The Wind City (3 page)

It did nothing to quiet the voice that had been chiming insistently in his head ever since he woke up, though.
Crazy crazy seeing things, of course no one wants anything to do with you, arrogant and now insane, that’s really not a good combination
–

He was pretty good at ignoring that voice, though. He’d had practice.

…Crap, all that and he’d
still
forgotten to grab a shirt.

The fact that Tony called her business Cheerful Dolphin Tours really says everything about her that you need to know.

Most of the time she went out in the afternoon and early evening, when children were off school; this schedule suited her nicely, as it meant the hours before then could be devoted to boat maintenance, keeping track of her finances and thinking about how cute dolphins were. On the weekends she woke up early, though, which was never fun. At least she had a routine to get herself through it.

Tony yawned her way through pulling on her practical tough clothes and equally practical pink gumboots – they had plenty of grip, that was what mattered – and then, at least somewhat more awake, chewed sleepily at muesli and flipped through her notebook to remind herself what clients she had lined up that day. She liked to try to remember their names if she could, as it made the experience more personal. She always had a nice steady flow of clients, mainly tourists from overseas but sometimes kiwis, and she made enough to keep the boat afloat and the bills mostly paid and to afford this reasonably lavish flat. Her job was nice. But some days she had to leave the flat before it was even six a.m., so her job was also terrible.

She stumbled into the lift and then out of the building, and there she came to an abrupt stop.

“Wha,” she said, stupidly.

There was a strange girl standing there. It was still too dark to make out her face very well, and she was half turned away in any case, but even so she was –
gorgeous
, film-star beautiful, beyond film-star beautiful; graceful lines and long fair hair falling down her back, fanning out in the wind without being tangled, framing her pale precise face. Tony stood there in the rain and just stared at her for a second, mouth agape.

“Are you the owner of this place?” the strange girl said, turning to face her fully. “I come to seek –” She drew in breath, sharply. “Ah,” she said, sounding not entirely pleased, and then she bowed low to the ground and said, stiffly, “Greetings, guardian. I was not aware of your presence here. I will seek alternative lodgings, where I run no risk of bothering you.”

Tony blinked the last of her confusion away and stepped to the side so that she wasn’t blocking the doorway. She hadn’t understood much of that speech, but she smiled at the girl anyway on the grounds that it was always good to be nice to people if you could.

The girl smiled back, if you could call her brief baring of teeth a smile. Tony stared at her in some alarm. The girl blinked at her, looking nonplussed. Well, that made both of them.

“Uh, my name’s Tony,” she said, as it was about the only thing she could think of to say. “Hi! And nah, I’m not the landlord – his cell’s pinned on the door though, and there’s a lot of flats free at the moment, so you’re probably in luck!”

The girl tossed her head proudly. “I am called Hinewai,” she said, and stepped forward to examine the door. Tony took the chance to examine her, frowning a little. Hinewai was pretty thin, and despite the coldness of the day and the earliness of the hour she wasn’t wearing much, just jeans and a T-shirt, both black.

Hinewai whirled to face her. “I see no ‘cell’,” she said, her voice a mixture of wounded pride and confusion, and she gestured at the door. “All there is is a piece of paper.”

Tony giggled and then covered her mouth when Hinewai shot her a glare. “Uh. You – don’t have a cell phone, I guess. Are you new here? Cool! Um, Mr Robbins sometimes does drop by the office on Saturday afternoons, so you might catch him here later if you’re lucky.”

“I shall wait,” Hinewai said decisively.

Tony wavered. That was
weird
. “Okay. Seeya later then, I guess?” She started off, but paused on the step and bit her lip. How to say this without it sounding like pity. “Hey, uh, you wanna borrow my jacket till then? I mean I can’t really wear it when I’m out on my boat anyway, because. Life jacket. And stuff. So I mean, you’d be doing me a favour really… ” She trailed off when Hinewai didn’t respond, just looked at her. Tony couldn’t really make out her expression. “What?”

“You’re
kind
,” she said.

“Oh, uh… ” She’d said it more like an accusation than a compliment. “Thank you, I guess?”

“I think these lodgings shall do nicely,” Hinewai said, and Tony waved her goodbye with one last sort of worried smile and went on with her day.

It was a pretty normal one. On the first trip out the kid – Shawna – got treated to the sight of a pod of eight dolphins frolicking in their wake and alongside the boat, which was brilliant to see; Tony wasn’t actually all that fond of kids, or at least not any fonder than she was of basically all mankind, but the way they felt real true wonder always made her smile. Then there was a teenage couple, who were pretty cool. The third trip out she didn’t manage to find any dolphins, but letting the twin kids steer, under the watchful eye of their father, cured them of their disappointment pretty much entirely. It was a good day.

When Tony came home Hinewai was waiting in the corridor – she’d gotten the room across from hers, which was neat – and presented her with a plastic laundry basket full of fresh fish. Tony decided to take that as an overture of friendship, or an apology or something. It was really hard to fit all of the fish in her fridge, though.

A few days later she was out in the ocean, sun drifting towards the horizon, boat skipping over the waves, wind blowing spray at her grinning face. Sometimes she took jaunts by herself in the evening, just by herself, just because she could.

She loved the ocean. She always had, even when she was a little girl and only got to see it sometimes. She couldn’t even put her finger on why, just… everything about it, really. She loved the bleakness of it, the wildness, the vastness. The tranquil raging beauty. The
solitude
.

“Hey,” someone said, and she squawked and whipped around, though making sure to still keep a steady hand on the wheel.

He was balanced easily on a pile of boxes she’d stacked in the back. There was water pooled around him, for some reason, and he’d taken her nets out and was playing with them, twisting at the knots. His fingers were long and thin, and his nails were long and curved and sharp. He wasn’t human.

“What the fuck?” Tony said, and then she winced. She tried to be civil to strangers. “Uh! Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to, um, offend you or… no, hey, this is
my
boat, mister, I can offend you all I want! What the – what the
shitfuck
are you doing here? And how did you get here?”

He blinked at her blandly and gave a lazy smile, all teeth. Jagged and sharp and too-white, like a shark’s. She shuddered without meaning to and laid her hand on the dashboard behind her for comfort’s sake, to feel the reassuring hum of the engine.

“I swam,” he said, and held up the nets. “I’m doing you a favour here, so you oughtta be grateful. Your weaving is wretched.” He dropped most of his
g
s. Doin’ you a favour. Weavin’.

“It’s not my weaving,” Tony said, for lack of anything else to say. “I mean. Not mine personally. It’s just a net.”

He hissed through his teeth. There were lots of them. “Call this a
net
?” he said in disgust, brandishing it. “This couldn’t catch nothing but rocks and bad luck. It ain’t even charmed!”

Which… made her relax, for some odd reason. Because here was this man sitting here, and he was battered and rangy and had blue skin and sharpish eyes and claimed to have
swum
here – they were miles out from shore! – and he’d seemed really scary and alien right up until that moment. Because really. Being disgruntled at poor workmanship? That she could understand.

Also it was hard to be scared of someone with such an adorable accent.

She killed the engine. Without it the world seemed much smaller; just the boat, and the ocean, and him, and her, sitting there in salty-smelling silence. The boat bobbed a little.

She stuck out her hand. “I’m Tony.”

He poked at her hand curiously. “Whai,” he said. “What’s this for, then?”

“You shake it. It’s, like, a greeting, a way of saying ‘hi’!”

“Ahhh,” he said, “in which case I’ll nod all wise-like and –” He grasped her hand and pulled himself up, and she managed not to wince at the coldness of his skin. He leaned forward and pressed his nose against hers, oddly gentle. “Greetings to you too, sea-sister,” he said, with another sharky grin, which was a good deal more alarming up close. His breath stank of fish.

“Hi,” she said. “I. Yeah, hi. What do you mean, sea-sister?”

Whai gave a burble of something that was maybe laughter, and stepped back. “Like I’d drag myself aboard
any
old person’s waka,” he said, scornful. “Been watching you for a while now, on account of how you actually know the ocean, which ain’t exactly a common thing for humanfolk.” ‘
Fing
’. Oh god, he was so adorable. Maybe the teeth got in the way of pronunciation or something. More likely he was just putting it on, considering how it wavered. “Some… matters arose that made me want to talk to ya. And this is the first time in a few days that you’ve come out without a whole gaggle of them clutching at your shirtsleeves and whining for attention and flinching at every wave. Stupid humans. You’re not like that.”

He was looking at her admiringly. Tony blinked. “Uh, thank you,” she said.

He grinned. “Which, I mean, is ’cos you
ain’t
.”

“What?”

“Ain’t human,” he said.

Tony stared at him for a moment. It was getting darker, but she could still make out his eyes, glinting; his teeth, bared. “Huh?”

“You,” he said slowly. “Are not. Human.”

Tony clasped her hands together. “Oh right, yeah, this seems like a good time to ask. I sort of wanted to wait until I was sure you weren’t about to murder me horribly, but what are you, exactly?”

“One of Tangaroa’s children,” Whai said, and he sort of patted at her shoulder encouragingly. “Like you. We’re kin, you and me.”

“Um no,” Tony said. “That really isn’t true even at all.”

“You’re sea-born,” he said patiently. “Any git could see that. You’re of the sea, you know its ways. You feel it, in your bones. Don’tcha?” He grinned at her, and if that grin hadn’t had quite so many teeth he would’ve looked exactly like a ten-year-old smug about beating his classmates in a spelling bee, all fond condescension. “Oh, come
on
.” He stretched out one long bony arm to gesture at the ocean. He was wearing a few bracelets, odd-looking things; mainly they were made of seaweed and shells, but there was one made of plasticky red twine stringed with chunks of paua. “Waves and salt and the
smell
of it, prickle-cold against your skin, how whens you’re way out at sea with the sky above and the ocean round you it’s –”

“Home,” Tony finished, at the same time he did. She scratched at the back of her neck, uncertain. “Dude, that – that doesn’t make me some weird monster like you are; plenty of humans like the ocean. Oh, jeez, sorry, I didn’t mean to say you’re a weird monster in, like, the
bad
way! You seem totally nice. Just.” She held out her hand. “See? Human. I mean, if we go by skin colour
alone
, I’d be, like, coffee, and you’d be
Powerade
or something. I’m not like you.”

“Course you ain’t like me,” he said, snorting, “I’m halfway to being royalty, and you’re not even ponaturi. You
wish
you were ponaturi.”

“Not particularly.”

“You would if you knew what we was,” which – yeah, to be fair she didn’t really have any way to argue that particular point. “Or, well. Woulda, once.” He looked troubled, then shook his head and went on. “No. You’re not ponaturi, that’s twice-tide certain, but you’re definitely
something
Tangaroa-tinted. Anyone could see it.”

He was so earnest – leaning forward, long-fingered hands gripping his bony knees, eyes wide and intent – that she felt sorta guilty about not believing him, but it wasn’t like it was something she could help. Maybe she could buy him pie or something later to make up for it. Hey, yeah, they could totally do lunch some time – he would freak the
shit
out of random passersby. It would be so awesome.

“Okay,” she said. “Look, I’m definitely not Tangaroa-tinted, whatever that means, but I can see it’s important to you, so let’s roll with it for a sec. You’re a ponatuna –”

“
Ponaturi
!” he said, snappin’ his –
snapping
his teeth at her.

“Oh my god, you are so adorable. Anyway. You’re a ponaturi, okay, and you think I’m some other weird ocean thing – oh my god, do you think I’m a
mermaid
?”