Be Above

By S E Holmes

Demonic Hordes. Biblical Plagues. The Four Riders of the Apocalypse smothering the human world in pestilence. And a girl caught smack in the middle.
When Xanthe’s stepfather, Bull, is executed in the most hideous way, her troubles are only beginning. For his loss rallies vengeful enemies – both mortal and unearthly – foiled for decades by Bull. But he didn’t do the job alone. Now, Xan has inherited his supernatural contract and a bossy, homicidal parasite. With wings.
As Hell’s fortress falls and things jailed for eternity break free, even demonic help might not be enough. Darkness is coming for Xanthe and those she loves. Which could just prove the Horsemen’s biggest mistake.
Bull didn’t call Xan his ‘little dragon’ for nothing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S E Holmes
• Release date: Feb 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005361167

S E Holmes

The fact the real world is not as appealing as the ones I create was obvious in kindergarten when I ran away from school to have a chat with Santa, triggering a police search. My imaginary friend, Wendy, who often came in handy to eat my peas, generously took the blame.

Book preview

Be Above-1-

When the throb from the club below stopped, Xanthe should have known it meant more than the usual trouble. She sighed and dragged her headphones from around her neck, straining for the music’s return. You’d think raised above a strip club, she’d be bored by drama. The Baron danced Sunday nights in a white top hat, tails, and not much else. His was the loudest and her least favourite act. When he sidled out, tapping his cane to Sympathy for the Devil, his fans went feral. Without the song, there’d be no sympathy. But instead of stomped complaint or boos loud enough to rattle her windows, the Rolling Stones remained stubbornly mute.

Weird. Shortages of fake tan and sequins. Closure of laser salons. Global alien abduction of cosmetic surgeons. No matter the catastrophe, the show never missed a beat at Haven.

She stared mournfully down at her painted right foot. Could they not have at least waited until she finished all of her toes? A ten-hour shift tomorrow at the dry cleaner’s loomed, and she really wasn’t up for another Haven-inspired production that had nothing to do with a stage. She thought about letting Ant or Carol handle whatever this was, but even a tiny blip disrupted her careful routine. Routine was important: an oasis of control buffeted by chaos.

Her bedroom looked like an op-shop had exploded in a library, but in her defence exams had only finished that morning. Second year Forensic and Criminology texts littered the vintage dragon rug, a gift from Bull on her eighteenth birthday several months ago. From the earliest time she could recall, even when her Mumma still lived, he’d called Xan his fierce little dragon. She capped Mint Wonder polish and retrieved her specs from her study table. They rested next to a plate of end-of-term reward salted-caramel éclairs that she’d likely not get to finish. Stuffing the remains of one into her mouth, Xan scrounged for something to put on over her bra and undies.

Bugger, she mumbled through custard.

If only clean washing was distinguishable from dirty. Licking the stickiness from her fingers, she spotted her ancient fuzzy pink robe by the bed and grudgingly swaddled herself in microplush. It was the wrong choice, cloying heat relentless despite the late evening hour. Her covered skin was instantly damp.

Abruptly, howls pierced the stubborn silence: an animal expulsion of grief. Xan headed for her window that overlooked the back carpark. Drunken brawls, squabbling dealers, two stabbings, and every iteration of woeful human behaviour had occurred there over the years. But that was long before Bull had lit the area up like a game-night stadium, and channelled real-time surveillance to his security.

Inside its walls, Haven was practically the safest place on earth, monitored by in-ear receivers and visuals that streamed live to the phones of its hyper-vigilant bouncers. Patrons were welcomed via digital ID scanners, and banned for life if they broke the rules. Some of the bouncers were ex-military. And of course, Haven’s founder was a force rarely challenged. The bikies from their warehouse headquarters in a barbed-wire compound across a four-lane highway opposite, considered Bull too close. They maintained a respectful distance.

Outside though, beyond the white-lined carpark abutting a strip of shops in which Haven was the largest and most dubious glittering jewel, another world existed altogether. Dancers got a baton-wielding escort to cars at the end of shift to discourage those who confused dancing with an access-all-areas pass. A forest encroached the rear tarmac, thickets of spined bramble and tangled lantana that hid more than spent rubbers and syringes. Dense undergrowth camouflaging less than savoury activities proved resistant to poison, scythe, and on one desperate occasion, flame. Rumours persisted the bikies used to dispose of bodies there before Bull. A murky, sluggish watercourse wound the snake and spider-riddled scrub that flourished doggedly. It served well to remember their proximity to such a lawless, dangerous place, heedless even to the constant exertions of Bull.

The awful wailing in the carpark subsided to a haunted moan. Xanthe pivoted to straddle the windowsill, aiming for a better view on the roof via stairs from the gantry that wrapped the building’s upper level. Before she’d swung both legs out, thudding feet announced visitors in the hall to her bedroom.

The door burst open. Carol, the club’s unflappable general manager stood flush-cheeked in the doorframe, clearly in full flap about something.

Another dozer? Xan smirked, balanced half in and half out, the serrated grate digging the sole of her foot.

That’s what they called patrons who took delusions of Romeo and Juliet too far. The Police had to taser the poor bastard before he mowed down the club’s façade, after totalling half-a-dozen parked cars.

Xanthe, don’t! Don’t go out there.

The grin slid from Xanthe’s face. Carol’s distraught features conveyed this was no bulldozer incident. Haven’s MC, Ant, arrived behind her in his Vegas showgirl costume, years of wearing extravagant headwear showing in his effortless manoeuvring of a huge concoction of diamanteed ostrich feathers. Whatever catastrophe had occurred was so fresh, removing it wasn’t a priority. Tears streaked his impervious make-up, his face contorted by grief.

Please, Xan, Ant begged, wringing his beautifully manicured, bejewelled hands.

But he knew her too well. A nauseating flood of adrenalin slammed her. Xanthe clambered out onto the walkway into the night’s arid blanket, punctured by shrieking sirens and the roar of racing engines. While Ant had a performer’s fondness for the theatrical, Carol once disarmed a burglar wielding a loaded revolver with nothing more than her perfectly aimed shot glass. Afterwards, she merely bemoaned the loss of her whisky, and went about pouring another. This latest incarnation of Carol was a person with whom Xan was poorly acquainted, and all the more frightening. She vaulted up the stairs and leaped over the brick parapet onto the gravel-lined roof. To the north, red and blue strobed the highway back to the city like a chain of frenzied Christmas lights.

She peered down over the waist-high wall. Below, in an area so well lit by Bull’s floodlights it resembled day, was a scene Xanthe at first failed to comprehend. All five of Haven’s bouncers gathered, leaving the club unwatched. More disturbing, not one of the crowd gawking in voiceless horror hurried for the virtue of distance. Nearby, skimpily clad bar staff wept in a huddle.

Baron Saturday loitered unmolested at the crowd’s front, wrenched so early from his number, he still wore white snake-skin boots and satin hotpants. His jaw hung, sparkle powder over his dark complexion highlighting his formidable physique. His real name was Usain, but only those closest to him knew, or cared.

Xanthe squinted, rivetted by a glistening heap on the ground in a lane between packed cars. Was it a poor deer cleaned up by the grill of a speeding car? That would scarcely earn a glance, let alone the rising hysteria of the spectators. Last she heard, police were disinclined to handle roadkill. Besides, she’d never seen a crash carcass so messed up it looked to have come fresh from the abattoir.

Two attached shapes extended across the blacktop, one the mound, the other its flattened replica joined by the feet to spread in the opposite direction. Xanthe shied at recognition of human form that recalled strung together homicide outlines, highlighted in a pool of red. So much red.

Ant’s stilettoes tinged up the stairs and he hopped onto the roof, crunching gravel to stand next to her. He’d dumped the platinum wig holding his headwear. Scrubbing tears along his forearm muddied his face, so he looked the creepy, balding clown, perspiration plastering what remained of his pale hair to his stocking cap. Carol joined them, her toned ex-dancer’s body sheened by sweat in her bralette, her torso unclad. Bull would have a fit over this display of flesh outside the premises. Where was he?

Carol exhaled slowly, an effort at tight control. We should have forced you to stay in your room.

You want to gaffer her to the bed? Ant almost choked on the words. She’d find out soon enough.

Yes, Carol said through her clenched jaw, but she doesn’t need to see. That memory’s a stain that will never wash out.

What is it? Xanthe didn’t want to know, but needed to. If life had taught her anything, it was that you couldn’t avoid what was coming for you, no matter how hard you tried.

They situated either side of her, hugging her waist lest she fall. She battled dread taking hold of her heart, a tightly squeezing fist that made breathing a trial. The academic part of Xan’s brain took over; the answer was clear whether they gave it or not. She’d been a student of grisly crimes for too long, years inspecting gruesome photos labelling contents on reflex. The scene obliterated denial and the comfort of ignorance.

Were it not for a swallowing tide dragging her under, Xan might have recognised her guardians’ behaviour was odd. Ant and Carol didn’t show surprise to go with their angst. It was as though they’d expected this to happen, and while clearly distressed, they seemed resigned.

A phalanx of Police cars finally screeched into the area, scattering gawkers in a corona of headlights like guilty kids caught in the act. And many of them had much to hide – from loved ones, at least. The occupant of the lead vehicle jumped out with her bullhorn already to lips before the driver finished parking.

Remain where you are, she bellowed over fading sirens.

That’s not Bull, Xan whispered, shaking her head to enforce slim hope.

The rest of the policewoman’s colleagues pulled to a halt and disgorged from cabins. Trunks popped and equipment was collected and distributed with well-practiced efficiency.

Great, Carol sneered, Detective Sergeant Petersen and her merry band of muppets.

If I am forced to hunt you down later, Petersen’s voice echoed across the carpark, it will not go well for you. The faster you provide details to my officers, the faster you leave.

Maybe they’re here to do good. For once, Ant said, sounding unconvinced. A ringing began in Xanthe’s ears, and she couldn’t stop blinking. Xan? he observed her sidelong with an expression of watery pity, which didn’t help at all.

Nothing would help, ever again. Their bodies pressed in on hers, hot and clammy. She stifled a scream, thinking once she started, she’d never stop. Her hopes and dreams and stupid ideas of a smoother future after so much rough, splintered.

I need— Xan fluttered her fingers. This was all so surreal, her hand seemed disembodied. I need a little space. I need to …

She loved them, but they were always ‘on’. Always hovering in grit-toothed good cheer, wary in case Xan’s restraint combusted under the weight of circumstance, which numerous counsellors, DOCs workers and teachers claimed over the years was a certainty. Not to mention, Police. Bull refused to shuffle her off to foster care when her mother was killed, and he’d been right. He was always right. Bull.

Please, she managed to gasp against the storm gathering inside. A moment alone.

We can’t. Ant stared at her, aghast.

Carol scowled. Xanthe looked at her with pleading eyes, likely failing to assure she’d be all right. Carol surrendered anyway, her severe expression softening to reveal a tender core beneath scratch-proof practicality. Xan was a surrogate daughter for most of her motley family.

Come on, Ant.

Are you kidding, Carol? We can’t just leave her alone. His voice, which always climbed the scales when upset, reached peak octave. Xan you can’t stay here by yourself. Come back downstairs. I’ll tuck you in bed with something to make you sleep.

Anthony, trust Xan to handle this her way. She needs to process. You’ll come down in five or ten minutes, won’t you darl?

Or we’ll come looking, Ant threatened.

Xan nodded. An unbroken tone like a stuck car horn filled her head. Where is My Mind began playing on mental repeat – the haunting opening refrain from the Pixies original, not a remix.

Above it all, the sounds of professionals engaged in their worknight banter drifted from the concourse, as if nothing untoward had happened. As if normal hadn’t joined the most wanted list, hunted mercilessly but never recaptured. And suddenly, she found herself alone. How long had she stood there nodding?

She turned from the activity in the carpark. A white tent had already been erected to hide this latest shadow engulfing her. She wished, more than anything, she could confine awareness in sturdy canvas. Lock the knowledge in an air-tight compartment and carry-on, pretending nothing had happened. Eat eclairs and paint her toenails and believe Bull was on shift in the club. But darkness was a living thing that infiltrated everything it touched. And it would not be denied.

Brick scraped her shoulder blades through her robe as she sank to sit, and gravel stamped her thrust-out bare legs. She mindlessly patted a side pocket for her lighter and rollies. It was a disgusting habit, but smoking was her go-to release in times of stress. She’d seen too much of grog to seek numbness in the bottle, drugs as destructive. Now was probably not a time for self-promises to give up.

Her hands shook so violently, leaf spilled from the paper twice before she curled it tight. Lighting the cigarette’s quivering tip was another challenge, her fingers clumsy sparking the Bic. It took three attempts. She gagged on the first suck of acrid smoke.

Flayed. That was the word. Skinned, like a stag taken by a stalker’s bullet rather than a car’s hood. Aside from the obvious, there was something very wrong about how. Impossible.

A blue halo seeped from her lips on the listless night. Xan mashed her head on stone, sharp hurt trivial against the inner torture. Crushing her fag in a white-knuckled fist, she screwed her eyelids shut and roared a silent stream of hatred at an impassive universe that had deprived her of a second parent.

-2-

She’s extremely gifted. We’ve tested her twice to confirm the results.

Bull filled the principal’s office and it seemed much smaller to eleven-year-old Xanthe than it always had. He spread over the chair next to her, as if they’d given him one from kindergarten instead of an adult’s. Smiling down at her, his voice was a comforting grizzly-bear rumble to match his brown beard and powerful muscles. She’d always wondered why his nickname was Bull, not Bear. His dark brown eyes, so dark they were close to black, twinkled proudly.

Smart. Like her Mumma.

Principal O’Donnell ahemmed, the usual reaction whenever Madelina was mentioned. Her hands were clasped on the polished surface of the broad table between them. She kept twisting a gold wedding band on her bony finger, a tick Xanthe noticed only happened when she and Bull were called together. And she’d been in this office enough to notice.

Yes, well. Xanthe requires special instruction if she’s to reach her potential. She’s been accepted into the selective high school next year, but she’ll need advancement, even there.

I’ll get Xan whatever extra she needs.

The silly woman hadn’t bothered to ask how Xan knew so much. She’d had special tutors for years. Uncle Ant spent hours telling her stories about olden-day Hollywood starlets, the ones he became for his stage show she’d never seen. Mae West, more intelligent and wittier than all the arseholes. All about Elizabeth Taylor and tragic Natalie Wood – who Ant claimed both resembled her, Nat’s eyes, except green. Liz’s hair, when she wore it long. But your mother’s original grace and beauty. No one would ever be as beautiful as her mother, no matter what Anthony said.

And of course, Marilyn. He also did Madonna and Lady Gaga, but preferred the classics. His favourite was Katherine Hepburn, for her spirit and don’t give a fuc—fudge attitude. He let Xan dress up in the wigs and parade around in his high heels, copying their famous phrases until they giggled so much, she couldn’t catch her breath. Or his boyfriend fronted and ruined it by picking a fight, which always ended in tears. And by day, Anthony was a paediatric nurse.

Or Aunt Carol, who loved true crime and read to her some nights from her stories, so Xan fell asleep imagining herself a special agent from the FBI, snapping her cuffs on the worst of the worst. She managed the Haven dance school. Lots of her dancers went to university and shared what they learned in their degrees. They’d drop by in the mornings to get their pay checks, telling Xan all about Psychology or Physics or Architecture, waiting for Bull to open the safe. She’d sit on a stool at the bar with them sipping their espressos, while she ate her boiled egg.

How else could they afford study, if they didn’t dance? As Aunt Carol said, not everyone was born with a silver spoon shoved up their bahoochie.

Xan was a treasure chest of others’ learning and hobbies. She could crochet and juggle five balls and knew what a red dwarf was. And Bull explained about Law and words. As well as making sure she remembered her mother’s bravery, Romanian heritage, and love of art. The walls at home were covered in gold-framed reproductions: Cezanne, Renoir, Titian, Seurat, Kandinsky, Lichtenstein, Whiteley, even a Brancusi sculpture on the coffee table. It was like living in an art gallery. No one ever asked, they just trusted their own viewpoint. This was a mistake her whole family told her never to make. Facts weren’t the same as a person’s opinions. The real truth needed hard evidence.

Penelope O’Donnell snapped forward in her chair, which had a high back like a throne and was of expensive black leather, unlike their stiff plastic ones. A squeal announced her every move. This office was about sides, the divide made clear. Xan knew where she belonged, which wasn’t opposite where white roses stood in a vase on the sideboard crammed with framed commendations for charity and community spirit.

She and Bull came from the wilderness where savages roamed, a godless country, a place good and decent people weren’t found. At least, that’s what they claimed. Especially their children in the playground, chanting about her dead slut mother and her pimp, peddo stepfather. If such kids were examples of good and decent, what did bad look like? Community ‘spirit’ seemed to multiply when they appeared. No one had taught Xan to fight, that she’d learned by herself.

And she kept secret she’d spied from Haven’s roof on some of those very people, creeping into the club under cover of darkness. Mr Mellor, who did the sausage sizzle at school fetes. He had a wife but came for boy-on-boy nights. Mrs Thomson, with a rainbow chain dangling from her spectacles, who baked cupcakes for the stalls and cheered take it off so loudly on girls’ night Saturdays, Xan could hear her through her open window. Aunt Carol was always muttering about hypocrisy; a big word with a big meaning Xan understood well.

Her socialisation, however, lags. It’s possible the trauma of her childhood has imposed mutism.

Bull winked at her. Xanny’s selective and measured. She’s engages those she considers worth it. It’s not her problem so few are.

That level of introspection in one so young raises concern over her ability to function in the wider community. Xan realised the principal had been working up to the pointy bits and wanted to throw them whether Bull explained or not. It often seemed talk was a parallel act where people competed to speak about themselves. Not to be rude, Mr Roth—

Penelope’s pinched up look, bordering on disgust, shouted otherwise. She readied another version of the good and decent speech.

But Bull was in no mood for sermons from those who knew no better. She twisted her ring, one way, then the other, across then back. It was getting on Xan’s nerves, yet she couldn’t work out why. Bull rose to his full height, stepping behind his chair so as not to tower too closely over the seated woman. She still flinched, as though he might hit her, which was something he would never do. He only punched crooks who deserved it.

If that’s all, Mrs O’Donnell? Xan and I have an ice-cream parlour and a crossword waiting. Daddy inclined his head at the door, signalling Xan didn’t have to listen. For once.

Xanthe shouldn’t be there! It’s immoral, a way station for perverts and degenerates. It’s no place for a child.

Where precisely do you mean, Mrs O’Donnell?

You know perfectly well I mean Haven.

Xan’s never set foot inside the club in operation. Nor will she until she’s old enough and the decision’s no longer mine.

It’s unhealthy, to be indoctrinated by female objectification.

Bull snorted and shook his head. How about you come down one night and run that opinion past our dancers, many of whom are men.

I would never cross the threshold to that den of sin. Sex, she hissed. And drugs and violence.

If Bull was the type to roll his eyes, Xan thought now would be his cue. They’d heard plenty of the same from activists, who sometimes trekked from the city to gather in the shop-front carpark and protest one thing or another. As if Haven was next to a kindy or near a playground. He held out his hand and Xan took it, letting him hoist her up.

How about you go and collect your things. Wait in the hall for me, okay?

In the hall beyond the room of us and them, she pretended to obey until the door shut and she could tiptoe back unseen. Their voices were clear despite the barrier of wood. He had a prepared speech of his own. And he had practice at giving it.

I don’t need to justify how Xan lives to you. We owe you no explanations. But I’ll do it, this once for your edification.

Xan imagined Penelope’s eyebrows arching to the roof as they always did when Bull used a big word. Plucked strips of surprise from adults who wrongly thought him dumb because of his wild, tattooed appearance. Or his job. Or because he picked his words carefully.

Drug use is prohibited at Haven. All workers are tested randomly as a condition of employment and sign a contract to that effect. Her father probably ticked off the list, as he’d done too often to count. No alcohol is consumed on shift. Anyone who’s been drinking is banned from going anywhere near my daughter. She’s not allowed inside the premises when it’s open. It’s a strip club, Mrs O’Donnell, populated by professionals who enjoy what they do and have a healthy relationship with their bodies. They choose to dance, no one forces them under my watch. No touching is permitted and that’s legally binding to the last centimetre—

She interrupted his flow. Husbands ogling while their wives are clueless. It’s a house of lies, a corrupt environment that attracts the worst types. Aren’t you concerned by potential exposure to paedophiles?

Is it my workers or my clientele you take issue with? I pass no verdict on other peoples’ lives. That is for a far mightier judge.

You’re a believer in God?

I wasn’t talking about God, Mrs O’Donnell. And rock spiders tend to disguise themselves, not draw attention by frequenting the obvious. In any case, our dancers don’t fit the age bracket. It’s more likely a couple of your students’ mums are married to one. Perhaps you could divert your crusade to weeding them out.

My crusade, Mr Roth, as you put it, snapped the principal, Is guaranteeing the safest, most nurturing upbringing for my pupils.

Like Bull didn’t want that more. Mrs O’Donnell wasn’t extra sure of what was best for Xanthe than him. He wasn’t related to her by flesh and blood, but that didn’t stop him fighting like mad to keep her when it would have been far easier to let go.

Xanthe is safer at Haven than she’s ever been in your school. We share a keypad secured five-bedroom apartment on the top level that has a rooftop garden where Xan grows vegetables and herbs. Like myself, she’s a vegetarian. Sufficient childhood utopia for you? We protect her, unlike you from those little brutes who sent her home with a black eye. It’s fortunate I’m a reasonable human being and restrained a couple of my bouncers. They’re ex-commandos.

The two in question were suspended and their parents talked to—

So when they returned, they could do it again in secret. Or try to. You won’t catch Xanny out twice. She can take care of herself.

I’m aware of her endeavours in that regard, she said tartly. Due diligence, Mr Roth, obliges me to report to the authorities when I deem one of my student’s circumstances less than ideal. She’s getting to an age where things aren’t so easy to keep from childish curiosity.

Not again. Xanthe’s hope not to suffer another annoying interview by women with kind faces and soft voices sagged like an old balloon. They wrote down every sentence and Xan always felt she was failing an exam of some sort, worried she’d be ripped from Bull if she didn’t get her story right.

Except when such circumstances are from a several of your own students. Do as you will. Xanthe won’t be returning next term.

You can’t pull her out of school. She’ll be marked as truant, which will be investigated.

I’m a Solicitor, Mrs O’Donnell. I can do anything within the bounds of the Law.

Shuffling feet dragged Xanthe from eavesdropping. She scurried across the hall and collected her backpack and jacket with the school’s logo from the hook outside her classroom. It occurred she’d never wear the brown uniform again. Ant would be thrilled, calling their choice, dressing children in a shit sandwich. He said all the time, childhood is for the brightest colours of the rainbow, while twisting her in a hot-pink feather boa and spinning with her until they collapsed in dizzy joy.

In the classroom, grade six recited times tables, their voices plodding. James Wheeler and Zane Thomson smirked from in front where the teacher could keep an eye on them. They probably thought she was in trouble for making Zane’s nose bleed. It was tempting to grin and give them a middle-finger goodbye.

Instead, she grabbed her bag and ignored them, which Carol taught was the best insult. When she returned, the principal’s door was ajar. Bull blocked the view, hunched in the frame in his own uniform of ironed black shirt, the sleeves rolled to his inked elbows, black jeans, and steel-capped boots. Maud, Haven’s seamstress, joked about what he’d wear to a funeral. Bull answered he’d change his shoes.

I’m curious, Mr Roth. If you’re a Solicitor, why Haven? Why not a normal life?

In the suburbs with an SUV and a respectable job where true impropriety stays well cloaked? he said, not really a question. The name of my club says all you need to know. Farewell, Mrs O’Donnell. Oh, and for the record, I’m sure we get quite a few wives at Haven.

* * *

Shortly after, the two finished their double-scoop Gelato cones and battled to win the weekly jumbo, turn for turn until one of them couldn’t. Bull kept pausing and chewing on his pen. His head stayed bowed in fake concentration, but he peeked at her in a strange way from beneath his mop of hair when he thought she wasn’t looking.

Stuck? Xan asked, placing her own pen on aged cream laminate.

They were in their usual booth; one Bull always chose by the window where they could watch the street and see any who entered. He faced the door, never sitting with his back to a space.

He raised his head and scrubbed fingers through his dark bushy beard, a sign for important conversation. Xanthe waited while he sorted the right meaning. Although, she’d guessed what Bull wanted to say.

Xanny, do you ever wish for a normal life?

In the suburbs with an SUV and a respectable job?

He laughed, then turned serious. Never miss a trick, do you, little dragon? You know about a lot of things most don’t. I wonder if it’s right for you.

Would I like to come from a house with a lawn, a bicycle in front, two parents. He nodded, his face clouding. She thought about it properly for a while. Not know that people take their clothes off for a living. No checklist ladies trying to get me to say the wrong thing all the time. No Police. Maybe a brother or sister, instead of Aunts and Uncles? The last came out with only a hint of wishing.

Bull winced, his voice croaky to start. I can make … He cleared his throat and continued, Whatever you want, happen.

So I could turn out like Jimmy Wheeler? He has a nice, normal home and a brand-new bike. He’s still a fu— She stopped short, not wanting to get Ant in trouble. Fudging arsehole.

I need to have a chat with Anthony over his choice of vocabulary around you, Bull smiled. Synonym?

Clag-tail scrote.

This time he laughed long and hard. Carol’s Hebridean isn’t much better.

Yeah, but nobody knows what I’m saying. Can we go home now?

You want to have a bonfire and burn your school uniform in celebration of your genius?

Ooh, that’ll make Ant happy. Xan clapped. We can have a barbeque before you go to work. Mexican stuffed mushrooms and a tutti-frutti smoothie. Daddy?

Yes?

The only thing I wish, is the numpties would leave us alone.

Me too, Xan. How about we stop in at the bike shop on the way back.

-3-

What is this unworthy vessel?

Xan stirred from her drugged coma, an aggrieved voice fading from her mind. Ant had guaranteed there’d be no lasting effects from the sedative. He would have mentioned hallucinations, surely? Rolling onto her side, she entombed herself in the quilt like a foil-wrapped burrito in an air fryer. Maud’s design was a bold black-and-white flourish in her monochrome room, nearly too heavy for an Australian winter, let alone the flame thrower of an El Niño summer. Why she didn’t just get up wasn’t clear in her fuzzy state.

Shade, their African grey parrot, warbled from along the hall to the kitchen. He called her name and repeated the word brekky, and when an answer wasn’t immediate, get up lazy bones. Bull had won him in a poker game twenty years ago, rescuing him from a low life without a clue how special the fluff-and-quilled baby bird was. It seemed Bull hadn’t understood either. Shade was a demanding alarm clock seven days a week, whose chatter penetrated walls.

The reminder of Bull tuned her to morning routine. A tsunami pierced the haze, and she curled in on herself, gulping for air lest she drown. The pain was so devouring, she didn’t possess the will to shout bugger off at whoever knocked on her door. The door opened and clicked shut. Thonged feet padded to her bed. After a brief tussle over the doona, Xan lost. Then came a humid waft as the person snuggled behind, heedless of puddled sweat.

I’m so sorry, X.

Her best friend since high school lay her face against Xan’s shoulder, shaking with her own sobs. Xan unclenched her fingers from the knot of sheets, finding Eden’s hand and squeezing it in her own. It was all she could muster.

What can I do? Eden choked out after many minutes.

A pathetic question faced repeatedly over the past three days. Unless capable of reincarnation, nothing was the only response. The coroner released Bull to the funeral home that afternoon, pending a preliminary autopsy report. His body wasn’t complete, bits of him sent to Pathology, which denied any hope of dignity. Stealing his life wasn’t enough: whoever had done this emasculated her powerful father. Crimes for which, Xan aimed to see them suffer.

All she wanted was that report. But it was not the answer anyone else wanted to hear. They expected appropriate displays of grief, not what was considered a dark obsession or worse, a pointless witch hunt. So far, in spite of droves of Police at every turn, a single clue hadn’t surfaced. She also planned to rectify that investigative lapse.

If only the crippling anguish of Bull’s loss would ease so she could get on with it. Eden – usually ready to break a silence – whispered for some reason.

The mums would have a hissy if they knew I was here. Like I’ll catch stripper germs or being here will make me believe women are only objects of lust. I’ve told them, men dance too. And that you won’t find better equality than at Haven. They hear what they want, like everyone else.

It was beyond Xan how she’d ever function again. Not for the first time since this descent to hell, she considered giving up altogether. But that would drag her family along a path from which none could return, and she wouldn’t be responsible for that. Eden waffled on, a soothing drone.

I skipped piano. I’ll stay as long as you need. Skipping piano was a crime equal to setting foot in Haven. Her mothers wanted a concert pianist. Eden had other ideas. Carol says you must eat. She’s made a mean minestrone.

The kitchen was crammed with more Tupperware than Xan had seen across her entire life, the industrial freezer downstairs inadequate. People kept turning up with food, as if eating could rid her of the void that leached from her middle like a relentless event horizon. Fruit. Chocolate. Cake. And as a final resort, flowers to pretty up the bleak aura.

Carol baked anyway, for something to occupy her. Knitting left too much room for thinking. The apartment was a fog of vanilla cake and floral scents. Haven was shut for the near future. Ant, Maud and Carol had taken up residence in their guest wing, keeping everything motoring by resolve Xan envied. For her, making the toilet was a Himalayan ordeal.

Imagine the mums’ if they knew bikies were in your house, ploughing through a piece of Carol’s black forest torte. Really yummy. You should have some. They seemed to make her a bit nervy.

Nothing made Carol nervy. What? Xan unglued her idle tongue from the roof of her mouth, swallowing to produce saliva for speech.

Chimaera. They were wearing their cuts. Three of them.

So, it was an official visit. Crap.

Xanthe kicked from the tangle, stumbling from bed. She nearly landed on an abandoned tray of sandwiches; green tea gone cold. She’d existed in underwear, too inert for clothing, brushing her hair, or other frivolous self-maintenance like cleaning her teeth. Grateful Eden hadn’t commented, she rummaged her mess-strewn floor.

What are you doing? Eden made for a flesh-coloured blur in her bed that forced Xanthe to squint. It had been so long since she’d worn her glasses, she’d forgotten where she left them. Head’s up. Eden grabbed them from a bedside table and tossed them. Contrary to her usual sports-defective fumble, Xan plucked them from mid-air. Nice catch. Disinclined to entertain creepy scum?

Only every third Tuesday. Her voice creaked from lack of use. Can’t imagine why Carol let them in.

She barged me down the hall. I hadn’t even finished my cake.

Did you keep your fork? A sharp implement might come in handy.

What? Eden echoed.

Never mind.

With the curtains closed, Xan’s room was dim and musty. Still, compared to the fetid shell of bedclothes the air was cool against her damp flesh. For the first time in thirty-six interminable hours, Xan felt a glimmer of her old self. If not exactly raring for a contest, vertical was an improvement and she’d take anything she could get. She knew from Psych that sorrow was a predator she must wrestle at some point, but right now whatever distraction got her by.

It’s reeeally frosty out there. Eden nodded in emphasis. You need moral support?

Hell no, Xan said. The last thing she’d do is introduce Chimaera to Eden. Pulling on leggings that in no way suited the weather, she yanked a tent-like t-shirt over her head. Stay, please, until they’re gone.

Emerging, she dragged fingers through her tumbleweed hair and straightened her specs. Should she search for her mace?

What are you going to do? Eden repeated, as Xan decided against.

Violence usually awaited the crescendo and they’d not even endured the opening act. She picked her way across the book-littered floor, twisting her hair in a topknot. If she kept moving, maybe she could outrun everything.

Find out what they want. See how much trouble they’re bringing.

But, X? Xan paused at the door and glanced at her friend. "What can you do if they want something you don’t want to give?"

A certainty she would not share with Eden, who’d insist on helping and make matters far worse. No plan hindered Chimaera, Bull the only one who’d ever succeeded.

Sort that when I face it. I won’t be long. Hopefully, she smiled, wondering if lips sticking to her teeth produced a grimace. Thanks for coming, Edes. It means a lot.

Eden scrambled from bed, surveying the disaster. I’ll keep busy. Just don’t punch anything so early in the day.

I make no guarantees.

Xan padded out along the hall. One foot flashed mint, the other bare of nail polish. Moving seemed dreamlike, as if she was an actor on a stage outside real events, in the wings until her part began. Or maybe she wished her part over, that those events would never begin, and she could wait in statis forever. Instead, Xan braced for what was to come.

No murmured conversation met her ears, cutlery clinking on porcelain the only sound. They were obviously waiting for her, as she came upon them seated ahead at the dining table in the open-plan space. Hatred rocked Xan on her heels. She blinked in confusion, clueless where the urge to maim originated. But that was exactly how it felt: a crushing desire to punish with violence. She had no love for the bikies, yet had never experienced so visceral a reaction in their company.

And Eden was right, there was a definite chill in the air not of the laid-back variety. The kitchen servery framed a stony-faced Carol on the left, forcefully chopping fruit for Shade with a huge carving knife. Mixed with relief to see Xan up, and pity-filled love, dismay she’d appeared on cue flickered before Carol’s impassive mask snapped back. The poor woman’s cheeks appeared sunken with exhaustion and her eyes were meat, which filled Xan with guilt over her own selfishness. They all suffered Bull’s excruciating loss and she’d been a burden.

Marcus. Fellas, Xan said, clenching her jaw. Hugging her middle from the protection of the hall made her seem afraid. Although it was true she was scared, she dropped her arms and straightened. Marcus detected weakness like a bat sensed bugs in the dark, and she would show him none.

Their leader regarded her mildly from where he sat at the head of the table, his cake untouched. Had he deliberately chosen Bull’s usual chair? It made his presence more offensive, and she wanted to scream for him to get off. How dare they pollute her home. He’d even taken the liberty of moving king proteas in their column vase to see her unobscured when she eventually emerged.

Sipping from a steaming mug, he didn’t appear reptilian or sharkish, more a librarian neighbour you’d