Guardian of the Dead (35 page)

I thought of my own mother, weak and vomiting and her hair coming out in great clumps, of the way she'd moved painfully through this hallway. I would have done anything to make her better and keep her safe, but I'd been helpless. And even if she'd been a terrible person, like Reka, if she'd kidnapped and raped and stolen – I nearly gagged on the thought. I was glad I hadn't had to make Mark's choice. Since he'd chosen what he had, I could at least make it easier on him.

‘She's your mother,' I said firmly. ‘No one could expect it of you.'

He gave me a startled look from the corners of his deep green eyes, and then that slow smile unfurled across his face.

We went out to the gathered people, not touching.

The meeting began with a greeting from me as the host, assuring everyone they were safe here as my guests, which was apparently all I had to do. I was careful to deliver it exactly as Mark had told me. Some tension released as I finished the words, the magic in the air no longer tingling unpleasantly.

I was one of the few sitting on a chair – a lawn chair, in my case, unearthed from the garage. Mark leaned in the doorframe. The others stood, or leaned on the fence, or sat on the lawn, or perched in the remains of the tree house. They all looked human enough, but I wasn't taking any bets. There was, for example, a slight and very pale P
keh
girl whose incisors were a bit too long for comfort, and who I didn't want to think about too hard. And it was clearly a meeting of supernatural powers; small, round lights hung in nothingness, transforming the deepening murk into something that felt deceptively festival-like, and the air was early-summer warm.

Professor Gribaldi chaired the meeting, mostly by virtue of assuming that she would, though more than a few people looked disgruntled at that. This alliance was clearly a tenuous one. She called upon Mark to tell what he knew of the patupaiarehe plans. I'd thought that everyone had known that, but though several people nodded grimly, there was still a shocked whisper when he talked about the mass murder to come. I frowned when I noticed some of the guests eyeing the door. Or perhaps Mark, still standing within it as he spoke.

But La Gribaldi was as much in command of this gathering as she was of any classroom, and she didn't let the mutters grow.

Instead, she nodded at the tall Asian man, who was sitting cross-legged under the kowhai tree. His black cat started from his lap when he rose, scampered a few alarmed steps away, and then sat down to wash her leg.

‘It is clear that we must fight,' he began, fingers folded into his sleeves. ‘First, because this land is or is now our home and pride demands we protect it. Second, because these children of the mist have harmed those with whom some of us were honoured to share some bond, and honour requires that we avenge them. And third, because they seek to alter the laws of the manner of life and death permitted them by the first Gods of this place, and duty suggests we must prevent it. Will anyone dispute with these principles, as I have here outlaid them?'

‘Of course they won't,' one of the Fijian ladies said indulgently, snipping off a thread with her teeth. She was sewing new buttons onto an old flannel shirt. ‘You keep going, man.'

He smiled at her. ‘So then, we proceed to what must be done. Their strategy is twofold. First, they wish to tear the hook from the fish that is the land, and so induce his death throes. Second, at the moment this occurs, and Grandmother Death sinks deeper into her slumber to protect the dead, they wish to wrest immortality from her, by sending their representative through that dangerous passage.' He held up two fingers. ‘Therefore, should not our strategy be twofold also? I advise that the bulk of us wait at the end of the hook to prevent their magic and destroy their army. But when they attack, let a small party – perhaps one man – journey to the underworld and kill their representative there so that even in triumph, they will not succeed, and we have this last satisfaction to comfort us.' He bowed slightly, and sat again. The cat leaped into his lap and consented to stroking.

‘That works,' Professor Gribaldi said, nodding. ‘So who's going underground?'

‘Who
can
go?' Sand murmured. ‘We're not all welcome, dear Smith. The entrance is all the way up north, and the journey to Cape Reinga is barred to the living, unless they know some cute little tricks.' He looked around.

‘Not exactly my department,' the pale priest said, with some irony, and a tall, brown-skinned woman at the back folded her arms under her breasts and shook her head, frowning.

One of the bikers scratched his head. ‘We don't know a lot of the old stuff,' he admitted. ‘City magic's more our line.'

‘I'll go,' the skinny M
ori boy said. ‘My grandfather taught me the way.'

‘You might not come back,' one of the bikers said, with cautious respect.

The boy glared. ‘My grandfather taught me how,' he repeated, and I realised why he'd seemed familiar. He'd been in the newspaper, standing proudly beside the murdered kaumatua in the family portrait that had illustrated one of the Eyeslasher stories. I felt a twinge of sympathy.

‘It's a long journey,' Mark said. ‘And dangerous, from the East Coast. But there's another, safer route through the mists.'

Mr Sand wriggled his fingers in the air. ‘All the heavens know I'm happy to let bygones be, dear boy,' he began. ‘And it's easy enough to open the way to the mists, once you know the trick.' He smirked at that, eyeing Mark insolently. ‘But how can you propose it to be a
safer
route? Will you risk all on the chance of one of us journeying through them and coming out sane? You're the only patupaiarehe here, and you can't quite manage it yourself.' He yawned behind his curled hand. ‘Well! Bygones.'

Mark pulled the flax bag from under his shirt and tipped the contents into his palm. One of the little lights floating in the air rose to hover by his hand.

Reka had packed the bag with more of her hair. Nestled in the fine red fibres were two greenstones the same size, each smooth and slightly ovoid, polished to the same dark sheen. They were beautiful, totally unflawed, and probably worth a fortune. But my other sight saw them as more than just gemstones. Power radiated from them to thrum against my bones.

Everyone in the yard pulled away, then swayed closer, like trees in a gale.

‘It's true that I don't have the power of the mists anymore,' Mark said clearly. ‘But my mother lent me her eyes, and through them her power, and with them I can navigate through the mists to the underworld's entrance.'

I remembered Reka's sunglasses; the way she had looked directly at neither of us. My blood rushed in my ears like the ocean. She'd plucked out her own eyes to give her son the best chance she could. She was still terrible; she was ruthless and remorseless and almost entirely indifferent to the suffering of others. And she was the one who
liked
humans.

‘If it doesn't work,' the boy said, ‘if you can't get through, or go crazy . . .'

Mark nodded. ‘Then it'll be up to you.'

‘The backup to the backup, eh?' the boy said, and grinned. For a second I saw the same proud kid who'd stood barefoot beside his grandfather in the marae. Then the mirth was replaced with an expression of grim determination that he should have been way too young to produce.

I was suddenly, breathlessly, sad for him. He should have been stressing about an algebra test or mooning over his best friend's older sister. Not here, in my backyard, on the brink of a war.

But I knew, ashamed as it made me, that I wasn't going to be the one to turn him away.

The meeting formally broke up, and smaller groups formed to talk through battle plans and strategies. I tried to talk to Mark, but he evaded me to instead engage the M
ori boy in intense discussion. Backups of backups, I deduced, and tried to fulfil my duties as host by mingling.

That didn't work very well. People were polite, and some were even friendly, but much of the discussion wasn't in English, and I couldn't understand a lot of what was. I might have found it more interesting if I hadn't been so tired. Instead I gazed over the yard to the bright city and dark ocean while Professor Gribaldi and Mr Sand argued about blood invocations and weather commands. Sand kept calling her Smith, which infuriated her so much he nearly won the argument. Perched in the magnolia tree, the Desi woman and the cat were staring intently at each other. Kneeling under the branches, one of the bikers unpacked the parts of a nasty-looking rifle from his black leather satchel and started to clean it.

He saw me staring and grinned. ‘For hunting rabbits, eh?'

I saw the patches on his jacket, swallowed hard, and gestured vaguely at the house. ‘I'd better put the food out.'

He got up and waved to his mates. ‘I'll give you a hand. Hey, bros, help the lady, eh?'

In the end, they simply carried the laden kitchen table into the hall and out through the back door. The table was roughly three times wider than both doorways, and I didn't see the doorframes widen or the table shrink; just, somehow, it got through.