Blood Work (23 page)

I grinned
tightly. “I think you just found your balls. But seriously, this
isn’t your fight. Get out while you still can.”

“Screw that.
They made it my fight when they knocked my letter box over.”

“You live in
an apartment. You don’t have a letter box to knock over.”

“Poetic
licence. Listen, the cops are here to investigate the break in.
I’ll call you when they’re gone, okay? Go home, get some
sleep.”

“Whatever.” I
hung up.

Jacob was
standing in the middle of the shop, staring at the wreckage,
shaking his head. “Great party,” he mumbled.

“Jacob.”

He flinched.
“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry. I
shouldn’t have got angry.”

Jacob shrugged
and waved it aside, but I could tell something had changed. He knew
all about vampires and Mercy and the other Old World creatures
populating the shadows and alleys, but he’d never been out there
mixed up in it all. He’d never been in a fight with a ghoul or
vampire or troll. To him, it was academic and distant. I came in,
told him where, when and how, he wrote it down and that was it.

But just now,
I’d shown him the darker side of it. And I wasn’t even the worst
thing out there.

“When you get
to Cairns, call me or Roberts,” I said on my way out. “One of us
will let you know when it’s over.”

He nodded and
began straightening chairs. I was at the door when he spoke.

“Matt, I
forgot, but I have something I want to show you.”

I turned back
around. “Yeah?”

He trotted
behind the counter and fiddled with something. “I taped this
yesterday. Thought you might like to see it.”

There was a TV
fastened to the wall behind the counter, a wide screen LCD of the
tiny variety, but apparently good enough to watch a Blade trilogy
on and get wasted. Jacob turned the TV on and hit play on the
recorder.

It was a
breaking news report. The footage showed the front of my flat in
Ipswich. There were police and ambulances everywhere, crime scene
tape dissecting the view. Neighbours milled about at the edges of
the picture, straining to get into the shot. A female reporter
stood to one side of the image, to give the audience a good view of
the results of the attack.

“This is the
scene at a small, quiet neighbourhood in Ipswich this afternoon,”
the reporter said gravely. “The residents of this peaceful street
had their lives shattered by a violent drive-by shooting barely an
hour ago. The perpetrator used a submachine gun and fired on the
duplex behind me. It’s believed the target of the shooting was not
at home at the time. Two children were injured in the attack and
taken to hospital. We have yet to have word on their
conditions.”

I grabbed the
counter to keep my hands occupied. Kids. God. What I’d done to Saif
hadn’t been enough. He should still be alive, he should be in
agony, screaming his lungs out.

The reporter
turned and the shot followed her. Miss Browne lay on a trolley from
an ambulance, oxygen mask over her mouth and nose. She looked so
old and frail. Guilt gutted me.

“Miss Browne
lives in the flat next door and was home during the shooting. Miss
Browne, can you tell us about the incident?”

Estelle Browne
took the mask off and spoke in a strong voice. “Well, I’d just sat
down to watch my stories. I’d missed the start because of the woman
who came asking about my neighbour. She was a pushy broad,
too.”

The reporter
pulled the microphone back. “If you could just tell us about the
shooting, ma’am.”

Estelle pursed
her lips. “I guess it was just like on those TV shows. A person in
a van drove past and shot at the house. Over and over. I don’t know
why anyone would want to hurt my neighbour. He’s the sweetest boy.
I don’t care that he’s been in prison.”

The microphone
was pulled again. “Thank you, Miss Browne.”

I groaned.
Someone had let it slip. Probably the pushy broad asking questions.
Was she the one who’d been outside my place when Saif attacked?

The reporter
droned on for a while longer, talking to a detective and other
witnesses. I blocked most of it and watched the background, hoping
I could see every face I knew from the street, to make sure they
were all right. There was one face I didn’t recognise, though. It
belonged to a slender woman in a straight, knee length, grey skirt
and cream blouse. Her auburn hair was a tangled fright, her clothes
dirty and torn. Blood drenched her left arm, coming from a rent in
her top on her shoulder. Still, she worked the crowd, guiding
shaking witnesses to the gutter to sit down, holding a sobbing a
woman.

She acted self
assured, calm, efficient. I pegged her for a cop, but she didn’t
have a badge showing, wore no gun. The pushy broad? Private
investigator? If so, I wasn’t so sure I didn’t mind her chasing
after me. Nice legs. If only I could work out why she was looking
for me.

The report
ended and Jacob turned it off, not looking at me. I patted his
shoulder.

“Thanks. I
appreciate you showing me.”

“That was part
of it, wasn’t it? Part of what you want me out of?”

I nodded.

He paled. “I’m
going,” he assured me.

“Good.”

“Oh, heard on
a later report that the kids were fine. Both of them survived.
Minor injuries.”

Something
eased inside, but not very much. “That’s great. I’ll see you when
you get back.”

I escaped
before he could say anything. My car was where I’d left it, but
someone had scraped along the right side. The black paint was torn
back to the silver undercoat, and my right front indicator was
smashed. I hadn’t even heard the impact. There was no note with a
phone number on the windscreen, but there was one that simply said
‘arsehole’.

The phone rang
just as I was pulling into the driveway. I didn’t look at the
displayed number. Instead I decided to make a dick out myself and
presume it was Roberts, checking up on me.

“Forget it, I
won’t take you to the prom,” I said as I answered.

There was a
stunned pause. “Mr Hawkins?”

Ah. The
freaking kid and his werewolf dog. “Hey, Tony. Thought you were
someone else.”

“I hope so.
Um, have you found out anything about my dog’s problem yet?”

Crap, bugger
and damn. “Not yet, tiger. I said I’d call when I had. There’s a
lot of research material to cover.”

“I can
appreciate that, but the full moon is tomorrow night.”

“It is?” It
was out before I could stop myself. “Wow, that came around fast.
Been a busy few days. How’s the dog been behaving?”

“Just the
usual. If he smells another dog, he goes a bit crazy. Otherwise,
okay.”

“Good, good.
Listen, I’ll get back in touch with you this arvie, or tomorrow
morning at the latest. I’ll really hit the books now and find the
proof to put your mind at ease. Don’t worry, champ. It’ll be all
good.”

“All right.”
He didn’t sound particularly reassured. “Talk to you then.”

He hung up and
I stared at the phone for a moment. “Kids.”

I hauled my
tired carcass into the house and checked on Mercy. She was in bed,
rolled up tight in her sheet, a tuft of hair poking out to assure
me she actually was in there. I had to wait a long time to see any
sign of life, and when it came, it was a very small movement in her
shoulders as she took a rare breath. Her illicit meal had taken its
toll; she was in the deep coma caused by incompatible blood.
Usually, she just slept, very deeply, but if you poked her, she
would move and grumble, if not fully wake up. Now, I could have
dragged her out into the daylight and watched her go up in pretty
flames.

If the cop had
died, I would have.

At least, I
liked to think I would have.

Well, not
‘liked’ so much. She was a violent, instinct driven predator, and
yet she was my little girl too. I’d saved her, in as much as she
could have been. I’d invested so much in her, done things for her I
would never have thought myself capable of. Turned myself into
something I never wanted to be just so she could continue to
live.

I was supposed
to save lives, not take them. As much as I shied from admitting it,
there was something of the truth in what Kermit had said to me. I
killed indiscriminately. If you were a vampire, ghoul, troll,
whatever, I killed you. Or I commanded Mercy to kill you. And what
about Nolan? God damnit! I’d liked him. He was what I’d wanted to
be once, a person dedicated to saving lives. And now, because of
me, he was dead.

Red tinged the
edges of my vision. I backed out of Mercy’s room and stalked to the
back door. If I stayed in there with her, I was liable to do
something stupid.

Still, when I
reached the patio and saw the remains of my earlier tantrum, the
creeping rage dried up.

This was what
I’d become.

No, some
sarcastic prick of a conscience whispered inside my head. This is
what you always were. You only tried to deny it. Remember Jessica
Harrington.

“Fuck off,” I
said aloud and went back inside.

I was tired.
Maybe four hours of sleep and the after affects of too much
adrenaline dropped into my blood drew energy right out of me. I
went to bed and while my body felt like it would never move ever
again, my brain just would not stop. It keep going and going,
turning around in circles between Nolan, Mercy and a cop lying on
the side of the road. Then it spun off in a totally different
direction and showed me the face of the woman I’d seen on Jacob’s
telly.

Who was she?
What was she doing at my place? She had to be the one Saif
mentioned.

Knowing I
wouldn’t be able to sleep, I hauled myself out of bed, went to the
library and turned on the computer. It took approximately a
geological age to boot up, then I plugged ‘private investigator
brisbane’ into Google and got a list of several direct hits.

Bingo. Halfway
down the page I got to Sol Investigations. It was a single page
only, enough to give a little blurb about the company and how it
was an international organisation. There was also a little story
about its Brisbane office investigator. One Erin McRea, ex-cop,
who’d resigned with all sorts of honours so she could take up the
PI business. There was a photo of her as well. A neater version of
the auburn haired, serious woman I’d seen on the news report. Her
full lipped mouth was turned up in a little Mona Lisa smile that
dared me to wonder at what she was thinking.

Okay, one
mystery solved. I knew who she was, but not why she was after
me.

I closed the
window and resolved to deal with the one issue I could handle at
the moment. Pulling out my books on weres, I began reading.

The phone rang and Erin answered.
“Sol Investigations, Erin McRea speaking.”

“Hello, Erin
McRea speaking,” a deep, hollow voice said softly.

Erin smiled
and sank back into her chair. “Hello, William. What are you doing
up?”

“Well, some
strange woman I don’t know has been with me all day, getting me
naked and wet and hot. Just thought you should know.”

“Yeah? She any
good? Should I come home and join in?”

He laughed and
it turned into a weak, wracking cough. Erin winced and berated
herself for making him laugh.

“Just come
home,” William eventually whispered.

“Kate showed
you the note?”

“It won’t get
infected, Erin. You’re too healthy, too careful. I want to see
you.”

She sighed and
spun around to look out the window. “I won’t risk that. You know
it. It’s better this way.”

William
grumbled. “At least tell me what happened? How did you get
hurt?”

“It wasn’t
anything big. Just a scratch.”

There was a
long pause. Erin’s stomach sank. She knew what this meant.

“I saw the
news yesterday,” he said, not accusingly, but deliberately. “I saw
you at the drive-by scene. Jesus, Erin, there was blood all over
you. Are you really okay?”

Oh God, she
wanted to be with him. Touch him. Let him hold her and stroke away
all the pains and troubles and just be in his arms and happy.

“I’m fine,”
she said firmly.

“And what
about this case? It’s getting dangerous. Drop it.”

“I can’t do
that. Sol—”

“Doesn’t give
a shit about your wellbeing, Erin. You know that. You were shot at.
Shot at
. Don’t you understand what that means? Your life is
in danger. I won’t have that. Drop the case. Please.”

“And what
about your life, William? If I dropped this case, Sol would fire me
and then how would we afford your treatment and care?”

“Forget about
me. Erin, this is your life. We both know I’m closer to gone than
not. I’ll be damned if you die before me.”

She gritted
her teeth. “When you die, I’ll be damned any way. If I go first, at
least you won’t be around long without me. Think about that.” Tears
broke through her resistance.

“Shit, Erin.
Don’t be like that. I love you and I know you love me, but you are
going to get over me, eventually. I want you to. We’ve spoken about
this.”

Erin couldn’t
talk. She just pressed the phone to her ear and listened to his
weak, rasping voice. Why was it like this? What had they done to
piss off the world to make this happen?

“Erin? You
there?”

“Yeah. I’m
sorry, William.”

“Me too.” His
voice broke. “Will you come home tonight?”

She sighed.
“No. I called Gavin. He and Kate will be there for you.”

There was
another silence. She brushed away the tears and took several deep
breaths while she waited. His breathing still came over the line,
so she knew he was there and okay.

“I’m starting
to feel like the worst host in the world,” he muttered. “I just lie
in bed while they do the dishes.”