Urban Shaman (15 page)

“—Katharine Hepburn, yes, I know,” she said patiently. “And no,” she continued as my jaw fell open, “I don’t read minds. I’ve heard that from nearly everyone I’ve met since I was fifteen, and everyone gets the same expression just before they say it. I never,” she added, for emphasis, “met Spencer Tracey. Now,” she said again, and pushed herself up carefully, a faint wince crossing her features, “tell me why you’re here.”

I didn’t know where to start. “A friend of mine was murdered yesterday evening,” I finally said. Had it really only been last night? “I think by the same man who came into your classroom this morning.”

Henrietta’s expression tightened. “I’m very sorry.”

“Me too.” I stared at my hands. “I’m…” I trailed off. Henrietta waited patiently.

“Young lady,” she said eventually, when I didn’t speak, “the creature that killed my students walked into my classroom without anyone seeing him. Mark was dead before we saw his killer. Whatever you are
trying to work yourself up to telling me, I don’t believe it can possibly make my day any more unpleasant.”

“Sorry.” I looked up. “I need to find him. I have to try to help him.”

Her eyebrows, white as her hair, shot up. “Help him?”

“He’s very sick.” I remembered the bleak fall through blackness and found myself standing up, taking a few steps as if I could get away from the memory. “Help him. Stop him. I think they’re almost the same thing. Can you tell me everything you remember about him?”

“The police have already taken my statement.” She pushed herself up a little farther, wincing again. “I presume you’ve received the physical description. As tall as you, brown hair, green eyes?”

I nodded. “Very well,” she said. “The classroom door was closed. I never heard it open. I have no idea how he entered. I was writing on the chalkboard—whiteboard,” she corrected herself, “and for a moment I thought the sound I’d heard was the marker against the board. It was that kind of sound, a high-pitched squeak, enough to raise hairs on the neck without causing real alarm. But then the children started screaming.” Her voice shook.

I could feel the unlocked energy inside me bubbling with the impulse to help her somehow, to ease her pain. I came back to the bed and sat down, taking her hand.

The touch opened a link, unexpectedly vivid. Mem
ory bludgeoned into me, relegating Henrietta’s words to the distance: “I turned around.”

I/Henrietta turned around to unfolding horror. Mark, a sandy-haired basketball player who got poor grades because he was lazy, lay sprawled on the floor, dark blood spilling from a gash that opened his chest. Jennifer, voice choked off by a hand around her throat, was dangling in the air, struggling against the man who held her up. Her killer cast her aside and her body caught on one of the chairs. Blood drained down her shirt as she slowly tilted over. Other children screamed, knocking desks over and pushing them out of the way as they tried to get away. The memory resonated peculiarly before I realized what was wrong with it: high school kids weren’t children, to me. They were, well, kids. Henrietta’s thoughts defined them differently. I felt a wave of dizziness that had nothing to do with what was going on in front of me and a lot to do with breaking down the walls of my own perceptions. I shivered, wondering if it was Henrietta or me doing it, and brought my attention back to what was going on.

The man in the children’s midst was not large; he merely seemed that way, wide shoulders and gore-covered hands adding a terrifying depth to him. Long light brown hair splashed over his shoulders, drops of blood coloring it. He reached out with inhuman speed to close a massive hand around another boy’s arm. “Anthony,” Mrs. Potter said, very faintly. “Oh, no. Not Anthony.” I wasn’t sure if the words were spoken out loud, or if I was hearing her thoughts at the time the memories came from.

With one savage jerk the killer shoved a knife into Anthony’s chest and yanked it up. The boy fell to the floor. Jennifer’s body collapsed over his, her hair spilling over his legs and onto the floor. Perhaps five seconds had passed since the first bewildered, terrified squeak.

I could see more, now, through Henrietta’s memory. The blond girl I’d seen in the theater stood pressed up against a far wall, screaming. Other children scrambled by her. A boy grabbed her arm and pulled her down to the floor. She disappeared in a flash of pale hair as the killer swelled. Blood and ichor seemed to fill him, making him appear too large to fit into the room. What Adina said about power spilling over from the inside suddenly made sense.

Oh, God, I was so far out of my league.

Paralysis left my—Henrietta’s—muscles, and I leaped forward, crashing into the killer’s back an instant too late, another child already dead in his hands. He stumbled forward, dropping the boy. A tiny sound cut through the killer’s roars of frustration and my own incoherent screams: the clink of dog tags. The last dead boy was his mother’s only child, Adrian, and he wore the tags from a father who’d died in a war fifteen years earlier.

I looked up into the killer’s eyes. His voice, thick and distorted with rage, filled my mind.
Fool!
he screamed.
The circle is broken!
His eyes were green, brilliantly green, inhuman, like Cernunnos. The snarl he gave me showed eyeteeth that curved into unnaturally vicious points.

Then there was pain, white fire plunging into my belly. I screamed, my memories separating from Henrietta’s and leaving me with a final conscious thought:
Oh no. Not again.

O
ak trees surrounded me, so large and neatly spaced I began counting them. I reached thirty-five before realizing I wasn’t seeing the forest for the trees. I shook myself and took a better look around.

The oaks weren’t the only foliage; they just dominated it. Slighter trees grew between them, stretching up toward slate-gray light. It was drizzling, most of the rain filtered out by the enormous trees. The forest floor was very green, soft moss rolling up over gentle hills. Everything was muted, clouds and moss combining to quiet the sounds of the forest. I took a deep breath of damp cool air. Only then did it occur to me to wonder where the hell I was. I was getting jaded.

I looked around again. In my limited experience, wondering where the hell I was made somebody show up and tell me.

No one showed up. I stood there for a minute. “I’d like to go home now,” I announced hopefully. Wind ruffled my hair, but I didn’t think it was responding to me. I shrugged and stuck my hands in my pockets and went for a walk. I hadn’t been in a forest since I left North Carolina. I was surprised at how much I’d missed the sound of wind and rain on the leaves. In ten years I hadn’t even thought about it.

There was a lot I hadn’t thought about. I was pretty sure it was all going to come home very soon now. I pushed the idea away and kept walking.

A stag walked out of the forest in front of me, so calm I expected him to say something to me. He didn’t. We gazed at each other across several yards of empty space, and then he tossed his head and bounded off into the woods as silently as he’d arrived. I grinned after him. I wasn’t just getting jaded. I was turning into a world-class freak. Talking stags. What next?

As if in answer, a branch snapped behind me. I turned curiously.

A monster, more than half my height and twice as wide, charged out of the trees on four short, thick legs. Beady, vicious eyes sighted me and it swerved toward me, bristly head lowered in a charge that would end with me impaled on yellowing ivory tusks.

I shrieked and flung myself to the side, suddenly comprehending why wild boar hunting had been considered such a dangerous sport. The boar swerved again, barely missed trampling me and made a passing nod at goring me. Then, just like the stag, it disappeared into perfect silence.

I lay propped on my elbows, gasping after the animal. “Note to self,” I whispered when it appeared it wasn’t coming back, “do not ask ‘what next?’ in realms unknown.”

A horse leaped over my head and I shrieked again, curling up in a little ball. With my head pressed against the ground I could feel the vibrations of what seemed like a herd of horses pounding the earth. Then rough-voiced men shouted cheerfully over the rattle of tack, and I lifted my head cautiously. Six grinning men on horseback made a half circle in the woods, all of them facing me, right in the center of their circle. I froze. They jostled back and forth, changing position into some preferred layout that I couldn’t appreciate.

What I could appreciate was that none of them seemed to be paying attention to me. I let out a sigh of relief and uncurled.

“Stand ready, my liege,” someone said. “The boar comes.”

That was
not
what I wanted to hear. I jumped up and sprinted for the safety of a tree just as the boar burst out of the woods again, this time with half a dozen men in full and glorious pursuit. In the boar’s position, I would have been terrified. He just looked furious, like he knew he was going to die and he was going to take as many of the green-clad bastards with him as he could. The green-clad bastards in question all let forth howls of delight, and charged forth to meet the angry boar. Spears flew, horses leaped, and somehow all the weaponry missed the giant pig. It ducked beneath a horse, twisting its squat neck up and around. Its ivory
tusks ripped the horse’s belly out. Rider and beast fell together.

Another rider flung himself off his horse, landing on top of the fallen man, and beneath the boar’s hooves. The boar squealed and slammed its head forward, tearing a bloody line across the second man’s stomach.

The forest faded away around me, thinning to younger trees. The second man, with a calm and bitter smile, sat atop a horse, a knotted rope around his neck. “Is this how you repay me for your life, my liege?” he asked, the last words he ever spoke. A man slapped the horse’s hindquarters and it bolted.

At my elbow, the second man watched himself hang, and said to me, “Do you enjoy a good hanging, my lady?”

I’d like to say I didn’t so much as flinch, but I almost jumped out of my skin. “No.” I watched the dangling man with sick fascination. “What is this? When did this happen? Who are you?”

“Six hundred years ago,” the man beside me said. He was green-eyed and broad-shouldered, light brown hair worn loose over his shoulders. Malevolence flowed off him in such force that I shivered, just standing by him. “I was called Herne, then. Herne the Hunter. The man I saved, who had me hanged, was Richard, my lord king and liege. Would you care to walk?” He offered me his elbow, a fluid elegant gesture.

I took it against my own volition, then flinched again, trying to pull away. Herne smiled, keeping his
lips closed. “This,” he hissed, “is
my
garden, and you are here of
my
will, not yours. You will walk with me.”

And I did. We walked away from his twitching body and into open fields, following a footpath worn into the grass. My skin felt soiled and grimy where it brushed against his, but I couldn’t break away. “What am I doing here? What do you want with me?”

Herne smirked. “You’re interfering. I intend to deal with you now, once and for all. Here, where I have absolute power.”

“Here.” I shivered again. “This is your garden, and it must be England, but where…?”

“These were my lands.”

“He hanged you on your own lands?” I blurted. Herne looked down at me.

“Oh, yes, my lady. Such is the kindness of a king.”

“How did you end up in Seattle?” It was a stupid question, but I had an idea at the back of my mind and I wanted to keep him talking until it germinated.

“On a boat, hand-built of wood, and then with many years of traveling west on foot.”

“When did you leave England?”

“Two centuries?” He shrugged. “I haven’t counted the years. I go back.” His eyes flashed deeper green. “I will not leave my lands unprotected.”

“But how?” The footpath we followed ended abruptly and began again a few feet later, a flaw in Herne’s garden. It reordered itself as we walked over it. I frowned, pushing my will forward, at another section of path. The unlocked energy beneath my breast
bone tingled through my blood, like it approved of what I was trying to do. “How can you still be alive?”

Herne looked positively disappointed. “Can’t you guess? Ah, but you see only the ordinary man I was. Would it help…” He released my hand, took two steps forward and stopped in front of me with a little flourish. The path under his feet disappeared briefly. I frowned again, partly to hide a grin at the path’s reaction to my push and partly because I didn’t understand what I was supposed to see.

Then the subtleties of how he had changed hit me. His cheekbones had sharpened, chin lengthened a little, and the vividly green eyes tilted more noticeably. A pattern of bone distorted his temples just slightly. He looked ever so slightly more fey, no more slender through the shoulder, but with a degree of translucence to his skin, a hint of finer bones in his hands and face. He smiled, and I took a step forward, compelled.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered. “You’re his son. Cernunnos is your father.”

“Not your god,” Herne disagreed, “but a god, at least. Now you understand, of course, that you have to die.”

I didn’t understand that at all. “Wait! Shouldn’t you be speaking French?” Even as I said it, I wondered what kind of stupid question
that
was. Even as a gambit for time, it had to be one of the dumber things I could have said. But it worked: Herne stared at me while I frantically searched for the flaw in his garden that had let me reshape the path. He’d said something,
something important, if I could just understand what to do with it.

“I was born a landowner, not nobility. English is my native tongue. And do you not imagine,
gwyld,
that in six hundred years I might learn another language if I needed?”

“Oh.” I was genuinely embarrassed. “That was a dumb question.”

“Yes,” Herne agreed, “it was.” Then his will rolled over me like thunder, transmuting, forcing me to the shape he chose for me. I thickened, arms and legs shortening as I dropped to all fours and tossed my head in panic. My head was too heavy, attached to my neck wrong, and my vision was dismal. On nothing but instinct, I charged forward. Herne laughed and stepped to the side, and I found myself bolting through forest with a handful of horsemen on my curling tail. I squealed in rage and fear and let the weight of my body drive me forward as I ran.

I burst into a clearing, toward a line of men seated on horseback. One moved forward, and I recognized the scene with a jolt of fear. Richard’s hunt, the one that ultimately cost Herne his life.

Only this time I was the boar.

My clarity of vision returned abruptly, enough to let me see Herne’s thin smile. Even as I charged forward, desperate, a plan crystallized in my mind. It was easy to gore Richard’s horse, to bring the animal down and the king with him. Herne flung himself off his horse to protect the king. I brought my head up, ripping a glanc
ing blow across Herne’s belly; it had looked much more impressive when I was hidden behind the tree, watching. Herne flung a fist upward, catching me behind the ribs with a knife. I squealed in pain and staggered a step. Triumph lit Herne’s eyes and he rolled out from under me, rolled off Richard, and drew his sword as he came to his feet.

I stumbled again, my breath coming in ugly little wheezes. The ground gave under my foot, and I collapsed to my knees, on top of Richard. He grunted and I felt the absurd desire to apologize. But Herne was driving his sword down, and there wasn’t any more time.

I crushed my eyes shut and
chose.

I
chose
to be there, in Herne’s garden. That was the thing he’d said, the wiggle room I needed. With my choice, the shape his will held me in shattered. I snapped back to my own form, rolling to the side with a gasp. The knife wound Herne had put in my belly was still there, throbbing with agony.

Herne slammed his blade down into the place I’d been an instant before. Into Richard’s abdomen. Richard’s eyes went very wide and bright. I whispered, “Sorry,” while my blood spilled through my fingers to mix with his. We stared at each other for another instant, before Herne’s scream rendered the air and I staggered once more, forcing my head up to meet his eyes.

“It is not possible,” he rasped. “My place—my power—”

I clutched the hole in my belly where he’d stabbed me and straightened up as far as I could. It wasn’t very far: to breathe through the pain I had to stay a little
hunched, but at least I could meet his eyes. “Your will,” I whispered back. “I’m not here. Of your will. Anymore.” I couldn’t breathe. It hurt so badly I could hardly think, flares of pain steady with my heartbeat. “Chose. To be here.” I hadn’t been sure it would work. “Choosing. To leave now. Too.”

I collapsed over the silent, broken form of Richard, king of England. Herne’s scream of fury echoed in my memory for a long time.

When I opened my eyes again I was on my knees in my garden, doubled over with one forearm against the ground and the other wrapped around my belly.

“This one’s a little more complicated,” Coyote said. “Can you feel them?”

I lifted my head up, beads of sweat draining into my eyes. I couldn’t feel a goddamned thing except the spiking pain in my gut, and the blood slipping through my fingers.

“Try harder,” Coyote said. He lay on his belly with his head on his paws, gold eyes intense on mine. I whimpered without any dignity and tried to feel something beyond myself. Just on the other side of pain was a source of amusement, smugness and concern.

“Not me.” Coyote sounded patient. “Past me.” I grunted and tried to reach past him, my fingers creeping forward in the grass like the physical motion would help the mental. For a moment there was a scattering of sensation, the feeling of someone waiting. I recognized it from my dream-walk and reached for it. Coyote snapped at my crawling fingers. “Farther out.”

I drew a deep breath to try again, then couldn’t do
anything
for a few seconds. Blood drained through my fingers with more enthusiasm. “Fuck.” Nausea made a stab at settling into my system, but I was too hurt to hold on to even that.

I stretched one more time, past Coyote, past the one who waited for me, and finally found what Coyote was after. Two thin silver lines ran through me, attached to one another, using me as a conduit. They flickered, unevenly, unsynchronized and as weakly as my own pulse. One disappeared into darkness, its far end so distant I wasn’t sure where it led. The other had no visible end, either, but it
felt
closer, like I could reach out a hand and grasp the arm of the body whose life it sustained.

“They’re tied together through you,” Coyote said softly, as if he was afraid a full voice would shatter my fragile grasp on the cords. “Don’t you see?”