The Wind City (37 page)

“Mauled?” Ariki said, and his grip loosened still further. Steffan thought that had more to do with the pain than with any conscious decision on Ariki’s part. He was shaking. “
Mauled
?” Ariki repeated, and he gave a derisive laugh. “Oh, hardly. Injured perhaps, but in time I’ll be as strong as ever, I assure you!”

Steffan reached up and pulled on the trailing end of a bandage,
hard
. Ariki screamed, high and piercing, and fell to his knees. Steffan was dragged backward by the weight of him, but it was easy enough to shrug off his hand and stagger to where Tony could catch him and pull him upright, stronger than anyone had a right to be.

Ariki was keening with pain, clutching his arm, tears rolling down his face though his eyes were fixed, hateful, on Steffan. The other atua were formed in ranks, almost, rows of them, with Tony and Hinewai slightly in front, and then Steff, and then Ariki alone on his knees.

The ragged ranks of atua seemed none too pleased with him. Tony didn’t seem all that pleased, either.

“He wasn’t going to hurt you, probably,” she said in an undertone. “Not while I’m here; he wouldn’t dare. Besides, he’s not the killing kind.”

Steffan swallowed. Not the killing kind? Hardly. But his best friend was the killing kind, too. There had been so much killing. What was the point in taking a side when everyone just ended up dead?

What was the point in observing, when everyone just ended up dead? His observations and hypotheses wouldn’t give him much comfort when everyone he’d met, all the new friends and the old friend and the new enemies, were dead. It’d be too
late
. He had to do something, if Tony wasn’t going to – and it looked like she wasn’t, like she didn’t know.

“There’s something I need to know,” Steffan said, and was surprised by how steady his voice was. “Saint. Did he kill those others, too? I found the atua world by researching. There were drownings, people drained of blood… ”

Tony shook her head. “When Saint fought with me he just used fire.”

Steffan was rather surprised that Saint was even still alive, if Tony had fought him. And… glad. He was glad Saint was alive.

He guessed he’d chosen a side after all.

“In that case,” Steffan said, and he turned and pointed at Ariki, “he’s a murderer, too. Just so you know. He’s killed people, at least three that I know of, probably more.”

Tony’s eyes went wide and she took a step forward, but before she could even say anything Ariki gave a derisive laugh, still kneeling there.

“Three? Is that all you think me capable of? I’m better at this than
that
,” Ariki said, and Steffan turned his head so he didn’t have to look directly at him.

Tony was silent for a moment. Steffan watched as the fae girl leaned a little so her shoulder pressed against Tony’s.

Tony crossed her arms. “You,” she said, all forbidding. Ariki stood, pained but determined, chin tilted up. “You’ve killed people?”

Ariki nodded. Tony must’ve glared, because he flinched a little. “It’s
fine
, taniwha,” he said, holding up his hands. “I assure you I left very few tracks, by and large. I gave the tangata no reason to rally against us.”

“That is not the point,” Tony hissed. “Who the hell do you think you are, gathering a… ” She gestured at the silent ranks of atua. “… a fucking lynch mob to kill Saint, when you’re
just as bad
?”

“Well, I didn’t drown anyone, whatever the pawn’s scholar says,” Ariki said. He looked a little confused, like he didn’t understand why she was angry. “There is little beauty in that. That would have been the ponaturi, I suspect; Whai was never very good at controlling them after they were betrayed and poisoned and became mad. Don’t worry, though!” he added, a little desperately. “They are all dead now.”

“What… ” Tony whispered. “They’re
all
dead?”

“Yes, of course,” he said, impatient. “Don’t you see? This isn’t about individuals. Yes, I owe Māui’s pawn a blood debt, but more to the point so do
you
, so do all atua. He wiped out the last of Whai’s iwi. There are other ponaturi, yes, but not from this area; Whai’s people’s traditions, their knowledge and skills and history – all of these things are gone and dead. We cannot let that insult stand.”

Tony stood silent.

“Those ponaturi died, one by one, alone and broken by this world,” Ariki said. “I will not allow my people to know the same fate.”

“And I won’t allow you to kill anyone else, do you hear me?
No one
is killing anyone while I’m around.”

Ariki gave some answer or other about how that was unavoidable. Steffan didn’t stay to hear it. He turned, he turned and walked away, sick to the stomach, sick to
death
of it all.

The atua parted before him as he walked. He didn’t go far, just down the street a little. He sat down, and leaned his back against the grey wall, and sighed.

He was sitting by the police station. Ha. He’d intended to contact the police with his information, he recalled; early on, when he’d thought that people had been being killed in
imitation
of atua. Somehow he doubted the police could do much good if Ariki succeeded in convincing all these patupaiarehe to kill. He doubted anyone could. He was meant to be good at imagining possibilities, but at the moment he couldn’t think of any way for things to end that didn’t include more people dead.

Steff’s head drooped, and he pressed it to his knees.

He’d
liked
Cuba. He hadn’t known him that well, but he’d liked what he’d known of him: Cuba loved his Bucket Fountain girl, and his street and the people on it, and he was open and welcoming, indulging Steff in his questions – and now he was dead, and it was Saint who had killed him.

Saint, Steffan knew well. He was capable of bad things, Steff was under no delusions about that, but murder? In cold blood? No. Either Cuba had done something that Saint thought was worth murdering him over, which Steffan found extremely unlikely, or Saint… didn’t know that it was murder. Ah.

The atua seemed to think Saint was just a pawn, and maybe he was. Perhaps Māui had been lying to him, or messing with his head, even – he’d seemed pretty wrecked the last time Steffan had called him. And tired when he’d met Steff at the café, but himself, still, so maybe not.

That was before the Hikurangi had been burnt. Maybe if Steff had done something differently, said something differently – Saint had said he’d rather run into one of the patupaiarehe than talk to him even for one moment longer, and that stung, to remember it, but even then, maybe, maybe. If he’d just said
I believe you
,
let me help
, maybe Saint would’ve stopped and all these terrible things would never have happened.

“It’ll take more than that if you want to make a difference,” someone said from beside him.

Steffan flinched. Glanced up. A wind had risen, wafting a hole in the mist, and now there was a man standing beside him. Aside from the lack of any moko, he was the very
image
of a traditional Māori warrior. Too much so, almost, like he was an image, a fabrication, an
ideal
.

“Māui?” Steff said, keeping his voice soft this time. Tony was still arguing with Ariki, not more than thirty metres away. No one looked over at him.

The shade’s eyes were sad. “Not now,” he said. “Not for a long while now.”

Steffan looked away. “You should leave. They want to kill you.”

Not-quite-Māui laughed at that. “I intend to die soon in any case, if someone already dead can die. Toss myself to the winds until there is nothing left of who I was. It’s what I deserve. Already it is hard to focus. With him gone it’s hard to do much of anything.”

“Oh.” Steffan frowned into the distance. “And – I know it’ll take more than that, but there’s nothing I can do, even if I wanted to. At least there’s a
chance
that Tony’ll stop them from killing him, or stop him from killing them, now that she knows it’s not just black and white.”

“I’m glad you know that,” the ghost said. “Instead of condemning him blindly.
Look
at me.” Steffan looked, unwillingly. The ghost looked urgent, though he was… wispy, at the edges, trailing off into curls of wind that shifted the mist like whispers. “I’ve been waiting here for someone who would understand. Someone needs to help him, and I cannot.”

Steffan shifted, uncomfortable. “I can’t, either. These people are out for his blood. There’s nothing I can do.” If he even wanted to, and he wasn’t at all sure he did.

The ghost laughed. “Really? How strange. He seemed to think you were clever.”

Steffan glared at him.

The mockery faded from Māui’s face, like how everything else about him was fading. Steffan was glad, savagely glad. “Please at least think about it?” the ghost said. “He doesn’t deserve this. It was my fault.”

Steffan paused. Then slowly, laboriously, he stood up once more. “Was it?” he said. “Swear that it was. Swear that he didn’t know that he was killing.”

“He knew that he was
killing
,” Māui said, “but he didn’t know that they had thoughts or memories or any range of emotion. He thought they were brute animals at best, monsters at worst. I convinced him of that and kept him from thinking about it.” There was just the vague shape of him sketched out now, and Steffan could see his eyes, earnest and pleading, but the mist was creeping in on the rest of him, obscuring his outline. “He didn’t know what he was doing. I swear this.”

Steffan looked away. By the time he turned back, the mists had closed, and the ghost, or whatever he’d been, was gone.

“Time for some thrilling heroics,” he told himself, but he had difficulty believing it.

He crossed the road, and he had to push the atua aside to get through them, which made him immensely nervous, but they were all just standing there, waiting, some talking amongst themselves, others weighing in to the debate every now and again. They made no move to stop him as he walked forward.

“
No one
dies on my watch, do you hear?” Tony was saying, almost a yell. “When Saint gets here no one makes a
move
, do you understand? Even if he fights you first! Don’t!” Steffan wondered how she intended to stop them.

He cleared his throat, nervously. “I have a plan,” he said.

There was outrage, there was uproar. The atua shouted and jeered. “That’s not your
place
,” the umbrella one yelled, voice high and shrill like the wind at its worst, and others shouted agreement.

Tony turned taniwha, she was a house, she was an avalanche. Steffan gulped, staring up at her. Tony swung her tail in warning, and the assembled atua fell into uneasy silence.

The taniwha waved a claw at him. “Go on,” she said, with a brave attempt at cheerfulness.

Steffan sighed. Then he said, very fast, “Whatever you’re planning, it won’t work. If you confront him outright he’ll never admit he’s wrong; he’ll fight till the end, and this will all just end in more people dead for no bloody reason.”

Tony lowered her massive head down to him, and he tried not to wince away. She was – alarming, the shape of her head not unlike a tuatara but massive in size, her hide scaly and her eyes huge bulbous lamps of gold. She opened her mouth, and her teeth were very sharp. “Strange,” she said, in her human voice, “that you’re telling us how to best fight a
friend
of yours.”

Steffan hung his head. “Him being my friend doesn’t excuse what he’s done,” he said, quiet, too quiet, probably, but it was hard to speak loud enough for them all to hear when his throat was knotted with fear. “I don’t want him dead, and I don’t want any of you dead either. I’ll help you if I can.”

“Speak up, little messenger,” Ariki drawled, and Steffan flinched away a bit and cleared his throat and spoke more clearly, almost firm, almost confident.

“If you can hold back on attacking him unless he strikes first, then I can stop him,” Steffan said. “If there’s anyone who can stop him, it’s me. Like you said, I know him. He came to me for help earlier, I think, so I at least have a chance at it. Give me a chance to talk him down so he’s not… on a murderous rampage, and maybe he’ll listen to reason later, you can get your revenge later, I don’t know, just – just give me a chance to do that, please.”

Ariki stepped forward. “And if you can’t, little one?” he said softly. “If you fail?”

Steffan swallowed. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Then you can kill the both of us,” he said.

“And every other damn human in this town,” Ariki breathed, and Tony said, “
No
,” but the weight of her glare did nothing to settle the atua war party this time. They cheered, and yelled out approval, and some started chanting something that might have been a haka. She was outnumbered.

Tony swung her head back to him. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said, more quietly.

“I do,” Steffan lied. “I can do this, I know I can.”

And the atua screamed and sang for blood.

13

Saint decided to go to the Hikurangi again, or where it had been. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do, and he wasn’t quite sure how else to start hunting what was left of the atua; it seemed pretty likely a few would still be hanging around there. Easy to kill! Ha! Or easy for them to kill him. Either was fine, so to the Hikurangi he went.