C.E. Murphy - Demon Hunts

"Yeah, I know. Still, you got it off me." I lay there awhile longer, replaying the last several minutes in my mind, and coming up repeatedly against Coyote's expression of distaste and terror as he struggled with the wendigo. In time, I repeated, "So. This fighting thing. You're not actually very good at it."

"No." Coyote sounded like he'd like to say a lot more, and yet like he knew absolutely none of it was of any use.

I nodded. Snow creaked under my head. "Interesting."

"It's not—"

"No," I said, "really. It's interesting. I'm not mad." I considered that, then decided it was true. "You're a teacher. You're a healer. A guide. Right after this all started I was told I was on a warrior's path. I'm guessing nobody ever said that to you."

He said, "No," again, and then, "People usually don't, to shamans. It's sort of anathema to the purpose."

"Yeah, no, I get that. It's cool. It's okay." I stared at the sky for another little while, making a half-hearted effort to formulate a plan, or an opinion about me being a fighter when my mentor wasn't, or in fact to do anything besides lie there in the snow. I was pretty content with lying there, really, except, "My butt is freezing."

Coyote let out a sharp, barklike laugh. "Mine, too."

I sat up, hunching my shoulders against snow falling down my spine. "I vote we regroup back at the hotel with hot soup and carbs and a boiling-temperature bath."

"Yeah." Coyote sat up, too. "All except those last three things. We've got some work to do first."

I whimpered, and we got up and went back to the hotel.

Gary was sitting by the fireplace in the hotel lobby with an enormous cup of tea in his hands and the twenty-five-year-old FBI agent perched on his knee. He spilled both in his haste to get up when we came in, but instead of looking abashed he gave me a broad wink and a wicked smile. I had to look away to keep from giggling, and when he got close enough I whispered, "You Lothario, you."

"Keeps me young, darlin'. Keeps me young. What happened after I left?" He waved goodbye to his FBI agent as we headed for the room, filling in details as we went. "You left 'em up there with no protection?"

I spread my hands, defenseless and helpless alike. "I think it's gone for now, and there are other things we need to do. You were the only one who even laid a hand on it out there, much less—" We got to the room and I stopped to gaze up at the old cabbie while Coyote unlocked the door. "I don't think I said it before, Gary. You were fantastic out there. You were amazing."

Red curdled along his cheeks and he all but dug a toe into the floor. "Wasn't me, mostly. It was that tortoise you found for me, Jo. I never felt him like that before. The way I figure it, you did all the heavy lifting. I was just the vehicle."

"No." We stepped into the room and I turned to give him a hard hug. "That was you, Gary. It was all you. You kicked ass, took names, and saved a lot of lives."

"You can thank your protector during our spirit journey," Coyote said. "He'll hear you. Jo, when was the last time you slept?"

I gave him a look. Gary peered between us all bright-eyed and curious. Coyote had the grace to blush, which warmed his already-warm skin tones attractively. "Right. It'd be better if we hadn't—"

I gave him another look, this one explaining how he was going to die unpleasantly if he came anywhere near suggesting the phrase this was a mistake. "If we hadn't slept, " he said firmly. Gary brightened up even more, his low-brow suspicions apparently confirmed. I averted my eyes so I wouldn't revert to grinning like an idiot, and grinned like an idiot anyway. Coyote, in his best superior teacher tone, said, "You should know by now that spirit journeys are easier when you're sleep deprived."

"Oh." Heh. I did know that. My stupid grin fell away in embarrassment, and I stared at nothing for a moment. "We could get high instead."

There was a little silence while we sat there, none of us quite believing I'd said that. First, as far as I knew, we had nothing to get high on except the overpriced alcohol in the hotel bar. Second, and far more importantly—

"That'd go over great with the random drug tests at work," Gary said. "You lost your mind, Jo?"

"I'm beginning to think so, yes."

"We did bring your drum," Coyote said tartly. "Unless that's not recreational enough for you."

"Oh, bite me. I don't know why I said that. It just popped out." I was a stick in the mud when it came to drug use, and had been long before I became a cop. I just flat-out didn't get why anybody would risk the high when there was always the very real possibility that the low would include sudden and permanent death. That, obscurely, reminded me that I couldn't remember the last time I'd snitched a cigarette, which somehow made me feel like I had the moral high ground. Satisfied, I got up to unwrap my drum and hand it over to Gary.

Coyote intercepted me halfway, his palms turned up and his expression unexpectedly shy. "May I? I've never seen it, and I remember how excited you were when you got it."

I almost tripped over my own feet fighting off the urge to cling to the instrument. It had been in my bedroom the night before, but we hadn't exactly stopped to admire it. I'd never imagined it might be an object of interest to my mentor, and I wasn't in the habit of letting people besides Gary handle it. Morrison had, a couple of times, and the first time he'd picked it up I'd felt it from across the room. I thought I would have felt it from across the world. Given that history, handing it to Coyote was a lesson in anticipation.

Magic spilled through me as he took it. Not like what I'd felt with Morrison: that had been warmth bordering on sensuality. With Coyote it was the heat and clarity of the desert, like the colors of his aura were pouring into me in short, intense bursts. Hairs stood up on my arms and his gaze, gone gold, jerked to mine. The wendigo—in fact, the entire world—faded from relevance, and I took a half step toward him.

Gary, very politely, cleared his throat. I jumped backward, cheeks flaming with teen-level angsty guilt. Coyote flinched, stared at Gary like he'd appeared from the ether, then hastily transferred his attention back to me. "What—?"

"The drum, it has, I guess it has—" Opinions. I couldn't quite bring myself to say that, and instead started whistling the Matchmaker song from Fiddler on the Roof. Coyote's eyebrows went up and I stopped whistling to rub my face. I wondered if Morrison had felt anything when he'd picked up my drum. I wondered what would have happened if I'd let Thor handle it. I wondered if I really wanted to know in either case. "Look, just nevermind, okay? Can we just get on with it?"

Coyote's eyebrows remained elevated, which left me to imagine all sorts of things we might get on with, none of which were hunting down a wendigo. Gary, who had as dirty a mind as I did, gave an indiscreet snort that probably masked a much less discreet guffaw. I cast an exasperated glance skyward, then put my hand out for the drum. "Come on, Ro."

He put his eyebrows back down where they belonged and otherwise ignored me, concern creasing lines into his forehead as he examined the drumhead. "What happened?"

"The wolf—the—" I gave up and sat on the end of Gary's bed. "I always thought it was a wolf there. A wolf and a rattlesnake under the raven's wings." They were painted beautifully, raven wings following the drumhead's curves, and the colors were gorgeous, as bright as they'd been the day I received the drum. But the wolf was smeared, like it had gotten wet and was fading away. "But it started changing after you—died—and so I've been wondering for months if maybe it was a coyote, not a wolf at all. I don't know what it means, especially since you're not dead."