Walking Shadows. Narrelle M Harris

to speak to me at all he would mention his sister's wedding plans. His father's greyhounds. Once, his mother, out of hospital after a bad asthma attack and fretting that no-one had done the housework in her absence. Normal family stuff outside of his life as a bouncer for the bite club. Another dead body to add to the count in my head.

      The bag felt welded to my skin, like I would never get rid of it. I wondered if Mundy was still alive to receive it. Wondered if it mattered to me if he wasn't. Found that it did, and didn't understand why. I don't like you Mundy. You're dangerous. You're a killer. If you're dead you probably deserve it.

      Hands on my shoulders pulled me out of the numb reverie.

      "We have to get out of here." Gary urged me towards the window over the blind alley. Thomas had gone, and I glimpsed Magdalene's flowing gown disappearing over the sill.

      "Where is everyone? The girls?"

      "Window," he said, jerking a thumb in a distinct signal that we should follow without delay. I picked through the glass and peered outside. A feeble fire escape ladder was bolted to the wall. Smith was at the bottom, the two girls close behind. Thomas was half way down, having trouble holding on, with the ladder wobbling ominously. As I watched, one side of the rusty railings tore free from the wall and Thomas, railings and all, fell twenty feet to the ground with a crunch.

      Shit.

      A wet hiss indicated the water sprinklers had come on - this place conformed to the fire code that much, anyway - but the room was filling with smoke and the stairs were consumed with flames.

      "Not everyone's down there," I realised with a frantic stab of adrenalin.

      "What?" Gary was dithering by the window, keen to be on his way and looking for hand-holds now that what was left of the ladder was hanging drunkenly off the brickwork.

      "Beryl and that boy haven't come out." The room was rank with the smell of burned skin. The din of sprinklers and flames and shouting and sirens were overwhelming. All it needed to be a perfect representation of hell was for my mother to turn up.

      Damn. Damndamndamn. First, I dropped the blue bag the two storeys to the ground outside and hoped that if we ever found Mundy he'd forgive any extra dents in his detached person. Then, ignoring Gary's protests, I ran to the heavy curtains and pulled them aside.

      The boy's legs were kicking feebly from a booth. A vivid image of something I had never seen filled my skull. I didn't know where Priestley had killed him, but this was how Daniel had died. Kicking against death while a vampire fed. I ran towards them.

      I pulled Beryl's hair, hard and sharp. It didn't hurt her but it certainly distracted her. Beryl scowled at me, blood staining her teeth and her chin.

      "The building's on fire, you stupid cow!"

      She looked at me like I was the moron, and it made me angry that I let her make me feel like that.

      "I noticed," she said.

      And you thought you'd take an opportunistic moment to actually kill someone and hide the evidence in the fire. I was tempted to rethink my opinions on the deserving dead. I let go of her hair but my hands clenched convulsively into useless fists. "Let him go."

      Beryl all but laughed at my non-status as a threat. A peculiar expression of dreamy pleasure and savage satisfaction transformed her face. Strings of blood stretched between her pointed canines and lower lip. Her eyes were luminescent with an ugly mimicry of life.

      She had never looked less like a buttoned-down academic, and I felt more stupid than ever, for forgetting what she was and ever thinking that she was any kind of harmless.

      "I don't think I will," she said, through that terrifying expression. "God, it's exquisite. I haven't felt anything this intense since I died."

      The boy, still held in her tight grip, sobbed.

      "Leave him alone or I'll set fire to you myself." An empty threat, since my chances of getting near enough even if I grabbed a burning brand were minimal. I glanced around, looking for something I could use as a weapon anyway.

      Beryl looked over my shoulder and tilted her head to one side, eyes narrowing. Watching the fire maybe. I didn't look over my shoulder to check.

      And lightning fast, she bent her head to the boy's throat, ripped at his flesh, then stood straight, blood dribbling from her lips. "You may have him now."

      Blood was pouring from the spiteful tear she'd made in his neck. She let him go and he dropped like a stone. Beryl strode towards me and I stood transfixed, knowing I could never be fast enough to escape. She paused by my side and bent to murmur in my ear: "I'll bet you taste sweet and full of fire, girl. Perhaps I will ask Hooper to share."

      "It's not like that," came the immediate protest behind me. I glanced back to see Gary's irritated expression. Beryl paused to sneer before she ran to the window. I turned my back on both of them, ran to the boy and pressed the heel of my hand to his wound.

      "It'll stop bleeding in a second," I told him.

      His eyes were huge. China blue. A different blue to my late brother's. They made me think of Paul anyway. The pale lids began to close.

      "Hamish, isn't it?" I wanted to keep him awake, as alert as possible. I had to get him out of the building yet and that would be impossible if he passed out. He began to nod, but it hurt him and he gasped.

      "Stay still, Hamish. You'll be right in a tick." Only he wouldn't be. The blood was still flowing, not clotting as I expected it to. I shifted my hand to inspect the gash, and blood spurted. Damnit. Beryl had bitten deep and hard. I couldn't think of words obscene enough to express my rage and despair.

      "Are you going to be long?" Gary edged up behind me. "It sounds like the fire's getting worse downstairs."

      "The bleeding won't stop. I need help."

      The please was at the back of my throat, on my tongue, but before I voiced it Gary blinked at me, then Hamish. "Okay."

      Hamish whimpered and tried to crawl backwards, out of Gary's reach. He didn't get very far, weak from blood loss and terror. I pressed my hand on the wound again, trying to staunch the flow.

      A small sigh and Gary knelt down on Hamish's other side. Hamish tried to struggle but he had no strength.

      "Don't be scared," I said. "We just need to make the bleeding stop."

      "No. No. No." Each sound a sharp hiccup of fear.

      "Trust me. Trust us."

      His china blue eyes fixed on mine.

      "I don't have a hanky," said Gary.

      "Just do it like you did that time Tug bit me."

      In my peripheral vision Gary moved, lowered his head and I shifted my hand at the last minute. Instead, I clasped Hamish's nearest hand in my own blood-slick ones. His return grip was as tight as he could make it. Not tight at all.

      Hamish's eyes widened. He whimper-gasped and the sound turned briefly to a keening cry at the back of his throat, and then that passed and his expression flitted from terror to bafflement.

      "He's..." Hamish's brow furrowed, "he's licking me."

      "Yes," I tried to smile. "He's sealing the bite."

      Hamish's look of confusion became more entrenched.

      "His saliva has healing properties," I explained as matter-of-factly as I could, trying to channel all the doctors I had ever despised, suddenly understanding why they sounded so cold.

      "Normally, if the bite isn't too deep and hasn't hit an artery, it's enough to stop the bleeding almost straight away. By morning there isn't even a scar."

      "R-really?"

      "Yeah. See?" Stretching my neck up to show the flawless skin where my one-time friend Tug had tried to kill me. "Gary did the same for me once. Now I'm right as rain."

      Somehow, I always end up talking