Urban Shaman (17 page)

“What am I?” Gary demanded. “Chopped liver?”

I grunted and sent the message, then fidgeted impatiently for several minutes, hoping for a reply. “It’s eleven at night,” Gary finally said. “He’s probably in bed.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I yawned myself, eyes tearing, which reminded me to go take my contacts out. I came back into the living room wearing my glasses and still yawning. “I hate not being able to see.”

“Least you’ve had time to get used to it,” Gary said. “I hit about fifty-five and all of a sudden my arms were too short to read.”

“Maybe you should stop writing on your arms.” I grinned at his expression. “You did okay with my magazines and the computer screen.”

“Takes a while for a headache to set in,” Gary said. “How long’ve you worn glasses?”

“Since I was nine. You want to know the horrible thing? I felt like it was a big secret, that I couldn’t see,
and I figured everybody’d point and stare when I came to school with glasses. Nobody even noticed. I’d spent all that time psyching myself up for the trauma of being teased. The trauma of not being noticed was worse.”

“Kids are self-centered.”

“Humans are self-centered,” I corrected. “Don’t let kids have all the credit.”

“How’d you get to be so cynical so young?”

I snorted. “I’ll introduce you to my dad sometime.”

“That would be interesting,” Gary said so neutrally I thought I should be offended. I frowned at him for a minute while he maintained the careful neutrality. I finally looked away.

“Don’t you have to be at work in five hours?”

Gary looked at his watch. “Six and a half. I’ll be fine.”

I grinned. “What makes you think I’m worried about you? I’m worried about your passengers. You’re terrifying to ride with even when you’re awake.”

“Hey, you’re alive, aren’t you?”

“No thanks to you,” I said happily, and Gary laughed.

“I didn’t get you stabbed,” he pointed out.

“Details, details. Where’s that sword, anyway?”

“At my apartment. Couldn’t keep it in the back of the cab while I was working. You want it?”

I thought about that for a minute. “Yeah, I think so. Can you bring it by tomorrow?”

“Before or after work?”

“Um.” I sucked on my teeth. “Before.”

“Okay.” Gary stood up. “I’ll be by around five-fifteen.”

“Gah. I’ll try to be awake.”

“You’re young. You can survive on a few nights of not much sleep.”

“Easy for you to say. You haven’t been fatally wounded twice in two days.”

Gary’s bushy gray eyebrows shot up. “Twice?”

“Um.” I rubbed my hand over my stomach. “The second time was at the hospital. It didn’t exactly happen on this plane of reality.” I winced as I said it. Gary’s eyebrows remained elevated, but he didn’t say any of the sarcastic things Morrison would have said.

“I got myself knotted into a couple of other people’s lives,” I mumbled. “If I hadn’t been able to fix them, I think I’d have been dead when you came back with the coffee.”

“Richard the Second,” Gary said, in that carefully neutral voice again.

“Yeah.” I scowled defensively. “He put Herne the Hunter to death.”

“Herne the Hunter.”

“Yes.”

“The one we read about on the computer.”

I nodded. Gary spread his big hands and shook his head. “What’s he got to do with anything?”

“It was Herne at the school today,” I said impatiently. “I borrowed Mrs. Potter’s memories and Herne dragged me into his playing field.” I was sure I’d told him about this already. From his expression, my mind was playing tricks on me.

“Borrowed?”

I sat down. “She was telling me about what happened at the school and I wanted to help her get through the bad memories. Something happened. I shared her memories, like we had some kind of hive mind thing going. And then Herne dragged me out of her memories into his own. And I got all caught up in something that happened hundreds of years ago. It was like I was really there.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

Gary was very quiet. I looked up to find him frowning at me. “Why didn’t you tell your captain any of that?”

“I—” I broke off, my forehead wrinkling. “Didn’t I?”

“No,” Gary said. “You didn’t.”

“Oh.” I considered the question for a minute. “Because he’s a sanctimonious asshole?”

“I get it,” Gary said sagely. “You like him, too.”

“For God’s sake. Go home, Gary, you’re getting delusional from lack of sleep.” I remembered thinking Morrison was close enough to kiss, and groaned. “Go home,” I said again. Gary finished his coffee and put the cup in the sink, looking at me with what I was beginning to recognize as his expression of concern. It looked a bit like a polar bear with indigestion.

“You gonna be all right here, Jo?”

“I’ll be fine,” I promised, absurdly touched by his worry. “I’m just going to read for a while and then go
to bed. No crazy antics. I promised Morrison.” I made a face.

“No, you didn’t.”

Damn. “I don’t think he noticed that.”

“Don’t count on it. I’ll be by around a quarter after five,” he reminded me. “Lock the door.” I nodded and followed him to the door to lock it behind him, then stood there for a full minute, waiting for another shoe to drop.

N
othing happened.

Nothing kept right on happening while I fell asleep leaning on the door. My knees buckled, jolting me awake, and I staggered to the computer chair. There had to be something I could find about Herne, something that would tell me what was going on. If it wasn’t on the Internet, it didn’t exist, right? So it had to be, some kind of information about Cernunnos’s sullen son. I clicked through to a new site, slumped in my chair and wondered how many shoes had already dropped.

“Shoes,” I said out loud, and looked at my feet. My luggage. I hadn’t actually promised Morrison I’d stay home, and I was out of underwear. I glanced at the computer screen, where the page loaded with excruciating slowness. Stifling a yawn, I went into the bed
room and kicked over my carry-on, digging through it until I found my baggage ticket. The page still hadn’t loaded when I came back out, so I switched the screen off and left it to load, grabbing my keys on my way out the door. Airports seemed nice and safe. They had all those metal detectors that would keep people with swords from coming after me, and lots of security with no sense of humor to discourage someone if he evaded the metal detectors.

Not that it seemed even slightly plausible that airport security could handle Cernunnos. Or Herne, for that matter, since he seemed to be the one going around actually killing Seattleites. I switched lanes and listened to the uneven pattern of changing asphalt textures under the wheels of the car. Headlights flashed by, going the other direction, rhythmic whisks of light and sound in the dark. When this was over, I promised myself, I was going to go take a nice long drive to somewhere very quiet and try to get a grip on my shiny, weird new life.

Which task I would obviously accomplish with the copious spare cash hanging around in my savings account, during the long periods of free time I’d have between writing parking tickets.

An old Cadillac, big as a boat, flashed by. I remembered the church and reached across the car to open the glove box, letting the butterfly knife tumble forward with the various papers stuffed into the box. It made a solid thud, cushioned by paper, and I glanced at it while I drove.

Marie swore it hadn’t been Cernunnos waiting for
her outside the church. I believed her: Cernunnos was not someone I would ever mistake for somebody else. That suggested it was Herne; certainly he appeared to be the one who’d murdered her. I closed my eyes, trying to remember the shape of the man I’d seen from the air, wondering if he fit Herne’s shape. Then I remembered I was driving. Maybe I should stop thinking until I wasn’t on a freeway.

I left the knife in the car when I got to the airport. Security might not be able to stop Herne, but they could certainly stop me. There was a Back in Fifteen Minutes sign on the baggage claim desk, so I wandered upstairs to one of the cafés to find some food, half-expecting to see someone I knew. I always expected to, at airports.

I got an overpriced but surprisingly good hamburger, and a cup of too-hot coffee. I took my bounty and found a table by a window, where I could watch the midnight international flights take off in the distance while I gnoshed on my burger.

“Waiting for someone?”

I focused on the reflection in the window, a broad-shouldered man in a sweatshirt, wearing his long brown hair tied in a ponytail. “Yeah,” I mumbled. “My boyfriend.”

He grinned. “Your large, bad-tempered, jealous boyfriend?”

“Yeah,” I repeated. “Big. Bigger than you. Samoan,” I added in a fit of inspiration.

“Mind if I join you?”

I looked over at him. “I’m not a prostitute or out
looking for a good time, and I’ve had a bad day,” I warned him. “If you make one pass at me, I’ll kick your ass right back to the Carolinas.”

“It’s good to see you, too, Joanne.”

“What the hell are you doing here, Casey?” I stood up and hugged him, letting out an
oof
as his hug popped my spine.

“Looking for lost souls,” he said by my ear, and put me back down. “Did I find one?”

“Funny you should say that. You look good. You bulked up.”

“It’s been a couple years. People change.”

“It’s been three and a half. And you always looked good.” Round-faced and quiet, Casey O’Brien didn’t come anywhere near what I considered my type, but he had graceful hands that I’d lusted after in college. He never stood up straight, which drove me crazy, because he was three inches taller than me but came across as shorter.

“You’re lying.” Casey sat down across from me, wrapping his hands around mine. I discovered I hadn’t stopped lusting. “What
are
you doing here?”

“What?” I looked up from his hands. “Um. Trying to locate my luggage. It got left here a couple days ago. What’re you doing here?”

“On my way back up to Alaska. New job up there.”

“Congratulations. Hey,” I said suddenly. “Do you know a Doctor Marie D’Ambra?”

“Not personally. I’ve heard of her. She’s kind of a kook. Claims to know when people are going to die. I think she’s been reading too many fairy tales.” Casey
turned my hand over and traced his thumb over my lifeline. “Why, did you meet her?”

“Yeah,” I said. “She’s dead.”

Casey looked up, pale blue eyes shocked. “You’re kidding.”

“No. I met her yesterday morning. She was murdered last night.”

“Jeez, Joanne, I know you go on first impressions, but you really think you should start killing people you don’t like?”

Despite myself, I laughed. “Is that my mistake? I’ll work on that.” I shook my head, sobering. “She thought someone was after her. Look, you’re an anthropologist. Do you think…” I trailed off, uncertain of what to say. “Do you think studying old civilizations can make you susceptible to their beliefs?”

“You’re asking the wrong person. I’m an archaeologist, not a cultural anthropologist.” Casey pressed his lips together. “I don’t think an anthropologist should dismiss the reality of what she studies. But claiming you can tell when someone’s going to die? If she could do that, how come she’s dead? Shouldn’t she have known to run away?”

“She thought she was going to die,” I admitted. “She thought…” I really didn’t want to tell Casey that Marie had thought an old Celtic god was after her. Not even if it was true. The only reason I believed was because I’d come face-to-face and blade to blade with something that pretty definitely wasn’t human. “She thought I was going to die,” I said instead.

“You’re looking pretty perky for a dead girl.” Casey
studied me, then reached out and turned my face, frowning. “How’d you get that scar? I just noticed it.”

I rubbed it. “Guess it’s not wildly disfiguring, then. Marie D’Ambra cut me with a knife.”

Casey’s eyebrows crinkled. “What’d she do that for? I thought you said you met her yesterday.”

“Yeah.”

“But it’s all healed up.”

“I know. Have you ever had a week so strange it was inexplicable?”

“Um.” Casey studied me again. “I don’t think so.”

I picked up my coffee cup. “I’m having one. If I live through it and manage to get some perspective, I’ll tell you about it.” The coffee was cool enough to drink, and I took a grateful slurp. “Tell me something. Do you think the world needs saving?”

“Needs? Sure. Deserves? Dunno about that.” Casey reached across the table and stole one of my fries. They were cold, so I didn’t stop him. “People basically suck. Maybe we should kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out. Let the planet start over.”

“Do you really think that?” I pushed the plate toward Casey as he took another fry. He chewed slowly, thinking about his answer.

“Sometimes,” he said after a minute. “What do you think?”

I took another sip of coffee and stared at the dwindling pile of fries while I thought about it. A few days ago I would have laughed and agreed. Kill ’em all, let God sort ’em out.

But I’d told Billy I felt like I could save the world—
or Seattle, anyway. I’d promised the priest I’d stop the nutcase who was murdering children. I’d told Kevin I’d find the guy who’d killed his wife. “I guess I don’t think people basically suck. I think…I don’t know what I think.” I put the coffee cup down and my head in my hands, trying to work my way through a thought. “I think we lost our sense of direction,” I finally said. “I think we need to…” I looked up. Casey’s eyes flashed emerald-green at me, like a reflected light was somewhere behind my head.

A thin trickle of cold followed the warmth of the coffee down the inside of my throat, spreading out through my stomach. “I think we need to heal the people who are hurt.” I picked up my coffee again and twisted around to look behind me. There was nothing green, not even as much as an exit sign. “Heal the ones who can do the most harm, first, and then work our way down through the ranks.” I turned back to him. “I think we should start with you.”

Casey’s eyes shifted. “Me? Since when did I become one of the bad guys?”

“I think you always were,” I whispered. “Herne, son of Cernunnos.” Names had power, I’d read that. Casey began to stand up and I reached across the table to knot my fist in his shirt, locking eyes with him.

“Give me my friend back. Now.”

Color bled out of Casey’s eyes, pale blue giving way to virulent green. A small numb part of me watched it and knew I should be scared, but after watching all the color drain from Marie’s eyes, after reliving the memory of the teenagers’ deaths, all that
I could feel was rage replacing the fear that had chilled my belly. I saw surprise deepen the color of his eyes: he expected me to be afraid. I hauled him forward a few inches, and snarled, “Give me back my friend.”

“What if he was never here?” Casey’s voice tinged with a nasal, arrogant accent. Herne’s voice in his garden had been richer, fuller and far more heavily accented, but the intonations were the same.

“All the better,” I growled. “Then you’re the only casualty I’ll have to worry about.”

“You can’t,” he murmured with absolute confidence. “Healer.” The word was an epithet. I tightened my fingers in his shirt and moved around the table, until I was face-to-face with him. I could feel power again, the way I’d felt it earlier, roiling through me. It was free now, unlocked and ready to be used. There were other patrons in the restaurant, some of them watching us openly, a few of them pretending very hard not to see us. I didn’t
want
them to see us.

All I’d used the power inside me for was healing, so far, but my skin felt abused by the pressure of light on it. Invisibility was just a matter of bending light waves around something. I pushed the bubble of energy inside me out, expanding its surface so that it swallowed Herne and me whole. It felt silver-clear to me, ticklish, as if the rules of the universe had changed in the space I was standing in. I guessed they had: I could see, from the corners of my eyes, that the watchers were frowning faintly, then dismissing what they’d seen—or not seen—as impossible. In a few seconds no one was looking our way at all. My fingers tingled with the outpouring of energy.

Beyond the restaurant, the airport hummed with power, the energy of people leaving and returning home. I only had to redirect all that energy, and I could fry Herne right here where he stood, without any witnesses. I began pulling it in, as natural as breathing, even as the idea made me shudder.

Herne smiled, thin-lipped. “Healer,” he spat again. He looked nothing like Casey any longer, canines dangerously curved and build resuming its natural narrow-hipped shape. “You can do nothing here. What will happen to these people if you draw on the energy output here? How many planes will come down when the airport falls off the radar? How many children will you frighten with blackouts? Let me go, little healer. I know how to choose my battlegrounds.”

Like a heartbeat, the truth of his words pounded into me. Cause and effect. I could destroy him here, on the physical plane, and it would cost hundreds of lives. I would be as bad, worse, than he. I loosened my hold on the invisibility that wrapped around us, unsure if maintaining it might cause damage, too.

“Why didn’t I recognize you?” I didn’t release my grip on his shirt. “I was sure I would. After today. After the school. You don’t feel like Cernunnos. I thought I’d know you.”

He put his hands over mine, surprisingly cool and very large. His nails were thick and heavy, hinting of claws. “Because I can mask myself deeper than you know how to go, little healer. And you have no time to learn.”

“But I did better than you expected.” I hadn’t taken
my eyes off his, depthless and green. His gaze had none of the drowning power that Cernunnos’s did, but like Cernunnos, it betrayed him. Under his confidence was a layer of concern. I worried him. Once I tasted that fear, the totality of his power swept over me, thundering, meant to drown me. I tightened my fingers in his shirt a little and lifted my chin, letting it wash all around me like Moses and the Red Sea.

Herne’s memories weighed heavily, a man caught in a position of something less than a god, but granted hundreds of years beyond a man’s lifespan. His mortal life had at least had purpose: he guarded his lands, and faint recollection told me the land had once responded to him. He’d been the Green Man, not a god, no, but at least a protective spirit. But he was too much between two worlds: a taint ran deep in him, all the way back to the half-shared moment where he’d lifted his sword and driven it into his king’s body instead of mine.