And I wondered if it had worked. From what I understood, there ought to be all sorts of strange and mystical creatures wandering Seattle’s streets now, but Morrison hadn’t mentioned any while he was yelling at me. I’d have to find Faye or one of the others.
Or, I supposed, I’d have to go look for myself. I opened my eyes again and studied the parking lot without seeing it, trying to figure out how long it would take to get Petite out of there. I didn’t want to leave her, not with the lake pouring a new stream into the neighborhood. I was afraid the exposed earth would be cut away and she’d fall.
“What happened, Walker?”
I jostled myself out of studying the parking lot and looked back at Morrison, who’d rejoined me while I wasn’t watching. “Sir?”
“What happened out here last night? What were you doing here? And have you been tanning?” He was getting over his relief that I was alive and was becoming more interested in the bones of the matter, which probably meant in relatively short order he’d be yelling at me again.
I looked down at myself. My vision behaved itself for once and I realized the sunburn had done more than come to the surface. It’d already peeled, or the mystical equivalent thereof I was brown, tanner than I could ever remember seeing myself. I resisted the urge to peer down my shirt to see if I was tan all over. I hadn’t been naked in the desert of my mind, but I wasn’t at all sure a sunburn like the one I’d gotten there would care about clothes. I suspected there were no tan lines.
“I was meeting Faye. The girl from Cassandra’s funeral.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. I didn’t think Morrison cared all that much about whether I’d been tanning, so I skipped that part.
“Walker, I thought I told you to leave it alone.” He didn’t sound exasperated, much less surprised. More like resigned.
“Yeah.” I looked away. “Meeting her was set up before you told me that.”
“What were you seeing her for?”
“…she was working on a project with Cassandra before she died. She thought I might be able to help out with it.” Again, not exactly a lie. I was pretty sure Morrison would be happier if I didn’t tell him Cassie was part of a coven and I was taking her place. My vision swam to inverted again, giving me a sudden headache as the rising sun turned black. I winced and put my hand against my temple. Morrison reached out and caught my wrist, turning my palm up.
“What happened?”
I stared at Crowder’s bloody handkerchief wrapped around my hand and sagged. “I was gouged. It was kind of a rough night.”
“So I see. You need to get cleaned up and get this looked at. My car’s up at the head of the street. You’re not getting yours out of here without a helicopter.”
I clenched my jaw against dismay and patted Petite’s nose carefully. “It’s okay, baby. I’ll figure out how to get you out of here.” I didn’t think I’d spoken loudly enough for Morrison to hear, even though he was barely two feet away from me. The look he gave me said he had.
“What is it with you and cars, Walker?”
“They’re easier than people.” I tugged my hand out of Morrison’s grip, trying to be gentle enough about it that it wouldn’t seem rude. He let me go without a fuss. I felt him watching me as I hopped to another broken island. After a few seconds he followed me.
We walked in silence up to the head of the road, jumping over broken land where we needed to. I felt like I should say something just to fill up the quiet between us, but I had no idea how to make small talk with Morrison. He pulled ahead of me by a couple of steps and my mouth asked, “How old are you, Morrison?” without consulting my brain about it first.
Morrison threw a startled look over his shoulder. “What? Thirty-eight. Why?”
“Faye wanted to know.”
“I don’t need setting up with a girl half my age, Walker.” Morrison pulled ahead of me again, leaving me blinking at his shoulders. There wasn’t, as far as I knew, a Mrs. Morrison. He didn’t wear a wedding band, and he seemed the type. I reengaged my brain before it asked him any more questions, and scowled at my feet as I followed him. My hands wanted to go into my pockets, but my left hand kept screeching protest. In order to give myself something to do, I caught up with Morrison, matching my pace to his.
“How old are you?”
“What?” I missed a step, caught my toes on broken earth, and regained my balance before Morrison had time to help me, which I wasn’t sure he would.
“How old are you?” he repeated with a reasonable degree of patience.
“Isn’t that kind of thing on my official records?”
“Yeah, but so’s ‘Joanne Walker.’”
I pursed my lips. “A very palpable hit. Twenty-seven.” I hesitated. “Did you look?”
“At your records? Yes. They’re all under Walker. Why?” Morrison didn’t sound even slightly apologetic. I wouldn’t have either, in his position.
I shrugged. “Defining myself by my own rules, I guess.”
“There’s no paperwork filed for an official change of name.”
“You did your homework, didn’t you?” I shrugged again. Morrison’s car was at the head of a cross street, parked just before a dark crack in the road. “I didn’t feel like I needed to, I guess. I broke into my school computer to change my last name toWalker on the transcripts and never had a problem with the university systems, so why bother with the paperwork.” I was pretty sure the statute of limitations on hacking my own transcripts was long past. I hoped so. Morrison would probably arrest me if it weren’t. He lifted an eyebrow at me, then nodded at the car. I jumped the crevasse—it was deeper than I expected, probably six feet—and waited for him to unlock the doors. He was already on the radio, reporting me as alive and well, when I crawled in. There were actually cheers from the dispatch room. I felt my cheeks sting with color, and stared out the window. The sunlight, still inverted in my vision, bled silver and black over the horizon as it climbed. “Crap.”
Morrison glanced at me as he put the car in drive. “What?”
“I’m late for a meeting.”
“It’s six in the morning.”
“I know. Can you just drive me home?”
Morrison’s silence was profound before curiosity got the better of him. “You’ve got a 6:00 a.m. date at home?”
I slumped in my seat. “Yeah. You know. That boyfriend you didn’t believe in.”
Morrison snorted. I guessed he still didn’t believe. “You need to get that hand looked at.”
“I need a shower. If I can’t fix it I’ll go to the ER.”
“If you can’t fix it.” The skepticism in Morrison’s voice was thin. He’d watched me recover from impossible injuries enough times to know I could do it, even if he didn’t want to believe it. I felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for him.
I pushed myself up in the seat, toes pressed against the back of the footwell. “Forget I said anything.”
“Walker—”
“Really, Morrison, forget it. You’ll be happier that way.” I glared out the window, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut and just gone to the damned hospital with him. A ten point buck, its antlers glowing an unhealthy neon yellow, bounded out of the greenery at the side of the road and into the car. I yelled, flinging my arms up as if I could ward off the animal’s impact. Morrison yelled, too, slamming on the brakes.
“What the
“The
Morrison stared at me with furious concern that almost masked a complete lack of comprehension. “
“The—” It dawned on me that there’d been no impact, nor any scrape of hooves over the car’s roof. I flinched forward, looking beyond Morrison at the street. There was no sign of the animal anywhere. My voice got very small. “You didn’t see it?”
“See
I stared at the quiet street. “I thought I saw a deer. A buck. Come out of the woods and jump at the
