The Wind City Page 10

  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.

  Magic, she guessed.

  It must’ve been a thoroughly magical place in general, because it seemed like the forest stretched on forever, but at just her next step she was walking into someplace that was …quite undeniably a café, somehow. Walls and everything. And tables, tables with – with very strange people sitting at them, and oh, wow, there was greenery everywhere, plants on the tables and flax in the corners and vines hanging down and gosh this was pretty. There was a rickety staircase that led to another level and that one was even more bestrewn with greenery, blooming rata twining with the staircase, ferns half-concealing some of the tables.

  Tony stood and gaped for a few happy seconds before Whai turned back and tugged at her arm. “Such an embarrassment,” he grumbled, towing her to one of the tables and pushing her down into a seat. He took the one opposite her, shoving someone’s deserted coffee cup aside with a clatter of cutlery.

  Tony looked around, bouncing a little in her seat. There were iwi atua everywhere, gathered in chattering groups around tables or sitting by themselves or bickering comfortably, so that the air had the normal thick café warmness made of equal parts conversation and coffee-smell. The familiarity of that was sort of really cool, when juxtaposed with the obviously inhuman nature of the Hikurangi’s customers – there were people with scales, or spines, or strange eyes, or leaves where their hair should be, and anyway it was just really awesome to see people with feathers for hair or inhuman faces or whatever else clutching mugs of hot coffee in long-clawed hands and leafing absentmindedly through magazines and chewing on brownies.

  Whai scowled at her, drumming his claws against the table. “You’re staring,” he said.

  “Well, everyone’s staring at me,” Tony pointed out. “I mean, everyone with eyes, anyway – oh wow, is that guy made of greenstone?”

  “H
uh?” said Whai, looking. “Oilhead. Course he ain’t.”

  “Dangit.”

  “That’s just how your brain’s seeing it, or however that goes,” said Whai vaguely. “Doubt you could handle the truth of things. But – look, stop staring!” He grasped her hand and pushed it gently down onto the table, which was when she realised she’d actually been pointing at the made-of-pounamu guy. “Tony,” he said, seriously, and she tugged her hand free but met his green-glass eyes. “This is where we go when we’re tired of playing at human, got it? When we can’t handle slinking around at edges and corners and dead-of-night. This is our place, it’s the only place where we can go and just be, and I know this is all new to you and a lot to deal with, but – stop panicking! Things are gonna be fine.”

  Tony blinked at him. “What?”

  “Things are gonna be just fine,” he said reassuringly. His voice was all thick and raspy, like the waves at the shore. He patted at her hand. “Shhh, now, all’s well.”

  “Panicking…?” She stared at him. He stared back at her, eyes too huge and teeth too sharp, as they sat amongst this group of people who were as far away from being human as it was possible to be, as they sat amongst this whole shiny, utterly terrifying new world. She was still reeling from all the discoveries, but – “I’m not panicking, what, Whai this is… ” She flailed her hands a bit, trying to get the point across, her mouth pulled into a helpless grin. “This is so amazing, it’s like, the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. How can you not tell that?” The pounamu guy was still looking at her, guarded and gleaming, and she gave him a wave. Then she waved at the other people who were looking at her. Quite a few of them waved back, looking startled but pleased.

  Whai stared at her. “What?” Tony said. She was bouncing a bit again. She really wanted to meet these people; they all seemed really interesting. She smiled at him. He looked unsettled.

  “That’s… ” he said. “Truthfully, it ain’t common for this kind of newling knowledge to get passed along without, well. Uh.” He tilted his head and dithered. “… Shoulda been more screaming,” he said frankly.

  “Oh my gosh oh my gosh,” Tony screeched delightedly, “there’s a guy that looks just like Hinewai oh wow I should totally talk to him!” Then she clapped her hand over her mouth and winced. “Sorry,” she mumbled over her fingers, to the café at large. There was some laughter.

  “No, see,” Whai said patiently, “the terror kind of screaming, not the oh joy looksee it is the Beach Boys sort of screaming –” But she wasn’t paying attention, because she was too busy leaping to her feet and bouncing over.

  “Hey!” she said. “I’m Tony… ”

  He stopped and looked her up and down, all haughty disdain. Taking in every inch of her from her pink gumboots to her tousled hair. The words she’d been going to say clung to her throat. “You’re human,” he said, and then, disinterested, his eyes slid away. He walked past her.

  He was taller than Hinewai but he had the same sharp angles and pale skin and long clever fingers, the same impossible beauty. He was dressed in an impeccable suit, which drew out his sharpness a lot more than Hin’s casual clothes did. His pupilless eyes were a blankly pale blue like early-morning sky, and his hair was goldy-red and long, tied back in a sort of ponytail.

  “I’m a taniwha,” Tony said.

  The man froze. Turned around. His eyes took her in again, and his mouth made a twisted line, and then he bowed. It was a shallow, grudging sort of bow, but it was a bow all the same. “Tēnā koe,” he said, and then he said something else in a language Tony didn’t know. His voice was smooth and musical, silvery-sweet, like a flute. It particularly suited the lilting syllables of whatever he was saying, which didn’t really matter, because she couldn’t understand it.

  “Huh?” she said.

  He raised a perfect eyebrow and relaxed from his carefully respectful stance. “I said, it is an… ” He looked her over again, being quite obvious about it. “… honour to meet you, great guardian of the land.” He laughed suddenly, a flash of teeth and throat. “I’ll rest easier knowing we have the likes of you to safeguard us, I am sure.”

  Whai had caught up to Tony by this point, and he tugged at her arm. “Tony, you don’t want to talk to him,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Ariki’s no fun ’less you want to talk for hours ’bout hitting things and sharpening spears, and nothing else ever. There’s better folk to talk to. There’s better tables to talk to, c’mon.”

  The pale man – Ariki? – drew himself up to his full height and said nothing. He said nothing in a way that spoke volumes.

  “I haven’t ever really guarded anything,” Tony said, babbling a bit, “but, I mean, I’m glad the sacred guardian aspect is the one people keep on drawing attention to, because I’m pretty sure there’s lots of stories where taniwha, like, eat people and stuff, and that’d be even less fun than guarding things.” There was a tension between them. She really hoped they weren’t about to fight.

  “New to your identity? What a surprise. I would never have guessed at that. Considering the sort of company you keep.” Ariki pointedly did not look at Whai, who bristled. “I’ve paid you my courtesies, beastling, let me by.” He looked down his nose at her.

  “Sure!” She beamed and held out her hand, and after an icy, disdainful pause, he shook it, dropping it quickly afterwards as though afraid of catching humanity from her like some sort of plague. “Just one question though – what are you?”

  “I am of the air and earth,” he said. “I am a mountain lord. I am the music you hear in the mists that you cannot help but follow. I am patupaiarehe, child, and you’d do well to remember it.”

  “He’s one of the mistfolk,” Whai said dismissively. “Like I said. They hang around singing shoddy magics and trilling to birds and… and dying of cheeseburgers, and the like.”

  Ariki snarled something unintelligible, his hand going to his pocket; the carved bone handle of some sort of knife jutted out of it. It didn’t really match his suit.

  “Cheeseburgers? What?” Tony said, trying to break the tension, though none of the other atua were looking at them as though this was anything unusual.

  “They can’t stomach cooked food,” Whai said, grinning at his triumph. “Well, we can’t either, but – ’s like how fire hurts, but for patupaiarehe it goes for cooked food too. You can ward ’em off by, like, flailing a kumara at them. It is the best of things.”

  “At least we don’t spend all our days wading through the oily muck,” Ariki snapped, looking much less regal and lordly, “which was foul even before tangata pumped all their soiled slimes into it. You’re looking especially repulsive today, Whai. Was it something in the water, or were you merely born human levels of hideous? I extend my pity –”

  “Your hair looks like a baby’s first attempt at weaving,” Whai shot.

  Ariki stopped talking and just spluttered for a second. He smoothed a strand of hair back from his face. “Well. Your hair looks like shark oil! Like red ochre, like all that’s contemptible in the world.”

  “You stink of uncleanliness. You’re a dog, you are! My fern-root’s the bones of your ancestors!”

  “You’re bored enough to play at war, but you know nothing of death or the hunt. Play with your nets as much as you like, fisher-rat. They will be the things that hold you still when I drown you, when I burn you, when I stab you deep.”

  “You’re a dick.”

  “You – you are a human douchebag.”

  “I hope you die of –”

  “I hope fishermen’s boats hack you to a million –”

  Tony tuned them out. She was watching the fight, first with alarm, then with amusement. There was… something about them, she thought, looking from one to the other. They both had a lean build – Whai was shorter, but made up for it in the way he stood. They were both ferocious, all prickly pride. Whai was smirking, Ariki practically spitting with rage, but their faces had a certain sharpness in common. On a hunch she said, “Are ponatu
ri and patupaiarehe related?”

  They both stopped mid-sentence to stare at her in horror.

  “No,” Ariki said, at the same time as Whai said, grudgingly, “Yeah.” They glared at each other for a few seconds, and then Ariki relented and said, as though it pained him, “Unfortunately. Distantly.”

  Tony grinned. “That’d explain it, then,” she said. “We should probably get going, I don’t want you guys to fight any more. But it was excellent to meet you.” She bowed to Ariki.

  He sniffed, trying not to look pleased. “Hark at you playing the guardian! You’re not entirely insufferable, I suppose, for someone raised human,” he said. “If you make efforts to associate with better oomph. What on earth do you think you’re, I, please unhand me at – thank you.” He took a hasty step away and smoothed out his jacket, looking a little panicky. Heh. Surprise ambush hugs were the best ambush hugs.

  Whai remained standing where he was, glaring green-eyed at Ariki. “Whai, c’mon,” Tony said, tugging at his arm. “We should get food or something. Like whelks! But not actually whelks, because ew.”

  He let her tug him away from the patupaiarehe, but he dug in his heels once they’d gone a few metres. “Mist man,” he said, voice flat and grating as broken glass, as a mouthful of shark teeth. “Hear me and know this. Stay away from this girl. Her mind is not yours to meddle with, her soul not yours to shape. She’s too strong for you, besides! She could easily tear through any flimsy net you cared to toss! Ha!”

  Ariki stared at him. “… Calm yourself, fish boy,” he said, all cold amusement. “I have no designs on your new friend. Rest assured that I know better than to tangle with a taniwha. You, though… oh, Whai, Whai, Whai.” He gave a patronising little smile and shook his head. “Are you truly getting attached? Like she’s truly kin to you?”