by David Hair
Gently shaking, and then more violently, the ghastly pile bulged from movement deep within. The top corpses slid to the ground with wet little thuds. Something was beneath, struggling to rise through the deathly debris. Then a skeletal arm broke through, brittle-looking, tendons glistening, downy feathers sticking to bone. A head emerged, somewhere between human and bird, with a long beak sticky with gore. The pile of debris deflated as this new thing stood, and raised its arms. Brown skin formed slowly to cover the sinew and flesh. Bluish veins pulsed. Grey hair sprouted from the skull, and fatty globules formed buttocks and breasts. It was female, muscular and athletic, with the strength to power through the air, although the bird-like face, whose nose and chin almost touched, was aged and gaunt. She stretched and sighed, dreaming new dreams of freedom.
A tui called from the trees. She answered in a lilting voice, wordless, everything conveyed in the pitch and tone. She let the tui alight on her hand. She was Kurangaituku, the Birdwitch. The tui paid her homage and brought her news.
Puarata was dead, it sung. She had suspected this, sensing the release of bonds that bound her, compelling her service. She closed her eyes, opening her mind to her children, whose eyes were everywhere. She focused on the north, witnessing the aftermath of Puarata’s fall. She recognized Wiremu, the tohunga’s warrior-slave, now also free, it seemed. She noted the face of the half-caste boy who had stolen the tiki. Puarata had commanded her to find the boy for him, but she had failed him. She didn’t regret that, now.
She turned and looked southeast. To the Ureweras, where his lair lay unclaimed.
I must get there first. I must be the next power in the land, the one who inherits his mantle.
I refuse to serve another Puarata.
Donna Kyle
Donna Kyle was dreaming of a time before it all began. It was a dream she often had, of a porcelain doll in a yellowed christening gown. Sunlight was shafting through curtains, and men were singing as they staggered home drunk down Ponsonby Road. The six o’clock swill. Footsteps crunched down the gravel path and she wondered who it could be …
Daughter!
The dry voice in her head made her flinch, and her eyes sprang open. That voice! Surely not …
‘What’s happening?’ she murmured aloud to the empty room.
Get up, Donna! Puarata is dead! They’re coming for you now!
Father’s voice? Impossible — he’s dead!
They’re both dead …
She remembered. She had been watching Puarata’s end, in a scrying glass. She saw him die, and didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. She should have run then, but she was still so weak. The drugs dragged her down, back into that same dream she always had. Of that last hour of childhood …
She tentatively raised a hand and touched her swollen face, wincing. She had been beautiful, until Wiremu’s blow had broken her nose and split her face. Her head was swathed in bandages, so that she felt partially embalmed. She had been wondering if Puarata would discard her, like others he tired of. That’s irrelevant now. You’re on your own, girl …
And now that voice … Father? No. Impossible …
Then it really hit her … Puarata’s dead! My God, he’s dead! She had never thought Puarata could fail. Not against a mere boy, or anyone else. The images in the scrying glass had seemed like some foolish television show. But he really was dead, truly finally gone. And I’m next … Jeff Rothwell was outside, ostensibly to help her home, but Rothwell belonged to Sebastian Venn, like so many in the organization these days. Rothwell is here to kill me …
When Wiremu struck her down it had felt like death, but she had woken to nurses and bandages and drugs. Puarata had been there, speaking comforting words as drips fed her veins with a pale fluid he said would heal her. She had been afraid that he knew what she had said to Matiu Douglas; those words about escaping his control. But the tohunga had said nothing of it. Did he know? Sometimes it was all too much, being Puarata’s lover. It was like being in a cage with a panther. She was over sixty, despite her youthful appearance. Puarata had been tiring of her, she suspected.
Donna, that voice whispered again. I have had a nurse place a gun under your pillow.
She spun, but there was no-one there. ‘Father?’ she breathed, her heart hammering. A cellphone rang outside, the conversation was terse, and then footsteps approached her door.
She tried to reach for her power, that flame inside her that Puarata had found and taught her to use. But it was weak, barely flickering after the beating and the drugs. I can’t do it … I’m losing it … She fumbled frantically under the pillow and found the gun where Father’s voice had said it was. It felt heavy and reassuring in her hand. Outside Rothwell spoke in his flat voice. ‘Miss Kyle?’
She lurched to her feet. The room swam and her head felt like it would burst. Rothwell opened the door. She didn’t wait for him to speak, just raised the gun and opened fire. She was so dizzy her first shot missed, but the second knocked him off his feet. She staggered over his twitching body and out. A nurse appeared and she couldn’t risk that she wasn’t one of them, so she fired and watched the woman clutch her belly and fold up, her face stricken. She tottered down the hall, firing at every movement, as panic erupted about her. Red-stained walls and floors marked her trail.
Finally she made the shift to Aotearoa, although the effort dazed her. She crumpled to her knees in wet grass, outside a smaller, older building made of wood and whitewashed plaster. A man and woman turned towards her, clad in colonial garb, and their faces swelled with concern as they reached out …
She couldn’t be sure. So she raised her gun again.
Click!
The transition had destroyed the powder. The man took the gun from her shaking hands. ‘My lady!’ He looked up at the building behind her, then pulled her to her feet. ‘Come, we must leave. Venn is coming. I will see you safe.’
Well done, daughter, her father’s voice whispered. But do not forget to whom you owe your life.
Guardian devil
Saturday
Hine Horatai hurried from bed as the tide rose in her belly, and a vile taste invaded her mouth. On the bed, Evan Tomoana stirred then lapsed back into sleep. Hine pushed the door shut and teetered dizzily down the hallway, through the discarded cans and spilt ashtrays, into the tiny toilet cubicle. It already stank and hadn’t been flushed, but there was no time for that. She opened her mouth with a little cough and vomited.
She huddled there for what felt like hours, her head pounding. Then she heard a warm voice, and Ko’s kind, fleshy face loomed over her as she flushed the toilet and wiped Hine’s face with a wet flannel. ‘Jesus, girl, you look terrible.’ She pulled Hine into a sitting position. ‘There, lovey. Better now?’
Hine nodded weakly, embarrassed and ashamed. ‘Think so. Sorry, Ko. Can’t hold my drink, huh?’
‘At least you made it to the bog, lovey. More than bloody Brutal managed. He just chucked up in the lounge and then took hisself out for a smoke. Guess who had to clean it up?’ They exchanged hopeless looks. The Saturday morning comedown. Last night the house had been rocking, but now it slumbered in a silent haze. Hine gazed back down the hallway she had crawled along, to where the front door was ajar. Some guy was there, unconscious. She wondered blearily how many others were lying about the house amidst the trash and empties. ‘What’s the time, Ko?’
‘Just gone midday, lovey. Ronnie’s gone to work, bless him. Brutal’s out back, and everyone else is taking off as soon as they wake up so’s to dodge the cleanin’ up. Evan awake yet?’
Hine hoped not. ‘Don’t think so.’
‘Amount of rum he knocked back last night, he should be out cold ’til Christmas.’
‘You want a hand in the kitchen, darl?’
Ko looked back at her wearily. ‘Nah. I need some fresh air. Let’s go for a walk, eh?’
‘But there’s gonna be another bash tonight. Evan’ll want—’
‘You worry too much ’bout what he
wants, girl. Let’s go for a walk. Brandi-babe needs to get outta this house. And Filli, too.’
Hine got unsteadily to her feet, and crept back to her bedroom, which echoed to Evan’s snores. She slipped in, grabbed clothes from a pile in the corner, and crept out. Evan’s hard face was softened in repose, his mouth open and dribbling into his spiky goatee. His bare chest was covered in heavy-metal tattoos, all spikes and swirls. He said he was part-Maori, but he looked Pakeha. At twenty-nine, he was eleven years her senior. The man who had rescued her. She prayed she hadn’t woken him.
She dressed in the bathroom, eyeing the stranger in the mirror uneasily. She had been slim and pretty once, she vaguely recalled. Her tummy had been flat and her limbs taut. Her skin had been clear and her hair shiny. All the boys at Rotorua High School had wanted to date her. She had been happy, and dreamt of Olympic swimming medals and modelling.
Her stepfather had changed all that one night, when he had held her face down on the mattress, sobbing that it was her fault. Glenn Bale … He had done it again whenever her mother turned her back, so she had run away. Bale had tracked her down, but when he had tried to drag her into his car, Evan had stepped in, bashed ‘Gentle Glenn’, and taken Hine home. She had been so grateful for her rescue she had not noticed that all she had done was swap jailers.
Now she had aged, and her hair looked like a rat’s nest. Her eyes were sullen. She hugged herself and shook silently, trying to stop the girl in the mirror from crying.
Finally, she dressed. The tee was too tight and the trackies were baggy. I look like a tramp. She dragged her fingers through her hair, pinched her cheeks, and slipped out. A half-empty pack of ciggies lay in the hallway, and she pocketed them. The man at the front door had gone. She glanced into the lounge: cigarette haze and empties everywhere. The stained carpet squelched as she picked her way into the kitchen, where Ko was dressing her children. Three-year-old Brandi was sitting on the floor fiddling with an empty beer bottle. Filli, who was eight months, was lying on the table while Ko finished changing her nappy. Ko’s partner, Ronnie, was Samoan, and the two kids took after him. Ko passed Hine a huge hoodie, about five sizes too big for her, which she burrowed into. ‘You ’kay, lovey?’ Ko asked. ‘Grab the pram and we’ll do a runner, eh.’
They made it past the main bedroom without Evan’s snore faltering. Whoever was awake was in the back yard so the coast was clear. They wedged Filli into the old pram, and Hine carried Brandi as they made their escape. The sun was horribly bright and she hadn’t remembered her sunglasses, but she wasn’t going to risk going back.
A southerly stung her cheeks, and for once the three mountains were faintly visible, the low, snowy mass of Tongariro in the foreground, the cone of Ngauruhoe behind, and then the snow- and shadow-streaked Ruapehu hunched behind and dwarfing them both. It was a fine sight and gave her back a little heart. They ambled down towards the lake, Brandi holding Hine’s hand now, while Filli burbled happily in the pram. Ko’s waddling gait meant they moved slowly, and Hine snuck a look back every few seconds to make sure they weren’t being pursued, to be dragged back and chained to a mop. Finally, they were out of sight of the house and she let out a long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
They walked in silence to the main road, and crossed to the lakefront. The water lapped at the shingle and sand. A few windsurfers were out, and far to the south triangles of sail unfurled from sleek yachts that swooped like gulls in the stiffening breeze. Brandi ran to the water’s edge to look for shells, while Ko and Hine found a spot under a tree to watch over her, nurse their headaches and puff on a ciggie. Ko took Filli from the pram and let her roll on the ground, gurgling blissfully. She was a happy baby, which was a miracle considering the squalor she was being brought up in. Evan owned the house, left by some dead relative. Hine shared his room, and Ko and Ronnie had the second room with their kids. Brutal had the third room, and Hine refused to go near it, it stank so bad. A bunch of other itinerants came and went. ‘Soul brothers,’ Evan liked to call them. Parasites was Hine’s word for them.
‘So, how’s Ronnie doing at his new job?’ she asked Ko.
‘Yeah, good. Been there two weeks now. Hasn’t stolen nothing.’ The word ‘yet’ stayed unspoken. ‘Hopin’ this’ll last, an’ we can maybe get a place of our own.’
‘Yeah, that’d be sweet. Well, for you guys.’ No bank would ever give you a mortgage, but dreams are free.
‘He tries hard, does my Ronnie. Tries to do his best, mosta the time. When he ain’t drinkin’ an’ talkin’ trash with Brutal and Evan.’
‘It’s Evan,’ said Hine. ‘If it wasn’t for Evan, Ronnie wouldn’t do half the stuff he does.’
Ko looked at her intently. ‘Evan been smackin’ you ’bout again, hon?’
You couldn’t hide stuff from Ko. ‘Most ev’ry day now,’ Hine admitted in a whisper, her eyes on the distant mountains, her lower lip quivering.
They stared out across the water. Ko was talking, but it wasn’t easy to listen when all the thoughts crowding her head kept welling up. She had been a little golden girl when she was younger. She had been tall and athletic, and she wasn’t dumb. Her teachers had told her she had a ‘future’ and spoken about university. None of her family had gone past fifth form, but for her the sky had seemed the limit.
‘Then what happened?’ asked Ko.
Hine started, and realized she had been thinking out loud. ‘Mum got tired of being on her own. So she took up with Glenn Bale, this Pakeha ex-miner from Huntly.’ The thought of ‘Gentle Glenn’ made her feel nauseous. After Evan had punched Bale, she had been so grateful she would have given him anything. In fact, she had. He had got her away from home, and for a while it had seemed like paradise. She had thought herself safe. Ha! ‘Evan treats me like dirt now. Just another source of welfare money. He’s always angry, an’ ev’rthing’s my fault. I’ve got to get out, Ko.’
Ko reached out and pulled her in as she began to shake. She clung to the fat woman and bawled like a baby, while Filli stared confusedly. ‘I’ve got to get out. But I don’t know how. What’ll he do if I run, Ko?’
‘Lovey, there are people who can help you. You go down to the Women’s Refuge. They’s good people. I know them, cos of my sister, y’know. I could take you there, when the boys are out.’ Ko’s voice betrayed what she really thought, that no social worker or cop could stop Evan if he went after Hine. They might catch him later, but by then Hine would be smashed up or dead.
‘I don’t know what to do, Ko. Some days I just want to walk out into the lake and never come back.’ She had dreamt it, dreamt of swimming in deep water, while dark shapes swam below. She stared out across the lake. There was a log floating there, but somehow it seemed like a huge black eel, circling and waiting. She shuddered and looked away.
A young Pakeha or maybe part-Maori boy was walking past, with a redheaded woman who looked like his mother. Their clothes were clean and neat, and she had her arm around his shoulders. There was something about him that caught the eye, something subtly strong. He was probably only her age, but he seemed a world apart. He looked straight at her, with concern in his eyes. She felt a sudden flash of resentment and shame, to be seen like this.
I bet he’s never been smacked over. I bet nothing bad has ever happened in his prissy little life.
Piss off, she mouthed, then buried her face in Ko’s shoulder. She stayed there a long time, and when she looked up again, mother and son were gone.
‘What shall we do, lovey?’ asked Ko. ‘You want to take a walk down to the refuge?’
Hine almost agreed. But then she thought about Evan and she wasn’t so sure any more. He kept her safe from all the other dark things. He needed her, she made him calmer, she made him happier … he told her so. Her place was with him. He was her Guardian Devil. She loved him, didn’t she? ‘I dunno, Ko. I … I need to think on it a bit, y’know. I don’t want to do the wrong thing. You know what I mean?’
Ko looked at her sadly. ‘
Okay, deary. I gotta get back and put Filli down for a sleep. You stay here if you want. I’ll get Ronnie to help clean up when he gets back, eh.’
Hine nodded, and bowed her head. She kissed Brandi and waved them off, then just sat and stared at nothing. Time passed and she couldn’t remember a single thought crossing her mind. People probably went past, maybe some of them looked at her, but nothing registered.
Finally, a gentle wuffling intruded on her thoughts. There was a dog, a black-and-white sheepdog like Dog from the Footrot Flats cartoons, worrying at something that lay in the tidal sands. Then it looked up and trotted towards her. She shooed at it half-heartedly, but it came right up, nuzzling her gently, so she relented and let it curl up against her. ‘You better not have fleas, boy,’ she told it.
It looked at her indignantly, as if it found her remark offensive.
‘Okay, sorry!’ She smiled and patted it. It licked her face, and she felt herself relax for the first time that day. So she hugged the dog, and before long, the gentle waves of the lake and rhythm of the traffic had blended into a lullaby.
She woke suddenly, and found the sun was dipping towards the western horizon. The dog was still with her, and it tugged at her sleeve, as if trying to persuade her to follow it home. She shook it off. ‘No, fella! Go home! I’m going this way!’ It took a long time to convince it that she was not going to follow it. Crazy dog! I wonder who owns it?
She hurried home — there was another booze-up tonight and she should have been helping Ko get it ready. Shit! Evan’s gonna be mad as!
When she arrived, one of Evan’s Rottweilers charged down the path to meet her, scaring her to a halt. The door slammed open and Evan strode down the path towards her, teeth gleaming through his goatee. She began to stammer an apology that turned into a yelp of pain as he seized her hair and pulled her behind him. She shrieked, trying to keep on her feet.
