The Prince of Two Tribes (12 page)

Charlie smiled mischievously. “There’s plenty to see at night. We are the People of the Moon, after all.”

“Oh yeah? Well, I’m not really interested in going out in the middle of the night. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll get some sleep.”

“Sleep?” Charlie scoffed. “You’re a Faerie! You don’t need to sleep. You’ve been living with Humans too long.”

“Keep your voice down!” Brendan hissed, cocking an ear for the sound of his parents stirring below. There was no sound, save for the creaking of the house and the dull hum of a car passing by. “I know I don’t
need
sleep. I
like
sleep. And I’d like some right now.” Brendan had become aware through spending time with his new Faerie friends and family that Faeries didn’t require sleep the way Humans did. Instead, they entered a meditative state for as long as they needed to restore their strength. Like all the new Disciplines Brendan was struggling to learn, a meditative state was hard for him to reach and, once in it, hard to maintain. It was another failure in a long list, but he wasn’t about to reveal his shortcomings to Charlie.

“Forget it! We’re going out!” She grabbed Brendan’s arm and hauled him across the floor. Now it was his turn to be manhandled against his will.

“Let go of me!” Brendan said, trying to pull away as she dragged him to the window. She may have been slight but she was incredibly strong: her grip was like a vise around his wrist. In spite of his greater height and weight, she dragged him inexorably across the floorboards.

At that moment, BLT streaked in through the open window and jerked to a stop in front of Charlie’s face. “Who are you?” she demanded. “And where are you taking Brendan?” She raised her little fists in a challenge.

“Oho!” Charlie laughed.
“Qui est? Une petite pugiliste!
Tweezer!”

The ferret slithered from beneath Charlie’s hoodie and curled protectively around the girl’s neck, baring its teeth.

“Uh-oh!” BLT backpedalled in the air as the furry creature hissed at her.

“Leave her alone,” Brendan demanded in a harsh whisper.

“Worry about yourself,
mon ami!”
She grabbed Brendan by the front of his T-shirt with both hands and flung him out the window.

“Brendan!” BLT cried, zipping out after him like a tiny comet.

Brendan barely had time to marvel at the strength required to lift him from the floor before he realized he was falling. Again, his body instinctively kicked into high gear. He could feel every cell fizzing as he phased into warp time. He twisted himself in mid-air, kicking out with one bare foot against the brick wall of the house as it unreeled beside him. The impact spun him around so that he landed on his feet with a soft thud in the backyard. The snow crunched under his feet. The shock of the ice on his bare soles made him yelp, even with the resistance to the cold afforded him by his Faerie blood. He felt every flake of snow and blade of frozen grass beneath, a sensation that he had yet to become used to or tired of, for that matter.

BLT streaked down from above and clutched at his shoulder. “What’s the idea, leaving me at the mercy of that rabid beast!”

“I hardly had a choice!”

“Still, nice landing.”

“Thanks,” Brendan muttered, his breath clouding the air. The night was cold but he felt no discomfort, even dressed in a threadbare Arcade Fire T-shirt and flannel pyjama pants. He looked down and cursed softly when he saw a hole torn in the knee.

There was a soft rustling sound as Charlie alighted beside him. She had taken the less dramatic route down, scurrying like her ferret, Tweezer, down the brick wall of the house. The ferret was nowhere to be seen.

“What is your damage?” Brendan hissed angrily.

“Chill, Brendan,” she said lightly.

“Chill? You pushed me out a window!”

“Do you always state the obvious? What a wonderful night to be alive,
non?”

“My pyjamas are ripped,” Brendan complained.

“Tabarnac!
They’re pyjamas. Big deal! Stop whining like a little
bébé.
”

“You don’t get it. Nothing you do has consequences. You don’t have to explain anything to anyone. I’ll have to explain this to my mum! How am I supposed to keep my nature a secret when you show up and start rubbing my parents’ noses in it? I’m trying to keep a low profile.”

“You are not just hiding from your family. You are hiding from yourself.” Her eyes fell. “And for your information, I am not so free as you imagine.” Brightening, she clapped her hands. “Tonight, there is no one to hide from. Tonight, we enjoy who we really are. Come on!”

Before Brendan could protest, she grabbed his hand and pulled him away.

“Whoa!” BLT tumbled from Brendan’s shoulder, righted herself, and streaked off in pursuit.

Brendan was once again awed by Charlie’s incredible strength. He had no choice but to try to keep up. They ran full speed at the back fence, a wooden barrier, easily three metres tall. Charlie gathered herself and leapt, clearing it easily, while Brendan had to place one foot on the top to vault over. They sped down the back alley, flashing by dark yards and garages. A family of raccoons crowded around an overturned trash can watched them pass.

They burst out of the alley and into the street. Charlie didn’t slow at all. A cab, trawling along Dundas Street for a fare, was the only sign of life. Charlie sped across the wet pavement, lightly stepped onto the hood, and somersaulted over the car. Brendan followed her, noting the alarmed face of the cabdriver who belatedly slammed on the brakes. The angry echo of the taxi’s horn followed them under the bare branches of the trees of Trinity Bellwoods Park.

Brendan had never been in the park in the wee hours of the morning. The moonlight sparkled on the frost rimed limbs of the trees, spread like bony fingers bereft of their summer foliage. With surprise, Brendan realized that Charlie wasn’t pulling him anymore. Somewhere on the street she had released him, and now he was warp running without any awareness of doing so. He couldn’t help but laugh with delight as his feet barely grazed the snowy blanket that covered the park. Searching ahead, he saw that Charlie was in front of him, bounding across the open snow like a deer in great, ground-eating strides. In fact, as he watched her, he thought he could almost see the shadowy shape of a deer surrounding her as she moved. Brendan grinned. He decided he was going to have to show her up. He threw his head back and picked up his pace.

The world slowed as he warped deeper, faster. He caught up with her on a flat, open space just past the baseball diamond.

“Is that all you got?” Brendan called.

Charlie glanced over her shoulder. Her look of dismay was gratifying. Brendan put on another burst and made to pass her.

“Uh-uh-uh!” she scolded. Deftly, she tapped his heel. Brendan’s feet tangled and he fell hard. His speed sent him sliding wildly, spinning, unable to stop himself as he dug a furrow in the freezing snow. He stuck out his hands to stop himself. Looking up, he was alarmed to see a row of trees approaching. He knew he wasn’t going to stop in time. All he could do was cover his face with his forearms and hope his injuries wouldn’t be life-threatening.

Suddenly, his ankles were clamped in a powerful grip. His teeth slammed together as his forward motion was violently arrested. Tentatively, he looked up to see the moss-encrusted trunk of a tree mere inches from his nose.

“Yikes.” He let out his breath and twisted to see Charlie grinning, holding his ankles in her hands. Her black boots had gouged two deep furrows in the frozen ground.

“That was fun.” Charlie giggled, breaking her hold.

Brendan pushed himself to his feet, brushing the dirt furiously from his pyjamas. “What’s the big idea? You could have killed me!”

“But I didn’t. Lighten up.”

BLT, circling overhead, piped up. “That was amazing! You were really warping, Brendan. Until you face-planted.”

“I didn’t face-plant! She tripped me!” He brushed snow from his T-shirt.

BLT hovered in front of his face. “You’re missing the point. How did you manage to warp like that?”

Brendan stopped and thought about what the tiny Faerie had said. “I don’t know. I just did it. I didn’t think about it.”

“Maybe you should think less all the time,” Charlie said, arching an eyebrow. “Thinking: good. Too much thinking: bad. Let’s go.” In a flash, she was speeding away again.

“Where are we going?” Brendan cried. He set off after her with BLT clinging to his shoulder.

He caught up with her just as they reached Queen Street. An all-night streetcar rumbled past. Charlie leapt across in front of it, waving at the startled driver. Brendan sailed across a second later. Before the driver could reach for her warning bell, they were speeding down a darkened side street.

Brendan sped down the middle of the road. Charlie took a more adventurous route, leaping lightly along the roofs of the parked cars. Her footfalls were so gentle that she didn’t set off a single car alarm. The vehicles didn’t even shift under her weight. Brendan was so engrossed with watching her that he almost didn’t see the police car cruise around the corner ahead of him.

“Brendan!” BLT squeaked. Brendan snapped his head forward and saw the looming grill of the cruiser just in time. Without a conscious thought, he sprang into the air, clearing the flashers with a metre to spare. He skidded to a halt, his bare feet sliding on the icy pavement.

“Whoa. That was close,” he gasped.

He didn’t have time to dwell on his narrow miss. Red light bathed him as the police cruiser slammed on its brakes, slewing to a stop on the slippery street. The red lights on top began to spin and the driver’s door swung open.

“Stay right where you are!” the policeman shouted as he climbed out of the car.

Brendan froze. He’d never been yelled at by a policeman before.
³³
He’d also never been out in his pyjamas and bare feet in the middle of the night before. How was he going to explain himself to the constable walking toward him, flashlight in hand? How was he going to explain this to his parents? Brendan blinked as the beam of the flashlight rose to glare into his face.

“Uh … ” He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but he didn’t know what to say.

In the end, he had no opportunity to speak. A dark shape flashed by between him and the policeman. The flashlight went spinning from the constable’s hand.

“Wha—?” Before the officer could register the flashlight smashing onto the pavement, the shape streaked by again. His weapon belt snapped open and the heavy leather holster bearing his gun, Taser, and walkie-talkie thudded around his ankles. The dark shape blurred by once more before stopping to reveal Charlie standing directly in front of the startled man.

“Evening, Officer,” Charlie said sweetly and pushed the man in the chest with both hands. The constable stumbled on the belt at his feet and fell backwards onto his butt with a loud whuffing sound. Charlie whirled around and dashed past Brendan, laughing merrily.

“Run, dummy!” she called over her shoulder.

Brendan and the shocked officer stared at each other for a few seconds in disbelief. At last, the policeman’s face registered anger. He scrambled to his feet. Brendan didn’t wait any longer. He turned and desperately warped away as fast as his Faerie legs could carry him, following the sound of Charlie’s laughter.

She led him south, blazing along residential streets where Humans lay sleeping in their beds, Christmas lights twinkling on their porches and windows. From one backyard a dog barked, sensing their passage, though by the time the bark came, the two Faeries were long gone. On and on, Brendan chased after Charlie’s blurred form, gaining slowly until they plunged under the expressway, into the parkland that bordered the lake. Brendan finally caught her at the running track that snaked along the waterfront. He fell into step with her. They loped easily along the trail, heading to the centre of town. In spite of his annoyance, Brendan had to admit that being out in the cold night, flying along with this strange Faerie girl was just a teensy bit enjoyable. But he suppressed that feeling, holding on to his anger as best he could.

“What are you doing? Are you trying to get me arrested?”

Charlie threw her head back and laughed. “You should have seen your face.” She pointed at him, giggling. “You looked hilarious!”

“Hilarious? I almost had a heart attack.” Brendan frowned. “I have to live among Humans. That means I have to obey their laws and not … assault police officers!”

Charlie managed to get her laughter under control. She looked sideways at him, puzzled. “You really do think that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Brendan said.

“Okay. You have to be a law-abiding Human citizen. But you have a duty to your Faerie side, too. You’ve got to live up to your potential and use your gifts. And you
have
gifts. I have the spirit of the stag in my legs, Brendan. Not just anyone could catch me the way you did.” She turned north when they reached the docklands. Brendan matched her stride for stride. “Try to admit to yourself that you’re having a good time for once in your life, eh?”

Brendan didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say to that. He
was
enjoying himself. His whole body sang with joy from the race they were running through the darkened city. He couldn’t deny how good he felt, but he didn’t want to show Charlie that he enjoyed any of it. “You’re fast,” he said with grudging respect. “Are you a Warper, too?”

“No.” Without missing a step, Charlie pulled up her right sleeve to reveal the tattoo of the stag. “I am a Shadow Dancer.”

“Shadow Dancer?”

“It’s a one-of-a-kind Art. I’m the only one of me. I can take on the traits of my Shadow Animals. Speed from the stag.” She bared her other arm to show a bear tattoo. “The she-bear gives me strength.” Pulling up her sleeve further, she revealed the boar. “And the boar, she gives me cunning. You don’t mess with the boar.” Smiling fiercely, she raced ahead, across the expressway, mercifully traffic free, and into the rail yards. Brendan willed himself to run faster.

“I don’t plan on having the chance,” he called to her back. Charlie jerked to a halt. Brendan drew up beside her.