Drink Down the Moon (10 page)

Mick Cully, the guitarist and bouzouki player, was a short, dark-haired man, more burly than fat, with a quick easy smile. His partner, Toby Finnegan, had a thick mane of light brown hair and a full beard that hung below his collarbone, giving him the look of a leprechaun. He played the fiddle mostly, with a little tin whistle on the side.

“Looks like Johnny’s not coming,” he said to Henk. “Too bad. I was in the mood for a bit of a session with another fiddle.”

Henk nodded. “Johnny’s going through some hard times right now, what with his grandfather dying and all.”

“We’ll miss Tom,” Toby said. “He was a grand fiddler.”

“Hope Johnny remembers his tunes,” Mick added. “It’d be a shame for them to be lost.”

“Oh, Johnny’s got the tunes,” Henk said. “A head full of them— don’t doubt it. But he’s acting a little strange lately.”

“That’ll happen,” Toby said. “Your man Tom— he was Johnny’s only family, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah. And Johnny’s taking it hard. I wish he’d just, oh, I don’t know

“

Henk realized that he’d been about to talk about Johnny’s strange ideas of the previous night. Not a good idea.

“Pull out of his slump?” Mick asked.

“Something like that.”

“Not everyone wants to sit around here all night,” a voice said from behind them.

They turned to find the waitress Ginette giving them a hard stare. It wasn’t very successful. Blue-eyed and blonde-haired, with features that looked as though they’d been filmed through a soft focus, it was difficult for Ginette to look firm, little say cross.

Toby grinned at her and finished off his pint. “Give you a lift?” he asked Henk.

Henk shook his head and finished his own drink. They left chorusing farewells, Mick and Toby heading for Toby’s car while Henk stood outside on Bank Street and thought for a moment. He knew that Johnny probably hadn’t been in the mood to come up to the pub after All Kindly Toes finished playing and he’d talked to Jemi, but Henk didn’t like the idea of leaving him on his own to brood. Johnny’s apartment on Third Avenue was on the way home to Henk’s own downtown apartment, so he decided to walk up and see how Johnny was doing. When he got there, however, the ground floor of Johnny’s building was dark.

Johnny could be asleep, Henk thought. It was almost two-thirty now— but going to bed before three or so just wasn’t like Johnny.

He went around to the back and fetched the front door key from under the brick by the rhubarb and went inside. A quick walk through the place told him that Johnny wasn’t home. Was he still with Jemi? Maybe getting interested in something more than little hobgoblins living in the sewers? That’d be nice. Johnny hadn’t had a regular girlfriend for at least a couple of years. Though, with what Henk knew of Jemi, he wasn’t all that sure that she’d be the right one for Johnny. She was a little wild— loved to party— where Johnny was a bit of a homebody, staying in except for when he had a gig.

Henk returned outside, replaced the key, and was about to go on home when another thought struck him. Johnny could also have had his talk with Jemi, and then gone back to Vincent Massey Park, waiting for his mysterious visitor to show up again. Now, that sounded more like something Johnny would do.

He opened Johnny’s apartment again, stashed his concertina inside, then wheeled Johnny’s five-speed out onto the street. He sure hoped Johnny didn’t come home in the meantime and think somebody’d walked off with his bike. But Henk doubted that would happen. The more he thought of it, the more sure he was that Johnny had gone to the park.

It took him fifteen minutes to pedal to where the bike path started to incline up into the park. He got off and walked the bike, listening for fiddle music, footsteps, looking for some sign of his friend. It was a nice night to be out. The mist on the river was pleasantly eerie and the park was so quiet. Almost magical. He could see now how Johnny had got the impression that there was something otherworldly about the woman he’d met here last night.

He went the full length of the bike path, taking his time. When he reached Hog’s Back Falls, he turned back again. It was getting on to four o’clock now and he was having second thoughts about Johnny being here. And even if Johnny had come

For all Henk knew, they could have passed each other while he was cycling down from the apartment.

He almost missed the figure sitting on the beach of flat stones on his way back. He was riding the bike, coasting down the hills, using the brakes a lot because of the darkness. When he saw the figure, he stopped and called out.

“Johnny?”

There was no answer. Putting the bike on its kickstand, Henk left it on the path and walked towards the figure. Stones crunched underfoot and there was a dampness in the air, a wet smell that came from the mist.

“Johnny?” he tried again.

The figure finally turned. “Is that you, Henk?”

“Yeah.” He made his way to Johnny’s side and sat down on the stones. “What’re you doing, Johnny?”

“I think she drugged me.”

“What? Who drugged you?”

“Jemi. She took me inside a hill, Henk.” Johnny turned to look at his friend. “Right under the ground. She tapped on a stone and this sod door opened and down we went. And then we came here and there were more of them— all kinds of them. Little stickmen and trolls and you name them, they were here. Jemi’s sister was dead, you see, so all these creatures from Faerie were gathered around. It was Jemi’s sister I met last night. But she’s dead now. And Jemi wailed

I never heard a sound like that before, Henk. Christ, I hope I never hear it again

“

Henk touched his shoulder. “Why don’t you let me take you home, Johnny?”

“She had to have drugged me, right? When she gave me the beer inside the hill? Because those things couldn’t have been real. They sure weren’t human. And then when she cried— it was like a banshee, Henk. When that happened, everything got muddy. I think maybe I blacked out, just for a second, and then they were all gone. So it had to be drugs, right?”

“Jeez. I don’t know, Johnny. Why don’t you get up and I’ll get you home?”

“But it couldn’t have been the beer,” Johnny said, looking out into the mist again. “Because she gave me that inside the hill, and the hill couldn’t be real either, right?”

“If you say so. Look, Johnny—”

“So I guess it was in the restaurant. Or maybe it was all real. Christ, I just don’t know.”

He let Henk help him to his feet. When they reached the bike, he drew back.

“My fiddle,” he said. “I left my fiddle inside the hill.”

Henk looked back to where he’d found Johnny. He couldn’t see the instrument down there. The black case would have showed up easily against the pale stones.

“You sure you brought it?”

“Sure, I’m sure. I bring it everywhere.”

That was true. Henk couldn’t remember ever seeing Johnny go somewhere without it. He’d had it when they went to see AKT earlier this evening.

“Tom gave me that fiddle,” Johnny said. “It was really old. It was a great fiddle. And Tom gave it to me. I’m not going to let her keep it.”

He started off up the hill, shrugging off Henk’s hand when Henk tried to stop him. Henk put the kickstand up and quickly walked the bike up behind Johnny.

“It’s okay,” Johnny said. “I remember the place.”

They entered a small glade and Johnny paused. Henk laid the bike on the grass. Turning, he could see the lights of Carleton U vaguely through the mist on the river,

“I’ve just got to remember which stone it was that she knocked on,” Johnny was saying. He crawled around on his hands and knees in the damp grass. “Two quick raps, then you pause, then another rap. But I can’t remember which stone it was.”

There were a number of outcrops in the glade and Johnny went to each, rapping his knuckles sharply on each one. Henk followed him, really worried now. He wondered if someone had given Johnny some kind of drug, because he sure was acting weird.

“That hurts,” Johnny said as he rapped on another stone. “I guess that means I’m not dreaming,” he added, and sucked on his knuckles.

Henk checked the glade out quickly, but he couldn’t spot the fiddle case.

“Look,” he said. “If Jemi’s got your fiddle, I’m sure she’ll hang onto it for you. Tomorrow we can give Greg a call, find out where she lives, and go pick it up. Okay?”

“She lives here,” Johnny said. He hit the sod with his fist. “Inside this hill.”

Right, Henk thought. In the hill.

“We’ll try the other place that she lives. She does have an apartment in the city, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah. At least she said she did.”

“C’mon, Johnny,” Henk said gently. He got an arm around Johnny and hauled him to his feet. “Let’s go home.”

Johnny let Henk lead him away without further protest.

“I know I sound crazy,” he said, “but it’s been a really weird night.”

“We all have ‘em.” Henk shot him a sharp look. “Did you take any drugs tonight?”

Johnny shook his head. “Not unless she slipped them to me in the tea.”

“Where’d you have tea?”

“In the South Garden.”

“And then you came here?”

“Yeah.” Johnny rubbed at his temples. “I know it had to have been a dream,” he added, “but it sure did seem real.”

“Maybe things’ll make more sense in the morning.”

“Christ,” Johnny said. “I sure hope so.”

“You let them go?” Dunrobin Finn said, his voice almost a shout. “With trouble abroad, you let them go and gave them no escort?”

The hob was taller than Hay, though a half-head shorter than his cousin Mull. He stood over the seated Hay, his craggy face pressed close to the Brown Man’s, a knobby finger poking Hay in the chest. His quick feral eyes glared at the dwarf over the top of a nose that had a curve in it like a hawk’s beak.

He’d woken earlier this evening with a bad feeling about Jacky and Kate and made his way to the Jack’s Tower, only to find them gone. A passing hob he met in Cockle Tom’s Garve mentioned that he’d seen them in the company of his cousin, Dunrobin Mull. The night was alive with odd rumours and an uncomfortable sense of foreboding, sharpening his fears. When he’d learned of the Pook’s death, and the black dog that had been spying on his friends, those fears spilled out in anger.

“Oh, damn,” he muttered, turning away. “Weren’t you all so clever.”

“She is the Jack,” Hay said.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Finn demanded.

“Well

she’s killed giants. She fought the Host and won.”

“With no help from you.”

“You shouldn’t talk like that, cousin,” Mull said. “Hay is the Laird’s seneschal and—”

“More like the Laird’s senseless arse,” Finn said.

Hay rose angrily from his seat, but Finn stepped closer again and pushed him back onto its seat.

“Understand,” he said. “She’s not faerie— neither she nor Kate. She’s done a grand job, keeping the luck of Kinrowan— being our heart and all— but there’s far more that she doesn’t know than what she does.”

“There’s not much we know either about how the Pook died,” Mull said. “Or about that black dog either.”

Hay nodded. “She took on Bhruic’s responsibilities. That’s what we feed and clothe a gruagagh for— for times like these.”

“And besides,” Mull added, “we had to bring the Pook to her kin. With the Court in Ballymoresk, we’re stretched very thin.”

Only between the ears, Finn thought. But he supposed he wasn’t being altogether fair. No one in the Court knew Jacky and Kate the way he did. They all thought the pair were skillyfolk at least, if not gruagaghs. They had never seen the pair of them fumbling about, trying to work something as simple as Kerevan’s wallystanes. They didn’t know that for each decision or bit of advice the Jack gave to the Court, Kate and she spent hours poring through Bhruic’s library to find the right thing to do or say.

Better the Court didn’t know, he supposed. Better things stayed as they were or perhaps the Laird would have second thoughts about leaving a pair of mortals in the Gruagagh’s Tower. He only hoped that they had managed to get back to the Tower in one piece.

“There are no new gruagaghs in and about Kinrowan?” he asked finally.

Hay shook his head. “None the Court knows of.”

“But you did see a black dog?” This question he directed at Mull.

His cousin nodded. “And it left no sign— the same as around the Pook’s body.”

Oh, damn, Finn thought. And that hound would have their scent. Now he was really worried.

He pulled his red cap from his pocket and stuck it over his thatch of brown hair. With a quick nod to his cousin and the seneschal, he left the Court through a passage that let him out near the Rideau Canal. He looked around, sniffing the air. The dark bulk of the National Arts Centre loomed over him. He crept out, still cautious, and slipped by the open-air restaurant that overlooked the canal. The chairs were all stacked and chained together in a corner of the patio.

A minute or so of brisk walking brought him under the MacKenzie King Bridge, where he paused again. When he was sure he was alone, he gave a sharp rap on the stone supports.

“Hey, Gump!” he called, and rapped again.

On the third rap a bulky trow stepped out of the stone wall, blinking at the little hob. He stood a good seven feet tall, with long black hair that fell to his waist like a Rastaman’s dreadlocks. There were bits of twigs and shells wound up in the locks. His features looked as though they’d been chiseled by an apprentice stone worker, just learning his trade. Two uneven gouges for eyes, a fat thick nose, square chin, huge ears.

Most trows were aligned with the Unseelie Court, but there were some, like Gump, who didn’t have the heart for the Host’s evil ways. Such trows lived in the middle of Seelie realms, not quite a part of them, but not quite fiaina sidhe either.

“I was sleeping,” Gump grumbled in a deep voice. He squatted down so that his head was more level with the little hob’s.

“It’s not so late,” Finn said.

“It’s not so early either, skillyman. Why did you wake me?”

“Well,” Finn said. “You know what they say. There’s those that look, but don’t see; and then there’s those that no one pays any attention to, who see everything. Like you.”