by C. E. Murphy
No. They didn’t just remind me of them. They were the fights and mistakes and fears I’d had. They danced genuine spirit dances, telling the story of the Master’s coming, and in this time and place, it was my story, too.
It would be absolutely stupid of me to join in, so that’s what I did.
I didn’t exactly mean to. It was just that I saw—Saw—the failures and the sorrows, but nothing of the successes. I had lost Colin Johannsen, it was true. I’d lost Faye Kirkland. But that same day I’d saved Melinda. They weren’t dancing that part, so I did. They danced the serpent; I danced the thunderbird, remembering its strength from a year ago and from just that afternoon.
They danced Barbara Bragg’s possession. Aching with regret, I danced my refusal to fight the Navajo god Begochidi, and felt their anger grow. They danced the walking dead and I threw the cauldron’s shattering back at them. On and on we went, and with every step I felt power coalescing above us, around us. I didn’t dare look out the windows, afraid to take my concentration from Annie and Coyote, but I thought—I hoped—we were bringing the bad magic clouding Seattle to us. And if we were, I would not let it be all bad, because the past year had been hell, but it had offered the best moments of my life, too.
A shocking, familiar sound bounced into my bones: my drum coming to life, heartbeat thump waking a wild joy in me. I caught a glimpse of Morrison playing it, and for the space of one breath, Coyote and Annie’s dance faltered. Breathless with hope, I took the lead.
I danced meeting Gary, all his gruff generosity and the difference it had made in my life, and they were pulled along with me as much as I’d been pulled along with them. They countered me: they danced the danger he’d faced because of me, the sword strike, the heart attack. I threw the tortoise at them, and they danced Gary’s sorrows no more. Before they could take point again, I danced my long story with Morrison, and that, they could barely touch at all. I danced our animosity and our attraction, because they were one and the same, and there was almost nothing they could do about it.
Then they seized a moment of his true anger, a moment when my mistakes had outweighed any fondness. I had endangered a civilian, and Morrison’s fury had been well deserved. They took that, strengthened it and regained their place in the dance. Not as leaders, but as competitors: I fought to hold the line, and they struggled to take it.
Without Morrison playing my drum, without Gary’s half-heard echo of the beat, I could not have stayed the course. I had been granted tremendous power, but Coyote and Annie were lackeys to a creature older than night. My gifts were the gifts of life, and life, regardless of how brightly it burned, was ephemeral. I would eventually lose, but by God I was not going to let them walk away with the win.
It got more difficult the closer we came to now. They became the werewolves, and fear sang in my bloodstream, memory of the shift, of the wild cruelty and hunting hunger coming awake. But I had been saved twice in a handful of moments there, and so I threw Cernunnos’s threat into their teeth: I was better off dead than the Master’s minion, and he was remorseless in his willingness to be the cause of that death.
Annie responded to that. Not the leanansidhe, but Annie herself, some part of her remembering Cernunnos’s embrace. She threw me a lifeline, a single thread of green magic that said continue, and after that the Hunt itself couldn’t have dragged me from the dance. She was in there, and if she was, so was Coyote. I could get them back, if I fought hard enough. I danced the banshee queen’s destruction at Gary’s hand; they mocked me with my own mother’s taking up of that mantle.
When we came to the battle at Tara, black lightning struck the Space Needle.
It wasn’t as though the Needle wasn’t designed to take lightning strikes. Any ridiculously tall building was. But there was lightning, and then there was this stuff. Darkness flashed over the restaurant just as electric-blue light might. A sizzle signaled the electronics burning out, begetting the acrid scent of burned wiring. The floor shuddered as the mechanics that kept it turning ground to a halt, and the air outside our smaller power circle turned smoky.
The second strike set something on fire, but I didn’t dare stop dancing. I was sweating now, but so were Annie and Coyote. My chest heaved and I tasted the stink of burning plastic as all three of us danced my mother’s final death, the one that ensured her spirit would never return to the cycle of reincarnation. It was a blow for both sides: great wisdom and power lost to the good guys, but she had shattered the Master’s hold on his banshees, and hurt him in the shattering. She had saved my life—again—and in so doing, left me to face him now. Neither Coyote and Annie nor I could gain the upper hand in that particular telling of my story, but in the last seconds I thrust a spear into the air, shaking it and heralding the awakening of the new Irish Mage. I felt impotent fury sluice through the dance, and counted that one in my column.
Lightning fell around the Space Needle in sheets of blackness, throwing us all into ultraviolet relief. Gary’s, Morrison’s and Annie’s hair glowed blue; Coyote’s shone with highlights so deep I thought I could dip my hands in them. The whole building rocked and shook in time with our steps, in time with the drumbeat. In a way it was magnificent.
We moved faster than sense could accept as we reached the crescendo. The Master had very nearly won in the Qualla; my only real triumph there was in saving Aidan. But he was my son, and his survival meant more to me than my own. And I had reconciled with my father, an unexpected gift, so while their dance was strong and sure, mine at least brought a counterpoint of joy in the memory of mountain echoes.
When we reached the moment I’d walked into Annie’s hospital room and laid hands on her, the earth ripped and the Space Needle listed sharply, throwing us all against the side of the power circle.
Throwing Annie and Coyote together for the first time, their hands finding each other’s unerringly.
The sky tore open, and a miasma plummeted into our circle.
It brought silence as it fell. The lightning stopped; the creak of the tilting building stopped; the groans of the earth stopped. Even the drum’s beat stopped. All that remained was harsh breathing: me, Coyote, Annie. Moonlight, dazzling bright, crashed through the newly washed air outside as if its only purpose was to burn away the black dust that rain had brought.
Except all that dust was inside the restaurant now, making dark living shadows out of tables and chairs and broken chunks of wall. It leaned on our smaller power circle, trying to break in. I caught a faint glimpse of my spirit animals holding their ground, fiery white against the darkness. I was going to have to do something really nice for them if we got out of this alive. And if we didn’t, at least I wouldn’t have to figure out what qualified as a really nice gift for spirit creatures.
Coyote began to speak what I assumed was Navajo. Annie backed him up in Irish, though I was pretty sure Annie herself didn’t speak a word of Irish. Their voices rose and fell in opposites, one strengthening when the other faltered. I scrambled my brain, trying to think of something I could throw into the mix, and landed on Chief Seattle’s prayer. It wasn’t exactly in keeping with my heritage, but on the other hand, it did belong to Seattle in a very real and particular way, so I lifted my voice and chanted all the ideas in it that I could remember. “‘Every part of the earth is sacred, the beasts and the people, we all belong to the same family. The earth is our mother and the rivers our brothers. The wind is our breath, and this we know: the earth does not belong to us. We belong to it.’”
I heard Gary’s and Morrison’s breath rush out when I started to speak, like I’d given them permission to come alive again. Then they looked at me like I was bonkers, but since I had no credible evidence to the contrary, I didn’t mind that so much. Gary, though, apparently kind of figured out what I was doing after a few seconds, and joined in. Not with Chief Seattle’s prayer, but with Shakespeare. Because he was Gary, and only Gary was awesome enough to know the who
le of the best speech ever written to throw in the teeth of overwhelming odds. “‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!’”
On and on he went, wonderful words that had been spoken millions of times over the years, lending them even more power than they had on their own. Hairs rose on my arms and I gave him a brief, dippy grin as his deep voice echoed against the power circle’s walls and drowned Coyote’s tenor out.
Morrison stared between us, then straightened and spoke, as well, a speech I should have guessed would resonate with him. “‘Four score and seven years ago...’”
A prayer for the land, a preparation for a fight and a plea for equality. It seemed like a fine trio of speeches to meet the Master with. Gary and Morrison came around the circle to flank me, and together we shouted our defiance back at Annie and Coyote.
Even if it was haphazard, it seemed to help. They were struggling already, their bodies trembling and their heartbeats staggering with the strain of calling their master through to the Middle World. Coyote’s golden skin had paled, and Annie’s was graying, the effort clearly too great for a woman just off her deathbed.
The miasma swirled and flexed, coming together and falling apart again. Coyote’s grip on Annie’s hand looked hard enough to crush her bones. Sweat rolled off both of them, turning Coyote’s hair lank and wetting Annie’s until it lay flat against her head. Two people, a man and a woman, striving to bring a third into the world. A new one, born of their efforts.
Born of their lives. Even Annie’s god-strengthened green aura was flickering as her strength failed; Coyote’s was already nearly depleted, and their heartbeats were becoming increasingly erratic. They were going to die birthing the Master, and there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do about it.
“No.” I heard myself under the roar of the storm, under the pounding rain and the howling wind that had taken up life within the Needle itself. Everyone heard me, for all that I spoke very quietly. Maybe they heard me because I was so quiet: it made them lean in and pay attention. “No. Gary didn’t fight so hard for Annie to have it end this way. I am not giving up on Coyote. I am not letting anyone else die because they crossed paths with me.”
“Walker—”
“I’m sorry, Morrison. Remember that I love you.” Before I had time to think about it further, I ran forward, reaching for Coyote’s and Annie’s outstretched hands. Offering them what they needed: a body, a new soul, to pour the Master into.
Gary got there first.
Chapter Twenty-One
Saturday, April 1, 7:17 p.m.
After the year I’d had, I would have thought I was beyond being surprised by much of anything. I would have been wrong, because I just had not seen that coming. I should have. In the instant that his big linebacker self lumbered between me and birthing Master, I knew I should have seen that coming, and I just flat-out hadn’t. I crashed against Gary’s broad back and felt the shock of the Master slamming into him. Every hair on my body stood out, every nerve went to pin-prickles, and Gary howled from the bottom of his gut.
So did I. Horror, disbelief and anger all ripped out of me in a single word: “GARY!”
He turned, awkward with the burden he now carried, and casually backhanded me.
I flew across the little power circle, blinded by tears that were only half brought on by pain. The circle caught me and dumped me on the floor. I landed on my feet somehow, the stupid coat flaring and settling gracefully around my legs.
About two seconds had passed. Coyote and Annie still didn’t know what had happened, their faces drawn with exhaustion and bodies trembling. They leaned on each other, ghosts of their former selves. Annie looked near to death’s door, and Coyote like he could vomit.
Morrison did know what had happened. His blue eyes widened with shock, face as pale as his silvering hair as he launched himself into motion and arrested that motion just as quickly. He didn’t know where to go, gaze torn between Gary and me.
And Gary. My beloved Gary stood nearly in the center of the circle, bending light in toward himself. Everything bent in toward him: the circle, the light; even the floor dipped with his weight, tilting it so Morrison and the others started sliding toward him. I clenched my gut and spread my toes inside their boots, like I could keep myself from being pulled toward him, too. He shone with blackness that sucked the color away, leaving the world dim and dull and thin-looking. I didn’t need the Sight to see any of that, and I didn’t want the Sight for what I did need to see.
It came to the fore anyway, and I looked into Gary’s tarnished soul.
All the rumbling V8 silver that I knew so well was corroded and black. It crumbled, flaking into pieces that didn’t disappear, but collected around Gary’s feet, deepening the floor’s downward tilt. There was no garden left, just a wasteland streaked by blood so dark I could hardly tell it from the burned earth. My heartbeat was erratic, pulling out of my chest, like it was trying to go smear itself across the landscape. It made an aching empty place beneath my sternum, one that spread deeper and made my stomach feel sick and hollow, just the opposite of how the shamanic magic within me had felt when it came back to life. That had been a fluttering, pushing thing, trying to live. This was trying to kill me. I tried hard not to think that letting it might be okay, and tried even harder to pull myself out of looking into that endless deathscape.
I wasn’t sure I’d have been able to, if Gary hadn’t moved. His knuckles, where he’d hit me, were rough and bruised. He lifted that hand and rubbed them, then raised gleaming black eyes to mine. I jolted, seeing the real, Middle, world again, and then almost wishing I wasn’t. Even if his eyes had been the right color, I’d have known that what was within Gary’s shape was not my friend. The thing inside him knew nothing of gentleness or kindness, much less love. Only death and hunger saw me. Assessed me, sizing me up as a curiosity, as a danger and as a meal.
The corner of his lip curled back in a false smile, and the voice that spoke was all the worse for being Gary’s own: “Hello, doll.”
Somehow that was worse than his eyes, worse than the bleak wreck of his soul. Air rushed out of me like I’d been hit in the gut, and on the breath I said, “Oh, no. No, you don’t get to—”
“Ain’t this how you always saw me, sweetheart? An old man.” Gary smiled again, and even though I knew his teeth were false, I was still surprised they hadn’t gotten vampire-sharp and pointed. “Looks to me like this is about perfect. You an’ me, doll, together again for the first time. Ain’t that how you say it?”
Ice shot up my spine and over my arms in an uncontrollable shudder. “You don’t want him. You want me.”
“Reckon that’s right.” He started to move, the first steps as if he was testing out the body. The floor shifted under him, like his presence was a black hole, dragging everything down into it, but it recovered—mostly—when his weight shifted to a new place. “On the other hand, this fella’s given me a lot of trouble, and I figure I can make him last awhile.” Gary’s gaze snapped from me to Annie. The smile happened again, bare teeth with no emotional content behind it, and his voice dropped about an octave. “And you. Sweetheart.”
Annie didn’t look good in the first place, her bones sharp beneath thin papery skin, but she looked worse after those three words. Like all her hope had been sucked away, just like that. Like a lifetime of fighting had turned out useless in the end, and like that was more than she could bear.
Coyote put a hand on her shoulder and—both stupidly and admirably—called healing magic, weary dune and soft sky blue shoring Annie up enough that an unnatural stillness overtook Gary before he pulled his lips back from his teeth again. “Raven Mocker.”
“No.” Coyote’s voice shook. I had to admire him for being able to use that word in the Master’s presence. I wasn’t sure I could have.
Gary guffawed, which should have been a comforting, familiar sound.
Instead, it was loud and empty, echoing around the restaurant in search of something to give it meaning. It found nothing and faded. Gary’s face had never shown a hint of real humor. “No? It’s kinda late to say no now, Raven Mocker. You brought me through. After so long, someone brought me through.” His s’s got a little sibilant there, like Rattler when he was excited about something. Gary had never done that.
Not that I was under any illusions that Gary was in control, or maybe even alive. I couldn’t See anything of him in the black desert that had once been his garden. Even from outside, the Master’s weight was incredible, still pulling all of us toward him. It was hard to imagine Gary hadn’t just been crushed beneath it. It was hard to imagine there was any point in trying to fight something that distorted gravity in its immediate area. I was used to being overwhelmed. I had been pretty much since the moment Cernunnos and his incredible, vibrant presence had ridden into my life. The Master was that overpowering, only much, much darker.
“I reject you,” Coyote whispered. He didn’t sound very convincing. “I was so, so stupid—”
“That’s enough, kid.” Gary closed a big fist loosely and Coyote’s voice cut off. More than his voice: a short choking sound emerged and his face went red, then pale. Coyote’s hands went to his throat, scrabbling to find something there that he could pull away, but there wasn’t anything, just Gary’s—the Master’s—will, strangling him.
My own voice broke thin and high. “What’re you using, the Force?”
For just a heartbeat, less than a heartbeat, startlement crossed Gary’s face. That’d been one of the first things I’d ever said to him, when he’d driven out of the Sea-Tac parking lot while turned around in his seat to have a conversation with me. Whether the Master remembered it or Gary did, it broke through, and in that instant he lost interest in Coyote again. Coyote dropped, hands splaying against the dipped floor while he tried to drag in deep breaths of air quietly.