Shaman Rises (The Walker Papers) (31 page)

Big Coyote trotted across the rich green landscape. Water droplets beaded on his metallic fur, scattering rainbow fragments across gold and silver and copper as he dipped his head to touch a cold black nose against mine.

For a heartbeat I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to rail and hit and lash out, wanted to demand why he hadn’t saved Coyote, why he hadn’t made him
hold on
until I could get back to save him. Then a surprisingly warm and wet pink tongue dragged across my face and all I could do was grab the beast’s glittering fur, drag him down and sob into it.

He wasn’t a dog. He wasn’t even a coyote. He was an idea, an enormously large idea, but he was an idea put into familiar shape and form, and in that form, he behaved as a mourning dog might. Soft yips and whines met my tears, and Big Coyote, archetype trickster, twisted around in my desperate grip until he could lick my face again and butt his head against my shoulder, my ribs, whatever part he could reach. Ideas couldn’t love things, but in our shared sorrow, I thought Big Coyote had loved my Coyote anyway, and was as distraught over his death as I was. I slept for a while, when the tears were done, slept with my head pillowed in Big Coyote’s ribs. I dreamed of deserts, and when I woke up, it was to meet the depthless stars in Big Coyote’s eyes.

They told me a necessary truth. I hadn’t had the strength to reshape the Master without the grief and anger of Coyote’s death driving me. I had sown a monster’s new shape in love and rage, in despair and punishment and hope, and nobody, not even me, went that deep or that far without paying for it. I would never have let Coyote pay for it, even if I’d known to the core of my being that it was necessary. I wasn’t that ruthless.

In the end, it seemed that Coyote had been.

I put my forehead against Big Coyote’s and my arms around his skinny coyote shoulders, wrung out but no longer devastated. Accepting, maybe.

When I sat back again, a coyote still sat beside me, but it wasn’t Big Coyote anymore. This one was more like my Coyote, with golden eyes and normal, if gray-grizzled, fur. He did his best to look as alien and remote as Big Coyote, and I laughed at his complete inability to do so. “Grandfather?”

“Is it so easy to tell?” Even if I’d had any doubts, that put them to rest. Big Coyote never talked. He typically just smashed me in the head with his own and then went along on his business. I smiled and nodded, and Grandfather Coyote heaved a sigh very like the ones I’d seen his grandson offer. “Are you ready to come back now?”

“No.”

Grandfather Coyote flicked an ear and looked at me sideways, but I was—for a rarity—absolutely certain of myself. “No, there’s something I need to do first.” I drew a circle around me in the dirt as I spoke, leaning awkwardly to include the coyote in it. “Renee?” Less hopefully, I also said, “Rattler? Raven?” but the only one I expected was Renee.

She was the only one I got, too, her quiet presence awakening not in my mind, but in front of me, manifesting as her physical form here in the Lower World. We stared at each other a long time, Renee waiting with the calm patience of on
e of
her species, me trying to keep myself from reaching out and breaking her long thin legs and spine into pieces. Maybe that wasn’t fair, but it wasn’t fair that the spirit guide who had survived was the one I liked the least, either.

I finally started talking, because somebody had to, and it wasn’t going to be the walking stick. “This wasn’t what I wanted. You weren’t what I wanted. I mean, in the beginning, none of this was, but things have changed. Raven, Rattler...” I crushed my eyes shut, pretending I could see them: Raven’s feathers gleamed blue and red with blackness, and Rattler glowed gold and brown in my mind’s eye.

“I needed their gifts in my everyday magic. Crossing the barrier into the Dead Zone, healing, maybe even the fighting speed, I need those. But time travel, that’s not something anybody should be messing with. I get that my life, the last year and whatever has been, um. Unusual. I get that we’ve been trying to set things right that went wrong so long ago that maybe, yeah, maybe actually having to go back and fix things was necessary. But that fight is
done
now. I know there are going to be ramifications right, left and center, but they’re going to be ramifications that go forward, not backward. I only want to travel one way through time anymore. Forward, day by day, just like everybody else.”

I wet my lips and looked down, then met her gaze to add the rest of the truth. “And I’m angry at you. Unforgivably angry. Maybe Rattler and Raven taking the thunderbird from me and dying in that fight was necessary. Maybe you three had a little powwow without me and they agreed it was the right course of action. I don’t. I can’t. So I’m left not trusting you, and a shaman should trust her spirit guides. So I thank you, and I honor you for your gifts, but...it’s time for you to go now.”

Renee looked at me impassively. Birds and snakes didn’t have much in the way of ability to present physically different expressions, but compared to the walking stick, they were paragons of emotive capability. I couldn’t read anything in her heart-shaped face, and her presence was as calm and reserved as it had always been.

Then she spoke, and maybe I imagined the faintest hint of pride and approval. “Your very name ties us together, Joanne Walker, but you are not obliged to use the gifts I offer. I will not—I cannot—leave you, but neither must I stay waking in your mind. Call me, and I will answer. Until then, unchanging sleep will be welcome.” She bowed, a little dip of her forearms and head. I bowed much more deeply in return, eyes closed, and when I opened them again, she was gone.

I immediately couldn’t help myself, and poked around inside my mind to see if she was still there. Kind of to my shock, she was gone. Really gone, no sense of her at all. No sense of any of my spirit animals, just an empty quietness that felt totally unfamiliar after over a year of presences in my mind. My throat seized and a miserable shudder ran through me. I leaned forward until my forehead touched the ground, trying not to cry. “I guess that’s over.”

“It isn’t quite that simple,” Grandfather Coyote said. “Your father and your son still carry the walking sticks with them.”

I nodded into the earth. “That’s their decision and their path to travel, though. I know it’s part of my heritage, and part of theirs, and I guess they’ll do what they need to with it.” I sat up again, barely fighting tears away. “Me, I’m done with that. I hope I’m done with it. I think I’m done with it.”

“Good. A shaman should know not to speak in absolutes. I hope...” The coyote hesitated very like a man would have done. “I hope you might someday come to study with me, for a little while.”

My eyes spilled over, after all. “I would be honored.”

He offered a coyote grin, old and sweet and solemn instead of my Coyote’s rakish teasing. “Then maybe we are done here, my student.”

“Maybe we are.” Smiling, I opened my eyes.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Morrison’s living room floor was not drafty. That was really the first thing I thought when I woke up.
My
living room floor was drafty as hell, but Morrison’s was comfortably warm.

So was his lap, which my head and shoulders were resting in. I opened my eyes to smile at him, and saw the shimmer of magic beyond him. A power circle, or, really, a power dome. The sweat lodge I’d seen, inside. Somehow that surprised me. I hadn’t expected it to have a real-world physicality at all, even if Dad and Grandfather Coyote had both been there.

They were both here, too, kneeling on either side of me and Morrison. I looked at their three faces, then grinned. Morrison, with his blue eyes, fair skin and prematurely silver hair, looked very white-bread between the two Native American men. I could only imagine that if I could see all four of us, me with my dark gold tan playing up my Cherokee heritage, he would look even more white-bread. He saw me smile and returned it, upside down from my angle. “What’s so funny? We’re not doing anything.”

“What do you mean ‘we,’ white man? Nothing.” I slid a hand upward and pulled him down for a kiss.

He grunted and, when I let him go, muttered, “I’m going to have to start practicing yoga if you’re going to do that kind of thing a lot.”

The idea of Morrison practicing yoga made me grin again. “If I’m going to kiss you often? Better break out the yoga mat, boss.”

“If you’re going to wrench me around upside down for kisses,” he said loftily, but the loftiness faded almost instantly into relieved concern. “You look better.”

“I feel better.” Morrison helped me sit up and I did what I had done when I’d entered: reached for Grandfather Coyote’s hands. This time I succeeded, clasping fingers with him and feeling the fragility in thinning flesh and old bones. “Thank you. Thank you. I’m so sorry.”

The old man drew me into a hug, his iron-colored hair falling past my face and hiding me from the world. “I am less sorry now that I understand you a little, and why my grandson chose as he did. Do not forget, granddaughter, that he chose, too. For good, for bad, he chose, too.”

I nodded against his shoulder, and didn’t object when he held on for a long time. When we finally broke apart, I lurched toward Dad and hugged him, too. “Thank you. We gotta talk about the condition you left Petite’s clutch in, though.”

“We—you—what?” Dad spluttered in real enough offense that I laughed, and laughed again when he managed to get out, “I taught you to drive on a stick shift! Her clutch is in perfect shape!” through general incoherence.

“I know. I know. She’s fine.” I sat back smiling, and Dad’s offense faded into chagrin.

“You did that on purpose.”

“Yeah. I thought we could use a little grounding. How are you doing, after all of this?”

His face turned solemn. “Your mother would be proud of you, Joanne. I’m proud of you. I’m also... I’m glad it wasn’t me,” he confessed in something just shy of embarrassment. “Not that I’d have wished any of this on you, but...I don’t know if I could have handled it.”

“You would’ve if you’d had to, but I guess I’d been lined up to bat since before I was born. That’s enough of destiny-with-a-capital-
D,
” I added firmly. “I have had enough of that crap, and I think I’ve by god earned my lifetime of free will.”

“Your free will had better want you to get over and visit the Hollidays,” Morrison said. “Melinda called three times while you were out. Nothing’s wrong,” he added hastily, as I turned to him in alarm. “They just want to see you and make sure you’re all right. And find out what’s happened the past...week.” He said the word like he couldn’t believe it had been so little time.

I fully sympathized with that, though I got hung up on something else. “Three times while I was out? How long were we in there?” As if in response, my stomach rumbled. I glanced out the living room window, noticing the sky was dusky. “Please tell me that’s sunset and not tomorrow’s sunrise.”

“It is, but it’s still been a long day.”

“I can no longer remember a day that wasn’t. I’ll call them, but I’m not going over there tonight. At this point they can wait until tomorrow. Oh, crap. Suzanne. Has anybody talked to her?”

“She’s still at her friend’s house. Most of the roads are impassable, not just in Seattle but statewide. Up into Vancouver and down into Oregon, really. Her aunt can’t get up here. She said she’s all right.” Morrison sounded cautiously accepting of that, which was good enough for the moment. I would have to go see her soon and not only thank her for her part in saving the world, but give her a thorough psychic checkup to make sure the burden she’d taken on wasn’t poisoning her. That, I suspected, was going to become a lifelong habit. I couldn’t imagine just leaving her to cope, even if she was the granddaughter of a god.

It could probably wait until the weekend, though. I nodded, trying to catalog all the things I needed to do, and my stomach growled again.

“Food,” I said aloud, like it would put everything into perspective. “Food and sleep and...would it be all right if we had a memorial for Coyote tomorrow, Grandfather? At Thunderbird Falls, I think. I know you meant to leave tonight, but...”

“A memorial,” he agreed. “I will not leave his body here, though.”

“No. No, he’d want to be back in his desert.” The desert which he had never intended to leave, and where I had never been willing to join him. I nodded again, and accepted Morrison’s help in getting to my feet. We ordered an awful lot of pizza for only four people, and when it was demolished, I slept in Morrison’s arms all night without waking.

Tuesday, April 4, 10:39 a.m.

Police tape still marked off the murder site at the falls, but it looked like no one had been there to pursue the investigation in several days. Given the shambles Seattle was in, I thought it might be weeks before anybody was able to come back down here. I paced the outer rim of the circle, trying not to look at Morrison as I did so.

Apparently I needed to work on my subterfuge, because after I’d made a full circuit, he said, “What are you thinking, Walker?”

“That there’s no answer to this that anyone is going to like, and that maybe it’s a terrible shame the scene was disturbed during all the chaos.”

My boss—my former boss—looked pained. “I was afraid you would say something like that. What do you want to do?”

“Cleanse it. I managed to clear up the falls once—” and I didn’t look at them, either, all too aware of what that particular job had cost us “—but this area here is still stained with the murders. I’d like to wipe up the mess, like Melinda did at their house after the serpent attack.”

Morrison took a few steps back, like he could see over the top of the cliff and watch the Hollidays pull up in the parking lot. They weren’t here yet. Nobody was except me and Morrison. The memorial was going to be held at noon, one of the quarter points of the day, but I’d wanted to come over early. The falls had featured heavily in my redesigned personal garden, so I thought spending some time with the real thing would be a smart choice. We’d driven Petite, leaving Morrison’s Avalon for my dad and Grandfather Coyote to drive over. Dad’s expression at the idea of driving a modern, top-safety-rated vehicle had apparently been so similar to my own that Morrison was still inclined to grin when he thought of it. In fact, he did smile as I watched him, then chuckled, clearly thinking about it again. But then he drew himself back to the matter at hand, nodding at the police tape. “Are you going to do it yourself?”

“I thought I’d ask Melinda to lead it. She has more experience, and if we all come together to do it... I think Coyote would have liked that. It’s the best memorial I can think of for him.”

“You know not all of us can do magic, Walker.”

I came over to slide my arms around his waist. “We don’t all have to. Being here, sharing that energy—God, I can’t believe the things that come out of my mouth these days—”

“I’m going to buy you some hippie skirts and hoop earrings to go with the vibe you’re feeling,” Morrison said, straight-faced.

I was too close to kick him, so I knocked my hip into his and tried not to laugh. “
Anyway,
you know that it’s being here that counts.”

Morrison, deadpan, nodded. “Sharing the energy.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” I threw my hands in the air and stomped away, although I had nowhere to go and no actual pique to burn off. When I looked back, he still had the most neutral expression possible, making me laugh. “Stop that.”

His solemnity cracked. “Sorry.”

“You shouldn’t lie to a woman who can read your aura.”

“Your eyes are green. You’re not using the Sight.”

Damn. I was gonna have to do something about that. Not right now, though. Right now I went back to him to steal a kiss, then began working on a power circle. It wasn’t just for Coyote: it was for me, kind of marking this as my territory. I was responsible for the falls’ creation. I wasn’t going to leave it vulnerable to attack again. Besides, leaving a long-running circle here would link me to the falls and to Seattle in a way I was beginning to think was important, particularly in light of all the rebuilding we were going to have to do. I wondered if shamanic magic could convince the state legislature and politicians that rebuilding Seattle as America’s first totally green-energy city was an awesome idea. It was worth a try.

I was reasonably certain that that, and a lot of other random thoughts, went into the circle itself. I was also fairly certain it
would
influence the politics and decisions made over the next years and months, and since I’d already been riding the Acts of God horse pretty hard lately, I couldn’t find any dismay in myself over the idea. By the time I’d walked the circle a dozen times, imbuing it with a lot of
be kind to each other
and
save the humans
suggestions, the sun had climbed nearly to its zenith, and people were starting to show up.

Billy and Melinda were among the first, and came to envelope me in a hug I never wanted to escape from. All of their kids glommed into it, too, to the utter delight of Caroline, who was in a chest-strapped baby carrier and squealed happily as she left big slobbery baby kisses across all our faces. Through hugs and squishing and family, I whispered, “Thank you. Thank you guys for being there yesterday. Whatever. For being there when I needed you.”

“Always,” Melinda promised. “Always, Joanne.” Then pure wicked teasing splashed across her face. “Congratulations, by the way. It certainly took you two long enough.”

I looked for Morrison, who was greeting my father and Grandfather Coyote, and didn’t even manage to blush. “I guess there’s no point in that betting pool at work, then, huh?”

“You work with detectives,” Billy said dryly. “You really thought they wouldn’t put it together when five days after you take off, the boss takes his first vacation since he’s started, and says it’s emergency family leave?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Yeah, yeah, when you put it like that...”

Billy tugged me against him again. “It’s good to see you, Jo. It’s good to see you in one piece. I’m sorry about Coyote.”

“It’s good to be in one piece. Thank you. Oooh,
Robert...
”

The oldest Holliday boy cringed so guiltily that I nearly laughed. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“Talk about
what
later?” his mother demanded.

Robert sent me a look of terrorized pleading and I caved. “Oh, somebody told me Robert had a girlfriend. An older woman, even.”

“It’s
Kiseko,
Mom,” Robert said frantically. “We play chess together, that’s all.”

Melinda’s eyebrows rose and she looked between us, but more or less let it go with, “Kiseko seems like a nice girl. She
is
a little old for you, Robert.”

He wailed, “She’s not my girlfriend!” with such embarrassed outrage that I figured that he either really liked her, or was desperate enough to play into it so his parents wouldn’t find out he’d been working summoning magic without their supervision. Either way, I
would
talk to him about it later, but the horror of being teased by his family about a girlfriend was probably entirely sufficient in terms of punishment. More people had shown up while we were talking. An awful lot of them were people I never expected to see: guys from work, headed by Thor, who probably shouldn’t have been out of bed, never mind the hospital, yet, but there he was. I went over to hug him, and the embrace lasted a long time, even if we didn’t exchange any words. Jennifer Gonzalez from Missing Persons was there, which wasn’t much of a surprise even if she hadn’t known Coyote, and Ray, looking ruined and terrible in black, was there with a photo of Laurie Corvallis. Her cameraman, Paul, was with him, looking like the only thing holding him together was helping Ray hold it together.

Heather Fagan
and
her niece the coroner’s assistant were both there. Heather didn’t quite meet my eyes, but Cindy did, forthrightly, and flicked a salute like we belonged to some kind of secret brotherhood. In a way I guessed we did. Suzy and a cute girl who had to be Kiseko showed up. Kiseko made a beeline for Robert, but Suzy edged her way through the growing crowd to find me.

She looked older than she had when I’d last seen her, only three days earlier. Less ethereal, somehow, though that could have just been weariness dragging her down. Still, I drew her in and hugged her before asking, “You okay?”

“Kind of. The blackness is gone.” She didn’t sound as happy about that as she should. I put her back a few inches, eyebrows beetled in question. “I still can’t see the paths anymore, Ms. Walker. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to again. I’m afraid...
he...
is stopping me somehow.”

“I don’t think he’s separate anymore. So don’t try to split that part of you out, okay? It’ll just get confusing. Besides, your visions will come back.”

She lifted a dubious eyebrow at my confidence. I smiled crookedly. “You’ve been through a really rough patch here, kiddo. Even the best of us shut down what we can’t handle, sometimes. Hell, I shut it down for more than a decade, when it came to magic. I seriously doubt you’re going to bottle yourself up that badly, but give it a little time, hon. You’re going to be okay.”