by C. E. Murphy
Morrison, however, gave me a gimlet eye. “Is it now.”
I shrugged, willing enough to feed the party line to someone like Corvallis, but I’d made an unhealthy habit of telling my boss the truth. “No. It was the-”
“Wendigo,” Coyote put in unexpectedly. I jolted around to gawk at him, then twitched back to face Morrison again and pretended like I hadn’t missed a beat.
“It was the wendigo, and I had to do a soul retrieval to save her life. Which,” I said much more softly, “I did put in danger, yeah. I drew its attention to her. If it’s worth anything, I’m not sure it really wanted to kill her as much as it wanted to flush me out.”
It didn’t help. I could tell from Morrison’s expression. But he snapped his attention from me to Coyote, clearly expecting to get more answers there. “What the hell’s a wendigo?”
“A-” Billy and Coyote spoke at the same time, and I saw a little battle of will and surprise, mostly on Billy’s part, before he gestured for Coyote to continue. “A man who’s gone mad and developed the taste for human flesh,” my mentor said. “It usually happens in times of famine, but sometimes other circumstances trigger it. He’s becoming a monster, a physical transformation. The wendigo is drawn to the forests. That’s why your victims are outdoorsmen.”
Morrison shot me a look that said “How come you didn’t know that?” and “How come this guy knows so much?” in equal parts. What he said aloud, though, was, “Captain Michael Morrison of the Seattle Police Department. And you are…?” as he offered his hand.
Coyote said, “Cyrano Bia of the Dine,” and although he was flawlessly polite, I could have sworn he was laughing at Morrison. He arched an eyebrow at me, and added, “Jo might’ve mentioned me as ‘Coyote.’”
For the countable space of a breath, there was goggle-eyed silence, and then all hell broke loose.
Morrison and Billy started trying to out-shout each other, both of them asking the same questions: “Walker’s Coyote? The one who’s dead? What are you doing here? Well, I guess that explains the scene at the Tillers’ house. How did you get here? I thought you’d died! What the hell is going on? Joanie? What’s going on? Walker, what the hell-”
I hadn’t known that only two people could make that much noise. Worse, Coyote started trying to answer them, not that they were listening, and finally somebody bellowed, “Enough!”
For some reason everybody looked at me after that. It took a few seconds to realize my throat was sore from the shout, and that my hands were fisted hard enough to ache. I said, “Enough,” again, much more quietly this time, but my voice was trembling. “You know what, Morrison? Billy? You don’t get to have the answers right now. I don’t know how Coyote got here or how he’s alive, and God knows I spend way too much time imagining it’s all about me, but this time, you know what? This time it is. I get to find out first. He’s my mentor, my friend, he’s the one who was in my head, you don’t know him, and you don’t get to have him right now.”
To my embarrassment, I was crying again. Real girl tears for the second time, these ones born out of frustration. That didn’t happen to me very often, but I hated when it did. It was faulty wiring in the female body, tear ducts attached directly to the frustration meter. Trying to explain to men that no, I wasn’t being manipulative, I just couldn’t stop my eyes from leaking salt water, only added to the aggravation.
In this particular case, though, even if I hadn’t been angling for it, Billy and Morrison backed down looking shamefaced and uncomfortable, and I was nothing but glad for it. I was exhausted all the way down to the bottom of my soul. Not just physical tiredness from being thrown down a mountain as an avalanche that morning, not just the shaky emotional collapse of Coyote’s arrival, but fundamentally, flat-out spent.
Coyote, who was fast earning rank as the number one most fantastic man in the universe, took my hand and gently uncurled it from its fist before slipping his fingers through mine. “Jo’s probably right. Not only do I owe her a lot of explanation, but she’s just done her first full-fledged soul retrieval, which isn’t something I’d usually suggest trying in an ambulance. She needs a sacred place and some food, so I’d like to take her home. It’s good to finally meet you, Captain. Detective Holliday.” He nodded at my partner, despite having not been introduced, then drew me away from the ambulance and hospital and pressure presented by my friends.
I went into the hospital and used one of their dial-a-cab phones to call a taxi company Gary didn’t work for. We were both silent on the drive to my apartment, because the only cab driver on earth I’d have a “So you’re back from the dead, how’s that working for you?” conversation in front of was Gary. As much as I loved him, right then Gary fell into the same category as Morrison and Billy: I was not ready to share Coyote with anybody, not until I got a chance to hear and assimilate some answers on my own. The whole drive home I watched Coyote, half afraid he’d disappear if I took my eyes off him. I was so exhausted even the joy had drained out of me. Coyote had to guide me out of the taxi when we got to my apartment building, or I’d have sat there all night.
We took the world’s slowest elevator up to my fifth-floor apartment because I couldn’t face that many stairs. Once ensconced in my apartment, I handed Coyote the phone and a menu from Mrs. Li’s Chinese restaurant on the Way, and he placed an order for what sounded like every item of food on the menu while I, mindful of his comment about sacred space, went to lie down in the middle of my living-room floor. The draft from under the front door turned my skin to goose bumps, but once down, I couldn’t summon the will to move.
Coyote, who was bordering on suspiciously perfect, looked at me, went and dragged the quilt off my bed, and lay down behind me, the cover draped over both of us.
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but I woke up when the delivery guy rang the doorbell. Coyote got up again, paid the guy, and came back to sit on the floor with me and spread two paper grocery bags worth of Chinese food around us in a veritable moveable feast. I ate all the Mongolian beef, half the cashew chicken, two egg rolls, a carton and a half of white rice, eight slices of barbecue pork, and drank a sixteen-ounce glass of milk before I felt even vaguely stable enough to whisper, “I’m really, really glad you’re okay. What, um…? The last time I saw you…really saw you…was when I went into the Dead Zone and fought that snake thing.”
“Fought.” Coyote ducked his head over a heap of rice and sweet-and-sour pork. “Is that what you call it?”
“I got you out of there, didn’t I?” All of a sudden I wasn’t sure. “Didn’t I?”
He looked up, dark eyes tempered with sympathy. “You did. Not very well, Jo. You shouldn’t have even been there in the first place, not without me or at least a guide like Raven. But you did get me out.”
“And then?” I really didn’t want a scolding about where I should or shouldn’t have been, or what I should or shouldn’t have done. I was sure I had plenty of those in store. But my hands were cramping around the chopsticks and my tummy was getting upset waiting to hear where my mentor had been the past six months. “You just never came back, Coyote. I thought…I don’t know what I thought. That you were mad at me. Or in trouble.”
Coyote sighed. “I wasn’t well enough prepared when I met you in the Dead Zone-that’s a terrible name for it, Jo.”
“Do you have a better one?”
He shrugged his eyebrows and went on. “I’d been in too much of a hurry, maybe, to meet you, but I wasn’t shielded well enough. When you threw me out I never woke up from the dream state, not entirely. I got…lost on my way back to my body.”
I took a shaking breath and put my box of rice aside. “I’m sorry. I was afraid that snake was going to eat you.”
“It was going to.” His smile was bright and sudden and made me want to crawl over and hide in his arms. “You were doing your best. It was messy, but you did your best.”
That didn’t make me feel as much better as I hoped. “And with…what happened with Begoch
idi, Coyote? I was dreaming about you all the time, but I wasn’t sure any of it was happening…then.” That sounded so absurd I put my head in my hands, fingertips pressed hard against my hairline. “Every time I saw you in those dreams it seemed like another time, another place. Your memories, or even your dreams. Sometimes my dreams, from when I was a kid. And I know something happened there, a closed time loop of some kind, because I had to take all of my younger self’s memories of studying with you and bring them forward so I could use them now. Time got all fucked up, Coyote, and then you-”
I jerked my gaze up, heart thudding again, but not in the nice way it had earlier. Now it just made me feel like I’d eaten way too much and should probably run to worship the porcelain god. “You let go so much power,” I whispered. “You got me out of that amber place where the night had butterfly wings, but…you died. I thought you died, Coyote.”
He sighed again, that explosive sound that I’d heard from his coyote form more than once. “I almost did, but I was betting on Begochidi never deliberately harming one of the Dine. I thought it was worth the risk of drawing her attention to me, but she was stronger than I thought. Or maybe less strong, in the end, because if she’d been at her best, I think I would have woken up. Instead I’ve been sleeping all this time.”
“There must be healers-”
“My grandfather,” Coyote said. “He’s a shaman, too. He spent every day at my side, keeping me strong, but what he saw when he tried a soul retrieval on me was Begochidi standing before the rainbow that lasts all day. It wasn’t a path he could travel. He knew then that someone else would guide me home. She nodded to him once, though.”
I whispered, “Her. I saw Begochidi as a man.”
Coyote shrugged. “We see in the god what is different from ourselves. In her acknowledging him, my grandfather believed he was allowed to keep my body strong, so he did, and he waited for you.”
“I didn’t do a soul retrieval, Coyote…”
“Didn’t you?” He looked up, strands of fine black hair falling across his face. “I heard you calling, and saw your raven guide me from the storm.”
I stared at him slack-jawed. “That-in Mel’s power circle? That was you? The one who went running the other direction?”
His smile broke again. “Guilty as charged. It wasn’t a classic retrieval like you did today-the Tar Baby was a good idea, by the way-”
I mumbled, “It wasn’t my idea,” guiltily. “I got it from a seven-year-old.”
“A sss-I’d like to meet that kid!”
“Her name’s Ashley. She’s kind of amazing.” A little grin worked its way over my face as I thought about Ashley Hampton and her ambition to be a “peace ossifer.” “I’ll introduce you.”
“I’d like that.” Coyote shoveled a couple more bites of pork into his mouth. “So I woke up yesterday morning with my grandfather sitting beside me. He’d done well. I was a lot stronger than I should have been, after all that time. I spent about six hours in one of our own sacred places-” He broke off, eyeing my living room floor dubiously.
I snatched up a new box, feeling defensive as I investigated its contents. Ban mian, full of noodles and greens. I stuffed my chopsticks in and ate several bites before muttering, “It’s all I’ve got, okay? It’s where I do most of my work. I just usually put a blanket in the door so there’s no draft.”
“Whatever works.” He gave me another one of his bright smiles and went on with his story. “Anyway, I spent the morning eating and sweating out the results of lying in bed for months, and in the afternoon I left to drive up here.”
“You just took off? What about the rest of your family? Didn’t they care?”
A wash of old, resigned pain sluiced across Coyote’s features. “It’s just me and my grandfather. My parents died a long time ago. I’ll tell you about it, but it’s not a happy story, and these should be happy times.” He reached out like he’d catch my hand, but he was too far away, and dropped his hand before I could meet it with my own. “I was worried about you, so I came as fast as I could. Grandfather understood.”
“I’ve been worried about you for months. I didn’t even know where to go to try and find you. There’s three hundred thousand people in the Navajo Nation.” Guilt was spoiling the food I’d eaten. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey.” Coyote put his box of pork down and crawled over to me, loose hair sliding around his shoulders. Honestly, if just watching that didn’t make me feel a little better, nothing would. Fortunately, it did. Then the way he hopped around one of the depleted grocery bags reminded me of his Coyote form, and I laughed before he got to me. He sat at my side, knocking his shoulder into mine. “That’s better. Jo, it’s okay. I didn’t expect you to come looking for me. You had things to do here. And judging from what I saw today, you’ve been doing all right.”
I shook my head. “I’ve been scrambling to just keep my ass covered, Coyote. I’ve felt like a walking disaster. I really wish I’d had your help.”
“Well.” He looked abruptly serious. “You will now. And I hate to say it, but this time you’re going to need it.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I hated for him to say it, too. If a wendigo was a nasty enough piece of work that I, who had fumbled along facing gods and demons, was going to have trouble with it, then I really just wanted to hide under the bed until it was gone. On the other hand, that approach hadn’t worked in the past, and if I had fumbled through before, having Coyote actually at my side now ought to be a major confidence booster.
Somehow it wasn’t. “Why is it so bad? I’ve gone up against some pretty powerful things, Coyote…”
“Gods,” he said quietly. “Sorcerers. But the wendigo used to be human, Jo. It’s easier to stand against the immortal and corrupt than it is to face a ruined human soul. And we’re mean, humans are. When you put us in a corner there’s no telling what we’ll do. Wendigos are like that, too.”
I wished I hadn’t asked. “Okay, so is this a ‘Joanne would get dead if Coyote wasn’t here’ scenario? Because I don’t like those.”
“No. No, nothing like that. I mean, maybe,” Coyote said less than reassuringly. “But it’s not what I meant. You can’t wait for a wendigo to come to you. They take hunting, Jo. Not like a murder case, but real hunting.”
“Like out in the woods with a rifle and an orange jacket hunting? I don’t look so good in orange.”
“More like out in the woods with a spear and-”
“Magic helmet?” I asked hopefully.
Coyote, exactly like his furry counter-self, whacked his shoulder against mine hard enough to hurt. “If you have one, wear it.”
I rubbed my shoulder, too glad to experience that again to sulk about the pain. “Did you come up here because you knew I had a wendigo on my hands?”
“I thought you might be more willing to believe it was me if I showed up in the flesh. Besides, I haven’t seen you in real life since you were about five. I wanted to see how your mental image stood up to the real thing.”
My heart lurched with sudden nerves. “And?”
He leaned away so he could examine me, then smiled. “I haven’t seen your astral self in half a year. There’s no comparison. You were a mess then. Angry spikes shooting out of a wraith trying to stay unseen. Now…”
I thought of the spiderwebbed windshield that reflected the state of my soul. “I’m still a mess.”
“Nah.” Coyote traced a fingertip down the scar on my right cheek. I startled, then startled myself even more by closing my eyes and tipping my head into the touch. “You don’t have this,” he said. “I didn’t know you had a scar.”
“Sure you did. It’s the one that didn’t want to heal that very first day, when Cernunnos stuck a sword through me.”
“Oh, yeah.” He dropped his hand and I opened my eyes again to see him shrug thoughtfully. “Guess I didn’t expect it to leave a real scar, since you don’t have one in your image of yourself.”
“Well, I did live t
wenty-six and a half years without one. And I don’t really see it when I look in the mirror.” I took a deep breath. “We’re procrastinating, aren’t we?”
“Are we?” Coyote sounded amused. “On what?”
I took a breath to say on dealing with the wendigo, and instead ran up against the disconcerting idea that he was flirting with me. I’d never considered the possibility that he might find me attractive. I found him attractive, but then, I figured anyone female, heterosexual and breathing probably would. For his hair, if nothing else, but it was only one of a number of what I considered to be very fine features.
Instead of answering, I blushed. Coyote’s grin, of which I was becoming very fond, blossomed. He said, “Ah,” in a very wise and sagely tone, “procrastinating on that,” and leaned in to kiss me.
We left the Chinese food to be cleaned up in the morning.
Thursday, December 22, 4:07 A.M.
My room was lit up by the glowing numbers on my alarm clock and their reflection in the shining ceramic of the bedside lamp. Coyote was a comfortable, steadily breathing lump between me and the light. His hair, braided-we’d twisted it into loose plaits before falling asleep-was wound over his shoulder, where I couldn’t roll on it, and the red light made thick shadows of his eyelashes. I didn’t know why men so frequently got to have lashes like mascara companies advertised, although the idea that it was to keep dust out of their eyes while they hunted antelope on the savannah popped to mind. It didn’t matter. In modern terms they were just attractive, and I stopped myself from brushing a fingertip over them. I didn’t want to wake him up. I just wanted to lie there for a while, head propped on my hand, and smile stupidly while I watched him.
Some vaguely rational part of my brain said this was not like me. That Joanne Walker, Reluctant Shaman, did not fall into bed with a guy a few hours after meeting him. That Joanne Walker didn’t succumb to stupid, giddy, exciting infatuation.