Hounded

Chapter 21

I showed the text to Magnusson, unable to summon anything coherent to say. He grunted at the message, and passed the phone back to me. I could see the other werewolves bristle as he communicated the message to them through their mental link.

“Will you call her for me, please,” Magnusson said, struggling mightily to control his anger, “and discover where they are holding Hal? He was unconscious for a time, and now he’s awake but they have him blindfolded and he cannot say where he is.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Please remain quiet during the call so she will not know you are listening.” Werewolves would have no trouble hearing everything she said.

Magnusson confined himself to a curt nod, and I punched in the number indicated from the text.

“It took you long enough,” Emily purred at me after a single ring. “Maybe your dog doesn’t mean as much to you as we thought.”

“Prove to me he is still alive,” I ground out. “I will not talk to you any further without that.”

“I will have your lawyer confirm it,” she said. “Hold on.” There was a pause, some rustling and snarling, and then I heard Emily telling Hal to tell me he was okay.

“Atticus,” he gasped at me, strain evident in his voice. “I see half the coven in the woods somewhere.” There was a thud and a snarl, and I heard Emily in the distance shouting at him to just tell me the dog was fine, nothing more. “We’re tied up to trees. Silver chains. Oberon is unharmed so far.”

“That’s enough!” Emily yelled. She returned the phone to her mouth and I heard a couple of whines from Oberon. He was still alive.

“In the eastern Superstition Mountains, take the Haunted Canyon trail to Tony Cabin,” she said. “On some maps it’s called Tony Ranch—same thing. Come alone after dark. Bring the sword. We will bring the dog and the wolf.”

“If either of them is harmed, I will bring the sword into contact with your neck, and damn the consequences,” my voice rasped into the phone. “Do you understand me, witch? You are bound to me by your own blood. If you kill them, you can be sure that I—along with Hal’s pack—will hunt you down. You have no idea what is coming after you now.”

“Don’t I? I suppose I will just have to ask my friend Aenghus Óg. I’m sure he’ll let me know what manner of worm you are.”

“Ask yourself this, witch: If I am a worm to him, why hasn’t he crushed me in the last two thousand years? And why does he feel the need to ally himself with your coven if I am so easily dealt with?”

“Two thousand years?” Emily said.

“Two thousand years?” Magnusson said.

Whoops! This is why I don’t like to get angry. It makes you reveal things you would rather keep secret. Still, I couldn’t let Emily know that she had scored any kind of coup by getting a fairly accurate estimate of my age, so I used it as a hammer.

“That’s right, lassie, you’re completely fucked. The only chance you have of surviving this night is bringing me my friends healthy and happy.” I hung up before she could reply.

“You’re not going out there alone,” Magnusson said immediately. He had of course heard every word.

“I was rather counting on you to come along,” I replied.

“They’ve put the sack back over his head,” Magnusson said, “but we saw six witches through the link before they did. Your hound is with them. And Hal smelled someone else there too, but didn’t see who it was.”

“What did it smell like?”

Magnusson’s eyes rolled up as he recalled it and put words to it. “Oak and bear fur and … wet feathers. Some kind of bird.”

“That would be a swan,” I said. “It’s one of Aenghus Óg’s animal forms.”

“Who is this Aenghus Óg?”

“Long story,” I said. “The short version is this: He’s a god, and he’ll have some demons with him on top of the witches. I’ll tell you more on the drive out there. Bottom line is we’re in for one hell of a scrap. But we might be able to bring along someone they’re not expecting.”

“Who?”

I turned my head to find the redheaded siren pulling a pint of Guinness for an older gentleman down the bar. “Granuaile!” I called as I pulled out my wallet to pay the bill. “I will accept you as my apprentice if you will have me as your master. Do you still wish to become an initiate?”

“Very much!” She nodded and grinned at me as she placed the pint in front of the customer.

“Then tell your manager you quit, effective immediately,” I said. “I will be your employer from now on. We need to leave now, though, so make it quick.”

Her eyes flicked to the werewolves standing around behind me, crowded into the foyer of the pub.

“Something has happened, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, it has, and we need your friend right away,” I said, tapping the side of my head to make it clear I was speaking of Laksha. “This is both her chance and yours, but we have to go now.”

“Okay,” she said, beaming as she jogged back to the kitchen entrance to slap open the swinging door. “Hey, Liam! I quit!” Then she vaulted herself onto the bar, swung her legs around, and hopped off between a couple of stools.

“Attagirl,” an elderly gentleman said, raising his pint in salute.

We left the place en masse before Liam, whoever he was, could properly register that he had just lost a damn fine bartender.

The lot of us piled into various souped-up werewolf cars parked across from the light rail station, and then we drove south on Mill to University. We took a right, and from there took a left on Roosevelt, winding up in front of the widow’s house.

I promptly set them all, except Granuaile and Gunnar, to trimming the widow’s grapefruit tree and weeding her flower bed. Since the Tempe police were still staking out my house and I had a pack of werewolves on the verge of going all hairy, it seemed like the best way to keep my promise to the widow and keep the Pack walking around on two legs.

While the widow was happily occupied admiring impossibly fit men and women grooming her landscape, I retired to the backyard with Gunnar and Granuaile.

“Please have Laksha remove the cloak on this now,” I said to Granuaile as I placed Fragarach in her hands and dispelled the binding that kept it close to me. “And you,” I said to Gunnar, “make sure she doesn’t take off with my sword.”

Granuaile’s eyes bugged. “You think Laksha would do that?”

“No,” I said. “But I’ve been wrong before, and I’m just paranoid, okay?”

The alpha male scowled at me. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to get something out of my house,” I said. “I’ll probably be back in less than ten minutes. If I’m not, send someone to check.”

Magnusson nodded, and I began stripping off my clothes.

“What are you doing?” Granuaile asked uncertainly.

“Same thing you’ll be able to do in about twenty years or so,” I said, pulling my keys out of my pocket and carefully laying them down on top of my jeans.

“You mean get naked? I can do that now. Wow,” she sniggered, “you need to get some sun.”

“Shut up. I’m Irish.” I drew power from the earth through my tattoos and enjoyed Granuaile’s gasp of astonishment as I turned into a great horned owl. I snapped up my key ring in my beak before launching myself into the sky on silent wings.

“Show-off,” Gunnar called after me. He was just jealous. People don’t gasp appreciatively when he changes form in front of them; they scream.

It was less than a minute’s flight, as the owl flies, to my house from the widow’s. The police sitting in the patrol car outside my house looked supremely bored. I spiraled down into my backyard for a landing and took a nice long look around before changing back into human form. My wards were still in place, and no one was watching, so I grew myself some opposable thumbs and entered through my back door. The slip of paper with Radomila’s blood on it was still locked up in my bookcase, precisely where I had left it. I punched a hole through one corner and threaded it onto my key ring, then returned to my backyard. There I bound myself back to an owl, picked up the keys in my beak, and enjoyed the short flight back to the widow’s house.

Granuaile was seated in the lotus position inside a circle she had traced in the dirt, Fragarach laying across her lap, cradled at either end by her hands. She was chanting something in Tamil, so I was fairly certain that Laksha was in charge.

Gunnar Magnusson was still in human form, but his hackles were up, if you know what I mean. He looked mightily relieved to see me.

“How long has she been at it?” I asked in a low voice once I had the use of my vocal cords again. My clothes were still laying where I had left them, but I didn’t feel especially anxious to put them back on yet. Switching forms so quickly left me feeling a bit twitchy and sensitive, and I didn’t want the abrasion or confinement until I absolutely had to have it. The widow rarely came out to her backyard, and I could see no reason why she would with all of that fine beefcake parading before her.

“Only a couple of minutes,” Magnusson grumbled, almost a whisper. “But it feels like an eternity. That witch creeps me out, Atticus. Do you trust her?”

“No, I never trust witches,” I said. “But I do trust her to do this job. It’s an ego trip, or rather a professional pride sort of thing. If she can undo the cloak Radomila set on my sword, she proves she’s better than Radomila.”

“Do you need her to prove that, or is this just for her?”

“It’s for me,” I replied. “Radomila, not Emily, is the witch who’s really holding Hal and Oberon. If we’re going to take on her whole coven, we’re going to need a serious witch of our own who’s at least the equal of Radomila.”

“Is that the entire point of this exercise? Didn’t you want that cloak on there?”

I shook my head. “Not anymore. Yesterday Radomila proved that she still has a connection to this sword that she can use against me; she was able to show Aenghus Óg how to bind Detective Fagles in such a way that he could sense the cloak, and thus see my sword, even through my camouflage spell. What if she could do more to the sword through that link? Turn it against me as I wield it, perhaps? I cannot take that risk.”

“No, you can’t,” Magnusson agreed.

“Besides, the entire reason I was cloaking it was to keep it hidden from Aenghus Óg and his allies. Since he knows where I am now and Brighid told me she wants me to keep it, there’s no more reason to hide. It’s actually going to help having its magic in the open, Gunnar. Because that means Aenghus Óg and the coven will be focused on me and the threat I represent. They won’t be worrying about you and the Pack circling around behind them …”

Magnusson allowed himself a feral grin.

“… but they will know you are most likely coming,” I continued. “They would be stupid not to prepare themselves. So you, in turn, must be prepared. They will have silver, Gunnar. Guaranteed.”

The alpha male’s grin melted into a snarl, and his features began to ripple as his eyes flashed bright yellow.

“Whoa, whoa! Calm yourself. Now is not the time, my friend.” I placed a steadying hand on his shoulder and continued to make reassuring noises until his face stopped running like hot wax and the lights in his eyes faded to their normal brown. I heard some howls and barking in the front yard, though. Not all the Pack members had as much control as Gunnar, and he had almost lost it as the alpha.

“I am sorry,” he gasped, short of breath and sweating. “But we have been provoked past all endurance.”

“I know. But tell the ones who changed in the front to come back here and leave the widow alone.”

“It is done,” he said. Shortly thereafter, three agitated werewolves were circling the two of us but studiously keeping their eyes lowered.

I moved carefully to my clothes and started putting them on, explaining as I did so. “The widow is going to need to see a familiar face at this point,” I said, “because she just watched three of your pack make the change, if I’m not mistaken.”

“That she did,” Magnusson confirmed. “Can she be trusted?”

“Absolutely,” I replied. “Two days ago she watched me kill someone, and she offered me her backyard as a place to hide the body.”

“Truly?” Magnusson raised his eyebrows in surprise. “That’s a fine woman.”

“The very finest.” I grinned as I pulled on my pants and dropped my keys, along with the scrap of paper, into my pocket. “But she’s probably a bit scared right now. When the witch is finished,” I nodded over to Laksha–Granuaile, still chanting away in a trancelike state, “ask her from me to step away from the sword and allow you to take possession by my request. If she refuses, send a wolf to let me know immediately, but do not attack her. Just keep her from leaving.”

“You want me to send a werewolf to bark at you like Lassie?” Magnusson looked outraged.

“Fine, come tell me yourself, then.” I rolled my eyes as I pulled on my shirt. “Hopefully I’ll be back in time to make the point moot.”

I sprinted around the side of the house to the front porch, where the widow was yelling at the remaining werewolves, including Dr. Snorri Jodursson, to get their damn spooky selves off her lawn.

“Mrs. MacDonagh, it’s okay, they’re perfectly safe—”

“Gah! Atticus, yer not one of them, are ye?” The widow raised her arm in front of her throat.

“No,” I assured her. “I’m not.”

“Some of yer friends turned into bloody big dogs right before me eyes!” She took a couple of deep breaths and clutched at the railing for support.

“I know. They won’t hurt you, though.”

“G’wan, now!” she scolded me. “Yer not goin’ ter tell me it’s the drink talkin’?”

“No, what you saw was real. But it’s okay.”

“Why? Are they Irish?”

“They’re Icelandic, for the most part. The younger ones are Americans.”

“Wait, wasn’t Iceland a British colony?”

“No, it was a Nordic colony. Listen, Mrs. MacDonagh, I apologize, but I have some strange friends. None of them are British, though, and they won’t hurt you.”

“I think ye owe me an explanation, Atticus.”

As a rule I don’t tell the truth about the world, because shattered illusions are no fun to clean up. But if the widow had a strong enough constitution to shoo werewolves off her lawn, I figured she could handle it. We sat down in her rockers as the remainder of the Pack hurriedly cleaned up the trimmings and drifted one by one to the backyard, and I gave her the short version: There are more things under heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy—including Druids like me and werewolves like the Tempe Pack.

“Yer a real Druid? Aren’t y’supposed to be dead?”

“Lots of people sure think so.”

“All of it’s real, then? There’s no make-believe?”

“There’s plenty of make-believe in the details. This vampire I know actually likes garlic quite a bit. And werewolves, as you just saw, can change anytime, though they do try to confine it to the full moons when they have to change, because it’s a pretty painful transformation.”

“So God really exists?”

“All the gods exist, or at least did exist at one time.”

“But I mean Jesus and Mary and all that lot.”

“Sure, they existed. Still do. Nice people.”

“And Lucifer?”

“I’ve never personally met him, but I have no doubt he’s around somewhere. Allah is doing his thing too, and so are Buddha and Shiva and the Morrigan and so on. The point is, Mrs. MacDonagh, that the universe is exactly the size that your soul can encompass. Some people live in extremely small worlds, and some live in a world of infinite possibility. You have just received some sensory input that suggests it’s bigger than you previously thought. What are you going to do with that information? Will you deny it or embrace it?”

She grinned fondly. “Ah, me dear boy, how can I deny anything y’say? If ye haven’t killed me yet for seein’ more than I ought ter, I figger ye mus’ like me and ye wouldn’t steer an old widow wrong. And besides that, I saw those bloody werewolves with me own eyes.”

I smiled at her and patted her hand, small and wrinkled and spotted with age. “I do like you, Mrs. MacDonagh, quite a bit. I trust you and know that you’re the really good sort of friend who would help me move a body, as your Sean would say. I know you must have a bushel of questions for me, but right now there’s a crisis to deal with. Oberon’s been kidnapped along with one of the werewolves, and that’s why we’re all so upset. We’ll talk more tomorrow, and I promise to answer all your questions if I survive the night,” I said.

The widow’s eyebrows raised. “Ye’ve got all these nasty pooches to run around with and ye still might die?”

“I’m going to go fight with a god, some demons, and a coven of witches who all want to kill me,” I said, “so it’s a distinct possibility.”

“Are y’goin’ t’kill ’em back?”

“I’d certainly like to.”

“Attaboy,” the widow chuckled. “Off y’go, then. Kill every last one o’ the bastards and call me in the mornin’.”

“An excellent suggestion,” said Gunnar Magnusson, coming around the corner and stepping onto the porch with Fragarach in his hand. His pack followed him—both in human form and wolf—along with Granuaile. Just by the way she carried herself, I could see she was still controlled by Laksha.

Radomila’s cloak had most definitely been sloughed off. Fragarach practically hummed with ancient Irish juju, and as I grasped the proffered hilt and felt the magic pulse through my forearm, I was reminded of its deadly purpose and of the deadly purpose I also had now.

“Right,” I said, pulling the sword out and admiring its blade. “I’ve waited long enough. If Aenghus Óg wants this sword, then he can have it—for just as long as it takes me to eviscerate him.”