Shaman Rises (The Walker Papers)
Page 18
For a long time I thought he wouldn’t come at all. When he finally did, it was over the rocks, which clicked and knocked together as he climbed them. He had always been silent in his approach before.
He had also always been brick-red with golden eyes before, or a coyote. Now he was neither: the rich color of his skin was cracked and blackened, burned at the edges. He had always been beautiful, but that beauty was ruined now, pain leaking through to corrode the surface.
Wings, black and sooty, trailed across the rocks behind him.
“Coyote.” My voice was as broken as his beauty. “Coyote, what happened?”
“Do you really need to ask?”
I did. I thought I did. But I waited before asking again, waited for the answer to come to me. It made no sense. He’d been with me since the beginning. Since long before the beginning. Since my childhood, and his youth. Since I was a little girl standing under the desert sun, all unknowing as I showed him the path that lay before him. Since I dreamed coyote dreams as a young teen, learning magic in my sleep. Since I had walked away from those dreams, only to waken to them again with Coyote as my guide. He had helped me, protected me, saved me—
—and the final time he had saved me, I had broken his heart. He had fought the werewolf infection with me, for me, and we had taken me all the way down to the bones to do it. Bones that didn’t lie; bones that said my choice was Morrison.
Coyote had retreated in that moment, leaving me alone. He’d come back, but I knew now he had come back broken. He hadn’t saved me, when we fought the werewolf infection together. He had sacrificed himself. He’d taken that infection into himself—
His laughter broke over my understanding, shattering it. “You think I’m that noble, Jo? Even now, you think I’m that good?”
“You’ve always been good. The best,” I whispered.
“No. Second best.” The whole of his garden flickered with those snarled words, dark images dancing across the sky. Me, surpassing him. Morrison, being chosen over him. Other faces and places I didn’t know, though one old man appeared repeatedly. I bet on it being Coyote’s grandfather, though I’d never met him. From what little I knew of him, it seemed impossible that he might have belittled Coyote in any way, but imagined slights could be more poisonous than real ones. I, of all people, knew about that.
“I didn’t take the infection,” he spat. “I’m not that good a person. I broke, Joanne, and it got in. I broke, and it left an opening. My master took it—”
“The Master.” I interrupted him in a soft, dangerous voice. “The Master, Coyote. Not your master.”
“My master.”
“I do not accept that. I don’t accept this, Cyrano—”
“And what did you expect of a man called Cyrano?” he demanded, which made me stare and then made me laugh, though not happily.
“I don’t buy that, either. Cyrano. Coyote. ’Yote.” I went through the names deliberately, from the one I called him when I was mad or serious, to the name I used all the time, and finally to the nickname I’d settled on, the one that made me feel closest to him. “We aren’t defined by our names. I should know.”
“Siobhán.” He snarled that, too, like its weigh could curse me.
“Siobhán Grainne MacNamarra Walkingstick. God, what a mouthful, right? Or just plain old Joanne Walker. I’m both of them. Siobhán’s got all this legacy to it and Joanne is who I choose to be. Cyrano has legacy. Who do you choose to be?”
In hindsight, that was a stupid thing to ask just then.
The force of his attack took me off my feet. I went ass over teakettle, bouncing across the dark-laced sand, and skidded to a stop with my feet pointing up a sand dune. “...Ow.”
The second attack was just as startling as the first. The earth exploded beneath me, dropping me a dozen feet into Coyote’s garden, and I realized if I didn’t get my act together he could very easily tear me apart. This was a place where his will ruled supreme, and the only reason I wasn’t dead yet was—
Well, probably because hardly anybody could resist their No, Mr. Bond confession moment. And I had every intention of drawing that moment out until I got through to Coyote, my Coyote, because no way in hell was I leaving him like this, possessed, infected and one of the bad guys. “Coyote...”
This time when the blow came, I blocked it. It reverberated off my shields hard enough to make sand slip and fall into the pit he’d dug for me. I tapped my snake-speed and jumped, feeling the sensation of wings as I leaped farther out of the pit than even I expected. I landed a dozen feet from him in a perfect three-point superhero crouch. The coat, which knew its duty, settled around me like it had been choreographed.
Coyote also knew its duty, and rolled his eyes with a level of disdain usually only attainable by six-year-olds exasperated with their parents. “The coat, Joanne. Really?”
“Really. Maybe you should borrow it, ’yote. It makes me feel heroic, and I’d say you could use a little of that right now.” I didn’t want to try a full-on assault. Not here, in Coyote’s garden. Instead I sank tendrils of healing magic, pure blue, into the sand. If I could burn away some of the infection—because I refused to accept it was anything but an infection—then maybe I could get through to him.
Dune-colored magic rose up, seized my threads and yanked downward. I slammed face-first into the sand. It filled my mouth, my nose, my eyes, and tasted worse than grit. It tasted of bitter oil and dry decay, and it clawed its way down my throat, trying to gain purchase.
Vomiting sand was not high on a list of things I wanted to try again. I spat out mouthfuls, shuddering before clean healing magic washed the flavors away. Coyote snarled as I got to my feet and lobbed fresh magic at me. It hit me square in the chest, but I braced and only skidded backward, rucking up sand, instead of getting knocked halfway across creation. “Coyote, I don’t want to fight you.”
“Oh, but do. Your defeat will be so much more satisfying to my master if you struggle before it ends.” Stone burst from the sand and slammed shut around me. Blind panic turned my vision red for a few seconds. I hated being enclosed, and the knowledge that it was a new fear and where it had come from did nothing at all to alleviate babbling terror.
It is only stone, Renee said, and stone wears away with time.
Before I could remind her that she’d just warned me not to mess with time, my encasement dissolved into fine blue-tinged particles. They felt old, as if they’d aged thousands of years, and they settled into a pool under my feet. A surge of confidence rushed me. The shining sand beneath my feet was my territory, even here in the heart of Coyote’s garden. I’d made it my own, and maybe even reclaimed a little something of my friend.
His black-laced golden eyes narrowed. “How did you do that?”
I couldn’t help it. I grinned brilliantly and said, “Magic!” in the perkiest tone I could.
A gigantic earthen hand rose up, seized my ankle and slammed me all over the landscape. I wasn’t exactly hurt; my shields and the shimmering pool of space I’d claimed for myself saved me from that, but nor was I exactly functional when he finally lost interest in bashing me around. I lay on my back, whimpering at the dark sky, and tried to remember when I’d last gotten my ass kicked this thoroughly. Less than a week ago, probably, because it had been a bad couple of weeks, but even then I’d known I was facing the Master, and now—
Now I wasn’t able to accept that, because the Master was working through my friend. And I really didn’t want to fight my friend, even if the smart part of me recognized that I kinda needed to.
Dimly, it occurred to me that this was the reason he’d been able to fight Suzy. He wasn’t using healer’s magic. He was using Raven Mocker magic, and Raven Mocker was—
Raven Mocker was the reason I’d lost Marcia Williams in the Lower World. Coyote hadn’t been there to save me. He’d been there to save her. But he had saved me. He’d used healing magic on me, even though that couldn’t have been part of the Master’s game plan.
“I was so hungry.” The confession was a sigh. “You were so busy trying to save your ridiculous Annie, and the reporter was so vulnerable. So delicious, with her will to fight and her fearlessness. The girl saw me, of course, but it was easy to steal her tongue for a little while. To siphon her mind, and taste her magic. I didn’t dare drink it all, of course. Not with my master’s touch on her already, but the taste was enough to numb her thoughts long enough to mislead you.”
“How—?” I could move now, and did, rolling over to hands and knees while my chest filled with pain and sorrow. “How did you...numb her mind?”
“What is Raven Mocker but a vampire, Jo? Not the silly things they tell modern stories about, with hearts and passions, but a thing that lives on the blood and viscera of others. A thing that hypnotizes so it can feed more easily. All I had to do was fog her mind for a little while. This power is...” He closed his eyes, spreading arms and wings alike. “It’s all I’ve ever imagined. All I’ve wanted to be.”
“No. My teacher is a good man. He’s never craved power for its own sake.”
“How would you know?”
“Because a man who wanted power for its own sake would never have let me find my own path.” I raised my gaze to his. “He would have kept me far closer than you did. He would have kept me dependent on him. You let me make far too many mistakes for somebody who wanted power for its own sake. I cursed you for it about a million times, but right now I’m glad you did, because it means I’m sure about this.”
“Maybe I’m smarter than you think, Joanne.”
“I think you’re pretty smart, Coyote. Even if I’m wrong, hero worship does tend to make a girl think that way, and I worshiped you for a long time. Let me help you, ’yote.” That came out a lot more softly. “Let me help, because I don’t want to have to take you down.”
“You think you can?”
“Let’s find out.”
I slammed back to the Middle World.
Chapter Twenty
We hit the floor as we came back, having barely finished slithering down the power circle’s wall. I had a fistful of Coyote’s shirt, anyway, so I took advantage of being that close and took my attack to a purely physical level: a fast elbow swing to the jaw made his eyes cross and bought me four or five seconds of time. “Morrison, he killed Laurie—!”
“Figured that one out on my own, Walker.” Morrison was helping Gary to his feet, hauling him bodily toward Annie. “Take care of Bia. We’ve got this.”
If only I knew how. For a split second I considered seizing the gun Morrison carried, but even if I was sure it would work against Raven Mocker, I wasn’t willing to use it on Coyote. I forgot about the weapon and turned full attention back to Coyote just in time for him to shake off my hit and seize my lapels in both hands. He spun and slammed me into the power circle’s wall, then stretched black wings backward and smashed Gary and Morrison aside. In the same movement, he released me and flipped backward, swear to God, flipped backward from a standing position, and landed over Annie. He crouched above her, hands spread wide, and I Saw the power pour from him into her: black magic, all the gathered power of the wraiths, of a continent’s worth of genocides, of the rituals that had brought Raven Mocker to the Middle World at full strength. Annie surged to wakefulness, leanansidhe-silver burning bright. Coyote leaped back with a raw-voiced howl of delight as she came to her feet, leonine grace at odds with her visible age.
There wasn’t enough room in the circle for them to stalk each other, but they did. Power poured off them, weighing the rest of us down, pinning us in place. I had felt like that when the Master had come to Tara. I fervently hoped this would not be followed by what that had, which was to say, excruciating pain, but honestly I didn’t think the chances of that were good. But I didn’t move, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I couldn’t or just didn’t.
Gary was less conflicted, roaring again with rage. I struggled to lift a hand, staying him. “Wait.” My voice shook. “Wait. Let them.”
“Are you crazy, doll?”
“Yeah.” I looked past Annie and Coyote, who circled each other like dancers waiting for the music to bring them together. Looked past them to the storm-cloud-ridden city, to the fires and the aural flares that spoke of pain and fear. “Yeah, I’m crazy, but this was our idea, wasn’t it? To gather the power here, so it would give Seattle a break. A chance. But we’re fighting this like crazy, and the city is still getting thrashed. We have to do something. Maybe in this case, something is nothing.”
“You sure about this, Jo?”
“Yeah.” I wasn’t, but I could hardly say that to Gary, who was trusting me with something a lot more important to him than his own life. He looked at me a long minute, then nodded.
They were dancing. Ritualized steps, at least, and using identical motions of arms, heads, bodies. They never touched, though their dance became more frenetic and drew them closer to one another. I saw echoes of storytelling in their movements, thrusts and steps that reminded me of the things I’d done over the past year.
No. They didn’t just remind me of them. They were the fights and mistakes and fears I’d had. They danced genuine spirit dances, telling the story of the Master’s coming, and in this time and place, it was my story, too.
It would be absolutely stupid of me to join in, so that’s what I did.
I didn’t exactly mean to. It was just that I saw—Saw—the failures and the sorrows, but nothing of the successes. I had lost Colin Johannsen, it was true. I’d lost Faye Kirkland. But that same day I’d saved Melinda. They weren’t dancing that part, so I did. They danced the serpent; I danced the thunderbird, remembering its strength from a year ago and from just that afternoon.
They danced Barbara Bragg’s possession. Aching with regret, I danced my refusal to fight the Navajo god Begochidi, and felt their anger grow. They danced the walking dead and I threw the cauldron’s shattering back at them. On and on we went, and with every step I felt power coalescing above us, around us. I didn’t dare look out the windows, afraid to take my concentration from Annie and Coyote, but I thought—I hoped—we were bringing the bad magic clouding Seattle to us. And if we were, I would not let it be all bad, because the past year had been hell, but it had offered the best moments of my life, too.
A shocking, familiar sound bounced into my bones: my drum coming to life, heartbeat thump waking a wild joy in me. I caught a glimpse of Morrison playing it, and for the space of one breath, Coyote and Annie’s dance faltered. Breathless with hope, I took the lead.
I danced meeting Gary, all his gruff generosity and the difference it had made in my life, and they were pulled along with me as much as I’d been pulled along with them. They countered me: they danced the danger he’d faced because of me, the sword strike, the heart attack. I threw the tortoise at them, and they danced Gary’s sorrows no more. Before they could take point again, I danced my long story with Morrison, and that, they could barely touch at all. I danced our animosity and our attraction, because they were one and the same, and there was almost nothing they could do about it.
Then they seized a moment of his true anger, a moment when my mistakes had outweighed any fondness. I had endangered a civilian, and Morrison’s fury had been well deserved. They took that, strengthened it and regained their place in the dance. Not as leaders, but as competitors: I fought to hold the line, and they struggled to take it.
Without Morrison playing my drum, without Gary’s half-heard echo of the beat, I could not have stayed the course. I had been granted tremendous power, but Coyote and Annie were lackeys to a creature older than night. My gifts were the gifts of life, and life, regardless of how brightly it burned, was ephemeral. I would eventually lose
, but by God I was not going to let them walk away with the win.
It got more difficult the closer we came to now. They became the werewolves, and fear sang in my bloodstream, memory of the shift, of the wild cruelty and hunting hunger coming awake. But I had been saved twice in a handful of moments there, and so I threw Cernunnos’s threat into their teeth: I was better off dead than the Master’s minion, and he was remorseless in his willingness to be the cause of that death.
Annie responded to that. Not the leanansidhe, but Annie herself, some part of her remembering Cernunnos’s embrace. She threw me a lifeline, a single thread of green magic that said continue, and after that the Hunt itself couldn’t have dragged me from the dance. She was in there, and if she was, so was Coyote. I could get them back, if I fought hard enough. I danced the banshee queen’s destruction at Gary’s hand; they mocked me with my own mother’s taking up of that mantle.
When we came to the battle at Tara, black lightning struck the Space Needle.
It wasn’t as though the Needle wasn’t designed to take lightning strikes. Any ridiculously tall building was. But there was lightning, and then there was this stuff. Darkness flashed over the restaurant just as electric-blue light might. A sizzle signaled the electronics burning out, begetting the acrid scent of burned wiring. The floor shuddered as the mechanics that kept it turning ground to a halt, and the air outside our smaller power circle turned smoky.
The second strike set something on fire, but I didn’t dare stop dancing. I was sweating now, but so were Annie and Coyote. My chest heaved and I tasted the stink of burning plastic as all three of us danced my mother’s final death, the one that ensured her spirit would never return to the cycle of reincarnation. It was a blow for both sides: great wisdom and power lost to the good guys, but she had shattered the Master’s hold on his banshees, and hurt him in the shattering. She had saved my life—again—and in so doing, left me to face him now. Neither Coyote and Annie nor I could gain the upper hand in that particular telling of my story, but in the last seconds I thrust a spear into the air, shaking it and heralding the awakening of the new Irish Mage. I felt impotent fury sluice through the dance, and counted that one in my column.