No Dominion The Walker Papers - By CE Murphy Page 0,74
every day, including that young doctor today. You can’t possibly imagine—” She got breathless instead of indignant and collapsed against me, coughing until tears stained my shirt. Finally, a whole lot more softly, she finished, “You can’t imagine we can sort through every person I’ve met in the last two months to determine who may be hiding a demon inside. And why me, if this Joanne Walker is a friend of yours? Maybe I should be asking you if you’re having an affair.”
I chuckled. “I wasn’t askin’ you that to begin with, an’ from what I’m seeing of the future, the girl is too tall an’ too young for me anyway. I got what I want right here. Always have. And the reason why you is simple, sweetheart. Real evil don’t bother going after us. It goes after the folks we love.”
“How do we fight it?”
I wasted half a breath wishing I still had Jo’s magic Sight, then let it go. “We start by assuming it ain’t any of the grocery store checkers or the guy who pumps your gas, or any of the other folks you only have a passing acquaintance with. How much time you been spending at the farmers’ market and talkin’ to the new gardener? You go to yoga all the time.”
Annie’s laugh wheezed in her chest. “You could make an argument for the new teacher being evil, I suppose. She’s very young and very flexible. None of the old ladies like her.”
“Sure, doll, but do you?”
She laughed again, stronger this time, and coughed because of it. “I’m an old lady too, but you still know how to charm a girl. Yoga’s a spiritual practice as much as exercise, Gary. Surely a practitioner couldn’t be evil…?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. Seems to me everybody’s got potential to go bad. Being spiritual don’t always mean being good.”
“Then I suppose we should…what does one say? ‘Hello, Darina, class on Wednesday was excellent and it’s lovely to see you again, by the way, have you put a killing hex on me?’”
“No, we gotta—” I spent another half a breath wishing on Joanne’s magic, then let the rest of that breath out and risked playing heavy on future memories. “We gotta find somebody who can tell by looking at ‘em. There’s a lady here in Seattle, a woman whose name I heard a while back. Sonata Smith. She’s a medium, but she’s got connections. Maybe she’ll know somebody who can help us.”
It was true, kinda. Me and Jo had met Sonny maybe six months ago, from the direction I was coming from. It was more like four years from now in the direction Annie was looking at it, but I figured if there was ever a time to play fast and loose with the truth, it was now. Annie didn’t need to know just how much future-flashing I was talking about, and we’d use up all the time she had left if I had to explain it all anyway.
“Don’t we know anyone? I know it’s been a long time, but…”
“But you don’t like presuming on strangers. I know, darlin’, but I don’t figure we do. Closest we ever came to belonging to some kinda magic underground was New Orleans, I reckon, don’t you?”
For a minute she didn’t look sick anymore, her whole face lighting up with a smile. “Well, if you hadn’t played that jazz riff—”
“How many times I gotta tell you, I was just tryin’ ta make that raven sing, is all. How was I s’posed ta know it was gonna open up a door to somewhere else?”
Annie kissed me like she always did when that jazz riff came up, murmuring, “Open here I flung the shutter, Gary. Of course it opened a door.”
“Hrmph.” I tugged her close again to talk against her hair. “Point is, sweetheart, maybe we came close down there in the South, but up here we’ve never been part of that scene. We only ever dealt with what came our way. Never went looking for any of it, like some folks do. So I think we gotta ask for help this time. Lemme give this Smith lady a call, see if she can send somebody around who can read auras.”
“Auras?”
“Souls. Everybody’s soul’s got energy, doll, doncha figure? Good energy, bad energy, and there’s folks out there who can tell which is which.”
Annie got a funny little frown, her eyebrows wrinkling together as she looked at me. “Where did you pick up on something like that, Gary?”