Staked (Iron Druid Chronicles) (11 page)

“Who’s this lady with the beads, then?”

The Naked Gun
. Which means those aren’t beads. Those are pearls.>

I don’t understand all of that, but at least I learn that Canada is ruled by a queen.

“All right, where should I go to get food?”

He stops in front of a small shop with a large glass window painted with red and white letters.
POUTINERIE
, it says.

“What is a
poutinerie
?” I asks him. It’s an unfamiliar word.

There’s a small line inside and a menu posted near the ceiling. I can’t make any sense of it except that it sells all different kinds of whatever poutine is.

“Give me whatever’s most popular here,” I says to the merchant when I get to the front of the line. “As long as it has gravy on it.”

“Everything has gravy on it,” the young man says. He has dull eyes and red spots on his face, but his tone sounds like he thinks I’m stupid.

“Good. Two of your popular things, then.”

He asks me if I want a drink; I says water, then he pronounces a number and looks at me like I’m supposed to do something. I give him Canadian money and he gives me some back—it has a number 5 on it and no queen; it has a dodgy man with a bald pate and a stiff white collar instead. Maybe he’s the king of Canada. He also gives me a small white piece of paper and calls it a receipt. I have just completed me first modern trade.

There’s a short wait and then I’m given two brown boxes with folding flaps on top and a bottle of water. I take this outside to the hound, open one box and set it down for him. Poutine turns out to be fried potatoes with cheese curds all covered in gravy.

Oberon says as he gulps it down. I have to admit that once I try my own, it’s not bad. Hunger slain, we proceed to the hospital, where the hound suggests that I camouflage him so that he can go inside with me. I figure I have plenty of juice in me knuckles, so I put them on, cast the spell, and we go inside together.

I pretend to be Siodhachan’s father when I inquire at the front desk about him. The nice lady informs me that he’s in something called the Intensive Care Ward, recovering from surgery, but says I can’t go any further wearing a sword.

Well, balls to that. I tell her I’ll go put it in my car, find a corner to duck around, and cast camouflage on meself, telling the hound to stay out of the way and I’ll return soon with Siodhachan. I walk back in, follow the signs to Intensive Care, and eventually find Siodhachan’s room. He’s unconscious or asleep, in a bed with metal rails on the sides, and he’s got all manner of tubes and things in his nose and his arm. There are beeping noises and loud breathing, and none of it sounds natural. He’s wearing a flimsy piece of cloth, and I don’t see his regular clothes around. It’s like they dressed him to look fragile. I don’t think I should throw him over me shoulder in his condition. Somebody really did kick his arse.

I reach out to Oberon with me mind. He might know what to do better than I.

Oberon? Can ye hear me?

Aye, but he’s unconscious and has all these tubes in him. He’s not walking out with me right now.

What’s a wheelchair?

That takes a bit more time than I would like, but the hound is right; one eventually comes along. A nurse wheels an old man into a room near Siodhachan’s and helps him into bed. He looks like he’s about the age I was before I drank that tea Siodhachan made for me, and his skin is dry and papery. He’s asleep before the nurse is finished pulling up the sheets over his thin frame. I wait for her to leave and then I cast camouflage on the wheelchair and steal it. A few minutes after that, I’ve stolen me a Druid and I’m out of the hospital with a camouflaged Siodhachan in the chair. I drop the camouflage on meself and the hound as we walk away but keep it going on me old apprentice. The hound gets more and more worried when Siodhachan doesn’t respond to him—apparently he’s never had his food reviews ignored before, and the discovery of poutine should have roused Siodhachan right away.

Eventually I get Siodhachan to Queen’s Park and stop the chair right next to the bound tree I used to shift in. Looking around to make sure no one’s watching, I drop his camouflage, then I squat down and pull his right foot off the little metal shelf so that his heel can touch the earth again. Oberon thinks he should wake up immediately on contact.

he asks.

“Well, yes, but there’s no telling how bad he is or what they did to him in there. Greta was telling me about modern medicine. Lots of drugs involved, and lots of it is synthetic shite they cook up somewhere. They may have knocked him out on purpose.”

“What he needs is a good long soak in the healing pools of Mag Mell. But I don’t think I can shift ye there meself.”

“I don’t know either of ye well enough to carry you along. I used to know Siodhachan, but he’s got two thousand years on me. I’d worry about containing him. And, besides, I don’t have the headspaces for it. I only have one extra, and Siodhachan has, what, three?”

“See, that’s one fecking impressive brain there. We get him awake, and he can shift both of us.”

The corner of Siodhachan’s mouth tugs upward and his eyelids twitch a wee bit. “Aw, Owen,” he says, though his voice is slow and slurred. “You’re sho shweet.”

“You’re awake?”

“Just in time to hear you shay shumthing nice about me.”

“Well, don’t let it go to your head! The truth is, your smarts are better hidden than a pair of snake nuts.”

“I’m deffy … definitely not okay, Oberon. Sho tired. Groggy.”

“They have you pumped full of drugs, lad,” I says.

pharmaceuticals
. That’s five syllables, so I deserve some more poutine.>

“We need to get you to Mag Mell,” I says. “When do you think you’ll be clear enough to shift?”

“Need to break down kam … chemical. Sss. Chemicals first.”

It’s a long couple of hours of the hound talking about food and his favorite entertainments after that. People passing by give us curious stares every so often, but they mind their own business and I admire them for it. I shift away quickly to get the fancy stake Luchta made for Siodhachan, and he doesn’t even notice. When the sun goes down, it starts to get cold quickly, and that, along with the cleansing he’s been doing, finally allows Siodhachan to announce that he’s ready.

I have to help him up and he winces—his right leg is shredded—but he shifts us all to Tír na nÓg, leaving a mystery wheelchair behind, and then to the plane of Mag Mell, where I carry most of his weight over to the healing pools and he sinks into one with a happy sigh, tossing away that cloth he calls a hospital gown.

“What day is it?” he asks, all the slurring gone from his voice.

“Same day, lad. What happened?”

We trade stories, and it makes me cringe to think of what these modern weapons can do to a body. It’s a problem I’ll have to consider, because he’s right—his sword is no use against weapons like that, and neither are me shiny new knuckles.

“Those are impressive, though,” he says. “If you can shatter rock with them I wonder if they’d stop a bullet. Wouldn’t want to try catching one though. What are you going to name them?”

“I don’t know yet.”

I take off his sword and place it next to his hand by the side of the pool, then give him the stake from Luchta as well.

“Look, lad, keep that vampire war as far away from me and Flagstaff as possible. I’ll have a bunch of wee kids to look after soon.”

“Hal said as much. I’ll try, but you should be aware that they may come after you to get to me. Or to retaliate against something I do. Just ward and be wary.”

“I will.”

“And … Owen?” His face is all scrunched up as if he’s expecting a beating for what he’s going to say next.

“What is it?”

“Maybe go a bit easier on them than you did on me.”

It feels like ice water in me pants to hear him say that. I gasp and everything retracts. But then I say, “Aye, lad, I will.” There’s silence for a few beats and then I add, “Greta would tear me up if I said a rude word to those kids. And their parents would join in, no doubt. I’ll try not to repeat me cock-ups.”

His face relaxes and he smiles. “Fair enough. I’ll try to keep mine to a minimum as well.”

“Good, good. Speaking of Greta, I’d best be getting back to her. Going to visit Brighid for a moment and then head home. You’ll be all right now?”

“Yes. I appreciate you taking the trouble to bring me here.” He says farewell and the hound thanks me for the poutine. I can tell he won’t shut up about it for days, but it’s Siodhachan who will have to listen to it, so I figure that stopping for food was a win for me in every way.

The Fae Court in Tír na nÓg doesn’t operate on Canadian time, so it’s hopping like a rabbit warren during humping season when I get there. There are quite a few of the dodgy sorts of Fae around, far more than I had seen before, and I wonder why that is. I hang back and listen, ask a couple questions, and learn that Brighid has granted amnesty to a lot of Fae and other old creatures that had either been imprisoned or exiled for a long time.

“She’s being more accommodating,” a winged faery explains, “after Fand’s attempted coup. We may have lost our queen, but at least the First among the Fae is listening to us now. And Fand may return someday, just as these others have.”

She’s probably right about that. Fand won’t remain imprisoned forever. The Fae will start asking soon when she might be released, and eventually their questions will turn into demands. And the same goes for her husband, Manannan Mac Lir. Brighid can delay only so long before this temporary goodwill turns to ashes. But I’m not sure letting a bunch of prisoners free will do anything to keep the peace. Some of them are going to be grateful, sure, and be a grand addition to society. But some are going to be resentful and start throwing shite at things. She’d better be ready to duck.

But perhaps Brighid’s thinking that she can simply imprison them again and say, “Well, I gave them a chance, didn’t I? Not my fault if they’re stupid gits.”

I find a chamberlain figure near the front of the crush of beings, dressed all fancy and doused in perfume. I tell him I’d like a brief audience with Brighid, and his eyes stray down to me tattoos. They widen as he recognizes I’m bound to Gaia. “You’re a Druid?” he says.

“Aye. Eoghan Ó Cinnéide.”

“She’s left instructions to bring you before her immediately should you appear. Please come with me.”

That’s a pleasant surprise, and I ignore the scowls I get from a group of pixie widows as the chamberlain interrupts their audience to introduce me—not just to Brighid but to everyone, since he shouts my name. I notice Brighid’s wearing a new kit. It’s a set of lighter armor instead of the heavy stuff she wore during the coup attempt, painted a metallic blue. It leaves her arms and legs largely unprotected, but her vital organs are under wraps. And the area around her throne is warded tighter than a hedgehog’s rolled-up arse anyway; I can feel the bindings warning me away from it.

“Welcome,” she says. “What news?”

“I’m starting a grove, taking on six apprentices to be Druids. Wanted ye to know. Whatever protection ye can afford would be grand.”

“Ah! This pleases me very much, Eoghan. Give the details to my chamberlain and I will see it done. I would speak longer, but I have much to do. Is there anything else?”

I think of how Siodhachan is trying to wipe out vampires and it’s going to be all blood and exploding organs until he’s done, but she probably already knows that since she had Luchta make those stakes and I don’t need to announce it where everyone can hear. So I says, “No, that is all.”

She bids me farewell, and I bow to her and chat off to one side with the chamberlain while the pixies resume their audience. I tell him about the property in Flagstaff and how it needs to be warded and after a few seconds become aware that something huge looms over us and smells like sweaty feet.

A gray-skinned hulk, probably twice me size, stares down at me with tiny black eyes and big tusk-like teeth sticking up out of its mouth. There’s a bit of drool leaking out the side, and there are also patches of lichen or fungus attached to its skin with either mud or shite or both used as an adhesive. It has a cloth wrapped inexpertly around its hips, and it’s doing a terrible job covering up the huge thing it’s supposed to be hiding from view. It’s a great fecking bog troll, the kind that doesn’t care if you see his cheesy dangly dong. The worst kind of troll, in other words.

“I know you,” it rumbles, and its breath is a visible cloud of decay. “You’re a Druid.”

“Ye have a keen eye,” I say. “Would ye excuse us, please?”

“No, we have business. I remember.”

“I don’t think we do.”

“I was on a Time Island. Released with many others. So were you. And you owe me gold.”

“You’re mistaken. I don’t owe you shite.”

“No mistake. You crossed my bridge in the bog and didn’t pay the toll. You look younger now, but I remember. You owe me gold.”

When he says that, it triggers me own memory. He’s right. In the old days I’d been crossing a bog on me way to visit a cousin when this troll pops up in the middle of it and demands that I pay him to cross the rest of the way or it’s over the edge for me. I had no gold and no intention of paying if I did, so I cast camouflage and snuck past him. The troll had cursed me and promised someday he’d make me pay, and I’d told him from a distance that no one’s bollocks should ever smell that bad.