Justice and Utu Read Free Page A

and ended up being pursued half the length of the North Island by the most evil tohunga makutu in two worlds. A repeat of that wasn’t an attractive proposition. He’d been fifteen then. Now he was nearly seventeen, but he’d changed immensely: he was a trainee tohunga ruanuku (or ‘Adept’, as his mentor Aethlyn Jones preferred to say), and could do things few others could. He had met a goddess, faced death and evil, and seen secretplaces in a secret world. It showed sometimes in his eyes, in his bearing and his maturity. Only a few months ago, he and Riki had fought patupaiarehe and warlocks in Rotorua, and freed the legendary tohunga Ngatoro from imprisonment in a secret lair of evil. All that they had been through in the past year lay at the heart of their new maturity. Sometimes it was a struggle to care about things like school, sport, TV, movies, and even girls when there was so much more to worry about. This world was hard enough, but Mat could journey at will to another world: magical Aotearoa, the Ghost World.
    â€˜So, have those concert tickets we ordered arrived?’ Riki asked, changing the subject.
    Mat grinned. ‘Yeah, absolutely! We’re going to the Green Day show, man! Second Saturday of February, in Wellington. Wiri and Kelly are going to put us up. Cassandra’s confirmed: she’ll drive down from Gizzy and pick us up on the way through. Has Damien confirmed?’
    Riki grinned. ‘Sure has! The Dame’s got some big fencing tournament on in Auckland the week before, but he says it’ll be over by Thursday and then he’ll come down.’ He tsked. ‘Dame still hasn’t forgiven us for not calling him up that last time we were in Aotearoa. He was gutted when I told him about it.’
    â€˜He shouldn’t be: we could have all been killed,’ Mat replied in a low voice, checking to make sure his mother wasn’t eavesdropping on the conversation. The less his folks knew about some of what they faced in Aotearoa, the better. Both knew of the Ghost World, but knowing of it and experiencing it were different things.
    â€˜Yeah, when I told him that, it just made him more envious.’
    Mat laughed softly: that sounded like Damien. The four of them were going to get together in January here in Napier, and he was looking forward to that more than anything. Although they all had other friends, the bond Riki, Damien, Cassandra and Mat shared was unique: they had been to Aotearoa.
    The two friends lay on the grass soaking up the sun, letting the breeze dry their skin. November had been windy but warm, promising a hot summer to come. Traffic rolled in the distance, and gulls called as they glided by. The neighbours’ children were crying over something, and Mat could even hear the clip-clop of a horse out on the road—
    A horse?
    He sat up just as a rider turned into their driveway. His horse was big, a shaggy brown beast of a creature, wide-eyed and skittish, with soaking-wet, sweaty flanks. The rider was tall and straight-backed, and clad in a long leather coat and broad-brimmed leather hat, like a drover. He had a sabre and musket among the bags strapped to his saddlebags.
    â€˜What the heck?’ Riki breathed as he saw the man. The boys stood warily.
    â€˜Greetings,’ the rider called formally. ‘I’m seeking one Tama Douglas.’
    Mat frowned. Why would someone like this want Dad? ‘You must mean me. I’m his son, Mat.’
    The rider peered at him, then fumbled into a saddlebag, coming out with a thick envelope with a handwritten address on the front. ‘No, lad. It says “Tama Douglas” here. I’m a courier, sent by the governor himself.’
    The governor? Mat looked at Riki, and then back at the house. ‘Um … I’ll get Dad. Do you need anything for the horse, sir? Water or something?’
    â€˜Aye, water’d be nice, thank you. We’ve ridden long ways today. My