Saint was laughing so hard he was almost crying, could barely speak. “What’s to keep me from killing you, huh? Tell me that! I’m a monster, everyone knows it. Wouldn’t put it past me! Wouldn’t put anything past me these days – really, though,” and he was serious now, deadly serious, “what can you do? Can you stop me? Stop me from –” He cut himself off, and bit his lip until it bled. He hadn’t meant to sound so pleading.
Steff shrugged and Saint noticed bruises on his neck, above his stupid collar. We match, he thought, absurdly. “I can’t force you, no,” Steff said. “But I can ask. Saint? Could you stop this, please?”
Saint stared at him.
“You need to stop this,” Steff said, gentling his tone a little, which was when Saint realised that until then his voice had been bitingly acerbic. The kind of voice he normally only got when he was really tired, when he’d been working too hard for too long. “Please, Saint. I mean I understand why it might seem that you can’t, not any more, but you can, honestly, and it’s… I know you must think you’re irredeemable but you’re not, and you’re not the only one at fault here. Everyone’s been dying and it doesn’t make any sense and I just – I’m sorry for not believing you earlier, I should’ve, I should’ve said – fuck, it doesn’t matter. We can talk about that, everything, just. Please stop?”
Saint considered him.
Saint was… hopeful. Steff’s little speech made him feel hope, and wasn’t that a laugh, that he could still feel hope after all this. He sure didn’t deserve to.
He had thought, when Steff first stepped out… he’d thought he’d find himself with a knife between his ribs, Steff had looked so disgusted with him. He still did, but maybe it didn’t matter. The atua watched them, sullen and silent, they weren’t attacking him and he didn’t understand and his thoughts were a storm and in the end there was only really one thing that mattered.
“Will you catch me?” Saint asked.
Steff just frowned.
Saint’s breath caught in his throat. He ignored it. “Cool, okay then, thanks for that,” he said, straightening his back to stand proud, spreading out his arms ready to burn and burn and burn and burn. Tony’s shoulders bunched in tension. She was still forming a barricade between him and the patupaiarehe, but those gathered around the outer edge were stepping forward, now, and he’d burn every damn one of them to blood and ashes and nothing could –
Steff grabbed him and pulled him into a hug, of all things. It was an immensely awkward hug, because neither of them was very good at it. Steff’s glasses were pushed up by Saint’s head and Saint’s nose got smushed into Steff’s collarbone a bit and it was kind of the awkwardest hug he’d ever experienced. But it made up for that in intensity; Steff gripped him almost painfully tightly, and after a moment’s pause Saint decided to hell with it and gripped him just as tight back. This was his best friend and he was never fucking letting go.
“Yes, you miserable cryptic bastard,” Steff said irritably, the annoyance in his words countered by how tightly his fingers curled at Saint’s back, “whatever it is you’re asking – yes.”
Saint buried his face in his waistcoat, which smelled of fancy washing powder and hope.
“Why didn’t you say anything,” Steff said, into his hair. “You idiot, if you just said, if you’d just asked – right back at the start, with the nightmares, you said you were fine, why would you say that?”
“That was blatant lying, pet, come on,” Saint said, and he stepped back, he spread his arms out wide and laughed. “Don’t you know not to trust me, by now?”
Saint would take what he could get, of course, but that didn’t mean he was deluding himself into thinking this was anything more than what it was: Steff saying things he didn’t, couldn’t mean. Sure he was here now, when Saint was explosively self-destructive, but he’d never spend time with him after this, let alone be there in his worse times. He was so busy and they’d barely even talked for months now and this couldn’t possibly –
Steff shrugged. “I don’t trust you,” he said. “Not even slightly. But I don’t really need to, I think? If you trust me that’ll be enough for a start. I just prefer my life with you in it.”
Well.
Right, then.
“You have been,” Saint said very seriously, “and always shall be… a terrible judge of character,” and Steff snorted out a laugh and, eyeing him critically, fixed his hair. Saint swatted his hand away. The exchange was comfy, familiar, like a hundred conversations they’d had. The atua were watching, the patupaiarehe murmuring amongst themselves, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
“Want to go get that drink now?” Steff said. “We can watch old episodes of Buffy or Doctor Who or something.”
“You are so immensely geeky,” Saint said, “you’re, like, Geeky McGeekface, sole resident of Geekville, Silicon Valley. But,” he added, magnanimously, “I suppose so. As a favour.”
Steff rolled his eyes. “You love those shows as much as I do or more, come on.”
“Blasphemy! I am entirely too excellent to like lame person shows for lame people.” Saint paused. “Is Firefly on the table?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll condescend to join you, then. Entirely out of pity, mind.”
Steff’s mouth twitched upwards at the corners. “Damned decent of you,” he said.
And the killing stopped, then, the bloodshed and hate and all-but-war ended with a hug between old friends, of all things, as the patupaiarehe stood whispering and the city’s guardian was not forced to be unkind.
She shrank back down to her human form, and leaned heavily against Hinewai. She hadn’t done much because there wasn’t much she could do, but she was on edge, still, at how close that had come to being outright bloodshed. There had been a moment when Steffan seemed like he would fail, and Tony, when she closed her eyes, could picture that far too well, Saint fighting and the others fighting back and all of it escalating, fire and blood and war.
“This was a fool’s bargain,” Ariki whispered to her, savage.
Tony looked at the two men standing there, Saint all broken and Steffan shivering, a little. She wondered if Saint knew how close he’d come to consigning the both of them to death.
“A bargain all the same,” she said, “and don’t worry. Saint still needs to be punished, and he will.” It pained her to say that, but there had to be some kind of balance to these things, it was just how life worked. And she doubted the vengeful masses of fae would settle for anything less. “But not the others – no one else, it’s his fault alone. And not yet.”
Ariki slowly, grudgingly, nodded, and Tony at last could breathe again.
14
Hinewai watched, as was her custom.
Work was being done on a new Hikurangi, built on the ashes of the old – an unsightly practice to her eyes, building a new safe haven that still stank of those who’d died in the old one, but Tony was so bright and eager to build it that Hinewai helped, as much as she could.
This night they were taking a break from the building, though, because there was more important business to be done.
Tony huddled up against Hinewai’s side. Hinewai patted at her shoulders, her hair, not quite sure what she was meant to be doing.
“This is so horrible,” Tony said. “I wish I could stop it.”
Hinewai tilted her head. “After the things he did?” she said. “He’s lucky not to be killed. You did all you could.”
“No, I… ” Tony shook her head. Shivered. “I could’ve tried harder, but I didn’t. I was just, I was so angry and he’d hurt so many people and I… I could’ve stopped this. I just didn’t want to.”
“Good,” Hinewai said. “You’re learning.”
“If this is what I need to learn to be a taniwha,” Tony said, “I wish I’d just stayed human.”
“No you don’t.”
“No,” Tony agreed, quiet. “I don’t.”
After that she fell silent, and they watched togethe
r. The rightful punishment of Saint, Saint the murderer, Māui’s pawn, the man with fire in his fingertips and murder in his heart… He looked much less formidable now, somehow. Broken. He didn’t even struggle as they tied his left hand down to the table at the wrist, tied it firm with flax and karakia so it wouldn’t break no matter how he struggled or burnt at it but he didn’t struggle, he didn’t fight, just sat there, slumped, jagged angles and stubbled cheeks and skin bleached with cigarette smoke.
They used an uhi, for a knife was not fit for this kind of work. Positioned it carefully so the chisel blade rested on the joint between his thumb and his hand, then lifted the club, then brought it down upon the uhi hard, driving the pounamu tip into his flesh. It wasn’t neat: it took several hits before the thing was severed and at first Saint didn’t make a sound, grinding his teeth to keep quiet. He gave up when they started on his index finger, though.
Hinewai found his sobs, his screams and whimpers a lot more satisfying than she’d venture to say aloud just at the moment, not with her kind girl beside her. She didn’t care, particularly, about any of those who Saint had killed; but Tony did, a lot. Cared about Saint, even, and that made contempt twitch across Hinewai’s skin like spiders, that Tony would spare even a sliver of her heart for this useless crawling man –
“You’re holding too tight,” Tony said, and Hinewai, startled, dropped her arm back to her side. Tony glanced at her and smiled, dimpley and rueful, and wrapped her own arm around Hinewai’s waist, giving a reassuring squeeze. That made Hinewai feel something entirely too much like real affection, so she looked away. They’d cut off his middle finger now, and were mopping the blood away. Saint was shivering, violently, though it wasn’t a cold night in the least.
The atua bandaged his hand, smooth and efficient, even chanting prayers over it to hasten the healing. The punishment wasn’t the pain; it was the crippling, rendering his hand – his left hand, noa, the hand that had broken the sacredness of things just as he was the man who’d broken the sacredness of things – useless, forever.
Saint walked right by where Tony and Hinewai were standing, fumbling a little black phone from his pocket; his face was a portrait of relief when his scholar-man answered.
Hinewai watched him go, her fingers dancing over an imaginary kōauau, her eyes far away.
He didn’t deserve Tony’s pity. He certainly didn’t deserve to have a friend who would care for him, who would soothe his hurts, who would whisper comforts to him as though he hadn’t murdered innocents in cold blood. As though he wouldn’t do it again if he thought no one would know. He deserved nothing but pain.
Hinewai excused herself, and followed him.
The conversation, whatever it was, must have been a short one. Saint was leaning heavily against a wall, now, eyes staring aimless across the street, cigarette cupped awkwardly in his right hand.
“Poison,” Hinewai said.
Saint flinched from her, as he always did; terrified, in some instinctive way that she didn’t understand but couldn’t help but be pleased by. He glanced at the cigarette in his hand. “Well, yeah,” he said. “To be honest, pet, at this moment I’m not really inclined to care.”
Hinewai hissed and stepped closer, and he straightened, wary, pressing his back solid against the wall with a shiver. “Not that stupid thing,” she said. “You. You’re poison, you’re a cancer that will spread if you are not cut out.”
Saint was silent for a moment. “Ahh,” he said finally, like he’d understood something of massive importance. “You hate me.”
Hinewai bared her teeth. “Can you blame me?”
Saint laughed, cheery and mocking and fake like everything about him was fake, from his hair down to his toes he was a mockery of a man. Then he did something that surprised her; he lifted up his left hand like he was going to burn her, like it was a threat, but then he paused dramatically – always dramatic, this one – before he slammed it against the wall.
The pain brought tears to his eyes and a stifled cry to his lips; he said around it, stretching out his arms, “Oh, welcome to the club!” before he hunched over for a few moments, arms wrapped around himself, eyes squeezed shut. (Breath was life was spirit, was the soul of you; Hinewai listened. Saint’s breathing was ragged and harsh and gasping, and there was nothing in it but despair, and it was good.)
“You are an immensely foolish man,” Hinewai said. “What, exactly, was that supposed to accomplish?”
Saint cracked open an eyelid and grinned at her. “Hurt me,” he said simply.
Hinewai took a step back. (She wanted to, oh did she want to, dig her fingers into his skin until he bled, pull him apart until there was nothing left.) “What?”
“Hurt me!” he rasped, and he took two quick steps forward until their faces were close together – too close, she could feel the smoke on his breath. Close enough almost to burn. “You miserable psychotic bitch, you fucked with my head once, you can do it again.”
“What?” Hinewai said.
He rested his forehead against hers in a parody of affection, laughing when she pushed him away, eyes fever-bright and grin shaky and face pale with the sweat standing out on it. “Can you make me forget?” he said.
It took her a moment to understand. She paused, hand half-reaching up to her flute, not quite completing the motion. Tony wouldn’t be pleased. And anyway…“Yes,” she said, and he breathed out, shakily, closed his eyes in relief. “But,” she said, and he looked at her with eyes half-lidded, waiting. “Not without ripping out half of your mind, not without –”
“Do it,” he said. Still she did nothing, and he stepped back, a safe distance away; spread out his arms and shrugged and said, “I’m here, I’m helpless, come on,” bouncing a little on the balls of his feet, voice cracking in desperation.
She reached out and rested her hand against his forehead; dug in her nails and he didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink the blood away when it trickled down into his eye. “Stupid human thing,” she said. “You don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand a single fucking thing,” he said. “Thought this little fiasco made that clear. Do it.”
“I can’t.”
“Do it do it do it, coward. Come on, hurt me,” and then he was kissing her, catching her lip between his teeth and biting at it, sliding his tongue along her teeth, savaging her mouth.
Hinewai stood paralysed for a moment. She’d been so sure, the first time she’d seen him, that he was the true love she’d been searching for. But this was hate, this thing broiling in her stomach, this was contempt. The touch of his lips on hers made her want to eat coals to burn the taint away.
She put her hand on his chest and pushed him back hard against the wall and while he was stumbling she gripped both of his hands and pinned them against the concrete, too, because you couldn’t be too careful, not with this one.
Saint licked his lips and grinned. “Not much fun, huh?” he said. His face made her think of dead things, things rotting and abuzz with flies. “To have people shove their way into places they shouldn’t be?”
It’s not the same, Hinewai wanted to say, but why argue with him? He didn’t deserve her time. And if it was the same…
Even if it was, he deserved it, he deserved so much worse than that.
She ground his bandaged hand cruelly against the wall, and he whimpered, almost inaudible. But he let her. Didn’t even struggle, just stood there passively as though he wanted to be hurt. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one who’d thought his punishment insufficient. “All right, then,” she said, yielding, because even better than tearing his body apart would be tearing his mind to pieces, shredding the layers of it till there was nothing of him left. “I’ll rip the memories right out of you, you foolish hateful man. I will tear away everything that makes you you, I will leave you numb and rocking and with no memory of who you were or any you loved or anything you have ever done –”
He’d been staring at her with a pathetic kind of eagerness, but he
stiffened, then. “Wait,” he said, and he tugged against her grip. “Steff? I’d forget Steff?”
There was something in his voice that made her release him after all, press a finger to his chin and tilt it up to examine his face, because that was… something about the sheer desolation and horror in his voice, that was…“You love him,” she said.
He glared at her. “Fuck you,” he said, which wasn’t an answer, but it didn’t need to be.
Hinewai stepped back, stunned. “How… ” Just when she thought she understood this world, the ground was ripped out from under her, time and again. First Tony explaining how kissing could be done with anyone who wanted you to kiss them, not just noble warriors and beautiful maidens, or husbands and wives. And now this. “Wait. If you love him why would you kiss me? To rile me, yes, but surely it would hurt him more than me, if he knew.”
“It’s not the kind of love you’re thinking of,” Saint said, eyeing her. “It’s pathetically needy friendship, it’s not – why the fuck am I even telling you this? Homophobic fae women, God save me,” and he sidestepped, wary, then started walking away, quick, his shoulders hunched.
“So you don’t want me to hurt you after all?” Hinewai called after him, confused, confused by everything, confused by this stupid city, confused by this this whole stupid Pākehā world. The only thing that made any sense at all was Tony.
Saint stopped. Just stood there for a second, slumped and empty. Then he spun around, smiling sparkle-bright. He stretched out his arms and chuckled. “On second thoughts, I don’t really need you to,” he said. “All things considered I think I do a pretty decent job of that on my own!”
“If you hurt Tony,” Hinewai said before she could think about it, “if you even once take advantage of her kind heart, I will kill you.”
Saint looked at her. “Steff wouldn’t like that,” was all he said, almost wistful, and then he left.
She stood on the spot for some time afterwards, though, thinking. There were a lot of kinds of loves, then? The hate-love Whai and Ariki had, and the love Tony had had for Whai, like he was a brother, and the love-between-friends Saint had with his stupid scholar man, and the love she and Tony –
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