Urban Shaman

leaned forward, folding my hands on top of each other on the steering wheel, and rested my forehead against them. I could smell the old leather on the wheel, and a faint lingering scent of a perfume I rarely wore.

Cars are my refuge, my comfort food. My first real memory is looking out the window of my father’s great big old Oldsmobile. I was about three, too little to know I’d be making a trip like that every few months until I left home. Dad tells me that when I was too little to see the cars, I’d hear them and go, “Oom!” because that’s what I thought they sounded like. He got into the habit of saying, “Zoom!” and “Vroom!” to make me happy. I still do it myself, from time to time.

Marie’s murder was a little too surreal for me. People you’ve just met aren’t supposed to end up dead twelve hours later. I shook my head and let my mind slide off that for a moment.

Of course, that left Cernunnos and Coyote to think about. You want to talk about surreal. I groaned quietly and thumped my head against the wheel. I should be going home. I should be at home, looking up Native American legends on the Net. Native American legends, and dream interpretation, and the name of a good psychologist, since it was pretty clear I was losing my mind. I rubbed the heel of my hand over my breastbone. It kept right on not having a hole in it. I kept right on not being dead. This was beyond mortal ken.

And dammit, I didn’t believe in beyond mortal ken. What did an atheist do if God shows up on the doorstep? I’d invited him in for breakfast.

A sharp rap on the window startled me into bolting upright. I drove the heel of my hand into the horn. A broad face under a blue hat leaned over the windshield, wincing quizzically. I puffed my cheeks out and took my hand off the horn, opening the door to hang out of it.

“Was I speeding, Officer?”

“Didn’t know it was you, Joey. Just wanted to check and make sure everything was okay.”

“Hi, Ray. Define okay.” I smiled wanly. Raymond was a short wide guy whom I was pretty sure could bench press a Buick. Not the fastest on his feet, but between him and a nuclear bunker, I’d take him every time. He stuck his hand out, and I stood up, leaning over the door to shake it.

“Heard you got your balls busted,” he said sympathetically. Ball-busting was Ray’s favorite term and he applied it with blithe disregard to gender-based improbability. “Guess I never thought about you going to the academy. But you’re a real cop, huh? What’re you doing out here?”

“I’m a real cop,” I agreed. “Sort of.” The other question was easier to answer: I pointed a finger up toward Marie’s apartment. “I found the body a few hours ago.”

“Coming back to the scene of the crime? Common criminal mistake, you know. You know this is the fifth murder like this in the past couple weeks?” Ray shook his head.

My eyebrows went up. “I didn’t. Just got back from Europe.” God, that sounded pretentious. “What do they have in common?”

Ray shook his head again. “Not much. Different age ranges, different races, different day jobs, different genders, no phone calls to or from the same numbers, not even pizza joints. Different parts of the city, different everything.”

“No, there’s something linking them,” I said absently. I tugged my glasses off and pinched the bridge of my nose, glasses dangling from my fingertips. A piece of wire contracted around my heart and I took a deep breath, trying to shake the feeling off. A brief image of the spiderwebbed windshield flashed behind my eyelids. I frowned, trying to shake that off, too.

“Yeah? Don’t suppose you can tell me what it is.” Ray reached up and twisted his hat on his head. His hair was visibly thinner right where his hat sat on his head, from doing that for years. It occurred to me that I knew the guys at the department inside and out, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a date. My heart was still tight, the spiderweb image still bothering me. I put my shoulders back, trying to breathe.

“No, but there’s something. Can I look at the files?” The web inside me loosened a bit and I was able to catch my breath.

Ray twisted his mouth in much the same way he habitually twisted his hat. It dug deep lines around his mouth. Being a cop left its mark. “I don’t know. You’re not a detective.”

“Christ, Ray, the woman was murdered practically under my nose. Gimme a break.”

Ray frowned at me, then waved his hand. “Arright. I’ve got copies in the car. I thought this might be another by the same guy, so I brought ‘em to compare pictures to the placement of the body.”

“And?”

He shrugged. “And there’s nothing to compare. There’s no ritual in how the bodies have been laid out. They’ve all been punched through the chest with a sharp weapon, but that’s the only common element. Looks like they’ve all just been left to lie as they fell.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Neither. The repeat use of the weapon is good, the lack of any other ritual is bad. Nothing to pick up, nothing to deviate from. I don’t like it.” Ray twisted his cap around on his head again.

“Do you usually like horrible murders?”

Ray eyed me. I held up my hands in supplication. “Can I borrow those files?”

“You said look,” he objected.

“Look, borrow, whatever. I’ll be careful with them. Promise.”

I made my eyes all big and wide and hopeful before remembering they were bloodshot. Eww.

Ray frowned at me for a while, then turned around and went and got the files. “Don’t let Morrison find out or he’ll be busting my balls,” he said as he handed them over.

I flipped one open, not really listening to him. “I won’t. Thanks, Ray.”

“Yeah, well, my car needs work.”

I looked up with a crooked grin. “As soon as I find out my new work schedule.”

“It’s a date.” He nodded at the files again. “Don’t mention where you got ‘em.”

“I won’t.” I watched him walk back to his car, wondering if it really was a date. Not that I particularly wanted to date Ray. It was just that fixing guys’ cars seemed to be my idea of a pretty good date, which probably explained why I didn’t get out more. Maybe I could start my own escort service. Oil change and dinner. I’d have to come up with a catchy name for the place. The only things that came to mind involved lube jobs, and that was just bad.

I got back in my car and went home before I started taking myself seriously.

CHAPTER 9

Wednesday, January 5th, 12:30 a.m.

Ten minutes later I spread out the files on my kitchen table, standing over them. There was no file on Marie yet, but I’d seen that in living—or not—color. Raymond was right. The victims didn’t appear to have anything in common. Nothing obvious, but there had to be something. I could feel it practically vibrating in my eardrums.

What did I know about Marie? She was an anthropologist who started believing in what she studied. She had a talent that let her see more than the average person saw, things that could be politely labeled esoteric. I yawned, and the wire around my heart went spang, releasing so fast it hurt. I swallowed a whimper and rubbed my chest again. I could almost feel spiderweb cracks sealing up.

All right. What if that was what they had in common? They were all banshees. The spiderweb fissured again, and I sighed. “Okay, that’s not it,” I muttered. “How about they’re all, uh…aware of another plane of existence. Not the kind of thing you’re going to talk about, right?” The wire-web relaxed and let me breathe again. I scowled hugely at the photographs. It was Oh God Thirty and I was standing in my kitchen talking to heartburn. Talking out loud, no less. I needed sleep. Or a dog.

“Sleep,” I said out loud. “If any of you want to tell me what your gig was, stop by dreamland. Otherwise I’ll figure you out tomorrow.” I turned the lights off, went to bed and lay there a long time in the dark, looking at the ceiling, faintly white in the dimness. I used to do this when I was a kid, zone out until I could feel myself floating about three inches above my body. I always fell back down into myself as soon as I noticed. I felt like that now, very slightly detached from my flesh.