by C. E. Murphy
“Trust yourself.” The words were so bald they made me look up, even as I swayed in the grass. “You’re not alone, Joanne. You have a teacher. Trust yourself.” His voice thinned as he spoke, as did the rest of him. I could feel my net fraying, not because I lacked power, but more as if it felt it had done its job, and the time to hold him was over. “You’ll be all right.”
It was the same promise I’d made to a much younger version of myself. I’d lied. I watched Coyote as he got up, shook himself, and turned to trot away, wondering if he was lying, too.
“Coyote.”
He turned back, furry spots where his eyebrows would be raised in curiosity, one paw lifted in a pretty pose.
“What’s your name?”
A man stood before me, looking back over his shoulder, hip-length black hair swinging free over brick-red bare shoulders. His eyebrows were still lifted, his foot paused in preparation for a step. I could see the coyote form nestled inside him, wholly a part of him. He dropped a wink, then disappeared into the mist, leaving a word lingering in the air: “Cyrano.”
CHAPTER 28
I had actually forgotten about the pruning shears to the face, while traipsing around with Coyote and ruining my younger self’s life. Memory came back to me with blinding vengeance as Coyote’s name rang the round two bell and dropped me into my own body. So little time had passed I was still in the midst of falling over. I twisted in midair, wrenching my back but managing to get my hands under me so I neither smashed into the table nor bashed my head against anything else. That had to count for something. What, I didn’t know, but I was sure it was something. Still, I hit the floor hard enough to jar my whole body, all the nerve endings of which seemed to be centered in my face. Whimpering and rolling over wasn’t very manly, but it was about all I had in my repertoire right then.
Barbara didn’t appear to be climbing back in the window to whack at me with the shears, so I took a moment to lie there and focus on my nose. Not literally. My eyes were too full of tears to see it even if I could’ve gotten them to cross, which hurt too badly to try after the first time. I put my fingers over my nose, gingerly, then tried really hard to think of something else while I yanked it straight.
Turns out you can’t really think of anything else when you’re doing that. I wasn’t surprised, but I was very disappointed. The good news was, once I was done straightening the mashed cartilage, it only took a moment’s visualization for cool blue healing power to suction-cup the dent and pop it back into place. I knew there was a chance I’d bring the darkness back down on my head by healing myself, but I just flat-out couldn’t imagine trying to chase bad guys around with my face throbbing so hard I could barely see straight.
Pain faded so quickly it left me with a headache that felt blissful and frothy in comparison. I braced, waiting for the weight of butterfly darkness to come back, but instead I heard the sound of an engine cranking. I crunched up and climbed to my feet, leaning out Morrison’s shattered kitchen window to catch Barbara backing out of the driveway as if a banshee was after her. She hadn’t thought to stop and slash my tires, which I would’ve done in her position, and which was good for her health. I’d have had to found a way to fly through the air, land on her hood and pull her through the windshield a few times in vengeance. I could feel power settling into my bones, comfortable as if it’d always been there, but I didn’t think a newfound confidence also covered superheroic leaps across wide empty spaces.
It’d be cool if it did, though.
Rather than try, or even go tearing out to Petite to give chase, I turned back to my boss. He lay in the shambles of his kitchen without the slightest awareness of what had transpired around him. I figured if I didn’t get the mess cleaned up before he woke up, he’d automatically assume it was my fault. The idea made my heart cramp. I took a deep breath to push pain away, then crouched to get Morrison into a fireman’s carry and take him to the hospital. Barbara could wait.
I knew Northwest was swamped, but I brought Morrison there, anyway. Even before dawn, the admitting nurse’s hair was sticking to her temples, tiny pin curls taking shape in the dampness of perspiration. She gave me a look bordering on despair and got Morrison into a wheelchair while I filled out paperwork that asked awkward questions about the captain’s weight and general health. I was sure he had a wallet in his pocket that would hold a driver’s license and insurance card, but it took me fifteen minutes to talk myself into looking.
His driver’s license picture was one of the best I’d ever seen. I wondered if police captains got to stand around making the DMV take pictures until one came out well enough to satisfy their vanity, or if Morrison was just photogenic enough to overcome the general awfulness of identification photos. Since I was being nosy, anyway, I looked for a passport to compare pictures with, but he wasn’t that thorough about carrying ID.
The sun was peeking over the horizon by the time I got the paperwork filled out, as much because I kept nodding off and jerking awake as not knowing the answers. I hauled myself to my feet and went back to the admissions desk, where the frazzled nurse gave it a perfunctory glance. “What’s the J stand for?”
“I have no idea. He goes by Michael.” It was Morrison’s first initial. J. Michael Morrison. I’d always assumed Michael was his first name.
Sort of like he’d always assumed Joanne was mine. I crinkled my face at the desk and waited until the nurse signed him in and gave him a room number.
Billy’s room number.
My stomach knotted up again and I reached for the nurse’s hand, astonished at how warm it was. My fingers felt like they were turning blue. “I know the people who were in that room. William and Melinda Holliday. Are they… okay?”
The nurse put her hand over mine momentarily, a gentler gesture than I’d have expected, given that I’d seized her, then extracted her wrist to check the computer. “They’re fine. We’re just finding it necessary to sta—” She cut herself off with a look of dismay.
Relief brought laughter to my lips. “Stack ’em and rack ’em?”
“I would never say such a thing,” she admonished me, then smiled briefly and shrugged. “As you say.”
I nodded, almost reached out to grab her hand again and stopped myself by folding both my hands together on the counter hard enough to turn my knuckles white. “Thank you. Thank you so much. Would it help if I brought Morrison up to the room? I want to see Billy, anyway.”
“You really shouldn’t. Visiting hours don’t start until eleven.” Then she looked around and exhaled. “Just tell the nurse’s station I couldn’t find an orderly and you offered to help. It’s a madhouse around here, anyway. They’ll be too busy to fire me.” She pulled out another smile, this one wry, and handed me Morrison’s chart before turning into the noise to help another incoming patient.
Somebody at the nurse’s station upstairs took Morrison away from me, and I went down the hall to Billy’s room, where a harried-looking orderly was changing sheets and cleaning up as fast as his legs would let him. A third bed had been inserted into the room, making it claustrophobic but worthwhile. Mel’s bed had been pushed up against Billy’s. Robert Holliday was there, and I wondered if he’d stayed the night in the hospital, too, and had simply been elsewhere when I visited, or if he’d found a way in himself. I didn’t know if strict visiting hours counted for immediate family, but they didn’t seem to apply to Brad Holliday, who, it appeared, had never left.
The two of them were hunched over the beds like weary gargoyles, one on each side. I tapped on the door frame and they both looked up, Robert brightening and Brad glowering. I said, “Hey,” before Brad had time to say anything mean, and came into the room pushing my hair back with both hands. “How’re they doing?”
“No change.” Brad held his mouth in a thin line of disapproval, as if he was trying to drive me out through force of will alone.
“I guess that’s a good thing, under the circumstances. At least they’re not getting worse.” I stepped
up to Robert to give him a one-armed hug, then brushed my fingers over Melinda’s temple. Silver-blue sparks leapt from my fingertips into her hair, sparkling down her body like a quick vehicle diagnostic, and came back to tell me she was fine and the baby was very very bored with Mom just lying there on her back. I heard Robert draw a sharp breath and looked down at him. His pupils ate the irises, black swallowing light brown.
He blurted, “You’re warm,” then sucked his lower lip in, not sure I’d understand. I put my arm around his shoulders again.
“That’s good. Hospitals are cold.” The kid sagged against my side and I hugged him harder. “How’re your sisters and brother? Who’s watching them?”
“My wife came up from Spokane.” Brad’s tone told me I could leave any time now. I lifted my gaze from Melinda and studied him a moment, then tilted my head.
“Can I talk to you out in the hall for a minute, Brad?” Robert stiffened under my arm and I gave him another hug, wishing I could reassure him that I wasn’t leaving him out of grown-up talks. I left the door open so he could eavesdrop when I followed Brad out of the room.
Leaving the meager sanctuary of the room dropped us back into the chaos and sound of the hospital hallways. Orders blared over the PA system. Hospital personnel called out to one another as they coordinated their workday. Frightened, worried families hovered in doorways and in waiting rooms, whether visiting hours were open or not. I said, “I don’t know how you do this every day,” without thinking. “Just standing here exhausts me.”
Brad’s face relaxed from its pinch, surprise taking over for a few seconds. His “You get used to it” sounded almost friendly, though he looked like he didn’t know why he’d responded politely.
“I don’t know if I would. Look, Doc, I’m sorry.” Apologizing was not high on my list of favorite things to do, and I listened to myself with nearly as much surprise as Brad’s expression showed. “We got off on an incredibly bad start, and that’s my fault. I was completely out of line and I’m sorry. I was…” I raked my hand through my hair again and sighed. I needed a shower. “I was trying to protect people, and trying to show off, and I was a total jerk. I’m not going to ask you to forgive me, but Robert’s not stupid, and his parents are in there asleep and nobody knows if they’re going to wake up. He doesn’t need you and me bristling at each other.”
“So you want me to bury the hatchet.” Brad spoke so suddenly I hiccupped, caught out of an apology that was only starting to build up steam.
“Yeah. Please. You want to go mano a mano with me when Billy and Mel are awake again, okay, fine, name the time and place.” Last time I’d challenged somebody to mano a mano it had been a god. Brad Holliday was a real come-down, comparatively. “We’re not really on opposite sides, you and me,” I added more quietly. “Just traveling from different directions.”
“I don’t want to know.” Brad’s voice went thin and stressy. I lifted my hands in another apology.
“Sorry. Peace?”
He jerked his chin in a downward nod and walked back into Billy’s room. Robert watched him, then watched me, his clear gaze telling me he knew perfectly well I’d let him listen in on the conversation. His hand crept into mine for a squeeze when I came back to his side, an eleven-year-old’s way of saying thank you without drawing notice to himself. “They’re bringing Captain Morrison in here,” I said as if that had been the topic all along. Robert held on to my hand harder, dismay radiating off him.
“Captain Morrison’s sick, too? He can’t be. I thought you’d keep him okay.” Robert’s voice rose in alarm. “Gary’s okay, isn’t he?”
“Gary’s fine.” Robert relaxed a little under my arm, then gave me the same sideways look he’d gotten when he’d first met Gary. Even he thought I was dating the old man. “How come Gary’s okay and Captain Morrison isn’t?” he asked, somewhere between suspicious and testing. I groaned and closed my eyes.
It did nothing to make the world go away. My second sight just slid into place, letting me see everything in vibrant neon glows and swirls of color. Robert’s aura spiked orange, pulses of curiosity. “Gary’s okay and Morrison isn’t because Gary listens to me.” I opened my eyes and looked down at Robert. “Not because Gary’s my boyfriend.”
Robert said, “Hnh,” through his nose, and assumed an expression of innocence as he looked away.
I could feel Brad’s gaze turn curious and nearly groaned again. After all, Gary had been the one to ride to the rescue Wednesday morning when Melinda’d gotten sick. It all made sense, from an outside point of view. I muttered, “He’s not,” aware that the lady was protesting too much.
I was rescued from further attempts at extracting myself from a relationship with the old cabbie by a tired orderly wheeling my sleeping captain into the room. Brad got up from the far side of Billy’s bed, said, “I’m a doctor,” and gave the orderly a hand in getting Morrison into bed. After one look to see who’d entered the room, I kept my focus wholly on Melinda and Billy. For some reason I really didn’t want to watch people manhandling my boss into a hospital bed. I was going to take that piece of topaz and hammer it into Morrison’s skull when this was all over.
It took a while for them to get Morrison settled. Robert, rather too loudly, asked Uncle Brad to take him down to the café for breakfast, and I wondered if the kid was just teasing me about Gary for form’s sake. Either way, they left me alone and I found myself by Morrison’s bed, sitting on my hands so I wouldn’t take his in both of mine.
The poor man looked like he needed the sleep, honestly. I didn’t know if a coma was proper rest or not, but the inability to worry wiped some of the lines from his face, making him look younger than his thirty-eight years. If I let my eyes unfocus just a little, I could see the shielding I’d put in place, sparking blue along the silver threads in his hair and swimming over the surface of him. I could feel it, too, if I wanted to, and I was trying hard not to. I didn’t think Morrison would appreciate the intimate invasion, and the last thing I wanted was fullbody memory flashes when I went to work and faced my boss every day.
After a while I noticed my face was in my hands and there was salty wetness leaking through my fingers. For someone who didn’t think of herself as the crying sort, I’d sure done a lot of it recently. More in the last six or seven months than I could remember in years. I had a fair idea that said nothing good about my ongoing emotional status.
Eventually I stood up and put my fingertips on Morrison’s shoulder, as polite a farewell as I could manage, and said, “Sorry about your kitchen,” before I went out to finish what I’d started with Barbara Bragg.
CHAPTER 29
That was one of those easier-said-than-done plans. I didn’t know where to look for Barb, or what to do when I found her. Finishing kicking her ass was definitely on the roster, but that was sort of nebulous, in a specific way.
I shuddered. My brain was starting to show the lack of sleep. I stopped at a drive-by coffee shop and got a quad shot of espresso and had them pour a generous splash of amaretto flavoring in to make it drinkable. I was tired enough to find myself balancing the coffee and my cell phone, making a phone call while I was driving.
That had to be one of the stupider things I’d done lately. Except the scene at the restaurant, which I hoped took the cake for at least the next couple years. But if I was ever going to mar Petite’s bumper with a sticker, it would probably be one of those hang up and drive ones. Watching people drive juggling coffee and cell phones made me the bad kind of crazy. Doing it myself and compounding it with no sleep was the sort of behavior that made me want to take my keys away for a week as punishment. I promised myself I’d do that later.
By the time I’d muttered and scowled and scolded myself I’d also dialed my home phone, which got snatched up so fast I thought Gary must’ve been sleeping on it. “Jo?”
“I’m okay. Are you?”
“Worried sick,” he said grumpily. “Where you been, Jo? What’s goin’ on?”
“Thank you,” I said instead of answering. “For staying there. For looking out for me. Thank you, Gary. I’m really sorry. I kind of lost it last night.” I flicked my turn signal and almost poured coffee in my lap. “Did Mark call?”
“He finally stopped callin’ around one,” Gary growled. “I been chewin’ my fingers to the bone tryin’ ta decide if I should call you or not, Jo. What the hell happened?”
I laughed, hoarse sound. “I don’t even know where to begin, Gary. The really short version is I completely embarrassed myself and my boss, saw the end of the world has my face on it and learned Mark and Barbara are involved in it somehow. Did he leave a number?”
“Same one as before.” Gary rattled it off like he had it memorized, and I wondered why he did and I didn’t.
“Thanks. Gary, I…look, I don’t know when or how this is going to go down. I’ll try to call you, okay? Are you going to be—where are you going to be?”
“I’ll be here,” the old man promised. “If I need ta go out I’ll give you a call. You okay with that?” Worry colored his voice again and I wished I could give him a hug. Stupid phones.
“It’s fine. Thank you,” I said again. “I’ve…I…” I didn’t know what to say. I hung up, drank as much coffee as I could at a stoplight and called Mark’s number despite the fact it was barely six in the morning.
He sounded less awake than Gary did, though like the cabbie, his opening volley was “Joanne?” instead of a more typical hello.
I said, “Yeah” and “Is Barb there?” in almost the same breath. There was silence before Mark exhaled.
“She came over at two in the morning, Joanne, saying you’d showed up at Captain Morrison’s place acting like a jealous girlfriend. Is there something I should know about there?”
