Jack, the giant-killer by Charles De Lint Page B

down at his plate. “I’m not hungry anymore.”
    “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Kate said while they were getting a bag for Finn’s pastries. The hob was still sitting at their table, staring morosely out the window.
    “It’ll be okay,” Jacky said. “I think he just likes to build things up.”
    “He didn’t build up those guys back at your apartment.”
    Jacky frowned. “No. But we’ve got to wait until tomorrow morning to leave anyway and it doesn’t matter which way we go back to your place—there’s the chance that the Host’ll be watching us no matter how we go. It’s tonight at your house that’s worrying me—not getting there. Thanks,” she added as the redhaired girl behind the counter gave her the bag with Finn’s pastries in it.
    “We could have a party,” Kate said.
    “What?”

“A party. Tonight. We’ll invite all the bruisers we know and have all sorts of protection.”
    Jacky laughed. “We don’t know any bruisers.”
    “Then we’ll just have to meet some.”
    “I think you’re almost serious.”
    Kate winked. “Maybe I am,” she said as they returned to their table to collect Finn.
    By day, the park across from the Gruagagh’s Tower was a different place. There were no bikers, no giants. The Rideau River moved slowly along the south side of the green. Dried reeds rustled in the breeze. The swans were gone now, but flocks of ducks floated close to shore, hoping for handouts. There was a football game in progress as they entered the park’s Bank Street entrance. The teams were short—only five men to each side—but what they lacked in numbers, they more than made up for in enthusiasm. On the path by the river two women with strollers were walking. A jogger moved around them onto the grass as he passed and soon left them behind.
    “That’s the Gruagagh’s Tower,” Jacky said,
    pointing it out. “The one with the back yard all overgrown.”
    “It looks deserted.”
    “I think it is—except for him.” A big shout came from the football players as one team scored a touchdown. “And there are your bruisers,” Jacky added with a grin,
    “I think I’ll pass,” Kate said. “Can we walk closer to the house?”
    “Sure. Only don’t expect to see much from here because…“ Jacky paused as Finn plucked at her shirt sleeve. She shifted her jacket from one arm to the other as she turned to him.
    “We can’t stay,” he said urgently.
    “Why? What’s wrong?”
    “I don’t know. I just feel it in my bones. There’s a glamour lying thick and deep here, just waiting to snare us.”
    “A glamour… ?”
    Jacky looked around as she spoke. The day, the park and the people in it, all seemed so ordinary. But then she remembered what had been waiting for them in her apartment, and last night’s mad flight from the biker flooded her mind. God, she could be so stupid. What was she doing, bringing them all here when she knew—she knew —how real the dangers were? It was as though ever since the attack in her apartment, she’d decided that they’d won the war. But all it had been was one small engagement.
    “Which way should we go?” she asked.
    “Back the way we came,” Finn replied. “Come. Quickly now.”
    Jacky nodded. But it all felt so normal still. Her pulse drummed, but there was nothing that she could see that she could even pretend was a danger to them. The women with their strollers were almost out of sight. The football players had just begun a new play. The quarterback pumped his arm and the ball went spinning, a high, long pass in their direction. The ball was caught about twenty yards away from where they were standing, the man who caught it grinning with pleasure. His teammates worked to block the ladders that were coming in from either side. And then—
    Then it was too late.
    Before Jacky could turn, before she could put proper use to the swiftness stitcheries that Finn had sewn into her sneakers, they were upon her. At the last