Shattered: The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Seven (10 page)

“I’ll try to keep it short, since time is probably a factor here. Granuaile, I think you know that Manannan Mac Lir has had some commerce with the Norse pantheon in the past. You remember
that map of the nine realms I showed you, given to him by the Álfar?”

She nodded but said nothing, her mouth full of strawberries and cream.

“Good. I bring it up because, about twelve hundred years ago, while I was still roaming the world and tethering it to Tír na nÓg, Manannan was going well beyond commerce and was enjoying sexcapades in Jötunheim.”

Granuaile spoke out of the side of her mouth. “He cheated on Fand?”

“He did and continues to do so. And the same holds true for Fand. She had a rather famous dalliance with Cu Chúlainn once.”

She held up a finger while she swallowed, then said, “They have an open marriage, then?”

“Not really. They try to keep their liaisons secret for as long as possible and likewise try to discover what the other one is up to. Both of them are now excellent at hiding things and finding them out.”

“Ah, but Fand never found out about this thing in Jötunheim, right?”

“Right. And Manannan wants to keep it that way.”

“Wait—I’m just catching on to the implications here. Does that mean Manannan Mac Lir did it with a frost giant?”

“It does. Somebody probably said
graah
.” I shuddered, remembering a horrific tableau I had the misfortune to witness in Jötunheim. “And the giantess in question became pregnant.”

Granuaile froze, a spoonful of blueberries halfway to her mouth. “No way!”

“Way. She had to leave Jötunheim, because the frost giants would kill anything that wasn’t strictly a frost giant. And she couldn’t stay in Tír na nÓg, because Fand would eventually find out. So they had the giantess come to term in the Himalayas, far away from the Norse and the Irish, and you can probably guess the rest.”

“I can’t believe this. You’re saying the yeti are essentially Fae?”

“They’re Fae in the sense that they’re magically gifted and represent a hybrid of human and something else, but they’re not vulnerable to iron. And the rest of the Fae don’t know about them. She had quintuplets, and they were born with white fur and pale blue skin. When they grew up, they could do any damn thing they wanted with snow and ice.”

“What happened to her?”

“At first she remained in the Himalayas with the yeti. Manannan visited as often as he could, and he had a trusted faery visit in his stead when he could not. Eventually, however, the faery turned out to be not so trustworthy. Once the yeti were fully grown, the frost giantess wanted out of the Himalayas. Returning to Jötunheim was out of the question. But the faery, who had become smitten and was quite eager to please her, pointed out that there were other cold places on the earth. She ran away with the faery to Manitoba, near the northern shores of Lake Winnipeg, using a tether I had made there.”

“How do you know this?”

“They appeared in front of me almost as soon as I had completed it! The faery had shifted her from the Himalayas to the newest of the New World. Since Manannan had been the one to start me on the tethering project in the first place, I reported it to him.”

“Oh, my gods, deity drama! What did he do?”

“He let them go, since they clearly had no plans to speak to Fand and he figured the giantess deserved what happiness she could find. He told me who they were, told me about the yeti, and swore me to the oath of silence. And my guess is that the runaway couple eventually had some Fae spawn of their own up there in the frozen north. Bit scarier than the yeti, though. I’ll give you one guess.”

Her eyes widened. “No—not the wendigo?”

“Aye.”

Granuaile finally remembered that she had at one point been eating, but now she was too excited to continue. She dropped
the spoonful of blueberries that she’d been holding in midair back into her bowl. “Holy shit. What happened to the yeti?”

“They’re still there. Manannan has kept them eternally youthful with periodic shipments of his fine swine products—and they’re due for another. You’re going to deliver this bacon to them and get their attention that way.”

“There are still five of them?”

“Yes. Aside from the fact that they’re siblings and wouldn’t want to go there, they can’t reproduce. They’re like mules. Luckily, their low numbers are keeping them safe. Scientists all say there can’t possibly be a reproducing population of yeti in the Himalayas, and of course they’re right about that. But the yeti are still there.”

“So the frost giants don’t know about them, and the Fae don’t know either.”

“Both groups may have heard of the yeti by now, but if so, they probably think they’re just legends and don’t know their origins.”

“And the yeti speak Old Irish.”

“Manannan taught them. Their mother taught them Old Norse when they were young, but they’ve had only Manannan to speak to since then, and it’s been a long time.”

Granuaile put her hands up to the sides of her head and then popped them away as she made an explosive puffing sound. “Pfff! Mind. Blown.” She leaned forward and crossed her arms in front of her, flat on the table. “Have you been keeping other secrets like this?”

“Yes. But I can’t tell you or they won’t be secret.”

“Sharing is caring.”

“Unlike most American voters, I have built up an immunity to rhyming slogans.”

She smiled. “Fine. We will table the secrets for later. What I want to know is why you aren’t coming with me. Because I’ve inferred from your speech that you aren’t.”

“Oh. Well, remember the old man from the island?”

“Yeah, I meant to ask. Is he all right?”

“Yes. He’s a Druid and he can fix my tattoos.”

“A Druid, eh? The plot thickens. You didn’t want me to meet him earlier.”

“I still don’t. He’d pick a fight with you inside five minutes.”

“How do you know that?”

I’d kept the secret of his identity from her up till then but figured there was no use keeping it any longer. “Because he’s my archdruid.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep. Ornery through and through. His name’s Owen Kennedy. I promise I’ll introduce you later. The thing is, I feel responsible for him right now and I also feel kind of disabled without the ability to shape-shift. I thought that he could fix me up, since you’re busy now, and I could also maybe smooth away some of his rough edges before you two meet. Would that be okay?”

“Oh. Well.” Granuaile leaned back and considered. “I suppose it would, because I’m not sure what else you could do that I’m not already doing. But I don’t know how to find the yeti.”

“Take the bacon. They’ll smell it. And look around in the magical spectrum. They use snow and ice to hide everything, including themselves, but it’s magic and you’ll spot it. Make sure to tell ’em their dad says hi.” I gave her the directions Manannan had given me and wished her luck. “I’ll check back at the cabin when I’ve finished.”

“Okay, I’ll leave messages there if I need to.”

We turned as one to look at Laksha, who had remained silent through all this—and who also hadn’t eaten anything. “I will do what good I can while you are gone and try to minimize the damage,” she said. “And perhaps I will find your father. I will give you a key to this house and leave notes here for you when I am out.”

Granuaile said, “Thanks.” Her eyes flicked down and noticed the blank space in front of Laksha. “You’re not eating because this is part of summoning Durga?”

“Yes. Austerities, ritual, and prayer will help to draw her attention.”

We had little else to say once the decision was made. Oberon was reluctant to leave Orlaith and I didn’t want to leave Granuaile, but in truth I was much relieved regarding Laksha’s current intentions, and Owen needed a shepherd at the moment. Even though I hadn’t yet been gone two hours, it was still more than the quick trip I’d promised him, and I hoped I hadn’t already drained my well of goodwill with Sam and Ty by saddling them with a man who put the tank in cantankerous.

Granuaile and I parted, both worried but hopeful about the challenges ahead of us. My concerns about my archdruid proved to be well founded, unfortunately. Once I’d shifted from early-morning Thanjavur to early-evening Flagstaff, I heard growls and bellows and cheers a bit deeper in the woods north of Sam Obrist’s house. Casting night vision and following the noise, I discovered a ring of men and women in a circle, egging on two combatants in the middle. One was a werewolf, and the other was Owen in his bear form. Both of them were bloody.

Sam Obrist was in the ring of onlookers, and my guess was that this was the entirety of the Flagstaff Pack. I didn’t know what Owen had done or said to incur their wrath, but I couldn’t let him get torn apart without an explanation.

Oberon, we need to break this up. We can’t let the bear get killed
.

The bear is Owen. Just bust in there with me and look threatening; get the werewolf to back off but try not to engage it seriously
.

I began to run toward the circle, drawing power to leap over it and into the center.

No, just—don’t engage, but growl a lot
.

Using some of the energy I’d drawn, I vaulted over the crowd and into the ring, where the bear was circling to keep the werewolf
in front of him and the werewolf was trying to flank and leap up onto the bear’s back. A few onlookers tried to shout warnings, but they weren’t in time. I delivered a kick to the rear left leg of the werewolf, hard enough to wipe him out and spin him out of range of the bear’s claws.

“That’s it! It’s over!” I yelled, and I got defiant roars from all directions, including that of the bear. Oberon nosed his way through the crowd and planted himself by my side, snarling at the werewolf as he rose to his feet and showed us his teeth.

“Damn it! Ty, stop!” Sam shouted, but the werewolf—presumably Sam’s husband, Ty—either didn’t hear or pretended not to. He gathered himself to leap at me, and that was way more threat than Oberon was going to allow. Oberon threw himself at the wolf as he jumped at me, and when they collided and fell to the ground, I dog-piled onto the werewolf’s back, wrapped my hands underneath his front legs, and gave him a hug.

Hugs are not normally part of my martial arts. However, in this case, it brought my silver charms into contact with the back of the werewolf’s neck, and the pain of that caused him to howl and rear back from Oberon, which was precisely what I wanted. Locking my arms across his chest, I stood up, yanking the werewolf away from Oberon and telling my hound to
Let him go
, then forced the struggling creature to turn and face his alpha. I released him, giving him a less-than-gentle shove in the proper direction. The general tenor of the noise around me changed from jeers to angry shouting when they smelled the silver burn and saw the mark on the werewolf’s neck fur. Everybody’s back was up and they were making a lot of noise, but Sam restrained Ty from charging again, and that meant the fight was over. I tasted victory for maybe two seconds, long enough to ask Oberon if he was okay and for him to answer in the affirmative. And then my archdruid informed me that I had cocked everything up again.

“Is this how it’s going to be from now on, Siodhachan?” he said in Old Irish, his tone querulous in my ear. He’d shape-shifted
back to human and now stood with his hands on his hips, naked and bleeding from multiple scratches. “Every time I try to have a little fun, you’re going to come along and ruin it?”

“Fun?” I said. I pointed at the werewolf. “He was trying to kill you.”

“No, he wasn’t. We were having a friendly match until you showed up. We can both take a lot of punishment and heal from it, and we agreed to leave throats, spines, and balls alone. And we did all that without you here to interpret for me. I think ye owe us all an apology.”

I could have pointed out that my intention was to save his crotchety ass and there had been hardly any time to ask politely if he was in true danger, and erring on the side of his safety was actually a much wiser course of action at that particular crisis point, but there was no way that I would come out looking good by pursuing that argument. My best option was to admit that I had screwed up and beg forgiveness.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Sam. “I misunderstood what was going on here and thought it was a death match instead of a friendly fight.”

“We’re a pack, Atticus,” Sam replied. “If it had been a death match, he would have been facing the entire pack, not just one of us.”

“Fair enough. Again, I apologize. I acted without knowing what was going on. If there’s a way I can make it up to you, I will.”

The forest grew quiet as everyone looked to Sam to see how he would respond. “Apology accepted.” The tension visibly leaked out of the pack’s shoulders at those words. “You didn’t break the skin, and Ty will heal. Let Owen come back and play with us some other time and we’ll call it square. It’s hard to find good sparring partners.”

“Easy enough. He’s free to do as he wishes, honestly. I just have to teach him the language and he’ll be fine. Do you have everything you need to send to Hal Hauk?”

“Yes, it’s already done, already sent. You can pick up his ID in a week to ten days.”

“Thank you. We’ll be going, then.” I turned to Owen and asked him where his clothes were.

“They’re around here somewhere, waiting for you to apologize.”

“I did.”

“Not to me.”

No one could exasperate me like he could. Drawing on my dwindling reserves of patience, I repeated my apology to him in Old Irish and said it was time to leave. He dawdled and delayed, but eventually he was dressed, his scratches were closed up, and we skipped around the world to the French Pyrenees, where he would restore my ability to shape-shift.