After retrieving Moralltach, I turned on the truck’s ignition with a binding—there was no way I was going to search for keys in Coyote’s remains—and Granuaile got us on the road back to Flagstaff. There was a hound down there who needed some hugs.
Epilogue
April Flores didn’t want to let Oberon go.
“I’ve never seen a dog heal so fast from a broken shoulder,” she said, “not to mention the ribs. He shouldn’t be able to walk for a few more weeks, but now it’s like nothing ever happened to him. I keep thinking it’s some kind of miracle. I’d like to keep him for some more tests—no cost to you, of course. Just some X rays and things like that—”
“Sorry, but we really must be going.”
"I heard that!" Oberon said. "Outside that door there are oodles of poodles to ogle!" He barked once to punctuate the sentence for the veterinarian’s benefit.
“What happened to you?” Dr. Flores asked, pointing to the bandages on my right hand. I couldn’t tell her I’d fought a giant locust any more than I could tell her Oberon had fought a vampire, so I stuck to the original lie.
“I hunted down that bear.”
“Congratulations,” she said, clearly not believing me. She petted Oberon regretfully and wished him farewell and no more encounters with “scary bears.”
"See how she’s keeping her voice low, Atticus? If Granuaile had admitted me under the name of Snugglepumpkin, she’d be in dog-whistle territory right now."
Your sample size is still too small. You haven’t made it past mere coincidence yet.
"You know what would be cool? We should experiment on the Borg Queen. Once she hears my name is Snugglepumpkin, resistance is futile! Though I’m not sure if she’s a dog person. Or a person at all. Whatever. We’re going to Scotland, right, for sixteen succulent boar sausages?"
Right. Gotta dye my hair and take some pictures first, but then we can take off for the Scottish Highlands.
"I smell sheep already!"
I watched Oberon’s gait carefully as we exited the vet’s office. You look like you’re doing okay, no limping. How does that shoulder feel?
"I get a little twinge of pain, but it’s not that bad. Not sure I want to run on it yet. That nasty tea of yours sure helped."
Good, I’ll make you some more. Need you to feel perfect again so we can go hunting.
"That’s right! You feel that subtle shudder in the wind? Around the world, squirrels are cringing in fear right now and they don’t know why."
We ran errands in Flagstaff—getting more herbs for Oberon’s tea and some for myself, plus a particularly inky hair dye that would completely ruin me for a while. Dyeing my own hair didn’t scare me as much as saying good-bye to Granuaile’s: The sun wouldn’t shine on it the same way anymore, and she’d probably remind me uncomfortably of the Morrigan. But then I thought it might be a good thing for us to be unattractive to each other for a while, and this alteration of our appearance would be a blessing. Coyote had probably done me more favors than he actually intended. I knew he’d gotten us a place to live so I could keep the coal mine closed and his gold mine open, not out of any sense of guilt for tricking me or any other sense of obligation.
Granuaile didn’t like the dye job at all. We got a hotel suite so we could do it properly. She looked terminally depressed when she emerged from the bathroom with raven hair and, as a result, rather Goth by accident. She didn’t want to get her picture taken.
“Aughh!” she said miserably, looking in the vanity mirror in the truck of the cab and fingering a wavy curl near her temple. “This sucks more than anything has ever sucked before. You know what we look like? A couple of emo douche bags.”
“Well, look at the bright side, Granuaile. Emo Douche Bags would be a great band name.”
"That’s brilliant! It’s already the unofficial name of more bands than I can count."
We spent some time at one of those office/print stores where you can use the Internet and fax and so on, sending our new likenesses to Hal at Magnusson and Hauk and asking him to work us up some new IDs.
“You hardly had time to get used to the ones I just gave you!” he grumbled on the phone. “I can’t get these overnight, you know. It’s going to take a few days.”
“Understood. We’re going to get out of the country for a while and then come back to get ourselves settled in these new names. They should last us a good decade or so while I’m training Granuaile.”
“I’m looking at these forms right now. You’re going to let people call you Sterling Silver?”
“I didn’t pick the names, I swear. It was Coyote.”
“Before you go,” Hal said, “thought you might like to know that Leif has severed all ties with our firm.”
“He’s left the state?”
“No, just our law firm. He’s still very much in the state. He’s back in charge too, from what I can tell. There may be a few stragglers here and there in the corners, but no one is going to give him any trouble after the coup he pulled. Antoine and the boys are well fed right now,” he said, referring to the local ghouls. “And I delivered your message. He knows he’s supposed to stay out of your way. He asked me to express his deepest regrets. Believe that if you want.”
I thanked Hal, assuring him I’d be back in touch in a week or so, and rang off. In a way it was soothing to have Leif back in charge; like a despised dictator, he was easy to hate, but at least he provided stability. Much as I wished to hunt him down for what he did to Oberon and me, letting him live (or continue in undeath, whatever) would keep Arizona a slightly safer place to train Granuaile. And I had already seen what happened to people when they pursued vengeance above all else. Besides, no matter how I tried to rationalize Leif’s actions as self-serving, there was the undeniable fact that he had saved me from bleeding out and gotten me to a hospital. Had he wanted me dead, all he had to do was nothing at all. Saving me had to count for something, even if he was the one to imperil me in the first place. Still, I planned on creating a new charm for my necklace as soon as I could set up a new shop in which to work metals. My experience with Zdenik proved that a mental command for unbinding a vampire would be extremely useful.
Silversmithing, I decided, would be my next cover job—it would fit my assumed name if nothing else. I’d do some farming too and maybe get some sheep or goats for Oberon to tend. Now that I was free of all obligations and everyone who wanted me dead thought I already was, I could consider such things.
We drove Coyote’s truck up to Hart Prairie, a beautiful place on the west side of the San Francisco Peaks largely watched over by the Nature Conservancy. There was a tether to Tír na nÓg there, and it was there that Granuaile experienced her first shift to another plane.
We spent very little time in Tír na nÓg—I shifted us to Scotland right away, before any faeries could spot us and report that the Iron Druid bloke wasn’t dead after all.
Those few days were probably the best time I’ve ever had in Scotland. Oberon was able to run confidently after another three days of healing—he called it “Intensive Sausage Therapy.” And I got back the use of my hand after three days of healing as well; the Highlands elemental was only too happy to help me out with that. The tattoo was indeed ruined on the back of my hand, however, and I wasn’t looking forward to having the Morrigan touch it up.
Once we were fully functional, Oberon and I shifted to the southern hemisphere, where it was summer, while Granuaile stayed behind to tour castles and politely deflect the come-ons of randy Scottish lads. Or maybe she didn’t deflect them; I don’t know, it’s her business anyway, and she deserves whatever happiness she can find.
There was plenty of time for me to think as I stalked Australia with Oberon on a sunny day in Queensland. Though I usually try to live in the present and avoid dwelling on the past, I found time there to gnaw on some regrets. I wished I hadn’t been tricked into killing Zdenik and the two skinwalkers; I mourned the deaths of Darren Yazzie and Frank Chischilly, and it was a shame that Hel had escaped—especially since she took the widow’s body with her. I was worried about what Hel was up to more than anything else at this point, but as there was very little I could do about it until Granuaile was trained, I decided I would not let the daughter of Loki steal away the few moments of sunshine afforded to me now. Ganesha’s mysterious League of Jungle Gods seemed to want me to lay low anyway. The omniscient deities all knew I was still around, of course, but Jesus and that lot weren’t the types to share information with the pantheons who’d like to cast my ashes into the sea. That meant nobody was looking for me, and for the first time in millennia I could ease back on my paranoia and relax.
Oberon and I found a field of red clover and we flopped down onto our backs for an epic wriggling session. Wriggling around in clover is one of the finest perks of walking the world as a hound. It’s not the same when you do it as a human.
Oberon sneezed and then we rested, legs in the air, enjoying the sun on our bellies.
"This field is awesome, Atticus," he said.
"I agree."
"Will there be clover like this at Many Farms?"
"No, it’ll be a much drier place than this. But I’m sure it will have its own charms, as any place does. It will have plenty of room for you to run, unlike at the house in Tempe."
"Excellent! Think there will be any French poodles in Many Farms?"
"I doubt it. Mostly working dogs. They tend sheep up there, you know. Not enough grassland to support cattle. We can maybe get you a small herd to look after if you like and make lamb sausage."
"Oh, I like the sound of that! “Snugglepumpkin’s Sausage Farm.”"
"Why not Oberon’s?" I asked.
"We can continue the Great Snugglepumpkin Experiment that way. When all the ladies come to the sausage stand, you will introduce me to them and we can compile mounds of irrefutable data."
"Yeesh. I really need to give you another bath."
"Maybe so. You were going to tell me a story about a samurai."
"I’ll probably have to reconsider that. I’m worried about what that story would do to your psyche."
"Aww! Hey, you know what, Atticus?" Oberon said, rolling right side up, ears perked, bath and story forgotten. "I think the clover on the other side of the field looks even more luxurious than this clover right here. I think we should race each other to the other side and wriggle around in that clover to see if it’s true."
"Now, that’s a hypothesis worth testing! You’re on, buddy!"
"Let’s go!"
I cannot tell you how wonderful it feels to run when you no longer have to do it.