C.E. Murphy - Demon Hunts

I didn't know why Coyote's disdain made me feel so bad. I just hadn't expected to be called out over a regionalism. He looked awfully big now, compared to me, and his furry eyebrows bunched together in the worried way that dogs had. He poked his head toward me, long tongue wrapping around my wrist, and although it should've been impossible for him to speak that way, he said, "I'm not a dog," very gently. "Sorry. I just never heard the phrase before. Mountain hollers."

"Doesn't matter." Still hunchy, I turned down the mountain, but Coyote tangled himself in my legs and wouldn't let me move.

"It does matter. This is supposed to be a spiritual journey, a peaceful one, not another tit for tat one-manupmanship. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make fun of you."

"Yeah, you did." I wasn't trying to be childish. I just figured if he was going to apologize it should be for the right things, or it didn't mean diddly-squat. He looked up at me for a moment and then his big pointy ears flopped over.

"Okay, you're right. I did. I shouldn't have. I'm sorry."

That sounded more sincere somehow, and I sat down to bash my head against his and hug him. "Okay."

"You've been doing a good job, Jo. I don't know if I said so. You've been doing all right without me."

"I've been a huge flailing mess without you." I got up again, feeling much better about the world, and we slipped and climbed our way down into the nearest holler, where I threw my head back and, well, hollered. "Halloo the reverberate hills!"

Echoes bounced back all around me, and Coyote, after throwing me a startled glance, tilted his sharp nose to the sky and howled. I joined him, shouting nonsense and howling myself, until we were both breathless and our ears rang with the shadows of our voices. Then, smiling and yet feeling strangely formal amidst all the noise, I oriented myself toward the north, where I bowed extravagantly. The other three directions got equal acknowledgment before I sat in the center of a power circle inscribed by echoes.

"All I've brought," I said to no one in particular, "is the song of our hearts. I'm sorry I haven't got any other gifts today, but liveliness and fun ought to count for something." It certainly did with my raven friend, who could be outright silly. I closed my eyes and, a little more solemnly, added, "I seek a second guide today, another spirit to protect me on the warrior's path. I'm grateful to anyone who considers me, and I'll do my best to honor one who might choose to walk with me. I'm pretty bad at that," I admitted, because it seemed like I ought to be honest, "but I'm getting a little better, and Raven means a lot to me even if I'm an ingrate."

I didn't dare open my eyes, for fear Coyote would be gaping at me. I wasn't exactly Ms. Formality, but my little speech was heartfelt, which was a long way from the bastion of refusal I'd been six or twelve months ago.

In the silence that followed I became aware of my drum, its rhythm steady enough that it seemed to define the boundaries of the world. The earth rattled softly with its thrum, mountains picking up the reverberations and rattling them through me. Even the air shimmered with the beat, dancing against my skin. Trees rustled in time with it, and I thought if I opened my eyes the sun itself would skip to the drum's sound.

Instead, though, I drew in closer to myself, concentrating on how my heart fell into time with the external beat. My blood pulsed with its time, red brightening and dimming in my eyelids, until slowly the dimmer aspect became black, and then so too did the bright. I could barely hear the drum anymore, could barely even hear my own heartbeat, assuming they weren't one and the same. Sparks danced against my eyelids, tiny colorless fireworks that were alien and familiar at the same time.

The drumbeat turned to hope in my chest, filling me until I had no sense of my body left. I floated, nothing more than a spark myself, and then the spirit animals came darting through the dark to investigate me.

Most came only once. A badger dug his way by, stopping to snuffle me and then move on. I thought I'd seen him before; he'd come to consider Gary as a companion. The fleet deer that leaped by me, though, had not, and I was unsurprised when its spirit-white form continued on. Solid stodgy badgers seemed a more likely fit for me than quick-hearted flighty deer.

Others came and went, spilling by in a river of possibility, and I became slowly aware of the one animal who returned again and again. It wound its way toward me as if it were the riverbed, long thin lines of white glowing and fading away. Once, twice, three times, and the fourth it stayed. I said, "You—well, one of your brethren, anyway—came the first time, too. In the false quest."

A rattlesnake folded himself up to strike, narrow head held motionless as he met my gaze. "There isss no sssuch thing assss a falssse quessst, ssshaman. There are only falssse prophetsss. We come becaussse your ssspirit isss true, and alwaysss wasss, even when you were led assstray." He dipped his head and I mimicked the gesture, profound thanks sending a chill over me.

"I mussst tessst you," he said. "Sssee if you are worthy. Thisss will hurt," he warned, and struck.

Hurt didn't begin to cover it. I'd taken a sword through the gut more than once, had been punctured through the hand—also more than once, now that I thought about it, and overall any lifestyle that involved being gutted and stabbed repeatedly really needed a good hard look taken at it—and I'd fought off an ancient serpent's poison while in the form of a thunderbird.

The rattler's bite managed to combine all of that into one excruciating wound. My hand, where his fangs had sunk into me, throbbed so hard I thought it would explode. Poison scored my veins, stripping them of blood. They shriveled inward, constricting my heart, and agonizing sickness threatened to split my belly open. I gasped for air and instead wheezed toxins, my throat burning raw.

I didn't know what the hell I was supposed to do to prove myself worthy. Playing the stoic seemed like the obvious answer, but with screams ripping my voice box to shreds, I was clearly not taking that road. A spasm seized me, flinging me down and arching my back until bone cracked, but when tears spilled along my cheeks they burned too, poisoned water. Stoic was right out.

That left me with two choices. I could heal myself, or I could die. I didn't think dying would prove anything, and I'd managed to survive poisonings before. It was a complex process involving separating blood from poison and pushing the venom out. Water in the gas line was how I thought of it, and it was time-consuming and uncomfortable.

I think I actually said, "Oh, fuck this shit," out loud instead of keeping it safely behind my teeth. Then again, my teeth were rotting and falling from my mouth thanks to the contamination swirling through me, so they weren't keeping much behind them anyway. I reached deep inside myself, past the belly-twisting bleak horror my life had become, and seized hold of the healing magic that was part and parcel of who I was now.

Nobody'd ever mentioned if shamans had any real use for spell working, for a focus of magic through words. Then again, nobody had mentioned a lot of things, and I'd found words to be handy a time or two. I set my raw bleeding gums together, snarled, "Physician, heal thyself!" and commanded my magic go.

It erupted through me, silver-blue light brilliant against the darkness. Poison splashed out of me and sizzled into nothing. Pain faded instantly, my bones whole again, my body no longer wracked with pain. Something glittered in my vision, a glimpse of fractured, spiderwebbed glass. Bits of the web were sealing up, coming closer to the center. Then the image faded, replaced by a growing sense of astonishment.