Cougar's Courage (Duals and Donovans: The Different) (2 page)

Jack raised the glass of whisky to his lips, with no sacred intention this time. Frustrated, he wanted to feel the harsh, seductive burn of the Canadian Club going down his throat. With a dual’s fast metabolism, a few good slugs wouldn’t blur his perception or slow his reflexes, but the act of drinking, the ritual, might take the edge off his nerves.

As he drank, he looked into the fire and saw a woman’s face.

No one from Couguar-Caché. Blonde, for one thing. No blondes here. The woman’s face was hauntingly familiar, but he couldn’t place her, and damn, he should remember meeting someone that gorgeous. She looked like she was in pain and frightened, but at the same time determined, as if she was looking not for rescue but for answers and maybe backup.

Jack tried reaching out to her with his mind but got nothing. Damn species barrier! A human shaman might have been able to get through, at least enough to figure out who and where she was. A dual could silentspeak to another dual, but the woman was apparently human.

He needed Rafe’s wife, Elissa. A human witch might know what to do…

But the fire flickered and the vision vanished, leaving Jack troubled but no wiser.

Though Jack usually had a cat’s gift for falling asleep easily any time the opportunity presented itself, that night he lay awake for a long time, pondering what to do. His guide was silent on the subject—suspiciously silent, in a way that made Jack think Cougar knew something but wanted Jack to figure it out for himself.

And his cougarside offered nothing more useful than one word, “pretty”, and an image of what, to a male cougar, was a hottie—a long, lean drink of cat with fur the color of pale honey. Great, his cougarside had a crush on the mystery woman.

And maybe he did too. At least he was intrigued in a way that wasn’t entirely because of the mystery she represented.

That night, Jack dreamed.

He was no stranger to sex dreams, but usually they were scattered, episodic in the way of dreams. He’d be doing one thing, anything from chopping firewood to saving the world like a superhero, and the next thing he knew, he was doing the horizontal mambo with…someone. A faceless stranger, an actress from a movie he’d seen during a foray outside, someone totally inappropriate, like his cousin Sadie or worse yet, Grand-mère.

But this was different. He was with the woman from the fire vision, only he knew her, knew her intimately. Loved her, maybe. Certainly they had the comfort of long-time lovers as he took her, hard, not indifferent to her pleasure, but knowing instinctively that she needed it fast and hard and a little rough this time, knowing from experience just how to touch her to bring her off quickly.

He woke from the dream embarrassed to realize he’d shot off in his sleep like a teenager. But more important than the embarrassment was the realization that the whole dream, not just the sex, had been vivid and specific. He could visualize the woman’s body as if she was a long-time lover, and it wasn’t the flawless body of a fantasy woman, all perfect curves and hollows. This woman was tall, probably close to six feet, and more lanky and muscular than curvy. She had lovely breasts, neither too large nor too small, and the lean, strong legs of an athlete, but her torso was short and her ass, though firm and shapely, wasn’t the perfect, rounded bubble butt he’d have given a fantasy. Her well-defined biceps and broad shoulders looked good naked, but he somehow knew she always ended up settling for shirts that were baggy through the torso to accommodate her muscles. She had a scar on her right knee from a childhood accident, and a far worse one from a bullet wound in her left shoulder. She liked biking and cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. Her preferred beverages were black coffee and single-malt Scotch.

She was real, he was sure. Real as he was. And as hot as the fire where he’d first seen her.

Too bad Jack still had no idea who she was or what she might need from him.

Chapter Three

Cara woke from jumbled dreams—deep snow in northern woods, her mother saying,
“See you later, Cara,”
and putting the gun to her head; Grand-mère dancing with a good-looking, middle-aged man; her grandfather drinking with a coyote; Phil, waxy as he’d been in the coffin and bleeding from the wound that killed him, standing next to her in wedding clothes as she said
“I do”
to the walking corpse—to find herself in a hospital bed.

She blinked, hoping the hospital and the people around the bed were just another fucked-up dream.

They were still there when she opened her eyes again. Having a doctor standing by when you woke up was a bad sign, she suspected, and she had a few of them: her GP Dr. Patel, a white male doctor she didn’t know and an older Asian one with a white medical coat over a loud, striped shirt, plus a female nurse.

And they were all surrounded by shimmering halos of color. The nurse and two of the doctors had a reassuring, rosy glow around them; the nurse’s mixed with a tired-looking grayed brown. The Asian man was surrounded by many brilliant colors in stripes and checks, reminding her of some kind of bright ethnic fabric.

Cara refused to believe it was real. She knew about auras, but like most normies—the non-Different human majority—she couldn’t see them, and she refused to start now. Must be painkillers or something having a weird side effect. “Let me guess,” she said, pleased to find her voice was strong and steady, “I got shot again. I think whatever happy pills you have me on are too strong, though. You all look funny.”

Then memories flooded back.

At first they made no more sense than fragments of a nightmare. Then, abruptly they did, only she didn’t want to admit it.

Like Mom. Just like Mom.

“Do you remember what happened to you yesterday?” the unfamiliar white doctor asked.

Cara stretched tentatively and decided she wasn’t ready to talk about the bits she did remember. Either they were the garbled effect of medication or they were real, and neither was good. “Last thing I remember, I was talking to an old woman who’d come into the station. I don’t remember getting a call out or anything. I have no idea what happened next.”

That wasn’t quite true. She remembered. She just didn’t want to remember. Given that both her parents had lived and died with mental illness, she always feared it might happen to her. But losing her mind at work, the one place where she could find a little contentment these days? The universe had a peculiar sense of humor.

She heard a voice, clear and distinct, but not coming from anyone in the room. “
Once you start laughing with the universe instead of fighting it, everything will be easier.”

Oh shit.

That was one of her grandfather’s sayings. Hell, it sounded like her grandfather’s voice, or the way she remembered her grandfather’s voice, though she hadn’t heard it since her mother died. And the crazy didn’t just run on her mother’s side of the family—it galloped, boogied and moonwalked.

Or at least her father claimed that, but he was a few bricks short of a load himself.

“What happened?” she repeated, refusing to believe that what she remembered—a conversation with someone who couldn’t possibly have been in the squad room, followed by bleeding from a wound that had healed two years ago—was the truth. “I’m going to be embarrassed if I got taken out of commission by a little old lady.”

“You weren’t shot, Ms. Mackenzie,” Dr. Patel said. “You were bleeding and had a broken leg when you were brought in, but the wounds healed spontaneously, the same way they appeared.”

Cara knew what that meant, knew it deep in her bones. The same kind of things had happened to her mother sometimes toward the end, dizziness and phantom pain and seeing things that weren’t there. Old injuries recurring and then disappearing, or so she claimed, though no one ever saw them.

Her mother said it was a shamanic thing. Her father said it was a symptom of mental illness. When she killed herself, that pretty much proved him right, or so Cara always figured. But… “Wait a minute! I was actually bleeding and healed spontaneously? What the hell is that all about?”

Dr. Patel smiled, but her dark eyes looked anxious, and her aura, if that was what it was, developed gray storm clouds among the pink. “The good news is that, physically, you’re fine now. Almost weirdly fine. Your body doesn’t show the normal wear and tear we’d expect in a woman in her early thirties, let alone damage from injuries I’ve helped treat. We should be able to release you later today.”

“So what’s the bad news?” There had to be bad news with
“The good news is…”
as a lead-in.

“I’ll let Xang Kue explain. He understands far better than the rest of us.” Dr. Patel nodded at the Asian doctor, then at the white doctor and the nurse, who withdrew.

“Ms. Mackenzie,” Xang Kue asked, “what is your ethnic background?”

“I’m Canadian.” Her father had always told her to say that when someone asked what he considered to be a rude question.

“True. As is Dr. Patel, whose parents are from India. As is Dr. Murphy the neurologist, whose ancestors came from Ireland. As am I now, according to my passport.” The old man spoke perfect English, but with a Southeast Asian accent. “But I need to know your ancestry, Officer Mackenzie. Do you have any First Nations in your background?”

She knew what he was getting at. She’d been trying to deny it.

Shamans could turn up in any ethnic group, but they seemed to be more common in some, including the First Nations.

She’d rather be mentally ill. There were treatments for that. But magic was forever—and it could kill you.

“Yes,” she said softly, turning her face away from the old man’s shrewd black eyes. “My mother was Micmac and Algonquin, maybe some Abenaki.” That was an oversimplification, but explaining Couguar-Caché, a conglomeration of First Nations people from many tribes who didn’t want to live in the dominant culture, intermarried with shape-shifting duals and other Differents, all living in a village so remote it didn’t appear on most maps, wasn’t a challenge she could handle at the moment.

“One’s tribe doesn’t change, as a rule.” The old man’s tone was wry, but something told Cara he was trying to get her goat.

Unfortunately, her mother was a touchy subject at the best of times, and this wasn’t the best of times. “My mother’s dead. She killed herself when I was ten because she couldn’t stand the voices in her head anymore. Are you satisfied?”

The old man’s bright rainbow aura dimmed. “I am sorry for your loss, Officer Mackenzie, and even sorrier because you have just confirmed my diagnosis and you will have good reason not to wish to hear it.” He reached one age-spotted but steady hand toward her. He didn’t actually make contact, but Cara swore she felt his gentle, soothing touch.

“Officer Mackenzie…Cara…you are not ill in any way the doctors here can help treat. You are suffering a shamanic healing crisis. Your body and spirit are responding to the magic awakening in you, reliving all your old traumas so you may learn from them. It is painful, and you are vulnerable both to the spirit world and to any darkness in your own heart. It’s perfectly normal for a person like you or me.”

“What in hell are you talking about, Doctor Kue?”

“I’m not a doctor. I am a shaman who works with the Hmong patients at this hospital. So I’ve experienced what you’re going through now. It was frightening enough for me, and I grew up in a culture that honors its shamans and treats the crisis as a rite of passage. Ordinarily, it happens during puberty. Unfortunately, you come to it late, your young life was marked by tragedy, and you are in a profession where you’ve likely seen more than your share of ugliness. Your crisis will be more challenging than most, and your body and mind will not be as resilient as a child’s.”

“So I’m a shaman?” She tried to keep her voice calm. It wasn’t working too well. “Now what?”

Xang shook his head. “You learn, and you learn fast, because you are not a shaman yet. You are
becoming
a shaman, all at once and in a jumble. Until you accept and learn to use your new powers, you are in grave danger, both from your own mind and body, which will continue to have these episodes, and from the spirit world.”

She looked around wildly, hoping against hope to see denial on Dr. Patel’s face.

Dr. Patel nodded gravely. “I can’t speak for the spirit world, Cara,” the doctor said. “I’m a normy. But I’ve seen a couple of similar cases, and the dangers to your health are real. Even in early adolescence, the strain can be deadly. You’re in great shape, but you’re nearly two decades past the average age to have a shamanic crisis.”

“To make it even more fun,” Xang Kue said, “the physical manifestations are only the beginning, and the good doctor’s drugs will not help you once the spirits begin to speak. Nor can I help you much. Your ancestors and spirits are not mine, child. You need to find a shaman of your mother’s line to help you through this transition.”

“And if I can’t?”

She already knew the answer, knew it in her bones, knew it from her darkest memories.

“Then I fear, Cara Mackenzie, you will end up like your mother.”

Chapter Four

There was only one path open to her.

The problem was, she didn’t know how to get to that path. After her mother had died, her father had cut all contact with her mother’s relatives, refusing to let her visit her Many-Winters grandparents, denying he even knew how to contact them. Cara had a PO box for her grandfather, because he’d written when her grandmother died a few years ago, and, despite numerous changes of address in the intervening years, the letter had somehow found its way to her.