Urban Shaman (12 page)

“The world,” Billy said. I smiled thinly.

“Let me just start with Seattle.”

I turned up at Morrison’s door, still carrying my hot chocolate, at five minutes to eleven. He stared at me like he’d never seen me before. “You didn’t tell me when my shift started,” I said with all the aplomb I could manage.

Morrison continued to stare at me. “I don’t have a patrol uniform, either. I do have my badge!” I dug it out of my jacket pocket and waved it at him.

He stared at it.

“So now you pair me with an old curmudgeon, right? Somebody to show me the ropes? Somebody
who hates paperwork and foists it all off on me? That’s what happens now, right?” That’s what happened in the movies, anyway. I frowned at Morrison. “You okay?”

“What the hell are you doing here, Walker?”

I straightened up, startled. “What’d you think I was gonna do, not show up so you’d have an excuse to fire me? Y’know, I might have loads of stupid, Morrison, but I’m not quite
that
bad.”

“Walker.” Morrison walked around to my side of his desk, pausing to close the door. My heart lurched. “You are a suspect,” Morrison said, the words measured, “in a murder case. Walker. Do you really think I’m going to put you on the street?”

I swallowed hot chocolate wrong, and coughed until my eyes teared. Morrison stared at me impassively. When I could breathe again, I croaked, “Suspect? But they let me go.”

“It looks bad. You chased that woman all over hell and breakfast, and twelve hours later she’s dead? The papers will have a field day. Murdering cop put on foot patrol. The department can’t afford that kind of publicity, Walker. The only place I want to see you in the next week is nowhere near here.”

“If I’m nowhere near here how can you see—” Morrison’s eyebrows shot upward. I shut up.

“Since you’re here, go get a uniform and the rest of the equipment. Then stay outta my sight until this thing is cleared up.”

“But—”

“Get!”

I got, stopping by Billy’s desk on the way out. “Swing shift?” he asked. I snorted.

“No shift. I’m on temporary leave of duty until this murder’s been taken care of. Morrison thinks I’m the prime suspect.”

“Isn’t it nice to have co-workers who have faith in you?” Billy shoved the paperwork I’d gotten from Ray at me, grinning. “So go clear yourself.”

I retreated to the coffee shop to study the files, reading about the murders and trying to figure out what they had to do with Marie. None of it made any sense to me. The last of the shamans, the quiet woman whose name I hadn’t been able to remember, had died on New Year’s Eve. Her next of kin was listed as Kevin Sadler, and there was a contact phone number. Maybe I hadn’t missed the funeral.

I’d never called up a stranger to ask about a dead person before. Kevin Sadler had a quiet voice and told me I’d missed the funeral but he would appreciate a visit; the house was very quiet and empty now. Nervous, uncomfortable and glad I wasn’t in uniform, I drove to the address he gave me.

The man who met me at the door was as unprepossessing as his voice, with thinning ashy brown hair and weary hazel eyes. He was at least my height, but his shoulders stooped and he gave the impression of being much smaller. Despite the shadows under his eyes, he smiled at me and offered his hand. “I’m Kevin. I don’t think Adina ever mentioned you, Joanne.”

I shook his hand and came in as he ushered me. “We
only met once, very briefly,” I said awkwardly. “The circumstances were unusual.”

A genuine smile flickered over his face. “Things with Adina often were. Can I get you some tea? I have the kettle on.”

Despite my discomfort I smiled back. “If you’re sure it’d be no trouble, I’d love some tea.” I followed him into the kitchen, looking around.

The Sadler home was tiny, small enough to be called a cottage. The kitchen was country-style, with innumerable calico cat figurines, besieged with flouncy bows, on wall racks and littering the counters. The walls were butter-yellow where they could be seen behind pine cupboards, and the counters a cheerful orange that somehow avoided being overwhelming. Only one small window, with pretty gingham curtains, gave the room natural light, but it seemed bright and pleasant anyway. A calico-printed kettle puffed madly, a promise that any moment now it would whistle and the water would be ready.

“I think the first thing I heard Adina say was swearing at someone,” I commented, still looking around. “I don’t think this is the kitchen I would have expected from her.”

Kevin smiled as he took down teacups from a cupboard. They looked like real china, with cats on the sides. “Adina liked to shake up people’s preconceptions. When did you meet her?”

“I was looking for help.” I couldn’t find a tactful way to say “last night” to this quietly mourning gentleman. “I think she may have had some answers, but I didn’t have time to ask her.” The whistle blasted.
Kevin took the kettle off and poured boiling water over tea bags.

“What did you need help with?” He reached out to pat one of the calico cats on the counter. It opened its eyes and purred. I leaned back, startled.

“I’m trying to find someone,” I temporized, then suddenly went on a gut feeling and corrected, “I’m trying to find the man who killed her.”

All the smile went out of Kevin’s face. “He’s a very dangerous man. A lunatic.”

“I know. But a friend of mine was murdered last night and the police think it’s the same man. Four kids were massacred this morning, and I think it’s the same man. I don’t—” I took a breath and gulped down air. “I don’t have much to go on. He seems to be attracted to different kinds of power.”

Kevin glanced over at me. “What kinds of power?”

Damn. I was going to have to say it out loud. “Shamanic power. And—and death power.”

Kevin nodded slowly. “Adina believed in those kinds of things. Do you?”

I let my breath out, relieved he hadn’t laughed and shown me the door. “I didn’t used to,” I admitted, “but some pretty convincing things have happened to me lately. Adina said she was a shaman and that…I was too.” I didn’t like saying it out loud. “But I don’t know much about it. I’m running blind.”

“But you think you can stop this man.”

“I promised a priest.” I smiled a little. “Seems like the kind of promise you shouldn’t renege on.”

Kevin smiled back without it touching his eyes,
and turned away to take the tea bags out of the tea. He offered me a cup. I sipped and watched him struggle for words. “Adina went back east for Christmas,” he finally said. “To visit her family. She came home early to surprise me, and—” He took a shaking breath.

“Hell of a Christmas present,” I mumbled, and clapped a hand over my mouth when I realized I’d said it out loud. Kevin lifted his teacup in a mock salute, a ghost of an unhappy smile on his face.

“And a Happy New Year.”

I
left Adina and Kevin’s home with a list of books to check out and no more information at all about Cernunnos or anyone who might be working with him. I stopped off at the University Bookstore on the Ave., found all but one of the recommended books, and went home to check my e-mail. There were two messages promising I could lose fifty pounds in thirty days, and another telling me I could make twenty thousand dollars in the same amount of time. My spam filter was getting sloppy. I manfully resisted these temptations and sat down with one of the books. I was still reading when Gary pounded on the door.

“You look better,” he announced when I let him in. “I was half afraid you’d be dead, too.”

“Gee, thanks. I didn’t think you’d come by.” I let the door swing shut and went into the kitchen to start some coffee. Gary followed me.

“Lady, you’re the most interesting thing that’s happened to me since Annie died. You think I’m gonna miss out on all of this? So what’d you find out?” He leaned against the counter and folded his arms across his chest, looking for all the world like he belonged there. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a man who looked as comfortable in my kitchen as Gary did. He filled up the room in the same way I imagined Sean Connery might, so easy with himself it was like the air around him vibrated.

I put the distracting but otherwise appealing thought of Sean Connery out of my mind and lifted a hand to tick off my accomplishments for the day. “Priests are losing faith, the police don’t want my help and shamanism is kind of interesting.”

“Shamanism.” Gary’s bushy eyebrows climbed up toward his receded hairline, making deep solid wrinkles in his forehead. “I leave you alone a few hours and I miss all kindsa things.”

“You have no idea.” I frowned at the countertop, trying to find a place to start. There was a crack that ran along the edge of the counter. It had been there since I’d moved in. It had never bothered me before, but it looked dark and uncared for after Adina’s kitchen. I bumped my fingertips over it, shaking my head. “Funny thing is, a lot of this stuff makes sense to me. I mean, drug-induced spirit journeys, I’m not sure if I think that’s real. It could just be the drugs. But trance-induced, that’s easier to take. It’s not being brought on by mind-altering drugs, you know? It’s something your psyche is doing all on its own. But on the other hand, how much of it is influenced by what
you’ve read or been told or have held in your subconscious somewhere? Does it
matter?
Is it any more or less real because it’s been influenced by something?”

“Jo,” Gary said politely, “what in hell are you talking about?”

I looked up and laughed. “Can you play a drum, Gary?”

He leaned back, eyebrows quirked. “I can keep a beat, sure.”

“I want to try an experiment. I went somewhere yesterday when Cernunnos stabbed me. I want to see if I can go there again.”

“Spirit journey,” Gary guessed. I nodded. “Thought you Injun types knew all about that.” He grinned as I rolled my eyes. “Got a drum?”

“Nope. I thought you could use one of my stainless steel pots.”

Gary blinked at me. I laughed out loud, and his blinking faded into mild chagrin. “Makin’ fun of an old man,” he grumbled, but his gray eyes held a spark of humor.

“I don’t see any old men here,” I said as I went back through the living room into my bedroom. I heard his snort of pleasure and the creak of the floorboard as he followed me out of the kitchen. I came out with a drum and handed it to him, trying not to look proud. It must not have worked, because he took it with a great deal of grace and care.

“Where’d you get this, Injun?”

Trying not to sound proud didn’t work, either. “It was a birthday present. One of the elders made it for me.”

I didn’t own much that qualified as art. In fact, the
drum was probably the sum total. It was about eighteen inches across, thin stretched hide evenly tanned and evenly pulled over the wooden frame. A raven whose wings sheltered a wolf and a rattlesnake was dyed into the leather, bright colors that hadn’t faded in the fourteen years I’d owned it. Bone and leather strips decorated the frame, hand-carved polished beads dangling down from the ends of stays that crossed under the head to make a handle. The drumstick that went with it had a knotted leather end and a cranberry-red rabbit fur end. I brushed my fingers over the soft drumhead, smiling. “He said I’d need it some day. I thought he was crazy, but it was the most beautiful thing anyone’d ever given me. No one ever made anything just for me before.”

Gary grinned. “Not even a valentine?”

“I wasn’t ever at any schools long enough to get valentines.” Half-truths were a lot easier than whole truths, sometimes.

Gary brought the drum and drumstick together with a deep ringing boom. “Looks to me like that was their loss.”

“You’re too old to flirt with me, Gary.” I grinned, though. I’d been complimented more in the day I’d known Gary than in the past year put together.

“Listen to her. A minute ago she’s sayin’ she didn’t see any old men. ’Sides, the day I’m too old to flirt is the day they nail the coffin shut, lady. Keeps you young.” He reached out and poked me in the chest with the drumstick. “You oughta remember that. This gonna wake up the neighbors?” He knocked the drumstick against the drum again.

“I don’t care if it does. I have to listen to them having kinky sex at two in the morning. They can listen to my drum at two in the afternoon.”

Gary sat down on the couch. “How do you know it’s kinky?”

“You don’t want to know,” I said fervently. “Can you keep a heartbeat rhythm?”

The answer was a pair of beats, the sound of a heartbeat. I snagged a pillow off the couch and stretched out on my back on the floor, eyes half-closed. The drum had a deep warm sound, and Gary’s rhythm was close enough to my own heartbeat to send a wash of chills over me.

“How long we playing for?” Gary asked over the drumbeat.

“Half an hour after my breathing changes.” I admired how confident I sounded, just like I knew what I was talking about. “I’ll wake up when the drum stops.” Well, that’s how the book said it ought to work, anyway.

“Gotcha,” he said, and I drifted.

I knew where I was going this time. I wasn’t sure if I could get there, but I knew what I was looking for. The drum bumped along steadily. I wondered, briefly, about the sanity of inviting someone I barely knew to sit in my living room and watch me zone out, but the idea set off no alarm bells and I performed a mental shrug.

The room wasn’t quite warm enough for this kind of behavior. I could feel a cool draft from somewhere, and while I’d always appreciated the breeze in the summer, discovering it while lying on the floor in January wasn’t as pleasant.

On the other hand, the floor was remarkably comfortable. I’d slept on it for two months after I’d moved into the apartment, too broke to afford a bed. The carpet was soft enough to sort of sink down into, like I might fall through the floor.

I
did
fall through the floor, and into the coyote-sized hole I’d traveled before. It got smaller and smaller, and so did I, until I was mouse sized. A stream appeared alongside me and I jumped onto a palmero leaf that bobbled along the water’s surface. A moment or two later it dropped over the edge of a newly appeared waterfall, and I spread hawk wings to glide to the edge of the pool before landing on my own two perfectly human feet. I felt dizzy and exhilarated by the shifts, even if I didn’t know how I’d performed them. I stretched my arms, feeling like I might be able to sprout wings again, then relaxed.

“You’re back soon,” Coyote said. He hadn’t been there an instant earlier, but somehow it didn’t surprise me as he trotted up beside me and sat down. I scratched his ears and his tongue lolled out blissfully while I looked around.

The garden was healthier than it had been yesterday. There had been a lot of function, no form, precise trees and neatly cut grass, like an English maze. The trees had been browning, as if they needed watering, and nothing had bloomed, like the flowering season was long over. I was surprised at how much I remembered. I didn’t think I’d looked around that much.

“It’s your garden,” Coyote said lazily. “You should know what it looks like.” He stuck his nose in my hand and flipped my hand back on top of his head. I
skritched his ears again, obediently, and looked around some more.

It still favored function, with austere stone benches and narrow pathways leading from bench to bench, to the pool, and to flowerbeds that had been empty of life yesterday. Today they were greening, and wind dusted up fallen leaves, shuffling them away in favor of growing grass. There were, I could see clearly, twigs sticking out from the carefully clipped trees, so they were no longer perfectly symmetrical.

It was very quiet, though. “Is everyone’s garden this quiet? I don’t hear any birds or squirrels or anything.”

“Some people like it quiet.” Coyote snapped his teeth together and wagged his tail, eyeing my hand hopefully. “I didn’t think you’d come back so soon. What happened?”

I sat down cross-legged and scruffled his ears again. “Is it undignified to scratch a spirit guide’s ears?”

He thumped his tail against the grass. “Not if the spirit guide likes it.” He lay down and put his nose against my leg, looking hopeful. I grinned and rubbed the top of his head.

“I went and visited a bunch of dead people.”

Coyote’s ears pricked up in alarm. “That’s dangerous.”

“Now you tell me. Did you know you were making me a…shaman?”

He sat up, paws placed mathematically in front of him. “I didn’t make you anything. You almost died. You chose to live, and that woke possibilities in you.”

“But you knew it was going to happen.”

He lay down again, chin on his paws. “There are so many people.” He sounded sad. “There are lots of new shamans, and they make a difference, but the Old Man thinks he needs someone with a little extra power.”

My eyebrows went up. “Old Man?”

Coyote licked his nose. “Grandfather Sky. The Maker. He has a hundred names. Brand-new souls are hard to make,” he said. “He worked hard on you. I knew if you chose to live everything you keep inside would start to spill out.”

“Damn,” I murmured. “I like my intestines where they are.” Coyote snapped his teeth at me again, like I was an aggravating fly. “I know,” I said. “That’s not what you meant. You meant…” I trailed off again. “What
did
you mean? Somebody
made
me? On purpose? Come on, Coyote. There’ve got to be jillions of new souls every day. There’s lots more people than there ever were before. Besides, who would make
me?
”

“The Old Man would. There are many more people than there used to be, but there are far more souls than there have ever been people. They recycle.”

“You don’t look like a Buddhist.”

“Is there anything you believe in?” Coyote sounded impatient.

I thought about that. “I suppose this is an inappropriate time to say, ‘I believe I’ll have another cookie.’”

The coyote gave a very human-sounding sigh. “There’s no talking to you.”

I sighed back at him. “What’s this good for, Coyote? What do I do with it? Why
am
I the shiny new soul?”

He shifted his eyebrows, peering up at me until he was certain I was listening. “The Old Man wanted to bring together two very old cultures to make a child who would bridge both of them. There’ve been lots of Celtic-Cherokee crossbreeds before, but he wanted someone who could grow to her full potential. You can’t be tied down with a lot of back story, to do that.”

“Back story?”

“We carry the scars of our past lives with us. He thought starting fresh would be best.”

I pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. “I’ve got plenty of scars.”

“I know.” Coyote’s voice gentled. “I’m not sure the Old Man remembered that we carry the wisdom of our past lives with us, too.”

I didn’t like where this conversation was going. I hunched my shoulders and scowled. “So what do I do with it?”

One of his ears pricked up, like a human lifting an eyebrow. “It’s a lever,” he said after a while.

“You don’t look much like Archimedes, Coyote. I bet he was taller than you, for one.”

How long does it take for the human eye and brain to register something it sees? For exactly that amount of time, Coyote was the golden-eyed Indian man again, stretched out on his belly with his chin in his hands, grinning at me. “Not really,” he said, and it was the coyote who said it. I blinked at him.

“
Stop
that.” He grinned, a toothy coyote grin, and I rubbed my eyes. “Shouldn’t it take more than a blink
of an eye to shapechange?” I demanded waspishly. He laughed, a mixture of human laughter and a coyote’s cheerful yip.

“Not when you’ve got as much practice as I do.” He sat up, lining his paws up together again. “It’s a lever, Joanne Walker. Sio-bhán Walkingstick. You
can
move the world. It won’t be easy, but I told you that before. You have the power to heal.” He leaned forward and butted his head against my shoulder. It was like having a block of furry concrete smack me. I rubbed my shoulder, frowning at him.