Raven Calls

Chapter Eighteen

I burst out laughing. I just couldn’t help it. I’d had enough. More than enough, and the flames dancing merrily over the chapel roof were the final straw. Although setting things on fire with my mind was not in my skill set, I was surprisingly confident of being able to douse them, and extended shields over the chapel. If I could keep scythes and avalanches and psychic attacks out with my shields, I saw no reason why I couldn’t keep oxygen out, too, and within moments the fire sputtered out under the increasing pressure of silver-blue magic. There wasn’t even any damage to the roof, possibly thanks to my hastiness, but more, I thought, thanks to the magical nature of the flames. They had been set with the power of the mind. Probably that kind of fire didn’t really need fuel at all, but it did need concentration, and Caitríona’s was gone all to hell and back.

When I turned away from the chapel, Méabh was staring accusingly at Caitríona, who was in turn staring at me accusingly. “Oh, no,” I said. “That was you, sister, not me.”

“What?”

“But she hasn’t the power!”

My eyebrows shot up. “Maybe she hadn’t the power, but I’d say she’s got it now. Áine kissed her, remember?”

“It doesn’t work that way!”

My eyebrows remained elevated. They felt like they might never come down, in fact. “Doesn’t it? Because as far as I knew, I didn’t have the power, either, not until Cernunnos skewered me. I’m kinda thinking close encounters with the deitific kind trigger all sorts of interesting responses in—” and I dropped my voice dramatically “—the granddaughters of Méabh.”

Méabh looked like she would set my head on fire if it was within the power of her mind to do so. “There are rituals, Granddaughter. There are slow awakenings. There are—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Sweat lodges and spirit danc—”

I was vaguely aware Caitríona had been saying, “Sorry, what?” and “Sorry?” and “Excuse me,” in increasingly voluble tones, but she broke into my litany with a roared, “What do you mean, that was me?” that stopped Méabh and me from snapping at one another’s heels I peeked over my shoulder to make sure the chapel wasn’t on fire again, then smiled brightly at Caitríona. “I mean I can’t set things on fire with my mind, and I’m guessing Méabh can’t, either, which leaves you, who was concentrating very hard on the idea of setting things on fire with your mind when the chapel went up. Wow. That’s a totally offensive power.”

Offense was the right word, all right. Caitríona balled her fist again and came at me. To her huge outrage, I caught the punch in my palm effortlessly. I was a lot bigger than she was, and it was a lousy attack. The verbal one was clearer, if not necessarily more heartfelt. “What do you mean, an offensive power? Sure and you’re the one trucking with a dead woman’s bones, there’s nothing more offensive than that!”

“No, no.” I leaned into Cat’s fist, holding her in place. “Not offensive bad. Offensive like offense, defense. It’s a power you can bring to the attack.” She relaxed a little, suddenly less, well, offended. “Which I’m guessing means whatever you are in the cosmic scheme of things, it’s not a shaman. Maybe more like Méabh here. She doesn’t heal. She just brings the fight to the bad guys.”

“I wield shamanic power,” Méabh said stiffly.

I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t think you do. You wield magic, absolutely, and it’s a magic that can shape bodies, but I’m not sure it’s shamanic. Healing’s a big part of shamanism. You’re more of a…” My hand fluttered away from holding Caitríona’s fist, waving in the air as if searching for words to pluck from it. I had firsthand experience with sorcerers. They were basically evil shamans. Méabh wasn’t one of those. And witches needed a coven and a deity to guide them, so she wasn’t a witch, either. I’d never met a wizard, but that had too many fantasy novel connotations for me. I finally settled on, “Mage!” and felt pretty good about it.

Or I did until I remembered that was exactly the word a Seattle speaker-with-the-dead had used to describe my mother. Sheila MacNamarra, the Irish mage, she’d said. Which meant your average mage, if there was such a thing, should be able to heal, since my mother apparently had been able to. Either that or magery came with different skill sets depending on the adept, which seemed fairly likely.

I was going to write the goddamned handbook, is what I was going to do. As soon as I was done hunting down a banshee and finding Gary and right after I’d gone home to tie Morrison to a bed for a week and then taken up jogging with any energy I happened to have left over. I didn’t have a job to go to anymore, after all. No doubt I could write a bestselling shamanic handbook in my suddenly copious free time and live off the riches from that.

Méabh and Caitríona, who were not, thankfully, privy to that whole line of thought, had equal looks of satisfaction. Apparently being mages sounded cool. I kind of thought it did, too, and momentarily tried it on for size. Joanne Walker, Mage For Hire. Siobhán Walkingstick, Magistrate. Not that I was certain magistrate could be used that way, but on the other hand, who was going to stop me?

I was, really. I’d kind of gotten used to the idea of being a shaman. Maybe if Sheila had raised me, I’d have come up in the idea of being a mage, but I’d had more exposure to my Cherokee side, and the magic had shaped itself in the idea of shamanism. Perhaps an unnaturally broad spectrum of shamanism, but still, that was the title I was comfortable with. Caitríona could be a mage. The mage, presumably. The Irish Mage. I felt guilty. That was a hell of a burden to plant on a nineteen-year-old.

“Am I really like you so? Like Auntie Sheila?” Cat didn’t sound burdened. She sounded breathless. Hopeful. Excited. All the things I’d been, now that I reached back for it, when Coyote had approached my thirteen-year-old self in dreams and had started to teach me to be a shaman. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

Méabh, grumpily, said, “No,” at the same time I said, “Yeah, I think so.” We eyed each other, my expression falling into a frown. “What’s your problem, Granny? I’d think you’d be pleased.”

She looked as though she’d like to throttle us both. “The power doesn’t come on ye in a burst. It’s grown up into, day by day, bit by bit. It’s madness to be drowned in it all at once.”

I could hardly argue the latter point, but the former was manifestly untrue. I started to protest, trailed off before I got going, then tried again, with something totally different than I’d expected to say. “You’re aos sí, Méabh. We’re human. It might work differently for you. You’re connected to the world in a way I’ve never seen. If that all came up and smacked a person at once, yeah, it’d be madness, but I think maybe we mere mortals don’t have quite as much oomph to take under our wings.”

Méabh’s jaw worked. She clearly wanted to be annoyed, but I was honestly a bit agog at the aos sí connection to the world, and it had come through in my voice. It’s hard to be irritated with someone who’s all impressed by you. “Well,” she finally said, somewhere between grudging and exasperated, “what are we to do with her, then? Sure and we can’t leave a newly awakened power to fumble along on her own.”

“Sure and we won’t,” I said cheerfully. “She’s coming with us. I dunno where we’re going, but it can’t hurt to have new phenomenal cosmic power tagging along.”

Caitríona squeaked, “Really?” and I started to nod before she finished with, “Phenomenal cosmic power? Am I that grand?”

I said, “Time will tell,” in my very best intonation of wisdom voice, but Cat didn’t look impressed. Kids these days, I tell ya. “If you’re really going to step into Sheila’s shoes, you’ve probably got some fairly significant power. But it may take a while to access it all. Méabh’s right. These things usually do come up in bits and pieces, through lots of training, rather than being all Hammer time.”

She stared at me, a firm reminder that people born a decade later than I’d been were not versed in the same popular lingo. “Never mind. Just try not to set anything else on fire, okay?”

“I wouldn’t know how to.” Her eyes, though, were big and interested, and I caught her eyeing the chapel again.