Walking Shadows (37 page)

Evan spoke gently, firmly, like you would to a crazed dog. "Abe, calm down."

"Look. She is here. More of God's great joke." Abe waved the gun vaguely, then steadied
it and pointed it at me. "If I have you, your unholy consort will come to me."

I stepped backwards.

Abe fired.

Evan was shouting at Abe before I was aware of the burning in my upper arm. I sensed movement as
Evan got between me and Abe and the burning became agony.

And then I felt arms close around me; and a lurch as I rose high, then came down on the other
side of the cyclone fence.

Gary began to put me down, and I slapped at him with the arm that was
not a fireball of pain. "No, no, keep going. Run. Abe is…" I couldn't get anything
else out.

Gary scooped me up again, turned, ran. My fingers curled into his shirt and I clung, as best I
could.

Then he stopped again and I would have hit him some more except I couldn't move very well.

"You're bleeding," Gary said. "A lot."

I shivered.

"Hold on," he said.

The pavement was warm against my back. I could smell blood. Cordite too, and I wasn't happy to
know that I knew that scent now. I tried not to whimper when Gary tore my shirt sleeve up to the
shoulder, or when I felt his mouth on the wound. It hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt…

"Damn," muttered Gary.

Not a good sound to hear under the circumstances.

"The bullet's still in there."

Could people bleed to death from a flesh wound? I didn't read those kinds of books. I suppose I
had arteries there. God. Oh God. How many more ways was I going to try to die this week?

"This might hurt."

A flippant reply was nowhere to be found. Instead, I gasped and whimpered again when Gary sucked
at the wound, hard. Harder. I cried out and he wouldn't stop, then I begged him to, and he wouldn't,
and then he was coughing. I heard him spit, then his mouth was at the wound again, doing that thing
he does. Licking the hole and all the mangled capillaries and veins. The muscle. The skin. Gross but
soothing.

It tingled, deep inside my arm. Already it wasn't so bad. The agony retracted blessedly to a
sharp ache.

"Got it." Gary sounded very pleased with himself.

As my breathing became less laboured, I opened my eyes. Gary's skin was pink and flushed, his
eyes bright. Blood was smudged on his lower lip. "We have to get out of here, Gary."

Sirens were close, now. The place would surely be teeming with police soon. I didn't have the
energy or the will to explain anything.

Gary scooped me up again and leapt straight up onto a rooftop. He moved swiftly without running;
probably to ensure he didn't drop me.

Gary crossed several houses diagonally this way, jumping to sheds and occasionally carrying me
gingerly as he tightrope-walked fences. Finally, he was back on street level and the sound of sirens
was behind us. Maybe we had escaped them.

"There!"

Abe's voice was unmistakable. He was half carrying Evan as he chased us across the rooftops,
streets away still, no doubt following the blood trail I'd left. I could see Evan was arguing
futilely with Abe. The boy wasn't listening.

Gary ran on and I clung to him, trying to think of some way out of this mess.

Then abruptly, Gary stopped running. He paused, looked around, and strode up a paved path to the
door of a large stone building.

"Get in there."

"Gary, what?" My head was all confusion and fear, for him, for me.

Gary rattled the door handle, then braced his hand around it and shoved. Wood splintered. The
door swung open.

"It's all we've got. You'll be safe inside. Abe can't get you in there." Gary shoved
me, semi-gently, into the dark interior.

Staggering, I leaned against the wall for support. That's when I saw the table, laden with
booklets and pamphlets. The notices on the wall for choir practice and bible study groups. The
modernist font surmounted by a plain crucifix.

Gary had found a church for me to hide in. It didn't leave many options for him.

"Gary!"

Gary glanced behind him. "It's all I can think of."

He was flushed with my blood, having sucked out lead and soot and bits of shirt, his brain all
sparky with it, and
this
was the best he could do?

"For God's sake, Gary, run!"

Too late. Abe and Evan were on the street, then coming down the path towards us.

"Stay away." Gary pressed as far back as he could into the open door frame, but halted
as though the barrier were physical.

Evan's voice carried across the summer-dry lawn. "Please, Hooper, we have to talk. We need
to know…"

"Leave me alone!" The note of panic in Gary's voice was unmistakable now. I turned on
Evan.

"Get the hell away from him!"

"I understand why you're afraid," Evan began.

Abe's voice cut over his. "How did you do it? How is it possible that God has given you the
grace to do this thing and not me? I am his servant. I do his work. I deserve his grace.
I
do."

"What are you talking about?"

"You entered," continued Abe, devastated, "uninvited. How is that possible? You
are the damned, and you can do this. I am God's instrument, and I cannot.
Why?"

Gary, rigid with tension and with nowhere left to run, emitted a harsh bark of laughter.
"You could if you wanted to."

That old line. I remembered Gary, Mundy and Magdalene standing in front of the door to the
Chinese Mission Church in Melbourne, where I had hidden from Magdalene's attempt to kill me, all of
them looking self-conscious and defiant, saying they could come in
if they wanted to
. And I
remembered Gary's explanation - that the choice to be undead was not about heaven or hell, but
rejection. They rejected humanity and the choice to be part of something. They could enter any
church or temple or mosque they liked - but it would mean they had chosen to embrace the world
again, to be part of the thing they had forsaken.

Gary, to our knowledge, was the only vampire who had ever defied that wisdom. He had walked into
my house all those months ago, and chosen to be part of my life. And mere days ago, he had stepped
into Evan's house to help me, due to that same choice.

Abe took a painful, limping step towards Gary. "Tell me, or I will kill you, I swear
it."

The tension in the following beat of silence was almost palpable. Gary's head moved slightly, as
though he dare not risk glancing back at me. His right hand reached behind him into the air.

I stepped towards him to take his hand and face whatever came next. But before I could reach
him…

"Come and get me, then," Gary said, and took a step backwards, across the threshold,
into the church foyer.

Abe gave a terrible cry and lurched towards us. Evan moved with him. I lunged for Gary myself,
but I was dizzy and exhausted, and I only brushed against his shirt-tail as he stumbled, turned,
took a handful of steps across the foyer and paused at the inside door to the chapel.

"Don't," I heard Evan say, "you won't survive it. No-one ever has."

Gary's eyes fell on mine briefly.

"Don't do it," I said.

"There's nowhere else," Gary said.

Then he stepped into the chapel.

I thought Gary would pause and shiver, like he did when he stepped into my home.
But a place of community is a bigger idea than just one friend's house, or even one enemy's. The
shaking began with the first step. On the second, Gary's shoulders twitched violently.

On the third he toppled, convulsing, to the beige carpet.

I ran to him with an idea of dragging him out of the chapel. He thrashed about and I couldn't get
hold of him. I heard Evan's footsteps behind me and I threw wild punches at him. "Get away from
him!" My fist jabbed against Evan's thigh, the shock jarring up into my wound, and he backed
off.

Gary had ceased thrashing and now he was almost rigid, shuddering uncontrollably. I seized
handfuls of his shirt and strained to pull him towards the door. Maybe a handspan of progress was
made before another wave of convulsions loosened my grip. I scrambled for another hold, heaved. It
hurt my arm, but he wasn't as heavy as he looked - lacking several litres of blood will do that for
you. However, he was strong as his body contorted in the throes of whatever it was.

His lips were drawn back and his eyes scrunched shut. Pink foam flecked his lips and chin - my
blood, surely. Shifting behind the foam was a surge of red-black, viscous fluid, roiling inside him
like boiling tar, as though trying to break free from some compelling force and flee his body.

And I stamped down panic. He would die if I panicked. I had to stay calm and focused, and get him
out of there.

Evan approached again, so I jerked my elbow back as hard as I could. The elbow connected
satisfyingly with his sensitive parts and he fell back, swearing.

Crouching for better leverage, I grabbed Gary. While he was in the rictus stage of this thing
that was killing him, I gained almost half a metre. Then I leaned out of the way of his flailing
arms as another bout of thrashing took him.

When I grabbed him again I was both terrified and heartened when his eyes opened. Droplets of
blood had leaked from them, like scarlet tears. He looked so frightened. I didn't have time to
shatter into bits at how much it hurt to see him so scared.

Evan stubbornly came closer. I turned on him, and he held his hands up placatingly. "Let me
help."

"Fuck off." My arms were hooked under Gary's armpits as I pulled again. At a bad angle,
I staggered and fell.

Gary's lips twitched, then said, voice rasping: "I don't want…"

"You're not going to die," I told him. I got a better grip, heaved again. Fell
again.

Evan's hands closed around Gary's upper arm. I dug my nails into his wrists and put all my
strength into drawing blood, making him let go, and succeeded only briefly. I was preparing to bite
him, when Gary looked at Evan with narrowed, pain-filled eyes.

"My choice," Gary said raggedly. "I die…my way."

"You don't have to die at all, you moron. I'm not trying to kill you. I keep telling you, I
just want to talk." And he heaved on Gary's arm just as another wave of convulsions struck.

It finally sank in that Evan really was trying to help, and I leapt on that opportunity. I could
beat the bastard back with a rock from the footpath if I had to, once Gary was outside again.

Gritting my teeth against the throbbing pain in my arm, I got behind Gary, hooked my hands under
his armpits and pulled. Evan lifted his feet. Between us we dragged Gary to the door of the chapel,
across the foyer and the threshold, and outside.

The little strength I had left gave out and I sank to the warm footpath, Gary slumped against me.
Evan tried to move him, and I slapped his arms, then punched them to make him let go. He did. I was
vaguely aware that he took his place next to Abe, helping the boy stand on his one good leg, and
that Abe had been watching from the doorway all along, unable to enter the church.

Panting for breath, I sat on the path, Gary collapsed against my torso. Not moving. Eyes closed.
Blood was drying in a rivulet from the edge of his mouth to his chin. Beads of it were pooled in the
hollows under his eyes. My blood. All over him.

"Gary?"

Nothing. No breath. Of course, there wouldn't be. But not the faintest movement of any kind. The
apparent boiling of his blood had ceased and he was as quiescent as stone.

"Gary? Wake up."

I shook him gingerly, then more forcefully. "Gary?"

Running my hands over his face, I brushed at the blood at first, then simply rested my fingers on
his pale, cold cheek. Thinking how I had made such a big deal in my head about him being undead, and
realising at last that it was not the same as dead. Actually, really dead and gone, gone, gone. His
body had not been truly alive, but his mind had still lived in there, and he had tried so hard to be
more than he was.

My heart split open and everything in it fell, endlessly, leaving me too empty for tears. I
hadn't known I could be so empty and hurt so much.

And then Gary's eyes opened.

A tortured breath - mine, like I'd forgotten how to breathe and only now remembered - and he
blinked, dazed, his brow furrowed in bewilderment and pain.

He wasn't dead.
At least
, and I nearly laughed with the relief of it,
no more than
usual
.

"Gary?"

He blinked again. He stared uncomprehendingly at me for a long moment. Then he winced and lurched
sideways, landing on his hands and knees, and swaying.

I tried to tell him he was all right, but my voice didn't work properly. All the words were
broken up by the grief in my throat that didn't know yet that it was no longer needed. I couldn't
get up, couldn't move, exhaustion and physical pain pinning me down.

Gary tried to rise, failed. He sat where he was, defeated. Evan offered his hand. Gary flinched,
too weak to move. "Do it, then," he said.

"I'm not going to kill you, Hooper."

Gary closed his eyes and shook his head. He did not look reassured or angry. He looked bereft of
hope.

Abe limped towards Gary, then his knees folded and he sat opposite him. All of Giorgio's blood
that had driven him to madness at the derelict house seemed to have burned away. He and Gary
regarded each other like lost souls.

"I could not enter the house of God," said Abe brokenly. "I am meant to be His
instrument. My work is His work. That is what my father told me. That is why I submitted to be made.
To do God's work. But I cannot enter God's house."

"You don't want to enter. Not enough."

"No," admitted Abe, "I am afraid of God."

"I'm not surprised."

"You are not afraid of Him."

"Can't be worse than what I've already got."