Spirit Dances

by C. E. Murphy

  I muttered, “It wasn’t my idea,” and he pulled his head out of my stomach to glower and batter me with his wings. It always hurt when he did that, but it seemed like he was putting more oomph into it this time. I smacked back at him with childish displeasure. “Knock it off! Talk to Rattlesnake, if you want to bitch somebody out! He—”

  Well. Technically Rattler was at fault for the reduced state of power that Raven evidently found so distressing. On the other hand, I would be a thin red smear across a Seattle street had Rattler not done what he did. “He saved my life,” I finished, considerably more graciously than I’d started. “It just about wiped us out. Well, me, anyway. He’s probably okay. I mean, it’s hard to hurt spirit animals, right?”

  Raven, who very rarely spoke—because ravens could talk in the real world, Rattler had said—gave me a distinctly concerned look and quarked again. I said, “Okay, okay,” and drifted back down toward my body. Not really into it, but closer to its general vicinity than I’d been. Raven winged down beside me and strode around self-importantly while I whispered, Rattler? in the recesses of my mind.

  Like Raven, he came out of the light, slithering between dancers’ feet as he materialized into something that looked very much like a real-world rattlesnake. There was a thread there, a commonality, it seemed. The more out-of-body I was, the more real my spirit animals were. If I was solidly within myself, they manifested as quick sketches of light and power. I wondered if they saw me similarly when I wasn’t inhabiting my flesh.

  Rattler crawled over my hip and settled into the warm divot between it and my ribs, then lifted his head to have a look at Raven. They weren’t usually in it together: I tended to need one or the other, not both. The once I’d needed both had been in the Lower World, where we’d all been busy enough with our separate tasks to not have any kind of territory wars. Not that I had any idea if spirit animals had territory wars, though it seemed unlikely. The whole point was they each offered a shaman very different skill sets, so in theory there was no toe-treading or reason to argue.

  I still had the distinct impression they were arguing. Raven went klokklokKLOK! and hopped around, wings and chest puffed with disapproval, while Rattler stuck his long forked tongue out repeatedly, which somehow came across as a two-year-old’s behavior instead of a snake’s. It wasn’t good form to tell outsiders what your spirit animals were, but I suddenly wished the dancers could see my two guides in their private little battle. I wanted to see how they would interpret it, and how it would affect their dance.

  Because it wasn’t, at the moment. It affected me: even if they were arguing, and over what I had no idea, their dual presence made me feel better in much the same way the dance did. They were part of my energy, maybe even part of my soul at this point. Whatever snapping, biting, hissing disagreement was between them, having them both beside me gave the fragile core of magic within me a boost of strength and confidence.

  That affected the dancers. Someone among them—maybe many of them—was profoundly sensitive to energy levels. The stronger I felt, the quicker the drumbeats became, and the more involved the dancers. They were still light-years from the ghost dance, but there was more strength to what they offered, as if they knew I was better able to accept it now. I took a breath deep enough that I felt it even in my semi-disembodied state, and sank a little farther into the dance mats. Rattler slid over my ribs, dislodged by my breathing, and turned his attention from Raven to stick his tongue in my ear, a scolding if I’d ever received one.

  Raven took it as triumph, fluffed out all his feathers until he was twice his normal size and sat with a smug klok! that reverberated in the small bones of my ears.

  One drummer hit a note that echoed the tone and pitch of Raven’s call perfectly, and the theater ripped down the middle, folded away and left me in the midst of a harsh white desert.

  I had been here before.

  Past experience didn’t make sipping at searing air any easier. It didn’t make the unrelenting brilliance of the too-close sun any easier to bear, either. I still didn’t want to look at myself for fear I’d see the very bones outlined in my flesh, light so intense it could only burn me away. Tears, precious liquid, drained from my mostly-closed eyes because the light was simply more than could be borne. They ran across my nose and dropped to gleaming white earth, sizzling into nothingness within an instant. I was very nearly as physically miserable as I’d ever been, and that included having gotten hit by a semi less than an hour earlier.

  On the other hand, I wasn’t dangling upside-down from the only tree in Creation. I could feel its roots under my ribs and thigh, and if I dared open my eyes that much, I knew I’d see its bleached-out spirally bones reaching for the nearby sun and providing no shade at all. I didn’t want to look that hard. For the moment, I didn’t have a headache so bad it seemed likely to split my skull in half, and wisdom seemed the better part of valor. Instead I peeked through my lashes at the close horizon, and conceded that overall, magic-drained or not, I was in much better condition than I’d been the first time I came to this place.

  And this time, I wasn’t surprised at all when a coyote trotted out of the desert whiteness to greet me.

  He was, once again, possibly the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. Coyotes in general were tawny, good for blending into shrub-infested yellow deserts. This one might blend into a precious metals mine if he tried hard enough. Every strand of fur glittered like they’d been hand-painted in gold and copper and bronze. His eyes were black, not coyote-gold, and stars lay within them, shining pinpoints from all edges of the sky.

  He moved like a dream, not convincingly bound to the earth, and brought slightly cooler air with him, the difference between coughing on each breath and being able to swallow it down. When he breathed, the air expanded, shimmering like a heat mirage and expanding the pocket of cooler air. I wanted very much for him to lie down next to me so I could pull enough air into my lungs, but I had to settle for him sitting, paws tidily aligned a few centimeters from my nose.

  It helped. After a minute or three I pushed up on an elbow, then into a sitting position, and croaked, “Hey, big guy.”

  This archetype of the Trickster, this primal chaos force of the universe, this prophet and world-maker whom I called Big Coyote, closed his starry eyes in a slow greeting blink, then bashed his head against mine hard enough to give me starry eyes, too.

  I had the brief thought that, though I’d never say so out loud, I was becoming rather more fond of spirit animals who actually spoke to me, like Rattler, than of ones who used brute physical force to get their points across. Then the expected ache from Big Coyote’s head-butt kicked in, and I didn’t think very much at all, just remembered.

  Remembered the past thirty-six hours, specifically. Starting with pulling the trigger to bring Patty Raleigh down, and speeding through every moment thereafter both linearly and statically, so I was caught up in a barrage of everything happening now. I saw every action I’d taken illuminated by the close white sun, no shadows to hide in, no excuses to be made. Blood misted from Raleigh’s shoulder, the most appalling violence I’d ever done to a human being. Morrison shifted, caught up in my magic. Naomi Allison collapsed, too far gone for me to rescue. Rita Wagner asked for help and Tia Carley didn’t, but they both offered possible redemption for my failures with Raleigh and Allison alike. The ghost dance killer’s trail bled hunter-moon orange and faded away. I walked away from Patricia Raleigh’s sleeping form with no regrets. Bare skin shredded as I bounced across the pavement, pain exploding through my bones. Emotion sluiced through me, exhaustive, pulling in a dozen directions at once as Big Coyote sat over me like a curious god, examining each choice I’d made in the last couple days.

  I suddenly felt like a grad student defending her thesis. I wasn’t absolutely certain I needed to defend myself, but there was a distinct on-the-spot sensation about the whole thing. Warily, I said, “I’d do it again.”

  Memory went still, and Big Coyote cock
ed his head at me, one ear flicked: which part?

  “All of it.” I rubbed my eyes, knocking some of the mental imagery away. When I dropped my hand again, Big Coyote was predominant, his hard white desert a little duller and easier to look at. “Not shapeshifting Morrison, not if I could help it, but that was an honest mistake and as long as we get him back safe I’m not going to beat myself up over it. I’m tired of that crap. The rest of it, though, you know what? You want to hang me out to dry? Fine. You’ve got the tree right there.”

  I gestured without looking, trusting that the hanging tree was indeed still there. Big Coyote’s wiry gold eyebrow spot shot upward, and he did look at the hanging tree. Thumped his tail once against the ground, then bared his teeth in a wide coyote smile. Very white clean teeth, like he was a rock star who’d had them bleached, not like he was the Platonic ideal of a predator/scavenger. Though I supposed a Platonic coyote would, in fact, have flawlessly white teeth, since all other coyotes would have to try—and fail—to live up to its perfect image.

  By the time I’d run through that entire mental machination, Big Coyote’s threatening smile had sort of faltered. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to get caught up in the details of impossible perfection when he was trying to intimidate me. Another one for the handbook.

  “I am doing my best,” I said in a low, level voice. “I’ve got two worlds I’m trying to balance here. You—somebody—put me on this path. Shaman and warrior. They’re conflicting interests, big guy. If you don’t like how I’m handling it, take away the cosmic powers.”

  Big Coyote’s ears flattened, and I sighed, understanding him perfectly. No wonder half the spirit creatures I’d encountered didn’t speak aloud. They didn’t have to.

  “No,” I said to his flat ears. “I don’t really want you to, not at this point. I’d miss them, if you want to know the truth. I’d miss being able to help people the way I’ve learned to, and believe me, a year ago I never thought I’d hear myself say that. Could I live with it? Yeah, I could, because hey, I managed to get through most of my life without being some kind of shamanic superstar. There are things not being a shaman would make a lot easier.”

  Like my job, at least the mundane part of it. Like whatever was going on with Morrison. Like hanging out with people who had once been my friends and who were now just a little scared of me. My life was maybe a lot more interesting now, but it sure as hell wasn’t any easier. I’d gotten past resenting that, but I still missed the old sane world I’d been part of. I didn’t say any of that out loud, but Big Coyote’s ears twitched again, and I thought he’d gotten the message as clearly as I got his own nonverbal communication. Buoyed, I leaned forward and poked him in the chest. “So if you’re not going to take them away, stop standing over me like judge, jury and executioner, because I am doing my best.”

  A glint of satisfaction sparked in Big Coyote’s eyes. Fishhooks settled into my belly and yanked hard.

  I woke up sitting upright amongst a host of dancers.

  I felt better. I felt so much better it wasn’t even funny, but it seemed a lot more like feeling good for standing my ground than pure replenished energy. That was improved, too, but it wasn’t quite enough to justify the weight having been lifted from my chest. I leaned forward until my forehead almost touched the mat, and smacked the floor in time with the drummers, finally really enjoying the music and rhythm going on around me.

  The stage was brightening, my awareness heightened and comforting. Billy and Melinda were in the wings, strong butter-yellow dominating Melinda’s aura as relief for my recovery caught her in its grasp. Billy was a bit more stolid, like he was playing a bit of the tough-guy alpha male standing strong beside his worried mate, but the more I added a counterbeat to the music, my palms pattering against the floor, the more vivid his aura became, too. The dancers were responding, too, delight flexing into the energy they extended: they recognized I’d come through some kind of sea change, and were more daring in the energy and wildness of their performance.

  Raven, who knew a party when he saw one, hopped around me, cawing and kloking and quarking with pure excitement. He whacked my ribs, my extended hands, my head, my spine, my tailbone, any part of me he could reach as he danced around. It felt like an oddball massage technique, enlivening my very skin with the short sharp impacts. Rattler, a bit more dignified, stayed out of Raven’s way but did his own sinuous dance, coiling up against me, stretching away, lifting himself impossibly high onto his tail and dropping back down as if to prove his own remarkable physical prowess. I chortled and sat up, tipping my head back so my throat was long, and let go a high tonal undulation.

  It cut through the theater like a shockwave, making me realize no one had made any sound until then, not beyond footsteps and drumbeats. Usually either the dancers or the watchers yipped and called out as they were moved to as expressions of enthusiasm or camaraderie. Even the theater audience had succumbed to the impulse a few times, which made the dancers’ silence even more unusual.

  But my cry was like permission being granted. Answering calls rolled back at me, lifting me to my feet. One of the men began to sing, finally adding a melody to the drums, and though I was by no means a dancer myself, I spun around, then fell into a three-beat step that brought me around the whole dance circle. I stopped to greet every dancer, following their leads in movement, and when I got to the drummers I bowed, acknowledging them as well as the four-spoked circle they’d built around me. I even danced my way out of the circle, grabbed Billy and Melinda, and hauled them inside until the three of us were a laughing, dancing triangle at the heart of the power circle.

  I had no idea how long we danced for. Until my feet were numb from pounding against the floor. Until my hands were red and swollen from clapping, and until Melinda and Billy were pink with exertion. Until the dancers’ auras were a whirling, brilliant pool surrounding all of us, and until at some shocking, unspoken command, every single one of us came to a stop at once. Voices, drums, footsteps, even the stage lights all went away, leaving the theater a silent dark sanctuary.

  I flung my head back, threw my hands wide, and gasped as power exploded through me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It felt—almost sorta kinda—like the moment when I’d invited the entire city of Seattle to hit me with its best shot. Except that had been untempered power, and I’d been a raw newbie, desperate for a surge that would help me knock down a demi-god. This was focused, and all I needed it for was replenishing a magic I’d become accustomed to using. I’d been topped up by drum music before; I knew how it was supposed to go.

  Feeling like a bottle of liquid soap had been poured into a fountain was not generally how it went. Bubbles popped through me, toe to skull, palm to palm, and I expected to see them drifting from my fingertips like I’d become a giant Joanne-shaped bubblemaker. It tickled ferociously, but giggling seemed wholly inappropriate, so I breathed through my nose until it became a series of perfectly horrible snorts that were too funny to ignore. The lights came back up as more bubbles erupted in my nose, and I did giggle, then laughed out loud at the smiling, bemused faces around me.

  Last time I’d done this—when Seattle had overloaded me—I’d accidentally become an end-times sign for the Navajo Nation. My silver-blue power had changed to colors of the whole rainbow, power strong enough to last all day. I was much more contained now, radiating blue and silver, but not so out of control that I went full-spectrum. That was an enormous relief. Even with Rattler and Raven on my side to help smooth things over—and they’d disappeared with the burst of power, their job here evidently done—I didn’t need a second round of explaining to a god that I was merely incompetent, not intentionally dangerous. Happy, even gleeful, I triggered the Sight so I could thoroughly enjoy being punched up to full throttle.

  The theater went white as a flash-bang erupted in my vision. I howled, clapping my hands over my eyes, which was about as useful as holding my nose when magic was providing a visual component. I could
See through my eye lids and fingers, though the only thing to See was the as tonishing whiteness. My head rang with it, which was all new; the Sight had never had a soundtrack before. Not that it was much of a soundtrack, just a high-pitched squeal that could’ve been the result of leaving a rock concert. Except this was much, much louder, like I’d gone to every rock concert in creation at the same moment, and my skull was vibrating with the aftermath.

  So was my skin, for that matter. It felt like someone had run a zillion needles over it, leaving invisible but painful scores. My hands tingled, my cheeks burned, my stomach cramped, all of it making me seem more alive, somehow. Too alive: people weren’t supposed to feel at this level, not if they wanted to retain their sanity. I wanted to escape myself, leave my overloaded body behind and get somewhere safe.

  For most people that was nothing more than a nutty wish. In my case, I slipped free the surly bonds of flesh and rose up into the whiteness. It surrounded me, too harsh to be comforting, and I spun around in search of yet another way to escape.

  Hunter-moon orange, violent in its contrast against the brilliance, seared through me. I flung my hands up again, even more uselessly in my disembodied state, and clawed the Sight back, trying to turn it off. It faded reluctantly, leaving behind pinprick tingles and ear-ringing. I rubbed my eyes, trying to erase the flaring white edges of everything I looked at, and finally scraped enough brain cells together to focus on where the orange shard had pierced my vision.

  Winona, Naomi’s replacement, stood right in front of me, confusion writ large on her delicate features. A sense of the absurd bloomed in me. I’d automatically assumed an outside force attacking the dance troupe. It hadn’t even occurred to me to look for a devil within, much less to look at the individual who would gain the most, careerwise, from Naomi’s death. Some detective I was.