Walking Shadows (35 page)

"The bill. Yeah." Anthony cast another wary glance at our little group and followed the
manager inside.

I felt around under a wrought iron chair where I had seen the syringe tumble after Abe had
dropped it. Found it and clutched it close.

"Are you with the circus or something?" Dad asked Gary, still fishing for logical
explanations.

The syringe went carefully into my bag. "Leave it Dad," I said.

"No," he rounded on me, "I won't leave it. What the hell is going on? I've got
teenage junkies jumping off roofs, for God's sake, circus freaks climbing all over the joint, it's
not bloody good enough!"

"Really, Dad, you're out of your depth here."

"You're hardly in a position to be lecturing me."

"Dad, just crawl back into your bottle." Exasperation and anxiety, not to mention
disappointment, made me testy. "You know you like it better there."

"That's not true"

"I can smell it on you."

"Really, it's," Dad's denial faltered under the hurt look Kate gave him. He fell
silent, his expression a childish combination of shame and surliness at having been caught out.

Anthony returned to the glass doorway. "All paid up," he said curtly, "We should
go."

There's nothing like standing in a slow moving lift down fifteen floors to accentuate a deeply
uncomfortable silence. We didn't even have muzak to fill in the gaps. When the lift opened on the
foyer, Anthony, his arm protectively around Kate's shoulders, led the way. Only Gary seemed
untouched by the fraught atmosphere, no doubt preoccupied by the fact that he still had a crazy
slayer on his trail.

And Dad was drinking again. Or still. Some things never changed.

When we reached the street, there was no sign of Abe or of Magdalene and her
cronies.

"Who was that boy? The one who jumped?" Anthony's gaze scoured the street, the dented
car, the murmuring crowd. "Where did he go?"

The police had arrived and were interviewing people on the street. The uniformed contingent was
looking puzzled and annoyed. There was no body, no blood. Nothing but a dented car and some very
surprised and barely coherent witnesses.

A policeman approached us. Anthony came over all lawyer-y, and took it on himself to intercept.
The two of them became involved in a quietly spoken conference.

"I'll take you home, girls," Dad offered solicitously, but the slight softening of his
consonants was telling. He was drunker than he looked. He had surely been working on that slur since
before dinner, and hidden it well. A high functioning alcoholic, my Dad. At least he was high
functioning at something.

Kate doesn't get angry often. She favours gentle reasoning, persuasion, and meaningful silences
in which the arguee can contemplate how ridiculous they are being. That's how she argues with me at
any rate. When she gets really angry, though, she's like a small, powerful explosion.

"You will
not
take us home," Kate rounded on him, her brown eyes flashing,
"I don't want you taking me anywhere. You couldn't even manage three days without breaking your
word."

"Sweetheart."

"Don't you 'sweetheart' me. You can't come in and out of our lives like this, making all the
same promises and breaking them in the next breath. I've had enough. It's not my job to stick your
life back together for you, if you can't even make the effort to stay sober for one bloody night.
This was important to me, and you had to make a mess of it. Again."

Dad flinched, but Kate's expression was unforgiving.

"You should go back home with Anthony tonight," I whispered to her.

"What about you?"

I glanced at Gary, who was peering intently up and down the street. "I think Gary and I need
to work out some stuff. Do you mind?"

"You're not going to go haring off into trouble again, are you?"

My 'who, me?' face was not convincing, for good reason. I put my best lies forward. "Gary
and I have to talk about what he's going to do. That kid's trying to kill him and he won't give up.
I figure Gary can stay over again tonight, and tomorrow we'll have a new strategy."

Anthony bid goodnight to the policeman, handed over a business card and returned to the cheerless
throng that comprised our family.

"Right, that's dealt with." I supposed that even if there were charges that could be
laid in the absence of complainants or corpses, he had defused the possibilities with a lather of
legal niceties and earnest charm.

Anthony and Kate stuck close together, but Anthony insisted on waiting until a taxi had been
flagged down for me. I hugged Kate close and reassured her again that I wasn't planning anything
dumb, waved Gary into the back seat and climbed in beside him. I gave the driver the address, and in
the next moment the front passenger door opened and Dad slid into the seat.

"What are you doing?" I demanded.

"Keeping an eye on him," Dad insisted, throwing a hard look over his shoulder at
Gary.

"Don't be daft."

Dad folded his arms and refused to budge. I didn't have the time or patience to fight about it.
"Fine. Don't expect to be invited in." I told the driver to go and decided if Dad hassled
us at home after tonight, I'd call the police to haul him away.

Driving home was more circuitous than walking over the river bridge and through the one way
streets, but still faster. Once there, Dad insisted on paying, then waiting with Gary and me in the
foyer. He kept giving Gary nasty, suspicious looks.

He followed us into the lift and all the way to the door where he watched us enter. He scowled at
Gary's brief, shuddering pause.

"You can go now," I told my father. With a deliberate, defiant set to his jaw, he
followed us inside.

Everything came to a halt as Oscar, in a snarling frenzy, had to be intercepted and bundled into
the bathroom, along with a muttered apology. When I turned my back on the muffled, angry whines, Dad
was casting stroppy looks at Gary, and Gary's expression showed he was discovering what the end of
his tether looked like.

"Dad, I said you can go now."

"I'm not going anywhere while that creepy bastard's here," said Dad.

"Maybe I should go…" began Gary.

"No," I said curtly, "You're welcome in my house. He isn't."

Dad scowled. "I want a fucking explanation!"

My father wouldn't believe the truth if I told him, or it would terrify him if he did. For a
change I couldn't think up a single convincing lie. I couldn't even think of a way to decorate the
truth to make it prettier to look at or easier to swallow.

Sod it.

"The short version, Dad, is that Gary is a vampire. The skinny kid is also a vampire; and so
is Magdalene, the lady in black who was fighting with him. She and the two thugs are trying to kill
the skinny kid, who is killing vampires all over Melbourne. I can't be bothered with the long
version, so you can take or leave that, whatever you like."

Dad's expression became stormy. "This isn't funny."

"I agree," I said. "I will grant you that it's bizarre and terrifying. It is not
in the slightest bit funny."

Dad shifted his ire onto Gary. "And you're going to let her spout this rubbish?"

Gary shrugged.

"So you're, what, a real vampire?"

"I'd cross my heart and hope to die," he said, "but, well, you know."

"You're mad."

"If you've got a logical explanation for everything you saw tonight, I'd be fascinated to
hear it," I said waspishly.

"Prove it," challenged Dad, with strident contempt.

"I don't do tricks. I'm not a bloody sideshow act," Gary growled.

"Sure you are. Go on, show me your teeth."

"Leave him alone, Dad."

"No. If you say he's a vampire, I want to see it. Go on, kid, turn into a bat. Probably a
big fat bat."

"Leave him alone!" I stepped towards Dad, hoping to herd him towards the door. I guess
Dad didn't like to be crowded, because he placed a hand in the middle of my chest and shoved. I
staggered back a few paces, startled but unhurt. I suppose it looked worse than it felt.

Gary moved so quickly I hardly saw it. Between one moment and the next, he grabbed Dad by the
arms and dragged him up close, so they were almost nose to nose. I couldn't see Gary's expression,
but the terror in Dad's was impossible to miss. Gary said something very quietly, and Dad, his face
whiter than white, nodded frantically.

"It's okay, Gary," I said softly, then again, when Gary didn't respond, "I'm not
hurt."

Dad whimpered.

"Let him go now, Gary. Please."

Dad's knees buckled as Gary turned abruptly away from him and stalked to the far end of the
kitchen bench where he leaned, arms crossed, against the wall, his expression still far from
friendly.

Dad was ashen. I could guess what he'd seen. I wasn't angry with Gary for doing it, though I
pitied my father. No-one should ever have to know what it feels like to be looked at like that, with
implacable hostility from the grave. For once I wouldn't have blamed Dad for wanting a drink. His
blue eyes were wide and fearful, his skin sickly-pallid.

"You, you," Dad had roused himself and his eyes were fixed on Gary in a mixture of
terror and loathing. "You stay away from my kids." Before I could formulate a reply, he
sprang at Gary and punched him hard in the stomach. I couldn't see that it had the slightest effect.
Gary, instead of hitting back, gave me a look of mute disgust.

Then Dad snatched a knife out of the block on the bench.

Drunk he may be, but he was a professional sportsman, relatively fit and adrenalin-fuelled.
Before I could react, Dad thrust the knife into the left side of Gary's chest, and it sank in half
the length of the blade. Dad stood, panting with the exertion and the terror.

For a split second, I thought my own heart would fail me. Luckily, my father's comprehension of
human anatomy wasn't good, or alcohol had buggered his aim. Lucky, too, that Gary's other organs had
proven relatively invulnerable to stabbing.

Gary stared stupidly at the handle protruding from his chest, a good handspan above his heart.
"Ow." He cast an irritated glance at me, then transferred it to my father.
"
Ow!
"

"Die you bastard," Dad yelled at him, "Turn to dust. Go on."

"Shut up, Dad!"

"You - watch - too - much - telly," Gary's speech was ragged. The knife seemed to have
pierced his lung, making speech a labour. Gary grabbed the handle. Tugged. It moved a fraction and
stopped. "Ow. Stuck. Collar Bone."

I pushed Dad ungently out of the way so I could help Gary. Gary braced himself against the bench.
I grabbed the knife handle with both hands and pulled. The resistance vanished, the knife slid out
and I threw it into the sink with a clatter. Gary clapped a hand over the bloodless wound briefly.
Then he poked a finger through the hole in the shirt and pressed it against the one in his chest.

"That - hurt," Gary said in staccato resentment.

Dad's knees failed completely and he folded to the floor, never taking his eyes off Gary.
"You really are, really," he couldn't finish the sentence.

"Un-Dead," Gary supplied for him, "Yes."

"Would it help if I got a bandaid for that?" I asked, "It might stop the
leak." It made him sound like a punctured tyre.

"Nah. O - kay. In a - minute."

There followed what I believe was the longest and most awkward pause ever in the history of human
communication.

It ended when Gary twice thumped his chest over the stab wound, inhaled and held, thumped again,
exhaled carefully, then nodded curtly. "That's better."

"You sure?" I asked.

"Yeah." He fiddled with the hole in his shirt ruefully. "Damn. I like this
shirt."

"I'll get it mended for you."

"Thanks."

We both became aware of the looks we were getting from the third cast member in this pitiful
melodrama.

Dad was kneeling on the floor staring, transfixed, at Gary. Gary was most definitely not amused.
"Get up, Mr Wilson."

"Y-you stay away from m-my girls."

"Dad, he's the good guy."

Dad clambered stiffly to his feet, still eying Gary fearfully. "He's a v-v…"

"I know. He's still the good guy."

"He's…un-un-unholy."

Part of me felt bad for him. Most of me was angry, and getting angrier every second, now that the
hysterical activity had passed and I had time to think.

"I'll tell you what Gary is, Dad. He's reliable. He looks out for me, and he's always there
for me. He keeps his word, he's not an alcoholic and he's never tried to turn me into a vampire. So
he's streets ahead of either of my parents on pretty much every single count you could name. So why
don't you get the hell out of my house?"

"Don't you talk to me like that. It's been a hell of a night."

"You just stabbed my best friend, Dad."

"He's not even bleeding." He twitched nervously, "He's a v-vampire, he can't
die."

"You tried to stab him in the heart. If you'd actually had a clue, you might have killed
him. If he was a living person, you'd have punctured his lung and he'd almost certainly be dead now.
So however you look at it, the only reason my friend isn't dead is because you're a moron."

"I was trying to protect you!"

"Well, you're lousy at it. Go home."

Dad stumbled for the door. It took three attempts to move the handle and get into the hallway. He
paused there, glaring in a tumult of emotion at Gary. "If you harm my daughter…"

Gary looked at me. "Why does your family always think I'm going to do something bad to
you?"

I was grudgingly impressed that, despite everything, Dad had stood his ground one last time. Not
impressed enough, though. "Gary is not going to hurt me, Dad. Certainly less than you do. Sober
up, then you can convince me that Kate and I matter a damn to you."

I closed the door on him. I presume he took the lift downstairs again. I didn't bother
looking.