The Wind City (13 page)

…Actually, no one. He hadn’t seen his best friend in
person
in… what, three months? Five?
Twelve
? And even before that their friendship hadn’t been friendship so much as Saint dropping by and commandeering Steff’s parents’ car at three a.m. and going on exciting Bro Dates to long-dysfunctional movie theatres and then disappearing and basically he wasn’t very good at people, okay. They were great and all – there just weren’t that many he liked being exposed to for more than a day or two at a time. Any longer than that and you couldn’t just rely on charm any more. You had to be
yourself
. People got to
know
you.

Eek.

So anyway, the point was this: once people had actually seen to the heart of him, he was less than willing to suggest spending more time with them, because he very seldom wanted to.

“So, hey,” he said conversationally, swinging his legs over the edge, “we should hang out more, some time. In a non-monster setting, I mean. Nonprofessionally,” he clarified. “Not as colleagues. A colleague-free sort of situation, is what I’m getting at here.”

Noah stared at him like – well, like he was sitting on the rooftop of some boring office building on a windy evening, which he was, but Noah didn’t have any right to act like that was weird.

“What?” Saint said irritably.

“What?” echoed Noah, looking confused.

There were tiny feathers dusting Saint’s coat. He brushed them away. “That a yes? We could catch some food, watch a movie. Watch some food, in your case.” He stood up so he could stick his hands in his pockets and grin charmingly. “I’d be sure to choose something aesthetically appealing, because I am just that nice. Maybe bento? Bento’s really nice to look at. It’s like art, but with soy sauce! It’d be fun, honest.”

Noah frowned at him. It was easier to see him as the light faded, though still not exactly
easy
– he just became a more sharply defined shadow. “Is this a bad time,” Noah said slowly, “to admit that I have no idea what you’re talking about? This language is still somewhat new to me. Sometimes I find you hard to follow.”

Saint grinned. “That’s kind of what I go for. Which part in general? Sushi’s food,” he added, helpfully.

“You’re asking me something?” Noah said uncertainly. “Or… something.”

“I’m asking if you want to hang out.”

Noah continued to look confused. “… No?”

“Wow, way to squish my self-esteem like a cube of modelling clay.”

“I don’t know what you’re
asking
!”

“I want to know if you’d like to spend time with me, and thanks awfully for making me spell it out!” he snapped. “Not really an alphabet I’m familiar with, pet. This is hard for me, okay? This is practically cryptography.”

Noah blinked at him. “I – what? Oh.” Then the confusion gave way to realisation, which gave way to a
glare
, yikes. Scary glary ghost man. “You said you’d help me,” he said, accusingly.

“What? I will, that’s –”

“You can’t just worm out of this,” Noah said stiffly. “I don’t know what you’re proposing, but this is
important
. We can’t just – just slack off and go catch some food, or whatever. I know you’re a lazy coward but
this is important
.”

“Catch a
movie
. Movies are what you catch,” Saint said. “… Wait, what?”

Noah blinked. “Ahhh,” he said, drawing the word out slowly. “Can we pretend I didn’t say that?”

Saint pinched the bridge of his nose. It seemed the kind of exaggerated sign of irritation that was appropriate for this situation. “If I annoy you that much, why are you even here?”

“I told you,” Noah said. “I need your help.”

“Uh-huh.” Saint snorted and sat down again, swinging his legs into the abyss. He breathed in deep, feeling the breeze against his face, watching cars passing by far below. “You’re all flimsy and insubstantial, so you need me for the whole monster-slaying gig, yeah yeah. Which, might I mention, is awfully enjoyable so far, so thanks for that, but – why me?”

Noah sat next to him. Saint glared and pointedly shuffled a few centimetres away from him. Noah glared back and bumped his shoulder against Saint’s.

Saint flinched away. “Blech,” he said. It felt like pins and needles but worse. Pins and giant needles. Pins and
swords
. “That wasn’t an answer.”

Noah sighed. “You see things other people don’t,” he said, sounding just as irritated as Saint was. “You – don’t live in quite the same world most others do, you live outside. You’re a rule-breaker, like me.”

“So you’re a lazy coward too, then? I rejoice! Misery loves –”

“Oh, shut up. Yes! Yes, the things that make you useful to me are the same things that make you unreliable and shiftless,” Noah said. “I can handle that. Please can we stop talking about emotions now? This is stupid.”

Saint stared at him. The thought of spending any more time with this guy than he absolutely had to was becoming less and less appealing. That was always how it went. “And now I’m something to be
handled
? Wow, thanks for that,” he said. “So glad to be demoted from ‘partner’ to ‘liability’. From what you’re saying I guess you know me pretty well, so don’t you know that’s not the way to do this? You really should start faking some more niceness. Flattery should be spread over your every statement, like maple syrup over pikelets. Pancakes. Both! I’m unreliable and shiftless, after all. You can’t be too careful!”

“And reckless,” Noah said, watching him. “Easily angered. It makes you unpredictable. You should be flattered I trust you at all.”

“Like hell I should! I don’t even know who you are. Sorry, who you
were
. Oh, because in case you’d forgotten, you are really quite dead! Aliveness is not a thing you’re even slightly – oh, hey. Huh.” He stopped, distracted, squinting down at the street far below them. “That’s… ” he said, and his voice was for some reason thick and hoarse as ash, clogged.

Noah followed his gaze. “That’s one of the patupaiarehe,” he said, sounding surprised. “I didn’t think any would come to the cities, even now. Strange. They’re deadly dangerous; they can play with people’s heads. You’d better kill it fast.”

Saint remained still, looking at the thing. Pale as death, and it moved like a hunter. He thought of buses, and of the rain falling gently outside, soft and sure, wearing away at the world, at his mind. Thought of huge black eyes staring at him. Thought of himself sinking into them, his mind blurring away, washed away, lost in the rain.

“Saint?”

“It’s – too far away.” Thank the gods, a good excuse. He was shaking, and tried to hide it. “We’ll never reach it in time.”

Noah smiled. “Like I said,” he said. “You see things other people don’t. You’re clever. You’ll think of something.”

Saint blinked at him, at the sudden and mildly unnerving confidence in his voice. He weighed the options. Somehow the thought of failing what was currently his one and only friend managed to be a lot more unpleasant than the thought of going up against one of the scary fae mindfuckers.

Saint hummed thoughtfully. He really wanted to prove all those bad things Noah had said about him to be false, too. They were perfectly true, but that didn’t mean he had to
like
it.

More importantly, people were in danger. And in the end, despite Noah’s mysteries and unpleasantly true-to-the-mark opinions and all that was unexplained about him, there was only really one thing Saint needed to know.

“Will you catch me?” he asked, standing.

Noah stared up at him. “What?”

“Pretty sure you can figure it out, considering that whole ‘paint with all the colours of the wind’ thing you’ve got going on,” Saint said, absentmindedly, lining up angles. The ground seemed awfully far away.

“Saint!”

He leapt.

The feeling of leaving the solidness beneath his feet was terrifying, and his stomach swooped as he plummeted. His coat was flapping in the wind, there was a roaring noise in his ears, people were staring up at him. He thrashed his arms more than he meant to, feeling a panicked shout bubbling into his throat, the ground came closer closer –

And then the wind caught him, and for a few seconds he flew.

When he touched the ground it wasn’t sickeningly hard, feeling all his bones crush to nothing. It was soft as a feather, his coat billowing around him. He automatically crouched as he landed to take the impact, but there wasn’t much impact to take.

Awful dramatic-looking, though.

Saint stood up, staggering only a little. “Right,” he said, and grinned crooked and crazy at the onlookers, and then ran after the patupaiarehe with his coat flapping and Noah keeping silent pace beside him.

It had been so long since he’d felt anything even
like
this, this surety of purpose. It was in his gut and bones and throat, in every part of him, warm and sweet as hot chocolate: he was of
worth
.

His hair was red-gold, a proud tawny mane bound back with a tie of flax. His eyes were the blank pale blue of a dawn sky. His suit was really expensive, so he was doing his best not to splatter any roadfilth on it.

His name was Ariki, chief, lord. He didn’t feel much like a lord at the moment, running half bowed over through the evening streets, cars beeping impatiently by and pursuit hot on his heels.

Ariki was a fighter, a dancer, a warrior born. Fleeing ill became him.

He turned in a fluid whirl of motion and stood strong, stood firm, slammed the butt of his taiaha against the asphalt. Rather to his surprise, the man who’d been chasing after him stopped dead, almost falling over in his haste, stumbling back a pace. Ariki couldn’t get a good look at him, in all the confusion of lights and cars and stars dimmer than those he was used to; just the outline of a tallish man in a heavy coat, panting, eyes wide in rage or fear. He was unarmed. He was a fool, then, though canny enough to notice things he oughtn’t.

Ariki had a knife at his waist if he needed it, but he doubted he would. Doubted he’d need his taiaha, even, other than to thump it against the ground and laugh. “I am Ariki! Come closer, then, human thing, if you think it wise,” and he jerked his head forward and distorted his face into a grimace like he’d seen human warriors do once, snarling and with his eyes rolled back to bare the whites. Then he laughed, high and shrill and piercing.

The foe stood his ground for one heartbeat. Two. Three, and he was running, running away as though there was an eagle at his back, running splayed-limbed and frantic and Ariki leaned against the shaft of his taiaha and laughed and laughed and laughed as the coward didn’t even look back to see if he was being pursued.

Quite a heartening encounter, all in all, but now he was hungry. He could drink humanblood, he supposed, as he’d gotten quite a taste for it over the last few months. On the other hand he could just go to the Hikurangi for sugar-water and raw steak and sorbet, which would put his suit in much less danger of being bloodied or muddied any further or, God forgive, torn. Right, then.

A middle-aged human woman was frowning at the place where he was standing, where he’d been standing a little too long. He sighed out a laugh. “Oh, no no no, darling little fool, it wouldn’t do for you to notice me,” and passing by he dug his fingers into her skull. She swayed on the spot, her eyes blanking. He didn’t really feel like encountering more than one stupidly brave human in one day.

Ariki walked on, thinking perhaps this was a dance he could learn in time, perhaps, perhaps. In the meantime he laid his taiaha over his shoulder and strode through the confusing streets as though he were lord of them. This new world held sport aplenty, for those who knew where to look.

For a second it looked like the forest stretched out forever. It was deep and green and dim, and quiet in the way that resonated. It was moist, and smelled of rot – but the good kind of rot, the healthy kind, the forest kind. Tony breathed in as she walked through, feeling a smile grow on her face, not even unnerved by the fact that when she glanced back at the city it wasn’t there, nothing but forest as far as she could see. She couldn’t hold the two realities in her head at once.