The Wind City

by Summer Wigmore

  “What did you do?” she said as she tended to him, trying not to wince at the wounded flesh, all bubbled and bleeding and weeping.

  It must have hurt excruciatingly, but he just stared straight ahead, lips pressed tight together. “Māui and his pawn, they killed Whai,” he said, and then he looked slightly panicky and added, “And burned down the Hikurangi – that is the more important part.”

  Tony nodded along, to be kind, and carefully tied off a bandage. “So yeah, the humans had to be punished, I get it. What did you do?”

  “It wasn’t about punishment, exactly,” he said. “Though that as well. It is more – things had to be fair. Things had to be even, do you understand? The tangata killed one of ours, and then burned down our safe place, our sanctuary.” On seeing she still looked blank he explained, irritated, “It is a colossal insult to attack a home, let alone slaughter that many defenceless. It demands repayment. Utu. So I summoned more patupaiarehe here, those of us who wanted to come.”

  Tony nodded, thoughtful. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. I can work with that. I mean me and Hin’ll be working overtime trying to get them to understand what they can and can’t do, but – I agree, it’s only fair. Atua and humans should be able to live together.”

  Ariki looked surprised. “You seem to misunderstand. I was thinking more of us slaughtering all of them,” he said, and she pulled the bandage tight, decisively. He yowled and said nothing more.

  “Can we rebuild it, or something like it?” Tony said. “Now that there’s more of us?”

  Ariki shrugged. “Maybe. I won’t help, either way,” he said, and he held up his arms.

  “If it helps,” Tony said, “the guy who did that is pretty broken. Already, I mean. Pre-vengeance and everything.”

  “Not as broken as he’ll be when I get my hands… ” Ariki stopped. “When I get him,” he finished, with a bitter, sardonic twist to his mouth.

  “Y’know,” Tony said, “I thought I hated him too, for what he did to Whai and all the rest, and for this.” She gestured at where the Hikurangi wasn’t. “But I don’t, not really. Hasn’t there been enough hating?”

  “Compassion is a weakness,” Ariki said. “One you and Whai had in common, though he at least had a sting in his tail.” He shuddered, once, convulsively. “The last thing I said to him was unfair. I mocked his people. They’re mad and broken and gone now, but it’s not their fault. Why did I say that? He was a good foe. He deserved better.”

  Tony rested a shoulder on his hand comfortingly.

  “Good kisser, too,” Ariki said.

  “Oh my god! I did not need to know that!” Tony said. “Oh, gross, oh man.”

  Hinewai sat on the step above her. “You seem disgusted,” she said warily. “Is kissing wrong?”

  “What? What, no, of course not. Kissing is fine so long as the person you’re kissing is okay with it. It’s just… ” Tony sought for an explanation. “Like, hearing about Whai smooching people, specifically, that’s like – how would you feel if your sister told you in-depth about what happened when, like, she and rainbowguy were hanging out in his house?”

  Hinewai wrinkled her nose. “Bleh.”

  Tony grinned a bit at that reaction, glad of having any cause to smile. The smile soon faded. She sighed.

  “There is someone else here, as well,” Hinewai said, and nodded to a corner. Tony blinked and followed her gaze. A man was huddled up against the wall, shivering.

  “Oh, him,” Ariki said. “I left him here to give you a message. I suppose he failed. Typical of humans, really.”

  “When?” She hadn’t even noticed him. It was dark, true, but there was also a sort of smallness about him. You need to know we’re there before you see us, Hinewai had said, and maybe that went for humans under atua spells as well. “How long has he been there? Just sitting there?”

  Ariki shrugged. “Why should it matter? He’s just tangata.”

  “I’m here to guard everyone,” she said, glaring. “You’d best remember that. Atua from tangata, yes! But tangata from atua as well.”

  She stood and went to the huddled man, and recognised with a start that it was Steffan, the easily flustered scholar with piercing eyes behind his sort of dorky glasses. At the moment, though, there was a blankness in his eyes that she recognised.

  “I guess,” she said, quietly, “even before we rebuild the Hikurangi I need to lay down some ground rules.” She knelt beside him. “Hey, bud. You okay?”

  He looked up at her and blinked and shivered. “Oh,” he said, then recited tonelessly: “It seems this murderer was not a coward after all. And Ariki will seek revenge, regardless of whether you are too much of a coward to; but if you wish to then the man who did this was –”

  “Hey, shh,” she said, putting a hand to his mouth. “A guy called Saint. I know. Message delivered,” she added, hoping it’d get rid of the blankness in his face.

  “Is it really true?” Steff asked. He ran a hand through his hair. “Oh, jeez. Oh, Saint. He can’t have been the one who… ” He trailed off. “I was the first person here, did you know that? There was still some of it left. There were bones… ”

  “Yeah,” Tony said. “Saint did that.”

  Steffan shivered. “I just wanted to learn, that’s all I wanted, that’s all I’ve ever… The people there smiled at me, they were mainly kind, I mean not – him –” He jerked his chin in Ariki’s direction. “But the others, you and that big friendly guy. He was going to make meringues. I wonder if he did. Everything was so warm and now it’s so cold.”

  “Rongo. I hadn’t even thought about him,” Tony said, and stared at the space between the pillars. “Do you think he… ”

  Steffan shook his head. “His kind don’t just die,” he said, then coughed violently, hackingly, his whole body shaking with it.

  Tony grimaced. “I don’t know. There was a street spirit who ought to have been really powerful, and Saint killed him easily enough.” Too late she remembered it was Steffan who had told her of Cuba in the first place, and she winced.

  Steffan looked up at her, his pupils blown wide with shock or fear or coldness. “You mean… Cuba?” It was sad to hear his voice, pleading and thin like the voice of a child. “No, no, that can’t be, no, he – he sang bad pop songs, but like he meant them, you know? He can’t, he can’t.”

  “I’m sorry.” Tony put a hand on his shoulder, but Steffan flinched away.

  “Oh, no, don’t… don’t be offended, I just don’t, don’t much like the idea of anyone touching me at the moment. Everyone just kills,” Steffan said, and he raised one hand to cradle his head.

  “You should go home,” Tony said. “You’ll catch your death.”

  “No, I… I shouldn’t do that. I need to see what happens.” He repeated it, firmly: “I need to see what happens and I need to… ”

  “Whatever, dude,” Tony said, and stood up, only just managing to refrain from offering him a hand. He stood as well, and stayed leaning against the wall.

  “No, I mean it – this can’t be right,” Steffan said. “The others maybe, but Cuba, no, he was harmless. The Saint I knew would never… ”

  Over by the step, Hinewai’s head whipped around to face them, eyes intent. Ariki made no reaction. Perhaps he hadn’t heard? Tony was glad.

  She frowned at the scholarboy, all the same. She’d had suspicions since his first reaction, but that confirmed them. “You know him.”

  Others were congregating now – more patupaiarehe, with eyes as black as night or green as trees or brown as earth or white all the way through, dim shapes through the mist. Steffan glanced around. Tony could imagine what he was thinking; Ariki had twisted with his head, so perhaps he thought atua were more dangerous than they truly were. Perhaps he feared for his friend, which she supposed was understandable, but…

  “No, it’s nothing,” he said, and he sat down again like his legs had been cut out from under him, hunching up small. “Never mind.”

  Tony looked at
the pillars where there was no sign, any more, of any of those who had died. So many dead, and here Steff sat refusing to take a side. Part of her wished she had that luxury, and grief made her unforgiving. “Do you still think you can just watch?” she said sharply. “Do you think that’ll cut it now? You met people, and now they’re dead, and you’re just going to watch.”

  Steffan looked away.

  Tony wanted to console him – that had been needlessly harsh – but it was probably better to just leave him alone. She went to sit by her friends on the step. More patupaiarehe were here now, and other atua she didn’t recognise – what had to be cityfae, too, creatures incorporating concrete and steel and glass, and Tony greeted them one and all.

  “What now?” they asked her, all of them all in a chorus, even the patupaiarehe gathered there to fight. They looked to her instead of Ariki, stood there in the ruins of their sacred place and looked to her. “What now?”

  “We wait,” she told them, because what else could she say? What else could they do? “We wait.”

  Saint stood in front of the mirror, and tilted his head back to better admire the dark bruises around his neck. “Fuck this hurts!” he said cheerily.

  There was a similar ring of bruises around his wrist, along with myriad other bruises and scrapes that he couldn’t even remember getting, all over him. He was an utter mess. Burned and choked and half-drowned, and it was all of it his fault. He remembered, unwillingly, the utter pain of that moment. Steff deserting him and then Noah deserting him and yeah that had stung but it had all been building up to that one moment, hadn’t it; kicking his legs uselessly to try and stay above water, choking and gasping as waves splashed his face…

  Staring up at the gaping maw of the most monstrous thing he’d ever encountered, as it spoke in Tony’s voice. The realisation, they’re people, they’re people, these monsters are people. And what did that make him? He’d looked at Tony, after that, and seen her, the whole of her, layers; monster and guardian and sweet little girl and brave woman and all of it mixed together, and if he’d just looked, looked deeper, asked more questions or just stopped one fucking time to think about what he was doing instead of just – just blindly murdering –

  Stupid to try to stay above water, when he’d already sunk so deep.

  “Bruised and battered self,” he said loudly, loud enough to drown out his thoughts, “meet your new best friends: arnica and Savlon! We all three of us are about to get very initima – ow. Owww. Ow.” He scowled at his bruises, which, even when smeared liberally with antiseptic or whatever this stuff was, still throbbed like the blazes. “Why did I ever think this was a good idea! Ha!”

  He laughed, jovially.

  He happened to meet his own eyes in the mirror.

  He slammed his fist into the mirror, hard, with fire boiling around his fingers. His arm fell to his side. Shards tinkled to the ground.

  Saint buried his face in his bloodied hands. “Fine,” he mumbled. “I’m fine. I’m fine. Lovably fearless –”

  At that he clenched his fists so tight it hurt. He lowered his hands again. Stood there breathing for a while, trying to get calm, but he felt restless, he felt empty, he wanted to pace and prowl and fight, he wanted to curl up and sleep and never wake up again.

  He went back into the lounge of the wretched fucking flat, instead, because at least there was room to pace there.

  I’m not going to torture you, she’d said, though you deserve it, and yeah, he did, deserved anything bad they could do to him and then more besides, but he couldn’t exactly stop, could he? Everything was broken and burned away and he had nothing left. You deserve it, and maybe he always had. Should never have said yes to Noah. Should never have done any damn thing. Everything he tried to do just crumbled, and what if he had been wrong all along? On the way back to his apartment he’d passed a greasy pile of ashes, all that was left of his flatmate, impossible to ignore. Saint remembered the smell of charring meat.

  The maero, at least, had been evil. Of that, he was sure… he was… he thought he was sure? But that still left the rest, all of them – the ponaturi, who he’d burned till the skin sloughed off their bones. And the weird little bird things and the leafy ones and all the rest, so many, so damn many. The Hikurangi had had people –

  He held his hand over his mouth until the urge to retch subsided. Then he went up to the roof. Stood at its edge for a while, looking out over the city.

  “Catch me,” he said, and he swayed forward, but he arrested the motion before he could complete it. Just… stood there, for a bit, with the wind on his face. Considering it.

  In the end all he did was go inside again, because he was far too much of a coward to do what he ought to do, apparently. Figured. May as well go on with the reckless slaughtering, then, and a part of him wanted to. Wasn’t it better to go out in flames than to just be extinguished? Snuffed out, just like that, and no one would mourn him. At least this way people would remember his name, even just to spit on it.

  It was so hard to think.

  Maybe if he provoked Tony enough she’d kill him out of kindness, though he’d probably have to burn the whole city down, first. The whole world.

  May as well, Saint thought, and he wasn’t sure if he felt like laughing or crying.

  Because there wasn’t anyone there to catch him, not any more. What the hell was the point of any damn thing, without that?

  Steffan sat with his head resting against his knees, and listened as a mob of supernatural beings chanted for his best friend’s blood.

  There was a crowd of them. Most were patupaiarehe, he figured, gorgeous and angular and half-fading into the mists like they belonged there. There were other creatures that had that same feeling of being not-quite-right, of not fitting in this world – things with leaves for hair or bulging snail-shell eyes or teeth and fingernails like the spines of a sea urchin. Things that had adapted. But he spotted some cityfae in the crowd as well, a jagged creature all elbows and spines that made him think of a broken umbrella, a weathered lady with hair as red as brick and pigeons in her wake, and others, more than he could see and far more than he could name.

  And they were restless, and Tony didn’t seem to be very in control of them.

  “What now, taniwha?” one snarled at her, taller than most, with tangled gold-white hair.

  “We wait,” Tony said again. She seemed almost at a loss, and from over in his corner Steffan fought the mad urge to laugh. He’d been waiting all this time, learning, and what was the point of all this learning if he didn’t use it for anything, if he didn’t help –

  The gold-haired one put its head to one side, nostrils flaring. “We have waited all these years,” it told Tony. “The taste of it grows stale in our mouths.” There was a chorus of agreements, in English and in Māori and in a lilting tongue that struck Steffan as vaguely Celtic. He scrabbled for a notebook. The patupaiarehe did remind him a lot of the Irish sidhe; that was interesting, that could bear further study –

  “Your studies won’t do you much good once you’re dead,” came Ariki’s smooth voice in his ear, and the notebook fell to the ground. Then Ariki was hauling him to his feet, his elbow around Steffan’s neck in a chokehold, pulling him up but not yet applying overmuch pressure.

  Ariki cleared his throat. “Friends,” he called. Steffan flinched away; he was pressed right up against Ariki, so it was loud, and Ariki’s arm under his chin smelled nauseatingly sweet, putrid. “Might I make a suggestion?”

  The bickering died down – the other patupaiarehe seemed to follow Ariki’s orders, more or less.

  “An actual helpful suggestion?” Tony said as she turned towards him, looking glad. “From you? Finally!”

  Then her eyes fell on Steffan. Steff had been rather hoping for outrage, but she looked more disappointed than anything else, and she didn’t dive forward to save him or anything. For a moment he was sure that she was just going to him die, but that didn’t seem like her, so he made himself relax, hang l
imp and passive.

  “This man,” Ariki said, and tightened his hold. Breathing became difficult. What was it with atua and choking him? “He has ties to Māui’s pawn – he said as much. Perhaps we can torture him and he’d be loud enough to draw Māui to us, and we can fall on him and take him unawares! At dawn, as it should be. Look how the mists draw close, as an omen for our success!”

  Steffan should never have said that. Idiot, idiot, he thought, and he closed his eyes. Ariki’s hold had loosened again, but it was hard to think with the threat of his arm still there, pressing. Harder still to think when the people gave a ragged cheer at Ariki’s words. No, no, please no, there’s still so much I don’t know.

  “Saint’ll show up here anyway,” he heard Tony say. She sounded closer. Good, that was – good. “He has to know that this is where we’d gather. No one’s getting tortured.”

  “Someone will have to be,” one of the patupaiarehe said, also close. Steffan opened his eyes. It was Tony’s friend, the terrifying one, her eyes solid black and her face thoughtful. Tony was standing beside her, her eyes fixed on Steffan, one of the patupaiarehe’s hands lengthening into claws. “As Ariki was mauled. There must be balance to these things.”

  Steffan felt like a slab of meat, dangling there for the gathered crowd to inspect, all inhuman eyes and – he’d felt safe around most of the atua, sort of, but the way they were looking at him now was terrifying. Very like a piece of meat: perhaps none of them actually had anything against him personally, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t enjoy tearing him apart.

  “Mauled?” Ariki said, and his grip loosened still further. Steffan thought that had more to do with the pain than with any conscious decision on Ariki’s part. He was shaking. “Mauled?” Ariki repeated, and he gave a derisive laugh. “Oh, hardly. Injured perhaps, but in time I’ll be as strong as ever, I assure you!”