I pulled a smile. “I probably would’ve gone for more of a pickup truck with a snowplow metaphor, myself, but whatever works, right? I didn’t know you’d fought,” I said with a little less humor. “I mean, I didn’t know it was like that.”
“It’s not somethin’ I care to dwell on, doll.” He’d folded my hand over his heart and smiled at me. “I figure I’m all shored up now, Jo. Do your trick and get us out of here, you crazy dame. You’ve got a lotta work to do back there.”
“Right.” I slid my hand out of his and turned to the strong wall we’d come to, putting my fingertips against it again. I knew the topaz, steady as stone with its intrinsic gift of quiet sleep had done its work there, but there was something else—
—yes. As much a part of those defenses as anything I’d done, maybe more, rested the complacency of the tortoise spirit that helped protect Gary. I wasn’t at all sure it could keep him awake, but along with his deliberate, forceful rejection of the thing that had followed me into his soul, and the piece of protective stone in his pocket, there was something of a trinity working in his favor now. He’d been struck down twice because of me, once by Cernunnos and once by Faye. I was not going to let it happen again.
I said, “Okay,” and opened my eyes again in the real world. My hand fell away from Gary’s chest and he took a deep, startled breath, then looked at me, gray eyes opened wide. I said, “I don’t know,” before he could speak, and rubbed the heel of my hand against my breastbone. Scattered thoughts danced through my mind, barely letting me catch hold of them. “Unless it’s following me. I might’ve gotten its attention, poking around at Billy and Mel.” I was speaking more to Petite’s dashboard than anything else, and Gary kept quiet, letting me talk. “I’m trying to think. I’ve been falling in and out of trances all over the place the past couple days.” I tried for a smile. “See how I said that, like it was totally normal?”
He gave me a quick grin and I leaned forward to put my hands and forehead against the steering wheel. “But that was the first time since Billy went to sleep that I’ve tried healing anybody. I ran a diagnostic on Erik—”
Gary laughed. I found I couldn’t blame him, and returned a sheepish smile. “Well, I did. But I didn’t try healing him, and that was before the dream at Mel’s bedside, anyway. I think…crap, Gary.” I sat up again. “I think if I try healing anybody I might lead this thing right into them. Come on,” I said to the roof, and the sky beyond that, and to any gods who might be listening beyond that, “I finally agree to play ball and now I don’t get to? What kind of joke is that?”
“Cosmic irony,” Gary offered in a dry voice. I eyed him, then exhaled and nodded, tapping my fingertip against the steering wheel.
“Change of plans.” My voice sounded hoarse again. “I’ve got to learn more about this thing, Gary. Even if it sucks me up, I’ve got to try. Maybe just one thing will go right today.”
My cell phone rang.
CHAPTER 18
I shrieked and dropped the damned thing in the foot well, nearly stomping it for good measure, and decided to let it ring. After the fourth ring Gary gave me a look I preferred not to interpret and reached for it, answering with a gruff “H’lo?” A moment later he handed it over, looking sanguine. “It’s for you.”
I muttered, “I’m going to kill you,” and took the phone. “I’d hate for you to think I was following you,” a woman’s voice said, “but if your personal business is necking with older men in your Mustang, do you really think that’s more important than being at work?”
It took a few seconds for the voice to click. Then I dropped against the headrest and groaned. “Ms. Corvallis.”
“Officer Walker,” she said far too cheerfully. “He’s not really my type, but whatever floats your boat. Sugar daddy?”
“What do you want, Ms. Corvallis?” I didn’t want to call her Laura, for fear of creating some kind of bond between us.
“I want to know what you’re doing, Officer Walker, since it doesn’t seem to be protecting Seattle’s citizens. I’m almost certain that’s your job description.”
“I’m…” I had no answer for her. Gary, who knew whom he’d handed over to me, raised a finger in suggestion. I put my thumb over the mouthpiece and lifted my eyebrows at him.
“Why doncha just tell her?”
“Tell her.” I more mouthed the words than spoke them, afraid she’d somehow overhear. “That some kind of mystical, contagious virus is making people sleep and I’m trying to find its source?”
“You could leave out the mystical part,” he suggested. I gave him a dirty look that gradually faded into a moue of surprised agreement. Maybe it would get her off my back. I took my thumb off the mouthpiece.
“Actually, you might be able to help me.”
“Really.” I couldn’t tell if she sounded amused or delighted. “Do tell, Officer Walker.”
I pressed the heel of one hand against Petite’s steering wheel. “I’m trying to find the source of this sleeping sickness. You’re a news reporter. You’ve probably got easy access to files, right? If you could look up every case of unexplained sleeping sickness since the seventh of January…”
“That’s the day after the lights went out,” Corvallis said. The woman didn’t miss a beat. I wished she had. “What’s the relationship?”
I really didn’t want to say, “Me.” I glowered at Gary. This was his fault, somehow. He didn’t seem to be bothered by my glowering. “If you can find that out, Ms. Corvallis, you’ll be on to something.” I was putting a lot of faith in me being such an unlikely link she’d never figure it out. “One more thing.”
“What?” She sounded like a cat pouncing.
“The origin point’s probably not going to be anything handy like a CDC containment-facility breach. It’ll just be people going to sleep for no reason and not waking up.”
“How do you know this?”
I sighed and pushed Petite’s door open, climbing out and closing it with a thump before answering.
“Magic.”
Wednesday, July 6, 4:50 p.m.
Gary followed me back upstairs once I got Corvallis off the phone, and I paused to stare longingly at the day-old doughnuts on the counter before going to take my contacts out for the first time in days. The problem with not sleeping—one of them, anyway—was I got used to the idea that I could see, so I tended to forget to give my eyes a break. Gary, the heartless monster, was eating doughnuts when I came back out wearing my glasses. “What’re we doin’ now, doll?”
I stared hungrily at his doughnut. “I have to go inside again. You shouldn’t be eating that.”
“You’re the one who can’t be grounded, Jo.”
“I know, but it’s not nice to torture me.” Gary waved the doughnut at me, filling my nose with its scent and my gaze with his gleefully malicious grin. “Are you trying to torture me?”
“Somebody’s gotta.”
I shook my head and sat down in the middle of my living room floor, spine straight and hands on my knees. Gary blinked and scurried for my drum, but before he started drumming I was halfway to my garden, flashing through what had once been a difficult journey. Once the drumbeat kicked in I fell completely into myself, deeper and faster than I was accustomed to. Good cheer bubbled up through me, infiltrating my power and making my skin tingle even as I left my body behind. I was maybe starting to get the hang of this shamanism thing.
I already had the key in my pocket when I stepped into the garden, and took too little time to glance around at the green growing things springing up all around. The misty southern end of the garden seemed to be farther away this time, though a handful of steps folded space and I found myself standing in cool drifting fog in front of the door I’d willed into being. I stepped through it, still trying not to think too hard about what I was doing, for fear it would bungle my plans.