The Wind City (9 page)

“Cool,” Tony said.

“Just give me a minute, I think he’s out in that blasted radish patch of his.” Tony, smiling, moved the phone away from her ear just in time: “RAAANGI!” she heard, distantly, and she chuckled to herself.

The gelato was delicious.

“Hey, kid,” her uncle said half a minute later, and Tony moved the phone back to her ear.

“Hey, matu.”

“So what’s on your mind?” Rangi said.

“I want to talk about taniwha.”

She could hear the clatter of metal; he was probably making tea. “Boy troubles?” he said knowingly. “Or problems at work? You just remember you’re a precious pearl and any boy’d be lucky to – oh. Uhh.”

“Mum said you’d be the one to ask about that,” Tony said sweetly.

There was an awkward throat-clearing noise. “Oh, uh,” he said. “No idea why she’d say that. You know I don’t know te reo or the stories as well as I’d like! Aha… Taniwha are like dragons, right? Lizard dragons. Basically lizards. Man, I sure don’t know anything about taniwha.”

“Rangi.”

“So I hear you’re gay now! How’s that going?”

Tony sighed and tried a different tactic. “Hey, remember the first time we visited Lake Wanaka? When I was really little?”

“Course I do,” Rangi said, sounding relieved.

“Remember how I swam really well even though it was the first time I ever swam?”

“Yeah,” he said proudly. “Like a fish.”

“And then when the fisherman let me pretend to steer but then I was really good at it and –”

“What’re you getting at here, hon.”

“Was Dad a taniwha too?”

Rangi hummed noncommittally.

“
Matu
,” Tony said.

“… Maybe a bit.”

Tony rolled her eyes. “A
bit
.”

“Yeah!” Rangi said. “Yeah.”

Tony made a frustrated noise. “You are the worst person ever to talk to about this, ugh,” she said.

“Anyone you can talk to about this up there?” Rangi said. There was the sound of sizzling fat. Oh, a fry-up. Yay.

“One guy, but he’s cryptic and weird and sprang it on me without giving me a choice.”

Rangi growled. “Want me to come over and bash a few heads?”

“No, uncle, that’s – no it’s really fine. I can bash heads myself if I want, I’m hella strong when I’m all taniwha.”

“You can turn
into
one? Your father always just had strong instincts. Damn.” He whistled. “That’s my girl!”

“Sure, matu.”

“You should probably go talk to that guy,” Rangi continued. There were more sizzling sounds. She had better finish the conversation before he left the phone lying on a table or something.

“Next time you do come up, could I borrow your old guitar? My one’s strings got broke and I haven’t had time to practice.”

“Sure thing. And you give him hell from me, kiddo.”

“I will give him, like, a gazillion hells,” she promised, hanging up. She finished her gelato. Then she went down to the ocean, feeling a lot more at ease. Family could do that.

4

Saint hadn’t been this terrified since – well, to be honest, he’d never been this terrified. But people were in trouble.

“I have to help them,” was the first thing he said once he’d managed to stand up, and he nodded to himself and ran down the stairs.

…Ran down two or three of the stairs, at least, before his tired feet stumbled. He reeled, nearly fell, had to catch his balance with one hand against the wall. “Okay,” he said conversationally, gasping a bit, “first I have to re-learn how to walk, apparently.
Then
I have to help them.”

“It’s dangerous,” Noah said, plainly distressed. “You might die. Don’t.” He was twitching back and forth with more and more rapidity until he was barely in one place for long enough for Saint to look at him before he moved again.

“Yeah, but if I don’t then some other people will die,” Saint snapped, “possibly in rather extreme amounts of pain – I don’t know, I’m not exactly an expert on the hunting habits of maero but I’m willing to bet it won’t be
fun
. Would you rather they die instead of me?” He didn’t wait for Noah to answer before he continued. “Not that there’s much I can do, mind, except maybe yell a bit and hope that some police folk come along so they can die instead. I cut its head off and it survived. More than just survived – it’s
dandy
, it looks like it’s up for killing me and then killing a few other people and then skipping through a happy little meadow. The only scenario where I’d win against that thing is if we were in a competition to see who was best at
dying
!”

He paused.

“… Think I stole that from
Doctor Who
. Sorry.” He waved a hand. “Bit distracted by the whole dying thing. I’ll be all clever and witty at you later. Except – oh wait!” He stretched his mouth into a manic grin. “No I won’t, because I’ll be dead!”

“
No
,” Noah snarled, raw and vulnerable, and what was it about just mentioning people dying that made him break so utterly, that stripped all his friendliness away? “No dying, not for any of you. There has to be a way, Saint. You have to
think of something
–”

“Help me!” Saint snapped at him. “If you’re so damn clever tell me how I can stop this thing!
Help
me!”

Noah froze. It was jarring, him going from flickering back and forth to stopping and standing quite still, perfectly still. He drew in breath sharply, which presumably was for dramatic effect as Saint doubted he
needed
it, being dead and all. “… No,” the wairua said, mostly to himself. “No, I can’t do that. The last person I… No.”

“Right. Wonderfully helpful of you. I suppose that’s what I get for trying to rely on intangible people – they’re never there when you need someone to lean on. O
kay
.” He stood straight. “I think I can walk now. Here’s hoping me being a pathetic coward hasn’t already consigned some poor fool to death. Ah well. At least I can die dashing.” He straightened his coat and held his head at a more rakish angle and grinned. “How do I look?”

“Stop this stupidity,” Noah said.

“Stupidity? This is my heroic last stand we’re talking about here! This is important stuff. It’d be horrible if I died looking less than my best. People would laugh. They would laugh snidely.”

He started down the stairs. Stopped and shuddered, a full-body shiver of fear. Clenched his fists. Swore. Went on again.

Noah stood in front of him suddenly; Saint squinted and focused on him, and could see that Noah’s eyes were dark and sombre, his mouth quite definitely not forming a smile. “No.”

“I think you’re a wee bit too insubstantial to stop me, ghost-boy.”

“You’ll
die
. Stop.”

“Not,” Saint said, slow and clear. “Going. To happen.”

They stood there for a moment, at an impasse.

Then Noah sighed. “… Decapitation doesn’t kill the mohoao, the maero, the hungry giants. They are the wild-men-of-the-forests, and they are killed by the same things that the forests are.”

“I’ll be sure to start a possum farm.”

Noah shook his head and growled. “No. Stupid. Stop being stupid. This is important.” He held up his right hand, palm facing him, fingers fanned out. He closed his eyes like he was bracing himself for something, then opened them and, with his left hand, pulled off one of his fingers – the little finger. It was like plucking a fruit; it resisted at first, and then came away cleanly. There was no blood, just a little hole where the finger had been. He held it out to Saint.

“Dude,” Saint said. “Gross.”

Noah snorted. “I’m giving you a precious and dangerous thing, boy,” he said, “which I went to quite a lot of trouble to obtain. Don’t treat it so lightly.”

Saint eyed the finger doubtfully. It twitched a little, which
really
didn’t help. “Don’t you need it?”

“I’m left-handed,” said Noah, as though that explained everything.

“And. What
is
it, exactly?”

Noah said, “The thing that kills forests.”

Also not helpful. “When I asked you to help me,” said Saint, “I didn’t literally mean for you to
give me a hand
!” Noah glared at him. Saint quietly filed away the joint joke he’d been planning on making and said instead, “But – seriously. What do I even… What do you expect me to
do
with it, exactly? Poke him in the eye?”

“Breathe it in,” said Noah. Saint frowned at him.

“Huh?”

“Saint. Hurry.” Noah was speaking through clenched teeth. “Do you
want
people to die?”

Saint winced. “No,” he said, quietly. “No I do not. Well, then.”

He took the finger. It didn’t feel of anything in his hand, only a vague warmth, maybe. He held it up to his face but then lowered it again, shuddering. “I can’t.”

“
Coward
.”

“No! I mean, yes, I probably am, but I literally can’t, it’s too …In my head I’m thinking of it as
solid
. I can’t breathe it in.”

“Well, then,” Noah said.

“… Oh,” said Saint. “Oh. Hell.
Ew
.”

“It is a –”

“Precious and dangerous gift. Yes. Thank you. Next time you feel the need to get me a present, just get me some socks or an amusing card, all right? Okay. Time for some queasy heroics.” He held up the finger, and eyed it doubtfully, and then, before he could think too much, swallowed it.

It was unpleasant. If he’d ever eaten worms, he imagined it would have felt something like that, the same squirmy sensation, the feeling of eating something unpleasantly alive. Except that eating worms probably didn’t make you feel like you were on fire afterwards.

Saint came back to himself gasping and shuddering. He was on all fours on the landing, and the wooden floor was charred where his hands rested, and the air smelled of smoke. He stood up, feeling raw and jangling and strange. He danced a little impromptu dance, at the end of it extending a hand towards one wall and clicking his fingers. Fire plumed out of them and scorched a neat hole in the plaster. He’d seldom felt more alive.

“
Well
,” Saint said, grinning fit to burst. “I always knew I was hot, but this is ridiculous.”

Noah laughed. “Is there really time for puns?”

“Always,” Saint said, but he ran down the stairs, taking them two or three at a time in great leaping strides.

It was average Wellington weather outside, cloudy and windy. The street was one of those that acted mostly as an in-between place, a place for cars to drive right by, with most of its buildings on lease or not earthquake safe. There weren’t many people around. Saint spotted the maero maybe twenty metres away, walking deadly slow – more creeping than walking, really – and, just ahead of him, a couple of people, an Asian-looking girl and a white guy, both laden with shopping bags.

Saint shouted, “
Hey
!” but if they heard him they didn’t show any sign of it. The maero turned around and took him in, though, and Saint was hoping it’d run at him, or just run, but it turned back to its prey, advancing.

Saint dashed toward it, heart in his mouth and ghost-friend by his side. The maero lifted up one hand with those fearsome claws and batted at the guy, sending him reeling. He hit the ground hard. The girl screamed and swung her shopping bag against the maero, once, twice, but it still advanced. The guy stumbled to his feet, yelling for help, and the maero put one claw under the girl’s throat, tilting her head up, and Saint finally, finally got within range.

“Hey!” he hollered again, and the maero turned and faced him. Its yellow teeth bared in threat or amusement: here was its prey, scuttling back tamely to the slaughter. It lifted one claw, not even trying to be quick. Saint was still scared. It was tall and uncanny and it had claws like meat hooks and he was so damn scared.

Saint held out both hands, and he burned it.

Burned
just
it, mind – he was fiercely aware of how easy it had been to burn a hole in the wall and it’d be just as easy to burn a hole in the girl or a nearby car if he wasn’t careful. So he focused the fire that he somehow magically had so that the fire burned the monster and
only
the monster – it felt weird as all hell, trying to use this fire, his hands trembling worse than if he’d been holding a gun. But damn did he burn it good. He burned it until the fur seared and the skin slipped from the bones and the bones blackened. He burned it until it stopped screaming.

It didn’t take long. Not long at all.

He held up his fingers and blew across the tops of them, like you blew across guns to cool them, or to clear the smoke, or whatever the hell it was you blew across guns for.

“Ha,” Saint said, to the blackened ash of the successfully killed monster. He let his hands fall to his sides. His new fire was magical – well, obviously. But it was magical in more than just the obvious way, if it could achieve all that in just a few seconds without incinerating him and everything else within a ten-foot radius as well.

As it was the people he’d saved were standing there staring at him. The guy had dropped his shopping bag, and the plastic had split. A couple of cans of baked beans were rolling at his feet. Saint swallowed.
Yeah, nice going – you saved some people by brutally murdering a creature right in front of them. That’s not gonna traumatise them at aaalllll.