Hounded

Chapter 17

I beckoned Perry over. “I’ll explain what happened later,” I said as he squatted next to me in the grass. “The bird was just the beginning. But listen—” I paused to cough up some more blood.

“Damn, Atticus, I knew that bird was bad news. I’m sorry, man, I should have stayed to help you out.”

“Don’t worry about it. You can help me now. You’re on the clock until you get a glass contractor out here to fix up the door. Once that’s done, lock up and head home. Open up tomorrow for me and make a cup of Humili-Tea—there’s some sachets already made—you know the one I’m talking about, the one that sorority girls ask for when they want to end a relationship?” Perry nodded and grinned wryly. “Good. Make it for a customer named Emily. Don’t tell her anything about what you saw here or where I’m at or anything, is that clear? If she asks you what the weather’s like outside, you shrug your shoulders and say you don’t know, all right?”

“Got it, boss.”

“That goes for everybody who asks anything. Tell them I’ll be back in a few days. If you don’t know how to make a certain kind of tea for someone, then don’t even try. Just apologize and tell them I’ll be back soon.”

“Is that true?”

I tried to laugh but coughed instead. “What, that I’ll be back? I certainly hope so.”

“You’re not going to be in the hospital for weeks? Because that looks like a bullet hole in your shirt.”

“As the Black Knight famously said, that’s just a flesh wound.”

“The Black Knight always triumphs!” Perry beamed. Monty Python is like catnip for nerds. Once you get them started quoting it, they are constitutionally incapable of feeling depressed.

“That’s right. It would greatly ease my mind if you took care of things, Perry. And if a guy named Hal tells you to do anything, you do it as if it came from my mouth, okay? He’s my attorney. Speaking of whom, here he is.”

Hal returned from the inside of the store, and he had Fragarach clutched invisibly in his left hand. He knelt down on the other side of me, seeming to use his left hand for support, but in truth laying the sword down in the grass against my side. As he did this, he held out his right hand to Perry to distract him. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Hal Hauk,” he said.

“Perry Thomas,” he said, taking Hal’s hand and shaking it. “I work for Atticus.”

“Excellent. Let’s get you inside, then, past all the police. I’ll be right back, Atticus,” he said to me. They rose and left me there, and I took the opportunity to check on Oberon.

Where are you now?

I’m not sure they make them in those scents, Oberon.

Ow! Don’t make me laugh right now!

After giving Oberon a mental scratch on the head, I went to work on Fragarach. I dispelled the camouflage as the ambulance arrived, because I didn’t want anyone to accidentally touch it and freak out, then placed a binding on the scabbard that would prevent it from moving farther than five feet from me. I had wanted to do this in the shop in case Fagles ever got his hands on it, but the binding takes longer to cast than camouflage and requires more power, and I didn’t have access to much of either earlier.

Jimenez came out to meet the paramedics and pointed them in my direction. Hal also came out and asked them to take me to Scottsdale Memorial Hospital, where my personal doctor could operate on me.

I didn’t really have a personal doctor, but the Pack did. Dr. Snorri Jodursson was part of the Pack himself, and he was the go-to guy for the paranormal community in the Phoenix area. He didn’t raise an eyebrow at unusually fast healing, for example, and he was rumored to be an excellent bonesetter and a quick surgeon. He was also willing to do things off the books; he had a whole surgical team who would work off record for obscene amounts of cash. I’d met him a couple of times when I ran with the Pack—he was probably sixth or seventh in their hierarchy—but I’d never had cause to use his professional services until now.

The reason people like me need people like Snorri is because of reactions like the paramedics had when they examined me.

“I thought you were supposed to have been shot,” one of them said.

“I was. Fluid in my lungs,” I gurgled. “I’m stable, but I need to see my doctor.”

“Well, where’s the bullet hole?”

Whoops. In my haste to prevent infection, I probably grew that skin over a bit too fast. It was still angry red, I’m sure, but not an open wound anymore. I’d put all my effort into closing up the skin and the lung, so the muscle tissue on either side was still pretty torn and would take some time to mend—and the skin and lung tissue needed time to strengthen too.

“Um, it was a rubber bullet. Hit me there and caused internal bleeding,” I said.

“Detectives don’t use rubber bullets. And even if they did and it caused some internal bleeding, you shouldn’t have fluid in your lung from that.”

“Tell you what, sport. Put me on a stretcher and get me to my doctor and let him worry about it.” I was ready to go. I had done all I could here, including a recharge of my bear charm. Now I needed a surgeon and some time.

“You mean to tell me your bullet wound healed up that fast?”

“I mean to tell you to give me one of those oxygen masks and get me out of here. And this sword comes with me.” I patted Fragarach and the paramedic looked down, noticing it for the first time. “Doesn’t leave my side.”

“What? We cannot allow weapons in the ambulance.”

“It’s sheathed and it’s incredibly valuable. Look at my shop.” I gestured toward the broken door. “I can’t leave it here.”

Hal, who had been hanging back silently watching the proceedings, loomed suddenly over the paramedic’s shoulder. “Are you refusing to transport my client in a medical emergency?”

“No,” the paramedic replied, squinting up at him. “I’m refusing to transport his weapon.”

“You mean his priceless Celtic art? That’s not a weapon, sir. It’s a family heirloom of intense sentimental value, and the trauma he would suffer by being separated from it would be greater than any physical pain he currently feels. Which, I notice, you’ve done absolutely nothing about since you arrived.”

The paramedic clenched his jaw and exhaled sharply through his nose as he turned back to me. “Effing lawyers,” he muttered quietly, thinking perhaps Hal wouldn’t hear it. But werewolves tend to hear things like that.

“That’s right, sir, I am an effing lawyer, and I will effing file suit against you if you don’t effing get my client and his art to Scottsdale Memorial right now!”

“All right, whatever!” huffed the paramedic, who could not stand to be bludgeoned with lawsuit threats for long. He and his partner went to get the stretcher, and shortly I was being loaded into the back of the ambulance, Fragarach clutched in my right hand. Jimenez and the other cops were so busy worrying about what the press would do when they found out that a Phoenix detective had shot a Tempe detective stone dead that they completely missed the fact that the sword Fagles had been hollering about actually existed.

“I’ll see you there soon,” Hal said with a wave. “Snorri will take good care of you; he knows you’re coming. And don’t worry about these guys,” he said, indicating the paramedics. “Leif will pay them a visit tonight and they won’t remember a thing.” Since the paramedics had finally put an oxygen mask on me, I couldn’t answer, so I just gave a weak nod.

I’ll probably see you by lunchtime tomorrow, I said back to my dog.

Only if Hal tells me you’ve been good.

Oberon said, his mental voice fading as the ambulance put some distance between us.

Okay, be good, then, I projected, and hoped he heard it. We warbled up Mill Avenue and doubtless gave the stoners loitering on the corner outside Trippie Hippie a quick jolt of paranoia. Sirens just harsh on their mellow, man.

Drives in the back of an ambulance are simultaneously boring and stressful. I needed relief from both. Paramedic Man wasn’t about to talk to me anymore, so I decided to mess with him a bit, since Leif would make sure he wouldn’t remember anything later. Am I above immature trickery? No. It keeps me young.

Using a bit of power recently banked in my bear charm, I bound a few of the natural threads in the elastic band of his underwear to the fine hairs in the center of his back about five inches up. The result was an instant wedgie. Those have been funny for two thousand years, but they’re even more hilarious when your victim is sanctimoniously trying to behave like he knows more than you.

I really shouldn’t have done it, though, because his reaction—a girlish squeal followed by a high-octave “Ahh! What the fuck?!?” and an abrupt attempt to stand up, which cracked his head on the ceiling—got me laughing too hard, and that brought on a serious case of bloody hacking and a heaping spoonful of pain. Served me right, I suppose. I messed up the inside of the oxygen mask, then released the binding so he could calm down and help me.

He never saw me laughing, so the poor guy thought his antics had caused me to become upset, and he was very solicitous as soon as he was able to reestablish some room in his shorts. Best ambulance ride ever.

When we got to the hospital and his partner came around to help unload me from the back, he noticed that Mr. Wedgie had a flushed face.

“What happened?” he asked.

“He had a bit of distress during the ride, but he’s stable for the moment,” Wedgie said as they put my rolling stretcher on the ground and started pushing me toward the sterile electric doors of the emergency room.

“But you look like something happened to you,” his partner replied. “Are you okay, man?”

“I’m fine,” Wedgie snapped. “Nothing happened. I—ahh, Jesus Christ!”

Well, I couldn’t resist when he was lying like that, could I? Besides, there’s that saying about laughter being the best medicine. Whoever said that didn’t have blood in their left lung, though, I feel certain.

Dr. Snorri Jodursson got his first look at me while I was in the midst of another hacking fit. He appeared to be in his forties, though of course he was older than that, like all the members of the Tempe Pack. He was dressed in blue scrubs, which drew attention to the startling blue ice of his eyes and the blond eyebrows furrowed above them. His sharp nose and chiseled jaw made him look like a thunder god, though considering his pack’s antipathy for Thor, that wasn’t a compliment I would think of paying him aloud. He had his blond hair cropped fairly close along the sides, but it was tousled and teased on the top after the fashion of frat-boy douche bags—and I wasn’t going to tell him that either.

“Atticus, I’ve seen you looking better,” he said, as he kept pace with the gurney being wheeled into pre-op by a couple of nurses. “Tell me what you can when you feel up to it.”

“Am I able to talk freely?” I asked, tilting my eyes toward the nurses rolling my gurney.

“Oh yes, they’re part of my team,” Jodursson said.

“You can count on their discretion as long as you pay for it.”

“All right, I need blood removed from my left lung, then,” I said, “and use a local anesthetic. I can’t afford to go under.”

“If that’s all you need, we don’t need to cut you open at all. We’ll insert a tube down your throat, charge the liquid, and then use magnets to draw it up out of there. We do it for pneumonia patients all the time. You’ll still need a local, because it tends to hurt like hell, but you’ll remain conscious. Good enough?”

“Perfect. Treat this whole thing as outpatient, because I need you to let me go right afterward, and you should bill full costs to Magnusson and Hauk, no insurance. Include in your records whatever tests and exams you’d do for a normal human. You know the drill, I’m sure. Make sure you mention the bullet hole and what a good job you did patching it up, because this is going to get looked at by the cops. No way around it.”

“Am I removing a bullet?”

“No, it passed through me, and they’re digging it out of my shop somewhere.”

“So you’re sure it traveled cleanly between your ribs? I don’t have to worry about any bone chips floating around?”

“As certain as I can be. I’m just half drowned.” We entered an elevator and paused until the doors closed.

“Would you mind if I did a chest X-ray to be sure? The cops are going to want to see one anyway. Kind of a standard procedure.”

“Well, I’ve already plugged up the holes in my lung and the entry and exit wounds too, so it’s going to look a bit odd.”

Jodursson scowled for the first time. Until then, he’d been conversing with half a grin on his face. “That was probably more efficient than you should have been.”

“Well, you’re going to charge me thousands for chest bandages I’ll never use, so I figure we’re even. You and your team will just have to lie convincingly on the stand when you get called up.” The elevator bell dinged and the doors opened, and the nurses rolled me into a busy hallway lined with surgical bays.

“You’re going to sue the cops, then?” Jodursson asked.

“Sure, why not? Somebody has to pay for all this, and I’d rather it not be me.”

“You’ve got a solid case?”

“As solid as Hal can make it. Five cops saw the other cop shoot me when I was standing dead still with my hands up, offering no resistance. Got it on security cam too. You write up a good story about your medical wizardry, and it’s guaranteed.”

“Excellent. I’ll be sure to pad the bill.”

“You’re the reason we need health care reform, you know.”

Jodursson’s grin returned. “There’s also going to be the matter of my team’s hush money.”

“Sure, no problem. This one’s going to get a lot of attention, because the press can’t leave something like this alone. Just let Hal know how much, and I’ll make sure he gets it to you.”

“Do we have to rush this?”

“The faster the better. You’re going to have the police and press here sooner rather than later, and I’d prefer to disappear if I can before they get here.”

And so Dr. Snorri Jodursson had me out of there by the time night fell, scooting out a side door in a wheelchair and conveniently missing all the people waiting for me in recovery.

We didn’t miss the guy waiting by the side door, though. That would be Detective Carlos Jimenez. He was showing some annoying signs of sentience.

“You’re looking pretty good for a guy who got shot in the chest,” he said.

“Detective.” I nodded at him. “How may I help you?”

“I need a statement.”

“I got shot in Tempe. You’re from Phoenix. There’s a statement. Two, in fact.”

“I know, Mr. O’Sullivan, I just need your version of events to put in my report. There’s always a lot of scrutiny when a cop gets shot, and it gets insane when he gets shot by other cops. So oblige me, will you?”

“All right. Detective Fagles shot me for no good reason while I had my hands up and was making no threatening movements or statements. The brave and decisive action of Detective Carlos Jimenez prevented me from suffering further injury and possibly saved my life. I am going to sue Tempe for millions. How’s that?”

“That was great. Thanks. Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

“Maybe I’m going to a titty bar. It’s none of your business. Come on, Doctor, let’s go.” Snorri began to roll me forward, and as he did, Jimenez registered what was slung around the back of my wheelchair.

“Hey, is that a scabbard? Or a sword, rather?”

“Whoa. Déjà vu,” I said, gesturing for Snorri to keep on pushing. “That sounds eerily like the line of questioning Detective Fagles used today when he was supposed to be searching for the dog I don’t have.”

“If that’s the sword Detective Fagles was talking about, then you removed it from a crime scene,” Jimenez replied, walking a pace or two behind us.

“If it is the same sword, Detective—and that’s a big if, since nobody ever saw that imaginary sword but Fagles—then it’s just as legally in my possession here as it was in my shop. Good evening, sir.”

“Wait a second,” Jimenez said. “Where can I find you if I need additional information?”

“You already know where I live and where I work,” I said.

“You’re going home, then?” He was a persistent bugger.

“Tell you what. If you cannot find me at home or at work, you may contact me through Hal Hauk, my attorney.” My plan had been to be out of the chair and walking north up Civic Center at this point, but Jimenez was kind of putting a crimp in my plans. He noticed this as we ran out of the parking lot and arrived at the street, where Snorri stopped pushing my wheelchair.

“What, no ride?” Jimenez asked.

“Good night, Detective,” I said pointedly.

He ignored me and addressed Snorri. “Has Mr. O’Sullivan been checked out of the hospital, then?”

“Yes, on my authority.”

“And you are?”

“Dr. Snorri Jodursson.”

“What can you tell me about his condition, Doctor?”

“I can tell you nothing right now, as you know. But once I receive a proper medical records request, you may of course read his chart and my notes yourself. And the sooner you leave me alone, the sooner I can get the paperwork finished.”

“Well, you’re quite a pair,” Jimenez said, folding his arms across his chest and locking his knees. He said nothing more, just stood there and stared at us. I kept my gaze focused on Scottsdale Stadium across the street, and I think Snorri was returning his gaze. I bet Jimenez would blink first—werewolves, you know—but Snorri didn’t have the patience to stare him down baldly. He employed a legal argument to save time.

“If you will excuse us, Detective, I need to consult with my patient in private,” Snorri said, and then I could practically feel him turning on that werewolf vibe that says back the hell off.

It took about two seconds for Jimenez to lower his eyes. He said, “Of course, Doctor. Good evening to you. And to you, Mr. O’Sullivan. I’ll be in touch.” We made no reply as he walked south along the sidewalk for about twenty-five yards. Then he stopped and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket and started slapping it against his palm. He looked back at us as he put one between his lips and lit up, clearly intending to wait around to see who gave me a ride. Annoying.

“Snorri, start walking me north toward Civic Center park,” I whispered, confident that he could hear me, and he complied. “I’m going to cast camouflage on myself and the sword now that you’re concealing me from his sight,” I said, “and I’ll get up while you’re pushing me and walk along with you. I don’t think he’ll spot the movement, since it’s dark. When we get up to the corner of Second Street, we’ll lose him around the corner and you can walk back, saying I caught a ride in a waiting car.”

“All right,” he whispered. “He’s following us. And he’s just pulled out his cell phone.”

“Can you hear who he’s talking to?”

“Hold on.” For a few moments there was nothing but the sound of the wheelchair thunking across cracks in the sidewalk. Then Snorri said, “He’s asking the Scottsdale police to get a car over here to tail you.”

“Ha! Won’t get here in time.” I cast camouflage on myself and on Fragarach once more and felt my energy stores dwindle down to Death Valley levels—that was the price I paid for playing wedgie games. Then I rocked myself forward onto the footrests, and hopped off into the street, so that Snorri could keep pushing the wheelchair as if I were still in it. I tried to take my first deep breath since getting shot and immediately discovered what a bad idea it was.

“Don’t try to take a deep breath until you heal up fully,” Snorri advised me as I gasped and clutched at my throat. “That local is probably wearing off, and the tissue in your throat is scraped raw and extremely dry at this point.”

“Thanks for the timely warning,” I whispered, over what felt like a windpipe made of molten gravel.

“That’s why I get paid the big bucks,” he said lightly.

“Speaking of which,” I wheezed, “you might want to have Hal take a look at your report before you hand it over to the cops, just to make sure it’s consistent with what actually happened.”

“Will do.”

I turned to look over my shoulder at Jimenez trailing us. He was picking up his pace as he saw us nearing the corner. I reached out to the wheelchair and snagged Fragarach from the back and slung it over my shoulder.

“I’m going to jog up to the park now. Tell Hal I’ll meet him for lunch at Rúla Búla tomorrow at noon and to bring Oberon with him.”

“Okay. Get well and try not to worry. We have your back.”

“Thanks, Snorri. You’re worth every penny.” I veered off to the right, crossing the deserted street to a wide median populated with old olive trees that gave Civic Center its peculiar character. After drawing some energy from a tree to allow me to breathe more freely, if not without pain, I left Snorri and Jimenez behind to play Where’s the Druid? and jogged the last quarter mile to the Civic Center Plaza, an expansive grassy area dotted with some old oaks and the occasional bronze statue. It was a little too manicured for my taste, but it was a large enough source of natural power to take care of my healing needs.

I walked a few paces into the grass and sank my fingers into the soil, reaching out with my consciousness to get to know this carefully kept landscape of modern serenity. Five minutes of meditation revealed to me a place near an oak tree that was rarely trod upon, so I made my way there and shucked myself out of my clothes, folding them neatly and hiding them up in a crook of the tree’s branches. I checked my cell phone for messages and had several texts—two from Hal and one from Perry—updating me that all was well for the moment, then turned it off to go completely incommunicado. Then, naked and camouflaged, I lay down on my right side so that my tattoos would have as much contact with the earth as possible and put Fragarach in front of me, nestled against my chest and belly. I placed some precautionary wards about myself, then instructed my body to heal and detoxify while I slept, drawing on the power of Civic Center’s abundant (if somewhat chemically assisted) life energy.

I had escaped Aenghus Óg’s machinations on this day, but at the cost of Fagles’s life. If I continued to let Aenghus test my defenses and provide him with a stationary target, eventually he would find a way to break me—especially with a coven of witches backing him up. So it was time to change the game somehow, and I had two choices: run like hell or fight like hell.

Running wasn’t attractive to me anymore, because I’d been there and done that for two millennia, and since I had basically pledged on my honor to Brighid that I would fight for her against Aenghus, it really wasn’t a viable option. On top of that, there was the betrayal of the Sisters of the Three Auroras. My ego didn’t want to let a bunch of Polish witches less than half my age get away with bearding me in my own den.

So it was going to be fight like hell, and about time too. I had managed to out-dither Hamlet, and the famous Dane’s words now haunted me: “I do not know why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do,’ sith I have cause and will and strength and means to do’t.” Hamlet promised himself he’d throw down afterward, but I think perhaps when he said, “From this time forth, my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!” the limits of blank verse weakened his resolve somehow. If he’d been free to follow the dictates of his conscience rather than the pen of Shakespeare, perhaps he would have abandoned verse altogether, like me, and contented himself with this instead: “Bring it, muthafuckas. Bring it.”