Demon Hunts

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Coyote was at my side, trotting along in his animal form. The sky above lingered between Middle World blue and Lower World red, shading to warm purple before we fully entered the Lower World.

I had no recollection of following a path, the other times I'd come here. It wasn't man-made, but more like some ancient streambed, rocks smoothed over until they were cobbles, patch-worked together by nature's hand. That was Coyote's presence, stabilizing my generally awkward entrance to other realms. I wondered if I'd ever be as competent.

We followed the streambed up a low mountainside, Coyote's tongue lolling as it got hotter. I said, "You could always switch out of the fur suit," idly, and he managed to slam his entire body weight into my knee without arresting his forward motion at all.

"Four feet are easier than two on this kind of surface. Besides, I'm a better hunter and protector in this form. You could try it."

"Being a coyote?"

"Or a raven."

I liked how he said that. Like it was not only within the bounds of reason, but in fact utterly reasonable. "I can't shape-shift."

"Not with that attitude you can't."

"I meant people can't shape-shift." This despite the obvious evidence to the contrary. But we were in the Lower World, where rules didn't hold true quite the same way they did in our world. "Or are you going to tell me you can do that at home, too?"

"I wouldn't dare." We crested the mountain and the Lower World spread out before us, a multicolored valley of forests and meadows. Mist took the distance even though the low sun burned steadily in the sky, but I doubted little things like terrestrial weather patterns meant anything here. Coyote sat, wagging his tail, and snapped at a seed dancing on the air. "Does anywhere call to you?"

"Just the local telephone exchange."

He snapped at me that time, and I raised my hands placatingly while I studied the view.

I honestly wanted somewhere to jump out at me, for some small hollow or meadow to brighten in invitation. I wanted to feel like I belonged somewhere here, that some place in this strange odd-colored world welcomed me. Nothing did. Yellow rivers cut their paths across orange-and-purple earth, blue trees stretched toward red skies, all of them disproportionately close to one another, but none of them said c'mere, Jo, this is a safe place for your spirit quest. I sighed and gestured a little ways down the mountain. "Nowhere, really. We might as well just use one of the hollers."

"One of the what?"

"The hollers, the…" I stumbled over the explanation, having never imagined needing to give it. "The mountain hollers. One of the little valleys down there. You know, if you holler it echoes? It's a…it's a holler."

Coyote turned his face toward me to give me the direct upward look that made such effective puppy-dog eyes, except there was no soulful hope in his expression. It looked a lot more like "What the hell are you on about?"

The phrase I shrank in on myself was more literal in the Lower World than at home. I curved my shoulders defensively, becoming physically smaller with unhappiness. "It's what my dad calls them. I thought everybody did. Maybe it's just a North Carolina thing."

I didn't know why Coyote's disdain made me feel so bad. I just hadn't expected to be called out over a regionalism. He looked awfully big now, compared to me, and his furry eyebrows bunched together in the worried way that dogs had. He poked his head toward me, long tongue wrapping around my wrist, and although it should've been impossible for him to speak that way, he said, "I'm not a dog," very gently. "Sorry. I just never heard the phrase before. Mountain hollers."

"Doesn't matter." Still hunchy, I turned down the mountain, but Coyote tangled himself in my legs and wouldn't let me move.

"It does matter. This is supposed to be a spiritual journey, a peaceful one, not another tit for tat one-manupmanship. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make fun of you."

"Yeah, you did." I wasn't trying to be childish. I just figured if he was going to apologize it should be for the right things, or it didn't mean diddly-squat. He looked up at me for a moment and then his big pointy ears flopped over.

"Okay, you're right. I did. I shouldn't have. I'm sorry."

That sounded more sincere somehow, and I sat down to bash my head against his and hug him. "Okay."

"You've been doing a good job, Jo. I don't know if I said so. You've been doing all right without me."

"I've been a huge flailing mess without you." I got up again, feeling much better about the world, and we slipped and climbed our way down into the nearest holler, where I threw my head back and, well, hollered. "Halloo the reverberate hills!"

Echoes bounced back all around me, and Coyote, after throwing me a startled glance, tilted his sharp nose to the sky and howled. I joined him, shouting nonsense and howling myself, until we were both breathless and our ears rang with the shadows of our voices. Then, smiling and yet feeling strangely formal amidst all the noise, I oriented myself toward the north, where I bowed extravagantly. The other three directions got equal acknowledgment before I sat in the center of a power circle inscribed by echoes.

"All I've brought," I said to no one in particular, "is the song of our hearts. I'm sorry I haven't got any other gifts today, but liveliness and fun ought to count for something." It certainly did with my raven friend, who could be outright silly. I closed my eyes and, a little more solemnly, added, "I seek a second guide today, another spirit to protect me on the warrior's path. I'm grateful to anyone who considers me, and I'll do my best to honor one who might choose to walk with me. I'm pretty bad at that," I admitted, because it seemed like I ought to be honest, "but I'm getting a little better, and Raven means a lot to me even if I'm an ingrate."

I didn't dare open my eyes, for fear Coyote would be gaping at me. I wasn't exactly Ms. Formality, but my little speech was heartfelt, which was a long way from the bastion of refusal I'd been six or twelve months ago.

In the silence that followed I became aware of my drum, its rhythm steady enough that it seemed to define the boundaries of the world. The earth rattled softly with its thrum, mountains picking up the reverberations and rattling them through me. Even the air shimmered with the beat, dancing against my skin. Trees rustled in time with it, and I thought if I opened my eyes the sun itself would skip to the drum's sound.

Instead, though, I drew in closer to myself, concentrating on how my heart fell into time with the external beat. My blood pulsed with its time, red brightening and dimming in my eyelids, until slowly the dimmer aspect became black, and then so too did the bright. I could barely hear the drum anymore, could barely even hear my own heartbeat, assuming they weren't one and the same. Sparks danced against my eyelids, tiny colorless fireworks that were alien and familiar at the same time.

The drumbeat turned to hope in my chest, filling me until I had no sense of my body left. I floated, nothing more than a spark myself, and then the spirit animals came darting through the dark to investigate me.

Most came only once. A badger dug his way by, stopping to snuffle me and then move on. I thought I'd seen him before; he'd come to consider Gary as a companion. The fleet deer that leaped by me, though, had not, and I was unsurprised when its spirit-white form continued on. Solid stodgy badgers seemed a more likely fit for me than quick-hearted flighty deer.

Others came and went, spilling by in a river of possibility, and I became slowly aware of the one animal who returned again and again. It wound its way toward me as if it were the riverbed, long thin lines of white glowing and fading away. Once, twice, three times, and the fourth it stayed. I said, "You—well, one of your brethren, anyway—came the first time, too. In the false quest."

A rattlesnake folded himself up to strike, narrow head held motionless as he met my gaze. "There isss no sssuch thing assss a falssse quessst, ssshaman. There are only falssse prophetsss. We come becaussse your ssspirit isss true, and alwaysss wasss, even when you were led assstray." He dipped his head and I mimicked the gesture, profound thanks sending a chill over me.

"I mussst tessst you," he said. "Sssee if you are worthy. Thisss will hurt," he warned, and struck.

Hurt didn't begin to cover it. I'd taken a sword through the gut more than once, had been punctured through the hand—also more than once, now that I thought about it, and overall any lifestyle that involved being gutted and stabbed repeatedly really needed a good hard look taken at it—and I'd fought off an ancient serpent's poison while in the form of a thunderbird.

The rattler's bite managed to combine all of that into one excruciating wound. My hand, where his fangs had sunk into me, throbbed so hard I thought it would explode. Poison scored my veins, stripping them of blood. They shriveled inward, constricting my heart, and agonizing sickness threatened to split my belly open. I gasped for air and instead wheezed toxins, my throat burning raw.

I didn't know what the hell I was supposed to do to prove myself worthy. Playing the stoic seemed like the obvious answer, but with screams ripping my voice box to shreds, I was clearly not taking that road. A spasm seized me, flinging me down and arching my back until bone cracked, but when tears spilled along my cheeks they burned too, poisoned water. Stoic was right out.

That left me with two choices. I could heal myself, or I could die. I didn't think dying would prove anything, and I'd managed to survive poisonings before. It was a complex process involving separating blood from poison and pushing the venom out. Water in the gas line was how I thought of it, and it was time-consuming and uncomfortable.

I think I actually said, "Oh, fuck this shit," out loud instead of keeping it safely behind my teeth. Then again, my teeth were rotting and falling from my mouth thanks to the contamination swirling through me, so they weren't keeping much behind them anyway. I reached deep inside myself, past the belly-twisting bleak horror my life had become, and seized hold of the healing magic that was part and parcel of who I was now.

Nobody'd ever mentioned if shamans had any real use for spell working, for a focus of magic through words. Then again, nobody had mentioned a lot of things, and I'd found words to be handy a time or two. I set my raw bleeding gums together, snarled, "Physician, heal thyself!" and commanded my magic go.

It erupted through me, silver-blue light brilliant against the darkness. Poison splashed out of me and sizzled into nothing. Pain faded instantly, my bones whole again, my body no longer wracked with pain. Something glittered in my vision, a glimpse of fractured, spiderwebbed glass. Bits of the web were sealing up, coming closer to the center. Then the image faded, replaced by a growing sense of astonishment.

I'd known almost since the beginning that real shamanic healing didn't have to go through all the tiddly steps I took, all the metaphorical stretches that I used to convince myself any of it was possible. Knowing it, though, and experiencing the pure blowout of power, the instantaneous transformation from broken to whole, were two very different things. I took a deep breath, marveling at how it didn't hurt, how my lungs weren't melting inside my chest, and sat up beaming.

Snakes were not creatures well-known for their expressive faces, but my rattler managed to look pleased anyway. "That was sssatisssfactory. Ssstrength you have, ssshaman. Ssstrength, but little sssense. You would be wissse to heed the raven."

Bemused, I said, "Yeah? I'm trying. What do you bring to the table?" and winced at my own lack of gratitude. "I mean, um…"

"You mean asss you sssay. Sssnakesss, like you, are sssimple creaturesss. We ssstrike when it isss necssesssssssary. It isss sssomething I like about you. Asss for my giftsss, they are plain to sssee, if you ussse a little sssenssse."

I wasn't sure I liked being a simple creature, but I did like how his forked tongue got all excited and tangled around a word like "necessary," with all those ess sounds. I bet if I could get him to do the "she sells sea shells" tongue twister he'd get such a hiss going he couldn't ever stop. I also bet he wouldn't appreciate it at all, and bit my lip against trying. "The healing," I said instead. "I couldn't do it like that before."

He inclined his head quite elegantly, and I reached out, tentatively, to see if snakes liked being scratched on the jaw. This one evidently did; he preened and tipped his head like a cat, leaning into the scritch. "There isss more. It will come to you when you need it mossst."

"More? Instantaneous healing is kind of a lot."

"Yesss, but it isss not all of what you are." His snaky eyes lidded contentedly and he began coiling down on himself, clearly ready for a nap. "Sssoon you will sssee."

"I can't wait to find out." I even sort of meant that. "One more question. How come you talk to me? Raven doesn't."

The rattler swayed his head to the side, examining me as if I were a fool. "Becaussse ravensss can talk in your world, sssilly ssshaman." He bumped me with his blunt nose, and I awakened to the Lower World, and chaos.

It wasn't the wendigo, if I wanted to count small favors. There was none of the blood stench, none of the bitter cold, none of the almost-human drive for food. Instead, Coyote staved off wolves, for a metaphorical if not literal description.

I had some familiarity with the demon denizens of the Lower World, having accidentally released them into Seattle one time. Coyote faced them and their brethren: chimeras of terrible form and shape ranging from vicious-toothed, segmented worms to giants whose bodies were twisted with hate. One of those, a stone giant called an a-senee-ki-wakw, locked gazes with me as I woke, and I saw from the depths of rage in its eyes that it knew me. I'd released it and then I'd put it back, and it intended on having its revenge. They all did, and knew they only had to go through Coyote to get to me.

Now would be a good time for whatever other gifts the rattlesnake had offered to show up. I drew my sword and rushed forward to join Coyote in battle. He was bleeding and his jaws were red, and my appearance at his side was shock enough that he snarled and turned on me for an instant before he knew who I was. Then relief sagged his features and he turned back to the demon spirits, hunched low in preparation for attack. "You need to get out of here. We can't kill them, not here, but they won't stop hunting until your spirit has been extinguished. You really pissed them off."

"It's a feature." I fell into step with him, backing up, but the holler wasn't built to scramble out of backward. "You go first. Get up there so you can give me a hand out."

He barked a protest and the twisted giant surged forward, slamming a huge first into the ground. The drumbeat faltered, then sped up, shaking the earth as if somewhere out in the real world, Gary knew what was happening and was trying to help. "Coyote, go! I've got the reach weapon!"

He snarled again, but my logic apparently swayed him, because he suddenly turned tail and raced up the back side of the holler. The demons, eager for their prey, leaped as one, converging on a single point.

Me.

I twitched to the side, faster and more graceful than I knew I could be. My sword lashed out, whipping like a saber, and blue power flared along it to score a mark against the giant's hide. One of the others, a flint-winged monstrosity, turned on a wing tip and jumped at me again. I flattened against the earth, rolled, and came up again in a fighting stance, all while my brain was still shrieking in panic and waiting to get crushed. "I am not your enemy!" My staccato shout bounced off the holler's walls until the only word left was enemy. The aseneeki-wakw seemed to feed on it, getting stronger and taller with each repetition. I darted back and forth, avoiding scorpion tail stings and gnashing worm teeth sheerly by the grace of God, while Coyote stood above me barking his fool head off.

I wanted to scurry up the hill after him. I really did. But aside from the fact that I didn't think I'd make it, the blinding need to do something about these creatures, the simple wish to succeed in defeating something, since the wendigo kept kicking my ass, had grown stronger than the impulse to run. The misses got narrower, and I got angrier, until I flung down my rapier and bellowed, "Fine! You think you can take me? Come and get me, motherfuckers!"

It was awesome. I felt like Samuel L. Jackson, right up until the motherfuckers came and got me.