Hounded

“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.”

“Because after last night, people may come hunting you. And because if faeries come hunting me, I want you to take them by surprise.”

“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.

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.

The approach of really heavy footsteps, the kind giants would make.

“Morning, Atticus,” a bass voice rumbled in gnarly cheerfulness.

“Good morning, Perry,” I replied. “You sound abnormally happy. People will be on to you if you don’t watch it.”

A tall man of twenty-two years smiled back at me with recently bleached teeth. Perry Thomas had dark hair fastidiously groomed to look carelessly mussed, rectangular glasses with thick black rims, and a silver labret stud nestled like a pearl in the hair of his soul patch. He also had large silver gauges in both ears and a pale complexion that seemed to be the primary accessory for all Goths. He was dressed entirely in black, of course, with a concert T-shirt of the psychobilly group Mad Marge and the Stonecutters, a studded belt, and skinny-leg jeans that blossomed at the bottom into full-blown Doc Martens. Perry failed to notice Oberon padding right between us to take his appointed spot behind the counter.

“Yeah, I’m supposed to be jaded and mournful that the sun is shining, aren’t I? Don’t worry, I’ll get into character once the store opens. Hey, cool sword.”

“Thanks.” I waited for him to ask me more about it, but Perry had apparently exhausted all he had to say on the subject. Young people can be so uncomplicated.

I glanced at the clock behind my counter. Five minutes to opening. “All right, give me a chance to get some tea brewing, then fire up the soundtrack and we’ll get going. I want both registers working today.” I had my apothecary counter and tea station on the east wall, immediately to the left, or south, of the store entrance. Wood shelves behind the counter held jars and little drawers of bagged herbs, many of which came from my backyard garden, and I had a couple of hot plates back there to heat kettles of water. There was a small fridge for milk, a sink, and some teacups always being washed and dried. I had a few packages of cookies and muffins for sale, but the lion’s share of my apothecary business was in medicinal teas and bulk herb sales. I’d built up a regular clientele amongst the local senior citizens, who came in for a proprietary blended tea that eased their arthritis and gave them a boost of energy (I called it Mobili-Tea). They felt about ten years younger for about ten hours afterward, and they blessed me for it, bought newspapers, and had their morning arguments about politics and young people at the five tables I had placed in front of the counter. One register was there, and one was in the “back” of the store, on the west side, to handle customers who just wanted something from the bookstore.

My book inventory was basically an expanded collection of the Religion and New Age shelves in Barnes & Noble, but I also had some serious magical texts behind glass on the north wall. Buddhas and incense and various busts of Hindu gods were sprinkled amongst the shelves; I would have put some crucifixes around too if there had been any demand for that sort of thing, but devout Christians tended to avoid my store for some reason. Celtic crosses were popular, though, as were various representations of the Green Man.

Perry raised his eyebrows. “Open the second register? Think we’re going to be that busy?”

I nodded. “I have a feeling it’s going to be an unusual day.” In truth, I simply didn’t want him behind the apothecary counter where Oberon was hiding. “If you get some downtime, see if you can create an end display for the Tarot cards; maybe we can sell some more that way.”

“Putting them out like that will make them easier to shoplift.”

I shrugged. “I’m not worried about it.” I wasn’t. Everything in the store had the same binding spell on it that I had put on Fragarach in my backyard. Nothing could go out the door unless it had first been placed on the counter next to one of the registers. More than one would-be thief had been forcibly pulled back into the store by the items in his pocket.

“Okay, I’ll go turn on the music. Celtic pipes?”

“Nah, let’s do some guitar this morning—that Mexican duo, Rodrigo y Gabriela.”

“Right.” Perry headed toward the back of the store, where the sound system was, and I filled a couple of kettles in the sink and put them on to boil. A couple of regulars would be coming in as soon as we unlocked the door, so it was best to have the water ready. I glanced over at the paper racks and saw that Perry had already filled them.

Some Spanish guitar came on through the sound system, its World beat suggesting to customers that here they could not only find refuge from corporate radio, but also much else that was stale and prepackaged and bereft of mystery. Perry strode back to the door, brandishing his keys, and said, “Okay to open?” and I nodded at him.

The first person to walk through the door was my daytime lawyer, Hallbjörn Hauk—he used the name Hal for modern American usage. He was dressed in a dark blue pinstripe suit with a white shirt and pale yellow tie. His hair, as ever, was immaculately styled in a Joe Buck haircut, and the dimple in his chin smiled sideways at me. If I didn’t know he was a werewolf, I would have voted for him.

“Have you seen the morning papers, Atticus?” he said without preamble.

“Not yet,” I admitted. “Good morning to you, Mr. Hauk.”

“Right. Well, then, perhaps you’d better take a look.” He grabbed a copy of The Arizona Republic and slapped it down forcefully on the counter in front of me, pointing to a headline on the right-hand column. “Now, tell me, lad,” he said in his best faux-Irish accent tinged with ancient Icelandic, “would y’be knowin’ anything about this spot o’ trouble here?”

The headline read, RANGER FOUND DEAD IN PAPAGO PARK.

Casting off my American accent, I replied in kind: “I’d be knowin’ more than is comfortable, just between me and my attorney–client privilege.”

“I thought as much. I heard Coyote laughin’ last night, and he doesn’t laugh at the harmless, does he now?”

“No, he doesn’t, sir. I might be needin’ your help sooner rather than later.”

“Right. I’ll be seein’ you for lunch, then, at Rúla Búla?” He named the Irish pub at the north end of Mill Avenue that was my favorite hangout. “I’m thinkin’ it’s high time we had ourselves a heart-to-heart, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be had over the best fish and chips in thirty states.”

I nodded and said, “At high noon, sir,” though I could not figure where he had pulled the number thirty from. Which twenty states had better fish and chips than Rúla Búla? He had evidently been paying more attention to fish and chip cuisine than I had, and I must admit that I felt a twang of guilt. The finest fish and chips in the land was more than a mere trivial pursuit for me, and I had sorely neglected it for an abominably long time. Most places excelled in either one or the other, but rare was the establishment that paid equal attention to both sides of the culinary complement. Rúla Búla was one of the few Irish pubs that savored the chip as well as the fish, and its presence had been a determining factor in my decision to grow roots in Tempe.

“Right,” he said. “See you then,” and he exited without another word.

My senior regulars came in: Sophie, Arnie, Joshua, and Penelope. Joshua grabbed a newspaper and pointed out the same article Hal had shown me. “God, would you look at this,” he said, waving at it. “It’s like we’re back in New York.” He said almost the same thing every day about one article or another, so I was oddly comforted by it.

A lone searcher arrived, seeking something that wasn’t Judeo–Christian and buying a primer series in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Wicca. “May harmony find you,” I said, and he dipped his head to me as he left. He had my respect: At least he wasn’t content to be fed the diet on the television. And then something unusual walked through my door.

She was a witch. Her personal wards radiated warnings, and even though I was not adept enough to know what they did or what they protected her from, I knew by her aura what she was. I hastily muttered a binding under my breath to keep all my hairs on my body. Witches could do some pretty heinous stuff with hair, blood, or even nail clippings, and I didn’t know yet if she was friendly or not. Her appearance marked her as nothing more than a trendy college student, however: no black robes or pointy hat, no hairy moles growing on the end of an oversize nose. She had her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, as carefully considered a decision as the makeup applied to her face and the pink gloss on her lips.

She was wearing a white bebe tank top and a pair of oversize white-rimmed sunglasses. She carried a pink cell phone in one hand along with a jangling key ring. Her tanned, silky legs were bare beyond a pair of turquoise cotton shorts that strained at the boundaries of modesty. Her feet were slipped into a pair of pink flip-flops, her toenails painted pink with golden glitter sparkling in it.

She took a moment to look around, inspecting the unseen more than the seen, before she turned and strode to my apothecary’s counter. She appeared to be my assumed age, twenty-one or so, but I knew how deceiving appearances could be. I could not tell her true age without more information, but the eyes behind those sunglasses were definitely older than twenty-one: She had seen things that separated her from the young and stupid. Still, she was less than a century old, judging by her aura, because it was still fluid and had none of the telltale markers of the truly old. If she could perceive the bindings around my shop and within them, she knew I was much older than I looked too.

“Are you the owner of this shop?” she said, approaching my counter.

“I am. What can I do for you?”

“You are Atticus O’Sullivan?”

“Uh-huh.” I nodded once. Someone had told her whom to ask for. I did not put my name on the window.

“I have heard that you can brew some extraordinary teas.”

“Well, yeah, I can make you some oolong with an antioxidant booster that’s simply awesome. Would you like a cup of that?”

“That does sound fabulous, but that’s not the sort of tea I’m talking about.”

“Oh. Then whatcha lookin’ for?”

“I need a tea that will … humble a man who is attracted to me. Make me unattractive to him.”

“What? Wait. You wish to be unattractive?”

“To this one particular man, yes. Can you brew such a tea?”

“You want a sort of anti-Viagra, if I’m hearing you right.”

“You have understood me perfectly.”

I shrugged. “It oughtta be possible.” She smiled. Her teeth were very white and straight, a toothpaste commercial waiting to happen. “But how did you hear about me?”

“I am one of Radomila’s coven,” she said, extending her hand to shake. “The youngest, actually. My name is Emilia, but I go by Emily in America.”

I relaxed a little bit: Radomila and I had a professional and cordial relationship. She was the leader of the Tempe Coven, thirteen witches who actually knew what the hell they were doing. They had a fancier name for themselves than that, but they didn’t advertise it. Radomila was pretty powerful, and I would rather not get on her bad side. Oh, one-on-one I’d probably be able to dispatch her, but then her entire coven would come after me together, and they would chew me up and tell the Morrigan to go suck on it, because they most likely had their own goddess in their corner.

“Why do you need me, Emily?” I asked, shaking her hand once and knowing she was trying to gauge my power through the contact. That didn’t work too well on Druids. We draw our power from the earth as needed, so she probably felt nothing more than the low-level power I was using to maintain Oberon’s camouflage. It had caused more than one foe to underestimate me, so that was fine by me. I’m not into peacock displays of power. “Isn’t Radomila capable of looking after her own coven anymore? For that matter, you could take care of this problem yourself. You don’t need me.”

“That is true,” she said. “But Radomila wants no part in the crafting of this particular potion. Neither do I. We require … outside assistance.”

“And so you came here? I’m just a friendly apothecary who knows that witches are for real.”

“I pray you do not fence with me. I know full well what you are, Druid.”

Well. That was putting the cards on the table. I took another look at her aura, which was largely red and tossed about with the desire for power. She might be older than a century after all. College students these days didn’t begin their sentences with “I pray you,” and they thought fencing was selling stolen car stereos.

“And I know what you are too, Emily of the Sisters of the Three Auroras.” Her mouth formed a tiny O of surprise at my use of her coven’s true name. “If you don’t want to humble this guy yourself, then I don’t want to either.”

“If you would agree to this thing, then Radomila and her coven would be in your debt,” Emily said.

I arched an eyebrow. “Are you authorized to commit Radomila to such a pledge?”

“I am,” she said, and pushed a note across the counter to me. It was in Radomila’s hand. And the splatter beneath it was Radomila’s blood—even dried, I could see the power in it. Oh, yes, she had authorization.

I snatched the note off the counter and pushed it down into my pocket. “Very well,” I said. “I will agree to make this tea against your coven’s pledge of future favor, provided that you personally agree to follow my instructions to the letter and pay my customary fees.”

She bristled a little bit, obviously expecting the note to take care of everything, but eventually she nodded curtly. “Agreed,” she said.

“Very well.” I smiled. “How long do you wish to remain unattractive to this man?”

“A week should suffice.”

“Then you will appear here tomorrow at this hour to drink a tea I will prepare for you and every day thereafter for a week. Failure to appear will void our contract with no monies refunded.”

“I understand and agree.”

“Tomorrow you will bring me a cashier’s check for ten thousand dollars.”

Her eyes widened. “Outrageous!” she spat, and she had a point. I never charged more than two hundred dollars for my apothecary services. “That cannot be your customary fee!”

“If the Tempe Coven is unwilling to take care of your paramour’s libido on its own, which they could do far more simply than I, then I am owed danger pay,” I said.

“But not that much!” she fumed, all but admitting the danger was real.

I produced the note and offered it to her. “Then I bid you good day.”

Emily’s shoulders sagged. “You bargain well,” she said, her eyes downcast to my countertop. Her hands made no move to take back the note, but I kept it raised within her reach.

“You will bring me the cashier’s check tomorrow, then?” I asked.

“Aye,” she said, and with that I put the note back in my pocket.

“Then we will begin tomorrow.”

“Not now?”

“Until I have the check, no.”

“Then if I bring the check today, you will begin?”

“Aye, Emily, that is the contract I propose.”

“And once begun, you will not renege?”

It was an unusual request to put so bluntly, but not an unreasonable one. All contracts should allow the customer a reasonable expectation of completion. But it seemed an awful lot of trouble to go through to make one guy go limp for a week.

“You have my word, Emily, that once payment is received, I shall execute the contract as stated, so long as you appear daily at the same hour to drink my tea.”

She spat in her hand and extended it to me. “Contract offered?”

I stared at her hand and made no move to take it. If I spat in mine and shook her hand, then she would have some of my spittle to work with. Giving a witch your body fluids is akin to slicing off a choice cut of your buttocks and offering it to a werewolf. “Received,” I said, keeping my hands on the counter. “You may consider my word my bond.”

She smiled triumphantly, not in the least offended, and exited my shop without feigning interest in any of my wares, though she pointedly waved at Oberon behind the counter and said, “Bye, puppy,” just to show me she had seen through the camouflage. And I wondered, far too late, whether I had behaved wisely in agreeing to this business. Probably not. Witches had better ways of controlling their bodies than drinking a Druid’s brews, and if they were willing to put their entire coven in magical hock to me and pay me ten thousand ducats to boot to get rid of one horny guy, then I was probably dealing with an incubus or something similarly nasty.

The magic of attraction is little more than science these days. I would brew her a blend of herbs that would suppress her natural pheromones, which were currently exciting the fella, and then, with a bit of clever binding, cause her to emit the chemical signature of a skunk instead. Unless this guy was a closet skunkophile, she’d be looking at a wet noodle all night. On top of that, I was going to make sure she didn’t get excited either, throwing in some natural monoamine suppressants. I had made this sort of brew before: I sold it to sorority girls as Humili-Tea. They used it on their exes or their stalkers or sometimes to end a relationship when they had no good reason to do so.

Back when I first learned how to make a tea like this, I didn’t have names for all the chemical reactions caused by the herbs—the herblore was just as magical to me as my bindings were to a layperson. Science had taken away some of the mystery of the process but none of the utter coolness I felt knowing that I could whip up compounds the pharmaceutical industry could only dream of.

But I will not pretend I was helping Emily to feel cool. I figured to come out far ahead in the deal, because having a coven in your debt was serious mojo, and I could use plenty of that if the Morrigan’s casting were to come true.