by C. E. Murphy
"Steel." I whispered the word, and it gave me the strength to stand. Petite was a classic, her sweet body made up of steel, not fiberglass or aluminum or carbon fiber like modern cars. And there wasn't a monster in the books that didn't have a revulsion to cold iron. Still whispering, I said, "Keys."
Morrison, who shouldn't have been able to hear me, reached into Petite's interior, turned the engine off and tossed me the keys without ever dropping his weapon's training on the wights.
I snatched the keys out of midair, took three long steps to Petite's trunk, opened it, and popped the sawed-off shotgun out of its custom holder. I loaded it and another few steps brought me to Morrison's side. He, still very steady and calm, said, "Shoot or run?"
I cocked the shotgun, and by the time we started pulling triggers, the wights were running for the hills. The dust from Petite's arrival wasn't yet settled when they disappeared from sight entirely. Morrison lowered his weapon and cast me the very slightest hint of a smile in his sideways glance. "Do we go after them?"
"Sure, if you've got boots of seven leagues so we can catch up to them WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!?!" I threw the shotgun aside and flung myself into Morrison's arms, which would have been a lot cuter if I was eight inches shorter and seventy pounds lighter than he. Instead we were of a similar height and he probably only had thirty, maybe forty, pounds on me. Instead of a romantic-lovers-reunited embrace it was more of a crashing, staggering thud against Petite's frame, while I howled and shrieked and beat my fists against his back in utter, stupefied joy. "Oh, my God, Morrison, did you see yourself, holy shit, you were freaking fantastic what are you DOING here how did you FIND me what the HELL!!!"
To my pure, unadulterated delight, he was every bit as silly as I was, roaring laughter into my shoulder as he hugged his arms around my waist. He smelled so good, Old Spice and dust and sweat and wind, and beneath my shouting he said, "Muldoon called me when you left Ireland. I've been driving for two days. Walker, are you sparkling?"
I'd forgotten about the glitter bath Les and I had taken, and said, "What? Yes," before returning to a bellow of semicoherent delight. "PETITE, you've been DRIVING PETITE?! I didn't know you drove so well! You said my relationship with my car was pathological! YOU DROVE MY CAR ACROSS THE COUNTRY, YOU CRAZY MAN! IN TWO DAYS!"
Morrison, who was nothing if not good at taking my outbursts in stride, went on like I wasn't a maniac shouting into his shoulder. "--called that woman, Sara, when I got to the outskirts of town--"
"WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME!"
"I wanted to surprise you. She said you'd headed up into the mountains and something was wrong, so I floored it."
"YOU FLOORED IT! I DIDN'T THINK YOU KNEW HOW TO FLOOR IT!"
Morrison said, "Of course I do," and then he kissed me.
It was an extremely effective way to get me to stop shouting. After a minute we sort of collapsed into Petite's driver's seat, which was not a comfortable place for two people to be. I had not known from previous experience how awkward it was to get two people from the driver's seat into the passenger seat, either, but we managed. It might have been easier if I hadn't been trying to remove Morrison's shoulder holster and shirt at the same time, but that was not a detail that occurred to me in the moment. We were both giggling and swearing by the time we got into the passenger seat. Morrison fumbled for the seat latch and I grabbed it, sending the seat ratcheting back at top speed. I fell on top of him, laughing, and tried to mumble an apology that he stopped with a kiss, and then some more kisses.
I wanted to sit up so I could see him better, but I couldn't make myself untangle my fingers from his hair long enough to do it, not even when he skimmed my shirt off and slid his hands over my skin. Petite's windows were steaming up, despite the door being open and the rising sun heating the air around us. And then for quite a while I stopped noticing much of anything about the world beyond us, or anything that wasn't Morrison's scent and touch and warmth.
Saturday, March 25, 8:25 a.m.
I was not asleep. I just wasn't very conscious, although the only thing keeping me from being unconscious was the fact that my left ankle had been pressed against the gearshift long enough to develop a permanent bruise that was starting to make my whole calf hurt. Aside from that, though, I was...
...well, actually I was hideously uncomfortable, because my jeans had never made it much past my calves, either, and were cutting off circulation, and my right knee, where it was wedged between Morrison's thigh and the door, was also stuck to Petite's leather seat. I hated to think just how much of Morrison was stuck to the leather.
Not the important bits, anyway. I smiled, then woke up enough to grin, and within a moment was laughing quietly. I hadn't been so overwhelmed by sheer adolescent horniness since I'd been an adolescent, and overall, the aftermath of bubbly giggly joy was a lot better than my teen experiences. Maybe there were big bad things out there in the world, but if I was with Morrison I could handle anything. I felt effervescent. Stuck to a muggy, hot black leather interior, but effervescent. My laughter faded back into smiles and I mooshed a kiss against Morrison's shoulder, just happy to be there.
Morrison turned his head and kissed my hair, murmuring, "I haven't done that since I was a teenager," with a smile of his own.
"Really?" I lifted my head to look at him from so close we both went cross-eyed. His eyes were still a lovely blue, even crossed. "You're very good at it for someone who hasn't done it in twenty years."
I got an up close and personal glimpse of his best exasperated look, though for once it seemed tempered by fondness. "In a car, Walker, I meant in a car."
I propped my elbows on the seat above his shoulders so I could see him a little more clearly. "I can't believe the staid and steady Morrison has ever had sex in a car. What kind of car was it?"
He stared at me. "Does it matter?"
I laughed out loud and kissed him again. "Probably to everybody but you. Hey," I said, suddenly a lot more softly. "Hi. You rescued me. Thanks."
"Probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I had to take it." Morrison curled his arms around me and pulled me back down against his chest. "You're welcome."
I smiled, thought of all the things that were going wrong just beyond Petite's front end, and sighed. I'd had a very long couple of weeks, and no sleep the night before. I figured we deserved five more minutes of slightly glittery snuggling before we got on with the dirty business of hunting wights. I nestled against Morrison, listening to his heartbeat, and the next thing I knew, the sun had jumped a hand-span in the sky and Sheriff Lester Lee was leaning in Petite's open driver's-side door with a look of betrayal and disgust on his youthful features.
* * *
Morrison took a deep waking-up breath, the kind that signaled having gone from totally asleep to totally prepared to shoot something inside a blink. His pistol was in the driver's seat, which I hadn't consciously noticed until I discovered my hand on his forearm, stopping him from picking it up. Les, expression flat with displeasure, picked it up instead, and removed it from sight. Morrison tensed very slightly beneath me, though I could see him processing Lester's uniform and accepting that if anyone had the right to move his weapon it was the local law enforcement. I still murmured, "It's okay. Les is one of the good guys."
Les growled, "Get dressed, Joanne," stood up, and turned his back on us.
I looked back at Morrison, aware that this situation was not at all funny. His blue eyes crinkled up at the edges, and we both buried our faces in each other's shoulders, trying to muffle high-pitched, teenage giggles. It didn't work at all, because getting caught having sex in a car was even less dignified as adults than as teens. For a few seconds Petite rocked with our mirth, and we were still giggling and smirking as we found our clothes--mine had littered glitter into the backseat, the foot-wells and on Morrison--and obediently got dressed. Morrison slid his hand into my hair and stole one more kiss before we opened the passenger door and sort of half climbed, half fell out in an undig
nified tangle of limbs. I zipped my jeans, laced my fingers through Morrison's, and tried to look apologetic through my grin as Les turned to face us.
"You think this is funny, Joanne?"
"No. Well, yes. I mean, this part? Yes. The rest..." Guilt started getting the better of me and my smile fell away.
The truth was, I had desperately needed--well, Morrison riding to my rescue had been a huge win, but the aftermath had been pretty high up on things Joanne needed, too. Up to and including the nap. I knew people were dying, I knew I'd lost the trail of not just the wights but the Executioner that had created them and I knew taking time out to get laid looked incredibly, mindlessly selfish. And it probably was.
But on the other hand, my mother had just sacrificed her immortal soul to save my life, my father was missing, and my son had come a hair's breadth from getting eaten by a soul-devouring monster. I'd had very little sleep and insufficient emotional support. I was perfectly willing to admit my timing was terrible, but given the all-or-nothing crisis my life tended to be, it wasn't like there was going to be a good time to throw my hat in and say, "Go away, the next few hours belongs to me."
So I shoved guilt into a box and booted it to the curb. "Les, this is Captain Michael Morrison of the North Precinct Seattle Police Department. Morrison, this is Sheriff Lester Lee. We're all on the same side here."
Les gave me a look that said obviously Morrison was a lot more on my side than he himself was, and that he, rationally or not, resented that. Morrison read the look as clearly as I did, and I could all but feel him file that one away to ask about later. Les didn't exactly put it aside, muttering, "Give me one good reason I shouldn't arrest you for fleeing the scene of a crime," with half-credible threat in his voice.
"Because you know perfectly well I didn't kill those people, and because I'm guessing if there are any prints scorched into their foreheads, they match up with the bodies who were already in the room."
He muttered incomprehensibly, then with slightly more volume said, "For public displays of indecency, then."
He had me dead to rights on that one, even if we were up on a mountaintop and he was the only public around. I was still smart enough to change the subject. "What's going on down there that you're up here?"
His expression went black. "The news media picked up last night's deaths. When you called I was already arguing about whether this had to become a federal case, but with the second wave the FBI has taken over. Murder on the Qualla. Six months from now it'll be a movie of the week. Sara's taking point--"
"Really? This isn't her jurisdiction."
"It's her or let somebody who's got no business here at all come in. At least she knows what's really going on."
I winced. Sara had already taken a mystical case in the teeth because of me, when the serial killer she was hunting turned out to be a man-eating monster called a wendigo. I doubted she was even done clawing her way out of that trail having gone cold, and now she was going to be leading another investigation that would have no satisfactory answers. Personally I was grateful it would be her leading it, and not some stick-up-the-ass white man who had no use or respect for the Cherokee culture. Professionally, I wished it was the stick-up-the-ass white guy, because two cases like this in a row could destroy Sara's career. "So, what, she sent you up here to...?"
"Find out where the hell you'd gone, and why." Les glared at Morrison again. "She's going to love the answer."
"There are two bodies over there," Morrison said in his mildest ever voice. Then I did feel guilty, because I'd totally forgotten the magnificent arrival had meant Morrison had needed to shoot some people. On the other hand, they hadn't been very people-like anymore, and I was reasonably certain that if he'd been all torn up about it, we'd have ended up discussing the case and what exactly he'd just had to do, rather than falling into my car like a couple of hormone-addled teenagers. Guilt went away again. I was beginning to like this new, stable, grown-up me.
Les said, "There are?" through his teeth, and whatever mild-manneredness or calm Morrison and I had been sharing evaporated. We exchanged glances, then peered over Petite, beyond Les, to where Carrie Little Turtle and the other wight had fallen.
There were no bodies. There were empty clothes and white dust smears on the red earth, but there were no bodies. After a brief, loud silence, Morrison said to me, "The zombies didn't do that."
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "No. No, they didn't. Les, they were...the...they..." Even talking to a believer didn't mean it was easy to say, "Apparently they disintegrated after Morrison shot them," though after another try or two I got that out.
Les's voice dropped an octave. "He shot them?"
"Les, they were undead. Wights. Revenants. Something, I don't know. I'm calling them wights. Their hair was white and their eyes were red and they sucked the life out of the people keeping vigil and they were trying to do it to me. I tried fighting them with magic and it was like fighting fire with gasoline. They slurped it right up. So although I'm very, very sorry I'll have to tell Danny there is no body for him to bury, I am frankly very glad Morrison showed up and shot a couple of them. So you go tell Sara it's all gone horribly wrong, and I'll go into the mountains and stop these things."
"Not without me, you won't. You said yourself you'd get lost."
I had. And I'd also said I'd let Aidan be my guide, which seemed like an even worse idea now than it had at the time. "Sara needs to know--"
"You have her phone number."
That, while true, was a detail that had slipped my mind. I stared thoughtfully at the Impala. "Ever read a mystery novel set in the '80s and thought, 'Man, if they'd had cell phones this book would only be twenty pages long?' No? It's just me? Okay then." The point I was really trying to make was it had also probably been easier to send people on important but time-consuming errands when the whole world hadn't been carrying space-age communicators in their pockets. I got the phone and called Sara, who told us all in no uncertain terms to get our asses back down to town. "You," I said to Les when I'd reported this, "may be obliged to take that as a direct order. Me, I'm not even law enforcement anymore--"
"Thank God," murmured Morrison, which made me grin even as I kept talking.
"--and Morrison is, um. On vacation?"
"Emergency family leave," he said, and my heart flip-flopped.
"And if you go up in the mountains by yourselves we're going to have four people missing instead of just two."
That kept being a valid argument. I took a breath, but Morrison said, "I know you can't track with the magic, Walker, but I've Seen what you See. Can't you just use the Sight to get yourself pointed back at civilization? Towns look different than wilderness, don't they?"
I shut my mouth. Les shut his. After a minute I said, "So we'll go wight-hunting now, then, okay?"
"Aidan will never forgive you."
"That," I said firmly, "is a risk I'm willing to take. He's twelve. He really doesn't need to be putting himself in the line of fire. So if you'll go report in to Sara, Morrison and I will go hunt these bastards down the old-fashioned way." With shotguns and salt, but Les didn't need to know that.
He scowled, but he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I was certain Sara wouldn't inform her superiors that the local LEOs were being uncooperative, because she wouldn't want any more publicity than necessary, either. On the other hand, the local populace was likely to be uncooperative, and Les's presence would smooth things over. He couldn't really stay, even if it was his personal preference. He finally jabbed a finger at me. "You keep me informed."
"I will." I meant it, though he didn't look like he believed me. After another minute of glaring, he got in his car and went away, leaving me and Morrison to exhale loudly. I said, "This is a mess," as I put my phone in my pocket and collected the shotgun from where I'd tossed it.
Morrison didn't say anything, and after a few seconds the not saying anything got very noticeable. I stopped digging supplies out of Petite's trunk
and looked at him curiously.
He had the cautious expression of a man who wanted badly to speak and was certain it would explode on him. I put the gun and the ammo back in Petite's trunk and closed it, both to assure him I was listening and that I wouldn't shoot him. "What?"
"Was that, ah. Was that...?"
Really, I shouldn't have had the foggiest idea what he was asking. Five words, two of them repeated and one a filler rather than a real word, did not an actual question make. But I understood perfectly, and a soft breath rushed out of me in something like a laugh. "No. No, that's Les. I guess he had kind of a crush on me in high school. I had no idea until yesterday afternoon. No, it's... That's Lucas. Lucas Isaac."
I folded my arms over my chest and looked down, lower lip caught in my teeth. Then I sidled around Petite's big back end so I was closer to Morrison, because I knew the body language I was using was all "go away, I don't wanna talk about it," which wasn't exactly true and wasn't the impression I wanted him to get. I just wasn't good at talking about it, having kept the secret bottled up for well over a decade.
Morrison was the first one outside of the Qualla who'd sussed it out, anyway. I'd told him my real name, the full Irish-Cherokee hybrid tongue tangling disaster of it, last summer. He'd gone and looked up one Siobhan Grainne MacNamarra Walkingstick, aka Joanne Walker, and had discovered I'd had children while still in high school. After asking very carefully if I'd been raped--there were no police reports indicating I had been, but God alone knew what a fifteen-year-old might choose to report--and hearing the answer was no, he had let the whole thing go with a great deal more grace than I would have shown.
But that was then, and everything was different now. I was different, we were different, and our whole potential future was different. Maybe that was so huge it should all be put off for later consideration, but I was still of the mind that with my life, there was no telling whether there would be a later to consider. So I cleared my throat and tried to answer all the questions he'd been too gentle to ask over the past year. "We hadn't really been in the Qualla all that long. A year, I guess. And I had a chip on my shoulder like you wouldn't believe."