Taniwha's Tear Read Online Free Page A

man. Girls aren’t just silly giggly things any more, hmmm? Don’t worry, you’ll meet someone, in time.’
    ‘Yeah, but…all the girls I meet are, well, ordinary.’
    ‘And you’re not? Not any more, eh?’ She looked thoughtful. ‘I can see that might be a problem. I should warn you, the record isn’t very good, when love brings human and unhuman together. Like for myself.’ Pania shrugged. ‘I can’t help you, Mat. The only girls I know live at the bottom of the sea and would eat you alive…literally.’ Some thing in her throaty laugh made him shudder.
    Pania just inclined her head in farewell, and turned. Heading straight towards the water, she kept walking, letting the hungry sea devour her.
    Mat watched her vanish beneath the waves with a strange sense of yearning, then turned back towards the city, where Fitzy was waiting.
    Mat and Fitzy were halfway across the two-lane road when they caught that unpleasant scent of decay he’d sniffed earlier. The turehu moved like lightning. His shape seemed to blur as he scrabbled up one of the tall palm trees in the centre road divider, then something yowled and squealed. Mat gasped as Fitzy seemed to plummet to earth, but the turehu twisted and landed, shaking hard at something in his jaws that hissed and snarled. He spat it to the ground at Mat’s feet.
    The dark thing bunched as if to flee, and Mat, for want of a better move, slammed his foot down on it. There was a squelching crunch, and then a dreadful odour assailed his nostrils, making him almost vomit. The dark shape whined and tried to wriggle free.
    Fitzy landed lightly beside him, and spat a wad of saliva. ‘Yrrk, that was disgusting!’ he growled. The turehu placed his right forepaw over the thing’s chest, pinning it down. Mat stepped away, staring down at the thing, breathing heavily. There were noises from the house opposite, but no lights came on.
    ‘What is it?’ Mat wondered. He raised his right hand, and with an effort of will, conjured a small white light on his fingertips, just as Pania had been teaching him. It illuminated a black cat, or rather, something that had once been a black cat. It looked like it had been three weeks dead, its hide dried out and cracked, its eye sockets horribly empty. The matted fur was patchy and one leg looked crushed, as if it had been run over.
    It sniggered evilly. ‘What indeed?’ it hissed.
    Mat almost leapt backwards in shock.
    ‘It is a tupapaku-ora,’ snarled Fitzy. ‘A living corpse. A makutu thing. We should kill it.’
    The black cat turned its head towards the turehu. Bones and desiccated ligaments snapped as it moved. ‘Oh, and how would you do that, perchance?’ it sneered, leering at them both. ‘I’m already dead.’
    ‘It’s not really alive or dead,’ Fitzy told Mat. ‘It’s just a puppet. There’s a real person behind it, manipulating it.’
    Mat looked about fearfully. ‘Where?’
    ‘Could be anywhere, but the sort of people who do this type of thing don’t usually have the guts to be close by. I’m guessing they’ll be somewhere far away and safe.’
    ‘Aren’t you well informed?’ the cat snarled. ‘Quite the expert. But there’s nothing you can do to me. Threaten me and I’ll be gone in the same instant.’
    ‘Why are you watching me?’ Mat demanded, suddenly angry. ‘You’ve been sneaking around me for weeks. What do you want?’
    ‘None of your business, stripling.’
    ‘Answer me!’
    The cat raised its paw in a lofty fashion, and yawned, despite being crushed beneath Fitzy’s paws. ‘Or what, stripling? You wouldn’t know how to touch me, let alone harm me. You know precisely nothing.’
    ‘You know nothing about what I can do,’ Mat tried to bluff.
    The cat laughed. ‘Of course I do. I’ve watched you, learning your petty little tricks from the water-girl. Theyare nothing. You know nothing of value. But you could be much more, you know. Don’t you want to be more, perchance? Much, much