The Gordian knot of rage inside began unraveling, bright orange and yellow lengths of rope springing out to run through me instead of tying me up. Around the rage wound pale blue, thick ropy strands of compassion, feeding off fury. It all happened inside of an instant, and then I could breathe again. The unlocked center of me gobbled it up, storing all the burning energy for later use.

I could still feel the anger pulsing through me, self-righteous and forthright fury that someone could do what had been done. Compassion tempered it, though, delivering me the one step of distance that changed what I needed to do from vengeance to healing. Whomever had done this, whether it was Cernunnos or someone else, was terribly sick, and sickness could be healed.

“Joanie?” Billy’s voice interrupted me, deep and worried. I startled and looked up. He was crouched right in front of me, big hands dangling over his knees, eyebrows beetled down in concern. “You all right? I said your name about three times.”

“Sure.” I blinked at him, then shook my head and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine, thanks.”

“What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing down here? The party’s at the other end.” If I hoped it would sidetrack him, I was wrong.

“Taking a look around. It’s my job.” Subtle emphasis on the last word. I closed my eyes. “It’s not,” he pointed out, “your job. You,” he added helpfully, “are suspended.”

“Thanks for the reminder, Billy. I heard it all yesterday.” Had it been yesterday? They said hitting the ground running was the best way to deal with jet lag. I bet They’d never had two days like I’d had.

“That was this morning.” He stood up, offering me a hand.

“I was afraid of that.” I took his hand and stood up.

“Haven’t caught up on sleep yet, huh?”

I smiled thinly. “There hasn’t really been time.”

He nodded. “What’re you doing down here?”

Damn. I hadn’t distracted him enough. “Sniffing around.”

“For what?”

I shrugged stiffly. “Some sense of who’s doing this. Trying to see if it’s Cernunnos. Trying to get a feeling for his…” I swallowed, uncomfortable with what I was saying. “His power. His…whatever’s driving him.”

Billy folded his arms across his chest and frowned at me. “You think you can do that?” He sounded skeptical. I couldn’t blame him.

“Figured I could try. I’ve got to start somewhere.”

“You’re not supposed to start anywhere, Joanie.” He jerked his head down the hall and started walking. “C’mon.”

I followed sullenly. “What, I warrant a police escort from the building?” Billy looked over his shoulder at me and kept walking. It took me a minute to realize we were heading for the crime scene, not the front door. I blinked and jogged a few steps to catch up, not questioning the decision.

“Still got your ID?” he asked, lifting the yellow tape for me to duck under.

“Morrison took my badge away,” I muttered. It figured. One minute I didn’t want to be a cop and the next I was sulking because I wasn’t. “But I’ve got my station ID.” I dug my wallet out of my pocket and flipped it open to the ID photo. A cop I didn’t know gave it a cursory glance and waved us by. It seemed like half the North Precinct was there. It occurred to me this would be a good time to perpetrate other crimes, if I were the sort of person who did that.

Working for the police in any capacity had clearly been bad for me. I never would have thought that, back in the day. A couple guys I knew looked surprised but greeted me, and Billy went to talk to a hulk of a man who stood outside the classroom door. I stood around watching the reporters, who practiced looking good for one another, and waited for Billy to come back.

He did, looking grim. “Morrison’s gonna have my eyeteeth if he hears about this,” he muttered, “but come on. I told them you’re on the serial killer case and you’re coming in to see if there’s any connection with these kids.”

“You sound like you’ve done this before, Billy.”

He threw a tight grin over his shoulder and led me into the classroom.

Afternoon sunlight streamed in the windows, glaring off whiteboards. Red and green and blue marker printed out class assignments more neatly than I remembered chalk doing. The teacher’s desk was in front of the boards, and rows of one-piece chair-and-desk units were settled in uneven rows.

For a second, it all looked perfectly normal.

And then the smell hit me. Sweet and tangy and sharp all at once, the air conditioning filtered some, but not enough, of it away. I blinked one time and the haphazard rows of seats resolved themselves into a mishmash that pushed out from the center of the room. Three of the units were overturned, half blocked from sight by the desks around them. From where I stood, still in the doorway, I could see the beige carpet’s discoloration as blood dried.

I didn’t want to see more.

“Joanie?” Billy took a step back toward me, a hand extended and his eyebrows lifted. I shivered.

“I’m okay,” I lied, and walked forward. There were footprints of blood on the floor, dried tennis-shoe shapes, from where the other children had run from the room. I could almost hear them screaming.

Three steps farther into the room any illusion of normality that was left dissolved. Four bodies lay sprawled on the floor, three boys and a girl. Three of them lay touching, arms slumped over ankles. All of them had died with expressions of mixed disbelief and terror. The girl had long brown hair, blood stiffening it to black. Every one of them had died the way Marie did, with one vicious knife thrust from the rib cage up through the heart. I stopped again, trying to control my breathing. I didn’t want to vomit all over the crime scene. It smelled enough as it was.

“Joanie?” Billy asked again.

“I’m all right,” I said, more sharply than I intended. “Just give me a second here.”

He nodded and fell back a couple of steps, letting me walk forward alone, which was about the last thing I wanted to do.

I did it anyway. A second round of police tape circled the bodies, at about knee-height, wrapped around the desks, I stopped and stared into the circle of tape. I really, really didn’t want to do what I heard my voice asking if I could do. “Can I cross this line, Billy?”

“Do you need to?”

I nodded mechanically. I could feel it, malevolence so close if I put my hand out it would be like touching a wall. “What kind of shoes are you wearing?” he asked. I looked at my feet.

Thick-soled boots, no heels this time. “All my clothes are still at the airport,” I realized out loud. “They’re made by somebody called Endura. Wide shoes for women. Size ten and a half.”

“Got it,” somebody else said. “Go on in.”

I stepped across the police tape and into the blood.

Nothing happened. I was shocked enough to take a staggering half step backward. Billy, for the third time, now alarmed, said, “Joanie?”

“It’s okay,” I said distantly. I could hear Coyote’s voice, faintly: Ask Marie to help you with your shields. You’ll need them.

I was pretty sure I’d figured out shields all on my own. I still felt the malevolence, all around me, not quite able to touch me. And I knew I was the one keeping it away.

Great. I’d figured out how to shield. How did I take the blocks down?

Imagine you’re a car. Coyote’s advice, again. I almost looked over my shoulder for him. Instead I closed my eyes. A car with something blocked that I had to get to. Had to be in the dashboard, those were the worst bitch to open up and put back together. I envisioned searching out screws, and all the damned fine wiring. I dragged the dashboard open, the moral equivalent of unhinging the top of my skull and flipping it back.

All sorts of hell broke loose in my brain.

* * *

For what felt like about five hundred hours, pain and rage and chaos swam together inside my head, trying to tear my mind apart. They screamed together, telling me the horror of death and the glory of murder and the sheer unadulterated joy of power. Somewhere along the line my car analogy broke down, because now I was drowning. There was blackness, streaked with silver and gray, the not-colors rushing up beyond me as I fell down and down and down. The weight of despair pushed me farther and faster until it seemed I would pop out the other side of the earth. I tried to catch the streaks of light. Where I touched them, they turned crimson and bled, color sticking under my fingernails, but I kept falling, and they kept screaming.