Walking Dead

same time you do, Detective Walker.”

“He what?” In Billy’s defense, I was reasonably certain his eardrum-rupturing outrage was over the part of that statement where I died, but Suzanne and I both nearly teleported five feet away at his sheer volume. She shot me a panicked look. I waved her down, and tried to do the same to Billy.

“Suzy had a premonition about my death, too. It’s why she came up here from Olympia, to warn me. It’s all right. It’s going to be fine.” I turned to Suzy, pretending my voice of reason was such that it would drown out Billy’s horror.

It didn’t, of course. He repeated, “It’s what?” and hauled me back around to face him.

Normally I’d object to being manhandled like that. Normally, though, I wasn’t looking my death in the face, so I just kind of got a warm fuzzy over him being that worried. I’d give him shit later, if I lived. Which I intended to do.

But if I didn’t, it was good to have a chance to see him again, and to say goodbye. He was going to have to pick up a lot of pieces if I got myself killed, and I kind of wanted to look him in the eye and say I was sorry, if it was coming to that. “It’s going to be okay. I think I’ve got this one under control, Billy. Don’t worry. I’ve been under a death sentence before and come through okay.” I squeezed his arm, gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile and turned back to Suzanne. “Did he die in the same place I do? At the house with the swimming pool and the toys?”

Poor Suzy, all big eyes and misery, nodded. I exhaled noisily. “That’s actually kind of good. It means we’re going to find him. Did you see anything else this time? Any other markers that would help us place the house?”

“It’s good that you’re going to die?” Billy demanded.

“If Redding and I are supposed to go out at the same time, that means if we can save one of us, we should both be okay. And me, I’m all for not letting anybody get thrown into a cauldron and resurrected, so I’m kind of planning for nobody to die, partner.” I gave Billy a genuinely sunny smile. Apparently I thought my logic was infallible.

Beneath all of that, Suzy whispered, “I didn’t see anything else. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, sweetie. We’re going to find him. It’ll be okay.” I actually believed that, but Billy growled.

“Walker, if Suzanne’s seeing your death, you need to stay the hell away from anything that looks at all like her premonitions.”

“I don’t think that’d work. I think I could lock myself in one of the cells and…” Okay, I had to admit that locking myself in a cell seemed like a pretty sure-fire way of not dying by a household swimming pool. “Look, it doesn’t matter, Billy. I’m doing this.”

“No. You’re not.” Billy set his jaw. “What you’re going to do is go tell Morrison about the premonition, and he’s going to decide whether you get to walk into a trap.”

Somewhere in the big bad universe was a version of me who snorted, rolled her eyes and blew off Billy’s demand. After all, she was an adult and a shaman and knew her own mind and what needed to be done. So, for that matter, did I.

Not terribly long ago I’d have done as Billy asked because I’d have figured Morrison would give me a way out. Going into a dangerous situation was one thing. Going into a situation where my death had been clearly predicted was something else, at least if you were willing to take it on faith that dire prophecy had any basis in reality, which I was. No police captain would order an officer into certain death. That was for the military.

Me, I knocked on my boss’s door and went in knowing even if he forbade me from going forth and doing my thing, I’d go forth and do it anyway. I barely knew me anymore, but I thought the new me was probably a distinct improvement over the old.

Morrison looked up and got the usual pained expression that came with finding me darkening his door. “Two office visits in one day, and you’re not even supposed to be at work. What did I do to deserve this?”

“Sorry. Would you rather Billy and I left the Chan case to molder for two days?” I sat down without waiting for an invitation, figuring I’d be on my feet for the whole interview otherwise. “Remember Suzanne Quinley?”

“Pretty little blond girl whose parents were murdered in January,” Morrison said, apparently without having to think about it. Given that it’d been both my first paranormal experience and my first murder case, I wasn’t surprised he could pull it up that easily, but I was willing to bet he could do the same with an awful lot of far more mundane cases. Morrison was good at his job, and cared about his people. “What about her?”

“She’s upstairs in Homicide. No, nobody’s dead. Yet.” I winced at the last word popping out. It wasn’t going to help my cause. “She’s been having visions in the aftermath of what happened in January. She came up from Olympia to tell me she’s had a premonition of my death in the cauldron. Tonight.”

Morrison’s expression slipped into something worse than neutrality. Neutrality meant I’d just said something unbelievable to the point of exasperation and that he was trying to hide his irritation with me. I was used to that, and had gotten to where I drew a small degree of comfort from it.

Under no circumstances could I imagine gaining any comfort from a look of gut-level belief covered by a stoic refusal to let emotion through. What was I supposed to say, Go me, the dread Morrison’s finally on board? I turned my face away, gaze fixed on a tall, slim glass clock on one of the captain’s bookshelves. It read 6:17 p.m., which meant in the worst-case scenario I had five hours and forty-three minutes to live. The clock’s tick and my heart both seemed very loud in the face of Morrison’s silence, but I couldn’t make myself look back at him.

The clock clicked over to 6:18 p.m. and quite a few seconds before Morrison finally spoke. “Why are you telling me this?”

I set my lips, looked back at him, and looked away again, then did it all a second time before managing to fix my eyes on the desk in front of him, if not on my boss himself. “Billy thought that the boss man should make the decision about whether I was going to go off and potentially get myself killed.”

“Bullshit.”

My gaze popped up to his. “No, really, that’s why. I’d have just gone and done it without asking, otherwise.”

Morrison spread his hands on his desk and leaned forward. He didn’t get up, but he didn’t have to: the whole effect was one of looming anyway. “And if I say no?”

“C’mon, Captain.” My voice softened and I tilted my head, a sad smile creeping up from somewhere. “You’re not going to say no. You know that as well as I do. Even if you did…” I shrugged. “I have to go anyway. It’s my job.”

“So I’m not going to say no and you wouldn’t listen if I did. Why’d you bother?”

Because Billy told me to was clearly not going to cut it. The other obvious, if sticky, answer was one I’d closed the door on back in July when I’d taken the promotion to detective, and had maybe locked shut when I started dating Thor. Well, if it was locked, there was still a major draft blowing through the cracks. I wasn’t sure there was anything to be done about that, or that I really wanted there to be. It made dating safer, knowing my heart was tangled up somewhere else.

Man, I was really a piece of work. Thor deserved better. I either had to break up with him or get over Morrison. Or get murdered by a cauldron, if the first two choices were too hard. And all that thinking about other things gave my mouth the opportunity to say, “I came to say goodbye,” without checking in with my brain first. “Just in case.”

The captain turned purple. “Y—”

“Morrison. You asked, okay? I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight. I personally think it’s going to involve banishing the living dead, retrieving a stolen cauldron and hopefully solving a murder. But Suzanne’s having visions about my death, so there’s a non-zero possibility that I might not survive. I’m hard to kill. You know that. You’ve seen the tapes. But you wanted to know why I came to talk to you, and I’m telling you.” I looked away, suddenly tired. “There aren’t very many people I’d want to say goodbye to, in the event of. You’re one of the few. So I’m saying it. You can give me shit later when I come through just fine.”

“Walker…”

I sighed and got up. “Next time there’s a death warrant on my head, we’ll just let this stand as writ, okay? I’ve said my melodramatic little goodbye. No more fuss after this. Just me, getting out of your hair.” I managed a tired little smile. “Your weird-colored hair.”