The Wind City (31 page)

A shiver of ice in his shoulder. “No, don’t,” Noah said urgently, and Saint stopped and looked at him instead of the Hikurangi. It was strange, for a second, jarring; he’d never
looked
at Noah the way he looked at other things, trying to see the whole of him, and Noah was just a confusing blur of images and ideas too big for Saint’s brain to fit. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them and shook his head to clear it, and Noah was himself again, staring at Saint in concern.

Saint frowned. “What’s got your bees all in a bonnet, pet?”

“I’m sorry, I thought I’d told you before,” Noah said, cocking his head. “We have to stop.”

Saint gaped at him, uncomprehending. “What?” he managed to say. “… Seriously. What?” He struggled for words that’d describe his confusion and the way it felt like the earth had given way under his feet. He was meant to be good at words, but that was still all he could come up with. “…
What
?”

Noah bit his lip. “I knew you were taking this too well,” he muttered. “I, I don’t understand you, sometimes, not entirely, I thought – when we were talking outside the bar, I thought you understood. We need to
stop
, Saint.”

Saint made himself grin. It was a bright, false thing, and it felt wrong on his face. “Why?”

Noah moved to stand in front of him, arms spread out, emphatic. “There’s nothing we can
do
,” he said, and then heaved a sigh, obviously frustrated. His body language had gotten so much better, Saint noted distantly.

Saint held up one hand and made talking motions with it. “Explain,” he said.

“I wanted to kill the atua for the threat they pose to humanity, because – because it was my… because I needed to, because, I… But that city spirit – it was weak and unimportant but, Saint, if there can be new spirits that means we can’t
stop
, we can’t ever stop; there’s no end to this until you’ve burned the whole world down! I thought, I thought atua would be small and isolated in the city, easy to fight, but – the city’s
growing
. If there’s a Cuba Street spirit there’ll be one for every landmark and street this place
has
and there’ll be building spirits, hakuturi shaped like pigeons and rats… ” He’d been growing increasingly frantic, so impassioned that he could almost be properly seen: a tall man with his handsome face flushed with vigour and his strong arms spread wide as he spoke, chest bare beneath his pendants and cloak, strands of hair falling loose from his topknot to frame his face, betraying his agitation. “City atua, fae of concrete and cars and streetlights and – there’s no
end
to it, do you see? There’s nothing we can do!”

Saint looked at him.

Not him, too? First Steff and now –

He tried to cut himself off before he could finish that line of thought, because he didn’t like anywhere it was likely to lead. Betrayal iced through his veins all the same, desertion, gut-wrenching in its familiarity.

Because it wasn’t just Steff, was it? It was everyone, his whole damn life, it was – he’d never had any trouble
making
friends, but keeping them, yeah, that was hard, being close to
anyone
. For the better part of his childhood and teenage years he hadn’t seen the point. Then he’d tried to make himself set his doubts aside and trust people, really truly trust them, ignore the nagging voice that whispered
theydon’tcarethey’renotsafegetawaygetawaygetaway
, and what, exactly, had that brought him lately?

Weeks of willingly cohabitating with a
carnivorous psychopath
because Saint told himself his doubts were ridiculous, and a best friend who cared more about books than he did people, and now –

Now –

“Yeah, no,” Saint said, and his voice was sharp and mocking and sounded like a stranger’s. “Think I might have to disregard your oh-so-wise counsel just this once, ghost boy. Unlike you I’m not actually petrified of me dying – I mean it’s not a
delightful
notion, but it doesn’t paralyse me with dread, either, and I’m not going to let it stop me from helping people. Because I am in this to help people! Unlike some people I could name.” He smiled, sparkly and charming. “
Māui
.”

Noah faded in his shock, was almost completely gone for a moment; when he came back he looked shuddery and startled, still. “That’s – that’s not –” he said, and Saint just smirked at him as infuriatingly as he knew how to, and Noah didn’t bother protesting any more.

Instead he said, “How did you know?” He sounded emptier than he had a moment before. Hollow. Saint knew how
that
felt.

Saint laughed. It sounded more bitter than he’d meant it to. “Well, Hinewai mentioned you,” he said. “And before that I heard people talking in the Hikurangi. I’d always had suspicions, really, but I told myself they were ridiculous. Very sad to look back on. ‘Come now, self,’ I scoffed, ‘surely you don’t distrust this marvellous new friend of yours. Do you seriously think he’s
manipulating
you? Come now, that’s paranoia at its finest… ’” He shook his head with exaggerated sadness. “Eating those words now, gotta say. Now that I’ve connected a few dots. You’re
infamous
, you are. Māui.”

“I’m
not
Māui,” Noah said. “Not really. Not any more. I’m not even what’s left of him, not even that – I’m, I’m an echo, I’m a footprint.” He kneaded his forehead with his palm, grimacing. “I don’t, I barely remember –”

There was something pathetic about him, fragmented. “You’re much more articulate than most footprints I’ve met,” Saint said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “They tend to just sit there and look sorta earthy and disrupted, in my experience.”

Noah gave him a pleading look. “Saint, please – that’s not who I am any more. I wish it was, but it’s not.”

Saint looked at him. Really looked at him, properly.

It hurt his head a little, trying to fit in his head all that Noah was and all he once had been; the had-beens were much more terrifying, swirled conflicting memories of breathing in salt water and then breathing in smoke and living again, of tricks and mischief, stealing faces, breaking rules, standing firm against the tug of a fish the size of an island on the other end of the line. And then last of all – and a humiliated memory, this, on Noah’s part at least, if not the man he’d once been – a memory of light glinting on obsidian, of dying, dying in shame and failure on his greatest, grandest trick, stopping death itself. Failing, of course, but failing just because of a friend laughing at the wrong time, and how horrible
that
must’ve been, knowing how close he’d come to success as the obsidian teeth crushed him. And instead of ensuring the immortality of all mankind, being the first man to die.

That was what was driving Noah at the moment – all that guilt. Saint wondered if he even knew.

Saint shook his head to clear it – it was harder to look at the trueness of Noah than most things. He kept on swirling, changing, a voice on the wind. Saint just looked at him, instead – normal-looked. Stood there and regarded him and didn’t smile.

Noah looked back at him, wary and guarded. A wall had risen behind his eyes, and he looked cold, distant. Saint wondered whether this was the mask or whether the old Noah had been a mask or whether there was anything
but
masks, really. Was there anything underneath? “All right,” Noah said slowly, half-raising his hands. “All right. So you know who I was. What of it? Why are you looking at me like that? It wasn’t exactly a secret, Saint. I would’ve told you, if you asked.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Saint agreed. “I can’t refute that. It’s not like I ever asked who you were and you lied… ” He clicked his fingers, grinned bright and phony. “Except wait! You
did
!”

“When we first met! I needed you to trust me! I didn’t even
know
you yet. I would’ve told you, later, I can tell you now –”

“I know everything about you I need to know,” Saint said, holding out his hands in front of him, fire flickering at his fingertips. “I saw right to the
heart
of you. Stand aside and let me burn this place down, already, I wanna see that new Avengers movie. Jaffas wait for no man.”

Noah looked down at himself, as if he hadn’t realised he was standing in Saint’s way. He didn’t move, though. “Saint,” he said, urgent. “
Listen
to me. That really isn’t a good idea any more. Didn’t you hear me? There’s no end to this, our plans aren’t worth this –”

“Coward!” Saint said, and Noah blinked at him. “Let me repeat my previous, delightfully dramatic statement again, for your listening pleasure: I. Saw right. To the heart of you. Gods alone know why you dragged me into all of this –” He was terrified of that, when he let himself think about it.
Fool of a pawn
, the girl had said. “But I’m starting to think that
you’re
in this for rather less than selfless reasons. No wonder you’re so easily stopped – you’re doing this out of some kind of weird misplaced guilt, or whatever the fuck. But me? I’m actually in this to
save the fucking human race
, thanks very much, so if you’ll kindly stand aside so I can do that –”

“That’s your problem, isn’t it?” Noah said abruptly. “You see the truth, you see straight past all the lies and conventions to how things really are but you don’t know what to
do
with it.”

Saint lowered his hands, not entirely voluntarily, because … Yeah, he couldn’t really deny that. There was
entirely
too much truth in that. He was always so loud and scornful about how utterly rubbish the world was, sticking people in boxes, school and then uni and then nine-to-five jobs and then retirement homes and then death and never once did they ever get to
live
– but he didn’t
do
a damn
thing
about it, he just drifted along and –

He was doing something now, wasn’t he? This, this right here, this was worth something.

“Saint,” Noah said, and he flickered closer – in his agitation he was a little more formless than usual, blurred at the edges. “There’s nothing wrong with that, not exactly, it’s why I chose you – well, also because there’s just… There’s something about you, an energy, I could tell that from the first moment I saw you.”

He looked earnest, but Saint frowned, thinking. “When
was
the first time you saw me, anyway?” he said. “I never asked. Can’t have been when I first saw
you
, because you already had your plans by that point. So when?”

Noah frowned as well. “On the bus,” he said. “You had your window open, so I was there. I saw the patupaiarehe girl, and that was a shock. I didn’t know any of them were in my city, I – I don’t know much of… And you were there, an innocent, and she hurt you. Easily. It was pathetic.” He nodded to himself. “That’s when I knew they all had to die. So humans wouldn’t. It is important.”

Saint blinked. That made less than no sense. “Eh?” he said. “That was one incident and you just
decided
…? And then why would you choose me to help with your little vendetta, if you’d seen me being so ‘pathetic’ –”

“You
needed my help
!” Noah roared. It was like the roar of thunder, deep and furious.

“Like hell!” Saint yelled back. He ran his hand over his face and laughed, incredulous. “The atua, I heard them talking about Māui and his pawn – well, they didn’t know much, not many met us and lived to tell tales about it.” He could be proud of that, at least. “Some people thought it was Māui in the flesh, some people thought the spirit of Māui – that’s you, chum – was possessing a human, but most people figured he was… You chose me because you thought I could be a
pawn
?” His voice was louder than he’d meant it to be. “So you saw me and decided I was pathetic, basically. Wow! Okay then, good to know! I –”

“Saint, this is bigger than either of us,” Noah said. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper, it’s just… this is
important
. Saint. Please?”

Noah was a prouder man even than Saint, and here he was
pleading
. Saint’s thoughts twitched in restless repetition, back and forth, back and forth, like a clock caught in one position with its hands shuddering, back and forth, back and forth and nothing made sense.

“Why ‘Noah’, anyway?” he said, to make time. “I mean, out of all the names you could’ve chosen… ”

“I told you, it’s the nearest thing to my old name I could think of, my old self,” he said. “
Noa
. It’s… it’s a complicated concept, but it’s. Well. It’s an absence of sacredness, sort of? But that can be a good thing sometimes, that’s a thing you need sometimes. It’s what we do, you and I – it’s breaking the rules.”

Trying to seem all chummy, reminding Saint of what great friends they were and what they had in common, manipulating him like he’d been manipulating him this whole fucking
time
. Saint couldn’t remember a time he’d been more angry. “Hate to break this to you, pet,” he drawled, “but you’re not a rule-breaker, not any more. Let’s be honest here – you can’t do anything much except flap curtains at people menacingly. Isn’t that what you needed me for? You’re useless on your own!”

Noah met his eyes, as best he could. “Oh yes?” he said, evenly, and a sudden wind rose up around them, tugged annoyingly at Saint’s coat, stirred his hair. Then stronger, stinging his face, flinging small bits of stone and such so he had to half-raise his arm to shield his eyes. Then stronger, pushing him back a step no matter how he braced himself.

Saint didn’t do anything. He wasn’t particularly eager to fight a friend, even one who’d
stabbed him in the
– no, he wouldn’t go down that road, Noah was a friend, he was a friend still, they’d fought monsters together, they’d sniped and laughed and they were
friends
so why was Noah
doing
this…

But Saint couldn’t back down, not now.

“Yup,” Saint said, raw and uneven. The wind dropped down then faded. Rain fell, quietly.