Guardian of the Dead (19 page)

‘They weren't a good place for a P
keh
-raised Christian boy who didn't believe in magic. He was more than half-mad by the time she was pregnant. Then she brought him back, and finding out how much time had passed did the rest. It was the mid-sixties, and he still looked nineteen. His parents were dead. His brother was in his fifties. I think Dad thought he'd been in hell. Trapped by a demon.'

‘He tried to warn me,' I said slowly.

‘Yeah. He has . . . potential. Latent power. That's why she took him; to wake him to his power, and make sure that her children had it. But she never really taught him how to do anything, and now he's too mixed up to learn. He can only see magic, and after I woke you, he saw you had it. He thought your soul was in danger.'

I shivered, suddenly understanding the underlined passages in the Bible. ‘Is it?'

He gave me a small smile. ‘I wouldn't know.'

I thought of Reka's fingers on Kevin's wrist, the bright smile that she gave only to him. ‘Did she love him?'

Mark scowled. ‘Love is a human thing. She says she did, because that's the word humans use for things they think are beautiful.'

I shuddered.

‘I was born in the mists. I was seven or so before I saw anyone except Reka. When I asked, she took me to visit Dad.' He laughed bitterly. ‘If she wasn't what she was, we'd never have found him. When he wasn't in an institution, the Salvation Army took care of him, and no one anywhere knew his real name.

‘She taught me patupaiarehe knowledge. I guess
spells
or
prayers
is the closest English. Chants, blessings, curses. But she's half-human by blood, and I'm three-quarters. We're in-between. Time in both worlds helped our power.' He paused. ‘I don't use that power now.'

I remembered his voice in the fog, chanting in a language I didn't recognise, not Reka's M
ori. ‘But you do magic.'

He nodded and twisted his bracelet around his wrist. ‘A different kind of magic. Anyway, when I was a kid, we lived here for a while, like a normal mother and son. Playing human is sort of a hobby for her. She stole everything we needed, and more: clothes, jewellery. I had a lot of toys. She likes human things.' He shook his head. ‘We went back to the mists, but I asked to come and visit Dad more often. And after our last visit, five years ago, I just stayed. I got Dad into a house and I stayed with him.'

‘She couldn't make you go back?'

‘Oh, she could have. Probably. She didn't try.'

‘Why?'

His face closed again. ‘She said it was because she loved me.'

There didn't seem to be an answer to that.

‘So she made sure I wouldn't tell anyone what I was or what she was—' he touched his throat. ‘And mostly left me alone. She thought I'd come back to her in my own time. Once I got tired of looking after Dad, and looking after myself. But I didn't. I saw normal families, human families, and I knew she wasn't right.'

He took a deep breath. ‘And then I saw Kevin. He'd just come to Mansfield. And she saw him too. Even then, he looked like Dad used to. He has the same latent power. And she wanted him the same way.'

My stomach tightened. ‘She –
God
.'

‘He's my
family
. I knew I had to protect him, and it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't left her. I'm the disappointment, you see. I'm not loyal, and I don't even use patupaiarehe power any more. She wants another child of power, to carry on her birthright.'

‘That's disgusting,' I said.

He went on, relentless. ‘I knew I had a couple of years; she doesn't like children that way, so she'd wait for him to get older. And I knew she couldn't take him from his home; that's
his
place. But Mansfield isn't a home. So I enrolled there, and I put protections around him, as much as I could without looking obvious, and I did a lot of studying, trying to find a permanent solution.'

He pounded his fist into his palm. ‘He's
safe
there. But he had to do that bloody play. She just keeps wearing all his defences down!'

‘That's why you switched into all his classes?' I asked. ‘So you could prop them up again?'

He nodded, looking exhausted.

I sat there for a moment, trying to fathom the immensity of Mark's lonely watch. He'd started school the same time as Kevin – nearly five years of guarding his cousin from his mother. However time passed in the mists, he must have looked like a thirteen-year-old kid when his work began; a scrawny, beautiful kid who never made friends, or took part in school events, or even collected the awards he'd won. A kid looking after his father, who never came to Parents' Days.

‘I think that's the bravest thing I've ever heard,' I said.

He looked wary, as if he thought that I might have been making fun of him.

‘I mean it,' I insisted, and then abruptly remembered something important. ‘Kevin's not going to be at Mansfield after school today!' I said, feeling panic rise. ‘I made a friend of his take him. But she's going to call me if Reka turns up.'

Mark frowned out the window, at the sun. ‘It should be okay, so long as he's back before dark. Reka will need to take him into the mists and it's much easier to do at night. Everything's easier for them at night.'

‘So. What's the plan? Did you find your permanent solution?'

He nodded. ‘I think I've found something that'll work, but it's risky. When she tries to take him, I'll cast a spell that will force her to give up her claim. Then he'll be safe always.'

‘But she has to try first,' I said.

‘Yeah.'

‘Then what do you need me for?' I asked, as lightly as I could.

‘You're the distraction,' he said. ‘I might not be able to take her by surprise, but she should have a harder time with both of us there. You're untrained, but you can see her. You'll puzzle her; enough that she'll be wary of you.' His eyes flickered in some internal calculation.

I tried to hide my disappointment. Just the distraction. Right. ‘It sounds so crazy. What do we tell Kevin, afterward?' He rattled his bracelet again, tapping the little wire-wrought man. ‘Afterward, he won't remember it ever happened.'

‘Hey! No!'

‘Yes,' he said inexorably. ‘I can't explain it to him without choking on the truth – not until he's already worked it out. Maybe you could; I wouldn't bet on it. But even if you can, do you think you'll get anywhere? They wouldn't stick you in an institution for believing things that aren't real; not these days, not if you're harmless. They'd just give you some antipsychotics and a session a week with a concerned and overworked psychiatrist.' He spread his hands. ‘You'll soon find out that it's easier this way.'

I thought about him enrolling in one of the snootiest high schools in the country, with no birth certificate or sane legal guardian. Magic must have made life a lot easier for Mark. What could it do for me?

Or for Kevin?

‘You could wake him up,' I said. ‘Like you did to me. He'd have to believe me then.'

He looked impatient. ‘I did it to you by
accident
. I'm not going to try and wake his power unless I have to. Now, this friend you mentioned. What does he know?'

‘She,' I said, trying not to be resentful about the way he pushed my suggestion aside. ‘Just that Reka's bad news.'

‘Can she fight?'

I tried to imagine Iris flinging her handbag away and settling into a stance, which rapidly became an image of Iris falling out of her shiny three-inch heels. ‘I really doubt it. And she's—'
a China doll
‘—little. Iris Tsang, you know? She was at Mansfield until this year. At the theatre last night?'

‘Oh, the short girl. Well, I have to finish preparing.' He stood, and I stood with him. ‘Reka'll probably try for him tonight. Let's meet at your friend's house at four-thirty. Here's my phone number.'

I nodded and wrote down Iris's address for him. ‘I guess I'll read up on this stuff.'

He took the scrap of paper, his fingers brushing against mine. He hesitated at the contact, and then stepped toward me, spreading his arms.

I moved sideways, raising my arms for a block.

We both froze. Mark's hands drifted slowly to his sides. I unclenched my fists.

‘I was going to hug you,' he said carefully.

I flushed. ‘Oh.'

‘Sorry. It was stupid. You just found out I'm a freak.'

‘You're not a freak.'

‘What would you call it? I'm all in-between. Not human. Not patupaiarehe.' His lip curled. ‘I'm a chimera.'

I squinted at him. ‘Maybe you should see the school nurse about that.'

He let out a shocked laugh. ‘Ellie. Look at me.'

The air in the small room was suddenly cold and clammy. I looked up into his strong-boned face and watched as his pupils were swallowed in glossy green.

I let it scare me for a dreary moment, while my skin prickled in the sudden chill. Then something quivered and untwisted in my head, and I saw that Mark's face wasn't actually expressionless. It was still and hard, and the blank eyes made it more difficult to read his emotions, but they were there, just under the skin, pulling his temples tight with pain and hope, tensing around the corners of his lips in defiant vulnerability.

‘I'm looking,' I said. ‘I can see you.' I fumbled for the words to bridge the gap between us.

Words weren't going to do it.

I wrapped my arms around him, and felt the shudder that ran down his bones. ‘I can see you,' I repeated, and this time he breathed out a shaky laugh against my shoulder, and when I dared to look again, the solid mass of his eyes was not blind to me.

We stayed like that for only a moment, and then I drew back, suddenly shy of his blinding smile. My chest was squeezing in a way that I tried very hard to ignore.

‘Four-thirty, then,' I said, and cleared his path to the door.

‘It's good that you know,' he said shyly. ‘You asked what I needed you for? I think what I most needed was for someone else to know. I'm lucky that it's you.'