Mercedes Lackey - Wintermoon

Billy didn’t just come back with my drum. He came back with Gary, who found me in the laundry room, washing the broom-closet sheets. By the time he found me I’d eaten and rinsed out my ears, which made me feel considerably more human. I was leaning against the washing machine, feeling it do its thing, when Gary poked his head in and said something I couldn’t hear. I grinned a little and pointed at my ear, which made him huff and puff like the big bad wolf.

Getting anything useful out of the drum when I couldn’t hear proved to be awkward as hell. I eventually sat down directly across from Gary and kept my fingertips on the drum’s edge while he knocked out a beat.

I’d never felt the drum actually call up energy inside me before. It was like a well filling, a few bubbles in the depth of me turning into splashes and then into a steady trickle. I said, “Faster,” and Gary increased the beat until the power of the drum made me laugh with the feeling of life well lived. It was an entirely internal celebration that took my breath and made my blood run thinner and faster in my veins. I wanted a hundred drums all around me, so their vibrations shook the very air, making it safe for me to dance even without being able to hear the beat.

I burst through the top of my head and into clear sky so cold even the blue was leached from it. I could hear my own labored breathing as I tried to catch oxygen from the thin air, but I knew with great certainty that I was hearing an illusion. My spirit might be unharmed—at least with regards to this particular instance—but the body I’d left behind needed repair work.

The first analogy that slid through my mind was that of blown-out stereo speakers. I folded my legs and sat in the clear thin air, just as I might have within my own garden, and began the process of removing the destroyed stereo components and replacing them. I overlaid the idea on my own body, and called for the renewed power that lay coiled inside me. It sprang up, eager for the call, and swept through me.

I had a completely horrid sensation in both my ears at once, as if bugs were crawling out of them. I stuck a finger in one and wriggled it, coming away with a tiny smear of bloody flesh. I let out a ragged yell and flapped my hand frantically, getting rid of the icky bit, then repeated the whole ritual, including the frantic flapping, on the other side.

That part didn’t hurt.

The next part did. I could feel the power in me rebuilding my eardrums, fitting the right amount of newly created flesh into the cavity in my ear. It felt like an ink-jet printer was zipping back and forth inside my ear, making one tiny line of new eardrum after another. Heat ran down my eustachian tubes and into the back of my throat, tasting like blood and feeling increasingly like someone had poured molten gold into the delicate tubes.

I kept coughing and trying to gag the feeling away. Nothing worked, the boiling feeling continuing to zip around in my ears, until they popped abruptly and wind shrieked against my new eardrums. I fell back inside my head, the ringing of the drum suddenly impossibly loud, and yelled again, this time scaring the bejeezus out of Gary, who stopped drumming and threatened me with the drumstick. Then he leaned over the drum and hugged me without warning, mumbling, “You get in all kinds of trouble when I’m not around, lady. You oughta watch yourself.”

“Yeah, well, you should see the other guy.” I wrinkled my face. “Actually, I guess that’s the problem. We can see him now.”

“Am I s’posed to understand that?”

I gave him a lopsided smile. “Not really. C’mon. I need to go talk to Billy.”

“My mother called it the blade. Blade.” I tried it out without a capital letter and with one, wrinkling my nose. “Its master’s blade, specifically.”

“And its master is?”

I shrugged. Billy looked at the ceiling like he was asking strength from God. I spread my hands. “I thought getting any kind of name from a woman who’s been dead for three months was pretty good.”

“Well, can you go get more?”

I slid down in my chair, glaring futilely at Billy’s computer screen. “What have I done for you lately, huh?”

“It’s the nature of the beast, Joanie. Can’t get no satisfaction.” He gave me a sideways look. “Are you really okay?”

“Right as rain.” I scratched my jaw where the blood had been. “I don’t know how real this thing is, Bill. I’m not sure if it’s something you can catch. Whatever Mother did to it set it back a lot of years, but she thought she’d have the power to destroy it, and that was a big fat bust. And whatever it is has got a master.”

“Forget about the master. The master isn’t the thing stringing girls out by their guts, right?”

“Right.” God, I hoped I was right.

“Then he’s not our problem right now. By the way, Melinda wants to know if you’re still coming over for dinner.”

I blinked. “What?”

“It’s the equinox tonight. She invited you last week, remember?”

“And you think to bring this up in the context of masters? Or was it being strung out by your guts?”

Billy fashioned a crooked grin. “You know Mel. She’s a slave driver.”

I laughed. “So a little bit of both. Yeah, I don’t see why not. I mean, you tell me. I know it’s the first forty-eight hours of a murder investigation that are most critical, but we’re kind of way the hell past that. Is taking the night off going to make a critical difference?”

“If it does, it’s my ass in the hot seat, not yours. You’re just a beat cop, remember?”

“A beat cop who isn’t doing her job today. Crap.” I got to my feet. “Did Morrison put somebody on the Ave to cover for me, or am I going to get beaten within an inch of my life the next time he sees me?”

“You’re fine, Joanie.” Billy’s voice was gentle. “People who spontaneously rupture eardrums, even if they follow it up with a little lay-your-hands-on-me action, are generally considered out for the day.”

I sat back down. “Yeah? That happens enough to have a protocol for it?” Probably only with me around. Great. “Can I bring Gary to dinner? Petite’s still in the shop.”

Billy looked around. “Where’d he go?”

“Back to work. Some of us,” I said in my best gruff Gary voice, “gotta work for a living, darlin’.”

“Oh. Sure, bring him. Mel cooks enough to feed an army anyway.”

“That’s because you have four kids, Billy. That is an army.” I scooted forward, nodding at his computer. “Okay, so I’m Detective Holliday’s personal assistant for the day, I guess. What do you want me looking for?”

Billy snorted. “I can look up weird shit on the Net, Joanie. You’re the one with the direct line to higher powers.”

“Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, Billy. Don’t say things like that. Higher powers my ass.” I actually shuddered.

“Whatever you want to call it, you’ve got a bead on something I can’t access. Even the captain knows it.”

A fact which did not fill me with joy and glee. I sighed, dropping my chin to my chest. “Last time I went into the wonderful world of the weird, my eardrums exploded, Billy.”

“Look at it this way. At least nobody shoved a sword through your lung.” He gave me a sunny smile that held up to the glare I shot his way.

“Thank you. Thank you, Billy, that really helped a lot. Bastard.”

“Hey.” Billy looked injured. “My parents were married.”

“Mine weren’t.” Huh. I’d never thought of myself as a bastard before. Interesting, what you can get through almost twenty-seven years of living without thinking. “Look, Billy?” I heard myself get all quiet, like I was about to impart something important. Billy heard it, too, and leaned forward.