Urban Shaman. C.E. Murphy

      Gary dropped me off at my apartment complex. I stood on the concrete stairs and waved as he drove off, then staggered up to my apartment, navigating to the bedroom without turning the lights on. No one lived there but me; it was a safe bet that there wouldn’t be anything unexpected on the floor except four months worth of dust. I was right: falling face-first into the bedcovers dislodged dust and made me sneeze, but nothing worse awaited me. My last conscious thought was that I’d forgotten to take my contacts out.

      The apartment was empty of unexpected things. My dreams were not. Coyote was waiting for me. He looked warily approving while I frowned at him groggily. “How d’you do that?” I demanded. “Dogs don’t have that much expression.”

      “You’ve never owned a dog, have you?” Coyote asked. “Besides, I’m not a dog.”

      I put my face in my hands, eyes closed. “Whatever. Where are we? What do you want?” I peeked at him through my fingers. “Are you always going to be bothering my dreams?”

      “This isn’t a dream.” Coyote cocked his head to the side, looking around. After a moment I did too, wearily. I had to admit I’d never had a dream that looked like this one. Even falling dreams, which weren’t big on detail, usually had a gray sky and a very long drop. This one didn’t even have that much, just dark storm clouds pushing at each other with no particular pattern or intent. I thought I preferred falling dreams.

      I dropped suddenly, a sickening distance in no time at all. Coyote yipped, a short sound of annoyance and alarm. I flinched upright, back where I’d started. “Pay attention,” he said sharply.

      “I am,” I protested. “What was that? Where are we?” There was nowhere for me to have fallen. Coyote and I drifted, in the middle of it, sitting on nothing.

      “You called a dream up,” Coyote said patiently. “We’re in a place between dreams.”

      “Why? I’m so tired.” I was whining. I made a small sad sound and straightened up, trying to behave like an adult. Coyote licked his nose.

      “You did a good job this morning,” he said. I blinked at him slowly.

      “Is that why I came here? So you could tell me that?” I didn’t mean to sound like a snappy, ungrateful bitch. I was just so damned tired. Coyote let the tone blow over him.

      “Partly,” he agreed. “Ask the banshee to help you with your shields. You’re going to need them.”

      “My shields?” I wasn’t used to feeling this thick.

      Coyote smiled. I didn’t know dogs could smile. “I’m not a dog,” he said, and, “she’ll know what you mean. Now get some sleep.” He dropped a golden-eyed wink and disappeared.

      Or at least, I ceased to be aware of him. Instead I became aware of someone pounding on my door with the patience and rhythm of a metronome. I stayed very still for what felt like a very long time, hoping the pounding would go away. It didn’t. After six or seven years I rolled out of bed and crawled toward the front door.

      I made it to my feet somewhere in the living room and was rewarded for my monumental effort by barking my shin on the coffee table. I reached for the doorknob and the injured shin at the same time, pulled the door open, and slammed myself in the forehead with the edge of the door. Collapsing onto the floor in a sniveling lump seemed the only thing to do, so I did it. It was only when tears started to unstick my eyelashes that I realized that I not only hadn’t, but couldn’t, open my eyes. I took turns rubbing at my shin and my forehead and my stuck-together lashes. Somewhere up above me, Gary said, “Jesus Christ, Jo. You look like someone ran you over and backed up to see what he hit.”

      “Nice to see you, too, Gary.” Not that I could see him. I put a hand over my throat. I sounded like a bulldozer had dumped a load of gravel into my chest. “What time is it?”

      “Seven-thirty.” He crouched; I could tell by the location of his voice.

      I pried one of my eyes open. “No way. I just went to sleep.” I turned my wrist over and tried to focus on my watch. I couldn’t, but that was okay, since it was wrong anyway. “No way.”

      “Yep. Seven-thirty. We’re supposed to meet Marie in half an hour at her place.” Gary straightened up again. I got my other eye open, and blinked tearfully at him.

      “Okay. I guess, uh. Let’s go.” I swallowed, trying to loosen my voice up some, and worked on getting my body moving in a direction that felt like ‘up’.

      “Uh,” Gary said.

      I could only do one thing at a time. I stopped trying to stand and squinted at him. “What?”

      “You might wanna think about taking a shower and changing clothes.”

      I looked at him without comprehension for a while, then looked down at myself. And, in growing horror, looked some more. After a while, I said, “Oh yuck.”

      I wouldn’t have thought sleeping in bloody gory clothes could be beaten for general yuckiness, but adding in a layer of dust over all that made me a fine imitation of a desiccated corpse. “Come in,” I grated. “I’ll shower.” I crawled away from the door without waiting to see if he came in.