“I can’t? Why not? I think I can.” I was a little engine that could. I tried to shake her off, though not very hard, for fear she’d weeble and wobble and then fall down.
“You need to check for ghost riders first. If any of them slipped into your garden, or are waiting on the other side of that door, they’ll follow your power right back into these kids. Call 911 instead.”
I lowered my hand, but kept looking at her. There were about eleven things I needed to do—make sure the bad things were gone, make sure the dancers were okay, come up with some kind of excuse for the partygoers, just for starters—but for a few long seconds all of that faded away while I stared at my friend.
I knew Melinda referred to her god in the feminine, and that she knew what a coven needed to be whole. I knew she and Billy had met fifteen or so years ago at a conference about the paranormal, and that her oldest son was casually confident about his own sensitivity to things that were Other. “You and Billy, Mel, where did you come from? You know all this stuff, you’re so sure of yourselves, and I’m…” I gestured at myself. I was a twenty-seven-year-old cop in a leather bondage outfit, beleaguered by a destiny I could barely wrap my mind around, that gesture said. “I mean, did you want this to be real and just went and figured out that it was?”
Melinda’s smile held real sympathy. “I’ll tell you about my grandma someday, okay? They chased her over the border to keep her from hexing a bad man’s cattle.”
Phoebe, over our heads, said in a very small tight voice, “What exactly is ‘this’ that we may or may not want to be real?”
I looked up to find her still clutching her quarterstaff. Edward was just behind her, looking as if he wanted to hug me and wasn’t yet sure that it was safe. I sighed and thumped down on my butt, drew my shins up and looped my arms around them. Too late, it occurred to me that my skirt was indecently short and I was probably flashing my panties to anyone who wanted to take a look. I groaned and dropped my forehead against my knees, wishing I still had my mask so I could pretend I was someone else showing off their undies, but I’d lost it sometime earlier. Maybe at the same time I’d drained the drink without noticing. I kind of wanted another one just then. “You remember that lung surgery I told you about when I started taking fencing lessons from you, Pheeb?”
“Yeah. You kept rubbing your breastbone. You said it was a genetic thing, not lung cancer.”
The reminder made me want to rub that spot again. “I may have been a little misleading.”
“She got stabbed through the chest with a rapier,” Billy said, which was nice of him, because I wasn’t very good at this confession. Of course, if my friends kept letting me off the hook, I wouldn’t get any better at it.
Phoebe’s silence rang out a few long seconds. “Don’t any of the rest of you take this wrong, but I’ve seen you naked, Jo. You don’t have a scar.”
“I healed it.” That came out surprisingly easily. “That genetic condition, it’s…I’m a shaman. I can do magic.” I looked up, because suddenly it was worse to imagine her expression than to actually see it.
She had that tremendously neutral look people get when they’re trying to be polite about hearing something so outrageous they can’t believe it’s been said. She also had a stranglehold on her staff, knuckles practically glowing white.
I winced. “Healing’s easiest, but I can send my spirit to the astral plain, and between what a lot of Native American mythology calls the Upper and Lower Worlds. Earth is the Middle World.” I brightened a little, distracted by the details of my studies. “Actually, that’s really pretty Norse, too. That kind of world structure is more common than you’d…” Phoebe’s expression was getting more strained. I was not helping my case by lecturing. “You remember the dead girl in the locker room? Cassandra Tucker? You couldn’t get me to respond after we found her, even though I looked like I was awake. I’d gone to the astral plain to see if I could find her ghost and talk to her, but instead I got caught and was bargaining…with a giant…snake…”
I put my hands over my face. I was doing my best, but it sounded ridiculous. I honestly had no idea how to present my life in terms that didn’t sound insane, and I was once more incredibly grateful for the handful of friends who either believed to begin with, or who, in the face of irrefutable evidence, ground their teeth and accepted that my wonky reality was in fact real. Demonstration was the only possible way I could convince anyone I was on the level, because telling them made me sound like a lunatic. I mean, really. Bargaining with giant snakes? I looked up again.
Phoebe’s eyebrow was beetled. “Morrison got you to wake up.”
I nearly groaned. None of the rest of them had known that, and Melinda’s face brightened with interest. “I’ve known him for years. I’d only known you a few months. He had a more…”
“Intimate connection with you?” Melinda chirruped.
I muttered, “I’m sure the same thing would’ve happened if Billy’d been there to wake me up.”
Melinda widened her eyes and nodded sagely. I refused to look at Edward, afraid doing so would somehow seem guilty. Instead, I locked my arms around my shins and scowled at Phoebe’s knees. “You remember when the lights went out in January? Whole city blacked out for a few hours?”
“…yeah.”
“That was me. I was, uh, fighting a god. Then when I passed out at the dance club in July, that was kind of the aftermath. Mark was sort of possessed by a god. A different one.”
“A god. Two gods.”
My shoulders slumped. “Yeah.”
Billy, mildly, said, “She’s telling the truth.”
Phoebe eyed him, but before she spoke, Thor said, “So what just happened here?”
Billy, Melinda and I all said, “Ghosts,” at the same time.
Phoebe threw her hands up, turned around and walked out.
I crashed my forehead against my knees. “That went well.”
Thor crouched beside me and the sleeping dancers, jerking his thumb after Phoebe. “Want me to…?”
“No. I’ll try to talk to her tomorrow.” I pressed my eyes shut, then exhaled noisily. “Did somebody call the paramedics?”
“I did.” Morrison spoke so unexpectedly I flinched all the way to my feet, gaping across the cauldron at him. He’d taken his Don Johnson sunglasses off and was frowning. “They’ll be here in a couple minutes. You okay, Walker?”
I was better than okay. My chest was tight and my eyes were hot and so was my face, for that matter, but it turned out that for some reason, I was absolutely great. “I thought you’d left with the rest of the smart people.”
His frown reversed itself, but only at one corner of his mouth. “Not when my people are in trouble. You okay?”
“Yeah.” I pulled a tentative little smile up and nodded. “Yeah, I’m good, Captain. Thanks.”
Morrison nodded, then glanced at Thor, who’d stood up beside me and was hovering protectively. “Take care of her, Johnson.”
Edward slipped his hand against my waist. “I’m trying, sir. She’s stubborn.”
Morrison, dryly, said, “Really. I hadn’t noticed. The paramedics are going to want to talk to you, Walker, so don’t go far, but you look like you could use some air. Holliday and I will hold down the fort.”
I said, “Thanks,” again, and Thor shuffled me past the cauldron and the captain toward the door. I broke every rule in the book and looked over my shoulder as we walked out. I knew it was a bad idea. I’d only be disappointed when Morrison’d already turned away.
He hadn’t. He nodded just slightly when my gaze found his, and I went out into the crisp October night wondering what it was I’d hoped to get from that momentary meeting of eyes.