Charles de Lint - Forests of the Heart

“Hey, shite for brains!” she called after them.

The group paused. The leader’s gaze was like molten fire but Miki was too angry herself to care. She waved the bat at them.

“Why leave so soon?” she asked them. “You aren’t afraid of me, are you, you sorry pissants?”

For a moment the features of a wolf were superimposed over the leader’s features turning him into some morphing combination of beast and man. He bared his teeth and Miki could hear the growl in her chest from where she was standing. But she stood her ground.

“Don’t like it when your victim fights back, do you?” she said.

The hard man turned to the nearest hydro pole and lashed out with his foot. The crack of the wood snapping rang like a clap of thunder up the length of the street, then the pole came tumbling down, ripping phone and power lines apart as it did. Miki could feel the ground shake underfoot when the pole hit the ground. Live wires flashed sparks and flared, sending up showers of electrical discharges as they whipped in the air. The lights went out in the buildings all along the street.

Grinning, the leader of the Gentry made a gun with his forefinger and thumb and fired it at her. Then he turned and the pack loped off, out of sight.

Miki stared numbly at the damage that had been done. Brilliant, she told herself, her anger fled. Really sodding brilliant. The leader of the Gentry had been right. She was a stupid little bint. She couldn’t leave well-enough alone. No, she had to play the hero and now look where it had gotten them. No power, no heat. No phone service.

She turned slowly back into the dark store. When her gaze settled on the others, her guilt became more pronounced. Never mind the power and heat. Adam needed hospital care and how were they going to get him there now? She wasn’t sure if an ambulance could get through the mess that was out there on the streets, but they certainly couldn’t get him there on their own.

She tossed the bat away, wincing at the startled faces of her friends as it clattered against a display rack.

In her own way, she was no better than Donal, she realized. She hadn’t stopped to think how any of this might affect anyone else; she’d simply let her temper get the better of her again.

And she’d always been like this. You don’t really grow up no matter how old you get. But what was perhaps a little cute in a child, the frown surrounded by ringlets, the little stamping foot, wasn’t so endearing in a woman. Christ, all she had to do was think of Donal’s sour puss.

She got away with it because she was usually so relentlessly cheery, but that was still no excuse. All she had to do was look at Adam, ribs cracked surely, maybe some other more serious internal injuries, to know how wrong it was. Because when you only looked out for yourself, other people suffered. It was like the fucking Proves and IRA with their bombs and guns and endless retributions. The civilians were invariably the ones to suffer. The bystanders. It was so pathetic. She was pathetic. And not very proud of herself at all.

But she couldn’t wallow. Adam was seriously hurt, Titus and Fiona were standing around clueless. Someone had to take charge. She could beat herself up when this was all over.

“Come on,” she told Titus. “Let’s see if we can rig up something to carry him on.”

“I, uh, don’t think we should move him,” Titus said. “You’re not supposed to move people with a back or neck injury, are you?”

Fiona nodded. “I think he’s right.”

Oh, well done, Miki, she told herself. You’ve made a brilliant mess of this, haven’t you just?

“Okay,” she said. “New plan. See what you can find to keep Adam warm. I’ll go for help.”

Fiona gave her a worried look.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” she asked.

Probably not, Miki thought. But did it matter? It had to be done.

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

Before anyone could argue, she put on her coat and headed for the door. Just before she stepped outside, she thought about that look the leader of the Gentry had given her. The memory was enough to make her retrieve the baseball bat from where she’d thrown it in the corner and take it with her.

Hunter had hoped that the storm would let up by morning. But even if it didn’t, he’d thought that at least they’d be somewhere warm and safe. There might be warring spirits out there in the freezing rain, but here, inside, they had a wood-stove, food, protection from both the elements and the Gentry. There were worse places they could’ve ended up than this calm in the eye of the storm.

Wrong, he realized when he woke up.

Tired as he’d been, it had still taken him forever to get to sleep last night, lying awake in a borrowed sleeping bag near the woodstove, every sound magnified in his imagination to be one made by a hard man, breaking in. He felt as though he’d just gotten to sleep, but here it was, morning already, and the household humming in a bustle of ordered chaos.

Getting up from his sleeping bag, he joined Tommy where the other man was sitting on the couch. Hunter tried to clear the cobwebs from his head, but without much luck. He didn’t see either Aunt Nancy or Ellie around. There were only Tommy’s other two aunts, standing on the far side of the room, having what appeared to be an urgent conversation. Hunter couldn’t understand what they were saying since they were speaking in what he assumed was Kickaha.

“What’s going on?” he asked Tommy.

Tommy shrugged. “Everybody got some kind telepathic bad news except for you and me.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Be grateful for life’s small gifts.”

“No, I mean—”

“I know,” Tommy said. “I was joking. Or maybe not. This is all new to me, too.”

“But I thought you grew up with this stuff… the magic and spirits and everything.”

“Only with the stories,” Tommy said. “Not the reality of it.”

“So it is real… ?”

Hunter had been hoping that last night’s experiences had only been part of some complicated and confusing dream—never mind that he’d woken up here on the rez.

“Oh, yeah,” Tommy said. “And isn’t that a kicker?”

Hunter nodded slowly. To put it mildly. Because that meant he’d really killed one of the hard men last night. He, who’d never even stood up to school bullies except once in junior high when he’d gotten a black eye and bruised ribs for his trouble. Now he was a murderer. That it had been self-defense didn’t seem like much of an excuse when a man lay dead because of what he’d done. It was one thing in the movies, a vicarious thrill, rooting for the villain to get his comeuppance. But the movies didn’t tell you about the sick and empty feeling he had inside him right now. They didn’t tell you how to deal with it.

“Are you okay?” Tommy asked. Hunter nodded.

“Because—no offense—you look like hell.”

“I just didn’t sleep all that well,” Hunter told him.

Tommy looked as if he wanted more of an explanation than that, but just then Zulema stepped away from where she’d been talking with Sunday and gave the pair of them an expectant look.

“Come on,” she said. “You haven’t even got your coats on.”

“And we’re going where?” Tommy asked.

“The city. Haven’t you been paying attention?”

Tommy shook his head, obviously feeling as confused as Hunter himself felt.

“I hate to burst your bubble,” he said, “but we barely made it here in one piece last night. There’s no way we’re driving—or even walking—anywhere today. Not with that rain.”

“Don’t argue,” Zulema told him. “We need you to drive.”