Thunderbird Falls

CHAPTER 26

She was, and she was agitated, pacing my garden with her skirt a-swirl. I sat where I was for a few seconds, watching her. Unlike Phoebe, she was far from an economy of motion. Every step she took seemed to eat up too much space, as if there was too little control behind it. She looked like she might fly apart at any moment.

Moreover, my garden looked terrible. The grass was curling brown and the sky flat with dust. Even the pool was dull, like someone’d poured charcoal over its surface and the particles hung there, distorting the water’s ability to reflect. I looked up at the sky, wondering if I could convince it to rain. It didn’t start to, so I shrugged and looked back at Judy. “How do you end up here, anyway, when I’m not here?”

She flinched, hands rising up from her sides a few inches, like a startled bird fluttering its wings. I hid a grin, suddenly seeing her as the black-eyed raven. She spun to face me, skirt whirling again. “There you are. We were worried. Where have you been?”

“We?”

Her eyebrows crinkled together. “The spirit animals and me. You’re late.”

“I didn’t know spirit animals got worried.” I glanced around, didn’t see them, and shrugged it off. “Sorry I’m late. It was a rough night. Anyway, so how can you be in my garden? How can you be waiting for me here?”

“You expect me to be here,” Judy said. “It gives me access.”

For a moment I thought I heard Marcia’s voice saying, “It’s a matter of expectation,” and frowned at Judy. She didn’t look anything like Marcia, even after the whole knife incident. The truth of the matter was probably that expectation colored a lot of what I did or what I was supposed to do. I said, “Okay,” through a yawn, and nodded. At least I’d gotten a night’s sleep, even if it’d been in a fallen tree.

Judy came and crouched in front of me. “You’ve changed a great deal.”

I tried to speak through another yawn and gleeked instead, then coughed as I clapped my hand over my mouth. My eyes teared with the effort of the whole thing and it took two swallows before I was able to say, “I have?” I glanced down at myself again.

My new suntan hadn’t followed me into my garden. Too much self-perception tied up in being pale-skinned. The tan probably wouldn’t last long enough for that to change. Still, it was a nice compliment. It made me feel like maybe I was doing something right with the whole mystical lifestyle thing.

Judy’s pause stretched on long enough to be audible. I blinked up at her, curious, to find her mouth pursed. “I meant the world around you,” she said gently. “You’ve changed a great deal out there.”

“Oh.” I felt foolish, a blush burning my ears. The tan might’ve been useful to hide that. And here I thought I’d been doing so well. Judy put her hand on my shoulder, smiling.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I think that you’re able to affect these changes means you’re finally beginning to accept your own gifts, Joanne. The world around you isn’t the only thing that’s changed.” She sat down across from me, folding her legs under herself tidily.

A little surge of happy pride tingled through me. I ducked my head, feeling ridiculous. I’d practically asked for the clarified compliment. It made me happy anyway. “So what’s on the agenda for today, bo—” I bit off the word. I called Morrison boss. For some reason I didn’t want to share his word with Judy.

I’d never put it in so many words, but it occurred to me that I had some interesting hang-ups about Morrison.

I put the thought firmly out of my mind. “What’s on the agenda?”

Judy leaned forward, suddenly full of intensity. It lit her eyes, making them blacker and brighter, reminding me of Virissong as he’d told his story to me. Which also reminded me that I’d wanted to ask him more questions, but it was going to have to wait until after the solstice ritual. At least then I’d be able to talk to him face-to-face. “I want to talk to you about tonight’s ritual.”

I sat up straighter and looked around with a nervous laugh. “Are you reading my mind? I was just thinking about that.”

Judy smiled. “No. I can’t read your mind.”

“Really? Everybody else can.”

Judy’s eyebrows rose slowly. “They can?”

I waved it off. “Never mind. What’d you want to talk about, about tonight?”

Judy’s eyebrows remained elevated for a few moments, but she nodded. “You’ll be asked a great deal tonight, Joanne. More than has been asked of you in the past.”

More than having a sword stuffed in me? I didn’t ask the question out loud, just nodded attentively like a good student. “Virissong will complete his journey tonight and return to the Middle World. He may need to rely heavily on your strength.”

“How do you know that?”

Judy smiled. “Teaching you isn’t the only thing I do. Since you mentioned him and have spoken with him, I’ve been looking in to the rituals you and the coven are pursuing. It’s quite clear that they have the desire, but you have the power, to help Virissong bridge the worlds. It’s part of why I’m so pleased at how far you’ve come in acceptance the past few days. Your belief strengthens us all.”

I felt another warm little glow of pride tingle around the back of my neck. Doing things right could get addictive, if people were going to keep complimenting me for them. My vision went inverted and I shook my head, rubbing my eyes. Judy’s voice lifted with concern. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Just, my vision’s been all funky for a few days. Ever since—” Reticence popped through again. I hadn’t told Judy about the talk with Big Coyote in the desert, and didn’t really want to. I didn’t want to talk to anybody about that yet. The deja vu brought on by Cassandra’s funeral after the desert still made me uncomfortable, sufficiently uncomfortable that I didn’t want to think about it. My vision narrowed down again and I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, making black sunbursts behind my eyelids. “Ever since the first ritual.” It was close enough.

“Ah.” Judy didn’t sound surprised. I squinted my eyes open to find her nodding wisely. “It’s the power you’re using, almost certainly. Think of it like stretching muscles you’re not accustomed to. You’ll adjust.”

“Before I go blind?” I muttered. I stopped rubbing my eyes, but the after-images of darkness still hung around the edges of my vision. It was like looking into binoculars. “Anyway, thanks. So I’ve noticed some people aren’t seeing the spirit animals out there. What’ s up with that?”

“A matter of faith.” Judy hesitated. “And maybe something more. You released a great deal of power last night. I’m not entirely sure it went the way it was intended to.”

I made a face. “Yeah, I kind of got that with the whole massive earthquake thing. I hope that was an accident.”

Judy shook her head. “I’m sure it was. And tonight’s ritual should finish everything and put it all back to rights. You’ll have to be brave tonight, Joanne. It’s going to be hard.”

“I can handle it. I just lived through being the epicenter of an earthquake, after all.” My, wasn’t I brash and cocky. Judy smiled at me.

“Good. I think we’ll move on to your next lesson in the morning. You should save your strength for tonight, now. You’ll be ready, in the morning.”

“You sure I won’t be all burned out?”

“Positive. It’s the nature of sacrifice, after all. The more you give, the more of you there is to give.”

That sounded very mystical and reassuring. “All right. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

Judy nodded. “Tomorrow. Good luck tonight.”

“Thanks.” I opened my eyes, still sitting under hot shower water. I felt cleaner and almost ready to face the day, even though my vision was still tunneled. I tried blinking it away and succeeded in blinking water into my eyes, nothing more. Oh well, it’d faded before.

The phone rang and I leaped out of the tub, all elbows and knees and flailing as I ran for it. I didn’t know why I was in such a hurry; my answering machine worked just fine. Telephones caused a Pavlovian response in me. Someday I was going to spend a few weeks training myself out of it, so that when a telemarketer called I didn’t compulsively leap up and race to see who it was. Possibly the whole training prospect would be more successful if I got more than one phone call a week.

I knocked the phone’s base off the nightstand as I snatched the receiver up, gasping, “Hello?” into it. Thank God genuine video phones hadn’t been invented. I hadn’t even grabbed a towel. Ford Prefect would despair of me.

“Joanie? You okay? This’s Billy.”

“Oh. Hi. Yeah. I was in the shower, that’s all. What’s up?” My heart rate slowing down, I edged back into the bathroom to reach for a towel. The phone cord wouldn’t reach. I stretched as far as I could, an awkward naked ballet, trying to snag the towel with my fingertips as Billy spoke.

“What the hell happened last night?”

“You sound like Morrison. What do you mean?”

“Earthquakes and monsters roaming the streets? Ring a bell?”

My foot slid out from under me. I seized the towel on my way down, but it didn’t provide any kind of support. I crashed to the floor, banging most parts of my body on the floor, the doorjamb, and the falling towel rack, variously. I lay there, afraid to even groan while I judged whether anything was badly injured, then fumbled for the phone, I’d dropped sometime during my dramatic descent.

“Joanie? Joanne? Are you all right? Joanie? Jesus Christ! Jo—”

“I’m okay,” I announced, hoping it wasn’t an overstatement.

“What the hell happened?”

“I fell.” I sat up cautiously, trying to extract my leg from around the door frame. “I think I’m okay. Um. Monsters roaming the streets?”

“Don’t play dumb with me.”

“I’m not. I just didn’t know anybody else could see them.” Although if anybody could, of course it would be Billy. My friend the True Believer.

“Well, I promise you, it’s not just me. The station’s hopping like a madhouse. Calls coming in from all over the city, some of them from people who’re seeing things and lots from people who think their friends have lost their minds.”

“You the only one there?”

Billy understood what I meant, even if the question hadn’t come anywhere near asking it. “No, there’s me and Jen Gonzales in Missing Persons and a bunch of people from your little séance back in January. I donno who else.”

“It wasn’t a séance.”

“Joanne!”

I’d never heard Billy sound so annoyed. I winced, clutching my towel against my chest. “Yeah, sorry, not a good time for arguing details. Look, I’ll…” What the hell was I going to do? “I’ll come down to the station. I don’t know what good I can do, but somebody else on duty can’t hurt, at least.”

“Forget coming to the station, Joanie. Figure out what’s going on. Gimme a call when you know. Maybe we can figure out how to fix it.”

“It’ll be fixed tonight,” I said without thinking. I could all but hear Billy shake his head.

“Tonight might not be soon enough. Get busy, Joanie. This is important.” He hung up. I got dressed and went to find Faye.

Actually, I got dressed, went outside, and discovered my car wasn’t there. How quickly we forget. I swore and went back upstairs to call a cab.

It took forty-five minutes to arrive. I desperately wished Gary was on duty, and not just because he always managed to dump his current fare and come skidding to my doorstop when I needed a ride. He’d delivered me to a crime scene back in March, and had been terribly sulky that Morrison wouldn’t let him hang around and gawk. I wanted him to be there to gawk with me.

I made two loops around my block while I waited for the cab, checking out the havoc caused by the earthquake and the spirits running amok. There was often a drunk or two sleeping it off in the park across the street from my apartment building, but this morning everyone, even the drunks, was awake and a little wild-eyed. Apparently seeing spirits all over will sober a person right up.

And there were more and more of them, and they were becoming more solid. I watched a moose cross in front of me and dent the grass it stepped on, although it didn’t stay bent. I kept side-stepping around things that weren’t quite real, often into things that were, like a jogger who stopped and yelled at me for three minutes straight. At least he was keeping his heart rate up. Just about everyone was crabby, either from seeing animals that couldn’t possibly be there, or from having to deal with people who were having hallucinations. I didn’t know which group I felt sorrier for. Both, maybe. The coven and I had disturbed the natural order of things. I wondered if it’d ever really been like this, thousands of years ago, with so many spirits roaming free. I wasn’t sure our modern world could adapt to it.

The cab ride to the station was frustrating. There were now creatures settling themselves in the middle of the road, deliberately springing toward moving vehicles as if they were prey. Sometimes vehicles ended up with visible impact marks from monsters smashing into them; other cars would just suddenly swerve and crash into something. Earthquake debris littering the streets made more than enough targets to bash against, even if other vehicles weren’t on the roads. I clenched my fingers around the cab’s armrest and threw banishment thoughts at the spirits with all my strength. It didn’t help.

I wished again Gary was the one driving my cab, partly because I suspected he’d be able to see the monsters. Even if he couldn’t, it didn’t matter, because he wouldn’t think I was crazy, which would be good enough. He also wouldn’t let the meter run up—probably—while I got out to try to deal with both wrecks and spirit animals. My teeth began to hurt from pressing them together so hard. I wished Coyote was there—my coyote, Little Coyote—to tell me what to do, but I couldn’t even concentrate enough to slip into the otherworld. I was going to have to help on my own.

I overpaid the cabby and went into the precinct with my shoulders hunched around my ears. There weren’t that many spirits infesting the precinct building, except near the windows. Too much concrete and too many straight lines, I thought. Cernunnos and his lot hadn’t been overwhelmingly delighted with rigid man-made structures either. Maybe it was something otherworldly creatures had in common. I didn’t care: it was a little relief from the bizarreness outside, and I took what I could get.

“You been on vacation, Joey?”

“What?” I nearly started out of my skin, then wished I didn’t feel like that was a genuine possibility. A friend of mine, Ray, leaned out of a doorway I’d passed. He wasn’t wearing his hat, but I could see the ring where sweat had matted his hair against his head.

“You’re tan. Been on vacation?” Ray was short and bulky and solid, like a human bunker. Explaining to him about my mystically induced tan would’ve been like explaining quantum physics to a hippo. I wasn’t up to either task.

“Got too much sun, anyway.”

“Looks good,” Ray offered, then tilted his head back at the main doors. “It’s balls-busting nuts out there.” He disappeared back into the office, having delivered his piece. I rubbed my breastbone, blinking, then shook my head and went looking for Morrison to see if he’d let me borrow a patrol car until I could rescue Petite or get a rental.

I found Billy instead. He came around a corner like a wrecking ball, nearly bowling me over. I stepped back, flattening myself against the wall, and he lumbered past me, then drew up and turned back with a glare. Sweat rolled down his face, too pink with exertion and the lack of air-conditioning. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I don’t have a car, Billy. I need to see if I can borrow one. And Christ, somebody needs to be here. It’s nuts out there.” I twitched my nose, annoyed at my mouth for stealing Ray’s words. At least I’d avoided the balls-busting part.

“Yeah. Look.” Billy curled his fingers around my upper arm and drew me aside, not that there was a great deal of traffic that required avoiding. His voice dropped low enough that I leaned in to hear him better. “I couldn’t talk about this on the phone, Joanie. Whatever’s going on here is upsetting Mel in a big way.”

My stomach tightened up as I looked at Billy’s expanded paunch. “How big?”

“Bad cramps and nerves. The doctor told her to stay on bed rest for a couple days. It’s almost impossible with the rest of the kids, especially with me not being there, but—”

“But she is, isn’t she, Billy?” My voice rose too high and Billy tightened his fingers around my arm. I knotted my right hand into a fist, my left too damaged to curl more than a few centimeters closed. “You want me to go take care of the kids? Is there anybody else with her?”

Relief paled Billy’s face so sharply I thought he must be in pain. “Her Mom’s flying in, but she’s in Arizona and can’t get here until tomorrow. If you could—”

“Yeah.” I cut him off with a sharp movement of my hand. “Of course, Billy. I’ll try to see if there’s anything I can do about—the rest of it, but at least I can take care of the kids and take a load off Mel’s mind. Is there anything I oughta pick up on the way over?”

“Tranquilizers,” he said, only half-kidding. I pulled up the best smile I could.

“For the kids, or for Melinda?”

Billy laughed, startled. “I meant the kids, but it might be more effective to give them to Mel. Look, I’m sorry if I was short with you on the phone—”

I grabbed his hand. “You weren’t. It’s okay. I’ll go take care of them, Billy. Isn’t that what cops are supposed to do? Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine.”