She played the tune through once again, and then a third time. Before the echo of the last notes died away, she’d thrust the pipe back into its wet bag and was running silently along the canal, south to where the Jack’s Tower stood in Crowdie Wort’s Bally.
The first bogan was the worst.
Jacky came upon him where the Rideau Canal made a sharp westward turn near the corner of the Queen Elizabeth Driveway and Waverley Street. He was a great hulking squat lump of a creature, reeking of stale sweat and old swamps. She stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of him, her knees knocking against each other. The little voice of reason in the back of her head came back, but now it was only crying getawaygetaway in an ascending panicked wail.
She was all set to do just that, but the creature merely nodded in greeting to her.
“I’d rather be eating than creeping, hot damn,” he muttered to her.
Jacky remembered Finn’s warning about how his stitcheries couldn’t disguise their voices, and managed a rough assenting grunt.
“Spike ‘em all,” she added.
Her voice didn’t have the right sort of deep grumble to her ears, but the bogan didn’t appear to notice. She stilled the tiny voice wailing in the back of her head and stood a little straighter.
“Ho!” the bogan said. “I’d like to see you spike the droichan a little toadsucker like you.”
“Spike you, too,” Jacky told him, growing braver.
It was the right thing to say. The bogan laughed and gave her a rough clap on the back before going on. She watched him go, breathing through her mouth until the air wasn’t quite so filled with his reek, then headed on herself.
That wasn’t so hard, she thought, her confidence boosted by the encounter. Though, she had to admit, she didn’t smell much better than he did.
She ran into more and more Unseelie creatures, the closer she got to the Tower, and no one seemed to pay her any more mind than they did to each other. Only the little creatures called gullywudes that appeared to be nothing more than little stick and twig bundles held together by who knew what eyed her strangely, plucking at her arms and legs. She got quite nervous until she saw that they did much the same with the other bogans, who merely clubbed them with their big fists when they got too near. She hit a few of the ones closest to her and they soon left her alone as well.
“Damn little shitheads,” a bogan remarked to her as a new crowd came upon both of them on the street in front of the Tower. They both battered them away. “I’d eat the crowd of them, hot damn, if they didn’t taste like toothpicks,” he added.
Jacky nodded in agreement and followed him up onto the porch of the Tower and inside.
“Find anything?” a black-bearded duergar asked the first bogan when they stepped into the hallway.
The dwarf was two-thirds the bogan’s height, but the bogan took a half-step back from him. Jacky wondered if he was an Unseelie skillyman by the way the bogan acted, then spotted the elder wand thrust in the dwarf’s belt. By that she knew he was a gruagagh of sorts what Finn called a widdyman. He had skilly abilities, but used them widdershins to work bad luck rather than good.
“Not a damn hair,” the bogan replied.
“What about you?” the duergar demanded of Jacky.
She simply shook her head.
“Then what are you doing back here, you toadsuckers?” the widdyman demanded. “The boss said find her!”
“I look better with a full belly,” the bogan told him.
“Nothing could make you look better, arsebreath.”
“No, Greim. I mean”
“I know what you meant,” Greim replied, and shook his head wearily. He jerked a hand over his shoulder towards the kitchen. “See what you can find,” he added, “but then get your arses back out there. You wouldn’t like to see the boss get mad at you, now would you?”
Taking her cue from the bogan, Jacky shook her head as he did and followed him into the kitchen, where a great crowd of creatures were milling about. The door to the fridge stood ajar and there was little left in it. Every bit of foodstuff had been pulled from the cupboards and the crowd was picking through the remains.
Gullywudes tugged and plucked indiscriminately at empty cereal boxes and the clothing of other creatures. A troll sat hunched in the kitchen nook, all nine feet of his length folded up so that his knees almost touched his brows as he popped chunks of bread into the maw of his mouth. He held the remainder of the loaf protectively under his arm and swung out at any creature that came near him. A hag stood by the sink and was pulling down cups and saucers. She dropped them one by one on the floor, where they shattered to the applause of a pair of goblins and some gullywudes that were standing around her. Two bogans were hacking at a frozen roast with their knives, cursing picturesquely as only bogans can.
Seeing that crowd of creatures, the mess that they were making of the kitchen and with their reek in the air, Jacky had to lean against the doorjamb for a moment. The mess almost broke her heart. When Kate saw this
Her collection of English cottage pictures smashed to the floor, her teacups and saucers all broken, her pride-and-joy teapot a cow sitting on its haunches that poured tea from its mouth lying in a dozen pieces right by Jacky’s feet
.
Jacky blinked hard. She cast a quick look down the hall to where the widdyman Greim was berating a new set of arrivals, another look into the kitchen where everyone was too busy to notice anything she might do, then she slipped up the stairs.
Any moment she expected to hear the alarm go off, but she soon discovered that the upper floors of the Tower weren’t off-limits. Through the open doors she passed, she saw more Unseelie creatures lounging about in the ruins of what had been Kate’s and her own bedrooms. The reek was stronger up here as well, for there were sluagh drifting restlessly about. A pair passed her going downstairs and she almost cried out at the cold clammy touch of their misty bodies, the drowned faces that they turned towards her. The restless dead of the Unseelie Court probably scared Jacky more than all the others combined, giants included.
Shivering, she hurried up to the third floor. There, perhaps because of Bhruic’s spell that made the room seem empty, she finally found herself alone. She’d half-expected the droichan to be in here, but she realized now that he must be out searching with the rest of them.
She moved quickly to the hollowed leg of the worktable and removed the wallystanes, tying their bag to the belt that held up her jeans. This was going to be easier than she’d thought. Congratulating herself on her wisdom for going through with it, she went to the window.
There she hesitated, looking out on the broad nightscape of Kinrowan spread out before her. She was still a little nervous about this mode of transportation. Sure, it had worked once. She just wished she knew more about it. Maybe it would be smarter than to go back downstairs and brave her way through the Unseehe creatures once more.
She started to turn, then shook her head. No, that was being a chickenshit. This was going to work.
She put her foot up on the sill and started to draw herself up, when the view disappeared. The window went black. She stumbled back, almost losing her balance. Catching hold of the sill, she drew closer, trying to look out through the sudden darkness. It was as though someone had dropped a curtain down in front of the window. She put out her hand and touched something cold and ghostly damp. Before she could withdraw, two red eyes blinked open and stared at her with a mocking expression in their depths.
Leaving so soon? a voice said in her mind.
Jacky recognized the droichan’s voice. She stepped back from the window, her knees going all watery on her again. She thought of making a break for the door, but the droichan had foreseen that. A long, tentacle-like shadow arm lunged out from the deeper darkness beyond the window and slammed the door shut.
I thought you might be back, the droichan went on conversationally. That’s why I left a Little safeguard an the door to warn me if you returned. The amus
ed gaze studied her again. Not a bad duiguuie. Did you. make it yourself, or did one of your Little bob friends put it together for you?
Jacky’s fear was like a nail screeching on a chalkboard. Whatever courage she might have had shivered up and down her spine, then huddled cowering in some deep corner of her mind.
“What
what are you going to
to do with me?” she asked in a small voice.
Oh, we’ll talk some, the droichan replied. I have some distance to travel before I can be here with you in person, but then I’m sure we’ll find some way to amuse ourselves. You might consider how you’ll transfer Bhruic’s power to me.
“But I don’t know
how
.”
The red eyes seemed to pin her soul. The droichan’s voice when it echoed in her mind again, went through her like shivers of ice.
We’ll find a way, little Jack. Even if I have to take you apart, piece by piece. We’ll find a way.
All the strength went out of Jacky’s body and she sank to her knees on the hardwood floor. She slumped there, hardly hearing what the droichan was saying anymore as he rambled on. All she could do was wait for him to return to the Tower in person, numb with the realization that she’d blown it again.
How did you spell Jacky Rowan?
That was easy. S-T-U-P-I-D.
She didn’t doubt that the droichan would find a way to get the information out of her even if she didn’t consciously know it herself. And then her friends no, not just them, but all of Kinrowan would be in the droichan’s power.
Distantly, she heard a sound then, a faerie pipe playing a calling-on tune. The eyes of her captor closed, returning the window to a wall of blackness, and she knew that the droichan’s shadow was looking outward, seeking the source of that sound. She thought of trying to escape while his attention was turned away but before she could move, the red gaze was fixed on her once again.
The ghost of the Pook is calling up her rade, he informed her.
The ghost of the Pook? Well, why not?
I will have to see that a suitable welcome waiting for her if she plans to ride on this Tower.
Jacky closed her eyes. Strangely enough, she didn’t feel so frightened anymore. Something in that calling-on tune had heartened her. But when the droichan’s gaze fixed on her once more, a bleakness settled over her and she just felt dead inside.
Finn and Gwi said their farewells on Wellington Street. The forester was mounted on a tall, golden steed one of the Laird’s own mounts that could claim a direct lineage from the huge White Horses of the old country who left their chalk outlines on the sides of hills when they died. Gwi, even with the stature that her troll blood gave her, looked like a doll perched on its back.
“At times like these,” she said, “I wish we’d acquired the use of some human tools like a telephone.”
“I’d use one,” Finn said, “only who in Faerie could I call?”
A brief smile touched Gwi’s lips. “Exactly. I’ll be back in two days with what word I can gather and a company of foresters. Don’t do anything foolish until then, Finn.”
“I’m not brave,” Finn assured her.
“I’m not so sure the line between the two’s a thin one at the best of times.”
“Take care,” Finn said.
Gwi nodded and the hob slapped the horse’s flank. Such was the animal’s speed that before he could count to three, Gwi and her mount were long gone from sight. He hoped Gwi would take care. The Harvest Fair was at Ballymoresk and faerie from all over gathered to it. But near Ballymoresk was also the largest Unseelie Court in eastern Canada.
He sighed and started back for Gump’s home, hoping that the trow and Kate would be back when he arrived. When he returned, all he found was Jacky’s note.
“Oh, damn!” he muttered. “That foolish, well-meaning Jack.”
He crumpled the note in his hand, was about to throw it away, then thought better of it and thrust it into his pocket. He’d have to gather up Gump and Kate and go back to the Tower with them. He only hoped they’d still find Jacky in one piece.
When he stepped outside, he smelled the darkness in the air the darkness of Unseelie creatures loose and abroad. Oh, they were brave now with a droichan to boss them and most of the Court away to the Fair. And why shouldn’t they be?
He shut the entrance to Gump’s home with a softly spoken word. Before he could take a step, though, he heard the faltering sound of a sidhe pipe finding its tune, then the ringing notes of a calling-up music. The sound came from close by and he started to jog in its direction, reaching its source just in time to see a bedraggled and wet Pook thrust her pipe into a bag hanging from her shoulder before she set off at a quick pace.
Oh, this was a bad night, no doubt of it. The Court away, a droichan loose, the Unseelie Court abroad and hunting, and now the sidhe gathering for a war rade.
As he ran after the Pook the direction she’d taken was the same he needed to follow to find Gump and Kate he hoped that there would be something left of Faerie when the sun finally turned its dawn face their way.
With her hob-stitched shoes, Kate was just able to keep up with Gump’s pace-eating stride. After a few blocks, the trow took her on his shoulders to go more quickly and they reached the street they were looking for in record time.
“This has to be it,” Kate said.
Gump crouched so that she could clamber down from her perch and then the two of them stared across the street, studying the building. The house stood in the middle of the block, empty windows staring darkly out onto the street. On the lawn of the two-storied structure was a sign that read:
Another Renovation By
J. Cours and Sons Ltd.
A red maple, its leaves beginning to turn, and a clutch of cedars appeared to lean away from the house as though avoiding even its shadow. The lawn was somewhat unkempt, riddled with clumps of spike-leafed weeds.
Kate didn’t like the look of the place, and now that they were here, she wasn’t all that sure exactly what they were going to do. The house looked deserted, but there was a sense of something sentient about the way its windows looked out at the street, the drop of its roofline hanging over them like the low hairline of a browless troll. She glanced at Gump.
“What should we do?” she asked.
“We go in.”
“That’s what I was afraid you were going to say.”
The trow patted her shoulder. “Don’t be afraid, Kate. The droichan’s not here I’d sense him if he was. Now, come on.”
He rose up like a small mountain standing at her side and started across the street. Kate sighed and followed in his wake.
“I was worrying more about what the droichan might have left behind,” she muttered to Gump’s back.
“Only one way to find out,” Gump replied.
The porch creaked under his weight. The question of how they were going to get in died on Kate’s lips as Gump struck the door with the flat side of his elbow. He hit it near the lock and tore the lock right out of the wood.
“They took more care in building doors in the old days,” he remarked to Kate as he stepped into the darkened hallway. “I can remember a time when it took myself and a brother a good minute to break one down. Of course, every hall had its own skillyman in those days.”
Kate kept close behind him, not really listening to what he was saying. She felt an all too real sensation of being watched as they moved slowly down the hall and stepped into the first room. To her surprise, the room was furnished. True, the sofa and chairs were old, the coffee table’s surface scarred with deep scratches, the carpet threadbare and faded, the two pictures on the wall hanging askew with their glass broken on the floor below them, but it was still more than she’d expected.
“Can you sense someone in here with us?” she whispered to Gump.
The trow turned away from the fake mantelpiece and cocked his head, considering.
“Something,
” he admitted finally. “But it’s more an echo than a presence, as though it’s only a memory of something that was here and is now gone.”
“The droichan?”
“Something with his kind of power if not the droichan himself.”
“Wonderful,” Kate said. “The last thing we need now is two of him.”
“It seems to be stronger upstairs,” the trow said.
He moved back into the hallway, floorboards creaking ominously underfoot. Kate clutched at the bag that held Caraid, quite happy to let Gump take the lead again. The stairs sagged under the trow’s weight, but that didn’t seem to particularly concern him. Kate followed uneasily, sure that if some creature of the droichan’s didn’t get them, then the house would simply collapse about them and bury them in its basement.
She passed a light switch at the top of the stairs and gave it a try, but nothing happened. That made sense. Why would the electricity be on in a place like this? J. Cours and his sons had quite the job lined up for themselves in renovating it.
Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the dimness now, enough so that she thought she’d be able to read. Tugging Caraid free from its bag, she began to tell the book about the house and its condition.
“Any ideas where the droichan might have hidden his heart?” she asked when she was done.
She held the book up to a nearby window for better light.
Dear Kate, the book replied in Bhruic Dearg’s clear script. I told you before. You must know the droichan’s mind before you can riddle the location of his heart.
“Can’t you even guess?” Kate asked.
I need something to base my guess on.
“Oh, come on,” Kate said. “Guessing’s just luck that’s all.”
“Then perhaps we should have had Jacky accompany us,” Gump said. “We could use a Jack’s luck in this.”
“This house had a grey aura when we saw it from the special window in the Tower,” Kate said. “Doesn’t that mean the droichan was here?”