Shaman Rises (The Walker Papers) (14 page)

“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.”

Chapter Thirteen

Suddenly the forty-five minutes for a shower and food seemed like an unnecessary luxury. I tried stuffing that thought back into my brain and ran for the door. Five adults and a mostly grown teen followed, and for a minute we were a latter-day Keystone Cops struggling into the hall. I popped free and the rest of the knot loosened, though Morrison, from the middle of it, muttered, “We’re not all going to fit in the rental. Where’s your cab, Muldoon?”

“Back at Seattle General. I didn’t think of driving it, what with pullin’ off the great escape.”

Laurie perked up. “Escape?”

I gave her a quelling glare that did nothing to quell her as we thumped down five flights of stairs. I was used to going on adventures with one or two compadres. Having half a dozen of us was starting to feel silly, but I needed Coyote’s expertise, had to keep Annie and Suzy close, and could hardly ditch Morrison or Gary at this late stage of the game. I sent another glare Laurie’s way, just in case she might take the hint and depart for greener pastures, but I was wasting my time.

“Call Keith,” I suggested to Gary. “Have him drop a spare cab off at Woodland Park. We’re going to need it eventually.”

“You call him, doll. Pretty young things get told yes a lot more than old dogs do.”

“Yeah, but I’ll have to buy him flowers.” I pulled my phone out and made the call, anyway, while Suzy volunteered, “I can sit on somebody’s lap,” with the casual air of someone young enough to still do that sort of thing frequently.

Laurie sized herself up compared to everybody else and sighed. “So can I.”

“I can’t drive a rented vehicle rated for five with seven people in it!”

I lifted my eyebrows at Morrison. “You’re the captain of this precinct’s police department. Who’s going to ticket you?”

His upper lip worked in a way I recognized of old as preceding a top-blowing explosion. It made his mouth look very kissable, which came as something of a relief. I hadn’t been losing my mind all those times I’d thought that, back in the day. But he pulled the rant back under control and, with the expression of a man who knew when to give up a fight, gestured for us to all pile into the car. I finished asking Keith at Tripoli Cabs to send a spare car and joined the muddle.

Annie, by dint of being the most fragile in our collective perception, got to ride shotgun, while Laurie, to her obvious delight, sat on Coyote’s lap. Coyote didn’t look too upset about it, either, and I told myself firmly that it was no longer my business. Shaking my head at unpredictable jealousy, I squished into the center seat while Suzy sat on Gary’s lap, put an arm around his shoulder and kissed his cheek, charming him completely. Once we were buckled and settled to the best of our ability, I grunted, “To the park, James.”

Morrison shot a startled look at me over his shoulder and I let out a laugh that was too big for the space I was squeezed into. “Sorry. I wasn’t being funny. I actually forgot about that. To the park, Morrison, and be quick about it. Or I’m going to asphyxiate.”

Gary and Coyote both tried scootching away at that complaint, and for an eighth of a second I could breathe again. Then they relaxed and I got smooshed, but I was a big girl. I could handle a little not-breathing for a while. I kept telling myself that the whole drive over, while Laurie persisted in asking Morrison what I’d meant by
I forgot about that.
Morrison, exasperated, finally said, “You’re a reporter, Corvallis. Look it up online if you’re so curious.”

Laurie looked sullen but subsided as we once more poured out of the vehicle, this time at Woodland Park. I broke away from the crowd, my feet determined to run even if my mind thought I should be hanging back to be the newly appointed superhero Protection Girl.

I didn’t get far anyway. We’d come in from the parking lot nearest to the baseball diamond that had been a murder site last winter. My greatest fear was finding the Marcia-shaped leanansidhe laying down new bodies on the old sites, and closing the circle to gain power of her own.

My imagination clearly did not reach far enough.

Ashen-faced people stood along the baseball diamond’s lines, just far enough apart that their extended arms didn’t quite touch their neighbors’ fingertips. Dozens of them, more than I could count at a glance. They all faced inward, and all trembled as if a great force was pulling them ever closer together. Their auras stretched from their bodies, glimmering faintly between each other but mostly dragged toward the pitcher’s mound, where the Marcia-shaped leanansidhe stood with her head thrown back and her arms spread. She was translucent, the people on the far side of her wobblingly visible through her semi-solid body.

Billy Holliday stood alone with the creature’s shape, his arms wrapped around it as though he could contain all the hatred in the world within the compass of his embrace.

His shields were like nothing I’d ever seen from Billy, so bright, so fierce, that I had to Look twice. It was his colors, orange and fuchsia, but there was something else supporting them. Not Melinda, who was sunshine-yellow and orange, but something more than just Billy allowed him to hold the struggling leanansidhe in place.

It wasn’t enough. Threads of the life force she dragged from the gathered adepts slipped through the shields, strengthening her with every passing moment. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why she hadn’t already taken him, with his gift of seeing and speaking with spirits, but I was grateful for the small favor. His grip shifted, changing to try to contain her as she fought, and I thought he didn’t have much more time.

I said, “Coyote,” dimly, and reached for his hand. It found its way into mine and I squeezed. “Keep them safe.” Then I released him, and poured my soul into trying to break the feed between the leanansidhe and the gathered adepts.

I had built so many shields in recent months, shields that kept a group together and safe. But we’d always
been
together, with the bad guy on the outside, and this time the bad guy was right smack in the middle of us. One shield wasn’t going to work. I needed dozens, small, individual, unassailable. Thirty-nine of them, the back of my head informed me as I reached out my magic. Thirty-nine spirits that needed explicit protection, thirty-nine souls that needed to be untangled from the leanansidhe’s hunger and returned to their rightful bodies.

I had one of those increasingly rare moments of wondering just how exactly my life had come to this, but for once it was tinged with wry humor. That helped, as if a thread of faint amusement in my seeking magics was a touch of humanity that the leanansidhe couldn’t compete with. It dashed along the power I extended, separating one blur of colors from another. Given half a breath to do so, the gathered mediums clawed their auras back into them, too, helping me help them. Unaccustomed to trying to assist people who
could
help me or themselves, I couldn’t stop from sending a wash of surprised gratitude down the line, too. Evidently gratitude was also a more human emotion than the leanansidhe could strive for, because it gave the adepts a little more to work with.

Their auras untangled from one another in a sudden rush, the right string pulled to loosen the Gordian knot. The leanansidhe keened, not unlike a banshee, though her sob lacked the soul-shattering edge of banshee cries. She still had hold of the mediums’ life forces, but more weakly now. Her physical struggle with Billy heightened. I ground my teeth and sent a tendril of power toward Billy, offering support.

It rebounded like a slap in the face, Billy’s aura flaring red-edged with panic. Bewildered, I withdrew with injured feelings. Irrationally injured, because if Billy rebuffed me he had some reason to do so, but I’d only been trying to help. Petulant, I returned all my attention to shielding the mediums.

I had to do it one at a time, which felt like it took forever. It was like laying down layers of paint on a car body: each color had to be selected, marked off, laid down, dried and the tape removed before I could go on to the next. I unthreaded one dazzling aura of yellow and red: Sonata Smith, the one person here I knew well enough to individualize her aura. It was a place to start, which was more than I’d thought I would have. I tucked her aura up against her body before wrapping her, aura and all, in gunmetal shielding that could withstand the worst a leanansidhe could throw at it. I hoped. Again and again, until I felt like a mother hen sitting on thirty-nine glowing eggs that could not be allowed to hatch.

The leanansidhe grew more frantic, but not stronger. She became increasingly translucent, wings spreading and battering the ground and Billy. Even all the power she’d taken on at the falls wasn’t enough to keep her borderline corporeal. She really needed a body. Maybe if I could just keep her distracted long enough she’d burn out.

I didn’t believe it for a minute. I didn’t think the Master would make his final play on grounds that shaky. Still, the leanansidhe clearly went through magic like a penguin went through water, so even if I couldn’t burn her out I might be able to keep her weak until I figured out how to kill her.

Like she’d heard the thought, she shrieked again and for half a moment became dust. Billy’s arms collapsed around the space she’d been in. He staggered with surprise, looked around, saw me, wheezed, said, “Took you long enough,” and dropped to press his forehead to the earth as he caught his breath. The leanansidhe ignored him entirely, coming together with wings solid enough to make sound as she flew at the circle of mediums.

She bounced off.

For an instant I thought she was as surprised as I was. Then I laughed, partly because I could feel her fury at being thwarted, but more, really, because I was so prone to doing that kind of thing myself. I’d never imagined the bad guys might fumble that way, too. But the leanansidhe hadn’t thought it through, assuming she could think at all.

They were linked, all the mediums, through the shields I’d built around them. It wasn’t exactly a power circle, but it wasn’t exactly not, either. The leanansidhe ran at them, slamming from one shielded body to another in an attempt to break through. The tries became more frantic, more directed at individual bodies, until I realized she wasn’t trying to break
through.
She was trying to break
in.
Trying to take one of the bodies as a host. I didn’t know why she hadn’t the moment a medium showed up, though my gaze dropped to the baseball diamond lines.

Every medium was just on the outside of those lines. Just on the outside of the bloody lines written on the earth through the sacrifices of three women. By hook or by crook, they had managed not to cross into territory the Master had marked as his own. I’d seen the glimmer of power shared between them before I brought my own magic into the fray, but only now realized they had managed to create a link between themselves that prevented the leanansidhe from escaping once they were in place. I had sent Seattle’s adepts home from Thunderbird Falls, telling them to warn the others and to be wary. I wondered if forewarned had been forearmed, for those gathered here.

Forearmed, I thought irreverently, was half an octopus. What should have been a laugh felt more like a tremor in my chest. The leanansidhe might burn through magic like it was kindling, but she was strong, and I was trying to keep forty people safe. I could keep us here indefinitely—maybe—but I had no idea how to move forward. That was going to become a problem sooner rather than later.

“Stop.” Annie Muldoon joined me, her chin set in a way that I recognized as implacable, even though I’d never seen the expression on her face before. “Stop,” she said again. “Joanne, this is foolishness. You cannot protect us all.”

“I’m not. Coyote’s got, what, five of you? Haha.” The laugh sounded pathetically like I was actually saying the words in an attempt to inject humor into the situation. Not at all convincing. I would have to work on that, but since it had failed anyway, I gritted out, “I can’t stop trying, either.”

Nor was I going to, even though I had to speak through clenched teeth. Sweat beaded on my forehead, which was new and unusual. Holding magic wasn’t normally a physical effort like this. Of course, I wasn’t usually trying to keep three dozen mediums, people whose natural magical talent encouraged them to host other spirits in their bodies, from being possessed, either. My shields glittered around them, swirling and sparking when the leanansidhe renewed her efforts to batter her way into a human body.

“Joanne.” Annie sounded worryingly calm. “I want you to look at this gathering. What do you see?”

I sent a fast glance around the baseball diamond, wondering what I should be looking for. Strained faces blanched with fear looked back at me, but I didn’t think that was what Annie wanted me to see.

“They’re all women, Walker.” Morrison’s voice was low, distorted with concern and uncertainty. “Why are they all women?”

“They’re
not—
” But he was right. Excepting Billy—who was more in touch with his feminine side than any other guy I’d ever known—every other person who’d been called to the field was female.

“He needs a woman.” Annie still spoke with great clarity. “I can nearly feel it in my soul, Joanne. I can feel it in the places where his stain still colors my body. He needs a woman of great strength or complete corruption.”

Nobody here was completely corrupted. That was kind of the point of holding the line. I opened my mouth to say so and halfway through the first breath realized we
did
have somebody of great strength.

Me.

It all became very clear suddenly. I took half a step toward the hungering leanansidhe, wondering how to prepare myself for possession.

Turned out it didn’t matter, because delicate little Annie Marie Muldoon popped me one in the nose.