The Wind City

by Summer Wigmore

  “Solid black. Black all the way through. No pupil, no… iris? No iris, really. No colour at all, just this black blankness.” He half-hugged himself, absentmindedly, wrapping his arm around his chest. “It was terrifying.”

  “Okay,” Steff said, and then, after a pause, “Sorry? I mean, it sounds like it was… unpleasant?”

  “Yes,” Saint snapped. His friend was talking warily, like he wasn’t quite sure yet whether this was some odd joke that Saint was pulling. Which – fair enough, but. “She wasn’t human, see. Forgive me if I find that a little off-putting.”

  “Are you okay?”

  Saint forced himself to relax out of the rigid curl he’d tensed into, straightening his hunched shoulders, letting go of the counter. His nails had dug little gouges into the wood. “Naturally I am,” he said easily, “I’m lovably fearless. What the hell’s so important about this sudden urge for socialising, anyway? You could’ve just texted me, you know. That tends to cut down on unnecessary waking-me-up-unhealthily-early, which has been scientifically proven to cut down on grumpyface Saint. Then everyone can go on with their everyday lives of frolicking with kittens, unconcerned, little knowing the catastrophe they so narrowly avoided.”

  “Four in the afternoon,” Steff said stiffly. “That does not count as early to any reasonable person. What the hell have you been doing? Living it up, yes, message received on that front, but. Jesus. At least take something for your hangover, okay?”

  “I’m not hungover.”

  “Well take something for your nightmares, then.”

  “Nightmare,” Saint said, in the interests of correctness.

  Steff actually tutted, bless his darling little heart. “That’s what I said.”

  “No – nightmare, singular. It’s not like it’s some embarrassing bad habit, having nightmares all the time. This is the first. The grand premiere of Dreams Involving Scary Naked Alien Women, one night only, popcorn eight-fifty a box, buy tickets now!” He made a grandiose gesture, before realising that of course Steff couldn’t see it and letting his hand fall back to his side. “Hopefully,” he added, “there won’t be a sequel.”

  “They’re never as good as the first one,” Steff said, reflex-quick.

  Saint grinned. “You are a massive dork and I miss you intensely,” he said. And oops, that had actually been the truth, hadn’t it. “And I’d tell you,” he went on hastily. “If I really was all whimsical in the brainpan, I mean. I’d tell you so I could crawl sadly into your tender embrace and eat cookies and sob about my troubled phallic dreams into your sternly loving shoulder, don’t worry.”

  “There are so many things wrong with that sentence I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Just be glad I went with cookies instead of warm milk, which would’ve been a little awkward given the context.”

  “Uh, Saint,” the Flatmate said, and Saint gave an aggrieved look to no one in particular.

  “Hang on, the tumorous growth sharing my palatial apartment speaks at last,” he told Steff. “Yeah, what’s up,” he added, flat.

  “Be nice,” Steff said, and Saint closed his eyes.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be brusque,” he said, still facing the kitchen. “What’s up?”

  “Just,” the Flatmate said, in his stupid slow rumble of a voice, “this isn’t the first time. That you’ve had a nightmare, I mean. It keeps happening.”

  Saint turned around to tell him that, no, it was the first time, and it wasn’t like he could just forget something like that. He turned around with the memory of rain and blood and horror still on the tip of his tongue and –

  And he heard a growl instead of words, low and thick and menacing, and instead of an irritating guy sitting on the stained and battered couch there was a, a…

  The best word Saint could think of was ‘giant’. Which was stupid, but.

  This new creature was huge, impossibly tall, tall enough that it would have to bend half over to avoid braining itself on the ceiling if it stood up, though right now it was draped over the couch, all long, thick-furred limbs. There was something… simian about it, like a gorilla or some other kind of ape; its beard and hair were much, much longer and more ragged and tangled than the Flatmate’s hair had been, and it had hair all over the rest of it as well, furring its face and neck, even covering its hands, which were now tipped with very long yellowing nails, almost like claws. Quite a lot like claws.

  Saint whimpered.

  The thing that had been human a second ago was looking at him with glowering bloodshot eyes. “Saint… what’s… ” it said, and its voice had the same hollow, pounding quality that the growl had had; it was much deeper than a human voice, and the thrum of it was disorienting enough that for a second Saint didn’t notice that the thing had taken a slow step towards him as it spoke, unfolding from the couch like some huge furred spider.

  Not real not real not real not real, he thought, ferociously, a knee-jerk reaction. Because apparently when things went wrong he didn’t react with a clever quip or a dashing plan, just frantic denial. No no no no no no, he thought, and he thought it as strongly as he could. For a moment he saw both things at once, his Flatmate normal and human and that monster beast looming over him. Then the world snapped back into focus.

  “… wrong?” the Flatmate said, human, looking at him with vague concern. Everything was normal and the world was normal and absolutely nothing was wrong. “You gonna be sick or something?”

  Saint stared at him for a second with slightly glazed eyes. Steff’s voice was coming tinnily through the phone. “Call you back,” he said brightly, and flipped the phone closed and slipped it into his coat pocket.

  “Stop staring, then, if you’re fine,” the Flatmate said, almost a growl, and the hairs on the back of Saint’s neck stood up, just at the memory of that low reverberation, the sheer size of that thing. The Flatmate sat back down grumpily. “Is this one of your joke things? After I take you into my home and give you everything you need or want just out of kindness. You could at least try to be a tolerable human being, sometimes.”

  Saint went on with the blank staring. Hey, that strategy seemed to be working well enough so far, no sudden eviscerations or anything, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. “I really,” he said, distantly, “I really don’t think you’re in any position to talk.”

  “Eh?”

  “I need to go for a smoke,” Saint said, abrupt. His fingers were twitching, and he knew craving when he felt it.

  “I thought you gave up,” the Flatmate said sharply.

  Saint smiled his sparkliest Colgate smile. “I’ll go pretend to smoke, then, it’s… it’s ever so dashing right now. In vogue.”

  The Flatmate snorted, and he was turning his attention back to his stupidly small TV now, oh thank the gods. Saint was trying to be decent to him, honestly, because the Flatmate was probably a good guy, but he just set Saint’s teeth on edge and oh was apparently a giant! “Because of course girls swoon over lung cancer,” the Flatmate muttered.

  “Ha, they do if it’s my lungs,” Saint said, and breezed out the door. And he made it up the few flights of stairs to the top of the building, too, without fainting even once, powered by panic and manic energy and the dizzying pulses of terror that the nightmare had given him. He felt better once he’d gotten out there, out in the fresh air and the height and the cold, with the city stretched out beneath him and the Wellington wind pulling at the corners of his coat.

  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 gs. 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 no
t 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 –”