Raven Calls

heartbeat be the drum that carried me to my garden.

For a rarity I came up through the water when I entered the garden, and strode out feeling a bit Diana at the hunt. That lasted right up until I saw an agitated Coyote pacing the stubbly grass. Technically he shouldn’t have been able to wander into my garden uninvited, but that concern came secondary to why he was there at all. “Are you okay?”

He spun around on his heel, changing from animal form to man as he did so. He was breathtaking, as always. Brick-red skin, not a human color at all, and flawless black hair that fell loose to his hips. That, he had in real life, but not the skin tones or the golden eyes, which were currently shining with worry. He ran the few steps across the grass to catch me in something that wasn’t exactly a hug and wasn’t quite a shake, but fell somewhere in between. Then, as Gary often did, he set me back so he could see me, but with him there was a definite rattling of my teeth involved in the motion. “Me? Are you okay?”

I put my hands over his wrists and squeezed, not gently. Red-brick beauty or not, Coyote was two inches shorter than me both in real life and in his garden perception of himself, and I was, if not his equal in strength, pretty damned near. I was certainly strong enough to grind his wrist bones together, even if we hadn’t been in my garden, where my will reigned supreme. He frowned, then let go of my shoulders as my grip grew increasingly clamplike. “Ow!”

“If you ever shake me again it’s going to be a whole lot more than a little ow.” I only released him after childish hurt turned to comprehension in his eyes. His “Sorry” was the grudging apology of a man embarrassed to have been caught out. I nodded and exhaled my own anger away. “What’re you doing here, Cyrano?”

Maybe not all my anger, then. I’d spent a long time thinking Coyote was a spirit animal. After discovering he was a real live human boy—and learning his name—I’d started using the latter occasionally. Generally when I was annoyed with him. He noted it now, and his grudgingness melted away in a thin, acknowledging smile that turned slightly incredulous. “You came tearing into my garden, demanded the spear, went rushing off again with no explanation and you wonder why I’m here?”

Oh. “Oh. Everything’s okay. I was just in a tight spot.”

Coyote, with wonderful neutrality, said, “In Ireland’s underworld.”

“Right. Hey, look, since you’re here, you want to gi—”

“JOANNE WALKER!”

I sat down hard and nearly swallowed my tongue as I looked up at him, all innocent eyes. “What? What?”

Coyote thrust a finger out. Not quite at me. Not after I’d squashed his wrists for shaking me. Just an imperious thrust, piercing the air. “What are you doing in Ireland, in the underworld, asking for the spear, which I see you no longer have, and what is wrong with your arm! ”

Between him and my mother I was getting about all the outraged-parent scenario I could handle. I took a moment to be grateful Dad had raised me on his own so my parents couldn’t double-team me, then said, as pleasantly as I could, “I’m in Ireland’s underworld trying to find a cure for a werewolf bite,” which was succinct and, in its way, accurate.

Coyote’s long smooth hair took on a life of its own, strands rising like static pulled them hither and yon. It was a rather appealing show of magic and concern, and regret sluiced through me. It probably always would, when it came to Coyote. Some things couldn’t help leave a mark. He, unaware of my thoughts, demanded, “And the spear?”

“I gave it to the Irish Mage.”

His mouth opened and shut, but evidently he couldn’t find fault with that particular answer. After a minute he, too, sat, rubbing his hands over his face. “Werewolf bite, Jo?”

“It was,” I said for the hundredth time, “a rough weekend. Look, I’ve left my dead mother and Gary hanging around in the underworld while I’ve come here to try to heal this thing, so while there’s an awful damned lot I need to talk to you about, right now is probably not the time to do it. You’ve known me longer than anybody else. Do you think you can help?”

“Jo, a werewolf—a shapechanger, a skinwalker of any kind—a skinwalker shouldn’t be able to…” He struggled for a word and settled on, “Infect. Shouldn’t be able to infect you. The healing magic should keep it away, and you can’t shapeshift yet, so—”

I said, “Actually,” into my elbow, and he fell into a voluminous silence. Poor Coyote. For the past week I’d been doing variations on rushing into his consciousness, screeching for help and rushing out again with nary a word of explanation. I ran through the details of the past several days mentally, then summarized it all with, “The shapeshifting lesson this weekend went fine. No flounders. I did what you told me, I kept an animal in mind to shift into and so far I’ve done a snake and a coyote and a werewolf, but according to my mother the whole wolf thing is me embracing the shapeshifting in a totally screwed-up way.”

Coyote, with what struck me as remarkable restraint, said, “Isn’t your mother dead?”

“Yeah.”

“I see.” He sat there waiting for more for a full thirty seconds before concluding I wasn’t going to delve any deeper into that particular well, then sighed from the depths of his soul. “Of course I’ll help.”

He didn’t even put a caveat on, which I thought was very gentlemanly of him. I leaned forward and caught his hand with mine. “I swear I’ll call you and tell you the whole story, all of it, no holds barred—” except maybe the part about Morrison kissing me “—and then I’m going to beg you for mentorly advice, because, holy crap, am I in over my head.”

“Call,” he said, making a phone with his fingers, “or call?” he said, gesturing around the garden.

“Call,” I said, repeating the garden motion, and he smiled.

“All right. If I may, then?” He nodded toward my overheated left arm and I flopped it toward him. A hiss escaped between his teeth as he touched it and almost withdrew. “Sorry if that hurt.”

“Actually, it didn’t.” I knew perfectly well that was worse than it hurting. It suggested somewhere within me I’d started accepting the changes, and that was bad. “I’m fighting myself,” I said quietly. “My hind brain is running with the ‘werewolf bites mean turning into werewolves!’ thing and the healing magic, which I guess is smarter than I am—”

Coyote gave me a look that suggested tree frogs were smarter than I was, but didn’t say it. I half smiled and continued. “Anyway, I guess it’s going great guns holding the infection in place, not letting it spread. Or not spread quickly, anyway. Nobody else has been able to get a foothold against it.”

“Who’s tried?”

“A goddess and a spirit animal.”

Coyote’s eyes popped like Sylvester the Cat’s, but he got his expression back under control. “Were either of them invited?”

“Not per se.” I knew a cue when I heard one, though, and straightened my spine so my lungs could be properly filled and my “Coyote, will you heal me?” could come out as a nice solid request.

For some reason it made him laugh. I huffed and he laughed again, then, trying for ritual solemnity, replied, “I will,” before cracking up a third time. “Sorry. I just expected something a lot more formal. Magic makes people talk funny, have you noticed?”

“Have I ever. But I couldn’t figure out a way to dress it up any more than that.”

“No, asking for a healing is really pretty straightforward. All right, listen, Jo. Two things. One, this is probably going to hurt, and two…” He hesitated, regret creasing lines around his mouth. “It’s going to require not holding anything back. That shouldn’t be hard....”

It shouldn’t be, because we’d had a handful of amazing days together only a few months earlier. We’d gotten under each other’s skins, into each other’s magics and seen each other’s souls in a way that only a couple of magic users could ever do. It had been the safest, most comfortable, most erotic intimacy I’d ever imagined.

And then Coyote had gone home to Arizona, and I’d stayed in Seattle, and the truth was, neither of us was going to give up our lives for the other.

More than that, though, was Morrison’s presence in my life. I’d been half in love with Coyote since I was a teenager. He was home to me in a way nobody else could ever be. But Morrison was the one who made me dizzy