world’s largest bladder, or what?”
“Lotsa practice drinking beer,” Gary said sagely. I grinned and poured him another cup of coffee. “So Marie’s murder and the school kids don’t fit, and you’re out of coffee. Now what?”
“I don’t usually have to make it for more than one person.” I frowned at the sludge in the cup. I was getting a lot of practice frowning lately. “I think now I go to the school.”
“School’s gonna be empty. They’re not gonna keep the kids there after what happened.”
“I know. I probably should have thought of it this morning. But Adina said the guy who was doing this would have a sense of power about him. Maybe I can get a scent of it.”
“You’re a bloodhound now?”
“I’m playing by ear, Gary. Besides!” For once I felt certain of something. “I bet I can tell if it’s Cernunnos, if I go over there. I know what he feels like.” That much I was sure of. I didn’t think anybody could forget what the horned god’s raw power felt like once they’d met it head-on.
“You didn’t get that off Marie.”
“I didn’t know I should even be trying. Now I do. If I can get even an idea about what’s going on, I shouldn’t pass it up, right?” I drank some of the coffee, shuddered, and added more milk.
“Guess not. Who’s Adina?”
“One of the dead ladies I talked to last night.” I stared at Gary over the edge of my cup, just daring him to comment. He shut his jaw with an audible click. I grinned into the coffee cup and went to get my shoes.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Wednesday, January 5th, 3:35 p.m.
When I was about nine, my father told me that forgiveness was easier to obtain than permission. I wondered, even at the time, about the wisdom of telling a kid that. In retrospect, it was smart: I tested the premise occasionally, discovered he was right and probably got in less trouble than I would have otherwise. The end result, seventeen years later, was me walking into Blanchet High School like I belonged there. Forget permission. Just act like you belong. I felt very smooth.
Until it turned out it didn’t matter. One hall, cordoned off with yellow police tape, was still packed with reporters, paramedics, cops and traumatized teachers. No one was paying attention to anything else. I watched the throng for a few minutes, then turned down another hall and began pacing through the school, looking for nothing in particular.
I hadn’t been inside a high school since I’d graduated ten years earlier. Blanchet High had a lot more money than the school I’d gone to did. The wide halls were carpeted, and walls above tan lockers gleamed white, like they’d been repainted over Christmas break. Florescent lights hummed, altering the color of posters cajoling students to turn out for the weekend’s basketball and wrestling tournaments. Water fountains seemed to be about two inches lower than I remembered them being. Either I’d grown since high school, or Blanchet was full of short kids.
I pushed open a heavy door of solid wood with no window in it, and stepped inside a small theater. It was dark except for one white light in the sound booth, and smelled a little of makeup and sweat. I let the door close behind me and walked in quietly, taking the steps down to the stage in near-darkness.
“Long cold note on a tenor saxophone,” a girl’s voice said very clearly. I stopped where I was, halfway to the stage. She came out on it, nothing more than a pale shadow in the darkness. She had terribly blond hair, long and thin and straight, just like she was. She wore a pale sweatshirt that added bulk to her narrow form, and her legs faded into darkness, not even a shadow. Dim tennies were on her feet.
“Life’s brief candle, a moment in the dark / laid down beneath the blade of sound.” She knotted her arms around her ribs, like she was holding herself in. Her voice was as thin as she was, a clear soprano that rose and fell as she delivered the poem. When she quavered in speaking, she didn’t try bullying through it, just let her voice shake, words falling to a whisper.
“Let me fold a thousand paper cranes / longing for a wish that cannot be.” Hairs stood up on my arms, and I shivered. I had no right to listen to the girl’s private grief, but I was afraid to move and warn her I was there. “Loss is pure in its first hour, jaded by time.” She sank down onto the stage, wrapping her arms around her legs and burying her face in her knees. Blond hair fell over her arms as a choked sob broke the silence.
I turned and left the theater as quietly as I could.
Out in the hall, under the florescent lights again, the air was thick, like I was breathing in sadness. I leaned against a wall and kept my eyes closed until the tears stopped leaking and my heartbeat slowed down a little. I could feel something inside me, a knot of appalling rage, fueled by the girl’s sorrow and the rough poem. It lit up all my own scars, all the cracks in my windshield, and threw them into sharp relief until they throbbed with the need to be answered. I slid down the wall, lowering my head and lacing my hands behind my neck. I felt like a beacon, flared up with terrible, unfocused fury that burned through the walls of everything else. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been so angry, horror mixed with sorrow and disbelief, and the rage pulling in every other emotion after it, drowning them.
This has to be stopped. The thought, unnervingly clear through the anger, made me lift my head, staring sightlessly across the hall. This has to be stopped, and, I can stop it. I grasped the idea with sudden understanding, much deeper than the promise I’d given the priest. For one instant it was painfully obvious. Anger was a tool, and there was a choice in how to use it.
The Gordian knot of rage inside began unraveling, bright orange and yellow lengths of rope springing out to run through me instead of tying me up. Around the rage wound pale blue, thick ropy strands of compassion, feeding off fury. It all happened inside of an instant, and then I could breathe again. The unlocked center of me gobbled it up, storing all the burning energy for later use.
I could still feel the anger pulsing through me, self-righteous and forthright fury that someone could do what had been done. Compassion tempered it, though, delivering me the one step of distance that changed what I needed to do from vengeance to healing. Whomever had done this, whether it was Cernunnos or someone else, was terribly sick, and sickness could be healed.
“Joanie?” Billy’s voice interrupted me, deep and worried. I startled and looked up. He was crouched right in front of me, big hands dangling over his knees, eyebrows beetled down in concern. “You all right? I said your name about three times.”
“Sure.” I blinked at him, then shook my head and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine, thanks.”
“What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing down here? The party’s at the other end.” If I hoped it would sidetrack him, I was wrong.
“Taking a look around. It’s my job.” Subtle empha sis on the last word. I closed my eyes. “It’s not,” he pointed out, “your job. You,” he added helpfully, “are suspended.”
“Thanks for the reminder, Billy. I heard it all yesterday.” Had it been yesterday? They said hitting the ground running was the best way to deal with jet lag. I bet They’d never had two days like I’d had.
“That was this morning.” He stood up, offering me a hand.
“I was afraid of that.” I took his hand and stood up.
“Haven’t caught up on sleep yet, huh?”
I smiled thinly. “There hasn’t really been time.”
He nodded. “What’re you doing down here?”
Damn. I hadn’t distracted him enough. “Sniffing around.”
“For what?”
I shrugged stiffly. “Some sense of who’s doing this. Trying to see if it’s Cernunnos. Trying to get a feeling for his…” I swallowed, uncomfortable with what I was saying. “His power. His…whatever’s driving him.”
Billy folded his arms across his chest and frowned at me. “You think you can do that?” He sounded skeptical. I couldn’t blame him.
“Figured I could try. I’ve got to start somewhere.”
