“Give me the hunk of cold iron, lads. I’m going in.”
Fand’s eyes widen somewhat when she sees me approach with the cold iron in me hand, but she says nothing. When I hunker down and stretch out with the iron to place it against her foot, she shrinks away.
“Come on, now. I just want to make sure you’re Fand. Are ye someone who’d be killed by the touch o’ cold iron?”
She shakes her head no.
“Then let me do this or I’ll have the lads in here to immobilize you completely.”
She nods and keeps still as I touch the cold iron to her right foot. The skin shudders, then ripples, and her appearance changes as the glamour is dispelled, flowing up from the leg, until I’m left with a human but definitely not Fand. It’s a rather ordinary-looking pale woman with mussed dark hair and a large nose.
“I figured,” I says. “Who are ye, then, since ye aren’t Fand?”
“I’m a selkie.”
“A selkie?” That would make sense, since they were one of the few kinds of lesser Fae that weren’t killed by cold iron. Their human side protected them. But that pointed to a larger problem. “One of Manannan’s?”
“Aye.”
“He cast the seeming on ye himself?”
“Aye.”
“Fecking hells.”
I round on the guards. “When was Manannan Mac Lir here?”
They exchange glances and say he never was there at all. I wince. Of course not.
“Then who was the last visitor?”
“Flidais was here a few days ago,” one says.
Back to the selkie: “So Manannan came here glamoured as Flidais, brought you with him, visited Fand, switched your appearances, and walked out with Fand?”
She nods. “Except I was glamoured as Perun, not my true shape.” Meaning Manannan and Fand walked out together disguised as Flidais and Perun. They might still be glamoured that way and be up to all kinds of mischief.
“And you’ve had no visitors since?”
“No.”
So Flidais doesn’t know that Fand’s escaped with Manannan’s help, and neither does Brighid.
“Ye can stay here as ye are,” I say. “I’ll let someone else pass judgment.” I toss the key to the shackles on the floor near enough for her to reach. “Unlock yourself after I’m out.”
And who, I wonder, will pass judgment on me? I imagine Brighid might have something to say after trusting me with keeping Fand secure. But I surely did not expect Manannan to still be so in love with her that he would spring her from prison after she tried to kill him and all his selkies. And how did he find out she was here, anyway? I suppose it doesn’t matter. If and when we find them, we can worry about it then.
I toss the cold iron back to the guards when I exit the cell. “You lads were suckered good with a glamour. From now on, everybody gets touched with the cold iron before they go in. Make sure ye know who you’re dealing with.”
It’s a long shot, but I visit Manannan’s estate just in case he’s foolish enough to be there. He isn’t. Place is entirely empty, wards all dispelled. The pigs and sheep are all gone from the grounds. Not a selkie or a faery in sight. That means they’re off somewhere, plotting together, and they either have an entourage or they killed them all to make sure no one told any secrets.
“Well, this is a sad sack of shite,” I say in the silent castle kitchen, once a hub of frenzied activity. “We’re all going to take it up the arse and probably won’t even get our pants pulled down first.” Me eyes spy some fine whiskey on the shelf, and I remember saying to Dr. Sudarga that all I wanted was a shot and a good long rest in bed. I pull out a glass and take the bottle down. Sleep will have to wait, but I might as well have that drink now.
CHAPTER 16
For the record, Shango is a really super-charming thunder god. I know only the barest sketches of his pantheon, and after he spends a couple of hours telling stories about them and the beliefs of his people, I’m simultaneously enthralled and ashamed. Enthralled for obvious reasons but ashamed that I didn’t know more about the Orishas already. It’s an unfortunate truth that in the Western education system—well, in the Western countries, period—we are sadly deprived of the rich variety of African traditions. So much so that many make the mistake of thinking of the entire continent of Africa as a monoculture rather than the vast collection of disparate cultures that it is. Shango’s people primarily hail from Yorubaland, which spans the southwestern portion of modern-day Nigeria into a couple of neighboring countries, Benin and Togo, though he also has worshippers scattered throughout the world as a legacy of the slave trade. A consequence of that legacy is that he and the other Orishas get out of their homeland quite a bit to keep track of their people and do the odd favor here and there. And I suspect he might be more powerful than Perun, because he continues to enjoy healthy worship from around the world.
Perun, I think, begins to feel outclassed halfway across Poland, because his English is not nearly so good. He shuts up for a while, and what little expression I can see underneath his beard looks sour. I speak to him in Russian, which I am fairly certain Shango does not speak.
“Are you feeling left out, Perun?”
He lifts an eyebrow at me first, throwing some shade, perhaps, but then he dissolves into a sheepish grin. He replies in the same language, in which he has no fluency issues.
“I suppose I am. Silly of me, I know. But we gods of older, smaller pantheons have our insecurities too. My problems with English are persistent, and I have not devoted enough time to eradicate them. So it is my own fault if I am feeling inadequate. Please forgive my mood.”
“Done. But do join in whenever you feel like it. I enjoy hearing from you too.”
When we get to Bydgoszcz, we have to choose whether to follow the southern or northern bank of the Wisła River to get to Warsaw. I choose the south because there are a couple of large forested swaths on the way, according to the elemental, which will allow us to make good time and not have to worry about roads and people staring at the strange group of people running as fast as a horse and hound. And, besides, once in Warsaw, the Wisła River bends south, and we’ll wind up on the side where I met Malina’s coven before.
Apart from my aching innards, I’m starting to think it might simply be a pleasant run for us as we trek through Kampinos National Park, which is only twenty kilometers or so to the northwest of Warsaw. It’s the especially dead time of night, around three in the morning, and nothing stirs to give us the feeling of an imminent attack—the attack just happens. Out of the mist clinging to the Wisła River, three grayish figures rise and float toward us with glowing white bulbous eyes. Their arms and fingers are long and sticklike, straight white hair streams back from their scalps, and I can’t see much in the way of legs, but that might be because they’re flying, so their legs are stretched out behind them.
“Uh, Perun, what are those?” I say.
The Slavic thunder god turns and gasps. “They are nocnice!”
It’s an unfamiliar word and I’m not even sure what language it comes from, so I sputter, “Yeah, but what are they?”
He doesn’t get time to explain, but in short order I figure out that they’re unfriendly, because one of them floats right through my defensive swipe with Scáthmhaide and locks a cold collection of bones around my throat, bearing me to the ground with surprising strength for something so insubstantial. The same happens to Perun and Shango, and then we all try to fight back. The trouble is, my staff and fist just whiff through the thing, though it is undeniably exerting tangible force upon me. I pull out a knife and stab into it and watch my hand simply float through it. A hoarse, halting whisper that might be a laugh huffs out of its toothy mouth, and my windpipe closes as its hands constrict. I can’t breathe and I can’t bring any force to bear on this thing. I look to the gods for tips, but they’re having the same difficulty. They’re being choked to death and can’t lay a finger on the nocnice in return. One or both of them summons winds to try to blow them away—not a bad idea considering their ephemeral nature—but all that does is kick up leaves and toss my hair around. I see a fireball in the sky above and understand what’s happening: This is Loki’s doing. The fireball doesn’t descend; it just hovers, watching. He’s arranged a second ambush for me where he lets some other creature do his fighting for him. And, as before, it’s a carefully chosen creature against which I have little or no defense. I can’t even begin to figure out how I would bind this intangible thing if I had breath to speak the words.