Urban Shaman (29 page)

I could feel him drawing in power in a way that felt like what I’d done with the police officers at the station. Where they’d offered goodwill and hope, though, Herne seemed to be taking from the darker things that man had to offer: lust and pain and greed. The coil of energy inside my belly spat and bubbled so fiercely my insides cramped, reacting physically to the dark power Herne called up.

The horrifying thing was how
close
it felt to the power inside me. The other side of the coin, a razor’s edge away. Yeah, so I was mixing metaphors again, but that’s how it felt: clearly the other side of the power I could access, so close it would be terribly easy to slip over the edge and call on it. It was a difference of mo
tivation, the slender line between compassion and vengeance.

Even what he was doing wasn’t so far from what I’d done with Cernunnos. I’d bound the god to drag him back to a world he could be controlled in. Herne bound Suzanne’s parents in the same way, weaving a net of power. The difference was that he intended to take them all the way into himself, subsume them and use their power to strengthen himself without leaving anything for them to return to. They were the last piece of his power source, made a part of him, where I’d only held Cernunnos captive a brief while.

I couldn’t help but wonder if it would have been easier with more bodies, creating the same kind of power circle Henrietta Potter had disrupted in the classroom. I watched him—no longer obscured, at least for this task, although I could feel a gray blankness within the city where he was out there
now
—as he opened veins and drew a bloody circle, himself and the Quinleys inside. The gift of Babylon had left me, and he made no effort, as Cernunnos had done, to be understood. His invocation was in an old language, but not, I thought, the Gaelic Cernunnos spoke. It wasn’t Latin, either, but something harsher and uglier: a dead language, but more to the point, a death language. In the same way that I’d seen the energy offered up by the cops, I could see the life forces that Herne stole from the Quinleys. Where what I’d been given had been free and without fear, the Quinley’s spirits were streaked with pain and terror, the brightness of their lives swallowed whole by the darkness Herne carried within himself.

I realized I was throwing everything I had at the memories the room held, trying desperately to stop what was happening in front of me. Waves of silver power rolled off me, splashing uselessly into the apparitions. Had I been here earlier, I could have stopped this. I watched brilliance slowly rise up from the dying Quinleys, blackening like burning paper as Herne stole their life force for his own purposes.

A purpose you still don’t understand!
a little panicked part of me screamed. How could I stop the child of a god when I didn’t know what he intended? How did he mean to protect himself against hurt?

By taking Cernunnos’s place in the Hunt. The thought struck me so hard I literally staggered. I didn’t know if I’d come on it myself or if it had slipped away from Herne in the midst of his intake of power, but that was it.

Holy God. Cernunnos might have been better off if I’d left him in Babylon. I shuddered. Herne, his head held triumphant, closed his fists in the memory of the room. The last of what had been David and Rachel Quinley became his, swallowed whole by his hatred. He smiled, thin and mocking, and looked directly at me. I clamped down on a useless scream as he crouched and dipped a hand into blood, then stepped to a wall.

Against my will, I opened my eyes to read the message he’d left me.

Too late, gwyld.

W
hen I opened my eyes—the physical ones—I was lying flat on my back with my heels still on one of the cement steps leading up to the porch. My head hurt again. More. Gary came hurrying up the driveway and crouched beside me.

“Cops are coming,” he said.

“What am I doing on the ground?”

He frowned at me. “You fell over as soon as I asked if you sensed anything in the house.”

“Uh-huh. Has me falling over gotten to be such old hat that you figured you’d just leave me here?” I, personally, was all for leaving me here. My head hurt, but nothing like as badly as I suspected it would when I stood up and blood started changing directions.

The big cabby looked offended. “’Course not. I was coming to pick you up when you told me to call
the cops. I figured if you could talk in my head you weren’t hurt too bad.”

That was irritatingly logical. Except for one thing: “In your head?”

“Don’t tell me you think
that’s
weird, after alla this,” Gary said.

I shrugged my eyebrows. He had a point. I pinched the bridge of my nose, as much movement as I could convince myself to make. “Suzanne Quinley’s parents are dead.”

Gary let out a puff of breath that steamed in the air. “What about her?”

“Not here. I don’t think she even came home from school.”

Gary nodded. “What next?”

I couldn’t decide if I liked him assuming I knew what to do next, or if the idea of being in charge terrified me out of my mind. “Next I see if I can sit up without puking.” I gingerly slid my hand under my head. There was water from melted snow and rain, but there didn’t seem to be any mushy bits that would indicate my brains were leaking. Gary offered me a hand and I took it with my free one, letting him pull me up slowly while I kept my hand clamped to the back of my head.

“Y’know.” I tried to imagine the pain away. “I used to think people who believed in all this crap were soft in the head. If they all get into messes like I’m in, they really
are.
If I get hit in the head one more time, I’ll be…” My imagination failed me, both in terms of what I’d be and in making my head stop hurting.

“A monkey’s uncle,” Gary supplied. I winced.

“Don’t say that. The way things are going around here, anything is possible.”

“Got any brothers or sisters?”

“No, and I’m a girl, too, but at the moment I’m not willing to discount any absurdities. Okay, help me stand up.” I clung to Gary’s arm rather more than I wanted to, trying to keep my balance. “I don’t feel very good,” I reported, once I was on my feet.

“Gee,” Gary said dryly, “I wonder why.”

“I think it’s all the caffeine,” I said seriously, and spread one hand when Gary looked at me. “I should eat some real food. I read something saying you should eat and drink after you’ve been running around out of body. To ground yourself again.”

“There’s a pastrami sandwich in the car.”

I looked up at him gratefully. “I would worship at your toes for…” I was having a hard time completing thoughts. “For as long as I could stay awake,” I finished, feeling it was something of a triumph to manage to get through the sentence. Gary laughed.

“I don’t figure I’m in for much worshipping, then. Can you stay up?”

I spread my hands a little more, judging my balance. “Yeah, I think so.” He stepped away, toward the car. I maintained an upright position for about five seconds, then decided the stairs would be nice to sit on. My butt was already cold and wet anyway from the spill I’d just taken. “How long was I out, Gary?”

“I dunno. Two minutes, maybe.”

“Oh.” I wondered if you actually had to travel to
fairyland to experience the more-time-passes-here-than-there phenomenon. Thus far, all my experiences had seemed much longer to me than to the mundane world around me. Gary handed me the sandwich and an unopened bottle of water. I gobbled the sandwich down so fast I almost didn’t taste it, and drank most of the water before I even thought to thank him.

Right about then the cops showed up. Under normal circumstances—which is to say, in any case I wasn’t involved with—Morrison would not have been heading the pack. As it was, I wavered on how to feel about it, but ended up just going with tired. I didn’t try to stand up. He could yell at me while I was sitting down just as well. “Two bodies upstairs in the master bedroom,” I said to his knees. “Suzanne Quinley’s parents.”

“You went in there?”

“Not physically.” I sounded like my voice was coming from somewhere a very long way away from me. I wished the high I’d gotten from my first attempt at a trance was with me now. Right now anything I did took everything out of me. Borrowing power from the city and from the people around me was the only thing that was letting me function as a seminormal human being.

“Not
physically?
”

I stood up, half-concussed or no. I was on a higher step and stood four inches taller than my boss. “Don’t,” I said flatly. “Just don’t. Okay? Can we not do this, this time?”

Morrison pressed his lips together, staring up at
me. I admired him: he didn’t climb the step to put himself on an even keel with me. I doubted I’d have been able to resist. Morrison was a better man than I.

Well, duh.

“What happened,” he said after a long few moments.

I stared at him, then looked away. “I got here too late. I don’t know if I could’ve gotten here on
time.
Maybe—” My voice sounded hollow. Maybe if I hadn’t fallen for Cernunnos’s little seduction, if I hadn’t fallen on the steps, if I hadn’t gone to lunch with Kevin—

Truth was, I hadn’t had the information on who Suzy was in time to have done any good at all, and if I hadn’t fallen on the steps, I’d have gone to Suzy’s school anyway. I simply wouldn’t have been here to stop Herne. Somehow the thought didn’t really help.

“They’re dead. I’m sorry.” It was the only thing I had left to say. Morrison kept looking up at me, a scowl written around the edges of his mouth. Then he let out a quiet sigh and shook his head.

“All right. What’s next?”

I looked at him without comprehension for what felt like a long time. “I already know what happened here. I don’t understand a lot of it, but I need to find Suzy. She’s—she’s okay still.” God, I hoped I was telling the truth. “I need to get ahold of Jen and ask her some stuff, and I need to find Herne.”

“You don’t know where he is?”

I gestured to the southeast. “That way.” I couldn’t even feel his wall obscuring the city right now. I was
as ordinary as I’d been a week ago. Less than an hour ago, that’d been all I ever wanted. Why didn’t it make me happier?

“You’re not filling me with confidence, Walker.”

“Great. That’s two of us.” I moved cautiously onto his step. “Do you have a cell phone I can call Jen with?”

“Use the radio.”

Oh. “Right. Thanks.” I wobbled down the last step. Gary offered me his arm. I leaned. Morrison turned to watch us.

“Walker.”

I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t want to look over my shoulder and see censure in the captain’s eyes. Anything was better; our endlessly antagonistic relationship was
much
better. My shoulders tensed up as I looked back at him.

“Be careful.” Morrison inclined his head, then took the steps up to the Quinley house two at a time, leaving me gaping at his broad shoulders.

“Toldja,” Gary said. “He likes you.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Gary.” I groaned and staggered down to Morrison’s car, flopping across the front seat and picked the radio up. “This is Car 187, over.”

“Your voice sure has changed, Captain. Over.”

I grinned wearily. “Hi, Bruce. What’re you doing on dispatch? Is Jen still there?” He sounded as if everything were completely normal. I wanted to hug him.

“Amber’s on a potty break and Jules called in sick. Yeah, she’s here, hang on.”

A minute later Jen’s faint accent came through the radio. “What’s up, Joanne?”

“That kid who has a crush on Suzy.”

“Yeah?”

“Got his name? Number? Anything?”

“You ask for the damnedest things.”

“Part of my charm.”

Gary, leaning on the door, snorted. “That’s my line, lady.”

I cackled over the sound of my stomach rumbling. It had noticed the sandwich and was now on the warpath for more. I rubbed my hand over it, whimpered when I hit the bruise, and sat on my hand.

“All right, give me a few.”

I closed my eyes and let the radio fall on the floor. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep in the three minutes before the radio let out a burst of static. “Joanne?”

I flinched up. “Yeah?”

“His name’s Stuart. Damned if the kid didn’t put down his number in case we needed anything else. Got something to write with?”

“I’m in a cop car, Jen.”

She laughed. “Yeah, sorry.” She read off the number and I scribbled it down on the notepad on the dashboard.

“—wait! Jen?

“What?”

I put my teeth together. “That file on Suzy. Does she have any other family?”

Dismayed silence answered me before Jen’s voice came through, low. “I can check. Bad news?”

“About as bad as it gets. Her parents are dead.”

“Jesus.” And a silence in which I could all but hear her nod. “I’ll find out.”

“Thanks Jen.”

“You owe me.”

“I’ll fix your car for a year. Thanks again.” I clipped the radio back in place and tore the paper off the pad. Great. Now I had to stand up again. I wasn’t so crazy about that part right now. The car was comparatively warm and smelled strangely familiar. Like worn leather and cloves and a little bit of Old Spice. Like Morrison. Great, twice. Why did I know what Morrison smelled like?

Sliding out of the car was easier than pursuing that particular train of thought. “Cell phone,” I said generally, and one of the cops nearby tossed me one. I punched out Stuart’s number without really thinking about what I was going to say.

“Ssturrit.”

I frowned. “What?” I hadn’t thought about what I was going to say, but I had expected words I understood on the other end of the phone.

Infinite patience: “This is Stuart.”

“Oh. Oh! Stuart, hi, this is Joanne Walker with the police.”

“Oh, shit,” the kid on the other end of the line said. “Is Suzy okay?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. Do you know if she came home after school tonight?”

“Naw, her dad picked her up.”

I turned around and stared at the house. “What? Mr. Quinley?”

“No, her other dad.” Usually a sentence like that would be delivered with sarcasm, but Stuart appeared to be perfectly sincere. “She’s adopted, you know? She looked up her blood parents when we were in sixth grade. Turns out her sperm dad lived in Seattle.”

I choked. “Sperm dad?”

I could hear Stuart’s grin. “That’s what she called him. Anyway, it’s her birthday, so they were going out to the carousel at the Seattle Center before she went home.”

I felt like I was about two laps behind. “Carousel?”

“Yeah, the carousel. She likes carousels. I guess I didn’t send any pictures of her on it.” Worry came into the boy’s voice. “Is she okay, Miss Walker? She’s been acting funny.”

“Funny how?”

“She’s always been kinda artsy and weird, y’know? But she’s been even weirder for about, I dunno, the last year. I remember ’cuz she completely zoned out during her birthday party last year. And since, like, Halloween, it’s like she’s practically forgotten how to talk.”

“Since
when?
”

“Since like Halloween. I remember ’cuz she passed out at the Halloween dance. I never saw anybody faint before. It’s freaky. She just fell over and nobody caught her like they do on TV. She hit her head on a table and bled for about six years. She had to go to the E.R.”

“Jesus. Halloween? Halloween doesn’t make any se—oh! Oh, crap, yeah, of course. Halloween. Sam
haine.” I was more than a little slow on the uptake. “The Hunt starts then.”

“What?” Poor Stuart sounded completely bewildered.

“Sam…” No, that wasn’t how they’d said it. “Sow…it doesn’t matter. The Hun…it doesn’t matter. Look, you’ve been very helpful, thanks, Stuart.”

“Is she gonna be okay, Miss Walker?” Stuart was scared, and I didn’t have a reassuring answer for him.

“I hope so. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure she is. You’ve been a lot of help.”

“Thanks.” The boy’s voice was nothing more than a whisper. “Will you call me if anything bad happens?”

Morrison would kill me. “Yeah,” I said without hesitation. “Yeah, I will, Stuart, I promise. Just hang tight. And Stuart?”

“Yeah?”

“Think good thoughts for her.”

“You mean pray?”

“If that’s how you want to do it. It makes a difference.” I hung up, hoping I hadn’t just warped the boy for life. If I didn’t get Suzy out of her predicament, the poor kid might blame himself for not thinking good enough thoughts. Why didn’t I ever think of these things before I said anything?