C.E. Murphy - Demon Hunts

For a bird, he looked remarkably self-satisfied. I chuckled and rubbed his jaw harder, and he leaned into it, making little raveny sounds of contentment. I felt my own shoulders relax and only just then realized how tired I was. 2:30 A.M. wakeup calls were not my friend. I exhaled a long breath, and half-consciously watched it bead on the air like frost.

It wafted over my raven, making him sparkle briefly, and when it passed, he looked like a normal raven, gleaming black with bright eyes. He hopped into my lap and we both watched the remnants of my breath extend over the lines of Melinda's power circle. Shadows made of light shifted in the paint, then drifted up, reaching for the matching circle above me. When they touched, brilliance flared, then faded again, leaving me feeling rather safe and warm and cozy in a wreath of active power.

"Ah," I said a bit distantly. "Reached one of those altered states of being, have I? This is nicer than being hit on the head." There were dozens of ways to reach power and other worlds: sleep deprivation, drugs, unconsciousness, drumming and simple practice were among them, and so far the only one I hadn't tried was drugs. Drinking myself into oblivion and waking up with a god-infested mortal didn't count. I tipped my head to peer at my raven. "Can you talk now?"

He said, "Nevermore," then looked incredibly annoyed.

I couldn't help it: I laughed, then more carefully rubbed the top of his feathery head. "Sorry. My subconscious probably made you say that, if it's possible. What's going on?"

He made a popping sound, his own breath steaming, and all around me Melinda's sanctuary fell away.

Desolate snow and ice rose up in its place. A howling came with it, so high and sweet and sad it took a long time to understand it was the wind shrieking over frozen wastelands. Once I understood, I felt it, cutting through my sweater and into my bones, making them as cold as the spaces between stars. The Bigfoot print I'd seen under the snow had felt that way when I'd touched it, so icy it was almost beyond words.

A figure appeared in the blowing wind and snow, gray in the brightness. It walked erratically, pushed by the elements, and stumbled often, as if it had very little strength to carry on. I jumped to my feet and saw a blur of wings, the raven a singular midnight-colored spot in all the white. He latched on to my shoulder, digging in with powerful talons, but the pain was a comfortable thing compared to the cold bisecting me.

A second figure, then a third, joined the first. Other shadows made silver spots in the snowstorm, too indistinct for me to be certain they weren't mere mirages. They all moved in different directions, though if I was close enough to see all of them, they had to be able to see each other. I waved a hand, shouting, and heard my own voice swallowed up by the wind. Anger burgeoned in me and I braced myself, drawing a deep breath and shouting from my diaphragm.

One of the figures hesitated, then turned a shadowy face toward me. I yelled in relief, waving madly, and it stopped where it was, then looked around as I bellowed, "Over here! Come on, over here!"

Instead, it swung around, suddenly purposeful, and strode away through the storm. I let out another yell, this time of frustration, and flung myself after it. Snow reached up and grabbed my thighs, my hips, and then gobbled me whole, ice and snow collapsing over my head.

I screamed, clawing for the surface, and the raven tightened his claws in my shoulder again. Inside a breath I was on top of the snow again, bullied by the wind and floundering with exhaustion. My compatriots were gone, leaving me alone on the ice field with only a raven as company. I ran a few feet, then fell to my knees, panting for air that was too wild to run smoothly into my lungs. "Where are we? Who are they?"

Quoth the raven, Nevermore, and this time he didn't sound irritated by it. I craned my neck, trying to see the bird on my shoulder clearly. "They're dead? This isn't the Dead Zone. And I can't see ghosts."

As soon as I said it I knew I was wrong. I could see ghosts, when the raven was on my shoulder. I thought it was something to do with a raven's transitory state between life and death, with its history as a beast found feasting after battles and its mythology of riding the shoulders of those who ushered the living into another world. "They're ghosts?"

Ravens didn't have lips to curl, but he did a fine job of curling his lip anyway, thereby relegating me to my usual position of being a day late and a dollar short in terms of esoteric knowledge. "If they're not ghosts and this isn't the Dead Zone—" Which it wasn't; that much, at least, I was sure of. What I referred to as the Dead Zone was a bleak nothingness about half a meter smaller than eternity. This frozen landscape had bleak written all over it, but it also had the personality of a storm. The Dead Zone had no such thing. "—then where are we?"

The raven dumped me unceremoniously back into Melinda's power circle.

I had not been lying on my back when I went under. I was now, and out of the corner of my eye I could see Melinda in the doorway, Caroline in her arms and a curious expression on both faces. With Caroline, it probably meant gas. With Mel, it probably meant she was trying really hard not to ask why I was flat on my back in the middle of her sanctuary. "Do you have any spirit animals, Mel?"

She, after a moment's hesitation, said, "Yes…."

I fluttered a hand in reassurance. "Don't worry, I'm not rude enough to ask what they are. Just, do they ever effectively coldcock you and leave you sprawled on the floor?"

The corner of her mouth quirked. "I'm afraid not."

"I didn't think so. I don't get no respect." The raven was no longer visible, though I could feel his weight on my chest, like he was staring at me. Waiting for me to get my act together, presumably. "I think I jump-started your power circle. Sorry."

"It's okay. You shouldn't have been able to, but it's okay."

"Really?" I pushed up on my elbows. Light still glimmered around the edges of the circle, stronger than the residuals Melinda'd left for me to study. I suddenly got the idea she was outside it because she wasn't allowed in, which wasn't good on two levels. One, it was her circle, so it seemed like she should be able to breeze right through anything I did. Two, and possibly more important, I didn't know how to take it down. It felt nothing like the healing power I'd become reasonably competent at drawing on; that came from within, and the circle's power seemed to be outside of me. Its strength had come from somewhere else. The raven, maybe. I squinted the Sight on to give him a hard look, but the little bastard disappeared and left me to deal with my own problems. "Really on both counts? It's really okay, and I shouldn't have been able to?"

"Really on both counts. If I didn't like you, it wouldn't be okay at all, but if I didn't like you, I think you probably wouldn't have been able to. I hope." Melinda frowned, giving me the uncomfortable sensation that I was out of her league, magically speaking. I mean, I knew I was, according to what she and Billy kept telling me, but knowing it and feeling it were two different things.

"We'll go with me not being able to. I'm not even sure I opened this one. Did you see a, um, bird on my chest?" I didn't want to define my spirit guide as a raven any more than Mel wanted to confess to her own totem animals. It was irrational, but I felt strongly about it, and Mel didn't look surprised as she shook her head.

I whooshed air out and put my head on my knees for a moment. Memory crept over me and I peeked up again, the Sight in place once more.

Breath only showed up in cold air, and Melinda's sanctuary was nice and warm. But I still saw the particles of my exhalation dance across the power lines, shaking down the magic that had grown up. I stared at it, flabbergasted. The only other time I'd opened a power circle, it'd been with a blood sacrifice—not, in the grand scheme of things, the best way to go. It struck me that the breath in my lungs was just as important a component of what kept me alive, and, as far as offerings went, seemed pretty profound. "I think you've got to teach me how to deliberately awaken a power circle, Mel." Before I did something critically stupid and woke up dead from attempting it someday. My raven guide probably wouldn't have let that happen just now, but I didn't like to think what could've happened if I hadn't already entreated him.