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

by Dan Rabarts

  “What about Kerr?”

  “She’s gone.”

  Matiu opens his eyes. “She had a shotgun,” he says. “Fired it at me. There was nothing I could do.”

  “Bugger,” says Tanner.

  Please don’t ask me about the gun. Please…

  But Tanner isn’t interested in the gun. Instead, he stands up and says, “Forward me links to those photographs of Kerr, Ms Pandora. I’ll put out a call to look for her. You’ve definitely got the evidence to back all this up, right?”

  “There are a few lab analyses still to complete,” Penny replies, hoping Beaker’s made a start on them. “But yes, I have the evidence.”

  Tanner thumps a fist on the equipment trolley then, rattling the scissors and making Penny jump. “I want a preliminary report on my desk this afternoon,” he says. He has a hand on the curtains when he stops. Turns. “Hang on. What about motive? What’s Kerr’s motive in all this? To clean up Buchanan’s mess? I can make the jump to her setting the doctor’s office on fire to hide their connection after Fletcher’s disappearance, but why would she commit murder on Buchanan’s behalf? Was she in love with him?”

  Grimacing, Matiu groans again. Penny flashes him a look. Now is not the time for him to be playing for sympathy.

  “There’ll be a money trail,” she says. “The victims signing over funds in return for a cure. We have a forensic finance consultant scouring the net for that data right now.”

  Tanner shakes his head, impassive.

  “But there are three bodies,” Penny insists. “Two people she’s murdered. Three, if you count Fletcher.”

  “And none of it is going to stand up in court if we can’t show that Kerr had motive.”

  “Power,” Matiu says softly. “That’s your motivation. Kerr wants to wield the power of life and death. She’s high on it, intoxicated by the idea that she’s a priestess who can control people’s destinies. I swear, Kerr’s convinced she can hold back the afterlife.”

  He’s trembling now, perspiration shining on his forehead. Did the doctors give him any pain relief?

  “Matiu, we have no way of knowing—” Penny says gently.

  But Matiu cuts her off, his eyes flashing. “You’re forgetting that Kerr spoke to me down there in the basement, Penny. She looked me in eyes with the stiletto dripping with the dog’s blood still in her hand, and she spoke to me. And what she said was…” He breaks off and, placing his hand over the bandage, exhales slowly. “The woman is deranged, insane. We need to find her, Tanner, because she’s not going to stop there. She’s going to keep practising until she gets it right. She’s going to kill again.”

  When Tanner has left, Penny smooths the bedclothes.

  “Well, that’s that then. Case closed, almost. I should go and get on to those final assays.”

  “Yup. Can’t let lover-boy do all the work.”

  Penny smiles. “Well, there’s Cerberus, too. The poor fellow’s been tied up outside a while now.”

  “Is he OK?”

  “He’s fine. A bit singed. He must’ve been close to you when the firearm ignited the oxygen leaking from the museum’s air purification system. He has some cuts from a display case broken in the explosion, the one all that sand poured out of, but nothing too serious. He’ll survive.”

  Matiu grins. “He’s a good dog,” he says. “A fucking lifesaver, actually.”

  “He’s an awesome dog,” Penny agrees. “Do you think Rose Fletcher will let us keep him?”

  “Pen,” says Matiu quietly. “This case…”

  “You’ll be pleased to know I called your probation officer,” Penny blurts. “I told her you were being treated for injuries sustained in a fire—of course, I didn’t specify which fire—and that you’d make another appointment just as soon as you were discharged.”

  Matiu shrugs. “Whatever. Penny,” he says again, more urgent now. “You know there’s more to this than what you just told Tanner, don’t you?”

  “I know it was you who fired the gun. I’m not angry. Kerr didn’t give you any choice. I would’ve done the same.”

  Matiu clasps her forearm with his good hand, gripping hard. “I’m not talking about the gun.”

  She knows he isn’t talking about the gun. She’s not completely stupid. Obviously there are some unanswered questions. Does he think she doesn’t have niggles? What if it occurs to someone else that hair and nails are dead cells too, and therefore they should have found some at the warehouse? Or that her theory doesn’t hold with Lavoisier’s law of conservation of mass because there were no fat nanobots left lying about. And sure, Buchanan may have been remorseful about his involvement, but enough to mutilate himself? And then there was the sample, the one that almost ruined the Breadmaker™, the one that wasn’t actually DNA at all… None of that matters. Penny’s already decided. This case nearly unhinged Matiu, her baby brother, who already treads so close to madness. The altercation with Hanson didn’t help, nor did witnessing the agony of those poor dogs, and to make things worse there was Makere, Matiu’s imaginary friend, hanging around, poking Matiu with a stick, causing him pain. No, this case is done and dusted. Penny plans to make sure of it.

  “You’re injured and you’re tired,” she says. “This isn’t the time to go into all that. What’s important is that you’re OK, Cerberus is OK, and since we solved the case, my lab is OK. Can we please not open a can of worms? Can we just let that be enough?” Putting a hand on her brother’s shoulder, she leans in and plants a kiss on his forehead. “For now, at least?”

  Nodding, Matiu closes his eyes and sinks back against the pillows.

  CHAPTER 30

  - Matiu -

  Matiu sets the teacup down and then, rather stiffly, makes his way back into the kitchen for the second cup. As ever, Mārama’s house is cloying with damp heat, yet in spite of this, Matiu feels a chill across his back. It flows from inside him, from the hollow places he stepped through, in that half-reality, half-nightmare of the museum basement. Cups of tea and sunshine haven’t yet managed to banish that cold from under his skin, and he’s not sure it ever will.

  He pauses for a moment, cup in hand, looking out the window and across the street, sunshine lying thick across the lawns and parked cars like warm honey, the world melting beneath it. Kids run back and forth, a ball bounces and there’s shouting, shoving. So much focus, so much energy bound up in the physics of an inflated rubber bladder. Like there’s nothing of any greater consequence in the world than the fate of that ball, its next arc, its next thwarted trajectory. Matiu won’t ever know that carefree abandon again. He’ll never see the sunshine without feeling the shadows pressing in around him, without knowing that the sun is a shining disc burning in that vast coldness, one tiny glimmer amongst the eternal empty spaces between, leaving him drifting, so very, very small.

  Matiu sets the cup down and grips the edge of the bench with his good hand, in an effort to still the trembling. Choking down a clutch of breaths, his muscles settle enough for him to pick up his cup and return to the lounge, where Mārama is sipping her tea. Hugging his bandaged arm close—not that he has much choice, since it’s still in a light cotton sling—Matiu settles in his customary place. But there’s nothing customary about the moment. He’s not used to being the victim. Nor is he used to being held in such keen regard by Mārama. She’s looking at him, actually looking at him, seeing him with all his wounds and battle scars.

  For once, it is Matiu avoiding the conversation, trying to retreat into his other world, and Mārama whose attention is focused intently on him, like he’s sitting on secrets she needs to hear. He stares into the steam warping away from his tea, not wanting to answer the inevitable questions; How did he hurt his arm? What happened to his face? Questions that will lead to a conversation he doesn’t want to have, answers he would rather remain hidden and silent
. Because talking about what happened, giving it voice, will make it all real again. Matiu would rather it never becomes real, neither in his thoughts nor in his world, but he’s not destined for that sort of luck. He’s in this thing now, deeper than he wants to be, and the only person he can blame for that is himself.

  Still, he’s taken by surprise when Mārama speaks, her voice sharp, clearer than it has been in as long as Matiu remembers. “He’s gone,” she says.

  The chill, that chill, flushes through him. He nods. “Gone from me, yes. But not gone. I think he’s here, somewhere.”

  “You know who he is, don’t you?” She sounds uncertain, despite the words.

  Matiu frowns, shakes his head. “I just know he’s Makere. He’s been in my head since I was a kid. And now he’s gone. I saw him walking away. He stepped out of…out of…there.”

  Mārama looks away, her eyes drifting down, down, like ash falling from the sky, and Matiu thinks she’s about to slip away again, but then her gaze snaps up, fixing him to his seat. His fingers are trembling, and he clamps them tight around the cup. “You didn’t stop the tide, son. You bought some time, that’s all. Time to run from the drowning. You need to run, you and Penny both, as far and as fast as you can.”

  Matiu shakes his head. “I can’t, Mārama. I can feel it too, like you. We can’t run far enough. Someone needs to stand here and fight.”

  “Your father has connections with the Chinese government. Get the whole family on one of those ships in the harbour, get to China, run for the mountains and live the rest of your days milking goats and growing rice. You don’t want to be here when the tide comes in for good. You need to be gone.”

  “Tell me why,” Matiu breathes, sitting forward in his chair, his intensity matched only by the fierce grip Mārama now has on the arms of her chair. “Tell me who Makere is.”

  She speaks through gritted teeth, her knuckles pale. “He’ll be finding ways to grow strong, son. And then he’ll come looking for you. Until you are dead and gone, he won’t rest.”

  “Why? Who is he?”

  Then the veil comes down once more, and Mārama’s eyes turn pale and soft, and she leans back in her armchair, the rage and tension melting from her, like honey, dripping like water, and she turns her gaze to the window, and the sun, and the clatter of the ball as it rebounds off the fence. “So nice, when the children are all playing together, don’t you think?” she says, a thin, tired smile creeping across her features. “I do so wish you’d had a brother to play with, my boy. Boys need brothers, to keep them out of trouble. But not you. You were always such a good boy.”

  Matiu stares, for as long as he can stand it, and then gets up and walks from the room, pausing only to put a hand on his mother’s shoulder and kiss the top of her head. She’s in her own world again now. She’s lucky. Unlike Matiu, and Penny, she has a place to escape to. He doesn’t bother saying he loves her. She knows that already, and in any case, he doubts she can hear him.

  All she can hear, like Matiu, is the surging roar of the tide rising around them.

  END OF BOOK 1

  Glossary of Māori and local terms

  Aotearoa Māori name for New Zealand, meaning land of the long white cloud

  amonga tapu neighbouring tribespeople

  CBD central business district (down town)

  Cooee to be within cooee of something, is to be in calling/shouting distance, in earshot.

  cow pat cow pie, cow manure

  DoC Department of Conservation

  floosie (colloq) woman of low or loose morals, a version of floozy

  full tit (colloq) New Zealand bastardisation of the term ‘full tilt’

  gander, take a gander (Brit) to take a look

  hapū kin, clan, tribe

  Kapok java cotton

  kauri gigantic podocarp tree

  kia ora Māori greeting, hello

  kiri tuhi tattoo, in this case without cultural significance

  kuri dog, four-legged friend

  lino (colloq) abbreviation of linoleum

  lose one’s wicket to lose one’s cool

  marae Maori communal meeting place used for religious and social purposes

  moa extinct flightless ratite native to New Zealand (larger than an ostrich)

  manky (Brit) unpleasant, dirty, scruffy, old

  pīngao orange bladed sedge grass found in coastal locations

  pōhutukawa native myrtle, commonly known as the New Zealand Christmas tree

  pong, pongy (colloq) smelly, rank

  pōrangi mad, insane, deranged

  pugged ground deeply rutted by hoof prints

  radiata species name for a northern pine

  rewa-bread Māori sour-dough bread made from fermented potato

  Rēinga The northernmost tip of New Zealand, spiritual place where departing souls depart for the afterlife

  rimu New Zealand red wood conifer, protected and highly sought after for building and cabinetry

  spliff joint, marijuana; specifically a blend of marijuana and tobacco rolled together and smoked

  tap faucet

  Takahē flightless bird, indigenous to New Zealand

  taniwha mythical monster, typically lizard or serpent like

  tino pai the best, all good

  toa warrior

  Tū abbreviation of Tūkāriri, the god of war

  turps, on the turps literally Turpentine, colloquial term for alcohol, being on the booze, getting drunk

  vego vegetarian

  wacky backy marijuana

  wairua Māori term for soul, spirit

  whangai to foster or adopt, young person/fosterling

  Work and Income New Zealand term for social security

  yabber, yabbering to talk or jabber, derived from the Australian aboriginal term yabba

  About the Authors

  Lee Murray is a multi award-winning writer and editor of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, including the bestselling Into the Mist (Cohesion Press), which World Horror Master Michael B. Collings described as “adrenalin-fueled excitement in a single, coherent, highly imaginative and ultimately impressive narrative”. She is proud to have co-edited six anthologies of speculative fiction, one of which won her an Australian Shadows Award for Best Edited Work (with Dan Rabarts) in 2014. Lee lives with her family in the Land of the Long White Cloud, where she conjures up stories for readers of all ages from her office on the porch. www.leemurray.info

  Dan Rabarts is an award-winning short fiction author and editor, recipient of New Zealand’s Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best New Talent in 2014, and the Paul Haines Award for Long Fiction as part of the Australian Shadows Awards in 2017. His science fiction, dark fantasy and horror short stories have been published in numerous venues around the world, including Beneath Ceaseless Skies, The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk, and StarShipSofa. Together with Lee Murray, he co-edited the anthologies Baby Teeth - Bite-sized Tales of Terror, winner of the 2014 SJV for Best Collected Work and the 2014 Australian Shadows Award for Best Edited Work, and At The Edge, a collection of Antipodean dark fiction. Find out more at dan.rabarts.com.