Justice and Utu (23 page)

Beside him, Evie, coated in dust, tried to pull herself free. Her hand spilled a rune stone towards Mat, and he somehow caught it as another bolt of electricity tore through him. The bolt jolted him, but the worst of its energy seemed to be sucked into the tiny stone in his hand. The rune stone crumbled to dust as he stared at it, and he wondered how he was still alive.

It was something which evidently puzzled Asher also. ‘Resilient, aren't you?' he grunted in slight bemusement. And lifted his hand again.

I'm dead.

‘Father!' screamed a voice that echoed down the slope. It was a howl of fury that seemed to come from a throat that was no longer human.

Asher twisted, his eyes seeking Donna. He found her,
only twenty metres upslope, coated in dust and blood. The blood was not her own. It was caked about her mouth, sucked from the throat of the dead sailor in her grip. A coil of light blazed on her forehead, a twisty spiral pattern that smoked and puckered, the sigil that imprisoned her powers. It seemed to hold, although her nails grew longer, and her teeth were all wrong. More shark than person. She dropped the soldier, and licked her lips.

She went at Asher Grieve like a hell-fury.

Mat staggered to his knees, beyond being able to aid her. He crawled to Evie, and put his hands under her shoulders. ‘Are you OK?' he asked.

‘Do I look OK?' she hissed, testily. ‘Help me up, please,' she added in a plaintive voice, on the edge of tears. She'd lost her patch, and her left orb was white and pulsing.

Above them, he saw a sheet of lightning slam into Donna Kyle. He saw her skin blister, her hair catch fire, her clothing crisp. But she waded into it. She staggered like a child into a hurricane, but she never took a backward step. Perhaps she should have, for Asher was slowly tearing her apart.

‘Don't make me kill you, Daughter!' Asher's voice was hoarse, almost pleading.

On she went, walking the air, bent forward, claws extended.

‘No, Daughter! Remember who you are!'

Mat pulled, and Evie came out from the dirt with a whimper of pain. She winced as she put weight on her left ankle. Maybe sprained. But she immediately drew another tarot card, a queenly figure enthroned: the Empress … Evie slammed it down onto another playing card: the Queen of Spades. As she did, the two cards burst into silvery fire,
and her face was washed in brilliant white light. Her hair billowed about her in a silver nimbus and her face glowed, the way Puarata's face had glowed in the seconds after Wiri had stabbed him at Reinga.

‘Mother!' Evie shouted. ‘Be free!'

Mother?

Something ran from the blasted cards to the ragged figure of Donna Kyle. Asher Grieve's flow of power seemed to falter before the implacable approach of his daughter. The sigil of light on her forehead flared and winked out, and her shield flashed into place. She staggered closer to Grieve. But she was still taking a dreadful battering.

Mat looked at Asher Grieve, and read the wizard's intentions all over his smirking, arrogant face.

The blood was changing Donna, reshaping her. She was part-patupaiarehe now, part-fairy-creature — which meant that she could be entrapped in fresh bonds, just by using her
name
.

This is the moment that decides all
…

He spoke, an instant before Asher did:
‘Edith Madonna Kyle, I make you mine.'
Donna stiffened, as the torrent of lightning and fire about her slowed, and her father gaped, his thunder stolen, his trick trumped.
‘Kill him,'
Mat added bleakly.

Before Asher could react, Donna was on him with teeth and claws. He did not have time even to scream. She ripped at him, blood fountained, and he went down, her atop, savage and wild. They struck the rubble right beside the pool, she tearing at him like a beast.

Mat averted his face. Evie did the same.

Just as Damien gave a wailing cry from high above them.

‘Damien!' Mat looked up wildly, as his friend leapt from the rim of the crater, and seemed to hang in mid-air.

 

Black, coiling power from Byron Kikitoa's palm plucked at Damien, snagged him like fish-hooks, and held him in mid-air. He tried to wrench himself free, but could not move. Below and inland, he could dimly make out a few people amidst the steam and smoke and dust and rubble, could hear shrieking, and see a coruscating light.
Go team
, he wished silently, as footsteps crunched on the rim.

He twisted, praying he was out of reach. He wasn't. Kikitoa reeled him in. He reached out and plucked the envelope containing the Treaty of Waitangi from Damien's back pocket. He flashed a triumphant look, pocketing the document himself. All the while, his magical grip on Damien did not falter.

Leaving Damien helpless.

A million things entered his mind. His parents, his sister. Riki, his best friend. Cass. Mat and Evie … He wished them well. God, but it had been a rush just being here, where danger was a thrill — and what was danger if not dangerous?

Byron Kikitoa placed the blade against his chest.

A lunge, perfectly executed.

The numbing shock of a foot of steel bursting through his rib wall, and all the way in.

The seizure, the shock, the way his body convulsed and his throat locked.

The madly beating pump in his breast, and the way it simply stopped.

Darkness, racing in from the side.

The binding fell from his limbs, and he plummeted.

 

‘NOOO!!!'
Mat screamed in disbelief and shock. All else was suddenly forgotten, as he came to his feet. His exhaustion was still there, but something overrode it, something made of grief and fury.
‘NOOOO!'
He ran along the torn floor of the basin, towards the body tumbling down the slope.

A face swam above him. Byron Kikitoa. The league star raised a sword in taunting salute, and then he was gone. Damien's body slid to a halt, motionless, coated in dust and blood, eyes open, staring upward, unseeing.

‘DAMIEN!'

It was already too late, Mat knew that. He ran and stumbled and slithered and went on, in a sprint to his friend's side that never seemed to end. Somewhere out beyond the rim, shots were crackling and cannon booming. Men were fighting, dying, but here there was only the agony of being too late, too weak, too far away when it truly mattered.

He threw himself down at Damien's side, his mind only just beginning to process everything that was happening. He grabbed his friend, no time to check for vital signs, and reached out for the hard, impervious feel of the real world.

If you die in Aotearoa, you're gone for good.

The change took everything he had left. It was as if he, too, were dying. He sprawled over the body, alone in the world, tears streaming down his face, praying he'd been in time, praying for strength, praying for forgiveness.

I should have trusted Donna enough to free her.

I should have been with Damien.

This is my fault.

The transition from Aotearoa back to his world was painful, rushed and desperate. His world, with its duller hues and fainter scent, formed about them sluggishly. He pushed on, shouting wordlessly.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself alone with Damien on White Island, caked in blood and dust, his cries echoing off the cliffs. They were alone on the island, unspoilt and arid, a pebble on a sparkling turquoise sea.

‘Damien?' he whispered at the empty face. He could not tell if he'd been in time. There was no pulse. No breath, just blood welling from his pierced heart.

Mat buried his head in the stones, as helpless fury poured out of him, into the uncaring dust.

B
AY OF
P
LENTY
, M
ONDAY

M
at lay on the bunk, staring up at the underside of the top bunk, the one he and Damien had played rock-scissors-paper for. If he were cold or hot, sick or well, if he felt anything at all, he couldn't tell. Numbness seeped through his entire being, body and soul.

The only emotions he felt were guilt and grief.

He'd returned to Aotearoa as soon as he had found the strength. The enemy sloop was gone, taking Byron Kikitoa, Bully Hayes, and his remaining men. They had found the body of Sebastian Venn high on the slopes. Damien's shot had taken him in the back, right behind the heart. His followers had simply left his corpse as they fled. Asher Grieve's body they had burned. Or what was left of it.

If Mat extended his senses a little, he could feel Wiri's solid presence, helping Hobson refloat the ship. In a hold, the sun-blasted thing that was Donna Kyle lay far from the light, undergoing whatever dreadful ordeal a patupaiarehe endured
to recover from being burned black. On deck, Evie was sitting alone, staring at her cards and stones and wondering what else she could have done.

Which was what Mat was doing right now.

He imagined Riki's face when they told him. How the disbelief would erode the welcoming smile, then turn to sorrow. Could he look his friend in the eye, knowing what he knew, about how he'd let them all down?

He pictured Cassandra's face crumpling in tears.

How would Damien's family take it? Jones or Ngatoro or someone would intervene, he knew, hiding the reality. Wiri had told him once that when people from the real world died in Aotearoa, the truth was covered up. They'd go the rest of their lives thinking their Damien had died in some kind of accident.

None of us believed this could ever happen to us. Like drunken boy-racers, we thought ourselves indestructible. Immortal. Damien more so than all of us. He thrived on the danger, never truly believing that it could ever throw at him more than he could handle. Death was for other people.

Mat thought of all the times he'd laughed off his parents' fears for him, that when he disappeared into Aotearoa he might never come back. This time, he'd taken an amazing friend with him, a friend who would now never return.

Damien, clapping and laughing as he led the singing on the
Rattlesnake.
Crowing about some victory on the gaming console. Kissing Shui to silence her. Striking a fencing pose. Dancing like a maniac at a party. Too alive to die. Too precious to lose.

 

Evie huddled in a corner of the deck, her hands empty, her head wrapped in a scarf that she'd tugged down over her left eye. It was the best she could do — her patch was lost in the rubble of the crater lake. All about, the sailors were fixing things, never-ending tasks. Wood was being sawed and hammered. Ropes were being tied off, and new sails looped to the spars. The tang of blood was in the air from the open-air surgery the ship's doctor had had to perform on a string of wounded men. Another eight were dead, sewn into canvas below-decks. One of those bags contained the mortal remains of Damien Meilinck. Mat had taken him across to the real world, then brought him back an hour or so later. Dead.

It was morning. No-one had slept that night. Well, maybe a couple of the crew, exhausted by their labours. For Evie, the nightmare of being awake was trumped only by the nightmares awaiting her if she dared to sleep.

She couldn't believe it, didn't want to. The stricken look on Mat's face was all she saw. She couldn't make it go away. This whole experience had been a dream. A nightmare. She'd wake up soon.

Whenever she'd had problems in her life before, she'd spread her tarot cards or cast her runes, and found if not answers, then at least something to take comfort in. Some sign of hope, some star to follow. It seemed so childish now. A game to delude the heart into thinking there was meaning, when there was none.

If she could have found the courage to rip her left eye from its socket, she would have.
If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.
But she wasn't that brave.

A shadow fell over her, and Wiri crouched beside her. He didn't look too good. He'd been dug from the rubble, his flesh a mess of welts and cuts and bruises, and burns from the fire-demons that had tried to rip him apart. His skin was more yellow and purple than brown. One eyelid was almost closed, but his eyes conveyed empathy and concern as they looked into her face. ‘Evie, how are you holding up?'

She wasn't sure how to answer. Language seemed inadequate for the world of pain she was in. Her bad leg and sprained wrist were the least of her traumas. The worst hurts were inside. ‘I'll live,' she whispered.

Wiri accepted her words with a nod that acknowledged her courage in speaking them. ‘Evie, I know it's a lot to ask, but could you go down and see Mat? He needs someone with him.'

She wanted to shy away from it. To say ‘Why me?' To plead exhaustion, or pain. She knew Mat was in agony, not physically but mentally. What could she say to make it better?

‘Do you even know what you're asking?' she whispered.

‘Yes,' Wiri replied. ‘Yes, I do. If you go to him, you're putting it all on the line, and you hardly know him. What he's feeling now, the intensity of it, will either bind you to each other, or tear you apart. I know this. Love in wartime is the most intense kind of feeling there is. You're scared of that, and that's understandable. But he needs someone to pull him through, and so do you. You need each other right now.'

‘But … Do you even know who I am?' She didn't, not anymore.

‘Yes, I do. You're Evie, and Mat needs you.'

I hardly know him … I'm only eighteen … I'm not ready for that kind of relationship … And this place you've dragged me into is a nightmare … I'm too scared
…

And Donna Kyle is my mother …

Wiri gripped her shoulder. ‘Evie, let me tell you two things. One: I've never met a finer young man than Mat, nor a better young woman than you. And two: you both have it in you to make something that Romeo and Juliet would envy. I've seen love, and known love. I have love. You and he have the courage and goodness and mutual respect to see you through this, and everything else afterwards, if you have the will to seize it.'

She recalled what she'd been told of Wiri. That he'd been immortal, but no longer was, yet still risked his life for what was right. Even though he was a husband and a father now. Did he even realize how much he risked? How much sorrow he asked others to bear, should they mourn him next?

‘You have a wife. And a child,' she said flatly.

He nodded gravely, understanding the point she made. ‘I do. But I was needed, here. I did what I could. Kelly knows me. She understands.'

‘Does she?'

‘I believe so. She's not a stranger to this place, and if she'd been here she'd have been in the thick of it, just like Damien. No magical powers, just guts, willpower and animal cunning. She's stronger than I am, in here.' He touched his chest.

‘She must love you very much.'

‘And I love her. The risk of losing someone does not
diminish love. It just makes every moment all the more precious. We must always have the courage to love. But we cannot let that love diminish our will to do what is right.'

She swallowed deeply. ‘What can I say to him?'

‘Words aren't important. Being there is. Now, go. Things are going to get busy on deck anyway. Hobson wants to refloat on the next tide, and you'll just be in the way.'

He stood up, and offered her a hand. Silhouetted above her, he looked like some kind of Maori war god. A protective god, one who cared for his followers. His teeth shone amidst the bruises on his face as he smiled painfully. She took his hand, let him pull her to his feet.

He never asked her about Donna. Perhaps he didn't know, yet. No-one but she and Donna.

And Mat.

She went below.

 

Mat didn't turn his head at the soft knock at his door. Evie slipped inside regardless. She looked grimly determined, like a prisoner facing the firing squad. Her cheeks were streaked with tears.

She was both the person he most needed, yet the one he least wanted to see. But when she came and knelt beside the bunk, her head bowed over him, and whispered ‘Hey', he couldn't ask her to leave.

‘Heya.'

‘Shove over,' she told him, and crawled into the tiny space beside him. He gave ground, so that she was pressed against him, her cheek pressed to his, her right eye against his left,
her left arm draped over his chest. ‘Don't say anything,' she whispered. ‘Just let me stay.'

‘I'm still me,' she added plaintively.

He didn't answer, but he didn't ask her to leave, either.

 

Evie stared out over the sea as the
Rattlesnake
crawled through the waters. Mat was beside her. They'd not talked, just slept pressed against each other. When she'd needed to get some fresh air, he'd followed her, a silent shadow. His eyes looked bruised.

The sun was falling towards the western hills.

Below-decks, the crew had run huge oars, like the legs of a giant insect, out of the lower cannon ports, and were hauling on them like galley slaves. There was nothing for Evie and Mat to do. She stared at the coastline, afraid of it, irrationally. Afraid of anything that might happen from this moment on.

‘Master Douglas, Miss van Zelle, I trust you are feeling somewhat repaired?' Will Hobson appeared beside them, wearing his plumed hat and a fresh uniform. His face looked fresh and energized, although his expression was grave. ‘Please accept my gravest condolences. Master Meilinck was a remarkable young man.'

It hurt just to nod and thank the captain. When Wiri came and hugged her, that hurt too. But not so much. Each little act of kindness made it more bearable.

‘We'll be in Whakatane–Aotearoa in about an hour,' Wiri told them. ‘We'll go from there to the other side. We all need to make some calls, and put arrangements in place.' His face fell. ‘We shall have to try and find Lena, too.'

Evie pulled the remains of her tarot deck from her pocket, and looked at the first card that leapt to her hand. It was an upside-down Sun tarot. ‘Loneliness, and a clouded future,' she announced in an emotionless voice. She pocketed the card again. ‘Which is still a future. She is alive.'

‘She has to stop running with the wolves,' Wiri said, more to himself than to her. He turned to Mat. ‘Donna Kyle is asking for you. But you don't have to see her,' he added.

Evie watched Mat grimace, and then nod. She touched his shoulder, but he didn't look at her. ‘I better do it' was all he said, walking away.

She almost followed, but Wiri put a hand on her shoulder. ‘He'll be OK,' he said softly.

‘He's not OK,' she replied. ‘He's not OK at all.'

 

‘You asked to see me,' Mat murmured.

The thin shape on the bunk shuddered. It was dark, and he didn't turn up the lantern. Eyes gleamed from folds in blackened skin. The air was rank with the smell of burnt flesh, pus, and the acrid, iron tang of blood. ‘Ahhh,' she sighed wetly.

‘Is there anything we can bring you to ease this?'

‘A virgin to ravage and drink dry?' she rasped.

‘Except that,' he replied, too tired to respond to what might have been humour. ‘You need blood?'

Her voice was desolate when she replied. ‘Yes, I do need it.' The faint emphasis on the word ‘need' told him volumes.

‘Is there any way of undoing what you have done?' he asked.

‘None I know of.'

She sat up, and her hand shot out and grabbed him. The whole arm was charred, the skin broken, blood and fluids seeping everywhere. She had to be in agony. When she spoke again, it was in a furious hiss. ‘If you had spoken for me, they would have freed me, boy. Your friend might be whole, and so might I.'

‘I know.'

Her hideously scarred face swam out of the darkness. ‘Never, ever forget.'

He turned away. ‘Will you heal?'

She shook slightly, and let him go. ‘Yes, I will heal. But Grey might need to behead me instead of the hanging he had planned. Or perhaps he'll simply string me up in the noonday sun and laugh as I roast?' She fell back into the shadows with a painful sigh.

He had to ask. ‘Evie says that you are her mother …'

Donna spat painfully. ‘I am.' She fell silent, but Mat waited. The rest of the story duly followed. ‘The first time I fell pregnant, I miscarried. Puarata almost beat me to death. He wanted a child. So the second time, I kept the pregnancy secret, and had the child while on a mission. I immediately had the child adopted, and destroyed the paper trail.'

Mat closed his eyes, a revolting thought overriding all others. ‘Then she is Puarata's child?'

‘Of course she is,' Donna sneered. ‘I wanted to keep her for myself. I wanted her to grow up free of him.'

A child of Donna Kyle and Ranginui Puarata. A nightmare.

‘You blinded her,' Mat accused.

‘I empowered her!' Donna shot back. ‘She was good
enough for you before you found out whose child she is. Are you man enough to deal with the facts? Or are you still just a boy?'

He hung his head.

‘I thought so,' the witch sneered. ‘Tell anyone, and she'll be a target for both sides. So keep your mouth shut.'

He swallowed and nodded.

Donna sniffed and turned her head away. ‘Leave me.'

Mat swallowed. ‘I have your name-bond,' he reminded her in an awkward voice.

She turned her ruined gaze back to him. ‘You think I have forgotten? At least while you have it, none other may claim it. But I am not your puppet.'

Mat bowed his head. He didn't want this link to her, but to release it would free her entirely. He turned stiffly on his heel, and left her to the shadows.