Hounded

Chapter 8

It actually turned out to be quite a busy morning, making my opening of the second register seem like genius. Perry never found time to mess with the Tarot display until much later, and I never got time to read the full article about the park ranger. But I figured Hal would fill me in once I got to Rúla Búla.

Come on, Oberon. Lunchtime.

He lifted his head up hopefully.

Fish. And we’re going to be in a restaurant, so you need to behave and stay out of the way.

I waved at Perry and told him I’d be back in an hour or so. “Mind the fortress, will you?”

He waved back. “No problem.”

I slipped out the door and opened it wide so Oberon could follow me, then unlocked my bike from the stand and hopped on.

No stopping to smell the trees and fire hydrants, I said. I can’t be calling back to an invisible dog every few minutes to hurry it up.

he whined.

After I close up shop. You can play around at the widow’s house. You can chase her cats in camouflage and totally freak them out. Heh!

Oberon made chuffing noises, which was the canine equivalent of laughter.

We chuckled about it together as we made our way up Mill Avenue, passing the bars and boutiques and the occasional gallery. Oberon told me about his plans to just put his paw down on the Persian’s tail and watch what happened.

Hal Hauk had already secured a table inside Rúla Búla near the window, and he had ordered a pint of Smithwick’s for each of us. I was both pleased and disappointed by the gesture, for it meant I wouldn’t get to go to the bar myself and take a whiff of the barmaid.

That’s not as creepy as it sounds.

Granuaile, the redheaded siren behind Rúla Búla’s bar, was not entirely human, but I still didn’t know what she was, and her scent was my only clue. She was a mystery to me, and a beautiful one at that. Long locks of curly red hair cascaded over her shoulders, which were always covered in a tight but otherwise chaste T-shirt. She did not earn tips from her cleavage, like many barmaids do, but rather depended on her green eyes, her pouty lips, and the light dusting of freckles on her cheeks. She had pale, creamy skin and a few fine golden hairs on her arms, which led eventually to fingernails she had painted green to match her eyes.

She was not one of the Fae: I could see through all their glamours, and in any case she never blanched at my iron amulet. Neither was she undead, or she would hardly be working the day shift. She wasn’t a were of any kind, which Hal had mentioned but I had already determined using my own methods. I had thought she might be a witch, but she didn’t have the telltale signs in her aura. If she had been anything sent from hell, I would have smelled the brimstone, but instead she gave off an ineffable scent that was not quite floral, more like a pinot grigio and mixed in with something that reminded me of India, like saffron and poppies. I was left to conclude that she was a goddess of some sort, masking her true nature and slumming here incognito like so many other members of the supernatural community, displaced from points all over the world. The bonny Irish lass façade was even more shameless than mine, for I doubted that she was truly Irish underneath it all: She must be from some foreign pantheon, and I was determined to figure it out without asking her a thing.

She flashed a smile at me as I walked in, and my heart sped up a bit. Did she have a clue as to my true nature, or did she only see the dim college kid disguise?

Her face fell as I walked past the bar toward Hal’s table. “You’re not sitting with me today, Atticus?” she said with a pout, and I almost changed course right there.

Oberon said at my heels with ironic relish. I ignored him.

“Sorry, Granuaile”—that simply could not be her true name; she had to have picked it out on purpose to fit in at an Irish bar—“I have to talk a little treason with my friend,” I said, gesturing toward Hal.

She smiled. “If it’s a conspiracy, I want in on it. I can keep a secret.”

“I’ll bet you can,” I said, and she arched an eyebrow at me. I felt a foolish grin spread across my face.

“Ahem. Time is money, Mr. O’Sullivan,” Hal called, and I snapped my head around, suddenly realizing I had stopped in the middle of the bar and forgotten what I was doing there. Hal’s time was worth $350 an hour.

Oberon said.

Embarrassed, I stalked over to Hal’s table and sat myself across from him. Oberon squeezed underneath the table next to the window and waited for food to rain down from the sky.

Hal frowned. “I smell your dog.”

“He’s under the table, camouflaged,” I said.

Hal’s eyes widened as he processed the sling across my chest and the hilt peeking out over my shoulder.

“Is that the sword I think it is?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied, and took a long pull from the Smithwick’s.

“Was it employed in last night’s mischief?”

“No, but I believe in being prepared. There’s more trouble on the way. A whole lot more.”

“Do I need to tell the Pack?” Hal asked.

Werewolves. Their pack always came first. “Hey, it’s my ass in the meat grinder here, not the Pack’s,” I said. “You don’t need to tell anyone but Leif about this business. In fact, I want to see him as soon as he wakes up tonight. Send him to my house.”

Hal looked as if I had just asked him to lick up vomit. “Will you be paying the firm for his time, or will he?” He was referring to the business arrangement I had with the vampire. Leif and I had a unique understanding: Sometimes I paid cash for his services, and sometimes I paid him in fine liqueur—that is to say, my blood. (I had carefully neglected to mention that to Flidais.) The blood of a 2,100-year-old human, and a Druid no less, was a powerful, intoxicating, and extremely rare vintage for a vampire. I slashed my arm, drained a wineglass full for him, and then healed myself, and that was worth twelve hours’ billing to him. Then I washed out the glass and made sure he hadn’t spilled any, because I was paranoid about my blood getting into the hands of witches. He paid the firm out of his own pocket for such a drink, and he had grown powerful over the years by it. I never saw him use the power, because nothing locally wanted to mess with him, but I think Leif was trying to become strong enough to mess with Thor someday.

“Does it matter?” I said. “The firm gets paid either way.”

Our waitress arrived, and we paused to order three plates of fish and chips—the third was for Oberon, who was doing a good job of remaining invisible. When she left, Hal spread his hands and said, “Okay, tell me everything.” I told him about Flidais but left out the Morrigan; it wasn’t everything, but close enough.

“So a goddess from your pantheon has come and gone,” he said when I had finished, “and you could get a visit from two more Irish gods before this business is through?”

“Right. Aenghus Óg and Bres. Plus Fir Bolgs.”

“Plus those. I’ve never seen one. What are they like?”

“To you they’ll look like a biker gang or something similar, but they will smell like shit.”

“Biker gangs can smell like shit sometimes.”

“Well, that just makes the disguise better,” I said. “The point is, you won’t see what they’re really like, because they wear glamour when they walk in the mortal world. In truth, they’re giants with bad oral hygiene and a predilection for wielding spears. They used to be an independent people in the old days, but the Tuatha Dé Danann use them as thugs now.”

“How much of a threat are they?”

“To my life? I am not particularly worried. I’m more worried about collateral damage than anything else.”

“That will bring the police into it.”

“Which I’m sure is the point of sending them. Fir Bolgs are not renowned for their discretion.”

Our fish and chips arrived and I sighed happily. It is life’s small, simple pleasures that make it worth living longer than a century or two. I dropped a piece of cod down to Oberon and covered up his noisy chomping sounds with some noises of my own.

“So how can I keep Oberon from going to Animal Control?” I asked around a mouthful of chips and beer.

Hal shrugged. “The simplest way is to do what you’re doing and lie,” he replied. “Keep him hidden, and tell anyone who asks that he escaped and ran away. In a month or even less, they’ll be so swamped with other cases that they won’t be able to keep tabs on whether he’s with you or not. Then you tell all your neighbors you’ve given up, you’re going to get a new dog, and voilà, Oberon reappears. Oh, and I wouldn’t go hunting in the Papago Hills for a year or so.”

Oberon whined at that, and I hushed him by dropping another piece of cod on the floor.

“This is all supposing the police actually track him to your place,” Hal said. “They haven’t shown up yet, have they?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. But since I think someone is leading them around, I have no doubt they will show up soon. Now tell me what to do if I don’t want to lie.”

Hal stopped chewing and regarded me steadily for a few seconds. “You don’t want to lie?” he said, completely off his guard.

“Of course I do! I just want to know what else I can do that I haven’t thought of already. That’s why I pay you, Hal. I mean, shit, come on.”

Hal smiled. “You really sound like one of these modern kids. I have no idea how you do it.”

“Blending in is the best survival skill I have. It’s just listening carefully and parroting, really. So tell me what to do if I’m forced to play it honest.”

“Honest as in the police can see through your camouflage spell and know that Oberon is right in front of them?”

“Sure. Pretend I’m an ordinary guy with no magic at my disposal. Then how do I protect Oberon?”

The werewolf took a long drink of Smithwick’s and belched discreetly as he thought about it. Then he placed his hands flat on the table and said, “Well, the only way they would be able to build a case without witnesses is to use DNA matching. Oberon has no rights, but as his owner you can demand they get a warrant before they do the whole unreasonable-search-and-seizure thing. If they come with a warrant, though, you pretty much have to let them do what they want. And judging from what you’ve told me, if they get a DNA sample from him, the case will be pretty solid.”

“That’s right,” I said, nodding.

“Well, another way we can delay things is to lodge some protest on religious grounds.”

“How’s that?”

“You protest against the DNA testing of your dog on the grounds that’s it’s against your religion.”

I looked at him as if he were trying to sell me the ShamWow and the Slap Chop for only $19.99 plus shipping and handling. “My religion has no objection to DNA testing. We didn’t know what the hell DNA was in the Iron Age.”

Hal shrugged. “They don’t know that.” Neither of us would ever get an award for ethics. “The Iron Age, eh?” Hal had been trying to guess my age for a good while, and I had carelessly given him another clue.

I ignored his query and frowned skeptically. “Will that argument work?”

“No, the judge will throw it out on the grounds that your dog cannot possibly share your religious views or something like that, but it will delay things for a good long while, long enough for you to figure out where to hide Oberon if, as you say in this entirely hypothetical situation, you can’t do it magically.”

“Good show, old sod,” I said in a cheerful accent straight out of Piccadilly Circus. “I knew there was a jolly good solicitor in you somewhere.”

“Oh, bugger off,” Hal replied in kind. “Just hide and lie and keep it simple for everyone, all right?”

I grinned at him. “Will do. Where is the Pack going to run next full moon?”

“In the White Mountains near Greer. Did you want to come along?” Occasionally the Pack would let Oberon and me run with them, and it was always a good time. The only touchy part was my status within the group, because werewolves are obsessed with status. Magnusson didn’t like to have me along, because technically he’d have to be submissive to me—if I gave a damn about such things—and alphas aren’t comfortable showing any kind of submission in front of their packs. I couldn’t blame him, of course, so we worked out a compromise where I was a “friend” of the Pack, a guest on equal footing with every member, essentially outside their hierarchy, and that kept everyone’s hackles from rising. But it also meant that Hauk, not Magnusson, had to be my lawyer. As a second, he was already submissive and did not have to worry about debasing himself by serving my legal needs.

“I would love to, but it falls around Samhain, and I have some of my own rituals to attend to,” I said. “I thank you for the offer, though.”

“My pleasure.” He extended a hand across the table to me. I shook it and he said, “I’ll take care of this bill and let Leif know you want to see him when he wakes for the night. You call me if you need anything else. And stay away from that redheaded bartender. I don’t know what she is besides trouble.”

“That’s like asking a bee to stay away from flowers.” I grinned back at him. “Thanks, Hal. Give my regards to the Pack. Come on, Oberon.” We both rose and headed for the door. Granuaile waved at me and smiled.

“Come back soon and see me, Atticus,” she called.

“I will,” I promised.

Oberon said as we exited and I unlocked my bike.

Perhaps if we had a better sense of smell, we would, I said. Nature clearly favored your kind in that regard.

When I returned to the store and told Perry he could take off for lunch, Emily the witch was already there waiting for me, drinking a cup of chamomile tea Perry had made for her. He wasn’t skilled behind the tea station, but he could boil some water and pour it on top of pre-made sachets as long as I labeled them carefully.

“Back so soon?” I said. “You must be eager to begin.”

“True enough,” she said. She stood from the table and minced over to me in her affected Barbie-doll stride. She waved a check at me before placing it in my hand and saying snarkily, “Here’s your danger pay, though there’s nothing dangerous about making some tea. I never figured Druids would be so avaricious.”

I took it from her hand and made a show of examining it carefully, because I knew it would annoy her. She’d deliberately tried to provoke me, and one cannot sass me with impunity. I saw her face flush and knew she wanted to say something about my dilatory manner, but she wisely kept her mouth shut and contained herself to huffing.

Eventually I said, “This appears to be in order. I will begin your treatment because your coven has done right by me in the past, but if this fails to clear the bank, then of course that will be a breach of contract.” Now, that was just unnecessary—even insulting—for me to say, but she was such a snot I felt she deserved it.

“Fine,” she ground out, and I smiled and went behind my counter to begin brewing her tea. I worked in silence for a while. We were the only people in the store, and neither of us was in the mood to make small talk. Oberon picked up on it.

he said.

You speak the truth, my friend. But I’m as guilty as she is. We are not being very nice to each other.

If that was really what she looked like, sure, I said. But in reality she’s probably pushing ninety or so, and besides, I don’t trust witches.

No, she knows you’re here. She can see through the camouflage. But I think she’s hiding something from me, and I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Never mind. Just listen. Once she drinks the tea, she will try to surprise me with something. She is waiting for the contract to be fully in effect before she says anything.

I knew I never should have let you watch The Wizard of Oz.

When Emily’s tea was finished steeping, I set it on the counter for her. “Drink it as is,” I said. “No sweeteners, and nothing sugary for at least three hours afterward. Be careful from this day forward not to eat anything for three hours before drinking this tea either. Insulin will interfere with metabolizing the medicinal compounds in the tea.” That was complete bunk. I just made that up to mess with her. “And it will take a couple of hours for the results to show up, so don’t go hopping into his bed right away.”

“Fine,” she said, and she began chugging the tea as if it were an Irish Car Bomb, completely disregarding the damage the hot liquid might do to her tongue and throat. She really wanted to get this over with. She slammed it down forcefully, as if it were a shot glass instead of a teacup, and she smiled malevolently at me.

“And now, Druid, now that you have entered into a contract from which you cannot withdraw without severe consequences, I have the pleasure of informing you that the man you’re rendering impotent with this brew is none other than Aenghus Óg.”