Free Moonheart by Charles De Lint Page A

you'll rarely find a nicer or more obliging fellow, but he's as close to following the Way as you were before I met you. Though that's not entirely fair. It's not that he's a charlatan. It's just that he doesn't know, and without that knowing, he'll never be more than a collector of curiosities. You should meet him sometime, Kier. You'd probably like his niece."
    Kieran recalled laughing at the teasing look in the old man's eyes, and that had been the end of it. Except now he remembered the stories that used to go around about Tamson House— that odd things happened in it, that it was run as a commune of sorts and every sort of character who came through Ottawa eventually made their way through its doors.
    He regarded the building thoughtfully. He'd never been in the place himself, but if all he'd heard was true, it could well be the safe harbor he was looking for. Except... There was that queer sensation that had come to him when he first viewed it, that there was something wrong about Tamson House, as though there was an evil abroad tonight and it had settled upon those strange gabled eaves before moving on.
    Kieran felt overcautious, but perhaps justly so. Because there was this: he didn't have only the horseman outside of Jean-Paul's and all the implications of RCMP surveillance to worry about. There was also the fact that the old man was missing and Kieran was sure of one thing. Whatever was involved in Tom's disappearance, it was something beyond the pale of the herenow. Less corporeal than the horsemen, to be sure, but no less real or dangerous for that. Understanding that, it made no sense to seek shelter in a place that seemed so disquieting.
    He watched the House for a few minutes longer. The feeling was gone now, but he was no more inclined to go into Tamson House than if it had remained. "Someone's stepped on my grave," Tom used to say about a feeling like that. There was a sense of ill luck about it, like seeing a raven at sea before starting a voyage. Fisherman's superstition. But he had the east coast in his blood now, for all his growing up in Ontario.
    His best bet, he decided, putting aside any further considerations of Tamson House, was to head up the few blocks to the bus depot on Catherine Street, stash his guitar and knapsack in a locker, and then make the best of it for the rest of the night. He needed to keep a low profile for now. With the streets empty, he'd stand out too much. But later, when they filled up with people going off to work or whatever, he'd merge with the crowds. Then he could put out some feelers about finding a new place to stay.
    Well, hello, Ottawa, he thought as he headed north on Bank. Nice to be back.

    ***

    5:15, Wednesday morning.
    Kieran sat nursing his third coffee in a twenty-four hour Italian restaurant called Tomorrow's on the corner of Bank and Frank Street. His pocket was heavier by the weight of one locker key and he was getting a little wired on caffeine. He rolled a cigarette, lit it, and set it on the edge of a filled ashtray. Except for the bored waitress with the beehive hairdo and the short-order cook in back, he had the place to himself.
    He could remember— it was what? Five, six years ago?— when there'd been a folk club downstairs and he'd played there with a couple of fellows on St. Patrick's Day. Tim Anderson on fiddle and big smiling Eamon Mulloy on accordian. He couldn't remember what the place'd been called then. Later it'd been turned into a punk rocker's bar— The Rotter's Club. He wondered what it was now. Probably a wine bar that played loud Euro-pop music and aimed itself at the singles set. That seemed to be happening to most live bars these days.
    Things changed. They always did. Sometimes it seemed too much, or too inexplicable. Like with Jean-Paul. Kieran could remember the old days when it seemed that every second pub had a single act or small band playing in it. He'd enjoyed those times, gigging around town, playing everything from C&W and