Northern Lights

sex—between answering calls and handing out sticky buns. But he was caught up.
    He fell asleep with the book open on his chest and the lights still blazing.
     
     
    THE SORCERESS HAD Meg's face. Her hair, ink black, swirled into the air like wings. She stood on a white hill in brilliant sunlight that streamed through the thin red gown she wore.
    She lifted her arms, slid the gown from her shoulders so that it slithered down her body. Naked, she walked to him. Her eyes were blue ice as she opened her arms and took him in.
    He felt her lips on his, hot. Hungry. He was under her, surrounded by her. When she rose up, wild wind rushed through her hair. When she lowered, the heat of her all but burned him.
    "What do you have to be sad about?"
    Suddenly, through the pleasure was pain—abrupt, searing. He hissed against it, and his body stiffened. The burning insult of bullets into flesh.
    But she smiled, only smiled. "You're alive, aren't you?" She lifted a hand, smeared with his blood. "If you bleed, you're alive."
    "I'm shot. Jesus, I'm hit."
    "And alive," she said as his blood dripped from her hand onto his face.
    He was in the alley, smelling blood and cordite. Smelling garbage and death. Damp air from the rain. Cold, cold for April. Cold and wet and dark. It was all a blur, the shouts, the shots, the pain when the bullet dug into his leg.
    He'd fallen behind, and Jack had gone in first.
    Shouldn't be here. What the hell were they doing here?
    More shots, flashes of light in the dark. Thuds. Was that steel hitting flesh? That stunning, obscene pain in the side that took him down again. So he'd had to crawl, crawl over the damp concrete to where his partner, his friend, lay dying.
    But this time, Jack turned his head, and his eyes were red as the blood that pumped out of his chest. "You killed me. You stupid son of a bitch. Anybody should be dead, it's you. Now see if you can live with it."
     
     
    HE WOKE IN A COLD SWEAT, his partner's dream voice still echoing in his head. Nate pushed himself up to sit on the side of the cot. He dropped his head in his hands.
    So far, he thought, he was doing a lousy job of living with it.
    He made himself get up, carry the bunk back to the cell. He thought of the pills he stowed in his desk drawer, but bypassed his office and made himself go out to pour the last of the gas into the generator.
    It wasn't until he was heading back inside that he realized it had stopped snowing.
    The air was perfectly still, perfectly quiet. There was a faint hint of moonlight sprinkling over the mounds and seas of snow, giving the white a pale blue hue. His breath clouded out as he stood, like a bug, he thought, trapped in crystal instead of amber.
    The storm had passed, and he was still alive.
    See if you can live with it. Well, he would. He'd keep seeing if he could live with it.
    Inside, he brewed coffee, switched on the radio. A sleepy voice—who identified himself as Mitch Dauber, the voice of Lunacy—segued into local news, announcements and weather.
    People started coming out, bears crawling out of their caves. They shoveled and plowed. They gathered together for conversation, ate and walked and slept.
    They lived.
     
     
    THE LUNATIC
    Police Log
Wednesday, January 12
     
    9:12 A.M. A chimney fire in the residence of Bert Myers was reported. Volunteer firefighter Manny Ozenburger and Chief Ignatious Burke responded. The fire was caused by a buildup of creosote. Myers suffered a minor burn on the hand while attempting to grab burning logs out of the fireplace. Ozenburger termed this action "dumbass."
     
    12:15 P.M. Jay Finkle, age five, was injured in a fall from his tricycle inside the bedroom of his residence. Chief Burke assisted Paul Finkle, Jay's father, in transporting the injured boy to the Lunacy clinic. Jay received four stitches and a grape lollipop. The Hot Wheels was undamaged, and Jay states that he will drive more carefully in the future.
     
    2:00 P.M. A complaint was lodged by Timothy Bower against Manny Ozenburger. Witnesses confirm that Ozenburger crashed his truck into Bower's Ski-doo while Bower was operating same. Though an informal poll indicates that 52 percent believe Bower had it coming, Ozenburger was remanded to jail. Charges are pending. Members of Lunacy's Vol unteer Fire Department are organizing a Free Manny all-you-can-eat buffet.
     
    2:55 P.M. Kate D. Igleberry reported being assaulted by her partner, David Bunch, at their residence on Rancor Road. At