Kevin Hearne - Hunted

“But he’s in Tír na nÓg, right? So if we get past him we’re golden, correct?”

“Well, yes. But getting past a manticore is next to impossible. Their venom is supposed to be a death sentence. Doesn’t matter if it comes out of the tail or from his bite. Even the claws are deadly, if reports are accurate.”

“Reports or myths?”

“Myths, you’re right; I’m sorry. There are no reports of people surviving manticore attacks, because they would have to survive to report it.”

“Couldn’t we break down the venom ourselves by unbinding it? I mean, we’re sort of immune to poison, aren’t we?”

“I suppose we are in some sense. But that takes concentration, and while you’re working on not dying from poison, he’ll spill your guts on the grass or bite your head off. And the third member of our party is not immune.”

Oberon stopped the barrel roll of his growling.

The manticore’s face, a malevolent visage promising painful death, abruptly turned to one of earnest appeal. He raised a paw to beckon to us, indicating that we should come through.

“Okay, that’s really creepy,” Granuaile said.

“Yeah. It’s kind of a ‘step into my parlor’ kind of thing, isn’t it? Well, we’re not going to play his little manticore games. We have our answer now. The Morrigan was right—everything’s being watched. But it’s a bit staggering.”

“You mean, all this effort to kill us?”

“Yeah. It could be done in a simpler fashion, but whoever’s behind this wants to make sure no blame accrues to them.”

“Huh. Atticus, could every Old Way in Tír na nÓg be guarded without Brighid’s knowledge?”

I considered. “Probably not for an extended period of time, but for a short while I don’t see why not.”

“Well, I don’t see why. How can she be unaware?”

“She has to be informed, just like a president or a prime minister does. She won’t know there’s a problem until somebody tells her.”

“Okay, so that means she could conceivably be the one behind this, or she’s aware of it and complicit, or she’s flat-out clueless.”

“Don’t forget aware and incompetent. Conceivable, but doubtful.”

“All right. I want to talk about it some more, but let’s step away from those teeth first.”

“Yep, good call. We need to move on.” We’d doubtless ceded some ground to Artemis and Diana during this little side trip, and we could ill afford to give them any more.

The manticore’s face melted into desperation once we began to backpedal, and then he gave up all pretense of pacifism and sprang at us, mouth agape and claws extended. It was entirely silent and phantasmal: He passed right through me, not being quite on the same plane as I was.

Oberon taunted him.

The manticore faded entirely from view once we stepped off the path. We agreed to resume our run and continue northwest through Germany until we safely cleared the Harz Mountains, and then we’d head straight west for the Netherlands according to the path laid out for us by the elemental Saxony. It was already somewhere around midday, and we wouldn’t get out of Germany before night fell.

“Can we run as humans for a while to save Oberon the effort of relaying our conversation?” Granuaile said.

I shrugged. It would be slower going, but we had a bit of a lead and we needed to talk. “Sure.” We adopted a ground-eating pace and trusted Saxony to guide us around developed areas as much as possible. With any luck, our streaking would go unnoticed. Or, if someone did see us, they might reasonably conclude we were running away from the very large dog behind us.

“So who’s in charge of the Old Ways on the Tír na nÓg side?” Granuaile asked. “Who would inform Brighid if there was a problem?”

“Ah! The rangers. I see where you’re going with this now. If Brighid isn’t responsible and no one’s told her what’s going on, then someone has suborned the rangers.”

“Exactly. And remember when we first went to Tír na nÓg together, and there was that one Fae lord who told us the rangers had reported all the tree tethers were malfunctioning throughout Europe?”

“Yes! Snooty, foppish type. I called him Lord Grundlebeard.”

“Right, and so he’s not a good buddy of yours. And he’s in charge of the rangers, or he wouldn’t have been reporting that at the Fae Court.”

“Gods below,” I breathed, realizing she was right.

“Yeah. Would Lord Grundlebeard have the power to do all this?”

I thought aloud for her benefit. “Use the rangers to organize some sort of obstruction at every Old Way throughout Europe? Yes. He could do that. But reliably divine your location the way that the Tuatha Dé Danann or other gods can do? That’s doubtful. And consider what we’ve had thrown at us in the past few months: dark elves, Fae assassins, vampires, and now the Olympians. You’d have to have vast resources and serious power to push all those buttons and still keep yourself hidden. Grundlebeard can’t have that kind of juice on tap.”

“Wait. You think this person is working with the Olympians?”

“Now that we’re talking through it, I think they have to be. Just remember how this all went down. I was giving you a tour of the Old Ways. We got to a specific spot in Romania and the trap was sprung. The Olympians were already there waiting for us—and so was the Morrigan. Now, the Olympians have their own methods of divination and they could have figured out where to find you in advance, and of course it’s Pan and Faunus who are spreading pandemonium and preventing us from shifting through tethered trees, but there’s no way they could have set a manticore to guarding one of the Old Ways in Germany from the Tír na nÓg side. They have to be colluding with someone on the Fae Court, but I don’t think it’s Lord Grundlebeard. I think he’s involved, don’t get me wrong, but it’s more likely that he’s getting his orders from someone higher up.”

“Okay, I won’t argue with that. But the manticore tells us something else.”

“What?”

“Whoever’s after us, they’re spread really thin. You don’t use manticores as mercenaries unless you’re desperate, am I right?”

“That’s a good point,” I said. “I think we should address that and other points with Lord Grundlebeard at our earliest opportunity. Find out who’s giving him orders.”

“Agreed. Who knows what revelations would follow?”

“What is it?” I asked him.

“Okay, that will do.”

“Oberon, we can’t play that now.”

“What do you want? A story?”

“All right. There’s one that may be relevant to our current situation. I just thought of someone amongst the Tuatha Dé Danann who might have the means, motive, and opportunity to arrange all this.”

“Obsess? I’d call it dutiful attention to self-preservation. Come on, Oberon. It has birds behaving badly, love rectangles, and even a cameo appearance by the late, not-so-great Aenghus Óg.”

“That was twelve years ago, Oberon, but, yes, that god.”

“No, Aenghus wasn’t, but his half brother, Midhir, was. They were both sons of the Dagda. And it’s Midhir who might be behind all this.”

“I haven’t met him, have I?” Granuaile asked.

“No, he was at the Fae Court the day you were introduced, but he did not introduce himself. I remember seeing him seated with the Tuatha Dé Danann on the right side of Brighid, but he didn’t come up to say hi with the rest of them.”