talked to Father Ramon? Since we got back?’

‘Oh, yeah.’ Mum’s made an impatient gesture. ‘He rang this morning, soon as he got home. He would have come straight over if he hadn’t been worried about leaving you two. We must have talked for two hours, I reckon. He told me everything.’ At that moment Sanford appeared on the threshold, shuffling backwards with his arms wrapped around Father Ramon’s chest. My mother’s face crumpled. ‘I don’t understand it,’ she said hoarsely. ‘We were on the phone, not long ago, and now look. What the hell could have happened?’

‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ Sanford wheezed, pausing at the foot of the stairs. ‘He might wake up with a headache, but at least he
will
wake up. This doesn’t look like an overdose – all his vital signs are normal.’ He nodded at George, who was supporting Father Ramon’s legs. ‘Can you keep going? It’s not much further.’

‘Put him in the spare room,’ was Mum’s recommendation. ‘I’ve changed the sheets.’ Then she watched as Dave and Horace staggered through the front door, bearing our mystery guest. ‘I suppose you’d better put this one in Nina’s room,’ she decided, much to my dismay.

‘But
Mum
,’ I cried, ‘that’s
my
bed!’

‘You don’t use it, though, do you?’ said Horace, in a deliberate attempt to bait me. When I rounded on him, he smirked.

‘As a matter of fact, I
do
use it! I just don’t sleep in it!’ Having put him in his place, I turned back to my mother. ‘How am I going
to write if there’s a strange man in my room?’ I wailed.

It was Sanford who tried to reassure me. Though he was halfway up the first flight of stairs, he stopped to peer over the banister rail. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘These two will be up and about soon. If I were you, Nina, I’d have a shower and a meal. They might be awake by the time you’re done.’

‘You think so?’ I cast a doubtful glance at the limp body that Dave and Horace were carrying. ‘They look pretty out of it.’

Sanford didn’t reply. He was probably too breathless to utter a word; it can’t have been easy, dragging Father Ramon up all those stairs, and Sanford wasn’t in the best of health. As for poor Dave, he barely made it to the first-floor landing. Driving home had been bad enough; that final ascent nearly finished him off. After dumping his burden onto my bed, he lay down next to our anonymous visitor and groaned.

‘Oh, man,’ he complained. ‘I feel like my skull’s about to split apart.’

My mother clicked her tongue in sympathy. ‘You should never have gone away,’ she said. ‘Both of you should never have gone.’ Then she rummaged in my chest of drawers for some clean clothes, while I stood staring at the two guys draped across my doona.

They couldn’t have been more different. Dave was tall and thin and long-haired. The stranger was short and fat and balding. Yet they both shared at least one characteristic: they both looked as if nothing short of an earthquake would shift them.

‘This was a big mistake,’ panted Horace, surveying the intruder. ‘What are we going to say to our friend here when he wakes up? He’ll have a heart attack. I guarantee it.’

‘
You
won’t be talking to him,’ I rejoined. ‘In fact you won’t be allowed anywhere near him, looking like that.’ As well as his satin cape and velvet frockcoat, Horace was wearing lace-up leather
pants tucked into knee-high boots with stacked heels. ‘He’ll
definitely
go to the police, if he sees that outfit.’

‘We’ll let Father Ramon talk to him,’ Mum said, pushing a wad of clean clothes into my hands. ‘He’ll listen to Father Ramon. They know each other, don’t they?’

‘I’m – I’m not sure.’ It suddenly occurred to me that the over-weight stranger might be a friend of Reuben’s. ‘He didn’t have any
ID
on him.’

‘But he’s definitely not the werewolf?’ asked Horace.

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’ Anticipating a scornful reply, Horace raised his hand defensively. ‘I realise he doesn’t
look
like the werewolf, but if your friend can turn into a wolf, he might be able to turn into other things, as well. He might have several identities. Have you thought of that?’

I hadn’t. And I realised that Horace could be right. After all, what did we really know about werewolves?

‘If
I
was running away from a pair of thugs,’ Horace continued, ‘then the first thing I’d do is disguise myself.’ He nodded at the unconscious man in the beige jumper. ‘Maybe this is a disguise.’

‘If it is, then the McKinnons would have seen it before,’ said Dave. Though he appeared to be half-dead, he had obviously been listening. ‘Unless Reuben can change into a different shape every time, and what are the chances of that?’

‘What are the chances of finding a werewolf in the first place?’ Horace retorted, at which point my mother took charge.

‘We can discuss this later,’ she said. ‘Right now Dave needs a rest, Nina needs a bath, and Sanford needs to suss things out. Everyone else can clear off downstairs until we’re ready to have a proper meeting.’ She gave Horace a prod with one bony finger. ‘Go on. Get. You’re not needed.’

‘But what about these McKinnons that everyone’s so worried about?’ Horace demanded, still breathing heavily from his recent exertions. ‘Are they going to show up here, or not? Does the werewolf know where to find us? What are we supposed to do if he does?’

‘We’ll
discuss it later!
’ Mum snapped. And we did, though not for an hour or two. In the meantime I filled my stomach, cleaned a few tiles, and had a long, hot soak in rose-scented water, while Sanford examined his new patients and Dave nursed his throbbing head. Then Sanford decreed that Dave ought to get some blood into him, quick smart; I had to vacate the bathroom in a hurry, so that Dave could fang a couple of guinea pigs. Poor Dave: even after a substantial meal, he still felt too sick to clean up the mess he’d left behind. Gladys took care of that, though not willingly. She bitched and moaned about the injustice of it all until I was ready to stick her head in the toilet.