The Wind City (6 page)

The bites taken out of that dolphin. The foul taste in her mouth. OH NO OH NO OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…

When she finally got home Hinewai peeked out of her door, wrapped in heavy layers like she always was in the day time. “Hello,” she said haughtily, as though she was doing Tony a favour by talking to her, which normally Tony found sort of hilarious but right now, no.

Tony said nothing, just fumblingly opened the door to her own flat and let herself in and sat back against the door, hugging herself and shivering a bit.

“Are you well?” came Hinewai’s voice from outside, no longer quite so haughty.

“I lost my boat,” Tony said, and her voice came out very small. It was the only thing she could think of to say that was immediately understandable. She couldn’t just say ‘I’m a horrible sea monster’, after all.

“Ah,” said Hinewai after a pause. Then, “How?”

“Because there was this, this thing happened and – and I’m a horrible horrible sea monster or something I don’t really remember but it’s horrible horrible
horrible
,” Tony wailed, hugging her knees.

“Well, yes,” Hinewai said.

Tony went still and suspicious. “What do you mean ‘yes’?”

“Ah,” Hinewai said.

“Hang on a sec, I’m not having this conversation with a door. And – actually no I’m not having this conversation at all, okay? I’m just – I’m gonna go have a really really long shower and hug all my soft toys and then try and find a new job, and you, you please just, um, just go away and don’t come back until I’ve forgotten that you’re not just some really eccentric girl, you’re probably one of those weird atua things like Whai because I am
not capable of dealing with that right now
, okay?!”

…She possibly said it a little more aggressively than she intended to.

“Okay,” Hinewai said.

“Okay. Good.”

Tony had a really long hot shower and used her favourite mango and strawberry bodywash and then cuddled up in her most comfortable clothes and her hoodie with the little ears on it, like a puppy. Because there were times that you just
needed
to wear a puppy hoodie, okay? It was a universal constant.

She sat on her couch, forlornly. The only thing on was
Home and Away
. Dangit.

Someone knocked at her door. Tony heaved a sigh and went to open it.

Hinewai was standing there, a little wild around the eyes. “I got you a basket of eels!” she said.

She shoved it towards Tony. Tony took it, reluctantly. It was a really nice basket, woven from fresh flax. The smell of that mingled with the smell of the eels. “Um?”

“It is traditional,” Hinewai said stiffly. She crossed her arms over her chest and sort of sniffed proudly. If Tony had been paying attention she could’ve figured out that Hinewai wasn’t human way, way earlier; no one was allowed to be that beautiful and also be human,
no one
, and also her eyes were black all the way through, with no iris, and her hair was pure white, long and straight and fine. Maybe Tony had just been avoiding looking at her properly. Though, then again, she… did spend quite a lot of time looking at her.

“Feel better!” Hinewai added, narrowing her eyes menacingly.

“Um.” Tony looked at the basket. Thank goodness it had a cover, at least. And it was certainly better than the plastic washing basket. “I… I bet they’re… really nice eels. As eels go. Thanks?”

“They are the very finest of tuna,” Hinewai said, affronted.

“I’m sure they are! I mean. Sure, yeah. Um. So that’s a tradition, is it?”

“Of a sort. It’s meant to be one way to placate taniwha, gifting them with food.”

“Oh, yeah, when you first moved in you gave me all that fish and I had to like cook it all at once… ” She put the basket down carefully, then sort of nudged it with her foot. “I’ll sure cherish those, um, eels.”

“I brought you sushi as well.”

“Oh thank god.”

A little while later they were sitting on the couch, awkwardly. Tony picked at her chicken. (She really couldn’t stomach fish right now. Not even fish combined with ricey deliciousness! It was very sad.) “Um,” she said, because any talking at all was better than not. “So taniwha, huh. How about that. I mean, I’ve heard of those, at least, so that’s, um. Good? I kinda thought they were all guys! Haha, weird.”

“Taniwha are guardian spirits. They –”

Tony winced and flailed her arms, trying to get Hinewai to shut up. When Hinewai failed to shut up Tony gently placed a hand over her mouth. “Ack, no no, this was the worst conversation topic to choose ever, sorry,” she said. “Please don’t tell me you came over to explain stuff – I really can’t deal with that right now.” She moved her hand away. Hinewai nodded silently. “Because – look, I lost my boat and apparently I’m a taniwha and I think I killed a dolphin and I tried to eat fish and chips and I
couldn’t
.” She grabbed her neighbour’s shirt, tugging her closer so she could stare at her with anguished eyes. Hinewai looked alarmed. “Hin,” Tony said desperately. “Fish and chips is my very favourite.”

Hinewai disentangled her hands. “Actually,” she said, and then she coughed and looked sheepish, which was quite an amusing way for an aloof beautiful fae-girl to look. “I was hoping we could further observe the adventures of the housewives experiencing desperation.”

“What – oh! Oh, right, yeah, I introduced you to that, didn’t I.”

“I wish to learn who will win the heart of the handsome Mike,” Hinewai said eagerly. “And further see how the tension of losing so close a friend will affect the housewives! Will their friendship
survive the strain
?”

Tony giggled. “Yeah, okay. Yeah. We can do that.”

One entertaining marathon of carefully explaining human social conventions later, Hinewai said bye – or ‘bid her farewell’, as she put it, and how on
earth
had Tony not noticed something was odd about her earlier than this? The way she spoke was stilted and strange, and even the way she left the apartment was worth watching. She handled the doorknob much like how she’d probably handle a baby or someone’s feelings: gingerly, and with distaste. Hinewai was ridiculous.

Tony grinned, feeling a lot more settled. Maybe this would be okay! Most things were, if you tried hard enough. She’d have to think about things a
lot
, though. Get them sorted in her head. Figure things out.

She paced around, thinking, occasionally sipping at heavily sugared coffee and nibbling on snacks. It was only later that she realised she’d eaten all of the fish sushi without even noticing.

Friends were the
best
.

3

Once in the apartment Saint looked around. There was no sign of the maero except a slight smell, a smell that made him think of forests or maybe dogs. The window was open, wide open, and when he ventured near it the smell grew stronger. Odd sort of exit. Saint’s odd behaviour must have warned him away, or something?

Why
hadn’t Saint paid more attention? He had no damn idea if the maero was having company over at any point today, and gods knew he gloated about it enough, so there really wasn’t any excuse for Saint not to have known – but instead of paying attention he had just wallowed in his own misery when people were in
danger
.

As it was Saint had no idea whether there was any immediate danger of people dying, or – well, or even if there was
any
danger of people dying, actually. Noah seemed nice, and Saint liked him, but that didn’t mean he was trustworthy. Actually, to judge from Saint’s history that tended to mean the opposite.

Saint dedicated himself to the task of Looking For Things, which took quite a bit of attention and mostly involved swinging open cupboard doors to peer triumphantly inside them at whatever secrets their shadows concealed, though only after politely standing aside so all the insects could vacate. The Flatmate wasn’t the best at housekeeping, and Saint of course had never been bothered.

“Maybe I could look up guns on Trade Me,” he muttered as he went through drawers, shaking cutlery out onto the table. They didn’t have much cutlery, and for some reason it all seemed to be either bent spoons or a rather baffling variety of rusty knives. Generally Saint just ate whatever food the Flatmate had bought for him – he hated that dependence, but, well, it was better than dying. Anyway, bent spoons didn’t strike Saint as quite the weapons he was looking for, and most of the knives were far too blunt to do anything worse to the maero than sort of poke at him. “Or just whack him over the head with that damned Xbox. No, that’s stupid. Ah!” He pulled out a bread knife, long and serrated and not blunt in the least. He tested its edge on the table, and grinned a cheerful grin, and went to the window and waited.

He waited confidently, and with aplomb.

After a while he went and got changed into proper clothes, and then came back to his post by the window. And waited.

And waited.

“… Aw, hell.” He sighed and reached up, then blinked and let the bread knife clatter to the floor before he reached up again to rub his aching forehead, this time without being at risk of accidentally gouging out an eye. “I can’t do this. I can’t, this isn’t… ”

A coward he was, maybe, but he wasn’t a killer. Let those flashy hero-types make the big decisions: he’d be happy to be their amusing sidekick, and to stand beside them and snap a grim catchphrase and
be
there, sure, but
they
would have to be the ones to get blood on their hands, because he sure couldn’t.

Regretfully, he let go of the notion he’d somehow gotten as a teenager and never quite managed to get rid of. Having a nifty coat really
wasn’t
enough to make you a dashing action hero.

He got out his phone and texted something vague to Steff – he forgot what it was as soon as he’d sent it, but the point was to feel in contact with his fellow human beings and not quite so insane. He felt a little shaky, a little unreal. Like
he
was the one who was a ghost.

This was so stupid.

He leaned back against the kitchen bench and ran both hands through his hair.

This was
so
stupid,
he
was so stupid, what
the hell
was he playing at? Sure, yeah,
do
let’s make up an elaborate fantasy world so you can play the hero, Saint, that is a totally emotionally stable thing to do. Christ.

It even made sense that his subconscious would direct his aggression towards his flatmate. Of bloody
course
it would. His flatmate who was
kind
, even if he made Saint uneasy – who made Saint uneasy because he was kind, more likely. Who definitely wasn’t the type of person who made up handsome ghost-men just so he could have someone willing to talk –

Hahahaha aaaaaanyway. Man was he hungry.

He went to the fridge hopefully, and fished one of his bobby pins out of his pocket. He was a bit rusty; it took him a couple of minutes to bust the lock open, which was fine, gave him something to do with his hands.

He’d always refrained from breaking into the fridge before, despite how the lock riled him, because he didn’t want to screw this up, didn’t want to prove himself undeserving of the basic trust that was implicit in being allowed in someone’s flat. It had been hard. People thinking the worst of him made him want to live down to their expectations. He paused before opening the fridge door, but hell, he was hungry. They’d had KFC a few days ago – maybe there was some chicken left.

There
was
one piece of chicken left in the crumpled red and white box, but it wasn’t exactly
recognisable
as chicken, not any more. He looked at it doubtfully, then withdrew his hand without picking it up. Maybe it wouldn’t get provoked if he left it undisturbed in its natural habitat.

His flatmate’s food was sealed in neat little Tupperware containers, all stacked up in rows. The moral quandary lasted about three seconds. Sure, stealing was wrong – “But so is
hunger
,” Saint assured himself seriously, as he lifted one of the containers and pried open the lid and was faced with blood, lots of blood, entirely too much blood. He wrinkled his nose and scowled at the stench of it. What was this, mince? There was – wait.

Maybe his Flatmate didn’t keep the fridge locked to keep him from stealing, maybe it –

He was holding the container at a slight angle and so the blood was trickling thickly out one corner and onto the floor and splashing almost on his shoes, and beneath it was raw meat, shredded and stinking, unrecognisable as anything that it could ever have been and he dropped the container which splattered blood everywhere and he walked away but there was nowhere to go because there was blood and it scared him, the obscene redness of it, red red blood and it was on him it was getting on his
hands
get it off get it off get it off get away get away get away – he stumbled back into the corner but he couldn’t keep his eyes off it, the meat, the thick coagulated blood staining the lino staining the carpet staining him staining everything.