Charles de Lint - Forests of the Heart

Nuala smiled. “Something like that.”

“How do you know all this?” Bettina asked Chantal.

“I told you before,” Chantal said. “I grew up on fairy tales.”

When this was all over, Bettina planned to go the library and catch up. For now there was too much else to do, though she couldn’t resist trying to satisfy another small puzzle if she could.

“That woman,” Bettina asked Nuala. “You called her Sarah, but I thought her name was Musgrave.”

“She owns them both, but Sarah was the earlier of the two.”

“Sarah Wood?”

Nuala shook her head. “Sarah Hanson. The woman who originally had Kellygnow built as an artist’s retreat.”

“But she’s…”

“Long dead?” Nuala finished for her. “So she would be. But she struck a bargain with the wolves. By spending much of each year in the spiritworld, her life has been extended. Have you not noticed that humans who spend much time there don’t age as other people do?”

So that was how Abuela could have lived what seemed like more than one lifetime.

Nuala turned her attention to Chantal now.

“How much do you know?” she asked the sculptor.

Chantal sighed. “Way too much.”

Nuala nodded. “So it seems at first. Come,” she added. “We have work to do at the house. We will speak more of this later.”

“But the Glasduine…” Bettina began.

“Is hunting wolves,” Nuala told her. “And that’s not such a bad thing, is it?”

That depends, Bettina thought, worried for her own wolf. But she kept it to herself.

There wasn’t going to be a miracle, Miki realized. The hard men were going to have their way just like they always did. They’d trash the place. They’d beat her and everybody else up, maybe worse, and there was nothing they could do to stop them. Because these weren’t human bullies. They were living remnants of what had been waiting for us in the darkness since time primordial, ready to pounce and tear as soon as we left the cave, the hearth, the safe haven. They were spite and cruelty given human shape, but there was nothing human about them.

As though to emphasize the point, one of the Gentry standing near the front racks straight-armed the new release display and sent it crashing to the ground. CDs flew in all directions. A few landed near him and he crushed their jewel cases under the heel of his boot.

“You owe us,” the leader told her, grinning.

His thick accent woke a flood of memories in Miki. Dimly lit pubs, the smell of cigarettes and beer, Fergus and his cronies, their faces flushed with Guinness and spite as dark as fresh peat.

“And these,” another of the Gentry said, crushing more jewel cases underfoot, “aren’t enough.”

The leader nodded. “We need blood.”

Their sheer, ignorant callousness was what put Miki in motion. She was still desperately afraid, but she was more angry. As one of the Gentry moved toward the counter, she picked up the stool she’d been sitting on and flung it at him. If Hunter could stand up to them, she thought, then so could she.

“You stupid little bint,” the leader said.

He moved now. When Adam tried to block his way, he grabbed Adam by the shirt and flung him across the room. Adam landed badly, falling against the CD bins, before tumbling to the floor with his face twisting in pain. That crash brought the others from the back room. Miki saw Fiona come out first, followed by Titus, who took one look at what was going on and darted back out of sight.

Get out of here, too, Miki wanted to shout at Fiona. Before they see you.

But there was no time for warnings. She was too busy looking after herself.

Another of the Gentry had leapt up onto the counter. Miki saw only two choices. Bolt for the open space beyond the counter and have him jump on her back, or take the offensive. She didn’t even have to think about it. As the hard man swung a boot at her, she grabbed his leg and pulled it out from under him. He fell awkwardly, his spine hitting the cash register. He slid off it onto the counter, pushing magazines and the phone onto the floor by Miki’s feet. But he was kicking out as he fell and one foot connected. The blow sent her staggering back, knocking the CD player and all the promo CDs off the shelf behind her. She fell on top of them, scrambled to get back on her feet, but then the leader was standing over her. He gave her a kick that caught her in the shoulder and threw her back onto the slippery pile of CDs. Her eyes flooded with tears of pain.

That’s it, then, she thought, feeling oddly distanced and calm for all that her pulse was drumming in overtime. The next kick would take her in the head. If she was lucky, she’d wake up in hospital. If she wasn’t…

But the attack broke off as suddenly as it began. As one, the hard men lifted their heads to stand like statues, some dark ache flaring in their eyes, twisting grimaces from their lips. Their heads all turned to look out the window. Miki had no idea what they were seeing, what was going on. There was only the rain out there, the empty streets. Still, she took the opportunity to crabwalk backwards, out of range of the leader’s boots. When she neared the man she’d toppled from the counter, she grabbed the phone and smashed it down on his head, then looked at the leader, ready to throw it at him. But he was still preoccupied with whatever it was that he sensed or saw outside.

When the Gentry started for the door, leaving their fallen comrade behind, Miki slowly rose to her feet, steadying her balance by holding onto the edge of the counter. She watched them step out into the rain, one by one, trench coats flapping against their legs. The leader was the last to leave. He turned to look at her from the doorway, an unreadable, confusing expression in his eyes. But there was nothing confusing about the threat he left her with.

“We’ll be back,” he told Miki. “We have unfinished business, you and I.” Then he was gone as well.

This made no sense at all.

She stared at the door, sure they’d come sauntering back any moment to finish what they’d begun, laughing at the joke, at the false hope their departure might have woken, but the only thing coming in through the open door were splatters of freezing rain and a growing puddle. Catching movement from the corner of her eye, she turned to see Titus stepping warily out of the back room with a baseball bat in hand.

That was unexpected as well. Diffident Titus going all fierce? Next Fiona would go surfer-blonde.

She moved her arm, working her shoulder muscle. It didn’t hurt as much as she expected, though she knew she’d have bruises for souvenirs—there and on her torso. Her gaze dropped to the hard man lying still at her feet. He didn’t move when she toed him. Perhaps she’d killed him.

Serve him right, she thought as she stepped over his limp form and joined the others. Fiona was kneeling beside Adam, pushing the hair from his eyes.

“What happened to them?” she asked, looking up at Miki. “What made them go?”

“I have no idea,” Miki said.

Adam tried to move. He moaned, scowling at the pain the movement brought. His face was so white it was like typing paper.

“We need to get him to the hospital,” Fiona said.

Miki nodded, not really listening. She was still filled with fury at how the hard men had come in, so ready to hurt them, and for what? To prove they could. That was all. To prove they could.

She looked at the bat in Titus’s hand.

“You’ve just jumped way up in my estimation,” she told him as she took the bat from his hand and headed for the door.

“Miki,” Fiona said. “We really have to get Adam some help.”

But Miki wasn’t listening at all now. She stepped out into the rain and saw the Gentry making their way down the street, walking in a group, about to turn off onto a cross street and head west.