C. Murphy - Demon Hunts

“How far did she fall? How far did she fall, Jo?”

“I don’t know! Far enough to leave her body empty!” I clapped one hand on Corvallis’s head and put the other, awkwardly, at her hip. Awkward because I still had the spear and didn’t want to let it go, not because I had some kind of personal space issue going on. “Raven, guide me. If I have to go back into that storm to find her, I will, but that place scares the crap out of me. I need your help. I promise lollipops.”

I felt the reassuring non-weight of my spirit guide on my shoulder, his unearthly talons squeezing tight muscle. I whispered, “Don’t let us freeze to death, Yote,” and for what seemed like the hundredth time, closed my eyes to risk the storm.

Corvallis slapped her hand up, fingers clawed inside their mitten, and hauled me back out.

The world shifted, all signs of winter melting away. I was in a concrete jungle: skyscrapers wound with ivy reached for the stars, streams ran over the dashed lines of asphalt streets, predators prowled grassy sidewalks and lurked in alleyways while herd animals raced ahead of them, in a rush to eat, to work, to play. I thought I made a rather magnificent addition to the surroundings, in my torn jeans and oily tank-top and with a tall wooden spear in my hand. I fit right in as one of the predators. Men and women in business suits avoided me, while young punks sized me up for potential battle. I shook my spear and shooed them away so I could look around in peace.

Billboards and electronic tickers were half destroyed by wilderness, though their remnants showed news images, one of them recurring over and over: Corvallis at a news anchor’s desk, internationally famous eye symbol predominant behind her. There was something not quite right about her, hard to pinpoint from the fractured images.

She was tawnier than in real life, black hair streaked with blond, warm skin tones a little more golden. There was something feline about her, and I laughed as it came to me: king of the jungle. This was pretty, ambitious Laurie Corvallis’s garden, a cityscape jungle, and she was its lioness. Which was way, way more than I’d ever wanted to know about her. Still, I kind of admired it. At least she knew what she wanted.

Though in this particular case, the fact that I was here, and not in the wendigo’s storm, suggested that what she wanted was help. It also suggested she had some vestige of control left, which was good for both of us. All I had to do was find her, and maybe together we’d stand a chance against the demon. “Laurie? Hey, Laurie!”

Her name echoed off ruined buildings, but she didn’t appear. I pursed my lips, then took off at a run through the streets, trusting Corvallis’s subconscious to take me where I needed to go. The city bent and folded and presented me with the Channel Two News building within a few dozen strides. Unsurprised, I took the stairs up two at a time, and burst into the anchor room. “Laurie?”

“I can’t come out.” Her voice was a whisper, bouncing around so it seemed to come from nowhere. “It’ll get me if I come out.”

“I’m here to stop it.” I thought I sounded remarkably confident. I hoped she thought so, too. “Where are you? Can you tell me what you remember?”

“There was a storm. I was lost.” She sounded about six. “Someone tried to rescue me, but then I couldn’t see her anymore. The storm came up and I started to run, and I ran until I came here. But now the storm is here, too, looking for me. I think it wants to kill me.”

I’d pinpointed her by the end of her explanation, though I didn’t want to let her know that. Instead I came to sit on the anchor’s desk, pretty sure she was under it. I wondered if she always thought of herself as a kid who hid beneath desks.

If she did, that probably explained a lot about her aggressiveness. Talk about making up for perceived inadequacies in spades. “I think you’re right. The storm is trying to get to you. But I can help you fight it, if you want.”

“…you can?” She looked about six as she peeked out from under the desk, all big hopeful eyes and quivering lower lip. Given a set of whiskers, she’d be the world’s most pathetic kitten. Man, if I got her out of this alive I would have all the blackmail material I’d ever need to keep myself off the news.

Not that I would ever, ever use my special magic powers to such a naughty, self-involved end. Of course not. That would be wrong. And more to the point, the gift I’d tried so hard to ignore and had finally grown comfortable with would no doubt depart at the least opportune moment in retaliation for my bad behavior. Look, I never said I was a good person. Sometimes threats to my own health and happiness were the best way to keep me on the straight and narrow.

“I can,” I said firmly. “That’s what I do. I help people.”

Corvallis squinted suspiciously over the edge of the desk. It reduced the kitten aspect and aged her considerably, which was something of a relief. I did not want to introduce six-year-olds to fighting wendigos. Or anything else, for that matter. She inched farther up the desk, frown deepening. “How?”

“How? How do I help? Messily, usually, and you don’t make it any easier.” Probably this was not the time to scold her. I made a face and tried again. “I’m a shaman. I deal in sicknesses that doctors don’t believe exist. Right now you’re sick. A demon’s taken over your body. I can help you get it back.”

She got to her feet, an adult again, though still with the vaguely feline air. “A demon. Like in The Omen?”

“No, that was the Anti-Christ, wasn’t it? More like…” My limited knowledge of pop culture failed me entirely. “Look, don’t worry what it’s like. That storm we were in was…Hell.” It wasn’t. Or at least I didn’t think it was. But it was the closest shorthand I had.

Unfortunately, it also had a connotation I hadn’t quite thought through. Corvallis’s voice shot up: “You mean I’m dead?”

“No! Not yet.” That was probably less than reassuring. “But you will be if we don’t go deal with the demon, so if you don’t mind, I think we should get out of here and go find it.”

She folded her arms, fingers tapping rapidly against her biceps. “And just how do you propose we do that, Detective?”

Bully for me. I’d gotten the Corvallis I knew and loved back. Still, it was a damned sight better than a child. “If I were the wendigo I’d be working from the part of your mind that contained the images and thoughts and places you wanted least to remember. I’d figure you’d avoid those places, nevermind stride in and pick a fight.”

“I don’t back down from fights, Detective.” Corvallis was hard as steel now, while the backdrop shifted to show images of her scrappy childhood self standing up to a school-yard fight even while her heart pounded with terror. She got a tooth knocked out that day, but by God she didn’t back down.

I had the sudden appalling idea that I could like this woman. Disconcerted by the idea, I extended a hand and raised my eyebrows in mild challenge. “Great. Let’s go find one, then.”

She took my hand, and the building disappeared around us, though the ground stayed solid beneath our feet as it changed from carpet to asphalt. A parking lot somewhere, half the lights out, only a couple of cars in it, the sounds of glass breaking and rowdy men in the near distance. There was no proper life here, not the way there was in the other gardens I’d visited, but it was certainly a familiar scene. It put me instantly on edge, hairs on my neck standing up and an apprehensive chill rushing over my skin.

Despite holding a tall spear in one hand, I released the other from Corvallis’s grasp and dug into my pocket for my keys. I’d want them out, in this situation. I’d want them because I’d want to get into Petite as quickly as I could, and because, grasped in the palm and stuck jagged-side-out between the fingers, they made a decent weapon. I was nearly six feet tall and disproportionately strong from working on cars all my life, and even so, alone in a parking lot at night, I was scared.