The Wind City (10 page)

“You okay?” he said, gentle as he could.

“Thenk ye!” the guy said, wide-eyed and with a strong Scottish accent. “What a
punch
!”

Saint stared at him. “Uh… yes,” he said, for lack of anything better to say. He stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his feet and grinned haplessly.

The girl was shaking a little, standing closer to her friend than she had been before, though not quite touching. Just close enough to be assured that he was there, Saint rather thought, like it was enough to be within touching distance of someone who was safe and kind and wouldn’t hurt you. She looked around. “But where did he
go
?”

Saint glanced down at the pile of maero-ashes on the ground. “Uh.”

“Most tangata – humans – they can’t see much of what atua do,” Noah said helpfully from beside him. “Their minds don’t let them.” Saint gave a fraction of a nod.

“We,” he said, solemnly, “may never know. Criminals, man. Who can tell?” He bent down to pick up the groceries, helping load the groceries that had spilled into the unbroken bags.

“But seriously,” the girl said. She was calming down, slowly. “Thank you. That… that was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.” The guy scowled a bit.

Saint smiled. “It was my honest pleasure,” he told them. “But you were doing pretty well on your own. Right time, right place, and all that. Will you folks be all right now?”

They traded glances and nodded.

“Then my work here is done,” he said, and shot both of them a smile. He contented himself with winking at the guy, as he was feeling threatened, but he blew the girl a kiss before turning and swaggering away like he owned the place.

He couldn’t seem to stop grinning, and he had to restrain himself from dancing, he felt so alive. Once he was far enough away he glanced at Noah, keeping pace beside him.

“Did they swoon?” he asked.

“Yes,” Noah said, looking as awed as the guy had. “
Both
of them. How do you
do
that?”

“Sheer charisma.” Saint laughed. “Thanks. Seriously.”

Noah quietened. He reached out a hand like he wanted to pat Saint’s shoulder, and then withdrew it. “I thought that would work,” he said, “but can I just – can I just say, I’m very glad it did? They’re brutal, you know. You could’ve, you could’ve been
dead
, could’ve died, could’ve just not
been
here anymore. I’m glad you killed it.”

“Yes, you said. Today, I would say, is a victory for
righteousness
. Oh hells yes! Don’t suppose you have any detachable parts that’ll turn into a bottle of champagne and a few admiring gorgeous people, do you?”

“No.”

“On second thoughts, good, because that’d be weird. Pity, though. I could use some champagne.” He clapped his hands together and laughed, because he felt like moving, because even just moving was a joyous thing right now. Mostly the fact that he still
could
. He clapped his hands together again, this time making them send up sparks, and he laughed, again, spreading out his arms, enjoying his triumph and the giddy rush of not currently being in mortal danger. “A victory for righteousness and bravery and lovably fearless rogues everywhere.
Oh
yes! And I didn’t even need to die!” He tugged at his coat, which was looking a little worse for wear, he had to admit. “Provided I survive the cost of dry-cleaning this thing.”

Noah smiled.

Saint stuck his hands in his pockets and whistled a little as they walked on down the street, past his doorway, heading to nowhere in particular. There still weren’t many people around, but just at this moment he didn’t especially care if anyone saw him talking to thin air. “… Say. While we’re here and all chummy and cosy, I’ve been wondering – why do you happen to be carrying fire around in your fingers? Just as a polite sort of query, you understand. I merely ask.”

“Oh, you know,” Noah said. “Some people carry pen and paper, some people carry handkerchiefs… ”

Saint chuckled. “Nice try. Normal people do
not
carry around magical spooky fire-making powers in their little finger, pet.” Or handkerchiefs. Wow did Noah not understand the twenty-first century. “And how did you still have it, even all ghosty?” He wiggled his fingers and decided against adding a ghosty sort of ‘wooo’. It would, he felt, ruin the current dignifiedly triumphant atmosphere.

“I’ve always been a rule-breaker,” Noah said again.

“Well,” Saint said, not really wanting to push Noah, not when this was the first time in weeks he felt like he was even halfway to doing what he was capable of. “That makes two of us, then.” He held out his fist. “Quite the team, huh? As dynamic duos go we are
more than usually dynamic
, I’d say.”

Noah blinked at his fist.

“You bump it,” Saint explained, demonstrating with his own hands and then holding out a fist again. Noah said, “Ah,” and tapped his four-fingered fist lightly against the space in front of Saint’s. Saint smiled.

Noah played with wind, absentmindedly, stirring dust in the gutter into little eddies and patterns. “That help I needed,” he said, watching the dust but watching Saint out of the corner of his eye. “It was along these lines. Finding atua which are a danger to people and getting rid of them. Would you be interested?”

Saint ran a hand through his hair. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off he was a little less pleased about this enterprise. He’d just killed a living
thing
, regardless of the fact that it would’ve tried to kill him and any number of other folks if he hadn’t. It had still been alive, and now it wasn’t, and he’d never even had the nerve to kill spiders, always had to ferry them safely out the window or the door, and there was hardly anything
left
of it, just ashes. “I’m hypothetically not entirely cool with the prospect of that idea,” he said, in a rush.

Noah’s motion stilled. “I could find someone else, I suppose.” He crossed his arms and frowned into the distance. “I… suppose. I’d rather you than anyone else; we work well together and you have a knack for this – but I don’t blame you, of course I don’t. Thank you for your company, all the same.”

“Ha!” Saint said, and he slung his arm over where Noah’s shoulders weren’t. “I said
hypothetically
, pet. Like I’ve ever been the sort to worry about hypotheticals. Screw those hypotheticals, I say, or would say in the hypothetical situation where I’m even
aware
of hypotheticals, because screw them. You want some monsters slain? I’m your man.”

Noah grinned, and Saint grinned back.

The waterfront had been built on wharfs, originally, on and around them. It had been where ships came and went and cargo was stored, had been the lifeblood of the town back when Wellington was a port and little else, and had continued to be an important part of the city ever since. Ocean and sky and land came together at the waterfront, and there were kilometres of it, pathways, restaurants, theatres, sculptures, fragments of prose and poetry carved into the stone, boats, Civic Square with its important buildings and neat paving – and, in places, still the original wood of the wharfs, the piers, Wellington’s connection to the ocean.

Tony didn’t go as far as the marina where her boat was usually tied up – here there was just a pleasant walkway for people to enjoy, no boats bobbing at their tethers. She still loved it here, the wind and wavelets and ever-changing sky. Often she came down to watch people having fun on the jumping platform set in a space where the old wharves had met: it was best on cold days, watching people shiver and step back and forth uncertainly and finally take the plunge when their friends goaded them.

Today though, she was here for business. She walked out to a longish stretch of waterfront with relatively few people, and stood beside that statue of a naked guy leaning into the northerly wind. The ocean lapped greasily at the wharf’s walls. She liked the parts where you could clamber down to be right by the water, but this was nice too – it was all rigid and concretey, and still the wildness of the water remained, just hushed a little. It was peaceful. Nothing could ruin this gentle tranquillity.

“OI!” she hollered, loud as she could. “WHAI!”

She flopped down to swing her legs over the edge and wait, ignoring people’s odd looks.

She didn’t have to wait all that long before he arrived, entirely disregarding the ladder and instead swarming lithely up the boundary wall itself. He hauled himself over the edge and sat beside her, grinning widely.

“Hey, sea-sister,” he said.

“Hey!” Tony said, and then she punched him in the face. He soared in a great arc off the edge and splashed into the ocean a good ten metres away.

Tony blinked down at her fist.

Whai swam back to land, a smooth slide beneath the water, and hauled himself back up, glaring. He was wearing conventional human clothes today, jeans and a T-shirt, and they made him look drenched and bedraggled and thoroughly pitiable. His hair didn’t even look wet, though; it shed droplets like an umbrella.

“Steady now,” he said, almost a hiss, face contorted in fury. When his eyes were fixed full on her and his teeth were bared the effect was disconcerting, the sharp slivers in the fishlike hole of a mouth stripping what remained of the humanity from his face. In this light she could see that his eyes weren’t true-black, not like Hinewai’s; they were a slick-shiny dark green, like wet sea glass. Too large for his face, and so were his teeth. All in all he was terrifying.

She just reached out and ruffled his hair. “
Hey
!” he said, swatting her hand away and scowling. She grinned.

“It’s kinda rough,” she said. “Like seaweed.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t bite your hand clean off!” he said, snapping his teeth.

She crossed her arms. “You’re lucky I’m talking to you at all,” she said, frowning. “You sunk my boat. And you just forced the change on me, didn’t ask or anything; it doesn’t hurt to
ask
things, Whai! Jeez, I know you don’t like humans, but you could maybe stand to learn some manners.”

He, rather to her surprise, shrugged. “Fair enough,” he said, then looked around, cringing a bit and squinting. “Wait, fuck, it’s day time, whatcha doing out in the
day
time, something wrong with you? Magic don’t work right when the sun’s in the sky. And it scorches something awful. Blech.” Grumbling, he took off one of his woven bracelets and played with it, sharp-clawed fingers tangling and untangling strings. He chanted under his breath, something slow and rhythmic as waves. When he was finished he slumped back exhausted and looked at her expectantly. “Well?”

Tony shrugged, not sure what she was supposed to be looking at.

“Good,” he said, looking proud. “You ain’t human. You shouldn’t be fooled by things that’d fool them.”

“There’s nothing wrong with humans. They’re cool,” Tony said, and he paused and then grinned at her.

“Ha! So I’ve got you all believing now, have I? Knew I could wrangle it.”

“Kinda hard not to be all believing after being all, ‘Rarg I am a monster rarg I shall eat dolphins and also apparently punch people in the face really hard raaarg.’”

“Dolphins are damn tasty,” he said, and she waved her fist threateningly. He half-raised his arms in supplication. “No time for chitchatting anyways,” he said, and he stood up and offered his hand. “You want I should ask afore I tangle you in things?”

She took his hand and heaved on it as she stood so that he stumbled a little. “Heheh,” she said. “And yeah.”

He nodded. “’Kay,” he said. “I need your help.”

“What with?”

He started striding. “C’mon,” he shot back over his shoulder, and she blinked and tagged along behind.

“Where are we going?” she asked as they walked along the wide pavement. Sun shone over Port Nicholson. They seemed to be heading more or less in the direction of Civic Square.

“Somewhere better for this kind of talk. ’S past time we got you to the Hikurangi, I’m thinking.”

“The what?” Tony blinked. Actually, that sounded kinda familiar. “… Isn’t that a mountain?”

Whai grinned at her. “There’s more than one side to things, mostways,” he said. “Nothing is one thing only. Ain’t you learned that yet?”

They walked, and she started to understand what he meant, a little: there he was all blue skin and sharp limbs, obviously either inhuman or just
really
elaborately costumed, and either way that should’ve drawn notice (and admiration, for the second one – this was Wellington after all, and people were themselves here). But hardly anyone looked at him, and those that did didn’t seem to notice anything strange, not after a second look.

“Can’t people see you?” she asked, curious. “It’s like, they look but their eyes just slide right off.”

They climbed a long flight of concrete stairs above the lagoon and crossed the City to Sea Bridge, an ornate span of metal and wood and art. There were a few more people here, and Whai scowled at them. “Shouldn’t be able to take notice of me at all, ’specially not if I don’t want ’em to,” he said. He scowled up at the midmorning sun as well. “Salt and
sand
but I hate the day time.”