Demon Hunts (14 page)

I put my palm over the bite and let magic sink all the way through, until I could see through her arm the same way I'd seen through mine a handful of times. Skin and sinew and blood and muscle and bone all lit up in shades of life, Mandy's colors gaining strength now that the greater physical damage was healed. But there were dark spots inside the wound, those seeds of cold, and delicate trails danced out of them and led into the world.

Marking her. Marking her more literally than I'd thought. It wasn't just that she was outdoorsy, not anymore. The bite connected her to the monster, so if I didn't get those tendrils cleaned out, it would come for her again. I gathered them up and tugged gently, just to see if they would loosen. They didn't. I hadn't thought it would be that easy.

The trick—the real trick, the most effective expulsion—would be to convince her body to reject the seeds itself. Thoughtful, cautious, I murmured, “Mandy? Can I come in?”

After a brief hesitation, I felt—not agreement, exactly, but a lack of resistance, and with that invitation, stepped inside the garden of Mandy Tiller's soul.

 

I wasn't in the least bit startled to find myself in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest for the second time that day. This time, though, it was summertime, the sky a blaze of blue glory and the mountainside green and ripe with life. Mandy, lithe and athletic in hiking shorts and a tank-top, was climbing toward a host of pine trees. A backpack was slung over her shoulders and a hiking staff was in one hand, making her the epitome, in my opinion, of wilderness chic.

She waved when she noticed me. “Come on over here, take a look at this? See that clinging moss? These trees are going to be dead by the end of the year if we don't give them a hand.”

I almost said, “Isn't that the natural cycle?” but bit my tongue before the words escaped. There was sickness in her garden, and she had the wherewithal to be rooting it out on her own. I hurried after her.

“It spreads,” she told me with a sort of resigned dismay. “One tree to another, blocking their ability to draw down sunlight. The hard part's getting it off the tree without
damaging the bark, but if you can they'll survive? Here's a knife.” She tossed me a relatively blunt blade and showed me how to work it under the moss, how to loosen its clinging runners, and ultimately handed me the backpack so I could stuff the moss we'd cleared away into it. “I take it home and burn it.”

On a whole different level, I felt one of the seeds of cold in her arm loosen, then shrivel and die.

It was good hard honest work, both of us sweating and swearing cheerfully as we scrambled up thin-trunked trees to find far-spreading gobs of moss. Every time a tree came clean, another seed fell away, until suddenly the whole grove brightened, fresh green needles sprouting instantly on all the afflicted spruce. Mandy stood back, brushing her hands with satisfaction, and gave me a sharp, pleased nod. “Thanks!”

The great Northwest faded out, leaving me in the back of an ambulance with Mandy Tiller blinking up at me.

Jake Tiller squeaked, “Mom?” and threw himself forward. I lurched back, getting free of paramedics and kid alike. The latter didn't care what had happened, but the former rushed in to check Mandy's vitals, then turned to Coyote and me with expressions raging between incomprehension, anger and relief.

“What are you?” one of them said. “Some kind of faith healers?”

Coyote shrugged a shoulder, graceful smooth movement. The truth was he probably could've picked his nose and I'd have thought it was gorgeous because I was just so glad he was alive. My heart sped up again like it was going to burst, then kind of exploded with messy joy inside me like it
had
burst. It was the happiest thing I'd ever felt, and it made the corners of my mouth turn up in an idiot smile. Again. Coyote said, “Some
thing like that, without the religious overtones,” and the medic who'd asked crossed himself anyway.

The ambulance thumped over speed bumps and came to a stop. The doors flew open, two new paramedics ready to help unload the injured person, and were greeted by six fully awake, undamaged human beings. Mandy'd gotten half her restraints off and was alternating between hugging Jake and prodding at the goose egg on her head. She looked at the new medics, then at the ones on either side of her. “I'm not sure I really need to be checked into the hospital?”

“You do,” the one who hadn't spoken said, firmly. “I want to get those injuries X-rayed, maybe do a CAT scan. Or an MRI.”

What he wanted, really, was an explanation for her recovery. He wanted something to tell him he'd been wrong, that she'd never been hurt as badly as it had seemed, even though he'd seen it with his own eyes. He didn't want a miracle. He wanted something comprehensible.

“I want Mom to come home!”

Mandy put her hand on Jake's head. “It's okay, Jake.” She fingered the torn sleeve of her shirt and the still-raw wound beneath it. I hadn't healed that all the way, either, though it was neither as deep nor as dangerous as it had been. “I had a bad fall on the stairs,” she said to no one in particular. “Maybe a neighborhood dog bit me while I was out, I don't remember? But with that cannibal everybody's talking about, and me being an outdoors type, it got a little out of hand?”

Tight-mouthed and unhappy, the second paramedic muttered, “Please stay on the stretcher, ma'am. We'll wheel you into the hospital for your examination.”

“If you have to.” She lay back down and the paramedics
lifted her out. Jake jumped after them and grabbed her hand as they abandoned Coyote and me to the ambulance.

We sat in the vehicle's back end, watching with an air of detached interest. The part of me that wasn't bubbling with glee said, sensibly, “Her insurance is going to have a field day with this. I didn't heal everything all the way, but it's going to look pretty lame in light of ambulance rides and MRIs.”

I heard the smile in Coyote's answer: “Yeah. Sorry I didn't get there before the ambulance did.”

“Oh,” I said lightly, “it's okay. I didn't, either. Our timing was off.”

Just like that, with a handful of frothy words, all the composure I'd been holding in place shattered. Every emotion the paramedics had shown, anger and bewilderment and relief and fear, erupted through me. My hands turned into a shaking mess and tears wiped my vision out entirely. I turned on Coyote in the worst display of Girl Behavior I'd ever manifested, sloppy fists slapping at his shoulders and chest as my voice shot into a squeaky register. “Where have you been? What happened? I thought you were dead! It's been six months, Coyote! You disappeared, you saved my life and you disappeared and I thought you were
dead!
”

I couldn't have hurt a bug with the power behind my smacks, but he grabbed my wrists, then hauled me against his chest, capturing my flailing hands between us. “Shh, shh, hey hey hey. It's all right, Jo. I was only mostly dead, hey? Hush, hush, shh. It's okay.”

Wracking sobs stole my ability to flail at him anymore, even if I'd wanted to. Coyote put his chin on top of my head and held on while I ran through the stages of a crying jag, ending with exhaustion so profound it left me nauseated. It was quick,
as that kind of thing went, and no one bothered us. I figured people sobbing in the back of ambulances wasn't that uncommon a sight, and that paramedics would rouse us if they needed to go on a run. I finished crying before that happened, and looked up at Coyote feeling all red-nosed and swollen-eyed and hideous.

He smiled, a sort of rueful, fond expression, which was as much as any woman could possibly ask from a man when she's just cried all over him. In relationship terms, in fact, it probably meant the guy was a keeper. This particular guy got up and rooted around in the ambulance until he found paper towel that could double as a tissue, and brought it back to me. Definitely keeper material. I honked my nose clear and hiccuped an, “I'm okay now,” that made him smile again.

“Why don't we go get some takeaway and go back to your place to talk?”

That sounded like the best idea in the entire universe, ever. I nodded and snuffled and said, “There's a great Chinese place on University. I'll call Gary and he can…” pick us up, then join us for dinner, was how that scenario would realistically end, although it wasn't what I'd had in mind. I stared blankly at the distance, trying to think of another cab company I could call. It wasn't that I didn't want to share Coyote with Gary. I just wanted to find out what had happened on my own, first. I was in no fit state to juggle more than one man in my life.

Right on cue, Morrison pulled into the parking lot with Billy in the car.

 

I got out of the ambulance and tried to make myself look presentable. There was no chance of that, not with my face puffy and red from crying, but I tried. The captain had on his
Dread Morrison face as he got out of his car, and Billy just looked worried. I said, “We managed the hat trick, boss,” before either of them got close enough to start yelling.

“Hat trick?” Whatever Morrison had expected me to say, that wasn't it. I was deeply grateful. Any chance to derail a lecture was a win.

“Mandy Tiller's okay.”

Billy let out a sigh that came from the bottom of his soul, and dropped his chin to his chest. I wanted to hug him, but Morrison was still glowering at me. “She had a bad slip on the stairs, that's all.”

That's what she'd said in the ambulance, and I had absolutely no doubt it was the party line she was going to feed anybody who tried bleeding her for information. I thought she'd offered it up a little bit to help me, but much more to help herself. A fall on the stairs wasn't newsworthy, whereas surviving an attack by a mad killer unquestionably was. If she caught wind of the story at all, Laurie Corvallis would no doubt discover Mandy and I had been out hiking together, but there would be nothing for Laurie to hear about, if Mandy stuck with her version of events. God knew I wasn't about to dispute them.

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 Diné,” 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 ex
planation, 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.”