heated up.
Gary and Marie were waiting impatiently in the lobby. “You’re a cop?” Gary demanded as I came through the turnstile.
“No. Yes. No. Shit! Why?” I flung myself onto a bench and scrubbed my eyes.
“Jeez, lady, I didn’t mean to ask a tough question. What happened in there? Why didn’t you
“I’m not a cop. I mean.” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I am a cop. I guess I’m a cop. I’m a
Gary and Marie stared at me. After several seconds, I mumbled, “I make more sense when I’ve had some sleep.” I pried my eyes open. Tears welled up again. Gary became sympathetic all of a sudden.
“All right, all right. I’ll take you home. Tonight we’ll get together and figure this out.” He actually patted my shoulder, just like Bruce had done.
“We?” Marie and I spoke together. She sounded surprised. I sounded small and pitiful.
“What, you think I’m gonna miss out on what happens next? Crazy dames.” Gary shook his head and pushed his way out of the station, muttering to himself.
Gary dropped me off at my apartment complex. I stood on the concrete stairs and waved as he drove off, then staggered up to my apartment, navigating to the bedroom without turning the lights on. No one lived there but me; it was a safe bet that there wouldn’t be anything unexpected on the floor except four months worth of dust. I was right: falling face-first into the bedcovers dislodged dust and made me sneeze, but nothing worse awaited me. My last conscious thought was that I’d forgotten to take my contacts out.
The apartment was empty of unexpected things. My dreams were not. Coyote was waiting for me. He looked warily approving while I frowned at him groggily. “How d’you do that?” I demanded. “Dogs don’t have that much expression.”
“You’ve never owned a dog, have you?” Coyote asked. “Besides, I’m not a dog.”
I put my face in my hands, eyes closed. “Whatever. Where are we? What do you want?” I peeked at him through my fingers. “Are you always going to be bothering my dreams?”
“This isn’t a dream.” Coyote cocked his head to the side, looking around. After a moment I did too, wearily. I had to admit I’d never had a dream that looked like this one. Even falling dreams, which weren’t big on detail, usually had a gray sky and a very long drop. This one didn’t even have that much, just dark storm clouds pushing at each other with no particular pattern or intent. I thought I preferred falling dreams.
I dropped suddenly, a sickening distance in no time at all. Coyote yipped, a short sound of annoyance and alarm. I flinched upright, back where I’d started. “Pay attention,” he said sharply.
“I am,” I protested. “What was that? Where
“You called a dream up,” Coyote said patiently. “We’re in a place between dreams.”
“Why? I’m so
“You did a good job this morning,” he said. I blinked at him slowly.
“Is that why I came here? So you could tell me that?” I didn’t mean to sound like a snappy, ungrateful bitch. I was just so damned tired. Coyote let the tone blow over him.
“Partly,” he agreed. “Ask the banshee to help you with your shields. You’re going to need them.”
“My shields?” I wasn’t used to feeling this thick.
Coyote smiled. I didn’t know dogs could smile. “I’m not a dog,” he said, and, “she’ll know what you mean. Now get some sleep.” He dropped a golden-eyed wink and disappeared.
Or at least, I ceased to be aware of him. Instead I became aware of someone pounding on my door with the patience and rhythm of a metronome. I stayed very still for what felt like a very long time, hoping the pounding would go away. It didn’t. After six or seven years I rolled out of bed and crawled toward the front door.
I made it to my feet somewhere in the living room and was rewarded for my monumental effort by barking my shin on the coffee table. I reached for the doorknob and the injured shin at the same time, pulled the door open, and slammed myself in the forehead with the edge of the door. Collapsing onto the floor in a sniveling lump seemed the only thing to do, so I did it. It was only when tears started to unstick my eyelashes that I realized that I not only hadn’t, but couldn’t, open my eyes. I took turns rubbing at my shin and my forehead and my stuck- together lashes. Somewhere up above me, Gary said, “Jesus Christ, Jo. You look like someone ran you over and backed up to see what he hit.”
“Nice to see you, too, Gary.” Not that I could see him. I put a hand over my throat. I sounded like a bulldozer had dumped a load of gravel into my chest. “What time is it?”
“Seven-thirty.” He crouched; I could tell by the location of his voice.
I pried one of my eyes open. “No way. I just went to sleep.” I turned my wrist over and tried to focus on my watch. I couldn’t, but that was okay, since it was wrong anyway. “No way.”
“Yep. Seven-thirty. We’re supposed to meet Marie in half an hour at her place.” Gary straightened up again. I got my other eye open, and blinked tearfully at him.
“Okay. I guess, uh. Let’s go.” I swallowed, trying to loosen my voice up some, and worked on getting my body moving in a direction that felt like ‘up’.
“Uh,” Gary said.
I could only do one thing at a time. I stopped trying to stand and squinted at him. “What?”
“You might wanna think about taking a shower and changing clothes.”
I looked at him without comprehension for a while, then looked down at myself. And, in growing horror, looked some more. After a while, I said, “Oh yuck.”
I wouldn’t have thought sleeping in bloody gory clothes could be beaten for general yuckiness, but adding in a layer of dust over all that made me a fine imitation of a desiccated corpse. “Come in,” I grated. “I’ll shower.” I crawled away from the door without waiting to see if he came in.
* * *
The reflection in the mirror was marginally kinder fifteen minutes later. My hair was clean and slightly gelled into spikes. I was still pale, but only from lack of sleep, rather than from blood, dust
I stared at my reflection, fingering the thin white scar on my cheek. It began just behind the glasses lens, next to the corner of my eye, and ended in the faint smile line above my mouth. It wasn’t exactly detracting, but it sure as hell wasn’t something I was used to. Bumping my fingers over it didn’t make it go away. I finally looked away from the mirror and wove my way into my bedroom to find clothes.
The first T-shirt I found was black, probably the worst possible color to wear when I was one step paler than death, but it was clean, and the V-neck didn’t mess up my hair as I yanked it over my head. Sometimes that’s all a girl can ask for. It would’ve shown off my new necklace well, except I’d had to abandon that until it spent some quality time with silver polish and goo remover. Blood did not go well with silver.
For a girl who didn’t wear jewelry, I felt weirdly naked without the necklace. I dug up the only other piece of jewelry I owned, a copper cuff bracelet my father’d given me for Christmas while I was still in high school. It went on my left wrist, having left the dysfunctional watch on the bathroom counter. The etchings around the outer edges of the bracelet were Celtic knots, which I’d never realized before. For the first time, I wondered if Dad had done that on purpose. I stood there staring mindlessly at the bracelet for far too long, tracing a fingertip over the line etches of various Cherokee-favored animals between the two bands of knots, then shook myself. I was supposed to be getting dressed. I could handle a task like that. Really.
I clawed through my sock drawer and came up with socks, a G-string and the police badge. I threw the badge back in the drawer and pulled the G-string on. Not my favorite kind of underwear, but slightly better than going without. I tugged a pair of jeans on and went out to the living room with my socks in one hand.
Gary was on the couch with one of my secret weaknesses: an entertainment magazine, now four months