by Kevin Hearne
The old doors were good to know, I argued, because even though they were sparsely distributed, they functioned even when the trees did not. They were constructed in caves, which were not subject to the same whims and forces that trees were.
Part of the exercise was just damn cool, because caves are like that, and I emphasized this to Granuaile. But, in truth, I had another agenda: I wanted Granuaile to be impossible to catch. Strategically speaking, falling in love with her was a mistake, the sort of thing that Machiavellian types would exploit, for my enemies—vampires, dark elves, you name it—would always view Granuaile as a lever to use against me. She was quite the badass in her own right now, capable of feats I couldn’t match, but during our connubial sequestration in Mexico it occurred to me that we would have precious little chance to lay low going forward. She’d never get an opportunity to truly enjoy her powers and nurture a sense of harmony in the world as it stood. I kept thinking back to that conversation with Jesus where he said if I’d remained meek, I would have inherited the earth. But there was no going back to that idyllic time when only one god wanted to kill me. Now I just wanted the earth to stick around so someone meek could inherit it. And I hoped that we two Druids would manage to stick around as well. I wasn’t nearly through staring at her yet.
We emerged from a cavern in the Apuseni Mountains in Romania; the range—in the western part of the Carpathians, in the old province of Transylvania—was famous for its hundreds of caves. The vista we beheld at the cave’s mouth smacked of the bucolic rather than the vampiric. Sheep and cattle competed contentedly for their share of abundant grassland directly below, a friendly forest waved at us a short distance beyond, and zero stone edifices loomed over the landscape with palpable auras of ickiness.
“Yes, I did. It is.”
“Vampires are a bit more discreet than that these days, Oberon.”
“Feel what?”
No sooner had I asked him than I felt it: a trembling in the earth—a building one. I shot a hello and query to the Apuseni elemental. //Greetings / Harmony / Query: Plate event?//
//Greetings / Druids welcome / Advice: Run / Not plate event / God event through me//
“We need to get out of here,” I said, as the ground bucked beneath us. We heard loud cracking reports of stone shattering to our rear: The cavern from which we had just emerged was crumbling and filling in with stone that had been stable for centuries. We scrambled down the hill, across boulders and shale, into the forest below. A minor landslide followed us.
“Someone’s after us,” I explained to Granuaile, who probably hadn’t heard my quick conversation with Apuseni. “Some god is causing this through the elemental. Let’s shift to Colorado.”
“Got it,” she said.
Once down to the friendly forest we’d spied from above, we put our hands to a tethered tree, but it wouldn’t respond; the paths to Tír na nÓg were cut off somehow.
“Pandemonium,” a voice croaked from the branches above. We sought the source and found it: A crow with red eyes stared back at us. It was the Morrigan.
“You won’t find anyplace on the continent that will let you shift away,” she said, and I shuddered involuntarily. It was always disconcerting to hear the crow speak English. “They’ve trapped you here. That earthquake was Neptune’s work, and Faunus will deny you every tether to the Summer Lands. You’ll find the old ways collapsed or guarded. You’re going to need to run for the British Isles, Siodhachan—and I mean literally run all the way there. It’s the only path I’ve seen where you live through this.”
“Live through what?”
“You’ll see. The ankle-winged boys are coming to tell you now.” The crow tossed its beak at something behind us. We turned and looked up.
Hermes and Mercury descended from the sky, pale savage beauty paired with golden pomposity, and the Roman demanded to know what I had done with Bacchus.
“Ask the Fates,” I said, shrugging.
A bolt of lightning lanced down from the heavens to strike Oberon, who first yelped, then barked at the sky.
Oberon was unharmed because of Perun’s fulgurite on his collar, but one of the Olympian sky gods had clearly intended for him to die. It was a message meant to put me in my place, to reduce me to quivering obeisance.
I looked up and spoke loudly: “That was damn rude, Jupiter. The last god of Olympus who was rude to me was Bacchus.”
“Where is he?” Mercury demanded again.
“Why do you wish to know? Have the Roman wine cellars run dry?”
“You will return him or suffer the consequences.”
I shifted my gaze to Hermes and asked, “What is the Greek interest in this?”
Hermes shrugged and spoke in his taut melodious tones: “Olympian solidarity, officially. But, in truth, Artemis was extremely vexed about the kidnapping of the dryads. As was Diana. All nymphs of the wood are sacred to them. This Bacchus affair is their chance to exact revenge for what they promised to forgive.”
I could almost hear Granuaile saying, “I told you we shouldn’t have touched the dryads.” I carefully kept my gaze on the Olympians so I wouldn’t have to see it in her face.
“Well, Bacchus and Faunus should be blamed for it, not I. They forced me to do it, and, besides, I returned the dryads unharmed as promised.”
Mercury said, “We won’t let you do to the Olympians what you did to the Norse, Druid. Return Bacchus or die.”
“Return him or die? That’s not much of a choice. If I bring Bacchus back, he will kill me.”
The messenger gods didn’t even bother to shrug. They merely raised their eyebrows as if to say, “So?”
“Haven’t you ever heard of Catch-22? Throw me a bone here, guys. If I’m going to die either way, what’s the point of giving Bacchus back?”
They ignored my question completely and Mercury said, “Choose, mortal. Will you return Bacchus or no?”
Fuck these guys. “No,” I said. “He’s a dick.”
“Then so be it.” They flew straight up and away, revealing two floating chariots behind them in the distance, almost hidden against the hillside. Two helmeted figures with bows released arrows at us—Artemis and Diana. They knew I would say no. They’d planned for it.
The Morrigan crunched down in front of us in her human form, now fully armored, and took the arrows in a massive ebony shield. I had never seen her bother with armor before.
“I am here to fulfill my oath to you, Siodhachan Ó Suileabháin. Run now,” she said, “for England. You have two immortal goddesses of the hunt on your trail. I shall hold them as long as I can, but it won’t be forever.” She drew a sword from a scabbard at her waist.
“Morrigan?”
Artemis and Diana goaded their chariots forward. The Morrigan turned and pointed west, her red eyes blazing through an ebony helmet. “Go, Siodhachan! They come!”
I grabbed Granuaile’s arm to pull her away and we ran, Oberon at our side, into a forest we suddenly found foreboding rather than friendly.
To those who have glimpsed divinity in beauty
or
to anyone who’s ever had to think about baseball
Acknowledgments
To my family, friends, and all my wonderful readers: Much love and a raised flagon to you!
As always, the keen insights of my alpha reader, Alan O’Bryan, helped me tremendously in the process of writing. He also got me playing Magic: The Gathe
ring again and smooshed me with a Boneyard Wurm. Friends are rad like that.
I am so blessed to have editors at Del Rey who are capable of both geeking out and rocking out—often at the same time. Thanks to Tricia Narwani and Mike Braff for throwin’ up the horns and encouraging all the world-building.
I recently discovered that my agent, Evan Goldfried, knows more about beer than I do. In my eyes, this makes him An Authority on Just About Everything. I respect his authori-tah!
Amalia Dillin (@AmaliaTD) knows more about Norse mythology than most humans. I’ve enjoyed chatting with her, bouncing ideas off her, and occasionally pleading for her help. If you find my representation of Norse mythology heinous, please don’t blame her; I’m the guy who wrote the heinous stuff.
For those who may be interested, the Poetic Edda in its entirety can be found online for free. You’ll see where all the dwarf names come from, discover the circumstances of Loki’s binding, and so much more. If you keep reading different sources of Norse mythology, you’ll also discover that they contradict one another in myriad ways. (And that is nothing to be ashamed of; it’s an endearing feature of most belief systems.) One point of confusion is naming the Nine Realms of Yggdrasil and deciding where they’re located. The map I’ve included at the front of the book (drawn by Priscilla Spencer) is organized according to various sources and a few core beliefs o’ mine regarding Norse mythology: 1) Three is a magic number, so there are three realms on each of three levels; 2) dwarfs and elves are not the same thing. No, they are not the same thing at all, and as for all those sources that say they are, well, I think the dark elves must have gotten to them; and 3) given number 2, the dwarfs live in Nidavellir, and the Svartálfs live in Svartálfheim, and they’re not the same place either.
Thanks again for reading! You can find me on Twitter @kevinhearne or on Facebook if you’d like to say hello.
Hunted is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A Del Rey eBook Edition
Copyright © 2013 by Kevin Hearne
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-53877-2
www.delreybooks.com
Cover design: David G. Stevenson
Cover illustration: © Gene Mollica
v3.1_r1
Contents
Master Table of Contents
Hunted
Title Page
Copyright
Pronunciation Guide
Translation Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Pronunciation Guide
As always, please remember that while I provide these for reference, I’m completely okay with you pronouncing these names however you wish, because the entire point of reading is to enjoy yourself and not stress out about unusual names from mythology. If, however, you enjoy knowing how to pronounce them, here you go:
Irish
Aillil = ALL-yill (In The Wooing of Étaín, this name is held by both Étaín’s father and the brother of Eochaid Airem. It’s used here to refer to the brother.)
Amergin = AV er ghin (legendary Irish bard whose name is spelled and pronounced many different ways. The modern Irish spelling is Amhairghin and pronounced something like OUR yin, but the Morrigan would use the Old Irish spelling and pronunciation.)
Brí Léith = Bree LAY (the síd or home of Midhir)
Eochaid Airem = OH het EH rem (High King of Ireland once upon a time)
Étaín = eh TEEN (so epically hot they wrote an epic about her)
Fódhla = FOH-la (one of the poetic names of Ireland and the name of the Irish elemental)
Fúamnach = FOO am nah (Midhir’s wife)
Midhir = ME er (member of the Tuatha Dé Danann; half brother to Aenghus Óg and Brighid)
Orlaith = OR la (Yep, that –ith on the end is just to make it look pretty)
Polish
Dukla = DOOK la
Gościniec pod Furą = gohsht NEE etz pohd FOO roh (basically long o wherever you see oh)
Jasło = YAHS woh
Katowice = Kat oh VEET suh (city in southern Poland)
Pustków Wilczkowski = POOST kov wiltch KOV ski
Sokołowska = SO ko WOV ska
Wojownika = Vai yov NEE ka
Wrocław = Vroht SWOF
Żubrówka = Zhu BRUF ka (bison grass vodka, popular in Poland and available here, quite tasty mixed with apple juice or cider)
Translation Note
There is a passage in the novel where Atticus recites some verses from Dante’s Purgatorio in the original Italian, but he neglects to share an English translation. I have duplicated the verses here and followed each with a translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
From Canto V:
Là ’ve ’l vocabol suo diventa vano,
arriva’ io forato ne la gola,
fuggendo a piede e sanguinando il piano.
There where the name thereof becometh void
Did I arrive, pierced through and through the throat,
Fleeing on foot, and bloodying the plain.
Quivi perdei la vista e la parola;
nel nome di Maria fini’, e quivi
caddi, e rimase la mia carne sola.
There my sight lost I, and my utterance
Ceased in the name of Mary, and thereat
I fell, and tenantless my flesh remained.
Chapter 1
It’s odd how when you feel safe you can’t think of that thing it was you kept meaning to do, but when you’re running for your life you suddenly remember the entire list of things you never got around to doing.
I always wanted to get blindly drunk with a mustachioed man, take him back to his place, do a few extra shots just this side of severe liver damage, and then shave off half his mustache when he passed out. I would then install surveillance equipment before I left so that I could properly appreciate his reaction (and his hangover) when he woke up. And of course I would surveil him from a black windowless van parked somewhere along his street. There would be a wisecracking computer science graduate from MIT in the van with me who almost but not quite went all the way once with a mousy physics major who dumped him because he didn’t accelerate her particles.
I can’t remember when I thought that one up and added it to my list. It was probably after I saw True Lies. It was never particularly high up on my list, for obvious reasons, but the memory came back to me, fully fantasized in Technicolor, once I was running for my life in Romania. Our minds are mysteries.
Somewhere behind me, the Morrigan was fighting off two goddesses of the hunt. Artemis and Diana had decided that I needed killing, and the Morrigan had pledged to protect me from such violent death. Oberon ran on my left and Granuaile on my right; all around me, the forest quaked silently with the pandemonium of Faunus, disrupting Druidic tethers to Tír na nÓg. I could not shift away to safety. All I could do was run and curse the
ancient Greco–Romans.
Unlike the Irish and the Norse—and many other cultures—the Greco–Romans did not imagine their gods as eternally youthful but vulnerable to violent death. Oh, they had nectar and ambrosia to keep their skin wrinkle-free and their bodies in prime shape, changing their blood to ichor, and that was similar to the magical food and drink available to other pantheons, but that wasn’t the end of it. They could regenerate completely, which essentially gifted them with true immortality, so that even if you shredded them like machaca and ate them with guacamole and warm tortillas, they’d just re-spawn in a brand-new body on Olympus and keep coming after you—hence the reason why Prometheus never died, in spite of having his liver eaten every day by a vulture who oddly never sought variety in his diet.
That didn’t mean a fella couldn’t beat them. Aside from the fact that they can be slain by other immortals, the Olympians have to exist in time like everyone else. I’d tossed Bacchus onto an island of slow time in Tír na nÓg, and the Olympians took it personally—so personally that they’d rather kill me than get Bacchus back.
I didn’t think for a moment I could do the same to the huntresses. They were far more adept in combat, for one thing, and they’d be watching each other’s back while doing their best to shoot me in mine.
“Where are we going?” Granuaile asked.
“Roughly north for now. Situation’s fluid.”
Oberon said. The Morrigan had taken both arrows in her shield and told us to run.
“I almost did too, Oberon,” Granuaile said. She could hear his voice now that she was a full Druid. “I should have been ducking or tackling Atticus or almost anything else, but instead I was just trying my damnedest not to pee.”