“Look.”
“I see.”
This should be their Native shaman. The SUV door opened and Ahtisham got out, tucking his phone into his pocket as he did so. Coretta and Rita got out of the second SUV. Darren wished he could get a handle on how Kavon was feeling, but he had the bond locked down. Kavon’s normally unflappable emotional state had become a little less stable lately, and part of Darren thought that was good—he was a proponent of expression emotion and Kavon had more than enough reason to be angry. However, he was a little concerned about the timing.
The white car parked under the only tree, a half-dead lopsided thing. Kavon abandoned his post next to the boarded-up windows and started across the lot. He was almost there when the engine turned off and an old woman with deep wrinkles got out of the car. She had a long gray braid, cowboy boots, and a T-shirt for a boy band. She reached back into the car and got a single crutch that had a cuff to hold her forearm. “Kavon Boucher?” she asked.
He held out his hand. “You must be the shaman who has come to help us.”
“Julie,” she introduced herself. She looked toward the rest of them by the SUVs. “Are we all working together?”
“If we find this shaman, we need as much help as possible.”
She walked toward their SUVs, ignoring Kavon’s hand. “If any of you goes throwing my name around as a Native shaman, I will hunt you down and hit you with my cane. How much do all these people know?”
“Everything,” Kavon said, “but we wait until we’re in an SUV to discuss it.”
“Shotgun!” she said. Darren was standing next to the front passenger seat, and she looked at him expectantly. Les snorted.
Since Darren didn’t want to get into a fight with a positively ancient woman, he moved to one side. “I’m taking your seat,” Darren told Les.
“No, you’re not,” Les shot back.
“Enough!” Kavon growled as he passed them on his way to the driver’s side.
“It’s just like old times,” Coretta said as she glared at both of them. “And Rima and I are taking the second row. You can both take third.”
Ahtisham was already getting into the rear seat, and Darren climbed in, resigned to getting stuck in the middle. As soon as everyone was in the SUV, Julie turned to face them in back. “Until twenty-four hours ago, I thought my grandmother’s stories were metaphors for the destructive capacity of unrestrained power. So, can someone explain how these trickster gods managed to find their way back here?”
Kavon focused on the empty parking lot, so Darren answered. “The barrier the docent used to lock the durance out started to fail. It’s old.”
Julie scrunched up her nose. “Docent? Durance?”
“Good guys and bad guys,” Les said.
Julie gave him a blank stare. “Right.” She turned back to face forward. “So, where do we have to look for these guys?”
Rima leaned forward. “I thought you were going to help us find them.”
“Child, I can see trickster gods. I can even see those touched by them.” She gave Darren a piercing stare that made it clear she had an issue with his choice of shamanic partners. “However, I am not a psychic. I can’t wave my hand and conjure up a trickster. You’re supposed to know which shaman has linked himself to the old one.”
“We have some theories,” Kavon said. “We can’t know for sure until you’ve had a look at our suspects.”
“So we’re fishing with an empty hook and hoping for stupid fish,” she said.
“Actually,” Les said, “we have a good idea it’s someone who works at a newspaper that’s been linked to every site where the durance has dropped power.”
“A newspaper that reports on the news. How novel.”
“This is a political paper,” Coretta said. “For them to be linked to so many shamanic sites is unusual. We have one reporter and two photographers who have gone to multiple scenes.”
“So,” Julie said, “it’s one of them or one of their bosses who is getting information secondhand through them or they know something is going on, but haven’t figured out what, or they’re just schmucks who have no idea what’s going on. Next time Angel asks for a favor, I’m charging more.”
“He’s paying you?” Darren blurted.
“With time. He gets to play personal driver on no fewer than three shopping trips,” Julie said. “I can’t get around like I used to, and I hate driving. So how far away is this newspaper