Describing the phasings to someone who wasn’t a weremyste was like trying to describe color to someone who had been born blind. Words weren’t adequate. The closest I’d heard anyone come to getting it right was something my dad told me not long after my mom died. We weren’t getting along at the time, and his grip on reality, which had already become tenuous before Mom’s death, was slipping fast. But what he told me then in anger still rang true to this day.
“It’s like somebody reaches a hand into your stinkin’ brain,” he said, “and swirls it around, making a mess of everything. The thoughts are still there-your sense of who you are and how the people around you fit into your life-but they’re scrambled. There’s no order, no time or space or story line. The boundaries disappear. Love and hate, rage and joy, fear and comfort-you can’t tell anymore where one ends and the next begins. And the worst part is, you know it’s happened-you know that it all made sense a short while before, and that now it’s gone. And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
That was how it felt to me every time. You’d think after a couple of hundred phasings-three days a month for half a lifetime-I’d get used to it, or find some way to fight my way through. But each one feels like the first. I’ve tried to brace myself, waiting for moonrise the way I would a shot at a doctor’s office. It doesn’t do a damn bit of good. As soon as the full moon appears on the horizon, I feel those boundaries my dad talked about being sucked out of my mind.
That was the tug I felt now, with the moon shining down on me. It wouldn’t happen until the end of the week, but already it was reaching for me, testing my defenses and finding them as weak as ever.
I was still staring up at the moon when I reached the Z-ster, which is probably why I didn’t notice anything as I got into the car and put the key in the ignition.
“Ohanko.”
“Geez!” I said, nearly jumping out of my skin.
The runemyste was in the passenger seat, his watery form glimmering with the pale light of a nearby street lamp.
“Good God, Namid! You scared the piss out of me.”
“You need to use more care, Ohanko. Did I not tell you-?”
“Yeah, tread like the fox. I remember.” I shook my head. My heart was trip hammering in my chest. “What the hell are you doing here, anyway? I never see you unless you’re tying to get me to train.”
He shrugged, or came as close to a shrug as a liquid ghost could. “I thought to see how you were faring with your investigation.”
I stared at him.
“Have you learned anything?”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you telling me that you’re checking up on me?”
“Does that surprise you?”
“You’ve never done it before.”
He said nothing.
Abruptly I could see again the scrying I’d done in my office: that ghoulish dark hand, framed against the hot glow of embers.
“Is this about the vision I had this morning?”
Before he could answer, I thought of something else: crossing the street after my conversation with Robby, feeling so sure that someone was toying with the idea of killing me. I still had the instincts of a cop, and normally that was a good thing. But maybe in this case, without realizing it at the time, I had been feeling things a sorcerer would feel.
“You’ve never done anything like this before,” I said again. “Unless that was you following me earlier today.”
He frowned, the smooth waters of his face roughening, like when a sudden wind scythes across the surface of a calm lake. “What happened earlier? Tell me.”
“I thought someone was watching me, an enemy. But I have no idea who it could have been.”
The runemyste’s nod was slow, thoughtful. He turned his head so that he was looking through the windshield at the street. “Good, Ohanko. Trust your senses.”
Great. More riddles. Just once I wanted him to give me a straight answer. “You wouldn’t tell me before what all this is about. Are you ready to tell me now?”
“No.”
“Come on, Namid. You’re interested in my case, though you never have been before. You’re following me around, which you never do. Clearly something big is going on. You have to tell me what it is.”
He faced me again, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. “You misunderstand, Ohanko. It is not that I refuse to tell you, but rather that I cannot. I do not know.”
Well, there you go. That’s a straight answer. Turns out I would have preferred another riddle.
CHAPTER 6
I know precious little about Namid’s life as a Zuni shaman. I’ve studied the A’shiwi, as the Zuni people call themselves; I’ve studied most of the native peoples of the Southwest. But the K’ya’na-Kwe clan has been extinct for centuries, and since the ancient A’shiwi clans left no written histories, information on the runemyste’s people is pretty scarce. And it’s not as though Namid spends a lot of time talking about himself. I’ve asked him questions now and then, but he’s about as forthcoming with information about his own life as he is about anything else.
In many ways I learned everything I needed to know about the runemyste the very first time I saw him. Most of my memories from those days are obscured by the residue of too many phasings, but this one remains as clear as fresh rainwater. I was at home-my old home, on the west side of the city, in Buckeye. I had started on the job only a few months before and was learning a good deal from Kona. We were in robbery detail then, although she was already angling to get us moved to Homicide. But I had yet to tell her that I was a weremyste and she was growing tired of having to explain to others why her new partner disappeared every few weeks. Friendship only goes so far, particularly when I’m nothing more than some dumb rookie cop, and she’s well on her way to a promotion for which she’s busted her butt some seven years. It was just a matter of time before she was going to dump me as a partner. No doubt I would have deserved it. Rule seven: Never keep secrets from your partner.
It was late, and the moon was full. I was in the midst of a hard, dark phasing, sitting on my living room floor, trying to resist the urge to grab my weapon and put a bullet through my head. Often my phasings are filled with delusions, and on this night my mom, dead some twelve years, was standing in front of me, telling me that I was exactly like my old man and that I’d wasted my life. And staring down at my hands, I could see that they were wrinkled and covered with age spots. The hair on them had turned white. Somehow there was a mirror beside me-at least I believed at the time that there was-and as I gazed into it, I saw that I was twin to my dad, my hair gray, my face slack. I remember crying, and screaming myself hoarse, begging her to go away. But she wouldn’t leave me alone. I thought about using magic to burn my house to the ground. Really, I did. Magic is stronger during the phasings, and I could feel the power churning inside me. I was itching to use it. I had to remind myself that burning down the house would be a bad thing. Which is why I’d started thinking about the weapon. Not that shooting myself was much better, but at the time rational thought wasn’t my strong suit. All I could think was that if I couldn’t get her to leave, I’d leave myself.
But before I could climb to my feet and retrieve my pistol, my mother vanished, replaced by what appeared to be yet another delusion: a translucent figure, shimmering and liquid, and yet seemingly solid.
I didn’t speak. I stared up at that face, at those glowing eyes, waiting for him to do or say something.
“Taking your own life would be a waste. You should reconsider.” His voice was like rushing water, musical and random, soothing and exhilarating.
“Wow,” I said, breathless. As delusions went, this was a good one.
“The moon-time is difficult for you, I know. I have seen it. But part of being a runecrafter is enduring the dark nights. What you call the phasings.”