Thunderbird Falls

“Joanne,” Coyote said, a warning in his voice.

“Then let this one go,” I said, jerking my head at the red man beside me.

“Jo,” Coyote said again. “Don’t.”

The monster flattened its snout, tongue darting out, as if it were flaring its nostrils. “The sssacrifisse is ssweetesst when the victim isss willing.”

“I’m willing.” I waved the smaller snake at it. “This little guy for Coyote, and I’m all yours.”

“Done,” it said.

I released the little snake and shoved Coyote away from me with all my will, like the recoil from a car crash.

For an instant, Coyote resisted. He knew me; he knew that I work through the medium I know best, cars. In fact, he’d taught me to do that. So for a moment, the recoil of that car wreck was met by his own image, the steadfastness of a mountain, absorbing the energy I tried pushing him away with.

Then power surged through me, blood-red and deep and cool, a link from the serpent as it bent its will to the same ends I pursued. There was no metaphor to its desire, only the intent to remove that which it had promised to.

Coyote flickered like the serpent’s tongue, and disappeared.

The viper I’d dropped whipped around and hissed at me, striking forward so quickly I didn’t stand a chance.

The serpent spat, venom splashing over the smaller snake before it completed its attack. It shrieked, a high thin sound, and flipped onto its back, writhing and whining in pain.

“Yeah!” I spat at it, too, to much less effect. “I’m only a meal for the big guy!”

The serpent lifted its head and spread its hood, staring at me. It struck me that gloating was not a snakely trait. I cleared my throat. “Never mind. It’s just, you know, if you’ve got to go out, might as well get taken out by the…never mind.”

It reared up and doubled forward, jaws gaping. As I stared into its descending maw, my last thought was, isn’t there a Shel Silverstein poem appropriate to this situation?

CHAPTER FOUR

A meaty hand, warm and callused, clamped onto my shoulder. My eyes popped open and I looked blankly at the cream-colored tiles above the dead girl. This was not what I imagined the inside of a snake to look like.

“Walker?”

I twisted my head up. The warm hand on my shoulder was attached to the wrist, arm, shoulder, and ultimately, beefy body of my immediate supervisor, Captain Michael Morrison of the Seattle Police Department, North Precinct.

Morrison always made me think of a superhero starting to go to seed: late thirties, graying hair, sharp blue eyes, a bit too much weight on the bones. I’d never been so glad to see a seedy superhero in my life, and said the first grateful words that came to mind: “This isn’t your jurisdiction.”

“And that sure as hell isn’t your uniform.” Morrison smirked and took his hand off my shoulder.

Goose bumps shot up all over my body and I clutched my arms around my towel. This was not the outfit I’d have chosen to summon the police in. And if I’d been out long enough for the cops to get here, time had gone funny in a way I wasn’t used to. I took refuge in defensiveness, staring up at Morrison. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I was on my way into work when the call came across the scanner. I just couldn’t resist the words ‘Officer Joanne Walker’ and ‘10-55’ in the same sentence.”

“Yeah. You might’ve gotten lucky and the dead body might’ve been mine.” If he’d put his hand on my shoulder half a second later, it would’ve been. I didn’t like to think about the implications of that. “What happened?”

“You were in a trance, or something,” Phoebe blurted from somewhere behind Morrison. “I thought you were following me, but you didn’t, so I came back to look and you wouldn’t wake up when I shook you, so I called the cops. You woke up as soon as he touched you.”

I didn’t like to think about the implications of that, either. I climbed to my feet instead. Cold water trailed down my shins in rivulets. Something even colder slid down the back of my towel and hit the water with a plop.

“Jesus Christ! What the hell is that?” Morrison all but levitated away, moving back across the other side of the curb with a smooth bound that did the aging superhero look proud. My neck stiffened, preventing me from looking at what had fallen.

“It’s a snake,” I said in a small voice, then checked to be sure I was right.

Sometimes I hate it when I’m right.

The first time I visited the astral plane, I came home with a leaf that shimmered blue and white in the darkness. I thought that was a much nicer souvenir than a dead albino garter snake.

I crouched and picked it up. “Put that down!” Morrison barked. “It’s part of the crime scene.”

“It is not. It’s contaminating the crime scene.” I scowled at him from my crouch. “Unless you think I did it.”

“Did you?” he snapped.

I groaned. “No.”

“Fine. Then tell me why the hell you’re carrying a snake in your tow—”

Look, in his shoes, I wouldn’t have been able to make it through that sentence, either. Morrison broke off, choked, then guffawed, while I put my elbow on my knee and my forehead against my hand and waited for him to laugh it out. Phoebe, the traitor, giggled, too, although she tried to hide it by clapping both hands over her mouth.

It took a long time for them to stop laughing.

“Get dressed,” Morrison said eventually, still grinning. “That’s no way for the department to be represented when members of other forces are on their way.”

There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t sound like fishing for a compliment, so I bit my tongue, took my snake, and got dressed.

Answering questions about the body I’d found turned out to be a lot less unpleasant when I was wearing a police officer’s uniform than it had been when I’d been wearing jeans and a sweater. For one thing, the university police didn’t seem to think I’d done it, which was a huge improvement. There was a bit of quel coincidance that a cop had found her, but hey, those things happened. Phoebe and I took turns answering questions, neither of us any more helpful than I’d been with Coyote in the Dead Zone.

The detective in charge, a knockout Southerner named Renfroe, kept saying, “Uh-huh,” and, “Huh,” and scribbling things down, including my phone number. I thought I saw her checking me out as I walked away when we were finally dismissed. I resisted the urge to call back, “It’s a snake in my pocket,” but since not even Morrison had brought up the snake, I wasn’t about to.

Morning sunshine and heat were already swimming up off the pavement as I walked outside, escorted by Morrison. My eyes started watering and I lifted a hand to shade them, squinting down the parking lot for my car, now hidden among dozens of others in the lot. Morrison held the yellow crime scene tape up for me. I ducked under it, half-expecting him to let it fall and entangle me, like we were in grade school. I snorted at myself. As if he read my mind, Morrison snorted louder. “You’re welcome.”

“Thanks. I wasn’t trying to be rude.” There. Politeness to a superior officer. Go me.

“No, it just comes naturally to you.”

A higher-ranking officer, anyway.

No, that just wasn’t true. Morrison was a better cop than I was. It went beyond petty and right into sheer stupidity to suggest otherwise. “Is there anything I can say that would convince you I wasn’t trying to be an asshole?” There was another word that should be used somewhere in that sentence. Oh yes: “Captain?”

“‘I quit’ would be right up there at the top of the list,” Morrison said. “You need a ride to the station?”

For a moment I stared at him. Not up at him: we were exactly the same height, and in police-issued street stompers, neither of us had the shoe advantage.

I’d passed the Academy with not-entirely-shameful marks and got a job for the department doing what I was good at: fixing cars. Almost a year ago I’d taken some personal leave that went on too long. I couldn’t blame Morrison for hiring somebody to replace me—well, I could and did, but that wasn’t the point—but as a woman of Native American descent, I looked too good on the roster to fire. So he’d made me a real cop, put me on the street and hoped I’d bolt.

I’d rather have poked my eyes out with a shrimp fork than give him the satisfaction.