Walking Dead

CHAPTER 8

It jolted us out of my garden, me blinking the Sight on as soon as I realized we were back in the real world. Morrison stopped drumming, but his hand remained raised, ready to strike the drum again if necessary. His aura hadn’t changed much since the last time he’d done this: it was still filled with rough edges of discomfort, purple and blue rubbing against each other wrong, but not badly enough to connote anger or fear. All too aware of the statement’s inaccuracy, I said, “We’re good,” and Morrison lowered the drumstick to wait on those of us with more esoteric skills to tell him what had happened.

Billy’s colors were grayed out, filmed over by his ghost riders. I could see varying shades, half a dozen or more soiling his presence. They amalgamated, darkening, and I imagined the ones he’d picked up in my garden were communicating Billy’s offer of help to those he’d carried from the party himself.

Either that or they were staging a hostile takeover, the thought of which didn’t reassure me at all. Mel sat up straight, her aura going bright with concern, though her daughter’s was rosy pink and serene with sleep. “What did you do to Bill?”

“Walker?” That was Morrison, a warning note in his voice before I had a chance to say anything. Then Billy spoke, and I was grateful, because anything I could say would sound like I was trying to fob off responsibility. It was his idea just didn’t cut it, even if it was true.

“It was my idea.” Billy lifted his head wearily. His eyes were dull. “The hauntings that held on to Joanne were old murder cases, and I promised we’d get them to a stronger medium to see if we could help.”

“A medium?” Morrison managed to keep the derision out of his voice, but he couldn’t bury the disbelief.

Billy swung his head toward the captain, the motion too heavy, like he didn’t have proper control of his actions. “It’s what I am, Captain. I communicate with the dead.” He didn’t exactly sound challenging, but there was a note of undeterrable conviction in his words. I knew Morrison was aware Billy had an affiliation for the weird that allowed his homicide cases to be solved in record time. That was why he’d partnered us. Still, from their expressions, it was safe to say they’d never discussed it over a beer.

After a few seconds Morrison bared his teeth, though the look came and went so fast I couldn’t have sworn I’d seen it. “Medium,” he said, and if I wasn’t sure his teeth had been bared, I was positive they were now clenched. “Shaman.” He scowled at Melinda. “Anything weird you want to put a label on?”

Melinda gave him another one of those devastating smiles, only this time tempered with deep sympathy. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to, Michael.”

It seemed like a bad time to mention I’d like those answers. Morrison pulled a hand over his face and nodded, then gave me a grim look. “Need anything else, Walker?”

“No, sir. Go on home and get some rest.” I got up and thrust my hand at him awkwardly. “Thanks, Captain.”

He shook my hand every bit as unnaturally as I’d offered it, nodded to the Hollidays and left without saying another word. All things considered, I thought that was the most rational choice. On the positive side, I didn’t have any particular impulse to follow him out and thus avoid whatever peculiarities or arguments were about to arise. Maybe it was a little thing, but I was pleased with it.

With Morrison gone, Billy and I both turned our attention on Melinda, whose usual good nature had blackened. “You promised to find a stronger medium, and…?”

“And it was too dangerous to let Joanie keep the riders. If she needs to heal someone—”

“William Robert Holliday. Cut to the chase.” Melinda didn’t so much need him to as she wanted her ugly suspicions confirmed.

“I took them on.” Billy held up a hand, stopping Mel’s indrawn breath from turning into a tirade. “You’re right. It’s dangerous for me, too, and I’m sorry. But it’s also four-thirty in the morning, and we’re both—all— exhausted, which isn’t going to help me keep my head with half a dozen ghosts riding me. Save the lecture until after we’ve slept, all right?”

Melinda got to her feet and put her hands on her waist. Or she would’ve if she’d had a waist, but pregnancy precluded that. It also precluded her from looking all that threatening. She looked a bit like a deranged penguin, really, what with the tuxedo and the tummy. “You just want me to mellow out,” she snapped. “You know if I sleep on it I’ll wake up knowing you made the right choice, even if I hate it.”

Billy crooked the tiniest grin I’d ever seen. “I’m counting on it, baby.”

Mel said something along the lines of, “Mrgnnmnmm grr grr grr,” and waddled over to hug Billy hard. “You’re a wretch.”

“Yeah, but you love me.” He got off my couch and tucked Melinda against his side, kissing her hair before looking at me. “There might be one thing you can do.”

I said, “Anything,” without thinking, but once I’d thought, it didn’t matter. Anything barely began to cover what I’d do to help Billy or Melinda.

“Ever shared energy with someone? It’s—”

He didn’t have to finish explaining. I’d done it frequently with another friend, popping a bit of healing energy into a heart that’d been magicked into an attack. I stepped forward and put my hand over Billy’s heart, calling up power.

Cheery blue-silver fireworks spat energy and comfort into his depleted aura. I’d drained myself damn near dry a couple of times early on in the year, but I got the impression that the more I accepted it, the deeper and more fundamental my magic became. If I had to go up against something huge, I might need to call in help from outside again, but even with the long night, I had more than enough juice to rev Billy’s engi—

I really needed to get some different metaphors.

Fortunately, Melinda couldn’t hear my thoughts, and Billy’s colors strengthened, which released me from having to think anymore about how to describe what I was doing. I shot another pulse of energy into him, essentially imagining it as refilling a fuel tank, and he exhaled gratefully. “Thanks. I don’t feel so worn down.”

“You don’t look so worn down,” Melinda said with satisfaction. “The gray’s fading out of your aura. You sure they don’t have enough foothold to take over when you sleep?”

“I’m sure now.” Billy hugged her shoulders, then nodded to me. “See you in the morning, Joanne.”

“It’s already morning. See you later. And not enough later, either.” I gave Mel a quick hug and shooed them out the door before thunking my head on it.

To the best of my ability to count—and for all my various faults, that much I could still do—this was the third time Billy’d gotten into hot water thanks to me and my magic. I didn’t know what his daily paranormal experiences were, but I was willing to bet banshees and comas and ghosts, oh my, had never been on the roster.

On one very practical hand, it made sense: Billy belonged to the Mulder subset of humanity. He wanted to believe, and because he did, he was usually on hand when the weird went down. That put him in a position of strength if he was dealing with his own particular branch of Other, but it made him vulnerable when he was dealing with mine. Realistically I couldn’t keep him out of harm’s way, but one of these times I wasn’t going to be able to figure a way out of the crazy before he really got hurt. I either needed more friends to spread the risk around to, or fewer so I took all the scary stuff onto myself.

Billy would give me a swirly for even thinking that way. I gave up on trying to figure out how to save the world and went to bed.

Sunday, October 30, 11:57 a.m.

Somewhere out there in the big brave world there was an extra-grande amaretto coffee with my name on it. All I had to do was get through the three minutes until it was technically lunchtime, and I could break free of my desk and go in search of that beautiful, luscious cup of coffee.

I’d been a homicide detective for four months now. I was never in any way keen to put my detecting skills to the test, but for the last few hours, I’d have almost given my eyeteeth for a nice eventful murder. The morning had been filled with paperwork, some of it follow-up on a couple of cases we’d closed the week before, but more of it focused on trying to find anything about Halloween murders over the last hundred and fifty years in Seattle. I’d protested. I didn’t think there’d been anything in Seattle that long.

Billy sent me to Wikipedia, where I learned that it’d been a Native American settlement forever. Well, okay,