C.E. Murphy - Mountain Echoes

They had guns. They had missiles. We were never, ever going to outrun them. I gave my recharged power a little push, seeing how much of it there was to respond. Not very damned much, really. The problem with recharging a car battery was that if you had to kill the engine again, it was going to stay dead. Morrison’s drumming had gotten me back on my feet, and maybe I’d built up a little bit of reserves as we’d walked, but I’d shot that wad giving Morrison the Sight. Petite’s boost had basically started the battery once more, but I needed to be eyeball-deep in magic in order to keep my engines going. I didn’t really dare wrap us in invisibility, much less shield us, without some kind of external power source. I still needed some quality time with a power or drum circle. Morrison had my drum, but the whole “rest in the caves, replenish the spirit” thing hadn’t worked out so well, and I didn’t really think the military was going to let us convene for a little midchase drum circle.

The last thing I could think of—the only thing I could think of—was asking for a boost from the people around me. Even this wrung out, I should be able to borrow strength from Dad and Morrison, if we could distract the guys in the helicopter long enough for me to ask. I wished I’d thought of it earlier, and allowed myself exactly three seconds of self-mockery and recrimination for thinking Dad was traditional and hide-bound when I, too, had been so focused on the traditional drum circle that I hadn’t thought of doing something a little more outside of the box. Then I raised my hands in a classic surrender pose, and said, “Put your hands up, guys. We surrender.”

Morrison put his hands up, but said, “We do?”

“Not really.” The others put their hands up, as well, and I shouted out an explanation of what I wanted to do while the helicopter buzzed its way closer to the earth.

The result was sort of beautiful, actually. Energy began to coalesce between everybody’s upraised hands: Morrison’s familiar purples and blues, my dad’s less familiar greens and grays. Sara’s aura was ochre and red, and ragged with grief. Ada offered up an utterly fierce protective forest-green streaked with blazes of orange determination. We had the feel of a small coven, everyone confident in what they were doing, everyone able to share without reservation.

In this case, of course, it was because we were going to get our asses handed to us if we didn’t, rather than us all being so much on the same page in terms of what we wanted from and for the world, but whatever worked. I spread my hands a little, expanding the gunmetal ball between them, and a net began to form, threads dancing from me to Morrison, to Dad, to Ada and Sara. Raven gave a shout of joy and took wing, bright spirit spinning through the net, and Rattler sighed with satisfaction as my strength returned. Everything was going to be fine. I could shield us, I couielall betweeld pin the helicopter down, I could do what was necessary to get us out of here, and then we were going to rescue Aidan and bring this thing to a close.

Then Danny took a potshot at the U.S. military.

The bullet spanged off the helicopter’s side, behind the large doors, just one superfast bright spark that disappeared as quickly as it came. The silence that followed was thunderous, never mind that there were chopper blades roaring through the air, never mind that the damned rifle shouldn’t have even been audible above that sound. I heard it anyway, and I heard the clang of metal against metal, and I heard the incredulous shock that silenced everything else.

In that silence I thought, Fuck.

I had bigger fish to fry. I had a mystical enemy out there, one who was driving Danny’s stupidity. If I didn’t go stop that bigger bad, then Danny Little Turtle’s name was going down in history as the guy who fired the first shot in the Second Indian Wars. And there I was, literally standing between one side and the other, metaphorically split down the middle myself, and it seemed utterly ludicrous that I was going to have to stop a war before I could go do my job. I was not cut out for peace negotiations. I liked hitting things as an action of first resort. I was supposed to fight the impossible things, not get embroiled in politics extended to other means.

I didn’t know when I’d triggered the Sight. As we’d started pooling our collective energy, since I’d been Watching that. But it was certainly burning full force now, and I could See the soldiers in the helicopter. I could See their indecision even as they readied their weapons. Firing on American citizens was not lightly done, but they had every right, every expectation, to protect their own lives, and Danny goddamned Little Turtle had fired the first shot.

There was a woman at the helm. She stared at me through the windshield with exactly the same expression she’d had earlier that day: hope and disbelief, with the hope so much stronger than the disbelief it made me want to cry. I said, “Don’t,” into the impossible silence. Just one ordinary word, not even shouted. Just, “Don’t.”

I Saw her hear it, Saw her flinch back half an inch and Saw her hand hovering above a panel that I had no doubt would launch our destruction. I took every ounce of energy my people were offering, and turned the air around us to shields. Nuclear bunkers, that’s what they were, and I put everything I had into making them visible.

The night lit up with white magic, shimmering and sliding around us in a half dome. It even covered Danny, which I thought was very generous of me, as I was feeling that throwing him to the wolves wouldn’t be a bad move.

Every single face in the chopper went awestruck, maybe terror-struck. More than one of the weapons began spitting bullets, a rattle of silver that smacked into my shields, crumpled, and slid to the ground. Everybody, including me, flinched, but after the first hail fell harmlessly to the ground we all got our nerve back and held it together, watching the chopper’s pilot to see what happened next.

I saw the shape of the words on the captain’s lips, and the sudden steely resolution in her aura. Hold your fire, she said. Hold your fire.

Indecision spattered across every face, but they were military, and theielal,

She took her hands off the flight controls. Lifted them very, very slowly, and cocked her head slightly, like she was saying “your move, lady.”

I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to give her a medal. I wanted to grab her and dance her around the forest, shouting my relief at hope and magic just this once overriding training and cynicism. Instead I relaxed some of the shield and wove it back into a net that I slid under the chopper, then up around the base of its blades, being very careful not to catch the blades. That would end badly for somebody, and I didn’t know if it would be them or me. I didn’t want to find out, either. Once I had the chopper wrapped safely in the net, I cautiously drew it down to the ground. Without the captain steering it in the other direction, it wasn’t difficult, just nerve-wracking.

After a minute it settled. The captain shut it down, then ordered her people to stay where they were as she jumped out to approach us. She stopped on the far side of the still faintly shimmering shields and stopped at ease, hands locked behind her back and feet in a wide solid stance. “Captain Sandra Montenegro. Who the hell are you? What the hell are you? And who the hell was shooting at my boys?”

The last was pretty obvious, since Danny was over there on the ground, moaning and clutching his rebroken shoulder, with a rifle barely out of his reach. I decided Captain Sandra Montenegro wanted the other answers more. “I’m Joanne Walker, and I’m a shaman. And,” I added thoughtfully, “I think you’re going to have to surrender.”