Hounded

Chapter 24

People in this part of the world like to envision demons as fiery red creatures with horns sprouting from their foreheads and barbed, whiplike tails. If they really want to vent their spleens about the evil of heck and sin, they add on goats’ legs and invariably point out the cloven hooves, in case you missed them. I’m not sure who came up with that—I think it was some feverish, sex-starved monk in Europe during the Crusades, and I tried to miss as much of that as I could by passing the time in Asia—but it’s obviously been an enduring and compelling image for several centuries. I saw quite a few of them coming out of the hell pit, because it was nearly a contractual obligation by now that some of them appear in that form. But most of them were nightmares out of a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, or maybe Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Some of them flew on leathery wings into the desert night air, with fingerlike talons outstretched to rip into something soft; some of them bubbled across the ground in uneven gaits, owing to the uneven number of legs they had and differing lengths of their limbs; a few of them galloped on those infamous cloven hooves; but all of them, without exception, had lots of sharp, pointy parts, and they stank like ass.

Aenghus Óg didn’t waste time with introductions or even a respectable archvillain laugh. He didn’t taunt me or inform me I was about to die; he just pointed at me and uttered the Irish equivalent of “Sic ’im, boys!”

Almost all of them did, but a couple of the bigger ones didn’t—I distinctly saw one of the cloven-hoofed lads take off for the hills, and the largest thing on wings disappeared into the sky somewhere.

Aenghus had the gall to be surprised at their defection—he actually shouted at them to come back, and I supposed he must have been counting on them to finish me off after the smaller ones roughed me up a bit. I saw the Pack move to protect Hal and Oberon, who were chained up and unable to defend themselves from rogues or run away, and that gave me a brief moment’s relief.

“What did you expect, Aenghus?” I mocked him as I beheaded the vanguard. “They’re bloody demons.” And then there was no time for me to talk, because they were upon me and all I could do was concentrate on what to kill next and on keeping down the contents of my stomach.

After about three seconds it occurred to me that I would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers or violent illness. An awful lot of the buggers had come out of that pit, and they were still coming. Luckily they were still in front of me—they hadn’t had time to try flanking me—so I drew a little of the remaining precious power from the earth, pointed at them with my index finger off the hilt, and shouted, “Dóigh!” as Brighid had instructed, hoping that would take care of a few of them and bracing for the wave of weakness she warned me about.

It turns out you can’t brace for that kind of weakness. There was a thing with stork legs propelling a huge mouth full of teeth coming at my throat from my left, what looked like the Iron Maiden mascot coming at me from the center, and a horrific cross between a California girl and a Komodo dragon on my right. Every single one of them overshot me and even tripped over me as I abruptly dropped to the ground like a baby giraffe, my muscles utterly unable to function.

Aenghus Óg crowed in victory and yelled to Radomila, “I’m closing the portal now! He’s dropped the sword! Do it!”

Oh yes. The sword. The one my fingers were incapable of holding now. The one that was keeping me from becoming demon food. I needed power, and I tried to draw some, but when I reached for it, it went dead beneath me. Aenghus Óg had drained it all to bring hell on earth. There was no telling how far I would have to go to draw enough strength to stand again; as it was, I could not move an inch. My night vision faded, and all I had to see by was the orange light of the fire pit. The skinless Iron Maiden demon scrambled back quickly and took the opportunity to snack on my ear, and the pain was unspeakable, worse than reading the collected works of Edith Wharton, but I couldn’t muster the strength to pull away or even say ouch. Likewise for the armored mosquito the size of a schnauzer that landed on my chest and stuck its proboscis into my shoulder: I wanted to swat him, but I couldn’t. Something with blue scales and a steroid habit hauled me up by my leg high into the air, and I saw a giant mouth of gleaming teeth and assumed I would be heading in there momentarily. The bloodsucking schnauzer–mosquito assumed that as well, because it pulled out with a wet pop and flew away. But then I was dropped unceremoniously to the ground, breaking my left wrist in the fall. I had fallen facing the hell pit, so I had a view of the horde and of Aenghus Óg berating Death.

“Well, he’s obviously dead by now, so what are you waiting for?”

Not dead yet, Aenghus. Dead in short order, perhaps, like the wasted land beneath me, but perhaps not. The horde of demons wailed and gnashed their teeth from an epic case of fiery (yet somehow cold) heartburn, forgetting about me, for the most part. The flying ones hadn’t been affected by the Cold Fire, so the giant mosquito found me again and began to suck me dry. Unlike normal mosquitoes, it didn’t inject a local anesthetic to deaden the pain when it stabbed me. But I bet its saliva would leave a much nastier mark afterward—if I lived to deal with it.

The demons I’d hit expired in several ways from the Cold Fire: Some of them melted into a puddle of goo, some of them exploded, and some of them flamed up briefly before scattering as ashes. The one who had eaten my ear ended that way—I’d never hear from him again, nor would I ever be able to appreciate Iron Maiden properly.

“What’s happening?” Aenghus asked rhetorically, then answered it like the insufferable ass he was. “Oh, I see. Cold Fire. But that means he must be weak as a kitten. Where is the sword, Radomila?” Buried under demon goo a few yards away from me. Why would she know anything about that? And what was it he had commanded her to do earlier? And hey, Aenghus, are you going to do anything about the rest of the demons that didn’t get hit with Cold Fire, like the flying one on my chest and the ones that came out of the pit after I used the spell but before you closed it? He’d probably let them all go, and they’d wind up blending in with the population of Apache Junction.

The werewolves were tearing into anything that came near Hal or Oberon—good. But they would need my help to break those silver chains, and I couldn’t even help myself right now.

Radomila sounded apoplectic: “I can’t find it. I know it’s here, but I can’t pinpoint it!”

“Then explain what good you are to me!” Aenghus spat. “The one thing you guaranteed me is that you would be able to find the sword and bring it to me even if he removed the cloak you put on it. Now you tell me you cannot?”

Ha-ha. I didn’t remove the cloak. Laksha did, and when she removed it, she must have dispelled whatever tracer Radomila was trying to find. Laksha hadn’t tried to hide Fragarach’s natural magical signature, though, so that was why Radomila knew when I’d drawn it—she just couldn’t get a fix on its location. Speaking of Laksha, shouldn’t she have made some progress by now?

Radomila was about to offer Aenghus a snarky retort when her eyes flew wide open and lost their focus. Ah, yes, here we go. That look meant that Radomila sensed someone had a target lock on her ass. But this was one tail she couldn’t shake: It was her own blood, after all.

“Answer me, witch!” For a god of love, Aenghus was remarkably blind to nonverbal cues. Radomila wasn’t worried about him or any promises she had made right then. She was feverishly trying to figure out a way to ward off whatever was coming for her.

Too late. Her skull caved in from four directions, as if four railroad workers had swung their hammers perfectly in sync from the cardinal directions. Bits of brain and blood splattered the inside of the cage and even sullied the pristine armor of Aenghus Óg.

Now that is why I am paranoid about witches getting hold of my blood. Druid’s Log, October 11: “Never make Laksha mad.”

The giant sucker popped his proboscis out abruptly and took off—he wasn’t full, so I assumed that something bigger and badder was coming to take a bite out of me.

It wasn’t bigger, but it was definitely badder. As the talons sank into my chest, I recognized the battle crow, the Morrigan as a Chooser of the Slain. Her eyes were red. Not a good sign.

Aenghus Óg recognized her too, and he finally spied me lying there amongst all the ruins of his demon army as he whirled around, trying to figure out how his pet witch had gotten smooshed. He looked uncertainly at Death, who had passively watched all the proceedings, but the hooded figure shook its head at him and then pointed in my general direction. He was pointing at Laksha in the woods behind me, of course, not at me, but Aenghus made the logical conclusion given his lack of information.

“Ah! Did you do that, Druid? Didn’t know you had it in you. Well, it won’t help you at all. There’s the battle crow on you now, just like old Cúchulainn, and she will be supping on your eyeballs soon. I bet you can’t move a muscle right now.”

I entertained the possibility that he was right and that the Morrigan would betray me after all, but the crow’s eyes flashed even redder and I knew that Aenghus had made a fatal error. The Morrigan does not like to be taken for granted. I think he realized it too, for he had taken a step toward me but halted at the flash in her eyes. I heard her voice in my mind.

He has killed this land for his dreams of power. He thinks the sword will let him stage a coup in Tír na nÓg, and for that he has betrayed his most sacred bond. He is corrupt. She shifted her talons painfully in my chest as she thought aloud, piercing me anew and either careless or unconscious of what she was doing. I should not directly help you, but I will if you keep it secret from all. Agreed?

I didn’t have to think very hard. I agreed.

I am lending you my own power to fight him on equal terms. I began to feel my muscles again. If you live, I will require it back. If you die, it will return to me in any case. Agreed?

Again I agreed with her, and I began to feel much better—my left wrist healed, the weakness disappeared, and the wound where my ear had been at least closed up, though the ear didn’t grow back. Would you mind hunting down that mosquito demon and obliterating it for me, please, while I take care of Aenghus? It has an awful lot of my blood.

The battle crow squawked in irritation and shook its wings. Aenghus Óg took a cautious step forward, and the crow’s eyes blazed again in warning. Aenghus halted.

“Morrigan? What’s going on?” he asked. She squawked at him threateningly and he held up his hands and said, “All right, take your time.”

Very well, she said to me. You know he is carrying Moralltach?

I did not, but thank you for telling me. Moralltach was a magical sword like Fragarach; in English it would be called Great Fury. It had an interesting power: Its first blow was supposed to also be the coup de grâce. One hit and you’d be done. Under the fine magical print, it had to be one solid hit, not a glancing blow, and it was definitely not activated by simply clashing with an opponent’s sword or shield.

You are aware of its power, then, and how you must attack?

Well aware, thank you. I’d have to put him on the defensive and prevent that blow from ever falling, especially since I had nothing on but one hundred percent cotton. And he, for his part, would have to guard his entire body just like me, because my sword’s ability meant his armor was about as protective as my jeans and T-shirt.

Fragarach—in English, the Answerer—also had a couple of other abilities: It gave me control of the winds, but I didn’t need that so much, living in a desert. And if I held it at someone’s throat and asked them a question, they’d have to tell the truth—hence, the Answerer. Perhaps I’d ask Aenghus, if I got the chance, why he wanted my sword so badly when he already had a neato-schmeato sword of his own. It was going to be an interesting duel.

You should be ready now. Fragarach is behind you and to the right, underneath the melted body of that lizard creature. The Morrigan withdrew her talons from me and launched herself on a course for Aenghus Óg. That sort of thing would worry anyone, and his eyes were fully upon her as she approached. While his attention was thus diverted, I sprang up, feeling remarkably well, and retrieved a gooey Fragarach from underneath the liquefied bosom of the California girl/Komodo dragon. I recast night vision on myself and turned my head just in time to see the Morrigan let loose with what may politely be called a “white blossom,” square in the visor of Aenghus Óg’s helmet. He cursed and clawed at his face, and the Morrigan croaked her laughter.

I kept silent with effort and stripped off my shirt to clean the blade and hilt of Fragarach, smiling as I did so. Then I realized that amusement was not the proper frame of mind for me to cultivate right now. Forty yards away from me stood the man who had done me—and the earth—more wrong than any other.

He removed his helmeet, wiped the crow shit from his eyes, and checked to be sure he still had his captives and that the werewolves were staying put. They were defending Hal and Oberon from the attack of stray demons but showed no signs of taking the offensive. He checked on Death, who remained astride the pale horse, unmoving. Satisfied, he turned to where he thought I was lying on the ground and instead saw me standing up with Fragarach in hand.

“Siodhachan Ó Suileabháin,” he sneered, drawing Moralltach out of its sheath. “You’ve led me a right merry chase, and if there were any bards left to sing of it, they’d probably write a ballad about you. A proper one where the hero dies at the end, and the moral is don’t ever fuck with Aenghus Óg!” Spittle flew from his mouth at the end, and his face turned purple as he shook with rage. I didn’t respond. I just glowered at him and let him realize he had lost his self-control. He ground his teeth together and took a deep breath to recollect his composure. “That sword,” he said, pointing at me with his own, “is the rightful property of the Tuatha Dé Danann. You cannot escape me now except by begging for mercy. Drop the sword and fall to your knees.”

Oberon said.

I compartmentalized his comment and resolved to enjoy it later. I glared at this would-be usurper and said in my most authoritative voice, “Aenghus Óg, you have broken Druidic law by killing the land around us and opening a gate to hell, unleashing demons on this plane. I judge you guilty and sentence you to death.”

Aenghus snorted in derision. “Druidic law doesn’t apply here.”

“Druidic law applies wherever I walk, and you know this.”

“You have no authority to enforce your law upon me.”

“My authority is here.” I waved Fragarach and tapped its power to send a gust of wind at Aenghus. I only meant to intimidate him with its creepiness, but I must have put too much of my anger behind it, because the gust was so powerful it blew him backward onto his silver-plated derriere.

Oberon said, in a passable imitation of Eric Cartman. I reminded him that I needed to concentrate. Sometimes dogs forget; they just get too excited.

I noticed that I had lost some energy by performing that little trick; the power to control winds may be inherent to Fragarach, but the will and force had to come from somewhere, and since I couldn’t tap the earth here, it came directly from me—that is, it came from the energy Morrigan had lent me. That changed everything: If I was going to get tired, I couldn’t fight him the same way. He was in the same situation, of course, so instead of charging him, I remained where I was and laughed. Go ahead, Aenghus, get angry. Throw some magic at me and spend yourself, and see what happens.

I put my left hand up to my necklace to reassure myself that it was still there and undamaged, as Aenghus struggled to get up. The spikes on the backs of his calves and the spurs on his ankles were giving him trouble, and I laughed all the harder. The werewolves started yipping at him too; most of the little demons had either cleared off or been killed, so they were able to watch the spectacle a bit and enjoy the silver man’s difficulty.

His face red and flushed, he gave me one of those “You will pay!” looks and whipped his left hand at me as if he were throwing a Frisbee. But what came at me wasn’t a pleasantly spinning plastic disc—it was a bright orange ball of hellfire, the sort that you get to fling around only if you’ve made a deal you really shouldn’t have.

I’m not going to pretend my sphincter didn’t clench—my survival instinct is too well developed—but other than that I gave no outward sign that I was concerned about the hellfire as I stood my ground. Now I’d find out how good my amulet was.

You know how it feels when you’ve nuked a Hot Pocket and you touch it too fast before it cools down? Well, the hellfire was like that: a flash of intense heat that was gone in less than a second, leaving nary a mark but setting my entire body to sweating.

Aenghus couldn’t believe it. He thought he’d see a crispy critter clutching a glowing sword, but instead he saw an annoyed, very live Druid staring back at him, clutching a glowing sword.

“How is that possible?” he erupted. “Druids have no defense against hellfire! You should be dead!”

I said nothing but began to circle around to my right, trying to get to some ground that wasn’t covered with slippery demon leftovers.

It was at this point that the figure on the pale horse began to laugh. Everything in the meadow stopped breathing, listened to the cloaked figure’s hoarse, raspy chuckle, and wondered what it thought was so funny.

Taking advantage of the pause, Aenghus Óg’s uncertainty, and the dry ground, I charged. What more was there to say? I’d sentenced him to death, and he’d demonstrated he wouldn’t submit meekly, so there was nothing left but to go to’t.

I wanted one of those fabulous anime moments where the hero sticks the sword into the bad guy’s guts and everything quivers, even the sweat droplets, and the bad guy vomits blood and says something in a tiny surprised voice, like, “That really was a Hattori Hanzo sword,” right before he dies. Alas, it was not to be.

Aenghus had been something of a swordsman in his earlier days; he’d helped the Fianna out of a tight spot or two—he had serious battlefield cred, unlike Bres. He parried my first flurry of blows, cursing all the while and promising to mutilate my body and then dig up the bones of all my descendants and turn them into glue, blah blah blah. He tried to back up, disengage, and give himself some space to begin a counterattack. That was precisely what I could not afford, so I pressed the attack and realized we were both fighting in the old Irish patterns—which was perhaps all he knew. But it certainly wasn’t all I knew. I hadn’t spent centuries in Asia and the last ten years sparring with a vampire to fall into old ruts like that. I switched my attack pattern to a Chinese series of forms that incorporated some deceptive wrist movements, and that brought me some success: He crossed his sword above him to parry a blow from above, only to find that it was coming from the side instead. The blade bit deep into his left arm above the elbow, and I snapped it out when I felt it hit bone. He yowled his pain and I think he tried to say something, but it was so mangled with spittle and inchoate rage that I didn’t process a word. His left arm was useless now, hanging there like a mesquite branch damaged in a monsoon, and his balance would be skewed. I could gamble a wee bit—people with poor balance rarely win sword fights.

I backed off and let him bleed, allowing him to weaken with every passing second. He’d use some power to stop the bleeding, and that was fine with me; he’d still be weakened, and there was no way he could knit the muscle tissue in time. It was his turn to attack. I knew he’d do it; at this point we hated each other as much as it was possible for two Irishmen to do—and that’s quite a bit.

“You’ve hounded me for centuries,” I growled. “And you might have hounded me for many more, but your petty jealousy of Brighid has brought you to this end.”

“Your end, you mean!” Aenghus roared, completely unhinged by my reducing all his elaborate schemes to a case of sibling rivalry. He lunged at me with a long diagonal hack, with all his strength behind it. But I knew how he fought now—the same old way. I saw it coming, and I knew I was faster, and stronger too. I parried his blade by sweeping mine in a rainbow move to my right, so that his sword was underneath mine when I brought it down and his sword arm was crossed in front of him. I stepped forward quickly and whipped Fragarach through his neck before he could regain his balance and try a backhand. His head tumbled backward, eyes wide in surprise, and wound up bouncing off his back as he fell to the ground.

“No, I meant your end,” I said.

Death laughed again and goaded his horse toward us. I stood aside as the rider reached down and scooped Aenghus Óg’s head from the ground, then began to tack his horse back around to the fire pit, laughing maniacally all the while.

The love god’s mouth did not move, but still I heard him protest, No! The Morrigan is supposed to take me! Not you! Morrigan! Take me to Tír na nÓg! Morrigaaaaan!

The pale horse of Death leapt with its rider and cargo into the fire pit and descended back to hell, and I was finally free of Aenghus Óg.