Guardian of the Dead (25 page)

In less than a day, I had been harassed, enchanted, shouted at, cried on, and clawed. I'd been cold, scared, dirty, exhausted, hungry, and miserable. And up until now, I'd been mildly impressed with my ability to cope.

But the taniwha's voice finally broke me. It was not the monstrosity, but that which was not monstrous, coming out of that awful mouth. Alive with animal panic that rose directly from my darkest instincts, I turned and pelted up the bank in my heavy shoes, Iris's hand still tight in mine.

‘Ellie,' Mark shouted. ‘Don't!'

My shoulder jerked hard as Iris skidded in the mud and my back was aflame, but the fear left no space for anything else, and the pain was like an uninteresting conversation in another room. My shoulder eased as Iris found her feet. She was missing one of her shoes, but I did not relinquish my grip, yanking her over the gravel path and into the misty concealment of the huge, old trees.

One conifer was right before us, its down-spreading branches promising the illusion of safety. I ran us both under it. Iris was gasping for air, her breath coming in noisy pants.

I tugged her into a crouch and clamped my hand over her mouth. ‘Breathe through your nose,' I hissed, and waited until she gave me a wide-eyed nod before I released her to follow my own advice.

I wrapped my arms around my shoulders and shook. Reka had been frightening and evil, but close enough to human, with desires and motivations that shadowed those of humanity. The thing in the water had abruptly convinced me I wanted nothing to do with Mark's secret war.

Except the patupaiarehe needed human lives.

But what could I do to stop them? I couldn't wrap myself around every threatened life and hold on.

‘Wasn't it beautiful?' Iris whispered, slipping off her other shoe.

I shivered, trying to fit that description to the monster as big as a house, and the melodious baritone voice coming from between those teeth. ‘It's just . . . when it
spoke
.'

Her face went completely blank.

‘Iris?' I said quietly.

‘Mark's calling me,' she explained easily. I grabbed at her wrist as she ducked under the branches. She didn't struggle, but when I made contact my hand stung as if I'd grasped a nettle. I snatched it back, and she scrambled forward, moving carefully but steadily over the uneven ground in her bare feet, ridiculous handbag swinging from her shoulder.

‘Oh no,' I whispered, and followed her, sticking close to the trees in the probably vain hope of watching without being noticed. A ninja I was not.

Mark was leaning against the Fountain fence again, fiddling with his bracelet and only partially concealed from the view of anyone who happened to peer through the gates. I spared an irritated thought for this impracticality before I remembered I was furious with him.

Iris walked straight up to Mark until she was close enough to touch him, her head reaching neatly to just under his collarbone. They looked like something out of a fairy tale; his flaming hair set against her glossy lengths of black. He put his hand on her shoulder and she shook her head hard, then gasped up at him.

‘How—'

‘Shhh.' His eyes searched the mists. I clung to my tree trunk. ‘Ellie?'

‘What did you
do
?' Iris demanded, and kicked him in the shin.

Mark jumped back, yelping out a curse, and Iris yelped too, grabbing at her stockinged foot. She overbalanced hard into the rim of the fountain with a thump that echoed dully and then lurched upright again, landing a wild punch on his shoulder. He evaded the next one, but he was no longer looking for me.

‘I'm trying to help you! Ellie, please come out!'

‘What are you going to do?' Iris demanded, limping toward him again. She swung her handbag at him and he danced out of her clumsy, if enthusiastic, reach. ‘Are you going to bewitch her?'

‘I can't! I just want to explain. Ellie, please! It's safe, I promise!'

‘I'm right here,' I called, and waded through the fog.

He favoured me with a tight smile. ‘Good. We were just about to start pulling hair.'

I folded my arms and didn't smile back. Iris was still bristling, but she'd stopped trying to smack him as soon as I appeared. ‘You enchanted my friend,' I snapped.

‘You insulted my grandfather,' Mark said.

‘Some warning might have been nice!' I paused. ‘Grandfather? Seriously?'

‘Reka's father. His wife was patupaiarehe but he was human before he died. Sometimes, if the land needs you, you can come back as something else.'

‘Something like
that
?'

Mark's pale cheeks flushed. ‘He can take human shape if he wants to.'

‘Then why does he look like a taniwha?'

‘Because that's what he is!' he shouted. ‘You wanted answers! Did you think they would be
nice
? You ran away!'

‘Yeah? Well, now I'm walking away,' I said, and forced down the voice which said I wasn't being fair. ‘The buses are still running, Iris.'

Iris finished pulling off her muddy pantyhose. ‘I want to know more, still.'

I shuddered. ‘But it's so—'

‘
He
,' Mark insisted. ‘He's the guardian of this place.' He kicked the fountain fence. ‘This poisoned him. But he's strong. He rusted it.' His voice was defensive.

Iris nodded as if that made perfect sense. ‘Cast iron in the water. Like chemical warfare.'

Mark nodded, in a stiff imitation of his usual blankness. But I could read his face now, read the genuine hurt that tugged at the corners of his mouth.

I couldn't shake the feeling that I was responsible.

But still. ‘Taniwha
eat people
, and it's not the sort of thing you can spring on me unprepared,' I said, and marched up to the gates. The gravel crunched under my shoes. Iris came after me, skirting the path on the grass. ‘We'll call you tomorrow, Nolan,' I added. ‘Or you'll call me. Or stalk me. I'll give you more hair if you need it.'

‘It's not safe,' he said quietly. ‘You'll show up on their radar now.'

He was standing by the fountain with his hands thrust into his pockets. Weird mist slow-time aside, he was probably twice my age, I reminded myself. He wasn't some lost kid in need of a home.

His eyes narrowed at something over my shoulder. Wet air prickled along my skin like a spider walking down my spine.

‘Get back!' he shouted, but I was already moving, wrenching at Iris's wrist to tug her away from the entrance.

I thrust her stumbling toward Mark, and spun to face the threat on the other side of the black cast-iron gates.

I'd known danger was there, but not what form it would take. Yet that sense of something otherworldly and strange resonated like a struck bell in my head, and I was not surprised when I saw the five strange patupaiarehe, armed and unsmiling, step silently out of the mists.

PART TWO

PINK FROST

T
HERE WERE FOUR
males and one female and they were all naked and pale and inexpressibly gorgeous. If Mark, with his human ancestry, was just incredibly good looking, and Reka, with hers, edged into the territory usually occupied by
supermodels and movie stars, then no human blood had dimmed the radiant, painful presence of these five. The red and yellow hair of the males was tied up in fat knots. The female's hair fell in shining platinum waves across her breasts and back, and reached down to her waist. She might have looked grandmotherly, if any wrinkles had appeared on that ageless face.

I was momentarily so stunned by their beauty that I didn't notice the weapons until they lifted them. Each of the men carried a
taiaha
, the long wooden staffs with their flat-bladed ends and sharp thrusting points fitting easily to their hands. The woman had a bone
mere
dangling from her wrist, the polished surface of the curved club marred with ugly brown stains.

I took it in, the beauty and the terror, as they turned their pupilless eyes on me. There was a humming thrill in the air, and I thought that perhaps I could speak with these beautiful people and be loved by them.

Then I broke free of the impulse that told me to stay, as stupid as any bird in a trap, and pelted back toward the others.

Iris was running beside the gravel, flying ahead towards the river, but Mark was waiting for me.

His outstretched hand circled my wrist. ‘Run!' he shouted. Answering shouts rose behind us, and were abruptly replaced by unnerving silence.

I wasn't slow, even in my stiff black school shoes, but Mark was ahead, and yanking me off-balance. I twisted my wrist free through the gap in his fingers, and sped up to run beside him. We caught up with Iris in the half a minute it took to cover the distance, and skidded down the bank together, ungainly and undignified on the wet grass. I hadn't forgotten what was in the river, but at least we'd been introduced.

Mark caught my hand again and tucked his arm securely about Iris, propelling us into the icy-cold water. My skirt floated up, twisting in the strong current; I spared one hand to shove it back down again and felt an algae-covered rock turn slickly under my shoe. After that, I abandoned the skirt and used my free arm for balance. Iris was swearing like a sailor as we waded forward, almost absent-mindedly. English curses apparently exhausted, she switched to Chinese.

I was chest-deep in the centre of the river, Iris clinging to Mark to keep her head above the water, when the patupaiarehe appeared and ran smoothly down the bank.

‘Mark,' I said, hating the way it came out in a squeak.

‘Don't let go,' he said, something humming through his voice. I stopped twisting the hand he held, and tried to think as the patupaiarehe stepped into the water.

I could slow them down while he and Iris escaped. The women's hospital was just a short run from the other bank, and if they could get through the fence they might be safe in there. Of course, I wouldn't be. One out-of-practice tae kwon do first
dan
black belt trying to take five armed warriors was an extremely stupid idea, but if Mark didn't come up with a better plan very soon, I was going to put it into action anyway.

All five of them were in the water, wading carefully toward us, well balanced, with their weapons ready. We craned over our shoulders, unable to turn without releasing our grip on each other. Iris let out a high noise, splashed, and went silent again.

Something long and dark flowed between us and the advance.

Mark's grandfather reared, water cascading from his flanks as his massive jaws closed halfway down the torso of the blond male leading our attackers. The patupaiarehe shrieked once, and then the taniwha shook his head, like a dog worrying a rat. Gore sprayed across the water as the legs collapsed and tumbled down the slope and the air was suddenly saturated with the sweet scent of blood overlaying a richer, more stomach-turning stench. Something warm and wet spattered against my cheek. I touched it with my free hand. It was too thick to be blood.

My held breath puffed out in a low sigh, but I was screaming internally. On Mark's other side, Iris began swearing again, in a voice on the ragged edge of full-blown hysteria.

Mark was silent.

The remaining patupaiarehe were, briefly, as shocked as we were. Then they howled in ragged chorus and flung themselves at the taniwha's sinuous body, thrusting their taiaha at its throat and darting away. The woman floundered back to shore, letting her shorter weapon swing from her wrist by its cord. The taniwha roared and twisted, flinging the full weight of its spiked mass at them. In the faint, wet light of the fog, I could see two taiaha broken off in its body. Another patupaiarehe shrieked as he was smashed into the water by the monster's bulk. He floated there, broken, and didn't rise again.

The woman on the shore pointed her mere at us, voice rising in eerie song. The air crackled.

‘Don't let go!' Mark said.

The taniwha whirled, faster than anything so huge should, and cocked his head at Mark.

‘Yes,' he whispered to it, and yanked us into the river.

I closed my mouth and eyes before the freezing water closed over my head, schooled by childhood beach summers of being dunked by my sister and her friends. But they'd never thrown me in during the winter. I kicked down, and felt no rocks beneath us.

I opened my eyes.

I could see nothing at all; not even light and shapes blurred by water; not even myself. There was the sensation of motion, a fast rushing through solidity as if I was insubstantial, but I felt no pressure or pain, even from my wounded back. I was anchored only by Mark's hand, the one real thing in this blind flight.

I tried to scream and made no noise. I wasn't breathing. I wasn't sure I had lungs to draw breath with, or a mouth to shape my terror.

Mark tugged me up. Rising, I saw, before I clenched my eyes shut again, the reddish-brown of clay and soft grey silt.