sure.'
He jerked a thumb at the girl. 'Give Jen your number.'
'I'll come back.'
'We open at noon.'
'After dark.'
'We close at seven, unless you want a job done.'
'I'll be here at sundown.'
'Suit yourself.'
Kevin stepped out and leaned against the nearest wall as he willed his body back under control. Hunger uncoiled inside him, a balled python in his guts reaching up and up, making his throat clench.
He had tried normal tucker and succeeded only in making the hunger worse. He could eat regular food — should eat, in fact — but he needed blood. Maybe the Needle could provide some baggies or decant.
A moment surged through his weakness; Taipan feeding him:
Fresh is best, fella: remember that
He forced the phantom back, behind the doors in his mind that Danica had taught him to use. A way of controlling the lives he'd absorbed, the experiences he'd been gifted by his maker. To prevent him from being overwhelmed.
Kevin pushed off from the wall and headed for base.
The city knotted around him like lantana vines, thick and barbed. Traffic, the rhythmic bass of night clubs, the constant burble of voices and hyena laughter, the scents of booze and colognes and the melange of foods, stale water, rotting trash. Bodies flashing hot — arms and legs, chests and bellies — naked and glistening in the humid February night. And underneath it all, the drumbeat of hearts, the pulsing of blood, the warmth within that thin, vulnerable skin.
He had to get off the streets. The last thing he wanted was to hurt any more innocent people, and with his hunger running rampant, he doubted he could stop at just a sip. As bad as the cravings were, he had to hold on one more night. Always, just one more night.
FIVE
They'd got lucky with the room: third floor, and a viable angle onto the tattoo parlour on the opposite side of the street, and no awnings blocking their view. But then, empty offices in this part of the Valley weren't hard to find.
Reece stared out the Venetian blind, absently wiped his dusty fingers on his trousers. The street lights had recently come on, glowing jaundiced in the dusk, dotting the footpaths with light and shade. His red-eye vision rendered the scene in hues of grey, but pulled fine details from the gloom. Litter in the gutter; a prostitute hugging a doorway, her face illuminated by the flare of her cigarette; two youths in baggy pants and backward caps sauntering toward Wickham Street as though they owned the place. Kings of the jungle. Huh.
Behind him, Felicity, sitting on a plastic milk crate, sipped coffee from a travel mug, then asked, yet again, 'How reliable is your snitch?'
'As much as any junkie I pay for information.'
'Wow, that much.'
She was on edge, understandably, since he'd convinced her to keep Bhagwan under wraps. At the time, he'd thought it might offer them a valuable secret, but with Mira in bedlam and tensions running high inside Thorn as recriminations flew over The Debacle, it'd become necessary to dust the bloodsucker.
Everyone thought he'd died back at Jasmine Turner's; explaining why he wasn't dead would have got them in hot water. Having finally extracted the information he'd needed — Bhaggy had held out for the best part of a month, the tight-lipped bastard — Reece had simply been fulfilling everyone's expectations. And Felicity had admitted it'd been the only course of action. If they were to get back into favour with the firm, they had to produce something very valuable indeed.
Now, only days after Bhagwan's demise, he'd got the break he needed.
'You saw the picture Jen lifted from the shop's camera last night. Matheson's here, asking about the Needle. It can't be coincidence.'
'We should've brought back-up,' Felicity said. The grease monkey's tough. More than that: he's lucky.'
'We can't trust anyone, Flick. Finding the leak would've been a good start; giving them Matheson, and maybe Danica, that's a game changer.'
'Reece,' she said, sounding weary with the repetition, 'don't call me that. And what makes you so sure Matheson even knows where Dee is?'
'If he doesn't, he can find out. He was with her at the gorge.'
The gorge, where the kid had got the better of him, left him for dead, damn near killed Mira too. Long-healed wounds throbbed with the memory.
'He'd better show,' Felicity said. 'I had to pull favours to get off shift tonight.'
'Voi—fucking—la.'
Kevin Matheson looked little different to the last time Reece had seen him. Jeans and a T-shirt, clearly nervous, not knowing where to look. The turn of the tables wasn't lost on Reece; he'd have been lying if he said he wasn't enjoying having the upper hand for once.
He raised the camera and fired off a couple of shots. Maybe it should've been a rifle. Drop the kid right there on the street, publicity be damned.
Felicity hurried to the window and pried open the blinds.
He'd seen her like this before, out west, the adrenaline colouring her face, lighting her eyes, making her chest pump. A Hunter, like him, hot on the trail.
His own heart was beating faster, his mouth dry. That old familiar buzz.
He fingered the Staker on his belt. His hand shook. This was a young person's game and he was old.
'When do we take him?' she asked.
'Wait for him to go inside. Then we make our move.'
'Will they protect him?'
'Lethal force is authorised. But we need him, Flick.'
She gave a grim smile. After a month in the doghouse, they were both ready to break some heads.
Movement in the tattoo parlour window: a sheet of paper being tacked to the glass. A picture of something snake-like.
'And there's the signal,' Reece said. 'Looks like we might have company. The Needle perhaps.'
Suddenly, back-up sounded like a good idea. With surprise on their side, the two of them could take Matheson. But a second vampire? That could get awkward.
Felicity grabbed his arm.
'What?'
'There.'
'One of the Needle's people?' He snapped the new arrival's photo.
'I think so, yes. I've seen her hanging around at the soup van.'
'She must be the contact. Red-eye?'
'Just a wannabe, I think. Fairly sure she's not on the roster.'
