Disharmony

‘Oh my God!’ Mirela gasped. ‘Who are they?’

‘They’re carrying nunchuks,’ said Birthday.

‘What do they want with us?’ said Sam.

‘Nothing good,’ said Birthday.

Sam tried to calm her racing thoughts. Maybe we can talk this out? Give them money? Find out what they need?

Mirela took a step to her right towards a garbage bin. She rummaged through it, came up with a beer bottle. Held it, ready. Sam put her fingers to her mouth and gave out three sharp whistles. Hanzi, Luca and Tamas were in town today. If they heard the whistles they’d come. Other gypsies might also follow the sound.

Scarface caught her eye and smiled. And then everything happened at once. His right hand flashed up across his chest and suddenly, in his hand, silver and shivering, was a four-foot-long sword. He opened his ruined mouth, shrieked, and sprinted straight for them.

***

When the tattooed strangers had first skidded around the corner, nearby tourists and shoppers stopped and stared. A couple hurried their two children from the sidewalk and into a shop. Two elderly Romanian men, playing cards at a table outside a cafe, glanced up indignantly, offended by the ruckus during their lunchtime ritual. A battered hire car screeched to the kerb, front doors flying open, and a couple of backpackers scrambled out, phones pointed at the action, recording the scene.

But when Scarface drew the huge sword, the street erupted. Everywhere, people screamed and ran. Car horns honked and shopkeepers ran out onto the road to shout and watch.

Scarface and his friends ran straight for them. Samantha froze. Mirela screamed.

Birthday Jones dragged Samantha into the street, pushing her down behind a parked car; Mirela huddled in next to her. Birthday stepped in front of them, the pole from the squat held high. Samantha could feel fear pouring from him like kerosene fumes from the old heater at home. But now, dropping from shop awnings, running from doorways and ducking out from behind parked cars, street kids, gypsy and Romanian, abruptly surrounded them. They were everywhere: climbing up onto the car bonnet and roof, armed with rocks and bottles, they pelted the tattooed attackers who were now almost upon them.

All of a sudden, into the middle of the chaos, spilling out of the alley across the road, four Nordic jocks wielding wooden posts came running at Birthday Jones, shouting obscenities. They hit the hail of rocks and bottles and became even more enraged.

And then they saw the ninjas. A little too late.

Samantha moaned as the tattooed ninjas mowed down all four of the blond giants with blurred flicks of the nunchuks. Then they turned on the street kids, sending them flying. Samantha watched in terror as Birthday’s pole swung and connected with a tattooed shoulder. Off-balance, the warrior flicked the jointed black bludgeon, catching Birthday in the chest. Her best friend dropped to the road.

Mirela screamed again. Samantha, tears streaming, stood up from behind the car.

‘STOP!’ she yelled as loudly as she could. She stepped into the street and faced Scarface. For the third time, he smiled at her. She followed his obsidian eyes into his mind, searching for mercy. She found murder, torture, death.

A silver Mercedes sports car screeched around the corner into the street, mounting the gutter and taking out the table at which the old men had been playing cards just moments before. Scarface reached out and gripped Sam painfully by the bicep. He dragged her, dry-mouthed and sweating, towards the car. She felt completely numb, powerless, gummy with apathy and defeat.

Just as they reached the black-windowed vehicle, Samantha registered faintly the sound of glass breaking. She turned her head to see Mirela launch herself onto Scarface, stabbing with a broken bottle at his neck and shoulders.

Using the elbow of the arm holding his sword, the tattooed man jabbed, hard, with his elbow and Mirela smacked to the ground.

Still gripping Samantha tightly, Scarface cast his eyes to where Mirela lay, unmoving. Blood pulsed and drizzled from several puncture wounds in his neck and shoulder. Samantha watched, mesmerised, as it formed a ruby road, snaking its way across a snarling, forked-tongue devil tattoo and then down over his unmarked hand, onto his sword. Samantha knew that he too watched the blood. She felt his arousal, his delight, his insatiable craving for more blood. He lazily swirled the tip of the sword over Mirela’s unconscious body.

Samantha felt a flood of love for her friend that was so powerful her knees buckled. Scarface yanked her upright, but she barely noticed. Rushing through every cell in her body ran a liquid energy, golden and sweet like honey. It shot tingles from the very centre of her heart out through her extremities. She’d never before felt anything like it.

Scarface loosened his grip.

‘Please,’ she begged, her eyes locking with his. ‘Please, don’t hurt her.’

The stench of his violent hate suddenly became less rancid in her nose and mouth. His sword dropped to his side. Without knowing what she was doing, she sent more of the honeyed light through her skin and watched her captor’s face. The hard angles slackened and he stared at her, amazed. His grip loosened further.

She heard sirens, but she knew they’d be too late. The street was already littered with bodies, moaning or out cold. Bystanders brave enough to remain in the open stood, hands over their mouths, watching as she was herded towards the car.

Tensing carefully, she tested Scarface’s grip on her arm and found it tentative, almost gentle. She looked up again into his face, and this time his eyes reflected light and he actually saw her. For some reason she knew that if she ran now he’d let her go. She turned her head slowly, trying to spot a place to run to, to hide. She readied herself to break free. She figured that with the police on the way she could run until someone stopped her – the goodies or the baddies. It had to be better than getting into that car.

And then the rear door of the Mercedes cracked open and a girl stepped out.

‘Kirra,’ whispered Scarface, as though beginning a prayer. The warm-glow thing winked out instantly.

And Samantha knew she had no chance.

The girl seemed clad in a black rubber membrane. Toe to throat, she wore a single skin-like sheath that slicked across lean limbs and muscles. She wore a high, shiny-black ponytail, a filigreed-blossom tattoo on her neck, and a smile like nuclear waste. Samantha’s first thought was to wonder whether they might be the same age; her second was to decide that she had never seen a more beautiful girl. Her third thought tore at her heart: who or what had created a creature so completely devoid of human feeling?

The buzz-cut boys flanked her now and she knew that she was going to be forced into the Mercedes. The girl Scarface had called Kirra stalked around to the passenger side of the car and Scarface shoved Sam forward. Where will they take me? I’m never going to see my family again! Am I going to end up like Belinda – stolen and shipped off to Russia, owned by the mafia? Did the gypsy king send these people? Am I going to die? The thoughts scudded through her mind like debris caught up in a hurricane.

They reached the car and Scarface thrust her towards the back seat. A frantic terror gripped her and she struggled, jamming her feet against the doorframe, screaming.

And that’s when the shooting started.

The first bullet caught Scarface. She felt the pain of the impact rip through his body like a lightning strike; the remnants of the fiery energy zapped out through his skin and into hers. He dropped her. And the sword.

‘Samantha! Run!’

She bolted towards the voice, all senses on fire. Gunshots continued to crack and whistle around her. Sirens were screaming now and she thought she might be too, but she couldn’t be sure.

From the corner of her eye, she caught a dark blur of movement and made the mistake of glancing back towards the car. Kirra had launched herself up and over the roof of the Mercedes, hitting the road in a crouch. And then, in the second it took Samantha to swallow, the cat-girl sprang from squat into flat-out sprint. Samantha pushed even harder. Ahead of her, Birthday Jones and Mirela waved frantically at her from behind a car.

More gunshots. Samantha reached her friends at the same time as police cars tore into the street. She risked a