Mercedes Lackey - Wintermoon

“My mother had the chance to eliminate this guy back when she faced him. She didn’t because she was pregnant with me and she didn’t want to risk me. So this whole thing is kind of my fault.” I wrapped my arms around my ribs, staring at a broken corner of tile beneath Billy’s desk. “I mean, the fact that there are more dead women now. I know I’m being sort of a jerk, because I hate all this crap, but…I really want to get this thing solved. I need to. Whatever it takes.”

Billy clapped his hand on my shoulder, solid and reassuring. “We’ll figure it out, Joanie. We’ll get this guy. You’ll get your piece.”

Or maybe he said peace. I wasn’t sure.

The drumming hadn’t been enough to fill me up. Not all the way, at least. Maybe a hundred drums would’ve poured so much energy and power into me that I’d have been good to go for the rest of the day, the rest of the week, as long as it took. But by midafternoon I was stumbling like Petite did when she ran short on gas, and nothing I did brought me even one whit closer to figuring out what the Blade was or how to stop him from killing someone else.

So I did what any sensible woman would do. I went—no, not shopping. My idea of an ideal shopping experience was walking into the store, finding exactly what I wanted on the first rack I stopped at, buying it, and being out of there in five minutes. I was a retailer’s nightmare.

But I was also a well-trained Seattleite. When the chips were down, I went for coffee.

The Missing O was half a block down the street from the precinct building, run by an entrepreneurial young fellow who thought the idea of opening a doughnut and coffee shop next to a police station was pretty funny. After a while the cops started thinking it was funny, too, and began to take a certain pride in being the O’s number-one clientele.

A barista greeted me not by name, but by drink: “Tall hot chocolate with a shot of mint?” I waved an agreement and went to pay without ever having to say anything. A minute later I was ensconced in the corner, hands wrapped around the drink.

A coffee shop with a mug of hot chocolate was no place to solve the world’s problems from, but it beat a sharp stick in the eye. I let my eyes half close, watching the world through a blur of lashes and waiting for inspiration to strike.

Inspiration, last I checked, did not come in the form of Captain Michael Morrison. Well. He was certainly inspiring in some ways. He frequently inspired me to mouth-frothing argument, for example. At the moment, though, he stood a few feet away, frowning down at me as if unsure how to approach. I untangled my eyelashes and looked up at him. “I don’t bite.” I thought about that statement, then nodded, determining it was true. I couldn’t remember having bitten anyone in my sentient years.

Morrison let out a fwoosh of air and shrugged his shoulders. He was wearing a seaman’s coat with big black buttons, so out of fashion it looked like haute couture. “That’s a great coat.”

He looked as startled as I felt. To the best of my recollection, nothing like a compliment had ever passed my lips when I was speaking to the captain. He shrugged again, hands in his pockets, which made the whole coat move like a woolen wall with a purpose in life, and sat down. “Thanks. Belonged to my father.”

“Seriously?” I supposed it was unlikely Morrison had sprung fully formed from the forehead of his mother, but I’d never given much thought to his family. “He was a sailor?”

“Merchant marines. He died when I was twelve.”

Neither of us knew what to say after that. I slid down in my seat and wrapped my fingers around my hot chocolate tightly enough to bend the cardboard. “So,” I said after a while, just as he said, “Your hearing’s back.” I twitched a grin at the plastic top of my cup and nodded. I didn’t see if Morrison smiled, too.

“You and Holliday learn anything yet?”

“We would’ve mentioned it if we had.” It came out sarcastic. I hadn’t meant it to. I saw Morrison’s bulk move back a few centimeters, like he was responding to my nasty tone and putting extra space between us. Good, Joanne. Antagonize the boss. Again . “I’m trying, Captain. I really am.”

He muttered, “You certainly are,” under his breath, making me look up in amused offense. His expression hadn’t changed. Maybe I was the only one who thought he was making a joke. Great. Just great.

“I really want to solve this.” I kept my voice low, afraid he’d think I was kidding. After a moment something relaxed in his gaze, a little gleam of approval coming into it. I annoyed Morrison for a variety of reasons, starting with knowing a lot more about cars than he did, and ending, emphatically, with wanting a career as a mechanic when it was his opinion I could be a good cop. It was possible I’d taken one tiny baby step toward a better relationship with him by genuinely wanting to solve this case.

“Has it occurred to you that you might be in danger, Walker?”

The chocolate was hot enough to keep my fingers stinging with warmth, or I’d have dropped it in my lap, hands suddenly numb from surprise. “Sir?” I never called Morrison sir . I don’t know which of us liked it less.

“Your mother turned this killer in thirty years ago. If he puts you together with her—”

I sat there staring at him, slack jawed with stupefaction. “It’s unlikely,” I finally heard myself say. “Different country, different names, pretty much no connection….”

“Except whatever the hell you’ve got going on up there.” Morrison pointed a thick finger at my head. I touched my own temple guiltily. The man had a point. Crap. He had a point, and I had no idea what to do if he was right. I blinked at the table, hoping it might come up with a brilliant answer or two.

“Is this going to turn out like the last case?”

Then again, maybe I hadn’t taken any steps toward him approving of me at all. I curled a lip at the top of my hot chocolate, doing my best James Dean impression. “You mean with a dead body and no actual proof of guilt aside from the word of a semihysterical teenage girl?”

Morrison gave a credible growl that rumbled up from the depths of his chest. I took that as a yes, and shrugged uncomfortably. “I’m putting my money on ‘probably.’”

Silence stretched over the table long enough to break. I looked up when it snapped, to find Morrison glaring out the window, his mouth set in a thin line. At least he wasn’t glaring at me. “Get me some answers, Walker. Tell me how to stop somebody else from dying.”

I lowered my gaze to the cup again. “For what it’s worth, Morrison, I don’t like this any more than you do.”

He stood up, the chair feet squeaking back against the wet floor. “That’s the only thing that makes it bearable.”

I didn’t feel any less alone, watching him leave, shoulders broad and strong in the seaman’s coat.

I locked myself in the broom closet back at the station and struggled to get inside my own mind. When I finally did, my garden looked like somebody had dumped ash all over it, making it as tired and gray as I felt. It was not reassuring. Nor was the fact that it took Coyote a very long time indeed to show up, or that he looked distracted when he did. How a dog could look distracted, I didn’t know, but there you had it.

“I’m not,” he said for the umpteenth time, “a dog.”

One of the few thoughts I seemed to be able to keep to myself around him was the private glee at being able to get on his nerves with something as simple as calling him a dog. It made me feel better right away. I even managed a bright grin. “Sorry. I need your help.”