Jack, the giant-killer (7 page)

He didn’t wonder too much about what had

happened between her and the Gruagagh in the Gruagagh’s Tower—at least not until he was on Auch Ward Way, with the Tower in front of him, and no sign of her anywhere around. He should have been able to trace the trail of his own stitcheries—a trail not one of the Host would sense, though perhaps the Hunt could. The Hunt followed the smell of your soul. It was as he cast up and down the street, then finally snuck into the neighbouring back yards to assure himself that she wasn’t still huddled by the hedge, that he realized what had happened.

“What game’s he playing now?” he muttered.

For he remembered the Gruagagh’s brooch he’d seen pinned to her jacket and knew that it was some spell of the Gruagagh’s that was stopping him from following the lingering trail of his own stitcheries. He paused in the middle of the street, scowling through his beard. He debated going back to his lookout tree by the Gruagagh’s Tower, but he knew that the Big Man would be watching it very closely now.

So he needed a new tree to perch in—and what?

Should he follow the girl, or leave her to her own devices? He was partly responsible for whatever she was up to, that much was certain. He’d given her stitcheries and pointed the way to the Gruagagh’s door. He wondered if the Gruagagh had told her where the Horn was and if she truly meant to go after it. Only what if it had been the Gruagagh who had set that giant after her?

“Oh, I don’t like thinking,” he told the empty street. Cloaked with the stitcheries sewn into his own coat, he crept into the back yard of a house a few doors down from the Gruagagh’s Tower and stole a quick peek out across the park. When he saw just the one rider on his Harley and the giant still gone, he knew trouble was brewing. The giant would be fetching his kin—or the Horn to call up the Hunt-while the missing rider would be following Jacky.

He had to find her first. He was the one who had filled her head with all that nonsense about asking the Gruagagh for help and rescuing the Laird’s daughter. Scowling at the dark shadow of the Gruagagh’s Tower, he made his way back to the street. Deciding to find her was one thing, he realized once he stood there. Only where did he begin?

“Oh, damn,” he muttered.

Choosing a direction at random, he set off. But Jacky had gone the other way.

As the sound of the Harley grew louder, Jacky cut across a lawn, scrambled over a fence to run alongside the house and through its back yard. At the foot of the yard, she squeezed through a hedge and paused to get her bearings.

At least he won’t be able to follow me through all that, she thought, looking back the way she’d come. She was in between Fentiman and Belmont now. Still too far from her apartment on Ossington. Go to a safe place, Finn had told her—oh, don’t let the giant have caught him! But what was a safe place? Some place with people. A restaurant or bar.

Oh, think! she told herself.

She could hear the biker on Belmont now. The nearest restaurants were on Bank Street, but that was too far for her to go right now. There were too many streets to cross—open spaces where the biker could spot her. Then she thought of Kate. Kate lived just up on Sunnyside. Was she back from her mother’s yet?

Would going there put Kate in danger, too?

The Harley was idling on the street in front of the house now, making it too hard to think. She could imagine the rider putting his machine on its kickstand, coming around back of the house to get her…

She bolted towards Fentiman, tore the leg of her jeans going over a low fence, and sprawled across the lawn, but was up and racing for the open street as fast as her legs could carry her. She heard the Harley roar on Belmont behind her. The dryness had returned to her throat and her pulse drummed. Crossing the street, she plunged down the first laneway she came to. The biker came around the corner at the same time, his headlight like a searching eye. Had he seen her?

Another back yard, another fence, and then she was on Brighton, just one block away from Kate’s street. Again the Harley appeared around the corner, this time well before she was out of sight. The biker started down the street, catching her in his headlight as she dashed for the next driveway.

The sound of the bike was like growling thunder in her ears. She panted for breath as she ran. Adrenaline and Finn’s stitcheries got her to the end of the lane before the biker reached it. She dodged around the garage, through another yard. Now she could see Sunnyside through the gaps in the houses in front of her. Again she had to pause to get her bearings. Kate’s apartment was a ground floor—on this side of the street, thank God!—and it was—

She picked her direction and started off through the back yards, heedless of flowerbeds and small vegetable patches, hauling herself over fences. One back yard, another. A third. The roar of the Harley was a constant drone in her ears. It made her teeth shake. The bike was on Sunnyside now, pacing her. Any moment she expected it to roar down a driveway and cut her off. But then Kate’s back door was in front of her and she was up the stairs and hammering on it. Please be home, oh,
please
be home. The Harley was idling on the street in front of the house. The slower rev of its engine was somehow more frightening to her than the sound of it coming down the street after her. She pressed her cheek against the door, still knocking on it. A light went on over the door, half-blinding her. When the door itself opened inwards, she lost her balance.

“Who the hell—” Kate began.

Jacky caught her balance and leaned against the doorjamb. She looked into her friend’s angry face, saw the anger drawing away to be replaced by shock.

“It… it’s just me,” she said. “Jacky.” But then she realized what she must look like, with the redcap on her head and her cornstubble hair sticking out from underneath it like a scarecrow’s straw, with her clothes torn and her face and hands smudged with dirt.

“My God,” Kate said. “Jacky, what’s happened?”

Her friend’s voice was suddenly loud in Jacky’s ears—very loud—and then she realized that she couldn’t hear the roar of the biker’s Harley anymore. He must have killed the engine on his machine.

“I… I’ve been having a weird night since you left my place,” she said.

“No kidding? You look like something the cat dragged in. And where’d you get this?”

Kate plucked the cap from Jacky’s head. Jacky blinked, vertigo hitting her hard. When the world settled down once more, it wasn’t such a bright place anymore. It was as though taking off the cap had drained something from it—a certain vitality, an inner glow that was now washed away. She tried to smile at Kate, but she was having trouble just leaning against the doorjamb.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

Kate took her by the arm and led her inside, shutting the door on the night.

CHAPTER SIX

« ^ »

If she could share her current craziness with anyone, Jacky thought, it would be Kate, but what had been happening lately seemed too off the wall to share even with her, best friend or not. So Jacky told her nothing about hobs or gruagaghs, stitcheries, giants or the Wild Hunt. Instead she described being chased by a biker, and how she hoped that she hadn’t brought any trouble with her by knocking on Kate’s door.

“Creepy,” Kate said when she was done.

“Yeah, but if he’s still hanging around…”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. He’s had his fun. He’s probably back at some bar with the rest of his asshole friends, having a good yuk about it.”

If he wasn’t gathering up the rest of the Hunt, Jacky thought uncomfortably.

Kate turned from the kitchen counter where she was making some tea. “Hungry?” she asked.

“No—yes. I’m starving.”

“I’ve got cake—or I could make you a sandwich.”

“I’ll take the cake.”

Kate grinned. “I kind of thought you would.”

Jacky stuck out her tongue and relaxed in her chair. The effects of her latest encounter with faerie were beginning to wear off a little now as she sat in the familiar comfort of her friend’s kitchen. The table she was sitting at was in a little breakfast nook that jutted out from the rest of the house into the back yard, with windows on three sides. There were enough plants hanging in there to start a jungle, together with various and sundry postcards that were tacked to the window frames and little odds and ends that were perched wherever there was a spot for them.

Jacky watched Kate bustle about getting tea mugs, pouring the water into the kettle, cutting a generous slice of nutcake for each of them. If there was one thing that Kate was mad about, it was nuts of every size, shape and description which, considering her surname Hazel, left her open to a great deal of teasing. Jacky knew that she should get up and wash her hands and face, but she just didn’t have the energy. It was so much better just lolling here in the nook, and then Kate was loading up the table and, well, Jacky thought, it would be rude to get up just when Kate was sitting down.

The tea was hot and perfect. The cake was

homemade, hazelnut—which brought a suitable comment from Jacky as she tasted it—and delicious.

“Maybe,” Kate said in reply, with her chin propped up on her hands as she studied Jacky’s hair, “we could hire you out as a sort of walking broom.” She plucked the redcap from the floor where it had fallen. “And where did you get this?”

“I found it.”

“I can believe it. I just didn’t think you were the sort to go through dustbins.“ She scrunched up her face and lowered her voice. ”It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.“

Jacky snatched the hat back from her, then sat turning it over in her hand.

“Hey,” Kate said. “I was just teasing.”

“I know.”

Jacky looked inside the cap and traced the intricate stitches she found there with her finger. Hob stitcheries, she thought. The dead hob who had owned it flashed in her mind… the angle of his neck as he lay on the ground, the sightless eyes. And then she thought of Finn, leading off the giant… She glanced at Kate.

“Do you believe in… in faeries?” she asked.

“Faeries as in gay, or faeries as in Tinkerbell?”

“As in Tinkerbell—but not all cutesy like that. More like faerie as in the realm of Faerie, with gnomes and wizards and giants and that sort of thing.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Kate shook her head. “ ‘Fraid not. Are you doing a survey?”

“No. What about ghosts? You know, vampires and the walking dead and spooks that come out at night?”

“Well, I don’t know about
ze
Count and his friends, but ghosts… maybe ghosts.”

“Really?”

Kate sighed and poured them both some more tea.

“Well, not
really
. But sometimes when I’m alone at night and the house’s creaking—you know. You get that feeling. Would
you
stay overnight in a graveyard?”

“I suppose not.”

And there it was, Jacky thought. The first person she asked confirmed what Finn had told her. People believed in the darker creatures of Faerie, in ghosts and the undead, far more readily than they did in gnomes and the like. She was sure that if she asked anybody she knew, they’d come up with pretty much the same answer as Kate had given her.

“What’s with all this talk about spooks?” Kate asked. “Have you been reading Stephen King again?”

“I wish I was just reading about it.”

“What?”

Jacky frowned. “Nothing,” she said.

“Come on, Jacky. I know something’s bothering you.” She looked at Jacky, then shook her head. “God, what am I saying? First Will walks all over you, and then some lunatic on a motorcycle chases you all around Ottawa South. I wouldn’t exactly be jumping for joy either. This guy didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“No. But what if I told you I’d seen a gnome tonight?”

“I’d say ‘That’s nice.’ ”

“No, seriously.”

“I am being serious—it’s you that’s not making any sense.”

“What if I could prove it?”

Kate laughed. “Please don’t pull out some clipping from the
National Enquirer
.”

“No. I mean, what if I could show you what I meant?”

“You’re really serious?”

Jacky nodded.

“Oh, jeez. Now you’re scaring me.”

“Look,” Jacky said. “This biker that was chasing me—

“He was a gnome? Hell’s Gnomes? Come
on
.”

“No. He’s not a gnome. He’s a part of some kind of Wild Hunt. Remember in Caitlin Midhir’s book
Yarthkin
, when those riders are chasing the girl and one of them’s got these big antlers? It’s like that. Except they’re riding motorcycles.”

“Antlered men riding motorcycles?”

“I didn’t say he had antlers,” Jacky said a little crossly.

Kate held up a hand. “Time out. This is getting too weird for me, Jacky. And it’s scaring me because it’s not like you at all.”

“Is it because you’ve never seen anything like it before?”

“Well, that’s good for starters.”

“Well, you’ve never been to Japan before either. How do you know
it
exists?”

“I’ve seen pictures. I know people who’ve been there. I saw it in a movie.”

“Well, I saw
Gremlins
, but that doesn’t mean those little things are real. But this rider is, Kate. And I can prove it.”

Kate sighed. “Okay. For the sake of argument, prove it.”

“We have to go to the front of the house,” Jacky said standing up.

As she led the way, the redcap dangling from her hand, she was of two minds. On the one hand she wanted to prove to Kate that what she’d been experiencing was real, just to have someone else who could see it, someone to be there to tell her that she wasn’t going crazy. Because that was scary. But on the other hand, if the rider was there, that was even scarier. She didn’t know what she was hoping for, but by then they’d reached the living room. Standing by the front window, they looked out at the street. There was no one there. Just some parked cars. A cat was lying on the hood of one— the engine was probably still warm and it was stealing what heat it could before the metal cooled down.

“So now what happens?” Kate asked, peering up and down the street.