“What are you supposed to be?” I asked. I reached toward him with an open hand, wanting to touch his watery skin. I wasn’t close enough, though, and I didn’t have the strength to stand up.
“My name is Namid’skemu. I am a runemyste. Long ago by your reckoning, I was a runecrafter-a weremyste-as you are. More recently I gave aid to your father. I would do the same for you, but you must swear to me that you will not do harm to yourself.”
“Namid’skemu,” I repeated. “That sounds Native American.”
“It is A’shiwi.”
“A’shiwi?”
He nodded.
“You’re Zuni?”
“I am of the K’ya’na-Kwe clan. The water people.”
“The water people are extinct.”
“Yes.”
I let out a crazed laugh. I was starting to sound like my dad. “So you’re telling me that I’m speaking to the ghost of some ancient Zuni?”
“I am no ghost,” he said, sounding angry for the first time. “I was once what you would call a shaman, as weremystes often were. I am now a runemyste, chosen by the Runeclave to guard against the use of dark magic in your world. And I have come to you because I see great darkness in you. I fear that you will not survive this night.”
I shook my head, averting my eyes, feeling ashamed that he had read my thoughts with such ease. “This is getting weird. I need something to drink.”
I forced myself up, staggered into the kitchen and splashed water on my face. That helped some, but the tirade from my mom’s ghost still echoed in my head. I knew that I couldn’t kill myself; my new delusion had convinced me of that much. But I wasn’t going to make it through the night if I didn’t do something. Still leaning against the counter in front of the sink, I reached up into the topmost cabinet and pulled out a bottle of bourbon.
When I turned to get a glass, he was standing right in front of me. I should have been startled, but I wasn’t. Somehow I had known he’d be there.
“That will not help you through this night,” he said pointing at the bottle.
“You’re wrong,” I said. “It’s helped before.”
“That is an illusion.”
I laughed. “You’re one to talk.”
“You believe I am an illusion.”
“Delusion is the word I’d use. But, yeah, I do.”
“You are wrong. I am as real as you are. Your father knows me.”
“My father’s a loon,” I said, not meaning it kindly. “So we’ve had the same hallucinations. Not very surprising. I bet he’s seen Mom yelling at him, too. Doesn’t make her ghost real.”
“I am not a ghost,” he said again. “And you must ask him about me when you can. I assure you I am real, and I can help you, just as I did him. I can teach you to harness the powers you possess, to become a skilled runecrafter. But you must learn to endure the moon-times without resorting to alcohol and without doing harm to yourself.”
I glared at him, but then I put down the bottle, walked back into the living room, and dropped onto the couch. Sleep. That’s what I needed. Come morning, I’d feel better. The phasing still had one more night, and even the days of what my new ghost-friend called the moon-time were difficult-trouble focusing, forgetfulness, fatigue. They were better than the nights, though. And this hallucination would be over.
“You cannot escape me,” he said. I opened my eyes and found him standing in front of the couch.
“Stop doing that! Leave me alone.”
“Why do you refuse the Abri?”
I frowned up at him. “The what?”
“The drug that can keep you from suffering during the moon-time. Why do you not take it?”
Blockers. That’s what he was talking about. My gaze slid away again; I had no easy answer. I could have said I didn’t take them because my father hadn’t taken them, but I’m not sure I was even ready to admit as much to myself. At that point, we didn’t get along, and I blamed him for everything I hated about my life. I also could have said I wasn’t ready yet to give up wielding magic, but I was still learning to cast spells, and back then I wasn’t sure I believed I would ever become much of a runecrafter. The truth was, I sensed the runemyste wanted me to say that I was determined to retain whatever powers I possessed, and I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right. Even then I was a stubborn son of a bitch.
“You are a runecrafter,” he said after some time, his voice as soothing as the sea at dawn. “You have some talent with magic. With my help you can become a more accomplished crafter.”
“You’re an illusion,” I said, closing my eyes again.
“And you are a fool.”
“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.”
He said nothing and at last I opened my eyes again, thinking that perhaps he’d gone. When I saw him standing over me, as patient as the tide, I knew a moment of profound relief. I realized then that I wanted him to be real. I wanted to believe I could be a powerful sorcerer, that there was more to being a weremyste than these miserable nights around the full moon. But after suffering through the phasings for so long, I had lost hope. That month’s phasing hadn’t been the first time I considered putting my pistol to my head.
He still stared at me, and now he said, “You are trying to learn something of a theft. It has been many turns of the moon since last you learned anything of importance, but still you try. There is a single token from this theft that you possess; a knife with a broken blade. Get it now.”
I started to say something, then stopped. He had described a robbery Kona and I had been struggling with for the better part of six months. His understanding of the case was crude, but detailed enough to be convincing. This proved nothing, of course. My delusion, my knowledge. But that broken knife was in the house, just as he’d said. Kona and I were certain it had been used to jimmy a window or door and had been broken in the process. But we’d yet to figure out where the thieves had entered the building. We had stopped by the warehouse again the day before. We wandered around for a while, but found nothing new. When we were done, Kona asked me to return the knife to evidence. I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. I wasn’t all that dependable in the middle of a phasing.
“Get it,” Namid said, his voice like white water on the Colorado.
I retrieved the knife from my jacket pocket, pulled it from the evidence bag, and held it out to him.
“What do you see?” he asked, making no effort to take it from me.
I glanced at it, lifted it closer to my eyes. “Son of a bitch!”
“Tell me what you see.”
I wasn’t even sure how to describe it. A faint glimmer of yellow light danced along the edge of the blade, like fire. It was brightest at the broken end, but it radiated all the way up the hilt. How had I not seen this before? How had Kona missed it?
“It’s glowing,” I said at last.
“What color?”
“Yellow.”
“That is magic, or to be more precise, the residue of magic.”
“What?”
“Yellow is not a strong color. Had the conjuring been done by a more accomplished runecrafter, the color would be red or green, perhaps even blue. And it would have vanished long ago. Someone with true craft can mask his conjuring. You are searching for a crafter with the most rudimentary skills.”
“You’re making it do that. What am I saying? I’m making it do that. I’m imagining all of this.”
“No. You see it because you are a weremyste. Your magic allows you to see what is left of spells conjured by others. It is part of your gift.”
“Then why haven’t I ever seen this before?”
“Because you did not know to look for it. And I was not there to show you. You will never fail to see it again.”
I shook my head. “I’m not a sorcerer.”
“Not yet. But you have power. If you did not, you would not see anything more than a broken knife.”
Despite what Namid had shown me, I was slow to believe he was anything more or less than a product of my own psychotic imagination. I’d seen my dad lose his mind, the process slow and painful, and I had known for years that this was my fate, too. I knew my dad was a weremyste, and that I was as well, but I had never given much thought to what that might mean. I certainly hadn’t ever believed that much good would come of whatever powers I possessed. Magic had been the source of too much pain in my life for me to see it in any other way.