Urban Shaman

He twisted around yet again. “You’re trying to rescue somebody you saw from an airplane?”

“Yeah.” I flinched as he twitched the steering wheel to keep in our lane, again without looking. “What do you do, use the Force?”

He glanced at the road and shrugged before turning around again. “So, what, you’ve got a hero complex? How the hell are you go

“I passed a couple basic math classes in college,” I muttered.

“Look, I got the approximate height and speed we were traveling from the pilot, so figuring out the distance wasn’t that hard. I mean, adjusting for the change in speed is kind of a pain in the ass, but—” I set my teeth together to keep myself from rattling on. It was a moment before I was sure I had enough control over my brain to continue without babbling. “Someplace in that vicinity there’s a modern church on a street with only one amber streetlight. If I can find it before the lights go out—”

“Then you’ll be the first one on a murder scene. You’re nuts, lady. You must be desperate for thrills.”

“Like it could possibly be any of your business,” I snapped.

“Touchy, too. Pretty girl like you oughta be on her way home to her sweetie, not chasin—”

“I don’t have one.” I admit it. I snarled again.

“With your personality, I can’t figure why not, lady.”

I leaned forward and rubbed my eyes with my fingertips, elbows on my knees. The knot of unpleasantness in my stomach felt like it was trying to push its way out through my sternum, pressuring me to act whether I liked it or not. The idea that it would go away if I could just find the woman was settled into my bones, logic be damned. “Haven’t you ever just really felt like you had to do something?”

“Sure. I felt like I really had to marry my old lady when she got knocked up.”

I was in a cab with Plato. His depth overwhelmed me. I lifted my head enough to stare over the back of the seat at his shoulder. He gri

“Never felt like I had to go chasing down some dame I saw from an airplane, nope. Guess I figured I had enough troubles of my own without adding on somebody else’s.”

I leaned against the window, eyes closed. “Maybe I’ve got enough that I need somebody else’s to make the load seem lighter.”

I could feel his gaze on me in the rear view mirror again. Then he grunted, a sort of satisfied noise. “All right, lady. Let’s go find your corpse.”

CHAPTER 2

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I glowered out the window. I wouldn’t have been so a

The streetlights were still on when we got to Aurora, and I wasn’t actually dead, so I felt like I shouldn’t complain. Gary pulled into a gas station. I squinted tiredly at the back of his head. “What are you doing?”

“Go ask if anybody knows where that church of yours is.”

My squint turned into lifted eyebrows. “I thought men couldn’t ask for directions.”

“I ain’t askin’,” Gary said with aplomb. “You are. Go on.”

I got.

The pimply kid behind the counter didn’t look happy to see me. Judging from his thrust-out lip and down-drawn eyebrows, I figured he wasn’t happy to see anybody, and didn’t take it personally. He smirked at me when I asked about the church. Smirking is not a nice expression. The only person in the history of mankind who’d been able to make smirking look good was James Dean, and this kid, forgive me Senator Bentsen, was no James Dean.

I tried, briefly, to remember if I’d been that sullen and stupid when I was sixteen. I figured the fact that I couldn’t remember didn’t bode well, and went straight for the thing I knew would have gotten my attention at that age: cash. I wasn’t usually prone to bribing people, but I was too tired to think of anything else and I was in a hurry. I dug my wallet out and waved a bill at the kid. His eyes widened. I looked at it. It was a fifty.

Shit.

“You better walk me to the church for this, kid.”

He didn’t take his eyes from the bill. “There’s two A-frames I can think of. One’s about five blocks from here. The other is a couple miles away.”

“Which direction? For both of them.” He told me, still watching the fifty like it was a talisman. I sighed, dropped it on the counter, and muttered, “Thanks,” as I pushed my way out of the gas station. He snatched it up, hardly believing I was really handing it over. Great. I’d just turned a kid onto the lifetime role of snitch.

Worse, I’d given away a quarter of the meager cash I had on hand, and cabs from SeaTac were damned expensive. I climbed back into the car. “East a few blocks, and if that’s not it, there’s another one to the southwest. Hurry, it’s getting light out.”

“What, you want to get your fingers in the blood while it’s still warm? You need help, lady.”

“Joa

“You always an optimist, or just dumb?”

A shock of real hurt, palpable and cold, tightened itself around my throat and heart. I fumbled the seat belt. It took effort to force the words out: “You have no right to call me dumb.” I stared out the window, seat belt in one numb hand, trying furiously to blink tears away. Gary looked at me in the rearview, then twisted around.

“Hey, hey, hey. Look, lady. Joa

“Sure.” My voice was harsh and tight, almost too quiet to be heard. “Just drive.” I got the seat belt on this time. Gary turned around and drove, quiet for the first time since I’d gotten in the cab.

I watched streetlights go by in the hazy gold of sunrise, trying to get myself under control. I didn’t generally cry easily and I didn’t generally get hurt by casual comments from strangers. But it had been a long day. More than a long day. A long week, a long month, a long year, nevermind that it was only the fourth of January. And the day was only going to get longer. I still had to stop by my job and get fired.

The streetlights abruptly winked out as we turned down another street, and with them, my chance to find the ru

“That one’s still on,” Gary said, subdued. I looked up, keeping my jaw tight to deny tired, disappointed tears. A bastion of amber stood against the dawn, one single light shining on the entire street. I watched it go by without comprehension, then jerked around so fast I hurt my neck. “That’s it!”

Gary hit the brakes hard enough to make my neck crunch again. I winced, clutching at it as I pressed my nose against the window. “That’s it, that’s it!” I shrieked. “Look, there’s the church!

Stop! Stop!” The car was gone from the parking lot, but there was no mistaking the vicious spire stabbing the morning air. “Holy shit, we found it!”

Gary accelerated again, gri

“Yeah, well, God watches over fools and little children, right?” I tumbled out of the cab, getting my feet tangled in the floor mat and catching myself on the door just before I fell. “Well?” I demanded. “Aren’t you coming?”

His eyebrows elevated before he shrugged and swung his own door open. “Sure, what the hell. I never saw a fresh murdered body before.”