Moonheart

by Charles de Lint

  “Like UFO sightings,” Hogue had explained. “There’s no way we can know exactly what it was they did see. What has happened is, somehow, they’ve convinced themselves that Constable Thompson turned into some sort of a monster. The recent glut of movies like The Wolfen and An American Werewolf in London are as much to blame as anything.”

  “Twenty-four people all dreaming they saw the wolfman?” Tucker had asked. “How the hell’s that possible?”

  The antagonism between them had been set aside. This was so far outside the boundaries of his own experience that Tucker was suffering from a sense of helplessness.

  “What we’re obviously dealing with,” Hogue said, “is a very powerful telepath. To be able to project his will on that many people . . .”

  Tucker massaged his temples as he thought back on their conversation. Maybe telepathy explained what the witnesses saw, but it didn’t explain how Foy and Kendell had pulled their disappearing act. At least he’d managed to keep it away from the press, swearing the witnesses to silence in the interests of national security. He doubted the cock-and-bull story about an armed robbery foiled by an off-duty policeman would hold up for very long. But it might hold up long enough for them to get a handle on the situation themselves.

  The trouble was they just didn’t have anything hard. The facts were Thompson was dead and Hengwr, Foy and now Sara Kendell were missing. Everything else was just speculation and weirdness. The coroner’s report was in on Thompson. He’d died of massive burns. Concentrated burns. Jesus. What a way to go. Fried. Like a goddamned slab of beef that someone had taken a torch to.

  Opening his desk drawer, Tucker shook a couple of aspirin from a bottle, looked for something to wash them down with, then swallowed them dry, grimacing at the taste. As he was replacing the bottle, his gaze went to the four warrants that Madison had dropped off earlier in the evening. He’d dragged Judge Peterson from a dinner party to get them signed. Now all Tucker had to do was serve them.

  He pulled them out and spread them on his desk, one by one. Thomas Hengwr. Kieran Foy. James Stewart Tamson, aka Jamie Tams. Sara Kendell.

  Where did he start? With Tamson, he supposed. But if he was anything like Foy. . . . How do you pick up someone who can vanish? Someone who can fry you with‌—what the hell did Hogue call it? Some kind of pyrokinetic power. Shit. Dealing with this was like trying to take out a houseful of terrorists, armed to the teeth, while all you had was a peashooter.

  Tucker stared into the darkened corners of his office. Was one of them sitting there right now, watching him? What were their capabilities? Better still, what were their weaknesses? This had gone a little beyond grabbing a couple of spooks so that Hogue and his pals could give them a once over in the lab. Now one of his men was dead.

  Tucker had a privileged position on the Force. He made as much as a Deputy Commissioner, for all his rank of Special Inspector. He was a troubleshooter‌—something the brass would never admit existed in the first place. He kept the rank of Inspector, but didn’t work out of an office like his colleagues. He was on the street more often than not. He was answerable only to Madison, who in turn bypassed the Commissioner and reported directly to the Solicitor General.

  He had a Corporal and five Constables under him. That was his squad. He had access to the rest of the force’s manpower and resources, but he and his squad did the main work. Their specialties were big drug busts, terrorists, organized crime, security on visits from foreign heads of state (where they worked in conjunction with the Secret Service), stop-gapping security leaks‌—international, national, or internal.

  It was work Tucker liked. He felt he was accomplishing something. And even though three got off for every one he put away, he was still doing something. But this . . . this Project Spook. The whole fucking operation stank. Thompson’s features swam into his mind’s eye‌—the way he’d looked this morning when Tucker had debriefed him, and the way he was now: a stiff in the morgue. Vacant. Empty. Nobody home.

  Tucker gathered up the warrants and stuffed them in the inside breast pocket of his jacket. He’d go down and pick up one of his squad and have a little chat with Jamie Tams. Collins would do nicely. After all, he’d been Thompson’s partner. Tucker flexed his fingers. Remembering his two meetings with Tams earlier in the day, he doubted that Jamie had any of the paranormal attributes that Hogue claimed Foy and Hengwr did. And if he did . . . Tucker decided that at this point he just didn’t give a shit. Tams was simply going to have to have some fucking good explanations. At least he’d better if he knew what was good for him.

  Jamie was worried. Normally Sara rang up when she wasn’t going to be home for dinner. It was getting very late‌—going on midnight‌—and after the past day’s events . . .

  He turned from the window overlooking O’Connor Street and crossed the study to his desk, following one of the well worn paths that had left faded trails in the Persian carpet his grandfather had covered the floor with those many years ago. Sitting at the desk, he regarded Memoria’s terminal for long moments. The word PROCEED flickered blue on the screen.

  Jamie thought for a moment, typed in the word BONES, then thought some more. He was trying to run a check through Memoria’s banks to see what references she could come up with on Sara’s artifacts, but was having a hard time concentrating. Blue had taken his bike down to the store around six-thirty and returned with the report that the place was all locked up, and no, there didn’t seem to be anything unusual around the shop, and no, he hadn’t seen Sara along the way, and no, she wasn’t in Kamal’s with Julie nor at the smoke shop. Nor, Jamie had ascertained, was she at the apartment of any of her small circle of friends.

  So where was she?

  He sighed, typed out a qualifier ANTLERS. Nothing, QUARTER MOON. Nothing. What were the designs that ran along the rim of the bone disc? He scratched his chin through his beard, then typed in CELTIC RIBBONWORK.

  Data from his files flashed by on the screen and Jamie scanned it half-heartedly. He kept his finger depressed on a key and a small white cursor sped rapidly down the screen.

  Maybe he should try the hospitals, he thought. Or the police. . . . No. Scratch that.

  A light beside the computer began to blink and the screen darkened. When the light stopped blinking, BONES remained at the top of the screen. Under it were the symbols: ???

  Jamie frowned, finding it hard to divide his attention between what was happening in Memoria and what was going around in his head. He knew he wasn’t going about this right, but theoretically working on this puzzle should have kept him from thinking about Sara. Should have, but didn’t.

  He expected her to come bounding into his study at any moment. Or at least call. He didn’t like feeling like a worried old hen‌—the image didn’t suit him. Except here he sat, brooding like a father with his daughter out on her first date. Except that father didn’t have on his mind what Jamie had on his. And‌—

  What was he doing? Jamie asked himself. It was getting bad when he started having conversations with himself.

  He entered GAMES and diligently went through the long list that appeared on the screen. What else could he qualify “bones” with? The refrain to an old song ran through his head: “Take off your skin and dance around in your bones. . . .” Right. Just the thing. It was probably something very simple. Or it could just be something that wasn’t entered in Memoria’s voluminous memory banks. His Aenigma files were incredibly bulky, storing not only what information he’d garnered for himself over the years, but also much of his father and grandfather’s findings as well, though he was not nearly finished sifting through their journals. Plus there was the information that his correspondents sent him. Unfortunately, the information he wanted was probably something he had no reference to at all.

  He tapped his finger on the desktop. What if that Inspector had arrested Sara? How could he find out? Look up the RCMP in the yellow pages and give them a ring? Sure. And they’d just answer whatever he had to ask them. Why n
ot ask for a crystal ball while he was at it?

  His finger stopped tapping. Crystal ball. For a moment his worries dropped from him. Feeling the first taste of excitement he’d had since he started this search, he typed out ORACULAR DEVICES.

  Bingo! Now here was a meaty list. He ran the cursor down it, pausing at an unfamiliar word, WEIRDIN. He did a reference check and came up with the definition: ADJ./SCOTS ORIGIN/EMPLOYED FOR THE PURPOSE OF DIVINATION. That wasn’t good enough. First of all, it was in a list of oracular devices‌—as a noun, not an adjective. Secondly, he wasn’t familiar with the term‌—at least not in this particular connotation. Curious now, he asked the computer for more information.

  The screen shimmered, like an old man clearing his throat before expounding on some anecdote, then a new body of print appeared. Jamie grew more puzzled as he read it through.

  WEIRDIN. ORACULAR DEVICE SIMILAR TO EGYPTIAN TAROT OR CHINESE BOOK OF CHANGES. COMPRISED OF SIXTY-ONE TWO-SIDED FLAT ROUND DISCS MADE OF BONE, WITH AN IMAGE CARVED ON EITHER SIDE: ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO IMAGES IN ALL. DIVIDED INTO THIRTEEN PRIME; TWENTY-THREE SECONDARY (FIFTEEN FIRST RANK AND EIGHT SECOND RANK); AND TWENTY-FIVE TERTIARY (NINE STATIC AND SIXTEEN MOBILE).

  Screened images began to appear on the screen, showing either side of a round disc with a description to the right of the image. As they started at the bottom of the screen and slowly drifted upwards to disappear into the topmost portion, Jamie stared. He typed a request and Memoria started the images again from the beginning. As the first hit center screen, Jamie pushed hold. There it was. The ribbonwork, antlers on one side, quarter moon on the other. Sara’s bone disc.

  The legend to the right read:

  PRIME ONE

  A] THE HORNED LORD‌—LORD OF ANIMALS AND THE WORLD’S WOOD; ASPECT OF CERNUNNOS, PAN, ETC.; SUPERNATURAL POWER, PROTECTION.

  B] THE MOON MOTHER‌—THE WHITE GODDESS IN ALL HER ASPECTS; IMMORTALITY, PERPETUAL RENEWAL, ENLIGHTENMENT.

  Jamie released the hold and the image went drifting upwards. He read the others as they went by.

  THE GREY MAN/THE BLUE MAIDEN.

  THE QUEEN OF OTTERS/THE OLD FERN MAN.

  THE HARPER, OR WREN/THE PIPER.

  The computer ran through all thirteen Prime bones, then started on the Secondary ones.

  THE HAZEL STAFF/THE IRON SWORD.

  THE THISTLE CLOAK/THE MIRROR.

  Reaching out, Jamie blacked the screen, saw that his hand was trembling and sat back in his chair, staring at nothing.

  He had never entered that information into Memoria. He knew that. He was the only person who used it, storing his findings. Anything else, whether from his correspondents or the journals of his father and grandfather, was entered only by him. No one else touched it. And if he hadn’t entered the information . . .

  And such information. The images struck right to the heart. The Hazel Staff was magic power, journeying, wisdom. What else could it be if you correlated it with mythological symbolism? The Iron Sword was justice, courage, authority.

  This was it‌—the key he’d been searching for for all these years. Leaning forward, he reactivated the screen. He typed in WEIRDIN, then SOURCE? Moments later the answer was on the screen. Pale blue letters against the dark background spelled out the name: THOMAS HENGWR.

  “Hengwr?” Jamie said aloud. “But when could he have had access to Memoria?”

  “Must have been around seventy-three.”

  Jamie sat very still, then slowly turned. Sitting in one of the chairs near the fireplace was a curious individual with pronounced and definite features that seemed to have been carved by a craftsperson more interested in details than the work as a whole. Hawk’s nose, bulging eyes. High forehead, gaunt cheeks.

  “I’m surprised it took you so long to find it,” Tom said. “Though I can see that you already understand what that information can mean to your studies.”

  Jamie just stared. Click-click-click. His mind correlated incidents from the past few days.

  “You’re the one the police are looking for,” he said at last.

  “But not for any criminal activity,” Tom explained. “It’s more because of what I know and what they hope to do with what I know. It’s a rather complicated state of affairs‌—especially at this particular time.”

  “How did you get in here?” Jamie demanded. “What are you doing here?”

  Another thought occurred to him. How could he have forgotten?

  “Sara! What’ve you done with her?”

  Tom Hengwr’s hand drifted lazily up to stroke the air between them. With the slow movement of those gnarled fingers, Jamie felt an easing of the sudden pressure that had been building up in his temples.

  “I came through the door,” Tom said, “though I entered the House from the gardens. Most amazing gardens.”

  Jamie swallowed, wondering where the electricity in the air had come from. The whole room seemed to be charged with static. “Do you know where Sara is, Tom?”

  “With my apprentice Kieran. She’s safe enough for now, Jamie, have no fear. Neither Inspector Tucker nor . . . others that might harm her can reach her.”

  Jamie tugged at his beard, then, to give himself something calming to do, began to fill his pipe. His hands were still trembling. “Where is she?”

  “That’s more difficult to explain.” Tom drew his legs up under him and leaned against the arm of his chair. “Turn off old man computer there and come have a seat by the fireplace with me. It’s a long story, you see. It has its start about fifteen hundred years ago. In Wales.”

  “Aled Evans,” Jamie said.

  “He too had a part to play‌—though not the one I thought. To be honest, the whole matter’s out of our hands now. I’ll tell you, Jamie, I thought it would be you and me that would see the end to the story, but now it seems as though our part is done. Your niece and my apprentice will have to see it through.”

  Jamie blackened Memoria’s screen again and, taking his pipe and matches with him, took the chair opposite his uninvited guest.

  “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “I’ll try to explain.”

  Tucker pulled his Buick up to the Bank Street curb near the corner of Powell. Turning off the ignition, he got out and pocketed the keys. In the passenger’s seat, Constable Daniel Collins shook a Pall Mall from a crumpled pack, lit it, then joined the Inspector where he stood staring at the dark bulk of Tamson House.

  Collins was tall and lean, with a thick bush of light brown hair and a small moustache. His face was long and angular, his eyes dark. For all Collins’s chain smoking, Tucker knew he was in better physical shape than any man in his squad. But the smoking was going to catch up to him, sooner or later, Tucker thought, and he’d be sorry.

  The width of Bank Street and a section of the park were between them and the House, but even from where they stood, the building seemed to go on forever. A great big sprawl of rooms like nothing else in the city. It was funny how there wasn’t more attention paid to the place. It dated back to the early part of the century and should have been classified as a heritage home by now. Should have been turned into a block of apartments, or a museum, or something. Not just a big private house, more empty than not.

  Collins took a drag from his cigarette and stole a glance at the Inspector. It was almost one o’clock and the Glebe night was very still. The shadows in the park had an eeriness about them, as though strange shapes were moving through their dark tangles. Tucker’s features were hard, and his whole body gave off tension. Collins knew just what he was feeling. Paul Thompson had been his partner. He still couldn’t believe Paul was dead, except he’d seen the body and. . . .

  He still couldn’t get over what had gone down earlier this evening. The worst thing was knowing that, no matter what he did, he couldn’t make what had happened go away. Activity might ease the pain somewhat, but it wouldn’t make it go away. And reading that shit in the paper, the lies that the brass had used for the c
over-up. . . .

  He sighed. At least it made Paul out to be a hero. Taking another drag, Collins flicked his half-smoked butt across the street. It landed in a shower of sparks in the middle of the road.

  “Are we going in?” he asked.

  “Who’s on the stakeout?” Tucker replied.

  “Bailey. He took over at midnight. He should be parked about halfway down Patterson.”

  “Have you been following the reports?” Tucker asked.

  “Not much in ‘em,” Collins replied.

  “There’s nothing in them!”

  Tucker turned away at last and leaned on the car, arms folded on the roof to prop up his chin.

  “You read the file on this place?” he asked. “There must be fifteen front doors, at least. What kind of a house is that? How the hell can we keep tabs on a place like that? Christ, I’ll tell you, I’m sick to death of this operation.”

  Collins shook another cigarette loose and dug in his pocket for his lighter. He said nothing. He hadn’t worked with hard-ass Tucker before this project, but he’d heard stories. The one thing you didn’t do was shoot off your mouth when he was in one of his moods. They said a rabid dog was friendlier. -

  They stood by the car, neither speaking. When his new cigarette was half smoked, Collins flipped it away, started to reach for another, then just stuck his hands in his pockets. He was remembering Paul Thompson’s face. He hadn’t enjoyed going down to the morgue earlier tonight. But he’d had to go. He just felt he owed Paul that much. But remembering, a coldness started up in his bowels. What the hell was it that killed a man like that? Paul had been heeled, too. Had his piece out and ready to fire. He’d never even got off a shot.

  Tucker stirred.

  “Let’s go,” he said and opened the driver’s door.

  Collins started to speak, then thought better of it. Wordlessly, he went around to his own side of the car and got in.