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

by Dan Rabarts

  “Damn it dog, get in here.” Matiu jerks the leash, with more force than he intends, and Cerberus slides across the warped timber towards him. The sunlight falling on the dog’s golden hide drains away, leaving shades of grubby yellow, old dirt, rotting corn. Tikau doesn’t even flinch. Just sits there, grinning. “Tikau bro, what the fuck…?”

  Matiu crosses the distance to his drinking buddy of years gone by. They’d shared many a night on the turps, back in the day, after a spot of petty theft and thuggery. Shared more than one spliff, more than one girl. Dragging Cerberus with him, Matiu puts a hand on Tikau’s shoulder and gives him a friendly shove.

  Tikau topples to the floor, his sunshades spilling from his dead eyes even as his cold fingers drag the shotgun off the table.

  “Shit!” Matiu staggers, falling to one knee as his balance goes out from under him. The blast of the shotgun as it hits the floor is enough to deafen him in the small building. Glass shatters, and there’s a screech of splintering timber as Matiu rolls, instinctively covering his head and hoping like hell none of his anatomy has been blown off.

  His ears are ringing, but he can still hear Cerberus howling, the sound growing more distant. “Shit,” he says again. In his sudden panic, he’s let go of the leash. But hell, the game’s just changed. Now he’s inside, he can smell blood, the stale, overripe tang of death several days old. He’s lying on the floor with a grinning corpse. That wasn’t in the plan. He’s staring at the back of Tikau’s head, at the gaping hole where his skull should’ve been. It’s not a gunshot wound, but more like something has taken a bite, right through the bone, into the brain…

  There’s a hot, sharp pressure against the back of Matiu’s throat. He chokes back the need to vomit. Something Penny told him, about disturbing the scene of a crime. He doubts vomit spatter on a murder victim’s body will go over well with Tanner and the boys. Or with Penny, for that matter.

  “You can stop swearing. He can’t hear you.” Something creaks in the shadows beyond the doorframe that leads into the cabin’s back room, the room that Matiu remembers as the bunk room. Metal, maybe, and squeaking rubber? Hard to tell. He takes a deep shuddering breath, gets to his knees, and turns towards the voice. “Hanson,” he says, before he can see the man. “What the hell is going on?” His voice is trembling almost as much as his hands. But where there’s one gun, there’s bound to be another.

  “Your dog seems to be running away,” the voice that is Hanson says from the other room. Either the curtains are drawn or the windows have been boarded up, because it’s almost pitch black in there. Even without his sunglasses, Matiu can’t see Hanson, despite the light spilling in from the front room.

  Matiu shrugs. “He won’t run far. He’s a good dog.”

  A rasping noise, like an emphysemic’s laughter, all hacking cough and wet flesh. “They all run, Matiu, even good dogs. You were a good dog once, but you ran too, didn’t you?”

  The creaking sound again, and Matiu recognises it this time. Wheels, plastic, on the wooden floor. A thump, and the groan of the tyres. Edging forward, against every rational impulse surging through his body, Matiu tries to get a look in the room. Why the hell is it so dark in there? He can make out shapes, something vaguely human, and something else, indistinct, shifting, serpentine. Shadows, he tells himself, playing tricks on his eyes, His ears are still ringing from the shotgun blast, and dimly he’s aware that Penny will be in a panic, probably running towards the cabin but shit-scared of being seen. His other senses are probably off-kilter from the gunshot too. “I didn’t run, remember? I got locked up. Spent some of the best months of my life inside for doing your dirty work.”

  “Free board, free meals, free education. Where’s the gratitude?” That laugh again, a rattling, hissing sound. “Bygones, right? It’s good to see you, Matiu. I’ve missed you.”

  Matiu creeps forward another couple of paces, hunting for the light switch. He can hear a dog barking, the sound coming across a great distance. Like an echo from another age. “What happened to Tikau?”

  “Laughed himself to death. It happens. Why are you here?”

  Any warmth Matiu might have imagined in Hanson’s voice is evaporating. “I’ve always been straight with you, Hanson. You be straight with me for once, right?”

  “Little dog runs away, comes home with big teeth, eh boy? You calling the shots now, are you?”

  Creaking of wheels again. Is he coming closer? Or backing away?

  “Just doing a job. Looking for someone.”

  “And you thought you’d find ‘em here? I got a couple spares lying around the place. Take your pick.” Hacking, shredded laughter.

  “I think he came here for a dog.”

  Silence falls, sudden and heavy, like all the sound in the place is tumbling into a void. The moment stretches out, achingly quiet, like the long dead spaces between the stars. “He’s not someone you want to find, son. Let it go. You’ll thank me later.”

  “Can’t do that.” Matiu takes another small step towards the room, straining against the unnatural gloom to see something, anything, through that black doorway. In the back of his mind, he knows he’s stalling, trying to give Penny time to get somewhere she can see in from outside and record what’s going on. But he needs to get a light on in that room. And at the same time, he doesn’t think he wants to see. Because there beyond the doorframe, in that sucking darkness, all is not well. “I’ve got people depending on me. This guy might be dead, but he might still be alive.” Like Hanson cares if some rich fucker lives or dies. Take his money, that’s all that matters to a guy like Hanson. In his mind’s eye, Matiu sees Tikau, those dead eyes, that hole in the back of his head where something has chewed away his skull. Thinks of all the dogs this wheezing prick has sent to slaughter. Life doesn’t mean shit to Hanson.

  The old man cackles. “Not much chance of that, son. Not with what he was into. Not much chance for any of us, really. Not anymore.”

  The wheels creak again, and this time he’s coming out of the shadow for certain. Shoes, trousers advance into the light spilling from the kitchen. Matiu had been expecting a wheelchair, though Hanson was never an invalid when he knew him. No, there are the little plastic wheels of a cheap office chair, rolling forward, but if he’s not using his feet to shuffle himself, then how the hell is he moving? In the darkness, something wet hisses across the floor.

  Matiu steps backwards, losing his hard-won ground in a flush of inexplicable terror. For a moment he thinks he glimpses another figure moving in the deepest shadows at the back of the room, then his attention snaps back to Hanson, the chair advancing, revealing thighs, hands intertwined in his lap, all crinkled skin and liver spots, blackened nails rubbing against each other in a slow rhythm of clutch and scrape, clutch and scrape. Dimly, Matiu is aware that Hanson’s not using his hands to move the chair, either. He’d thought he might’ve had a walking stick of some kind, or a crutch, and was using that to propel himself. But the chair just keeps creeping up, inexorably. Vague shapes continue to bend and twist in the dark behind Hanson, and the sound of something slick and liquid drowns out the baying of the dogs, of someone shouting. Penny, probably. Matiu’s stomach lurches, his legs suddenly burning with the urge to run, to help his sister with whatever pile of shit she’s managed to drop herself in, but he’s paralysed. He can’t look away from the horror that is Hanson, inching forward from the darkness. He can hardly breathe, yet he manages to summon words from his dry throat.

  “The dog was a sacrifice. Why? What was he sacrificing to?”

  Hanson edges from the dark, light falling across his face, a craggy mass of wrinkles, age, and old sorrow, his eyes sunken black holes. “Told you son, you don’t want to know.”

  Something moves in the darkness, whipping towards Matiu with a liquid hiss. Years on the street, dodging swinging fists and jabbing knives, lend him the speed to hurl
himself backwards like an acrobat. The mass, whatever it is—Matiu is moving too fast to see—sluices through the air where he’d just been standing. Not a stick, not a fist. Something large, fluid, a vague shape in his periphery as he hits the floor on hands and knees, slides, collides with the table. It’s a long time since he’s been in a fight, a twinge shooting up his back as his muscles contort.

  The shotgun brushes against his knuckles, and he grabs it. Longer time since he held a gun. Its weight is reassuring, and terrifying, as he propels himself to his feet again, spinning and bracing the M4 towards the darkened doorway.

  The paralysis that had claimed his legs now spreads to his arms, to his hands, to his trigger finger. To his mind. For a moment, his grip on sanity teeters, as he looks at the thing rising from the shadows, swelling to fill the room. It’s not a man, but something alien, something terrifying, something that defies reason, and all Matiu can do is stare in horror as it draws ever closer.

  CHAPTER 12

  - Pandora -

  The way the storage shed is positioned—and the slope of its roof—if Penny could get up on the roof and lie flat, she should be able to look through the long window and inside the house. That way, she’ll be able to keep an eye on Matiu and take some photos on her phone, all without being seen. She scans the darkened windows. Still, no sentries that she can see. They’re probably watching the front: the road’s over in that direction, and Matiu had approached from there. Now, how is she going to get on the roof? That rusty old forty gallon drum? It’s tetanus-in-waiting, but she could climb on top of it and jump across.

  Having established a plan, Penny dashes across the gap, keeping the shed between herself and the house. But up close, Penny can see the drum is too far from the shed—only a metre or so—but still too far for her to leap to the roof.

  She’s going to have to move it.

  She tips the rim towards her to test its weight. Liquid sloshes in the bottom, but at least the drum isn’t full. She might just manage. Penny tilts the bulky container, then, as if it were her dance partner, twists it nearer to the shed wall. Blimmin’ heck. Her dance partner could do to lose a few kilos. One more turn. There. She lets the drum rock backwards to the ground. The liquid inside sloshes violently. As soon as the drum is stable, she clambers up, her sandals clunking on its metal sides. Penny doesn’t bother to peer round the side of the shed to check if anyone is coming. No one had paid any attention earlier, and the quicker she’s up on the roof and out of sight the better. But even standing on the drum, it’s going to be a bit of a stretch. Ignoring its schmear of creamy bird poop, Penny grabs the lip of the roof and, arms straining and legs scrambling, hauls herself over on her stomach. She lies there a moment panting, flicking her eyes across to the pens. On his feet in his cage, Staffy is watching her, his little tail wagging. Penny could swear the dog is cheering. She throws him a grim smile.

  We’re not out of the woods yet, boy.

  Penny inhales, preparing herself for the climb, and battles a wave of nausea. Phew, that’s ripe. Just as well she’s lying down or the stink coming from the shed might’ve made her keel over. Still, it’s too rank to be dog food, unless Hanson and his men slaughter their own. She remembers the cow pat on the track on the way down here. That might explain it. Or the shed might conceal an offal pit, a tip for dead or dying animals, the ones Hanson no longer has any use for. After seeing the state of the dogs, Penny wouldn’t put it past him. Staffy’s wounds still haunting her, she suppresses a surge of rage.

  Time to get some evidence.

  Taking her phone out of her pocket, Penny turns it on and, holding it in one hand, crawls up the roof until she’s lying flat on the ocean side with only her head popping over the ridge. Made up of odd boards and chip, the sheeting is slippery, so it’s a bit of a job not to slide back and over the side. Penny digs her knees in. She peeps over ridge.

  Where are you, Matiu?

  The sun is directly overhead, so the windows of the house appear dark. Penny strains her eyes, sure she can detect movement inside, grey and shadowy, like smoke. Hang on, is that Hanson? Penny raises the phone to take a photo.

  Da duh, da da da da duh…

  Penny jumps with fright and the phone slips from her hand. She lunges to save it, catching it and juggling it in her fingertips but, in doing so, she slithers down the roof. Desperately, she scrabbles for purchase, digging her heels into the sheeting, bruising her elbows and knees as she tries to slow her descent.

  Shit.

  She turns her body mid-slide and extends her fingers, using her nails to cling on. She grits her teeth. The phone moans as it’s dragged across the sheeting. Mercifully, she stops sliding. Once again she lies, not moving, while she waits for her 4,5-β-trihydroxy-N-methylphenethylamine spike to reduce. That was too close. She gives Staffy a reassuring wave, turns the ring tone to mute, then checks the screen: Beaker.

  Can’t talk now, sorry Beak. Collecting evidence.

  Pushing her heel down hard, Penny twists to climb back to the ridge. But the roof creaks, then collapses, the timbers exploding beneath her. The noise is brief and deafening, like a cannon blast, or a gun shot. Penny shrieks, her free hand grappling at the air, splinters and debris raining about her, as she descends. Outside, the dogs howl.

  “Oaaf,” grunts the man whose body cushions Penny’s fall, the pair of them prone on the shed’s dirt floor.

  “Sorry, sorry.”

  Why’s she apologising? These guys run an illegal dog fighting outfit, for heaven’s sake. But Penny opens her eyes to a blank stare from a bloated blue face. The tongue lolls forward and a maggot wriggles from the eye socket. Penny has fallen into the arms of a dead man. She screams again. Instinctive and visceral, it incites the dogs, setting them off again.

  “Oh my God, oh my God!”

  But he grunted. She definitely heard him groan. Did she kill him in the fall?

  Immediately, Penny’s adrenalin levels hike. Her heart hurtles along, a train à grande vitesse. She’s killed him.

  She scrabbles to her feet, her head spinning, and leaps away from the body.

  Don’t vomit, don’t vomit. You’ll contaminate the scene. Contaminate the scene? It could contaminate her!

  Trying not to think of cholera, entero-viruses, hepatitis, and the raft of parasitic diseases she might have just exposed herself to, Penny takes some deliberate breaths, her chest heaving, and wills the peristalsis of her stomach down.

  Calmer now, reasoning kicks back into play. He’s dead, but she didn’t kill him. She’d noted the smell before, when she was up on the roof, and maggots don’t infect healthy tissue, Musca domestica larvae preferring to feed on decaying organic matter. Since it takes around 24 hours for the eggs to hatch and the larvae to emerge, the man has to have been dead a day. Maybe less, given the temperatures, which are even hotter in the confines of this shed. The grunt was caused by pent-up gases, released when she collapsed on the cadaver. Penny didn’t kill him. He was already dead.

  Alive, he would’ve been around thirty, Polynesian, dark hair and of solid build. His eyes might have been brown. Possibly grey. He might’ve been nice-looking once. Somebody’s brother, maybe a husband. But the tarnished yellow fingernails point to poor nutrition, and the hollowed cheeks and open skin lesions suggest he’d been a meth user. And being dumped unceremoniously in a back shed like this implies he didn’t die peacefully of natural causes, either. Penny feels a pang of sadness. It’s not only dogs who suffer here.

  In any case, it’s not Fletcher. That would’ve been too convenient.

  She’d told Matiu this was a bad idea. She should probably get out of here. Someone might have heard her shout when the roof caved in. Someone must have heard that ruckus. She doesn’t want to be caught here if Hanson’s lot come looking. Hurriedly, she casts about for her phone, dropped in the fall…

  It’
s fallen not far away, its screen still illuminated. Penny brushes away the debris with her elbow, and uncovers a plastic bag of dried blood. Her stomach lurches. But still…blood samples already bagged up and ready for the lab?

  The inside of her t-shirt serving as a rudimentary glove, Penny picks it up.

  Oh please don’t let them be fingernails.

  She lifts the bag up to the shards of light filtering in from the hole in the roof. Microchips? There are nineteen of them, gristle and bristly dog hair still attached to each. Penny examines one of the chips through the clear plastic. The bloodied morsel has been ripped out of a dog’s flesh and then damaged—stabbed like a Horcrux.

  So the authorities can’t trace them.

  Hanson’s lot must have been collecting the chips until they had a chance to dispose of them—buried in a pit at the back of the farm, or maybe chucked in the ocean. It doesn’t really matter how. Once the chips had been rendered ineffective, there was little chance of the authorities ever tracking the dogs out here. But her discovery means there’s hope for Staffy and his companions because these dogs were once registered, which means they’ve got owners somewhere. Still using her t-shirt as a barrier, Penny stuffs the gruesome bag in the front pocket of her jeans. Illegal evidence, but the dead body should negate that.

  Yeah, show me the judge who can ignore that, Tanner.

  There’s a scraping at the base of the door.