Widdershins

by Charles de Lint

  Safety, Lizzie thought. So far the hotel hadn’t exactly proved to be a safe place, between Siobhan getting pushed down the stairs and her being kidnapped.

  What was safety?

  She thought of Siobhan and the other band members. Andy and Con were great guys. She liked them both, and she knew if it came to it, they’d try to protect her, but they weren’t exactly bruisers. And then there was Siobhan with her arm in a sling, already hurt because of all of this.

  If only they knew more about the bogans and the blind man—what they wanted, what their weaknesses might be.

  That made her think of Geordie, but more of Jilly. Yes, she was in a wheelchair, but she still exuded this air of calm efficiency and knowledge. And courage. Just knowing what Jilly had gone through in the past couple of years . . . if it had happened to her, Lizzie thought, she’d have curled up in her hospital bed and just waited for the world to go away instead of facing it head-on the way that Jilly did. And Jilly certainly seemed to know all about fairies.

  I don’t think we have much time, Timony said.

  “It’s okay,” she told him. “I’ve got it.”

  She focused on the hotel, but only because that was the last place she’d seen Jilly, gaily waving goodnight to them all in the bar while Geordie helped her up to their room.

  Hold it firm in your mind, the doonie told her.

  “I am.”

  Jilly. That great welcoming grin of hers and those startling eyes, the blue of sapphires.

  I can feel it, Timony said. Hold on. Here we go.

  Lizzie grabbed his mane with both hands and the world dissolved around them. As it did, the nausea rose up her throat once more.

  Grey

  First time I heard about the fairy courts I was like anybody else, expecting castles and turrets and dainty little pennants fluttering high from towers. There’d be fairy knights in spiffy armour, ladies in gowns, all that kind of thing. And maybe it’s like that, back in the old countries where they came from, but here, they mostly go around dressed like humans and set up their courts in shopping malls and theaters, hotels and apartment buildings, all of it a step sideways from Kakagi-aki—you know, the human world.

  So, humans can’t see these courts, but to tell you the truth, there’s nothing much to see. Fairies live pretty much like humans. The only difference is they don’t look right. Oh, they seem human enough. It’s just that everything about them is too much. They’re too handsome, too beautiful, sometimes too ugly. Too tall, or too short. And if they don’t look human, then they kind of run the gamut from what they call the treekin—little creatures that look like they’re made of twigs and leaves and the like—to shapeshifters like us. But while they can turn into birds and horses and dogs and all, it’s not the same. They don’t have the animal blood in their veins. They’re not cousins.

  Anyway, Tatiana McGree’s the big deal in the fairy world, so her court’s housed in the Harbour Ritz, that fancy place on the lakefront whose main claim to fame is that it once housed Mickey Flynn, the last of the old-time Irish mobsters. Those days are gone now, though they’re not so long gone—especially not how we see time. But these days the place is strictly for the upscale rich, or CEOs coming to town on business trips, with a few penthouse apartments on the top floors for the seriously connected, money-wise.

  Jack, Joe, and I get the once-over from the hotel staff when we come in the door looking like three braves down from the rez, but the fairies know who we are and step in quick, moving us sideways to Tatiana’s court where, if there’s going to be a problem, it won’t spill over into the human world. There’s a lot of talk between Joe and the fairies then—these tall, slender blonde guys in nice tailored suits. They argue about protocol and crap like that, but Joe won’t budge and they finally shuffle us off to a waiting room and have somebody bring us tea when we won’t take them up on their offer to partake of something stronger. Oh, I can see that turning down some of that strong fairy home brew is hard on Whiskey Jack, but he’s ready to follow Joe’s lead. Me, I’m only along for the ride, and I’ve got no problems doing the same.

  “Now remember,” Joe tells us when we’re left alone with our teas, centering his attention mostly on Jack. “We’re not here to play cowboy. We just want to get some help, so we’re going to be reasonable and polite.”

  I nod my head in agreement. Jack does, too, but he also gives Joe a grin.

  “I’m serious,” Joe tells him.

  “I know you are,” Jack says. “You’ve got my word—I’m here to follow your lead.”

  “Then why are you grinning like that?”

  “I’m just thinking of when the fairies turn us down and who’s going to be the cowboy.”

  Joe shakes his head. “Never going to happen.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I just know that I’ve dealt with fairies a lot more than you have, and they can be seriously irritating. Now, normally you’re a patient man, but someone takes a run at one of your family . . .”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Nothing. I’m just here to back you up. But don’t tell me I can’t enjoy the show, too.”

  “There’s not going to be a show.”

  “Whatever you say, Joe.”

  We’ve been cooling our heels for the better part of an hour before there’s finally some motion at the door. We look up, expecting Tatiana to finally show up, or at least someone who’ll take us to her, but it’s only some more fairies. A tall woman and a couple of those treekin. One of them’s standard fare, all roots and leaves and vines, but the other one looks like it broke into a junkyard and built itself out of salvaged parts. It’s the woman who holds my attention.

  I’ve had her pointed out to me before, and she’s a perfect example of everything I dislike about fairies. A thousand years old, probably, but she dresses like some punky skateboarder, playing at being with it and now, but then she goes by a speaking name of Mother Crone. Her “court” is a damn shopping mall.

  She and her little friends aren’t directly affiliated with Tatiana’s court, but they still have to answer to her, just like all the smaller courts in Newford.

  I play it cool, not letting my dislike show, but they’re probably picking up on it all the same. Jack just leans back in his chair, smiling at Mother Crone like she’s going to come sit on his lap or something. Joe’s the one who makes nice, asks her how she’s doing, fills the silence with small talk.

  Turns out she’s having bogan trouble. She doesn’t get into any details, but Jack sits up and there’s a considering look in his eyes now.

  “What kind of trouble?” he asks before I can, his voice more casual than mine would be.

  She shrugs. “Oh, the usual. What about you? It’s not often that the cousins come to any of our courts.”

  “We’re hoping to get a lead on a friend of ours who’s gone missing,” Joe says. “I figure that Jilly’s built up enough good will with your people that maybe Tatiana will give us a hand.”

  “Jilly,” Mother Crone says. “Do you mean Jilly Coppercom?”

  Joe nods. “Do you know her?”

  “I’ve certainly heard of her. She’s good friends with a human fiddler who visits our court.”

  There’s a funny look in her eyes and something—I can’t say exactly what—in her voice. Fairies always seem to think they can put one over on anybody, but none of us here are buying what she’s selling right now.

  “You know something,” Joe says.

  “I don’t know what makes you think—”

  “Ten to one it’s got something to do with those bogans,” Jack says.

  Bingo. There’s a flicker in her eyes. The smile she’s been offering us goes just that little fraction tighter.

  “Talk,” Joe says.

  His voice is quiet, but there’s a dark promise in those strange eyes of his.

  “I thought that’s what we were doing,” she says.

  Joe shakes his head. “Easy or hard, you’re going to tell me what you know.�
��

  Mother Crone gets up out of her chair and gives him a hard look.

  “I think you’re forgetting where you are,” she says.

  Joe stands up as well and takes a step closer to her. Jack and I exchange glances, then he shrugs and we both get to our feet.

  “I don’t forget anything,” Joe says.

  “Well, good for you. But if you have a problem, take it up with the queen. I’m not the one you should be—”

  “You want Cody in on this?” Joe asks.

  It’s not an idle threat. We cousins don’t have hierarchies the way the fairies do with courts and kings and queens and crap like that. But we have old ones that everybody walks a little carefully around—especially if you’re not related to them. In my clan it’s Lucius Portsmouth, because he’s the Raven who brought the world into being, though I’ve never heard of him actually admitting to it. With the canids . . . well, Cody’s the original Coyote, carries all the canid medicine in one dark-eyed package. And sure, he can mess up on a grand scale, but that doesn’t mean he’s ineffectual. He’s just got bad judgment sometimes.

  But Mother Crone doesn’t seem to be worried—not by Cody, not by Joe smiling at her with those crazy eyes of his, which I figure should make anybody feel uncomfortable.

  “Oh, like suddenly Cody’s your best friend,” she says.

  “No, I wouldn’t say we’re close at all. But Wendy is.”

  “Who’s Wendy?”

  “One of Jilly’s best friends. Remember Jilly? The woman some little freaks of yours have probably stolen away?”

  “I never said—”

  “You see how complicated this is getting?” Joe goes on, talking over her. “Jilly’s real close to Lucius Portsmouth, too, which isn’t that bad for you, I guess, seeing how you can usually count on him to be reasonable. But the crow girls . . . now that’s a whole different story. They might act all goofy and sweet, but I’ve seen them take on a couple of dozen gangbangers and not even work up a sweat. Did I already mention that they’re Jilly’s friends, too?”

  “Look—”

  “And then there’s Nokomis. Funny thing. The old woman’s taken a liking to Jilly, did you know that? You ever wonder why you weren’t kicked off Turtle Island the day you arrived? Right or wrong, that was her decision. Now what do you think she’ll do to you when she finds out you’re messing around with somebody under her protection?”

  Joe’s lining up all the big guns, and I can see Mother Crone’s heart sinking as she begins to realize just how bad a situation she’s in. Sure, she’s got her little treekin with her, and I don’t doubt there are guards right outside the door, but the treekin can’t do much of anything and Joe’s the one right in her face, not the guards.

  “And then you’ve got me,” Joe tells her. “Now I’ll be the first to admit no one’s going to count me in among the ranks of Jilly’s more powerful friends, but all the same, you really don’t want me going all Jack Daw on you and your little fairy courts. But believe you me, I will if you don’t start telling me what you know right now. We clear?”

  Mother Crone actually takes a step back from him and I don’t blame her. Jack Daw was a corbae who, back in the eighties, single-handedly took out the whole local cuckoo clan, and they weren’t exactly pushovers. Joe’s got a look in his eyes right now that’s twice as fierce.

  “You need to deal with Tatiana on this,” is all she’s got to fall back on.

  Joe shakes his head and steps right up to her, backing her against a wall.

  “Time’s wasting,” he says. “Whatever you know, you’re telling me now.”

  None of us see the tall fairy come gliding into the room until he’s already grabbing Joe’s arm and trying to pull him back. Fairy are strong, everybody knows that, but this guy can’t even budge Joe.

  Joe turns to look at him.

  “You want to lose that hand,” he says, “just leave it right there where it is.”

  Jack turns to me. “We’re not here to play cowboy, remember?”

  Then he steps up and delivers a sucker punch in the kidney to the fairy who’s got a hold of Joe. When the fairy drops Joe’s arm, Jack grabs him in a neck hold that brings the fairy to his knees and keeps him there.

  “Get the little ones,” he tells me, as Mother Crone’s two treekin start for Joe.

  I grab each of them by the nape of the neck and hold them at arm’s length with their legs dangling. They struggle in my grip, but they’re not going anywhere.

  “I figure we’ve got ten, maybe fifteen seconds before all hell breaks loose,” Jack tells Joe, “so you might want to speed up your conversation there.”

  “This isn’t helping anything,” Mother Crone starts.

  Joe cuts her off. “You don’t understand. We don’t play by your rules. We don’t go around pretending to be human and tying up our lives with all this pretentious crap about courts and procedures and diplomatic conventions. Mess with us, and all you do is bring hurt down on yourself. Now, tell me what you know.”

  But we don’t get the ten or fifteen seconds Jack thought we might. I don’t know if Mother Crone was going to go all martyr on us, or break down and talk, but right about then the door bangs open and we’re looking at a half-dozen guards, bows in hand, arrows nocked and aimed at us.

  Jack lifts his captive and holds the fairy in front of himself like a shield. I do the same with the squirming treekin I’ve got in either hand. Joe grabs Mother Crone’s arm, and slips around her, twisting her arm behind her back to put her between himself and the guards.

  “You better hope you kill me with your first shot,” Jack tells the guards, “because you’re not getting a second.”

  “What is the meaning of this?” a regal voice demands from behind the guards.

  They never shift their aim, they never look away from us, but the guards move slightly aside so that the owner of that voice can step into the room. I’m guessing this is Tatiana. She might be standing there in jeans and a blouse, tawny hair pulled back in a casual ponytail, but she’s got the air of someone who doesn’t just expect her every command to be obeyed. She can’t even see how it could ever be otherwise.

  Behind her I can see the hall filling with more guards.

  I figure we’ve got seconds to shift into the between. I consider which guards I’ll throw the treekin at. That’s saying Joe doesn’t want to stay and fight. I give him a glance and see that those eyes of his are just filled right up with a crazy, feral light and realize we’re not going anywhere.

  “Well, it’s a funny thing, your Majesty,” Joe says. “We came here, polite as can be, hoping to get some help on tracking down a missing friend of ours, and what do we find out while we’re waiting? Turns out she’s not so missing after all. Turns out your people are involved. Turns out you just bought yourselves into a whole mess of grief.”

  “I have only to say the word,” Tatiana says, “and the three of you will be dead.”

  “Maybe. We’ll just have to see how that works out for you.”

  I can see the queen studying him, expecting to read the bluff, but eyes like he’s got tell her that he’s pretty much capable of anything. So she turns her attention to Joe’s captive.

  “What do you know about this?” she asks.

  “What I have to tell is for your ears,” Mother Crone says.

  Joe just shakes his head. “Well, isn’t that a shame. Guess none of us are going to know.”

  The queen sighs. “I thought better of you, Joseph. Haven’t you always been the one preaching calm mediation rather than threats of violence?”

  “Everybody makes mistakes, your Majesty. Guess I was just too damn trusting.”

  I’ve got to give it to him. Those eyes of his are crying for some old-time blood and fury, but his voice is just as polite as can be.

  The queen looks away from him, her gaze moving from Jack to me.

  “Will someone please tell me what this is all about?” she finally says.

  Interesting. Sh
e’s asking, not commanding.

  “You shouldn’t have let your people go after my family,” Joe tells her. “And if you didn’t let them, but any of you knew something about it, you really shouldn’t have been trying to stonewall me. That makes for bad neighbours, your Majesty.”

  Jack grins at that play on how the humans used to refer to fairy as the Good Neighbours. Tatiana doesn’t miss it either.

  “If you know something about this,” she tells Mother Crone, “you will inform us of it now.”

  Oh, she doesn’t want to talk. Not in front of us. And we soon find out why.

  “Big Dan Cockle is responsible,” Mother Crone says.

  “And you couldn’t tell Joseph this?”

  Mother Crone shakes her head. “It’s not just his friend Jilly. They’ve kidnapped another woman, a fiddler named Lizzie Mahone, and pushed her cousin Siobhan down a flight of stairs. But worse that that, they’ve apparently been going into the wild and the green, hunting cousins.”

  “This is the same damn bunch we’re tracking,” Jack says before I can. “There’s no ‘apparent’ about it. They killed Walker’s daughter a couple of nights ago and would have had themselves a roasted cerva feed if Lizzie and Grey hadn’t stopped them.”

  Joe gives Jack a look.

  “Hey,” Jack says. “We told you about it. We just didn’t know there was a connection.”

  “And what were you planning to do to these bogans when you found them?” the queen asks.

  “What do you think?” Jack tells her. “Somebody comes into our territories and starts hunting cousins, they’ve signed their own death warrants.”

  The queen sighs and gives a slow nod.

  “Would you let my people go,” she says. “Please. You have my word you won’t be harmed. Stand down,” she adds to her guards.

  The bows lower, arrows are removed from their bowstrings. Joe lets Mother Crone go, and she takes a few quick steps away from him before turning to give him a glare. Jack dumps his fairy unceremoniously on the floor. I put the treekin down more carefully, but the female—she’s the woody one—turns and gives me a sharp kick on the shins. It hurts like hell, but I give her a pass on it. This time.