2‘Whole town packs up and hides come sunset, lass. You won’t find anything open this time of night. That’s for sure.’
‘I’m expected.’
The truck driver scratched his balding head and sniffed. ‘Yeah. So you said. Still, ain’t the friendliest of places to be visiting, especially at night. Reckon you’re better off going on through to the Gong and backtracking in the morning.’
‘Thanks for the lift.’ The passenger door creaked as it opened. Cabin temperature went from a cool twenty-two to an uncomfortable thirty-five degrees and rising before the hitchhiker could get one foot out the door. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Yeah, right. Famous last words.’ The driver shrugged. ‘Your funeral. Hurry up and shut the bloody door. Hot as the devil’s f*****g boudoir out there. Good luck. You’ll be needing it.’
The hitchhiker hooked her hand through the strap of her army surplus duffel bag and jumped to the ground. She closed the cab door without another word and waved as the air horn sounded and the truck took off in a cloud of dust and spitting gravel. Headlights washed over dark houses and deserted footpaths. Jacarandas loomed briefly, their blue flowers greyed by the night; feathery leaves, ghosts of their daytime fragility.
Branches twisted and bent as the truck passed, litter twirling in mad eddies in the wake of rushing air. The rumble of the diesel engine echoed around the town, softening with the hiss of airbrakes as it paused at the T-intersection that ended the main drag, indicated a left turn and revved back into urgent life. It left behind a quiet town, baking in the hot summer night.
Midnight in Bellbird and not a creature stirred. Except the hitchhiker. She pulled the strap over her shoulder and looked to the right. A side street, narrow and cobbled, gaped between two storefronts; tattered posters from sales long sold out and community meetings long adjourned hung from the walls; forgotten litter nestled along the narrow gutters. Further down, a pinpoint in the pitch that was night in Bellbird, a light shone.
Scuffed boots made barely a sound as they crossed the black strip of bitumen road, silenced by the truck’s echo and the oppressive heat. The hitchhiker walked across the road and down the centre of the lane. Shadows pulled at her jeans and stroked the dull cotton of her T-shirt. Hidden dust streaked her bare arms and billowed around her with each step. Ramshackle fences, a mess of rusted wire, chipped paint and petrified gates lined the worn cobbles. Homes were blinded and blank. She ignored them and walked on toward the wedge of light, stopping at the line it formed between the known and unknown. She took a deep breath and let it out slow, easing herself into the waiting radiance. At once her whole form relaxed, hair—neat and pulled back in the cab of the truck—escaped its bonds to caress her shoulders, bright eyes became tired and lined, tight lips softened into a tanned face well-used to travelling at the whim of a hooked thumb and a driver’s caprice.
The figure drooped, slumped in her boots, but smiling.
A single light was on.
And Lael was expected.
One foot into the alley and Lael knew she was too late. She widened her senses and found no trace of human life. Nothing. She held back from probing ahead, not wanting to know too soon that she was too late also for the friend who expected her. Stones crunched underfoot, each step she made a lonely echo of the one before, until she reached the open front gate and stopped. Accusing light spilled from the window, backlit the open door, creased the night shadows in the empty hall. Lael forced herself forward, kept her Knowing to herself and confronted the guilt and blame leeching from every house brick.
‘Malaik?’ The call went unannounced, kept inside her head by the jangling warnings that assailed her. She took a step through the doorway and the warnings faded. Whoever had been here was gone now. Danger had gone with them. Only horror and grief remained. She kept moving, boots quiet on the thick runner lining the hall, and turned into the only lit room.
Malaik was dead. Caught like a strangled rat in a trap, barbed-wire wrapped around his body, circling his head, digging into his throat, twisted around his wrists and waist, between his legs—tight against his groin—and down his legs. Lael sniffed the air, blood and pain and the faint scent of morning glory flowers, and … Lael sniffed again, belladonna. A lethal combination.
Lael stepped closer. Blood, black and thick, oozed from the cuts on Malaik’s head. Still fresh. Lael clenched her fist. She’d been so close. Not more than an hour from finding her friend alive instead of dead. ‘Your timing stinks, Lael.’
Malaik’s face was dusted with the herbal concoction that would have made him vulnerable to attack, easy prey for the Bledray Ghouls that haunted the earth and eased their hunger on the essence of humanity. With the Guardian so weakened, the town had no chance—a veritable feast just waiting to be eaten.
Lael turned away from her friend’s tortured face and wondered how the Ghouls could get so close as to kill a Guardian in his own home. It was unheard of. Out in the open, yes, definitely possible depending on the strength and hunger of the Ghoul. But not here, the very centre of his strength.
The light came from a desk lamp, its halogen globe sending streaks of whiteness across the room. Papers, disturbed and spread across desk, chair and floor, waited like tombstones for someone to read them. Lael moved the few steps to the desk, her boot treading on something hard that cracked under her weight. She shifted her foot and bent down.
Malaik’s pen. Lael picked it up and gathered the papers, keen now to see what he had been writing when he was attacked. In some sort of reasonable order, some of the pages were numbered. Lael sat down and read. One page was a letter to someone in town, personal, not relevant. Another was the start of a journal.
Lael and the others, siblings born of fire and light, are our saviours. The First Hunters an extension of the Alffür born to fight our foe so that we can protect the fledgling race of Ryrdri …
He had sensed trouble was coming. Nothing tangible, an inkling, enough to be worried and that was all. The last page was addressed to Lael, though only the letter L at the top indicated to whom it was intended. Short and to the point, opposite to the florid turn of phrase he used in his journal. Lael read and re-read the words and frowned.
‘Oh Malaik,’ she said. She screwed the page into a ball and held it to her chest. Her friend’s final words etched into memory.
The Bledray are gathering.