Wintermoon

he was amazed when Clirando told him what it was.

He did not ask if she would ever seek for Araitha in the future. Nor did Clirando ask herself. The gods who had, it seemed, allowed all this, might one day advise her by some sign.

Four giggling novice priestesses, coming to feed the fish, dislodged the couple in the court.

So then they walked to her house down the winding streets.

Eshti showed great approval at the houseguest.

“We shall have the best candles,” she told them, “and the glass goblets from the chest.”

“Eshti decides these things,” said Clirando.

“So I see. That’s good. It will leave you more time to concentrate on me.”

“But when must you sail?”

“When I want. I’m my own man.”

She thought, He’ll ride his ship across those treacherous seas, those waters of gales and drowning. She thought, We are both fighters. Neither can curb the other’s life. The gods brought us together. Perhaps they will keep us together, now.

The spring dusk came early. Up in the yard trees, the house doves were already arranging their nests. Which signified it would be a forward spring and summer. When the candles were lit, the polished glasses filled, she sat with him and they ate supper as if they had done so for twenty years. Tonight they would share the bed in her chamber. Where she had watched, sleepless, the unsleeping moon, now she would see him, and herself reflected in his gaze. Now she would see a future.

The sea wind tapped at the shutters, and the lamps before the household shrines dimmed and brightened. All the jewel-eyed gods there winked at Clirando and Zemetrios.

A trick of the light?

Banshee Cries

C.E. Murphy

This one’s for my mom, Rosie Murphy, who wanted to know what the story with Jo’s mom was

Dear Reader,

In September of 2004 I got an e-mail from my agent, the incomparable Jennifer Jackson, saying she’d just spoken with my equally incomparable editor, Mary-Theresa Hussey, who wanted to know if I’d be interested in participating in a LUNA Books anthology as one of three contributing authors. The other two authors were to be (need I say the incomparable?) Tanith Lee and Mercedes Lackey.

Not being a great fool, I said yes.

A month of frenzied thought was interspersed with me singing, “One of these things is not like the others,” followed by a flurry of frenzied writing. The result is “Banshee Cries,” Book 1.5 of the Walker Papers. It fits chronologically between book one, Urban Shaman, which came out in June 2005, and book two, Thunderbird Falls, due out in May 2006.

I hope you enjoy the story!

1

Sunday March 20th, 2:55 p.m.

Cell phones are the most detestable objects on the face of the earth. Worse than those ocean-variety pill bugs that grow bigger than your head, which were on my personal top ten list of Things To Avoid.

My life had been a lovely, cell-free zone until nine weeks, six days, and four hours ago. Not that I was counting. On that fateful day I got an official business phone to go with my bulletproof vest and billy stick. I’d even been given a gun to go with my shiny new badge.

I wanted those things about as much as I’d wanted to bonk my head on the engine block I’d sat up beneath when the phone rang. I rubbed my forehead and glared at the engine, then felt horribly guilty. It wasn’t Petite’s fault I’d hurt myself, and she’d been through enough lately that she didn’t need me scowling on top of it all.

The phone kept ringing. I rolled out from under the Mustang and crawled to her open door, digging the phone out from under the driver’s seat. “What?”

Only one person outside of work had the phone number. As soon as I spoke I realized that a politer pickup might have been kosher. The resounding silence from the other end of the line confirmed my suspicion. Eventually a male voice said, “Walker?”

I turned around to hook my arm over the bottom of the car’s door frame and did my best to stifle a groan. “Captain.”

“I need you—”

These were words that another woman might be pleased to hear from Captain Michael Morrison of the Seattle Police Department. Then again, if he was saying them to another woman, there probably wouldn’t have been the slight tension in his voice that suggested his mouth was pressed into a thin line and his nostrils flared with irritation at having the conversation. He had a good voice, nice and low. I imagined it could carry reassuring softness, the kind that would calm a scared kid. Unfortunately, the only softness I ever heard in it was the kind that said, This is the calm before the storm, which happened to be how he sounded right now. I crushed my eyes closed, face wrinkling up, and prodded the bump on my forehead.

“—to come in to work.”

“It’s my weekend, Morrison.” As if this would make any difference. I could hear his ears turning red.

“I wouldn’t be calling you in—”

“Yeah.” I bit the word off and wrapped my hand around the bottom of Petite’s frame. “What’s going on?”

Silence. “I’d rather not tell you.”

“Jesus, Morrison.” I straightened up, feeling the blood return to the line across my back where I’d been leaning on the car. “Is anybody dead? Is Billy okay?”

“Holliday’s fine. Can you get over to Woodland Park?”

“Yeah, I—” I tilted my head back, looking at the Mustang’s roof. Truth was, I’d been futzing around under the engine block because I couldn’t stand to look at the damage done to my baby’s roof anymore. A twenty-nine-inch gash, not that I’d measured or anything, ran from the windshield’s top edge almost all the way to the back window. From my vantage, thin stuffing and fabric on the inside ceiling shredded and dangled like a teddy bear who’d seen better days. Beyond that, soldered edges of steel, not yet sanded down, looked like somebody’d dragged an ax through it.

Which was precisely what had happened.

A little knot of agony tied itself around my heart and squeezed, just like it did every time I looked at my poor car. The war wounds were almost three months old and killing me, but the insurance company was dragging its feet. Full coverage did cover acts of God—or in my case, acts of gods—but I’d only said she’d been hit by vandals, because who would believe the truth? In the meantime, I’d already spent my meager savings replacing the gas tank that somebody’d shot an arrow through.