Urban Shaman

traffic dead-on, with bumpers to bumpers and impatient drivers leaning on their horns. Seattle’d had a reputation for having the politest drivers in America, back when. Since then, something had gone terribly wrong, kind of like…a thing that had gone very wrong. Yep, there went my grasp of metaphor. I was going to be in real trouble if I needed to do any more shamanic stuff, with that kind of visualization skill at my beck and call.

It was beginning to rain. I rolled my window down while I waited on an on-ramp, sticking my palm up to catch raindrops. Another degree or two colder, and it might snow. That would make for an exciting drive. There’s nothing quite like Seattle drivers in snow.

Like the weather was responding to my train of thought, a snowflake fell into my palm, and melted. I leaned my head out the window, looking up, and got a snowflake in my eye for the effort. “Crap.” I leaned back into the car. Traffic pulled forward a few meters at a time, creeping ever more cautiously as the snow began to come down like it meant it.

I hoped Kevin would come through for me. If not, I could think of two places in Seattle that seemed like obvious power nodes. One was the Space Needle, just because it was so obvious. The other was the Troll Bridge. It was just so bizarre I had to wonder—if I was going to acknowledge this whole other world—if it had been inspired by something more than just the sculptor’s imagination. But I was pretty sure there were more power places in Seattle than two modern constructions that might or might not have anything to do with ancient nodes. Wow, I was getting good at this esoteric speech stuff. See what a few hours of reading and some time on the Internet will get you?

The on-ramp let me access the freeway and for a while all I could think about was the other guy, and making sure he didn’t run into me or anyone else. Then I began wondering if I was really affecting whether or not people were driving well, and consequently took a turn too fast and fishtailed all over the slippery road.

After that I just concentrated on driving.

It still took until almost two to get back to the station. I parked in a reserved-for-police parking spot because I could, and took the steps up through the wet snow two at a time. It felt good, not sneaking through the station trying to avoid Morrison. I even nodded at him as I passed his office, and for once he didn’t scowl.

Jen was lying in wait for me, or it seemed like it. I walked into Missing Persons and she handed over a small stack of papers like she’d expected me. “Here’s your girl. Assuming, which I am, that she looks a little less fey than that painting you showed me. I redrew her to send out. No responses, though—she’s not missing.”

I glanced down at the papers without really seeing them, then shook my head as I looked back at Jen. “I’m afraid I wasted your time. I’m so sorry, Jen.” I rubbed the back of my hand against my forehead, letting the papers fan over my face for a moment. “I don’t think she could’ve been real after all. She had to have been like the others. Not really from this world.” I said that like it wasn’t a completely insane thing to say. I was starting to understand the tired expression Marie had worn more than once, the one that said, I know you think I’m nuts, and there’s nothing I can do about it, but I can’t change what I am, either. I wished I could apologize to her. “I’m sorry,” I said to Jen again, instead. One of the copies slid out of my fistful and I sighed, crouching to pick it up. “I really appreciate you trying to he—holy shit.” My fingers, suddenly cold, lost their grip on the rest of the sheets, and a few dozen copies of the drawing spiraled down and spread across the floor.

Jen jerked to attention, looking around the room like she thought I’d seen—I hesitate to say a ghost. “What?”

“I know her.” I stayed in my crouch, staring at the drawing, then swallowed and met Jen’s eyes. She looked like she thought I’d taken leave of my senses. “I know her,” I repeated. “I mean. I saw this kid yesterday. At the high school.”

Jen had applied the coloration from the painting to the sketch. Wheat-pale hair fell around a delicate face, not precisely fey, but with high cheekbones and a small, pointed chin. Her mouth was just slightly too wide, no longer stretched in the rider’s laugh, and the eyes were disconcertingly green. It was the girl from the theater, the one who’d recited the poem.

Jennifer glanced at her watch. “If that school even held classes today, they’ll be over in about forty-five minutes. If you want to find her, you better haul ass.”

I stared at her speechlessly, then vaulted out of my crouch and bolted for the door.

CHAPTER 23

I hit the front steps at a run. My shoes, which had no traction for snow, slid, leaving three feet of skid marks before I reached the edge and went flying at a horizontal angle, feet leading. For one very brief moment in the midst of panic I enjoyed the sensation of being unanswerable to gravity.

Then gravity called me home with a vengeance.

By dint of my head being nearer to the top step than my hips were to the lower ones, I hit it first. I can only surmise that my shoulders, small of my back and tailbone subsequently and sequentially hit the top edges of the next several steps down. I was out cold.

I was getting used to states of unconsciousness bringing about states of altered reality. Bright, exploding balls of pain like silver and red fireworks were a new twist, though. I couldn’t say I cared for it at all. I was pretty sure I hadn’t killed myself, so I didn’t know why it seemed to hurt more than having been stabbed did, but it did. It hurt a lot.

“Because you hit your head,” Coyote said, distracted. “It’s where you perceive your self as being held.”

I tried opening my eyes. Stabbing daggers of green light jabbed into my brain. I didn’t like it. I closed my eyes again. “Hnnng.”

“Kind of an impressive wipeout,” he added. “Did you actually need me for something?”

“Hnnng,” I said again, and tried to shake my head. Someone drove an icepick into my skull behind my left ear.

“Good.” He left me alone with the explosions of pain. Spirit guides, I decided, around shards of shrapnel slicing through my skull, were a pain in the ass.

I’d been through all this before. A little visualization, and I’d heal right up. Just a little concentration.

Too bad I couldn’t concentrate with Paul Bunyan hammering my head in. Brilliant spots of light burst into being and faded out again in random patterns, whether I had my eyes opened or closed. They slid by like a star scape, while I wondered if I was going somewhere or if I’d damaged my occipital lobe somehow. I’d hit the back of my head, so it didn’t seem likely, but stranger things have happened. A lot of stranger things had happened recently, in fact, so who was I to dismiss the theory out of hand?

One of the spots faded in and slid closer, growing progressively larger and resolving slowly into a more solid image. “And behold Death, who comes on a pale horse,” I mumbled. The rider drew to a stop before me, smiling his wicked, devastating smile.

“I have always liked that,” he admitted. Stars kept flooding by, but a dais of blackness formed under us, supporting us in the journey through the cosmos.

“You look better.” I closed my eyes. Interestingly, Cernunnos’s image didn’t disappear. Thwarted, I opened my eyes again. It was less disconcerting that way.

“You’re not so easily rid of me as all of that,” he chided. I didn’t want to, but I smiled.

“I should be so lucky. Where are we?”

“Your world.” Cernunnos lifted one hand to make a loose fist of it. “And mine.” He made a fist of his other hand, and placed one above the other so they brushed occasionally with the small motion of his breathing. He expanded that distance a little, so I could see it was there, and said, “We are here.”

“Just a hunch,” I said, and pointed at the fist he’d called my world, “but don’t I want to be there?”

“We both do,” the ancient god replied. He swung down off the liquid silver stallion and walked to the edge of the ebony dais.

“Why? I mean, I know why I want to be there. Why do you?” I watched him crouch and trail his fingers off the side of the dais. Ripples spilled back, sending wavers through the rushing stars. “Am I dead?” I asked, suddenly curious. “This looks kind of like where I met the shamans.”

“You are not dead yet.” Cernunnos hit the surface of space with the palm of his hand. Another shock of waves splattered the dais with a few drops of midnight. “Nor do I think that you are at the moment dying, though