“It’s sorcery,” I said instead, which made Annie gimme another one of those you know too much looks, but she didn’t call me on it. I didn’t figure she was ever gonna.
“Sorcery—” Hester took a deep breath, trying to contain herself. “In shamanic studies, a sorcerer is a shaman who has embraced darkness. Sorcerers can do terrible things. Skinwalk. Steal someone’s will. Cast curses and—”
“And cause sickness instead of healing it.” I’d been on the receiving end of that, though it’d been a corrupted witch, not a sorcerer, who’d magicked me into a heart attack. “Lissen to me, Hester. Most sorcerers are gonna be at least a couple steps removed from the heart o’darkness—”
Annie, beneath her breath, muttered, “The only thing was for it to come to and wait for the turn of the tide,” an’ I smirked but kept going. “This fella, there’s a good chance he’s sold himself higher up the river. Ain’t nobody gonna think less of you if you walk away right now, and the truth is, sweetheart, that might be smart. The boss man in this mess, he holds a grudge, and I hate to…”
Way too late, it finally clicked. Hester Jones. Name seemed kinda familiar, yeah, because she’d been one of a half-dozen murders a few years from now. Right at the same time I’d met Jo, in fact, when a demi-god was taking his daddy issues out on the magic users in Seattle. Far as I knew, Herne hadn’t been aligned with the Master, but he’d gone a long way down a road to Hell, and not much of it had been paved with good intentions. When a guy is that far off the path of righteousness, it probably ain’t that hard for a worse bad guy to draw his eyes to a few particular sacrificial lambs.
An’ here I was, pulling Hester neck-deep into a fight a lot bigger an’ uglier than she was counting on. An’ here I was knowing it was already too late, if this was all cause and effect, ‘cause whether I liked it or not, she was gonna die messy in just a couple more years. “Dammit.”
I coulda been talking the wind for all she cared. Her back was up, eyes flashing, and for a minute I liked her, sour grapes and all. “Sorcery is an abomination. It’s a corruption of everything I’ve ever studied. It’s very…chivalrous,” she said, like it was a bad word, “of you to try to save me trouble, but this isn’t an encounter I could ever walk away from.”
“Are you on the warrior’s path, doll?”
Hester was halfway outta the car when I asked, and sat back again looking genuinely surprised. “I am. How did you know?”
“From what I know most shamans ain’t quite so gung-ho about fighting, is all. Healing, yeah, but I don’t get the impression most of ‘em are that good in a fight.” I knew what I was talking about, having watched Jo’s pal Coyote freeze up in a fight, and he was no minor leaguer in the mojo department. “So I figured you might be on a different path.”
Hester’s mouth twitched. “I’m told it’s my personality. We do fight, all of us. But most of our head-on confrontation is in spirit realms, not in this world, and our battles are always on behalf of another. The few of us who follow the warrior’s path are part of a more direct war. This level of corruption is so high that I’d be more afraid of some of my brethren being contaminated than I would be convinced of their ability to succeed, if they fought it in a traditionally shamanic way.”
“You ain’t afraid of being corrupted?”
“I’ll die first.”
Some folks couldn’t say that without it sounding like bragging, or like it was a bit of nothing, somethin’ funny that they said just to get a smile. Hester wasn’t one of ‘em. She coulda been a soldier just then, somebody under orders who knew she was walking into a trap but also knowing it was gonna get other people out alive so long as she held on a little while. For a minute I looked between her and Annie, cut from the same cloth even if it didn’t look like it on the outside, an’ when I got outta the car I saluted ‘em both. I hadn’t done that for anybody in a long time. Hes looked like I was maybe pulling her leg, but Annie smiled and put her hand over her heart. That settled Hester down, and the three of us went together to meet the enemy.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The enemy was twenty-seven, acne-scarred, and dirty to his elbows in topsoil. Nothing about him looked dangerous except maybe the idea some’a that dirt was night soil. Annie, a couple steps behind me, was repeating something she’d said when she’d hired the kid: “I met him while I was volunteering at the hospital, for Heaven’s sake. He has Crohn’s disease. It’s been debilitating, but he achieved a remarkable recovery lately. I can’t see how he could possibly be a—a carrier for evil.”
“How much recovery, doll? Bedridden to walking out the door inside a day, that kinda thing?”
“Well, yes. He said he’s been making dietary changes…” Annie trailed off, finally suspecting something else mighta been going on there.
Truth was, a while back I woulda thought that was nothing but good news, nothing shy of a miracle. But Joanne had watched a kid dying of cancer walk outta the hospital, too, once a sorcerer had taken up with him. I didn’t figure most miracle cases were evil magic working its way in, but this time it looked mighty suspicious. The kid—Myles—straightened up like he was just now hearing us arrive. For a second he was all smiles an’ good nature, just like anybody given a second chance at life mighta been. Then he saw Hester an’ everything about him changed.
I’d long since lost the Sight Jo had laid on me. Didn’t stop me from Seeing the kid fill up with rage like he was pulling it from the boiling core of the earth. Once in a while Jo’s magic went like that, burning so bright anybody could see it, and I guessed that was what was going on with Myles. He lashed out with it. A black toothy ball of fury came tearing across the lawn at Hester, leaving burn marks behind.
For a lady who said she didn’t know much about shields, she sure knew how to put ‘em up for herself. Yellow and dark green shot up around her like the Northern Lights had come way down south to visit, an’ a shockwave like I hadn’t felt since Korea damn near rattled my teeth outta my head. Hester held her ground, and her drawing power was just as clear as Myles’s had been. The earth responded to her, too, all the strong young growth of trees an’ animals a quick cool rush against the core’s ancient fury. She threw it right back at him, no war inside herself about whether shamanic magic was made for fighting or not. I was gonna hafta talk to Jo about that, later on.
Except I was pretty sure that conflicted or not, Jo woulda caught the kid in the teeth with her magic and knocked him head over heels into the hedges. Hester’s nearly reached the kid, but another one of his tar balls flew out and swallowed Hes’s magic whole. Then she lurched, like that was a whole lot worse than taking a hit, and I reckoned maybe it was. Bracing yourself for a beating was one thing. Getting a bite taken outta your soul’s energy has gotta be something else. Hester kept her feet, but just barely, and Annie and me were both realizing somethin was gonna go wrong when the kid turned on us instead.
Turned on me, I reckoned, ‘cause there was recognition in his eyes when he saw me. A sneer smeared across his face, the kinda expression I’d seen on a lotta big fellas playing ball, usually right before they went down for good. I held on to that idea and stomped forward, getting between him and the girls. “Been a while, buddy.”