Shaman Rises

by C. E. Murphy

  “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.”

  “But I feel...” She put a hand over her heart. “Empty, somehow. Like there’s a part of me waiting to get filled up again and...and I’m not sure what’s going to fill it. I’m afraid—” She broke off again and eyed me. “He. What else do I call him?”

  “Can you feel him? Separately from you?”

  She shook her head and I put my arm around her shoulder for a hug. “Then all that’s going to fill you up again is you, honey. What we did there was as close to making the Master human as we could, and humans heal. You’re going to be fine. And I,” I said firmly, setting her back from me with my hands on her shoulders, so I could meet her gaze, “I am going to keep a close eye on you to make sure nothing at all goes wrong.”

  Gratitude filled Suzy’s green eyes. “Okay.” She hugged me again before slipping away, back to Kiseko and Robert, whose parents were watching them with interested amusement. I thought Robert might never stop blushing. Smiling, I looked to see who else had arrived while I’d been speaking with Suzy.

  Sonata Smith had, along with a number of people I half recognized from the murder scene a few mornings ago. They were the people I’d charged with going home and keeping the city safe, and there were pools of relative calm and order where they’d done their
work. It was as they arrived that I began to realize the memorial wasn’t just about or for Coyote, but for Seattle and for everything the city and its people had been through recently.

  Somebody said, “Hey,” behind me, and I turned to find my fencing instructor, Phoebe, standing there uncomfortably. I’d freaked her out with my magic and we hadn’t parted on the very best of terms, so I was completely taken aback to see her, and swooped in for a hug before I thought better of it.

  She made a surprised sound and returned both the hug and the status quo, smiling in shy embarrassment as she backed away again. Things were going to be all right there. I could feel it.

  I wasn’t looking at a clock or the sun, but I heard my voice lift unexpectedly, drawing attention to myself. “Thank you for coming.” As I spoke, church bells from somewhere nearby rang out the hour, which backed up my call for attention. Dozens—maybe even hundreds—of people turned my way, and I realized slightly too late that I really had no idea what to say. There I was, wearing my ridiculous white leather coat, bright enough in the noontime sun to be absolutely certain no one would mistake at whom they should be looking, and I hadn’t prepared a speech.

  “A lot’s changed recently.” Hah. Mistress of understatement, I. “A lot of us have lost friends and family in the past few days, and Seattle’s a mess. There’s a god wandering the earth now, you might have seen him.”

  A ripple went through the crowd, one part uncomfortable and one part thrilled. Some of them—the Sight came on, telling me this—some of them were true believers. Others were reluctant believers, and others still wanted to believe but couldn’t. Plenty just flat-out didn’t, of course, any more than people believed in other kinds of magic, but that was okay. “We’re here to say goodbye to the ones who have died, and maybe to greet the things that are rising in their wake. I’m not... I don’t have a big plan here. I’d just like everybody to hold hands, maybe, and make a circle and...fill it up with what we’ve been through. Put some thought and hope into the shape of things to come, because I really believe—now—that we get out of the world what we put into it. A friend taught me that—”

  That was when I realized I hadn’t seen the Muldoons. My hands froze and my heart turned lumpy as I looked around for Gary’s shock of pure white hair.

  “Right here, doll.” He came up on my left side and put his hand in mine, squeezing. A relieved breath rushed out of me and I gave him a suddenly watery smile that turned to slow astonishment.

  He looked different without the tortoise. A little less...solid, in spiritual terms. No more armored shell offering protection against the world, no more slow steady strength shoring up a long life. Instead, the white raven sat on one shoulder, preening and proud of itself. It was all warrior spirit somehow, confident and strong.

  On his other shoulder sat a walking stick. As long as my whole arm, its front legs folded in his hair, it met my gaping gaze with perfect equanimity. I squeezed Gary’s hand back in a kind of involuntary reaction, but my heart was stuttering with disbelief.

  I mean, one walking stick spirit looked pretty much like another. But I knew, right down to my bones, I knew that it was Renee. That my spirit guide hadn’t bowed out of my life entirely, but had found a better place to reside. Somewhere she could do some good, because never mind the time traveling, walking sticks were symbols of eternity. She’d taken something away from Gary when we had fought in the Upper World, and now she was returning it. She would be the link to strength and long life that she’d helped destroy.

  Turned out I had it in me to forgive her, after all.

  I’d stopped breathing when I saw her. I started again in a gasp of tears, lifting my hand, fingers entwined with Gary’s, to dash them away. The white raven hopped over to my knuckles and peered at them, then tipped his head to examine me with one bright black eye. I gave him a watery smile and he stepped even closer, tasting one of the tears right off my cheek before spitting it out. Quoth the raven, “Nevermore,” and for a silly, heartening instant I thought he meant I’d never have to cry again. Then he stuck his head against my chin and pushed, making me turn my head.

  The world faded out as I did, waterfalls and lakeshore bleeding into nearly infinite blackness. Nearly: it had the faintest curve to it, just enough to give me a sense of perspective and feel incomprehensibly small. It felt like it had been a long time since I’d been here, in the silence of the Dead Zone, though in a lot of ways my adventures had started in this place. I’d met Seattle’s dead shamans here, and lost Coyote for the first time here, and...and too many other things to count, really.

  Seeing it made me realize that somewhere, subconsciously, I’d never expected to come back here again. Raven was my guide in this territory, and he was gone. Intellectually I guessed that didn’t make sense, because traversing the Dead Zone was part of my job description, but still. I hadn’t expected to come back. I exhaled and turned my face away, finding Gary’s raven still there, perched on my lifted hand. I started to say, Let’s go, but his attention was a million miles away, intent on the nearly invisible horizon.

  Well, I hadn’t come this far down this road to ignore a spirit animal, even if it wasn’t mine. I sighed and looked where he was looking, wondering if maybe Seattle’s long-dead shamans were going to put in a final appearance. A benediction, maybe. I hoped. It’d be disappointing to get my hands slapped now. After a minute or two, I had to admit I was even kind of grateful for the silence. There was a lot going on out there in the Middle World, but it would be waiting for me when I came back, and the truth was, I hadn’t had a lot of really quiet personal time in the past several weeks.

  It was probably a bad sign when hanging out in the no-man’s-land between life and death counted as quality personal time, but I would take what I was given. I stood and I waited and I wondered, and finally, after what felt like the short end of forever, I saw movement.

  It was so far away, and so feeble, that it could have been my eyelashes fluttering. The only reason I knew it wasn’t was that Gary’s raven became even more alert, sticking his head out and rustling his wings like he’d take flight. When I didn’t move, he gave me a sharp look, then a sharper peck to the temple, like he was saying, Get on with it already. I flinched, then twitched into motion, muttering an apology. He was right. Of course he was right. No matter who or what was out here, if it was on the edge of the Dead Zone and trying to come back, then I had to go help it.

  If I’d been asked, I’d have said it wasn’t possible to reach the edge of the Dead Zone. Not for me, anyway. Not for somebody still corporeal. But we ran and after a while we leaped and then we flew, great distances eaten up under my strides and the raven’s wings, and suddenly we were there: an abrupt cessation of one place and the equally abrupt start of another. It reminded me of the Upper World, only not: there it was all spirits and guides. Here it was the difference between a hope of life and death itself.

  And there was a raven on the wrong side, battering at that wall.

  He was a creature of light and lines and laughter, and of great determination. I couldn’t hear his raven calls, not from the wrong side of that horrible wall, but I could imagine the impatient kloks and warbling quarks, and found myself trying to echo those sounds from a throat too tight to make noise. Gary’s raven bit my cheek, then jumped forward to strike the wall with white claws. I put my hand out, pressed it against an inestimable coldness, then had to strike away the tears that ran freely down my face. The second time I touched the wall, that warm salt water fizzled against it, softening the barrier. I laugh-sobbed again, my heart breaking with hope. I felt on fire, healing magic turning my tears to something more. Despite every part of me knowing it was probably stupid, I leaned face-first into the coldness, letting tears scald its surface and praying.

  It shouldn’t have opened. I knew it shouldn’t have, but I was trying so hard, and Raven was trying so hard, and maybe once, just once, the unive
rse was willing to cut me a break, because suddenly there was a hole, and my raven fell through it into my arms.

  He was so ragged, so light and thin, like he was made up of nothing more than a wish. I collapsed to my knees, cradling his delicate weight. I was numb all over, not from grief, but from relief and gratitude so overwhelming I couldn’t feel anything else, not even my body. After a long time I realized I was whispering. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay now, Raven. It’s going to be okay. You’re safe. You’re with me. We’ll be okay now, sweetheart. It’s okay.”

  I didn’t really notice when Gary’s raven carefully swept us up, got me on my feet and started me walking home again. I didn’t notice much of anything except Raven’s eyes fixed on mine, and his awful fragility reminded me of my own state as I’d knelt by Coyote’s bier after the battle. There had been nothing left of me, and there was even less than that of Raven. All I wanted to do was make him better.

  The Middle World, when I emerged into it, was dreadfully bright and loud. I still held Gary’s hand, but my arms were tucked against my torso now, Raven’s insubstantial form nestled against my chest. I was at an absolute loss for what was happening, whatever thoughts I’d had completely undone. I could hardly bear to take my eyes from Raven, afraid if I stopped looking at him he would disappear.

  Morrison stepped up on my right, concern creasing his brow. I whispered, “See?” helplessly, and to my astonishment, his eyes flooded gold and he Saw. Saw Raven in my arms, and understood.

  He didn’t try unfolding my hold on the frail bird. Instead, he folded his left hand into my right and smiled. “We’re here, Walker. All of us. It’s going to be okay.”

  Just beyond him, just beyond Gary, through the film of my tears, I watched the Hollidays take up on either side of us, Billy holding Annie’s hand just to Gary’s left, Melinda and the kids on my right. All of my friends, my father, Grandfather Coyote, they joined hands as close to me as they could, offering solidarity and love as they stepped into place, and I remembered what I’d been going to say.