Charles de Lint - Forests of the Heart

“Do… do you think they had anything to do with this?” Fiona said.

“No, it’s just the weather,” Miki told her, hoping she was right. “Look. They still have power across the street. I guess they’re on a different part of the grid.”

“Why doesn’t this comfort me?”

Miki laid her accordion on the floor and stood up.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s light some of those candles of yours.”

“And make sure the front door is locked.”

Miki hesitated a moment, head cocked to listen, sure for a moment that she heard Gentry boots on the stairs coming up to Fiona’s apartment.

“And make sure the door’s locked,” she agreed.

It was almost midnight before Donal finally made it up to Kellygnow. He never did find his van and it took forever to flag down a cab, mostly because there were none out on the street by the time he left Hunter at Miki’s apartment. Who could blame them? The weather was worse than foul and there were no fares to be had anyway. The whole city was shutting down. Donal trudged past closed restaurants, convenience stores, clubs, theaters, diners. The only people he met were city and hydro workers. The only vehicles belonged to police and other emergency services, so there were no rides to be had. He was happy to keep his distance from the former and wouldn’t have presumed on the latter.

But a cab eventually stopped for him. The driver was off duty, on his way home and heading west anyway. He took pity on Donal, driving him across town and over the river at Lakeside Drive, before finally letting him out at the bottom of Handfast Road. Donal tried to pay for the ride, but the cabbie shook his head.

“Do somebody else a good turn,” he said.

“Thanks, mate,” he told the cabbie. “I will.”

Maybe stick a blade in the guts of one of the Gentry. Rip the smug smirking grin from a hard man’s gob as he felt his life turning to shite and bleeding away on him. That’d make for a good turn wouldn’t it?

“Drive carefully,” he added as he shut the cab door.

He stood in the freezing rain and watched as the vehicle pulled a one-eighty, piece of cake on the icy street, and headed back across the river. Donal was impressed. You had to be a damn fine driver to pull a trick like that in these conditions. When the cab’s taillights finally blinked out behind the hump in the road that rose up in the middle of the bridge, he started up Handfast. And got nowhere.

The road proved impassable. It was so steep and slick with ice that he couldn’t get a foothold. Eventually, he went by the back way, up through the backyards of the big expensive estates, breaking the thick crust of ice on top of the snow with each step. It was just as wet and miserable as being on the street, but Jaysus, at least he had traction. For the first time since he’d left the hotel where he’d woken up earlier this evening, he felt as though he was actually in full command of his own limbs, instead of simply trying to keep his balance. Still, the going was slow.

The night was full of sound as he went. He kept hearing the sharp crack of tree limbs breaking, the thumps of the branches falling, the tinkle like breaking glass as the smaller twigs and bits of broken ice went skittering across the crusted ice.

Halfway up he saw the huge limb of a Manitoba maple split from the main tree trunk and come crashing down on the side of a house, stoving in the roof, walls, windows. The house’s security system kicked in and a shrill alarm began to bleat.

Donal paused, wondering if he should see if anyone needed help, but then shook his head and continued on. The fat buggers in these houses thought they shat roses. Let them have a little taste of real hardship. Do ’em bloody good.

The alarm followed him up the hill, until it was suddenly turned off. He glanced back, but the place was out of sight by now. His gaze moved on to take in what he could see of the city through the winter-bare trees. The carpet of lights he’d been expecting was present, but there were patches here and there where areas were blacked out. Power failures. As he watched, another section, a few dozen blocks, winked out, just like that.

Jaysus, what a bloody night. It was like magic, more power to it. The whole world feeling a bit of his own misery. Inconvenienced, are you? Power failed and you can’t run out and spend your cash? Well, sod you. Sod on the lot of you.

He was grinning as he finally made it up through the trees behind Kellygnow, soaked to the skin and shivering, legs aching from the hard trek of breaking through the ice crust with each step.

“In a good mood, are we?” a voice asked him from out of the darkness.

“Why not?” he replied. “It’s a fucking beautiful night.”

One of the Gentry stepped out from the trees, a smile flickering on his lips.

“You’re the hard little shite, aren’t you?” he said.

“Maybe. But not as hard as you lot.”

“Don’t you forget that, boyo.”

All Donal wanted to do was grab him and start pounding his Gentry head against the nearest tree, but that would serve no purpose except to allow him to vent his anger. There was no percentage in it. Nothing to be gained. Donal could be patient. Time enough to deal with them when he had the mask. Until then, they were simply walking dead men, so far as he was concerned. But powerful enough in their own way. No need to test their mettle.

So he put on a friendly mask, the one he always wore around the Gentry, a little hard, a lot wary. They liked it that he stood up for himself, but they liked to think they scared him, too. He could accommodate them. He’d always been good with masks, but then most people were. Who showed their true face, their true feelings, anymore? The Green Man mask would simply be one more, though more potent to be sure. When he had that, all the other masks could be thrown away.

For now he squinted at the hard man. He was looking for something you wouldn’t know was there unless you knew to keep an eye out for it. The heavy sleet continued to pound down on him while the hard man was unaffected and Donal knew why. It was because he stood between, in that uncertain and shifting place that separated this world from faerie. It wasn’t a place Donal could find on his own, but with the hard man there, he could mark its boundaries. He slid a foot forward, concentrated on not looking straight at it, coming to it sideways, and then he was there, too, watching the rain, rather than feeling it, sensing the cold, but untouched by it.

He wiped the water from his face, raked his fingers through beard and hair to break up and dislodge the ice that had crusted on it. That was better.

“What’re you up to tonight, boyo?” the hard man asked him.

“I’ve come to see Ellie, but I got a little delayed by the weather.”

“She’s gone. Drove off in that van.”

With Tommy, Donal thought, translating the shorthand. So they’d actually gone off to make their rounds in the Angel Outreach minivan. Well, good luck to them in this weather. Considering what he’d seen on the way over, the only people they’d be serving up toddies and treats to would be police and repairmen.

“She’ll be back,” Donal said.

The hard man shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. There’s been a problem.”

Donal turned to look at him.

“Your man in the music store,” the hard man said.

“Hunter?”

“That’s a good name for him, considering.”

“Considering what?”

“How he’s up and murdered one of us.”

Donal’s eyes widened slightly, the mask almost slipping. Jaysus, he thought. Good on you, Hunter. I didn’t think you had it in you. But you’d better run far and fast now because you’ve gone and signed your own bloody death warrant, don’t think for a moment you haven’t.