Chapter Four:

Dinner was a rather quiet affair. She left him to do the dishes while she showered. Once he had finished he wandered around the lounge taking a closer look at the books in the shelves. They all seemed to be books your average person would have in their bookshelves… Kathy Reichs, Dean Koontz, Karin Slaughter, Jodi Picoult and such. He wondered if she rented the house out when it wasn't in use by her. Nothing seemed dusty and he doubted Harold came over to clean the house on a daily basis.

"Will," she entered the room, her hair still wet.

"Do you rent out the house when you don't need it?" He queried.

"I have it listed as a holiday home. I use it as a safe house also." She sat on the couch tucking her feet beneath her.

"Well, I think I need a shower too. Then I'll head to bed." He swallowed loudly as he realised that her wet hair had him back to thinking about their earlier antics in the water. (Bloody hell…)

"Sweet dreams," she called over her shoulder as he left the room.

..

"Wake up Will," he woke to Magnus shaking his shoulder.

"Huh? What time is it?" He hadn't expected to sleep much at all. He had tossed and turned after going to bed the night before trying his best to keep his mind quiet especially after their swim in the lake… But he felt groggy as if he had slept for a long time.

"It's already eight." She told him. Bugger… That only gave him a half hour to prepare before they left to hike Mt Ruapehu.

"Coffee," he muttered before he remembered who he was speaking to. He couldn't ask Magnus to prepare him a coffee!

"I'll go get it for you." She left the room and he quickly dressed and thanked his lucky stars he had packed his tramping pack the night before. He had just finished adjusting the straps when she re-entered the room holding a steaming mug that smelled deliciously of fresh coffee.

"Thank you," he sighed happily taking the mug from her hands and taking a sip. It was actually very well made considering she never drank coffee… Magnus had on a very casual looking t-shirt and knee length shorts; probably the biggest difference in her outfit was her shoes. No longer was she wearing heels – she wore proper hiking boots. That wasn't a surprise though… While she was adept at manoeuvring in heels… probably not the best idea on a mountain.

"George dropped off some maps this morning; he said our cell phones won't work up there. That was to be expected though."

"Alright, let me finish my coffee then I'll be ready to go."

"Breakfast first,"

"I'm not-" she cut him off with a look and he ducked his head.

"You need breakfast."

"Okay," he gulped down the last of his coffee and followed her to the kitchen.

Mt. Ruapehu…

After a couple of hours of walking only uphill he decided he wasn't as fit as he thought he was. He panted as quietly as he could and tried to stay far enough back that Magnus couldn't hear him.

"It should flatten out soon," Magnus told him and stopped to look back. He was relieved to see she looked like she was out of breath too. At least it wasn't only him. "At least it's a beautiful view," he turned as well and looked back down the way they had come. There were seemingly endless plains beneath the mountain, she was right it was definitely a stunning view; it had a kind of raw beauty to it.

"When do we leave the trail?" He asked. So far they had followed the man-made track but he knew soon enough they would have to leave it and the going would get much tougher.

"I'll check my map but I think we have another hour or so to go on this track," she took her pack off and sat on a rock. She dug out the map and then bent over it her hair hanging like a thick dark curtain over her face. He took the time to grab his water bottle and take a drink. Magnus muttered under her breath and her finger trailed across the map.

"So I keep wondering what the Kaldis find good to eat around here. Are you sure they don't hunt?" Magnus re-folded the map and slipped it back in the front pocket of her pack.

"They don't have the correct physiology to eat meat. We haven't actually documented all the plants that they eat here in New Zealand which is part of what I want to research."

"Nothing looks very appetizing…" he waved at the plants surrounding them. There had been a lot of gorse on their walk which seemed too prickly to be edible…

"Well of course not," she chuckled. "Not to us anyway, they may look entirely humanoid, but they are abnormals. Don't forget that." She was right, of course. Just because the Kaldis looked like human children their internal physiology was completely different from theirs. It was hard enough trying to think of them abnormals when he looked at the photos in the research papers Magnus gave him… He wondered what it would be like when they finally found them. He knew they didn't speak English but Magnus said some could understand basic sign language so she was hoping to communicate with them.

An unearthly screech broke them both from their thoughts and before he could get a word out Magnus had spun on her heel and run in the direction of the noise.

"Magnus – no…! Wait!" Something other than the noise felt wrong… He couldn't pinpoint it but something was definitely off. He reached the edge of the forest she had just run into, but before his eyes even had time to adjust to the shade beneath the trees he heard Magnus yelp. He blindly rushed forward but to his surprise the earth began to crumble beneath his feet.

TBC.