Hounded

Chapter 23

I was doubly resolved never to shape-shift around Flidais again. I had already experienced the danger before, but this object lesson positively cowed me. Her control over the animal form was absolute; I had not thought it possible to subdue a pack of werewolves through magic, but she had just made it look effortless. It provided me with a new perspective on our earlier encounter: My amulet had indeed saved me from the brunt of her power, where I had thought it had failed somehow—and Oberon had been as helpless to disobey her as earth is helpless to remain dry in the presence of rain.

“Flidais.” I nodded to her and lowered my sword but did not relax my grip. I could bring it up with a snap of the wrist if necessary. “What news?”

“The coven of witches with Aenghus Óg is tasked with taking out the Pack so that you arrive without help. They have rigged traps around the cabin with magical triggers that will deliver silver in several ways.”

“Physical traps with magic triggers?” I said.

“Aye. And even were the Pack to get past them, the witches all have silver daggers.”

“Have you chosen sides, then?” I asked.

The red-haired goddess gave me an enigmatic shrug. “I will not fight for you or with you. Nor will I walk the path you walk.”

“Because you may not be seen to take sides against the Tuatha Dé Danann.”

One corner of her mouth quirked up, and she gave the barest of sardonic nods. No, Flidais would never be seen taking sides, but she could certainly give one side an intelligence bombshell on the sly. It was then I remembered she had sworn to be revenged upon Aenghus for interrupting her hunt in Papago Park. I was glad we had no quarrel; I think I would have had an arrow in my gob long ago. She had her bow and quiver with her now, I noticed; the protective rawhide strips on her left arm were new and fresh.

“Might you have any suggestions for us as to how we should avoid those traps?” I asked. Laksha had stepped behind me and was trying to be inconspicuous. If she was hoping Flidais wouldn’t notice her, it was too late. Flidais had already registered her presence and decided she was nothing to worry about.

“You can’t avoid them,” she said to me. “You’ll have to trip one. But they’ve only set up a circular perimeter, thinking the Pack will come from all directions.”

“That’s probably what they would have done.”

“Aye. But if you attack one point and make a sacrifice, the rest will be able to get through. Then they will have only the daggers to deal with and whatever magic the witches can muster with werewolves at their throats.”

“And I will have to deal with Aenghus Óg.”

“Aye, he’s there. He is doing something in the fire pit, drawing large amounts of power.” Great.

“And what of my hound and my lawyer?”

“They are fine, bound to a tree but otherwise unharmed.”

“That is good news. Thank you. But what about the Pack here?” I said, gesturing to the werewolves lying passively on the ground. “What have you done to them?”

“I have subdued them, of course. They were agitated and two of them leapt at me. We could hardly have a conversation while they were attacking me, and since you were doing nothing about it, I took the duty for myself.”

“I have no power to subdue werewolves,” I said, “and I would not use it even if I did.”

“Oh?” She raised her eyebrows. “Then you are going to face an interesting situation when I leave, Druid.”

“That’s right,” I said. “If they were agitated before, they will be pissed beyond reason when you release them. They will turn on me merely to vent their spleen.”

“Vent their spleen? Are you trying to quote Master Shakespeare to me again?” She smiled at me, and I began to think of things I really shouldn’t before going into battle. “Because no one in this age speaks of spleen venting.”

“No, you’re right,” I said. “I get my idioms mixed up sometimes. It would be more contemporary to say they’re going to go apeshit on my ass. So what would you suggest?”

“Communicate with them. Explain what I did and refocus them on their goal. They should vent—I mean, go apeshit—on the witches’ asses, not yours.”

“I cannot do that,” I said. “I fall far short of your skills in these matters, Flidais.”

She frowned at me but said nothing. Then she considered the werewolves splayed on the ground, and I felt her draw a bit more power as she spoke to them through their pack link. After about half a minute, the werewolves leapt to their feet as one and snarled at her. It became one long, threatening growl, and if I had that many burning eyes glowering at me, I’d probably have issues with a squirming colon. But Flidais appeared unconcerned. She said aloud, “Go and free your second. If your sacrifice survives the witches’ traps, I will render what aid I can to remove the silver. You are a strong pack. Fight well, feast well, and be whole again.”

Gunnar Magnusson barked a last note of defiance before turning around and launching himself down the path into the canyon. His pack quickly followed, and I had no time to do anything except mutter a clipped “Bye!” before taking off after them, Laksha close behind.

The werewolves were not bothering to keep their pace down for the slow bipeds anymore. They quickly outran us, and Laksha and I were left running alone. Some of them—perhaps many of them—would be severely injured or even killed tonight to rescue one of their own. But for Gunnar and the rest of them, this wasn’t about saving a pack member so much as saving face. No one could be allowed to mess with the Pack and not suffer retribution—with, perhaps, the exception of Flidais.

I was glad not all the Tuatha Dé Danann had her gifts. Clearly Aenghus Óg did not, or he would not have given the coven the task of taking out the Pack. He had other gifts, though, and I could only hope mine were a match.

We ran in silence for a while, but by and by Laksha observed that Flidais’s interference might turn out to be a good thing.

“I have never seen a pack so angry,” she said. “It makes them stronger. They might survive the silver.”

“Let’s hope we all survive.”

We ran six-minute miles over rough terrain in the unforgiving Superstitions, so we approached the Tony Cabin area in a little over twenty minutes. We heard the werewolves ahead of us going apeshit on someone, and that’s when Laksha pulled up and told me she would attack Radomila from where she stood. Her eyes were rolled up in her head again, and I wondered if Granuaile would get a headache later.

“We are closer than we need to be now, and the werewolves could use my help. It will be only a few minutes.”

I wasn’t sure how she knew they needed her help. They sounded pissed off, but that didn’t necessarily mean they required aid. “All right,” I said. “I’ll see you there.”

Laksha was already drawing a circle in the dirt. “I am counting on it,” she said.

I continued on in solitude.

Tony Cabin isn’t situated in a bowl, nor on a hill, but rather in the middle of a meadow graced by little beyond dried grasses and weeds. Around it, sycamores and scrub oaks as well as mesquite and palo verde provide ample cover for stalkers. There are a few trees near the cabin itself, including a couple of sycamores, and it was to these that Hal and Oberon were chained. Oberon had not yet realized I was near, and for that I was grateful and continued to shield my thoughts as best as I could.

I saw where the werewolves had set off the witches’ trap: It was hard to miss, because there was a werewolf moaning pitiably on the ground, with silver needles sticking out of him like S & M acupuncture. It was a bit difficult to tell for sure, but I thought it might be Dr. Snorri Jodursson’s wolf, and I wondered how he had managed to draw the shortest straw. He wasn’t at the bottom of the Pack but rather near the top—and as the Pack’s doctor in both human and wolf form, they could ill afford to lose him. I would never understand pack politics.

There was a large fire pit giving off quite a bit of light in front of the cabin, but none of that light came from burning wood. It was orange and white and swirled around the pit in a torus like a hellish Creamsicle. It lit up the meadow fairly well, so I paused in the darkness about twenty yards north of Snorri’s prone form and scouted the scenario.

The werewolves had already taken out three of the witches and dropped a fourth even as I watched, but they had taken some casualties as well; I saw three werewolves bleeding on the ground near the bodies of the witches. They were alive but in very bad shape. The witches were awfully fast with those knives, perhaps using the speed spell that Malina had offered to use on me. There were only two witches left—Emily and Radomila. (Malina and the other witches were nowhere in sight, which meant that she had been telling the truth on the phone.) Radomila would indeed prove a challenge to the werewolves: She was chanting a spell from within a cage settled on the opposite side of the cabin from the prisoners, the bars of which were no doubt lined with silver. The werewolves wouldn’t be able to touch her.

Emily, however, had no such protection, and I saw her Barbie-doll eyes grow even wider than usual as she realized she was next up to become a chew toy. She was on the far side of the meadow, just visible between the sycamores next to the cabin, and she did not seem likely to stand her ground and die fighting like her sisters. Even as I thought this, she turned and ran into the woods, which would only encourage the werewolves to pursue her, frenzied as they were.

But then I saw it was cleverness as much as cowardice; she would lead them out to the perimeter of traps, which was still active, and the werewolves would trigger it again. Gunnar, whose wolf form was leading the chase, apparently realized this just in time, and he pulled up and commanded the Pack to stop too. They stood and snarled at the darkness Emily had disappeared into, frustrated to be denied her flesh but reluctant to leave the meadow when they were so close to freeing their pack mate.

It was time for me to act. There was nothing more they could do—I sincerely doubted they would be able to take on Aenghus Óg and last long. I doubted I could either, but I had some hope.

My nemesis was standing in the orange glow of that hellish fire he had summoned, facing the west, armored head to toe in silver plate. That wasn’t for my benefit: He knew that if I could get past his guard, Fragarach would slice through the armor as if it were tissue paper. It was proof against the werewolves, in case they got past the witches—which they practically had, with Emily run off into the woods and Radomila still chanting something but having no visible effect.

Aenghus wore a Greek Corinthian helmet, so it was all of one piece and required no visor plate. It afforded him maximum visibility and breathability, but it would be extraordinarily difficult for a werewolf to get a lucky claw in there or underneath the long cheek guards to get at his throat. Even if one did, his neck was well protected with a solid gorget over silver chain, and he also had a chain skirt falling past his knees; there would be no quick swipes at his hamstrings from behind. Ankles are usually tough to protect from a rear attack, but he knew that if he was dealing with a pack of werewolves, they’d go after his Achilles tendon, so in a surreal mash-up of medieval armor and American spaghetti westerns, he actually wore silver spurs, and there were spikes thrusting from the backs of his calves.

Given all of this, it was clear he’d never expected me to arrive alone, and neither had the witches. He’d planned to involve the Tempe Pack all along—for many months, it would seem, because that suit of armor had to be a fairly recent commission. Werewolves were never a problem in Tír na nÓg, and one doesn’t find custom suits of silver armor on Blue Light Special at Kmart. It spoke to me of a level of connivance that chilled the marrow of my bones—when he found out where I was, he had known I would involve the Pack through my lawyers—and I shuddered as I crouched behind the trunk of a cottonwood. It seemed to me as if we were playing a game of chess and he had thought many more moves ahead than I had. He had outplayed me with the witches from the beginning, had two different police departments playing fetch for him, and had anticipated or even counted on a pack of werewolves showing up tonight: What else had he thought of ahead of time? What was he doing with that fire pit, and what was Radomila up to? What would happen once I stepped out there and revealed myself?

As if in answer to my thoughts, something began to coalesce out of the fire pit and take shape to the right of Aenghus Óg. It remained somewhat insubstantial, with just enough translucence to show me the outlines of the cabin behind it, but its physical presence was undeniable: It was a tall, hooded figure on a pale horse, and its name was Death.

If I fell tonight, Death would come for me without delay. Somehow, Aenghus Óg knew of my bargain with the Morrigan. The simplest explanation, of course, was that she had told him. She would not betray her word to me—she’d never take my life—but I had never required her to keep our bargain secret. I had stupidly assumed she would keep it to herself so that Brighid would never know, but now it occurred to me that perhaps the Morrigan had decided to ally herself with Aenghus Óg, since Brighid had pointedly not asked for her help. If victorious, she would eliminate her biggest rival amongst the Tuatha Dé Danann and rid herself of a troublesome Druid who had lived long past his expiration date.

Something else disturbed me: Flidais had not been joking when she said Aenghus was drawing large amounts of power. It was dangerously high—so high that he was flirting with killing the earth for miles around, creating a blighted zone. If he went much further, it would take years of coaxing and care from a grove of Druids to bring it back to life again.

That sincerely chapped my hide and pulled me out of the whirlpool of doubt in which I had been flailing. Up to the point where I realized the threat he represented to the earth, I could have turned around and run. I could have gone to Greenland, where nothing was green, and hidden for a century or two. But now I could not. Aenghus Óg could betray me all he wanted, kidnap and even kill my beloved wolfhound, kill the whole Tempe Pack, even usurp Brighid’s throne to become First among the Fae, and I could have chalked it all up to the steep price one pays sometimes for living another day. But killing the earth, to which he himself was bound with the same tattoos I wore, bespoke an evil I could not countenance—it was solid proof that his priorities had widely diverged from the old faith, and he had bound himself to darkness. That’s what made me stand up and draw Fragarach from its sheath and charge into the circle of hellish light, leaping over the whimpering form of Dr. Jodursson. If I were to die tonight, then it would be a death any Druid would be proud of—not fighting on behalf of some petty Irish king’s wounded pride or his yearning for power over a small island in the great wide world, but fighting on behalf of the earth, from which all our power derives and from which all our blessings spring.

I made no battle cry as I charged. Battle cries are for intimidation, and I could not intimidate Aenghus Óg. I thought instead I could surprise him. But drawing Fragarach from its sheath was apparently what they were waiting for, because Radomila’s eyes snapped open and she cried from her silver cage, “He comes!”

If I could have paused again, I would have taken the opportunity. Why would Radomila know of my approach once I drew Fragarach from its sheath? But I was committed: I had to press on.

Oberon spied me instantly once I charged into the light, and he howled his relief and anxiety in my mind.

he cried.

I’m coming, buddy. I love you. But hush and let me concentrate. Dear lad that he was, I heard nothing more from him.

What I heard instead was an unholy screech as Aenghus Óg waved at the fire pit and caused it to erupt with demons.