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First published by Clan Destine Press in 2019
PO Box 121, Bittern Victoria 3918 Australia
Copyright © Narrelle M Harris 2019
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including internet search engines and retailers, electronic or mechanical, photocopying (except under the provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-In-Publication data:
Harris, Narrelle M.
KITTY AND CADAVER
ISBN: 978-0-6485567-1-8 (p/b)
ISBN: 978-0-6485567-2-5 (eBook)
Cover Design © Willsin Rowe
Design & Typesetting: Clan Destine Press
Clan Destine Press
Lyrics of Banishing the Bones
by Narrelle M. Harris and Jess Harris
All other song lyrics by Narrelle M. Harris
Extracts of poems The Munias’ Nest and Brahmin Girls
by Joseph Furtado (1872-1947)
CHAPTER ONE
Melbourne, Australia, 2014
‘This is it?’ Mr Malone’s gaze took in the four people in front of him. ‘This is the band? I thought you were a six piece?’ The band room manager’s Australian drawl was just this side of rude.
‘A five piece, normally,’ said Laszlo Kantor. ‘I don’t play.’
‘So you are in fact a three piece?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where are the other two?’
‘Dead,’ said Yuka, the drummer, prosaic and defiant.
‘Don’t worry about it. It’s all under control.’
It was totally not under control.
Budapest, Hungary: one week ago
If anything was more ludicrous than five people walking through a city crossroads at 2am, singing and playing instruments, it was their pretension that the bizarre activity was an excuse for vampire hunting.
Laszlo Kantor didn’t tell the patrolling musicians they were preposterous. He’d learned long ago to keep these opinions to himself, especially from preposterous people.
The oddest at the moment was the Swede, Kurt, who had a tablet computer in one hand, open on an app that displayed a keyboard. He played it as he sang into the quiet buildings of this area of light industry.
Water, fire, air and earth
Let no evil cross this line
Weave a web, protect this path
And to their den, evil confine
Six times already they’d sung this song at crossroads all around Budapest’s District 22, including the memorial park of old communist statues where the gigantic, over-earnest figures were ripe for ridicule. Alex had laughed at the derisive nicknames, but they inspired only contempt in Laszlo. He’d known the regime too well to find humour in its graveyard.
‘What are you doing?’ he’d asked Alex at the fourth rendition of the strange song.
‘Hunting,’ laughed Alex, who laughed a lot. ‘Isn’t that right, cicci?’
‘Well, sötnos,’ Kurt replied – full of little endearments, those two, even in the midst of this absurdity – ‘It’s more like herding.’
‘Herding cats.’ said Steve the Texan, the oldest of them.
‘Herding vampires,’ Sal countered.
Kurt sang as he walked the western arm of the crossroad, his voice and the tablet keyboard weaving into the harmonies made by other voices and instruments at the points of the compass. Those at east, north and south sang with their guitars. At the centre of the crossroads, Yuka knelt and beat a tattoo on the street. Laszlo liked the way she played – economical in her movements, beating her sticks like the whole world was her drum.
Kurt and his bandmates converged on Yuka’s spot and the song came to an end.
‘Clear in the west.’ Kurt smiled at Alex, the leader of these talented fools.
‘Clear in the east, cicci,’ Alex said. ‘Sal?’
‘Clear in the north.’
‘Ain’t a whisper in the south, either,’ Steve finished.
Yuka rose to her feet, twirling the sticks in her hands. ‘Clear for blocks around. The earth says they’re hemmed in.’ A twirling stick froze and pointed like a compass in the direction of a derelict factory in Erdõdülõ, by the statue park.
‘Let’s see to this vampire nest,’ Alex said. He shifted his guitar and took Kurt’s hand. ‘You all right with the app or do you want the keytar?’
‘I hate the keytar.’
‘You’re not fond of the app.’
‘I should learn the flute,’ Kurt said. ‘Much more portable.’
‘So you don’t like my idea of putting rollers on a baby grand?’ Steve teased.
‘You people,’ Laszlo said in disgust, forgetting his rule about not expressing his opinions. This cavalier stupidity was, Alex claimed, an investigation into the unsolved murders and disappearances of a dozen people in the last month.
‘What’s your beef ?’
‘People have vanished, Steve, and all you do is talk nonsense. Vampires and wheels on pianos.’
‘Only one of those things is nonsense,’ Alex said.
‘Wheels on a piano,’ Kurt scoffed. ‘It would roll away every time I played prestissimo.’
‘You are not funny.’ The disappearances reminded Laszlo too much of the humourless secret police in the Bad Old Days for him to
