"No you ca—" Wow. We were, like, six. Clearly I was going to have to do something drastic for her own good. "Okay, fine."

 

I punched her in the jaw.

 

The Sara I knew would've dropped like a hot potato. Sadly for me, that girl had been a decade plus some federal training ago. Her head snapped to the right and tears glassed her eyes, but she didn't so much as stagger, much less fall. After a couple very long seconds she cranked her face back around to look at me, a red mark blossoming on her chin.

 

The emo desk attendant breathed, "Oh, this is gonna be good," and Coyote said "Ten bucks on the blonde," loudly enough for me to hear. Gary, wisely, didn't respond, only shuffled backward, getting out of the way.

 

Sara spun around and smashed a booted heel into my ribs.

* * *

I bet somewhere there was a really important law about not hitting federal agents. I bet there was an equally important one about federal agents only using necessary force. Lucky for Sara, my big poofy winter coat cushioned so much of the kick that she had all kinds of excuse to keep right on being forceful. I slammed into the registration desk, not quite winded, and she came after me with gut punches. I threw an elbow and hit her in the face. Padded or not, elbows were pointy, and she fell back with tears streaming down her cheeks. I swung around to put my weight on the desk, lifted both feet, and kicked her in the chest.

 

She went flying backward, slamming into one of the lobby chairs with a satisfying crash, and she came up with a girl-gladiator expression that belied her tears. That was okay. I knew they weren't oh-ow-woe-is-me tears. They were merely the by-product of being hit in the face twice. If I'd hoped that was enough to take her down—

 

Okay, realistically, although I'd thought the first punch might take her down, we weren't really hitting each other over the topic of who was or was not going out into the night to fight the monsters. The juvenile truth of the matter was I'd hit her mostly because Lucas had kept in touch with her after he left Qualla Boundary, and I was pretty sure she retaliated because I'd slept with him in the first place. Emotional maturity was overrated, anyway. I didn't think fighting over a boy was usually quite this literal, but right then it felt kind of good, so I didn't care. It'd been a long time coming.

 

All that introspection took place while Sara shoved herself out of the chair and rushed me. I waited until the last possible second and stepped aside, hoping for a real Three Stooges moment, but instead of bashing her head into the registration desk she flicked a hand out and caught me in the throat with its stiffened edge.

 

I went down clawing at my throat as I gagged for air. A tiny oxygen-deprived part of my brain thought to heal myself, and the power flat-out deserted me, which I no doubt richly deserved. Sara kicked me over and nudged my hands out of the way with her toe so she could put a booted foot on my throat. Then, with all the grace and time in the world, she withdrew her duty weapon and pointed it between my eyes.

 

I had never actually been at the business end of a .45 before. It turned out the scenes in films where the relatively small muzzle of a gun suddenly looked bigger than God Himself were pretty accurate. I didn't think she was really going to shoot me, but that was less reassuring than it might've been. I wheezed, "Okay. You win. You can come hunting with me," and put my hands above my head.

 

"Do you know what the penalty for assaulting a federal officer is, Joanne?"

 

"Two weeks' detention after school and a stern warning from the principal?"

 

Sara stared at me, and for a horrible moment I thought maybe I'd been the only one fighting over Lucas. That was bad, especially after I'd been all high-horse about her attitude earlier. But after a few more seconds she lowered her weapon a few inches and said, "Yeah. Something like that. Are we even?"

 

"No. I think you won across the board."

 

She pursed her lips, glanced skyward, and shrugged her eyebrows in a silent consideration that said, essentially, hmm, well gosh, yeah, you're right, I did. Words were overrated. Sometimes faces could say everything necessary. Hers also said I'd probably broken her nose, given how it was swollen and bleeding. The fact that she was still making expressions around it suggested some nerve damage, too, because otherwise it would've hurt too much. I put my hand up, just curious, and she put the gun away to pull me to my feet. I said, "Thanks. This is going to hurt like a son of a bitch," and pulled her nose straight with no other warning.

 

Her pained howl faded into a surprised squeak as I pulsed healing power right behind that yank. Fender bender, nothing worse, but I didn't have to go through the mental gymnastics of pounding the dents out. Her bruising faded, and when a little part of me wanted to leave a hint of yellow behind, Coyote hit me on the back of my head like he knew what I was thinking. He probably did, since he'd taught me a lot of what I knew.

 

Sara prodded her nose cautiously when I dropped my hand. "How the hell…?"

 

"It's easier when you don't know it's going to happen. There's no disbelief for me to fight. Healing's easy." I shrugged uncomfortably. "The body wants to be put right. I'm just speeding it along. Sorry about your nose."

 

She wriggled its tip with a finger. "I guess there's nothing to be sorry for. If you ever hit me again, Joanne…"

 

"Yeah, I know, straight to the principal's office with me." I was painfully aware of—well, several things, actually, ranging from my ribs to my kidneys to my throat, but mostly of Laurie Corvallis, who was on her feet. Her hands were working like she wanted to grab something but couldn't quite manage, and I felt a rare bolt of compassion. My world just didn't make any sense from the outside. I wondered if she would go away if I explained I was just trying to keep her out of a situation that she would never comprehend.

 

Probably not. For one, with the way my luck ran, it would turn out she was much more open to the possibility of and interested in the dynamics of magic than I was. For two, I suspected any time she was told "You wouldn't understand," it made her that much more determined to get to the guts of the thing, whatever it was.

 

I turned away, hoping out of sight was out of mind. That struck me as a good argument to keep people safe, and I pleaded my case to Sara. "You're the head of the squad, I get that. You have to go. Fine. But will you at least not send teams out? I can only be reasonably sure of protecting the people who are actually with me. I don't want you to lose anybody else."

 

"Wait a minute." Corvallis found her nerve and stalked over, catching my arm. "Wait a minute. What did I just see there? Her nose was broken."

 

I should have hit her, not Sara. It took a count of ten before I was confident I wouldn't rectify my mistake. She'd spent the afternoon watching people wrestle with a wendigo, but she was impressed by a broken nose getting unbroken. On the other hand, even I'd had a hard time seeing the wendigo with the Sight going full blazes. A healed nose was probably easier to both see and comprehend than a half-visible fight with a monster that couldn't be defined. I pulled my best smile out and presented it to her, not caring that it felt more like a death's head rictus than a real smile. "What'd I tell you during the blue flu?"

 

She reared back on her heels almost as if I had hit her, eyebrows drawing down. It took less than a heartbeat for her to answer: "You said it was magic."

 

"There you go, then." Sudden childish curiosity rose in me. "Tell you what, Laurie. Why don't you just go to sleep?"

 

Corvallis's eyes rolled up and she dropped to the floor.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

 

I made it there a nanosecond before she did, but only because I was expecting her to fall. It was almost impossible to catch somebody if they really did drop into a dead faint, despite conventions of romantic literature. There was no swaying or fluttering involved, just collapse, and I'd have felt moderately bad if Corvallis had chipped a tooth on the hard floor because I put her to sleep while she was standing up.

 

I looked up to a ring of astonished faces. Mostly astonished. Gary and Sara and the emo kid and the cameraman were astonished. Coyote, however, was pissed. I said, "I didn't know it would work," feebly, but despite it being true it also clearly didn't hold any water.

 

"It shouldn't have. Even if it should have, you shouldn't have done it." He knelt at Corvallis's other side, his eyes flooding to gold, and a twinge of guilt stung me.

 

"She's fine. She's just sleeping. Look, Ro, what was I supposed to do? How the hell are we supposed to go wendigo-hunting with a news reporter on our asses? Besides, I didn't know it would work!"

 

I hadn't known. But I'd been pretty sure. Sleep was a healing agent, but more to the point, my magic hadn't retreated at the idea. It was very good about letting me know when I'd pushed the boundaries, so while knocking Corvallis out might've been morally gray in Coyote's terms, it was free and clear in mine. I was tempted to try it on Sara, too, partly for her safety and partly to see how far I could push my magic before it got annoyed with me and stopped playing.

 

That didn't really seem like a very good idea, once I'd thought about it. I nudged Coyote away and scooped Corvallis up, a feat which took more grunting than I'd anticipated. I was strong, but she was solid. I turned with my armful of reporter and handed her to the camera guy. "I'm sure the desk attendant will open her room for you."

 

He grunted, too, and eyed me over Corvallis's sleeping form. "She's gonna kill you when she wakes up. You know that, right?"

 

"Yep. But at least she won't have gotten eaten."

 

Apparently I made a convincing argument, because he shrugged at the emo kid, who mumbled, "Room number?" and scrambled for a key. They headed down the hall a few seconds later, but the camera guy glanced back.

 

"Hey. How'd you do this, anyway?"

 

I sighed, exasperated that the truth would never be enough. Ah, how the mighty had fallen. I said, "Hypnosis," which sounded just about as unlikely as magic, to me, but he said, "Huh," nodded, and went on his way.

 

Coyote got to his feet, eyes still golden in a bleak face. "We need to talk."

 

"We need to go hunting." I said it as gently as I could, but he grabbed my arm, much harder than Corvallis had, when I stepped by. I looked at his hand, then at him, and was just as glad when he let go. I'd already been in one fight in the past ten minutes, and he'd never forgive me for kicking his ass.

 

"We need to talk, Jo."

 

"'Jo,'" Sara put in, remarkably lightly. "She never used to let anybody call her that. It's her dad's name. She hated being called by it." She had Coyote's attention, a feat I wouldn't have put money on anybody accomplishing just then. I remembered the smile she used on him. It had worked on guys in high school, too, as had the touch to his arm. "Look," she said quietly. "I don't doubt that Joanne needs a good reaming, but I've got a man out there and he might still be alive. Can it wait?"

 

Not exactly the argument I'd have used, although I had to admit overall it was a pretty good one. It put Coyote in the right. Men liked that.

 

Okay, I didn't know anybody who didn't like that. He let out a long angry breath interspersed with a glare at me, but he nodded at Sara. "Yeah. It can wait."

 

"Thank you." Sara went from being soft and needy to tough and commanding inside the blink of an eye. "Then let's get going. I don't think we've got a lot of time."

* * *

She outfitted us all with FBI-marked snowshoes and reflective jackets, the latter of which Gary looked childishly pleased with. I let him fall back to walk with Coyote and took the lead with Sara, mostly because I was trying to avoid my mentor. It also let me drop my voice and say, on a frosty breath, "You're taking this all very well."

 

Sara shook her head, little more than a shadow in the dark. "I'm not. You haven't changed, that's all. You still hit things when you get pissed and you still think the world's full of mystical crap only you can see. What's to take?"

 

If she was right I was going to spend the next three months in a depressive funk. I thought I'd changed rather radically in the past year or so. "You know, I really don't remember that. Being into magic when I was a teenager."

 

She shot me a disbelieving look. "Seriously? You don't remember making me do a drum circle with you?"

 

"Not at al—oh, God. Maybe." I put the heels of my hands against my temples, a sluggish memory rising. "Maybe. Yeah. Right after I got my drum." Shaky relief slipped through me. I was pretty certain I hadn't been freaky into the magic thing, despite Sara's recollection. I had, though, been very excited about the drum, and maybe a little desperate to share it with someone. "You thought I was insane."

 

"You were trying to find my spirit animal." Sara glanced away again. "I even almost thought it was going to work. That it might make me more like you."

 

"Like me?" I said incredulously. "I wanted to be like you. Pretty. Smart. Everybody liked you. I was all elbows and knees."

 

"No, you were tall and strong, and you'd seen the whole country. I thought you were cool." That was a whole different slant on what she'd said earlier, and it gave me a little hope that maybe we had been friends after all. It shouldn't matter, but somehow it did. "I mean, you were a jerk," she added, "but man, you were brave. Never backed down from a fight, even after—" Whatever opening-up she'd been about to do, it shut down hard, with Lucas Isaac between us like he'd always been.

 

My shoulders slumped. "Well, it turned out I was right about the world being full of mystical crap only I can see, anyway. I'm sorry about the rest of it, Sara. I really am."

 

"Yeah, well, like I said. Nothing's changed. When we were kids you drummed up a badger and I couldn't explain it. Today you say there's a wendigo and I sure as hell can't say you're wrong, so there you are. Where Joanne Walker goes, so do outrageous answers."

 

I said, "A badger," rather quietly, and Sara looked uncomfortable. I ducked a smile at the snow, just barely smart enough not to push it any further. We creaked through the snow in comparative silence after that, breaking the cold night with curses when trees shivered snow from their loaded branches onto our shoulders.

 

I didn't have a plan, but my feet were taking me up toward the mountains. Off the beaten trail, so I was grateful for the snowshoes. I bet some pencil pusher somewhere would be surprised to find out the FBI was now providing winter gear to members of the Seattle Police Department and a couple of civilians. Well, hopefully nobody would get killed and there would be no missing snowshoes to account for.

 

Oh, what my life had come to, that I was casually hoping nobody would get killed. I stopped to thunk my head against a tree trunk, which was a tactical error on many levels. First, it rained snow on me. Second, it sent Sara on ahead without me. Third, and by far the worst, it gave Coyote a chance to catch up. "You can't do what you did back there, Jo."

 

"Apparently I can." I shook snow off myself and hurried after Sara. Gary got between me and her, leaving me to walk with Coyote. Some friend he was. Foolish friend, actually, since there was a good reason to have an—adept, as Sonny'd called us—paired up with a non-adept. Coyote and I could shield ourselves and a partner.

 

Or at least I could. It came naturally to me, and pretty clearly didn't come so naturally to Coyote. I let myself become aware of the Sight, its brilliance lighting the dark night as I slipped shielding forward to wrap around Sara and Gary. Coyote, grumpily, said, "That's not going to change my mind."

 

For a couple seconds I considered taking the low road and being the old me that Sara remembered so clearly. Belting my mentor was probably in no way the right choice, but it did have brief, glowy short-term satisfaction in its favor.

 

I took the high road, although doing so required letting a deep breath out through my nose before I dared speak. "I'm not trying to change your mind. You know what happens when I abuse my power, Ro? It bitch-slaps me. It stopped working entirely this summer when I screwed up with Colin and Faye. It knocked me on my ass when I used it as a weapon a few weeks ago. If putting Corvallis to sleep was out of bounds, I would've gotten a magical anvil dropped on my head. I'm not breaking any rules."

 

"Jo, this is serious. You can't—"

 

"Coyote, I'm being serious!" I stopped to face him. To get in his face, more accurately. To wave my hands in frustration, aware that with the winter coat and mittens, I looked more like a frenetic gingerbread man than a convincing orator. "Maybe you can't, Coyote. Maybe it's against your rules. But I'm not playing the same game you are. You can't do this easily." I gestured after Gary and Sara, meaning to highlight the shielding that encompassed them. "You can't fight. You're a hell of a lot better at the transitions to the other realms than I am, and you're worlds beyond me in dealing with what you find there, but maybe that's your job. Teach, heal, guide, con…con…consort, convert, con…" I rubbed a mitten over my face, trying to think of the word I wanted. "You know. Be the UN, in celestial terms. Talk to people."

 

Coyote, oh-so-drily, said, "Converse?"

 

Boy. Nothing ruined a good rant like your vocabulary failing you. I said, "Yeah, that's it," despondently. "You're my teacher, Coyote. You're not my boss."

 

His eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch. "Did you just use the infallible you're not the boss of me as an argument, Jo?"

 

My shoulders sagged. "Yeah."

 

"So who is the boss of you?"

 

"Morrison" sprang to mind, but it wasn't the right answer. Not under these circumstances. I could see Coyote waiting for it anyway, but I shook my head. "I don't know. You're the one who told me a Maker mixed me up fresh. Maybe that's my boss."

 

I was growing increasingly convinced that creating new souls for any purpose was just plain mean. Ordinary people didn't have active memories of past mistakes, maybe, but the impression I'd been given was that the choices made in previous lives did affect who people were this time around. Being told straight off that I had neither mistakes nor successes to draw from, consciously or not, could be a bit of a burden. Every single cock-up was one hundred percent me, no-holds-barred. I supposed it meant every single accomplishment was all me, too, but somehow that didn't seem as impressive. "Or maybe none of us have a boss at all."

 

"You believe that?"

 

"I don't know what I believe, Coyote. How about you?"

 

"I believe you're calling me Coyote again. That mean I'm back in your good graces, even if you're yelling at me?"

 

I scrunched my face and tilted it back to the sky, blinking into unshadowed moonlight. "I think it means I default to 'Coyote' when I'm thinking about you, but that it seems like a weird name to actually call you by." I tipped my chin back down, frowning around me. "Coyote…?"

 

"What?"

 

"…where did the trees go?"

 

He glanced around, glanced at me, and without saying anything else we rotated to stand back-to-back, eyeing the copse around us distrustfully.

 

We stood in the center of a mountain glade without so much as footprints speaking to how we'd arrived. The trees were present, but distant—a good stone's throw away, and I was certain we'd been surrounded by them when we'd started talking. I knew we had been. I still had snow on my shoulders from getting dumped on. Moonlight poured over us, undiminished by branches or clouds. Everything was colored as it should be, aside from the blue tint offered by the moon, and the sky wasn't unnaturally close or alarmingly distant, as it might have been in the Lower or Upper Worlds. We hadn't gone anywhere, then. Hadn't fallen from one plane of existence to another, at least. Whether we'd gone anywhere was debatable.

 

I thought about it carefully, then whispered, "This is new," to Coyote. "I never transported anywhere in the real world before." I'd been knocked out and slid from one realm of reality to another, had journeyed vast distances inside the gardens of people's souls, and had once chosen to physically get on a magical beast of burden and ride to another world, but the Middle World itself had never just up and changed on me.

 

Coyote whispered, "Me neither," which didn't surprise me. I seemed to have far more dramatic adventures than he did. I had more dramatic adventures than most people. I could have gotten a lot of angstful mileage out of that thought, but Coyote hissed, "So what do we do?" and yanked me out of it.

 

The glade was as silent a place as I'd ever been. Wind hissed over the snow, making the loose stuff on top dance, but beyond that it was so quiet my ears ached trying to hear something. Pine needles rustling against each other, the soft paff of snow falling from branches to hit the ground; the trees were too far away for those sounds to carry. And it was winter, and night, so any animal noises there might have been were already muffled or nonexistent. I had no easy way to tell if danger approached. Even the Sight told me nothing, just showed me a world ablaze with winter sleep, quiet black light offering nothing useful.

 

Mount Rainier was closer than it had been, a gorgeous cone rising winter blue and black toward a sky so brilliant with moonlight I could see for miles. Awed laughter caught in my lungs, and for a little while, I forgot to worry.

 

The stars only came clear near the edges of the world, cold moonlight swallowing them closer in. There were no city lights visible anywhere, no touch of humanity, and the snow-brisk wind smelled faintly of astringent sap. It seemed very possible that Coyote and I were the first, the only, human beings to have ever set foot on this particular bit of earth; that we had been brought somewhere utterly unspoiled so that someone might have a chance to marvel at its wonder. I said, "It's okay," as softly as I could, not wanting to disturb the quiet.

 

Coyote made an incredulous noise at the back of his throat, but I caught his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. "Really. It's all right." My breath fogged on the air, wisps drifting away, and, smiling, I brushed my fingers through that faint mark of my presence. "Normally I'd say we were in trouble, because we don't belong here, but this time I think we've been invited."

 

"Invited? Invited by—"

 

I raised my mittened fingers to my lips, the gesture meant to shush my mentor. "Invited by him."

 

I nodded into the woods, and was unsurprised when a god melted free of the trees and came to join us.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

 

He was a woodland creature made of gnarled barky skin and dark tangling hair of knots and branches. His features were rough, little more than the impression of a face in a tree trunk, but his eyes were as I remembered them: brilliant emerald-green, like his father's before him. He said, "Siobhán Walkingstick," and extended a thin-branched hand the way a human might, the gesture all the more alien for its familiarity.

 

"Herne." I took his hand, breathless with delight and surprised by that. "It's good to see you."

 

Amusement was a rare expression on a tree, but he wore it well. "Is it?" His voice was wind and rain on leaves, deep sound of eternity. "I think last time we met it was not so welcome."

 

"I was different then. You were different." The understatement forced a laugh from my throat. "Right. Hey, Coyote, I'd like you to meet the Green Man, Herne. He's, ah. Um." I stopped talking, because my mentor was trembling, with tears spilling down his cheeks.

 

"Spirit of the forest," he whispered, and dropped to his knees in the snow. "Soul of the world."

 

I don't know who was more appalled, me or Herne. Me, apparently, because Herne managed a kind chuckle, and put his leafy-fingered hands beneath Coyote's to draw him up. "Spirit of the forest," he agreed. "But I would not take on the burden of soul of the world, not for any reward you might offer. And I know something of rewards, and causes lost. There is an evil in the forest, shaman."

 

He hadn't taken his gaze off Coyote, but I knew he was talking to me. I said, "Only one?" under my breath.

 

He let go Coyote's hands with the sound of branches snapping, and turned my way with sorrow etched into his craggy visage. "Many, but most are the works of man, and for now can only be fought by other men. This is an older hurt than those, and needs an older touch."

 

"Older—" I seized on that, hoping it was profound intelligence regarding the thing we were facing, but optimism died a-borning. If I was the "older" solution, then he meant mystical, not ancient. I didn't qualify as old except by the standards of anyone under the age of eighteen. "Right. Older. I never heard anybody call magic 'old' before."

 

"Is it not easier in your day and age to follow the old ways rather than express it in laughable terms of magic and might?"

 

Just what I needed. A woodlands god telling me how to euphemize my way around the difficult topic of my talents. I stared at Herne a moment, then smiled. It was just what I needed, in fact. I could tell Laurie Corvallis I was following the old ways and she could sit and spin for months trying to figure that one out. It was perfect. "It is. It's a lot easier. I'll remember that. Thanks. When did you get so wise?"

 

What I really wanted to ask was when he'd gotten pompous, because he hadn't talked like this last time we'd met, but I figured I already knew the answer. Being a god automatically pomped a guy. Besides, there was something useful about the airs and high-minded speech patterns: they helped remind me I was dealing with something a long way from mortal.

 

As if him being a walking, talking tree wasn't reminder enough. Herne gave his odd gentle chuckle again, and shrugged rough shoulders that shed flakes of bark onto the snow. "At the same time, perhaps, that you became comfortable walking the old paths."

 

"Comfortable? I don't know that I'm ever going to be comf—oh." So maybe he wasn't so wise after all. I dipped a grin at my snow-shod feet, then looked up again. Kevin Sadler had been shorter than me, or at least, he'd come across that way. Herne seemed to be rather a lot taller, sort of oaklike in stature, except somehow he was compressed down to a less alarming size. I thought if I turned the Sight on him, he would overflow my vision as both his father and daughter had done. "Suzanne's doing well, by the way."

 

Pain blackened his face. "I'm pleased. Tell her, if the time is ever right, that I am sorry."

 

"I will." I fell silent, entirely at a loss as to how to proceed, then turned my palms up. "Why did you bring us here?"

 

"The demon hunts in my forests and leaves scars of wrongful death behind, holes in the fabric of life. It cannot be fought easily, not even with the magic and myth you command. To do battle with this demon requires strength bound to the earth and yet so flexible it can reach for the sky."

 

"Bound to the…I hope that's a really poetic way of describing a shaman, Herne, or we're screwed. All I've got is a pocketful of attitude. My sword's not even useful."

 

He blinked at me, slowly. "Swords are forged, Siobhán, not grown, and will do you no good. But here: at the least, I would have the beast drawn to where its only prey are those who might successfully stand against it."

 

I breathed a laugh. "At the least. Thanks." I reconsidered my tone and said, "Well, no, really, thanks. I mean that. But you know you left our friends out there to get eaten, right? Can you bring them here?"

 

He tilted his head, fey motion that made him look more animalistic. "Some are closer than others, and none are as attuned to the old ways as you. It will take time."

 

"Better that than letting them wander around while the wendigo's hunting. I don't even know how we're going to find our way back when this is over." I liked how I said that, making the assumption that it would be we who were returning, and not it.

 

"The forest will guide you." Herne moved back, and I took a hasty few steps after him, tripping over my own snowshoes.

 

"Hey. Hey, wait a second." I glanced at Coyote, but he stood rooted where he was, his hands knotted around the bits of branch Herne had left behind. That was okay, as I wanted a private conversation. I dropped my voice to murmur, "You're doing better, huh? The last time I saw you…"

 

"I was wounded." Gods, it seemed, had a gift for deprecation. Technically the last time I'd seen him he'd been dead, although that was only a mortal shackle he'd left behind. "I am still not well, Siobhán Walkingstick, not as well as I might be. Should the day ever come when I gain full strength, it may not be man who must fight man to set the forests aright."

 

"I look forward to it." I did, too, in a perverse kind of Jimmy-crack-corn way. "Is there anything I can do?"

 

A smile creased his woody features. "I think you, too, are 'doing better,' shaman. Rid this forest of its demon and you will have done enough."

 

A zing of doubt turned my lungs cold, even in comparison to the icy air. "Really?"

 

Silence drew out long enough that I became aware I couldn't even hear Coyote breathing. I was alone in the quiet of the woods, with its god standing over me to make judgment. "No," he finally said. "No. Our slate may not be yet wiped clean. We shall see, Siobhán. We shall see."

 

I nodded, and Herne afforded me a nod of his own, deep enough to almost be a bow. I returned the honor, and when I straightened he was gone.

 

Only then did I realize that, like the wendigo, he had left no tracks in the snow.

* * *

"Joanne." There was a strained note to Coyote's voice, and I figured he'd noticed the same thing I had about the tracks. I turned around, searching for some kind of reassurance, and swallowed anything I had to say.

 

Instead of the bits of broken branch he'd had, Coyote held a spear half again his own height in his hands. It was made of a white branch stripped of bark and polished, though knots and whorls marked its surface, so the haft wasn't a straight smooth shaft like I thought of spears as having. Its head was black wood, so dark and shining that moonlight reflected off it like metal. A feathered leather strip bound haft and head, but I was quite certain that if the leather was taken away there would be a seamless transformation from the white wood to the black.

 

I, Joanne Walker, master of the obvious, said, "Holy crap, you've got a spear! Where'd that come from?"

 

From Herne, obviously, but not even Coyote's expression managed to say that much. He just shook his head, then wordlessly extended the weapon to me.

 

I actually backed up a few steps. "No way. He didn't give it to me."

 

He gave the spear a couple of shakes and came toward me, obviously trying to get rid of it. I tucked my hands behind my back. "When gods give you gifts, Coyote, you do not go around handing them off to the nearest sucker you can find." A lightbulb went off, and I almost ran forward to seize the spear regardless of what I'd just said. "Bound to the earth and able to reach for the sky. Trees. Duh. That thing's meant to fight the wendigo with, and he gave it to you."

 

"But this isn't what I do! I don't—I don't fight! I don't even know how to use this!"

 

"I think traditionally you stick the bad guy with the pointy end. My path's changed, Ro. Maybe yours is changing, too."

 

I swear to God, you'd think I'd said maybe your grandmother has recently contracted syphilis from the way he glared at me.

 

"Donno about his," Gary said from out of nowhere, "but ours sure as hell did. Where are we, doll? How'd we get here?" He broke through the trees a dozen yards away, and I lifted my hands with a squeak.

 

"Stop! Wait! We have all this unbroken snow, we should use it!"

 

Gary froze with Sara a step behind him, both of them wideeyed as startled deer. I said, "Herne brought you here to keep you safe from the wendigo," like it was a perfectly normal explanation. The funny thing was Gary's eyes lit up and he went ah like it was, in fact, a perfectly normal explanation. Sara didn't look so understanding, but nor did she push it, for which I would thank her later. For the nonce I pointed imperiously in opposite directions. "Both of you go that way. Make a circle. But take a jump forward so your footsteps don't run into it."

 

There was a small kerfuffle while they got who was going which way sorted out, but peculiarly, they did as I ordered without asking why. I eyeballed the handful of steps Coyote and I had taken, then tromped a circumference slightly larger than that around them. "Mash everything inside this down, will you?"

 

Coyote eyeballed me, but did as I asked while I turned around, trying to get my bearings. I had no sense of direction; Rainier was off to my left, but that didn't mean anything, particularly under a sky too bright with moonshine to show me the North Star. After a second I stopped looking with my eyes and reached out with the Sight, trying to get the same sense of place in the Middle World that I could achieve in the Lower.

 

The earth itself gave a confident thump when I settled on true north. I said, "Thanks," out loud, and struck off that way, making a thick spoke in the snow. "Only walk inside these, okay, guys? I want the rest of it pristine."

 

Sara, more than forty feet away, muttered, "She's nuts. She's completely bonkers," and the snow carried it to me clear as day.

 

Carried it to Gary, too, who said, "Nah, she knows what she's doing," which heartened me more than I could've imagined. I marched back the other way, extending the line south, then ran around behind Sara to the most westerly point so I could make a cross-path to the east. I was sweating and panting by the time I was done, and everybody else was sitting in the middle admiring Coyote's spear. My eyebrows waggled entirely of their own volition, and I rejoined them, trying not to giggle.

 

Coyote looked up at me, eyes gold in the moonlight. "Is this circle meant to keep things in, or out?"

 

I swallowed the temptation to give him the same answer Melinda'd given me, and said, "Some of both," instead as I trod a little path at the outer edge of the inner circle. It was about ten feet across, plenty big for the four of us, and the snow was well-packed. I took my snowshoes off and stomped a smaller cross like the one I'd just beaten into the unbroken snow, only with the spokes at the lesser cardinal points. My footprints were deep, dark blue shadows—imperfect, but pretty. "Everybody, and when I say everybody I mean you, Sara, and then Gary and then Coyote, in that order, stay inside this circle. This is going to be the keep-things-out circle."

 

Sara, sounding very much like a petulant teen, said, "Why me most of all?" but also blew the question off with a raspberry, which I translated loosely as because I'm not a magical fruit-cake and the rest of you are.

 

"The larger one will be the keep-things-in circle." I slipped mostly free of my body, letting my astral form rise up above the snow so I could see my circle's shape.

 

It was surprisingly—no, strike that—unbelievably perfect. I'd known I was keeping to straight lines with my spokes, but I had the advantage of following the earth's magnetic fields when I was doing that. Gary and Sara were just winging it, but they'd done an incredible job. There were tiny wavers in the circle's outer edges, but no obvious bulges or indentations. It felt strong and ready to accept whatever power I poured into it.

 

I dropped back into my body to beam foolishly at Gary and Sara. "You guys are amazing. The circle's amazing. Thank you. Okay. I've never really done this before…."

 

The truth was I'd never done it at all. Melinda's promise to teach me how to open a power circle loomed large, and I wished to high heaven that we'd had time to do that. That we'd made time to do it. I'd gone home and gone to bed two days ago when I could've gone back to her house to learn. That hadn't seemed like an oversight at the time, but it left me with a thimbleful of experience where I needed a vat-full. Accidentally reactivating Mel's power circle with Raven's help wasn't exactly in the same league as what I was about to try.

 

I knelt where I was, tugging my mittens off to place bare hands against the snow. It was very cold, almost ice, and despite having been mashed down, sharp edges poked my palms. I resisted the urge to stuff my hands into my armpits to warm them up, and instead reached inside myself, eyes closed as I whispered to my power.

 

Keep-things-out. I was good at that; I could build shields and sling them around with the best of them, these days. But I needed something more from the magic, now. I needed it to come alive outside of myself, to live within the circle until I called it back. I needed to not have to concentrate on it, to trust that the form I'd given it was strong enough to hold shape and protect my friends while I dealt with terrible things beyond its defensive walls.

 

Purpose came first, in waking it. I felt my needs sinking through the snow, sinking into the earth, where they were absorbed and considered. I recognized in its strength an aspect of my need, and asked that it share with me what it could.

 

I felt its pride in its own power, at the very idea that I should come to it and ask for help. There was spirit in all things; that was a tenet of shamanism, and I'd come to appreciate it more and more as time went on. Everything was imbued with purpose, and one of the many things the earth itself coveted was to give life. My desire to protect life wed nicely to that, and with a roar of silence, power rushed upward, greeting me, leaping into the boundaries set by my circle. My own power answered, containing it, tempering it, drawing vitality, until the two dancing magics balanced each other: my need and the earth's willingness to offer. Rich clay brown wove through silver-blue, pushing and pulling against one another in an endless, sustainable flux of magic. It would hold, robust and true, until I brought it down again with the same deliberation it had taken to raise it. It would keep things out as long as I needed it to.

 

I whispered, "Thank you," for the second time, and clenched my fists in the snow in an awkward attempt to hug the mountain itself. My hands were blue and my fingers didn't want to uncramp once I'd closed them.

 

Behind me, Gary said, cautiously, "Jo? You're…glowin'."

 

I glanced over my shoulder, realizing too late it might be a bad idea. Using magic made my eyes turn gold, and given how much I'd just called, I had no idea what "glowing" might constitute.

 

Then I did a double-take at my hands. They were still blue, but not from cold, after all. It was magic running through me, becoming my lifeblood. This had happened before, me pulling down enough power to see through my own skin. I hadn't thought anybody else could see it, though. "Sorry. Gimme just another minute and I'll be…" Back to normal seemed like asking a lot. I'd left normal behind a long time ago.

 

The second circle was easier. Keep-things-in. A net, a cage, a blockade. I knew those things pretty well, and the earth was, a second time, willing to give. It knew everything about closed mountain passes, about treacherous land that turned to silt beneath the feet, about all the tricks that could keep a man or a beast stuck where he was. Sides of a coin, keeping things out and keeping them in, and the world was willing to lend me its power on both sides. The larger circle closed with a flare so large that even on my hands and knees, I staggered, its sheer size taking more out of me than I'd expected to give. The burning power disappeared from beneath my skin, drained far enough to fade.

 

Not an ideal way to start a fight. I dropped my head until my forehead almost touched the ground. "Coyote?"

 

He was there beside me, offering a hand that I took gratefully. "Soul retrievals are supposed to happen in the Lower World, right?" He'd said so at least fourteen times, so I kept talking without waiting for an answer. "Can you open a door for me, if I need you to? You're a lot better at it than I am, and I'm a little…dizzy."

 

"I'm not surprised. I think I can, yes. Just ask."

 

I'd never heard him sound quite so grim, and cranked my head up to study what I'd done that worried him that much.

 

The circles I'd created danced like waterfalls from the heavens. Ever-shifting rainbows ran across them, my power mixed with all the hues the earth chose to offer. I could almost hear the magic hissing and crackling, eager to do as it had been bidden: keep things out, keep things in.

 

And in the distance, I felt it: deep in the forest, Herne released frozen trees from his willpower, letting them relax back into the root-deep places they knew best. I felt how they had been a maze, a thicket, a briar, confusing and confounding the wendigo: fairy-tale trees fighting against the dark, refusing to let it pass during the brief minutes it took for me to make a haven in the snow. How, with their rushing branches carrying the wind elsewhere, the beast couldn't scent us. I hadn't known that was in the woodland god's power, and I whispered thanks that he'd held the monster back as long as he could.

 

I took up my sword, and stepped beyond the inner circle to meet the wendigo in battle.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

 

More accurately, I jumped out of the inner sanctum, not wanting to disrupt the power lines I'd drawn. I landed in an easy crouch a few feet beyond its edge, and Gary began to play the drum. Its reassuring thump was higher than usual in the cold air, but it was familiar. The circle walls shimmered with its music, embracing it and growing stronger. I caught glimpses of the magic's movement far above my head: the circles rose forever, ensuring the wendigo couldn't leap in or out.

 

It came for me in a straight line, unimpeded by trees, drawn by the drum's song and driven by Herne's command of the forest. It slipped in and out of moonlight, shadows rendering it black, but I could finally see it, a massive ruffed thing that ran lightly on the snow. It had regained its size, which boded poorly for Sara's agents. Regret slammed through me before I set it aside to better face the wendigo.

 

It was all tooth and fur and talon, with tiny crimson eyes. If it had anything left of humanity, it was buried under a raging animal. And that was a blessing: the beast disregarded the outer power circle's border, charging across without slowing. Magic sputtered, allowing it entrance, and I saw a vestige of rational thought break through. It skittered on the snow, making as tight a turn as it could, and rushed back the way it had come.

 

The circle held. Magic fluxed, colors intensifying where the wendigo hit, and it bounced back, knocked ass over teakettle by my wish to keep it there. I heard Sara very carefully not scream, the sound no more than a tiny sharp intake of breath. Apparently they could see it, too. That was…probably good. I told myself it was good, and waited for it to get back on its feet. It wasn't that I had any pride tangled up in a mano a mano fight with a wendigo. I just wanted to see how clearly it was thinking, or if it was at all.

 

It rolled over, breaking snow as it went, and fell back to nearly the edge of the circle, staying just far enough away that the circle's power couldn't electrify its fur. That suggested another hint of cognative capability, which gave me hope that there was a spirit worth rescuing somewhere in the beast.

 

A snarl broke from its throat, like it had heard my thought. It leaped sideways, not attacking, but exploring. Long loping steps took it halfway around the larger circle. I followed on the outer edge of the smaller, able to keep pace only because I had so much less distance to travel. Once the fight was met, I put all my money on it, speedwise, so even a few seconds to study its movements was a win for me.

 

Increasingly physical or not, it seemed barely constrained by the laws of gravity. Its legs lacked the power to drive it in the massive jumps it took, but that appeared to be supremely irrelevant. It answered to someone else's physics.

 

Like the Lower World's. I'd known I had to take the battle to it there, where I might have a hope of performing the soul retrieval, but I hadn't quite thought of the wendigo itself as a denizen of that world. The idea struck me just before the creature did, and with almost as much force. Almost. Made physical, the beast had to weigh three hundred pounds, and it slammed me against the inner circle with all that weight plus momentum. We both grunted, and I choked on its fetid breath, but rather than attack again it skittered back, swinging its heavy head as it studied me, then the three behind me.

 

"You bastard. You weren't even trying to…"

 

"It wanted us," Coyote confirmed quietly.

 

"No," Sara said. "It just wanted to see if it could get to us. It's dangerous, Joanne."

 

I twisted around from where the wendigo had dumped me in the snow and gave her my best no shit, Sherlock? look before getting to my feet. The wendigo had circled almost all the way back around to where it had begun, and now paced, breath steaming in the cold air as it watched me. I slid around the inner circle's circumference and stepped toward the beast, lifting my free hand in invitation. "C'mon, you smelly son of a bitch. Let's go."

 

I didn't actually expect it to come for me, but it did, showing off its unearthly prowess for leaping once more. I flung myself forward to meet it, blade lifted, and saw confusion flash through its beady little eyes. I was clearly prey, and prey wasn't supposed to return attack. We collided midair, my sword sliding through its chest like there was nothing there, and I bellowed, "Coyote!"

 

A door opened, and the sky went red as the world went yellow.

* * *

We fell to earth in the Lower World, crashing to the too-close earth with more force than I expected. Dust rose up around us and we rolled apart, me dragging my sword with me. Its presence reassured me, as did the faint brush of wings that too-briefly cooled me beneath a nauseatingly hot sun. I was wearing my favored oily tank top and torn jeans rather than my winter gear, which brought me up short: I'd intended to enter the Lower World physically, actually leaving the Middle World behind for the duration of this fight. Moving into another plane shouldn't, I thought, change my clothes.

 

I raised my eyes, confused, and was caught with a jolt of understanding. There was a woman before me, stringy hair falling in her face, gaunt cheekbones making her eyes too large. Her teeth were filed into narrow points, an affectation that gave me the heebie-jeebies. I could only think of filed teeth as being fingernails on chalkboards to the umpteenth degree, and the very idea sent horror rushing up and down my spine and tap-dancing on my skin. I wanted to throw up, which was not the ideal way to begin a spiritual smackdown.

 

She pulled her lips back from her nasty, nasty teeth and hissed at me, breath as hideous as it had been in her wendigo form. It actually distracted me from her teeth, which probably hadn't been her intention, but I was grateful.

 

I was less grateful for the talons she had lashed to her hands. Two on each, between the fingers. She only had one each tied between her toes, but it was quite enough; she looked like a demented dinosaur, arms raised and feet kicked high as she lurched back and forth in front of me.

 

A demented, starved dinosaur. There was ropy muscle on her skinny arms and legs, but I could count the ribs above her starvation-bloated belly. This pathetic, mad-eyed woman was what lay at the wendigo's core. Traveling into the Lower World physically had stripped us to more fundamental versions of ourselves, the winter trappings taken from me and the monster torn away from this woman. My heart twisted, suddenly sorry for her, and I stepped back rather than close in. "I can help you, if you'll let me."

 

She bobbed back and forth, apparently taking that into consideration. Then she lashed forward, much, much faster than someone in her condition should have been able to move, and struck out with her taloned hand. It was a flawless hit, executed so fast I could barely see it, and it should have gutted me.

 

It missed by a hair's breadth. My gut sucked in to my spine as I curved backward, air whooshing from my lungs. She surged past me, carried by her own momentum, and whirled back with a shriek of angry surprise.

 

I was right there with her with regards to surprise. I knew myself. I'd spent most of the past year studying fencing, and my reflexes were better than they'd been. They were not, however, that good. Nobody was that good, in much the same way that the wendigo-woman couldn't be as fast as she was. It was inhuman, lightning fast, snakelike reflexes; name the cliché, and I'd just fulfilled it.

 

She struck again, this time with both fists raised, bringing them down in an X meant to slice me apart. I was too busy gawking at myself to parry, but for the second time I folded in on myself, taking my body just out of reach.

 

This time I snapped my rapier out, not so much for the kill as to gain space and time. It whipped toward her so quickly it vibrated, almost unfurling as though it were liquid or leather, and it cracked when I reached full extension. Power surged through me into the blade, making it a weapon worth reckoning, and the wendigo skittered back, avoiding the shining silver.

 

Impulse drove me forward in a series of quick attacks. She countered, catching the sword on her talons every time, all of it so fast my mind lagged behind what our bodies were doing. By the time we broke apart again I was panting through a grin splitting my face.

 

Snakelike reflexes. The rattler had promised me a second gift to be discovered when I needed it. The tremendous healing ability belonged to the Middle World, a place of physical bodies. But a significant percentage of the things I encountered belonged to spirit worlds, where the laws were defined by what they believed they could do.

 

Defined by what I believed I could do, and by what my power animals were willing to grant me as gifts. I felt a hiss of snakeskin over my own, and grinned wildly. I would never have dreamed of moving so fast, but to a rattlesnake, it was second nature. First nature, even, and so it became for me. I loved it.

 

The wendigo, on the other hand, didn't like it one little bit at all.

 

We came together again with a great crashing roar that was equal parts her shrieks and my laughter. I was sure I'd get over it soon enough—as soon as she landed a blow, for example—but in the first moments, the speed was glorious. I ducked under her claws and dragged my blade across her belly, dismayed when its silver edge drew no blood. Probably I wasn't supposed to be eviscerating people, but she hadn't seemed inclined to listen. Sometimes a sharp knife to the gut could get somebody's attention. At least, it had always gotten mine.

 

She somersaulted over the rapier and rolled to her feet, striking backward toward my unprotected spine. I snapped forward again, just avoiding her talons, then jerked around and grabbed her arm, trying to get a better look at the claws.

 

They'd belonged to a bear, once upon a time, or some similar massive predator. A mountain lion, maybe, but I thought their curve was too shallow for that. Certainly a creature of at least that size, though: they were black and as long as her fingers. They were strong, too, stronger than any mortal remains should be. My sword should have sliced through them, not bounced off.

 

I wasn't used to being Ms. Intuitive, but comprehension slid through me, a clear and bright rain. "Did they belong to your spirit guide?"

 

Rage turned her eyes red, ending our brief moment of arrest. She stuffed her free hand into my gut, the punch hard enough that I went cold with breathlessness, but we were both surprised when she pulled back unbloodied fingers. I looked down to see bloodless gashes closing in my torso, and clenched my fist around her wrist all the harder. She squealed and tried to pull away, but in a fit of morbid curiosity I slammed my forearm onto her black talons.

 

Cold sliced through my arm, making muscle cramp with its intensity. I drew back and the cold faded as the wounds sealed flawlessly. Nothing but an inexorable sense of rightness accompanied the healing, no rush of power, no silver-blue aura hurrying to fix what was wrong. I knew I could bleed in the Lower World; I'd done it before.

 

I'd done it before Raven and Rattler had come to protect me. Healing wasn't Raven's purview, but Rattler had already proven what his presence could offer. "Your spirit animals give you the weapons," I said slowly. "Mine protect me from the wounds." I let her go, and turned a considering look on my sword.

 

I'd struck her with it any number of times, in both her wendigo form in the Middle World, and her more-human shape here in the Lower. It wasn't precisely a power animal, but it did, unquestionably, represent my power. It was part of a circle of magics which protected me and offered me weaponry to fight with. It was a thing of spirit, whether it was an animal or not.

 

And it was useless to me in this fight. Her bear-spirit would drive her past whatever wounds I inflicted with it, the rapier's slim blade too delicate to disturb such a great force. Maybe if I managed a heart-shot, but I wasn't actually here to kill this woman. I was going to save her, if I could. I released the rapier from my thoughts, and it faded away. "C'mon, sister. It's just you and me."

 

She screamed and kneed me in the belly, which was more effective, overall, than her talons had been. I doubled over, coughing, and she brought her fisted hands down on the back of my neck. I hit the yellow earth teeth-first and came up spitting dust. Mandy had not put up this kind of fight, when I went after her soul. Then again, Mandy hadn't turned into a slavering flesh-eating monster, either. I said, "Oh my God, is that Chuck Norris?" and pointed dramatically past the wendigo's shoulder. To my amazement, she actually turned to look, and I knotted my hands together, swinging for her temple.

 

She dropped and I pounced on her, pinning her arms. She smelled worse than humanly possible, and flung herself up and down with a lot of enthusiasm for such a skinny thing. Still, I had the upper hand and shook her entire torso, not caring that her head bounced off the ground like a bowling ball. "I am trying to help you!"

 

Her eyes cleared for an instant. Triumph shot through me, sharp enough that I didn't care about her stench. "You're in there! Come on, let me—"

 

The dusty yellow earth turned white beneath her, and the broiling Lower World sun fled behind sudden thick clouds. Wind howled up around us, cutting through my flimsy summertime clothes and icing my skin. My nose hairs froze, and my eyebrows went stiff inside a single breath, the air colder than I'd ever felt. The wendigo's human shape warped, twisting under my hands to become the monster once again, as loose-jointed and dangerous as it had been when I'd entered the cold universe searching for Mandy's soul.

 

This time, though, its face was stretched in agony, and its voice was that of the storm's. It had been the predator, then; now it was something else, not even prey. It needed protecting, rescuing from the cold threatening to tear us both apart. I hauled myself closer to its face to shout, "Let me take you out of here! Let me take you away from the—"

 

From the storm was how that was supposed to end, but the last few words were already shouted into silence. Even without the wind, the cold intensified to a killing temperature so extreme it seemed malicious. My exposed skin went numb, and the breath I drew through an open mouth hurt my lungs, like cold lead had been poured down my throat.

 

I let the wendigo go and shoved to my feet. The storm still raged around us at a distance as great as the circle I'd made in the Middle World, but it was quiet now, its screams pushed away.

 

Loneliness crashed over me, a feeling of isolation that expanded beyond my most melodramatic childhood moments. There was no way free from the circle of silent snow, and its featureless blur made my gaze unfocus. Disoriented, I reeled around, bewildered at how the silence and lack of wind could be worse than the battering storm itself. I wanted to escape, but my body was failing me, thick icy limbs refusing to respond, frozen thoughts running evermore sluggishly.

 

Someone stepped through the storm, joining me in the relentless white circle.

 

The wendigo gave a gleeful shriek and rose up out of the snow, racing for the distant sky.

 

I tried to follow, and failed.

CHAPTER THIRTY

 

I was too cold to be afraid. Too cold to be surprised, even, like the oncoming storm had taken away my capacity for emotion. There were things I should be able to do. Command my healing aspect to heat my blood, to shake off the malaise of ice. Imagine myself in warmer clothes and have them appear. I'd done them, or things like them, in the past, but my thoughts were sluggish and my magic frozen, just a solid lump inside me where it should have been reassuringly alive.

 

If this was what the wendigo had experienced, then I had a hideous bleak appreciation for the sheer willpower that had brought her back into the mortal world to feed. I was lost and too numb to care. My rattlesnake friend could do nothing for me here; he would freeze even more quickly than I did, cold blood turning to slush in his veins. Maybe that was how the wendigo had survived, if her claws had been a bear's. Maybe she had the gift of hibernation, of holing up and storing energy until she'd conserved enough to break free. It wasn't how hibernation worked in the Middle World, but this place was something else entirely.

 

Someone else was here. Someone else had crossed into the circle. It was something to focus on, a way to force myself to move. My own safety, apparently, wasn't quite enough, but if someone else had wandered into the storm, they needed rescuing, and there was nobody but me to do the job.

 

"Here." My voice cracked in the cold like I'd been without water for a week. "Here, can you hear me? Can you see me?" The wendigo had left a dent in the snow when she'd fled. I tripped on it, my legs too heavy to move properly, and I splayed facedown in the ice.

 

It almost felt warm. That was wrong, dangerously wrong; my dull mind recognized that much. It meant I'd lost too much of my own heat. It meant, in fact, that I was dying, and while I had plenty of experience at dying, it was usually accompanied by a certain amount of anger which sparked me through the unpleasant parts and back out the other side.

 

This was not a place for fire of any kind. I was willing to let mine fade, just to evade the terrible cold. I sighed into the snow, my breath not even warm enough to melt it, and my eyes drifted shut as sound finally broke through the silence: squeaking, coming ever closer. My curiosity sputtered, then died again, frozen out of existence.

 

Hot hands rolled me over like a giant rag doll, and Laurie Corvallis put her face close to mine to whisper, "Detective? Is that you?"

 

Ice cracked at the back of my mind, like amazement had the strength to punch through cold. Of all the people I might have dreamed up to accompany me into a frozen hell, Corvallis was about the bottom of the list. It suggested she was real, which was both good and bad. Good because she was substantial, something to focus on. Bad because I was quite certain her physical body had crossed to this plane, just like mine had, and it was a short dash to death from where we currently stood.

 

At least she was still dressed for the weather. Her cheeks were reddened by cold, but her eyes were bright, and her face was framed by the soft fur of her expensive coat. It was fitted, but not so snugly she couldn't wear layers under it, and from the way her breath steamed warmly I figured she probably was. Her hands were mittened, which told me a lot about both the amount of heat she was putting out and how very cold I was: even through the mittens they'd been hot on my skin. She muttered, "Where'd your coat go?" and started to shrug hers off.

 

"No, don't." I was surprised I could talk, then relieved that I could be surprised. It was like her presence offered enough warmth and life to reawaken me. Given my peculiar talents, that seemed fairly probable. She stopped mid-action, her coat still on, and I shook my head against the snow. "It wouldn't fit anyway. Just stay close to me, okay? I'll get you out of here."

 

"Where's here? I was following you through the forest when it all went twisty and I got dumped in this field."

 

It all went twisty sounded like something I would say. I started to say so, then shoved up on my elbows, suddenly actually awake. Herne had said some were closer, others were farther away and would take longer to guide to the power circle. It hadn't occurred to me that he'd meant there were other people out there besides Gary and Sara. "You were following me? You were supposed to be asleep!"

 

"I woke up." Three little words shouldn't sound like portents of doom, but somehow they did. Well, there'd be time for a reckoning later, if we were lucky. I resisted the urge to hug her—for warmth, although I was kind of happy to see her, too—and instead blew into my hands, trying to get some feeling back.

 

"Did you see the others? Coyote and—" She was shaking her head no, and I echoed the motion, then said, "Shit. I wonder if that means you just got dropped directly between."

 

"Between what?"

 

"Between here and there. Between life and death. Between the cold." I sounded like an idiot. I felt like an idiot. "Don't worry about it. All right, look—"

 

"Don't worry about it? Don't worry about the fact that a minute ago I was in a snowy forest under a clear night and now I'm in a field someplace in the eye of a blizzard? Fine. I won't worry about it. I'll just figure out how to get out of here, since you're no use at all." She stood up, a small figure full of fire. Admiration, which was not an emotion I wanted to associate with Corvallis, bloomed in me. She wasn't a woman who would get trapped by the cold universe. She'd build a flameth-rower out of snow and blast her way free.

 

I could hardly do less. I got up, ice crystals forming on my arms, and tried not to shiver too hard. "Can you hear a drum?"

 

Corvallis glared at me. "Of course I can't hear a drum. All I can hear is you. I can't even hear that." She jabbed a finger at the storm whirling outside the circle's boundaries. Then wariness came over her face and she said, "Why? Can you hear a drum?" like it would be a very bad sign if I could.

 

I envisioned Police Detective Loses Mind! as the headline, and sighed. "No. I wish I could." It would give me a direction to head in, or at least provide some kind of promise there was still a world outside this one. "Corvallis, come over here and put your arms around me, and whatever happens, don't let go."

 

She stayed right where she was. "Why?"

 

"Because I'm going to freeze to death if you don't." While true, that was less than half the reason I wanted her to hold on to me. It did, however, sound much more reasonable than the real explanation, and after a few seconds of looking for its flaws, Corvallis did as I asked.

 

Heat rushed through me so fast it hurt. I swallowed a whimper and did my best to not curl up around the smaller woman like she was a teddy bear. If I did, odds were we'd both find ourselves frozen lumps in no time. I doubted she could sustain enough warmth for one very long, much less two. Instead I mumbled, "Thanks," and folded my arms around her shoulders. It wasn't as warm as her hugging them against me, but I didn't trust she'd keep hanging on if this worked the way I hoped.

 

I said, "Raven, it's me again," over Laurie's head. She jerked like I'd stuck a pin in her, and I tightened my arms. "Shh. It's okay."

 

She hissed, "You're talking to ravens," which I had to agree sounded a little crazy, especially since there weren't actually any ravens around. On the other hand, stopping to explain just seemed tedious, so I didn't. I tilted my head back, concentrating on my heartbeat as a substitute for a drum.

 

"Raven, I know you were there when I entered the Lower World. I felt you. Raven and Rattler both. But I lost you when I came here, and now I need you or I'll be lost, too. So will this woman, and she's only here because of me."

 

"That is not true. I'm following a story, a—" I felt Corvallis shift, turning her head to glance around the storm-bound circle before she muttered, "Fine. Being here, wherever here is, might be because of you. You owe me an explanation, Detective."

 

"I already gave you one." That was not helping. I made a disgusted sound in my throat and bared my teeth at the sky. Raven was out there somewhere, and he was good at storms and at passing through the flimsy barrier between life and death. I only had to give him a way to find me, and he'd come for us. There had to be a path somewhere.

 

I tipped my chin down and looked at the top of Corvallis's head. She didn't strike me as the type who would get stuck between, not by any natural means. In so far as natural means applied to my life or scenarios like this one, anyway. "Tell me exactly what happened when you came here."

 

"I already did," she said in exactly the same snappy, impatient tone I'd used on her a moment earlier. I swear to God, karma was not supposed to be an instant payback thing. I wanted to beat my head against something, but the only thing available was Corvallis's head, which I didn't think would help the situation.

 

"Laurie, please." People were supposed to respond well to the sound of their own names. I hoped it worked.

 

Corvallis gave me a look which suggested she knew exactly what I was doing. She probably did. News reporters probably used that kind of trick all the time. But she answered, which was all I asked for. "I told you. The forest twisted in on itself, and when it unfolded we were—"

 

"We?"

 

"Jeff and me. My cameraman."

 

"You brought your cam…" I reminded myself that this was not the time. "When it unfolded you were what?"

 

"We were here." She glanced around, and I could all but see the gears whirling in her little reporter mind. Then she closed her eyes, and when she spoke again she sounded like the woman on the six o'clock news every night, her voice crisp and concise. "We stepped out of the forest into a clearing about thirty yards across. There was a path of trodden snow right in front of us, and…four. Four people about halfway across the clearing. Jeff stepped across the path and I followed after. Then I was here, in the middle of this storm."

 

She opened her eyes again, looking up at me. "Back to you at the studio, Jo."

 

"You," I said, "are one hell of a reporter. When Jeff stepped across the path, did he scuff it?"

 

"It's snow." Corvallis managed to look pleased at the compliment and sound irritated all at the same time. "How can you scuff snow?" But she closed her eyes again, making me think she was rebuilding the image in her mind, then nodded. "His snowshoes left a line from the forest's edge to the path. Is that important?"

 

"Very." My circle had been broken, allowing the wendigo to escape and pulling Corvallis in to the between-place in its stead. I wished I had the luxury of panic, but I was starting to get cold again. It crystallized my thoughts, hurrying them to the necessary conclusions. "Look for a…lollipop, Raven. A lollipop in the snow." It sounded silly, but it was a better analogy than a steering wheel, and besides, it involved food. Raven liked food. "A lollipop with a really short handle and the biggest candy circle you've ever seen. Find that in the snow and you'll find us, and then I can bring you a lollipop just like that of your own." I sounded like I was cajoling a two-year-old.

 

Corvallis, almost reverently, asked, "Have you completely lost your mind?"

 

I was just about to admit I had when Raven plunged from the sky to our rescue.

* * *

The storm was a thing, not a sentient being. Not something that could recognize whether we were vulnerable or strong. I knew that, and yet it came to life, attacking as Raven plummeted down. Wind broke through the circular barrier, slashing at us with knives of ice carried in its invisible hands. Snow whipped around, moving so fast it became a weapon, tiny beads of cold driving into my face and exposed arms. I tucked Laurie's hooded head against my chest and turned eyes blinded with frozen tears toward the hidden sky.

 

There was no Sight to call here, no way to look beyond the blizzard and follow Raven's path. But I could feel him almost as if I flew with him, battered and driven by the storm. The cold didn't affect him the same way it did me, his existence a more supernatural thing than mine. But the wind did, and to my delight there was a part of himself given over to shrieking, gurgling laughter at being tossed around by the storm. He had a job to do, yes, and he knew it, and was dedicated to it, but he was of a breed known to go sledding down snowy hills, and to deliberately fold their wings so the wind off high bluffs could toss them to and fro. He worked his way through the snow toward us, but he had fun while he was doing it.

 

It was probably an extremely good life lesson. I put it on my list of things to think about after I was no longer a Jo-sicle and had saved the girl.

 

Which, if it didn't happen soon, wasn't going to happen at all. I raised my hand, skin stinging with the snow's impact, and bellowed, "Raven! Here! Hurry!" Corvallis was still warm, but I wasn't. Snow-shadows tore around us, making me think I was seeing our rescuer, but every time I grasped for him, he disappeared. My fingers were so cold I wasn't sure if I was clutching at ghosts or if I simply couldn't hold on to Raven long enough to be saved.

 

All I wanted was to escape the cold. I would do anything to escape the cold. I knew there was a world outside it, and clung desperately to the idea that Raven was on his way, but I could no longer feel him. I wasn't certain I felt anything; Corvallis's fur-wrapped self against my chest could have been a figment of my imagination. I kept holding on, just in case she wasn't, but no matter how hard I tried to hug her, I felt no pressure, no give, nothing but the endless snow. Dying seemed preferable to the cold. Even forcing myself out of this world as a wendigo seemed like a better fate—anything to be warm again. I'd had very little sympathy for the monster, but if it had begun as human and had faced the cold between, now I at least understood how it could reach for such extremes in order to avoid the cold.

 

Raven came out of the storm and sank his claws around my wrist, talons pinching far more sharply than the wendigo's had when I'd fought it. A sob caught in my throat, too cold to go farther. I was glad I could feel pain because it suggested I wasn't frostbitten from the marrow out, but I feared my blood would freeze as it fell to the snow, droplets forming a staircase for the cold to climb into the sky so it could chase me back to the warmer world.

 

My spirit guide cawed, a stern sound which broke through the storm as he struggled to lug the weight of two mortals upward. I tried to think myself lighter, think myself as weightless as a snowflake, and relief burst through the raven's second cry. We soared upward, striving for the sky.

 

Halfway out of the storm, Laurie slipped from my numb grasp.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

 

I hit the real world in a lunge, trying to catch a woman I didn't even like. Snow sprayed up in front of me and I surged to my feet, hoping against hope that Corvallis had somehow fallen to the Middle World, and not back into the storm.

 

She had. Laurie Corvallis's body was a dozen yards away, collapsed in the snow at the larger circle's inner edge. Aching relief tore away my ability to breathe. Healing a spirit torn asunder was far less terrifying than searching for her physical body in that god-awful storm. I ran toward her, and only too late began to hear and see the other things going on around me.

 

Gary and Sara were out of the protective inner circle, yards ahead of me in the race for Corvallis. Sara, younger, lighter, lither, got there before Gary and vaulted the woman to land on her other side. Gary crashed to his knees, both of them driving themselves under Corvallis's arms to get her up and haul her to safety. Their auras blazed, fear buried beneath the determination to rescue a fallen comrade. I had no time to stop, no time to love them or admire them, but my heart damned near ruptured my chest, full of awe at the nerve they displayed.

 

Somewhere behind me a man was bellowing, "What the fuck? What the fuck!" I wheeled around, working a sort of mental triage: Corvallis's lost soul could wait a little while. Not long, but a while, and I could use that time to deal with the wendigo. It would do. It would have to do.

 

Jeff, the camera guy, was the one shouting as he crabbed backward through the snow. I had to perversely admire his professionalism. The film would be all Blair Witch Project, but he had the camera at his shoulder and the green light flashed to indicate he was recording. He was still doing his job.

 

And he probably wouldn't die for it, because Coyote, spear clutched in both hands, stood between him and the wendigo. His hair was loose and flying, and he looked both terrified and like a warrior out of an imaginative history, eyes alight with gold power and the spear brandished at a terrible beast. The wendigo swiped at him and he dodged back, its blow glancing off the spear with a vibration that rattled the cold air.

 

I shot one despairing glance at the inner circle I'd gone to so much trouble to build. Empty and useless. Well, at least my friends were the kind you wanted to have your back in a fight. That was something. And they kind of deserved me to step up and do my part, so I cut across the circle toward Coyote, running as hard as I could in snowshoes and layered clothes.

 

I hit the wendigo in a flying tackle that knocked it well away from Coyote and the camera guy. "Go! Go! Get back inside!"

 

It was excellent advice. Neither of them took it, so far as I could tell while I flew backward across the larger circle again myself. I hadn't even seen the damned wendigo hit me, though I could feel the blow in my belly. Coyote charged forward, jabbing at the beast. It turned on him, snarling, and it struck me that probably two of us had a better chance against the thing than just one.

 

Better still if the others would get inside the inner circle. I yelled, "Go, go, inside!" again, not that "inside" was particularly helpful to Jeff, who hadn't been there when I'd built the inner circle and who no doubt saw nothing resembling indoors in the snowy landscape.

 

At least Gary and Sara knew what I was talking about. They rushed toward the circle's center with Laurie, and in a flawless moment of slapstick, bounced off it.

 

Because it was meant to keep things out. I finally hit the ground again, skidded backward, and doubled forward on myself to pound frustrated fists against the earth. My life was a Laurel and Hardy skit. Which would be fine if it were just my life, but other people were involved, and depending on me. A smart shaman probably would've tagged the good guys with some kind of "Let me in, let me in by the hairs of my chinny-chin-chin" thing so they could come and go from the safety of the inner circle, but I flat-out hadn't thought of it. Someday. Someday I would be good at this.

 

Assuming I managed to kick a wendigo's ass and get everybody to safety right now, anyway. I got over my three-second wallow and charged forward, confident, at least, that Gary and Sara could keep dragging Corvallis around the outer perimeter of the smaller circle, which would make it harder for the wendigo to get to her if it decided it needed a snack.

 

The wendigo was bleeding when I caught up to it again. I thought that was a great sign. Nothing I'd used on it had left a mark. Coyote, though, genuinely looked ill, all the certainty pouring away from his aura. A knot of worry bound up my lungs, and I breathed, "Do no harm."

 

Coyote went still, like he'd heard me, then turned toward me with hope and horror written in his golden eyes. I said, "It's okay," out loud, and did what I'd refused to do before: put my hand out for Herne's spear.

 

He winged it at me, throwing it lengthwise, so it spun a long horizontal arc across the snow. I caught it with a slap against my palm, audible even though I wore mittens, and Coyote sagged with relief. His aura strengthened instantly, like the weapon itself had drawn it down. I wanted to hug him.

 

"Go see if you can help Corvallis." I was oddly serene. The weapon fit in my hand like it was supposed to be there, and I already knew that fighting didn't do to me what it seemed to do to Coyote.

 

I hadn't known. I really hadn't known. Herne gave the spear to Coyote, not me, and when a god did something like that, I was inclined to follow his lead. And maybe he'd meant it as a test for Coyote, to see if my mentor had the warrior spirit in him. Or maybe he'd really just given him the spear to hold until it was time for me to use it. Those two things, in my opinion, weren't incompatible. But it was clear that my friend and mentor was never going to take up the metaphorical sword. We were not alike, he and I. I was a little sad about that, but in the end, it was okay. We weren't meant to walk the same path, and I could live with that.

 

Then the moment's glorious calm was gone. Coyote spun and ran for the inner circle. The wendigo, howling, tore after him, and I snapped myself forward, interceding faster than I should have been able to. I whispered thanks to my rattlesnake, and collided with the wendigo in a rush of fur and fury.

 

For the first time, we did damage to one another. I heard ribs crack and thought they were its, not mine, and caught a blow across my cheek that sent me spinning. When I whirled back, the wendigo was running. Not toward the broken outer circle, but toward the smaller one, where my friends sheltered on its far side. Coyote was there, but only just: he was beginning to kneel at Laurie's side while Gary and Sara got to their feet, the latter with her gun in hand. It wouldn't do anything to the wendigo, but it was the act of defiance that mattered.

 

I surged after it, fast, but not fast enough. I couldn't match its leaps, not even with my snake-offered speed. The damned wendigo slithered around the inner column, claws scraping and digging against the magic. Sara lifted her weapon and fired repeatedly, and to my surprise the wendigo shuddered with each impact, blood spattering across the snow. It collapsed, crashing down the circle toward Coyote, who flung his hands up in a desperate attempt to protect his charge.

 

When it came to rest, it became Laurie Corvallis.

* * *

The monster simply disappeared, misshapen form falling into nothing, and Corvallis arched up out of the snow screaming in its wake. Coyote surged back in shock, and for a microsecond I just stood there agape and childishly infuriated. It wasn't fair. It was just not fair that this goddamned monster could shuffle off its mortal coil faster than a thought; that its very body was so much a psychic construct that it could be discarded the moment something better came along. No wonder I couldn't hold the damned thing. Even gods were more constrained by physical form than the wendigo was.

 

I hated it. I hated it a lot, even knowing there was a woman somewhere inside there who needed rescuing. I hated that it was so slippery and that I wasn't fast enough; I hated its need to kill to survive; I hated its cold ruthless will that let it cling to a world it should have already passed beyond.

 

And I hated that Laurie Corvallis, whom I didn't like very much, was going to die if I didn't get my act together. Coyote shook off shock and slammed forward again, pinning her down as I skidded across the snow to join them.

 

"I got her out." My voice was so low and frustrated it sounded like it came from someone else. "I almost had her out of the storm, out of the cold between. I just couldn't hold on, Coyote. I was so cold, and she fell. She fell, and…"

 

Corvallis opened her eyes and dropped her jaw to hiss at me from the back of her throat. I toppled over with an undignified squeak, and Coyote, holding her shoulders down, gave me a look of pure disgust. Some great healer I was, when a little demon possession freaked me out, but Corvallis's blue eyes were bloodshot red, even the pupils. Her teeth, at least, hadn't undergone a transformation, and were nice and white and even rather than being filed points.

 

"How far did she fall? How far did she fall, Jo?"

 

"I don't know! Far enough to leave her body empty!" I clapped one hand on Corvallis's head and put the other, awkwardly, at her hip. Awkward because I still had the spear and didn't want to let it go, not because I had some kind of personal space issue going on. "Raven, guide me. If I have to go back into that storm to find her, I will, but that place scares the crap out of me. I need your help. I promise lollipops."

 

I felt the reassuring non-weight of my spirit guide on my shoulder, his unearthly talons squeezing tight muscle. I whispered, "Don't let us freeze to death, Yote," and for what seemed like the hundredth time, closed my eyes to risk the storm.

 

Corvallis slapped her hand up, fingers clawed inside their mitten, and hauled me back out.

* * *

The world shifted, all signs of winter melting away. I was in a concrete jungle: skyscrapers wound with ivy reached for the stars, streams ran over the dashed lines of asphalt streets, predators prowled grassy sidewalks and lurked in alleyways while herd animals raced ahead of them, in a rush to eat, to work, to play. I thought I made a rather magnificent addition to the surroundings, in my torn jeans and oily tank-top and with a tall wooden spear in my hand. I fit right in as one of the predators. Men and women in business suits avoided me, while young punks sized me up for potential battle. I shook my spear and shooed them away so I could look around in peace.

 

Billboards and electronic tickers were half destroyed by wilderness, though their remnants showed news images, one of them recurring over and over: Corvallis at a news anchor's desk, internationally famous eye symbol predominant behind her. There was something not quite right about her, hard to pinpoint from the fractured images.

 

She was tawnier than in real life, black hair streaked with blond, warm skin tones a little more golden. There was something feline about her, and I laughed as it came to me: king of the jungle. This was pretty, ambitious Laurie Corvallis's garden, a cityscape jungle, and she was its lioness. Which was way, way more than I'd ever wanted to know about her. Still, I kind of admired it. At least she knew what she wanted.

 

Though in this particular case, the fact that I was here, and not in the wendigo's storm, suggested that what she wanted was help. It also suggested she had some vestige of control left, which was good for both of us. All I had to do was find her, and maybe together we'd stand a chance against the demon. "Laurie? Hey, Laurie!"

 

Her name echoed off ruined buildings, but she didn't appear. I pursed my lips, then took off at a run through the streets, trusting Corvallis's subconscious to take me where I needed to go. The city bent and folded and presented me with the Channel Two News building within a few dozen strides. Unsurprised, I took the stairs up two at a time, and burst into the anchor room. "Laurie?"

 

"I can't come out." Her voice was a whisper, bouncing around so it seemed to come from nowhere. "It'll get me if I come out."

 

"I'm here to stop it." I thought I sounded remarkably confident. I hoped she thought so, too. "Where are you? Can you tell me what you remember?"

 

"There was a storm. I was lost." She sounded about six. "Someone tried to rescue me, but then I couldn't see her anymore. The storm came up and I started to run, and I ran until I came here. But now the storm is here, too, looking for me. I think it wants to kill me."

 

I'd pinpointed her by the end of her explanation, though I didn't want to let her know that. Instead I came to sit on the anchor's desk, pretty sure she was under it. I wondered if she always thought of herself as a kid who hid beneath desks.

 

If she did, that probably explained a lot about her aggressiveness. Talk about making up for perceived inadequacies in spades. "I think you're right. The storm is trying to get to you. But I can help you fight it, if you want."

 

"…you can?" She looked about six as she peeked out from under the desk, all big hopeful eyes and quivering lower lip. Given a set of whiskers, she'd be the world's most pathetic kitten. Man, if I got her out of this alive I would have all the blackmail material I'd ever need to keep myself off the news.

 

Not that I would ever, ever use my special magic powers to such a naughty, self-involved end. Of course not. That would be wrong. And more to the point, the gift I'd tried so hard to ignore and had finally grown comfortable with would no doubt depart at the least opportune moment in retaliation for my bad behavior. Look, I never said I was a good person. Sometimes threats to my own health and happiness were the best way to keep me on the straight and narrow.

 

"I can," I said firmly. "That's what I do. I help people."

 

Corvallis squinted suspiciously over the edge of the desk. It reduced the kitten aspect and aged her considerably, which was something of a relief. I did not want to introduce six-year-olds to fighting wendigos. Or anything else, for that matter. She inched farther up the desk, frown deepening. "How?"

 

"How? How do I help? Messily, usually, and you don't make it any easier." Probably this was not the time to scold her. I made a face and tried again. "I'm a shaman. I deal in sicknesses that doctors don't believe exist. Right now you're sick. A demon's taken over your body. I can help you get it back."

 

She got to her feet, an adult again, though still with the vaguely feline air. "A demon. Like in The Omen?"

 

"No, that was the Anti-Christ, wasn't it? More like…" My limited knowledge of pop culture failed me entirely. "Look, don't worry what it's like. That storm we were in was…Hell." It wasn't. Or at least I didn't think it was. But it was the closest shorthand I had.

 

Unfortunately, it also had a connotation I hadn't quite thought through. Corvallis's voice shot up: "You mean I'm dead?"

 

"No! Not yet." That was probably less than reassuring. "But you will be if we don't go deal with the demon, so if you don't mind, I think we should get out of here and go find it."

 

She folded her arms, fingers tapping rapidly against her biceps. "And just how do you propose we do that, Detective?"

 

Bully for me. I'd gotten the Corvallis I knew and loved back. Still, it was a damned sight better than a child. "If I were the wendigo I'd be working from the part of your mind that contained the images and thoughts and places you wanted least to remember. I'd figure you'd avoid those places, nevermind stride in and pick a fight."

 

"I don't back down from fights, Detective." Corvallis was hard as steel now, while the backdrop shifted to show images of her scrappy childhood self standing up to a school-yard fight even while her heart pounded with terror. She got a tooth knocked out that day, but by God she didn't back down.

 

I had the sudden appalling idea that I could like this woman. Disconcerted by the idea, I extended a hand and raised my eyebrows in mild challenge. "Great. Let's go find one, then."

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

 

She took my hand, and the building disappeared around us, though the ground stayed solid beneath our feet as it changed from carpet to asphalt. A parking lot somewhere, half the lights out, only a couple of cars in it, the sounds of glass breaking and rowdy men in the near distance. There was no proper life here, not the way there was in the other gardens I'd visited, but it was certainly a familiar scene. It put me instantly on edge, hairs on my neck standing up and an apprehensive chill rushing over my skin.

 

Despite holding a tall spear in one hand, I released the other from Corvallis's grasp and dug into my pocket for my keys. I'd want them out, in this situation. I'd want them because I'd want to get into Petite as quickly as I could, and because, grasped in the palm and stuck jagged-side-out between the fingers, they made a decent weapon. I was nearly six feet tall and disproportionately strong from working on cars all my life, and even so, alone in a parking lot at night, I was scared.

 

No. I was wary, in this situation. I'd never been scared. The fear was Laurie, who had neither my height nor my strength, and who was much, much prettier than I was. Her anxiety pervaded the scene, though beneath it there was anger, too. Anger that she was afraid, anger that there was reason to be, and anger, I suspected, at knowing what happened next. Anger at being unable to stop it. I glanced at her, and she said, tightly, "This is where I don't like to go." Her neck was stiff with strain, like she was resolutely refusing to look over her shoulder.

 

I looked.

 

What I saw was the wendigo, talons between her fingers like I held my keys. What I saw was the beast's loping form, her raging eyes, her starving soul now determined to hold on to the body it had taken. The unwilling dead were so greedy for life it hurt me, like a blade in the heart. The handful of people I'd met who had died well, or who had understood their fate, had slipped away comfortably enough, but those who had gone down fighting or in fear would do anything to reclaim what they'd lost. It was a terrible thing, that we lived in a world that made such unhappy souls. I took a step forward, half intending to intercept the miserable creature, but Laurie spun around, fear and frustration making her aura sour.

 

"David, leave me alone! How many times do I have to say it's over? You can't follow me like this. It freaks me out!"

 

I never heard what David said in return. The wendigo rushed her, so abrupt even Corvallis was surprised, which suggested that this wasn't in keeping with her memories of what had happened with David. She shrieked, an aborted little sound, and her head cracked against the pavement with a noise like a plastic bowl landing cup-side-down.

 

For the second time in a matter of minutes, the wendigo sank into Corvallis's body, leaving nothing of itself behind.

 

I fell back, horrified. In the Middle World, the possession had been bad, but it had suggested Laurie's soul was out for lunch, leaving the body empty to be occupied. Here, in Corvallis's garden, there was nothing but her soul to replace. The landscape started to shift, mountains and cedar trees ripping up from beneath the pavement. I staggered, using the spear for balance, and my eyes were drawn to it as an unpleasant reality hit.

 

I was actually going to have to kill her.

* * *

She folded her arms up to put her hands palm-down on either side of her head, and did a full body surge that drove her to her feet. I'd only ever seen anybody do that in movies, and thought it looked just as inefficient in real life as on film. Also, it meant she came at me ribs-first, body arched forward to get the momentum she needed to gain her feet.

 

I kicked her in the sternum.

 

I didn't know why nobody ever did that in movies. Corvallis slammed right back to the ground, hitting so hard I went breathless. But whether it was the wendigo in control or simply that it was Corvallis's garden, she didn't stay down. I'd never seen a more classic stop, drop and roll, in fact, overlooking the fact that the stop and drop had been initiated by a boot to the ribs rather than being on fire. Look, it had been a good analogy. It didn't need close examination.

 

She rolled to her feet a few yards away, which was a much better way of getting up. I went after her, bellowing, "Damn it, Corvallis, I don't want to kill you, but I will if I have to!" I sounded like a parent threatening a child for its own good. I had yet to meet a kid who believed that. Either way, I brandished the spear, hoping it would cow her.

 

She grabbed it just beyond the head and yanked it toward her to capture the haft between her arm and ribs. I very nearly let go from surprise, then grunted and set my weight. I had at least forty pounds on her, and it should have been easy to knock her off her feet using the spear as leverage.

 

The bitch didn't so much as tilt. I did a credible wendigo-sounding growl and shoved forward, managing to slide the spear and get myself a couple feet closer to her. I had no plan after that, but the Corvallis-wendigo did: she bared fingers whose nails had gone very claw-y, and slashed at my face. I dodged back, then kicked her in the ribs again, booted foot connecting solidly. She wheezed and her grip on the spear loosened. I yanked it away and backed up, ready for her when she pounced.

 

I had to give the wendigo this much: it wasn't an original fighter. Even with me armed with a spear, its inclination was to come from on high and bear down its victim by weight. That was more effective when it was three hundred pounds, not a hundred and fifteen. I took a chance and swung the spear aside so it wouldn't impale her, and straight-armed her in the xyphoid process instead.

 

Honestly, I couldn't have done better if I were a professional wrestler. The heel of my hand caught her just above the gut and I let go the spear to grab her with my other hand and body-slam her to the earth. It would've been hugely more effective if we were still in the parking lot Corvallis had imagined up instead of in the wendigo's preferred forest, but even so, it wasn't half-bad. The blood rage faded from Corvallis's eyes, and for a bewildered instant she blinked at me through a spray of snow.

 

"Corvallis! Is that you?" Fighting the wendigo was one thing, but I had Laurie's weight pinned, and confidence, if necessary, in my own ability as a brawler over her barracuda-girl attitude.

 

I hadn't counted on the possibility she knew how to fight.

 

She brought her feet up, caught me in the belly, and threw me over her head. I flew spectacularly until freshly-grown trees stopped me, and I slithered down them under a rain of snow and pine needles.

 

Corvallis was on her feet again by the time I looked up, pretty features all snarly. "I told you, David. It's over. Don't make me hurt you."

 

Unwelcome comprehension unfolded a clear path before me. I had no idea at all what had happened with Corvallis and this David person, but everything about the scene had suggested something bad. That left me between a rock and a hard place, shamanically speaking, because if I kicked her ass now, whatever trauma she had to face might never get resolved. On the other hand, if it turned out she'd actually kicked his ass then, while reliving the victory would no doubt be good for her, it would be considerably less good for me.

 

And the truth was, there wasn't really much of a choice. Power fluttered behind my breastbone, eager to help. If Laurie herself had an incident in her past she needed to deal with, I pretty much literally couldn't refuse. I just hoped like hell that it was Corvallis, and not the wendigo, in charge of this particular boxing round.

 

That was all the time I had to think. She left the spear behind, for which I was grateful, but she delivered a roundhouse kick to my head when I pushed up from the trees. I was considerably less grateful for that, as I spun around to eat snow a second time.

 

Corvallis jumped on my spine, a hand fisted in my hair. I could have shoved her off, but I thought—hoped—she wasn't going to kill me. Or David, whichever of us she saw. She leaned down and put her mouth by my ear. "I'm not the same girl I was back then, David. I'm tougher now. I learned how to protect myself. If you want to hit somebody, you don't need to look for somebody your own size anymore. I'm willing to fight." Then she lifted my head by the hair and slammed my face forward into the snow. I hit a tree root and saw stars, but her weight came off my back and when I rolled over, dizzily, it was to see her standing above me in triumph.

 

Her expression fell into confusion, though, as I worked my way toward sitting up. "Detective? What are you—" She looked around, clearly only seeing her surroundings for the first time. "Where are—?"

 

"It's complicated. Laurie, you're possessed, you've got a—"

 

The wendigo came back, and any chance to explain disappeared.

* * *

On the plus side, I was almost certain I'd seen a pattern. Momentary confusion or a hard knock lent a chance for one or the other personality to take control. In theory if I could whack Corvallis alongside the head, she'd come back and I might have time to try to talk her out of killing me.

 

In practice, I was afraid that, having put David's head through the allegorical concrete, Corvallis herself might have accomplished what she needed to, and that her personality might be okay with stepping back for a breather and adjusting to a new world order. Unfortunately, that very likely meant she'd never wake up again. There weren't enough swear words in the universe to satisfy my frustration.

 

We met in a head-on collision, my major intent being to get past the monster and pick up the spear again. It seemed safer to hit the thing from a distance, if I could, and there were no rules I knew about that said I couldn't use a spear like a really long baseball bat. With any luck I could grand-slam Corvallis's skull and knock her back into control. If not, there was always the added bonus of having hit her with a metaphorical baseball bat. That was probably a bad attitude to take, but it had been a very long day.

 

She clobbered me, back to the wendigo's slash-and-burn fighting style. Unlike in the Lower World, these hits connected, leaving my ears ringing and my vision blurry. On the other hand, she didn't have actual talons with which to gut me, so overall I called it a wash and hit her temple with my elbow. Her crimson-eyed focus went woozy and I scrambled over her, lunging for the spear.

 

She caught my ankle and hauled me back, and for a horrified minute I had to kick her off to keep her from gnawing my ankle. Definitely the wendigo in control. Regardless of how often I called Corvallis a shark, I didn't think she actually went in for biting body parts off. I lost a shoe to her ravening hunger, but that was a lot better than losing my foot.

 

A little too late, she realized what I was doing. Claws pierced my calves as she tried crawling up my body, but by then I had the spear in hand. I hit her over the head and she reeled back, gaze gone fuzzy again. For the briefest moment, Corvallis looked out at me again, and whispered, "Do what it takes to get the story."

 

There was something profoundly perverse about that attitude when by all reasonable reckoning she was the story. Still, as a scream tore her throat and her eyes flashed from red to blue and back again, I couldn't help thinking that she would. She'd do what it took to get the story, even if the story was her and it ended very badly. It might even win her a posthumous Pulitzer or something, and I had the impression Laurie Corvallis would be satisfied with that.

 

I wasn't, but I was also running out of options. I could spend most of forever in here trying to win back a reporter I didn't much like, or I could roll the dice and see if it came up snake eyes.

 

Corvallis was on the ground, fighting herself. I surged to my feet, the spear clutched in both hands, and stood over her. "Sorry, Corvallis. I wish it had ended differently."

 

I drove the spear down with every ounce of force at my disposal.

* * *

I awakened to the real world, where I stood over Corvallis with the spear plunged through her fur coat and layers. I could feel her heartbeat through the spear, living wood carrying it to me: that's how close she was to death.

 

She opened her eyes, all the wendigo crimson flooding back to blue. We stayed where we were for a brief eternity, Corvallis breathing shallowly because a deep inhalation would puncture her. Then she caved her chest in, shoulders rising a little as she shrank back from the spear. "It's me."

 

I nodded once and pulled the spear away, setting it butt-down in the snow. Coyote snatched it as I knelt over Corvallis, though I had no idea what he thought he would do with it. Use it as a bludgeoning weapon, from the way he held it. I would be the target, and I had to agree that from his perspective that might seem wise. I had, after all, just very nearly skewered one of the nominal good guys.

 

I shucked my mittens to open Corvallis's fur coat with one hand, then to push aside the layers beneath it. A tiny hole just above her heart drooled blood over the top of her breast, discoloring her bra. She said nothing, just kept her gaze fixed on mine as I bared her skin. It was by far the most peculiar, intimate moment I'd ever had with a woman, and she refused to blink or look away to lessen its intensity. Under the circumstances, if she wouldn't, I didn't feel like I could.

 

Not until I put my hand over the wound did she move, catching my wrist. "Will it leave a scar?"

 

"No."

 

"Then don't."

 

The little puncture wound hurt. Hurt her, hurt me; I could feel it wanting to be whole again. It would be easy to ignore her wishes with a patch-up job that small. "You sure?"

 

"Very."

 

I rolled back on my heels and withdrew my hand, blood on my palm. "Get it looked at, then."

 

"I will. As soon as you're done here."

 

"Yeah." I stood up again, deliberately not wiping my palm clean as I extended my hand for the spear. "I'm going to need it to finish this."

 

Coyote's hands tightened around the weapon's haft. "We need to talk, Jo."

 

"No." My heart hurt with all kinds of regrets for the different paths we had to follow. "No, Yote, we don't. I'm sorry. I just need the spear and my drum, and another path to the Lower World, if you'll open one."

 

"What if I won't?"

 

I sighed. "Then I'll go my own way, and this will be drawn out that much longer."

 

His silence said a great deal and was punctuated by words that contained more than just their surface meaning: "God damn it, Joanne…"

 

"I know. I'm sorry. Please?"

 

He gestured sharply behind me, and I turned to see a yellow sand road break through the snow. Gary, wordlessly, handed me my drum, and I tucked it safely beneath my arm. "Thank you."

 

There was nothing else to say. I nodded, then left my friends behind once again.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

 

The truth was, I'd had enough. I'd fought gods, ghosts, demons and spirits in the past, and none of them had the staying power of the wendigo. I'd lost count of how many times we'd faced off, and pretty much every time, I'd come out with my ass in a sling. I was tired of it. I was flat-out tired, although to the best of my ability to remember, I'd only been up since that morning. Honestly, though, after being hauled in, out, around and over the Middle, Lower, Hell and snowstorm worlds, I didn't think I could be any more exhausted if I hadn't slept in a week.

 

The Lower World, with its too-hot, too-close sun, invited me to just curl up under the red sky and doze off. Instead I walked awhile, grateful for the silence, grateful to have left winter behind, grateful most of all that I had a little respite before fighting again. Sonata had explained in no uncertain terms that I was supposed to be the counterweight that made up for so many people of power dying a year ago in Seattle. I was willing to play that role, but there was a deep place inside me filling with envy for Coyote's gentler path. Not poisonous envy, but more a sort of appreciation for what it meant to be only a healer, and not a warrior as well. It was a good thing. Not that my duties were bad, but they were maybe more complicated. I'd actually been willing to sacrifice Corvallis, if necessary. I'd thought—I'd hoped—that the wendigo's desire to survive would send it skittering out of Corvallis before I struck the final blow, but I'd had to make it believe I'd kill her. In an astral world, where thoughts and intentions could be telegraphed even from behind shielded minds, that had meant I had to believe I'd kill her.

 

Coyote—Big Coyote, the Trickster himself—might have appreciated that ruthless game. My Coyote didn't, and I didn't blame him at all. I was afraid that in finding him again, I'd lost him for good.

 

A lush dark purple forest had come up around me as I walked. There were vines beneath my feet, leaves so dark they were almost black, and red sun filtered down through the trees above so shadows danced across my skin and played tricks with my vision. I wanted the forest; that was where a wendigo belonged, but I didn't know if winter ever came to the Lower World at all. Not that I had any desire to re-enter the storm, even with Raven at my side.

 

Which he was, skittering above the trees, diving through the branches so he was one of the objects mucking with my sight. I didn't mind. His presence made me more confident. I'd been walking without thought as to how I would end this thing, but a nugget of a plan formed at the back of my mind. I left it alone, afraid that if I focused on it too hard, it would disappear.

 

The forest broke abruptly, leaving me on a rock face in the full blasting sun. My rattlesnake was coiled there, baking away, and I sat beside him, eyes half-closed as I turned my face toward the sky. Despite the heat, I wasn't sweating. A gift, I supposed, from my cold-blooded spirit animal. I reached over to stroke his back, and he flattened out, scales rippling in the boiling light. Raven dropped on my other side and head-butted my knee, impatient as a cat, then quarked happily when I rubbed the top of his head, too.

 

They were the tools I needed. The snake, representative of healing and change, and the raven, able to wing between life and death. I tucked the spear by my thigh and took my drum into my lap, knocking it with my knuckles.

 

I had fought and fought and fought the wendigo, and each time it had been, at best, a draw, where "draw" really meant "Joanne lost, big-time." There were other paths open to me. I'd learned that, if nothing else, from Begochidi. All this time I'd been taking it to the wendigo's territory. This time I wanted her on mine, and for once—maybe for the first time—I was confident of what and where that territory was. Rattler and Raven helped define it, and with them beside me, I believed nothing could take it away.

 

Drum in hand, spirit guides at my side, I called the storm.

 

I knew it now. I'd been there often enough that I recognized the static scream warning me of its arrival long before the cold hit. There were so many voices in that storm, so many people lost beyond the boundaries of the worlds they'd belonged to. Most were echoes carried by shrieking wind, just a memory giving strength to the squall. I wondered if, with enough time, enough care, enough shamans, the whole of it might be dismantled, and if no one would ever be lost to the cold universe again.

 

And discarded the thought almost instantly. I believed it could be done. I also believed that the moment it was, the moment magic-users stepped away from the emptiness they'd left behind, a new soul would find its way through, and the storm would begin again. Nature abhorred a vacuum, even in levels of reality where nature seemed to play no part.

 

The cold wanted inside me, the way it had been accepted before. It slammed toward me and was rebuffed by the Lower World's warmth still clinging to my skin. I sat on the yellow stone cliff beneath the red sun's amazing heat while winter raged around me. Even my rattlesnake seemed undisturbed by the wind and weather, untouched when by all rights he should have frozen solid within moments. Raven, on my other side, hopped at the edges of our safe little circle, thrusting his head out to bite at flying snowflakes in an act that looked like pure silly defiance.

 

"There's a warmer world waiting for you, wendigo." I finally took up my drumstick, its raspberry-red rabbit fur end all bright and tasty as I turned the leather end against the drumhead. Raven lost interest in the storm and came to eye the waving fur hopefully, but I laughed and nudged him away with my elbow. "She'll need you, Raven. She'll need the cleverness you have to see her way out of the storm. But there'll be lollipops and shiny things when we're done. Will you watch for her?"

 

He klok'd, a huge self-important sound, and bounced back to the edge of our circle, wings half-spread in anticipation. I banged the drum properly for the first time, enchanted by the reverberation of leather hitting leather, and to my own surprise, began to sing.

 

I thought the idea came from Mandy, singing on solstice morning. Singing in light and warmth and life, giving the sun a reason to return, like the star itself was a lost soul searching for its way back home. I wished I knew something about the woman who'd become the monster, something more than that she had a terrible will to live. But I sang to that, first just high notes in minor keys, where love songs from musicals always reached to twist the heart a little. They had some of the right idea, that touch of longing, but I wanted something more, something compelling. The drum provided a backbone to that, and after a while I found what I was looking for: wordless, atonal, urgent. Aboriginal song, like something the elders might have sung back in Qualla Boundary to teach the kids how to recognize their culture's music. I even managed to find a few phrases to call out in Cherokee, although it had been so long since I'd used that language I was sure I thoroughly mangled it.

 

But the song, or the willpower behind it, cut a path through the storm. Not quickly, but steadily, with Raven hopping forward eagerly with every inch it gave. He bounced far enough away I shouldn't have been able to see him, but we were bringing the Lower World into the heart of the blizzard. Proportions and distance were never quite right, in the Lower World, and he remained his full size even when he was hundreds of feet away.

 

The voices crying in the storm slowly faded away. They still hungered, they still wanted, but they seemed to understand I wasn't looking for them. As their howling shadows faded, a shape appeared at the far end of the path I was building. Raven got very excited, leaping around with his wings spread, and then suddenly dived into the storm itself, disappearing from view. The rattlesnake at my side finally stirred, lifting his head and flicking his tongue out in snaky interest. My heartbeat sped up and so did the pattern I thumped on the drum, like the two were intimately tied together.

 

Raven reappeared, another form stumbling behind him. It—she—stopped when she reached the yellow-earth path of the Lower World, its intrusion into the storm so astonishing I felt her amazement all the way down the road tying us together. Unlike Raven, she was tiny with distance, or her sense of self was so fragile, so lost, that she was nothing more than a speck on the horizon. I lifted my voice again, calling to her in song, and Raven, who had a distinctive but not beautiful voice, settled on her shoulder to flap encouragement.

 

The road closed up behind her, as if the storm was trying to take her back. I could feel her fear and confusion, and beneath that a thread of hope so thin it seemed impossible that it had sustained her as long as it had. Because I could only imagine hope had sustained her, a hope of returning home so very strong that it had made her into the wendigo. It was sheer cruelty that someone of such determination could be twisted into something of such horror, but if I was learning anything, it was that everyone had as much potential for dread as for beauty.

 

Even I did, which wasn't a comforting thought. Nobody who was purely full of lightness and fluff and goodness would have come so close to stuffing a spear through somebody's heart. That was, frankly, bleak as hell, and suggested I'd turned a corner somewhere. If I was capable of making that decision, I wasn't sure what other choices I might be able to make. I was even less sure I wanted to find out. I would have to talk to my disapproving mentor about the fine line between good and bad, and try like hell to stay on the right side of it while still acknowledging, even embracing, the need and ability to make the hard choices.

 

Maturity, I decided, sucked. On the other hand, the thought brought a warble of laughter into my song, and the woman on the pathway looked up at the sound. Something about her brightened, like she recognized laughter, and she came forward more eagerly, until I could see her clearly. She was still inhuman, but no longer in the way she'd been. No longer disjoined or falling apart, no longer a slavering monster of teeth and claws. She looked thin, not just physically but spiritually, like she'd almost faded away. I wasn't sure if the storm had done that to her, or if her attempts to break free had, but I was inclined to blame the storm.

 

I waited until she was only a few feet away, Raven whacking her on the head with his wings, before I set my drum aside so I could take up the spear and get to my feet. The rattlesnake finally uncoiled from his warm spot and slithered forward, wrapping around the woman's ankles. She looked down with alarm, and I shook my head. "It's all right. He's a friend. A guide, just like the raven. And I'm…"

 

For the first time I could remember, I wanted to hand over my full name, freely given. I wondered what that meant about this woman, about her fate, and what it meant about me, but I smiled and said, "I'm Siobhán. Siobhán Grainne MacNamarra Walkingstick, and I've come to take you home."

 

It sounded like such a gentle promise that it nearly broke my heart. I knotted my fingers around the spear's haft. "Home isn't back into the world you knew. I'm sorry. I don't know anything about you, but if we understand what happened, I'm afraid you've been lost to the cold for a long time. I think your body is probably dead, and I can't…"

 

She swayed a little, but stepped closer, like she was listening hard. I took a deep breath. "I can't let you go again unless I'm sure you'll return to your body. If there's no body to go back to, I'm afraid you'll become the wendigo again, trying to break free from the storm. I can't…let you do that. Too many people have already died. All I can do is bring you out of the storm and…set you free." It was such a stupid phrase. Free of what? Hope? Life? Chances? Those weren't things people sought to be set free from. We tried to escape prisons and bad situations, not gambles for survival.

 

Then again, if there was a worse situation than becoming a wendigo, I never wanted to encounter it. I would want to be freed from that, if for some hideous reason I ever became such a thing.

 

On the other hand, I wanted to be very, very clear about the limited options I was offering this woman, and so, voice low, I spelled it out. "You're going to die. It's the best I can offer you. But you'll die here, under the red sun, instead of out there in the storm. I wish I could give you more."

 

Something in her eyes suggested she still had words. Had the capacity to speak, but chose not to. A gift, maybe, for me. Something to make it easier, a pretense that she was nothing more than the animal she'd become. That was a kindness, and a lie: it took a thinking creature to do what she did next. She reached for the spear's neck, controlling it, and I let her. Let her bring it all the way down until the black wooden tip rested between her ribs, a certain kill shot. She lifted her gaze to mine, gave me a brief smile, and braced herself.

 

This was not how soul retrievals were supposed to end. They were meant to be a reunion of body and spirit, not a violent finish, not even if that finish was the closest thing to peace a lost soul might find. I hated it. There had to be another way. A promise I could make, a magic I could build. There had to be. The woman's gaze was clear on mine, waiting.

 

I whispered, "I'm sorry. I can't."

 

And shoved.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

 

The Lower World disappeared in a silent rush, leaving me standing cold and numb in the company of mortals. My spear was unbloodied, but I could feel the wendigo's weight against it, for all that I'd left her spirit behind in another realm. I also felt questions building up in the air, everyone around me wanting answers and not quite bold enough to ask for them. I was grateful for that. Grateful enough, in fact, that I reached for magic and brought down the power circles, hoping their fall would keep silence in place.

 

Corvallis inhaled sharply, and Coyote came to my side, everything about his presence uncertain. I offered the spear, and he took it cautiously. "Jo…"

 

I shook my head, trying to will him into quietness. I wasn't ready to talk. I didn't think I ever would be, even if I knew I'd have to sooner rather than later. Later: a little later, at least, because as he took the spear a whisper rifled the distant trees, and Herne was released into our midst.

 

He nodded once toward Coyote, whose hands fisted around the spear as he thrust it forward sideways, clearly trying to rid himself of it. Herne shook his head, then turned his attention to me, putting a branchy finger to his lips as I struggled to put a thought together aloud.

 

I hadn't needed to ask. Like he'd known what I wanted, he brought us home.

 

Laurie was right. The forest went all twisty. There was no better way to describe it: a violent twist of earth and trees, and we were a dozen yards from the hotel's back door instead of out in the far reaches of nowhere. I reached for a tree to steady myself as the others scattered for the hotel's warmth, safety and normalcy. I wanted to go with them. I wanted, really, to go close myself away somewhere silent and just be for a while. Just try to wrap my mind around the wendigo's death, and how I felt it as a loss in a way I'd felt nothing else over the past year. I wanted to step out of time and be safe and quiet until I felt ready to face the world again.

 

A breath of humor rushed through my lips. While that would be nice, it had no basis in reality. I stepped away from the hotel, closer to the forest. "Herne?"

 

The god stopped, and in his stillness was nothing more than a tree, all black branches in the moonlight. I waited for him to say something, then realized he wouldn't and blurted, "There was one other person we lost today, one of my friend's agents. Is he still out there?"

 

"I brought everyone who still walked the forest to you. If he is missing, there was no life to be found."

 

I slumped. "I was afraid of that. Okay. Thank you."

 

The tree bent a little, creaking as it did, and then was nothing but a tree, Herne's presence from it gone. I stood there alone for a moment, gazing at where he'd been, then twitched as Sara called my name. "What was that?"

 

I turned toward her, at a loss for anything but the truth. "That was…I thought you'd gone inside. It was a forest god. Sara, I'm sorry. He says your agent is dead."

 

She stared at me a long moment, then passed a hand over her face. "Yeah. You said he probably was." Another brief eternity passed before she shook herself. "All right. Thanks for telling me. You…you should go home for a while, Joanne."

 

Cold, not quite so bad as the storm, but abrupt and uncomfortable, clenched my gut. Sara scowled, reading denial in my face. "I'm serious. If this is what you're doing…you should go home. See your dad. Talk to the elders. You should do that."

 

Cold turned to ice and cracked in my voice. "Is he still there? Do you see him?"

 

"No, I live out here, but I go back sometimes. He was there last summer, anyway."

 

"You live here? In Seattle?" That was an easier thought than my dad back in North Carolina. "Maybe we should…" I thought of Lucas, and watching Sara's expression, said, "Or maybe not. I'll think about North Carolina."

 

Sara nodded and looked away, neither of us sure what to say next. We weren't friends, not anymore, but we were maybe less antagonistic than we'd been for years. Funny how rivalries could remain, even through time and distance and living only in memory. I didn't want to leave us with history as the last thing between us, and blurted, "What're you going to tell your bosses?"

 

She glanced back at me with a frustrated huff. "What can I tell them? Nothing. I'm going to spend the next six months or more working on this case, until it goes cold to their satisfaction. You're sure it's over?"

 

"Yeah. Look, I'm sorry about your man, Sara."

 

"Me, too." Sara fell a step back, precursor to escaping my presence. "I'll see you around, okay, Joanne?"

 

"Yeah." I didn't offer a hand, and neither did she. "I'll see you."

 

She walked away, and I waited until she was gone before following her in, and driving home to Seattle in time for Christmas.

 

Sunday, December 25, 5:20 A.M.

 

I had long since gotten over leaping out of bed bright and early on Christmas morning. Someone, though, apparently hadn't: pervasive thumping on my door dragged me out of a very nice sleep. I crawled over Coyote and into my fuzzy green robe half inclined to yell at the interloper who'd dragged me out of bed at such an unreasonable hour, but holiday cheer got the better of me before I even got to the door.

 

There wasn't even anyone there to be cheerful at. A gift-wrapped DVD-sized package sat outside my door, and I could hear somebody thudding down the apartment building's stairs. Coyote said, "What happened, Santa forgot where the chimney is?" I shot him a sleepy smile as I tore the wrapping paper open.

 

It was, in fact, a DVD. Not a popular movie sort, just a silver disc with a note that said "For Joanne" stuck to it. I shuffled to my computer and dropped it in. Coyote sat behind me and I pulled his arm around my waist as the disc spun up and began to play.

 

Jeff the cameraman, it turned out, was a dab hand with a video camera. Even his crab-walked retreat from the wendigo was surprisingly steady, and Coyote looked like a native god in the moonlight as he fought the thing. I blew in from offscreen, slamming into the wendigo hard enough that I grunted again, watching it. It and I flung each other back and forth, and Jeff's camerawork was only a half second behind as the wendigo leaped on Laurie Corvallis's prone body.

 

The next couple minutes were spent enthralled by the utter peculiarities of seeing what one of my psychic/real-world battles looked like from the outside. Every fight, every step, every gesture and every expression I made in Laurie's garden registered itself on my face and body in the Middle World. The wendigo wasn't visible. I just looked like the world's most dedicated mime, flying backward when something hit me, staggering around like a drunk after a bad blow. Not until I raised the spear and drove it down toward Corvallis, awakening her, did the fight have two participants. Moments later, Coyote opened a path to the Lower World for me, and I watched myself walk along it and disappear.

 

It looked, swear to God, like a magic trick. Like the audience should be peering around in search of the mirrors before applauding wildly. I was gone for a long time, long enough that Jeff panned around to the others. Coyote and Gary were all but leaning forward, both of them obviously—to me—offering strength and support and concern. Sara and Corvallis both looked grimly gobsmacked, and Laurie kept touching her breast where I'd very nearly impaled her. A clock came on in the screen's lower right-hand corner, then jumped ahead by half an hour, footage cut out before I finally returned.

 

The me on the recording looked so very sad. So tired, and so glad to hand the spear to someone else. I reached out to turn it off, and Coyote stopped me. I said, "C'mon," quietly. I'd already watched more than I wanted to, and all I could think was how utterly insane it was going to look on the evening news. Morrison would kill me.

 

The screen faded to black, then came up again in a news studio. Corvallis held a DVD between two fingers, turning it so it caught the light. "There are two copies. The one you've got, and this one."

 

She broke hers into pieces, and the screen went dark.

* * *

After what seemed like a long time, I cleared my throat and turned the computer off. "Guess we scored one for the home team there."

 

"So how come you don't sound thrilled?"

 

I shook my head. "Because I don't like making believers out of people. It's too big a thing to ask."

 

Coyote chuckled against my shoulder. "You went and grew up, Jo. While I wasn't looking. I didn't expect that."

 

"Oh, believe me, neither did I. I tried hard not to." I twisted, trying to see him, and he got to his feet, then pulled me to mine and herded me back toward the bedroom. I went, grateful he didn't have an overwhelming urge to be up at five in the morning either, even if it was Christmas. We tucked up together, me tracing idle patterns on his chest before I mashed my nose against his pectoral and mumbled, "I can't do things your way. You know that, right, Yote? I don't know if I'd have been able to even if I'd stuck with studying with you all those years ago, or if the past six months had gone differently. But I don't think so. You…you're a healer. I'm something else."

 

"Warrior's path." He put his mouth against my hair. "I don't envy that. But you've still got a lot you can learn. A lot I could teach you," he amended hesitantly. "If you want."

 

I pushed up on my elbow, feeling all serious suddenly. "I can't think of a better teacher."

 

The man had a smile like no other. I thought it had just been how happy I was to see him at first, but I'd had a few days to get used to it now, and it was definitely a grade-A smile. Bright and fleeting and all the more delicious for its quickness. He caught my hand and kissed the palm, then folded our fingers together on his chest. "Okay. I'll stop trying to remake you in my image, and you can…"

 

"Stop getting my ass kicked," I finished firmly. "I want the shamanic handbook, Yote. I want it all."

 

He laughed. "Oh how the mighty have fallen. It'd be easier if…" A crease appeared between his eyebrows and he sat up, exhaling a sharp breath that ended ruefully. "Okay, this is going to be harder than I thought."

 

Nerves seized my heart and I sat up, too, clutching my pillow. I didn't want him to say anything else, because I was pretty certain of what he'd say. We had, in fact, spent most of the past couple days not-quite-actively avoiding serious talk, which was made easier by me having to work. That made the hours we had together a little more precious, and neither of us had wanted to gum them up with anything other than living in the moment. It took everything I had to whisper, "What's going to be hard?"

 

"My grandfather bought me a plane ticket home last night, so I could be there for Christmas evening. It leaves SeaTac at ten-thirty." Coyote shot me an apologetic look and I shook it off even as a pang cut through me.

 

"You've been unconscious for months. I don't blame him for wanting you home for Christmas." I wanted him here for Christmas, but I wasn't quite selfish enough to say so aloud. Or maybe I wasn't quite brave enough. "That's not the hard part, is it."

 

"You're not supposed to know me that well. No, the hard part…it'd be easier to teach you if we were together. In the same place, I mean," he said hastily, and then, less certainly, "And maybe together, too. I know you can't today, but…but you could come with me, Jo."

 

I bent my head over the pillow, eyes closed. That was exactly what I'd thought he was going to say, and it made a hard little helpless place inside me. It took a long time to speak, and even then my voice was small and tight. "You're the shape of my dreams, Coyote. You came to me in my sleep when I was a girl and taught me magic, and now you're here and alive and beautiful and I—" I stumbled over the words so hard I almost swallowed my tongue, but I met his eyes so he could see me saying them: "I love you. You're my dreams come true. And this was going to happen," I said even more quietly, and mostly to myself. "Right from the moment you came back, this was going to happen. And it isn't fair, because it would break my heart to go and it'll break my heart to stay."

 

"But you're going to stay," Coyote said very softly. He glanced down as I slumped over my pillow. "I knew you would. I still had to ask." He touched my chin, making me raise my eyes, and offered a shaky smile. "Hey, I'll be back up here, you know. I've got to come back up when the weather clears so I can drive the Chief home. Maybe you won't be able to say no a second time."

 

"Maybe I won't." That idea hurt as much as the other. I snuffled and Coyote's gaze softened. He pulled me against his chest, and we stayed there, silent, until the alarm went off and it was time for me to go to work.

 

When I got out of the shower there was a flat rectangular black velvet box on my pillow. Not a ring box, but it didn't have to be: even as it was, it made my stomach lurch so hard I actually got dizzy. I hung on to the bathroom door frame for a couple seconds, just staring at the box before the penny dropped and I snatched it up to run into the living room shouting, "Coyote? Cyrano? Cyrano!"

 

He was gone. He was gone, and I'd known it on some level from the instant I saw the box. I knelt on the living room floor, wearing a towel and nothing else, working up the nerve to open the damned box. I was already late for work by the time I made myself do it.

 

Four earrings lay inside it. Two were gold wraps. One was a bird, so stylized you had to know me to know it was a raven. The other was more obviously a snake, with a rattle and all.

 

The other two were a wire pair, meant for pierced ears, which I'd never had. I got to my feet and went into the bathroom, stopping for a needle on my way.

 

Popping the needle through my lobes didn't hurt at all, nor did threading the earrings through the raw holes. It only took a whisper of healing power to seal the damage over, and then I stood looking at myself in the mirror like I was a stranger. Looking at the earrings, made of bone so smooth it seemed shaped, rather than carved.

 

Coyotes, crying for the moon.

 

Saturday, December 31, 11:48 P.M.

 

I had yet to get used to the earrings, which brushed my jaw and made me endlessly aware of their presence. Made me more aware of everything that had to do with my ears, for that matter, and that included the radio shouting in them. Its blaring countdown was the only human contact I'd had for hours. There were better places to be—Billy and Melinda's, for example; a New Year's party was in full swing, and Billy had called twice to see where I was. I'd promised to be there by midnight, but at this late juncture, not even Petite would get me there in time.

 

I had paperwork spread all over my desk, Google results and newspaper clippings and police files from all over the country. Missing persons reports were shuffled together like puzzle pieces, scraps of data highlighted or circled with red and yellow pens. I needed a drink of water. My eyes were dry from scowling at so much paperwork.

 

The office door opened, sending me half out of my skin with fright. I clutched my chest, and Morrison, in the doorway, did a lousy job of covering a laugh. "What're you doing here, Walker?"

 

"Besides getting the life scared out of me?" I settled back down in my chair, gulping a couple deep breaths to calm my heart. "Just, ah. Just finishing up some paperwork. Sir."

 

"It's New Year's Eve. You're off duty. You're supposed to be at the Hollidays'." He let the door drift shut behind him as he wove his way through desks to reach mine. "What's so important?"

 

"It's just…" I gestured at my papers. "I was just trying to figure out who she was." "Just" implied I hadn't spent most of my off-hours since Coyote left at this very same task, although half the department had commented that I was showing a lot of dedication given that it was the holidays.

 

Morrison sat on the edge of my desk, arms folded across his chest. "Any luck?"

 

"I don't know. We're never going to know for certain." I straightened up and pulled a handful of papers to the fore. "But this woman, Liz Gregory…she was Tlingit, from up in the Alaskan Panhandle near Juneau. She went missing last winter, during that cold snap in March. They never found her body, and…" I uncovered a newspaper photograph and handed it to Morrison. I'd long since memorized its image, a roundish, happy-faced woman sitting in front of a Native Alaskan-style block-print of a bear. She wore long black hair in a thick braid, and had a simple thong necklace with a claw pendant lying outside her T-shirt.

 

"Bear totem," he said after a moment. "Is that what I'm looking at?"

 

I nodded. "I think so. The newspaper stories about her…" I sighed. "She worked outdoors a lot, did a lot of living culture work within her community. There was no mention of her being a shaman or a mystic of any sort, but I'm not sure that would've been reported on even if it were true. And maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe she was just someone who had a big spirit and belonged outdoors, and when she got lost, the cold took her."

 

"The cold?"

 

I closed my eyes. "The place where her spirit was caught, Morrison…it was so cold. Cold enough to hurt. Cold enough that you'd do…anything. Anything at all, to get warm again. I didn't spend very long there, but you'd go mad, boss. Anybody would. I don't think very many people get out of there, once they're lost, and I'm not surprised you'd become something terrible in the trying." I shivered, trying to throw the memories off. "Anyway, the bear totem. I haven't contacted her family to ask about it yet, but…"

 

Morrison helped me change the subject, for which I was grateful. "What does this mean in practical terms, Walker? Are you going to try to pin the last two months of killings on a woman who disappeared nine months ago?"

 

"I wouldn't be able to. There's no evidence. I just wanted to know for myself. To see if I could find out who she was. Maybe at least tell her family she's at peace."

 

"Is she?"

 

"I have no idea." I pinched the bridge of my nose. "If it was her, she's more at peace than she was as a wendigo. That's all I know. It's something. Not a lot, maybe, but something."

 

Morrison nodded, not exactly satisfied, but accepting. That was just about how I felt, too. He handed the picture back. "If this woman's from Juneau, what was she doing down here? That's a long way to travel."

 

That was a question I'd been trying hard not to let myself think about. I had, of course, been thinking about it almost constantly as a result, and all the answers Morrison needed showed up on my face. "Because of you?"

 

"Right after Halloween, Morrison. The cannibal murders started right after Halloween. Right after I blew up the cauldron, after using all that power. I mean, I could be wrong, but I see it one of two ways. Either she thought I might be able to help her move on or she thought I might be a hefty enough snack to push her back into the world. She was getting closer to me, before we found her. Charlie Groleski? He used the same mechanic I do, Chelsea's Garage. And Karin Newcomb lived in my building. They're the only two connections I can find, and I know they're tenuous, but I can't help being afraid all those people are dead because of me."

 

"No." Morrison put his hand on my shoulder, making me look at him. "Don't do that to yourself, Walker. This thing would've hunted somewhere, and people would've died. That's outside your control. What matters is it's over. You stopped it. It's all any of us can do. We don't have the insight to stop killers before they strike, and maybe it wouldn't be a good thing if we did. This one's a victory. Take it."

 

I thinned my lips, then nodded. He was probably right. There was no cause without effect, but taking on the burden of being the cause and mitigating the effects would drive me crazy, especially since I couldn't know whether I'd drawn the wendigo to Seattle or not. On the other hand, having finally taken up the mantle of responsibility, I didn't want to find myself shirking it, either. There had to be a balance somewhere in there, but I was still a long way from finding it. "I'll try."

 

"Some days that's all I can ask for." Morrison gave me a brief, almost sympathetic smile.

 

I wrinkled my eyebrows at him. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

 

"Holliday sent me to get you."

 

"Really? You? Why?" I had a pretty good idea of why, but I was curious as to what he'd say.

 

"It was a toss-up between me and Muldoon, but he's three sheets to the wind and flirting with an FBI agent a quarter his age."

 

I did a brief calculation. "She can't possibly be. Even if you say he's seventy-four, which he won't be for—" I turned my wrist up to look at my watch "—for another three minutes, she wouldn't be old enough to be out of training camp. I mean, police academy takes months, wouldn't FBI training take at least twice as l…" Morrison was failing to fight off a grin. "Oh. You're teasing me."

 

"Yes." He stopped trying to beat the grin down, and tipped his head at the door. "I'm here because you should be at the party, and Holliday thought you might actually listen if I came to get you. Get your coat."

 

I got my coat, turned off my computer screen, and tugged Homicide's door closed behind me before chasing Morrison down the steps to the precinct's lobby.

 

Fireworks erupted in the sky as we pushed the doors open. Myriad colors bloomed against high clouds, reflecting the sparking streams of light as they popped and roared and whistled across the city. Distant music rang down the street, the strains of "Auld Lang Syne" played on radios and taken up by tuneless, exuberant voices. Morrison and I both stopped, taken aback by the sudden light and song show, then looked at one another.

 

There was really only one thing to do at midnight on New Year's Eve, and we both knew it. We stood there gazing at each other, eye to eye, neither with the height advantage. Neither breathing, as far as I could tell. Time hadn't stopped; I could feel my heart beating a little too hard as a blush started to climb my cheeks. But it felt like we were in a bubble, just me and Morrison, waiting to see what happened next.

 

The funny thing was that I thought if we'd been at Billy's party, I might've kissed him. A brief peck on the way to kissing someone else. It would've been impolite not to, in those circumstances, but standing there in the precinct building doors, fireworks raining colored light on us, a kiss was more than just a kiss.

 

I glanced up just to find somewhere else to look, and discovered some enterprising soul had hung mistletoe over the door. I breathed laughter, making Morrison look up, too.

 

Complicated amusement danced over his face, making his blue eyes bright. He said, "Ah," and took one judicious step out from under the door. "Happy New Year, Walker."

 

My heart filled up and turned my smile sad and stupid all at once. "Happy New Year, Captain."

 

"Come on." Morrison offered a hand. "We've got a party to go to."

 

There were probably a million reasons I shouldn't accept that gesture. A million reasons he shouldn't have offered it, for that matter. Right then, I didn't care. Still smiling, I put my hand in his and squeezed. "Yes, sir."

 

He squeezed back, released my fingers, and we went out into the new year together.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My undying thanks to the Word War Writers, who are too many to name, but know who they are, for the daily word wars that helped me finish this book in a timely fashion. I would not have done it without you.

 

I'd also like to thank Heather Fagan for use of her name in this book, and for participating in the Brenda Novak Diabetes Research auction which led to her being a character in Demon Hunts. Information about the auction can be found at www.brendanovak.com.

 

And my thanks to the usual suspects: my agent, Jennifer Jackson, and my editor, Mary-Theresa Hussey, whose insights helped to shed light on the structural comment that Trent made which I had totally misinterpreted. The book is all the better for your help. Also, as far as I'm concerned, cover artist Hugh Syme and the Harlequin art department, headed by Kathleen Oudit, outdid themselves on the cover for this book. Imagine little heart shapes dancing around this paragraph.

 

I would say you can also imagine little hearts dancing around this paragraph, wherein I thank my husband Ted for being consistently wonderful, but that would be unbearably goopy and I could never say something like that in public without ruining my rep as a tough girl. :)

 

DEMON HUNTS

 

ISBN: 978-1-4268-5614-3

 

Copyright © 2010 by C.E. Murphy

 

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Worldwide Library, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

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