Thyla (17 page)

‘And what was that?’ asked Perrin.

‘You.’

Ms Hindmarsh whirled around and called out to the darkness around her, ‘They’re here! Come and get them! They’re here!’

The next few moments were some of the most terrifying of my life.

After Ms Hindmarsh yelled out, the forest exploded in a flurry of yelling, rushing figures, breaking branches and screaming.

Men burst from the trees behind Ms Hindmarsh.

I call them ‘men’, but it was obvious immediately that they were not ordinary men. Their faces were pale and almost metallic-looking, with a sheen that glimmered in the moonlight. When they opened their mouths, instead of teeth, they had fangs, as we did.

But their fangs were as silver as polished knives. In their hands they carried daggers, long swords, axes. And guns.

‘No!’ Rhiannah cried. ‘Ms Hindmarsh! No!’

‘They’re here! Lord, they’re here!’ Ms Hindmarsh repeated, calling the men forward.

And they came. So quickly, they came. There must have been at least fifty of them, moving through the bush in a way that was not walking, nor floating, but something in between. At their head was a man in his forties, dressed in a suit of darkest indigo blue. His hair was pale as frost, his eyes like a frozen river. He looked exactly like Charlotte Lord.

And he looked like Sir Edward Chassebury.

‘Come, men!’ he called, and his voice was like the quiet loading of a hunter’s gun. And I knew as soon as he spoke that he did not simply
look
like Chassebury. He
was
Chassebury.

The man who killed my mother.

My blood flowed hot. Claws scraped my palms as I made my hands into fists.

‘Perrin?’ Rhiannah cried, her voice strangled and trembling. ‘Perrin, there’s so many of them. What do I do?’

‘Take your cuff off,’ Perrin hissed. ‘Then just do what comes naturally.’

Four copper bangles fell to the ground.

And though I should have gasped at what I saw in front of me – my roommate and classmates becoming animal – it was when they found their true forms that I felt I knew them best.

The Sarcos stripped their blouses and shirts, leaving their torsos naked.

I watched, holding my breath. Perrin in his Sarco form was very different from Perrin in his human form. He seemed even bigger and stronger. His broad chest was now part white, part black, and its muscles were taut and …
delicious.

I forced myself to look away from him. I looked instead at the others.

Their skin was now black, mottled with white. Their noses were longer – almost like snouts – and their ears were higher and larger. Their eyes were narrower and further forward. Their hands grew sharp claws. Their legs bent back inside their trousers. They were Sarco.

I found them awesome and terrifying all at once.

And then it began.

Perrin’s roar was like a war cry. The four Sarcos leapt forward, covering the space between them and Lord’s men in a fraction of a second and enveloping them in a haze of claws, teeth and fists. Guns fell to the ground as the men struggled against the brutish power of the beasts. I could barely make sense of what I was seeing. Though my Thyla senses made it easier to distinguish body from body, the frenzied rhythms of the fight still blurred the images in my head. There were no gunshots, but I could hear the sickening raking of sword against flesh. I could hear screams of pain. I could see bodies dropping to the ground, then struggling to stand again and continue fighting. It was difficult to see who was winning. It seemed, for now, that the two sides were evenly matched. But for how long?

My heart thudding, I squinted and craned, certain that one body at least had not moved since falling.

It was certainly a Sarco. And female.

One of my friends was dead.

The Sarcos were fighting well, and I couldn’t just watch them struggle and fall. I needed to help.

But I didn’t know if I had ever fought before. I could not remember.

‘For pity’s sake!’ I growled at myself. ‘Just
remember
!’

And then it came back. Shadows into light. Memories of fighting. Of
me
fighting. Of me punching and biting. Biting men. Biting humans. Of me roaring,
‘Stay away from her! Leave her alone! She’s not yours to take!’

Of the cold, metallic voice of Lord saying, ‘They’re all mine. When will you vermin understand that? They are worth nothing to anyone except to me. They are all mine!’

And then flying fists, gouging claws: his hands; my claws.

Edward ‘Ted’ Lord. Sir Edward Chassebury. I had fought Lord Chassebury before.

I could do it again.

I poised to pounce.

The arm that wrapped around my throat was like a vice – heavy, painful, unyielding.

I opened my mouth to scream, but before I could a hand pressed hard against it. I struggled and writhed and jabbed at my attacker with my newly powerful limbs, but I could not shake them. They were stronger than I was.

They must be immortal, too,
I thought.

I felt their breath against my ear, and then they were speaking.

And I knew this voice too.

‘Ssshhh, Tessa. It’s okay. It’s only me. I need you to turn around very slowly. Don’t make a sound. Please. Trust me.’

How could I trust him? After what I had heard?

‘Hello, Vinnie. I was hoping it would be you …’

How could I trust him when I knew he was in league with her? With the one who had just invited a group of monsters to slaughter my friends?

It was as though he could read my thoughts. ‘You think I’m one of them, don’t you?’ he whispered. ‘Nothing could be further from the truth. Sometimes, Tessa, to destroy the thing you hate you must become it.’

Vinnie’s breath was hot in my ear. I struggled less as I listened, wondering what his story really was; wondering if I should believe it. ‘I left my home for a century,’ he continued. ‘I have had to work, as Vinnie, for many years to gain their trust and, without it, I would not have known about tonight’s attack. Cynthia and Lord both think I am on their side. I am not. I will explain more, but turn around and you will see I am telling the truth. Can I trust you to do it silently?’

I nodded, my chin pressing into the palm of his hand. He let go and I turned around.

And it was all I could do not to fall to my knees.

In front of me was Vinnie. But not the same Vinnie I remembered from the hospital and the police station. Not the Vinnie in the worn suits with a cardboard cup of coffee permanently attached to his hand, and the bags upon bags beneath his eyes. Not the one who grunted and grouched and slouched about as if the weight of mountains pressed against his shoulders.

He was nothing like
that
Vinnie, and yet I knew it was him. I could hear it in his voice and smell it on him. He did not smell like strong cologne any more. He smelled like … like musk and sweat and blood. I recognised his scent.

This Vinnie had fire in his amber eyes – they flickered and sparkled. This Vinnie stood tall, his muscles tensed.

This Vinnie had stripes.

And claws.

He was a Thyla. His eyes were larger, rounder, and the iris nearly eclipsed the white. His nose was broader and flatter, and his nostrils turned forwards, like a dog’s. His ears were bigger too, and pointed. His teeth had been replaced by fangs. His body seemed more lithe, and his muscles were harder and more defined. He wore trousers still, like the Sarcos did (thankfully – I think I may have fainted if he were wholly naked) and yet I could see his legs bent backwards. His torso was bare, and I could see stripes when he twisted away. He was still human in some ways and yet he was
other
as well. He was
Thyla.
Like me.

‘You’re …’ I began.

‘Since 1851,’ he said, attempting a smile. ‘Just like you. Isaac Livingston is my proper name.’ He held out his broad, clawed hand, grabbed mine and shook it roughly. ‘I don’t think we have time for more niceties than that,’ he whispered. He looked towards the clearing. ‘The Sarcos are managing now, but they need to more than manage. I have reinforcements coming. As soon as they’re here …’

I tried to shake the shock out of me. ‘Isaac Livingston!’

The prison guard from the Female Factory. The man who wrote the report about me. The man I remembered in the room when the overseer was talking to Chassebury. That was
Vinnie
? And he was a
Thyla
?

I had so many questions.

He was right, though. We didn’t have time. I just had one question I
needed
answered before I could truly trust him. I spoke quickly. ‘How did you do it?’ I asked. ‘How did you hide what you are from Lord? If he knew you at the Factory, he must have wondered how you …’

Vinnie read my thoughts. ‘Like I said, I disappeared. Fled to the bush. Became Thyla almost full-time and watched them. With you. You’ll remember that, eventually. It was only a hundred years later, when I saw how they were becoming more ruthless in their actions, that I re-emerged. I dyed my hair to look older. I wore different clothes. Strong aftershave so he couldn’t detect my Thyla scent. I was insignificant to Lord back in the day – a mere lowly prison guard. He didn’t remember me.’

Isaac looked up, past my shoulder.

‘Ah, Beagle,’ he said.

Beagle?

I swung around. Mr Beagle (well, a Thyla who looked and smelled something like Mr Beagle) crept stealthily through the forest. Behind him were another ten Thylas.

‘Isaac,’ said Mr Beagle, nodding. It was definitely him. The voice was the same. ‘Tessa.’

‘Hi, Mr Beagle,’ I said meekly. I had a million questions for him, but the most pressing one was,
Did you know? And if you
did
know, why didn’t you tell me?

But my questions would have to wait. I stayed silent and listened.

‘Are we ready?’ asked Vinnie.
Isaac.

Mr Beagle nodded, and looked back over his shoulder at more Thylas, creeping out of the darkness. ‘As we’ll ever be,’ he whispered.

‘Then let’s go,’ said Isaac.

‘Is she coming, too?’ asked Beagle.

‘Of course,’ Isaac replied. ‘She’s done it a million times. A hundred and sixty years’ worth.’

‘But she’s for–’

‘She’ll remember. We need her out there. You know she’s a pro at this. She’ll remember.’

Beagle nodded. And so, I was in.

Isaac nodded back at Beagle and then, a sharp claw held to his lip, he nodded over Beagle’s shoulder at the other Thylas.

This was really happening. It was about to begin.

We had surprise on our side, but that wasn’t an advantage for long.

For the first few moments after we burst into the clearing where the battle was taking place, it seemed as though we were on top. We knocked men to the ground with our blows, stabbing at their chests with our claws, biting at their necks with our sword-sharp teeth. They fell like fish from a waterfall.

And I was in the middle of it. Isaac was right: I
did
remember.

It wasn’t easy. I was scared. I wondered if I had always been scared of this: of fighting, of the Diemens. Because they were horribly scary. And evil. You could see it in their eyes; in the way they smiled as they killed. We did not smile as we killed. We winced and grimaced. But we had to do it. To protect my friends.

We Thylas called out warnings and instructions to each other in yips and cough-like barks that only we could understand; sounds that I remembered more easily than I remembered many human words. The noises were instinctive. They were part of me. The Sarcos communicated in their own secret language that sounded like growls and screams.

I had Diemen blood on my tongue. It tasted like poison. I spat it to the ground and it sizzled.

Their blood was black.

As I fought, I added what I learned in battle to the list of things I knew.

I am Tessa. I am strong. I do not cry. I am dead. I am a killer.

And though I felt remorse for it – though the human inside me was ashamed of the pain I was causing – I was certain that I was doing the right thing.

It was instinct.

And it was memory.

I knew that Lord’s men were evil.

I
remembered.

Lord and his followers came to Tasmania because this is where the convicts were. The convict girls and women. Before they killed them, they inhaled the last breath of their victims. And once they had killed them, they ate their heart and bathed in their blood. This was their bloodsport. They were hunters. This was also how they became immortal, a sort of vampire, except, like us, they could be fatally wounded.

The Diemens targeted the convict women because they thought nobody would miss them.

But somebody
did
miss one of them.

I missed my mother.

And the Thylas, though many had no humans to miss any more, missed a time when everyone – human and shapeshifter – was free to roam the bushland as they wished and without fear. When everyone could truly be wild. They hated Lord’s men for taking their freedom, and the freedom of the women they attacked.

I remembered them fighting beside me as though my battle was their own, and I fought as though theirs was mine.

And as I bit and punched and clawed, I remembered something else:
‘There are not enough prisoner women now to sustain them. They have been forced to start hunting civilians.’

The words repeated in my head in Isaac’s voice, and a chill ran through me even as my body flamed and burned and battled.

I remembered it, Connolly. Finally I
saw
it. The most important memory of all.

A girl who looked like you. Running. Terrified. Another girl behind her. A girl with white hair. A girl closing in, calling out, ‘Daddy! I’ve found her! I’ve found her for you!’

Me, leaping through the trees, misjudging my footing, falling behind.

They caught her. And it was my fault.

But I found her again, Connolly. I remember now. I found her again and we were friends. Cat and I were
friends.

Holy hell. How did I forget that?

She was there the night I fell. It was a night-time patrol. Cat and I were paired up, searching the forest for signs of Diemens. She was trying out her new powers by jumping about on the rocky cliffs, deep ravines and crevasses all around her. I begged her to be careful.

I called out to her yet again,
‘Cat, watch it!’

‘I’m fine!’
she called back.
‘You’re watching me. I’ll be fine. Why don’t you come up here and play with me, Tess? It’s fun!’

‘We are meant to be patrolling!’
I protested.
‘This is not the time for fun!’

‘It’s not dangerous up here, Tessa!’
she said.
‘Look, follow me! I’ll show you what I can do now!’

I groaned inwardly, and made to follow, but then I heard it: footsteps pounding through the bush. At first I thought it was Cat coming back, but then I smelled them.
Diemens
.

‘Lord’s going to be so pleased with us,’
one of them was saying.
‘Got the solution here safely
and
a subject to test it on.’

I crouched down. The Diemens were walking towards me, only a few metres away. They had another with them. Not a Diemen. A Sarco, by the smell. He was only half-turned, though. His legs were only slightly wrong-facing, pushing against the backs of his trousers. His hands didn’t yet have their claws. They were bound and he had a hessian bag over his head.

‘Enough solution here to last us a while,’
one of the Diemens said.
‘Good thing, too. I hear it’s hard to make, and Lord had to pull some serious strings to get it shipped over from England. Greedy bastards wanted to keep it all for themselves.’

The solution.
I did not know what it was but I knew that if it was in the hands of Diemens – and if they had a captive Sarco to test it on – it could not be good. I had to get it from them. And save the Sarco.

The Diemens had moved farther away now, so I knew I would not be heard. But they were not too far away for me to catch them, if I ran at my top speed. I was good at running quietly. I would be upon them before they knew it.

I moved carefully along the high ledge. But I was not as careful as I should have been. I lost my footing and slid silently down the cliff. And that is all I remember.

I failed. But I would not fail again.

I clenched my fists and looked up at the battle in front of me, just as another Diemen launched himself at me.

I deflected his attack; pushed him away with all my newfound might. The man fell backwards, but he was smiling, a sickening, twisted smile full of silver teeth.

‘This is only the beginning, Thyla,’ he snarled as he sprang back to his feet.

‘You seem awfully confident,’ I replied, shifting my stance and steadying myself.

‘Oh, I am,’ he said, moving forwards. ‘We have the solution now. It’s only a matter of time before what we have been waiting for these many years is finally realised.’

I launched myself at him, fangs bared. But he was quicker than I. He grabbed my arm and pulled me close. ‘Too many years of waiting,’ he whispered. He pushed his dagger against my throat. ‘We know what we’re doing now. We know how to test it, how to perfect it. You just wait, you filthy –’

Then his eyes bulged and a trickle of black blood oozed from his charcoal lips.

His grip eased on my arm and he slumped to the ground. Standing behind him was Perrin.

‘Don’t you die, little girl,’ he growled. His eyes seemed to pierce my skin and my breath became sharp and ragged.

‘Hey, Tessa!’ a voice called out to me above the wailing and roaring and pounding of the fray. I tore my eyes away from Perrin.

Another man leapt at me and I stuck my claws deep in his neck. Rhiannah was beside me, her arm twisting the head of another of Lord’s men.

‘Hey, Rhiannah,’ I cried.

‘When this is over, we’ll go and get waffles, okay?’ she yelled.

‘Definitely,’ I yelled back, allowing myself a smile.

And that’s when it happened. In that small moment of distraction, Rhiannah was taken.

Lord, his white hair glinting in the moonlight, swept down like a goshawk and clamped his arm around Rhiannah’s throat so tightly that her scream turned to a moan.

Then he looked me right in the eyes.

And he smiled.

My blood turned to ice.

In a fraction of a second they were gone.

Then Lord’s men – the ones who had survived – retreated too, without a word or a backwards glance. They had come to us in a flash, like lightning, and they were gone every bit as quickly.

And we were left – the ones of us who survived – stunned and panting. Once we could breathe again, the forest echoed with our cry.

‘Rhiannah!’