C.E. Murphy - Mountain Echoes

“Your father said you drained yourself dry.”

I mooshed my lips into a duck face. “Nah. Not me. I’m Supershaman.”

“Not even supershamans are supposed to make three-thousand-pound cars fly through the air, Walker. Apparently you pushed the laws of physics too far that time.”

“Bah. Do it all the time. Invisililliby, bility...in...vis...i...bil...ity. Shields, time travel, healing. It all defies physics. That’s why it’s magic. ” I was not getting any less punchy, but the litany of powers I usually worked with did seem to have something in common. Invisibility shields were just bent light, and almost anything, including water, the most common element on the planet, could bend light. Morrison had just deconstructed why time travel might not be quite outside the laws of physics. Healing was incredible stuff, but what I did essentially sped up the normal process rather than redefining it g ad almentirely. My physical shields were, in fact, perhaps the most physics-defying thing I did, since as far as I knew nobody’d figured out how to turn air solid. So it was possible Morrison was right. It was possible I’d pushed that one juuuuust a little too far.

“Nah,” I said again. “Nothing wipes me out.”

“Except curing cancer.” Morrison’s eyebrows challenged me.

“...” Nope. I couldn’t come up with an argument. Curing cancer had left me just about this rattled, and it was just about as impossible a task as building a road out of thin air. I shut my mouth, then decided changing the subject was my safest bet. “Where’s Dad?”

“Making sure your invisibility shields hold. He says he never thought of doing anything like them, so he’s got to pay attention. You kept them going.” Morrison’s voice dropped a note, respect blending with bewilderment. “Even unconscious, you kept them going until he was able to pick them up.”

“Had to, or they woulda found us. Woulda defeated the point of all of...” I waved a hand toward the valley. “That. Do we have any food? Shoe leather will do.”

“Sorry.”

“Okay.” I tried sitting up again, and was able to this time. “How long’ve I been out?”

“About an hour, and you should’ve been out a week, and in the hospital. You were in bad shape, Walker. You were gray. If your dad hadn’t been here...” The strain returned to Morrison’s eyes.

I leaned over to flop against him, relieved to not stand up yet. “But he was, and I’m okay now. I could eat a donkey, but I’m okay.” I wondered how many times I could say that, and whether any of the repetitions would make Morrison believe me. “I think I gotta go talk to Dad. We need to go find everybody. We have to...”

My thoughts disintegrated again. With Dad, without Dad, whatever: I had pushed myself way too damned far and my brain was full of static. It took a long time just to remember the problem: that we’d disappeared out from under the military’s nose, after they’d fired missiles at us. Even if I suspected a media blackout on what was happening in the Qualla, somebody was going to notice that. It would behoove the military to get to us before the news broke. They’d no doubt been searching the mountains already, but they were going to redouble their efforts now. I drifted from that into “I’m sorry, Morrison.”

He tipped me back so he could frown at me. “For what?”

“I’m going to make a hash of your career, aren’t I? Seattle police captain involved in high-speed military chase. Involved in the mystery of the missing Cherokee. Involved in the zombie apocalypse. That can’t look good on a resume.” Exhaustion and weariness made my eyes fill with apologetic tears. I was screwing up everybody’s lives.

“Good thing you only gave them your name.” His mouth curved again, rueful little smile. “And at least you quit the department two weeks ago, before you riled up the military.”

“ Riled . You’ve already been in the South too long, using words like riled . I didn’t hand in a letter, Morrison.” At least, I didn’t think I had. It was hard to remember. I stared at him, trying to hold my thoughts together. “I just told you I was quitting, right? Is that enough?”

My former boss looked ever so slightly shifty. “I may have taken some liberties there, Walker.”

For a few seconds my haze-filled brain didn’t get it. Then I blinked at him in astonishment. “You forged my resignation letter?”

His voice went soft. “I didn’t think you would be coming back. Not as a cop, anyway. If you’ve changed your mind...”

“No.” Fuzzy-minded or not, I was firm on that. It meant finding a job when I got home again, but that was the least of my problems, given that right now I was too tired to stand up. I sent a feeble request to my spirit animals for help, and they all gave me flat looks. I mumbled a silent apology to them and returned my attention to Morrison. “No, it was a good call, especially with this going on now. At least it makes me a former employee, and...” I exhaled, unable to complete the thought without effort. “And I guess, I don’t know, we keep us under wraps for a little while? Until people stop talking about this?”

“Is that what you want?”

“Not really, but I want to cost you your job even less.” I snorted. “Besides, if we keep it quiet awhile the department will start a betting pool on when we’ll come out. Maybe we can get Billy to game it for us. Okay. Help me up. I’m...God, I’m tired, Morrison. I shouldn’t be this tired. I don’t tap out like that.”

“You’re too skinny, you haven’t eaten, and you’ve been throwing magic around like it’s fairy dust, Walker. Nobody can keep anything up forever. Not even you. C’mon.”

He did help me up, an arm around my waist to keep me steady, and we went to find Dad, who was sitting just far enough away that he could pretend he wasn’t eavesdropping. I didn’t believe it, but I didn’t care enough to call him on it. He spoke when we got close enough. “You got the invisibility shields idea from that comic you used to read, didn’t you? The one with the blonde woman and the rock man. It’s a good idea. Unique. I’m not sure you’d have thought of it if I’d trained you. I’m more traditional than this.”

That was, in fact, where I’d gotten the idea. I’d loved Sue Storm as a kid. “You seem to have gotten the hang of it.”

“Once I saw what you’d done, sure. I don’t know how you kept it up until I took over, Jo...anne. You shouldn’t have been able to. I’ve never seen anyone that deeply drained of energy and still alive.”

I said the same thing I had to Morrison: “I had to, or it all would have been pointless. The real question is how we’re going to keep it functioning once we head into the hills, because no way am I leaving Petite exposed up here for the military to find and tear apart.”

“No, Joanne.” Dad got up, hands in his pockets, a crease between his eyebrows. “The question is how you did that. You’re not understanding me. When I say you shouldn’t have been able to I mean I’ve been a shaman for more than forty years and I’ve never seen anyone do any of what you’ve done today. We use power circles and sweat lodges to alter perceptions and to heal. We don’t just fling ourselves in without preparation. We shield ourselves against sorcery, but we don’t wind that magic into nets and walls that affect wide spaces or many people. We don’t drive cars across open air and then keep invisibility shields active when our hearts are stuttering. You barely had enough life in you to keep breathing, Joanne, and you were still pouring magic out into the world. We don’t do that. It would kill us. We’d be dead before we began. We can’t do that.”