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“I don’t need it,” he repeated.
“Shamans who topple over in the middle of the street from fever don’t live to grow up.”
“Take the Remedy, Red.” Julie moved the jar to him.
He stared at it as if it were a snake, reached in, and slathered some on his neck. The paste touched the wounds and he winced.
“What clawed you?”
“Creatures,” he said. “Odd life. Didn’t feel right. Verypowerful. ”
He pronounced “powerful” with respect, almost reverence, tinted with longing. The way an alcoholic ordered his favorite poison after a long dry streak, tasting the name on his tongue.
“Lust for power is a dangerous thing,” I said.
He bared his teeth at me. A little feral light danced in his eyes. “You only say that because you have some. People who have power never want anybody else to get it.”
Julie tugged on his sleeve. “But you have power. You’re a shaman.”
He whirled to her. “What good is it? The gangs still knock out my teeth and take my food. So what if I can make them piss blood the day after? Next time, they’ll just kill me and be done with it. I want real power. Strength. So nobody fucks with me.”
“I can give you what I have,” Julie said in a small voice.
“Not yet,” he said. “Let it grow bigger.”
What was going on between the two of them? The way they looked at each other gave me the creeps.
“Tell me about the creatures that hurt you.”
“They were fast, with long hair. The hair grabbed me like it was alive. They were afraid of the bowman.”
“Tell me about the cauldron.”
Red twitched as if shocked with a live wire, burst from his seat, and ran out the door. Julie was sitting closest to the door, and she beat me to the stairs by a quarter of a second. She dashed down, and I forced myself to stop.
They were kids.
Life had beaten them until they had nearly turned wild. They had no refuge, they trusted nobody except each other, and I would be damned if I were going to go down there and threaten Red with a beating to scare the truth out of him. Enough was enough. If they came back, they came back. In the meantime, I’d figure it out my own way.