C.E. Murphy - Thunderbird Falls

I wasn’t sure I was happy with that. It seemed harsh enough that the people I knew well were being made to accept magic into their daily lives, whether they wanted it or not. Now the things I’d done were becoming a real part of the world as total strangers knew it. I already knew there was no going back, but I honestly hadn’t thought I might push a whole city toward believing the monsters under the bed were real. I unfocused my eyes, feeling so disconnected that it was easy to let second sight slide over my normal, fuzzy vision.

The wrongness in the air was gone, the dark twist of power that had lain over Seattle for months dissipated. It felt and looked healthier, the murky colors washed clean again. I knew I hadn’t fixed that on my own. The thunderbird had cleared the air, and if I’d had any part in it, it was in being the Wakinyan’s conduit. I wasn’t about to take credit for it. I kept the double vision on all the way to the hospital, feeling like it might be at least a step toward using my gifts more reliably.

I was sitting on the edge of a hospital bed, my feet dangling toward the floor, when Morrison said, “Walker,” from the doorway. My fingers clenched on the mattress as I looked up.

“Captain. Didn’t think I’d see you.” The desert-inspired suntan was still with me, but it didn’t hide the whiteness of my knuckles as I squeezed the mattress.

“Thought you wouldn’t, or hoped you wouldn’t?” He came into the room and pulled a stool up to lean against, arms folded across his chest. I shook my head.

“Thought I was going to come see you after they let me out of here.”

“They going to do that?”

I shrugged one shoulder, watching his shoes. They were black polished leather, and considerably safer to look at than his eyes. “Nothing wrong with me that some sleep won’t cure.” Nothing physically, anyway. I swallowed and made myself look up. Morrison was frowning at me. At least some things never changed. “Captain, I—”

“Every single one of your buddies,” Morrison interrupted, loudly, “says that in the middle of a solstice party last night, Faye Kirkland flipped out, confessed to murdering Cassandra Tucker, and in a fit of regret killed herself. Everyone,” he repeated, “told me the same story. Including Melinda Holliday. They also said that Colin Johannsen, who was dying of cancer, left the hospital for a few hours and opted to drown himself in Lake Washington rather than return for further treatments.”

I stared at him. Morrison stared back, gimlet gaze. “Is that what happened, Officer Walker?”

The incredible thing was that it was the only possible real-world spin that could be put on what had really happened. I wet my lips and kept staring at him for what felt like a very long time, before straightening my spine and saying, “No, sir.”

There was not a single hint of surprise in Morrison’s blue eyes. “Would anyone with two rational brain cells to rub together believe what really did happen?”

I closed my eyes and lifted my eyebrows a little. “No, sir.”

Morrison inhaled such a long deep breath that I opened my eyes again, half-expecting to see that he’d expanded like a puffer fish. He hadn’t. He let the breath out with equal deliberation, glowering at me. “Is their explanation a reasonable facsimile of what did happen?”

“Yes, sir.” My voice was so soft even I could barely hear it. “Faye did kill herself. I couldn’t stop her. I tried, but…” I looked down at my hands, thinking of the passion that had driven Faye to refuse the healing I’d offered. “And Colin did choose to not go back to the hospital.” It was absolutely true. It was absolutely deceptive.

“I hate this, Walker.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” I looked up again. “Am I…” I didn’t know how you busted a foot patrol cop back to anything. Maybe it meant desk duty. I didn’t want to put the idea in Morrison’s head. “…busted back to being a mechanic?”

“That what you want?”

Christ. Moment of truth. I wet my lips again and shook my head. “No, sir.” I couldn’t believe I’d just said that out loud to Morrison.

A very faint glint of satisfaction came into Morrison’s eyes and he exhaled again, noisily. “Then you’re still stuck with foot patrol.” He pushed off the stool, looming over me. “There’s somebody here who wanted to see you when I was done with you. I expect you at work tomorrow, Walker.” He stalked out, the door slowly closing behind him.

I tightened all the muscles in my stomach, internal support to help me face the person I expected to walk through the door next. But it wasn’t Gary at all. It was a tall, pretty woman I didn’t recognize, holding the hand of a six-year-old girl whose eyes were big with interest. “Ashley heard on the radio this morning that Officer Joanne Walker had been brought to the hospital,” the woman said. “She wanted to come by and make sure you were all right.”

I blinked at them both without comprehension, until recognition smacked me so hard that I bounced off the bed. “Oh! Oh! It’s Allison, right? Allison and Ashley Hampton. I didn’t recognize you awake, Ashley.” I grinned and knelt down, putting myself on a level with the little girl. “Thanks for coming to check on me. How’re you feeling?”

The girl’s grin exploded with pure happiness and she stepped forward to give me a hug. “I’m glad you’re okay! I was worried.” She was strong and warm and smelled like clean kid, the heat-induced clamminess long since banished. “Mommy said you made me better!”

Ms. Hampton chuckled. “I’ve told her how you called the ambulance about fifty times in the last few days. She thinks you’re a superhero.” There was almost an apology in the woman’s wry voice. “She insisted we come visit.”

“I’m glad you did,” I said, muffled against Ashley’s shoulder. “It means a lot.” It was one little reminder of something I hadn’t screwed up, and right now I needed it more than I liked to admit. I set Ashley back a few inches so I could grin at her again, hoping the smile wasn’t too watery. “I feel a lot better now that you’ve come to visit me,” I told her, with complete sincerity. “Thank you.”

She wriggled. “You’re welcome. I’m gonna be a policeman when I grow up, too.”

“Yeah?” I was going to get all sniffly any second here. I grinned wider, trying not to leak tears. “Maybe, if it’s okay with your Mom, I can show you some of the police station sometime. You can be just like a real grown-up officer. How’d that be?”

Ashley’s eyes widened and she spun around on her heel to look up at Allison Hampton. “Please, Mommy?”

Allison laughed. “We’ll talk about it, baby. But now we have to leave Officer Walker alone. Mommy has to get to work.”

“Aww.” The kid said it, but I felt it too. But then Ashley turned around and hugged me again, and said, sternly, “You better take care of yourself, Ossifer—Officer Walker.”

I grinned as brightly as I could. “I will, Ashley. Thanks.”

Going to see Gary was a little easier after Ashley’s visit. I climbed the stairs so it’d take longer, stopping to look out windows at the damage done to Seattle’s streets by rampaging mythical wildlife over the last twenty-four hours. Everything was in soft focus because my contacts had washed out. It wasn’t enough to hide the mess, but it took some of the edge off.

Gary was charming a nurse half his age into letting him walk out the hospital doors under his own power when I showed up in his room. The woman look flustered and blushed when I knocked on the door, and made him sit in the wheelchair whether he liked it or not. “Hospital policy,” she said firmly, and I grinned as she beat a hasty retreat.