Coiled Snake (The Windstorm Series Book 2) (4 page)

Kava.

I double over, not even trying to stop the tears. Soon my shoulders hurt. My eyes hurt. My chest hurts.
How is this possible?

It’s not just that my dad was a traitor. It’s that my parents were Rangi. Rangi! How can my family come from such terrible people? No, they’re not people. They’re devils. Killers. And they think my dad betrayed them, which means they’ll kill me too. Going back means death; staying here means death. What’s the difference?

I close my eyes. The wind blows salt water into my face, and I lick my lips. I never knew I liked salt, that it could taste so good, until I came to the ocean. The wind grows stronger, tugs at my hair and clothes, and I imagine what it would be like if I were to ride up with it right now and look down on the green island and its blue mountains. What would it look like from the sky? I open my eyes and peer back at the shoreline. Thick, swooping clouds still cover the peaks.
It would look like a long, white cloud,
I think.

My desire to windwalk is suddenly so strong, it hurts. I try to remember what it feels like to hold
honga
, to let the swirling air carry away my pain and fear, replacing it with light.

I can’t die yet
, I think.
Not until I’ve windwalked again.

Besides, I admit to myself, the Rangi aren’t ready to kill me. Otherwise they wouldn’t have sent me to live with Miri. There may still be hope.

I’m just not sure what to hope for.

I return the kayak to Jim and tell him I haven’t talked to Miri yet about working for him. He says that’s fine but to ask her soon because he could really use some full-time help. I nod and then walk down the Strand, back to the house. It’s mid-afternoon. Miri will still be out on her boat, and I plan to take a nap.

I’m surprised when I enter the house and see a light on in the kitchen. I turn the corner, expecting to see Miri, and instantly jump backward. Sitting at the table, eating a cookie, is a burly man wearing a wife beater and a black leather jacket. Though his arms are large and muscular, I can see a slight potbelly bulging underneath his wife beater. His long hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and a dark tattoo swirls across his face. He looks up when he hears me and grins, revealing a gap in his front teeth.

I snatch a knife from the counter and point it at him. The man laughs and takes a bite of the cookie.

“You any good with a knife, girl?” he asks, his mouth full.

“Well,” I say shakily, “you’re pretty big, so I probably wouldn’t miss.”

He laughs again. “Okay. Say you get the blade in me. You look scrawny, so it likely won’t go very deep. Now you don’t have a weapon. I walk over there, break your arm, flip you around, and slam your face into the hob. Bam! Then I come back here and finish my biscuit.”

I swallow and back up some more. “Why are you here?”

“Good question,” someone says from behind me.

I turn around. Miri is standing in the doorway, arms folded across her chest. I breathe a sigh of relief.

“
Kia ora
, Mir,” the man says. “Thanks for the biscuit.” He holds up the final bite.

“Don’t recall your asking.”

“I know how much you like to share.” He smiles.

“I can take care of the girl,” Miri replies sharply.

“No one’s doubting that, love,” the man says. “I’m just providing a little backup.”

“Oh, really? And where do you expect to stay?”

“You got a couch or something?”

“No.”

“All right. Guess the front lawn’ll do.”

“You’re not going to sleep in the garden like a bum. What will the neighbors say?”

“Maybe they’ll offer me a couch.”

“I don’t want you here, Paika.”

“Not your call, Mir.”

“She’s perfectly safe with me. Unless you’ve blown her cover.”

“The only person who knows I’m here is the
Riki
.”

“What about Tane?”

The man, Paika, shifts in his seat. “Yeah, he might know too.”

Miri glares at him. “Well, now she is in danger.”

“What’s going on?” I ask, knife still raised. “Who’s Tane?”

“Tane knew she was here before I came,” Paika says to Miri, ignoring me.

“That’s not what I was told.”

“Well, he figured it out. And he’s been talking to the sentries. The
Riki
sent me because he thought someone needed to keep an eye on her while you were out fishing, in case … you know.”

“My fishing didn’t keep me from figuring out you were here, did it?”

“Maybe not. But if I had wanted to kill her, she would have been dead long before you got back to the house.”

Miri’s eyes narrow. That look was enough to terrify the drunks on the beach, but Paika calmly holds her gaze.

“I’m still a tad peckish,” he says. “So what do you say to going back out on your boat and catching us some nice supper while I keep an eye on things here? There’s a good girl.”

“If you want to eat any of the fish I catch,” Miri retorts sharply, “you better make yourself useful around here. There’s a hole on my roof that needs patching. See to it, and then we’ll talk about supper. Cheeky blighter.”

Paika chuckles. “Cheers.” He nods at me. “How are her injuries?”

Miri studies me. “All but healed, I’d say. She helps out at the shop and goes out on the water almost every day.”

“A fish like her nana, eh.”

The comparison makes me frown. Miri frowns too. “See that you get the roof done,” she says. Then she grabs an apple from the table and leaves the kitchen.

I follow her to the door. “Don’t leave me with him,” I beg.

“You’ll be fine,” she says, stepping onto the front step. “Paika may be a sheep’s arse, but he’ll protect you.”

“Are you kidding? He’s the reason I’m here!” I protest.

“He saved your life,” Miri counters. I open my mouth to correct her, but her look shuts me up. “Cook some of the fish I brought in last night. We can have that for supper. I’ve got other business to tend to.” She slams the door behind her.

I stand motionless in the hallway, knife in hand, and think about the man sitting on the other side of the wall. The man who’s been in my nightmares for weeks. Gripping the knife, I force myself to walk back into the kitchen.

He isn’t there.

I spin around, ready to plunge the blade into his chest if he attacks me. But there’s no sign of him. Moving cautiously, I creep out of the kitchen and back into the hall. My heart is pumping furiously as I peek around the corner. He’s in my bedroom, standing over my bed, looking at something.

“Get out of my room,” I say, my voice even shakier than before.

Paika turns around. He’s holding the photograph of my parents. Miri must have put it there. “I took this picture,” he says. “You were just a wee thing then.”

“You knew my parents?” I ask, heart still thumping.

“’Course. Your mum and me were best mates growing up.”

I don’t say anything. It seems impossible that this monster was a friend of my mother, but I’ve learned in the last few days that nothing, not even the most horrifying truth, is impossible.

“Well,” Paika says, putting the picture down, “now that Miri’s out of the way, you know what’s coming.”

My heart jumps into my throat again, and I squeeze the knife so hard it hurts my hand. “What?” I whisper.

“Lessons.” In response to my bewildered expression, he says, “Miri isn’t always going to be around to protect you, and I won’t either. So you need to learn a few things if you want to get on.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “What’s the danger?”

“There are blokes in the
iwi
who want to kill you,” Paika says.

“What’s an
iwi
?”

“I say someone wants to kill you, and you ask, ‘What’s an
iwi
’?”

“Well, I don’t know what that word means.”

“Our
iwi
is our tribe. Blimey, girl, what’s wrong with you?”

“Look, I don’t know your language, or anything about your culture, okay.”
Except what I learned from Rye,
I think, but I don’t say that.

“Bloody
pueha
, this is going to be harder than I thought,” Paika says, running his hands through his thick hair.

“So these people—why do they want to kill me? I’m already your prisoner.”

“Because you’re Hemi’s daughter. And you were helping our enemies.”

“Who’s Tane?” I ask, not even bothering to contradict him. I’ve learned how useless it is.

“The
Matoa
.”

Great.
“So the captain wants me dead.”

“Aye … ” Paika says slowly, “but he won’t disobey the
Riki
. Not directly. It’s the younger ones I’m worried about, the ones who answer to Tane. Unfortunately, they happen to be posted at the town boundaries.”

“The ones Miri said will shoot me if I try to run?”

“The very same.”

So they do exist.
“And you’re proposing to do what? There’s no way I’ll be able to defend myself against someone trained as a warrior.” Suddenly, a vision of a Rangi woman pops into my head, her face turning blue in the rain as I yank on the rope that strangles her to death
.
I shove the image back into the edges of my mind.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Paika says. “You’re a fighter. I can tell that much just by looking at you.” He nods at the knife I’m still gripping in front of me, and I quickly drop my hand to my side. “And besides,” he says, “you come from a long line of warriors.”

“I thought my dad was a craftsman.”

“Not your da, girl! Your mum. And your nana. And all your great-nanas.”

Mom was a warrior?
I shake my head. What else can I possibly learn about my parents that will surprise me?

“What will you teach me?”

Paika grins. “We’ll start with the
patu
.” I flinch as he walks past me back to the kitchen. He opens a duffel bag sitting on the floor and removes a short, flat club—not more than twenty inches long—round at the end and tapering down to a narrow handle. A leather thong is looped through a hole at the tip. “This is for you,” he says, holding it out to me.

I take the club from him. It isn’t very heavy and feels like it’s made of bone. Paika removes a second, identical club from his bag.

“Let’s go down to the beach,” he says, taking off his jacket. “We need room to move around.” He leaves the kitchen and walks out the front door. I stare after him for a few moments, look down at the weapon in my hand, back out at him. Frowning, I set the knife down on the counter and follow him out the door.

When I step outside, I glance to my left and notice a Honda motorcycle parked on the other side of Miri’s small, detached garage. It has to be Paika’s. If I hadn’t been so distracted when I came home, maybe I would have seen it and not been foolishly caught off-guard. I take the path down to the beach.

Paika is waiting for me on the gray sand. “Normally,” he says, “I wouldn’t start with the
patu
, but we don’t have any time to waste. You’ll have to learn fast. Now do what I do.”

He crouches down on the beach, and suddenly his face transforms into a wild animal. His eyes grow large and pop out of his face; his mouth opens wide, and his tongue flops out onto his chin. He flicks his tongue, hisses, and slowly traces a half-circle on the ground with the club. Then he scoops some of the sand up and, very slowly, lets it trickle off his paddle.

He looks up at me, still standing several feet away. “Well, come on, then,” he says.

I shake my head. “I’m not doing that.”

“Why not?”

“There’s no way making faces and tracing lines in the sand will help me in a fight. Plus, it looks ridiculous.”

Paika stands up, scowling. “You don’t respect the
patu
as a weapon.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“If I had a gun, you’d be dead,” I say.

“All right,” he growls. He whips a handgun out of a holster on his side and throws it at me. It lands in the sand at my feet. “Shoot me,” he says.

“What?”

He walks toward me and snatches the
patu
from my grasp. “Shoot me,” he says again. He retreats a few feet and tucks both
patu
into his belt, behind his back. “Pretend we’re enemies, and we’ve just seen each other. You’ll take out your gun; I’ll take out my useless clubs. Let’s see who wins.”

“I’m not going to shoot you,” I say. “That would be—”

“Defend yourself, girl,” he yells. “I’m going to see you in five seconds.”

“Fine!” I retort, scooping up the gun and sticking it in my pants. I think about how he took me prisoner and brought me here, away from Rye, from the twins. I glare at the hideous tattoos framing his face and think about how much I hate him.
If he wants me to shoot him, then that’s what I’m going to do.