Kevin Hearne - Hexed

“What about bows and arrows and other martial arts stuff like sai and throwing knives and such?”

“Why, do you have any of that floating around?”

“The garage is full of it.”

Hal cursed in Old Norse for a moment, then switched back to English. “Damn it, Atticus, you need to get yourself a bat cave or something for all of your shady shit.”

“Why? I thought it was all legal.”

“It is, but in situations like this, you don’t want them to smell smoke and figure there’s been a fire. Which turns out to be literally true in this case.” He sniffed and wrinkled his nose. “What started the fire, anyway?”

“A visiting goddess.”

“Are you being serious or pulling my hair?”

“Completely serious.” I didn’t tell him the correct expression was “pulling my leg,” because he was doing so well otherwise. Hal was quite a bit younger than Leif and more willing to make an effort to use American vernacular correctly. He usually appreciated it when I corrected him, but I didn’t want to distract him now.

“Anything I should be worried about?”

“Nah, it’s all Irish politics.”

Hal looked at me sharply and shook a finger in my face. “That’s bloody dangerous, getting involved in that. You be careful.”

I gaped at Hal. “I can’t believe you just said that to me.”

“What?” Hal protested, shrugging his shoulders and looking aggrieved.

“I called to ask Gunnar for help with the Bacchants yesterday and he shut me down. No well-wishing, no pleas to be careful, nothing. So now we’re dealing with the aftermath of what happens when I try to go it alone, and you tell me to be careful about Irish politics?”

“Well, I know precisely where Gunnar’s coming from. It’s not our job to keep the magical peace.”

“Neither is it mine.”

“Well, then, why did you get involved?” Hal asked.

I thought about explaining that I needed a safe place to live and work so I could restore the land around Tony Cabin, but it seemed too arcane and he might not understand why I was so eager to tackle a project that would take years to finish. I shrugged instead and said, “Irish politics.”

“There you go. Bloody dangerous. Our job is to keep you out of jail when you get in trouble, not help you get into trouble in the first place. Come on.” He rose from his chair and gestured inside. “I’ll help you get everything stowed.”

Oberon said as we walked inside.

You don’t offer werewolves treats if you want to keep all your appendages. They think it’s undignified and degrading to be offered a treat .

I beg your pardon?

No. You just made all of that up .

Clearly . I stopped in the kitchen to grab a handful of treats for Oberon out of the slightly scorched pantry cabinet. After you finish these, I want you to stand sentinel on the front porch and let me know if anyone drives up, please .

I collected Moralltach from the garage, a couple of other practice swords, and a roll of oilskin (the real stuff, not the synthetic fabric they call oilskin these days, because I’m a natural fiber kind of guy). Since I didn’t have a bat cave, I’d have to hide everything by using magic. I got out some scissors and started cutting lengths of oilskin, then told Hal to wrap the swords in them so that every inch was covered.

“Do you have some duct tape or something to keep it all together?”

I stopped slicing through oilskin and looked up at my lawyer. “Hal? I’m a Druid. Like, for reals.”

Hal flushed and muttered an apology. “Right. You can bind it yourself, can’t you?”

“Yes, I can. Are you ready with that one?”

“Right. Yes.”

“Hold the edges down, then,” I said, and waited for Hal to do it. “Dún,” I said in Irish. The fibers from the edges threaded themselves into the weave of the full canvas, creating a sort of Möbius strip where the fabric had no beginning or end, save where I could see it. To Hal’s eye it looked as if the edge had just disappeared and smoothed out, an unbroken piece of fabric.

Hal shook his head. “Too bad you don’t celebrate Christmas. Your presents would look awesome.”

We repeated the process three more times, and then I gathered all the swords and moved out to the backyard. Hal followed, his nostrils flaring at all the herbs I had growing back there. “You’re not growing anything that looks remotely like marijuana, are you?”

I snorted. “Only an idiot would think so.”

“Cops can be idiots sometimes.”

“There’s nothing precious here. They can confiscate it all if they feel they have to protect the public from my herb garden.”

“Right. So where are we hiding them?” Hal was looking down at likely spots for burial, and that was the wrong direction.

“See my neighbor’s palo verde tree overhanging my yard? We’re going to hide them up there.”

“Oooo-kay. How?” The trunk was on the other side of a very tall wooden fence, and the fence wasn’t the sort I could climb easily to access the branches high above.

“You use your giant hairy werewolf muscles to throw me up into the branches and then toss me the swords. I’ll bind them to the tree branches first so they won’t move, then camouflage them.”

“Those branches look pretty spindly. Sure they’ll bear your weight?”

“Absolutely. This tree loves me. Its roots go underneath the fence, and we talk sometimes about particulates and nitrogen and the horror of borer beetles.”

Hal looked at me uncertainly.

“Plus, I can temporarily strengthen the wood.”

“Ah, okay, then. I’ll just put my jacket over here …”

It was finished in less than five minutes, and Hal didn’t even break a sweat chucking me up into the canopy. He usually dressed to conceal his muscular frame, because in courtrooms muscles are associated with defendants rather than lawyers. Still, he was an imposing physical presence, a “manly man” with a cleft chin and a broad smile. He wore a pair of spectacles as an affectation, for he wasn’t visually impaired. He thought they made him look more gentle and intelligent to juries. “That’s a pretty good spell,” Hal said, squinting up at the branches where I had camouflaged the swords. “I know they’re there, but I can’t see them.”

“They’ll stay camouflaged as long as I have access to a bit of power. The bindings will stay until I release them.”

“Excellent. So what do we do with the rest of your instruments of death?”

“How much time do you think we have?”

Hal shrugged. “Maybe two hours, maybe two minutes.”

Thanks, Oberon; come on into the backyard .

“More like two seconds,” I told Hal. “They’re out front right now.”

“Guess we’ll have to wing it.”

“Sure.” I shrugged. “It’ll probably be fun.”

“Put a shirt on, will you? They’re looking for someone who killed a lot of people last night, and it looks like you might have done it.”

“Oh, yeah.” I looked down at my torso, still messed up from the Morrigan. I’d be able to heal it pretty quickly if people would leave me in peace, but that was in short supply today.

“And don’t answer a single question without me right there to harass them every step of the way.”

“Got it.”