by David Hair
They gathered in a shadowy office doorway beside the hotel. Cassandra was polishing her glasses, looking frightened but shoving Damien’s arm off when he tried to console her. Riki was peering back the way they had come, but there was no one following. The distant sirens had fallen silent, but not before one with the distinctive notes of an ambulance had come and gone.
Lena was leaning against the wall, staring at Mat. ‘They got what they deserved,’ she insisted, her voice almost triumphant. The arm beneath Mat’s hand was shaking.
Mat shook his head. ‘They might be dead.’
‘They deserve to be! You don’t understand what it’s like, to be a girl when men turn nasty!’ She burst from his grip suddenly, and stormed out into the rain. There was a big green rubbish bag propped against the wall, full of refuse from the office block. She stabbed a finger at it and jerked her arm sideways. The rubbish bag flew backwards through the air to smack against the glass doors of the building and burst apart, spewing screwed-up white paper and plastic bags over the foyer.
‘That’s how she did it!’ Lena declared fiercely. ‘That’s how she whipped them!’
The boys and Cassandra stared.
10
The church at Matawhero
The text from Sassman said:
‘Mat, could you turn your phone off while we’re eating, please?’ Colleen sounded strained and tired, the usual spark missing from her voice. But then as Mat had only woken up an hour ago, he couldn’t really say he was on top of the world, either.
‘Yeah, put the damn thing away,’ Tama growled, which Mat thought was rich, coming from him. But apparently it was vital that Tama was on call, whereas his messages were ‘trivial’.
He bit his lip, thumbed his phone to silent mode, and put it in his top pocket. He glanced at his watch: 1.22 p.m. He speared the last piece of potato on his plate, put it in his mouth, and wished this interminable meal was over. It wasn’t that it was a bad meal; in fact it was great. And the setting was lovely—the Bushmere Estate Vineyard. They were sat outdoors under the restaurant’s shade-umbrellas, bathed in sunshine, the last vestiges of the over night rain having been swept away. The menu was mouth watering, and the temperature was comfortable, the rain having lowered the searing heat that had marked the last week. It should have been perfect, except it wasn’t.
It was just that he wanted to be any where but here. He wanted to be with Lena, to reassure himself that her fit of temper last night had been out of character. He wanted to be with Riki and Damien, so that he could laugh with someone and relieve his growing sense of tension. After lunch he could join them all at the festival. He wanted to be doing things, to be active, to subdue the ache that was growing with each passing day that he did nothing positive towards freeing the taniwha. Mostly, he wanted Jones to arrive and take control of every thing.
Mum and Dad had intercepted him before he could leave that morning, and announced that he had to come to lunch with them. He could go to the concert afterwards, they told him. So here he was, trying to wish time would speed up, and wishing the jollity was less forced.
He’d really thought Mum and Dad would solve their problems, after they had been pulled back together at Reinga in September. Instead the same old issues were still there. Mum hated the criminals and suspected criminals that were Dad’s stock and trade. Dad felt he was doing right, and that what he did was too important to abandon. He still thought he could buy his way out of their problems with lavish lunches and dinners, expensive treats and gifts. It was as if they were talking to each other’s ghosts sometimes—they were still in love with the memories of each other that were no longer the people they now were. Neither seemed able to see it.
At least they weren’t dragging Mat into the discussions, and he was grateful for that. He had too much else going on in his head to cope with that as well.
His phone vibrated silently in his pocket. ‘Uh, I need to go to the toilet,’ he said immediately.
Colleen eyed him suspiciously, then shrugged, sighed and nodded in exaggerated slow motion.
He read the text in the bathroom.
‘Hey, um, can I go? A friend of mine has a car, and we can catch up later. Please?’
Tama and Colleen sighed in unison. ‘When we said we’d need time to ourselves, we didn’t mean the whole time,’ Tama grumbled reproachfully.
‘Is it this DJ person?’ Colleen asked waspishly. ‘I’m not sure I like the sound of him at all.’
‘Ah, no, it’s, er, Lena.’
Colleen’s mouth widened into a smile. ‘Oh, ’tis the girly, then. Well, that’s all right, I’m thinking.’ She poked his arm. ‘You go for it, son.’
Tama winked at him. Mat groaned and rolled his eyes, but fled before they had a chance to change their minds. He called Lena back quickly.
‘Hiya.’
‘Hi! You need rescue?’
‘Yeah. I’m at the Bushmere Estate on State Highway 2.’
‘I know it. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Meet you at the gates.’
He walked alone down the gravel drive, and leant against a power pole at the gate. They were several kilometres south of Gisborne, and a few kilometres inland. He could see Young Nick’s Head, the southern cape of Poverty Bay and the first land sighted by Cook’s crew, away to the south, its distinctive hill shape reminding Mat of a serrated bone club, browned with age. All about him were paddocks and vineyards, divided by the highway, where cars whipped past every half a minute or so. The scent of the drying grass carried to his nose, and cleared some of the fog from his head that the glass of wine he had been allowed had brought. A lonely hawk circled above, looking for field mice or road kill, and the sun fell in and out of the clouds every few minutes. It was ten minutes or so before the white pop-top BMW purred up.
He stared at Lena in shock. Her cornrows had completely gone, replaced by short, spiky, newly peroxided blonde hair. She preened. ‘You like? I did it this morning.’
It looked uncomfortably like Donna Kyle’s hair. He got in and peered, forced a grin. ‘Sure, you look great. How’d you get someone to cut it this morning?’
‘Ha! I did it myself. You have to cut cornrows out anyway, and I’d got tired of them. And I had some dye. It’s a bit messy, but it’ll do till I get back to my usual stylist in Auckland.’ She primped in the rear-view mirror, frowned a little then shrugged. ‘It’ll do for now,’ she said again, more to herself this time. ‘Sassman said I’d look more sophisticated this way.’
Mat quelled a feeling of unease. When had she and the DJ talked about that? He refused to think about it, and leaning across, he pecked her on the cheek. ‘Where shall we go?’
She shrugged as she pulled out onto the high way again. ‘Don’t care. Just wanted to get out. Dad and Cassie’s father were talking business, and she was sleeping in, so it was the ideal time to split. Let’s go…um, this way…’
She drove along the highway towards the south for a couple of minutes, and then pulled onto a side road, where they roared down empty country roads, while Mat alternately watched the view, and watched her. She was in a summer dress of pale lemon, wearing bangles and a pendant of gold. She was even wearing lipstick and make-up. She looked closer to twenty than sixteen. The car stereo played some thing beaty that sounded like one of the bands they’d heard at the festival. Suddenly she braked, and turned down a side road, where a few farm-houses were clustered amidst the paddocks and trees. A little road sign said ‘Matawhero’, stirring some thing in Mat’s memory.
They purred up to a massive stockyard, dry and empty, just a maze of wood and metal fences and gates that covered several acres back from the road. Lena stopped the car and for a few seconds the only sound was her car stereo blaring out over the fields. They were at a T-junction with a road heading towards another small group of buildings.
‘Let’s have a wander round,�
�� Lena said lightly. She got out, pulled the keys, and then waited for Mat with an outstretched hand. He took it and squeezed. ‘Thanks for coming.’
‘No problem,’ he replied.
She stopped and looked him in the face. She looked tired. ‘I’m sorry I got het up last night…er, this morning. I didn’t mean to wreck that rubbish bag. And we shouldn’t have chased that woman. You know more than I do about what’s going on, so I should have listened.’
He shrugged, wondering whether she was sincere. Her voice didn’t do ‘apologetic’ well. ‘No harm done. She didn’t see us, and no one got hurt.’
‘Huh, those two guys did,’ she said. ‘The radio news this morning said that two men were found in the centre city just after 3 a.m., and had been taken to hospital. It said they were in a “stable condition”, whatever that means.’ She pulled at his hand, and they wandered away from the car, towards the end of the stockyards. It felt good to be touching her, after his anxiety that morning.
‘I got a text from Sassman,’ he said. ‘Jones is in town, and they want to meet at three o’clock. That’s about an hour away and…oops! I’ve not called him back!’ He pulled out his phone, and pulled up the number, then called it.
‘Yo!’
‘Hi, this Mat Douglas.’
‘Hey, my man! You got my text, right? The boss-man is in town. Where are you, brother?’
‘At Matawhero, with Lena.’
‘Hey, you two crazy lovebirds still hangin’ out! That’s cool, man. Listen, we’re not too far from you right now, at a farm house. Matawhero was where we were going to suggest anyhow. I’ll come and find you. I’ll see you in half an hour or so, yeah? Okay, see you soon.’
Mat told Lena what Sassman had proposed. Then they walked on for a while, just looking at each other. At the end of the lane they found a little white timber church, set in a tiny garden. The stump of what once must have been a massive tree lay grey and gnarled, just inside the gate. A sign proclaimed that the church was the only building left standing in Matawhero after Te Kooti had attacked the settlement in 1868. Mat could remember some thing about it from school. They peered through the closed gate for a few minutes, then walked hand in hand back to the car.
‘I’m so glad to have met you,’ Lena said. ‘I thought I was alone in the world, and I knew so little about what I could and couldn’t do. I was beginning to feel like a freak, and I was terrified someone would lock me up. Now I know you, and Sassman, and this Jones guy will be able to give me some proper instruction into how to use my Gift. And there is a whole other world out there that I never even knew was there. It’s perfect.’
‘I’m glad too,’ replied Mat. ‘I knew I wasn’t the only one, but I didn’t know anyone my own age. And you know, it didn’t seem right to date someone who didn’t have the same gifts as me, you know? Because we wouldn’t be equals, and I’d probably have to hide things from them, and all that. But with you, I won’t have to hide anything.’
Lena squinted against the sun, staring into his eyes. ‘Don’t be too sure of that. People always hide things from others. Even people in love do that.’
‘Did you hear that on a soap opera?’ Mat teased.
‘No!’ Lena laughed reprovingly. Then she frowned. ‘But we’re not exactly equals, anyway. Sassman told me that I was a mouse, and he and you were more like cats, when it came to who was most powerful.’ Her mouth twitched angrily.
Mat felt a flicker of anger at Sassman. ‘What’d he say that for?’
Lena’s shoulders twitched. ‘To put me in my place.’ She clenched her jaw. ‘But he said there are ways to make yourself stronger. I’m going to find them out. Then we will all be equals.’
Mat felt a twinge of discomfort. ‘It’s not that important, you know. I don’t care whether I’m stronger or you are. Hoanga says that’s not even the point.’ He tried to remember what Hoanga had said, some thing about rivers and swimming, but he couldn’t get it right in his head enough to tell it properly. ‘I’m just so glad to have someone to share this with,’ he finished lamely.
Lena snorted. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you were the weak one. Sassman told me I had “flea-bite” power. The arrogant prick!’
Mat squeezed her hand. ‘I don’t know why he would say that.’ It didn’t sound like the affable American he’d met.
Lena shook her head. ‘Me neither. But he did say that sometimes there were ways to make yourself stronger, and when those opportunities come up, you have to grab them.’ She looked at Mat fiercely. ‘I’m going to seize them with both hands.’ Her vehemence was slightly unnerving. But then she laughed nervously, and was a teenage girl again.
They stared at each other, and then suddenly she pulled him into her arms and their lips met, and for a few minutes there was nothing else but her mouth, and the feel of her body against his, and a feeling that life was rushing by too fast, that if he could, he would freeze this instant for ever. A dizzying ripple of heat or electricity in the air washed through them, which for a second Mat thought was some thing to do with Lena’s kiss, but they both stumbled slightly, and blinked about them dizzily. Someone shouted in the distance, from further up the road. He was dimly aware of a strange rush of aromas and sounds, and then a child shouted and another screamed. They pulled apart, and looked about them.
There were two children, perhaps eight to ten years old, sprinting towards them down the road, clad in old settler-style clothes like Mat had bought in Turanga. But the road was changed. No longer tarseal, it was just two muddy wheel ruts and a grassy centre ridge. The stockyards were gone, and the houses were now unpainted timber, with smaller dwellings gathered about them. The children were boys, barefoot. A crowd of Maori, brandishing a mixture of traditional weapons like mere and patu and taiaha, and others with muskets, were boiling down the road after them.
Lena turned and looked behind them, and gasped. Mat followed her look. The car was gone. Then he turned again, as the first of the Maori warriors reached the hindmost child, and swung his patu at the back of his head.
‘No!’ Mat thrust out a hand and shoved, the way he had seen Donna Kyle do it the previous night, the way Lena had attacked the rubbish bag. He felt a small wave of force well from him, an invisible force that warped the air as it punched into the chest of the warrior. The warrior staggered and fell backwards onto his haunches. The others paused, and then ran harder at them, but one lifted a musket to his eye and took aim.
‘Run!’ Mat shouted at the children. ‘Run!’ Then he realised just who the musket was aligning upon, and dived sideways. The gun cracked, a curiously hollow sound, and a puff of black smoke erupted as a lead ball zinged past his ear. Lena screamed, as the first child reached them, a young boy with a snub-nose and floppy mane of brown hair who clutched Lena’s thighs, shrieking in terror. The second redoubled his pace, and threw himself at Mat. Mat grasped him, taking in the first of the warriors barely twenty yards away.
‘Lena, take my hand! I’ll take us back! Lena!’ But she was out of reach. ‘Run!’ he shouted at the two boys. ‘Run! The church!’ He jabbed a finger towards the sanctuary, which here in Aotearoa was sheltered beneath the sprawling branches of the tree beside the gate, right where the stump was in the real world.
He thrust the boy behind him, and faced the onrushing warrior. He was bare-chested, clad in breeches with bare feet. His thickly muscled torso was scarred with ridges and gouges to a frightening degree. A cross hung about his neck, and he ran with his left hand raised to heaven, and his right holding his weapon. His face was wide-eyed and filled with battle fervour. He shrieked as he leapt, bringing his stone patu down in a vicious overhead blow.
Mat shoved again with that well of energy he drew on, striking the warrior’s leg, causing him to spin sideways in the air as he came, and plough shoulder-first into the muddy track. His shoulder-blade cracked, and he bellowed in pain and fury. The other warriors paused, as Mat gained a few steps, and one cried out ‘Ruanuku!’ in a frightened voice.
A deep-throated voice shouted, ‘That’s him! Take him alive!’ Mat looked beyond the main group, and saw Kereopa Te Rau appear beside the musketeer, holding an iron-headed axe in one hand and a heavy hammer in the other, running hard. The other warriors leapt into action.
Mat turned and sprinted after Lena and the two boys. ‘Get to the church. Get to the church!’
The men behind him were too fast. He heard the footfalls slap the earth, too close, gaining all the time. More shadowy figures rose on the left-hand side of the track, out of the long grasses of the paddock. Ahead he saw Lena thrust the two boys through the wooden church gate, and then pelt onward, wrenching open the church door. Then he sensed the whistling of air, and threw himself into a roll as a mere whooshed past his head, and the warrior who wielded it leapt past him and skidded to a halt. Horses were thundering in the middle distance, and a bell was ringing in the church. Lena was at the door, screaming at him. ‘Mat! Come on!’
He leapt to his feet again, and then threw himself sideways as another blow from a taiaha flew at his head. Too slow! The wooden blade smashed into his shoulder and he cried out in pain. Another warrior joined the first two, cutting him off from the church. He gathered his fist, poured a vision of fire into it, then threw it. The warrior with the mere howled as his long hair caught fire, and staggered away. The other two hesitated. Mat feinted another burst, making both cry out and throw themselves aside, then darted between them and ran for the church gate. From the distance shots rang out and horses neighed. The ground seemed to quiver from their hooves, though he couldn’t see them.
As he ran, the foremost of the warriors that had sprung from the paddock leapt the church fence, and ran at Lena. He saw her try to thrust him back, but she barely checked him, and shrieked as he came on. She pulled the door shut an instant before he slammed into it, hammering it shut. Mat shouted at him as he went to hurdle the gate, which had fallen closed.
Even as he flew over the gate, a heavy blow slammed between his shoulders, knocking the air from him. He felt his arms fly upward as the ground rose and smote him heavily, and then he was gasping desperately for air as he rolled. A thrown hammer fell beside him—Kereopa’s hammer. Its owner kicked through the gate with his axe in hand, grinning evilly and licking his lips.