“I know. I will. I just want to get to my car and go home and call my friends and make sure everybody’s okay first. How…is the city okay? I mean, are people…dead?”
“Some injuries.” Crowder started up the hill again. “A handful of heart attacks, a couple dozen women going into labor, that kinda thing. It happens, when there’s an earthquake. Lotta property damage, but it’s pretty localized. Weird behavior. That Corvalis woman on Channel Two is trying like mad to tie it together to the aurora the other night. Swear to God, those people, making news when there’s so much real stuff to report. Here you go, just over the guard rail here.” He boosted me up and I swung my leg over the railing, trying not to think about whether there was a connection between the aurora and the earthquake. People don’t cause earthquakes. It was a ludicrous idea. Of course, people don’t cause massive auroras to come sweeping down, either, and I knew perfectly well the coven and I had been responsible for that, even if the interpretation was wrong.
The parking lot was a disaster. Petite’s nose poked up out of a ditch several yards away. Between me and her, there were pits of earth that had opened up or split apart. The car Garth had driven was stuck halfway in one of the pits. It’d be okay if it could be winched out. I jumped a crack in the earth and hurried toward Petite, swallowing against sickness as I looked down into the crevasse at her smashed back end. She was a heavy vehicle, but Crowder was right about the steel frame. Even from above I could tell that the damage was probably more to the tail lights and back fender than to the body. I couldn’t, at least, see any wrinkles in her body, which didn’t necessarily mean they weren’t there. I was going to have to find a way to get her out of there and into a garage where I could really survey the damage. My hands were shaking and my throat was tight. I didn’t want to burst into tears in front of the helpful geologist, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop myself. I turned my back on him deliberately and knelt by Petite’s front end, putting my forehead against the wheel still hooked over the broken earth. “I am so sorry, baby. I’ll get you out of here and I’ll get you fixed up, okay? And then we’ll go on a really nice long drive out to Utah where we can go super fast on the salt flats. That’ll be fun, right, sweetheart? I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”
“Miss Walker?” Crowder’s diffident voice came from behind me, a polite intrusion. I looked up, swallowing back the tightness in my throat, expecting the geologist to be offering some kind of sympathy or suggestion.
What I found instead was Morrison vaulting the parking lot gates and coming at a run toward me and my car.
CHAPTER 25
Morrison had me by the shoulders before I had time to think through the idea of hiding. His grip was hard enough to hurt, although I noticed the skin-tenderness of the sunburn was gone. He had the slight height advantage even though he was out of uniform, and for a few seconds he stared down at me as if making sure I was real. Then he shook me, let go of my shoulders, and started yelling.
I didn’t listen. I just looked up at him, trying not to smile. He would have gotten up at five in the morning for a report that any of his officers was missing. I knew that. What I hadn’t known was he’d get up if the officer in question was me. I wrapped my filthy arms around my ribs and watched him rant. Crowder hovered nervously on the next island over, trying to decide if he should interfere. I hoped he didn’t. I’d never felt so warm and fuzzy at receiving a dressing-down. When Morrison finally paused for breath I said, “Thanks, Captain.”
He didn’t start up again. Instead he pulled his mouth long, scowled, and gave me a curt nod. Then he turned away, jumping to Crowder’s asphalt island with more grace than I would’ve expected from him, and offered the geologist his hand. “Thanks for finding my officer. I’m Captain Michael Morrison, SPD, North Precinct.”
“Well, she was up on her feet already when I found her. She would’ve been just fine even without us.” Crowder shook Morrison’s hand. “David Crowder. Pleasure to meet you, sir. I’m glad to say it looks like Officer Walker was the only person caught in the park last night. Looks like we may have no casualties from the event itself. We’ve been very lucky.”
I closed my eyes and leaned on Petite’s upended nose. No one in the coven had mentioned earthquakes accompanying the body-to-earth ritual. I wondered if they hadn’t known, or if it had been an error. I was hoping for an error. Knowing you were going to set off a 6.2 quake and opting to stay in a populated area was criminal, not that there was the slightest chance they’d—we’d—ever be prosecuted for it.
And I wondered if it had worked. From what I understood, there ought to be all sorts of strange and mystical creatures wandering Seattle’s streets now, but Morrison hadn’t mentioned any while he was yelling at me. I’d have to find Faye or one of the others.
Or, I supposed, I’d have to go look for myself. I opened my eyes again and studied the parking lot without seeing it, trying to figure out how long it would take to get Petite out of there. I didn’t want to leave her, not with the lake pouring a new stream into the neighborhood. I was afraid the exposed earth would be cut away and she’d fall.
“What happened, Walker?”
I jostled myself out of studying the parking lot and looked back at Morrison, who’d rejoined me while I wasn’t watching. “Sir?”
“What happened out here last night? What were you doing here? And have you been tanning?” He was getting over his relief that I was alive and was becoming more interested in the bones of the matter, which probably meant in relatively short order he’d be yelling at me again.
I looked down at myself. My vision behaved itself for once and I realized the sunburn had done more than come to the surface. It’d already peeled, or the mystical equivalent thereof I was brown, tanner than I could ever remember seeing myself. I resisted the urge to peer down my shirt to see if I was tan all over. I hadn’t been naked in the desert of my mind, but I wasn’t at all sure a sunburn like the one I’d gotten there would care about clothes. I suspected there were no tan lines.
“I was meeting Faye. The girl from Cassandra’s funeral.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. I didn’t think Morrison cared all that much about whether I’d been tanning, so I skipped that part.
“Walker, I thought I told you to leave it alone.” He didn’t sound exasperated, much less surprised. More like resigned.
“Yeah.” I looked away. “Meeting her was set up before you told me that.”
“What were you seeing her for?”
“…she was working on a project with Cassandra before she died. She thought I might be able to help out with it.” Again, not exactly a lie. I was pretty sure Morrison would be happier if I didn’t tell him Cassie was part of a coven and I was taking her place. My vision swam to inverted again, giving me a sudden headache as the rising sun turned black. I winced and put my hand against my temple. Morrison reached out and caught my wrist, turning my palm up.
“What happened?”
I stared at Crowder’s bloody handkerchief wrapped around my hand and sagged. “I was gouged. It was kind of a rough night.”
“So I see. You need to get cleaned up and get this looked at. My car’s up at the head of the street. You’re not getting yours out of here without a helicopter.”
I clenched my jaw against dismay and patted Petite’s nose carefully. “It’s okay, baby. I’ll figure out how to get you out of here.” I didn’t think I’d spoken loudly enough for Morrison to hear, even though he was barely two feet away from me. The look he gave me said he had.
“What is it with you and cars, Walker?”
“They’re easier than people.” I tugged my hand out of Morrison’s grip, trying to be gentle enough about it that it wouldn’t seem rude. He let me go without a fuss. I felt him watching me as I hopped to another broken island. After a few seconds he followed me.