Urban Shaman (21 page)

“They went for coffee.”

“You don’t like coffee?”

“I don’t like crowds.”

He was a real charmer. Kind of like a pit viper. “Right,” I said. “And two’s a crowd. I’ll just get out of your hair.” His long, thick, blond, wavy hair. I needed another cold shower. I glanced at the car he was working on as I went by, and cleared my throat. “That’s Mark Rodriguez’s car. Check the axle alignment. I never saw anybody yank more wheels out of whack than
Rodriguez.” What the hell, Thor was determined to dislike me anyway. He and Morrison could have a nice bitchfest about me someday. “Brakes probably need work, too. He’s got a lead foot for braking.”

Thor gave me a look over the top of the car. “He brought it down for brake work,” he admitted. I felt just a little smug. “Hang on,” he said. I looked back over my shoulder. He took a hand off his tire iron and spread his fingers at the car. “Aren’t you gonna show me your stuff?”

“Never on the first date, mister.” Pleased with myself, I stuffed my hands in my pockets and went out whistling.

It was probably inevitable that Morrison was at the street corner. He opened his mouth and I held up a hand. “Go talk to your boy Thor in the garage,” I said. “He doesn’t like me either.” I stepped around him and got far enough down the street that I thought I was actually going to get away with it before he caught up with me.

“I’m addicted to the doughnuts, Morrison,” I interjected into his next indrawn breath. “Can’t help myself, there’s just nowhere else in the city that makes them quite like The Missing O. Swear to God, that’s all I’m here for. A nice apple fritter.” Maybe I could keep this up and just not let him get a word in edgewise. It sounded like a good plan to me.

“I’ll buy you one,” he offered with a tight smile. I crinkled up my face. Not only had my nefarious plan not worked, but apple fritters were filling and I’d already eaten one.

On the other hand, I couldn’t pass up the opportu
nity for Morrison to spend money on me, even if it was only a dollar twenty-nine. “You talked me into it. Be careful, though. People will talk.” Bruce was right. I was in a good mood. If I closed my eyes and concentrated a little, I could feel the city’s people, millions of lives wrapped up in their own quick paces. I could affect them if I chose to.

I could also walk right out into traffic. Morrison’s big hand closed on my shoulder and hauled me back from the curb. My eyes snapped open and I stared up at him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” we both barked, and then neither of us would give in to the little surge of laughter the doubly demanded question deserved.

“I’ve known geniuses who couldn’t be trusted to keep their heads from the clouds long enough to cross a street, Walker. Are you gonna turn into one of those?”

“Why, Morrison.” I grinned after all. “Are you saying you think I’m a genius?”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” He let go of my shoulder and crossed the street. I followed, trying not to give in to the urge to do a little jig. Even if I did get killed, I’d gotten the better of Morrison three or four times inside of a day. It seemed like a pretty good legacy, just then.

The Missing O was incredibly busy, the whole neighborhood stopping by for their morning cuppa joe. The garage crew was there, so I made Morrison stand in line while I said hello and collected hugs. They departed en masse when Morrison returned with
not only an apple fritter, but a hot chocolate for me, too. “Why are you being nice to me?” I asked suspiciously. I took a bite of the fritter, though. It seemed unlikely that he’d gotten the barrista to poison it.

“I didn’t want to deal with the paperwork I’d have had to fill out if you’d walked into traffic.” He sat down. “Sit.”

I sat. He’d just bought me breakfast, after all. “Glad to know you’re only being self-serving. For a second there I thought you might be concerned. What do you want, Morrison?”

“People walking out into traffic does concern me. What do
you
want?”

I lifted my eyebrows. “Love, justice and world peace. But I’ll settle for solving a murder.”

“You’re sus—”

“Suspended. Yes. We’ve been over that. What’s your point?”

“I could fire you for insubordination.”

“Fine. Fire me. I’ll go get Henrietta Potter to hire me as a private investigator.” That wasn’t a bad idea, now that I thought of it.

Morrison set his coffee cup down and held up a thick finger. “One,” he said, “you don’t have a P.I. license. Two.” He held up another finger. “You don’t know much about investigating anyway. Three, this is personal for you. Personal gets in the way of impartiality. And four, you irritate me.”

I held up four of my own fingers, then folded them down and closed my thumb over them, jabbing at my
own jaw. “And five, on general principles?” I asked. Morrison picked up his coffee again, almost smiling.

“Don’t tempt me. What were you doing at the station?”

“Why do I bug you so much?” This was probably not the time to get into it, but I was suddenly incredibly curious. Morrison arched his eyebrows. “No, really,” I said. “I mean, I know we got off to a bad start, although I still can’t believe you didn’t know a Mustang from a Corvette—”

“I was never into cars.”

“Obviously. What
were
you in to?”

Morrison stared at me over the edge of his coffee cup, then put it back down. “Being a cop.”

“What, when you were like nine? Fifteen? You wanted to be a cop, not to drive fast cars and pick up girls?” I took an incredulous bite of the apple fritter.

“Yeah. I never wanted to be anything but a cop. And that, Walker, is why you irritate me.” Morrison looked like he was at war with his own body language, trying to force himself to relax back into his seat while the intense low pitch of his voice drove him to lean forward, speaking to me sharply.

“You fell into a job I spent my whole life working for. You irritate me because I think being a police officer is a calling and a solemn occupation and you’re carrying a badge without it meaning a damned thing to you. You hang out with my officers in your off time, being just that damned cool, an attractive woman who talks cars and drinks beer and arm wrestles. None of them give a damn that you were in the top third of your
class at the academy and that you’re wasting your skills in Motor Pool playing with engines. But it bugs the hell out of me.
That
is why you irritate me.”

I gawped at him. Morrison exhaled loudly and looked away. “What were you doing at the station?”

Thank God he’d said something else. I might’ve gawked at him the rest of the day, unable to speak. Attractive? Morrison thought I was attractive? Morrison knew where I’d graduated in my class? Christ, I usually played that down. He had to have looked it up.

Morrison thought I wasn’t, for God’s sake, living up to my potential?

I swallowed the impulse to apologize for disappointing him. “How do you know I was at the station?” It was a stupid question, but it was marginally better than apologizing.

Morrison just looked at me. I shrugged, took a sip of my hot chocolate, and nearly choked. It was mint-flavored and topped with whipped cream, the way I like it. It didn’t go at all well with apple fritters, but to the best of my recollection, I’d never once ordered hot chocolate with mint while Morrison was around. I stared at the cup, then stared at Morrison, while he looked almost perfectly bland. I bit down on rabid curiosity and refused to ask, taking another sip of chocolate instead, just like he hadn’t completely out-maneuvered me. Twice.

“I was seeing if anyone had filed a missing persons report,” I said when I put the cup down. I couldn’t think of anything to tell him but the truth. Besides, Jackson had told me I wasn’t a very good liar. If a dead
man could see through my lies, there was no way I could fool Morrison. “I don’t think anything’s going to come of it, but it’s worth a shot.”

“Who’s missing?”

“A kid. A girl. Maybe. I mean.” I closed my eyes. Here I went again. “She might be missing, if she’s…real.”

When I opened my eyes Morrison was looking at me like I’d lost my mind. “You think someone who might not be real is missing,” he said in disbelief. I cringed.

“I know she’s real. I don’t know if she’s got a day-to-day ordinary life to be missing from.” One like I’d had until the beginning of the week. I ran my fingers over the scar on my cheek, then rubbed the heel of my hand against my breastbone. I wondered if the nervous hollow feeling there would ever go away. Morrison watched me.

“That diner had security cameras, did you know that?”

I looked up and shook my head, suddenly grateful for the hot chocolate. I took a sip before getting up the courage to ask, “And?” I had the hideous feeling the tapes had all been wiped blank, or had recorded static. It would just figure.

“I watched the tape this morning. Right from you and your friends walking in to you coming back from the dead. I didn’t believe you until then.”

“You believe me now?” My voice sounded very small and hopeful to my own ears.

Morrison took another sip of his coffee. “You should have a hole in you.”

“You want I should flash you and show you that I don’t?”

To my surprise, Morrison grinned. “Maybe another time.” I gaped again. I didn’t know Morrison knew how to flirt. Particularly with me. “I didn’t believe your friend Mrs. Potter, either.”

“Despite being faced with direct evidence? You’re a contrary bastard, Morrison.”

“Indirect evidence. I didn’t see it happen, and the hospital security tapes show you flopping over her and then getting up. And then Mrs. Potter getting up a few minutes later.”

“C’mon, Morrison, how direct do you want?” I was arguing for something I considered impossible three days earlier. Oh, what a tangled web we weave.

“It’s piling up in your favor.” Morrison took another sip of coffee, then put the cup down. “Which is why I’m considering the possibility that you might be of some use after all.”

That, somehow, didn’t sound like something I really wanted to hear. A cold little ball of dread formed in my stomach and started sending tendrils out through my guts. “What happened?”

Morrison took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. “Henrietta Potter was murdered this morning.”

B
lack fog rolled into my vision, narrowing it down until all I could see was Morrison, and even he looked distant and unreal. The memory of Mrs. Potter’s bright eyes and crisp speech blotted him out for a few moments. Then my sight expanded again, the edges brightening to white until I could see the entire café. It disappeared in a flash of brilliance. I stood alone in the star field again, shouting for help, and no one came.

There was a distant hunger, though, a mawing blackness between the stars. It drew closer as I shouted, like a great cat studying its prey before it pounced. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I suddenly remembered Coyote’s warning that speaking with the dead could be dangerous. I was very sure the darkness was home to the danger. I shouted for help one more
time, into silence too immense to even echo. The stars blurred away into images that raced by, too quickly to comprehend, until the doughnut shop resolved itself around me and Morrison was crouched beside me, shaking me.

“…nne? Joanie?” he said distantly, and then, sharply, “Jesus, Walker. What the hell was that?”

My vision pounded back into focus and I whimpered, lifting my hands to my temples. I felt like I had a three-day hangover. “She was fine last night.”

Morrison straightened, looking down at me. “Yeah, well, apparently getting to know you is bad for people these days.” He moved back to his side of the table, frowning as he sat down again. “If you hadn’t pulled that stunt at the hospital last night—”

“—she’d still be there under guard and alive,” I finished in a miserable whisper. Morrison glanced up.

“No. She
was
there under guard. If you hadn’t pulled that stunt, they probably would have thought she died from complications, but half the staff saw she’d been healed up. Still, the wound that killed her was nearly identical to the original.” Morrison was silent for a long moment. “How the hell did you do that?”

I closed my eyes, remembering the absurd car analogy. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yeah. I really want to know.”

I took a fortifying sip of my chocolate, then spoke to it. “I had a near-death experience Monday morning. It’s apparently not uncommon for people with shamanic potential to be jolted into an awareness of that potential in near-death experiences. In fact, there
are whole rituals…nevermind. Shamans are healers.” That much, at least, I’d grasped. “Healing requires belief.” I looked up. “I’ve never been big on belief.” He let out a snort of amusement. “But you’d be surprised at how far getting a sword punched through you and waking up unscarred will go for a girl’s belief.”

“I might be,” he said noncommittally, and waved his doughnut, an unfilled maple bar, at me. “Keep talking.”

“The shaman has to believe, but so does the one being healed.” I picked at my apple fritter, eating little bites. “She was unconscious. I guess it’s harder to have an opinion when you’re unconscious. She’s really dead?” My voice was hollow. Morrison nodded.

“She’s really dead.”

“I liked her,” I whispered. I wasn’t going to cry in front of Morrison, dammit. Especially when I didn’t have my contacts in as a cover-up.

“Shit happens,” Morrison said. I looked up, angry, and caught the flash of frustration in his eyes. Maybe it wasn’t as easy for him as he pretended it was. I’d give him his white lies if he’d allow me mine. We were both silent for a few seconds, composing ourselves without looking away from one another.

“So why did you tell me this?” I finally asked. Morrison finished his doughnut and his coffee, then compulsively straightened the silverware on the table before answering. I watched, fascinated. Captain Michael Morrison was not a particularly fastidious man. “You’re fidgeting.” What a wonderful place the world was, that Morrison could be made to fidget. “Am I one of the suspects again?”

He glared at me, which seemed to restore his equilibrium. “Do you have an alibi for five o’clock this morning?”

I blinked at him. “Astonishingly, yes. Gary dropped by at about ten after.”

“Then you’re not. Who’s Gary?”

“My secret lover, Morrison, who else? He’s the guy who was with me when I met Marie. When we found her body. The cab driver. He was at the hospital last night. Big guy. What’s it to you, anyway?”

“Oh, Mr. Muldoon. Didn’t know you were on a first-name basis with him.”

“Just because I’ve known
you
for three years and I’m not on a first-name basis wi—” It occurred to me that he’d used my first name, when I’d blacked out a few minutes earlier. I wouldn’t have sworn Morrison even
knew
my first name. “My life has gotten very peculiar all of a sudden,” I said a little randomly. “Maybe I should go now.” I stood up.

“Siddown.”

I sat down.

“What was Mr. Muldoon doing at your house at five in the morning?”

“Do you want to know professionally or personally, Morrison?” Sarcasm seemed like a good way out of bewilderment.

“Professionally,” he said icily.

“Well, then, I probably shouldn’t answer that question without my lawyer present, should I? For Christ’s sake, Morrison. He was dropping something off before he went to work.”

“What?”

“Work. You know. That thing that I don’t have to go to right now, ’cuz some bastard suspended me?”

Morrison turned purple. I felt better about the world. “What,” he said precisely, “was Mr. Muldoon dropping off at your house?”

“That,” I said just as precisely, “is none of your fucking business. What’s going on, Morrison? Five seconds ago I wasn’t a murder suspect and now you’re treating me like one.” Gary’d said Morrison liked me. It was absurd, but it was a nice cheap shot and I wasn’t feeling big enough to pass it up. “If it weren’t completely insane, I’d say you were jealous.”

“Oh, damn,” Morrison said, all wide eyes, “I’ve been found out. What was he dropping off?”

“A rapier,” I said in disgust. “The one Cernunnos stabbed me with. I thought it would make a nice souvenir. If Mrs. Potter died of a wound like the one she had earlier, the rapier is shaped all wrong to make it. I hate to disappoint you. Now what the hell do you want from me, Captain?”

“I want you to find this guy,” Morrison snapped. I thought it was probably a lot easier on both of us, being angry. We could deal with each other as adversaries that way, like we were used to. Moments of connection only made things screwy. I spread my hands, lacing my voice with sarcasm.

“Yes, sir, Captain, sir. Why the change of heart?”

“Because he walked past two of my guards and murdered a woman this morning, and nobody saw a thing.” Morrison set his empty cup down on the table,
hard. “You tell me something, Walker. If I bring you in on this case as a specialist, are you good enough to solve it?”

“No,” I said flatly. Morrison leaned back, shocked. Shocked, and maybe a little admiring. Silence drew out a moment before he dropped his chin, half a nod.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, Morrison. I’m in way the hell over my head in a game I don’t know the rules to. I’m learning awfully fast, because as near as I can tell, anything else and I’ll end up dead.” I took a sip of chocolate and put the cup down with a little less emphasis than Morrison had. “I’m not good enough,” I repeated, “but I don’t know what other choice you’ve got.”

Morrison swung his hand around in a little circle that meant “keep talking.” I pushed my cup away. “Cernunnos and Herne. They’re at the heart of this. Know anything about them?” Morrison snorted. I half smiled. “Neither did I. Cernunnos is a god, Morrison. An ancient Celtic god. He’s not evil. He’s more…” I closed my eyes, envisioning the hard narrow face and the slender fey lines of the god’s body. “Primal. The other one, Herne, is his son. And he
is
evil. He’s twisted. He’s the one killing people. And I don’t know why. What I
do
know is that Cernunnos tried to kill me so I couldn’t bind him again, and Herne seems to have developed a personal vendetta against me. So no matter what else, I’m the one you need because they’re both gunning for me.”

“Can you stay alive?”

Electricity ran through me, a warm shock of life that
made my fingers tingle. For a few seconds I forgot about the world, feeling the blood coursing through my veins, feeling the beat of my heart and the fill and fall of my lungs. My vision blurred again, and, looking at my fingers, I could see each layer of skin, the tendons and the bones, as clearly as I could see the coffee cup my hands were wrapped around. One more blink, and I would see the cells skimming against one another, bouncing off the surface tension that was skin. Instead I shivered and met Morrison’s eyes. “I decided this morning that I wasn’t going to die.”

Morrison’s shoulders were lifted, expression tense. “Your eyes are the wrong color.”

I blinked. “What?”

His shoulders went even tighter. “They’re—they were—gold.”

“Must’ve been the light,” I said in a very low voice. Morrison thrust his jaw out. Yeah, I didn’t believe me either. Great. Marie’s eye condition was catching. I hoped I didn’t start doing the pupilless eye thing. “I decided I wasn’t going to die,” I repeated, hoping Morrison would let it go. I carefully looked at the table, rather than at my hands. I wasn’t that keen on seeing my own bones.

He was silent a few seconds before I heard him shift into a more relaxed position. “Nobody gets up in the morning planning to die, Walker. Well,” the cop in him amended, “hardly anybody.”

I swallowed. “No, I don’t think you understand.”

He spread his hands. “Enlighten me.”

“I can see my bones,” I said softly, and dared look
at my hands again. They looked perfectly normal. “I don’t think anything short of brain death can kill me right now.”

“Are you telling me you’re immortal?”

“No,” I said irritably, “I’m telling you I can stay alive.”

“Why the hell didn’t you just say so?”

The wall was too far away to hit my head on. “Does that mean I’m no longer suspended?”

Morrison puckered up like he’d bitten into a lime. “Yeah.”

“Do I get my badge back?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool,” I said. “How about a raise?”

Morrison’s expression went tight.

“Hey,” I said, “I’ll be detecting. Detectives make more than mechanics, don’t they?”

Morrison stared at me. “I really don’t like you.”

I smiled brightly. “It’s good to be back. Boss.”

It took half an hour to get my badge back, and another forty minutes on the range blowing holes in distant targets to assure Morrison I wasn’t going to shoot myself or anyone else unless I intended to.

“That’s it?” I asked when Morrison pulled off his earmuffs.

“That’s it,” Morrison said, still scowling. “You shoot well.”

“Thank you. My dad taught me. I like rifles better, but I guess one wouldn’t fit in a shoulder holster.” I tucked the gun awkwardly into that self-same holster.
Morrison looked like he felt better when I didn’t do it well, which made no sense. I would rather someone very competent was tucking and untucking guns from shoulder holsters, but Morrison was having a bad enough morning as it was. For once I let it go, asking, “That’s it?” again. “Now I get to go out and defend the innocent and protect the weak with my trusty sidearm and shiny star?”

“I can’t tell you how much I already regret this,” Morrison growled. I sighed happily.

“No, but you’ll probably try.”

“This isn’t a game, Walker.” Morrison was grim.

“No shit.”

“Walker.” There was a dangerous note in Morrison’s voice. I looked up from trying to arrange my pistol comfortably and rubbed the heel of my hand over my breastbone. It was getting to be a nervous habit, but I couldn’t get over the uncomfortable feeling of having a sword through my lung.

“I know, Morrison. Okay? I never planned to be a card-carrying member of any law enforcement agency. I really just wanted to be a mechanic. I’m not taking this lightly.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

I shrugged my jacket on over the shoulder holster to see how it fit. Not bad. Felt a little strange, but I’d adapt. “Did it ever occur to you that might be the point?”

He was quiet and I looked up again to see a faintly satisfied expression in his eyes. I wished he wouldn’t do that. Discomfited, I adjusted my jacket again and
shifted my shoulders. “There anything else?” I asked my shoes. They were regular waterproof winter boots today. Morrison was wearing similar shoes. We were the same height. I smiled a little.

“Just try not to talk to the press, Walker.”

I dropped my voice half an octave. “This is Special Investigator Joanne Walker, reporting for
Tabloid TV.
I’ve learned that at the heart of a series of bloody murders is an ancient Celtic god and his estranged son. Tune in at eleven tonight for more.”

Morrison tried not to grin, producing a wicked sparkling smirk instead. It wasn’t James Dean, but it wasn’t half-bad. “None of that.”

“Who would believe me?”

“The kind of people who watch tabloid TV. Just spare the department the embarrassment. Spare
me
the embarrassment.”