Urban Shaman

I stumbled again, my breath coming in ugly little wheezes. The ground gave under my foot, and I collapsed to my knees, on top of Richard. He grunted and I felt the absurd desire to apologize. But Herne was driving his sword down, and there wasn’t any more time.

I crushed my eyes shut and chose.

I chose to be there, in Herne’s garden. That was the thing he’d said, the wiggle room I needed. With my choice, the shape his will held me in shattered. I snapped back to my own form, rolling to the side with a gasp. The knife wound Herne had put in my belly was still there, throbbing with agony.

Herne slammed his blade down into the place I’d been an instant before. Into Richard’s abdomen. Richard’s eyes went very wide and bright. I whispered, “Sorry,” while my blood spilled through my fingers to mix with his. We stared at each other for another instant, before Herne’s scream rendered the air and I staggered once more, forcing my head up to meet his eyes.

“It is not possible,” he rasped. “My place—my power—”

I clutched the hole in my belly where he’d stabbed me and straightened up as far as I could. It wasn’t very far: to breathe through the pain I had to stay a little hunched, but at least I could meet his eyes. “Your will,” I whispered back. “I’m not here. Of your will. Anymore.” I couldn’t breathe. It hurt so badly I could hardly think, flares of pain steady with my heartbeat. “Chose. To be here.” I hadn’t been sure it would work. “Choosing. To leave now. Too.”

I collapsed over the silent, broken form of Richard, king of England. Herne’s scream of fury echoed in my memory for a long time.

When I opened my eyes again I was on my knees in my garden, doubled over with one forearm against the ground and the other wrapped around my belly.

“This one’s a little more complicated,” Coyote said. “Can you feel them?”

I lifted my head up, beads of sweat draining into my eyes. I couldn’t feel a goddamned thing except the spiking pain in my gut, and the blood slipping through my fingers.

“Try harder,” Coyote said. He lay on his belly with his head on his paws, gold eyes intense on mine. I whimpered without any dignity and tried to feel something beyond myself. Just on the other side of pain was a source of amusement, smugness and concern.

“Not me.” Coyote sounded patient. “Past me.” I grunted and tried to reach past him, my fingers creeping forward in the grass like the physical motion would help the mental. For a moment there was a scattering of sensation, the feeling of someone waiting. I recognized it from my dream-walk and reached for it. Coyote snapped at my crawling fingers. “Farther out.”

I drew a deep breath to try again, then couldn’t do anything for a few seconds. Blood drained through my fingers with more enthusiasm. “Fuck.” Nausea made a stab at settling into my system, but I was too hurt to hold on to even that.

I stretched one more time, past Coyote, past the one who waited for me, and finally found what Coyote was after. Two thin silver lines ran through me, attached to one another, using me as a conduit. They flickered, unevenly, unsynchronized and as weakly as my own pulse. One disappeared into darkness, its far end so distant I wasn’t sure where it led. The other had no visible end, either, but it felt closer, like I could reach out a hand and grasp the arm of the body whose life it sustained.

“They’re tied together through you,” Coyote said softly, as if he was afraid a full voice would shatter my fragile grasp on the cords. “Don’t you see?”

“Mem’ry,” I whispered. Blood drooled to the grass. “Henrietta’s. Mem’ry. Herne’s. Will. Tied me to. Richard’s life.” I understood. The energy coil inside me bubbled eagerly, sending out pulses of power along with my blood. “More engine work,” I mumbled, and fell through six hundred years of time, healing the schoolteacher and the king.

* * *

I opened my eyes and sat down hard in the chair. “You saved them,” I said.

Henrietta Potter stared at me. “Anthony and Mark,” I said. “Jennifer and Adrian. You broke Herne’s circle. He took almost everything but you broke the circle that would bind their souls. They’ll get another chance.” My whole body hurt, and I was exhausted beyond belief. My thoughts were too thick and slow to be chaotic, but they felt that way anyway. I needed to go sit somewhere, quietly, and figure out what had happened. What it meant. I pushed to my feet and wove my way to the door.

I bounced off Gary as he and Billy returned with coffee. Gary dropped both the cups he carried, swore, and grabbed my shoulders as my knees gave out and I tried to follow the coffee to the floor. “What in hell happened to you? You look like you saw a ghost.”

“Bad day at the office.” I giggled. Billy and Gary exchanged glances. Billy pushed the door to Henrietta’s room open and went in. “C’mon,” I said to Gary. “I wanna go home. Tired.”

“You were fine two minutes ago, lady.”

I smiled up at him and patted his cheek. “Aw. Gary. Didn’t know you cared.” My knees went out from under me again and this time I did drop, flopping to the floor like a rag doll.

Into the spilled coffee. I stuck a fingertip in it. “Aw, man. Now my panties are gonna smell like coffee.” I put both my hands into the air and let Gary pull me to my feet as Billy came back out of the hospital room, looking pale.

“What in hell did you do?” he demanded. I stared at him without comprehension.

“Aw, shit. She’s not dead or anything, is she?”

“Not quite,” Henrietta Potter said from behind Billy’s shoulder. He moved out of the way and she stepped out, looking surprisingly dignified in just a hospital gown and bare feet.

“You oughta be lying down,” Gary said sternly. He kept a firm hand around my waist, which I thought was sweet of him.

“I believe, actually, that I’ll be checking out as soon as someone is kind enough to fetch me some clothes.”

“You could borrow mine,” I said too loudly, “but they all smell like coffee now.” I was very tired. If Gary didn’t keep his arm around my waist, I thought I might just collapse again and not wake up for a week or two. No, I couldn’t do that. I had to think. I nodded several times to myself, big motions that took on a life of their own as I forgot why I was nodding.

Mrs. Potter looked up at me, amused. “I’m tall for my generation, Joanne Walker, but I would trip on your sleeves.”

I stopped nodding, astonished. “But they’re short,” I protested. Henrietta quirked a smile.

“So they are,” she agreed.

“What did you do?” Billy asked again. I waved a hand at him.

“Just a lil’ fixer-upper. Noooo big deal. Do it anytime. No problem. Lil’ hole in the tummy to kill a king? Sure. Hey. To kill a king.” I snickered against Gary’s arm. “That’s funny.”

“Detective,” Gary said, “Jo needs to go home and sleep.”

“Oooh, good idea.” I tilted over, then frowned and started shaking my head. Big swinging shakes of my head. “Nooo. Can’t sleep. Have to think.” Now I was nodding again. It was all very confusing, and I was losing my balance. Gary tightened his arm around me. I giggled and patted his shoulder. “Nice Gary.”

This was starting to get embarrassing. I peeled out of Gary’s grasp and carefully began maneuvering my way down the wide, empty hallway. After several steps, with a gentle thump, I maneuvered my shoulder right into the wall opposite Henrietta’s room. That wasn’t at all what I’d been aiming for, but it struck me that the wall would help me walk in a straight line. I leaned on it and concentrated on putting one foot in front of another. Left. Right.

Left. It wasn’t all that hard, as long as I kept my head down and watched my feet. Feeling rather proud of myself through the haze of exhaustion, I picked up a little speed.

“Joanie…” Billy’s voice bounced off the gray walls, a warning. Another pair of shoes intruded themselves on my line of vision. I didn’t exactly have momentum in my favor, but I still didn’t manage to stop until the top of my head ran into the chest belonging to the intrusive shoes.

I didn’t even bounce, just lifted my head and found myself toe to toe and nose to nose with Captain Michael Morrison.