Jack, the giant-killer (9 page)

Jacky grinned. She supposed she’d never hear the end of this. But last night, she was sure there’d been something at the window, peering in. Something that called to her, to open wide the windows… Right now, all that made its way through the panes was a wash of sunshine.

Slipping out of bed, Jacky padded to the bathroom, wearing the oversized T-shirt that she’d borrowed last night to serve as a nightie. By the time she was dressed and sitting in the kitchen, frowning over the long tear in her jeans, Kate was back and making them both a breakfast of sausages and pancakes. Two mugs of coffee steamed on the table in the breakfast nook.

“So, when are we going?” Kate asked. She drifted over to the table to take a sip of her coffee before returning to the stove to fuss with their breakfast.

“I can’t even believe it’s real anymore,” Jacky said.

“Then why’d you crawl into bed with me last night?” Kate asked. “Or have you just given up on men?”

Jacky blushed. “No. It’s just…”

“I know.” Kate concentrated on pouring a new batch of batter without spilling any of it over the sides of the frying pan into the burner. While she was waiting for airholes to appear on the tops of the pancakes so that she could flip them, she turned back to look at Jacky.

“But what are we going to do?”

Jacky ran a hand through the stubble of her hair. “I thought maybe I’d go to the hairdressers’ and see what they can do with this.”

“Jacky,
nobody’ll
be able to do
anything
with that. If you ask me, you should dye it a few different colours. You know, a bit of pink, some mauve, maybe a black streak…”

“Thanks a lot.”

“No problem. Want to get the plates out of the oven?”

“Sure. I thought I’d go home and change first,” she added as she took out the plates. There were three sausages and two pancakes on each one.

“Want me to go with you?”

“I don’t want to be a pain…”

“Hey, what are mothers for?” Kate grinned as she put another pair of pancakes on each plate and took them over to the table. “Look, it’s no problem,” she said as she pushed one of them across to Jacky. “I might be teasing you about all this, but I wouldn’t want you to go over there by yourself.”

“Thanks.”

They were busy eating for the next little while, but once the initial edge of her hunger had worn off, Jacky looked across the table.

“Last night,” she said. “I was wearing that jacket that Finn stitched with his magics. You weren’t supposed to be able to see me when I was wearing it, but you did.”

“That’s right,” Kate said.

“Do you think it doesn’t work?”

“We should probably check it out,” Kate replied. So after breakfast, Jacky donned her blue quilted jacket and buttoned it up. She stood in the middle of the living room with Kate watching her.

“Well?” she asked.

“I can see you.”

“Shit.” Jacky started to unbutton the jacket.

“Wait a sec,” Kate said.

Jacky paused. “What is it?”

“When I don’t look directly at you, you get all fuzzy—you know what I mean?” She stood facing away from Jacky and looked at her from the corner of her eye. ”And now I can’t see you at all.“

“Maybe it doesn’t work properly in the daytime or under a bright light,” Jacky said.

“Maybe. But maybe it’s just that I know you too well.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, to get all metaphysical about it, we’re pretty close—right? Maybe it’s just that I know your vibes so well that you can’t be invisible around me. I
feel
you near and since I
know
you’re there, it cancels out the magic.”

“What if it just doesn’t work?” Jacky wanted to know.

“There’s an easy way to find out,” Kate said. She took her own coat from the closet and tossed Jacky the redcap. “Let’s go to your place.”

Jacky fingered the tear in her jeans, then

straightened up and studied herself in Kate’s hall mirror. God, she looked a mess. No wonder Bhruic had called her a tatterdemalion last night. She tugged the redcap on and tried to capture the various unruly locks that poked out from under it, then gave it up as a lost cause.

“Ready?” Kate asked.

Jacky nodded and followed her friend out the front door.

There was no way for them to check out people’s reactions until they reached Bank Street, and then the reality of the hob’s stitcheries were brought home with a very physical jar. No sooner were they standing on the corner of Sunnyside and Bank—after passing a certain oak tree with a hob fast asleep in its branches—

than a woman ran over Jacky’s toe with the wheels of her stroller.

“Oww!” Jacky cried.

The woman stumbled, almost overturning the

stroller in her haste to back away.

“Jeez, that hurt,” Jacky said to Kate.

The woman looked from Kate to where Jacky’s voice was coming from, her eyes widening. Then her baby started to howl. As she bent over it, Kate quickly took Jacky’s arm and hurried off across the street.

“Well, it works,” she said.

Jacky looked back across the street to where the woman was still standing. The woman gazed across the street at Kate, then at the place Jacky’s voice had come from until, shaking her head, she went on her way.

“This could be kind of fun,” Jacky said. “Just think of the tricks you could play.”

“That,” Kate replied, “sounds suspiciously like what I’ve heard brownies and hobs are like,
not
my friend Jacky. You’d better watch yourself.”

“Why?”

The answer was on the tip of Kate’s tongue, but then she shook her head. She was worried that something in the hob’s magic might soak through Jacky’s coat and shoes and cap, that the stitcheries would change her friend, because that was the danger with Faerie, wasn’t it? Mortals who entered it never came out unchanged. But she didn’t have the heart to spoil Jacky’s good mood just now.

Her friend stood in front of her, with her eyes all sparkling and her cheeks flushed, looking more alive than Kate could remember her being for a long time. Kate smiled. She was almost used to the unruly stubble that was all that was left of Jacky’s hair now. It certainly gave her more of a mischievous air. And who was to say that a little of the Puckish prankster in her wouldn’t do Jacky a world of good?

With all the weirdness going down—and with what they were going to be getting into when they headed out to Calabogie—maybe Jacky deserved to get something out of all this. Kate would just have to keep an eye on her, that was all.

“You know,” she said finally. “I could get to like your new look.”

“That’s what I’ve got to watch out for? ‘ Jacky asked. ”Your bad taste?“

Kate laughed “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get moving.” They headed south down Bank Street, Jacky being careful not to bump into anyone, but keeping Kate in stitches with the faces she pulled at the passersby.

Jacky’s apartment was the top half of a red brick duplex on Ossington Avenue, four blocks south of Sunnyside and a block and a half west of Bank Street. Her downstairs neighbour was repotting plants on the porch as they approached and looked up when they arrived. His gaze went to Kate, since he couldn’t see Jacky. This pleased Jacky enormously until he began to speak.

“Hello, Kate. I think Jacky’s sleeping off last night’s binge.”

“Binge?”

Joe Reaves brushed some dirt from his hands and nodded. “You should have heard the party she was having up there last night. Didn’t bother me too much—I’m off today anyway and I still owe her for the one I threw this summer—but I’m surprised Beekman next door didn’t phone in a complaint.” He paused suddenly. “Say, how come you weren’t there?

At the party, I mean.”

“I… uh… couldn’t make it,” Kate said slowly. Standing beside her, Jacky felt all the fun drain out of her invisibility trick. Her stomach was suddenly tied in knots.

“Well, it sounded like some bash,” Joe said. “I didn’t think she had it in her, you know? She always seems so serious—or quiet anyway.”

“Yeah, well… I’d better see how she’s feeling,”

Kate said and moved for the door.

She opened it, then stepped aside to let Jacky go in, covering up by pretending to listen to whatever it was that Joe was saying now. She could see his lips moving, but the words weren’t registering. Dragging up a smile, she nodded to him, then followed Jacky inside and closed the door behind them.

“I was out,” Jacky said in a tense voice. She unbuttoned her jacket and took it off, folding it across her arm. “All night, Kate. I wasn’t here.”

Kate nodded. She looked up the stairs, a feeling of dread catpawing along her spine. It was a beautiful autumn day outside, but that wasn’t reflected in here. A dark, indefinable sensation crept down the stairs to meet them. Something awful was waiting for them up there, she just
knew
it. She wanted to run, but forced herself to take the first step, a second, a third. When she reached the landing, Jacky pushed by her, key in hand. Here, directly outside the door, the feeling of wrongness was stronger than ever.

“Maybe we should ask Joe to come in with us,”

Kate said.

“And tell him what?” Jacky asked.

Kate nodded. He’d wonder were Jacky had come from and if it hadn’t been her in the apartment last night, then who had it been? It would just get too complicated to explain. As Jacky fit the key into the lock, Kate wished that they had a weapon of some kind, but all the had was her little trusty Swiss pen knife that she usually carried in her jeans. The key turned with a loud snick. They exchanged worried glances, then Jacky pushed the door open.

“Oh, God,” Kate murmured, moving into the

apartment beside a stunned Jacky.

The living room looked as though someone had let loose a small tornado in it. Sofa and chairs were turned over, upholstery cut open, the stuffing swelling out through the jagged slits. The coffee table was in two pieces. The curtains had been torn down and left lying in a corner. Jacky’s books were all pulled from the bookcase and scattered throughout the room, most of them in two or three pieces.

They could see the kitchen from where they stood. The refrigerator door hung ajar. Milk and eggs were smeared across the counters and floor. Clouds of flour and spices and rolled oats had settled over everything. Frozen meat was un-thawing in bloody puddles. Shattered plates and cups and saucers covered the floor. A sour, spoiled smell rolled through the apartment.

“The Host,” Jacky said, tears swelling in her eyes as she took in the ruin. “That’s who did this. The Unseelie Court.”

“But what were they looking for?” Kate asked. Jacky turned to her. “Me,” she said in a small voice.

“And… and when they didn’t find me, they… they did this…”

The premonition of danger hadn’t left Kate yet.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said and gave Jacky’s arm a tug.

Jacky shook off her hand and moved towards the bedroom.

She was all empty inside—not the empty she’d felt when Will walked out, the empty that she had nothing important in her life, but an emptiness more akin to the aftermath of rape. Her most private place—her home—had been ravaged. Violated.

She tried to summon up an anger, but everything just seemed too bleak. As if nothing mattered anymore. All that was necessary now was to discover the full scope of the damage. Had the plush toys that had been her friends since childhood been destroyed?

Had they broken the clock that had been the last Christmas present her grandmother gave her before she died? Was there anything left in one piece?

“Jacky!” Kate called softly, starting across the room.

Jacky opened the door to the bedroom. She had one moment to take in what she saw. The frame of her bed was broken into countless pieces and heaped against one wall. The dresser lay on its side, the drawers in a broken pile beside it. In the middle of the room, a huge nest had been made out of her shredded mattress, her blankets and sheets and her clothes. And rising from it, disturbed from their sleep and blinking slitted yellow eyes, were nightmares.

Their heads were wider than they were tall and their skin was brown, creased like wrinkled leather. Strawpale hair hung in greasy strands. They weren’t much taller than Jacky herself, but they were broad and squat, their heads disappearing into their torsos without the benefit of necks. Animal furs were tied about their waists, hanging to their knobby knees. Wide noses flared as they caught Jacky’s scent…

Kate’s…

“Got her now, got her!” the foremost cried happily. His wide mouth split into a grin, revealing rows of pointed yellow teeth. “Got her, hot damn! Won’t the Boss be grinning now?”

Bogans, Jacky thought.

She tried to evade the creature’s grasp, but moved too late. A meaty fist closed on her arm, grip tightening until a moan escaped her lips. Her jacket fell from suddenly numbed fingers. The others were approaching. There were three of them altogether, but Jacky knew that one alone would be more than a match for her. But while they had her, they wouldn’t get Kate.

“Run!” she cried. “Run, Kate!” With her free hand she snatched the redcap from her head and tossed it to her friend.

Kate caught the cap, but she didn’t run. She saw the same ruin that the bedroom had become as Jacky did, but instead of a bogan gripping her friend, all she saw was a smelly old wino, gap-toothed and unshaven, with bloodshot eyes, baggy trousers, and a white shirt so dirty it was a yellow-brown. She didn’t even think of what she was doing as she shoved the cap into her belt and picked up the nearest thing that came to hand. It was the brass base of a small table lamp. Three quick steps and she was in the door, her makeshift weapon coming down on the shoulder of the wino that held Jacky.

The bogan howled and Jacky pulled free of his grip. She dropped to the floor, grabbed her jacket and scuttled between the other two bogans, struggling to get an arm into the jacket sleeve. With the redcap gone, the bogans didn’t look so clear anymore. She
knew
what they were, so she could still see their bogan shapes, but superimposed over them were the winos that Kate was seeing. Somehow they seemed more frightening because of that.