Kevin Hearne - Hexed

The Morrigan waved the point away. “But you have the means to deal with that. You were never in mortal peril. And this protects you from hellfire as well.”

“Yes, even that which is spewed from a fallen angel.”

“How do you bind the cold iron to your aura? Doesn’t the iron resist your magic?”

“That’s the tricky part for sure. Once I had the idea for this in the eleventh century, I spent a couple of decades trying to do it myself, but I couldn’t because you’re right, the cold iron laughs at all attempts to mess with it. You need the help of an iron elemental. You have to befriend one, basically, because it’s a lot of work for them too. Like I said to you before that business with Aenghus Óg, the protective process alone took me three centuries.”

The Morrigan cursed in that Proto-Celtic language of hers and her eyes reddened. “I am not a goddess of smiths! I have no talent for iron, nor for making friends!”

“Perhaps you could view it as an opportunity for personal growth rather than an obstacle. As a goddess of death, making friends wouldn’t make sense, I suppose, since you must eventually take them all. But I can walk you through that process too. It’s not difficult.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I respectfully disagree. Iron elementals like to eat faeries. I’m sure you can lay hands on a few of those.”

“Easily,” she agreed, nodding. “They breed like rodents in Tír na nÓg.”

“Great. Now, when the iron elemental thanks you for the faeries and suggests that you were kind or nice to offer such a tasty snack, do not threaten it with violence in response. Instead, smile and say it’s welcome. You might even share that you rather enjoy a bowl of ice cream now and then and that you imagine faeries must be something like ice cream to them.”

The Morrigan’s face underwent a curious exercise. Her eyebrows knitted together and her lower lip seemed dangerously close to trembling, but then she scowled and the scarlet glow of her anger flared again in her eyes. As quickly as it appeared, it faded, and uncertainty crept again into her features. She looked down at the table, her raven hair falling forward to mask her face, and she spoke to me from behind a black curtain. “I can’t do this. Making friends is not in my nature. I am a stranger to kindness.”

“Nonsense.” I flicked my gloriously shaped right ear. “Here’s living proof of your kindness. Irish generosity thrives within you, Morrigan.”

“But that was sex. I can’t have sex with an elemental.”

Lucky for the elementals, I thought.

“That is true, but there are other ways to be kind to people, as I’m sure you’re aware. I think the trouble is that you never let people be kind to you in return. Tell you what: I’ll get you ready to make friends with an iron elemental. You can practice all the intricacies of friendship with me. I’d be honored to be your friend.”

The Morrigan rose abruptly from her chair and scooped the iron meteorites back into the leather bag, her face hidden by her hair all the while. “Thank you for the sex and the meal and the instruction,” she said formally. “You have been a most gracious host.” She tied the drawstring tightly around the pouch. “I will visit Goibhniu and return when I have the amulets.”

Without another word, she bound herself to a crow’s form right on my table, snatched the pouch in her talons, and then flew out my back door, which opened by itself to allow her egress.

I spent maybe thirty seconds thinking the Morrigan had left so quickly because she was getting a bit verklemmt over my offer of friendship. I should have known better.

A polite knock at the door startled me and set Oberon off to barking three times before he said,

Brighid is at the door? A note of panic in my mental voice made my hound laugh, for he knew as well as I that I couldn’t answer the door right now. I was still naked and only partially healed from the Morrigan’s abuse—and that, I realized, was precisely what the Morrigan wanted. Nothing about the timing of these visits was accidental. Once again, I would have to play catch-up with the designs of these goddesses and try to figure out what their true motives were. A few weeks ago they had both played me beautifully to achieve their own ends, and now I could see it was starting again. I should have asked the Morrigan more questions about that civil war in Tír na nÓg, for that had something to do with Brighid’s sudden appearance, sure as a frog’s ass is watertight.

“Well, I know how to get some answers,” I said to the door as I scrambled into my bedroom. Oberon met me there with his tail wagging.

“To all my questions,” I said, throwing on a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a green cotton T-shirt. The door thumped again, not as politely as before; there was definitely a note of impatience in the way she knocked on wood. “Now, look, she can obviously hear your thoughts, so I want you to pipe down and head out to the living room and wait. And when she comes in, I want you to stay behind her at all times.”

“Just do it, please,” I said shortly, and immediately felt sorry for my arbitrary tone. Usually I enjoy arguing with Oberon. He’s great with the give and take. But he didn’t understand the stakes here, and I couldn’t explain them to him while Brighid was listening in on his side of the conversation.

Oberon’s tail drooped as he left the room, and I deflated a bit too, but if this was going to work, Brighid could have no warning. I didn’t know if I’d even go through with it, but I had to be prepared. I picked up Fragarach from my dresser and slung the scabbard across my back, then hurried to answer the front door.

Brighid smirked at me when I opened the door, and it was like one of those cheesy commercials they play during football games: An obscenely beautiful, sultry woman in next to nothing appears mysteriously; a ghost wind generated off camera blows her hair in a way that suggests wild abandon; she pouts sexily at this utterly regular schmoe with a weak chin; and he completely suspends his disbelief that she’d ever be interested in him, because he’s got an ice-cold beer in his hand. The mysterious wind in this case was almost certainly generated by Brighid herself, and it wafted her scent to me, which was just as I remembered it: milk and honey and soft ripe berries. Damn.

Now, I’m not a regular schmoe, and I certainly don’t have a weak chin, but I’m as susceptible to beer commercials as the next fella, even though it’s just living vicariously in a pubescent male fantasy. None of those commercials came close to the real, live goddess that confronted me in my doorway.

Brighid looked as if she had jumped out of the pages of Heavy Metal . She was wearing several layers of sheer blue material, tied or bunched in such a way as to barely cover her naughty bits, yet providing a tantalizing glimpse of each through the fabric. A golden torc circled her throat, and another accentuated her left biceps, while delicate ropes of twisted metal adorned her wrists. Around her waist were several thin golden chains. Her red hair cascaded around her face in languorous waves like Jessica Rabbit’s, and she had gold thread braided into it here and there. And the pouty come-hither look, achieved by pursing the lips a bit and looking at me with sleepy eyes? She had that down . The ladies in the beer commercials were hot, no doubt, but when a goddess wants to make an effort, no one else can even open the jar of mustard, let alone cut it.