Walking Shadows (30 page)

"You make him nervous." I took a breath. "Don't worry about it, Kate. Gary and I
will find a place for him to go."

"Like where?"

"I don't know. I'll think of something."

It wasn't the most successful day at the office ever. I caught a taxi in and
explained myself away as a clumsy numbskull who fell down lots of stairs. Shelving was out of the
question. I could hardly hold the heavier books, let alone reach the upper shelves. The enquiries
desk was fine and I took on a lot of back office admin.

For half the day, every time I caught a glimpse of someone tall entering the library I froze in
the middle of whatever task I was doing and held my breath until I was certain it wasn't Evan. I had
the same reaction to short blond visitors.

The usual routines eventually worked their balm and my Internet class, as always, brought me
perfect delight. Mr Crawford was in the process of building a website to showcase his vast
collection of 1940s theatrical memorabilia and Mrs Ng had very nearly mastered the desktop publisher
for the recipe book she was compiling for her many children, "so they can make food like their
grandmama's!". My lovely oldies were solicitous and sweet in reaction to my injuries, and Mrs
Ng wanted to make me chicken soup with hot mint.

At the end of the class, Beatrice helped me pack up.

"Lissa, I want you to take the rest of the week off."

"Thanks, Beatrice, but I'm fine."

Beatrice folded her arms and gave me a Look which reminded me intensely of Kate. "Lissa,
you've hurt yourself quite badly, you're exhausted and you're jumping at every sound. You haven't
taken any leave since you started full time. Take a few days and look after yourself. Come back on
Monday looking less like something that even the cat refused to drag in and I might let you in the
door. That's not a suggestion, Lissa. If I see you here tomorrow morning I'm putting you straight
into a taxi home."

My attempted protest was skewered by a sharp, steely look. I wondered if she ever had to
unsheathe it on her missus. "Yes ma'am."

"Cheeky beggar," she admonished, but she put that Look back in its scabbard and did it
with a smile. "I'll call a taxi for you."

The apartment was quiet when I got back. Truth be told, I had started to feel thankful that
Beatrice had taken the decision out of my hands. I was sore as hell and my head ached.

Gary was
sitting on the floor beside my bed again, reading, when I opened the door. He glanced up.
"Hi."

"Hey."

He shifted to allow me to slump onto the edge of the bed. "Beatrice has exercised her veto
on my going back to work until Monday." I subsided into silence and Gary returned to his book.
He was up to
Great Expectations
now. I wondered vaguely if he was going to decide that Miss
Havisham was undead now.

From where I sat I could see he was wearing a fresh pair of jeans, with no sign of the holes
Oscar had made in the last pair. "How's your leg?"

Gary pulled up the leg of his jeans. "Not a scratch," he said, showing me a hairy leg
without permanent scarring.

"You were very patient, putting up with Oscar like that," I said. "Did it
hurt?"

"Not as much as getting stabbed."

"Or shot?"

"Or that."

"When did you get shot?"

"Oh, ages ago." At my sceptical look, he continued, "Ahhh… 1982. I was
running an errand for Magdalene. It turned out not to be what she thought it was. Or at least, not
what she said it was."

A sheepish expression stole over his features. "I really should have figured out about then
that she wasn't to be trusted."

"She got you shot, and you didn't work that out?"

"I wasn't really paying attention."

"So when did you work it out?"

"Oh, about 10 months ago." He rolled his eyes, presumably at his own naiveté.
"Like I said. Slow."

"Darn that undead brain." I laughed weakly. "Who shot you?"

"Some gang member or other. I can't remember which side he was on. I didn't duck in time.
Took hours for it to close up, too. Smith thought it was pretty funny. He was just a kid then. He
kept asking to look at it."

"And?" My brain was getting jammed trying to assimilate this, "Did you let
him?"

"A couple of times. Until he asked to shoot me again so he could see it from the
start."

"Oh?" I said faintly.

"I went home instead."

"I see." More faintly still.

"That was years ago. I stopped doing those sorts of errands," he said, belatedly
realising that his diverting anecdotes were not offering much comfort.

"What kind of 'errands' do you mean, exactly?"

"Messages, mostly. Nothing serious. Nothing, you know…"

"Dangerous?" I suggested incredulously.

"Not usually." Gary fell silent, watching me with a troubled expression. "I didn't
kill people for them or anything." He looked away. "That was when I said I wouldn't do it
any more. When I found out that's what Mundy and Magdalene organised for them, sometimes."

This was not the best time to find out that my much-vaunted best friend had once been a bag man
for the mob. Even if he had no idea what was in the bag, which I completely believed. Gary could be
clueless on a truly monumental scale.

"Why did you start doing these
errands
for them in the first place?"

He looked at his hands. "Something to do, I guess."

"You did it out of
boredom
?"

"That too."

"Gary. Straight answers. Please."

Gary inspected his hands more closely, flexing them, as though checking that everything was still
working, which seemed reasonable given recent events. "Mundy had already been writing to me.
Keeping tabs. He likes to do that. He invited me to Magdalene's club, so I went. After Mum and Dad
died, I didn't like how quiet it was at home so I went more often. I just wanted someone to talk to.
Something to do besides watch television and read, and watch everyone on my street get old and die,
like my parents."

Immortality sucked in so many ways it was impossible to quantify just how badly.

"I didn't go to the club for ages after I got shot, and when I started again it wasn't
often. Most people there aren't interested in talking. Then I met Daniel, and then he, you
know."

I knew.

The 'errand' we hadn't spoken about since Ballarat hung there. In the spirit of everything going
to hell around me, I recklessly figured it was time to learn the worst. "How did you end up
doing that? Helping vampires to die?"

He closed his eyes, perhaps afraid of seeing my reaction, then opened them, as though not seeing
it was worse. "One of them went to Mundy. Mundy made me watch. Then I started doing it for
him."

"For God's sake, why, Gary?"

He flinched. "Mostly… mostly because when Mundy did it, he liked to take his time. And
I thought it shouldn't. Take time like that. That first time, he botched it. This guy was all
mangled. And he wouldn't stop moving. Talking. Mundy was hacking off limbs, and this guy was
whimpering. In bits."

Gary frowned at me, registering perhaps that all the blood had drained from my face. I imagined
Angela Priestley and Alberto, taking so long to die, being made to take longer.

"It didn't stop when Mundy set fire to him, either. Only when the heart burned."

"Oh." Hence Gary's obsession with that. Hence, perhaps, Evan and Abe's swift insistence
on burning Paterson's heart out too.

"That's. Um. Where I got the letters and diaries from, that I mentioned before. A couple of
times, people gave them to me before I… did it."

"How many times have you… done it?"

"Alberto was the sixth."

Why had I thought Gary had spent his whole life sitting inside that house in Glen Waverley? His
whole not-life, I corrected myself. How could he have been so… so…? Stupid was either too
harsh or not harsh enough. Gary had been used, and he had let himself be used, all this time.

And in true Gary style, now he had uncorked about this secret, he couldn't stop talking. "At
first I used to ask them why, and pretty much they all said they were sick of everything changing
all the time, when they don't. They can't keep up and then they can't fit in any more. It's
impossible to be in the open and it's too hard to hide." He chewed his lower lip worriedly.
"And eventually they give up or go crazy. Blood crazy, I mean. Killing sprees, bloodbaths,
trying to get their life back, until someone has to stop them - for everyone's sake.

"It never used to happen so much, they tell me," he continued, looking at his flexing
hands. "I imagine it was easier when things changed more slowly. Mundy reckons he once met
someone who was 2000 years old." He shook his head. "I can't imagine being around 2000
years from now. Maybe not even 200. Everything changes so fast. It's only been 40 years for me, and
I'm finding it hard."

I reached out for his hands, wanting to still them. I didn't like where this conversation was
going.

"The only thing I ever wanted to do was build stuff," he said, his gaze on my hands
wrapped over his. "Bridges, planes, roller coasters, radios. I never did decide what kind of
engineer I wanted to be. I just loved learning how things worked. Now I can't work out
anything."

"Yes you can," I tried to reassure him, and myself, "You do stuff all the time.
You do all the repairs around your house."

"I use a book for that. I can follow basic instructions fine."

"And your collection, all the notes you keep."

He shook his head dismissively. "One-off ideas and facts that interest me from my old books.
Nothing new. Not analysis or any real insights. I'm like Algernon."

"Who?"

"There's this science fiction story, about a dumb guy who has his intelligence enhanced, but
it doesn't stick. He ends up dumb again. He remembers what it was like to be smart, though. I'm like
that."

"You rescued me," I said, "You worked out how to do that."

His gaze shifted to meet mine, then. Hazel eyes without the spark of life in them. I knew Gary
Hooper was hidden behind them, perennially a half-stunted twenty three, clawing his way forward any
way he could.

"Yeah, I did," a smile ghosted his face.

"You're not dumb." I squeezed his knuckles. "You're one of the smartest people I
know."

That brought a proper smile, though I don't think he was convinced.

"Gary, what am I going to do with you?"

"That's what my mum used to say all the time."

I had no idea what to say to that. Instead, I tried to draw a line under the whole thing. The
worst, surely, was known, and it wasn't great, but it wasn't impossible to live with. "I don't
want any more secrets between us, Gary."

"There aren't any more," he said, "Nothing worse, anyway."

My guts squirmed. That still left a lot of room for nasty surprises. "What else have you
hidden from me, then?" Wanting and not wanting to know.

Gary smiled ruefully. "I don't really like musicals that much."

Not what I'd been expecting. "That's not a secret, Gary."

"And I ditched fifth grade once to go fishing with Angus from next door. His idea," he
added, slightly defensively.

Of all the secrets to confess to. "Is that it?"

"And. Ah. We ended up swimming in the nuddy in the Yarra. Dad sprung us and gave me a
hiding."

"Was that for cutting class or for skinny dipping?" I asked, trying to picture it, then
trying not to.

"Cutting class. He was big on school. I think Mum thought the whole thing was 'boyish
hijinks'."

"And is that it for secrets?"

"Yeah, I think I'm done."

"Good."

A brief silence ensued, broken finally by Gary. "Am I still your worst best
friend?"

"Without a doubt." I said it with a smile, because despite everything it was true, and
I didn't want him to think that I thought any different.

A further brief silence was broken again by Gary. "How many vampires does it take to change
a light bulb?" he asked.

"How many?"

"None. They like it in the dark."

I laughed. It hurt. I stopped, gasping.

"Ah. Maybe I shouldn't tell any more jokes."

"No," I exhaled carefully, "that's fine. I could use a laugh."

"I've got more where that came from." That lopsided grin made a return engagement and I
met it with my own wan smile.

My best friend: the Dr Nitschke of the undead, who told vampire jokes, and collected schlocky
horror movies, and rescued me from burning buildings on a semi regular basis. And, I realised with a
burst of happiness, it was all right. Whatever else was going to hell, Gary and me were still
solid.

"What I'd really like you to do," I said, "is make me a cup of tea."

"I can do that," he nodded purposefully and clambered up to put on the kettle. I heard
him moving about in the kitchen.

"Tea's in the cupboard above the fridge," I directed, taking the opportunity to lever
my shoes off my feet and stretch out on the bed. Aaaah. Bed. Nice soft supportive bed and a nice
soft squishy pillow…

Until I heard a door close, I had no idea I'd drifted off to sleep. I would have sat bolt upright
except that I couldn't. I made a pathetic whimpery noise, instead, as I struggled to sit. Through my
open bedroom door I could see Kate, carrying some shopping bags. Gary, on his way back to my room
with a cup of tea, had stopped.

"Um. Lissa wants. Um. Tea."

"I can wait," said Kate. Gary edged into my room and put the tea on my bedside table,
then waited like a kid in the headmaster's office for Kate. She paused outside the door, as though
waiting for an invitation to enter.

"I've got something for you," Kate said to Gary.

He looked at her warily. Kate reached inside the plastic bag she held and withdrew an
extravagantly wrapped parcel. She offered it to him.

"Please accept my apologies for the way I've been speaking to you," she said quietly.
"I hope you'll accept this. It's to say thank you for looking after my sister."