Moon Mask (86 page)

The police cars raced nearer. The sirens were loud now but Raine ignored them as he looked into King’s eyes. They held defeat.

“I don’t know how to run, Nate,” he admitted.

The police were almost upon them. Voices shouted at them in Japanese.

Maybe he was right, Raine thought. Maybe it would be easier to stop running, to turn himself in. Too many ghosts haunted him, former comrades, friends and lovers. Now Sid, Nadia, Rudy and Alex would join them. They would terrorise him in his sleep. Maybe the day would come to stop running. To lay his ghosts to rest.

But not today.

He held his hand out to his friend. “I’ll teach you how to run,” he vowed.

King hesitated a moment longer then, just as the police cars screeched to a stop around them, something clicked in his mind, a decision made. He vaulted onto the back of the bike. Raine gunned the throttle and shot through a narrow gap between the cars. Several of the officers fired at them but the bullets flew wide and, in a comical shambles, they struggled to pull their vehicles around and pursue the bike as it bounded down the steep slope to the cove below.

By the time the police made it to the beach, all they could do was watch as a Catalina Black Cat Flying Boat sliced through the waves, its engines rising up a pitch as it lifted out of the water and flew into the sunset.

“Oh man,” Raine grumbled when he realised what he had done.

“What?”

“I hate clichés!”

KEEP READING FOR AN
EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT
FROM JAMES RICHARDSON’S LATEST BOOK

A MAORI LEGEND

A DRUID SECRET

A NAZI WEAPON

RAINE AND KING RETURN

IN

TAONGA

COMING SOON

PROLOGUE:

Harbinger

Lake Tarawera,

New Zealand

Present Day

Ngatoro
was dying!” Rawiri’s voice echoed over the cold waters of the lake, capturing the attention of the eight tourists huddled inside the canoe. The afternoon was waning and the low sun was sheathed behind a veil of blue mist, casting an eerie halo of muted gold upon the lake.

The atmosphere only served to keep his audience’s enraptured attention. He smiled inwardly, knowing from the eager looks in their eyes that he would be getting a good tip this afternoon. It was amazing how easy it was to manipulate the boat-loads of mostly British, American and Japanese tourists into leaving generous gratuities- a tour around Te Wairoa, better known as ‘The Buried Village’, followed by a trip on the lake in a traditional waka, or war canoe, with an authentic Maori guide.

At six foot three and heavily muscled, Rawiri knew he looked like the perfect Maori warrior, even if he usually went by the name David and lived in an modern apartment in Taupo, decked out with all the latest mod-cons. His dark eyes, close cropped hair and chisel-sharp features betrayed his ancestry and the scattering of tattoos on his bare chest, neck and face further painted the picture. He was what the tourists wanted to see, the iconic vision of New Zealand’s native inhabitants. He had even performed the haka, the traditional war-dance made famous by the All-Blacks rugby team, before embarking upon the tour. His voice was deep and smooth and, his grandfather told him, carried with it the perfect inflection of a storyteller. Indeed, when he related the tales of the Maoris history, myths and legends, one couldn’t help but tune in to the excited manner in which he spoke.

While his assistants, Tipene and Rui, paddled the waka calmly through the glassy water, Rawiri continued his narrative. “The Coming of the Maori’ was a tale that he himself, as a young boy, had listened to, enraptured by his grandfather’s voice. But, as he had grown into young adulthood, like so many others, he had drifted away from his traditional roots and been sucked into the popular culture of the Pakeha, the European New Zealanders. Their world of television, sports bars, fast women and the world-wide-web was far more appealing than the ways of his ancestors. Nevertheless, a job was a job and if his tips were as good today as he hoped, then maybe he would be able to join his friends on this weekend’s party break in Wellington after all.

With that thought in mind, he continued with his story.

He had just related the tale of Ngatoro, the
tohunga
or priest from the Maoris mythological homeland of Hawaiki who had been tricked into boarding the Te Awara, one of the legendary wakas that had made the epic journey from Hawaiki to Aotearoa. While intending to make the journey anyway, the Te Awara’s captain, Tama, had kidnapped the priest in hopes of incurring the favor of the gods but when he assaulted Ngatoro’s wife, the
tohunga
had cast the canoe into a fierce sea-monster in the form of a whirlpool. Only the screaming of the women and children on board caused the priest to have pity on them and, beseeching the gods, he ensured that the rest of Te Awara’s journey was free from peril.

Upon making landfall, however, Ngatoro headed into
Te Puku o Te Ika a Maui
- The Belly of the Great Fish of Maui- the heart of the North Island which, according to legend, the demigod Maui had pulled from beneath the ocean while fishing. On his journey to secure territory for his ancestors, Ngatoro committed many great feats.

On the summit of Mount Tauhara, he thrust his staff into the earth and a freshwater spring flowed forth. Of the newly formed lake at the foot of the mountain, he declared that it would forever more be the drinking water of his grandchildren. He then tore a feather from his cloak and placed it in the water where it transformed into the Koaro, a type of whitebait which the Maori had fished ever since.

Everywhere he went, he stamped his foot and fresh-water springs would bubble to the surface but, while crossing the plains of Tarawera, he was confronted by an
atua
, a demon named Tamaohoi, and they fought. Eventually, Ngatoro stamped his foot and opened a chasm in the ground into which he thrust Tamaohoi, thus creating the volcanic rent of Mount Tarawera.

But, it was as he made his ascent of Mount Tongariro, overcoming many challenges, that he was at last overcome by the God of the Wind, Tawhirimatea.

“As the god hurled ice and snow at him, Ngotoro began to freeze to death,” Rawiri told the tourists in the boat. “He fell to his knees, his hair matted with snow, his eyes frozen open. Ice began to cover his body. His heart began to slow. Death was upon him.”

His words drifted into the eerie mist, swallowed by the gloom. It had descended from nowhere, drifting in to blot out the sun and, while it added to the atmospheric effect of his storytelling, he knew that if it grew much thicker they would have to paddle back to shore or risk getting lost on the lake. Roughly twenty five square miles, the lake covered a vast area at the foot of the volcano of the same name.

There was silence. Not a breath of air rippled the water. No one dared speak, or even breathe. All eyes were on him, waiting for him to continue.

“Kuiwai e!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs, rising to his full height and projecting his voice out across the lake. The canoe rocked beneath the motion, made more extreme by the startled jumping of the tourists. Tipene and Rui struggled to keep the vessel steady with their oars.

“Haungaroa e!” he shouted again. Now, the panicked tourists began to laugh at their own nervousness, enjoying their guide’s animation. “Ka riro au i te Tonga. Tukuna mai tea hi!”

He slowly slid back down to his previous position, hunched in the bow of the boat, smiling at his audience. “
Oh Kui!
Ngotoro called to his sisters, Kuiwai and Haungaroa, across the sea in Hawaki,” he explained, translating his outburst. “
Oh Hau! I have been captured by the southern winds. Send me fire!

“And so his sisters,” he continued, “filled six baskets with the glowing embers from the Sacred Fire of Ruaumoko, the God of the Volcano, and sent the demigods Te Hoata and Te Pupa across the great ocean to deliver them to their brother. Te Hoata and Te Pupa travelled beneath the Pacific, spreading the Sacred Fire. They surfaced at Whakaari- White Island- to get their bearings but the embers set fire to the island and the fire still burns beneath it to this day. Then the demigods continued on, travelling underground, beneath Moutohora, Rotoiti, here, at Tarawera, then to Rotorua and Taupo before finally bursting forth out of the summit of Tongariro. But, by then, only one basket of the Sacred Fire remained and Ngatoro became angry, unable to revive himself with such little warmth. In his rage, he stomped his feet twice, shaking the earth and the embers of the Sacred Fire erupted to life, unleashing the power of Ruaumoko, the God of Volcanoes, upon Aotearoa! And, to this day, that power remains, barely contained within the ground beneath our feet.”

He fixed his eyes on several of his party, enjoying the attention two British girls paid to his hard abdomen and muscle-bound chest.

“The passage of Te Hoata and Te Pupa can still be seen today, in the line of geothermal fire which stretches from the Pacific Ocean to what geologists call the ‘Taupo Volcanic Zone’. This area,” he explained, opening his ring-binder of visual aides and showing the group the laminated map of the North Island, “is almost two hundred and twenty miles long and thirty miles wide and is one of the most active areas of volcanic activity in the world. Only six miles beneath our feet,
six
miles,” he reiterated for dramatic emphasis, “is one of the largest cauldrons of magma near the earth’s crust. The entire island is riddled with active volcanoes, hot-water springs, geysers and boiling mud pools. Who here has been to Taupo yet?” Several hands shot up. “Well, did you know that when you were there, you were effectively standing in the middle of a volcanic caldera, formed by the most violent volcanic eruption in geologically recent times? Only twenty-five thousand years ago, practically
yesterday
if you think about the age of the earth, Taupo erupted.

“But Taupo is not just an ordinary volcano. It is a super-volcano! We have just been to the Buried Village of Te Wairoa. On June 10, 1886, shortly after midnight, Mount Tarawera exploded. According to Maori legend, the demon Tamaohoi grew angry at the sins which the Maori were committing since the arrival of the Europeans- drinking and debauchery,” he shrugged, thinking about his own upcoming weekend of sinning. “In his rage, he burst out of the side of the volcano to swallow up the sinners! Te Wairoa was just one of the towns destroyed by the eruption which sent two cubic kilometres of tephra hurtling into the sky.
Two
cubic kilometres!” he said again. He always enjoyed this part of the scare-mongering.

“Volcanologists measure volcanic eruptions on a scale they call the ‘Volcanic Explosivity Index’, or VEI” he explained. “The Tarawera eruption measured 5 on that scale.” He paused for emphasis. “Vesuvius measured 5, as did Mount St. Helens. Krakatoa measured 6. One of the largest volcanic eruptions in the last five thousand years, since civilisation began, was the eruption of Taupo around 180 AD. It measured 7 on the VEI and ejected . . .
one hundred and twenty cubic kilometres
of tephra into the atmosphere.” There were awed and fearful gasps from his audience. They began to murmur about the sheer enormity of it all but he held up his hand to silence them.

“That’s nothing,” he said. “The eruption of Taupo twenty-five thousand years ago, a super-volcanic eruption, spewed . . . wait for it . . .
four hundred and thirty
cubic kilometres into the atmosphere! Ash from the eruption landed on the Chatham Islands, one thousand kilometres away. It choked the atmosphere and plummeted the temperature of the entire planet. Human life survived . . . just barely. But,” he added ominously, “if human
civilisation
had existed back then- even a civilisation as technologically advanced and sophisticated as ours- it would have been totally wiped out!

“Taupo
has
erupted in the past. And it
will
erupt again in the future. In fact, some scientists think that it is already overdue and that an eruption could occur any time. In a decade?” he shrugged. “Next year? Next week? Tomorrow? Maybe it’s already starting beneath our feet as we speak.”

“Yeah, but they’d know, right?” one of the British girls asked. “I mean, they’ve got like scientists and seismic sensors and stuff, so-”

“Actually,” he cut her off, “a recent study on crystals that form inside magma suggest that before a super-volcanic eruption there is a sudden
surge
of magma from deep inside the earth. It races up through vents at tremendous speed, creating phenomenal pressure which causes the whole thing to blow all of a sudden- possibly with very little, if any, warning.” He smiled coyly. “At least,
you
won’t get any warning . . . but the Maori might.”

The tour group looked at him expectantly. “Before Tarawera erupted in 1886, a Maori guide, a woman named Sophia, took a party of tourists,” he nodded at his own group, “out on the lake to see the Pink and White Terraces.” He flipped another laminated page in his folder to show them a picture of what had once been described at the Eighth Wonder of the World.

Formed from silicic acid and sodium chloride contained within the geothermally heated water of two geysers, the Terraces were separate formations covering about three hectares and rising some hundred and thirty feet into the air. They dropped in over fifty layers, each containing pools of geothermal water which the tourists of the day used to swim in for both recreation and, some believed, for medicinal purposes. In the eruption, however, they were almost totally obliterated, existing only in almost fantastical paintings until the shocking rediscovery of the lower levels, deep beneath Lake Rotomahana, in 2011.

“On their way back to shore,” he continued, “the party spotted what appeared to be a Maori War Canoe- the likes of which hadn’t been seen anywhere in the area for decades- heading towards them, only to vanish into . . . the mist,” he glanced around at the blue mist which had been continuing to gather around his own party. The sun seemed very far away now and an icy finger snaked down his spine. A sudden sense of isolation and fear took hold.