Raven Calls. C.E. Murphy

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Chapter Three

      The landscape changed. Hills reshaped, stone walls rose where none currently stood and in the distance a double row of wooden henges spread out in an unbelievably large circle, containing vastly more area than I expected. I could see modern-day shadows of the new highway cutting through what had once been sacred land, its effect so significant as to mar the world even in retrospect. Mist-softened sunlight caught a hollow between the sets of henges where it had been dug out, and dug deep, to create a true barrier around Tara.

       I was accustomed to Looking at Seattle, which wasn’t an old city even by the U.S.’s standards. The Native American settlements there had been so thoroughly bulldozed over that they left depressingly little mark on the modern city. I probably could See them if I needed to, but so far I hadn’t had to.

       Tara, despite the highway, despite its long-ago abandonment as a spiritual center, despite the tourists that tromped through it daily, roared with ancient power. Everything within the henge barrier shone brilliant, healing blue, with spikes of yellow that spoke of a warrior heritage. Where they blended, they became adamant green, a color I’d long since associated with the protective, stolid quality of buildings that knew their business as shelters for those within. My vision shifted and shimmered, trying to accommodate the changes Tara had seen. Changes that were still living within the sacred earth: what had gone on here left its mark, year after year, until years turned into centuries and centuries to millennia.

       Only one thing remained the same. A white standing stone poked up impudently, barely altered by time. There was life within that stone, more life than the usual shaman-recognized spirit which infested all things. Everything had purpose, but most inanimate objects were rooted and calm and patient.

       The standing stone screamed with impatience, a hair-raising shriek that echoed under my skin. I was used to the Sight showing me things beyond the ordinary. It had never before given me the ability to listen in on something that I was certain reached out of this world. I wondered if that was part of the upgrade to the shiny new Siobhán Walkingstick package, or if I’d simply never faced an inanimate object old enough to have a voice of its own.

       “What is that?” I had the impression I was walking, an impression confirmed when Gary’s hand closed around my biceps and stopped me from going any farther.

       “Hold up, doll. Don’t forget about me.”

       “Right.” I turned away from the standing stone, though its voice still shrieked against the small bones in my ears.

       Something uncomfortable happened in Gary’s expression as I faced him. His voice dropped half an octave on one syllable: “Jo?”

       “Yeah?”

       “You look…” He circled one hand, and stopped, still discomfited. I waited for further explanation, which was not forthcoming. After a few seconds my eyebrows went up and I shrugged one shoulder. There was hardly any point in being magically adept if I couldn’t use it to figure out what was bugging my friends, so I stepped out of my body to take a look at me.

       Gary was right. I looked “…” and my noncorporeal self made a hand circle just like he had.

       I would not have recognized me, eighteen months earlier. Not on the levels that mattered. The height, yes; the spiky short black hair, sure. The slightly too-generous nose with its scattering of freckles: those things remained the same. But my eyes, to hear me tell it, were hazel, while the woman I was looking at had eyes of blaze-gold. A thin scar cut across her right cheekbone, breaking a few of those freckles apart, and she wore cuff earrings—a stylized raven on one ear, a rattlesnake on the other—which I’d never done. Nor did the me of a year and a half ago wear a silver choker necklace or the copper bracelet that barely glinted under the new leather coat, though I would have at least recognized the bracelet. My father had given it to me when I left for college. The necklace had been a gift from my dying mother, barely two weeks before I became a shaman. I didn’t need to see the last of my talismans, a Purple Heart medal given to me by Gary, to know it was there: it lay over my own heart, pinned discreetly inside my shirt. I would probably die of embarrassment if Gary ever found that out.

       I’d thought earlier I needed great sunglasses to really work that coat. Now I thought I needed them to hide my spooky eyes, which were the most visible change in me. Not everyone would be able to see the silver-blue psychic and physical shields wrapping around me so smoothly they looked like liquid silk, but those who could—people like my mentor, Coyote—would respect their strength. Actually, Coyote would just be astonished I’d finally gotten them so integrated that they were intact even though I wasn’t consciously thinking about them, and annoyed it had taken a werewolf bite to force me into that mental space. That wasn’t the point.

       The point was, I looked confident. I had presence beyond what my height conferred. That, above all, was the element Joanie Walker, cop shop mechanic, wouldn’t have known what to do with if she’d seen her future self reflected in the mirror. And that, apparently, was what Gary saw, too.

       I said, “Ah,” rather softly as I stepped back into my body. My Sight was still on full bore, and Gary’s aura was its usual deep solid mercury-silver, reminding me of the old V8 engine I’d initially thought of him as being. His unease glimmered around the edges, lighter shades of silver, but it was turning to something else: a brighter white, like pride was overtaking discomfort.

       “Lookit you, Joanie,” he breathed. “All СКАЧАТЬ