Ishtar Read online

  She cranes around to see if Steve’s at his desk. He is, asleep in his chair. Campbell is trying to balance a teabag from Steve’s left ear. Adrienne turns back to her phone call.

  “This is really big,” she says.

  When she won’t back down, Douglas relents.

  ****

  Half an hour later, they cruise into the grounds of Sydney University amidst a cavalcade of families and friends. Adrienne drives because she’s familiar with the campus from her own uni days. Plus, Steve looks like Hell. He’s still refusing to get his ribs seen to. Maybe he’s scared of what they’ll find.

  They double-park, leaving a business card under the windshield wiper. The chief is hard to spot in the crowd — he looks like every other middle-aged parent whose first child has graduated. He’s overweight and out of his depth, with an uneasy smile pasted to his face.

  “Chief.” Adrienne nods.

  The chief sighs and turns away from his family, ignoring the shooting sneer of his wife and the goggle-eyed surprise of his offspring.

  “Thank God,” he says. “I hear they serve sandwiches with no crusts. I hate that shit.”

  “One day you’ll look back on this,” says Steve, “and wish you’d stuck with the sandwiches.”

  Douglas indicates he’s listening, and Adrienne takes a deep, deep breath. She starts from the beginning, from the inexplicable deaths to the damaged communication cables to the photos on Grace’s camera, which she’s brought along to show him.

  “We think she’s summoning her army,” Adrienne concludes.

  “Rob, they’re going in!” Douglas’ wife says.

  The chief waves her back. “So let me get this straight. You’ve got a dead goddess-evil-mastermind on your hands, and you’ve no idea where she is, or where her army of dead mutants is going to land? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  Adrienne ignores his sarcasm. “Stillborns, not — but yeah.”

  Douglas sighs, leans back. “Ah, shit.”

  There’s silence. No one can argue with that.

  “I’m hoping you’re losing your mind, Garner. It’d be easier to accept,” Douglas says.

  “You know I’m not.”

  Douglas shakes his head. His lips are pressed tight and he has a frown so deep it looks like it’s never going away. “And you want what?”

  “Military,” Adrienne says.

  “And how do you propose we engage the might of the Australian military against an imaginary enemy?”

  Adrienne thinks on her feet. “We tell them it’s a biological terrorist threat. Moving across the bottom of the ocean.”

  Douglas rubs a hand across his forehead. “All right. I don’t like it, but I don’t want to be the one responsible if you’re right. I’m sending this up the chain to someone else.”

  “Thanks, Boss.”

  “Lord knows I’ve seen the bodies, they were weird enough. But this,” Douglas rattles the camera. “God help me, if you’re wrong.”

  “I’m not wrong.”

  “Then God help us all,” Douglas grimaces.

  Steve winces, holding onto his ribs. “Tell Him to bring reinforcements.”

  ****

  Campbell calls from the office as they’re leaving the chief to his graduation sandwiches.

  “You guys meet someone called Mark Davis?” he asks, sounding confused. “Found your names in a log book at his house.”

  Adrienne bites back on the obvious question, ‘why is he keeping a log book of visitors?’. She doesn’t have time.

  “Yeah, we’ve met him,” she says. “Calls himself Marduk.”

  “Not anymore. He’s dead.”

  Adrienne takes a breath. Steve gives her a querying look.

  “How?” she asks.

  She’s expecting to hear that Marduk died like the others, bones turned to jelly, body an oozing skin bag.

  “Starved to death.”

  “That’s not possible. We saw him yesterday.” Adrienne realises logic itself is a crazy pursuit given all she’s seen, but she can’t help it. It’s always been her tool, her weapon.

  “Yeah, doc said it didn’t make any sense either. Something about,” there’s a pause while Campbell seems to be checking his notes, “lanugo.”

  “What in hell is that?” Adrienne asks.

  “Body hair that usually grows on starvation victims. Bunch of other things, too, but I didn’t write all that shit down.”

  Her temple thuds.

  Ishtar.

  Is she following them? Have they been looking in the wrong direction the whole time? They’ve been searching for her when they should’ve been looking over their shoulders?

  She goes to hang up, but Campbell says, “I got your plates, too.”

  “And?”

  “They’re stolen,” Campbell answers.

  Adrienne swears.

  “Limo’s probably stolen, too. Got a report on that. Oh, and this one, fresh off the fax, about unusual activity at a mansion in Rushcutter’s Bay. Right on the water. Big place with a big gate. And a limo parked in front. Neighbours say the owners are away. They’re worried about teenage tramps, or something. Matches your stolen plates, though.” Campbell chuckles. She can hear the satisfaction in his voice. He’s just handed her what could be the key to her own case, and he knows it. He won’t likely let her forget it, either.

  “You want me to send back-up?” Campbell asks.

  “Let me check it out first.” To Steve she says, “I’ll drive. We’re going to Rushcutter’s Bay.”

  “Posh,” Steve mutters. “Think they’ll even let you into that suburb?”

  “Me? What about you?”

  “Hey, I’m not the one with a nicotine-chugging cat painted on my shirt.”

  Adrienne admits the shirt might be a give-away. They swap jokes about mansions and money and confirm their bitter desires to rise above their class. They laugh and Adrienne feels a re-stirring of hope. Something she’d forgotten she was missing. Hope and relief, like this whole crazy, messed-up thing might be over soon.

  Then she calls Grace, who predictably ignores Adrienne’s advice to get out of town.

  “Take the baby into the mountains for some fresh air,” Adrienne says.

  “The baby isn’t breathing air yet,” Grace replies.

  Adrienne hesitates. Images of malformed, breathless, lifeless stillborns storming across the bottom of the ocean appear unbidden in her brain. She feels that unfamiliar, fierce protectiveness she first experienced in the pub. She wants to reach down the line and haul Grace to somewhere safe. But she’s not sure where that is.

  “Just stay away from the water, then,” she tells Grace.

  Her sense of hope is already gone.

  ****

  She gets a text from Campbell, who’s holding down the fort back at the office. No words, just a picture. It’s a grainy black-and-white image of the now-familiar foetal army.

  After poring over the photos in Grace’s camera, Adrienne can see straight away that the army has grown. Not in numbers, in size. The navy diver caught in the upper right of one frame looks to be a foot shorter than the stillborns closest to him.

  Stillborns. Their bulbous heads seem to float, their stubby hands hang in front of them, their eyes are closed.

  “How deep can a person dive to?” Adrienne asks.

  It’s the kind of question Steve can answer, being a trivia nerd. “Solid suit, six hundred metres is the record.”

  Around the stillborns the dark ocean waters are shot with spotlights, revealing half-imagined creatures. The kinds of things that have always lived in the depths; skeletal figures with sharp teeth and no skin. She holds out the phone with the photo to Steve.

  “It’s the army,” she says.

  “Which? Ours or theirs?” Steve asks.

  “Theirs. Hers. The army of stillborns.”

  “They’re here, aren’t they?”

  She nods. “Oh yeah, they’re sure as shit headed this way.”

  Steve
is quiet.

  She goes to call Campbell, but her phone rings before she can.

  “Nina?”

  “Chapel’s gone missing,” Nina says.

  Adrienne hesitates. She didn’t even think to call Nina when she suspected Chapel was with Ishtar. She curses herself. “We think he might be with Ishtar.”

  Nina lets out a volley of abuse. Her voice has a shake in it Adrienne hasn’t heard before.

  “Where is he now?” Nina asks.

  “We don’t know.”

  Adrienne suffers through more abuse, driving one-handed through the busy Cross City Tunnel and out into bright daylight.

  She hears the scratch of a lighter, and a puff of indrawn breath, then Nina asks, “Where are you?”

  Adrienne doesn’t want to involve Nina any more than she has to. “I’ll call you later.”

  ****

  She veers to avoid a car taking a corner too wide.

  Steve grunts. “No point rushing. My money’s on Chapel being dead already.”

  Adrienne thinks about making a smart-arse remark in return, something about Chapel being a pain in the neck anyhow, but she doesn’t. With the walls of the world giving way, with the weirdness welling up from the other side, even Chapel is an ally. They can’t afford to lose one of the team.

  They wind up in a beautiful spot overlooking the bay. Daylight dances along high pale walls that guard the perimeter of the estate. Just inside the gate is a tennis court and beyond that, the house, standing high like a pale yellow cement sponge cake. On top of it is an inexplicable green dome. Maybe it’s an observatory. In a position like this, overlooking the yachts and playboy speedboats of the harbour, Adrienne figures she’d have an observatory, too.

  She rolls to a stop in front of the security gates and reaches out for the intercom.

  “It’s open,” Steve comments.

  She nudges the gate with the nose of the car. “Think I’ll park across the perimeter. Make sure the gate stays open.”

  “Good idea.”

  She lets the car roll forward a metre, then stops. They go the rest of the way on foot.

  The front door is ajar when they approach. No sign of the security guards she was expecting.

  Steve calls out in a booming voice, “Police!”

  He has his sidearm out and he’s half-crouched by the front door. Adrienne kicks it open and peers in.

  Inside is all marble floors and antique parlour chairs. No Ishtar. No Chapel.

  “I’m calling for backup,” Steve says.

  Adrienne doesn’t stop him. She’s got a bad feeling in her gut. It gets worse as she peers into each room, gun arm extended. The elaborate lounge seems empty. They enter and circle the ornate gold-trimmed furniture. French style, Louis XIV. They move through into a dining room that’s more like a ballroom. The green dome she’d seen from the street turns out not to be an observatory. Just a high round ceiling, shocking in its ostentation.

  This Ishtar, she knows whose house to steal.

  The ballroom gives way to an industrial-sized kitchen, pristine and empty. Behind the kitchen is a set of glass doors eight metres across, and behind the doors is the pool. Sunlight and water meet in an Arcadian image of serenity — except for the half-dozen women surrounding the pool. They’re not lounging in swimwear. They’re—

  “Doing laundry?” Steve mutters.

  The women are silent, wet to their shoulders, kneeling by the pool washing sheets and clothes with an unusual amount of concentration.

  “I hope it’s saltwater. Not chlorine,” Steve says, displaying a surprising amount of domestic understanding.

  “Shit,” Adrienne whispers, “where is the bitch?”

  Steve shakes his head. “Not here.”

  “Car’s here.” They’re talking in staccato phrases. Adrienne’s phone starts buzzing against her hip. She pulls it from her jacket. “Yeah?”

  “It’s happening, it’s here.”

  It takes her a moment to identify the voice.

  “Grace? Are you okay? What’s here?” she asks.

  “The army. It’s in the harbour and— Jesus.”

  “What?” Adrienne’s voice rises, and she straightens from the hunch she dropped into when they entered Ishtar’s house.

  “They’re rocking a ferry to pieces!”

  “How tall are they now?” Adrienne hisses.

  Grace’s voice goes numb. “They’re killing them.”

  Adrienne’s heart skids to a momentary stop. She turns to Steve and opens her mouth to explain. But over Steve’s shoulder, she sees something that makes everything else unimportant.

  A tall, solid man in dark clothes stands with a gun pointed at them.

  “Police!” Adrienne shouts.

  Steve spins. He’s fast enough that the stranger’s shot goes clean past him. And straight though Adrienne’s right arm. There’s a metallic ding as it hits the row of pans behind her.

  It’s like her arm has been electrified. She drops her phone and screams.

  Steve fires. The bulky security guard lets out a shout and drops his weapon. Blood starts pumping from his shoulder at about the same time Adrienne feels blood course down her sleeve. She’s hit, goddamnit.

  “Shit!”

  Steve hesitates, stuck between his injured partner and the injured suspect.

  “Grab him!” Adrienne yells.

  Steve runs to the guard, who’s leaking blood in wide pool. Before he gets there, Ishtar steps into the doorway. Her black hair is loose and falls over her shoulders and breasts. She wears a simple dress that covers her from her toes to her neck. She’s stunning. She’s horrifying.

  Ishtar spies her fallen guard and gives Steve with an expression of pure, animal hate. Steve stops in his tracks. Adrienne isn’t sure what happens next, not at first. Her eyes take it in, but she doesn’t believe it.

  Steve collapses like his spine has turned to water. His head is last to hit the floor, but it makes barely a sound. His face is liquid rubber, one eye against the ground, the other staring straight up at the ceiling, like an olive in an omelette. The wash of fluid that leaks from his mouth and ears and eyes and arse isn’t red like blood, it’s pink.

  Adrienne steps back to avoid the rolling wave as Steve’s body empties out. She makes a noise like a yelp, then a deep, shuddering cry. She trips and slams against the kitchen bench, and half-climbs it before her brain kicks back in. Quelling her panic, she raises her gun at Ishtar, expecting the same sodden fate as Steve, but she doesn’t fire. She figures there’s no point.

  And besides, her arm hurts like Hell. The gun waggles unconvincingly in her hand.

  Ishtar watches with a cool gaze. “Put away your toy.”

  Adrienne arm drops like the gun’s a dead weight. “Why in fuck did you kill him?”

  Ishtar frowns, delicate eyebrows pulling down over wide-set dark eyes. “He displeased me. If not, I would have spared him. There’s no point in killing now.”

  “No? You’ve had a bit of a scatter gun approach going on so far. I count eight bodies.”

  “I should think more,” Ishtar says. “What was this one to you?”

  “My partner,” Adrienne spits.

  She slides her arse along the bench until she can leap clear of the mess that remains of Steve. She tries not to think about what she’s doing. Her arm is throbbing and she tries not to think about that either. She notices the women outside haven’t stopped their washing. A few of them send curious glances towards the kitchen, but otherwise they don’t react at all.

  “Partner? As in, lover? You can get another one.” Ishtar sizes Adrienne up. “Probably.”

  “Bring him back.” Adrienne hesitates. “Please?”

  She was about ten the last time she said please.

  Ishtar is unimpressed.

  “Come on. You’re powerful enough to kill him,” Adrienne says. “Show me your real power. Show me you can bring him back.”

  There’s silence while Ishtar stares at her. Gold flecks pepp
er her irises, and her eyelashes are so thick they could be strips of velvet. Adrienne can’t help noticing how goddamn stunning she is, even as she busies herself hating her.

  Ishtar breaks the silence by laughing. She laughs and laughs, and her laugh is hard and mean. “You think because gods come back, humans can, too? No.”

  Adrienne says nothing, but she wills Ishtar to stop laughing, shut up and do something fucking useful. Bring him back. Don’t waste my time. Don’t waste the one thing humans don’t have anywhere near enough of.

  “Humans have nothing to come back with,” Ishtar continues, “In all my years, little human girl, in all my years, I have never seen evidence for a human soul.”

  “Is that what makes it okay?” Adrienne says through gritted teeth. It’s not just impatience; it’s the pain of her arm that locks her jaw. The whole room throbs with it. “You’re okay with killing us because you figure we don’t come back?”

  Ishtar raises one of her fine eyebrows. “The question is irrelevant. You live such tiny lives.”

  “So it’s not okay. It’s just easy.”

  Ishtar’s eyes spin fire and the corners of her mouth pull back. Her teeth are stone, her throat the whole world. “I’m going to let you live, little human girl. I’m going to let you live, because I want you to see what’s coming. I want your eyes to be open. I don’t want you to miss a thing.”

  And then she’s gone. Adrienne tries to hold herself upright with her good arm against a kitchen stool, but it doesn’t work. She slides to the floor and brings the stool right down on top of her.

  That’s where they find her.

  ****

  Steve’s backup arrives, but too late for Steve. Adrienne figures she’ll owe him for the rest of her life, but she’s not sure how to thank a dead guy.

  The officers call for an ambulance and before she knows it, she’s rolled out on a gurney. Her arm and side burn like she’s being eaten by fire ants. She lets out a howl of pain. In the ambulance, she’s given a shot of something cold and numbing.

  “Call Chief Douglas, metro. We’ll need a second ambulance for Steve,” she says. “He’s in the kitchen.”

  “Which one was he?” The paramedic has a kind face and long hair, like a hippy.