by David Hair
The minutes flew away, and all there was were those words, a mantra, hanging in the air.
Once, he thought he might have felt her presence. Her breathing. A fluttering of awareness. But it was gone before he could focus. He fought a wave of tiredness, laying back and blinking to stay awake.
‘Any luck?’ Riki came back in, wrapped in a towel. He was skinny enough that you could count his ribs, but his shoulders were muscled and his belly flat.
Mat shook his head doubtfully. ‘I don’t know …’
‘You look whacked, bro,’ Riki commented. ‘You need to rest up? Wiri and Kels’ll be here soon.’
It was very tempting … But the feeling that time was slipping away persisted. ‘No, let’s go get something to drink, then I’ll try again.’
Ten minutes later they were down by the lake, sipping milk-shakes on a park bench. The sun was battling successive waves of clouds from the south. Wind gusted and whipped up some white-topped waves. It wasn’t peak season, but there were still lots of tourists, mostly Japanese, wrapped in bright parkas and photographing everything.
Riki turned to him, about to speak, when he froze, staring over Mat’s shoulder. Mat followed his gaze to where a gull had landed on a railing a few feet away, looking at them with button-like eyes. ‘It’s watching us, man,’ Riki whispered.
It would be easy to scoff, but Mat didn’t. The gull was too intent, too focused. ‘Maybe we should go back to the room,’ Mat breathed.
Another gull swooped to the other end of the bench, mere feet from them. This close, its familiarity was overlaid with menace. It looked big and vicious. Then a sparrow landed beside it, calmly ignoring the bigger bird, its beady eyes on him and him alone. Others came, until the two boys were sitting in a circle of silent, cold-eyed birds.
‘Jeez, I always hated that Hitchcock movie,’ Riki groaned.
Mat looked up, glancing along the lakefront, where someone was walking towards them, through the crowds. A brown-skinned woman, in a long coat, with a mane of grey hair. She walked like a stalking heron, with an uneven bobbing gait. Her eyes fixed on his face, and the ground seemed to quiver silently with each step. Her coat floated behind her like a feathered cloak, or wings. A name from legend entered his mind, from conversations with Jones and Wiri … Kurangaituku. The Birdwitch.
‘Riki,’ he breathed. His friend was already on his feet. Mat stood and looked about him. The gulls squawked threateningly, fluttered about them, wings thumping the air. Suddenly they were in a sea of beaks and wings.
‘Poai,’ the woman called, in a harsh voice that seemed to come from the throat of every bird about them. ‘Poai, stay right where you are!’
Parukau felt a tentative touch on his shoulder, and woke with a jerk. It was Deano, the young man puppy-dog, eager to please but frightened to disturb him. He grimaced, his mind groggy. Damned drug-dart … tipua scum … It felt like someone had poured glue into his veins then encased him in cotton wool. It took him several seconds just to focus his eyes. His watch read nearly quarter past eight in the morning.
‘Where are we?’ he managed.
‘Roto-Vegas, chief. We just hit the city. Where you wanna stay?’
Must I do everything? ‘I don’t give a shit, Deano. Any ol’ dump … No, hang on … It’s gotta be side-by-side twin-shares with an adjoining door. Find a tourist info.’ He dredged Evan’s memories. ‘There’s a bureau by the lakefront. Get someone there to find us a place.’
In the back seat, Brutal was staring out the window, having lapsed completely into silence since the fight last night. He looked like he was in shock, and he had his hands pressed to his bandaged belly. Evan had stitched his stomach wound before leaving. Brutal had blubbed throughout. The girl, Hine, was asleep, leaning against the opposite window. Ronnie was in another car following them, with Ko and their little girls. He wanted them all under his wing. With the Roadhawks cut down or deserted, he needed them: the men to fight; Ko and the babies for leverage. Ronnie would fight or his family would die — it was that simple. The other two men, Deano and Brutal, he would just have to keep his eye on. If they could handle some weird shit, they would be of some use.
Deano found the tourism desk, and sorted some accommodation at a place on the east side. They detoured into the industrial zone, and he stashed the guns on the Aotearoa side, barely managing the transition. Then they found the motel: a low-rent place across the main road from the lake, off Te Ngae Road. The units were simple, each a big lounge-dining bedsit with side-by-side double beds, plus a separate bathroom and kitchen. Original ’seventies decor, as tired and bedraggled as its guests. But the units had connecting doors, so he could keep an eye on everybody. It would do for now.
He put Ronnie, Ko and the babies in one unit, locked the main door and pocketed the key. He left the connecting door open, so that Ronnie and his family could only exit via his unit. Brutal took one bed, clutching his slashed belly silently. Parukau took the other. Just before he passed out, he remembered the handcuffs, and gave them to Deano. ‘Take Hine and cuff her to the railing in the bathroom, Deano. Then stand watch. I gotta sleep. She gives you any grief, smack her one.’
Deano took the cuffs, and then went to the corner, where Hine sat like a zombie. He pulled her upright, and dragged her into the bathroom. The click of the cuffs were the last thing Parukau heard before he succumbed to exhaustion.
Much later, a voice woke him, not with sound, but a prickling in his mind.
Hine! Hine! Can you hear me? I’m here, here in Rotorua. Where are you?
A mental call, amateurish but loud. He shook his head, and sat up, feeling a little refreshed. Brutal was asleep on the bed, snoring gently. Deano sat across the bathroom door, his head on his chest, eyes closed; useless! He felt a sudden panic, and stumbled to the bathroom door, but the girl was still there, cuffed to the pipes of the basin, asleep. Her hair was a dark pillow, and her chest rose and fell.
He opened himself to the mental call and got a vision of the little shit that had caused half this mess: the kid he had smacked up in Taupo. Matiu Douglas, the cops had named him during questioning. He was in a hotel room somewhere. He looked fragile, a twig to be snapped. He repeated the call, and Parukau heard Hine stir in her sleep. He pulled back slightly, and orientated himself, tracing the point where the call originated … Ahh, there you are … I think we owe you a visit, kid …
He dragged himself to a sitting position, fought for energy. ‘Brutal, Deano, get up, you lazy bastards!’
The two men groaned and stirred. He kicked Deano’s leg. ‘Asleep on duty! If this was the army you’d be up for a flogging! Brutal! Get your fat brown ass outta bed. We got work to do. Get Ronnie!’
Within half an hour, they were wending their way through the traffic, back into town. Deano drove, while Ronnie sat in the back. Brutal he left at the motel to guard the women. He didn’t trust Ko not to try to bust Hine and do a runner.
‘What are we doing this kid for?’ Deano asked, timidly.
Ronnie grunted. ‘Cos we didn’t get to finish the job back in Taupo, an’ he got us arrested.’
It was only half the truth. You don’t really want to know what I’m going to do to him … There were various ways a fellow Adept could be butchered so that his power flowed into his killer. Doing this kid is gonna give me a big nasty boost, right when I need one.
‘How’d you know he’s here?’ Deano puzzled.
You don’t wanna know that either.
They slipped into the hotel lobby. He stole a master key from an oblivious Asian cleaner. He was feeling better and better — getting his full array of tricks and treats working again. But when they entered the boy’s room, the little turd was gone. His weapons were still there, and his clothes, but the room was empty. There was another sports bag on the second bed. Whose? He glared about in frustration, then gave a tired shrug.
Where is he? He closed his eyes. The image came quickly: the boy was quite close, in a café ordering food, down by the lakesi
de. He probed his surface thoughts, and then chuckled. ‘They’s jus’ refuelling, boys.’ He sat by the window, and put his feet up. ‘Rest up, fellas. The little sucker will be back soon enough.’
Donna Kyle owned a house near Rotorua airport, which Puarata had given her. Like her home in Auckland, the house opened onto both worlds. She didn’t like this house, though. It creaked, and was full of bad memories. She lay on the big four-poster bed, and watched the slowly shifting half-light that penetrated the drapes play across the old oil paintings and antique furniture.
She had come here that morning, before dawn, and slept away the day. She was becoming a night creature, was forced to be, so that she could direct her nocturnal minions. The patupaiarehe lay in lightless cellars below ground, awaiting the sunset. They could walk in daylight, but it left them weaker. She had fed them on cats she had bought from a pet shop after the journey from Taupo. Thorn and Heron were both wounded: Thorn had been burned and stabbed by Matiu Douglas, and Heron grazed by a silver ball fired by Parukau. They would heal, though. Stone had returned bearing messages of loyalty from the nearest goblin tribe. Waka were coming, he told her, full of eager warriors. Well, they couldn’t be less useful than those Thorn had roused in Taupo.
She had lashed Thorn mercilessly when the skinny wretch had returned in failure from attacking the Douglas boy. One half-trained Adept and she couldn’t handle it! He knew my name! Thorn had wailed. That brought her up short. How could the boy know Thorn’s true name?
And then there was her own failure. Despite trailing Parukau in his raid on Jones’s cottage, she had been unable to destroy her rival and take the girl he was so interested in. She had no-one but herself to blame for that. Only a bad carpenter blames their tools … It is I who is failing …
She got up, pulled a gown around her and sat in the cane chair beside the curtained window. The remains of a bottle of red wine stained the bottom of a crystal glass. The digital clock that Puarata had always said marred the colonial decor told her it was just after three in the afternoon. She left the curtains closed, more comfortable in the half-light. And let’s not think too hard about that …
Too many unanswered questions. Who was the girl Parukau had gone to so much trouble to take back? How had the Matiu Douglas boy known Thorn’s true name? Was Te Iho here? Most of all: why had her father reappeared and what does he really know?
He promised to help me — why? Instinctively she rejected the thought of seeking him out. She would never be able to control him … God, I hate this game! But there is no way out of it.
A harsh voice crackled inside her mind, startling her. Mistress Kyle, Kurangaituku called. I have found the Douglas boy. Shall I seize him?
She clenched a fist. Second chances were all too rare in life. ‘Strike,’ she replied, aloud and psychically. ‘Take him alive if you can. I will come and collect.’
It was still daylight. The patupaiarehe were of little use to her until sunset. She decided to let them recover. She rose quickly, dressed and was gone, while her servants slept, oblivious.
Mat pulled his arm over his head, and ran for the hotel, yelling for Riki to follow. The birds erupted in a cloud around him. Talons and beaks tore at him, feathers billowed, then he burst into clear air, Riki a few steps behind. The towering old woman seemed to flow towards them. A few people stared at the birds, but no-one came to his aid. A couple shouted something, but the words were inaudible to him, lost in the beating wings and shrieking beaks.
‘The hotel!’ he shouted. ‘Run!’ The building loomed ahead, towering over the lakefront green. He glanced up at the sheer wall of glass, as a gull veered and smashed into the bank of windows with a sickening smack, bounced and then plummeted in a broken tangle. A cross of broken glass smeared in blood and feathers marked the impact point. He saw the outline of a man, right where the bird had struck, and just knew that their rooms had been found already.
‘This way!’ he shouted, swerving left towards the main street, with no plan but to find people, lots of people. Birds smacked against his back and shoulder, tearing cloth and skin. He staggered. Behind him, Riki gasped and swore. Mat couldn’t look, he was too tangled in beating wings and flashing claws and beaks. Then Riki fell, and Mat spun, his heart in his mouth. Riki sprawled beneath the Birdwitch. She had leapt on his back and forced him to ground. Mat raised a fist, fire leaping to his command, and hurled it. Birds shrieked and veered aside, but with a feral grin, Kurangaituku vanished, with Riki limp in her claws.
‘No!’ Mat tore at the air, shifting himself to Aotearoa. The world lurched and he stumbled and half-fell on an expanse of well-trampled earth amidst a cluster of settler buildings, outside the walls of a huge pa. Clumps of settlers turned with startled eyes. Voices shouted, calling the witch’s name. Children stared mutely. Men snatched up weapons. There were hundreds of eyes on him, but his were on the Birdwitch, already forty metres away and bounding at an insane speed. He tore after her, ignoring the shouts of the locals, and plunged into the bush that rimmed the settlement. Kurangaituku bounded away, through marsh and water, her every step ten of his. He howled a challenge, threw fire — but it burst impotently over the bush. She moved like a jumping spider; he couldn’t even get close.
Within a few minutes, he had lost her entirely. He stopped, breathless, furious and frustrated.
Idiot! You’ve brought your best friend into this and he’s been taken inside two hours! Some Adept!
He stared about him, desperate for something he could do. The forest was utterly silent. Rotorua-Aotearoa was lost somewhere behind, and there seemed to be no pursuit. Not even a bird sang. There were birds, though. Thousands of them. He stared at them and they stared back.
Suddenly he heard someone, someone with no bush sense, stamping through the brush and undergrowth, following him. He dropped from sight, and crawled behind a fallen log. But not before he caught a glimpse of a pale woman whose face regularly filled his nightmares. He tried to muster the strength to slip back to the real world, but knew she would still sense him if he did. Her footsteps stopped, a mere dozen metres away.
‘Matiu Douglas!’ Donna Kyle called in a low hard voice. ‘Come out! I know you’re there!’
Once a warrior
Thursday afternoon
Deano sat at the window of the hotel room and stared out at the lake. They had been there nearly an hour and still the boy hadn’t come back. Evan — no, ‘Parukau’ — wouldn’t let him light a ciggie, because he said the boy might smell it out in the hallway and run off. As if anyone had that good a nose! Outside, the shadows were lengthening across the green. Evan — he couldn’t get the new name into his head — was staring down at the park intently. It was starting to freak him out.
So he fingered his pack of fags some more, and played with the gun in his pocket. A nice little piece that Evan had given him; a Glock, just like real gangsters might use. Christ, he had never even held a handgun before, but he felt like a proper LA boy in da hood now … But why can’t I have a smoke?
The temptation got too much and he stalked over to the bathroom door. Ronnie was lying on the bed, holding a taiaha they had found in the boy’s gear. Evan had grinned when he found the two old pistols, and had loaded them up. Old relics, but kind of cool. Ronnie wouldn’t touch any of them, wouldn’t even look at them. He was still freaked from what he had seen the night before. For Deano it had just been a blur, of stacking guns, and then Evan had touched him and the guns and they were somehow, somewhere else. He refused to think about that.
Bugger this — I need a puff!
He shut the bathroom door, lit up a ciggie and had a quick puff, to stop his hands shaking. Not that he was scared or anything, but the waiting was getting on his nerves.
Parukau stared down at Matiu Douglas and his friend, wondering if he should wait or move. Then he saw the way the birds were hovering, and realized what was happening. Kurangaituku, he guessed immediately, even as the Birdwitch stalked into view, the same flowing hair, the cloak,
the heron-like walk. Old Cootface! They had hated each other from the start. She was an ugly, primitive thing. A jealous, carping old harpy. Maybe this time he could take her down forever.
Kurangaituku!
He hadn’t meant to shape her name out loud, but it just fell from his mind. She glanced up at him, her eyes flaring, then her arm jabbed towards him. Suddenly a gull veered from the flock in a sharp arc, and flew straight at him. He flinched as the bird hit the glass and broke itself. Blood and feathers smeared as it rebounded and fell away. The plate glass cracked in a great cross. Kurangaituku glared up at him, and then turned back to her prey.
‘Holy shit!’ yelped Ronnie, gaping at the cracked window. ‘What the hell was that?’
Parukau shook himself, and then gave a hoarse laugh. ‘Jus’ some stupid ol’ bird.’
He watched the boys run, first towards the hotel, and then veering away. He cursed under his breath. What the hell? Damnit, safety is here! Then Kurangaituku leapt like a deformed Amazon and landed on the back of the other boy in a tumbling whirl. Matiu Douglas turned and flames washed through the press of birds — Impressive! — but the witch was already gone. In a heartbeat, the boy was too, as the birds rose and flapped away. A couple of people were staring at the dissipating flock of birds, as if wondering whether what they thought they had seen was real or some stunt.
Damn! Cootface got to him first … Damn!
Deano came out of the toilet, reeking of smoke. Couldn’t these idiots do anything he asked of them? ‘What happened, Ev— Parukau? What broke the window?’
‘Just a dumb bird.’ He peered down, trying to think clearly. What did it matter if Cootface got the boy? But why did she want him? Was he just another meal for her? Or was he another piece in this puzzle after all? What had Jones confided in him?
