Staked (Iron Druid Chronicles) (22 page)

Miłosz has no idea, but he walks toward us and I feel or sense the moment when he recognizes Perun as a friend of Świętowit. That reassures him and he is ready to leave with us.

I’m not positive that the Sisters of the Three Auroras will be able to withstand a concerted effort by Loki to take Miłosz back, but I do know that they won’t make it easy for him and could quite possibly bring him under their power again. Getting the horse there while Loki is still wounded—and while I’m still wounded—will be the trick.

We return to the stable area and get dressed. I have to lean against the wall to put on my jeans; I’m not yet steady enough on one leg to manage it without support. Pulling on my shirt is excruciating, considering the wounds in my back and gut; the skin, ragged and oozing blood, is at least closed up at the dermis level, and the internal bleeding is all right for now, but the tissue damage will take much longer to deal with. Orlaith volunteers to carry Scáthmhaide in her mouth until we’re up top, and I thank her.

I try walking by myself to the exit, but it’s slow, erratic progress, since I’m never sure when my legs will obey me or decide to contract or extend on their own. I fall down twice, which is not fun, but I’m so relieved that I can walk at all that I insist on struggling the whole way to the bridge. There I ask Perun if I can hitch a ride on his back until we get to the other side. I don’t trust my legs enough to risk them over a snake pit.

As we walk away on the other side, I ask Mecklenburg to raise the floor of the pit so that it functionally ceases to exist as a pit and the snakes will have a chance to get out. Likewise, we open all the rat cages as we leave, allowing them to escape or not as they wish. Perun gives me another piggyback ride up the stairs so that I don’t tumble down them, and when we’re finally out of there and standing on the turf of Rügen under the afternoon sun, we all smile. Or, at least, Miłosz and Orlaith demonstrate the equivalent of happiness by prancing around.

We walk to the ferry, and by the end of that walk I’m feeling confident with my muscle control. The toxin’s been nullified and I have my motor control back. I still have plenty of work to do on my torso, but at least it’s not preventing me from being mobile.

I charge up the silver reservoir of Scáthmhaide to continue healing during the ferry ride, and we get some looks boarding with a horse and hound—or maybe its concern over my bloody shirt—but no one gives us any trouble.

The sun has almost set when we reach the mainland and a figure separates from the shadows. Despite the chill he’s bare-chested, which draws plenty of stares. The fact that he’s in phenomenal shape and has a wide golden belt supporting bright red pants of a flowing material probably has something to do with it too. Or maybe it’s the huge, club-like weapon he has slung over his shoulder. His skin is a dark, rich brown and his hair is cut close against his skull, as if perhaps he had shaved it a couple of weeks ago and hadn’t kept up with it. Everyone’s looking at him, but he’s looking right back at us as we disembark.

“Perun,” he says, nodding once to him. “And you must be Granuaile.” His voice is a thrumming bass, and I can’t place his accent but I love it.

“I’m sorry, have we met before? I think I would remember.”

Brilliant teeth flash at me. “We have not met. If you were to ask Odin, he would say I am here at his request. But in truth I do not care what Odin wants. I am here because I wished to meet you. I am Shango.”

“Shango? The Orisha? God of thunder?”

Lightning dances in his eyes, just as it does in Perun’s every so often, and he nods at me with a tight grin. “The very same.”

“Why did you want to meet me?”

“I have heard you delivered a long-overdue beating to Loki. I would like to hear the story from your own lips. And Odin tells me that this horse is rather important to Loki. You have some distance to travel to his new home, and there’s a chance that Loki might show up along the way. I hope you will allow me to accompany you. If Perun and I are both with you, it may serve as a deterrent, and, failing that, I would be honored to fight him by your side.”

Oh, damn. I really like to listen to him talk. I want to take him to dinner and just have him read the menu to me. And he’s so polite.

“I see. And why did Odin ask you to meet me?”

“He does not want Loki to have this horse any more than you do.”

“His name is Miłosz. And this is my hound, Orlaith.”

He makes eye contact with both and greets them properly, calling them by name. Lots of people would not pay them that respect, and he rises another couple of notches in my regard.

“I’d be delighted for you to join us,” I tell him. “Though I hope to hear more about you as well.”

“We will be running all through the night, yes? Plenty of time.”

It will be my second run across Poland, although we’ll be crossing the northern half and from west to east rather than east to west, but at least it won’t lack for sterling conversation. And every step will get me closer to the time when I can address the real reason I became a Druid. My stepfather has lurked in my mind like dishes left over from a dinner no one enjoyed and no one wants to clear away. A divination cloak will finally allow me to attend to that chore in privacy. I think it’s long past time I cleaned house.

W
hen Brighid and I returned to the Fae Court in Tír na nÓg—she looking regal and I looking every bit as injured as I was—we had a surprise delegation of yewmen waiting for us. It was a large one: a hundred or more. They’re creepy things, as one might expect from creatures spawned by the Morrigan, and devoid of any sense of humor or indeed most human emotions except for greed and bloodlust. They were highly effective mercenaries against the vampires—they had no blood to suck and could not be charmed, and bullets that might be fired at them by thralls were mere annoyances. They were perfect vampire hunters, actually, except for the high price tag on their services.

They had come to inform me that I had overdue bills to pay. The yewmen didn’t have any vocal cords, however, so they had to communicate via a spokesfaery. They must have written down in advance what they wished to say. Or used sign language or played charades. I really didn’t know.

“We have staked and beheaded many vampires for you, Druid,” their spokesfaery said in answer to my greeting. Her high, reedy voice, similar to a hamster on helium, didn’t match the grim visages of the yewmen. “And at first you paid through Goibhniu. But now Goibhniu is dead. We have not been paid the bounty on six hundred and eighty-three vampires. We will not kill any more until you pay in full.”

“I, uh, yyyyyeah. About that. The vampires have managed to degrade my ability to pay.”

The faery repeated, “We will not kill any more until you pay in full.” She must have exhausted her scripted speeches.

“Got it.” I gave them a thumbs-up. “I’ll work on that. When I have the money, who should I contact?”

“Me,” Brighid said, injecting herself into the conversation. “You will pay me.” She looked at the yewmen. “I will be his guarantor. I expect that will be acceptable.”

“Brighid, you don’t need to do that, I haven’t asked—”

“I am volunteering freely and expecting no favors in return, Siodhachan. It’s done.”

I nodded acknowledgment, realizing that I’d have to find myself a lucrative job very soon. I’d never been much of a get-rich-quick sort of guy; a long life had allowed me the luxury of getting rich slowly through investments. I could raid the store of rare books I had buried years ago by the Salt River in Arizona as a temporary solution. Auction off a few of those and I could live comfortably for a while and maybe pay down a fraction of the debt I owed them. But even if I sold everything—a troublesome prospect since some of them were genuinely dangerous tomes—I doubted I would be able to pay their bill in full.

Since lingering would only expose me to the stares of unpaid mercenaries, I took my leave and shifted back to Flagstaff outside Sam and Ty’s house, wondering how I could possibly keep the war going in the short term. The Hammers of God were a welcome addition to the cause but not nearly as efficient as the yewmen. They would not be able to ignore the bullets of thralls, for example, who protected older vampires during the daytime. And the vampires could replenish their numbers faster than we could slay them by turning new victims. Without a much greater advantage, it would be a war of attrition that we had little hope of winning.

Oberon was stretched out in the grass near the house and saw me shift in. He bounded over to see me, excited to share some news.

“Sweet vindication, eh?” I said, petting him on the neck.

Oberon asked.

“It’s a math problem,” I replied, leaving out the exhaustion and the beating I’d suffered.

“No, sorry. I’m worried that there’s no solution to the vampire problem. There are many more of them than there are of us. Thousands more.”

“No, it’s the other way around.”

all
mad at you or is it just the one guy you told me about—Theo Phillip?>

“You mean Theophilus?”

“That’s … actually a good point.” I hadn’t heard of any specific vampires who wished to end the Druids other than Theophilus. If I could eliminate him—which was the endgame anyway—perhaps the rest of the vampires would redirect their attention to internal power struggles and leave the world’s three Druids alone.

“The question is how I get to the eagles—or, rather, take the obvious shortcut you’re implying. I don’t even know where he is, and since he’s technically dead I can’t target him with divination. I know he must be moving around, and I figured he’d eventually come after me in person when he felt threatened enough. I was hoping the yewmen would either get lucky or goad him into the open, but that’s not going to happen now.”

“Maybe Leif does. I need a phone.” Hal had given me Leif’s number, but I had entered it into my phone in Toronto rather than memorize it, and that phone was still there, left behind when Owen kidnapped me from my hospital bed. I could call Hal again, however. “Come on, Oberon. Let’s go inside. Your advice was worthy of a snack.”

“Oberon Snackworthy, eh?”

When I didn’t answer right away, he said,

I knocked on the door before entering and shouted a greeting into the house, announcing myself.

“Yeah! Come on in!” a voice called, and Ty appeared shortly afterward. He was about to cook up a lunch of bison burgers, so that would serve instead of a snack for Oberon, and he loaned me his phone so that I could call Hal. But in looking through his contacts under
H,
I saw
Helgarson
there.

“Ty, you know Leif Helgarson?”

“Yeah. Not well, more like acquaintances. He was the vampire boss of Arizona, so he knew all the pack leaders and seconds. As a courtesy, he’d call to inform us when he was moving through our territory.”

“Is this number for him current?”

“Should be. Updated it when Hal was here and you called.”

“Fantastic.” The burgers were already in the pan and frying up by the time I got a call placed to my former attorney. He picked up on the second ring, which told me he was probably in the other hemisphere at the moment—where it was nighttime. His dry, cultured voice sounded amused.

“Hello, Ty,” he said, responding to the caller ID on his phone.

“This isn’t Ty. It’s Atticus.”

“Ah, my favorite Druid. What a pleasure to hear from you.”

I was in no mood to exchange pleasant banter with him and could no longer conceive of a time when I would be. “Where are you now, Leif?”

“Why do you ask? Is it time to relieve me of the burden of undeath?”

“Not yet. More interested in whether you are with Theophilus.”

“Oh, no, I am cast out now. A Lucifer in the veritable heaven of vampirism.”

“Excessive pride led to the original fall, I believe. That sounds about right. I hope it wasn’t anything I did.”

“It was, but I assure you that I am content with my place. I’m still on the coast of Normandy, near where we last met, sipping from the wine-infused blood of the French. I like to drink from the people who drink pinot noirs best. Delicious bouquet.”