The Reformed Vampire Support Group (12 page)

Next thing I knew, we weren’t moving any more. Silence reigned.

It can often take a minute or so to recover your wits after a day’s blackout. But the instant I heard Dave groaning, I knew where I was – or at least, where I
should
have been. And I began to struggle out of my sleeping-bag.

The guinea pigs were still with us, scratching around in their cage. It was very dark, and very cold; the only light came from my wristwatch. In its pale-green glow I could see that the van’s double doors were tightly shut, and that my suitcase was still sitting where I’d left it.

Beside me, Dave coughed.

‘Are you all right?’ he whispered.

‘I think so. What about you?’

‘No worse than usual.’ He certainly didn’t look his best, as he peered at me with bloodshot eyes through a tangle of hair. ‘Should I ring Father Ramon? Or should we have breakfast first?’

I was startled by this suggestion. Our original plan had been to use Father Ramon’s motel bathroom for our meals; we had even brought our own cleaning equipment, and a set of burgundy towels that wouldn’t show bloodstains.

‘I figure we could probably hose all this off,’ Dave continued quietly, gesturing at the sheets of black plastic that surrounded us.
‘Instead of trying to sneak animals into a motel room.’

‘Let’s just work out where we are first,’ I replied, and he shrugged.

Then he fumbled for his mobile phone.

I can’t pretend that I wasn’t anxious as we waited for a response to Dave’s call. There was no telling what might have happened during the past twelve hours; for all we knew, the van might have been impounded by the police, or parked outside a pub, or abandoned on an outback highway. We couldn’t be sure of anything until we had spoken to Father Ramon.

Luckily, he answered on the first ring.

‘Yeah, it’s me,’ Dave rumbled. ‘Yeah, we’re fine … no … yeah … okay. Good.’ He broke the connection, his face a mask of relief. ‘We’re right next to the motel room, and there’s no one else around,’ he reported. ‘We’ll be out of here in a second.’

He had hardly finished speaking before a creak and a thump announced that Father Ramon was unlocking the back of the van. All at once the doors swung open. I groped for my sunglasses as artificial light flooded our dingy compartment.

The guinea pigs immediately began to complain, in very shrill voices.

‘Get them inside, quick,’ muttered Father Ramon, who was standing in front of a blue door with a number on it. ‘We don’t want anyone to see.’

‘I was just thinking – about breakfast—’ Dave began. The priest, however, wouldn’t be delayed.

‘
Hurry!
’ he begged.

So I grabbed my suitcase, ignoring a slight touch of dizziness as I scrambled out into the fresh air. Dave threw a towel over the guinea pig cage. But he had his own luggage to carry, and it was Father Ramon who finally smuggled the guinea pigs into our motel room, with many a nervous backward glance.

Because the door of the room was positioned directly behind our van, we didn’t have a long way to go. As far as I could see – from my fleeting glimpse of it – the Miner’s Rest Motel was just a long line of rooms facing a car park, with an office at one end and a small, fenced-off pool at the other. But I wasn’t given a chance to inspect the place very closely. Within seconds I had been hustled into a shabby sleeping area that boasted red brick walls, a brown carpet, and two queen-size beds sitting under a framed photograph of the Eiffel Tower.

My heart sank as I gazed around at the wood-veneer cupboards and the broken vertical blinds. This was the first motel room that I had ever experienced, and it was a grave disappointment. After watching so many lifestyle holiday programs, I had been expecting a spa bath, at the very least.

‘Is this all?’ I said. ‘It stinks.’

‘It’s better than the back of the truck,’ Dave rejoined, dumping his bag on the carpet. ‘Do you want to go first, Nina?’

‘Oh. Right. I guess.’ My gaze travelled from the quivering cage under the burgundy towel to the red brick wall behind it. ‘How soundproof are these rooms, do you think?’

‘I’ll turn on the
TV
,’ Father Ramon offered. ‘Don’t worry, Nina. There’ll be time enough to talk once you and Dave have done what you have to do.’

And he settled down to watch a fuzzy news bulletin.

I won’t revolt you with a description of my breakfast, or of the mess that I had to clean up after I’d finished. I’ll just say that, for once, I didn’t feel too bad about what I’d done – because the bathroom already had mouldy grouting, smelly drains and a dust-clogged extraction fan. When I complained about the housekeeping to Father Ramon, however, he simply shrugged.

‘I’ve seen worse,’ he replied. He was sitting on one of the beds,
which had obviously been slept in; I soon discovered that he’d spent the whole afternoon napping, after a morning devoted to reconnaissance.

It seemed that Wolgaroo Corner was located about forty-five minutes to the north of town, along an extremely rough dirt road.

‘I went to the office and asked for directions,’ he explained, once Dave had finished in the bathroom. ‘I said that I was a friend of a friend of Barry McKinnon, just passing through. And you know what the receptionist did?’ Father Ramon paused, but Dave and I just stared at him blankly. So the priest continued. ‘She gave me this,’ he said, displaying a crumpled sheet of paper. ‘It’s a photocopy of a hand-drawn map. With Barry McKinnon’s house
marked in red pen
.’

I was confused by his tone.

‘You mean the receptionist drew all over it?’ I queried, wondering why he found this so surprising.

‘No, no.’ Father Ramon spoke slowly and carefully, in the manner of someone transmitting vital information. ‘I mean that she had a whole
pile
of maps to the McKinnon house. They were sitting under the counter.’

‘A whole pile of maps?’ Dave echoed.

‘That’s right. And when I asked her if Barry McKinnon had a lot of visitors, she laughed. And
winked
.’

‘She winked?’ I was astonished. ‘Why would she do that?’

‘I don’t know. The phone rang then, and she had to answer it.’ Father Ramon dragged his fingers through his hair. ‘I was so floored, I just … well, I just left. It seemed so odd. I had to go away and think.’

The priest went on to admit that he hadn’t questioned the woman again, because he’d been worried about drawing attention to himself. ‘So I went to have a look at the place, instead,’ he revealed. ‘I wanted to get a feel for the layout while there was still light enough to see by.’

I blinked. Dave frowned.

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘You mean you drove to Wolgaroo Corner? In the
truck?
’

‘Yes.’

‘This
morning?
’

‘I didn’t speak to anyone. I didn’t even stop,’ Father Ramon assured me. ‘I just wanted to be certain that we knew what to expect before we went in there after dark. It’s always a good idea to check your exits.’

I stared at him in amazement. Sitting on the unmade bed, all rumpled clothes and untidy grey hair, he looked the same as usual. But it occurred to me that Father Ramon wasn’t your average priest. Providing pastoral care for a group of vampires requires more than just compassion and a sense of duty. It also requires a taste for adventure.

I wondered if the excitement of his early years in South America had given him a daredevil streak. I wondered if ordinary parish work was becoming a bit of a bore.

‘Wow,’ said Dave feebly. I said nothing. It bothered me that I would never, in a million years, have considered going anywhere
near
Wolgaroo Corner – not on my own. I just didn’t have the guts.

‘It’s a great big spread,’ Father Ramon related. ‘You can only just see it from the road.’ He explained that he had slowed down upon reaching a steel-drum mailbox and a five-bar gate; from that point, a long driveway had led to a collection of buildings and one or two trees, way off in the distance. ‘Pretty flat,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘No livestock that I could see. But lots and lots of vehicles.’ He raised his eyes from the patch of carpet that he had been contemplating, then fixed them on Dave. ‘That’s what I found so odd,’ he confessed. ‘The number of cars that were parked near the house.’

‘How many?’

‘Oh – at least fifteen.’

‘
Fifteen?
’ I squawked. And Dave said, ‘It’s like that in the country. People just leave their old rust buckets lying around when they’re ready to upgrade—’

‘No, no.’ Father Ramon shook his head. ‘These were all good cars. I wasn’t very close, but I could see they were mostly recent models. Some of them looked brand-new.’

There was a long pause as Dave and I processed this information, trying to work out what it meant. A pile of maps. A congregation of cars. A conspiratorial wink. What did they all add up to?

‘Could there be a party tonight?’ I proposed at last. ‘I bet they have really enormous parties out here, which go on for days and days.’

‘Then why didn’t the receptionist warn me?’ Father Ramon objected. ‘Why didn’t she say, “Oh, I don’t know if it would be a good idea to drop in on Barry right now, what with the party and everything”? Why did she just wink like that?’

Dave suggested that we might be visiting someone with a bit of a reputation. He speculated that Barry McKinnon’s parties might be notorious – full of drinking, drug-taking, and the kind of wild behaviour that you can only really get away with out in the country, where you don’t have nosy neighbours breathing down your neck. I wondered aloud if Barry McKinnon might even manufacture his own illegal drugs, and throw a party for his best customers once in a while. Then Father Ramon said that, as long as we weren’t about to crash the fifth anniversary of the Vampire Extermination Club, Barry’s houseful of guests would probably work to our advantage.

‘If he
is
our man, he won’t try anything nasty in front of his friends,’ the priest declared, sounding for all the world like someone from the army reserve.

Dave agreed. I didn’t know what to think; I was beginning to feel
very anxious. It had been years since I’d encountered a large and noisy crowd of people. I had a sudden vision of drunk teenagers cutting themselves on smashed glass – in fact I could clearly remember something of the sort happening at the last party I’d ever attended. It had been held in a big old house full of university students, none of whom I’d met before. But a friend of mine had known somebody who lived there, so I’d gone with her. (I had a reckless streak, in those days, though you wouldn’t think so now.)

I’m pretty sure a boy stuck his fist through a window, that night. I seem to recall seeing a bloodstained tea-towel wrapped around his arm, before I staggered outside to throw up. After that, of course, I never went to another party. Because Casimir caught up with me in a murky back lane.

‘Maybe we ought to wait till tomorrow night,’ I said, troubled by my memory of the bloodstained tea-towel. But Father Ramon didn’t think much of this idea. He was keen to be back in Sydney for the Sunday-morning service, if possible. And Dave was convinced that there would be safety in numbers.

‘We might even be able to crash this thing without anyone knowing that we weren’t invited,’ he said, speaking with the thoughtful air of someone accustomed to gatecrashing. ‘Especially if we take some beer.’

In the end, though, we decided that our motives would look questionable if we slunk into the house like spies, and were later discovered. Barry might believe that we had come for the sole purpose of attacking him.

Besides which, Father Ramon wanted to wear his clerical collar.

‘Our whole aim is to appear completely honest,’ he said. ‘People tend to trust priests, but not when they sneak into parties disguised as laymen. Everything has to be aboveboard. We should go there and say that we’re making inquiries about a silver bullet.’

‘A silver bullet that we found at a friend’s house,’ I added, suddenly struck by an inspired notion. ‘A friend who’s disappeared.’

‘Yes.’ The priest gave a nod. ‘We’re just three honest people searching for some answers. That’s how we’ll approach this thing. As for how we proceed from there …’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose that will depend on what we find out.’

It was as good a plan as any. I certainly couldn’t think of a better one. But before we left I decided to give my mother a ring, just to make sure that Fangseeker hadn’t been identified. (He hadn’t.) I also wanted to reassure her that I was fine, and to satisfy myself that she was fine, too.

She was. According to Mum, no one had bothered her during the day. There had been no lurking strangers or wordless phone calls. At present, she told me, Horace was trawling the Internet for phrases like ‘I killed a vampire’, Bridget was knitting, Gladys was having a bath and George was feeding the guinea pigs.

‘It’s Sanford who’s driving me mad,’ Mum complained. ‘He can’t seem to settle.’ As if to prove her point, Sanford suddenly addressed her in the background; I heard a short, sharp exchange before Mum relinquished the phone. When Sanford’s voice exploded in my ear, I quickly surrendered my own receiver to Father Ramon.

The last thing I needed was another one of Sanford’s lectures.

‘Yes? Who? Oh, Sanford. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, yes.’ The priest’s patience astounded me. ‘No. Yes. No,’ he murmured. ‘Yes, of course. We were just about to leave. There seems to be some kind of party going on over there …’

As Sanford was given a full report, I followed Dave out to the van. By now it was nearly nine o’clock. Across the dusty road that skirted the car park stood a line of small, shabby houses made of fibro and corrugated iron. Peppercorn trees rustled in the wind. A battered white ute drove past, bristling with antennae. The starry
sky seemed so huge that it had a strange kind of weight to it, as if it were pressing down hard on the stunted landscape.

The air was as sharp as an icepick.

‘Have you been to the outback before?’ I inquired of Dave, very softly.

‘Yeah,’ he answered. ‘Once. When I was touring.’ He lifted his chin, staring up at the Milky Way. ‘Amazing, isn’t it?’