The Shattering (28 page)

It was a trick, I knew, it was all a lie to make me take down my guard and then come at me again. I spun around, ready to tear off her face, get her on the ground, and kick her lying mouth, snap her shiny teeth, and — And then it was gone.

The spell breaking was like a lightning strike, searing all the rage from my brain. ‘Oh, shit,' I said, in the aftershock of the detonation. ‘It nearly worked.'

Janna looked as relieved as I felt, but then she wrinkled her forehead. ‘But how is it gone?' she asked, and her face flashed fear at the same time it stabbed me, even under the joy of losing that slick, rotten voice. It was so
good
not to hate her anymore. ‘Where's Sione?'

‘With Aroha,' Takeshi supplied. ‘The fight is over?'

‘
Yes
,' Janna said, and hugged me hard. ‘The things I said, I am so sorry, Keri. I didn't — I don't think that way, you know that, right?'

‘Me, neither,' I said, hugging back. ‘I don't care who you kiss. I hate that they made me say I did.'

‘Are you sure you're not a lesbo?' Hemi asked. ‘Because I'm okay with that. That would be hot.'

I flinched and, for a moment, disliked Janna of my own free will. She hadn't done it on purpose, but it was out now. I was going to have to handle stupid comments like that for the rest of my life.

‘Shut
up
,' Janna snapped. ‘Hemi, you are a pig.' He opened his mouth and she ran right over him. ‘No! Girls aren't here to make your dick happy! Apologise right now!'

‘Uh,' Hemi said. ‘Uh, sorry.' He shot me a glance and then looked away.

It was sweet of her, but I had some mixed feelings about someone else defending me, especially when she'd been the one to put me in this position. And making Hemi say sorry sort of made it seem like she was making him apologise for calling me a lesbian, not for being a dickhead. My being gay wasn't the problem; his being a jerk was.

Still. She'd meant well. ‘Whatever,' I said, and pulled out my mobile phone.

Sione wasn't answering. Either the spell was still working for him and he wouldn't pick up or he'd forgotten to bring it, or — Janna's own mobile phone rang, and from the strain of her face as she listened, I knew it wasn't good news. ‘Where? Okay. Okay, we're coming. Just . . . stay put, okay? We're on our way.' She whirled. ‘Takeshi,
stay here
, with Vikings. Don't go anywhere with any adults, do you understand?'

‘I understand,' Takeshi said. ‘But why?'

Patrick's eyebrows were crawling up his face. ‘What? Where are you going?'

‘Sione?' I said, but Janna shook her head.

‘Aroha.' She swung toward Patrick. ‘I'm sorry, I have to go do this thing, I'll —' ‘We're going onstage in an hour,' Patrick said. His voice was very soft .

‘I'll try to get back in time, but I —' ‘Janna.'

‘Stardust, we have to go,' I said. I had some sympathy, but I was pretty sure we didn't have time for this.

‘I'm sorry, Patrick,' Janna said, and grabbed his hand. ‘Please, please —'

‘This is our
chance
, Janna! Are you kidding me? What's wrong with you! We put in all this effort and —' He scowled, recovering some of his composure. ‘I thought you got it. I thought you wanted this, I thought you
understood.

' ‘I do,' Janna whispered. Her face was drawing in, tight and small. Takeshi was watching her, his hands shift ing as if he wanted to comfort her. ‘I want it more than almost anything.'

‘Well?'

‘I'll come back,' she said.

‘No. If you leave now, you
leave the band
, you understand me? You're out for good.'

Janna choked back something and looked away. When she met his eyes again, her own eyes were glistening. ‘Okay. Sorry, guys. Takeshi, I'll explain later, I
promise.

' ‘What the hell?' Kyle yelled, and Hemi reached out for her arm, his face more worried than angry, but Janna ducked around them both, and we ran. How she was keeping up with me in a tight pleather skirt and spike-heeled boots, I had no idea, but she was doing it, her breathing harsh as we raced out the backstage exit, past the startled security guard, and toward the town. I wanted to console her, but I had too many other concerns to waste thought on sympathy.

‘What happened?' I asked.

‘Sione and Aroha snuck into the art gallery,' she said, dashing her hand across her face. ‘He smashed statues that Aroha says looked like us, which I think must have been the spell focus. Kirk Davidson caught them and beat him up, but Sione managed to stop him from grabbing Aroha. He told her to run and find me. But he didn't follow her out.'

‘Oh, fuck,' I said, and sped past her.

‘Wait, wait, we have to go together!'

I halted in front of Lauer's, a block from the art gallery. Janna panted to a stop beside me.

‘Janna, what is happening?' Takeshi said, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I'd been paying so much attention to what was ahead that I hadn't looked over my shoulder.

‘You can't be here,' Janna said, when she got her breath back. ‘Oh my God, Takeshi, go back to the beach,
please
.'

‘No,' he said. He managed to pack a lot into that one syllable, standing with his feet apart and his eyes steady on us. He looked like someone with a game plan of his own.

For the first time, I realised that I'd made Daisy's mistake. I hadn't been looking at Takeshi as a real person. Even before I'd met him, he'd been nothing to me but a potential victim I could save, as Jake had not been saved. I hadn't cared about him as himself.

But Takeshi was undeniably real, ready and willing to act on behalf of a guy he had no reason to like.

Janna, who did care about Takeshi as Takeshi, responded faster than me. ‘But —' she began.

‘Sione is in trouble,' he said. ‘You will help, and me, too.'

‘
Pssst
,' someone hissed, and this time I managed not to jump as Aroha emerged from behind the skip in the alley behind Lauer's. My head spun. It was the same place where Janna had taken me when this had all begun.

If you want to find out who murdered your brother, follow me.

‘What are we going to do?' Aroha demanded. She looked different with straight hair — older, somehow. But her face was a mess: smeared makeup, red and blotchy from her crying. She wasn't crying now; she seemed to have shift ed gear into rage. ‘Sione broke those things — he did that — but Mr Davidson really went for him. I saw blood and everything. People have been going in. I saw the Maukis brothers and that big policeman; I think they might be
arresting
him. But they can't do him for breaking and entering without a countercharge for assault. I was thinking, when my dad gets back, he —'

‘No!' Janna said. ‘Sergeant Rafferty's in on it.'

‘In on
what
?'

Janna opened her mouth, and I could see she was going to lie. But I was sick of lies, and we were here, now, at the crux of it. So I spoke up first: ‘Black magic. Human sacrifice.' I shrugged as Aroha stared at me.‘Believe me or not. But if you're coming, come quietly.'

Janna threw her arms in the air. ‘Takeshi —'

‘He might be safer with us.' I wasn't sure of that, but Vikings didn't have a clue what was going on; if Rafferty tried to take Takeshi, they'd probably let him go. And besides, he deserved the right to choose his own risk and not just be protected, like a prize. ‘Okay,' she grumbled, but I was already moving across the road, toward the alley between the library and the art gallery. Janna was whispering hurried explanations, Aroha translating sections in a voice thick with disbelief, but I was silent, careful as I balanced every step.

It wasn't until I groped for the baton in my pocket that I remembered; the pocket, and the baton, were at home, lying on the laundry floor with my cargo pants. I was armed with nothing more than one good fist. That was another good argument for Takeshi's coming. The Maukis brothers, and Daisy, and Rafferty, and Kirk Davidson. Five of them, four of us, and us unarmed. Even with the element of surprise, it was going to be tight.

I reached the broken door and looked over my ragtag army. Aroha looked determined, Takeshi looked doubtful, and Janna — Janna looked as fierce as I felt.

I nodded at her, and pushed the door open, stepping quietly around the pile of broken glass. Sione had done this
?
I was clearly a bad influence.

There was soft light coming from upstairs, and arguing voices, and I felt my adrenaline spike. The acoustics in the building were weird, though, and I couldn't make out what they were saying or who was speaking. I was grateful for the noise, though, which covered the creaks we made going up. When we got near the top, I signalled the others to stop, and crept farther up on hand and knees, holding my cast behind my back so it wouldn't knock against the floor.

Low to the ground, I peeked around the corner and froze.

My enemy count had been off.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

JANNA

Janna had thought Aroha might be a problem, but the red-haired
girl went inside without protest, her sunny face grim.
That was scary in itself; whatever Mr Davidson had done to Sione had been enough to make Aroha trust Janna and Keri's talk about magic. Takeshi had looked much more critical after her translated explanation, eyebrows drawn together.

But he followed, tight and warm at Janna's back, catching her elbow when one of her stockinged feet slipped on the polished wood of the steps. She'd taken the boots off downstairs, and if she'd been thinking, she would have taken the socks off, too. But thinking wasn't working properly right now, not with a fog of tears swirling in her brain.

The possible sacrifice of her boyfriend and the definite beating of her friend were sort of
priorities
, but those were big, horrible things, too huge to accept as real. What was making her want to curl up and die was the look on Patrick's face as she'd turned and run. Vikings wasn't a hobby. They were a future, they were a
family
, and she'd betrayed them.

For my
other
family
, she reminded herself, and tried to focus, tried to shut out the music coming from the beach, a joyful noise that she wasn't making.

Ahead of her, Keri edged her head around the corner and went still, her back lean and tense as she balanced.

When she turned back to them, Janna forgot all about Vikings. Keri — determined, aggressive, hyper-prepared Keri — looked as if she'd lost hope.

Janna crawled past her to see why and felt her face sink into the same despairing lines.

There was Daisy Hepwood, all right, and Sergeant Rafferty, and both Maukis brothers, and Mr Davidson.

And everyone's favourite English teacher, Mrs Rackard, and her daughter Emily, who was just a bit older than they were. Nineteen. Sione's brother had been nineteen, and Keri's, too. And that provided a better explanation for the poppet in Janna's car — Emily had been the Kahawai spy.

It took Janna a second to work out why Emily's being there felt like a song in the wrong key, but when she understood, she thought she might be sick. Emily was too young — not just to be doing this at all, but to have started when it all began. She had been nine when Schuyler died. Emily must have been brought into the coven later, maybe a few years ago, maybe tonight. It didn't matter when. What mattered was that they were recruiting new people, spreading the poison down Summerton's generations. They would never, ever stop.

Huddled to one side of the stone plinth and talking to each other, the killers looked exactly as they did any other day. They weren't wearing fancy black robes or ceremonial face paint, and they didn't cackle loudly or wave bloody knives about. The only light came from tall candles in long, straight holders, lights and shadows dancing as the flames fluttered. This only made the human figures look even more ordinary, in their business suits and flowing skirts and sensible shoes, like opera fans at a black metal gig.

This is what evil looks like
, Janna thought, clear and calm over the rush of her blood in her ears.
Ordinary people doing terrible things.

‘— didn't need to hit him that hard,' Rafferty was saying to Mr Davidson, disapproval thick in his voice.

‘He was destroying the office. What was I supposed to do? At least he's not a problem anymore. But he broke those bloody statues. Why the hell didn't you lock the door, Tiberius?'

‘Daisy called us to say he was coming and to bring him in by leaving,' Tiberius snapped. ‘I didn't think you'd take so long to grab one boy, did I?'

‘Why did you want him caught, Daisy?' Rafferty asked.

‘You said the girl got away?' Mrs Rackard broke in. She was tearing nervously at her fingernail.

They're rattled
, Janna thought. They weren't used to mistakes, or people getting in the way — people who knew the truth.

‘What's done is done,' Daisy said matter-of-factly, and some of the tension went out of the room, people settling down with less-ruffled feathers. ‘The girls will work out that their anger was the result of enchantment, but it's not as if they could do anything about it on an hour's notice, even if they knew where to go. And Janna's due onstage then, isn't she?'

Tiberius nodded.

Hah
, Janna thought.

‘Well, then. One teenage girl on the loose — or even two — is hardly a problem for us.'

‘What about the one who got away?' Octavian demanded. ‘That red-haired little bitch —'

‘Excuse
me
,' Mrs Rackard said, giving him the kind of look she gave Hemi for his ‘jokes' about girls. It was so familiar that Janna felt tears prick at her eyes. Mrs Rackard was patient about Janna's misspellings, and let her do oral reports instead of essays, and had gone over the proper way to set out a business letter three times until Janna had it firm in her head, all without making her feel stupid. Mrs Rackard shouldn't be here, worrying about whether Janna would disrupt her plans to kill someone.