Justice and Utu (14 page)

Mat waved Damien to the right as they converged on the back door, a split second before someone stepped onto the upstairs balcony at the north end of the house, barely a dozen feet from where they crouched. Mat saw the shadows of several men. A dab of ash floated down from above, the smell of cigar smoke filling the air. ‘She is wounded,
monsieur!
You mus' allow me to tend her.' The bishop's aggrieved voice carried down to Mat and Damien.

An American drawl cut through the Frenchman's protests. ‘Bishop Pompallier, I don' rightly care as to the little bitch's condition. She can jus' learn her lesson, I reckon. So you'll oblige me by shuttin' your trap.'

‘Monsieur!
I must—'

‘I said shut yer mouth, Pompallier, or I'll carve you a new one, right under your chin.'

The bishop's voice fell silent, and Mat heard one set of footsteps go inside. But there were still at least two men on the balcony. Another American voice intruded, older and
rougher. ‘Seb, I'll take the girl off your hands. I could make good coin off her.'

‘She's not for you. We're takin' her south with Hayes.'

‘I don' see why Hayes should get her,' the other American protested.

‘Didn't say he was getting her. Hayes couldn't handle her any more'n you could. She's Asher's toy. Accept it, before it gets you into more trouble than you can handle.'

Mat looked at Damien. They were both scared to breathe, so close to their enemies. The light was growing dimmer as evening came on, but there was nowhere to hide.

‘What's so special about her, Seb?' the man asked.

Venn snorted. ‘What's special 'bout her? Ha! Do you even know what a taniwha is?'

Mat's heart leapt in his chest.
A taniwha!?
And then the answer came to him. Lena not answering his calls. Asher riding a taniwha into the Treaty grounds … He put his hand to Damien's ear. ‘Mate, they're talking about Lena! She must be here somewhere.'

We have to get her out!

No sooner had the thought formed in his mind than the back door opened and the Chinese maid came through it, lugging another basket of laundry. Her narrow eyes widened as she saw the two boys, and she opened her mouth to scream.

H
OBSON'S
B
EACH
, W
AITANGI
, S
ATURDAY EVENING

E
veralda sat huddled on a boulder, wrapped in a coat a soldier had given her, feeling useless. ‘Let me come,' she'd begged Wiri, but he'd shaken his head. ‘It's too dangerous,' he'd replied briskly, leaving absolutely no room for negotiation. Even Mat had refused to stand up for her. They were ‘protecting her' again. It wasn't fair.

She cornered Donna Kyle before they left. ‘Why is it that all I can do is tell fortunes?' she demanded in a low hiss. ‘Why can't I do more? I want to help, but I don't know how!'

The blonde witch had merely given one of her derisive looks, and said, ‘You use your Gift passively, so what do you expect?'

What does that even mean? All fortune-telling is passive, isn't it?

So Evie had had to wave them all goodbye like a good girl, and then sit and pray they came back. She was cold despite the setting sun, and frightened to be alone in this world.
What
if they don't come back? How will I get home?
She imagined some benighted future as the prisoner-wife of a sailor in this windswept empty place populated by ghosts.

One of those ghosts came to sit by her. He was a young man with ginger whiskers and wavy hair half-contained by a cap. ‘Evenin', missy,' he said, sounding like an Irishman. Evie was good with accents, from working the markets which drew people from all sorts of places. ‘Can I get you anyt'ing?'

She forced a smile, and shook her head. He'd sat on her left, meaning he could see her patch, and she had to twist her head to look at him. ‘No, thanks.'

He gave a sly smile, and proffered a little flask. ‘I've whisky, if ye'd like? It's a gonna be chilly tonight, I'm t'inkin'.'

She refused again. ‘I'll need a clear head tonight, but thanks.'

He gave a small shrug. ‘I'm Lewis Ferguson, o' County Sligo. Folk call me Lew. I've got a tannery, over in Paihia. I ain't a soldier, y'see. Just helpin' out. T'ain't much folks here, so you gotta pitch in, like.'

‘I guess,' Evie replied, not wanting company but not wanting to be rude.

‘If ye don' mind me sayin' it, you're a pretty lass. Are ye spoken for?'

She blinked, suddenly aware that this was a frontier town and probably women were in short supply. ‘Um, sort of,' she replied, not wanting to sound unprotected.

‘The young part-native boy?' Lew Ferguson inquired. ‘Someone says he's t'one put paid to Puarata?' He gave a small whistle. ‘The whole of Aotearoa owes him a drink, I reckon.' He pronounced Aotearoa ‘Ow-teh-rower', which made her
smile. ‘I've a lass in Opua, what I'm betrothed to, but she ain't yet of age, so we're waitin'.' He sucked on his whisky. ‘'Tis hard to wait.'

She murmured sympathetically, wishing he'd leave. But instead he turned and peered at her more closely. ‘If ye don't mind me sayin', your bad eye put me in mind of a story from home. Can I tell it to yer?'

She shrugged uncomfortably. ‘OK.' She stared across the waters, wondering if Mat was alright.

He looked grateful to have at least something he'd offered her accepted. ‘There's a lake in me home county, near Sligo, called Loch na Súl. That means Lake of the Eye, in the old tongue. The name came from the tale of Balor. Now Balor was a giant, a Fomorian wizard. He had this eye what could kill folk, just by lookin' at 'em. He had locked his daughter in his tower, untouched by man, for 'twas said that he'd be killed by his own grandson. He figured lockin' up the daughter would stop this from happenin'. But of course, one of the Fair Folk came and climbed the Tower, an' charmed the daughter and bedded her. Nine months on, an' she has triplets. Balor was furious, an' he threw the babes into the sea to drown 'em. But the sea-god saved one of the three, an' he was given the same name as me, more or less: Lugh. Lugh grew up and became a champion of the Fair Folk. When they went to war with the Fomorians, it was Lugh who slew Balor. An' when Balor fell, it was in Sligo, an' he fell face-down, so that his deadly eye burned a hole in the earth, that became the Loch na Súl.'

Evie touched her eyepatch uncomfortably.

‘So what do you think o' that?' Lew asked her.

His story seemed to have nothing to do with her. If she only
had an eye that killed people, she'd not have been left behind while the others went into danger. ‘I think the Irish equivalent of Aotearoa must be a dangerous place,' she said eventually.

‘I reckon it'd be a nut-house,' laughed Lew. ‘At least this place has had only one or two wars. The Irish have been hacking pieces off each other for thousands of years. Same as most of the world, I guess. No, I'd rather be here. This is a good place.'

She shivered in the chill breeze, watched the waves lapping the shore, and heard the silence echo on and on. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘Yes, it is.'

‘In the big cities round the world, a person is just an ant. But here, an individual means something. Because there's so few of us. Land almost the size of the whole British Isles with less than a tenth of the people — an' that's in your world. Aotearoa is nigh empty. Makes you feel like a king to walk it, you know what I'm saying? Makes you feel like you matter.'

She nodded slowly. ‘I think I know what you mean.' Although she felt more scullery maid than queen.
Donna is a queen, here. Wiri and Mat are like princes. But who am I?
She rubbed at her right temple. Despite the eyepatch, her headache was growing steadily worse, the pressure building as if her eye was swelling inside the socket.

‘I'll tell you another story,' Lew said. ‘It's a happier tale, and it's about this place. White folks call this Hobson's Beach, for the governor, but the Maori call it Maikuku Bay. This is for a princess of the local iwi, a beautiful maid called Maikuku. Her father was protective, too. He imprisoned her in an underwater chamber, right beneath us. You could only get to it by diving, and sharks guarded the waters. But a young
warrior changed himself into a dolphin, drove off the sharks and rescued her. Together they swam in dolphin shape up the river to Haruru Falls, and it all shoulda ended happily. But he leapt the falls and went on, and she couldn't make the leap. Her weeping at being unable to follow her rescuer led to the name “Waitangi”, which means Weeping Waters.'

If that was a happy tale, Evie wouldn't have wanted to hear a sad one. But she nodded thanks nevertheless. Lew Ferguson touched his cap, and had another swig of whisky. She stared out across the darkening bay. Behind them, the sun was falling lower, and the air had taken on that twilight gloom. But her mind crept back to Donna's dismissive comments about her skills:
‘You use your Gift passively.'

But she HADN'T said: ‘Your Gift is passive.'

I'm a fortune-teller — what could be more passive than that? I just read a book that others can't see, and recite what I find inside the covers. What other way is there to do it than passively? I see possible futures — I don't create them.

Could I, though?
She sucked in her breath a little.
Was that what Donna meant?

Her mind drifted back to Lew Ferguson's story: the one-eyed Balor had foretold his own death, or someone had done it for him. And his eye could
kill
. And Mat had said: ‘We're in a place made of wishes.'

What would I wish for myself, if I could shape the future?

‘You look like you've got a lot on your mind, lass,' Lew Ferguson said, making her jump slightly. She'd almost forgotten he was there.

‘I guess,' she said, collecting her thoughts.

‘Then I'll be leavin' yer in peace. Time I got t'ferry back
to Paihia, an' shut up for the night.'

She stood as he did. ‘Lew, thank you. For the company.' She decided she liked him. He spoke in a far more gentlemanly manner than any guy she'd met at home. ‘Boys today have no manners', her mother was always saying.

He smiled warmly. ‘T'pleasure was mine, lass.' He gave a slight bow.

‘You'll have a good life, Lew,' she called after him, habits of her fortune-telling asserting themselves. ‘Your wife will make you happy.'

He touched the brim of his cap respectfully. ‘I'm hopin' so, lass. Goodnight.'

Then he was gone, leaving her with more time to think. Too much time. She felt all at sea, and why not?
I've been stolen from my normal life, deposited in another world, and left alone while my fate is decided by others
.

She fell back on her personal routines, seeking guidance from her craft. She fumbled in her underclothes and found her pouch of rune stones, pulled one out randomly. She looked into her palm at the little carved piece of black agate. The rune was
kaunaz
, reversed: blocked creativity …
Bad
. She felt a little wave of hopelessness. It felt like a true reading.

I have no influence, no power, and, once we find Venn and Grieve, they'll pack me away home. Then Donna will cure me and I'll never come here again. I'll probably never see Mat again, either.

And then … normality. Mortgages and bills and mundane jobs and family dramas, a whole sea of ordinariness to drown in.

Is that what I truly want?

She went to drop the rune stone back in the bag, when it occurred to her that if
kaunaz
was right-side up, it meant the opposite: creativity freed, danger, creative fire, the beacon in the dark.

Wouldn't that be better?

She stared at the stone in the failing light, wondering what it would have taken to have made the rune stone land the other way up. As the sun fell behind her and the shadows lengthened, her mind drifted, oblivious to all else.

Until steely arms wrapped about her and a huge hand clamped over her mouth. She struggled, tried to scream, but then a line of cold metal pressed against her throat, and she went rigid in terror.

K
ORORAREKA
, S
ATURDAY EVENING

M
at's arm shot out and caught the falling laundry basket. Damien caught the little maid about the shoulders, and put his hand over her mouth. Her shriek was silenced stillborn, as he hissed ‘Shhh' softly. She struggled, but she was like a doll in his grasp. Mat stared, frightened to risk using his powers in case doing so alerted Venn. But Damien did something just as effective. He winked and grinned at the maid. She stopped her struggling, perplexed. She was young and, Mat realized, quite pretty, her black hair tightly coiled beneath a bonnet, her skin dark against the cream fabric. Damien smiled winningly, and gently righted her, still ‘shhhing' under his breath. ‘Hello, Beautiful,' he murmured.

Mat grimaced.
She's going to slap him …

The girl smiled back uncertainly. Damien slowly removed his hand from her mouth.

She opened wide to scream again—

And Damien kissed her hard, his mouth sealing off
hers, wincing as she kicked and scratched, thrashing about soundlessly in his grip. Mat watched helplessly.
Of all the stupid things — and if I intervene, Venn will sense it …

So all Mat could do was watch as the girl stopped trying to escape, and went still again. Cigar smoke still drifted down from above. The bishop had fallen silent and the two Americans were now talking of tides and weather. It certainly sounded like they might be leaving tonight, and therefore that ship loading off the coast must be the one.

We should go … But Lena's here, and wounded …

Damien tentatively stopped kissing, but put his finger to the girl's lips, a questioning look on his face. Mat prepared to act if she tried to scream again, but she remained still, her eyes on Damien.

‘Bad men,' Damien whispered, pointing up at the balcony.

The girl's face changed. She bared her teeth, and nodded vehemently. ‘Bad mens!' She tugged down the neckline of her cotton smock, revealing a thick, ugly scar across her throat. ‘Bad bad!'

Someone murdered her here.
Mat swallowed.

‘Who?' Damien demanded, retribution in his eyes. He touched her throat with a trembling finger. ‘Who did this?'

‘Hayes, his name,' the girl replied. ‘Bully Hayes.' Her eyes blazed furiously.

Mat edged closer, and whispered in the maid's ear. ‘Where is the prisoner? Where is the girl with blonde hair?'

Her eyes flickered uncomprehendingly, and then she shut them again, and began to move her lips towards Damien's, her expression suddenly blissful.

Oh for goodness' sake!

Damien pulled away, shook his head softly. ‘Later. Find girl now.' He pointed into the print-house. ‘White girl? Prisoner?'

The maid looked puzzled, then a look of comprehension dawned on her face. She took Damien's hand and pulled him towards the far end of the building, opposite the balcony. ‘Come!'

She led them around the end of the building to a narrow strip of unkempt grass between the print-house and the fence. The sound of the children was louder suddenly; they were singing now, a chorus reverberating from the rear of a tiny wooden chapel. Mat recognized a Catholic hymn. They crept to the corner and looked down over a tangle of ramshackle buildings that filled the half acre or so of land between the print-house and the seafront. There were men moving among them, but not with any great vigilance.

The girl clutched his shoulder and pointed to the largest of the buildings, just to the front and side of the little chapel. ‘Bishop house. Prisoner there. My mother see her.' She clutched her own hair, and showed it to Mat. ‘White hair.'

Mat nodded. He slid his hand to the necklace about his throat, where Lena's jade tear lay pressed against his koru – knot carving. The tear was pulsing very faintly. He let it go again, having no idea whether trying to use the tear to guide him would alert Asher Grieve or Sebastian Venn.

He put his mouth to Damien's ear. ‘I'll go first. You follow me in if it goes wrong. Keep the maid out of it. Don't forget that to die here is to die forever.'

Damien's eyes glistened as he nodded understanding.

Mat slipped forward, hunched over with his taiaha in his left hand, and glided down the wooden flanks of the chapel,
ducking under the tiny windows. The door of the chapel was open, and he saw the backs and dark, tousled hair of the children as they sat cross-legged before a man in monk's robes. No-one saw Mat as he stole past and onto the back veranda of the bishop's residence. He heard Damien glide in behind him, then groaned inwardly as he also heard the maid. He slid to the door, conscious that there was nowhere to hide, and he could even see the silhouettes of Venn and the other American on the side balcony of the print-house, no more than forty yards away.

He gently pushed the door open and crept across a tiny kitchen full of ceramic dishes and pots, and all manner of fruits and vegetables and meats hanging from hooks in the roof. A huge oven dominated the space, and another maid, a grey-haired Chinese lady who might have been the other maid's mother, was kneeling in front of the oven, feeding wood into its furnace. She never saw or heard Mat as he slipped onwards into the house.

Lena, where are you?
He touched the tear, felt it tugging towards the left. He found himself in a hall running the length of the downstairs level, until it met an ornate door at the right-hand end, presumably the bishop's private rooms. But the tear still pulled him to the left. He drew his pistol, but didn't cock it. Yet.

He crept towards the left-hand side of the passage, where the shadows were deepest. There were two doors on this side. The first one wasn't locked, and he stealthily opened it and glanced inside. The room was tiny, cramped with two bunks so small a child would have to sleep in a foetal position. It smelt of sweat and spice and was festooned with Asian and
European clothing. The servants' room. Opposite was a cupboard. The floor creaked horribly but he had no choice.

The second door was locked.

He went still, and listened with every sense. There were people moving at the other end of the house, talking tersely. The sea hissed rhythmically outside, only yards from the front of the house. A wagon rattled past, and men were shouting in the distance.

And on the far side of the door, someone was breathing through clenched teeth.

He reached out with the most subtle release of energy he could muster, to caress the key inside the lock, and slowly twist …

In his mind's eye, a soft-skinned but lined face framed by lank, silver hair came suddenly awake, and turned and looked down at him — just as a plump man with a deceptively affable smile went still, and peered through the timber walls with all-seeing eyes …

Shit!

Mat wrenched at the key with his mind, and the lock clicked. He hammered the door open. Lena was on the bed, clad in bandages and a full-length night-dress. There was no window. He could feel the heat of Asher Grieve and Sebastian Venn's gaze on them, like beams of laser light. ‘Lena, can you get up?'

She groaned. The sound of shouting carried through the walls.
I've got about six seconds.

He bent over her, and, although she was taller than him, he drew all the strength he could from inside and around him, and pulled her up to a sitting position, still wrapped in
blankets. He sucked in air, bent over her and then pulled her to her feet. She was too tall to carry. He gasped under her weight as he pulled her along with him. She barely reacted to his presence. Her face and bare arms were covered in bruises and welts. He staggered out to the hall, aiming for the kitchen. He had to hold the taiaha in his left hand and support Lena with his right arm. He felt fearfully exposed.

A rough-dressed man with a pistol burst from the door next to the bishop's room, another behind him. The first man shouted and raised his pistol. Mat pulled Lena behind him without thought, even though it left him helpless under the gun.

A shot blasted out of the kitchen door and knocked the gunman off his feet. The second man's face widened in shock as he twisted frantically, but a blade lunged out of the kitchen and impaled him through the chest. He jerked, clutching weakly at the blade as he slid off it and sprawled. Damien appeared, jamming the smoking pistol into his belt and sweeping up the one the first man had dropped. He was smiling as if at the best party ever.

Mat staggered towards him, Lena's weight awkward in his hands, and barrelled into the kitchen. Behind him two more shots cracked, wood splintered, and Damien laughed derisively. The little Chinese maid was clutching her mother in a corner of the kitchen. Mat flashed them a warning look, then stumbled out the back door onto the veranda, Lena clinging to him.

A blast of force struck him, smashing him against the back of the building. Lena sprawled on top of him, knocking the air from his chest. Across the sixty feet between the residence and
the print-house, he saw Sebastian Venn on the balcony, his fingers splayed and face livid. Asher Grieve appeared beside Venn, clad in heavy velvet, a silver-tipped cane in his hand. Electricity fizzed along it, building to a critical level.

Asher smiled, and released the lightning just as Damien leapt through the kitchen door, holding his curved sword and a silver tray.

 

Damien could still taste the Chinese girl's mouth on his lips. He was floating on adrenalin. The hall was filling up with the smoke and tang of black powder, acrid and choking. A storm of fire flew down the stairwell, but he was no longer there. He saw the two men he'd killed lying enveloped in smoke. He felt nothing at all about that — yet. Time for remorse later. He shoved the two pistols — his and that of the fallen man — into his belt, and then brandished the naval sword Hobson had loaned him. Heavy and curved, it was technically a cutlass, a slashing weapon. Damien had learnt to fence with lightweight foils, but he'd played with heavier slashing weapons.
I'll manage
.

He backed out of the kitchen, glanced down at where the (gorgeous, utterly beautiful, mysterious, winsome and lovely) maid was comforting her mother.

‘Damien!' he shouted, pointing at himself and grinning.

She looked at him like he was mad. Then she beamed back. ‘Shui!'

He backed away, grinning, then froze.

A man with a flintlock pistol advanced into the room. ‘Hold it right there, boy!'

Damien did as he was told.

And behind the gunman, Shui eased herself up, gripped a skillet and advanced.

The skillet smashed the gun from the man's hand.

Lunge.

The point arched through the man's chest, pierced his ribs and punctured his heart. He fell backwards, his eyes panicked.

Shui's face was exultant.

‘I love you!' Damien shouted at her, utterly sincere. Then he heard Mat and Lena cry out behind him, and his heart went to his mouth. He spun to glimpse Asher Grieve on the balcony of the print-house, only yards away. A strange glow was forming about the tip of the cane in his hand. The whole of creation seemed to move into slow motion, but Damien's brain just kept on fizzing. He snatched up a silver tray, and darted towards the back door as lightning arced from Grieve's cane.

He flung the tray. Grieve's lightning seemed to bend towards the flying tray, and exploded about it. In a frozen moment he saw the tray go incandescent, and fly sideways. A shower of sparks cascaded over him. His eyes still dazzled, he landed in front of Mat, and pulled Lena to her feet. ‘Hey, babe.'

She roared like a wild beast, her teeth flashing and her nails lengthening.
Yikes!

Fire gathered in Mat's right hand, and he flung it at the warlocks on the print-house balcony. It burst ineffectually against unseen shielding. More shouting came, from more men advancing amongst the tangle of small buildings, trying to get a line of sight on them. Musket balls cracked and pinged
about them. ‘Come on!' Damien shouted at Mat and Lena.

Mat grabbed Lena's hand, then jerked away as she slashed at him, her skin going dark and her whole body changing. Bunching and twisting, her night-dress beginning to tear from the corded muscle and sinew swelling inside.

Holy She-hulk, Batman!
Damien gave her a wide berth. Mat backed away, shouting at Lena to follow as he threw more fire at Grieve and Venn.

Damien glanced back to the door. Shui was there, staring after him. She was waving at him, as if all the chaos erupting about them was nothing but the soundtrack to the movie in her head. He fell further and irrevocably in love.

‘I'll come back!' he shouted, as bullets whipped around him. He took a breath, and sprinted away. From the print-house, he saw Venn jab a finger at him, and felt a wave of force flow towards him, visible like a heat wave on a cold day. He rolled beneath it, heard a window shatter above his head. Mat stormed past him, but Lena's roar was more distant, though intensifying.

Lena's gone seawards, like a good water-monster should
… He blew a kiss at Shui, then hurdled the fence as more shots flew. Mat was just in front of him, and they tore across the property, trying to vanish from the sights of their pursuers. The headland and its pa loomed above. Glancing back, he could still see the top of Pompallier House. Mat was gasping beside him. ‘Lena went towards the sea! We've got to go back!'

‘You kidding? They've got guns!'

‘Exactly!' Mat shouted. ‘Come on!' He ran to the right, past the last house on the seafront, which lay right beneath
the headland, and hurtled across the dirt road.

‘Damned reckless Maori!' he shouted after Mat, and pelted after him.

 

Mat heard a fusillade of shots somewhere northwards along the waterfront, and a massive splash. His breath caught in fear.
Lena!
They hit the seashore, sprinted between two pohutukawa and onto the narrow strip of sand.