never gonna change and you’re not gonna, either. The other’s ta keep right on believing in six impossible things before breakfast. Guess I’d just rather do that.”
“Is that what Annie would’ve done, too?” I closed my eyes, inhaling the old man’s mellow scent. “I wish I’d met her.”
“Me, too. She woulda liked you, Jo. You woulda liked her.”
“I’d like anybody who could stay married to you for forty-eight years.”
“Harrumph.” Gary gave me another squeeze to let me know he didn’t mean it. “Always thought she was the practical one,” he said after a moment. I turned my cheek toward his chest, eyes still closed as I listened. “She was a nurse, didja know?”
“I think you told me,” I said with a nod. I felt Gary nod, too, pride coming into his voice.
“She said it was in case I never came back from the war, so she’d have somethin’ to do. I always thought it was so she could work with the little ones without bringin’ ’em home to remind me of what she couldn’t give me. Damn fool woman never did understand.” Sorrow mixed with pride by the end of his words and I squirmed around to put my arm over his chest and hug him.
“How come you didn’t adopt? I think you would’ve made a fantastic dad.” Gary had mentioned once, in passing, that Annie couldn’t have children. He didn’t know I’d seen more than that in a moment of revelation, seen the illness that had nearly claimed his wife’s life and had taken her ability to bear children instead. It was one of those things there was no less-than-awkward way to confess:
Gary chuckled. “Annie was the breadwinner then. Me, I was wanderin’ around playin’ the trumpet at jazz clubs and drinkin’ too much. Guess we never thought we fit the right mold to adopt.”
I sat up, an incredulous smile blooming over my face. “Trumpet? You? Were you any good?”
“I was all right,” Gary said with such deprecation I suspected he’d been a lot better than all right. “Brought in enough spare cash to take Annie on some nice vacations.”
“You still play?”
Gary made a noise that sounded suspiciously like
Gary gave me a white-toothed grin and shrugged his big shoulders, looking thirty years younger than the Hemingway wrinkles and white hair told me he was. “A fella’s gotta keep some secrets, Jo, or you’ll stop comin’ around.”
“I’m not the one who goes breaking into your house,” I pointed out. “You’re doing the coming around.” Gary looked not at all repentant, and I climbed off the couch, smiling as I looked for my cell phone. “Come on down to the car with me. I left the topaz and my phone there.” There was absolutely no good reason I couldn’t use the phone in the house, but Gary ambled down to Petite with me, anyway, and I dug a particularly nice piece of topaz out of the bag and handed it to him. He held it up to the light, and I dialed Morrison’s number into my phone. I hadn’t figured out how to program numbers into the phone’s auto-dial—or, more accurately, I hadn’t figured out how to make the stupid keypad give me the right letters so I could spell people’s names when it offered to store numbers for me—and so I still had to actually dial phone numbers. For someone who owned a Linux box at home instead of a Microsoft or Mac PC, that was an embarrassing failure in the technical department. I liked to imagine that memorizing numbers was a good mental exercise that would stand me well while all of my contemporaries’ brains turned to mush from lack of use.
“Walker.” Morrison spoke through gritted teeth before I even heard the connection go through. How I could tell his teeth were gritted, I wasn’t sure, unless I was just making the relatively safe assumption that if he was talking to me, his teeth were gritted. “Tell me you’ve got a better solution to my police force calling in sick than leaving pieces of rocks on people’s desks.”
“Technically,” I said, “if they’re sleeping, they can’t be the ones calling in.”
I don’t know why I did things like that. Morrison erupted in a nearly incoherent bellow of frustration while I leaned on Petite’s hood and watched Gary admire his stone. “Captain,” I interrupted when he sounded like he was winding down a little, “get that piece of topaz. It’s the only thing I’ve got that might be protecting people from this. I really mean it, Morrison. Put the topaz in your pocket.”
“How in hell is a rock going to do any good?”
“It’s symbolic, Morrison, if nothing else. Haven’t you ever gone to church?” I hung up before he could answer, although I was suddenly curious as to the answer. My own church-learnings were sketchy at best. Once in a while, and only when we were in the South, Dad would feel the urge to stop by a Baptist temple and absorb some gospel music and the high-rolling passion of belief, but that was as much as I’d ever had in the way of formal church attendance. Still, the power of faith wasn’t something you had to go to church to pick up. I just hoped Morrison would put the stupid rock in his pocket. That conversation had not gone as planned. I don’t know what had made me think Morrison might start listening to reason. Or listening to me, which wasn’t really the same thing at all. I spun the phone in the palm of my hand, trying to decide what to do with it. “Was it only this morning Mel went to sleep?”
“’Fraid so, sweetheart.” Gary lowered his stone, then slid it into his pocket. “Maybe you oughta sleep, Jo.”
I shook my head. “I think that’s a bad idea. I’m already getting stuck in dreams and being blindsided by visions. I don’t want to give this thing any more opportunity to snag me than I have to.”
“And how many is that?”
I looked up. Gary’s white hair was bright with sun, almost glowing, and his eyes were concerned. I smiled despite myself. “Enough to figure out what it is and get everybody free from it. I’m being careful, Gary. As careful as I can be, anyway. If this thing can grab Coyote, it’s a lot stronger than I am.” As if the admission was a weakness, I yawned until my nose stung, and felt my expression go wry. “Maybe I’ll get a caffeine IV and drop by the hospital. If they’ve got Billy and Mel in the same room I might be able to get more off both of them than just the one. Hang on to that rock, will you, Gary? Please?”
“’Course I will.” His eyes sparkled in the sunlight. “I don’t want you givin’ me the look you gave Morrison a minute ago. Coulda peeled paint, and he ain’t even here.”
“That’s my goal in life,” I muttered. “Peel Morrison’s paint.” Something sounded unbelievably wrong with that and I felt my ears heat up. Gary cleared his throat too loudly and looked somewhere else, trying not to grin. I slumped somewhat melodramatically, feeling put-upon, then straightened. “Anyway,” I said, also too loudly, “I’m going to the hospital.”
Gary came around to Petite’s passenger side and bopped his hand against her door handle. “Arright, let’s go.”
“This became a we?” I crawled in and popped the lock on Gary’s door open. He swung down into the seat like it was natural, a marked difference from Morrison, and shrugged.
“I took the day off, doll. Might as well be in on the good stuff. Besides, you kept me out of it last time.”
Like clockwork, guilt swept through me, bubbling around the core of power in my stomach. I reached over without thinking, putting my fingers on Gary’s chest, and magic spilled out.
CHAPTER 17
Magic was okay. Magic was what I expected. What I didn’t expect was the depth it crashed to, wholesale ignoring my intent to work a little good mojo into Gary’s heart and call it done. A jungle rushed up around me, shaking into place with such force I staggered while leaves and branches settled into place with rustling whispers. Water splashed around my ankles, cold and fresh and urgent. I stepped with it, letting its current guide me. Within a few steps it deepened and pulled me off my feet, buffeting me and carrying me to wherever it wanted me to go. I laughed, breathless with surprise, and twisted in the water, looking to see how far back it went.
Following me came a flood of inky-black wings, so rich in their darkness that I could see hints of purples and blues within them. Blackness tainted what it touched, sucking life away. Horror seized me as surely as the stream had and I snatched for shore, trying to stop my plummet before I fell any deeper and brought death to everything that surrounded me.
