C.E. Murphy - Demon Hunts

I snatched up a new box, feeling defensive as I investigated its contents. Ban mian, full of noodles and greens. I stuffed my chopsticks in and ate several bites before muttering, "It's all I've got, okay? It's where I do most of my work. I just usually put a blanket in the door so there's no draft."

"Whatever works." He gave me another one of his bright smiles and went on with his story. "Anyway, I spent the morning eating and sweating out the results of lying in bed for months, and in the afternoon I left to drive up here."

"You just took off? What about the rest of your family? Didn't they care?"

A wash of old, resigned pain sluiced across Coyote's features. "It's just me and my grandfather. My parents died a long time ago. I'll tell you about it, but it's not a happy story, and these should be happy times." He reached out like he'd catch my hand, but he was too far away, and dropped his hand before I could meet it with my own. "I was worried about you, so I came as fast as I could. Grandfather understood."

"I've been worried about you for months. I didn't even know where to go to try and find you. There's three hundred thousand people in the Navajo Nation." Guilt was spoiling the food I'd eaten. "I'm sorry."

"Hey." Coyote put his box of pork down and crawled over to me, loose hair sliding around his shoulders. Honestly, if just watching that didn't make me feel a little better, nothing would. Fortunately, it did. Then the way he hopped around one of the depleted grocery bags reminded me of his Coyote form, and I laughed before he got to me. He sat at my side, knocking his shoulder into mine. "That's better. Jo, it's okay. I didn't expect you to come looking for me. You had things to do here. And judging from what I saw today, you've been doing all right."

I shook my head. "I've been scrambling to just keep my ass covered, Coyote. I've felt like a walking disaster. I really wish I'd had your help."

"Well." He looked abruptly serious. "You will now. And I hate to say it, but this time you're going to need it."

I hated for him to say it, too. If a wendigo was a nasty enough piece of work that I, who had fumbled along facing gods and demons, was going to have trouble with it, then I really just wanted to hide under the bed until it was gone. On the other hand, that approach hadn't worked in the past, and if I had fumbled through before, having Coyote actually at my side now ought to be a major confidence booster.

Somehow it wasn't. "Why is it so bad? I've gone up against some pretty powerful things, Coyote…"

"Gods," he said quietly. "Sorcerers. But the wendigo used to be human, Jo. It's easier to stand against the immortal and corrupt than it is to face a ruined human soul. And we're mean, humans are. When you put us in a corner there's no telling what we'll do. Wendigos are like that, too."

I wished I hadn't asked. "Okay, so is this a 'Joanne would get dead if Coyote wasn't here' scenario? Because I

don't like those."

"No. No, nothing like that. I mean, maybe," Coyote said less than reassuringly. "But it's not what I meant. You can't wait for a wendigo to come to you. They take hunting, Jo. Not like a murder case, but real hunting."

"Like out in the woods with a rifle and an orange jacket hunting? I don't look so good in orange."

"More like out in the woods with a spear and—"

"Magic helmet?" I asked hopefully.

Coyote, exactly like his furry counter-self, whacked his shoulder against mine hard enough to hurt. "If you have

one, wear it."

I rubbed my shoulder, too glad to experience that again to sulk about the pain. "Did you come up here because you knew I had a wendigo on my hands?" "I thought you might be more willing to believe it was me if I showed up in the flesh. Besides, I haven't seen you in real life since you were about five. I wanted to see how your mental image stood up to the real thing."

My heart lurched with sudden nerves. "And?"

He leaned away so he could examine me, then smiled. "I haven't seen your astral self in half a year. There's no

comparison. You were a mess then. Angry spikes shooting out of a wraith trying to stay unseen. Now…"

I thought of the spiderwebbed windshield that reflected the state of my soul. "I'm still a mess."

"Nah." Coyote traced a fingertip down the scar on my right cheek. I startled, then startled myself even more by

closing my eyes and tipping my head into the touch. "You don't have this," he said. "I didn't know you had a

scar."

"Sure you did. It's the one that didn't want to heal that very first day, when Cernunnos stuck a sword through me."

"Oh, yeah." He dropped his hand and I opened my eyes again to see him shrug thoughtfully. "Guess I didn't

expect it to leave a real scar, since you don't have one in your image of yourself."

"Well, I did live twenty-six and a half years without one. And I don't really see it when I look in the mirror." I

took a deep breath. "We're procrastinating, aren't we?"

"Are we?" Coyote sounded amused. "On what?"

I took a breath to say on dealing with the wendigo, and instead ran up against the disconcerting idea that he was flirting with me. I'd never considered the possibility that he might find me attractive. I found him attractive, but

then, I figured anyone female, heterosexual and breathing probably would. For his hair, if nothing else, but it was only one of a number of what I considered to be very fine features.

Instead of answering, I blushed. Coyote's grin, of which I was becoming very fond, blossomed. He said, "Ah,"

in a very wise and sagely tone, "procrastinating on that, " and leaned in to kiss me. We left the Chinese food to be cleaned up in the morning.

Thursday, December 22, 4:07 A.M.

My room was lit up by the glowing numbers on my alarm clock and their reflection in the shining ceramic of the bedside lamp. Coyote was a comfortable, steadily breathing lump between me and the light. His hair, braided—we'd twisted it into loose plaits before falling asleep—was wound over his shoulder, where I couldn't roll on it, and the red light made thick shadows of his eyelashes. I didn't know why men so frequently got to have lashes like mascara companies advertised, although the idea that it was to keep dust out of their eyes while they hunted antelope on the savannah popped to mind. It didn't matter. In modern terms they were just attractive, and I stopped myself from brushing a fingertip over them. I didn't want to wake him up. I just wanted to lie there for a while, head propped on my hand, and smile stupidly while I watched him.

Some vaguely rational part of my brain said this was not like me. That Joanne Walker, Reluctant Shaman, did not fall into bed with a guy a few hours after meeting him. That Joanne Walker didn't succumb to stupid, giddy, exciting infatuation.

Truth was, Joanne Walker couldn't think of a single reason why she shouldn't. I could even build a nice rationalization if I wanted to, because I'd technically known Coyote half my life, what with the shaman's training he'd given me in the dream world when we were both teens.

For once in my life, I wasn't even vaguely interested in rationalizations. I was just happy. I was iridescent bubble, fluffy bunny, rainbow sky happy. I was happy Coyote was alive. I was happy we'd saved Mandy. I was happy he thought I was pretty. I was happy—bizarrely—that this was one guy who was neither unduly interested in nor threatened by nor uncomfortable with my aggravatingly esoteric set of talents. I could be me with Cyrano Bia, even if I hardly knew who that was.

And this was a possibility that Suzanne Quinley hadn't shown me. I liked that. I'd become resigned to feeling like there was some kind of destiny awaiting me, something I didn't have much control over, but was going to have to face. The simple fact that there were still surprises in store, that there were paths untaken, even unimagined, made me feel like maybe I had a little bit of choice after all. For the first time that I could remember, I was just plain happy to see where the road took me. It felt good.