"Why isn’t your tail wagging, puppy?" one of the stags said.
"Were you a bad doggie?" the other chimed in.
Before I could, Flidais told them to shut up and thankfully Oberon bit back any response he would have given. Flidais cast invisibility on us—a wonderful trick, that—and we hoofed it out of there without delay.
The goddess of the hunt was seething. “My first new hunt in an age of man,” she said through gritted teeth, “and it was ruined by Aenghus Óg. Well, I will be avenged. The huntress can be patient.”
“You’re better adjusted than I am,” I said, though I thought her a dangerous sociopath. “I’m about out of patience.”
Chapter 7
With much apologizing and simultaneous thanks for the gift of her company, I suggested to Flidais once I returned home that if I were to be attacked shortly by a party of Fir Bolgs, I had much to do in the way of preparation. She was only too happy to take the hint, and her leave.
“If you prevail, Druid, perhaps we can hunt at leisure in the near future. You have my blessing.” She gave Oberon an affectionate pat on the head—from which he tried to recoil—bade us both farewell, then winked out of sight and returned to her chariot. We may have had her blessing, but we wouldn’t have her bow at our back. She could not afford to be seen taking my side against the Tuatha Dé Danann.
I expelled a deep breath, releasing some of the tension her mere presence had caused, and sank into a chair by my kitchen table. Oberon approached me, head down, tail between his legs.
"Atticus, I’m sorry," he said.
It was not your fault, I reminded him. She used you like a weapon, and Aenghus Óg wanted that man to be killed. But now you and I must face the consequences.
"Because I killed him," Oberon said.
Flidais made you kill him. Nevertheless, that means that you will be killed in turn, if the police figure out you’re the one who did it.
"I don’t even remember doing it."
I know. And that is why we will never hunt with her again. She had a strong influence on me as well, and I did not like being under her control, even a little bit.
"You never hunted with her before?"
Never in animal form. I hunted with her for a good while in the Ukraine once. She helped me out with my archery on horseback. It’s bloody tough, I’ll tell you, but Genghis Khan’s hordes could do it, so of course I had to learn.
"I have no idea what you’re talking about right now."
Never mind. Listen, we have to get you cleaned up. Into the bath.
"Can’t I just roll around in the dirt?"
No, we need to get you superclean. Any blood found on you will automatically get you killed at this point.
"You won’t let them find me, though, right?"
Not if I can help it, Oberon. Come on, let’s go.
I rose from my chair, and Oberon began to trot in front of me down the hall to the bathroom, his tail wagging again. "Will you tell me about Genghis Khan’s whores while I’m in the bath?"
Hordes, not whores. He had both, though, now that you mention it.
"Sounds like he was a busy guy."
You have no idea.
We had a good time with the suds and the short version of Khan’s empire, after which I had to see to my preparations for the Fir Bolgs—the full extent of which was nothing more than a good night’s sleep. They would not attack me in my home, figuring it would be too well protected—and it was. They would wait for me to set foot off my property, and then they would gang up on me like a bunch of schoolyard bullies. So I relaxed and got my beauty rest.
In the morning, I calmly made myself an omelet with cheese and chives, poured some Tabasco on it, and nibbled on a piece of whole wheat toast. I cooked up some sausages too, but most of them went to Oberon. I made us a pot of coffee to wash it down, some freshly ground organic stuff from Central America (I usually take mine black, but Oberon likes it with Irish Crème Coffee-mate and cooled down with a few ice cubes).
"Did Genghis Khan take his coffee black?" Oberon asked me. After my bathtime story, he wanted to be the Genghis Khan of dogs. He wanted a harem full of French poodles, all of whom were named either Fifi or Bambi. It was an amusing habit of his: Oberon had, in the past, wanted to be Vlad the Impaler, Joan of Arc, Bertrand Russell, and any other historical figure I had recently told him about while he was getting a thorough cleansing. His Liberace period had been particularly good for my soul: You haven’t lived until you’ve seen an Irish wolfhound parading around in rhinestone-studded gold lamé.
He didn’t drink coffee, I replied. Genghis Khan was more of a tea man. Or yak milk. Coffee really wasn’t around in his time.
"May I have some tea, then?"
Of course. I will ice it for you after it brews so you won’t burn your tongue.
After I cleared away the dishes and Oberon Khan had enjoyed his tea, it was time to make myself a target.
I strode out to my backyard, barefoot, and told Oberon to go into sentinel mode. I watered my herb garden from right to left, talking to the plants and encouraging them. The herbs grew in planter boxes around the circumference of my yard, all of which rested on shelves attached to my fence. Underneath these I grew some vegetables in the actual earth of my backyard, leaving some real estate for Oberon to roll around on. The medicinal herbs took up most of the boxes, but I spared a few for culinary varieties.
While this mundane chore was going on, I was using my connection to the earth to review my domestic defenses. Sending my awareness down through my tattoos, I looked for holes in my bindings, anything the least bit out of the ordinary, to make sure that I was alone and unwatched. There was a cactus wren checking me out from high up in my neighbor’s palo verde tree, but he flew off when I made a throwing motion with my arm, thereby showing that he was a normal bird and not someone’s familiar. When I came to the last planter box on the left, I put down the watering can and shook my head.
“There’s never enough thyme,” I said, and pulled the box of herbs off the shelf and upended it on the lawn. The smell of rich loam and compost wafted into my nostrils, and the sight of a long, narrow package wrapped tightly in oilskin greeted my eyes. “Oh, look!” I said in mock surprise. Oberon recognized my tone and didn’t bother to turn his head. “Somebody has hidden an ancient magical sword underneath my herbs. That’s so silly.”
This was my most vulnerable time, because while the sword’s location was now revealed, there were three bindings and a cloak on the sword to prevent anyone—including me—from using it. The bindings were my own work, and it’s pretty much all a Druid can do. We bind elements together or unbind them: When I shape-shift, I am binding my spirit to an animal’s form. Summoning mist or wind—that’s a form of binding too, as is camouflaging myself or allowing Oberon to hear my thoughts. It is all possible because we are already bound with the natural world by living in it. We could not bind anything if the strings connecting us to all of nature were not already there. And because we see these connections and know that seemingly disparate elements can in fact be closely related, Druids have a better grasp of divination than most other magical practitioners. Our knowledge of nature makes us superior brewers of medicines, poisons, and even potables. We’re able to run tirelessly by drawing on the power of the earth, and we heal fairly quickly. We’re useful to have around. But we don’t shoot balls of fire out of our hands, or fly upon brooms, or make people’s heads explode. That sort of magic is only possible through a radically different view of the world—and by binding one’s spirit to extremely unsavory beings.
The bindings on Fragarach were simple but effective. One kept the oilskin sealed; one kept the sword in its scabbard; yet another prevented it from leaving the confines of my backyard. All of these could be undone with a bit of my blood and spit—fluids I don’t give out for free.
But the best spell currently resting on Fragarach was a magical cloak around the whole thing, denying that there was anything magical about it in the slightest. Even though I knew my bindings were there, I could not detect them. And even though Fragarach is one of the most powerful magical items ever created, and it should be practically humming with Fae energies, it just lay there in front of me like a stage prop. I knew the cloak worked on the Tuatha Dé Danann too, because Flidais obviously had been unable to sense it during her visit.
The cloak was a spell far beyond my abilities: Those kinds of spells are not in the Druidic milieu. A friendly local witch named Radomila had cast it for me, and in return I had hopped a plane to San Francisco, driven up to Mendocino, and shape-shifted into a sea otter. This allowed me to retrieve an ornate golden necklace set with several large rubies, which were clutched in the hand of a buried skeleton she had stunningly accurate information on. She seemed mightily pleased to receive it, but even with two millennia of arcane knowledge in my head, I had no idea what it signified. That’s witches for you.
What sealed the deal for me was that the cloak wouldn’t come off without a generous donation of my tears. Those used to be almost impossible for me to summon, I admit, until I watched Field of Dreams. When Kevin Costner asks his dad at the end if he’d like to have a catch, I just completely lose my shit. Any guy who doesn’t is either in mixed company when he sees it or was blessed with an unusually sensitive father. I blubber and sob like a jilted girl every time I watch that scene, or even when I think about it. My dad would never have played catch with me—never mind that he’s been dead for more than two thousand years and baseball hadn’t been invented then. My dad’s idea of bonding was throwing me in the tar pits to teach me a lesson, though I’m not sure what the lesson was, except to stay the hell away from Da. So if I ever think of a reason why the cloak should come off, all I will have to do is think of Kevin Costner and his chance to have a moment of peace with his dad, and the tears will flow like mountain springs.
Bindings banished with a drop of blood pricked from my finger and a bit of spit, I unwrapped the oilskin carefully to reveal a finely tooled brown leather scabbard, above which rose a golden guard and a hilt wrapped in strips of ancient rawhide, the grain long worn away. The blade was not suffused with the watery swirls of cooled steel: It was merely straight and chiseled and deadly in its purpose.
A long leather strap attached to iron rings on the scabbard allowed me to sling the sword across my back, and I did so to serve as both a lure and promise of punishment to those who would take it from me. I drew it thinking I needed to inspect the blade, but in truth it was more to admire it. I knew already that it was pristine: There had been no water damage to the scabbard. The blade sung and sparkled in the sunlight, and I marveled again at the strength of the cloak. Even though I knew it was Fragarach in my hand, its weight and balance and familiar knotwork etchings on the blade greeting me like old friends, the pulse of magic I usually felt was absent. The Fir Bolgs would not believe I had Fragarach in hand until it cut through their armor and bones as if they were rice paper.
“Come to heel, Oberon,” I said aloud, as I sheathed Fragarach and rose. “Warn me of any approach, but do not attack unless I give you express permission.”
"I’m coming to the shop with you?" he asked, his ears raised in query.
“Aye, you need to remain at my side until this business is finished. Do I need to remind you not to sniff my customers’ asses?”
"You just did. And very subtly too, thank you very much."
I chuckled. “I apologize if I have offended Oberon Khan. It is the stress of a death sentence that makes me speak without thinking.”
"I will overlook it this time," Oberon replied, his tail wagging in good humor.
“I am also going to cast camouflage on you,” I said, “so that if you remain still—no tail wagging, no panting—no one will see you. Even when you move, you will be difficult to see, but you will be practically invisible when still.”
"Why do I need to be invisible?"
“Because after last night, people may come hunting you. And because if faeries come hunting me, I want you to take them by surprise.”
"That’s not very sporting."
“It is fine to be sporting when we hunt. It is ridiculous to be sporting in war, and often fatal.”
I cast the spell on him that binds one’s skin and hair pigments to the hues of the surroundings, and he shook as if he were wet.
"Hey, that tickles," he said.
“Good enough,” I replied. He trotted next to me as I pedaled to work, his nails clicking on the asphalt of the street. Following the noise, all one could see was a sort of heat mirage, just a wavy fluidity to the air.
The widow MacDonagh was already out on her porch with her morning whiskey, and she waved to me as I rode by.
“Will y’be comin’ by this afternoon, Atticus?” she called.
I quickly glanced at her lawn and saw that it was due to be mowed. Her grapefruit tree could use a trim as well.
“A bonny young lass like you need not ask a man twice,” I shouted back, hoping her ancient ears understood me. I gave a thumbs-up to reinforce the message, just in case.
When I got to the store, my only employee was already there. Saturday mornings were always busy and I needed the help. I switched to silent communication with Oberon as I opened the door. Go lie down behind my apothecary counter and keep your ears open.
"Okay. What am I listening for, exactly?"
The approach of really heavy footsteps, the kind giants would make.
“Morning, Atticus,” a bass voice rumbled in gnarly cheerfulness.