Shattered: The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Seven (6 page)
Read Shattered: The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Seven Online
Authors: Kevin Hearne
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Contemporary, #Paranormal, #Action & Adventure
Owen passed a hand over his face and muttered, “Brighid grant me patience.”
“Yeah, get yourself loaded up with plenty of that.”
After the late lunch, I took him to the address Hal had given me and we met Sam Obrist, alpha of the Flagstaff Pack. Though I’d known there was a decent-sized pack in town, I’d never had occasion to meet him. He was a tall, blond, and square-jawed sort and wore a pair of glasses on his nose that were doubtless some kind of hipster affectation. His house was near the forest—
go figure—and he shared it with his second, Ty Pollard, who also happened to be his husband.
“Hal told me you were coming,” he said, and shook our hands briefly. His eyes flicked down to the silver charms on my neck, but he didn’t react otherwise. “Please come in.” He smiled and waved us through the door and offered us beers, on which we passed, having just finished a couple.
He weighed and measured Owen and talked as he wrote down details, like eye and hair color, for the ID. “I’ve heard you can shift to a wolfhound,” he said to me.
“That’s right.” That always came up quickly whenever I met a new werewolf. The fact that I wore silver and shifted to an animal bred to hunt down wolves was understandably interesting to them, but it wasn’t as if I had ever done it. Some werewolves took meeting me as a pleasing thrill of danger. Some took it as a challenge. Fortunately, Sam was inclined to the former.
“You ran with Hal’s pack a few times, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but that was some time ago. Back when Gunnar was with us.”
“Oh, I see. Does he shift too?” he asked, indicating Owen.
“Yes. A black bear, among other things.”
There were a few more questions—did we have specific names or occupations we wished Owen to have in his background? I told Sam to make up whatever names for parents he wished and to use outdoorsy occupations for his work history. Thinking of the nearby university’s mascot, I said, “Maybe make him a lumberjack.”
It wouldn’t be long until we’d be free to begin work on my tattoos, but that would take us away for more than a week and I’d be off the grid the whole time. I thought it would be best to check in with Granuaile.
When I pulled out my cell phone, however, I discovered that I was already off the grid. My last call to Hal must have finished off my battery, and I didn’t have a charger with me. I’d have to shift up to the cabin and tell her in person.
“Would you mind if I stepped out for a short time while you take his picture?” I asked Sam.
“No, that would be fine,” he replied. “He seems harmless.”
“Thanks.” I turned to Owen and spoke in Old Irish. “I want to go check in on Granuaile really quick before we go back to the Old World, let her know we’ll be gone and out of touch for a while.”
“You’re leaving me here?” he said.
“Only for a few minutes. They’re just going to take your picture and let you drink beer. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Don’t be stupid! I don’t know what a fecking picture is, for one thing! Why not wait and take me with ye?”
“Because I’d like to spend more time on your transition to the culture first.”
“Not learning quick enough for ye, am I?” Owen looked at Sam and pointed a finger at me before uttering his first words aloud to another person in English. “Him. No balls,” he said.
Surprised by Owen’s sudden language switch and accusation, Sam and Ty erupted in laughter and I waved goodbye, confident that he’d get along with them just fine. The forest near Sam’s house provided a convenient link to Tír na nÓg, and I was able to shift to our cabin in Colorado near sundown. Granuaile and Orlaith weren’t there, but Oberon was.
“Days? Are you sure about that, buddy?” It had been a long day for me, but I doubted it had been a full twenty-four hours since I had left.
“Where did they go?”
“What? When did this happen?”
“Yeah, I think I will.” A yellow sticky note waited on the
kitchen table, and Granuaile’s neat script in blue ink spelled out the news:
Atticus—
Laksha called. Father possessed by something called raksoyuj. Going to meet her at Brihadeeswara Temple in Thanjavur. Will try to leave message there. Please come
.
—G
.
October 21, 9:10 a.m
.
“Oberon, this wasn’t written days ago. It was written this morning.”
“She’s been gone nine hours, and that’s way too much time to spend alone with Laksha. I don’t trust her. Why does she have Granuaile’s father in India?”
“So the whole thing could have been a ruse, and Granuaile just rushed off without knowing the situation?” I said, heading out the door.
“What in seven hells is a raksoyuj, anyway?”
“Wait, you’re right,” I said, turning on my heel and reentering the cabin. “I’m rushing things. I should charge my cell phone and leave her a note in case she comes back while we’re out looking.”
“Oh, yeah. I got him. But he’s in Flagstaff right now with a couple of werewolves. He’ll be fine … I hope.”
“He doesn’t know the language well, and he has a short fuse,” I said, plugging in my cell phone and grabbing a sticky note to scrawl down the time we left.
“He’ll be ready for a fight sequence when we get back, but this can’t wait. It’s a potentially hostile situation, so I want you to stick close and be on your guard, okay?”
I adjusted Fragarach, more to reassure myself of its presence than to fix any discomfort, and strode outside toward our tethered trees. “I haven’t been to India in quite some time. I hope there will be a tether somewhere close to Thanjavur.”
“Oh, that’s right, you’ve never been there at all. Well, brace yourself, buddy. More than a billion people live there, and the majority of them are vegetarians.”
“I’m serious, Oberon. Cows are sacred. Nobody eats them.”
I grinned at him. “Sounds like a harrowing adventure, doesn’t it? Come on, Oberon. Paws on the tree.”
Dense air and pregnant clouds welcome us to India, promising rain. The croak of frogs and the drone of insects sing of cycles, of hunger and need and of satisfaction also, of turning the wheel and hanging on. My hound notices the change in weather right away.
Yes, it’s quite humid
. Much of Thanjavur is surrounded by rice paddies and the occasional banana or coconut grove. It’s into one of these groves that we have shifted, bunches of bananas hanging overhead, a few miles outside the city’s boundaries. Even so, the tether was much closer in than I thought it would be. Back in what Europe called the Dark Ages, Atticus had traveled the world the slow way and tied as much of it as he could to Tír na nÓg, and once those tethers were established, Fae rangers maintained them by Brighid’s order, popping in to make sure they still worked and creating new ones as necessary when trees died or were removed by humans. Some of those rangers were working for Aenghus Óg and looking for Atticus
while they were at it, but all the Fae and Tuatha Dé Danann benefited from it.
The banana grove occupies a bit of high ground, and once I cast night vision, I can see a canal that winds into the city. A path or perhaps a road runs alongside, and I decide to follow it, gambling that we will find someone on the way to provide directions to the temple. Most people have already shut themselves in for the night, but I’m sure there are still a few wandering around. I cast night vision on Orlaith too, and she keeps pace beside me as I jog cross-country toward the canal, her tail communicating her joy.
It is quite different, isn’t it?
I say. There is mown grass or hay somewhere, and spices pepper the air, whispering of decadent homemade curries and perfumed incense. We hear strains of sawn strings groaning over the rhythm of tapped drum skins and ringing cymbals as we pass a house with its lights on and windows open. Someone sings along discordantly with the recorded voice, unconscious and untrained and clearly uncaring.
We finally see some people once we hit the canal road. Orlaith, being a very large creature moving at speed off a leash, frightens a few of them. We witness tiny squeals and cringes and hear sighs of relief when we pass.
You’re the sweetest hound ever, but they don’t know that and you surprised them. Don’t worry about it. Just stay close to me
.
A few raindrops fall, and I realize we had better ask for directions sooner rather than later. My assumption that the temple must lie in the center of town might be false. I spy a couple walking and let Orlaith know that I want to slow down and talk to them.
They draw up short as they see us approach, and the man steps in front to protect his wife or sister. I don’t speak Tamil or Hindi or any of the dozens of other languages spoken in India, so I hope they will recognize enough of my English to help.
“Brihadeeswara Temple?” I say, holding out my hands in a gesture of helplessness. It doesn’t register, because their eyes are fixed on Orlaith.
Sit for a minute and look cute and harmless
, I tell her, and she does. Then I repeat my question and the couple finally notices me standing there. It takes two more repetitions before the man raises his arm and points in the direction we were traveling, because now that he’s noticed me, he’s wondering if I’m a bigger threat than the hound.
Why, yes, good sir, I am.
I’ve noticed that men have difficulty maintaining eye contact or even speaking to me since I got my tattoos. The Celtic knot-work isn’t anything like what they’re used to seeing; they sense that it’s not merely decorative, and the mystery discomfits them. I think they want to ask what the tattoos mean, but something keeps them silent. In this case, maybe it’s the knives strapped to my thighs and the fighting staff in my hand.
We were headed the right way, Orlaith. Let’s go
.
I deliver a shallow bow to the man and say thank you before resuming our run. The rain starts to fall with urgency, fat drops hinting at a serious shower and guaranteeing that Orlaith and I will be soaked by the time we reach our destination. The street clears of its remaining few stragglers as people dive under roofs, leaving us to slice through the dark alone—a blessing, really, that allows us to travel faster.
After ten minutes or so, the tower of the temple looms out of the dark to our left, its surface lit by spotlights from below and sheets of rain glittering in the beams. We cross the canal at a bridge and arrive shortly thereafter to discover that the tower is part of a larger compound surrounded by a high wall. The entrance is a massive stone interruption in the wall, thirty feet high or more and doubly wide; its soaring arch provides shelter from the pour. It is crested with sculptures of the Vedic gods and their deeds and makes one feel small in comparison to such a monument. A solitary figure waits there—not underneath the arch but underneath an umbrella, wrapped in a sari. As I draw near I see
that it is Laksha, or at least the body that Laksha currently occupies; I never know how to think of her. She changes bodies the way Atticus and I change IDs, but for now she still wears the body of Selai Chamkanni, which she had taken years ago, after she moved out of my head.
She flashes white teeth at me as I approach, and I smile in return. Atticus would probably think me too trusting of her, but I doubt he fully understands what is between us. Back in the days when I was bartending at Rúla Búla, Laksha could have killed me at any time—in fact, it would have been simpler for her—but she chose not to. I know my life is safe with her, because my death would have been more expedient. And I know, too, because of the fact that she lived in my head. That requires an enormous amount of trust, and it’s a relationship very few people can grasp, Atticus included. He thinks she could change her mind at any time, and in theory I suppose that is true. I do understand why she is to be feared by others; her power is the easily abused kind, and in the past she did abuse it, and may do so again. But I also know that I personally have nothing to fear from her.
