Shaman Rises

Chapter Twelve

I didn’t live all that far from Thunderbird Falls. A couple of miles, maybe three.

Laurie Corvallis asked a truly amazing number of questions in three miles. It didn’t seem to bother her at all that nobody was answering, or that when she turned her attention on Suzy—the most vulnerable of us to interrogation—that I interrupted before her first question was out. “Leave her alone, Laurie, or I’m going to come lean on you.”

Contempt pulled her pretty face into a shark’s deadly sneer. “You think a little pressure from a former police officer is going to stop me from getting the story?”

“No, Laurie.” I waved one filthy arm. Gary, who had manfully chosen to sit next to me—because Morrison had to drive the rental car to my house, and therefore wasn’t available to draw the short straw—shrank back. “I mean lean. Literally. I will get you all dirty, and you won’t look nice for your national news stories.”

“I’m not afraid of a little dirt, Joanne.” She didn’t, however, try asking Suzy any more questions. Suzy looked like she couldn’t decide whether she was relieved or disappointed. Probably both. I’d have been, at her age.

Somewhat to my dismay, the cameraman drove us straight to my apartment building without asking where it was. I eyed Laurie, who shrugged and offered one of her barracuda smiles. I decided not to push it and we all fell out the back of the van like clowns being disgorged from a Volkswagen Beetle. Morrison pulled up and gave us an amused look as we got straightened out and headed inside. Gary and Annie called for the super-slow elevator in the building’s lobby and the rest of us took the stairs up five flights, me in the lead. I was unlocking the door when it occurred to me I’d left for Ireland without stopping at home first, and that in the ensuing two weeks everything in the fridge had probably taken on a life of its own. I muttered, “You might want to hold your breath,” to my little army of followers, and pushed the door open.

Not only did it not stink, but the whole place looked unusually clean. I wasn’t the world’s worst housekeeper, but I wasn’t the best, either. I stopped inside the door and peered around dubiously. Everything was in its place, living room sofa, comfy chairs, computer desk in the far corner. I was pretty sure there had been random articles of clothing lying around when I’d left. I was certain the kitchen, off to my left, had not been sparkling. Everybody barged in behind me, pushing me farther into the apartment, but once there I turned and gave Morrison a suspicious look.

“I had to drop by to get your drum, Walker. I thought I’d leave the place tidier than I found it.”

“If I wasn’t filthy...” I repeated, and he smiled in a way that warmed the cockles of my heart, even if I didn’t know what cockles were. “Someone order food,” I suggested. “There should be a menu for Mrs. Liu’s Chinese delivery by the fridge.”

“Food, Walker?”

“If we’re stopping for a shower, Annie hasn’t eaten anything in, like, five years, and I haven’t had much since yesterday morning.”

“You ate half the food in North Carolina yesterday morning,” Morrison pointed out, but he headed for the kitchen with both Suzy and Laurie’s notoriously food-bribable cameraman on his heels. Coyote threw himself into my couch and Laurie sat across from him in one of the chairs, clearly intending to pepper him with more questions. I’d never had so many people in my apartment at the same time before. It was almost like a party, except I wasn’t sure if people would have end-of-the-world parties. Probably. I excused myself as Gary and Annie came in, and went to shower.

After a very swift mental debate, I took my boots off and got into the shower fully clothed. At least that way the jeans and sweater would be rinsed and not lying around stinking up my apartment. Skimming out of soaked denim was not my favorite thing to do, but I struggled free, rinsed everything again once I was out of it, and threw it in the end of the tub, where I hoped I would remember it before it grew mold. Then I stood there, eyes closed, short hair plastering to my head, as I breathed steam.

For more than a year I’d been lurching from one crisis to another, rarely stopping to think in the midst of them. In North Carolina I’d started to realize I was never going to have time to unwind—to eat, to shower, to tell somebody I loved him—unless I made time for it. A year ago I’d have run around Seattle smelling of dog poop, too, in my frantic attempts to keep all the balls in the air before something even worse went wrong. In retrospect, I probably could have stopped to eat a few more times than I had, without anything going significantly more awry than it already had. I might have even avoided a few conks on the head, in fact.

Which didn’t mean I could stay in the shower all day long. I sighed and opened my eyes, glancing at the pile of wet clothes at the end of the tub. I kind of wished I might see Coyote there, cock-eared and grinning around a lolling tongue, the way I’d seen him the first times we’d met after my shamanic gifts had reawakened. Odds were I would never see him like that again, which, given that I was naked and in a relationship with somebody else, was as it should be. It still gave me a sad twinge, a heart flutter for something that I’d left behind. Regret was probably part of growing up, but if so, it sucked. I dragged myself out of the hot water and into a fuzzy towel, and attacked my hair with a blow-dryer. It needed trimming. My hair, not the blow-dryer. The short-cropped bangs were inclined to brush my eyelids now, and the pixie cut was hiding the tops of my ears. A shower and food were within reason, but probably stopping to get a haircut was a little more blasé about crises than I should be. Some gel lifted the spiky bangs far enough out of my eyes for government work, and I went to find clothes.

I didn’t own anything besides the new leather trench that seemed really appropriate for endgame battles, so I put on clean jeans and a warm sweater over a tank top, found another pair of stompy boots and returned to my guests as laughter erupted in the living room. It silenced abruptly with my arrival, which went a long way toward making me feel awkward and self-conscious. I stopped in the bedroom doorway, hands twisting together like a nervous ingénue.

Morrison got up and came to give me a kiss. “I was telling Mrs. Muldoon how we met.”

“Oh.” My ears hurt from turning so red. “I didn’t think it was that funny a story.”

“Maybe ’cause you ain’t heard Mike tell it.” Gary got up as the doorbell rang, letting a scraggly-bearded kid bearing about forty bags of Chinese food into the apartment. I edged past Morrison in search of my wallet, and was obliged to accept the cash everybody handed over, because I had about enough money to cover my share of what appeared to be one of everything on Mrs. Liu’s menu. Judging from how we tore into it, it looked like one of everything might be almost enough for eight hungry people. Annie, who was by far the smallest of us, put enough away for three men Morrison’s size, and slender teenage Suzy ate as steadily as a metronome. I actually looked like a piker in comparison to everyone but Corvallis, who said, “Evidently unlike the rest of you, I ate lunch today,” after a modest snack of spring rolls and barbecue pork.

Her cameraman, obviously offended, said, “So did I,” then looked faintly guilty at four or five empty boxes spread around him.

Corvallis laughed. “I’ve never seen you turn food down, Paul.”

“If you were the one lugging that camera up and down mountains in your wake...” he said with the cadence of a familiar and unmeant complaint.

I said, “Paul,” under that, just audibly enough to be heard. He raised his eyebrows and I made a face. “I didn’t know your name. Sorry.”

“Nobody does. She’s the talent. I just make her look good.”

“It’s true,” Laurie said with a degree of fondness I’d never have attributed to her. It disappeared instantly into a piercing look at me. “So what’s the plan, Joanne?”

“I filled her in while you were showering,” Coyote said. “It didn’t seem like there was any reason not to.”

That was an unassailable argument, even if I had the vague, uncomfortable feeling that one shouldn’t go around confessing all the complications of the magical life to a reporter. I said, “The plan,” like saying the words would make one leap fully formed into my mind, then blew out a breath that verged on being a raspberry. “We’re going to Woodland Park. Suzy tracked the leanansidhe’s retreat to there, and it makes sense. We—” My cell phone rang, startling me into silence. Practically everybody I knew who might call me was in this room. “Um. I have the horrible feeling that might be important. ’Scuze me.” I left a half-finished plate of Mongolian beef balanced on the arm of the couch and went to dig the phone out of my trench pocket.

An unfamiliar male voice said, “Joanne Walker?”

I frowned and retreated to the kitchen, not that a doorway and pass-through wall provided much in the way of silence or privacy. The gathering in the living room quieted down, which was polite, but also meant they could hear every word of my conversation. “Yes?”

An explosive sigh came down the line. “This is Lieutenant Dennis Gilmore. We met in North Carolina, if you remember?”

“Yes. Yes.” I put one hand on the counter, clutching it for balance. “Yes, of course I remember you.” Lieutenant Gilmore had been his unit’s only survivor of Raven Mocker’s attack. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing, exactly. I just wanted to let you know we’ve found Daniel Little Turtle’s body in Arizona.”

My stomach twisted so hard it cut the strength from my knees as I ran through every worst-case scenario I could. I knew people in Arizona. Coyote was from Arizona. I looked at him, reassuring myself he was really here. “Arizona? Where in Arizona? What was he doing there?”

Coyote straightened, flicking black hair down his spine in an action strangely reminiscent of his coyote-form’s ears twitching with concern. He got up and came to the other side of the counter, leaning on it like he, too, needed bracing.

“Phoenix, ma’am.”

I crouched, fingers of one hand wrapped around the counter’s edge and my forehead pressed against it beside them. My question came out as a thready whisper. “Mark Bragg?”

The beat of silence was worse than any confirmation could have been. Gilmore said, “Missing, ma’am,” in cautious tones.

“It’s not fair.” I was hardly aware of having spoken aloud. I was aware that I had begun gently hitting my forehead against the counter’s edge, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. Mark Bragg had been a researcher at the University of Phoenix. He’d gotten tangled up in one of my messes, and his twin sister had died of it. He was supposed to be safe in Arizona. Far away from me and the trouble that walked with me.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. We’re looking for him. His image has been forwarded to the airports and he’ll be detained if he tries to fly.”

My forehead was starting to hurt, but it didn’t stop me from calculating the hours it took to drive from Arizona to Seattle. Lieutenant Gilmore continued speaking as white sparks began showing in my vision, the maybe not-so-gentle impacts starting to have effect. “It appears Daniel Little Turtle did fly, although we’d flagged him, too, ma’am. We just weren’t fast enough.”

“Why’d he go to Arizona?” I whispered. “Why not come straight here?”

Gilmore cleared his throat. “It may have occurred to him that we’d be looking for him coming off a flight to Seattle, ma’am. You did warn me.”

A broken laugh caught in the roof of my mouth. “Lieutenant, what are you telling your superiors about this?”

“The official story remains that there was a disease outbreak in Qualla Boundary, ma’am. My superiors are concerned with finding Patient Zero, that’s all. We’re still working with the CDC to make certain the incident remains contained. We will continue to do so until Mark Bragg is located and it’s determined whether he’s infected and contagious.” Gilmore hesitated. “Ma’am, why didn’t the infection spread among the air travelers on the plane with Little Turtle?”

“You want the official line or the answer?” I stopped hitting my head because it interfered with thinking, and Gilmore deserved me to be firing on all cylinders for this.

“I’ll take both.”

“Officially, it’s spread through touch, and if no one else is infected, we’re lucky. The real answer is that first off, you can’t make wraiths from people who are still alive. But more importantly, Raven Mocker is trying to find a host strong enough to contain him, and I think spreading himself out right now would do him more harm than good.”

“Is Mark Bragg strong enough?”

“No. But if Danny got Raven Mocker halfway across the country, Mark can probably get it up to Seattle.”

“And what happens there, ma’am?”

“I take care of it.”

Another silence followed my response. Then Gilmore said, carefully, “Ma’am, would it be...better...if we were unable to apprehend Mark Bragg?”

“Yeah.”

I could just about hear his next promotion going down the drain in the crispness of his voice: “Thank you, ma’am. I’ll keep that in mind. And if I may say so...”

“Say away. God knows you’ve earned the right.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Good luck, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” I thumbed the phone off and pressed my forehead against the counter again, then hit it a few more times for good measure.

Coyote eventually said, “Jo?” which made me look up.

The whole gang was gathered on the far side of the counter and in the kitchen doorway, peering at me with nervous concern. “You should all go away from me,” I said flatly. “Go away and stay away, because I’m a bad luck magnet like nothing I’ve ever dreamed.”

“And who will protect us from your enemy if we go?” Annie asked with a hint of humor.

I wished I had any to share. Instead I said, “Danny Little Turtle was found dead in Mark Bragg’s house,” to Morrison, the only one I was sure knew all the players right now.

His face fell, though he recovered quickly. “Where’s Bragg?”

“Missing. Presumably on his way here.”

“Who is Mark Bragg?” Corvallis cut to the heart of the matter, and I let Morrison make the brief explanation about Mark and his sister’s involvement in the previous summer’s Blue Flu. Laurie glanced between us, her mouth pursed. “Sounds like being a thousand miles away isn’t any protection anyway, Joanne.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Laurie, that makes me feel a lot better.”

“It makes me feel better,” Suzy mumbled. “I’d rather be here where I can maybe do something to help instead of hiding out a jillion miles away knowing the bad guy could come for me anyway.”

“Kid’s got a point,” Gary said. “C’mon, Jo. This don’t change anything, except maybe giving this Raven Mocker a face. An’ that’s good, ain’t it? ’Cause at least we know who we’re lookin’ out for.”

“Yeah,” I said, knowing exactly how petty and nasty I sounded, “but I liked Mark. I didn’t like Danny.”

Morrison was the only one who looked disapproving. “You’re better than that, Walker. Now get up and let’s get down to business.”

I got up, although I wasn’t the least bit sure I was better than that. I didn’t want anybody to be dead because of me, but Danny’s own anger and hurt had made him a great temporary host for Raven Mocker. It was bad enough that had killed him. Mark Bragg hadn’t invited any of this onto himself. He’d just gotten caught up in my world. If I had to pick and choose, at least I could see some kind of cruel cosmic justice in Danny’s fate. Mark flat-out didn’t deserve any of it. “I hate this.”

“None of us love it. Maybe you can save him,” Coyote said quietly. “It’s what you do, Jo. Don’t give up faith yet.”

“Okay.” I nodded once, then rubbed my fingers over the tender spot on my forehead. “Woodland Park. The leanansidhe’s probably going to be sucking as much residual power as she can out of the half-finished power diamond the banshees left there. She needs a host. I’m sure she needs a host. So if she finishes that circle she might be able to draw one there. Someone vulnerable.” My stomach curdled again. “Morrison, have you heard from Billy?”

Morrison shook his head and walked away, cell phone already in his hand. Gary snorted. “Holliday ain’t the vulnerable type, sweetheart.”

“Gary, everybody who’s close to me is the vulnerable type right now. I wish to hell I had—”

My mother. For the first and only time in my life, I wanted my mother. My father would have been handy, too, but Mom had brought the fight to the Master in a way Dad clearly never had. She was a mage, a fighter, and I wanted somebody I knew could fill those shoes. Somebody who could protect my friends while I took myself into battle.

“Joanne,” Laurie said into my silence, “everybody in this room has decided being at your side is the safer, smarter or more interesting place to be right now. I understand that you feel like you need to protect all of us, but with the exception of Suzy Q there, we’re all competent, capable adults. You need to stop thinking about how to protect us and start thinking about how to use us.”

I stared at Laurie, vaguely offended. Suzy Q was my nickname for Suzanne, although I imagined anybody who’d ever heard of the song or the snack cake probably used it, too. It was no doubt completely in character for Laurie to use it.

I was offended anyway, and took it out on her in snappy tones. “And how am I supposed to use you, Laurie? You’re almost completely on the outside of this. You don’t have any skills I can use here. You’ve seen a few things most people would dismiss. Why won’t you be smart, and get out of here?”

“You’re wrong. I don’t have any magic, but I have something you can use.”

“What?”

A faint cold smile curved Laurie’s mouth. “Nerves of steel.”

I started to protest, then thought about her lying in the snow, my spear so close to piercing her heart that I’d drawn blood. She hadn’t flinched. I said, “Shit,” under my breath, and triumph flared through her smile.

“Tell you what.” She turned and whirled a finger at the cameraman like she was gathering him up and pointing him toward the door. “You get out of here, Paul. I know your nerves are as good as mine, but we can’t use the footage, anyway, and it’ll make our urban shaman here feel better.”

I said, “Your what?” in quiet dismay, barely able to hear myself under Paul’s protests and threats that he would bill the station for a full day’s work anyway. He stole three more spring rolls on the way out the door, though, so I thought most of the protesting was pro forma. At least it meant being rid of one of them. Nerves of steel or not, I was considering whacking Laurie over the head and leaving her tied up in the bedroom to keep her safe when Morrison returned with his mouth set in a thin straight line.

“Holliday’s not answering his phone. I called down to the crime scene and nobody’s seen him. I think we’d better get down to that park.”