The Wind City (17 page)

The girl put one claw beneath his chin and tilted it up to look at him. He looked at her, in turn. She was potbellied but hollow-cheeked, like she didn’t eat healthily or regularly, or ate something strange; her clothes were ragged and –

The claw beneath his chin felt real, he noted. He looked at the hand that held the rope, the joints of her fingers, the inhuman shape of her hands. They were real. She… wasn’t wearing a costume.

All… all right then.

His vision was filling with stars and the world spun strangely and he choked out, “I can get you food, I, I mean you no harm,” or maybe he didn’t manage to say that, he couldn’t seem to shape the syllables, the world was swimming with black.

Then the noose loosened and he fell to hands and knees, gasping in air, precious beautiful air, how had he never valued air before now? “Really,” the girl said. She tugged the noose over his head and draped it over her arm, then bent to poke at his stomach. “Hmmm well well. There is little meat on you and Whai does say never kill humans.” Her head jerked to one side. “But Whai wouldn’t
know
,” she said, grinning wicked. “What would Whai know, Whai nothing knows, no one knows… .”

Steffan was shivering, he noted, distantly. It wasn’t from the cold. This girl seemed half crazy. More than half. “I can get you food,” he said again, because he did not have anywhere near enough oxygen in his brain right now to figure out what sort of lie he should be telling.

“But I got myself food right here,” she said, drawing out a wooden knife with a serrated edge made of rows and rows of shark teeth and drawing it along one filthy-clawed finger, nodding with approval when it drew blood. (Thick blood, black and sludgy. Interesting.) “Gonna eat the bones and guts of you, eat the flesh and blood of you.”

Maybe he could get away. He pulled himself cautiously to his feet and she lashed out impossibly fast and grabbed him by the chin, claws digging in cruelly. She tugged him forward again and held the knife against his face.

“Might be I should slice you up first,” she said. “Might be that’d be fun.” Her eyes glinted.

He flinched away from the knife, the sharpness of it. Thought, frantic.

“I’m a scientific man, by the way,” he said.

She looked confused. “You’re gonna be meat,” she said with a shrug, and aligned the knife with his throat, the teeth pressing gently against his skin. She pulled back the knife to swing.

“Allow me to test a hypothesis,” Steff said, breathless, and with all the strength he had he pulled free and stumble-dashed the few metres out of the shadow of the warehouse and into sunlight.

She was far stronger than him, inhuman levels of strong, faster too, probably, she could pull him back easy… but hadn’t, not yet.

He turned around so he could dodge the noose if she tossed it again, and so he could look back into the alley. She stood rooted to the spot, glaring at him. Hadn’t moved out of that patch of shadow.

“So you’re something that doesn’t like sunlight,” he said. “Right. I can work with that.”

She lunged at him and he flinched and fell on his ass like an idiot, tried to scrabble away but she was already recoiling from the sunlight with a hiss, hunkered over. She started to moan to herself, pained and eerie like the wailing of a cat.

Steffan stood up and ran, ran until he was far enough away to feel safe again. Then he walked, his mind busy, always busy. There was fear underneath it, terror, self-hatred even, a part of his mind yelling
look what your curiosity has brought you, look what taking the initiative has brought you, it will bring you nothing but death
, but the rest of his mind was thinking about how he’d figured out her weakness and escaped, and was feeling almost proud, that he’d kept his composure and found new knowledge and applied it. And thinking about the other stories he had found online, and whether maybe those were true, as well. There was just so much to
learn
. Such depth. Such complexity.

Standing on the roof, Saint threw his phone. Just pulled it out of his pocket and
flung
it, surprising himself with the force of it. Threw the phone with all his strength, and it actually hit the building opposite his, so he must’ve been stronger than he thought. It hit the wall and more or less exploded, little bits of plastic and wiring falling shattered to the ground far below.

Wow
his friends were dicks.

He had his monster-slaying, of course, and that was fun. He’d fought some squat multi-limbed things with sunken dark eyes and barklike skin and tufts of leaves instead of hair; pretty terrifying, except that they burned like torches, they burned like a bonfire. Under Noah’s guidance he’d lurked by a grille in the gutter until a weakly gasping shadowy creature hauled itself out, and he’d burned that too, and more of the bird pest things, and a thing that took on the form of a different monster each time he looked at it, though it burned easy enough. His least favourite had been the creatures he’d fought late one misty night, a group of weird gaunt shades not terribly unlike Noah, whispering. But they burned, too.

Even with his monster-slaying, things got in the way, what with that inconvenient phobia of his. At least Noah was yet to say anything about how he’d run from that scary and oddly well-dressed patupairahe guy. Saint didn’t know why he was so terrified of patupaiarehe that just the
sight
of one made him stumble and falter, why it made blood well up at the back of his throat all saltymetallic and made him think of rain, of buses, made him need to rest his head against the wall and breathe steadily for several minutes before he could convince himself that he was here, safe or close enough to it, rather than on the bus with the pale girl staring all dark-eyed, the girl reaching into his mind and just
twisting
and –

He didn’t think about it more than he had to. Didn’t want Noah to think him as much a burden as Steff apparently did.

He wasn’t thinking about that either, melodramatic phone-smashing aside.

Later, they went to the waterfront. Noah spent a fair amount of time ranting about beings called ponaturi (gods, Saint couldn’t even
think
the name and keep a straight face), which were amphibious, apparently, in that they mainly lived by and in the ocean but could come on land. They drowned people and were ever so dangerous to careless humans and were all in all bad news.

“Have they murdered babies?” Saint asked. He was amused by how
personal
Noah was about this. Normally Noah was more businesslike about it all.

“Probably,” Noah said very seriously. He cut a proud and regal figure standing there.

“Killed a kid’s very first dog and best ol’ pal?” Saint said, and Noah scowled at him. Then the wairua’s head jerked up, his eyes narrowing. Saint could see him clearly in this dim light, though there was a touch more silver to him in the darkness.

“Someone’s here.”

“Who?”

“I – I don’t… ” Noah said, and looked lost for a moment, but he gathered himself and said, haughtily, “Someone dangerous, for me to be able to feel his presence. That’s all you need to know. Look out –
Saint
!”

Saint ducked, and something’s worryingly sharp claws whistled over his head. What was it with iwi atua and claws? And how had they even managed to approach without him hearing? Yikes.

There were four of them, dim and shadowy, hissing at him. There weren’t any other people around, which was good, he guessed; just the bulk of Te Papa off to one side, chromed and gleamy, and a brick warehouse on the other, and all around Saint a wide open space that was perfect for slaughtering goblins. Or, come to think of it, for goblins to slaughter him. He’d been hunting atua for a few days now, and this was the first time that
he’d
been the one to be ambushed.

“You lot are clever,” Saint noted, taking a step back. He scanned around for any exits. The ponaturi weren’t so clever after all; they were all in a tight cluster, not spreading out to block his path or anything. Not that there was really that many places to go. There were some benches? He could… stand on a bench? And rain fire from above, he reminded himself, and grinned.

“Won’t let you live to hurt my folk, not a one of ’em,” hissed the one who’d dived at him, who seemed to be their leader. “
Won’t
. I’ll drown you dead – wait!” The last bit appeared to be directed to another of the goblins, and if so it was too late: the thing had already dived at Saint, and when he stepped aside it hit the ground and wailed in pain. Saint blinked.

“Show some control,” the leader said, snapping his teeth at his comrades. “We used to hunt in packs – what’s
wrong
with you!”

Maybe he was the only clever one; none of the others had spoken, anyway. Maybe the others would sort of fall apart once he was gone. Saint lifted his hand menacingly as though about to burn the one who’d fallen. As he thought, the leader snarled and lunged at him before he could.

“And some self-respect wouldn’t go amiss either,” Saint said, “you could seriously use a manicure,” and he sent out fire, thick and fierce and bright, a wave of fire rolling out from his hand and setting the goblin alight. It shrieked and danced back, slapping at itself with its spiny webbed hands, screaming. By the light of the merrily blazing goblin Saint could better see its fellows, which was regrettable, as they were all hideously ugly. They had tangled, ratty red hair, pale and washed-out, like bloodied water; they were lean and sharp and
hungry
, like the wrong sort of dog, the dogs with chains around their scabby necks and madness in their eyes. There was a kind of beauty to their features, almost, but it was like they’d been pushed
too
far, like they’d strained the edges
too
much. This was beauty broken, beauty drowned. Pathetic wretched creatures hunkering away from the light.

“Okay, forget the manicure,” he said, “you need a lot more than just your claws trimmed. In fact I think this particular group of goblins could be improved by a bit of…
filleting
!” He feinted at one of the ponaturi which had been trying to sneak up on him, and it hissed and scuttled back. The leader had stopped screaming but was still beating at the flames it was covered with – a futile effort, as the past few days had given Saint plenty of time to experiment and control his new power, and he’d made that particular burst of flame slow-burning and sticky. Magic napalm.

“I told you,” Noah said. “They’re not ‘goblins’ – they’re ponaturi.”

“That sounds like potpourri, and that’s ridiculous. I don’t want to fight potpourri. Slaying grandmotherly air-freshener is not remotely heroic. And I’d sneeze.” He had his head tilted towards Noah so he could talk to him, but he kept a wary eye on the three ponaturi who still posed a threat. Their faces were all flickering shadows dancing over sharp angles, and it was unnerving, the jagged skin-over-bones of them; Saint was almost glad when the burning one gave up on trying to beat the flames out and made a break for it, running crabbed-over and pained towards the water.

The waterfront had a closed-in little area with a platform sunk into it, short flights of steps leading down to it. For if people wanted to get all close and personal with the ocean or something, Saint didn’t know – it wasn’t like there weren’t diving platforms elsewhere, too.

He frowned at the flaming ponaturi as it dived over the edge and the fire went out. “Are you sure we should’ve just let him scarper like that?” Saint said. “I mean, he’ll die pretty soon, but before that he might fetch more potpourri people and, you know, it’s not like it’s International Setting Goblins On Fire Day; if they make enough noise people will notice something weird –”

He broke off and shuddered convulsively. Noah was standing next to him, partly
in
him, really, his not-real shoulder fusing into Saint’s. He hissed, “
Behind you
, idiot –”

Saint turned too late, and the goblin that had gotten behind him clapped its hands together sharply, and the hand Saint had raised fell numb and useless. His whole left arm was frozen, actually, right up to his elbow. He prodded it with his other hand and felt nothing.

“Oh,” he said. “I should really stop with the running commentary, huh… ” He took a step back. This goblin had a clump of feathers knotted into its hair, albatross and seagull and petrel. They were greasy and unkempt, and bloodstained at the tips. It was chanting something, under its breath, chanting something in a language that made Saint think of salt and shells and sharp edges.

“I think trying to make you stop talking is like trying to make anyone else stop breathing,” Noah said directly in Saint’s ear, making him jump. “But you could at least try. Do you want to end up dead?”

“It’s not exactly Plan A,” Saint said, taking another step back, and another. The goblins followed, with an odd shuffling walk, ungraceful on land but probably sharp and sleek as a knife in the water. He shuddered at the thought, and then his foot whacked against a piece of timber and oh shit there was nothing but emptiness after that, and he swayed for a second before he found his balance. He glanced over his shoulder and saw water below him, blank and black. He imagined those things hunting him in the
water
, fast and sharp and deadly, like sharks, tearing into him, tearing him apart. His blood staining the water. And it wasn’t like his fire would help much, if that happened.