The Wind City (5 page)

Noah grimaced. “If I impress you enough,” he said, “will you help me?”

“I make no promises,” Saint said loftily. “Don’t really like to be pinned down. Free roamer, that’s me.”

“I know.” Noah held out his hands, concentrated, rolled the wind between them. His form flickered, faded a little. Saint sat up straighter in alarm, and Noah, still looking wavery, breathed in. Then he held his arms out to either side of him in a theatrical kind of way, and breathed out.

When Saint went to the beach he liked to wade into the ocean and dig his bare toes into the sand and feel the chill salt water, and he’d stand there until the little schools of fish would be bold enough to come in and dart around and near him as though he wasn’t there, little fish only half-glimpsed out of the corner of your eye because they were so quick and silvery and small. The birds were like that.

They came from Noah’s mouth in swirls of smoky silver, twisted by the wind, sketched-in-smoke just-for-a-moment blink-and-you-miss-them blurred. They were disintegrating at the edges into curled tendrils of shapelessness, and they were quick and fragmented and strange, but they were birds all the same, birds Saint knew, fat wood pigeons and darting fantails and tui with white puffs for collars against their grey-smoke forms, swirling away where the wind bore them. There were insects, too, great fluttery moths, bow-legged weta, all sparkling in silver and wisps of smoke. Noah tilted his head and a little fantail fluttered forward. Saint held out a finger, and the bird perched on it and tilted its head just like Noah did. He couldn’t feel any weight on his finger at all. It opened its vague beak to chirp at him, though he heard nothing. Birds, swirling in the wind.

And then they were gone.

“… Oh, wow,” Saint said. And then again: “Oh wow. Gods. Wow. Wow is really not a big enough word to sum up the … Wow.”

“There are spirits called hakuturi that live in the forests,” said Noah, casually, “guarding the trees; here there is no more forest, only the city, and so there are no more hakuturi, only the
ghosts
of hakuturi, the wairua of hakuturi, you might say. And so I can control them, if I feel the need to. I have my winds, after all.” He paused. “Well. Tāwhirimātea’s winds, but he doesn’t care much, not in this day and age. And birds have always been friends of mine, especially kererū.”

Saint was smiling. Not his usual grin but an actual
smile
, and it felt strange on his face. “That was really quite lovely,” he said. “Thank you – hey, are you all right?” because Noah was flicker-fading and he looked exhausted, utterly drained.

“I can’t… do much,” Noah said, his voice sounding faint, and then those dark eyes slid shut and he disappeared.

“Noah!” Saint said, snapping his head around, but there was no sign of the gho – the wairua, no sign of him at all, like he’d just
vanished
–

And then he was back again, standing by Saint’s side, and Saint let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding and slumped to the ground.

“I’m sorry about that,” Noah said, sitting beside him.

He did sound apologetic, too. Saint grimaced. “No, I… ” He had seemed so composed, but now Saint saw how weak he was, how desperate. It made his heart clench. He’d never quite managed to make himself calloused enough not to hurt when people were in pain, and Noah had exhausted himself for
his
sake, trying to impress him. “Seriously, that was one hell of a show. Ten out of ten, would recommend,” he said, and Noah beamed.

“You’re welcome! It was nothing.” He tilted his head. “… I don’t mean to worry you, but…
what
was?”

Saint stared at him. “The – the thing you did, with the birds.”

“Oh. The bird thing. Yes, of course. I remember.”

Saint tried to grin and tried even harder not to show how much that unnerved him. “Beats the hell out of ugly hairy giants, anyway.”

And then Noah stared at him, eyes wide and mouth open slightly, as though he intended to breathe out his shock and sketch it with wind. “Sorry,” he said, voice faltering. “Did you say
giants
, Saint?”

“Well, giant. Singular. Turns out my flatmate isn’t just a git, he’s a git
and
not human.” He paused, then added, “… And a
slob
, honestly, it’s shameful, you should see the state of our sink.”

“Your flatmate is a maero, and you’re still
alive
?” said Noah.

Saint slapped his chest. “Hau still safe and sound,” he said cheerily, and then the smile slipped off his face. “You’re serious?”

“They – they are dangerous,” said Noah, hands clenching into fists at his sides. “Very, very dangerous. Killers. They kill people, they kill humans, because humans are so easy to kill now that – just very easy to kill, okay? And maero quite enjoy it.”

“Oh,” said Saint.

“Kill him,” said Noah. His eyes were piercingly intent. “Kill him before he kills you. You must.”

Saint shifted unsteadily. “Yeah,” he said. “Uh. Honestly, there’s nothing I’d want more – he’s a pain in the arse – but I can’t just kill him. He’s not human, but that doesn’t give me the right to end his life just because you told me to! No. Just no. Dude, that’s… that’s like racist, but worse.
Worse
. Than
racist
.”

Noah shook his head. He looked less like himself for a moment, face a snarl of impatience and anger and maybe fear, but what did a dead man have to be afraid of? Unless he was afraid for Saint, but they’d only just met, so that couldn’t be right. “No. No! You don’t understand! Stupid man, understand!” He stretched out his hands like he wanted to grab Saint by the shoulders and shake some sense into him, then let them drop useless by his sides. “Some of the atua are human enough to live among you and cause minimal harm,” he said, speaking very rapidly, “and some – some can pretend to be human, they can wear human masks, they’re good enough to pretend to be human long enough for them to dip their claws in human blood and feast. Maero don’t have feelings, Saint, not like your people do – they’re not
beings
, they’re beasts! There’s nothing
I
can do, I can’t even make fire by myself now and I can’t affect things aside from the wind. Saint, please.”

Saint shook his head. “Believe me,” he said, pained. “I’d like nothing better than to have an actual good reason to mindlessly hate the guy, but – he’s never been anything worse than annoying. He took me in when I was
literally starving
, and hasn’t asked for anything in return, and… look, he might not be human, and I might not like him, but he’s a person. Stop it.”

Noah relaxed a little, though he still looked on edge, twitchy. “… All right,” he said. “If you say so. I mean – you’d know best, I suppose, as you know him.” He frowned. “Maybe he’s only half-breed? Ha! Of course, leave it to
you
to find the only one of the maeroero that isn’t psychopathic.” His hands moved in quick nervous motions, drawing invisibly with wind, maybe. “My apologies.” He laughed. “Just so long as he hasn’t mysteriously befriended any women or strangers over the last few days you’re probably safe.”

What?

“What?” Saint said.

“Well… ” said Noah, looking a little confused. “That’s what they do, you know. Always have. They trick those they intend to kill into thinking they’re people, then charm them, then… ”

“Oh,” said Saint.

Noah stilled. “What is it?”

“He brings girls home all the time,” Saint said, faint. “He always makes me leave for a few hours, of course, but – I never saw them more than once. Not ever. Funny, that.”

There were rooms in the flat that the Flatmate had never let him see, and there was a bolt on the fridge. Saint had thought both those things were because he was afraid Saint would steal something but… what if…

What if he had someone down there right
now
? He could, there was every chance that he could, and Saint would come back down to find a locked door and a few hours later the Flatmate would deign to let him in and there’d be no sign of the ‘guest’ he had been ‘entertaining’ –

“I need to get down there,” Saint said, standing. “Right the hell now.”

“Be
careful
,” Noah said. “They’re strong and wily and quick. You’ll have to be cunning. You have to know how to fight them.”

“And how
do
I fight them, master ghost?” Saint said, temper fraying a little. “You’ve been so helpful and informative, so please, explain away! That is, if you can even remember.”

“I… what?” Noah said, looking lost and maybe hurt. “What do you mean? My memory’s fine, I… ” He trailed off, standing there. “I’m sorry, I… ”

Saint grimaced but ran, before Noah could say anything, before Saint himself could even think about what he was doing, about the dangers of this. Though not so fast that a pleased little corner of his mind didn’t have the chance to register that, hey, apparently he had some heroic impulses after all.
Lovably fearless
, he thought, and grinned, and ran faster.

Tony woke up alone, and she coughed and gagged for a second, because there was a strange taste in her mouth, not foul so much as deeply unfamiliar. Slimy and cold. She sat up and looked around, clutching her aching head. She was on the strip of imported sand at Oriental Bay, and it was a little after sunrise. Quite a ways from home, but anywhere by the sea was home, really. For a second the sight of the ocean calmed her, and then –

The boat sinking, the engines tangled in Whai’s nets, glowing faintly blue. Whai giving her a smug grin. The grin had changed to shock as she lunged at him, and she remembered – claws and teeth and flashing scales, the sensation of being
something
, something huge and powerful and ancient. Whatever it was Whai had been trying to achieve, it looked like he’d done it. Human she most definitely wasn’t.

She tried to remember it in more detail, but everything had been a confusion of waves and panic and the engine still coughing in complaint. Tony knew she needed to swim away, bob around on the surface in her life jacket and wait until someone came to save her – she knew that, but still she was swimming down after the boat, and she shouldn’t have been able to see in the water but she could and she could see her boat sinking and it was
hers
. She’d worked long and hard to own that boat. So she dived down, kicking strongly, and tugged at the net tangling the engine. Just touching the string of it made her fingers tingle unpleasantly, like a jolt of electricity. Those fingers were becoming larger, she noticed, clawed and thick and greenishbluishblack like her smooth tough skin. She was angry. Whai was hovering in the water a few metres away, shoulders shaking with laughter as he watched. He’d
wrecked
her
boat
. She swam after him, leaving the boat to fall, fall, fall towards the seabed, and Tony was fast and strong and quick and there was a joy to this, the chase, Whai kicking his way ahead of her and she wasn’t angry any longer, really. She was in the sea and of the sea and it was all around her.

But. Her boat.

But the ocean, her own self strong and quick and belonging here, and there were fish to hunt and sea to roam and Tony tried to gather her thoughts, which were still there, really, just beneath this deep exultation of something much more ancient than she was. Tony tried to –

Tony –

The taniwha swam.

Here and now Tony hugged herself and shivered at the memory. If that was what she really was, some ancient thing whose thoughts hurt her head when she tried to remember them, she wasn’t at all sure that was what she wanted to be. She said aloud, to the beach and the ocean and the circling gulls and the dolphin carcass beside her, “Whai I am going to kill you
so much dead
.”

She stood up and – wait, what?

She looked down and leaped back, stumbling, falling to the sand. There right in front of her eyes was a dead dolphin, indeed quite thoroughly dead, missing huge gory chunks so that she could see its bones and innards. Its glassed-over eyes were
staring
at her. Flies were already buzzing around it.

…She’d killed a
dolphin
? Oh god, oh god. That was worse than punching a panda. That was
criminal
, that was practically on a par with being mean to babies, oh no oh no oh noooooooooooooo –

Tony proceeded to have a small mental breakdown.

Then she stumbled home, because really, what else was there to do. It was quite a sizeable walk from the waterfront to her place – she had enough money to live comfortably, but definitely not enough for a pricey ocean-view property – but it helped return her to normality, the walking, people going about their early-morning business. She even managed to smile at them, though they mainly just looked at her weirdly. Right. Her clothes were soaked through, crusted with sand and salt. She teetered on the edge of frantic panic, then saw with relief that her favourite fish and chip place was open. Comfort food, that was what she needed. She bought a mochaccino, first, from Starbucks because it was there and open. She cradled the cup to her chest and drank it all in one draught and felt better. Then she bought a scoop of chips and some battered hoki and a pineapple fritter and went on walking home, clutching the warm newspaper-wrapped bundle to her chest, chewing happily on hot greasy chips and fresh flaky fish and –