Walking Dead. C.E. Murphy

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      It turned out worrying about my behavior had been pointless. Apparently most people thought leaping up onto the cauldron to help the dancers was kind of heroic, and enough alcohol had been imbibed that the light show around me had been largely written off as just that: a light show. There was a lesson to be learned from that, though by now I should’ve already learned it.

      People were good at explaining away things that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Over the summer I’d been worried that I was foisting magic onto a world that didn’t want it, but really, the handful of people who did want it believed, and the rest let themselves forget. A newly born waterfall at the end of Lake Washington had been given the name Thunderbird Falls after half the city’d seen, well, a thunderbird fall into the lake. By the end of August, though, if anybody mentioned the gigantic golden bird at all, they remembered the astonishing cloud formations and sunset that night. I shouldn’t have worried, not then and not now.

      By midnight nearly everyone had come back to the party, even Phoebe, who ran a masquerade competition as if nothing untoward had happened. I won a “Best Abs” prize that I don’t think had been on the original list of awards to be given out, and the department-heavy attendees made Morrison walk the stage three times before razzing him off with cheers and laughter. A bunch of people told me I’d done good, trying to help the dancers, and a bunch more dragged me onto the dance floor or stole me away from Thor for the space of a song. The booze ran out before the music did, and there were maybe fifty people left, almost all of them dancers not quite willing to go home, when Morrison tapped Thor on the shoulder and asked to cut in.

      See, I knew I should’ve defined out of the ordinary. Thor bowed out and tried to steal Phoebe from a natural blonde who didn’t want to give up her dance partner. He ended up sandwiched between both of them, and I grinned before Morrison put his hands on my waist and took up all my attention.

      He said, “Sorry,” perfunctorily. “I could’ve waited for faster music, but I wanted to talk to you.”

      I flailed a bit and put my hands on his shoulders, which were considerably more covered than my waist was. In fact, although I hadn’t thought anything of it when Thor’s hands had been in the same place, I suddenly wanted to hitch my skirt up off my hips and settle it safely around my waist, where a proper skirt belonged. Except then my very short skirt would have become completely indecent, which wasn’t a win at all.

      Or maybe it was. I guess it depended on who you asked.

      In an attempt to shut my brain up, I stuck my jaw out too far and bared my lower teeth, making a llama face. It was sufficiently embarrassing to take my mind off my skirt, so after holding it a couple of seconds I trusted myself enough to say, “No problem. What’s wrong?”

      Up. I should’ve said what’s up, not what’s wrong. Still, pretty much any time Morrison wanted to talk to me, something was wrong. His hands were warm, warmer than Edward’s, and he smelled good. Like Old Spice, which I doubted was a Miami Vice cologne. And I was taller than he was, which reminded me of the clowns with their noses in my cleavage, although Morrison would have to look down to do that.

      I made another llama face.

      Evidently weird faces weren’t enough to throw my boss off his game. “What happened earlier?”

      “A bunch of angry ghosts spilled through the cauldron and tried to take over those kids.” I said it without missing a beat. Somewhere along the line I’d decided to play it straight with Morrison. He didn’t like my powers any more than I did, but he accepted I had something extraordinary going on, and if he couldn’t deny it, he could at least do his best to make use of it. He’d made me a detective and partnered me with Billy so we could deal with abnormal cases when they came along, and what he was really asking right now was whether one had just fallen into our laps. “I don’t know how or why. I think Billy and I chased most of them off, but he’s still got some stubborn ones hanging around him and I might’ve let some latch on to me. We’re going back to my apartment after we clean up here to check and give me the all-clear.”

      A bunch of minute things happened in Morrison’s expression. Most of them had to do with tension and resignation, and said he’d asked and therefore deserved to get whatever outlandish answer I gave him. My face crumpled with apology. “Sorry. It’s all I’ve got. Billy didn’t seem to know what was happening, either, so—”

      Morrison said, “Walker,” making it sound very much like Billy’s shut up from earlier, so I did. Morrison nodded, and that quick array of tiny changes flashed across his face again before he said, carefully, “Holliday’ll watch out for you.”

      “Sure, he always does. I mean, I don’t know, I guess…” I frowned at Morrison’s brown hair, caught up in logistics. “It’s going to be four in the morning before we get out of here. I can’t really СКАЧАТЬ