Demon Hunts

"I know that over the cauldron's whole history there are stories of people trying to break it. In all that time, you were the only one who pulled all the right elements to her so that it could be shattered. It wasn't your sacrifice, but I think it was your presence as a nexus that made it possible."

I wailed, "But what if I'd moved to Chattanooga?" and they both looked at me before Sonata laughed.

"Then perhaps the cauldron would have gone to Chattanooga. You'll drive yourself crazy if you start wondering down those lines, Joa

I thought of the alternate self whose life I'd seen glimpses of, and clamped my mouth shut on an I can. It hadn't, after all, been my talent that let me see a dozen different timelines. "Okay. One more stupid question, and then I promise to go…" Save the world seemed a little melodramatic, so I went with "stop the killer," and added, "somehow," under my breath.

Out loud, I said, "Does every city have a group of shamans like Seattle did? People who try to protect the place?"

"Many do. There are…" Sonata sighed and went back to the counter, brewing the tea that had been abandoned. "There are both more and fewer shamans, or adepts of any kind, than there have ever been, Joa

"Because there are more people than ever before." I mooshed a hand over my face. "Five hundred years ago there'd have been a shaman in every tribe, maybe. One person for a few hundred, maybe a few thousand, individuals. Now there're billions of people, and any given shaman has tens of thousands to tend to. Right?"

"In essence."

I blew a raspberry. "Why aren't there more…adepts?" I liked that word better than "magic users", probably because people could be adept at lots of things and I could at least pretend I wasn't talking about the impossible as if it were ordinary. The whole train of thought led me to snort at my own question before anyone had time to answer. "Like Joa

"It's partly an artifact of the era," Sonata agreed, then glanced at Billy, who looked uncomfortable. I sat up straighter, ping-ponging my gaze between them, and Sonata sighed again. "The last twelve months have been hard on the magic world, Joa

Oh, God. I said, "Was that catalyst me?" in a small voice, and to my undying relief, Sonata's frown turned into a quick shake of her head.

"I don't think so. I could be wrong," she amended hastily, "but you strike me as the response, Joa

The hollow place in my belly came back. My brain disengaged from my mouth and went distant, surprised to hear the question I voiced: "Do you know an Irish woman called Sheila MacNamarra?"

Sonata's eyebrows went up. "Should I?"

"I don't know. She was an…adept. As far as I can tell, she spent her whole life fighting—" I broke off, looking for a less dramatic phrase than what leaped to mind, then shrugged and used it anyway. "Fighting the forces of darkness. She went up against the Master, the one who created the cauldron. More than once, even. I think that was sort of what she…did."

Recognition woke in Sonata's eyes. "The Irish mage. I know of her. I didn't know her name."

My heart leaped and a fist closed around it all at once, sending a painful jolt through my chest. "You've heard of her? What do you know about her?"

Because what I knew about Sheila MacNamarra was embarrassingly limited. She liked Altoids; that was almost the sum total of what I'd learned about her in four months of traveling at her side. It was only after she died that I discovered she was an adept of no small talent, and that she'd spent her life fighting against—to put it extravagantly but accurately—the forces of darkness.

It was only after she died that I learned how far she'd gone to protect me.

Sonata was nodding. "I know of her as a power, yes. We don't use names often, Joa

"One," I said. "In a ma

It would have taken a dolt to miss the implications, and while Sonata was a bit of a long-haired hippy freak, she was by no means stupid. She sharpened her gaze on me, eyebrows shooting up again, this time making a question all of their own.

"She was my mother," I said tiredly, "and she died a year ago tomorrow."

I didn't typically think of myself as an emotional lightweight. I didn't tear up at Hallmark commercials, although extreme vehicle makeover shows could get me. I had a secret stash of romance novels that didn't fit my girl-mechanic image, but even when they got angsty I didn't sniffle over them. I had not, in fact, cried when my mother died. I'd barely known her, and I hadn't liked her very much. But for some reason my throat got painfully tight and my nose stuffed up as I made my a

Billy and Sonata were conspicuously silent, for which I was grateful. After a couple deep breaths I regained enough equilibrium to say, "She gave me to my dad when I was just a baby, because she had to keep fighting the Master." That was so inaccurate as to be an outright lie, but I didn't feel like getting into the complex time-slip that had happened both nine months and almost thirty years ago in my personal timeline. "Would her death be enough to start messing up the balance? Was she that big a gun?"

Sonata's eyes were dark. "What's your calling, Joa

"Me? I'm a shaman. You two are mediums. Melinda's, I don't know, a witch or something. Why?"

"And what do you suppose a mage is?"

"I don't know. It's a wizard. A sorc…" Except sorcerer, in my experience, co

Mage didn't fit anywhere on the scale. It suggested major mojo, skills on a level that beggared the rest of us. Which, from what little I'd seen, summed up my mother nicely. I said, "Phenomenal cosmic powers?" in a small voice.

Sonata nodded. "If she's dead, then our side has lost a great warrior."

I snorted loudly enough to make my ears pop. "Our side? So far I haven't seen a lot of us versus them, Sonata. I've mostly seen badly screwed-up people in need of help." Where "people" sometimes meant "gods of unimaginable power," but who was counting?

"And yet you just said your mother spent her life engaged in battle against this 'Master.' Is he not the other side?"

Anybody who commanded banshees—or anything else—to ritual murder in order to feed on the blood and souls of the dead was, I had to admit, pretty much inherently on the other side of where I stood. "All right, point taken. So her death could've been the catalyst. Or a catalyst." I didn't like the idea of that much hanging on my mother's life.

She probably hadn't liked the idea, either.

I put my face in my hands. "Basically what you're telling me is that never mind the ca

God, I missed Coyote. He was only moderately helpful, mostly by way of kicking me in the ass until I did, in fact, figure it out myself, but having him there to kick my ass would have made me feel a lot better. I exhaled into my palms, then looked up at Billy. "Okay. Sonata was the likable idea. Now for the one you're going to hate."