I shape-shifted back to human and gasped as my insides rearranged. It didn’t improve my situation except that I could better see what was going on. Steam rose from under the hood; the car was totaled and wouldn’t be running anytime soon. The figure in black, I saw, didn’t intend to rip me from the car too; he or she intended to pick up the car and throw it somewhere with me still inside—a godlike variation on vehicular homicide. I couldn’t tell much about the attacker, because he or she was outfitted not only with black mercenary body armor but with a black ski mask as well. Absolutely none of the clothing was made of natural materials, so I couldn’t bind anything. I fumbled for the door release as the figure lifted the car from the front corner, grabbing on to the well of the wheel with one hand and latching on to the front bumper, perhaps, with the right. It’s frightening to be in a car as it leaves the ground. There’s a fundamental sense of wrongness to be airborne in a car that isn’t performing a movie stunt.
The Morrigan dove out of the sky, shifted midair, and kicked the person in the jaw. The car dropped back to earth, I banged my head somehow, and then I got to watch the Morrigan throw down with this strange assailant in the middle of the road. Naked. Weaponless. And with a growing crowd of witnesses.
They both began to move faster than the eye could track, blurring in motion as they landed blows and kicks on each other. That made the assailant a god in disguise; nobody human was a match for the Morrigan. That made me think of vampires; I supposed a sufficiently old one could match her. The Morrigan acknowledged this by disengaging for a moment to wipe some blood away from her lips. She smiled, both her teeth and eyes now red, and said, “Oh, you’re delightful, whoever you are.”
I wish somebody could have filmed it at high speed so I could later appreciate the martial arts involved; the few people trying to capture this fight at night with cellphone cameras were going to be disappointed. The Morrigan and the anonymous figure fell to’t again, trading audible blows yet unable to do significant damage to each other.
I opened the car door and slid out into the street without camouflage, wishing to preserve what magic I had left. I clutched my open wound, which I hadn’t closed up yet because the bullet was still inside and needed to be extracted. My emergence caused some comment among the general public. Some variation of “That man is na**d and bleeding!” could be heard rippling through them, but this spectacle was only momentarily diverting compared to the woman who was na**d and fighting.
Linda, however, who was thankfully okay if a bit rattled, found my exit both fascinating and horrifying. “Who is that? How did he get in my car? I don’t know who that is! I swear he’s not mine! I was not driving with a na**d man! Which is kind of a shame, really, now that I think about it. Look at that, eh? Yum!”
There was very little I could contribute to the fight. I was in no condition to match speed or strength with them, and I had parts that were extremely vulnerable right now. Despite my winning record against pagan gods and vampires so far, I didn’t relish facing off against one that could go toe-to-toe with the Morrigan. I was also supposed to be in hiding, so the increasing number of camera phones was making me nervous. I left the scene with an odd gait that tried to minimize impact and headed for a dark alley between buildings. No one tried to stop me until I entered the alley itself.
A gray figure loomed out of the darkness, and moonlight glinted on his brow and the ridge of his nose. Blood covered his tunic and some of it had seeped through his coat as well, high up on the right side of his torso. “Where are you going?” Odin said.
“Oh! Away, I guess? I hadn’t thought it through too much. Whoever that is out there, if he was able to track me he wouldn’t have needed to enchant Frigg’s necklace, and, besides, I’m not in any shape to fight.”
Odin grunted. “Neither am I. I suppose our business is concluded and you’re free to go. But don’t you wish to find out who wants to kill you? I do.”
“I figured someone would send me a memo. Where’s the Wild Hunt?”
“I dismissed them. The hunt is wonderful above the rooftops but not so ideal among the civilians at street level.”
“Good call. Speaking of which, if you’d like to get the fight moved into this alley for closer observation, I could probably manage it. There would be no civilians unless they followed.”
“Do it.” Odin’s appearance began to shift from the Gray Wanderer to the impressive tuxedo-clad authority figure.
I reached out to the Morrigan with my mind. Move into the alley behind you. I’m here with Odin. I didn’t get an answer, but the nature of the battle changed. Morrigan altered her tactics and managed to grab hold of her opponent and toss him or her across the street and into the alley where we waited. The assembled crowd gave a collective gasp. The figure landed with a whuff of breath at our feet. Odin bent down and tore off the ski mask with his left hand, revealing the assailant to be female after all.
I didn’t recognize her at first, since her hair was mussed, her nose and mouth bloodied by the Morrigan, and I was looking at her face upside down. She recognized me, however, and pushed and pivoted on the ground and tried to sweep my legs. I hopped over her kick like it was a jump rope, but I hadn’t sped up my movements yet and she was much faster than me. Up on her feet before I knew what she was about, she punched me in the solar plexus and sent me sprawling backward in the alley. She would have followed up had Odin not interposed himself and grabbed her by the throat with his left hand. She roared and flailed at him, but he did not let go, and his grip was unbreakable. For a guy who wasn’t in shape to fight, he seemed to be doing quite well for himself.
“You will submit! Freyja! Cease this instant!”
Freyja, the Norse goddess of war and beauty, had more than the average number of reasons to hate me. We didn’t need to interrogate her to figure out what she’d done and why. I’d killed her brother and made a truly terrible decision to offer her in exchange for the aid of the frost giants. She would loathe me forever and want me dead, Ragnarok be damned. Odin pinned her against the wall, her feet lifted off the ground, until she stopped struggling and went limp. Then he let her down and loosened his grip but did not let go.
“We will discuss your betrayal at length back in Asgard,” he growled.
“Who is betraying whom, Odin?” she spat, blood flying from her lips. “Making deals with a murderer of your own kin—”
“In Asgard!” Odin roared. She quieted, clenched her jaw, and squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to look at me unless she could kill me. I got to my feet but held my tongue. There was no apology I could make that would balance my ledger with her.
The Morrigan, bloodied and bruising, appeared in the background.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Freyja. It was a proper meeting indeed.” She gave a bloody grin. “I hope we get a chance to meet again.” Freyja did not respond.
Odin turned his head to face me. “I cannot begin to express my dismay …”
“No need,” I said. “Our agreement holds. Give me a few extra days to heal and arrange the delivery of Gungnir. I will tell your ravens where. And I will be there to help at the end of the world, if the world doesn’t kill me first.”
He nodded curtly. “Leave us now, if you will.”
I was only too glad to oblige. Morrigan, we need to take the cellphones of the witnesses. We can’t have a record of your fight or my existence hitting the Internet.
Done. Go and heal, Siodhachan. She strode forward and planted a bloody kiss on my lips. Call me soon. I would like to catch a baseball game. She cast camouflage on herself and vanished from view. Shortly thereafter, cries of dismay could be heard in the street as people watched their phones leap out of their hands, pockets, and purses and smash to pieces on the sidewalk. No one could prove that gods fought in the streets of Oslo; it was all hearsay.
I left Odin and Freyja in that dark alley and recovered my pants and tuxedo jacket from the street, ignoring the curious queries of bystanders. Getting dressed allowed me to hail a cab a couple of blocks away to drive me out to the woods, where I could shift away to safety.
After some time to heal and some scouting in southwestern Colorado, I found a place in the woods that I could use as a sort of safe house. It was definitely a fixer-upper, an old miner’s cabin nestled in the mountains above the wee hamlet of Ouray, but the solitude was perfect. The only people who ever came up the road nearby were 4×4 Jeep tourists, and they never stopped at the cabin. They sometimes stopped at Camp Bird Mine a short distance below, but mostly they were on their way to enjoy the wildflowers of Yankee Boy Basin. Also, their traffic was limited to the summer; the road was impassable once the snows came, and those didn’t begin to melt until late spring. I could shift directly there, however, because the entire area was full of pine and spruce, and once I bound it to Tír na nÓg, I could appear within a kung fu leap of the front door.
I made arrangements to buy it through my attorney, Hal Hauk, and decided to use it as a drop point for Gungnir. The paperwork took longer than I would have wished, but once I finally had the keys to the place and was assured no one but me would be poking around in there, I shifted to Canyon de Chelly and hitchhiked back home to our trailer in Many Farms. My apprentice and hound were quite happy to see me and full of questions about what had happened.
I held up the back of my right hand. “The Morrigan fixed my tattoos, among other things,” I said. “Has everything been okay here?”
“Fine until a few days ago,” Granuaile said. “I think something must have died nearby, because we’ve had ravens circling the place, but I can’t find it and the damn things won’t go away.” She pointed to the sky where two black-winged shapes soared above. As my eyes found them, the ravens banked and dove toward the trailer. They landed on top of my trailer, much as the Morrigan had, and peered at me from the roof.
“Okay, that’s really weird. It’s too bad you don’t have a bust of Pallas,” Granuaile remarked.
"Or crackers. I hear birds are wild for crackers."
“I know who these birds are,” I said.
“Who they are? You mean these are shape-shifters?” Granuaile asked.
“No, these are Hugin and Munin. Odin’s ravens.” I pulled out a marked-up map of my real estate purchase and showed it to the birds. “Odin,” I said, addressing the ravens for his benefit, “I will leave Gungnir at the cabin on Midgard that is marked on this map.” I pointed at a circled area. “It will be there by this evening. The cabin is unoccupied and will be unlocked. I will leave Gungnir in the closet of the master bedroom. Safe travels.” I folded the map and tossed it on top of the trailer. The ravens squawked and one of them hopped over to grasp the map between its talons. They flew away with another hoarse cry, and I was quite nearly back to peace and seemingly interminable training.
"Huh. Guess they didn’t want a cracker after all. Another myth busted."
“That was Hugin and Munin?”
“It sure was. Granuaile, if I ever get restless and yearn for action in the remaining years of your training, I want you to remind me of this episode.”
“Not sure what the episode was yet, but I will, sensei.”
"Hey, Atticus, that reminds me! You wanted me to remind you that we need to get barbecue in Atlanta!"
I did?
"Well, somewhere in the South. You said I would get pulled pork and beef brisket."
I seriously don’t remember this.
"That’s why I have to remind you, see."
I smiled. You are a very clever hound.
"And you are an excellent food provider."
Well, don’t get all mushy on me.
“When do I get to hear the details of this episode?” Granuaile asked. “It sounds like Odin is back.”
“He is. I’ll tell you everything later tonight. It’s actually not over yet; I have one more detail that needs my attention. Continue your training and pretend I’m not here for now.”
“Aye, sensei.”
Gungnir was buried in the earth near our trailer and encased in iron to protect it from divination. With the help of the elemental Colorado and the iron elemental, Ferris, I retrieved it with little trouble. I inspected it to make sure it was in good condition, being careful not to touch the spearhead engraved with runes, lest my aura nullify its magic.
This spear had shed a whole lot of blood, and now that I was returning it to Odin, it would shed a whole lot more. But people who truly want to shed blood will find a way to shed it, just as people who wish to do good will find a way to be a benediction to their neighbors.
Building and growing are so much harder than cutting something down. I once spent twelve years training an apprentice to accept the magic of the earth, only to see him beheaded by the forces of Al-Mansur in Galicia. After I lost Cíbran, the hopelessness of training an apprentice had overwhelmed me for far too long, and I’d had serious doubts about taking on Granuaile and several thoughts along the way of giving up.
But the meeting with Odin reassured me and gave me new hope. Now that we were sort of on the same side and he would keep my fake death a secret, I could face the remainder of Granuaile’s training with a bit more confidence that we would not be discovered and summarily destroyed.
I had less confidence, however, in my ability to avoid distraction where Granuaile was concerned. After weeks of tiptoeing around the Morrigan’s severe mood swings, I wanted nothing so much as to talk with Granuaile, to enjoy her mind and sense of humor and appreciate a well-balanced personality. It wasn’t that Granuaile was serene or at peace with herself yet, but she was walking along that road and it was a joy to sense that and appreciate it, whereas the Morrigan was lost in the apeshit wilderness. Right now, it would be far too easy for me to forget myself and smile at Granuaile in a way that communicated how much I cared for her.