The Shattering (10 page)

Takeshi hadn't heard, but Patrick straightened. ‘For the record, Chinese New Zealander and Japanese are
not
the same thing,' he said.

Hemi held up his hands. ‘Just a joke, my man. You're all invaders to me, eh?'

Janna knew from experience that this could easily turn into hours of passionate debate over colonialism, racism, and land rights, which was fair enough, but not what she'd brought Takeshi to see. ‘I can't believe we're going to be on tv!' she said quickly.

‘And paid,' Kyle Hamilton said, calmly tuning his guitar. ‘I'm going to buy a new Fender.'

Hemi grinned. ‘I need the
World of Warcraftft
expansion.'

Janna sighed. ‘I have to pay the insurance excess to fix the Corolla.'

Patrick looked disgusted, but then again, that was his basic state. ‘Don't spend the money before we've earned it,' he ordered. ‘I don't know if you've thought about this, but we have eight days to prepare for the most important gig of our lives. We need to be focused!'

‘We need a set list,' Janna said, and slung Cherry Bomb over her shoulder. ‘Let's start with “Elephant in the Bath”; it's jumpy, and everyone loves it.'

That, as she had predicted, started an argument about what to play in which order. Patrick won, because he was picky and stubborn and also because he had an annoying habit of being right. Takeshi watched them shout at one another for a while, but his eyes began to wander, inspecting the equipment and the egg cartons nailed to the garage walls.

Janna was wondering if this had been a bad idea. She picked out a B-flat scale, held the final chord, and stepped on the chorus pedal. The sound reverberated around the room. The boys stopped talking. And Takeshi's eyes snapped back to her.

‘Could we, I don't know,
rehearse
?' she asked.

Patrick tilted his head, and the twist of his smile said that he knew exactly what she was doing. But he was a good ex-boyfriend. ‘“Elephant in the Bath,”' he said, stepping up to the mic. ‘One, two, three.'

And Janna felt Stardust come up through the soles of her boots and take over. The work was all Janna's, learning the song, getting the timing, playing alone and with the boys over and over and endlessly over until it clicked at last into what they needed. But once that part was done, and the song was muscle memory in her strong hands, it was sexy, powerful Stardust who took the stage, the backbone of the band, the rhythm that drove them all on and up to new heights. She could
feel
Takeshi's a
l
ttention, warm sun on her skin, as her calloused fingers spider-walked through the opening notes.

And the boys, as always, felt her shining beside them and went for it.

They finished, note and beat perfect, energy crackling between them as Patrick breathed out the final words.

‘We're going to kick ass,' Hemi said, grinning. And Janna thought that was true, but it was Takeshi she looked at, for the first time since Patrick's countdown. His pupils had dilated, and he was staring directly at her.

‘What did you think?' Patrick asked.

‘Good,' Takeshi said. ‘Very, very good.'

But he said it to her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

KERI

The shocking thing about Sandra-Claire, who was my
brother's girlfriend before he died, was that she's a witch.
Not as in
bitch
, although she's definitely that, too, but as in a Wiccan who practises ritual magic. ThThere were quite a few neo-pagan types around Summerton, I guess because beautiful isolated country communities with nice weather attract hippie types. Apart from the hippieness, they were mostly normal.

I suppose it might have seemed a little bit weird. But I mean, Janna's mum gets up in Mass every Sunday and thinks she's eating a chunk of Jesus, and my Nanny believes that she saw Grandad Wiremu three weeks after he died. When you think about it, believing in magic and tossing sage and rosemary and whatever around to cleanse the air of evil influences wasn't any stranger than all those other things that weren't true. Anyway, my point is, Wicca isn't like
Macbeth
when we studied it in Year Eleven, with ‘When shall we three meet again' and boiling up babies and deals with demons. Most of the Wiccans I've met were pretty nice.

So I was shocked when Sandra-Claire first told us that she was a Wiccan witch, because she was a horrible person.

An example: When I got home from the Chancellor, brain still ferreting out the reasons why people might stay in Summerton, I opened the door to find her rooting through the kitchen cupboards. In our kitchen. Without looking up, she snapped, ‘Have you seen my roasting dish?'

No hello or anything.

‘What?' I said to her bony ass, most of which was sticking out of her low-cut jeans.

‘My roasting dish! I brought it over for that midwinter Christmas dinner, and your mother never gave it back to me.'

I let the door slam behind me. ‘What are
you
doing here?'

She pulled her head out of the cupboard to glare at me from behind her fried blonde fringe. Her nose looked even more than usual like the prow of an upside-down ship, sticking straight out and angular. Sandra-Claire wasn't pretty, but she was polished, like a cold, shiny stone, so careful with hair and clothes that she fooled a lot of people. She fooled Jake, and my big brother wasn't stupid about anything but her. She was two years older than he was, and now he was dead at nineteen and she was going to keep getting older.

There's no justice.

‘I'm sorting out my things,' she said. ‘Taking some mementos.' She must have seen my outrage, because she added, lip twisting, ‘I called yesterday. Lillian said it was all right.'

Mum hadn't told
me
, leaving me to walk in on her instead of buggering off to go for a run or something instead. It probably served me right for not checking in with Mum, but damned if I was going to waste all this resentment on myself.

‘You shouldn't wear baggy shirts,' she said. ‘You look like a pregnant dwarf.'

‘You look like a plumber,' I said, pointing at her jeans. ‘What's the matter, couldn't afford a whole pair?'

She sneered. ‘You couldn't afford that other X chromosome?'

I stepped forward, fists clenching. I had kept off her back at Jake's request, and at Mum's, but neither of them were here. There was no reason not to hit Sandra-Claire in the middle of her bleached teeth and yank out her over-processed hair. That had been one of my plans for a very long time. Of course, I'd been planning on Jake's coming to his senses and dumping her beforehand, not getting shot in the head, but a breakup was a breakup. To give her some credit, she didn't flinch for a second, her eyes hard on my own.

‘Sandra-Claire, did you really want all these T-shirts?' a voice asked. A woman rounded the corner from the hall, box first. She set it down on the table and smiled at me. ‘Hello, Keri. How're you holding up?'

‘Fine, thanks,' I mumbled, resenting the lost opportunity. But it was hard to dislike Daisy Hepwood for long. She was Sandra-Claire's boss at Inner Light, and one of the
nice
witches.

‘Your aura's a bit dark, dear,' Daisy said. ‘But that's certainly understandable. I'm so sorry for your loss.'

‘It's hit us all hard,' Sandra-Claire snapped. She acted as if Jake's death had been an attack on her. I despised her for it, not least because I sometimes felt like that, too. I'd seen her on my walks around town, looking as lost as I felt, and it made me furious. She didn't have the
right
. She'd only gone out with him for one year. He'd been my brother my entire life.

‘What T-shirts?' I said, peeking into the box. Jake loved those shirts with the sayings on them; weird, or cool, or funny, or stupid: If he could order it online, and get it shipped at huge prices, he wanted it.

The contents of the box looked like most of his collection.

I pulled out the olive-green one that said +3 CHARISMA, recoiling at the soft ness of the cotton against my fingers. ‘You can't take all his stuff !'

‘Lillian said it was all right,' Sandra-Claire repeated, and put the T-shirt back in the box. ‘Besides, I gave him most of these.'

I yanked out the one that read marriage: game over. ‘Not this one! I gave him this one for his birthday!'

‘Yeah, I remember,' she said, and raised her already-poisonous glare a notch or two on the toxicity scale.

‘Oh, dear,' Daisy said, wringing her ringed hands. ‘I'm sorry, I didn't realise.' Her curly salt-and-pepper hair swung around her skinny face as she backed away.

There was being mean, and then there was being mean to Daisy. ‘It's okay,' I said. ‘I'll just keep it.'

‘You want to go through the rest of them?' Sandra-Claire asked.

This was a trick question. If I said yes, she'd roll her eyes and say something sarcastic. If I said no, she'd walk out of here with all of Jake's things. I stared at her for a second.

‘I have a New Year's Eve committee meeting,' Daisy said, looking sorry. ‘I do have to get going rather soon.'

‘Look,' Sandra-Claire said, opening her wallet. ‘Why don't you, I don't know, go get an ice cream or something? Daisy and I will get this done, and then I'll be out of your hair.'

‘Oh, happy day,' I snarled, making no move to take the money she offered me.
Ice cream
. Like a little kid. ‘This is my house, and you want
me
to leave? Why don't you get out? You've been talking about leaving Summerton forever anyway.'

She stiffened. ‘Believe me, I plan to.'

‘Good,' I said, and stomped off to my bedroom, backpack hanging heavily on my shoulder. Daisy shied away from me as I went past, looking appalled at this unsisterly aggression. Once this hit the grapevine, I was going to catch hell from Mum. Assuming she had the energy to deal with me.

Well, if I was going to have a tantrum, I might as well go all the way.

I slammed the door and flung myself onto my bed, still clutching Jake's last gift from me, twisting my hands in the T-shirt's fabric. My heart was hammering, and my vision narrowed as the what-ifs began to take over
.
What if we never found the killer? What if he found us poking around and decided to take care of us himself? What if Jake had been tortured before he died; what if he'd been hurt and crying? What if he'd been waiting for me to come home and help him, and died, hopeless, when I never came?

It was going to be okay, I told myself, forcing deep breaths through my nose and out through my mouth. I had a plan. Tonight I was going to meet Sione and Janna at the hotel, then head down to the beach. We'd split up and find boys of the right age and family, watching for anyone else who was asking the same questions. Then we'd compare notes, find the killer, and make sure he — or she, Sione was right, it was possibly a woman — never hurt anyone ever again.

I couldn't have Jake back. But I'd have the killer, and answers to my questions, and revenge. And that was going to have to be enough.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SIONE

Dressing always made Sione feel better — putting together
those pants with these shoes, putting together a version of
himself to show the world.
Leaving his messenger bag behind when he'd gone to lunch had been a mistake; something about the weight of it over his shoulder always made him feel more secure.

But after he was dressed, there was nothing to do but wait. Neither of the girls showed up at his hotel room. He checked his mobile phone thirteen times just in case the sound wasn't working, but there were no texts or missed calls, and when he finally got up the nerve to call, Janna didn't pick up. He didn't even have Keri's number.

As the light outside got dimmer, he felt more and more like giving up on the whole night. Janna and Keri were good-looking girls; guys would spill their guts to them without wondering why they were being asked about their siblings and how long they were going to stay. He was pretty sure it wouldn't work like that for him. He would more likely get bashed.

But he and the girls had to find the killer's next target, almost as urgently as they had to find the killer.

And he was worried about what Jake's anomalous death might mean. No one else had died in summer, so close to the end of another year. What if the killer was escalating? What if they were going to kill two boys next year, too? Or increase exponentially? The thought of a dozen families, bereaved as his had been, got him to his feet.

Walking to the esplanade, Sione caught sight of his reflection — hunched under the weight of his bag, mouth tight — in the art gallery window. He squared his shoulders and forced a smile. No one would want to talk to someone with a face as miserable as a cat's bum.

At 9 pm there was still plenty of light on the beach, but some of the groups gathered there had lit fires anyway, drift wood burning that magical blue-green, flickering in the warm breeze coming down from the hills.

The good news was that he spotted Janna nearly right away. The even better news was that she was wearing a corset
—
pink and black stripes set off by a sparkly Hello Kitty brooch. On nine out of ten girls, it would have been way too much. On Janna, it was amazing.

The bad news was that Takeshi and Aroha had apparently also just arrived, and Takeshi had seen the corset, too.

‘It's Kitty-chan!' he said as Sione approached.

‘Oh, right, it's a Japanese thing,' Janna replied, beaming at Takeshi. Didn't she remember she was supposed to be talking to other guys? There were plenty around a bonfire farther down the beach. Some of them were looking her way, even.

‘My sister, Keiko, she likes Kitty-chan,' Takeshi explained. ‘And Miffy also. Do you know Miffy? She is a rabbit.' He sounded too enthusiastic, and for a moment, Sione felt some sympathy for him. It was hard to be out of place. Even small things could be significant when they were reminders of home.