Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Six) (37 page)

Oberon gave a short bark of affirmation, but mentally he said,

Granuaile must have answered him, for there was a pause before he said,

Orlaith approached, nose aquiver and tail sawing the air, and Oberon rose to his feet, similarly enthused. He was very patient as she snuffled all around his face, and then she did a quick once-over of his torso before sliding down to his posterior.

Oberon said. Orlaith’s rear end was of course next to his snout now, and he turned his head to get a good whiff of it. Swinging around his head meant pulling his shoulders along and then his rear legs, which drew him away from Orlaith’s nose. She tried to get in closer, and that had the same effect, pulling her ass away from Oberon. In no time they were circling each other, pursuing what for them was a heady fragrance, and Granuaile let go of the leash. Their tempo sped up, and I wondered how long they could maintain it without crashing. Soon they weren’t even trying to sniff, they were simply chasing each other in circles with their mouths open in doggie smiles.

Granuaile laughed and looked at me. “She likes him.”

I grinned and nodded. It was pretty obvious from the hound’s behavior, but it was good to have confirmation of Orlaith’s feelings from Granuaile. I would be very careful not to tap into Orlaith’s head for a few weeks, to make sure she bonded properly with Granuaile.

Oberon heard the comment, of course, and said,

I asked Granuaile, “Do you think you’ll get along with her?”

“Oh, yes, no problem,” she replied. “Orlaith’s quick and very sweet.”

Oberon broke out of the circle and took off across the lawn, Orlaith hot on his heels.

Oberon tumbled across the grass and Orlaith quickly followed, a giant mess of fur and splayed legs until they rolled out of it, and then Oberon was chasing
her
around the lawn instead.

The owner of the ranch chuckled and said, “Well, they certainly seem to get along.”

Granuaile clapped her hands together in delight and gave a little squee. “Yes, they do. We’d like to adopt her if that’s okay.” She introduced me to the woman, who was named Kimberly. Her mother had owned the ranch during the time I’d adopted Oberon, and now she looked after it. We couldn’t tell her Oberon had ever been there, of course, because he was far older than any normal wolfhound now. But we could show Kimberly that we were pretty good with hounds.

Oberon, come on over here and be brilliant for a second so this lady will trust us with Orlaith
. Aloud I said, “Oberon! Here, boy!”

He scampered over, Orlaith close behind, and stopped in front of me.

“Sit,” I said. He sat. “Lie down.” He did so. “Belly rub.” He rolled onto his back.

No worries
. “Come to heel.” He got up and moved to my right side, facing the same way I was facing, and wagged his tail. Orlaith did the same thing with Granuaile, standing on her left side, though Granuaile hadn’t said anything aloud.

Kimberly let out a low whistle of appreciation. “Well, I guess you know your hounds,” she said.

We filled out paperwork with Kimberly and made a generous donation to the rescue, then we left with Orlaith and shifted through Tír na nÓg to our cabin in Colorado, where Orlaith would have plenty of time to bond with Granuaile and begin to learn a few words here and there.

You’ll need to be very patient with Orlaith on the talking thing
, I explained to Oberon.
You’ve been with me many years now and probably don’t remember how tough it was at first
.

When Granuaile thinks she’s ready. It will probably be a while, buddy
. Bonding them too soon might overwhelm Orlaith, and I needed to remember to remind Granuaile of that.
You can just enjoy her as she is in the meantime, right?

The days passed quickly with training and play until it was time to travel back to Tír na nÓg. I’d asked Hal Hauk to start liquidating some of my assets and converting them to gold, and one of his pack members, Greta, was tasked with delivering it to the cabin. It was her second trip there—a rather long one from Tempe—and she made it clear that she hated the drive. She turned her car around on the road and honked, never getting
out. Once I walked around to the driver’s side, she rolled down the window and dropped a heavy sack on the ground in front of me.

“A giant bag of gold I can understand, but making me drive up here to deliver those Girl Scout Cookies and whiskey? That makes you a whole new species of asshole,” she said, then stepped on the accelerator and peeled down the hill, leaving me in a cloud of dust. I coughed a bit but grinned. I knew what to get her for the holidays. I hefted the sack and, after bidding farewell to Granuaile and the hounds, took it with me to pay Goibhniu and thereby finance the stealth war against vampires.

When I got there and paddled the canoe out to Zealot Island, Goibhniu had already extracted its inhabitant from the slow time and placed him on a makeshift bed on the barge. In keeping with his promise to the Morrigan, he’d called in Fand, who was leaning over the man, lending her healing powers and the miraculous bacon of Manannan Mac Lir’s hogs to his recuperation—for, as expected, he had broken quite a few bones in the shock of removal. She smiled as I approached and said, “Ah, here he is! Your savior. I’ll let you two talk.” She winked at me and whispered, “He’s doing very well considering his age, even with our help.” Her surprise and curiosity about his identity were unspoken but clear.

It wasn’t a mystery to me why he healed so fast, but I felt it best to keep his identity a secret for a while longer. Ignoring her nonverbal query, I simply said, “Thank you.” She complimented my new haircut with a faint trace of sarcasm and took the hint, leaving us alone.

A weathered visage underneath a pair of bushy white eyebrows scowled at me in querulous confusion, one gloved hand holding up to his mouth a strip of bacon, which he gnawed on with gusto. He was having trouble placing me—my haircut was quite severe. I’d had to
shave my head because most of the hair on the left side had been torn out by the tooth faeries, and now there was only a couple weeks’ stubble showing. His curt voice was laced with irritation as he spat in Old Irish, “Say something, y’poxy pile of shite.” A small chunk of bacon launched itself from his teeth by way of punctuation.

Normally, such a greeting would elicit from me an assertion that I had enjoyed the company of his mother the previous evening, but, considering who it was, I toned it down a bit. “The good news is that you’re still alive after all these years. The bad news is that you’re still alive after all these years.”

The eyebrows writhed in sinuous fashion atop his brow, wrestling for dominance on his face, until recognition hit him and they drew together in their customary configuration, a severe roof over an angry grimace. “You? Bloody Siodhachan!” Little bacon-flavored flecks of spittle flew from his lips. Deciding this wasn’t enough, he hawked up something gross and spat on the deck before continuing, “Gods damn it, how long was I on that thrice-cursed island? Nobody will tell me. You’ve gone and cocked everything up again, haven’t ye?”

My old archdruid literally hadn’t aged a day since the Morrigan put him on the island, and he was still as charming as ever.

In case you might be interested, I’ve included a couple of goodies on my website (
www.kevinhearne.com
) that couldn’t appear in the book. The first is a Google map of the run across Europe. The second is a much longer retelling of
The Wooing of Étaín
by Atticus. Links to both can be found on the appropriately titled Goodies page.

Special thanks to Colin Wagenmann in Germany for his insights regarding German geography and for expressing existential quantification in
Deutsch
. I’m also grateful to Michelle Drew and William Cathcart in the UK for info regarding Windsor Park and Frogmore House, and to Heather Blatt at Florida International University for her invaluable help with Middle English. Dr. D. Forrest Taylor coached me a bit on toxins and their effects. Any inaccuracies are of course my fault and not theirs.

To belay speculation, the similarity betwixt my surname and Herne the Hunter’s is entirely coincidental—unless it isn’t. I know my ancestor arrived in “the Colonies” in the sixteenth century from London and could conceivably be related to an historical Herne (if he existed), but I lay no claim to that and frankly think it far-fetched. I simply found Herne a fascinating and irresistible figure because he illustrates the principle that stories (and perhaps gods) can take on a life of their own.

I cannot say enough good things about my alpha reader, Alan O’Bryan, my agent, Evan Goldfried, and
my editors at Del Rey, Tricia Narwani and Mike Braff. Words simply fail, so we tend to drink a lot and sing the praises of a literate populace. Seriously. We’re not bad singers. And we have sung songs about you. Someday we will form our own heavy metal band called Thë Grätüïtöüs Ümläüts and sing of death and linguistics. Our first single will be “(Die)acriticäl Märks.”

Many thanks to you for reading and for spreading word of the series to your friends. It’s the only reason I get to write more.

Last but certainly not least, I’m grateful to my family for their love and support.

Novellas related to series are often stand-alone adventures or only tangentially related to the overall plot, but this one was conceived and written to be an integral part of the Iron Druid Chronicles. It’s really book 4.5, set six years between the events of
Tricked
and
Trapped
, and there are references in both
Trapped
and
Hunted
to events that occur in this novella. We’ve printed it here at the back of book six because novellas are rarely printed and sold separately, and also for the very practical reason that this was written after
Trapped
was already completed and well into its production process. This was the earliest point we could get it into print at no extra cost to you. Thanks for your understanding, and happy reading!

A
N
I
RON
D
RUID
C
HRONICLES
N
OVELLA

What would it be like, I wonder, if humans could slobber as freely as dogs? There’s no social stigma for dogs when they slobber and it looks like a lot of fun, so I envy them that freedom. I’ve certainly wanted to slobber at various times—there are situations where nothing else makes sense—but despite having lived for 2,100 years and in many countries around the world, I have yet to find a culture where it’s even mildly acceptable, much less looked upon with approval.

I guess some things will never change.

Despite the universe’s refusal to change enduring truths according to my will, lately I’ve been wishing I could train a Druid in a five-minute karate-movie montage rather than the necessary twelve years. After ten seconds of futile effort trying to solve a problem, the initiate would abruptly improve or learn the lesson and her expression would fill with wonder, and I would award said initiate a cookie or a tight nod of approval. The initiate would bask in the glory of an achievement and then move on to the next difficult challenge for another ten seconds, and so on, until a triumphant swell of music and a slow-motion high five signaled victory and completion. We would smile the radiant smiles of actors in fast-food commercials, merrily chuckling as we ate
enough grease to make our hearts explode like meat grenades.

But training my apprentice, Granuaile, wasn’t like that at all. Shaping her mind for Druidry was rough and monotonous for both of us, yet shaping her body was fraught with peril. The peril was the sort Sir Galahad had faced at Castle Anthrax: stupefying sexual tension.

Every winter solstice, I gave my apprentice an entire wardrobe of loose, shapeless sweats, and she kept buying herself tight, formfitting outfits to wear in the summer months. I had trained my Irish wolfhound, Oberon, to help me through it and be my Lancelot whenever Granuaile made my jaw drop, which was more often than I would care to admit. She’d go through her kicks and lunges and various stances and build up a sweat, then I’d start thinking about other ways to get sweaty, and shortly thereafter I’d need to be rescued.

Can’t I have just a little bit of peril?
I would ask Oberon through our mental link.

he’d say, and then I’d have to give him a snack, which would force me to tear my eyes away from Granuaile and redirect my thoughts into less prurient channels. It might sound silly, but it was self-preservation.

Granuaile picked up on the pattern after a while, unfortunately.

“Sensei?” she asked.

“Yes?”

“Why are you always leaving about halfway through a workout to give Oberon a snack?”

“What? Well, he’s a good dog.”

“Granted, but he’s a good dog all the time, and the
only times you interrupt what you’re doing to give him a snack are during workouts.”