the street, kids learned what counted early on.
In private school, she’d seen how the school community formed its own self-contained culture. Each school was a little different. At Olympic, the tone, the norms of this little society, were set by the “popular kids,” a small clique of look-alikes—thin, attractive thoroughbreds—and they ruled. They dictated who was in, what was cool. There was this very specific status hierarchy—everything from grasshoppers to God had its proper rank—and everyone knew exactly where they stood at all times. She thought the administration was way too accepting of this set-up.
It hadn’t been like this “in her day,” as Billy would put it.
It was 1989 when Corey turned seventeen. Her mother died that year, and she lived alone on their boat, the Jenny Ann, supporting herself however she could. After school, while her girlfriends were shopping and talking about boys, Corey was canning fish. Summers, she fished in Alaska on a purse seiner. Still, she’d learned to like who she was, and not think too much about how other people saw it. Maybe it was easier then, she didn’t know.
When Billy was almost thirteen she was framed by a corrupt lawyer. She spent twenty-two months at the Geiger Corrections Center, the Federal Prison in Spokane. When she got out she was sent to Abe for a psychiatric evaluation. The evaluation was a requirement to get her son back from foster care. After a rocky start, she and Abe connected. Together, they brought down that sonofabitch lawyer, Nick Season—who was running for State Attorney General—and she was vindicated. During her time in prison, though, it was that self-acceptance that got her through the unbearable times. The hardest times were at night, worrying about Billy in foster care.
She saw her friend Buzz weaving through the crowd toward the coffee shop. Buzz was African American. His head was shaved. He sagged his baggy pants under a sleeveless red T-shirt. Over his T-shirt Buzz wore his signature silver-studded, black jean vest. As he got closer, she couldn’t miss the tattoos, wrist to shoulder. On Broadway, Buzz was a regular. She stood, flagging him down.
Buzz caught her wave and moved through the small tables, slinking into the seat across from her. “Yo, “ he said.
“Hey.” She smiled. Corey liked Buzz. He’d been on the street a long time, and he kept up with the gossip, or “buzz,” hence his street name. “How you doing?” she asked.
“Excellent, is how I’m doing.” He touched the back of her hand. “And yourself?”
“I’m okay. Yeah.”
He looked around. She patted his arm. “Get something for yourself and tell me what’s doing.”
He gave her a thumbs up, knowing a free meal when it was offered.
When Buzz sat down again, there were three packaged sandwiches on his tray, and a nice grin on his face. He tilted his head toward the cashier, who was watching him like a hawk.
“Snapper’s back,” she said to him, after she’d paid his check.
“Snapper?” Buzz shook his head. “I don’t think so. That boy’s long gone. He split last summer.”
“He called. He wants my help.” She’d been hired to find Snapper by his mother. When she finally found him, almost fifteen months ago, she hid him until she could work it out with his abusive father. Mom paid her fee.
“You sure it was him?” Buzz tapped one of the rings on his right hand against the table.
“Un-huh. We talked on the phone.”
“Must be danger, he asking you to help with it.” Buzz nodded. “The Snapper can dodge a bullet.”
It was true. Snapper was a natural-born scammer, an easy-going street hustler, and it often got him in trouble. “I was supposed to meet him here at five-thirty. He’s half an hour late.”
“You know the Snapper. He come by, ask you to go with him to Portland, say. You say when. He say now. He got something going. You say how long? He say who knows. Long as it take to score. The Snapper does his own thing in his own time.”
Corey and Buzz talked for another ten minutes. Corey waited on after that. She was feeling edgy, up and down. Part of it was what Billy had said about the popular kids, especially how they made fun of Sara. Some of it was Snapper. Where was he? Snapper, she knew, was notoriously unreliable. Still, he’d made this sound important. Corey sat, brooding, for another ten minutes. Snapper never showed.
CHAPTER THREE
“Shrinks sap your strength,” Sara complained to Abe. She was sitting in his cherry leather chair. “I know this already.”
“I never thought of that,” Abe admitted. He liked Sara. She was keenly observant and honest. What confused him was that these same qualities led her to another version of herself, the virgin priestess trying to summon the Oracle. “That can’t be good,” he added.
“Not good is right.” Sara picked at a scab on the back of her wrist. She wore a long black dress, a long-sleeved black jersey, her spiked collar, and a simple silver necklace with a black damascene silver stallion hanging from the chain. The bright red streaks in her hair were bold as flashing neon. “I mean you want me to explain everything.
“What should I do?”
“The Beast is rising. I need more power, not less. Help me with my power.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure yet.” She spotted an old match, way under his desk, picked it up and tossed it in his big stone ashtray.
“Thanks,” Abe said, realizing that even when Sara was thinking, she was scanning, taking in every little thing.
“Tell me more about the Beast.”
“Why?” Sara looked right at him. “I mean…so far, when I try to tell you about the Beast—hard, scary things I’m sure on—you don’t get it, at all, which frustrates me, makes me feel even worse, and saps my strength. So what’s the point?”
Abe’s brow furrowed; he understood all too well how she felt and why she felt that way. “Yes, you’re right, I’m not getting it. But believe me, Sara, I’m trying—”
“And that’s what I mean. It’s not working. Trying isn’t the same as understanding.” She set the edge of her scab in his ashtray with her fingertips, slowing down, shifting gears. “Besides, it’s not safe here.”
Abe liked that she wasn’t giving up. He wondered how he could make it safe. “Where can you talk about it?”
“In my magic circle. No where else.”
“I think you could be safe here,” he suggested.
“That’s not right. This isn’t safe for me or for you. The Beast could crush you like a bug.”
Abe thought about this. “I’m not afraid of the Beast.”
“Hah,” she snorted. “Peirithous, the Lapith, he wasn’t afraid.” She leaned in, wound like a coil spring. “He invited the Centaurs to his wedding feast. They were wild beasts, half-horse, half-man. Since so many people came, the
