The Wind City

by Summer Wigmore

  It was… far too intimate. Tony cleared her throat and took a step backward. The proper way of doing things was done, so she could beat a hasty retreat now.

  But for some reason she instead said, “Whai did that, first time we met –” and just like that his death was a weight on her shoulders again, a lump in her throat. She couldn’t finish.

  Which was fortunate, because Hinewai stepped up to fill the silence. She really was learning how to be considerate, maybe. A bit. “Whai?” she said, examining Tony closely. “That’s a ponaturi name, from the sound of it. And he is dead? I’m sorry for the loss of him.” She rested one hand on her breastbone. “My pain that you are pained.”

  Tony swallowed, tears prickling at her eyes. Sea-sister, he’d called her, and she remembered exactly the sight of his ruined face disappearing beneath the water. “You can… you could tell what he was from his name? Was it a traditional ponaturi name or something?”

  “No. Just pretentious.” Hinewai snorted. “They like to pretend they were the ones who invented weaving, rather than us.”

  That was heartbreaking in its ridiculousness. “He would,” Tony said, achingly fond. “That’s exactly the kind of name he’d take. He – gah… ” She buried her face in her hands.

  Hinewai didn’t move forward to comfort her or anything, and Tony was a little surprised – Hinewai had been trying too hard, the whole conversation, to seem like she cared – but when Tony finally emerged, sniffling, she saw that Hinewai was standing a cautious distance away, hands raised as though to show that she didn’t mean to impose, she wouldn’t approach in case she made Tony uncomfortable.

  Maybe she could learn.

  But Tony was sick and tired of loving cruel people who went and died on her. She didn’t have space enough left. “Right,” she said, and wiped her face, and nodded briskly. “I need to get going. I need to find Māui.”

  “Māui?” said Hinewai, sharp, all her comforting carefulness vanishing in an instant; “Māui?” And she hissed, snapped her teeth like a dog.

  Tony brightened. Hey, maybe…“You know him?”

  “Know of him, for a certainty,” Hinewai said, eyes narrowing. “Know a great plenty of him. More than I would like to. He –”

  “Okay, wait,” Tony said, holding up a hand, and Hinewai stopped abruptly. “Before you continue I just – I wanna make sure you actually do know stuff about the guy. That you’re not just spinning stories to make me like you again.”

  “Why would I need to spin stories?” Hinewai said blankly. “If I wanted to make you –” and then she paused and coughed and changed the subject, wisely. “My people have many names, still,” she said, and her voice had a rolling rhythm to it. “We are the patupaiarehe. We are the mistfolk, the twilight singers, the friends of mountains, the tūrehu. Māui too had many names: he was Māui-tikitiki-a-Taranga, Māui the last born, Māui of the steadfast jawbone. Māui the trickster. Māui the deceiver. Māui the thief of fire.” She hissed that last word like it was a profanity, a condemnation, a curse; met Tony’s eyes, her own eyes dark and cavernous-empty. “Māui was no friend to the patupaiarehe.”

  Tony nodded. Determination was building up inside her, slow but strong as a storm at sea – stronger, strong as tides. “Help me fight him,” she said, because she of all people knew how dangerous this creature was.

  Hinewai, though, hesitated. “He is the thief of fire,” she said again. “Fire. I – I do not wish to stay in this place, not for any longer than I have to. My purpose is proven a fool’s errand, so why would I linger here in this city of breath and, and bloodstains – Māui is no friend to the patupaiarehe but he is a mighty foe indeed.” She shook her head. “No. Even for you, no.”

  Tony paused. Considered. “Hey, wait,” she said, something occurring to her. “What is your goal exactly? It has to have been something big to bring you here, to make you stay all this time. Something important.”

  Hinewai looked awkward. “Important only to me, mainly,” she muttered, toeing at the ground.

  “Important all the same!” Tony bit her lip. Brightened. “Hey. How about you help me with Māui, and in return I help you with… your thing, whatever it is. I mean, you were only leaving in the first place because I wouldn’t help – that means I’m capable of helping with whatever it is, surely. And that way it’s not a favour; it’s a bargain.”

  Hinewai’s eyes lit up. “I do like a bargain,” she said. “You’d aid me, truly?”

  Tony knew that it could be anything, this thing Hinewai was looking for. Maybe she was seeking revenge – hell, maybe she wanted to kill every human in this town. That wouldn’t be all that out of character for one of the atua. They had a lot of grievances.

  But Hinewai…

  “Yup!” said Tony, hoping she wouldn’t regret it. “Starting today, if that’s possible.”

  Hinewai exhaled, looking eager and intense. “Finally I can find true love,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Tony said, and then she said, “Wait – what?”

  8

  Saint woke with a groan. “Gods, I feel horrible. What… ” He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, looked around groggily. Sat up straight. “Okay, that must’ve been quite the night! No vomit though. So, y’know, not my worst night ever.” He’d been sleeping right here on the road, apparently; it was now very early morning, and there were a few people on the streets, joggers mainly, busily avoiding him.

  He grinned at one of them. “Hey there,” he said brightly, with a little wave. She looked mildly terrified and jogged faster. He chuckled, dry, and rubbed at his head – wait. No headache. No nausea either, just tiredness and the sort of gritty, grimy feeling that came from sleeping out in the open, in clothes you’d worn for a few days. First stop home, then. But if he wasn’t hungover then –

  “Noah?” Saint said aloud as he stood up, and Noah was standing beside him, even vaguer and harder to see than usual. Right, sunrise was bad for magic. Or something.

  “Please don’t die,” Noah said.

  “Damn, there go my plans for the weekend,” Saint said. “Is extreme knife-dodging still allowed? I had that pencilled in for Monday, after my cyanide tasting class.”

  “I mean it. Don’t die. Please? Humans die so easily and… ” He looked away. “And that’s my fault.”

  Ahh. That’d explain why he got so twitchy about humans dying. Actually that explained a lot of things, if it was true. Even if Noah just thought it was true. “Is that why you’re doing this whole crusade?” Saint asked curiously. People were staring, of course they were, he was a handsome but crumpled man talking to the air, but right now he couldn’t be bothered worrying about that. This was important, and it had been a while since he’d last eaten, and gods did he want a shower. “To make it up to us somehow?”

  Noah nodded. “I have to protect you, all of you,” he said. “I have to.”

  “Swell.” Saint covered a yawn and started walking. “Tell me all about it when I get home, huh?”

  “You should… probably hear it sooner,” Noah said, keeping pace with him, “I should’ve told you sooner. Who I am – was. Who I was. You should know.”

  “Casper the Friendly Ghost?” Saint asked cheerfully, and waved down a bus before Noah could glare at him too much. Noah didn’t join him on the bus, which was – irritating, but then again talking to the air on a bus was even crazier than doing it on the street. Saint curled up near the back, feeling uncharacteristically self-conscious when the driver stared at him. He really needed to get cleaned up. Being unshaven was pretty dashing and roguish, it went okay with the lovably fearless image and whatnot, but being unwashed, ha nope not so much. He had an image to maintain.

  Then he thought of dark eyes and rain falling and buses, oh, fuck, this had been a terrible idea, how had he not thought of that? To be fair his thoughts were slow and clumsy since he’d woken up; he should’ve paid more attention to what Noah was saying, maybe, it was – interesting stuff – it was no good, he couldn’t focus on that,
on anything, buses, dark eyes, it felt like there was a hole scooped out of his brain. He curled up in a ball, resting his head on his knees, eyes shut against hysteria and unwelcome stares and the world. His heart was beating far too fast, slamming painfully against his ribs, and his breath was coming in short little bursts. He focused on breathing, in, out, in, out, the slight ache in his legs from how tight he was holding them, the texture of the bus seat. It helped, a little. He thought of being home and safe and warm, and got through it.

  Of course, he’d forgotten that his flat would be stinking of old blood, the stuff he’d spilled on the carpet while he was waiting for the maero: it had sunk in, sticky and dark and unpleasant, and he stepped around it, wincing. Wind blew in through the smashed window. This was… horrible. His flat was really damn horrible. Full of the maero’s stuff and none of his, and everything was dingy, and it had smelled foul even before the blood.

  He put the kettle on for coffee, because caffeine would maybe help with how sluggish his mind was being.

  “Leftovers of the spell,” Noah said, and Saint jumped away from him and then tried to pretend he hadn’t. “Trying to keep you unconscious. It’ll wear off completely in a few hours.”

  “Lovely. Just great. No monster-slaying for now, I guess.” He yawned and tried to cover it. He didn’t want Noah to chew him out for being unprofessional again, though Noah did seem to be a lot less irritated with him than he had been. Saint glanced at him, standing there, eyes wide with concern. He could see him better now that they were inside. That proud hooked nose and the sheer intensity in his eyes. Saint couldn’t really focus on Noah very well because of how blurry he was, but his eyes were always piercing and bright.

  Saint yawned again. “Uhhh. Gods, I really am sorry, I mean, I love killing dangerous things but I’m not up to it at the moment. Stop being all… ” He waved irritably. “Expectant at me.”

  Noah shook his head. “The way we’re doing it right now is inefficient, anyway,” he said. “That’s one of the things I need to tell you. I had plenty of time to think while you were unconscious, and I think we need a plan. Something high-risk but that’ll pay off in the long term, something that’ll get rid of a lot of atua and demoralise the rest, all in one blow.” He looked anxious. “I just don’t know what. Some – some decisive blow. We could fight individual atua for weeks at this rate. We need to destroy them all at once. It’s still dangerous, but it’s better in the long term; they’ll figure out a way to gang together and fight you sooner or later, like those ponaturi did, and then you would be dead. We need to find out how best to hurt them.”

  “Sounds dandy,” Saint said, and he drank the coffee down, bitter and scalding.

  His clothes were damp and dirty, scorched in places, splattered with atua blood in others. He ducked into his room, and stopped.

  It was small, and bare, and dismal, it was a prison, it was a cage –

  He ducked out again. Clothes could wait. He covered a yawn with his hand and sank back against the wall.

  “You’re not well,” Noah said, concerned. “Are you well? You’re not well. You’re not dying, are you?”

  Saint crooked a smile at him. “Pretty sure I’m not dying. Just… I’ve been running on pure adrenaline, these last couple of days. I may’ve neglected to deal with a few unimportant matters, like… well. Eating. And sleeping.” He waved a hand. “Stuff like that.” In fairness, he’d been busy, and he couldn’t exactly take a break from being the only thing defending the city from terrifying supernatural monsters to grab a burger and nap a bit.

  “Get food, then,” Noah said, standing there frowning down at him.

  “I’d love to,” Saint said, leaning his head against the wall. He turned out his pockets. “But wow! Just look at all this money I haven’t got.”

  “You think outside,” Noah said. “You’re a rulebreaker. You’ll think of something.”

  “Mm,” Saint mumbled.

  “Saint?” Noah was saying. “Saint.” Saint blinked his eyes open.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “There’s… some things I should tell you,” Noah said, flickering anxiously. “Should’ve told you long since.”

  “Knock yourself out.” He started rolling a cigarette, to have something to do with his hands; lit it with a flick of his fingers, grinning a bit at the trick. “This’ll help, pet,” he explained. “Caffeine and nicotine! Breakfast of champions. The… the hideously unhealthy sort of champion, but, you know, that just lends a sort of tragic air to their noble struggle… ” He trailed off, breathing in, breathing out.

  Noah settled down beside him. “You shouldn’t smoke those, really,” he said softly. “They poison you.”

  Saint groaned and knocked his head against the wall. “You know what I’m quite entirely tired of? People telling me that! Like, jeez, I know. I know what I’m doing. Leave me be!”

  He said that a little louder than he’d meant to, and Noah shiver-blinked a few metres away and appeared again by his side. It… hadn’t been directed at Noah, really.

  Saint was groggy and tired and sad, so, naturally, his thoughts went to high school, when being groggy and tired and sad had been his main occupation. It was like that for most folk. At least at that point he’d been better at hiding it.

  He remembered.

  He’d only started really smoking when he was fourteen – he’d indulged occasionally before that, and found it mainly unpleasant, but fourteen, yeah, the bug hit. Not just addiction, though; it helped his image, and image was everything. He was the weird kid who did whatever he wanted to, and it would’ve been entirely too easy for him to be a laughable outcast instead of sowing awe and intense confusion wherever he went. So, yes, he’d take what he could get. Smoking wasn’t good, of course, and for anyone else the image would’ve just been a bad one, but – “I can make anything cool,” Saint bragged, and Steff grinned at him. They were down by the flax bushes out the back of the rugby field, where they often went.

  “Anything at all?” he said.

  Saint flourished a bow and puffed smoke at him. “Anything up to one half of my kingdom, dear boy.”

  Steff nodded to himself. “How about letting me actually do my work?” he suggested.

  “Ahh,” Saint said, clutching his heart and collapsing to the ground, lying half on top of him so Steff couldn’t move. “Alas, my one weakness! The one foe I cannot conquer! Steff, there is no way to make your work cool. The sheer improbable force of its dullness has been known to rip wormholes to entirely new galaxies. Very boring ones.”

  Steff raised an eyebrow and tugged his workbook free, as Saint had pinioned it rather when he’d landed. Steff didn’t bother tugging himself free. He probably knew Saint would just seize the opportunity to start wrestling or something, gleefully get him covered in dirt and entirely incapable of being boring. At least Saint figured he knew that. He ought to, by now. “You do realise that makes no sense?” Steff said. “Maybe you’re the one that should be studying.”

  “Infect me not with this foul plague you call learning,” Saint said. He paused. Sat up straighter and said, with at least an attempt at seriousness, “Really, though. Why do you do this stuff? There’s no point to school, to any of this rubbish. The world just loves sticking people in boxes.” He gestured. “Squishing them up small so there’s no selfness left, because there’s just no space.”

  Steff gave him an odd look. “You really…? Oh, that’s beside the point. This is independent research, actually.” He smiled a little. “Quantum physics,” he said, lovingly.

  Saint laughed. “Yeah, because you can totally understand quantum physics.”

  Steff brightened. “That’s half the appeal, isn’t it?” he said eagerly. “That which we cannot understand, that which we could never hope to understand. The wonders of the universe reduced to theory, people just – using chalk and blackboards and, yes, fine, computers and whatever but the thing is it’s just humans, just stupid people using their limited minds to, to make
these beautiful amazing theories that show this whole other depth, this complexity to the world. It’s like magic but a thousand times better because it’s real, and because all you need is to be clever, all you need is just to think, and it’s… amazing. I just. I like it, that’s all.” He looked away. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to – yeah.”

  He looked abashed, of all things, and it was only then that Saint realised he’d been staring and yeah, that could maybe be taken the wrong way. He snapped his mouth shut and held out his fist. “My friend,” he said casually. “I do believe you just made physics cool.”

  Steff’s whole face lit up. He bumped his fist.

  “… Ah,” he said, hesitantly. “Saint.”

  “Yeah, bud?” Saint said, lying back down. The grass was crispy-brown, sort of springy, and the sun shone down too brightly, and at this corner of the school grounds no one would bother them for a while.

  “Could you make something else part of your image, maybe?”

  “Hm?”

  “I mean, you’ve got the coat –” (Not the one he had now, of course. His current one was much better.) “– and a certain … reputation, or whatever, and I know you’re ‘sticking it to the man’, but could you maybe… not smoke?”

  Saint sat up straight. “What,” he said indignantly.

  “Just a suggestion,” Steff murmured.

  “It’s been months now and this is the first sign you’ve given that it bothers you! Sorry, but you’re a little too tardy to attend the Guilt Trip Party. The balloons have all deflated. There is not a shred of cake remaining. The train? It has departed the station. It departed the station early, in fact! Inconvenienced a lot of commuters. The schedules were –”

  “Oh my god, shut up,” Steff said. “I’m not objecting, exactly. It’s your life and your body and your choice to make.” He met Saint’s eyes squarely. “But there is an entire world of endless possibility, a whole constantly unfolding universe. So many wonders to see every day, and I’d like it if you were alive with me for every minute of it.”