by Kevin Hearne
The locust had stopped advancing. It remembered what fire was very well.
“Do you have any other weapons?” I asked.
“No, just this and a spare in my pocket. Get out of there.”
“I can’t. I’m stuck.”
“What do you mean, you’re stuck? Unstick yourself.”
“I seriously can’t. I’m hooked on something inside its head.”
“So do some magic.”
“Like what? I can’t think of anything.” Frank Herbert said that Fear is the mind-killer. He was a wise man.
“Well, look—I sort of can’t help you right now. Trying to outstare the spooky bug.”
It was inching closer. Much too close for my comfort. It made little clicking and fluttering noises as it moved. I think most of the noise came from its mouth.
“Be careful, it’s much faster than you think.”
Granuaile lunged at the locust with her torch and was rewarded with a small cringe and an unholy screech. But it didn’t fly away and leave us alone. We were too much like Lunchables, and this stalemate couldn’t go on forever.
“You have another stake, you said?”
“Yeah.”
“Light it up and go for the wings.”
“Oh! Right.” She pulled another stake out of her pocket and lit it by touching the soaked end to the flame of her other one.
“Excellent. Throw the one you just lit over its head far back enough to hit the wings. Lob it like you’re playing Skee-Ball.”
She switched the torches in her hand so that she could throw right-handed; the newly lit torch was flaring brighter and had a better chance of catching.
“Weapons hot,” she said drily. Oh, what a fabulous Druid she was going to be, when she could make puns under pressure!
“Fire at will,” I responded in the same tone.
She tossed the torch in a low arc over the locust’s head, and it backed up a couple of steps, then stopped, forgetting perhaps that it wasn’t a spirit anymore and it had a big, physical body behind its eyes. It cocked its head, almost as if to say, “Ha-ha, you missed,” and then found out Granuaile hadn’t missed after all.
I couldn’t see precisely how the torch landed, nor could Granuaile, but the locust certainly reacted. It hopped back—it wasn’t going forward when Granuaile still had the other torch—and fluttered its wings a tiny bit, landing only twenty yards or so away. It repeated this a couple of more times, hopping to either side, but that didn’t help. Then it leapt up high in desperation and tried to fly with a full extension of its wings, but that resulted in a crazy spiraling crash back to the mesa, its wings on fire, fanned to a cheerful blaze by its own efforts. We saw that the stake had lodged itself point first into the joint where the wings attached to the thorax. The noise it made wasn’t threatening or terrifying now but rather comforting. It hadn’t ever heard of stop, drop, and roll, so all its flailing did nothing but feed the flames more oxygen. The fire continued to spread along the locust’s body and I was able to return my attention to my predicament.
“That was excellent, Granuaile. Feel like tearing apart this head for me now?”
“Um,” she replied. I looked up at her and she wasn’t paying attention to me at all. Her gaze was directed back at the hogan, and I followed the line of her sight until I spied a large crow resting on the roof of the hogan. Its eyes were red, but they faded to black even as I watched.
“Good evening, Siodhachan,” the Morrigan said.
“Have you been there all this while?” I asked, outraged.
“I only just arrived.”
“A bit late, wouldn’t you say?”
“I would say in good time. Introduce me to your brave young apprentice.”
“Oh, I do beg your pardon. My manners must have been consumed by this locust, along with my arm. Granuaile MacTiernan, meet the Morrigan of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Chooser of the Slain, also known as Badb, Macha, or Nemain when occasion calls.”
The crow flew off the roof toward Granuaile and sort of melted in midair until there was a naked woman with milk-white skin striding toward her, hand extended.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” the Morrigan said.
“Likewise,” Granuaile managed, shaking the Morrigan’s hand. “I think we prayed to you on Samhain.”
The Morrigan smiled. “Yes, you did. Please continue praying to me, as I’m the only one of the Tuatha Dé Danann who knows both of you are alive.”
The locust’s screeching ceased and clued us in that it had finally died, though its body continued to burn. The Morrigan tilted her head down to look at me.
“You will find, once you are free, that your tattoos are badly damaged. You will need to have them touched up, and I am the only one who can do it now. Call me when you are ready.”
She took a step or two back and raised her arms in preparation to shift back to a crow. “Wait!” I said. “Aren’t you going to help me out of this?”
“You’re perfectly capable of figuring it out on your own, Siodhachan, now that you have time to think,” she said, and then nodded once to Granuaile. “Farewell.”
She shifted to a crow and left us there. Oh, were we going to have a talk later.
“Wow,” Granuaile said.
“Yeah.”
“I just shook hands with a naked goddess. What was that she called you? She-ya-han? Does that mean dumbass in Old Irish or something?”
“No, that’s my real name. Maybe it does mean dumbass, though. Keep calling me Atticus. Watch out—step back about ten yards, will you?”
The Morrigan had been right. Now that the creature was dead and I wasn’t so panicked, I could think and use Druidry to get myself out of this. Still, I needed to see what I was doing. There was an awful lot of blood and now ichor oozing down my arm, and I was starting to feel a bit light-headed. My healing had stopped. I tried to retrigger my healing charm but nothing happened. That meant the healing knots on my hand had been badly marred. I could still ask Colorado to heal me, and he would, but not having the agency to do it myself was a problem.
//Colorado / Druid needs healing / Please//
//Healing// the elemental said, and there was harmony.
Granuaile was out of the way now, so I crafted a binding between Moralltach’s blade and the northern butte. Rather than the butte moving to the sword, Moralltach would cut through the locust’s head to get to the butte. All I had to do was let go of the hilt. I energized it and Moralltach ripped through the head, splitting it open down to just above my hand. I dissolved the binding while it was still flying and the sword fell to the ground.
“Great. Now, Granuaile, can you tear off this half?” I gestured with my left hand to the right’s side of the locust’s head.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. My hand is stuck in there and I have to figure out what’s causing it.”
“This is so gross. I’m going to have nightmares.”
“Me too, believe me. Blame Coyote.”
“Oh, I do.” Her nose scrunched up in disgust, she grabbed hold of the chitinous edge of the head and pulled, ripping the gooey flesh down the middle and spilling a sludge of ichor onto my face. I spluttered and coughed.
“Gah! Sorry!” she said.
“Had to be done. It’s all right,” I croaked, trying not to vomit. I felt air on the inside of my forearm. “Can you see my hand?” I asked.
Granuaile peered closer. “Yeah, it’s there. Something’s sticking through your palm a little bit.”
“Ah, that would be why I’m having problems healing, then. It’s pierced me through the back of my hand.”
“That circle and triskele governs your ability to heal?”
“Yep.”
“And you must have blocked the nerves there or you’d be in severe pain.”
“Right. But it also means I can’t do much with it right now. Would you mind pulling it off there?”
“Okay.” Grasping me by the wrist, she pulled my hand off the obstruct
ion with a squishy sucking sound. When my hand fell away, we could see what had been keeping it there: the locust’s left mandible. It had broken off—aided in part by my thrown rock, no doubt—and been shoved up into the mouth along with the sword hilt and my arm, and then when I tried to yank my hand loose it had been waiting there like a spearhead.
To get out from under the bulk of the beast, I bound the top of its thorax to the ground on my right. This effectively rolled the carcass over and allowed me to stand and shudder.
“I really need to get cleaned up,” I said.
“There’s all that ice in the chest,” Granuaile said.
“Good thinking. All the way around, really,” I said. “And thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sensei.”
“Will you do two things while I’m washing up? Go get that manila envelope over there and let’s see what’s inside. Then bring out another stake and set this one on fire too.”
She nodded and I went to wash off my arm and my face. I had no idea how long it would take the Coyotes to respawn and come back, but I suspected it would be before dawn, and I wasn’t planning to be around when they did. Let them figure it out on their own and clean up their own mess. Colorado had moved the gold under the mesa, so as far as I was concerned we were square. Time for me to get out and live the life of a dead man, like I’d always wanted.
The ice water was refreshing. It wouldn’t wash away my guilt over Frank’s or Darren’s death, but physically I felt better not to have bug juice all over me.
Granuaile came in, left me the envelope unopened, and took out a few stakes to burn the carcass of the second locust.
Having only one functioning hand, I cheated and unbound the envelope with a bit of magic, then shook out the contents. It was a set of official tribal documents and a lease on a trailer in Many Farms, giving permission for a white male and white female to live among the Diné. So that’s what he’d been doing—arranging a place for me to train Granuaile. I noticed it said we had black hair, which was probably a good idea. Too many people had seen a couple of redheads in the area, and if I wanted the peace to train her right, it was time to pretend I wasn’t Irish for a while. We’d have to get a whole new set of documents from Hal, though, and Coyote hadn’t been able to resist having fun with our new names.
I hadn’t planned on staying in the area, but the idea had some appeal now that I thought about it. Reservations don’t get much satellite surveillance, and there wasn’t a gauntlet of security cameras recording your every move. Besides that, I needed to stay nearby to keep a close eye on the coal mine. And I could make trips down to the valley every couple of weeks to work on the wasted land around Tony Cabin and then reward myself with fish and chips at Rúla Búla.
“So what was in the envelope?” Granuaile asked, returning inside.
“New identities and a place to live, courtesy of Coyote. See for yourself.” I handed her the sheaf of papers.
A giggle escaped Granuaile’s lips and she covered them up with her hand. “You’re going to spend the next twelve years as Sterling Silver?” she asked.
“Yours isn’t much better,” I said.
Her laughter cut off abruptly as her eyes found the blank with her new name in it. “Oh, that bastard. He put me down as Betty Baker.”
“Let’s get him back by stealing his truck.”
Her eyes flicked to the big black truck Coyote had driven onto the site, and she nodded. “Yeah!”
After retrieving Moralltach, I turned on the truck’s ignition with a binding—there was no way I was going to search for keys in Coyote’s remains—and Granuaile got us on the road back to Flagstaff. There was a hound down there who needed some hugs.
Epilogue
April Flores didn’t want to let Oberon go.
“I’ve never seen a dog heal so fast from a broken shoulder,” she said, “not to mention the ribs. He shouldn’t be able to walk for a few more weeks, but now it’s like nothing ever happened to him. I keep thinking it’s some kind of miracle. I’d like to keep him for some more tests—no cost to you, of course. Just some X rays and things like that—”
“Sorry, but we really must be going.”
Oberon said.
“What happened to you?” Dr. Flores asked, pointing to the bandages on my right hand. I couldn’t tell her I’d fought a giant locust any more than I could tell her Oberon had fought a vampire, so I stuck to the original lie.
“I hunted down that bear.”
“Congratulations,” she said, clearly not believing me. She petted Oberon regretfully and wished him farewell and no more encounters with “scary bears.”
Your sample size is still too small. You haven’t made it past mere coincidence yet.
Right. Gotta dye my hair and take some pictures first, but then we can take off for the Scottish Highlands.
I watched Oberon’s gait carefully as we exited the vet’s office. You look like you’re doing okay, no limping. How does that shoulder feel?
Good, I’ll make you some more. Need you to feel perfect again so we can go hunting.
We ran errands in Flagstaff—getting more herbs for Oberon’s tea and some for myself, plus a particularly inky hair dye that would completely ruin me for a while. Dyeing my own hair didn’t scare me as much as saying good-bye to Granuaile’s: The sun wouldn’t shine on it the same way anymore, and she’d probably remind me uncomfortably of the Morrigan. But then I thought it might be a good thing for us to be unattractive to each other for a while, and this alteration of our appearance would be a blessing. Coyote had probably done me more favors than he actually intended. I knew he’d gotten us a place to live so I could keep the coal mine closed and his gold mine open, not out of any sense of guilt for tricking me or any other sense of obligation.
Granuaile didn’t like the dye job at all. We got a hotel suite so we could do it properly. She looked terminally depressed when she emerged from the bathroom with raven hair and, as a result, rather Goth by accident. She didn’t want to get her picture taken.
“Aughh!” she said miserably, looking in the vanity mirror in the truck of the cab and fingering a wavy curl near her temple. “This sucks more than anything has ever sucked before. You know what we look like? A couple of emo douche bags.”
“Well, look at the bright side, Granuaile. Emo Douche Bags would be a great band name.”
We spent some time at one of those office/print stores where you can use the Internet and fax and so on, sending our new likenesses to Hal at Magnusson and Hauk and asking him to work us up some new IDs.
“You hardly had time to get used to the ones I just gave you!” he grumbled on the phone. “I can’t get these overnight, you know. It’s going to take a few days.”
“Understood. We’re going to get out of the country for a while and then come back to get ourselves settled in these new names. They should last us a good decade or so while I’m training Granuaile.”
“I’m looking at these forms right now. You’re going to let people call you Ster
ling Silver?”
“I didn’t pick the names, I swear. It was Coyote.”
“Before you go,” Hal said, “thought you might like to know that Leif has severed all ties with our firm.”
“He’s left the state?”
“No, just our law firm. He’s still very much in the state. He’s back in charge too, from what I can tell. There may be a few stragglers here and there in the corners, but no one is going to give him any trouble after the coup he pulled. Antoine and the boys are well fed right now,” he said, referring to the local ghouls. “And I delivered your message. He knows he’s supposed to stay out of your way. He asked me to express his deepest regrets. Believe that if you want.”
I thanked Hal, assuring him I’d be back in touch in a week or so, and rang off. In a way it was soothing to have Leif back in charge; like a despised dictator, he was easy to hate, but at least he provided stability. Much as I wished to hunt him down for what he did to Oberon and me, letting him live (or continue in undeath, whatever) would keep Arizona a slightly safer place to train Granuaile. And I had already seen what happened to people when they pursued vengeance above all else. Besides, no matter how I tried to rationalize Leif’s actions as self-serving, there was the undeniable fact that he had saved me from bleeding out and gotten me to a hospital. Had he wanted me dead, all he had to do was nothing at all. Saving me had to count for something, even if he was the one to imperil me in the first place. Still, I planned on creating a new charm for my necklace as soon as I could set up a new shop in which to work metals. My experience with Zdenik proved that a mental command for unbinding a vampire would be extremely useful.
Silversmithing, I decided, would be my next cover job—it would fit my assumed name if nothing else. I’d do some farming too and maybe get some sheep or goats for Oberon to tend. Now that I was free of all obligations and everyone who wanted me dead thought I already was, I could consider such things.