Forests of the Heart (35 page)

Bettina shook her head.
“¿Cómo?
Why would I help you in the first place?”

“Because the Gentry mean to kill the native spirits of this place and if you won’t accept kinship to me, you can’t deny it to them. Would you have your kin die, when you might have been able to prevent their deaths?”

But Bettina was still shaking her head. Abuela had warned her more than once, don’t get involved in the affairs of the spiritworld. Only trouble and sorrow came when one chose sides in any struggle involving the inhabitants of
la época del mito.
One had only to see how it had turned out for her
abuela
to know the truth of that. Except, how could she not choose sides? And even if she did nothing … wasn’t the simple act of standing aside and refusing to be involved no different from choosing a side?

“No lo sé,”
she said.

And she
didn’t
know. It was all so confusing. She knew too little, but she knew too much as well. And then there was the messenger to consider, this handsome
lobo
with his sweet tongue and impossible origin. That a
sombrita
could acquire its own body, its own independent life, in such a manner, was true. But this kinship he spoke of? She wished Papa or her grandmother were here to advise her, but they had both disappeared into the desert many years ago, the one on a hawk’s wings, the other by walking into a thunderstorm.

“It is difficult to kill a spirit,” she said finally.

“Tell that to the one who owned this body before me.”

“The Gentry killed him?”

El lobo
shook his head. “The changing world killed him. He didn’t retreat quickly enough and died when the concrete was poured, when he could no longer breathe clean air and his waterways were poisoned.”

“Yet his body serves you well enough.”

“Aw
felsos
aren’t troubled by a proximity to man and his cities and I have that of the Gentry in me.”

Bettina nodded. She had heard of such spirits. They grew up from the underbelly of a city where mean-spiritedness was the fashion, unkindness the rule. Cities weren’t evil, by and of themselves, but there was something about their darkest corners, their most hidden byways, that nourished such bitter fruit. Like called to like, which explained ethnic neighborhoods as much as it did creatures such as these wolfish Gentry.

“What was their plan?” she asked her companion.

“I don’t know the details, but it has something to do with an artifact.”

An immense stillness settled inside Bettina.
Claro.
That explained what she had felt when Ellie brought out that ancient wooden mask in the studio earlier today. She hadn’t sensed evil about it so much as power, an enormous potential. And shadows clung to that power, a pattern of darkness discoloring the wood, like a sudden foul odor on a clean clear spring morning in the desert when you stumbled upon some dead rotting thing lying amidst the wildflowers. A poisoned coyote. A discarded tangle of rattlesnakes, killed for their rattles.

What she’d sensed had been the touch of the Gentry, unrecognized until this moment.

“You know something,”
el lobo
said. “I can see it on your face.”

She knew next to nothing, but more than he, apparently. The Gentry meant to use Ellie and the mask. They were both potent, but unfocused. Brought together as they had been, what might be created?

“I don’t know enough,” she told him.

“But…”

Shaking his head, he let his voice trail off. Neither spoke for a long moment. Bettina watched the freezing rain as it continued to fall, coating the trees and lawn around Kellygnow with thickening layers of ice.

“Will you help them?”
el lobo
asked finally. “If not for my sake, then at least for theirs? Will you help your kin?”

“I must think on this,” she said.

He nodded. “I see.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t.”

“And didn’t say you would.”

Bettina sighed. “Consider what you’ve been telling me—how it must sound.”

“Are you truly so distrustful of dogs?” he asked.

Dogs, wolves, coyotes …

“Why shouldn’t I be?” she responded.

He shrugged. “Because I can hear them singing in you.”

Before she could reply, he stepped away, deeper into
la época del mito
and she was alone in the place between the worlds, still untouched by the freezing rain that fell so constant around her. Listening to the tree boughs crack and tumble down in the woods around her, she was no longer so enchanted by the weather.
El lobo
had helped bring about her change of mood, with his dire warnings and parting words.

That was three times in one day, she thought. The dream. The figurines that Adelita had sent. And now this.
Los cadejos.
Lost for so many years.

“I don’t hear them singing,” she said softly, but no one was there to hear. “I don’t hear them at all anymore.”

Not since Abuela went away.

She would have had a hard time returning to the house, but she stayed in that half-world, the place between, until she was by the kitchen door again. There she stepped fully out of
la época del mito
and immediately the slick ice underfoot had her grabbing for the doorknob before her legs went out from under her and she took a spill. She managed to get back inside without mishap, removing her boots, hanging her coat on a peg by the door. Her hair was still wet from when she’d first gone out and she made an attempt to dry it with a dish towel before going to the bathroom to find one more substantial.

Returning to her room, her gaze came to rest on the little figurines that Adelita had sent her. She fingered the rosary still in the pocket of her vest and remembered that she’d wanted to call Mama this evening. It was too late now. She would do it in the morning. For now she had questions that only one person in Kellygnow might be able to answer.

She walked down a long hall until she reached the door of Nuala’s room. Since there was still light coming out from under the door, she went ahead and knocked on its wooden panels. If Nuala was surprised to see her, it didn’t show in her features. Bettina came straight to the point, asking Nuala if she knew what
“Scathmadra”
meant.

Nuala offered her a humorless smile. “Is that the name he gave you? Oh, he’s a sly wolf, that one. ‘Scath’ means ‘shadow,’ but it can also mean ‘shelter’ or ‘bashfulness.’“ She gave Bettina a look that was at once thoughtful and mocking. “So,” she went on. “Has this innocent wild thing managed to set your heart at ease with his honeyed tongue and gentle naming?”

Bettina refused to be baited.

“And madra?” she asked.

“Dog.”

Bettina mulled that over. Shadow-dog. Or shadow of the dog?

“I have no advice for you tonight,” Nuala added. “I see no point, when you won’t listen to it anyway.”

Bettina shrugged. “You’d be surprised,” she said.

“I hope so.”

Bettina wanted to ask more, about the enmity between Nuala and the wolves, what it was that had set them against each other, but she managed to still her curiosity.

“Good night, Nuala,” was all she said. “I hope you sleep well.”

Nuala gave a tired nod. “Dreamless would be a gift.”

“I could make you a tea.”

She watched the older woman hesitate, but then give another nod.

“Thank you,” Nuala said. “That would be kind of you.”

Hunter was in a wretched mood by the time he finally reached Miki’s street. He carried a bag of cleaning supplies that he’d bought at a hardware store along the way, and it only seemed to make it harder to maintain his equilibrium on the icy streets. Between the weather, which showed no sign of letting up, and the bad temper of just about everybody that was out in it, there wasn’t any respite. The only good thing was that his side didn’t hurt as much anymore. There were still twinges when he moved too suddenly, or stretched in the wrong way, but otherwise he was almost back to normal. Enough so that he felt up to the unpleasant task of cleaning Miki’s apartment. He wasn’t sure that he’d actually be able to make the place habitable again, or if Miki’d want to live there even if he could, but he wanted to at least give it a shot.

As he got closer to the apartment, he kept an eye out for those tall, dark-haired Gentry, but there was no sign of them. There was no sign of anyone, except for a small figure farther down the block, shoulders hunched against the weather, chin against his or her chest. Other than that, the street was deserted—all the sane people were inside, dry and warm. Hunter decided he was going to give this other lost soul a cheerful hello when they came abreast, a small thumbing of the nose against the general malaise that had gripped the city, but when they both reached Miki’s steps, he realized who it was out on the wet streets with him tonight and his temper flared.

He had this sudden urge to smash Donal in the face—an alien feeling since Hunter had never been prone to violence, not even in daydreams, though lord knows, some of his customers could stand to have some sense shaken into them. Or to be sharply rapped on the top of their head with the flat side of a CD jewel case. Be that as it may, his free hand clenched into a tight fist, and it was all he could do not to take a swing at him.

“Christ, you’ve got your nerve coming back here,” he said.

Donal lifted his head, water streaming from his face, hair turned into an ice helmet the same as Hunter’s.

“Yeah, well, hello to you, too, boyo,” he said. “Weather making you a little testy?”

Hunter could only shake his head. “After what you did to Miki…”

“Oh, Jaysus. What’s she told you? We had a little tiff, is all. That’s what family’s for, isn’t it? Gives you someone to argue with, built in, as it were.”

“And trashing her apartment was just sibling hijinks?”

Donal’s eyes narrowed. “What are you on about?”

“And I suppose pissing over everything she owned and kicking apart her accordion, that was just in good fun, too.”

“Maybe you’d better start explaining yourself,” Donal told him.

There was an unfamiliar hardness in his voice, a dark light in his eyes that reminded Hunter of Miki when she’d first seen what had been done to her apartment.

“Why don’t I just show you,” Hunter said.

Doubt had begun to grow in Hunter, but it wasn’t until he saw Donal’s genuine shock and anger at the awful state of the apartment that he was sure Donal hadn’t had anything to do with it. It was that, or he was a damn fine actor, Academy Award material, no question. At this point, Hunter simply didn’t know anymore.

“I’ll kill those fuckers,” Donal said in a dark cold voice.

He started to turn away, but Hunter caught his arm.

“Don’t go off half-cocked,” he began.

Donal pulled out of his grip. “This doesn’t concern you anymore,” he said.

“But those Gentry—”

“Ah, so Miki’s been talking, has she? Strolling with you down memory lane to visit all those places she thought she’d hidden away for good in that pretty little head of hers.”

Hunter sighed. “Look, they’re too powerful for us—”

“You forget something,” Donal said, cutting him off.

“What’s that?”

“Maybe the Gentry are more powerful than us, but they’re not fucking immortal—not so long as they’re wearing skin and bones. Big or small. Human or faerie. Everything can die.”

Donal held Hunter’s gaze for a long moment before he stalked away, a small, bedraggled and sodden figure crossing the foyer and pushing out through the front door. Hunter followed him to the stoop. Small though he was, Donal walked with a straight back and a firm step, as though his anger was large and strong enough to negate the slippery ice underfoot. But it was only that one of the city sidewalk cleaners had been by while they were inside, scattering a mix of sand and salt onto the ice. With the way the sleet continued to fall, the sure footing would last another ten minutes or so at best.

Hunter watched Donal until he reached the far end of the block. He’d been so taken aback by the man’s parting comment that he simply stood there in the rain, blinking like a fool. He half-considered going after Donal, calling him back, but in the end he simply let him go.

Like Miki, Donal could be too stubborn for reason. Let Donal handle things the way he wanted, Hunter decided. He would stick to his own plan. Try to clean the place up. Talk to one of these Creek sisters. One thing at a time. Though that, he thought, as he stepped into the apartment and the full reek of the place hit him again, might be easier said than done. Wouldn’t you know it. Even faerie piss had to be bigger than life and more potent than that of mere mortals.

The windows he’d left open earlier in the day had helped some, but the stench was still overpowering. Hunter pulled a small plastic bag out of his pocket. Inside was a handkerchief, dabbed with sweet-smelling oil, some sort of peach/apple mixture. He tied it around his face and
it
helped a bit more, though with his luck, some neighbor would think he was a burglar wearing this thing and call the police and the next thing he’d know, he’d be down at the Crowsea Precinct, trying to explain what he was doing in this fouled apartment. Hell, they’d probably think he was responsible. Still, what could he do? He had to deal with the stench and this was the best he could come up with, though even with the perfumed handkerchief the reek of the urine and feces was enough to make him gag. Maybe he should have brought along a clothespin instead.

He decided to start in the kitchen and took his bag of cleaning supplies back there with him. Rescuing a large metal pail from one corner, he banged out its dents as best as he could with a heavy ladle, then filled it with hot water. He stirred in an industrial-level cleanser that was heavy on the ammonia, pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and got to work with a sponge. There was a secret ingredient to any cleanup, his mother used to say, and that was good, old-fashioned elbow grease. Well, she’d be proud of him tonight.

Funny, he thought as he scrubbed the linoleum, how things had turned out. The last people he’d have thought to be at odds with each other were Miki and Donal. Granted, Donal had given a good show of knowing nothing about the apartment being trashed, but Hunter wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. If you could have faerie lords like the Gentry wandering about with their skinhead attitude and bladders the size of hot air balloons, then maybe anything was possible.