The Bone Tiki by David Hair Page B

engine is in the back.
    Pockface’s bullet had pierced the engine, which was quietly disgorging oil onto the ground as they talked.
    Mat walked up to the stricken VW and kicked the bumper.
    ‘Hey!’ protested Kelly. ‘That’s my car!’
    ‘Yeah, well…’ Mat shook his head. ‘Now what are we going to do?’
    They both turned to Wiri. The young warrior pursed his lips. ‘The woman will be calling her friends. If your car cannot take us away from here, then we have to go on foot. And the next traveller to look into this clearing will see them,’ he indicated the prone thugs, ‘and then there will be police on the way.’
    Mat stared at him, his mind racing with questions. ‘How do you know about cars? And police? And how to speak English? And how—’
    Wiri put up his hand. ‘Later. I’ll tell you later. All you need to know for now is that I have lived for many years in your world and learned much, though that was long ago. And all the time I was in the tiki, I could sense things around me. But for now, we have to move!’
    Mat swallowed hard and nodded. Wiri patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. He was perspiring and had a pleasant, salty smell. He felt very real.
    Kelly tried the ignition but the engine didn’t even threaten to start. There was more wrong with it than just the oil leak. She thumped the steering wheel. ‘My car! My car! Damn them! Damn that witch !’ she shouted furiously.
    Mat heard a noise—another car, coming from the Taupo direction.
    ‘Kelly! Someone’s coming! Come on, we gotta go!’
    Wiri nodded. ‘I think it’s just a traveller, but Mat is right. Come, I know the paths of this land.’
    Kelly opened her mouth, but as she heard the roar of a car descending the road toward the floor of the gorge, she stopped, grabbed her keys, and ran to the crumpled front bonnet. She pulled it open, and hauled out a large pack. Mat reached in beside her and shouldered his kit. Fitzy had run down to the stream and was barking urgently, as though urging them on. With one last dazed look at each other, they turned and trotted to the stream, where Wiri was waving his taiaha frantically.
    By the time the oncoming car drove past the rest area—and braked sharply as the driver saw the sprawled bodies—Wiri, Kelly and Mat had vanished into a gap in the trees beyond the stream, following Fitzy up a faint trail that took them away from the road, up into the hills.

8
Through the forest
    T hey lost the light within minutes. Steep cliffs, overgrown
    with native bush, pressed about them. The air was close and cold. Wet ferns clawed at them, pawed their clothes and faces as they passed. Moss covered every rock, every dip in the soil contained a muddy puddle, slimy with livid green growths. The wet earthy atmosphere made every breath heavy, like drinking fog.
    Fitzy had come back and was trotting alongside Wiri, as though the dog and the warrior were old friends. Mat was soon tired and breathless. His shoes were wet again, as they seemed to have been all night and all day, and he was staggering and reeling within minutes. It wasn’t just the long strange night, or the terrifying things he’d seen, or the long tiring day clambering through the river valley. When he somehow managed to unlock the secret of the tiki andsummoned Wiri, it was as if all energy had flowed out of him, as if some internal battery had used all its electricity, and he felt hollow, the very marrow of his bones sucked away.
    Wiri noticed him fall behind, and helped him to the next clearing. Kelly was sitting on a rock, her face flushed. Fitzy woofed softly at her like a nanny reassuring a child, and she patted the dog’s head in answer, looking at Mat with concern. Mat felt a fleeting shame as he sagged down on the ground. Wiri’s arms around his shoulders were smooth yet rocklike in their strength.
    For someone who isn’t real, he seems more solid than I do…
    They managed another few hundred metres up a barely discernible