Hounds of the Underworld (The Path of Ra Book 1)

by Dan Rabarts

  “This sample is definitely canine blood.” Penny cocks her head. “There’s no question. It tested positive for DEA, and I ran a DNA fingerprint, too.”

  “The new machine run OK?”

  “Yeah, great. Did the job.”

  That’s a relief. The Breadmaker™ bench-top DNA typing machine had been the biggest single capital outlay Penny had had to fork out to set up her little lab, but these days, with so much analysis dependent on DNA typing, she was banking on the purchase being a good one. Investment on a price per use basis: it’s the same way she justifies spending money on decent jeans, and the reason there’s only cheap FirstWorld supermarket make-up rolling around in the bottom of her bathroom drawer. It also explains why her bank account is emptier than a beer keg at a high school leavers’ party.

  “But you should have a gander at this,” Beaker says. Penny turns off the light-box and follows Beaker to his workstation where he pulls up a screen. He steps back and gestures at her to take a look.

  - Matiu -

  The Commodore speeds across Auckland Harbour Bridge. A freight truck crawls past in the opposite direction, sickly sweet biodiesel fumes funnelling into Matiu’s nostrils as they pass. Apart from that, there are few cars to be seen. Aside from logistics carriers, public transport operators, cops, the unusually wealthy and drivers like Matiu working for companies with lucrative government courier contracts, most people don’t have the means to burn up fuel jaunting around. If you can’t bill for it at the other end, you probably don’t take the car but a biodiesel bus, or a solar-powered train. One of the benefits of family. Even with his past, he still has a solid job doing something many now consider a luxury.

  The motorway slides by, typically quiet. Matiu tries not to think about the pool of blood, and the voices that swarmed him when he touched the bowl, but he suspects it will continue to haunt him. For how long, he doesn’t know. Until he can forget it? Or until he’s put whatever was in that sucking pool of darkness, screaming his name - screaming every name - to rest, somehow?

  Further thoughts are put on hold as his tablet pips on the passenger seat.

  “Yo,” he answers, and the tablet opens the call in speaker mode. Matiu has never liked that neural implant shit the rich kids have been getting injected between their ears. He could afford it—Mum and Dad could afford it for him, anyway—but he has enough voices in his head already without adding any more.

  “Matiu, it’s Erica. Did you forget our appointment?”

  Fuck, Matiu mouths silently. Erica frowns on him swearing. “I’ve had work on. Didn’t I message you? Sorry.”

  “I suppose the work logs will back you up?”

  Matiu smiles. She doesn’t miss a trick, Erica, and she’s kinda hot for a white chick, but this time his alibi will hold water. Today has all been about bona fide work engagements, and nothing more. No need to blackmail Penny into hacking the logs and making them say what he wants them to. Not this time. “Sure will. Been at a murder scene this morning.”

  That shuts her up, for a second anyway. “I’ll make a note to follow that up, you know I will. Where are you now? I’ve got a slot open this afternoon.”

  “No can do, I’m afraid.” Matiu shakes his head as he eases onto the Manukau off-ramp. “Got an important pickup from the airport to drive up to Auckland Council HQ. Then I’m back on call for the murder investigation.”

  “Well, don’t you just have the exciting day job?”

  More exciting than a probation officer’s, he wants to say, but he’s learned it’s best not to wind Erica up. For all his freedoms, she still has the chops to make his life hell if she wants to. “Look, can we say tomorrow, eleven-ish? I’m heading over your way to see Ma—” He cuts himself off mid-stream, remembering who he’s talking to. He fakes a cough. “Tomorrow. I can come by tomorrow. That OK?”

  “Be here.”

  “I will.”

  The call cuts off, and Matiu takes a deep breath as he swings down towards the airport. A couple of dark blips bob through the sky, at the end of the runway that used to be for the international jets, back in the day when jet fuel was affordable. Probably experimental photovoltaic aircraft. The near end of the airport is cordoned off for government operations, and the rest operates as an aero club for mad scientists trying to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, without the luxury of gasoline. Poor deluded sods. All that hope and enthusiasm, chasing a fool’s dream. The Golden Age of cheap oil is over, man. The sooner some people get that into their heads, the better.

  Matiu’s early. He parks on the hill outside the security zone. No point being the Māori boy hanging around the airport, the bored rent-a-cops watching him sidelong, any longer than necessary. So he gets to watch the Chinese naval helicopter thunder in, its rotors throwing a hundred-meter-wide shadow across the grass and water around the landing zone. Somewhere, maybe five miles offshore, Matiu imagines the PLA warship that’s steamed down here at great expense to transport this diplomat to Aotearoa. What else will it be doing while it crawls up and down the coast? Sure as shit won’t be idly waiting for their VIP to come back from his meetings and diplomatic receptions.

  But, once again, it’s none of Matiu’s business. Spying on other nations still happens, maybe now more than ever; it’s just harder to move people around than it used to be. Matiu sees it, like a fly on the wall, but paying attention to shit like that is asking for trouble. Or to get yourself disappeared.

  As the bird settles on the tarmac, Matiu pulls the Commodore onto the road. Fuck the politics, he’s just doing his job and keeping his nose clean. As he drives through the checkpoints, he tries not to think about the bowl, the voice. The rage that flowed up out of the darkness, the hunger.

  The way the dark had looked at him. Like it wanted him to look back.

  CHAPTER 3

  - Pandora -

  OK, so where the hell is Matiu? She’d said to come back after lunch today, not sometime next week. It’s already after three. Checking her watch, Penny goes to the window and looks along the street for the Commodore in case she missed him arriving and he’s parked out there waiting. Nada. Rien. Zip. Just a row of overflowing dumpsters and a kid spraying pink graffiti on the fence opposite. Heaving a sigh, Penny comes away from the window and dumps her satchel on the bench. Thrums her fingers on the hardtop surface. Taps her toe. Geez, if she’d known he was going to be this late, she would’ve run a few more tests, rather than clearing up. Like she’s got nothing better to do than waste time waiting. She would’ve liked to have made some progress on the clothes found at the site—tested for hair and skin—instead of handing the responsibility over to Beaker. She shakes her head. Of course, what would Matiu know about responsibility?

  “Matiu still not here, then?” Beaker asks. Penny almost chews him out for stating the obvious yet again, but she holds herself back because she can see him nibbling his bottom lip, nervous. Is she really that scary or is Beaker just projecting her anxiety back at her? Poor guy. Only half a day in the lab with Penny and he runs the whole emotional gamut.

  “Did you call despatch? Maybe they can give you an idea how far away he is.”

  Penny treats him to an over-wide smile and throws up her hands. Yeah, good idea, Beaks. Except, she can’t call despatch because she’s already called twice and a third time would surely bring the wrath of the gods down on Matiu. Well, the wrath of Mum and Dad, which is bad enough. When sufficiently provoked, Dad does a pretty good impersonation of Vesuvius, spouting black ash, rock, and molten lava. Penny wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy, let alone her brother, even if he is a monumental pain in the arse. Penny can’t fathom how Matiu faces it every day, working for them, being under their noses all the time, on the clock. She sure as hell wouldn’t want to walk that particular tight-rope, thank you very much. She’s much happier working for herself, even if that means grovelling before an overworked p
olice detective for Cordell’s lousy cast-offs. And hardly enough funds in her wallet to buy a round of drinks. Reaching up with both hands, Penny tightens the elastic band of her ponytail, yanking the tresses outwards and pushing the band back hard against her head.

  Come on Matiu!

  “What about his cell?”

  “Already tried it. Turned off.”

  Beaker pulls a face. “Guess you just have to wait, then.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  Was that a car? Penny makes another trip to the window. Cranes her neck. But it’s just another graffiti artist, this one with a can of silver paint. Looks like they’re working on a political slogan to replace the one the Council painted over a few days ago. Penny can make out the word: BASTARD. Furtive, the kids turn often, checking the street for witnesses, unaware of Penny watching through the tinted glass. She gets the need for anonymity when you’re vandalising someone’s property with revolutionary propaganda, but how can they wear those hoodies in this heat? It’s got to be 35°C down there on the footpath, the heat rising off the concrete in translucent wavy ripples, the kind you see on the opening credits of a vintage western. They must be cooking. Mind you, the way they’ve spelled ‘GOVERMENT’ she’d probably cover her head, too. A black speck passes in front of the sun, and Penny squints as her eyes follow the movement. Looks like another experimental aircraft out of Manukau. Now those guys are really something: trying to maximise biofuel output on minimal research funding: that takes guts. Not that they’ve got much chance of pulling it off—at least, her parents better hope they don’t; or their stock would hit the bottom faster than a faulty elevator. With a final glance at the street artists—currently halfway through the word ARSEHOLES—Penny turns away.

  “Still nothing, huh?”

  “Not yet.”

  Where is he? He’d better be lying dead in a ditch: forty minutes, she’s been waiting. Forty minutes. He’s going to wish he was lying dead in a ditch when he gets here. Maybe she should set up a test anyway? But what would be the point? As soon as she gets underway, Matiu will stroll in touting his lame excuse, and she’ll have to clear up again. Still, she can’t just stand around. There are other ways to make herself useful. Lifting her satchel off the bench, she hangs it back on its designated hook. Then she fills the sink with soapy water, snaps on her gloves, and scrubs the lab glassware: two beakers, two Erlenmyer flasks, a glass pipette, a volumetric flask, and a Büchner funnel. She gives them a decent scrub: pushing the bottle brush into corners, the coiled wire handle imprinting its pattern on her palm. Then she holds the glassware up to the light to check for blemishes, the sun throwing rainbowed prisms into the soapy angles.

  If she could drive she wouldn’t be so dependent on her parents—and Matiu—for transport. Well, yes, she would, because she can’t afford a vehicle, but presuming they would lend her one—which is doubtful. She sighs. It’s a pity public transport is out of the question. Too dangerous. And so…dirty. Imagine if she didn’t have to phone up her parents and beg them to send a car every time she needed to get somewhere. Imagine the freedom. The independence. God, she misses that.

  There’s still some hard water residue in the flask. She’s going to have to have a word with Beaker about soaking the glassware after he uses it. She does some more scrubbing, then holds the flask up to the light again. Better.

  Tap water rinse.

  Distilled water rinse.

  Distilled rinse again.

  Acetone.

  Right, all done. She sets the glassware in the rack to air dry, and looks around for something else to do. Naturally, it’s a big joke to everyone that she can’t drive, especially given her parents own what is probably the largest fleet of hire vehicles in the country. Hilariously funny, that. She doesn’t tell people that she used to drive once upon a time. Once upon a fairy tale. That turned into a nightmare. She should probably clean the worktop too, since she’s at it. Taking a bottle of Decon from a shelf over the sink, Penny sprays it liberally over the epoxy resin work surface, paying attention to the awkward corners and cracks where micro-organisms and other contaminants like to congregate.

  “Uhm…Penny?” says Beaker from behind the bench, where he’s working on the polo shirt.

  “Hmm?”

  “You know, you don’t have to do that. I did the worktops yesterday, when there wasn’t much on—”

  Penny doesn’t bother to look up. “That’s OK, Beak. It doesn’t hurt to do them again. Gives me something to do.” With a disposable cloth, Penny sets to, rubbing down the laboratory’s hard surfaces: the bench-tops, the sink, the stools. While she’s waiting, she may as well give everything a decent rub.

  Right through the bloody stainless steel coating.

  - Matiu -

  Matiu cruises to a stop and hits the horn, once. That’ll wind her up, for sure, and given how many of her calls he’s missed, she’ll be pretty wound up already. But what could he do? The Chinese are prickly about people taking photos of them without their knowledge, so out of courtesy he’d been obliged to turn his phone and tablet off while they were in the vehicle. And after he’d delivered them? Well, sometimes a guy just enjoys a bit of quiet time, to himself.

  Makere doesn’t bother him when he’s driving, another reason Matiu likes the job, and why he sometimes takes the long way round, observing a healthy respect for speed limits. The sooner he gets places, the sooner someone is pestering him—be it Penny or Makere or a client, it doesn’t matter. They’re all just white noise most the time anyway.

  Pandora practically flies out the door at him, her brow creased in that curious imitation she has of a furious glare. Matiu stares out the window as she loads her kit into the back seat and climbs in.

  “You took your time,” she growls, slamming the door.

  Matiu pulls back out into the street as she fastens her belt. “Work’s work,” he says, and that’s all he should say. She can’t argue. If she could afford her own courier service instead of relying on the family to drive her around, she could get herself where she needed to go, when she needed to get there. Or she could drive herself, if she could bring herself to get behind the wheel again. But she can’t drive, won’t drive. Not anymore. He should probably let it go, but he can’t resist another jab. She’s just so easy to wind up. “Tough on the breadline, eh?”

  He can see her, out of the corner of his eye, her jaw clenched tight and the colour rising in her cheeks. Pissed, man. She’s hilarious when she’s angry.

  “Just drive.” She pulls out her tablet and swipes the screen, bumping the address up to the onboard nav.

  Matiu drops his shades over his eyes as they swerve around potholes and wind-blown debris. Penny is stubbornly focused on her tablet, and since the car will do most of the work of finding their way to the Devonport address, he can let his mind wander again. Every time he does, all he can see is the bowl, the damned bowl and the blood that fills it, spills over its sides, the echoing chill that burned through him for that long dark moment when he held it in his hand.

  Like the blood hadn’t poured into the bowl, but through it.

  He could tell Pandora about this, but what’s the point? She has about as much of a care for his gut feelings as he has for her anal retentive method. No matter that Matiu feels, knows, that he walks with one foot in the shadow; that to him, a bad feeling is never just a bad feeling, but a fucking resonance of what lies beyond the curtain separating this world from the next. Penny can’t take that and assemble a code for it to run through her processors, or fit it into a spreadsheet, or express it as a chemical formula or an algorithm, so therefore it has no relevance to her work.

  So too bad for her.

  Matiu curls his lip at the thought, and shakes his head. It’s spiteful, and it won’t help to think that way. Mārama would be disappointed in him.

  “It’s that att
itude that got you in trouble in the first place,” she would say, and he can hear the scolding in her tone. He must be imagining one of her lucid moments. He’s never quite sure which he fears more; her lucid times, when she can see through him like he’s made of glass, or the other times—the rest of the time—when she seems to be in another place altogether. A far darker place. Both are terrifying, and both leave him powerless to help her. But she’s his Mārama. They have that much, at least. He looks forward to seeing her tomorrow. And dreads it.

  The harbour bridge looms before them, a desolate rusting thing. They’d paid the Japanese some extraordinary amount back in the 1960s to build the “Nippon clip-ons”, to cope with all that extra traffic. Now it stands mostly empty. That’s some crazy shit. A city of roads, with hardly any cars. Like a city walking with one foot in the shadow. One foot in the grave.

  Waitemata Harbour spools out beneath them, green and sickly in the heat that rolls off Waitakere.

  “You should drop this case,” Matiu says at last, spying the Devonport off-ramp. He broaches the subject because they’re almost there, and any argument can only last until they reach their destination. “There’s something totes wrong about the whole fucking thing.”

  “You do your job, and I’ll do mine,” Penny huffs.

  “My job isn’t just to drive you around, sis. I’m expected to make sure nothing happens to you as well. You’re safe enough back in the lab, but out here? This is a nasty world. Bad shit happens. This shit? This is bad.”

  “I need the work.”

  “Find another case.”

  “Matiu…”

  Matiu throws up his hands, letting the nav steer them off the bridge. “I’m just saying.”