by C. E. Murphy
The jeans Mark wore rode considerably lower than that. I crumpled the water cup and put my hand over my eyes, beads of water making like tears down my cheeks. “How many more?”
Morrison was so quiet I thought he hadn’t understood my question. I’d just about convinced myself to look at him when he said, just as abruptly, “By the end of the day it’d piled up to a quarter of the force. Some of their families, too.”
“Like Melinda.” Not that Mel was really a good example, as she and I had been mystically involved. Which sounded like the sort of thing a person might call a 1-900 number for. Great. I didn’t know how I was going to break it to Billy that I’d been having an illicit psychic affair with his wife while he slept, but I’d give just about anything for the chance.
“Like Melinda,” Morrison agreed, blissfully unaware of my unfortunate internal monologue. I had a brief moment of envying him. At least he could get away from me. I didn’t like me very much right now, and I was stuck with me twenty-four/seven. “You all right, Walker?”
“Fine.” I dropped my hand, fingers still curled loosely around the cup, and looked at the jacket he’d left on his chair. “You’re here late. I’m keeping you. You have plans.” I wasn’t sure if that last was a question or not. Morrison took it as one, nodding.
“Dinner.”
“Sorry. I’ll get out of your hair.” I got up and Morrison stepped into my path. I was wearing sneakers, so he had the very slightest height advantage, less than half an inch. Nobody else would’ve noticed it, but we both did. I wanted to take a step backward to make it less obvious, but there was a chair behind my knees. Morrison knew perfectly well he was in my personal space and didn’t have the slightest intention of moving out of it, so I just waited, looking that all-important fraction of an inch up at him.
“Talk to me, Walker. You look like your best friend just died.”
“No.” An image flashed through my line of vision, a petite pretty girl with hair like buckwheat, thick and straight and long. For some reason I could see her aura, too, though I certainly hadn’t been able to thirteen years ago. It was tight against her skin, bubbling with wrath, just as her expression was full of rage. She’d been the only person who’d ever called me best friend, until I’d gone and slept with a boy she’d said she didn’t like. “Just a friend.” Butterfly-winged blackness swept Sara Buchanan’s memory away as easily as it’d swallowed Coyote, and for an instant I wanted to thank the nightmare thing for taking away that image.
Morrison wouldn’t step out of the way, his mouth tight with concern. “Who?”
“Coyote. My…it doesn’t matter, Morrison. He’s dead because I screwed up again. He got caught in whatever’s making people sleep, and if he can be dead, other people are going to be, too, so I just need to get out of here and do my job. I just came by to see how bad it was today.”
“Walker,” Morrison said again, this time as if the name was insufficient. I debated telling him my first name was Joanne and he could try it out for size, but I had the very real feeling that would lead right back around to a discussion of Siobhán Walkingstick, and I didn’t want to talk about her. “Coyote is your spirit guide, isn’t he?” It was barely a question, and I wanted to know how he knew that and what it cost to ask, but not enough to pursue it. I closed my eyes and turned my head to the side.
“Yeah. Or he was. Now he’s dead.”
“I wouldn’t think a spirit guide was something you could kill.” Morrison was treading on very thin ice, the words strained, and the only reason he was doing it was for me. I looked at him and wondered what he’d do if I curled myself against his chest and held on. I didn’t even think I had it in me to cry. I just wanted to be somewhere safe for a little while, and Captain Michael Morrison’s arms seemed like the safest place in the world right then.
“Walker,” he said, one more time, and sighed.
I was actually changing my weight to damn the torpedoes and step closer to him when his office door opened and Barbara Bragg walked in.
Had there not been a chair immediately behind me I probably would have leapt back like a guilty puppy to put distance between myself and my boss. As it was, I had to clench my stomach muscles to keep from simply falling into the chair.
Morrison, who neither shared my guilty conscience nor, very likely, any half-formed fantasies about sweeping me protectively into his arms, glanced toward the door and smiled. “Barbara. I’d like you to meet Officer Joanne Walker. Walker, this is Barbara Bragg.” He stepped away from me easily, making space for Barbara and me to shake hands.
She came forward, giving me a smile sunny enough to make Kewpie dolls look dour. She wore another sundress, different from last night’s, but just as becoming to her. It had capped sleeves, and I found myself staring at her left shoulder, where the butterfly tattoo was hidden. She and Mark both had one, all vibrant dark colors like the ones that haunted the nightmares. My heart started pounding too hard, heat burning my jaw and working its way toward my cheeks.
“We met again at Contour last night. How are you doing, Joanne?” Barbara’s eyebrows drew down, concern making fine lines on her forehead. “We were all pretty worried about you.” She put her hand out, and I took it automatically, braced for a wash of darkness.
She clasped my hand in both of hers as if she genuinely was concerned, and also possibly a close friend, but there was no dangerous hint of power in her touch. I pulled my gaze from her shoulder to our hands, then up to her eyes, tongue-tied with confusion and trying to figure out how to extract myself from her grasp without being rude.
“Contour?” There was slightly too much incredulity in Morrison’s voice. I felt like I should be insulted, except, frankly, I thought it was as unlikely as he did. “What happened?”
Whether he was asking what had happened at Contour to worry Barbara, or what unlikely event had transpired to get me to a dance club, I never got a chance to answer. Barb turned back to him with a teasing smile. “It’s a club, Michael. Stop looking so dour. I will get you to come out dancing with me, so you might as well accept it now.”
Morrison looked as though he couldn’t conceive of that idea any more than the idea of me going out dancing. I was with him on that, but Barb continued on merrily, stepping back to Morrison’s side.
“Joanne had—” she cast a quick glance at me, as if she was verifying the accuracy of what she was about to say, but barreled on without any actual input from me “—a little fainting spell. Probably dehydration,” she said, attention back to me now. I felt slightly dizzy, like sunshine was sweeping back and forth from me to Morrison, pouring radiant enthusiasm at us in turn without particular regard as to whether we were prepared for it. “You did drink most of a fifth of Johnnie Walker Monday night,” she pointed out. “If you didn’t hydrate yourself properly after that, going out dancing last night would do you right in.”
Even her aura was as cheerful as her chatter, spinning through every other color of the rainbow as I watched. There was nothing sleepy about her at all, no languid dark power to taint her smile or her touch. The butterfly on her shoulder was probably nothing more than an impulsive joy in pretty things, although I had no idea why Mark would have an identical one. That was actively bizarre. Barb smiled at me, and I had the sudden awful feeling that I would probably like this woman if she weren’t hanging on Morrison’s arm.
Or maybe if Morrison wasn’t smiling down at her with a delight I couldn’t remember ever seeing on his face before. Then again, usually when I was around, there was a specific reason for him not to be delighted. Today was no different. My stomach hurt. I looked away as Barbara squeezed Morrison’s arm, then stepped back. “You’re already late leaving work,” she said a bit sternly, and I had the even more horrible feeling that she might be good for my boss, if she wasn’t going to let him get away with working too many hours even after two days’ acquaintance. I swallowed and tried to imagine away the burning at the back of my eyes. I was being ridiculous. Over-emotional. “But if
I’m interrupting a meeting I’ll give you a few more minutes, okay? Dinner reservations are for eight-thirty, though, so we leave in five minutes.”
“Not at all.” Morrison went around his desk to get his jacket. “Officer Walker and I were just finishing up.”
Barbara turned her half rainbow of good cheer on me again, interest lighting her eyes. “Oh, well then. Are you on shift, Joanne? No, you must not be,” she added, taking in my tank top and jeans. “Why don’t you come along with us? I’ll call Mark and he can meet us at the restaurant. We can all get to know one another.”
Morrison shot me a look of abject horror over Barbara’s head. For once I was in complete accordance with him. I made a stiff jerking motion, encompassing her sundress and Morrison’s suit, though the latter was tired from a day of heat, and said, “Oh, I, I—” I hadn’t managed to say a word since she’d come into the office, and my first vocal foray didn’t exactly cover me with glory. “I’m not dressed for it.” Morrison’s dismay faded, then leapt into relief again as Barbara sniffed.
“Nonsense. I’ll tell Mark to dress down a bit and it’ll be fine. Everybody talks about the relaxed dress code up here in the Pacific Northwest, anyway. I’ll call the restaurant and change the reservations to four.” She swept out the door, opening her purse to retrieve her cell phone as she went.
Morrison and I stood there staring at one another. I wanted to say something funny, not that I could remember easily amusing my boss. It seemed, though, like there ought to be something I could say. All that came out was, “Sorry.”
Morrison flinched. “Barb’s persuasive.” He followed her out, leaving me to trail behind.
“Persuasive.” Mark echoed the word at the end of the story with a laugh. “Barb’s a bulldozer.” He elbowed her, earning a mimed throw of the olive from her drink in return. We’d ended up with the pairs who knew each other best sitting next to each other: me and Morrison on one side of the table, Mark across from me and Barb across from my boss. Presumably that allowed us to focus on the person most important to us. I could smell Morrison’s cologne when he moved.
“Barb the bulldozer,” Mark repeated happily. His colors were an astounding complementary mix to Barb’s, all the opposite colors of the rainbow. When they laughed together, their auras jumped up and spun into a breathtaking light display. “That’s my big sister. Well, I’m glad, Joanne.”
I twitched, focus torn away from their entwining auras. “What? Oh. Yeah.” I retrieved a smile and pasted it on. “Big sister?” That was probably the wrong thing to say when a guy said he was glad to go out on a date with you, but the people who were having fun at this table were not Officer Joanne Walker and Captain Michael Morrison. Barb and Mark Bragg hadn’t seemed to notice.
“Seventeen minutes older,” Barb said triumphantly. “That makes me the boss of him.”
“And she never lets me forget it,” Mark said, full of mock despair. Morrison and I caught each other giving the other guarded looks, establishing that this was news to both of us.
“Twins?” I asked more than a little inanely. That was me, super-cop. They both laughed, sending their auras whirling together again in a rainbow of colors. Twins certainly explained that, anyway. It also explained the identical tattoos. I slid down in my chair, less happy than I thought I might be at clearing the Braggs of any likely connection with the sleeping sickness. At least if Barb was evil I’d have a legitimate reason not to like her. Instead, the more she talked, the more I felt like a jerk for hating her straight off.
“Identical,” Mark said, pulling his face straight. Morrison chuckled, a quiet sound, and I managed another smile, nodding.
“I can tell. All night I’ve been trying to figure out which one of you I was supposed to be playing footsies with.” I had no idea where that’d come from, but it got laughter from Mark and Barb. Morrison shot me a startled look. Mark leaned forward, lowering his voice conspiratorially.
“What, can’t you tell with, you know.” A subtle eyebrow waggle suggested I was supposed to pick up on what you know was, but he wasn’t sure everybody else at the table was in on my shamanic practices. I sighed and flipped my fingers out, indicating a go-ahead. Morrison already knew. One more person thinking I was a weirdo wasn’t going to change the balance of my life. Barb leaned in curiously, and Mark put his elbows on the table to announce, with obvious relish, “Joanne’s a shaman.”
Her eyebrows shot up. Morrison exhaled quietly, a sigh that probably nobody but me heard. I didn’t look at him. “Really,” Barb said, then straightened up as the waiter came by with glasses of water and our menus. As soon as he was gone she folded her menu into her lap and leaned forward, all interested eyes and enthusiasm. “What’s that about, really? I mean, magic, right? You do magic?” Her voice was full of lightness. I couldn’t tell if it was laughter or teasing or humoring me, though I assumed all of it had a fair degree of mockery in it. Still, I was going to have to find a way to deal with this one way or another. No time like the present to start. Poor Morrison. I sighed, a half-conscious echo of his expression.
“It’s about healing. Magic.” My smile felt half-assed. “I’m really not all that comfortable with it. Normal people don’t do magic.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Barb said in evident seriousness. “I think it kind of depends on how you look at magic. When Mark and I were driving up here we went by Wild Horse Monument, out in eastern Washington. Have you been there?”
To my utter surprise, a little something loosened in my chest for the first time since I’d woken up from Coyote’s sacrifice. It hurt, like cracking a scab you didn’t know was there, both a relief and painful at once. From that break came a smile that bordered on tears. “Actually, yeah. I drove by it when I came to Washington, too. It’s amazing.” I’d glanced out my window to see horses on a cliff top, and pulled Petite over so I could scale the hill and stand in the midst of an iron herd, larger than life as they charged recklessly toward the edge of the cliff. The leading stallion had a wild abandon to him, as if in recognizing death he embraced it. I’d stood up there among them for hours, watching shadows bring them to life as the sun moved through the sky.
“Tell me that isn’t magic,” Barb said triumphantly. I laughed, a rough sound that went along with the tightness in my chest, and shook my head.
“I can’t.”
Barb sat back, smug. “See? I think it’s all over, if you want to see it. So healing. Does that mean you can help the people who are going to sleep?”
“I’m trying.” I found myself looking at Morrison.
“The topaz works as a charm against the sleeping sickness,” I heard myself add. Morrison’s expression went indecipherable.
“Good,” he said after a moment. “I gave that piece to Barb.”
CHAPTER 21
I’d thought the wall of cold that had come down over me was going to be a permanent fixture. It turned out to have nothing on sheer, irrational jealousy. The muscles in my neck creaked audibly as I turned my head to stare at Barbara, who showed no signs of understanding the mortal danger she was in. I was much bigger and stronger than she was. I could probably claw her eyes out before Morrison could stop me.
She smiled brilliantly and tilted over, scooping her purse up from the floor so she could dig through it and moments later display the piece of topaz I’d given Morrison. It wasn’t a remarkable piece of topaz, except that it was supposed to be his and he was most definitely not supposed to have given it to her. “I love topaz,” Barbara was saying happily. “It’s my favorite stone. Our birthstone,” she said to Mark, as if he didn’t know, and he grinned and nodded. “I really didn’t expect Michael to give it to me, but I noticed it on his desk this afternoon when I dropped by to ask if he’d like to go out to dinner. So it’s magical? How does it work?”
I heard everything she said through heavy static, my ears and cheekbones so hot I thought they must be glowing. Even my vision was fuzzy, white noise buzzing around the edges of it as I stared furio
usly at the stone in Barbara’s palm. I wanted to snatch it up and throw it at her or at Morrison or through a window. In fact, I jolted like I might do that, a violent spasm that knocked my knuckles against the table. The spike of pain sent me shooting to my feet, full of clumsiness and blind anger. My chair fell over behind me with a noisy clatter, a pool of silence rippling out around us in the restaurant.
Normally that would only last an instant before the usual sounds of dining reasserted themselves. Not so with me as a focal point, misbehaving in public. My stomach muscles trembled from being held so tight. The whole restaurant seemed to inhale expectantly, waiting to see what happened. Mark pushed his chair back, concerned, and Morrison came half out of his seat, angry perplexity at my display written across his face. I still felt heat in my cheeks, but my hands were icy and I felt like the color had drained from my face, leaving me with an expression of childish injury. Morrison reached for my elbow and I jerked away hard enough to pull myself a step back.
That step proved my betrayal, undoing whatever it was that bound me in place. I whipped around and bolted for the door, smashing my thigh into the corner of someone’s table as I ran. A hard knot of pain formed in the muscle as silverware jangled and glasses crashed over. Morrison shouted, “Walker!” and I threw a raspy apology at the diners, breaking for the door again. In all the horrible silence of everybody watching drama unfold, I heard Morrison mutter an apology at Barbara and come after me. I slammed my shoulder on the door frame on the way out, half clumsiness and half punishing myself for something I barely understood.