Jack the Giant-Killer (Jack of Kinrowan Book 1)

by Charles de Lint

  "Oh, damn," he muttered.

  Choosing a direction at random, he set off. But Jacky had gone the other way.

  * * *

  As the sound of the Harley grew louder, Jacky cut across a lawn, scrambled over a fence to run alongside the house and through its backyard. At the foot of the yard, she squeezed through a hedge and paused to get her bearings.

  At least he won't be able to follow me through all that, she thought, looking back the way she'd come.

  She was in between Fentiman and Belmont now. Still too far from her apartment on Ossington. Go to a safe place, Finn had told her. Oh, don't let the giant have caught him! But what was a safe place? Someplace with people. A restaurant or bar.

  Think! she told herself.

  She could hear the biker on Belmont now. The nearest restaurants were on Bank Street, but that was too far for her to go right now. There were too many streets to cross – open spaces where the biker could spot her. Then she thought of Kate. Kate lived just up on Sunnyside. Was she back from her mother's yet? Would going there put Kate in danger, too?

  The Harley was idling on the street in front of the house now, making it too hard to think. She imagined the rider putting his machine on its kickstand, coming around back of the house to get her ….

  She bolted toward Fentiman, tore the leg of her jeans going over a low fence and sprawled across the lawn, but was up and racing for the open street as fast as her legs could carry her. She heard the Harley roar on Belmont behind her. The dryness had returned to her throat and her pulse drummed. Crossing the street, she plunged down the first laneway she came to. The biker came around the corner at the same time, his headlight like a searching eye. Had he seen her?

  Another backyard, another fence, and then she was on Brighton, just one block away from Kate's street. Again the Harley appeared around the corner, this time well before she was out of sight. The biker accelerated down the street, catching her in his headlight as she dashed for the next driveway.

  The sound of the bike was like growling thunder in her ears. She gasped for breath as she ran. Adrenaline and Finn's stitcheries got her to the end of the lane before the rider reached it. She dodged around the garage, through another yard. Now she could see Sunnyside through the gaps in the houses in front of her. Again she had to pause to get her bearings. Kate's apartment was a ground-floor on this side of the street, thank God, and it was –

  She picked her direction and started off through the backyards, heedless of flowerbeds and small vegetable patches, hauling herself over fences. One backyard, another. A third. The roar of the Harley was a constant drone in her ears. It made her teeth shake. The bike was on Sunnyside now, pacing her. Any moment now she expected it to roar down a driveway and cut her off. But then Kate's back door was in front of her and she was up the stairs and hammering on it.

  Please be home, oh, please be home.

  The Harley was idling on the street in front of the house. The slower rev of its engine was somehow more frightening to her than the sound of it coming down the street after her. She pressed her cheek against the door, still knocking on it. A light went on over the door, half-blinding her. When the door itself opened inward, she lost her balance.

  "Who the hell –" Kate began.

  Jacky caught her balance and leaned against the doorjamb. She looked into her friend's angry face, saw the anger drawing away to be replaced by shock.

  "It – it's just me," she said. "Jacky." But then she realized what she must look like with the redcap on her head and her corn-stubble hair sticking out from underneath it like a scarecrow's straw, her clothes torn and her face and hands smudged with dirt.

  "My God," Kate said. "Jacky, what's happened?"

  Her friend's voice was suddenly loud in Jacky's ears – very loud – and then she realized that she couldn't hear the roar of the biker's Harley anymore. He must have killed the engine on his machine.

  "I … I've been having a weird night since you left my place," she said.

  "No kidding? You look like something the cat dragged in. And where'd you get this?"

  Kate plucked the cap from Jacky's head. Jacky blinked, vertigo hitting her hard. When the world settled down once more, it wasn't such a bright place anymore. It was as though taking off the cap had drained something from it, a certain vitality, an inner glow that was now washed away. She tried to smile at Kate, but she was having trouble just leaning against the doorjamb.

  "Can I come in?" she asked.

  Kate took her by the arm and led her inside, closing the door on the night.

  Six

  If she could share her current craziness with anyone, Jacky thought, it would be Kate, but what had been happening lately seemed too off the wall to share even with her, best friend or not. So Jacky told her nothing about hobs or gruagaghs, stitcheries, giants, or the Wild Hunt. Instead she described being chased by a biker, and how she hoped that she hadn't brought any trouble with her by knocking on Kate's door.

  "Creepy," Kate said when she was done.

  "Yeah, but if he's still hanging around …"

  "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. He's had his fun. He's probably back at some bar with the rest of his asshole friends, having a good yuk about it."

  If he wasn't gathering up the rest of the Hunt, Jacky thought uncomfortably.

  Kate turned from the kitchen counter where she was making some tea. "Hungry?" she asked.

  "No – yes. I'm starving."

  "I've got cake, or I could make you a sandwich."

  "I'll take the cake."

  Kate grinned. "I kind of thought you would."

  Jacky stuck out her tongue and relaxed in her chair. The effects of her latest encounter with faerie were beginning to wear off a little now as she sat in the familiar comfort of her friend's kitchen. The table she was sitting at was in a little breakfast nook that jutted out from the rest of the house into the backyard, with windows on three sides. There were enough plants hanging in there to start a jungle, together with various and sundry postcards that were tacked to the window frames and little odds and ends that were perched wherever there was a spot for them.

  Jacky watched Kate bustle about getting tea mugs, pouring the water into the kettle, cutting a generous slice of nutcake for each of them. If there was one thing that Kate was mad about, it was nuts of every size, shape and description, which, considering her surname Hazel, left her open to a great deal of teasing.

  Jacky knew that she should get up and wash her hands and face, but she didn't have the energy. It was so much better just lolling here in the nook, and then Kate was loading up the table and, well, Jacky thought, it would be rude to get up just when Kate was sitting down.

  The tea was hot and perfect. The cake was homemade – hazelnut, which brought a suitable comment from Jacky as she tasted it – and delicious.

  "Maybe," Kate said in reply, her chin propped up on her hands as she studied Jacky's hair, "we could hire you out as a sort of walking broom." She plucked the redcap from the floor where it had fallen. "And where did you get this?"

  "I found it."

  "I can believe it. I just didn't think you were the sort to go through dustbins." She scrunched up her face and lowered her voice. "It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it."

  Jacky snatched the hat back from her, then sat turning it over in her hand.

  "Hey," Kate said. "I was just teasing."

  "I know."

  Jacky looked inside the cap and traced the intricate stitches she found there with her finger. Hob stitcheries, she thought. The dead hob who had owned it flashed in her mind – the angle of his neck as he lay on the ground, his sightless eyes. And then she thought of Finn, leading off the giant …. She glanced at Kate.

  "Do you believe in … in faeries?" she asked.

  "Faeries as in gay, or faeries as in Tinkerbell?"

  "As in Tinkerbell, but not all cutesy like that. More like faerie as in the realm of Faerie, with gnomes and wizards and giants and that so
rt of thing."

  "Seriously?"

  "Seriously."

  Kate shook her head. "'Fraid not. Are you doing a survey?"

  "No. What about ghosts? You know, vampires and the walking dead and spooks that come out at night?"

  "Well, I don't know about ze Count and his friends, but ghosts … maybe ghosts."

  "Really?"

  Kate sighed and poured them both some more tea. "Well, not really. But sometimes when I'm alone at night and the house is creaking, you know. You get that feeling. Would you stay overnight in a graveyard?"

  "I suppose not."

  And there it was, Jacky thought. The first person she asked confirmed what Finn had told her. People believed in the darker creatures of Faerie, in ghosts and the undead, far more readily than they did in gnomes and the like. She was sure that if she asked anybody she knew, they'd come up with pretty much the same answer as Kate had just given her.

  "What's with all this talk about spooks?" Kate asked. "Have you been reading Stephen King again?"

  "I wish I was only reading about it."

  "What?"

  Jacky frowned. "Nothing," she said.

  "Come on, Jacky. I know something's bothering you." She looked at Jacky, then shook her head. "God, what am I saying? First Will walks all over you, and then some lunatic on a motorcycle chases you all around Ottawa South. I wouldn't exactly be jumping for joy, either. This guy didn't hurt you, did he?"

  "No. But what if I told you I'd seen a gnome tonight?"

  "I'd say 'That's nice.'"

  "No, seriously."

  "I am being serious – it's you that's not making any sense."

  "What if I could prove it?"

  Kate laughed. "Please don't pull out some clipping from the National Enquirer."

  "No. I mean, what if I could show you what I meant?"

  "You're really serious?"

  Jacky nodded.

  "Oh, jeez. Now you're scaring me."

  "Look," Jacky said. "This biker that was chasing me –"

  "He was a gnome? Hell's Gnomes? Come on."

  "No. He's not a gnome. He's a part of some kind of Wild Hunt. Remember in Caitlin Midhir's book Yarthkin, when those riders are chasing the girl and one of them's got these big antlers? It's like that. Except they're riding motorcycles."

  "Antlered men riding motorcycles?"

  "I didn't say he had antlers," Jacky said a little crossly.

  Kate held up a hand. "Time out. This is getting too weird for me, Jacky. And it's scaring me because it's not like you at all."

  "Is it because you've never seen anything like it before?"

  "Well, that's good for starters."

  "Well, you've never been to Japan before, either. How do you know it exists?"

  "I've seen pictures. I know people who've been there. I saw it in a movie."

  "Well, I saw Gremlins, but that doesn't mean those little things are real. But this rider is, Kate. And I can prove it."

  Kate sighed. "Okay. For the sake of argument, prove it."

  "We have to go to the front of the house," Jacky said, standing up.

  As she led the way, the redcap dangling from her hand, she was of two minds. On the one hand, she wanted to prove to Kate that what she'd been experiencing was real, just to have someone else who could see it – someone to be there to tell her that she wasn't going crazy. Because that was scary. But on the other hand, if the rider was there, that was even scarier.

  She didn't know what she was hoping for, but by then they'd reached the living room. Standing by the front window, they looked out at the street. There was no one there. Just some parked cars. A cat was lying on the hood of one; the engine was probably still warm and it was stealing what heat it could before the metal cooled down.

  "So now what happens?" Kate asked, peering up and down the street.

  "You don't see anything out there, right?"

  "Right. So therefore your gnomes are real?"

  "Kate!"

  "Okay, okay. Tell me what to do. Do I stand on one leg and squint out of the corner of my eye, or …" She let her voice trail off at Jacky's frown.

  "Just don't do anything for a moment," Jacky said. Then she put on the redcap, bracing herself for the sense of vertigo that was going to come.

  It wasn't so bad this time – more like a subtle shifting underfoot – and then a gauze seemed to have dropped from her eyes so that she could see everything clearly again. The redcap alone should prove it, she thought, but looking out the window she saw him, the chrome of his machine gleaming in the streetlights, the black leather swallowing light, the featureless shadow under his visor. She stared for a long moment, shivering, then stepped back.

  "Jacky," Kate began worriedly.

  Jacky shook her head and took off the redcap. She kept her balance by holding on to the windowsill, then handed the cap to Kate.

  "Put it on and look out the window," she said. "Down there toward the house where that guy was working on his car almost every day last summer."

  Kate stepped closer to the window and looked.

  "Put the cap on," Jacky said.

  Kate turned. "But there's nothing there."

  "Please?"

  "Okay, okay."

  She put the redcap on and Jacky stepped in close to steady her as she swayed dizzily.

  "My God," Kate said softly. "There is someone out there." She turned from the window. "We've got to call the cops …." Her voice faded as she looked at Jacky.

  "What's the matter?" Jacky asked.

  "I don't know. You look different all of a sudden. It's like I can see you better or something."

  Jacky nodded. "Look at the biker again," she said. "Is he still there?" she added, once Kate was looking in the right direction.

  When Kate nodded, Jacky pulled the cap from her head and then steadied her again. Kate swayed, looked out the window, then back at Jacky. Without saying anything, she moved slowly to a chair and sat down.

  "It's a trick, right?" she said when she was sitting down.

  Jacky shook her head. "No. It's real. The cap lets you see into Faerie."

  "Faerie," Kate repeated numbly. "Now they're going to take both of us away in nice little white jackets."

  "We're not crazy," Jacky said.

  Kate didn't say anything for a long moment. Then she asked, "Where did you get that … that cap?"

  "From a gnome."

  "From a … God, I'm sorry I asked."

  Jacky started to frown, but then she saw that it was just Kate's way of dealing with it.

  "Let's go have some more tea," she said, "and I'll tell you all about it."

  Kate pushed herself up, using the arms of the chair for leverage, and followed her into the kitchen.

  "The floor's yours," she said.

  * * *

  Kate tended to frown when she concentrated on something. By the time Jacky was finished her story, her forehead was series of lines.

  "You shouldn't do that," Jacky said.

  Kate looked at her. "Do what?"

  "Scrunch up your face like that. My mother used to say when I was pulling a face, that if I didn't watch out, the wind would change and leave me looking like that forever."

  "Or until the wind changed again," Kate added.

  She put her index fingers in either side of her mouth and pulled it open in a gaping grin, then rolled her eyes. Jacky burst into laughter.

  "Of course," Kate said when they'd both caught their breath," I suppose we've got to take all that shit seriously now, don't we? Black cats and walking under ladders, the whole kit and kaboodle."

  "Oh, I don't know," Jacky replied. "But … you do believe me now, don't you?"

  Kate looked at the redcap, then at her friend's face. "Yeah," she said slowly. "I guess I do. And now, like I said before, what happens? You're not really going to this Giants' Castle to look for the Horn, are you?"

  "I have to."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know. Because of Bhruic and Finn,
I suppose. Because no one else will, and this is finally something I can do that'll have meaning."

  Kate shook her head. "Will was full of it and you know it. What the hell kind of meaning do you call his way of living? I still don't know what you ever saw in him."

  "Well, he had nice buns."

  "Woman does not live by buns alone."

  Jacky smiled.

  "So how are you getting out there?" Kate asked.

  "I hadn't really thought about it. By bus, I suppose. Do you think a bus goes out there?"

  "We could take Judith." Judith was Kate's Volkswagen Beetle, which had surprisingly survived God knew how many Ottawa winters.

  Jacky shook her head. "No way."

  "Why? You don't think she'd make it out there?"

  "It's not that. I don't want you to come. This is something I've got to do, but I'm not going to drag you into it."

  "Then why did you tell me about it? Why point out that creep on his bike to me?"

  Jacky sighed. "I just wanted somebody else to know. I wanted to see if somebody else could see him too. So that I wouldn't have to keep wondering if I was just crazy, you know?"

  "Well, you are crazy, but that's got nothing to do with this. I'm going and that's final. A woman's got to do what a woman's got to do and all that."

  "But it's not your problem."

  "It wasn't yours either, Jacky. But you've made it yours, just like I'm making it mine."

  "I couldn't stand it if something happened to you."

  "Hey, I'm not all that big on sitting around here wondering if I'll ever see you again, either, you know. We're pals, right? So what do pals do but stick up for each other? I'm going. If you don't want to come with me in Judith, then I'll just meet you there."

  "But you didn't see them kill that little hob, Kate. And the giant – he's so big."

  "We'll be like that little tailor in the fairy tale – remember? 'Seven with one blow.' No! I'll be the valiant tailor. And you – you'll be Jack the Giant-killer."

  "It's not funny, Kate. And I don't want to kill anybody."

  Kate reached out to hold Jacky's hand. She gave it a squeeze. "I know, Jacky. I'm scared too. I'm just shooting off my mouth so that I don't have to think about it. You're sleeping here tonight, aren't you?" When Jacky nodded, she added," Well, then let's hit the sack, okay?"