Demon Hunts (15 page)

“And then?” I really didn't want a scolding about where I should or shouldn't have been, or what I should or shouldn't have done. I was sure I had plenty of those in store. But my hands were cramping around the chopsticks and my tummy was getting upset waiting to hear where my mentor had been the past six months. “You just never came back, Coyote. I thought…I don't know what I thought. That you were mad at me. Or in trouble.”

Coyote sighed. “I wasn't well enough prepared when I met you in the Dead Zone—that's a terrible name for it, Jo.”

“Do you have a better one?”

He shrugged his eyebrows and went on. “I'd been in too much of a hurry, maybe, to meet you, but I wasn't shielded well enough. When you threw me out I never woke up from the dream state, not entirely. I got…lost on my way back to my body.”

I took a shaking breath and put my box of rice aside. “I'm sorry. I was afraid that snake was going to eat you.”

“It was going to.” His smile was bright and sudden and made me want to crawl over and hide in his arms. “You were doing your best. It was messy, but you did your best.”

That didn't make me feel as much better as I hoped. “And with…what happened with Begochidi, Coyote? I was dreaming about you all the time, but I wasn't sure any of it was happening…then.” That sounded so absurd I put my head in my hands, fingertips pressed hard against my hairline. “Every time I saw you in those dreams it seemed like another time, another place. Your memories, or even your dreams. Sometimes my dreams, from when I was a kid. And I
know
something happened there, a closed time loop of some kind, because I had to take all of my younger self's memories of studying with you and bring them forward so I could use them now. Time got all fucked up, Coyote, and then you—”

I jerked my gaze up, heart thudding again, but not in the nice way it had earlier. Now it just made me feel like I'd eaten way too much and should probably run to worship the porcelain god. “You let go so much power,” I whispered. “You got me out of that amber place where the night had butterfly wings, but…you died. I thought you
died,
Coyote.”

He sighed again, that explosive sound that I'd heard from his coyote form more than once. “I almost did, but I was betting on Begochidi never deliberately harming one of the
Diné. I thought it was worth the risk of drawing her attention to me, but she was stronger than I thought. Or maybe less strong, in the end, because if she'd been at her best, I think I would have woken up. Instead I've been sleeping all this time.”

“There must be healers—”

“My grandfather,” Coyote said. “He's a shaman, too. He spent every day at my side, keeping me strong, but what he saw when he tried a soul retrieval on me was Begochidi standing before the rainbow that lasts all day. It wasn't a path he could travel. He knew then that someone else would guide me home. She nodded to him once, though.”

I whispered, “Her. I saw Begochidi as a man.”

Coyote shrugged. “We see in the god what is different from ourselves. In her acknowledging him, my grandfather believed he was allowed to keep my body strong, so he did, and he waited for you.”

“I didn't do a soul retrieval, Coyote….”

“Didn't you?” He looked up, strands of fine black hair falling across his face. “I heard you calling, and saw your raven guide me from the storm.”

I stared at him slack-jawed. “That—in Mel's power circle? That was you? The one who went running the other direction?”

His smile broke again. “Guilty as charged. It wasn't a classic retrieval like you did today—the Tar Baby was a good idea, by the way—”

I mumbled, “It wasn't my idea,” guiltily. “I got it from a seven-year-old.”

“A sss—I'd like to meet that kid!”

“Her name's Ashley. She's kind of amazing.” A little grin worked its way over my face as I thought about Ashley Hampton and her ambition to be a “peace ossifer.” “I'll introduce you.”

“I'd like that.” Coyote shoveled a couple more bites of pork into his mouth. “So I woke up yesterday morning with my grandfather sitting beside me. He'd done well. I was a lot stronger than I should have been, after all that time. I spent about six hours in one of our own sacred places—” He broke off, eyeing my living room floor dubiously.

I snatched up a new box, feeling defensive as I investigated its contents. Ban mian, full of noodles and greens. I stuffed my chopsticks in and ate several bites before muttering, “It's all I've got, okay? It's where I do most of my work. I just usually put a blanket in the door so there's no draft.”

“Whatever works.” He gave me another one of his bright smiles and went on with his story. “Anyway, I spent the morning eating and sweating out the results of lying in bed for months, and in the afternoon I left to drive up here.”

“You just took off? What about the rest of your family? Didn't they care?”

A wash of old, resigned pain sluiced across Coyote's features. “It's just me and my grandfather. My parents died a long time ago. I'll tell you about it, but it's not a happy story, and these should be happy times.” He reached out like he'd catch my hand, but he was too far away, and dropped his hand before I could meet it with my own. “I was worried about you, so I came as fast as I could. Grandfather understood.”

“I've been worried about you for months. I didn't even know where to go to try and find you. There's three hundred thousand people in the Navajo Nation.” Guilt was spoiling the food I'd eaten. “I'm sorry.”

“Hey.” Coyote put his box of pork down and crawled over to me, loose hair sliding around his shoulders. Honestly, if just watching that didn't make me feel a little better, nothing would.
Fortunately, it did. Then the way he hopped around one of the depleted grocery bags reminded me of his Coyote form, and I laughed before he got to me. He sat at my side, knocking his shoulder into mine. “That's better. Jo, it's okay. I didn't expect you to come looking for me. You had things to do here. And judging from what I saw today, you've been doing all right.”

I shook my head. “I've been scrambling to just keep my ass covered, Coyote. I've felt like a walking disaster. I really wish I'd had your help.”

“Well.” He looked abruptly serious. “You will now. And I hate to say it, but this time you're going to need it.”

I hated for him to say it, too. If a wendigo was a nasty enough piece of work that I, who had fumbled along facing gods and demons, was going to have trouble with it, then I really just wanted to hide under the bed until it was gone. On the other hand, that approach hadn't worked in the past, and if I
had
fumbled through before, having Coyote actually at my side now ought to be a major confidence booster.

Somehow it wasn't. “Why is it so bad? I've gone up against some pretty powerful things, Coyote…”

“Gods,” he said quietly. “Sorcerers. But the wendigo used to be human, Jo. It's easier to stand against the immortal and corrupt than it is to face a ruined human soul. And we're mean, humans are. When you put us in a corner there's no telling what we'll do. Wendigos are like that, too.”

I wished I hadn't asked. “Okay, so is this a ‘Joanne would get dead if Coyote wasn't here' scenario? Because I don't like those.”

“No. No, nothing like that. I mean, maybe,” Coyote said less than reassuringly. “But it's not what I meant. You can't wait for a wendigo to come to you. They take hunting, Jo. Not like a murder case, but real hunting.”

“Like out in the woods with a rifle and an orange jacket hunting? I don't look so good in orange.”

“More like out in the woods with a spear and—”

“Magic helmet?” I asked hopefully.

Coyote, exactly like his furry counter-self, whacked his shoulder against mine hard enough to hurt. “If you have one, wear it.”

I rubbed my shoulder, too glad to experience that again to sulk about the pain. “Did you come up here because you knew I had a wendigo on my hands?”

“I thought you might be more willing to believe it was me if I showed up in the flesh. Besides, I haven't seen you in real life since you were about five. I wanted to see how your mental image stood up to the real thing.”

My heart lurched with sudden nerves. “And?”

He leaned away so he could examine me, then smiled. “I haven't seen your astral self in half a year. There's no comparison. You were a mess then. Angry spikes shooting out of a wraith trying to stay unseen. Now…”

I thought of the spiderwebbed windshield that reflected the state of my soul. “I'm still a mess.”

“Nah.” Coyote traced a fingertip down the scar on my right cheek. I startled, then startled myself even more by closing my eyes and tipping my head into the touch. “You don't have this,” he said. “I didn't know you had a scar.”

“Sure you did. It's the one that didn't want to heal that very first day, when Cernunnos stuck a sword through me.”

“Oh, yeah.” He dropped his hand and I opened my eyes again to see him shrug thoughtfully. “Guess I didn't expect it to leave a real scar, since you don't have one in your image of yourself.”

“Well, I did live twenty-six and a half years without one. And I don't really see it when I look in the mirror.” I took a deep breath. “We're procrastinating, aren't we?”

“Are we?” Coyote sounded amused. “On what?”

I took a breath to say
on dealing with the wendigo,
and instead ran up against the disconcerting idea that he was flirting with me. I'd never considered the possibility that he might find me attractive. I found
him
attractive, but then, I figured anyone female, heterosexual and breathing probably would. For his hair, if nothing else, but it was only one of a number of what I considered to be very fine features.

Instead of answering, I blushed. Coyote's grin, of which I was becoming very fond, blossomed. He said, “Ah,” in a very wise and sagely tone, “procrastinating on
that,
” and leaned in to kiss me.

We left the Chinese food to be cleaned up in the morning.

Thursday, December 22, 4:07 A.M.

My room was lit up by the glowing numbers on my alarm clock and their reflection in the shining ceramic of the bedside lamp. Coyote was a comfortable, steadily breathing lump between me and the light. His hair, braided—we'd twisted it into loose plaits before falling asleep—was wound over his shoulder, where I couldn't roll on it, and the red light made thick shadows of his eyelashes. I didn't know why men so frequently got to have lashes like mascara companies advertised, although the idea that it was to keep dust out of their eyes while they hunted antelope
on the savannah popped to mind. It didn't matter. In modern terms they were just attractive, and I stopped myself from brushing a fingertip over them. I didn't want to wake him up. I just wanted to lie there for a while, head propped on my hand, and smile stupidly while I watched him.

Some vaguely rational part of my brain said this was not like me. That Joanne Walker, Reluctant Shaman, did not fall into bed with a guy a few hours after meeting him. That Joanne Walker didn't succumb to stupid, giddy, exciting infatuation.

Truth was, Joanne Walker couldn't think of a single reason why she shouldn't. I could even build a nice rationalization if I wanted to, because I'd technically known Coyote half my life, what with the shaman's training he'd given me in the dream world when we were both teens.

For once in my life, I wasn't even vaguely interested in rationalizations. I was just happy. I was iridescent bubble, fluffy bunny, rainbow sky happy. I was happy Coyote was alive. I was happy we'd saved Mandy. I was happy he thought I was pretty. I was happy—bizarrely—that this was one guy who was neither unduly interested in nor threatened by nor uncomfortable with my aggravatingly esoteric set of talents. I could be me with Cyrano Bia, even if I hardly knew who that was.

And this was a possibility that Suzanne Quinley hadn't shown me. I liked that. I'd become resigned to feeling like there was some kind of destiny awaiting me, something I didn't have much control over, but was going to have to face. The simple fact that there were still surprises in store, that there were paths untaken, even unimagined, made me feel like maybe I had a little bit of choice after all. For the first time that I could remember, I was just plain happy to see where the road took me. It felt good.

I lay back down, put my nose against Coyote's shoulder and my arm over his ribs, and went back to sleep.

Thursday, December 22, 7:58 A.M.

There was an Indian in my parking lot.

All right, technically there were three, if you wanted to count me and Cyrano, but I wasn't interested in us. I was interested in the low-slung, shiny green beauty that had no business at all being outdoors in a Seattle winter. I approached with the reverence due a vehicle old enough to be my grandfather, and knelt in the slush, not caring that my knees got soaked.

I knew cars, not motorcycles, but I also knew beautifully restored work when I saw it. “It's a, uh… What is it? Early forties? You didn't…drive it up here. Not through the mountains. Not in winter.” I twisted to look over my shoulder at Coyote, who looked as nervous and hopeful as a six-year-old.

“It's a 1938 Chief. There's a sidecar, but I didn't want it to slow me down.” He shook his head, all but digging his toe into the slurry on the ground. “I shouldn't have driven, I know. I should've flown. But…”

The idiotic grin that'd been peopling my face for a lot of the past twelve or fourteen hours popped back up. “But you wanted to show off, didn't you.”

Sheepish little boy voice: “I thought you'd like it.”

I turned back to the bike, smiling so widely my ears hurt. There was a fringe on its leather seat, and the rich forest green paint job was highlighted by white over the wheels. The poor thing's engine was exposed, fine for someone living in the Navajo Nation, but less than fantastic for December in Seattle. “How the hell did you get through the Rockies without killing yourself? Without freezing to death?”

He sounded guilty. Pleased, but guilty. “I shanghaied a friend with a pickup into driving me over into California and then came up the I-5 as fast as I could.” We both looked at the Indian, and the guilt in his voice turned smug: “Which was pretty damned fast.”

“You weren't on this yesterday when you showed up at Mandy's house. I'd have noticed.” The world could have been ending and I'd have noticed. There was a small, indiscreet part of me that wanted to lick the bike. That's how gorgeous it was.

“No, I parked it here and took a cab to where I felt you. I didn't want to bring you home on this without the sidecar. Or at least a helmet.”

“You knew where I lived?” That didn't bother me, for some reason, but I grinned over my shoulder at him again. “You were going to put
me
in a sidecar? Not you?” Okay, honestly, the idea of riding around in a sidecar built for a 1938 Indian Chief, wearing one of the old-fashioned leather motorcycle helmets, was pretty appealing. But I was used to being the driver, so I had to give him hell.

“The apartment building felt like you. You've lived here a long time, haven't you?” His smile broadened a bit, too. “I'll let you drive the Chief the minute you hand over Petite's keys.”

I raised my hands and stood up, defeated. “You drive. Except not in this weather. C'mon, we're going to have to move him inside. You're lucky it didn't snow last night.”

“Inside? Do you have a storage unit?”

I wrinkled my eyebrows. “No, I have an apartment. We can bring him over to Chelsea's garage tonight, and our beloved but impractical-for-winter vehicles can keep each other company until the weather breaks.” Or until Coyote went home, but I didn't want to think about that just yet.

He said, “Your apartment will smell like gas and oil if we store him in there,” but he was heading for the bike when he said it.

I beamed. “Yeah. It'll be great.”

My apartment building was mostly filled with college students—Coyote was right; I'd lived there a long time, since I was one of them—and the few who were up at eight in the morning clearly thought nothing of someone wrestling a classic motorcycle into the slow-moving elevator, nor of wheeling it down the building hallway on the fifth floor. The Chief looked a lot bigger inside my apartment than it had in the parking lot, and we had to move my computer desk and the smaller couch to fit it in, but he was safer and warmer inside, so I was satisfied. Of course, doing that took all the extra time we'd bought by getting up early, and the bus delivered us to the precinct building ten minutes late. It wasn't the optimum way to start a day when I needed a favor from my boss.

Billy was already at work, head down over a stack of files, and though he glanced at his watch when we came in, he didn't say anything. Possibly he didn't say anything because it was
we,
and not just me, who came in, but I counted my blessings anyway, and made the introduction I'd failed to yesterday: “Coyote, this is my partner, Billy Holliday. Billy, this is Coyote. Cyrano. Cyrano Bia.” I noticed I was holding Coyote's hand, and let go so he and Billy could shake.

Billy looked like he was swallowing back seven or eight hundred questions as he shook Coyote's hand. “It's good to meet you. I'm glad you're all right. Joanie's missed you a lot.”

Coyote mouthed, “Joanie?” at me, and aloud said, “Good to meet you, too. She thinks a lot of you. Sorry about the melodramatics yesterday. Have you heard from Ms. Tiller?”

“She sent an e-mail late last night. She and Jake are home
and okay. Looks like the news didn't pick up on her adventure. Morrison still wants to see us.”

Some of my good mood drained away. “Us, or me? Because this wasn't really your fault.”

“Us, and it was as much mine as yours.”

I started to argue, then subsided. We were both in trouble, and Billy apparently wasn't going to let me be the fall guy. “When's he want us?”

“About ten minutes ago.”

I pulled a hand over my mouth, turned to Coyote, said, “Crap,” turned back to Billy, then walked in three little circles while trying to figure out what to do with myself. “All right. He's going to kill me either way. I guess I should go get it over with. Hang tight, okay, Coyote? I'll be back soon, if I'm not dead.”

“We don't have a lot of time, Jo. The wendigo knows there's someone of power hunting it now.”

“Oh, it more than knows. It checked me out while we were at Mandy's.” I bet that was an important detail I should've mentioned earlier. I tried for an apologetic smile, managed a grimace, and added, “But it ran away,” hopefully. “Maybe it didn't think it could take me.”

Coyote's expression suggested I definitely should have mentioned this earlier, and that I was probably also a moron for having made the hopeful suggestion. “If it's already retreated, Joanne, it's going to be all the harder to find. And it'll get worse the longer we let it run.”

“Right. So I better go talk to Morrison.” Who was going to kill me. Rightfully. I gave Coyote an impulsive kiss and scurried out of Homicide.

Billy caught up, looking between me and where we'd left
Coyote so sharply I thought he'd give himself whiplash. All he said, though, was, “‘Jo'?”

My face wrinkled up entirely of its own accord. “Yeah. I didn't used to like it, so everybody calls me Joanie. Everybody but Gary. He started calling me Jo and I guess I got used to it.”

“Cyrano,” Billy said, as if he was afraid he was pointing out something dangerous, “isn't Gary.”

The stupid little smile cranked the corner of my mouth up again. “I know.”

Billy said, “I
see,
” and any further commentary was lost because Morrison flung his office door open and we slunk in.

 

The captain left us standing there long enough that my feet began to itch from holding still. Under almost any other circumstances it would have started to be funny, and I would've turned into a smart-ass, but I was vividly aware that I wasn't the only one in trouble. I was afraid to look away from Morrison, though I didn't much want to look at him, either. I fixed on his right shoulder, judging it close enough to meeting his eyes. I could certainly still see his face, which was florid.