Drink Down the Moon Read Free Page B

tune— not one of Johnny Faw’s, but one that Old Tom used to play in the old days.
    A mile or so north of where she’d left her friends, after speeding through city streets to the landscaped lawns that the National Capital Commission kept neat and trim along the Parkway that followed the Ottawa River, the enemy found and caught her.
    It came like a pack of dogs, spindly creatures, with triangular goblin faces, that ran on all fours, but could clutch and grab and tear with fore and hind legs. They made no sound as they came up from behind her, rapidly closing up the distance between them. When they struck, she never knew what hit her. She never had a chance.
    Attacking, they were no longer silent. Snarls and high-pitched growls cut across the night as they circled her still body to slash, dance away, then slash again. By the time the brown-cloaked figure arrived to drive the pack from its prey, there was only a heartbeat of life left in her. The figure bent over Jenna, pushed back its hood to look into her eyes as her life drained from her. When the moment passed, the figure rose, its pale eyes gleaming as though it had stolen the Pook’s life force and taken it into itself.
    Tugging its hood back into place, the figure stood and walked away, leaving the broken body where it lay. Of the pack that had taken Jenna down, there was now no trace, but the sharp sting of magic stayed thick in the air.
     

Two
     
    Henk Van Roon was sitting on the stairs of Johnny’s porch when Johnny arrived home, the octagonal shape of his lacquered wood concertina case on a step by his knee. He was a few years older than Johnny, having just turned thirty the previous week— a tall, ruddy-cheeked Dutchman who seemed, at first glance, to be all lanky arms and legs. His long blonde hair was tied back at the nape of his neck with a leather thong and he was dressed in jeans and a Battlefield Band T-shirt, with a worn and elbow-patched tweed jacket overtop.
    “How’re you holding out, Johnny?” he asked.
    Johnny sighed and sat down beside him, laying his fiddle case on a lower step. “Like I’ve got a hole inside me— you know?”
    “You want some company?”
    Johnny didn’t answer. He looked across the street, thinking of how many times he’d sat on these steps with Tom, playing tunes sometimes, or talking, or sometimes just not doing anything, just being together. He turned slowly as Henk touched his shoulder and found a weak smile.
    “Yeah,” he said. “I could use some company. C’mon in.”
    Grabbing his fiddle, he led the way inside. The house was an old three-story brick building on Third Avenue of which he rented the bottom floor. He unlocked the door to his apartment and stood aside to let Henk go in first, closing the door behind them.
    “You want something— coffee, tea?” he asked.
    “You got a beer?”
    “I think so.”
    Johnny left his case by the door and went into the kitchen. Henk stood for a moment, then lowered his long frame into the beat-up old sofa that stood under the western window. There was a fake mantelpiece on the north wall, snugly set between built-in bookcases that took up the rest of the wall. The bookcases were filled with an uneven mixture of tune books and folklore collections, the remainder made up of paperbacks of every genre, from mysteries to historicals and best-sellers.
    The mantel was covered with knickknacks, most having something to do with fiddlers or fiddling. There were wooden gnome fiddlers and ceramic ones; a Christmas rabbit complete with a red and green scarf and a pig standing on its hind legs, both with instruments in hand; pewter fiddles lying on their sides; even a grasshopper, playing its instrument like a cello.
    Two old Canadiana hutches stood against the south wall, holding Johnny’s stereo and record collection. The west wall didn’t exist, except as a hall that led from the front door to the rest of the apartment— a kitchen at the end of the hall, two bedrooms and a