The Wind City (19 page)

Hinewai frowned. “How else was I supposed to do it?” she said, almost whining it, petulant. “I needed your help!”

Tony wondered what Hinewai needed her help for, what could possibly be important enough to justify this – but nothing was,
nothing
was. “That’s not how friendships work,” Tony said firmly. “That’s not how
people
work. I won’t let you do that, not to me, not to anyone.”

“Oh yes?” said Hinewai, and sung. Sung soft and steady, high words and rolling syllables, and Tony was terrified, suddenly, the most terrified she had ever been. Irrational, and she was gasping, gasping for breath because her lungs felt like they were seizing and her heart was pounding so hard it felt like her rib cage would splinter and she could’ve sworn there were
things
, crawling, crawling all over her skin, and she fought back a whimper because she was held helpless and there was nothing she could do and things were crawling on her skin crawling crawling and her skin was shuddering beneath it and she had to fight so damn hard to not just let her skin burst and the scaly hide to come out from beneath it and still there were the terrible hungry little mouths biting at her biting deep itching clawing scarring so she clawed at them clawed at them first with stubby stupid fingers and then with her real claws and she dug deep into her skin and it still wasn’t enough it was never enough and her rib cage was crumpling now, her heart was bursting, she could feel the tear of the muscles and her blood was thick and black and there was nothing she could do nothing she could do nothing she could do –

Hinewai stopped singing, and Tony gasped and shuddered and wiped chilled sweat from her face. She patted herself down frantically, compulsively; she was fine, unhurt, there was nothing on her, she was perfectly human-shaped at the moment. The terror was still hanging about her head, making it hard to think, making it hard even to breathe.

“And what exactly will you do to stop me?” asked Hinewai curiously. “You have power, but you do not have the knowing of how to use it. I am far stronger than you.”

Tony wanted to run, run far far away, run somewhere where the ocean met the shore and life was simple.

She didn’t.

She met Hinewai’s eyes, and didn’t flinch, and didn’t let herself be enchanted. “Just because you have a power doesn’t mean you should use it. I’m not gonna say this again:
Stop
.”

“And if I don’t?” Hinewai said. “What then, kindly coward child? You’ll turn taniwha and tear me to shreds?”

“I could,” Tony said, still holding her eyes. Then she shrugged, careless. Grinned, hard and fierce, because when she’d first met Hinewai the other girl had thought smiles were a form of challenge. “But I don’t think I need to. Am I wrong?” Such a gamble, this, and her heart was pounding for entirely natural reasons now, because
oh
was this a risk. If she’d read this wrong…

Hinewai looked at her, then hissed in irritation, and grasped the kōauau. Tony forced herself to stay still, even as Hinewai closed her eyes and blew into the flute, even as her fingers danced and the music swelled soft and breathy like wind. That music could mean anything, could do anything; Tony believed that, finally, firmly. Atua had powers people didn’t, and they were terrifying. Hinewai could get inside her head and turn her inside out, if she wanted to, twist everything that was Tony away and change it. That could be what she was doing right now.

Smiles were a form of challenge. Fear would help not at all. And she’d always been good at laughing the worst of life away, so she smiled, smiled and stood her ground as the fae girl weaved her magic.

Hinewai stopped playing. The music had been beautiful, some of the most amazing Tony had ever heard, but later when she tried to remember it she could only remember one line at a time; the rest faded away, like clutching at mist. “There,” Hinewai said, looking away all disdainful. “It’s off. Most of it, anyway.”

Tony raised her eyebrows. “Most?” she said, trying to sound unimpressed when really she was just incredibly pleased, because Hinewai was being pouty and annoying and Tony? Tony didn’t feel particularly in love with her, or any more terrified than was reasonable.

“Some strands were too interwoven,” Hinewai said, and then looked nervous. “I did the best I could! It was a strong singing, difficult to remove entirely. But you are free from the full grip of it now; it should be simple enough for you to untangle the last threads of it eventually. You are of strong will.”

Tony nodded. “Right, good,” she said. “Thank you,” she added, because there was probably a certain way to do things, tradition or something like that. “I think that’s us done.” She turned, left.

“Wait,” Hinewai called after her, and Tony turned. Hinewai looked confused. “‘Done’?”

“Uh. Yeah?”

Hinewai tilted her head. “Do you mean we are no longer friends?” she said, and Tony couldn’t speak for a second, because that was –
wow
that was – what?

“Wow, because I’m totally gonna be your friend after you fuck around with my head,” Tony said. “No. No, we are really definitely not friends!”

“But,” Hinewai said, looking lost. “I need you. I need your
help
. This is not my world! How am I supposed to understand it without you?”

Tony gritted her teeth. “You knew what I was and you never even told me,” she said, calmly. “You never told me anything. You played my brain like it was a
turntable
, and you don’t even see why that’s wrong. Hinewai, I’m not going to fight you, because I think everyone has good in them and deserves to be treated fairly, even you, but we are not
friends
,” and then she left before Hinewai could protest any further, because the last thing she wanted was to feel sorry for this girl; Hinewai would probably take advantage of that to mess with her head again. She wouldn’t learn.

When Tony got back into her own apartment she collapsed against the wall and shivered there for a while.

She held up her fist, examined it, remembered how Whai had flown through the air at just a tap. She hit the wall, experimentally, and punched clean through it.

Then she started giggling, shaking plaster off her fingers. Because. This new world was really scary, but it was also really neat. And that confrontation had been horrible, but –

She’d
won
, was the thing.

This new world was scary and dangerous and she could
handle
it, even
without
turning into a terrifying sea monster she could handle it! Just by being herself!

Tony gave herself a congratulatory pat on the back, and then felt rather silly.

It was dark now, but night was no obstacle to atua. She went to the ocean.
Guardian
, Ariki had said, and Whai too, and Hinewai; that meant there had to be truth in it. And. Well. She had to figure out what exactly she was before she could guard anything! Whai had had a point there, saying she should practice going taniwha. Though she didn’t know whether she wanted to do anything about Māui; didn’t even know what the threat was, yet. She’d figure it out.

There were bars nearish the waterfront, bright lights shining, and then when you got to the actual ocean there were lights on the docks, too, casting ripples of gold onto the water. Tony shrugged off her duffel coat, and breathed in deep.

Nothing happened.

“Uh,” she ventured, feeling foolish. “Magical change go!”

Nothing happened. Which. Well. Yeah, fair enough, she would’ve been vaguely appalled if it had. Okay. The first time this had happened had been when Whai got her all panicked and angry, so maybe that was the only way to turn into… wait. No. She was thinking about this wrong.

Nothing was one thing only, Whai had said.

Tony focused on herself, and looked past. She was herself, a youngish overly cheerful woman who’d struggled with her small business, who wore pink gumboots. She was herself, a little girl growing up on an inland orchard, painting waves onto her nails and dreaming of the sea. She was herself, of the ocean and of the land, a guardian and a terror; she was herself, glimmering eyes and sinew and muscle and tail and scale and tooth –

And just like that she
was
, she was something bulky and ancient and huge, and for a second her small human mind was astonished at this, and then ancient instinct took over.

She was a child of Tangaroa, and here was the sea.

The taniwha slipped in smoothly, and then with a beat of its tail it was away and free. The ocean felt greasy against its skin, tainted, but achingly familiar all the same. The taniwha curled up to the surface, arched its back like a dolphin, flippered downward again to explore. Salt-sea-city
home
, and it nuzzled against the sea bed inquiringly, snapped up a fish and swallowed it down. It wanted company, a little; sometimes humans would call to it, and sometimes, if they were kind and good and clever, the taniwha would let them ride it, hollow its back for them to grip onto and show them the
sea
. Swimming fast and clever, nosing deep down and riding the currents; propelling itself rapidly up and out and then into the open air with the humans screeching their shock to the spray and the breeze and the sky.

There was no company to be had, right now, no humans calling. Sometimes it would just watch them, skin-slip into a dolphin or a whale and swim beside with the silly humans still all-unknowing, but right now there was no one even to watch. The taniwha went to play with boats in the marina, instead, snapped its jaws on lines and nudged the freed hulks out into open harbour all untethered.

It did this with one boat and approached the next, and noticed something drifting in the water, person-shaped; it went up to it, nuzzled it inquisitively, and the poor burned thing blinked open eyes as green as glass and swatted at it weakly. The taniwha took no notice of this, still examining the thing, jagged teeth and skin burned beyond all recognition and –

Bracelets still clinging to its charred wrist. Melted plastic twine fused with its skin.

Whai
, Tony thought, and she froze with aching pity for him, just for a second. She positioned herself beneath him and hollowed her back for him to grip onto, but he didn’t seem to have strength enough to grip, so she flipped around and, holding him in her jaw as gently as she could, swam slow and careful to the shore. He stirred vaguely in her grip, but didn’t say anything, which was… bad. Because this had to be hurting him, surely, and it was
Whai
, he’d never give up an opportunity to gripe.

He was hurt. He was hurt very badly.

She hauled them up on land – her feet were clawed, not flippered, good for being on land but too sharp, too clumsy; she cut into him as she tried to lay him out on the ground. He tried to sit up, and fell back, too weak.

He croaked something, then coughed, coughed up something slimy and charred and red. “Sea-sister,” he said, hoarse, and managed a mocking little grin. Half of a grin. A lot of his face was burned, raw and red, inflamed, distorted. His hair was all burned away.

She curled around him protectively. “Whai,” she said, and then was startled at the sound of it, her normal voice coming out of this draconic body – and oh, what was she
thinking
, being humanshaped would be much more helpful here. She changed back.

“I think I’m dying,” Whai said thoughtfully, and she winced and cradled his head in her hands, because she couldn’t actually argue. He smelled like burnt meat, and looked it, as well.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Tony whispered.

Whai laughed, a chuckle that turned into a cough that turned into a hacking groan, and he spat up more charred bits of his own flesh and said, “It was
him
.”

“What? Who?”

“Māui,” Whai said, and Tony bit her lip and stared. Whai’s eyes slipped off her face, vague. He said again, insistently: “
Māui
. All ragey-burning and
trickster
, you could feel it. He was Māui sure enough, whether or not his fleshly self.” He spoke harsh and slow, every word an effort, every breath. “He’s hooked himself up to some tangata moron or he’s slaving ’im but he’s… it was, Māui, it, I just wanted to stop him,” almost a whine then, “he killed folk, I just, I wanted. Couldja kill him for me? Couldja do that for me, sea-sister?”

“Okay,” Tony said, and she patted at his shoulder. He winced, and she winced as well, because there was nowhere to touch that wouldn’t hurt. “He… hurt you very badly.”

Whai’s fingers plucked at the air, vague panicked twitches, weaving what wasn’t there. “Shoulda drowned him,” he said, regretful, “there was a second when I could’ve, I surprised him, I could’ve.” His voice turned dreamy. “There’s nothing like it, there truly ain’t, holding them under and then… ”

“Hey. Hey.” Tony glared at him. Thinking hard, too, because he hadn’t died
yet
so maybe he wouldn’t. Probably he wouldn’t. She was worrying over nothing – he was atua, he was way hardier than normal folk. Still, she tried to rearrange him so that he was facing the sea. “None of that talk. You’re gonna be
fine
.” She paused, then added, “Sea-brother.”

Whai grinned all dazed and bloodied. “So soft-hearted, so strong,” he said, his head falling back, limply, to rest on the ground. “Kill him for me, you gotta, you… ” And then his voice slipped away to nothing.

“Whai?” Tony said.

Whai said nothing, because he was dead.