Spirit Dances. C.E. Murphy

the whole show, someone with a broken arm, a sprained ankle…minor discomforts, in the scheme of things. Only a dozen or so had darker shadows riding their auras. Some of them were grieving and unable to push it away for the space of an evening’s performance. Others were ill: cancers making black spots in auras or chemotherapy leaving irradiated stains. One woman almost certainly wouldn’t know yet that there was a spot in her breast which glowed an unhealthy pink to my Sight, like the awareness campaign had colored my perception of the illness itself. I didn’t care what else happened: I would find her after the show and if I couldn’t heal her myself, I would tell her to go to a doctor. She’d think I was insane, but that didn’t matter as long as she went.

      I let the Sight go, not exactly reluctantly. Looking into humanity’s illnesses wasn’t enjoyable, but I’d be able to look at them again when the dancers were done and see if any difference had been made. I was certain that if I caught their power at its apex and directed it, I could make a world of difference to the genuinely sick people in the room. But I had no idea if the dancers had a specific manner of releasing the magic they were creating, assuming they even knew they were doing it. If they did, I couldn’t risk screwing it up by taking over. If they didn’t, there would almost certainly be enough residual power during the curtain call that I could shape it without damaging the dancers.

      Morrison was still watching me. I shook my head, whispered, “I’m okay. This one’s about healing, not transformation,” and settled down, much more relaxed, to watch the performance. They moved from one dance to another, until the last piece, their ghost dance, began on a barely backlit stage.

      They’d foregone traditional costuming throughout almost the whole program, and the ghost dance was no exception. The men and women who rose up were ethereal, garbed in gray and white. Only the lead dancer wore red and black and yellow, making her lively and vibrant amongst the ghosts. They each told their stories, tales of life and happiness and sorrow and death, and in doing so gave her the strength to live her own life with grace and charity.

      More than that, though, viewed with the Sight, they were preparing her, and themselves, for the dance’s final moments. Energy coiled inside each of the dancers, ready to be released. I leaned forward with my breath held, waiting for the climactic finale and the vast outpouring of healing power I anticipated.

      It happened so quickly I lost what breath I held. A surge hit the lead dancer, magic so blended it was incandescent white. She spun to face the audience a final time, arms spread in an open embrace so crisp I could see the design behind it, the intention to throw all that strength and beauty out to the audience.

      Instead the magic sucked upward out of her body in a bleak whirlpool, and she collapsed on the stage in silence.

      CHAPTER SIX

      The audience gasped, not sure whether they’d seen something deliberate or tragic. I popped to my feet, wanting to rush the stage, and Morrison followed my lead.

      Everybody else took it as the surge into a standing ovation, and people came to their feet all around us, cheering and shouting and applauding. Panic flared across the stage, the dancers at a loss until one of the men stepped forward to collect the woman who’d fallen. Her boneless form in his arms, he turned to the audience and led a troupe-wide curtain call. Fixed smiles looked like rictuses to me, but I could almost hear the axiom driving them: the show must go on. The audience was still going wild when they withdrew, and I knew they wouldn’t return for a second bow.

      “What’s going on, Walker?” Morrison’s voice was pitched below the exuberant audience’s catcalls.

      I flinched, becoming aware I was straining forward like I’d start climbing over seats and people to reach the stage. In fact, the only thing stopping me was Morrison’s viselike grip on my elbow, which I only noticed belatedly, despite the fact that once I noticed, I realized it was cutting off circulation. “Remember what happened to Billy in July? How he went to sleep because something was draining the life force out of him?”

      Poor Morrison gritted his teeth and nodded. I’d explained it all at the time, but there wasn’t much in the way of actual physical evidence for things like that. He believed me, but he didn’t like it.

      “Something like that just happened to her, except she’d gathered up all the focused power the dancers were creating. That kind of drain might have killed her, Morrison. I have to get up there!” And there was no way to do it. The aisles were already full in the way theaters always managed the moment a performance ended, even when the audience was going nuts with applause. I was sure it violated some law of physics.

      Morrison gave me one brief, searching look, then, as far as I could tell, employed some kind of secret law-enforcement signal code that I wasn’t yet privy to. Within seconds we were in the aisle, Morrison with his badge out as he politely but firmly created a path to the stage. Rubberneckers realizing something was wrong started to clog up the aisle, but somehow Morrison kept being right between me and them, full of professional apology as he got people out of my way. I wanted to kiss the man.

      We reached the stage and he did a two-step that landed him behind me. I went to vault up, not sure my dress would survive it, and to my astonishment, Morrison caught my waist and simply dead-lifted me up.

      I weighed in at about one sixty-five, which was by no means the featherweight division. I also had very long legs, made longer still by my goddamned high heels. I wouldn’t have thought anybody could lift me four feet straight into the air so smoothly I barely knew what was happening until my feet hit the stage. I stumbled out of pure amazement, and Morrison, who vaulted up after me, offered a briefly steadying hand before we both ran for backstage.

      The whole cast was gathered around the fallen woman. Their auras were painful with worry, shooting spikes that made my head hurt. Every one of them looked drained physically, emotionally and spiritually, which made sense. Not only had they danced their hearts out, but the power they’d been offering to their lead dancer had gotten sucked out in a way it was never meant to be taken. I was surprised they were still all on their feet, metaphorically speaking.

      A few of them glanced up as Morrison and I came through the wings. They were obviously expecting someone. Paramedics, maybe. Morrison said, “Police,” at the same time I said, “I’m a healer.”

      For maybe the first time in my life, nobody looked any more surprised at the one statement than the other. In fact, a couple of them just got out of my way, clearing a path to the dancer’s side. Morrison walked away as I knelt next to her, and I half heard him talking to stagehands, asking them to set up a barrier and refuse all nonofficial personnel access to the backstage area.

      The dancer wasn’t breathing. I’d known that on some level, right from the moment she’d collapsed. There were signs of fresh bruising on her chest, like they’d failed at CPR. “What’s her name?”

      Someone said, “Naomi Allison.”

      I whispered, “C’mon, Naomi,” put my hand over her heart, and went searching for her soul.

      Like the breath from her body, it was gone. Not almost-gone, not hanging on in hopes of rescue, but somewhere beyond the veil of death. There was no hint of life to her body, no aura clinging to her skin, no spark buried somewhere deep inside. If life essence was something that could be held in a pool, it was like someone had reached in and with one giant handful, emptied every drop. I had a whole shiny range of esoteric powers, but seeing ghosts didn’t rank among them. I was pretty certain if Billy were here, he’d already be talking to Naomi’s crossed-over self.

      I’d never brought anyone back from the dead before. I’d managed to bring people back from mostly dead a couple of times, but not from genuinely, full-stop dead. I wasn’t actually sure it was possible.

      From the outside—which was to say, from anyone who hadn’t been watching with my second Sight’s point of view—I thought her death must look like a heart attack. There was no other even vaguely feasible explanation for it. Of course, with my hand over her heart and my magic opened up, I could tell that there was no damage at all to her heart muscle. Nor were there any brain clots or embolisms