The Wind City

by Summer Wigmore

  “Well, that worked out fairly well,” he said.

  “Saint,” Noah said, looking wretched. “I don’t think you understand.”

  “Gosh, really, it’s not like you’ve been acting inexplicable or anything,” Saint said. He made a genial gesture. “Explain, then, if you feel so inclined. We haven’t got much time, though; the sooner I get to café-burning the better, all things considered.”

  “No,” Noah said.

  Saint frowned at him. “Huh? You were all for it a few minutes ago. Don’t worry, I’ll scope it out first. I think I can infiltrate it pretty easy, so it’s not like I’ll be in too much danger – I mean, if they don’t let humans in I can always just stick a radio on my head. Noah? You okay?”

  “I – forgive me, I need to think about this,” Noah said, and he disappeared.

  Saint blinked at the place where he’d been for a moment, and bit his lip and continued on. He had a café to find, and monsters to kill, and there were more people at stake than just Noah.

  9

  Hinewai frowned at her. They’d set up shop in Tony’s living room; Tony had lugged in a couple of mirrors in order to Dazzle Hinewai with her New Look. Hinewai, thus far, was less than pleased.

  “No, they’re not literally fishnets,” Tony tried to explain, “they’re, um, just a thing that people wear to look a certain way. Y’know?”

  Hinewai sniffed. “I have no wish to associate myself with the tools of my vermin cousins,” she said. “… Not that we don’t use fishnets, also, but – still. It is a point of pride.”

  Tony scowled at her. “This’d be a lot easier if you’d cooperate!” she said, flailing a bag. “After I bought all this neat stuff for you… ”

  “Neat?” Hinewai said, arching an eyebrow. “It all seems secondhand, to me.”

  Tony scuffed her toes against the carpet. “Shuddup, I lost my livelihood,” she muttered. “Hey, be happy I’m helping you at all, okay?”

  Honestly, Hinewai was the last person who needed a makeover – she could make anything look good, probably – but Tony couldn’t really think of anything else to do. Hinewai had been searching for her ‘true love’ for months, apparently, and while it was perfectly feasible for her not to have found love in that time, there should at least have been plenty of interested parties. She was incredibly gorgeous, and that was generally all it took to bring guys flocking. Too much so, even. Why on earth she’d had such difficulty Tony didn’t know.

  “I still don’t see how this is meant to help me,” Hinewai said. “You should’ve used the money to buy yourself new clothes instead, as your current ones are cheap and make you look ugly.”

  Okay, yeah, she knew.

  “And I still don’t see how this is meant to help!” Hinewai said, picking up a ruffly black skirt from the clothes piled on the couch and eyeing it with deep suspicion. “Clothing is superficial. Love does not depend on these things!”

  Tony stared at her. “But in that story your sister and her husband guy never even spoke before… oh, never mind. People can’t exactly fall in love with you if they don’t know you’re there, so you can’t do that glamour misty do-not-look-at-me thing you do, ’cos that’ll defeat the whole purpose! So people’ll see you, but you’re not exactly normal looking, soooo, the point is to make it seem like your… ” she waved a hand at Hinewai, “you-ness… is deliberate. Part of, y’know – a look.”

  Hinewai stared at her. “I am sure that you think you make sense,” she said kindly. “Perhaps you merely need to try harder. I’m sure you shall get the trick of it.”

  Tony scrunched her eyes shut and counted to ten.

  She was getting the hang of managing Hinewai now, though. She opened her eyes again and sniffed. “Whai liked fishnets,” she said tragically.

  Hinewai looked alarmed. “Don’t start crying – that would be complicated and unpleasant,” she said, and then, “All right. Fine. But only because you ask it of me.”

  She pulled on the fishnet gloves. Tony beamed at her, and held out the skirt.

  Tony turned around as she got changed, of course. Not that she needed to, the spell was off and Tony certainly had better taste than to fall for someone like Hinewai on her own. (Hinewai cold and cruel and careless. Hinewai at Mount Vic, sitting on the railing with the city spread out behind her and the wind in her hair. And losing you, she’d said, matter-of-fact, as though Tony were important –)

  “I am done. Why are you staring into the distance strangely?” Hinewai said, and Tony turned around and breathed a sigh of relief. There was Hinewai in layers of makeup that softened the sharpness of her face, clothes that masked her harshness and actually, no. She’d thought dressing Hinewai differently would make her seem softer, or different, or something – she didn’t really know what she’d been expecting, but this was still Hinewai. You could pretty up a knife with gilt and gems, but it’d still have a knife’s beauty, sharp and clean.

  “Time to look for your true love,” Tony said, and took her to town.

  Tony hadn’t been very hopeful about how this would go, despite the makeover. Hinewai was intimidating and had high standards. Even if she’d been human, those things were enough to put most idiot guys off.

  And sure enough it… didn’t end well. Hinewai dismissed basically everyone as soon as she even saw them. They sat about in the first bar for nearly half an hour with Hinewai just glaring at everyone and Tony wearily sipping at a gross beer. At the second bar a man actually hit on her – success! – but then Hinewai nearly reduced him to tears by asking calm questions about the emptiness of his life. At the third bar Hinewai stopped dead before even going through the door and refused to enter just because there were flickery fake fires in front of it. And so on.

  Hinewai got more and more frustrated as the hours passed, tense and glaring like a ruffled owl. Finally Tony called a stop to it.

  “Okay, that’s – enough of your quest for now. Let’s do mine,” she said. “I’m thinking we should go to the Hikurangi and see if any of the atua can give me information about Māui, or if they want to help.” The second was more likely, she figured. As far as she knew Whai was the only one who’d even survived long enough to pass information along.

  Thinking about that made her heart hurt, but naturally Hinewai brightened immediately at the prospect of violence. At least one of them was happy.

  The Hikurangi was the same as it had been last time, atua chatting together and eating, greenery everywhere. Tony looked around the room, thoughtful. She put her hands in her pockets and hummed nervously. Then she went to Rongo.

  “Hey,” she said.

  He glanced up from nudging a custard slice into the display case. “Yeah?”

  “Um, there’s some stuff I need to do. I was wondering if you’d mind if I sort of… cause a disruption?”

  His brow creased in reproach, like her uncle catching her stealing apricots. “This is a peaceful place,” he rumbled. “Yes, I’d mind.”

  Tony squeezed her eyes shut. This was a good excuse to call this off, she told herself. He’d told her she couldn’t do this, and that was as good an excuse as any. She could back out now and she wouldn’t have to take on her role or take the initiative or hurt anyone –

  No. “Whai is dead,” she told him.

  She could feel his shock, almost, like it was a tangible thing. She opened her eyes. He had taken a step back and was shaking his head slowly.

  “That boy never meant harm to anyone,” he said, looking dazed. “He said he did, but he didn’t, really. So many old ones already dead, but he was barely more than a child, he was barely older than you… ” He gripped the countertop. “So many dead.”

  Tony wasn’t sure how to help, though she desperately wanted to. “Too many,” she said. She was surprised by how steady her voice was, considering how much she wanted to cry.

  Rongo smiled at her, a sad little smile. “You were all the whānau he had,” he said. “My brothers used to cause me no end of trouble, I remember th
at. I am a man of peace… but all right. Do whatever needs to be done. You have my permission.”

  Tony nodded, determined and fierce.

  “Want a brioche afterwards?” Rongo added. “On the house.”

  “Ooh, yes please.”

  She stood in front of the counter, as that was one of the few open spaces in the café. At the moment the place was maybe half full. Tony swallowed her nerves.

  “Hey, gang!” she said loudly. Most eyes turned her way. “Some of you might remember me from our adorable karaoke session the other day?”

  “The distant future!” someone yelled back. “The year two thousand!” There was laughter.

  Tony grinned. “Yeah, that was pretty awesome. But, um. I’m here on sort of more serious business this time.” She fidgeted. “See, I’m… I’m a taniwha .” She wondered when it was, exactly, that she’d stopped denying that. “And, I’ve noticed that some bad stuff seems to be happening, and no one’s doing anything about it so I just… ”

  They were all looking at her, a few faces jeering, a few expectant, most just neutral. Her voice trailed into a small squeak. Public speaking had never been her strong point. All those people staring at you mask-faced and inaccessible. It was so much better just to talk to them on their own – couldn’t she do that instead?

  She saw Ariki sitting in the corner; thought of the last time she’d been here, when Ariki and Whai had bickered in comfortable hate, when the whole room of morally dubious creatures had done a stupid sing-along, when the world had been brighter and Whai hadn’t been dead.

  Tony flung back her head. “My name is Tony!” she yelled. “I grew up on an orchard in the South Island, but this is my home, and you are my people! My friend Whai sought me out because the atua in the city are so damn scattered that there was no one else he could tell of the danger he saw coming.” She stood strong, both feet planted square on the ground, her ancestral ground, really, here surrounded by a detritus of old and new. She thought of ocean and swimming and sadness and joy, and changed, not fully but enough to become more intimidating, at least for a moment. She could feel her face shifting, her eyes growing wide and bulbous and golden, her skin toughening, her jaw filling up with teeth; she clenched one clawed hand into a fist and said, more quietly because she didn’t need to yell, now – the whole room was hanging on her every word – she stood there firm and said, “But I’m not afraid to ask for help. Your help. There’s a man or a god going around who thinks he can prey on you, and like hell am I going to let that happen! It’s time for us to prey on him!”

  She must’ve said the right thing, because they cheered, a riotous angry sound; someone started chanting a haka. Hinewai came to stand by her side. Tony exhaled slowly.

  After she’d gathered them into parties, after she’d quizzed each and every one for any information or ideas they had – there were ideas aplenty, but not much information, as she’d expected, no one had faced this guy and lived to tell about it. Which was… alarming. Anyway. After she’d done that, she went looking for Ariki. He was sitting way back in one corner, reading a business magazine and drinking a power smoothie. He was still poised and perfect, still immaculately dressed in suit and tie, his hair bound back, his face smooth and distant. He didn’t know.

  Tony sat across from him. “Hey… ” she said. “Um.”

  He glanced up at her and pulled an earbud out of his ear. “Yes?”

  “I… Okay, first of all I need to ask if there’s anything you can do to help us fight Māui and his pawn-guy, or anything you know.”

  “I met him, I think,” Ariki said thoughtfully. “The pawn. He was a coward. You have little to fear.” He shrugged. “As for what I could do… Well, there is something I could do.”

  Tony brightened. “Really?”

  “Yes,” Ariki said. “But I can’t be bothered.” He thumbed his earbud back in.

  Well, maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe now that all the atua were warned, there wouldn’t need to be any fighting after all? Tony hoped so. (No need for the others to fight: just her, fighting Māui. That was all she needed to happen, because she had a score to settle with him.)

  “There’s something else,” Tony said, and took a nervous bite of her brioche and then set it aside.

  “Mm?” Ariki said absentmindedly.

  “I have something to tell you about Whai,” she said, and she was worried, because she wasn’t sure she’d be accountable for her actions if he crowed in triumph. “He’s dead.”

  Ariki looked lofty and haughty and said, “Why should I care about anything that dolt –” But then he cut himself off abruptly, his eyes going wide. “He’s dead?”

  And Tony couldn’t make out what emotion it was in his voice, exactly, but it certainly wasn’t triumph.

  Steffan had spent a surprisingly non-terrible afternoon by the Bucket Fountain as Cuba busked his way up and down the street, though always returning to lean against the fountain or, once, be pulled into it by the girl so that they both sat there in the pool laughing, Cuba soaked to the skin. On another occasion Cuba settled himself on the unnervingly cheerful giant plastic tuatara in the small playground a few metres up the street from the Bucket Fountain, and played and sang from there while the tipua girl leaned over the playground’s railing to sing back at him, or mischievously flooded the slide with water, or just curled up next to him.

  Steff had no idea what their deal was but was too polite to ask. He asked about plenty of other things, though, he asked every question that came to mind, and the two of them answered all of them as well as they could. They were good people, he thought. By the end of the day his folder of notes had grown enormously.

  And then he went home, and had nightmares; a noose around his throat so he couldn’t talk, couldn’t breathe, and Saint pale and dead, drained of blood like the child in the newspaper. He was completely pale, his skin and his clothes and everything, like he’d been drained of colour as well as blood; colourless except for the redness of the hundred cuts he was bleeding from, gaping like mouths against his skin.

  Steffan woke up shuddering with fear, and it took him entirely too long to compose himself enough to even try to return to where he’d been too scared to enter the other day. He had this odd conviction, strong as only the inexplicable feelings you got from dreams could be, that… that something awful had happened, or would happen, to someone, or everything. Filled with nameless dread. He often got nightmares like that when he was working too hard. Maybe this was all going a little too fast.

  The idea of waltzing into a café crammed full of supernatural creatures wasn’t too terribly appealing anyway. He told himself that wouldn’t be too bad; most atua were probably more like Cuba than the ponaturi girl who’d threatened him, and even if they weren’t, well –

  If they weren’t –

  If they weren’t then he’d have to learn how to handle them, wouldn’t he. Nightmares and terror were for the ignorant. The clever people were prepared, and to be prepared you had to know things.

  So he swallowed down his cornflakes, and went

  He went to the Hikurangi via Cuba Street, but there was no sign of Cuba, or the Bucket Fountain girl, either. He tried not to let that worry him but didn’t succeed very well.

  Steffan stood there hesitating outside the Hikurangi for a second, staring into the empty space between two pillars. This was dangerous. But fascinating, as well. And perhaps someone at the Hikurangi would know whether it was usual for street-spirits to disappear like that.

  He squared his shoulders and stepped through.

  He wasn’t prepared for the sights he saw. It was much stranger and also, more disconcertingly, much more everyday than he’d been expecting. He went, hesitantly, to a table, where he sat down and tried to ignore the people – and not-people, actually, yes, primarily not-people – who were staring at him. None of them looked much like Cuba.

  “I brought food,” he blurted out. “Um, I mean. An offering of sorts. Of peace.”

  The
man behind the café bar set down the cup he’d been filling and wandered over to shake his hand. “Lots of new faces today,” he said. “Though mostly not ones smeared with red paint. I’m Rongo.”

  Smeared was an exaggeration; there were only two stripes of it, one on each cheek. Steffan smiled awkwardly and shook his hand. “I didn’t have any red ochre or fish oil,” he said. “I thought this might do?”

  Rongo nodded approvingly. “For protection, eh? Wise of you to be cautious. Most folk aren’t. You brought food too?”

  “Yes! Yes.” Steffan extracted the plastic ice cream container from his bag and pushed it over. “Eggs. Er… raw eggs.” He cleared his throat. “I know a lot of atua can’t eat cooked food,” he said, lamely.

  “It’s very thoughtful,” Rongo said, kindly. “I’ll make meringues. Oh, and a warning, though a clever lad like you probably doesn’t need it – if I were you I wouldn’t eat any of the food here without checking with me first.”

  “Why?” he said, leaning forward intently. “Is it magical in some way? Will it trap me in the fae world? A lot of the mythology I’ve read –”

  Rongo laughed raucously. “No, no,” he said, still laughing, “not magical, just yuck. What do you want, anyway?” He waved at the food they had available. “Or are you meeting someone?”

  “Oh, no, I don’t want anything – I’m just here to watch things and, learn things, that’s all I want.”

  Rongo loomed taller than he had a moment before, looking stern and forbidding. “You’re not even going to buy anything?” he growled.

  Steffan paled. “Oh, no, I – a coffee – I, I didn’t mean to offend you,” he stammered, and Rongo grinned and clapped him on the shoulder.

  “You’re too easy to fool; work on that, eh?” He went back to the counter still chuckling to himself.

  Steffan, feeling foolish, settled down to observe. He seemed safe enough, though his hand still slipped into his pocket, where he found the reassuring shape of the cigarette lighter and book of matches he’d stashed there. He was fine. He was prepared. Time to research.