“Ah, I was wondering why you chose silver for those charms of yours. Gold would conduct energy better, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, but I felt the trade-off in efficiency for protection was worth it.”
“Are werewolves prone to attacking, then?”
“Not so much anymore. At the time I began to work on these charms, they were. They’re much more civilized now, and the territory boundaries are firm. If you’d like to make some charms for yourself, I can show you how. But first we’ll get the ID process started and then continue your language lessons while we fix my tattoo.”
One last pot of tea and Owen looked and felt fortyish—which was outstanding compared to looking and feeling seventyish. I took him into town to get him cleaned up and buy him a late lunch at Lumberyard Brewing Company. The barber was confused by all the dark hair growing underneath the white, but he didn’t ask any questions, since Owen favored him with a forbidding glare. Owen kept a full beard, albeit neatly trimmed, and his eyebrows were likewise shorn to acceptable standards. He looked as if he should be throwing something heavy into the back of a truck in one of those manly commercials where they talk about durability and payloads in deep bass voices.
Our server during lunch was a very pretty college student, and when she greeted us and smiled, Owen’s expression warned me just in time.
“Wait!” I said to him in Old Irish. “Look at me!”
His leer melted away and he scowled. “What now?”
“I’m not sure what you intended, but this isn’t a tavern wench from two thousand years ago. Smiling at you is not an invitation to grab her ass. If you touch her, she will have you thrown out at a minimum and maybe arrested for sexual assault.”
“What?”
“Keep your hands to yourself at all times, and don’t stare or stick out your tongue or wink or anything. Treat her like the king’s daughter.”
“Is she a noblewoman?”
“As far as you’re concerned she is. Every woman is. Courtship is very different now, and it varies from country to country. Wait a minute and let me order for us. I’ll explain.”
He grunted and looked away. I apologized to the server, who’d been very patient, and ordered a couple of deli sandwiches on kaiser rolls, along with their craft-brewed Red Ale. Catching Owen up on what Oberon would call “human mating habits” occupied our time and frustrated us both.
“No one is as frank about sex as they used to be,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Monotheism made everyone worry about being a slut.”
Owen stared at me blankly. “I don’t know what ye mean.”
“People don’t want to appear too wanton, so you have to take it slow. Plus there are plenty of genuinely creepy guys out there, and women are afraid you might be one of them.”
“What?” He bobbed his head in the direction of the kitchen, where the server had disappeared. “She doesn’t even know me.”
“Exactly. And until she gets to know you, the possibility of a romp is out of the question. I know the behavior sounds strange and unnecessary compared to what you’re used to, but there are reasons for it. Until you’re comfortable with the language and the culture, the best advice I can give to keep you out of trouble would be to wait for the woman to make the first move. And a smile is not a move.”
Owen passed a hand over his face and muttered, “Brighid grant me patience.”
“Yeah, get yourself loaded up with plenty of that.”
After the late lunch, I took him to the address Hal had given me and we met Sam Obrist, alpha of the Flagstaff Pack. Though I’d known there was a decent-sized pack in town, I’d never had occasion to meet him. He was a tall, blond, and square-jawed sort and wore a pair of glasses on his nose that were doubtless some kind of hipster affectation. His house was near the forest—go figure—and he shared it with his second, Ty Pollard, who also happened to be his husband.
“Hal told me you were coming,” he said, and shook our hands briefly. His eyes flicked down to the silver charms on my neck, but he didn’t react otherwise. “Please come in.” He smiled and waved us through the door and offered us beers, on which we passed, having just finished a couple.
He weighed and measured Owen and talked as he wrote down details, like eye and hair color, for the ID. “I’ve heard you can shift to a wolfhound,” he said to me.
“That’s right.” That always came up quickly whenever I met a new werewolf. The fact that I wore silver and shifted to an animal bred to hunt down wolves was understandably interesting to them, but it wasn’t as if I had ever done it. Some werewolves took meeting me as a pleasing thrill of danger. Some took it as a challenge. Fortunately, Sam was inclined to the former.
“You ran with Hal’s pack a few times, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but that was some time ago. Back when Gunnar was with us.”
“Oh, I see. Does he shift too?” he asked, indicating Owen.
“Yes. A black bear, among other things.”
There were a few more questions—did we have specific names or occupations we wished Owen to have in his background? I told Sam to make up whatever names for parents he wished and to use outdoorsy occupations for his work history. Thinking of the nearby university’s mascot, I said, “Maybe make him a lumberjack.”
It wouldn’t be long until we’d be free to begin work on my tattoos, but that would take us away for more than a week and I’d be off the grid the whole time. I thought it would be best to check in with Granuaile.
When I pulled out my cell phone, however, I discovered that I was already off the grid. My last call to Hal must have finished off my battery, and I didn’t have a charger with me. I’d have to shift up to the cabin and tell her in person.
“Would you mind if I stepped out for a short time while you take his picture?” I asked Sam.
“No, that would be fine,” he replied. “He seems harmless.”
“Thanks.” I turned to Owen and spoke in Old Irish. “I want to go check in on Granuaile really quick before we go back to the Old World, let her know we’ll be gone and out of touch for a while.”
“You’re leaving me here?” he said.
“Only for a few minutes. They’re just going to take your picture and let you drink beer. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Don’t be stupid! I don’t know what a fecking picture is, for one thing! Why not wait and take me with ye?”
“Because I’d like to spend more time on your transition to the culture first.”
“Not learning quick enough for ye, am I?” Owen looked at Sam and pointed a finger at me before uttering his first words aloud to another person in English. “Him. No balls,” he said.
Surprised by Owen’s sudden language switch and accusation, Sam and Ty erupted in laughter and I waved goodbye, confident that he’d get along with them just fine. The forest near Sam’s house provided a convenient link to Tír na nÓg, and I was able to shift to our cabin in Colorado near sundown. Granuaile and Orlaith weren’t there, but Oberon was.
"Atticus! It’s about time! I’ve been here alone for days!" He bounded up to me, his tail wagging, and I petted him.
“Days? Are you sure about that, buddy?” It had been a long day for me, but I doubted it had been a full twenty-four hours since I had left.
"Well, I’ve taken several naps since they took off."
“Where did they go?”
"Someplace in India. Granuaile’s father got possessed, and Laksha called her to come help."
“What? When did this happen?”
"I told you, days ago! But Granuaile left you a note on the table. You’re supposed to read it."
“Yeah, I think I will.” A yellow sticky note waited on the kitchen table, and Granuaile’s neat script in blue ink spelled out the news:
Atticus—
Laksha called. Father possessed by something called raksoyuj. Going to meet her at Brihadeeswara Temple in Thanjavur. Will try to leave message there. Please come.
—G.
October 21, 9:10 a.m.
“Oberon, this wasn’t written days ago. It was written this morning.”
"Oh. Well, in my defense, I’m adorable."
“She’s been gone nine hours, and that’s way too much time to spend alone with Laksha. I don’t trust her. Why does she have Granuaile’s father in India?”
"I don’t think Laksha actually has him. They sounded like they were going to go look for him."
“So the whole thing could have been a ruse, and Granuaile just rushed off without knowing the situation?” I said, heading out the door.
"You mean kind of like what you’re doing? Yeah."
“What in seven hells is a raksoyuj, anyway?”
"If I had to guess, it sounds like marinated beef on a stick with a piquant dipping sauce."
“Wait, you’re right,” I said, turning on my heel and reentering the cabin. “I’m rushing things. I should charge my cell phone and leave her a note in case she comes back while we’re out looking.”
"Hey, why are you here alone? Weren’t you supposed to go get that old guy who was pointing at us on that island beach?"
“Oh, yeah. I got him. But he’s in Flagstaff right now with a couple of werewolves. He’ll be fine … I hope.”
"You sound uncertain."
“He doesn’t know the language well, and he has a short fuse,” I said, plugging in my cell phone and grabbing a sticky note to scrawl down the time we left.
"It sounds like he’s qualified to be an action movie star."
“He’ll be ready for a fight sequence when we get back, but this can’t wait. It’s a potentially hostile situation, so I want you to stick close and be on your guard, okay?”
"Copy that, Red Leader."
I adjusted Fragarach, more to reassure myself of its presence than to fix any discomfort, and strode outside toward our tethered trees. “I haven’t been to India in quite some time. I hope there will be a tether somewhere close to Thanjavur.”
"What’s it like in India?"
“Oh, that’s right, you’ve never been there at all. Well, brace yourself, buddy. More than a billion people live there, and the majority of them are vegetarians.”
"Ha-ha, very funny."
“I’m serious, Oberon. Cows are sacred. Nobody eats them.”
"Are you trying to scare me?"
I grinned at him. “Sounds like a harrowing adventure, doesn’t it? Come on, Oberon. Paws on the tree.”
"Wait, Atticus, I think we should talk about this—"
Chapter 4
Dense air and pregnant clouds welcome us to India, promising rain. The croak of frogs and the drone of insects sing of cycles, of hunger and need and of satisfaction also, of turning the wheel and hanging on. My hound notices the change in weather right away.
"Air wet," she says.
Yes, it’s quite humid. Much of Thanjavur is surrounded by rice paddies and the occasional banana or coconut grove. It’s into one of these groves that we have shifted, bunches of bananas hanging overhead, a few miles outside the city’s boundaries. Even so, the tether was much closer in than I thought it would be. Back in what Europe called the Dark Ages, Atticus had traveled the world the slow way and tied as much of it as he could to Tír na nÓg, and once those tethers were established, Fae rangers maintained them by Brighid’s order, popping in to make sure they still worked and creating new ones as necessary when trees died or were removed by humans. Some of those rangers were working for Aenghus Óg and looking for Atticus while they were at it, but all the Fae and Tuatha Dé Danann benefited from it.
The banana grove occupies a bit of high ground, and once I cast night vision, I can see a canal that winds into the city. A path or perhaps a road runs alongside, and I decide to follow it, gambling that we will find someone on the way to provide directions to the temple. Most people have already shut themselves in for the night, but I’m sure there are still a few wandering around. I cast night vision on Orlaith too, and she keeps pace beside me as I jog cross-country toward the canal, her tail communicating her joy.
"Fun! New smells!"
It is quite different, isn’t it? I say. There is mown grass or hay somewhere, and spices pepper the air, whispering of decadent homemade curries and perfumed incense. We hear strains of sawn strings groaning over the rhythm of tapped drum skins and ringing cymbals as we pass a house with its lights on and windows open. Someone sings along discordantly with the recorded voice, unconscious and untrained and clearly uncaring.
We finally see some people once we hit the canal road. Orlaith, being a very large creature moving at speed off a leash, frightens a few of them. We witness tiny squeals and cringes and hear sighs of relief when we pass.
"People afraid. Why? Good hound, right?"
You’re the sweetest hound ever, but they don’t know that and you surprised them. Don’t worry about it. Just stay close to me.
"Best human. Love Granuaile."
A few raindrops fall, and I realize we had better ask for directions sooner rather than later. My assumption that the temple must lie in the center of town might be false. I spy a couple walking and let Orlaith know that I want to slow down and talk to them.
They draw up short as they see us approach, and the man steps in front to protect his wife or sister. I don’t speak Tamil or Hindi or any of the dozens of other languages spoken in India, so I hope they will recognize enough of my English to help.