Urban Shaman

“I donno. I wonder if there are any humans associated with Cernunnos. Maybe we should find out.”

“I don’t think the library’s open this late, Jo.”

My eyebrows went up. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve got a computer at home.” The brownie really was pretty good. I ate some more.

“Never touch the things,” Gary said disdainfully.

I grinned. “Try it. You’ll like it.” I finished my dessert, paid the bill and we went home.

I have a little sign on my computer that says: On The Internet, Nobody Knows You’re A Dog. I dusted it off while the computer booted up. Gary stood back about four feet, looking wary. “It isn’t going to bite you, Gary.”

“That don’t look like the ones on TV,” Gary announced.

I shook my head. “I’m running Linux.”

Gary squinted at me. I inhaled to explain, and gave it up as a bad job before I even started. “It means I’m a computer geek.”

“Right.” Gary edged closer. I opened up a Web browser while he watched curiously. “And you know what you’re doing?”

I grinned over my shoulder at him. “Welcome to the twenty-first century, Gary. Anything you want, you can find it on the Net. It takes hardly any effort to find one hundred percent right answers, and one hundred percent wrong answers.”

He leaned over and planted a hand against the corner of my desk, peering at the screen. “How do you tell which is which?”

“Personal prejudice, sometimes. But for this kind of stuff—” I waggled my fingers at the screen “—you can check through half a dozen sites or so and pick up the information that’s common to all of them. That’s pretty close to being true. I mean, we’re talking about Celtic gods here, Gary. I don’t think there’s a real unquestionable expert on the topic, you know?” I clicked through to one of the sites. Gary dragged a chair over and we both read the screen.

There were a lot of origin stories for the Hunt. Some of it was what Marie had told us already, though some of them mentioned someone called Herne the Hunter. Those ones said the Hunt was made up of mortal hunters who had worked for Richard II of England. The rest suggested it was either of “faerie,” which looked like an obnoxious way to spell “fairy” to me, or made up of great warriors from the past. Even King Arthur was listed among the riders.

“His punishment for killing the children,” Gary said when we got to that bit.

“What?” I pushed my glasses up, peering at him.

“Arthur had hundreds of kids killed.”

I stared at him. “I never heard anything like that.”

Gary shrugged. “It’s one of the stories. Sort of like the Pharaoh killing all the kids trying to get to Moses. Except Arthur was trying to destroy Mordred. Maybe he’s riding with Cernunnos as his punishment for killing them.”

“Where’d you learn all that?”

Gary cocked an eyebrow at me. “I’m an old dog, lady. You pick up a few tricks along the way.”

Great. Apparently I was the only nonbeliever in Seattle. Well, me and Morrison. Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better. Gary reached out and clicked back to the search engine, and through to another site. I half smiled.

“I thought you never touched these things.”

“Don’t tell anybody. You’ll ruin my rep.” He leaned forward, jutting his jaw at the screen while we waited for a slow-loading page to resolve. “So the only mortal mentioned with Cernunnos is this guy Herne. Is he our guy?”

I slid down in my chair, sighing. “I don’t know. Some of the descriptions sound like they might just be the same person. Which doesn’t do us any good. Dammit.”

“What’s that?” Gary leaned forward, examining the screen. Badly rhyming nonsense filled the page in a painstaking handwritten font.

I call on the East Gate to close and bind thee I call on the gods who would listen to me I call on the wind and the earth and the sea I call on fire to help bind thee In this god’s name I set my geas That this binding cannot be broken By my will and by these words By these powers and by my skill I bind thee for eternity

“In Cernunnos’s name I set this geas?” Gary asked, grinning. I reached out and clapped a hand over his mouth, startling even myself. Above my fingers, his eyes widened. “Wwwf wng?”

I looked back at the chant. It still looked like nonsense, but I shivered anyway, discomfited. “I don’t think we should read that out loud.”

Gary’s eyebrows went up a little and he glanced at the computer before shrugging. “Okay.”

What, that was it? Just “okay” ? My surprise must have shown on my face, because he shook his head, smiling. “Jeez, lady, don’t you ever go on gut feelings?”

I spread my hands. “No.”

“Well, that’s what you been goin’ on since I met you. Better get used to it.”

“God, I have been, haven’t I?” I looked around for my glasses and put them back on. “Tomorrow,” I said firmly, “I will wake up normal and rational again.”

“And have answers to all your problems, right?”

I smiled halfheartedly. “Right.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me.” Gary sighed and ran a hand back through his hair. He didn’t have a lot of it, and what there was, was white. It was the only thing that made him look somewhere around his age. Even his wrinkles were sort of Ernest Hemingway wrinkles, like they were from too much squinting into the sun rather than age. They made him look dependable, not old. “Well, lady, I’m an old man and I’ve been up since early, so I’m heading home. I gotta go to work in the morning.”

“Yeah, okay. Me, I’m going to…” I trailed off and frowned at the computer.

“Gonna what?” Gary prompted. I shrugged.

“I’m going to find out who murdered Marie.”

“No fair having all the fun without me. My shift ends at two. I’ll see you then, maybe.”

“All right. In the meantime, don’t pick up any guys with swords. Oh, hey. Your car. You want a ride to Marie’s, um, to where Marie lived, um, to your car?” I stood up, digging in my pocket for my car keys as an attempt to keep my mouth from running off and making me sound even more idiotic.

“You don’t have to do that,” Gary dissembled, but I’d just spent weeks in Ireland. There’s a certain protocol I’d learned there.

In Ireland, you go to someone’s house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea. You say no, thank you, you’re really just fine. She asks if you’re sure. You say of course you’re sure, really, you don’t need a thing. Except they pronounce it ting. You don’t need a ting. Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble. Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn’t mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it’s no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen. Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting.

In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don’t get any damned tea.

I liked the Irish way better.

“No, really,” I said. “It’s the middle of the night and there’s a crazy man with a knife between here and there, and besides, I need to stop at the store and get something to eat for breakfast tomorrow. There’s no food here at all.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” Gary said, and I fought back a grin as we headed for the door.

I sat in the parking lot after Gary pulled out, both my hands on the steering wheel. I was tired, but it was the kind of twilight tired where I felt a little lighter than air and not quite like I could sleep. I knew I could, but as long as the false high was with me, I thought I should run with it. Somewhere not very far above me was a dead woman who’d needed my help, and somewhere inside my head things had happened that I didn’t understand. I