Mercy Thompson 06 - River Marked

and the fire?”
    Adam snarled soundlessly at the hawks, a clear warning, and slipped off the altar to sit where Coyote had asked him to.
    Gordon’s eyebrows had risen almost to his white hair. “A polite Coyote?”
    Coyote growled something in a foreign language.
    “I thought you were not her father,” Gordon said placidly. “That makes him not your son by marriage.”
    “Say, then,” said Coyote, “I respect him and don’t fancy getting in the middle of a dogfight tonight if I can help it. Now let us get this done.”
    He changed. His shift was even faster than mine, I thought, though I couldn’t be sure. Between one blink and the next, there was a huge coyote the size of a Saint Bernard. He stalked over to the monolith that was on one end of the horseshoe and hopped up on top of it.
    Gordon looked sour, then he became the largest eagle I have ever seen in my life, and I’ve seen some huge golden eagles. As a bird, he stood taller than the man he’d been. I couldn’t say what color his feathers were though they looked as if they were several shades darker than the hawks’. Then he spread his wings, and I realized Gordon wasn’t an eagle after all. No eagle ever had a wingspan that large.
    “Thunderbird,” said Calvin reverently. “Grandfather said you were Thunderbird, but that was when he was calling me by my father’s name more often than not.”
    Thunderbird.
    The bird leaned forward and rubbed that wicked sharplooking beak against the side of Calvin’s head. Since Calvin’s head stayed on his shoulders, I had to assume it was a gesture of affection. With a movement that was half hop and half flight, he landed on the monolith opposite Coyote. He made the standing stone look a lot smaller. Gordon, who was Thunderbird, nudged the candle until it was situated where he wanted. The candlelight turned his feathers a warm dark chocolate. He rocked back and forth a bit, stretching his wings out, then settled into stillness.
    Calvin brought out a rolled-up rug, a small drum, and a beaded parfleche bag. Parfleche—untanned hide—was more commonly used by the plains Indians than the plateau Indians like the Yakama, I thought. However, I supposed a medicine man could use whatever implements he wanted to.
    Calvin set the bag to one side of the prepared but as-yet-unlit fire. Then, with great formality, he unrolled the carpet, aligning it with the altar stone. He took the drum with him to sit next to Adam.
    Jim stood in front of the carpet and closed his eyes. It looked like a prayer, but whatever he did caused the magic to sit up and take notice—I could feel it even through the cement I perched upon.
    He stepped onto the carpet and held a hand over the stacked wood. “Wood,” he said, “who swallowed the flame of the Fire Beings, it is time to burn.”
    When the little fire burst into flame, Adam flinched a bit, but it didn’t seem to surprise Calvin or Jim.
    Jim gave a small nod to Calvin, who began to play the drum. At first he played with a simple, one-handed beat. It wasn’t a steady sound but tentative and irregular—until he caught the beat of the magic that ran beneath us. He stayed with that for a while, then began to speed up, accenting the simple beat with grace notes. When the magic followed his additions, he switched up the cadence to a driving, syncopated rhythm. And the magic followed his lead.
    The wind chose that moment to pick up and throw smoke from the fire into my eyes. I blinked but I must have gotten some ash in with the smoke. Putting my muzzle down on top of the stone, I scrubbed at my face with my paws. It helped. I lifted my head as soon as I could see—and I was alone.

11

    I STOOD UP IN A PANIC, THE BEAT OF CALVIN’S DRUM still strong—but the bond between Adam and me was strong and reassuring. It gave me courage to stay where I was, take a deep breath, and look around to see if I could figure out what had happened to everyone else.
    The fire burned, the candles were lit, and the night sky overhead was clear and star-spangled. However, there was a thick fog at ground level, and I could see nothing beyond the outer ring of the henge. About that time I realized that I was in my human shape, wearing the clothes I’d taken off and carefully folded a little while ago. They felt real under my fingers—even the slight roughness where I’d dripped a little mustard on my jeans that afternoon.
    But I was pretty sure this was a vision. I couldn’t think of any other