Free The Wind City by Summer Wigmore Page B

the family.”
    “Cool,” Tony said.
    “Just give me a minute, I think he’s out in that blasted radish patch of his.” Tony, smiling, moved the phone away from her ear just in time: “RAAANGI!” she heard, distantly, and she chuckled to herself.
    The gelato was delicious.
    “Hey, kid,” her uncle said half a minute later, and Tony moved the phone back to her ear.
    “Hey, matu.”
    “So what’s on your mind?” Rangi said.
    “I want to talk about taniwha.”
    She could hear the clatter of metal; he was probably making tea. “Boy troubles?” he said knowingly. “Or problems at work? You just remember you’re a precious pearl and any boy’d be lucky to – oh. Uhh.”
    “Mum said you’d be the one to ask about that,” Tony said sweetly.
    There was an awkward throat-clearing noise. “Oh, uh,” he said. “No idea why she’d say that. You know I don’t know te reo or the stories as well as I’d like! Aha… Taniwha are like dragons, right? Lizard dragons. Basically lizards. Man, I sure don’t know anything about taniwha.”
    “Rangi.”
    “So I hear you’re gay now! How’s that going?”
    Tony sighed and tried a different tactic. “Hey, remember the first time we visited Lake Wanaka? When I was really little?”
    “Course I do,” Rangi said, sounding relieved.
    “Remember how I swam really well even though it was the first time I ever swam?”
    “Yeah,” he said proudly. “Like a fish.”
    “And then when the fisherman let me pretend to steer but then I was really good at it and –”
    “What’re you getting at here, hon.”
    “Was Dad a taniwha too?”
    Rangi hummed noncommittally.
    “ Matu ,” Tony said.
    “… Maybe a bit.”
    Tony rolled her eyes. “A bit .”
    “Yeah!” Rangi said. “Yeah.”
    Tony made a frustrated noise. “You are the worst person ever to talk to about this, ugh,” she said.
    “Anyone you can talk to about this up there?” Rangi said. There was the sound of sizzling fat. Oh, a fry-up. Yay.
    “One guy, but he’s cryptic and weird and sprang it on me without giving me a choice.”
    Rangi growled. “Want me to come over and bash a few heads?”
    “No, uncle, that’s – no it’s really fine. I can bash heads myself if I want, I’m hella strong when I’m all taniwha.”
    “You can turn into one? Your father always just had strong instincts. Damn.” He whistled. “That’s my girl!”
    “Sure, matu.”
    “You should probably go talk to that guy,” Rangi continued. There were more sizzling sounds. She had better finish the conversation before he left the phone lying on a table or something.
    “Next time you do come up, could I borrow your old guitar? My one’s strings got broke and I haven’t had time to practice.”
    “Sure thing. And you give him hell from me, kiddo.”
    “I will give him, like, a gazillion hells,” she promised, hanging up. She finished her gelato. Then she went down to the ocean, feeling a lot more at ease. Family could do that.

4
    Saint hadn’t been this terrified since – well, to be honest, he’d never been this terrified. But people were in trouble.
    “I have to help them,” was the first thing he said once he’d managed to stand up, and he nodded to himself and ran down the stairs.
    …Ran down two or three of the stairs, at least, before his tired feet stumbled. He reeled, nearly fell, had to catch his balance with one hand against the wall. “Okay,” he said conversationally, gasping a bit, “first I have to re-learn how to walk, apparently. Then I have to help them.”
    “It’s dangerous,” Noah said, plainly distressed. “You might die. Don’t.” He was twitching back and forth with more and more rapidity until he was barely in one place for long enough for Saint to look at him before he moved again.
    “Yeah, but if I don’t then some other people will die,” Saint snapped, “possibly in rather extreme amounts of pain – I don’t know, I’m not exactly an expert on the hunting habits of