C.E. Murphy - Demon Hunts

"That wasn't your decision to make!"

"No, sir, it wasn't, and I regret my error in judgment." Billy, stiffly, reached into his coat, withdrew his badge and gun, and offered them to Morrison.

Who stared at them, then at Billy and me, and then said, "Shit," more violently than I'd ever heard him speak before.

All three of us knew he had to take them. Involving civilians in police business, even surreal police business like the stuff Billy and I handled, was bad enough. Getting a civilian hospitalized, maybe killed, was at the very least a suspension offense, and would likely have both of us up on charges. I fumbled for my own badge and gun, because I couldn't let Billy take the fall for me even if he was technically right. I was still the one who'd gotten Mandy Tiller hurt.

Morrison saw what I was doing and made a very sharp, short gesture and pitched his voice bone-scrapingly low: "You have until the nine o'clock news to find a way to make this right. If I get called before then, if I have to make a statement, I'll do it with your badges in my hand. Do I make myself clear?"

My knees went weak and I nodded feebly. "At least Corvallis is at dinner with Ray right now, so she's probably not going to be breathing down our necks for a couple hours."

Despite his fury, Morrison got an expression very much like the one I'd had when Ray had announced his date for the evening. He eventually said, "Ray Campbell? " like the department might have sprouted another Ray recently that he didn't know about.

I nodded, and Billy whistled. "Takes all kinds, I guess." He put his badge and gun away very carefully, offering a quiet, "Thanks, Captain."

"Don't thank me. If we get away with this I'm stringing you both up by your toes. If we don't, I'm crucifying you."

I'd been skewered more times than I cared to think about, which gave me an uncomfortably visceral idea of what crucifixion might feel like. I looked over Morrison's shoulder, not wanting to read any truth in his eyes. The ambulance crawled out of the Tillers' driveway and stopped a few yards down the street, blocked by a black-haired man standing in its path. The driver leaned on the horn, then rolled down the window to shout at the man, who smiled apologetically and shrugged, but didn't move.

A tiny smile of my own was born somewhere around the fine muscles of my eyes, not even getting close to my mouth as it spilled golden happiness, rich and sweet as warm honey, all the way through me. It neutralized the worry bubbling in my belly and revitalized the tiny shred of hope I'd felt at seeing Mandy was alive. I thought my heart was likely to burst, and my chest filled with breathless giggles that I didn't dare let out. Even my hands felt wrong, but in a good way, as they alternated between thrums of thick aching heat and icy coldness with every pulse-beat. For the first time in six months, in a year, maybe for the first time in my whole life, the overwhelming confidence that everything was going to be all right filled me.

The ambulance driver swung his door open, angry words a wash of meaningless noise to my ears. The self-imposed obstruction raised his hands placatingly, then shot me a direct look, one eyebrow elevated in amusement. My itty-bitty smile crinkled my eyes enough to turn my vision all blurry with tears, and finally made it to my mouth. I couldn't breathe, not at all, but I felt so light I thought I might be able to fly.

"Walker, crucifixion isn't a threat that should make you smile." Morrison sounded justifiably annoyed, like I'd taken the wind out of his melodramatic sails. I wanted to promise that I had no doubt at all he meant he'd crucify us, professionally if not physically, but the little smile he was complaining about blossomed into this huge, foolish, jubilant thing that I laid on him like a blessing.

Then I was running just like an ingenue in a bad movie. Running across a snow-covered yard, vaulting the Tillers' low fence, and sliding across the slush-slick asphalt street to crash, joyfully, impossibly, wonderfully, into Coyote's arms.

Coyote caught me with a grunt that sounded like a laugh and squeezed hard enough to take my breath as he swung me around and around in a slushy circle. I squeaked and buried my nose in his neck, and he didn't let me hang on nearly long enough before he set me back, hands on my shoulders.

His smile was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, bright and gentle in a face that wasn't nearly as red-brick colored as he was in my dreams. Nor were his eyes golden, but the rest was as I remembered: straight nose, high cheekbones, hip-length black hair. He was a little shorter than me and smelled like the outdoors, and he wiped happy tears away from my cheeks. "We don't have a lot of time. How is she?"

I didn't care about the tears, didn't care that they tickled the creases around my mouth where my face was already getting tired from such a big smile, and somehow didn't care that I had a hundred thousand questions that were all going to have to wait. "She's all right physically. Banged up. But her aura, Coyote, it's gone. Like nobody's home."

He nodded, and though his joy didn't dissipate, the smile became something more serious. Something trustworthy and confident, something that I suddenly wished I could command myself. He took my hand and said, both apologetically and in a tone that brooked no nonsense, "We need to see your patient. Go ahead and drive us to the hospital, if you want, but I hope it won't be necessary," to the incensed ambulance driver.

We let ourselves in while the guy spluttered.

Both paramedics in the back gave guttural sounds of protest that faded into uncertainty when Coyote said, "It's all right. We're healers. Excuse us, please."

They both moved, and neither of them looked like they had the foggiest idea why. I didn't either, but I wished to hell I could do that. Jake Tiller, his face tear-stained, stared between us like we were aliens, and Coyote gripped the boy's shoulder a moment. "My name's Cyrano. This is my friend Joanne. You're…?"

"Jake," he whispered. The ambulance driver threw the back doors shut again as the kid spoke, and a few seconds later we were in motion. "Jake Tiller. This's my mom."

Coyote nodded solemnly. "I think Joanne and I can do something for your mom that the paramedics can't, Jake. Will you let us try?"

"Will it make her wake up?"

"I hope so."

The kid nodded. "Then okay."

One of the paramedics made another strangled noise, surging forward. "We can't let you—"

Trying to sound as calm and reassuring as Coyote, I said, "She's stabilized, right?" At the medic's reluctant nod, I offered a brief smile. "Then if we're right and we can help, you won't have anything to worry about. If we can't, well, this won't take more than a few minutes and we're already on the way to the hospital, so no time will be lost. Okay?"

"We could get sued—"

"You won't," Coyote said with serene confidence, then reached across Mandy's still form and said, "Have you done a soul retrieval yet? Besides me, I mean?"

"Besss—" I bit my tongue on the s and tried to claw shocked thoughts back under control. There would be time later. There had to be time later. "Billy, a few weeks ago. But I know him, Coyote. I know him really well."

"I'm here now. You'll be fine. We don't have a drum, Joanne, so I'm going to need you to—"

"I can do it." For once I felt as confident as I sounded. "Where are we going?"

"The Lower World."

I nodded, closed my eyes, and let the rattle of the ambulance over rough roads drop me into a world not my own.

Red skies and yellow earth, a flat sun and a world more two-dimensional than my own: that was the Lower World, in my rare experiences with it. I was certain there were other ways it could be viewed—roots of a mighty tree, burrows and hollows beneath the earth—but I saw it as one of the strange, not-quite-real worlds-that-had-come-before in terms of Native American mythology. It was beautiful and intimidating, and I knew almost nothing about navigating it safely. I said, "Raven?" into the empty air, hopefully.