Urban Shaman

Men and women of all ethnicities and colors walked the pathways with no hurry at all, stopping to speak with one another. Their voices rose in a babble, over the sound of wind. If I listened with my ears I heard every tongue imaginable, but when I listened with my mind, I understood every word that was spoken.

Not one of them took notice of the Hunt’s arrival like it was anything untoward, though a number of passersby nodded and smiled or called their greetings. I watched curiously as a man and woman met and walked together to the base of one of the Joshua Tree spires, where the man lowered his head to kiss the woman’s throat.

Nor was theirs the only such display. Littered here and there, sometimes half-hidden in shadows, but as often not, couples tangled together without the slightest regard for who might be watching.

“What is this place?” Cernunnos asked, fascinated. “What is this Babylon of yours, little shaman?” He dismounted, and with a flick of his fingers sent the host down a dozen different streetways, then offered me a hand as I dismounted as well.

“A land of excess,” I said slowly. Remembering was hard; there was a fog in my mind, and it wanted me to remember the passion of the Hunt, not ancient legends from the world I’d once called home. “Where all men could speak to one another, where gluttony and lust held sway over intellect and reason. They say God was angered by the excess and destroyed the city, so that men could no longer speak to each other and instead were made to fight over misunderstandings. They say that to return to Babylon is to embrace corruption.” I looked around, listening to the rise and fall of voices and laughter. “It feels to me like…peace.”

Cernunnos placed two fingers over my breastbone, where his sword had punched through me a few days earlier. The sudden memory made me blink and shiver before it faded again. “And tell me, little shaman,” he said, “are you at peace now?”

A warning note twinged inside me. There was something I was forgetting, a reason not to be at peace. But Cernunnos smiled, shockingly green eyes inviting, and I forgot it again. “I am, my lord master of the Hunt.”

“I am so very glad.” He curled his fingers under my chin. His hands were cool, even through the leather gloves he wore. I shivered a little. “Don’t be afraid,” he murmured, and kissed me.

Fleetingly, the thought went through my mind: This is not right, and was followed hard by, when was the last time someone kissed me? Cernunnos’s power closed around me then, no longer a safe blanket of comfort, but tendrils of penetration, enticing passion from deep within me. I made an uncertain sound, closing my eyes against the pleasure in Cernunnos’s gaze. Green fire filtered through me, swirling up through my groin and into my breasts, sweet and hungry. His kiss was a taste of freedom, unlike anything I remembered since childhood. It was sanctuary.

“What a child we will make together, little shaman,” Cernunnos whispered. “What power, what passion he shall have.”

My eyes flew open, reality crashing back into my bones with a gut-wrenching jolt. “No!” I shoved him away as hard as I could. The god stumbled back, his green eyes alight with outraged astonishment. “No,” I panted again. “No, and no, and no, Cernunnos, I am not yours, and I will not make that mistake again.”

Passion ignited into rage in his eyes. “Think on your choices, shaman,” he snarled. “Choose me and I’ll grant you eternity, riding at my side. You will guide me as I guide the Hunt. Choose otherwise, and you and this place end now.” He threw his head back and let out a bellow like a wounded hind, a deep throbbing sound that sent tremors through the Joshua Tree spires. Around us the host faded back into being, unconstrained by observing niceties like traveling through physical space or linear time.

I stared at Cernunnos, far too aware of the heat still in my blood and the taste of his power, almost visible as he stood before me. At least the fog in my brain seemed to have burned away. “You need a thirteenth.” I’d figured that much out. Damn, I’d been right. Go team go. But I’d thought he needed Marie specifically. “You need someone to ride in the child’s place so you can ride. It can be anybody? You’re offering that to me?”

“Not anyone,” Cernunnos said through gritted teeth. “Someone with power. Someone who can bear the weight of my touch without shuddering. Someone who can bear a child to replace the one that is lost.”

Tears burned hot in my eyes, an unexpected pang of shared loss lighting the air between the ancient god and myself. For a few seconds I could hardly breathe, my throat tight with memory and loss. The fire in Cernunnos’s eyes burned dark with frustrated rage and sorrow. I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself, holding myself still to prevent myself from going to him and trying to ease his pain.

“Choose,” Cernunnos demanded. He closed his fist around the stallion’s reins and mounted the animal in a single graceful motion. He looked terribly tall, fury stretching the elegant features gaunt, his power lending breadth to the slender form. He didn’t move, but I thought that if he turned his head I would see faint mists of green fire drift away, trails left by the anger in his eyes.

I remembered the sudden longing the silver misty world had woken in me, and took a startled breath. “She’s your daughter. The last Rider, the one who’s missing. And she’s strong enough to call you home. But me, I’m not from that world. I can resist that call. But I’m not—” I shivered again, staring up at him. “I’m not like Marie, my magic doesn’t work like hers. That’s why you need me to make a—” I couldn’t say the last word, not out loud, not to the primal god on his horse before me. “My magic would overrule the power of that world, the one the Rider calls home. You could use our—” I still couldn’t say it. “You could stay in my world. Led by a child with shamanic magic.”

“A child would be best,” Cernunnos whispered. “Blood of my blood is bound to me whether we like it or not. Blood of your blood would bear much stronger ties to your world than any child I’ve sired before. Blood of our blood would be rich with power.” He lifted his stallion’s reins in a clenched fist. “But you, little shaman, you will do. Choose!”

“Just as long as you keep me drugged.” I touched my temple, remembering the green fog of his power. “No. No!”

A feral grin slipped over Cernunnos’s mouth. “Do you know what this place is, gwjld, that you have brought me to? Neither your world nor mine. There is no binding here.”

A sick feeling knotted my stomach. Cernunnos grinned again, sharp canines curving over his lower lip a moment. “A land of peace, shaman. They are traveling souls, without defenses, and we are beyond worlds.” He threw his head back again, ash-colored hair flinging back over his shoulders, and let out another spire-shaking bellow, this one more like a hunter’s horn than the wounded stag. When he lifted his head again, his brilliant eyes were narrow slits, full of smug anger. The crown of horn lost its subtlety, sweeping back from his skull in elegant, heavy whorls. His neck and shoulders thickened as I watched, body changing to support the greater weight of the full crown. “You have chosen,” he snarled. His smile was wicked, so sharp it made me cold. “We ride.”

Morrison waved smelling salts under my nose and I came awake with a shock.

CHAPTER 24

“No!” I sat up with a shriek, knocking Morrison’s hand away with all the strength I had. The vial of smelling salts flew out of his hand and bounced over the steps, skidding to a halt in the slushy snow. “No, no, oh, shit, no, I’ve got to go back, I’ve got to get back!”

Morrison stared at me, dumbfounded. I wanted to hit him for not understanding, even though I knew I sounded like a lunatic. “I’ve got to get back!”

“Funny,” Morrison said through clenched teeth, “I thought you just came back.”

“No, no! There, out there, I just let Cernunnos loose on, oh, fuck, I’ve got to get back!”

“Should I sedate her, Captain?” someone behind my back asked. Morrison looked up, disgusted.

“Sedate a head injury. Bright idea there.”

All I needed was the reminder. Pain exploded through the back of my skull like it had been lying in wait. It grew progressively worse as I continued to shout at Morrison, frustration and fear rendering me more incoherent by the moment. Finally he picked up a handful of gritty slush and threw it in my face, which shut me up, as much to his surprise as mine.

“Once more,” he growled, “from the top, this time with complete sentences.”