Blood Work (43 page)

The road
continued on, past a giant maintenance hangar and around toward the
river. Murky water dappled with moonlight flashed at us through a
screen of trees and warehouses. We were passing a large ‘to let’
sign outside a warehouse when Mercy tensed. Her lips peeled back
and air hissed between her teeth.

“Mercy?” My
voice was tight with expectation.

“They’re
here,” she whispered. Her breathing quickened. “So many.”

“The mother
lode,” I muttered. “You know what to do.”

I felt it as a
pressure against the inside of my head. I hoped the vampires in
hiding around us felt it as a wash of our flavour through their
bodies. I hoped it enraged them as their stale cab sav angered me.
It must have worked because as I turned the car around to pass back
by the building, that hot, peppery taste hit me like a
sledgehammer. The car swerved as I lost my grip on the wheel for a
moment. Mercy growled and heaved against the restraint of the
seatbelt.

Getting the
car back on a straight run, I reached into the back seat and hauled
out the paintball rifle. Mercy took it, checked the cartridge was
full and levelled it out of the window. Seeing the closed down,
narrowed expression her little face did me some good. And she
handled the rifle like a pro. That’s my girl. The thought hit her
and she flashed me a tight, slightly manic smile.

Then the Reds
were there.

They spilled
from the doors and windows of the empty warehouse like a flock of
big, ugly crows. Big Red must have had some great PR, I’ll grant
him that. I’d never seen so many neo-gothic wannabes in matching
long coats and dark clothing in one place ever. Fair enough, Mercy
and I weren’t exactly summer bright, but come on.

“Show time,
Mercy.”

She didn’t
take her gaze off the stalking predators closing in on our slowly
moving car. “Shut up and drive.”

“As the lady
desires.”

I tramped down
on the accelerator and spun the wheel, taking us off the bitumen
and onto the gravelled side, right toward a big cluster of Reds.
Gravel hit the car in a rapid fire staccato. Most of the Reds
scattered, but some weren’t quick enough and we bowled on through
them. Mercy fired into the tightly packed hordes and the stench of
burning flesh and garlic rose through the night. To the chorus of
angry screams, I put the car back on the road and lined up another
group.

This time,
they met us head on.

Reds threw
themselves at the car, high speed battering rams of flesh that,
while more resilient than that of humans, was still flesh. Bodies
broke and blood splattered over the car. The bastards dinted the
bonnet, scratched the paint and cracked the windshield and windows.
One latched onto Mercy’s arm as she hung out of the window. She
just calmly shoved the rifle barrel down its throat and pulled the
trigger. Gore and paint exploded from the back of its neck and it
tumbled away. Mercy ignored its death throes and kept firing.

Something big
landed on the roof of the car. It slewed the Monaro to one side as
it lunged down to my window. I’d put it up at the first sign of the
vampires, but a meaty fist smashed through it as if it were tissue
paper. Leaning into the middle of the car, I took the nightstick
from the seat beside my leg and cracked the hand across the
knuckles. The skin singed where the blessed metal hit. Howling, the
vampire withdrew the hand and then thrust the other one in. I
repeated the move, but he was expecting it this time. His big hand
twisted, caught the stick and wrenched it out of my grip. Shit! He
tossed it away and it smacked into another vampire charging up. She
took it in the face and went down screaming. Hah.

Then the guy
on the roof lunged head first through the window. Instinctively I
pushed at his face with my hand. Two fingers slipped into his mouth
and he clamped down. A fang stabbed through the very end of one
finger. Holy crap! That hurt. He shook his head, ripping my hand
from side to side, tearing the hole in my finger wider. I slammed
on the breaks. The car skidded into a spin, but Monkey Boy held on
like death, to the car and my hand. The fucker. Letting the car
slide, I grabbed the next nearest weapon. Popping the lid on the
bottle I tossed about half the contents into his face.

Garlic salt
bit into his skin and eyes. He screamed in panic and pain and
released both my hand and his hold on the roof. Wrenching the
steering wheel around, I floored the accelerator again and he
tumbled off the back of the car, smoking and yowling. Some of the
salt flew back through the car and hit Mercy, but she was mostly
covered and had her face turned away from it.

“Think we got
their attention?” I asked Mercy as I rammed into another knot of
freaks.

Her answer was
a level snarl in the affirmative.

“Right.” I
flicked on the iPod in its dock on the dashboard. The
pre-programmed song, set to repeat, blared out through the
speakers. “Let’s dance.”

Spilling
Grinspoon’s Hard Act to Follow all the way, we roared on out of the
back roads behind the airport. Vampires, faces twisted with fury
and insane hunger, followed like rats after the Piped Piper.

Phase one
complete. And so far, we weren’t dead.

Booyah.

I should have known better than to
have doubts about this part of my hasty plan. When Mercy hunted and
I followed in the car, I could barely keep up. Looking at the
situation from the other side, being the prey, that is, was an
altogether new experience and I wondered at the Reds’ ability to
keep up. But that taste of cabernet sauvignon stayed with me the
entire way.

And in truth,
I didn’t drive all that fast. I stuck to the East-West Arterial
road until it dead ended in Sandgate Road, where the traffic
increased and the speed limit dropped. Working my way through to
Lutwyche Road I was careful of my speed and road rules. Wouldn’t do
me a shit load of good to get a cop on my arse right about now.
Especially considering the state of the poor car. Some patches of
the body still dripped vampire blood, and the front right indicator
was smashed from the illegal park outside Vogon Books. Not to
mention the shattered window and cracked windscreen. It was police
bait on wheels.

I took a wrong
turn and nearly ended up back where we started. At least it would
serve to confuse Big Red and Co. In the end, we came at Mount
Coot-tha from the south side and about an hour later than I’d
expected. An hour longer Erin spent with Veilchen, but an hour
longer for Mercy to rest.

I’d long since
turned the music off and the silence of Mount Coot-tha crept in
through the windows and stole any urge I had to talk. We eased by
the turn off to the Planetarium and up onto the mountain. The cab
sav faded into a dry mustiness in the back of my throat, but I had
no qualms the Reds would lose us.

I kept
expecting another flavour to come into my senses. Veilchen was a
Primal and I guessed the chance of her being the uber-Red was
pretty slim. Aurum said the clans were like armies and it seemed
stupid for two parts of the same army to use two different methods
of finding me. Big Red had spread his boys and girls around town
waiting for a taste of me and Mercy. Veilchen had gone the
professional route and hired a PI. That would mean Veilchen didn’t
know the territory and that she was probably working with a limited
supply of minions. I wondered what clan she was.

Big Red had
managed to keep his flavour to himself outside of the Fringe,
though. I suppose it was a skill that came with age, which would
mean Veilchen could hide hers as well. Fantastic. Hide and seek
with the most powerful creature I’d ever encountered in a forest
covering 540 acres, a good deal of it vertical, mind, and I didn’t
even get a heads up. Not fair. The image of me and Mercy flailing
around blindly amongst the big timers came back.

Mount
Coot-tha’s forest closed in on either side of the car. The air was
chilly and still. A single car passed us on its way down. I hoped
the picnic areas and look-outs at the top were empty. Sadly, they
weren’t. The look-out with its restaurant was as busy as usual, the
car park packed and lit up like a freaking Christmas Tree. Not
exactly the perfect spot for an un-Holy war.

We cruised
past the look-out and toward the picnic areas. Thankfully, there
were only three cars parked between the look-out and the first of
the television station buildings on the top of the mountain. Two of
the cars were rocking seriously. Mercy nearly fell out the window,
staring at them as we eased by.

After making
sure it was just the three cars, I selected one of the very few
thrash metal songs I had on the iPod, turned up the volume and
played the hoon along the top stretch of road. Didn’t take long.
The two rocking cars ceased and one brave fellow even had the nerve
to get out and shout something at us as we roared by. Feeling more
than a little feral, I slammed on the brakes, threw the car into
reverse and rocketed back to where he was parked. He was on Mercy’s
side of the car and she half crawled out of the window, hissing and
snarling. The guy got the message rather quickly, dived back into
his car and within moments, we were following him part way down the
hill, just to make sure he left. The remaining two cars left soon
after and we had the crown of the world to ourselves.

I pulled into
the top most picnic area and got out of the car. Jeez, it looked
worse from the outside. Mercy probably could have saved herself the
effort of scaring interrupted lover boy. The battered and dinted
car was enough to scare me, or perhaps that was more because I paid
the insurance.

Mercy eased
out and leaned against the car. She was alert but not terribly
strong. Pockets filled with stink bombs, I nevertheless felt a
little naked without my nightstick, but I had the SAS knife still
and the paintball rifle hung from Mercy’s shoulder. I sank down on
the gutter and pulled out the package from my jacket pocket.

“Getting
anything?” I asked Mercy as I assembled needle and syringe.

“Reds at the
base of the mount,” she said softly. “Coming slowly. They suspect a
trap.”

“Guess they’re
not so dumb after all.”

“They feel us,
but nothing else. Still, they’re cautious. Nothing else is here
with us.”

I shook my
head, absolutely certain we were far from alone. “Keep watch.” And
I pushed the whole of the last ampoule of morphine into my arm.

Whoa. The rush
hit like a tidal wave. Riding on the last of the small dose
earlier, it flooded through my veins bringing sweet numbness along
with it. God, I hated this. It was a bitter surrender of control, a
cop-out. A hard reminder of the days in hospital when I would do
just about anything for another dose, the relapse in prison when it
offered a form of freedom.

Working
through the numbness, I reached through the link to actively touch
Mercy. Ah, shit, the pain she was in. If I wasn’t already sitting,
I would have fallen over. It wasn’t just the wounds the wolf had
inflicted. There was a deep seated ache inside as her body
struggled to heal with very little resources.

A small,
totally heartless part of me was thankful I hadn’t done this at
home. There, feeling this, I would never have let her leave her
bed.

But there was
something I could do to help her. I pushed at the link, forced it
deeper and wider. More of Mercy’s agony flooded into me, but at the
same time, I fed her my own pain—and the pain relief. The effects
of the morphine rushed down the line and soaked into her.

My head
cleared and the night came back into dim focus. By the car, Mercy
pulled in a deep breath, lifting away from the support of the
vehicle. She stood quietly for a moment, head tipped back, mouth
open, eyes closed. Then she looked at me and her eyes flashed
silver.

A vampire on a
morphine high. I swallowed hard.

“I feel…
better,” she said, voice low, husky.

“Don’t take
any chances. It’s a fake sensation. You’re still hurt and weak.
Remember that.”

Her lips
peeled back in a silent snarl.

“Go,” I said
and she spun into moonlight and vanished.

It was about
five minutes before I felt capable of getting to my feet. When I
did, I checked my pockets again and then walked into the dark of
the forest. I took a walking track at random and strode along as if
I was just out for a bit of exercise in the middle of the night, in
the middle of a forest, all alone, in the bitingly cold air of a
near-winter night.

I took two
side tracks and ended up in a decent sized clearing with a creek
running through it. In a milky wash of moonlight, Erin lay on the
ground.

May as well
have hung a fluorescent sign over the limp body, flashing ‘TRAP’
for all the subtly of it. But then, I couldn’t really point
fingers, could I? I was the one who’d roared on up with an army of
vampires at my heels.

I went to Erin
and crouched down. She stirred under my hand.

“Erin, it’s
Matt.”

“I know.” Her
voice was alert but quiet. “I tried to tell you not to come.”

“Why wouldn’t
you want saving?”

She rolled
over and revealed her bound hands and feet. Veilchen had been
considerate enough to clothe her warmly in track pants and a wool
lined coat. There was a trickle of dried blood down her right hand,
where the IV needle had been ripped out, I guessed. Dirty bandage
peeked out from under the cuff of the other sleeve. The black eye
I’d prophesized darkened one cheek, but there was a hollow shadow
around the other as well. Her face was slack with weariness.

“Better just
one death than three,” she whispered.

That fatal
dichotomy I’d felt earlier slapped me in the face, even through the
numbing effects of the drug. I couldn’t find anything to say.