Guardian of the Dead (28 page)

Reka ignored her, staring directly at Mark, and at me next to him. She looked smug, so I was gratified to see that she'd taken the sling off, revealing that two of the fingers on her left hand were bruised and swollen, probably broken. I'd done that.

‘Did you find out what they're planning?' I asked.

‘Yes,' she said, and tapped her right hand against her thigh. ‘They meant to kill you for your foreign power, Mark.' She frowned at me. ‘Her too.'

‘I guessed that,' he said, watching her steadily. ‘What's going on? Do I need to carry the fight to them? Go up north?'

She snorted. ‘Hardly. They plan to wake Te Ika a M
ui from his slow decline. They mean to tug at M
ui's hook and bring his fish into the fast fury of the final death throes. The North Island is no place for you.'

Mark went very still. Iris gasped.

‘Te Ika a M
ui
is
the North Island,' I said stupidly.

‘Yes,' Reka said impatiently.

It hit me like a blow. ‘Oh, God. An earthquake.'

Every child knew the score, from school projects and news reports and countless alarm drills: New Zealand balanced precariously over a fault line, and the next killer quake was only a matter of time. The Wairarapa earthquake had lifted acres of land straight out of the sea. The 1931 Hawke's Bay quake had killed hundreds in my hometown and destroyed most of the city. In my mind's eye I saw Napier's graceful Art Deco buildings collapsing as the earth roared and danced. I saw my friends' bodies, sprawled under the rubble of the high school.

Mark was shaking his head slowly. ‘No,' he said. ‘Worse than that.'

‘What could be
worse
?' I demanded.

‘M
ui's fish is old,' Reka said. ‘He will not survive such violence, to float in this present stupor. The earth will not merely quake, Eleanor Spencer. The land will crumble and sink, back to the depths from which it was drawn out. You see, Mark, you cannot carry your foolish
fight
north. You must stay here, and be safe.' She folded her arms across her chest, as in the gesture of a successful closing argument.

I sat there, in the dusty grime of the theatre, holding the hand of a myth, and wondered if three million human deaths would so occupy the guardian of the dead that the patupaiarehe could reclaim the immortality they had lost.

And if even one of them had ever baulked at the cost.

We were still with the shock for a little time.

‘I have friends in the North Island,' Iris said eventually.

‘Me too,' I forced out, through numb lips. ‘My cousins, my hometown—'

‘I wasn't trying to one-up you—'

‘I know. It's just too big.'

‘Yes,' Reka said. ‘Too big to fight.' Some of the smugness was vanishing from her voice as she watched Mark's motionless face. ‘Mark?'

His hand was sweaty in mine. ‘I've been learning,' he said hoarsely. ‘As much as I could. I could—'

Reka's remaining poise shattered. ‘You could do
what
? They'll kill you! Eleanor knows nothing, and you're half-crippled. You can't even enter the mists, and you plan to face them alone?'

Mark got up. ‘Not alone,' he said.

She sneered at him. ‘Will you go to the one you asked to
cure
you? You seemed unsatisfied with that bargain!'

‘There are plenty beside him,' he said patiently. ‘You just never bothered to learn about them.'

‘Men of every creed and race,' Iris sang weakly. She giggled nervously when we all looked at her. ‘From the national anthem. One of the later verses. I always thought it was weird that it's such a peaceful song. “Guard Pacific's triple star from the shafts of strife and war.” '

‘“God defend New Zealand,” ' I said. ‘But since he's not around right now, it'll have to be us.' It sounded good, but my voice felt oddly disconnected from the rest of me. I kept having to remind myself to breathe.

‘I've got to make some calls,' Mark said. ‘There's . . . not a community, exactly, but a network of people with power. The Eyeslasher murders have got them angry anyway; maybe they're angry enough to unite and fight back.'

‘There's a phone in the stage manager's booth,' Iris said.

Reka grabbed his arm. ‘But you have to stay,' she said, sounding a little broken. ‘I only told you so that you would stay. You can't go.'

‘Mother,' he said, as if it cost him. ‘You really don't know that much about me.'

She gaped at him.

‘And don't attack Iris or Ellie while I'm busy,' he added. ‘See, I know
you
. If you try to get rid of inconvenient witnesses, I'll fight you. We'll fight for real. And then what'll become of the bloodline?' He tugged his arm out from under her hand, and she let him step clear of her.

‘Ellie? What about you?' He looked at me, calm and beautiful in his borrowed clothes, and I saw again the bravery that had first made me love him.

The thought hit me like a hammer between the eyes. I could not love Mark. The idea was impossible, even if there wasn't a hidden war and a horrible disaster fast approaching. A harmless crush on a handsome loner classmate was one thing; hopeless yearning for someone who'd enchanted and lied to me was something entirely different, and much more dangerous.

But still. ‘I'll go,' I choked out.

Mark misunderstood my horrified expression. ‘Don't look like that,' he said quickly. ‘We know what they're planning. We know where it has to take place: at the hook of the fish, near Napier. We can stop it, I promise.' He hobbled toward the stage manager's booth, moving like an old man. Like his father. I flinched.

‘You will really go with him?' Reka said, after a few minutes of silence, with Mark's careful mutterings the background track.

‘Of course,' I said, with as much scorn as I could muster. I'd volunteered for a war, and I wasn't a soldier. Last night's frantic struggle against the taiaha-wielding male had very quickly confirmed the difference between my dojang training and the realities of a genuine battle. I'd seen dead bodies now, and as much as I told myself that they hadn't been human, I wasn't even sure I
could
kill.

‘It's not my war,' she said. ‘And if Mark goes, I must remain, to be the last of my bloodline.'

‘And you'd quite like to live forever,' Iris said with mock sympathy, obviously still smarting over Mark's implication that Reka had planned to dispose of her like an unwanted kitten.

Reka inspected the ends of her hair. I caught a glimpse of silver threads through the bright red before she began to braid it, her hands moving leisurely through the motions. I wondered, then, how long she had left. Mark had said they aged slowly in the mists, but she'd spent a lot of time in our world. ‘No, I think we should not go back. No living patupaiarehe was born immortal. We should live in this world through our children.'

‘What a fantastic excuse for rape,' Iris said sweetly.

‘Robert loved me.'

‘But he didn't know what you were, did he? What kind of consent is that?'

Reka stood, gave Iris a mocking half-bow, and strode toward the greenroom door. She couldn't slam it – the door was padded against exactly that sort of accident – but she did manage a dull thud that echoed in the silent room. I looked at Mark's hunched figure in the booth, but he paid no attention to Reka's departure.

When I turned back to her, Iris was looking thoughtful. ‘You can't go,' I said, hating myself a little bit for saying it, however true. ‘You don't have any magic. I mean, it's bad enough for me.'

She laughed, a creaking, painful sound. ‘Of course I can't,' she said. ‘I'm not an
idiot
. But I'll buy your plane tickets.'

‘You don't have to.'

She folded her hands neatly in front of her. ‘I can't see what you can, and I can't do spells, and I can't fight. I can help this way.'

I made a face. ‘I feel weird about it.'

She smacked the canvas, hard, and the dust haloed around her. ‘This is my land too!'

It was like a fist in the gut, the realisation of what we truly stood to lose, while I quibbled politely over money. There was only one possible answer: ‘Yes,' I said. ‘Thank you; you're right. Yes.'