Moonheart (26 page)

He shook his head. Smoke streamed from his pipe and trailed along behind him as he stalked off down the hallway. Moving, Jamie felt better, though it didn't do much for straightening out this weird mess they'd managed to get themselves into. He wondered why Aled had never told him the importance of what he'd left Jamie as an inheritance, then remembered something Tom had said earlier: "Secrecy itself is a source of power"

Jamie sighed.

"If you've got any pull up there, Aled," he said, lifting his gaze to the ceiling, "have someone give us a hand, okay?"

Which was a strange thing for a man who didn't believe in God or Heaven to say. But right now Jamie was willing to call on anyone, so long as they were willing to help.

The stars of the Otherworld spilled a winter-sharp light into the glade where Thomas Hengwr stood. He watched them silently and gave the constellations their bardic names: the Wren, who was the mage's guide to the Otherworld. Left of it, the constellation of the Queen of Otters and her consort the Bearded King. Under them swam the Salmon, who hid or revealed knowledge, depending on its whims. And lifting from the eastern horizon, hidden for the time being by the tall spruce and pine that encircled the glade, was the Weaver at her Loom who held all their fates.

They were each a part of a bardic mage's symbolic measure of the world through which he or she moved. And whether named in the stars or in a druid's alphabet of the trees, hidden in the turns of ritual music or carved on Weirdin bones, they were always the same: one hundred and twenty-two images, sixty-one dualities that likened the motions of one's soul to the riddling steps of the world's balance that a mage took on his or her journey to the Summer Country. Tom sighed and brought his thoughts back to the matter at hand.

As the deep silence of his taw filled him, he slowly knelt in the grass. The stillness that came from inside him seemed to seep out of his body, pore by pore, until what wind there was in the glade died away and even the stars above paused in their solemn dance. When the silence was so profound that it hung from every blade of grass, poised like an inheld breath, he brought out the pouch of Weirdin that he had retrieved from the museum.

That at least had been as simple to accomplish as he'd told Jamie it would be. But the ring and Jamie's niece were another matter entirely. There were a hundred hundred layers of the Otherworld and she could be in any one of them. Close at hand in the realms nearest the herenow, or deep in those worlds where the boundaries between space and time were so thin as to be transparent. A hundred hundred worlds. Where in them would the manitous have taken her? Where would A'wa'rathe be meeting Kieran? His only hope was that the bones could guide him, for even his bond with Kieran was severed by the distance of the Otherworld between them.

He took a cloth from the bag and laid it on the grass in front of him, then withdrew twelve of the Weirdin at random and held them above the cloth in cupped hands.

"Speak to me," he whispered to the night and breathed across the bones.

Then he let them fall.

Avidly, he bent down to read their placement. The reading cloth had a triskellion shape in the center of a Celtic cross. Each arm of the triskell, the cross, and the outsides of the cross's circle had a meaning, dependent on the fall of the bones and their placement to each other. The bone symbolizing the Maiden fell on the east arm of the cross. Beside it was the Hazel Staff and the Lake. He took the Maiden to be Sara. The Staff could mean either wisdom or journeying; the Lake, receptive wisdom.

Tom stared at them for a long time, shaking his head as he tried to make sense out of the reading. Was Kieran teaching Sara magics? He was still an apprentice himself so that seemed unlikely. Surely Kieran knew better. Tom turned to the fall of the remaining nine bones to see what light they could shed on this new riddle.

So intent was he on the reading, that he failed to sense a deepening of the shadows in the surrounding woods. The dark between the trees grew darker still.

The symbol of the Wren was in the top right-hand corner of the cloth, in the area that designated present allies or adversaries. That was plain enough. The Wren was also called the Harper, so that was Taliesin. But did the bone's placement mean that Taliesin had already contacted Sara? Perhaps he'd even acquired the ring?

The shadows coalesced and eased out of the wood, sliding across the glade with a sly, almost imperceptible motion. It was as subtle as the shadow of a tree moving with the passage of the sun across the sky.

Tom looked at the bottom right corner of the cloth where the course of action, if one was to be recommended, would be. There were two Weirdin there. The Drum and the Lizard, or Salamander. Revelation and silence. Opposites. And yet the same if the Lizard's silence were taken as one's taw.

The shadow was at Tom's shoulder now, rising from the ground like a castaway cloak suddenly taking shape. As it gained stature, Tom's concentration on the reading shattered. Abruptly aware of his danger, he threw himself forward, turning as he fell so that he faced the threat as he rolled to his feet. He cursed himself for a novice and raised his hands to begin a protective warding. Then the blood drained from his face as he recognized what he faced. His hands fell limply to his side. "You!" he cried, his throat tightening to choke the word.

Then the shadow was upon him.

From shapelessness, it had taken an all too familiar shape. A hand like a claw raked across Tom's face, cutting to the bone. The force of the blow threw him backward. He tried to roll aside, tried to shape a spell, but his magics and strengths had deserted him, running away like water as recognition of his attacker hit home. His assailant closed the distance between them with a swift motion and lifted him with ease. Strong hands closed on his arms. His feet sought purchase, but kicked only air. His attacker shook him until his neck snapped, then cast him aside as though he was nothing more than a child's broken toy.

It turned then to regard the fall of the Weirdin for long moments, memorizing each position. When it was done, it retrieved Tom's corpse and, hoisting it under an arm, set off into the forest where the shadows swallowed it once more.

Behind in the glade, the silence of Tom's spell dissolved. Movement came as a wind stirred the grasses. The sudden violence was forgotten. Only the stars that looked down on the Weirdin cloth, and the bones that lay in a white scatter upon it, remembered, until they too moved on to follow their ancient trails across the sky.

"Far out," Blue said. "That must be some pretty hot shit you're on."

He was sitting on his bed in the Firecat's Room, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Sally was under the covers, head propped up against a pillow, sheet and blankets pulled up to her chin.

"What do you mean?" Jamie asked.

Blue grinned. "Drugs, my man. Dope. Tripping. What else?"

"It's the truth, Blue. He just vanished. And if that could happen, what's to say the rest of it isn't true?"

The humor fled Blue's face. Jamie showed none of his usual fluster, but Blue realized that that was because the crisis was so serious. The panic was there— at the back of Jamie's eyes.

"You're serious," Blue said. "I mean, you really believe this."

Jamie nodded. "I know what it sounds like, but... what else can I think?"

"Shit. So what're we going to do?"

"I don't know."

Sally stirred. She looked from one to the other, not believing what she'd just heard.

"Blue," she said. "You don't believe any of this, do you?"

"I know it sounds weird, but if Jamie says that's what happened, then that's what happened, no matter how off the wall it might sound."

"But—"

"You don't understand, Sally. You see some strange things living in the House. This is just a little weirder than usual, that's all." He looked back at Jamie. "Thing I don't understand is why you're so surprised, Jamie. I mean, aren't you the one who does all the studying about stuff like this?"

"I never really thought of it as real before. I wanted to, but I just couldn't accept it without some sort of proof. And now..." He rubbed his face. "Thanks for believing me, Blue."

"Hey! What else can I do? You're my main man, Jamie."

"I think you're both being taken for a ride," Sally said.

"Then where's Sara?" Blue demanded. "And how'd this guy Hengwr manage to just pop in and out of the House like he did? I checked every window and door before we went to bed..."He paused, thinking a moment. "Maybe I should go check them again."

"Did you ever stop to think that maybe Sara just met herself some nice guy and went home with him?" Sally asked. "It does happen, you know."

Blue smiled, remembering their meeting in the National Art Gallery. Then he shook his head.

"Sara would've called," he said. "Maybe not to tell us that, but to tell us she wouldn't be home for supper."

"I give up!" Sally said and rolled over, pulling the covers over her head. "Go off and look for elves and wizards," she added, her voice muffled by the covers. "Just let me get some sleep."

Blue looked at Jamie and shrugged as if to say, She hasn't been here long enough to really understand.

"Maybe we should all try to get some sleep," Jamie said, knowing full well that sleep was the furthest thing from his mind at the moment.

"I think we should each have a hot milk toddy first," Blue said. "You want one, Sally?"

"I'm asleep."

"Okay. C'mon, Jamie. Let's see what we can rustle up."

Jamie nodded thankfully. He didn't want to be alone just now. He couldn't shake the feeling of dread that lay over him. If that harper hurt her, he'd... he'd what? God! He felt like he was losing his mind.

"Jamie?"

He looked up to see Blue waiting for him by the door.

"I just keep worrying about Sara, Blue. I know nothing seems to make sense, but if Tom wasn't lying, she's in terrible danger and there's nothing we can do about it."

"We'll think of something," Blue said reassuringly. He still wasn't sure how much he could accept as real. That Jamie had experienced something out of the ordinary, he did believe. That there were... wizards and elves involved was a little harder to swallow. Besides, whenever he'd thought about that kind of thing, he'd always pictured Jamie as the wizard. As the doer. Not the victim. And Sara... Blue shook his head. He didn't want to think of anything happening to her.

"C'mon, Jamie," he said.

Wearily, Jamie pushed himself out of the chair he'd been sitting in and followed Blue down to the Silkwater Kitchen.

8:10, Thursday morning.

Lawrence Hogue stood at the bus stop at the corner of Bank and Somerset Street, waiting for a #2. He was reading the morning edition of
The Citizen—
Thompson's death was covered on the first page, under a headline that blazoned: RCMP OFFICER SLAIN. The accompanying copy was sketchy. There was no mention of the PRB. The gist of the story was that Thompson had been off-duty and stopped for dinner at Patty's Place. When the armed gunman entered, he'd tried to foil the robbery attempt. The gunman shot him three times before Thompson even drew his own weapon.

Hogue stared at the photograph of a stretcher being wheeled out of Patty's Place. Nowhere in the article did he see the questions that should have been asked. Why was a gunman attempting to rob a piddly little restaurant like Patty's Place in the first place? Where were the interviews with the witnesses? The restaurant had been almost full. Had no one
seen
the incident? The very effectiveness of the lie frightened Hogue. It reminded him too much of the control that Walters had over him.

"Excuse me. Do you have a light?"

Hogue looked up, startled. The man who'd addressed him was dressed in a beige overcoat, open to show a dark blue business suit. In his hand he held a cigar. He put it into his mouth and leaned forward. Before Hogue had a chance to reply to the man's request, he heard a faint
whirft
of displaced air and felt a pinprick stinging in his neck. He lifted his hand to brush at the spot and knocked the small flechette from his skin. But he was too late. The cardiovascular poison coating the flechette had already begun to work. A concentrated derivative of asp toxin was collapsing his vascular system and stopping his heart. His gaze swam and there was a sharp pain in his chest. The man with the cigar regarded him with obvious concern.

"Hey," he said. "Are you all right? I think there's something wrong with this guy," he added as others in the crowd approached.

The man supported Hogue; his vice-like grip on Hogue's arms were all that kept him upright. Hogue seemed to see hundreds of faces staring at him, whirling around in a kaleidoscope of features. He thought— Walters... you bastard...

The man with the cigar lowered him gently to the pavement. "Somebody better call a cop or an ambulance," he said over his shoulder. "I think he's having a heart attack or something." The cigar vanished under his overcoat, into the breast pocket of his suit coat.

"Who's got some change?" a man in a tweed coat called from the phone booth.

The man who'd held the cigar stepped back into the crowd. Around him people were digging in their pockets for coins. By the time a uniformed policeman arrived, the man was walking briskly north on Bank Street. As he reached the corner of Cooper Street, a tan Chevy pulled up to the curb. The man got in and the car pulled away.

"How'd it go?" Gannon asked, shifting gears.

Serge Morin leaned back against the seat. "Piece of cake," he replied with a smile.

"Coffee?"

Tucker opened a bleary eye and looked across Maggie's bedroom. She was standing at the door, her hair pinned up and looking far too awake for the way he was feeling.

"Well, it's on the counter," she said, turning away. "I've got to finish washing up. I'm due to meet an anxious client on Nicholas Street at nine-thirty."

"What time's it now?"

"Quarter past eight."