Walking Shadows (28 page)

Trying to see if we had been followed, to see if anyone was watching, if anyone was near, I
turned this way and that, like a hyperactive meerkat.

"I…"

"Shhh."

Gary cocked his head, listening, then nodded.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay what? Okay how? What do we do now? Where do we go?" I was annoyed to hear my
voice rising in panic, "Where are we?"

"I don't know."

"You don't…What? How?" Bloody hell. Bloody Gary. Hopeless,
geographically-challenged, getting-himself-stabbed, stupendously lucky, utterly wonderful Gary.

I took a shuddering breath. "How did you even find me?"

"I followed the tall guy. It wasn't hard."

"You were supposed to be getting away."

"So were you, but you didn't. So I waited and I followed." He took a moment to lift his
shirt again, inspecting the closing injury in his ribs. "Sorry it took me so long to get to the
door. I was kind of hoping one of them would go out again and make it easier. Then I didn't know
what they were doing to you, so I thought I'd better… you know. Knock."

A gasp of faintly hysterical laughter escaped from me, and I drew breath sharply on it. If I got
hysterical now I wouldn't stop.

"Are you all right?" I managed to ask, looking from the hole in his shirt to the hand
he was still gently flexing.

"Yeah," he said, not sounding at all certain.

"Good." I had to quash another rising sob.

"You?"

"Oh, fine. I'm fine. Just…" I buried my face in my hands. "Fine."

A sense of his fingers near my skin made me come out of hiding. His hand hovered near my face,
like he had started to touch me but changed his mind.

"Lissa?"

"I'm all right," I said, more like I meant it this time. "Thank you for coming to
get me."

"I couldn't let them keep you. You're the only friend I've got." He gave a half-hearted
smile.

"We should get out of here," I said.

"Maybe I should go back."

"Back? Gary, what the hell for?" Hitting him seemed like a good idea.

He looked away from me, "Finish it. Them."

"No." I grabbed him by the shirt and shook him. "Don't you dare. You're not like
them. You don't just kill things. You don't…" The hysteria was rising again and I could
hardly breathe, let alone speak.

"Look what they did to you. They'll do worse to me if they get a chance."

A sob broke free at last and tears leaked. "Please don't go back."
Don't give them a
chance to hurt you again. Don't be the one to stop Evan. Don't.

He finally looked at me again. "Let's get you home."

Gary raised his head, and having satisfied himself about the sounds and scents nearby, got to his
feet. He held out his previously injured hand to me and I took it gingerly. Nothing came adrift from
it while I got to my feet.

The sleeve of my tattered shirt was the handiest thing I had to dry my face. My right knee was
throbbing where I had crashed onto it several times. My whole leg was aching. And my arms and
shoulders, and my neck, my face. My everything, actually. I longed to phone Kate, despite knowing
how much it would frighten her, but my phone was still in Evan's pocket.

With Gary at my side, I hobbled down the street past a mixture of residences and small
businesses, avoiding the pools of light thrown by the street lamps. I finally recognised where we
were when we emerged onto the main road.

St Kilda. Of course. Where else, that close to Elsternwick, would there be a partly furnished
holiday house? The suburban streets had led us to a road that fed into St Kilda Road, the long
ribbon of corporate offices and Victorian era architecture that linked the city to the seaside.

The hour wasn't yet too late for trams. First I had to make it to a tram stop, then keep standing
until one arrived. I decided not to think about how my fellow passengers would react to my physical
state. The important thing was to get home. Home was at the other end of St Kilda Road - a straight
line to Kate, comfort and sanctuary.

I limped towards St Kilda Road. Gary walked alongside me until I started stumbling. My feet kept
stubbornly moving but the rest of me wasn't keeping up. The second time he caught my arm to steady
me as I nearly tripped over my own feet, he slipped his arm around me to help.

"I'm not a bloody invalid." Pain, terror, betrayal and eleventh hour rescues make me
snippy.

"Well, you limp like one. It's going to take forever at this rate, and I don't know if
they're going to come after us. That kid can probably track us by..." he clammed up abruptly.
It puzzled me for a second until I twigged and finished the sentence for him.

"My smell."

"I never said you smelled
bad
," he said, testily, "Not usually." He
seemed to realise he'd lost points on the tact-ometer again. "You still smell like you and
he'll be able to follow that all right."

"Fine. Good. He's an undead bloodhound and I'm distinctive. I get it."

"We'll get there faster if I carry you." He matched my glare unflinchingly.
"What's the problem?" he asked, more curious than challenging about my resistance to
perfectly reasonable logistics.

My sigh turned into a sob, so I smothered the sound. My problem? Who knew where to begin? But
there was Gary staring at me in mixed bewilderment and concern, and I realised that Gary was not, in
fact, one of my problems.

"Carry me," I acquiesced humbly. "Please."

Gary made me swing an arm across his neck, then scooped me up. I held on, pressed against his
chest, my head pillowed on his shoulder. We made unbelievably swift progress to the nearest tram
stop.

Then, bloody typically, we saw a tram pulling out of the stop just before we got there. Without
consultation, he kept on walking.

St Kilda Road has some apartments on it, but mainly it's office blocks. We didn't meet many
people on the way, and the few we did had no comment to share.

The rhythm of his step was steady and calming. I didn't relax, precisely. I kept zoning out,
concentrating on the minutiae of the texture of Gary's shirt and the strangely reassuring and
comfortable expanse of his chest rather than how everything in my body and head and heart hurt.

He said something and I had to ask him to repeat it.

"I said, what was that thing you stuck in the kid's back?"

"A syringe full of heroin and blood. It's what they've been using on everyone."

Gary was thoughtful. "That's what the tall one tried to stick into me at the safe house. How
do you know him?"

"Who?"

"The guy who tried to stick me."

The question made me feel ill, but Gary sounded more curious than angry. "I met him on
Sunday. We got talking."

I wasn't prepared to tell the whole ugly story yet.

"I didn't know what he was planning to do," I said. What he had already done, Friday
night, to Mundy and Thomas.

"Hmm."

"How did you know I knew him?"

"When we were playing pool on Sunday night you, uh, you won't like this."

I hadn't liked anything so far. "Go on," I prompted.

"You had a faint smell of something different about you. I didn't know what it was, but it
wasn't the usual you. And tonight I recognised it."

"Can you say 'scent' instead of 'smell'? It makes me sound rank."

"It's not. It's just sm...ah, scents."

"So you keep saying."

"I can hear a tram coming now. Do you want to catch it?"

Yes please, and let us stop talking about Evan and smells
.

We made it to the stop in time and Gary helped me up the steps and onto a seat. We got more
stares here than on the road. At last I understood what it was like to be one of those poor sods
that people avoid on public transport. On the plus side, I supposed, we were less likely to be
leaving a trail for Abe to follow.

Some time later, Gary stirred me out of my numbness and helped me off the tram,
taking most of my weight on the walk home. Once off the main road, he lifted me up. Argument was
pointless, and anyway, I was grateful.

He set me down at the entrance to the apartments so I could find my keys. I managed to swipe the
electronic pass across the security pad and leaned on him all the way up in the lift. After I
dropped the keys for the second time, he picked them up and went to unlock the front door himself.
It swung open, revealing Kate.

A very distressed Kate. Who rapidly became a very, very angry Kate.

"Where the hell have you been? I've been calling and calling you and you never answered. And
you!" Kate turned on Gary with such ferocity that he took a step back from her. Never mind he'd
just faced down a pair of cold blooded killers. They, apparently, were not as daunting as my sister
in a rage.

"You can't come in," Kate's eyes were very possibly shooting actual bolts of lightning,
"You are absolutely uninvited. Don't you dare…"

At this point I wobbled and began to fall. Kate and Gary tried to catch me at the same time,
resulting in a squashing to add to all the bruises. I didn't mind. There were worse things than
being sandwiched between your two best friends.

Kate wasn't able to do much except support me while I tried to find my feet. Gary simply slung an
arm across my back, another behind my knees and hoisted me back up and through the door. I felt the
violent shudder go through him as he stepped over the threshold, then he deposited me on the sofa.
Kate, close on his heels, was bending solicitously over me. I heard, without paying attention to,
Kate's raised voice as she shouted at Gary over the state I was in.

Gary finally lost his temper. "It's not my fault! I didn't do this to her!"

"She didn't do it to herself!"

"If she could keep her nose out of my business for more than a minute it wouldn't have
happened."

My protest was startled into silence when he scowled at me instead. "First Ballarat, now
this. Look what happens to you when you do this."

"And what would have happened to you if I hadn't been there?" I hurled back,
"Ballarat or the safe house?"

Useless bloody vampire, nearly setting yourself on fire, nearly getting yourself
killed.

"Look at
you
," and his expression was less anger and more anxiety now. "I'm
already dead, Lissa. It can't get much worse for me, but you, you're…" The scowl deepened
again. "I like you better alive, if that's okay with you. You're the only thing in 40 years
that made me feel like becoming what I am wasn't the stupidest mistake I ever made. I'd really
appreciate it if you'd stop getting in the line of fire."

"Well, if you'd stop doing that yourself we'd all be much better off, wouldn't we?"

"I told you not to come in here," Kate's tight, angry voice broke over the pair of us
and we stopped. She glared at Gary. "Get the hell out of my house."

Gary's gaze dropped. He walked to the door.

There's nothing like a full blown panic attack to restore strength to tired and aching limbs. I
lurched to my feet and attempted to fling myself across the room. "No! No! You can't go! They
could be anywhere! It's not safe! You can't." My knees buckled again.

Gary caught me, not very gracefully, under the armpits and hurriedly deposited me back on the
sofa. Kate dropped down beside me and wrapped her arms around me to hold me still.

"Get. Out." The hardness in Kate's voice was new to me, but it meant nothing. I had my
fingers curled in Gary's shirt, refusing to let go.

"Stay, stay, please, don't go out there, don't go, you can't go, they're out there, don't
go." And more babbling to that effect, in between sobs of panic.

Gary looked over my head at Kate, who was still hanging on to me, trying to pull me back from my
frantic hold on him.

"Tell me what to do, Kate," he said helplessly. "I'll go. I'll stay. Whatever
helps her. But I don't know what to do. You need to tell me."

Kate was still for a moment, then she disentangled herself from me. As soon as she let go I had
both hands wrapped in Gary's shirt, telling him to stay, stay, stay.

Kate gently prised my clenched hands off Gary.

"He can stay," she said quietly, and then I could breathe again. I used the opportunity
to collapse in a shuddering heap.

Altogether, turning to marble like I used to had been much more dignified and less
exhausting.

"Look after her a minute," she said to Gary, and he awkwardly patted my shoulder while
she disappeared.

"You're okay now," he said in bemusement, "Kate's going to look after
you."

"Stay," I said again, unable to get the word out of my head.

"I'm staying," he said.

"It's dangerous for you out there."

He kindly forbore from pointing out that I was the one covered in bruises and having hysterics.
"I'm alright," he said.

"They stabbed you."

"That's all right," he said airily, "See? Not a mark." He lifted his shirt to
show me the place where the knife had been buried, revealing a lightly padded ribcage and a fraction
of belly covered in fine, dark hair. Suddenly self-conscious, he tugged the shirt down again.
"Anyway, I've had worse. I got shot once."

That was not helpful. Another wave of panic gripped me as Kate returned with an icepack and
painkillers. Gary backed away while Kate gave me the tablets and pressed the pack to my face.

"Hold that," she instructed him. Gary did as he was told, holding the icepack gently to
my face while Kate knelt on the floor and removed my shoes. She gingerly ran her hands along the
outside of my legs until I hissed in pain. She prodded my knee gently, and must have been satisfied
that nothing was bleeding or broken, but it bloody hurt.

"Help me get her to bed."

Gary obliged, picking me up and carrying me, on instruction, to Kate's room. He laid me down on
her double bed and stood out of the way.

"Wait outside a minute." He left, and she closed the door. "Now. Who did
this?"