The Wind City (7 page)

“… Could’ve at least kept it in the freezer,” he said, after a while, in a very small voice. “It doesn’t seem to have… kept very well.”

He swallowed, and decided not to check the freezer.

He found himself thinking about the way the Flatmate had eaten the KFC, a week ago, skewering the bits of meat on its fingernails and swallowing it in greasy chunks. When it ate people did it do the same thing…?

He forced himself to think about something else, and started thinking about how it was funny that there was so much blood contained in a human body –
his
body, say, just for example – and how very much he would prefer it stay in there, nice and safe where it belonged, instead of getting silly ideas and going off to do exciting bloodish things like stain the carpet and attract flies just because some claws as jagged and sharp as rusted nails were kind enough to liberate it from his skin.

Who knew how long the maero would stay away? Who even knew
why
? This thing climbed out windows and ate humanmeat, it didn’t think like people did, it – it could do
anything
–

“Lovably fearless,” he reminded himself. He went back to the window, and he picked up the knife. Looked like he’d have blood on his hands whether he wanted it or not.

He wished Noah was here.

Barely a minute later there came a heavy thump, like something had dropped onto the ledge outside the window in the lounge. Saint swore and leapt for the window and snapped it shut. Yellow claws scraped at the glass. A deep voice roared.

Saint waited.

A human hand knocked at the window, quite politely.

“Kia ora,” Saint said, loudly enough to be heard.

His –
its
face appeared at the window, such a
human
face, with a smallish pimple near its hairline and hollows under its eyes from staying up late. It seemed so very human. “Saint? Let me in!” it called.

“Shan’t. You’re mythical. Not even that!
I’ve
never heard tales told of the great mystical building-clambering weirdo freakgiants.”

“Let me in, Saint,” the maero said, and it sounded human. Saint remembered the moment when he’d seen the maero as both things at once, its human disguise and its terrifying reality; he could look again, probably, see that again, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to at all. Part of him still thought that all this must be a mistake.

“Let me in,” the maero said again.

“Ain’t gonna happen.”

“Are you all right?” it said, voice dripping with concern. “You were acting strange. I thought you might not be all right.”

“Well, I saw a giant who also happened to be ugly as fuck, so yeah, I probably acted strange. And I mean
seriously
ugly, by the way. Like, damn, have you ever even gone to a hairdresser? Or would you just eat them? ‘Hello sir would you like a free lollipop, no, oh you’d rather eat me, all right then.’ Because that’s not very polite.”

“Let me in, Saint. Freaking out’s natural but come on, think what you owe me. Let me in. Let me in.”

Saint wished he’d heard about maero at any point ever, so that he’d have stories to draw on – know what their weaknesses were, or their habits, or how to placate them. As it was he just had to go with what he knew. “Hell no, you’re gross,” he said. “You look like an ape or something, what’s up with that? New Zealand never even
had
apes.” Maybe that was what the whole climbing around thing was about! Maybe it missed trees. Trees and slaughtering people.

It said something else, but it was too muffled for Saint to hear it, an edge of growl in its voice. Saint put his back to the window and braced himself against it. The maero pushed at the window, rather feebly. It was weak, probably because it was pretending to be human, and Saint could set his legs against the floor. There was no way a pane of glass would keep it out if it went full giant, though.

“Could you just, could you please just go away?” Saint said, which he knew was idiotic as soon as he heard himself say it. “You don’t make sense! None of this makes any damn sense… ” It felt horrible to be facing
away
from the thing. The back of his neck itched, and he wanted, very badly, to turn around.

“Ha,” said the maero, and its face must have been very close to the window for Saint to be able to hear it this well. “Hahaha. You’re the stupid one. To never notice. Prey is so plump and stupid on this soft island. In this soft city. You let me keep you in reserve in case the women ran out, fatten you up – it was
easy
, with no whānau to look after you. No one who wanted you. Nowhere to go. No one and nowhere.” Its voice was sing-song, mocking. Harsh and… alien, beneath that, its intonation strange and inhuman.

“Sorry,” Saint said, strangled, “I make it a point not to take constructive feedback from murderous ape guys –”

“No one and nowhere,” the maero sang, like a prayer or a chant. Its words were devolving, getting thicker and slower and deeper. “No one and nowhere.”

“I don’t have to have friends to put an end to you!”

The song turned into a roar, and something thudded against the window, shuddering him. Saint dived to the side and hit the ground hard and awkward; it drove the breath out of him in a pained gasp. There was another thud, louder, and broken glass rained down around him. Saint drew a ragged breath as he gripped the knife and stood. The jagged bits of broken glass lining the window’s frame must’ve stung, but that didn’t stop the maero clambering through. It stood, glass crunching beneath its feet. It had to stand half hunched-over to even fit into the room.

Then for a second there was a human guy standing there, eyes wide, hands raised in surrender. “Saint, you’re raving, you’re mad,” he said, voice soothing, like he was talking to an animal. “You need help. Let me get you help.”

Saint shut his eyes against that. And oh, it was so tempting to believe him, oh so tempting, but there was no way his mind could come up with this on its own, not really. He thought of the bus, of gentle rain falling and wide black eyes and the salty taste of blood in his mouth. He hadn’t imagined that.

He opened his eyes. There was the image of a human standing there, unreal. Underneath that thin unconvincing layer, there was a giant.

“Not gonna fool me there,” Saint said, and he grinned broad and panicked. “I’ve got this whole seeing thing basically sorted! No more fooling me.”

The maero snorted. “This’d be easier,” it said, slow and careful, like it was having difficulty shaping the words. “If. You just ignored us. And went on as normal.”

“Ignored you killing and eating people right up until you killed and ate me? Leaving no one who knew what you were or could do a damn thing about it? I’d rather –” Carry on as normal, just leave, maybe, go seek sanctuary with Steff or at a shelter and pretend nothing had happened. But it wasn’t just
him
in danger here. Saint swallowed his fear and said, “I would rather die.” It came out flat, toneless.

The maero’s eyes narrowed, horrible beady pits in the furred mass of its face. It grinned, a terrible thing to see, lips peeling back from its yellowed teeth. Then it
growled
, and then it lost the ability to form words or play human at all, apparently, lost everything but its rage. It faced him, and raised its yellow-clawed hand, and growled. It was scraping the ceiling with its back, now; it was gigantic. It didn’t even move to attack him yet, like it was arrogant enough to think he’d just stand there while it carved him up. Its head was tilted to one side, measuring him up, figuring out the choice
cuts
or something.

Arrogance was one thing Saint was pretty good at, though. He had the advantage there at least.

Fearless, fearless, fearless
. “Just call me David,” Saint panted, and slashed at it with the knife.

The metal didn’t penetrate the thick fur any better than the window’s glass had, and the maero batted away his hand with ease. For a second it just stared at him, like a farmer caught unexpected by a cow fighting back. Then it swung.

It didn’t even put all of its weight into the blow, just batted at Saint, but its fist hit him on the side of his head and sent him reeling, staggering to the floor. His vision swam.

It loomed above him and he stumbled to his feet, trying to look dazed and stunned – it wasn’t hard – and when it swung at him again, slow and easy, he ducked under its hand and came up close and slashed at its torso. The maero just laughed and
let
him, and the knife just – didn’t even break the skin –

It had less fur around its neck, though.

Saint stood as tall as he could and pushed the knife against the maero’s neck, leaning into it with one hand tight around the handle and the other pressed against the back of the blade so it wouldn’t just bounce off.

It was easier than he’d been expecting. The knife dug into the maero’s throat. Blood started to well up, wetting the blade. Saint’s sweaty hands slipped, and he lost his grip. Panic froze him for an instant.

Maybe that was how to kill a maero, maybe slitting its throat was enough, it was unlikely but he turned to run all the same. The maero grabbed his shoulder and lifted him up, feet dangling a few centimetres above the carpet, its claws digging into his skin even through his coat. The maero held him there, swinging in midair. It felt at the gash in its throat with the other hand, a look of genuine surprise on its face.

“Well, you’re plucky,” it said, and the words made the blood coming from its throat bubble.

Saint swung back and then forward again, and kicked it in the junk.

The maero didn’t keel over or anything, not like he’d hoped. It did drop him, but even as it crouched it was raising its long-clawed hand and it could just slash right through Saint, couldn’t it, slash a hole right down the middle of him so his insides slithered out while he was still breathing.
No
. He dived straight at it, desperate, ducked close enough so the monster might have difficulty slicing at him but it just grabbed him instead, crushing him, and oh, God, it was so hard to breathe, but Saint’s arm was close enough, and he
sawed
. The flesh gave way and burst like rotten fruit, stinking, and he gagged while the maero moved its arm to wrap vicelike around Saint’s neck, pressing his face into the hair and blood and stink of it. He couldn’t breathe, but he kept on grimly cutting as his vision flared black.

The knife caught against something, and then cut through, and then there was hardly any resistance at all. The maero’s crushing grip loosened. Its head fell from its shoulders to the ground, and even bounced, though the maero itself remained standing; after a second or two Saint realised that it was him who was supporting it. When he stepped away the heavy weight of the headless body fell to the ground and lay there dead.

Saint dropped the knife. He stood there. It was hard to breathe. The whole thing had taken – fifteen seconds, fifteen minutes, a lifetime? He didn’t know.

“Well that was surprisingly simple,” he said brightly, and he went to the bathroom to retch.

He splashed his face with water, then again, then again; blood was beading on his forehead, but it was just a shallow cut. He hoped it was just a shallow cut. He squirted soap onto his hands and rubbed that on his face as well, and it stung, but he wanted to be clean. It was hard to breathe. He had a few cuts he didn’t remember getting. They were shallow but nasty to look at, and what if one of those had happened to nick an artery or skewer some important organ? He could’ve bled out then and there. He had never felt more acutely aware of how his body was a bag of skin stretched over meat, a strange and precious and vulnerable thing. Though maero had oddly weak bones, apparently, and thank the gods for that.

Not much he could do about most of the cuts or bruises at the moment, so he splashed more water on his face and neck, and dried himself, and once he’d done all that he found that there was nothing to do but lean against the towel rail until he stopped this embarrassing business of hyperventilation, until his legs decided to support his weight again. He looked at the spiderwebs over the window, the streaks of discolouration on the basin still there from the last time he’d dyed his hair, the bottles scattered in the grungy shower. He breathed.

Once his knees had stopped wobbling he went back into the lounge, all glass-littered and bloodstained as it was. He stopped.

The maero was standing up, fitting its head back onto its shoulders. The bones were clicking together, the muscles knitting, the skin sliding up to cover the cut. It turned to look at him.

The monster said, in its voice as deep as thunder, “Hungry. Oh so hungry. I will –”

Saint said nothing, didn’t even wait to let it finish, just ran, out the door and down the stairs, ran as fast as his body would let him. But he was weak and drained and tired, so very tired. Gods knew when he’d last eaten, when he’d last slept without nightmares. He couldn’t run particularly fast, or particularly far.

This time, it would get him.

Five flights down Saint stopped to lean against the wall. He felt weak – when he’d attacked the maero he’d had adrenaline burning through his veins, but it had gone now and left him empty. Mostly he just felt sick.

“It occurs to me,” he said, ragged, “that I could’ve taken the bloody
lift
.”

Noah appeared suddenly. One moment Saint was alone, and then he blinked and there was the smudged outline of a man standing beside him. Saint was panicked enough that he gave a half-yell and fell on his ass. Then he carefully rearranged himself so it looked like suddenly sitting down had been all part of the plan and that he thought staircases were really comfortable.

“Heyyy,” he said casually, or tried to, but he was short of breath and it came out strangled and choppy.

Noah blinked at him. “Oh, I… sorry, I didn’t think you’d be here,” he said, walking backwards, and Saint frowned.

“Hey, no, it’s good, I could use the company while I wait to be slaughtered.” He rolled his shoulders in a shrug and tried to grin. “I’m not very good at this whole monster-slaying thing, apparently. It
was
a maero, by the way. If maero are… ” He tried to spread out his arms, but they didn’t go far enough. “Big and scary,” he finished.