Kevin Hearne: Hounded

I looked around to see who might have witnessed the fight, but there wasn’t anyone close by—it was lunchtime. My shop is just south of University on Ash Avenue, and all the food places are north of University, up and down both Ash and Mill Avenues.

I collected the weapons off the sidewalk and opened up the shop door, grinning to myself at the OUT TO LUNCH sign. I flipped it around to say OPEN; might as well do some business, since cleaning up would keep me tied down to the shop. Heading over to my tea station, I filled a pitcher with water and checked my arm. It was still red and puffy from the cut but doing well, and I had the pain firmly shut down. Still, I didn’t think I should risk tearing the muscles further by asking them to carry water for me; I’d have to make two trips. I grabbed a jug of bleach from under the sink and went outside with it, leaving the pitcher on the counter. I poured bleach on every bloodstain and then returned for the pitcher to wash it all away.

After I’d satisfactorily washed away the blood, a giant crow flew into the shop behind me as I opened the door to return the pitcher. It perched itself on a bust of Ganesha, spreading its wings and ruffling its feathers in an aggressive display. It was the Morrigan, Celtic Chooser of the Slain and goddess of war, and she called me by my Irish name. “Siodhachan Ó Suileabháin,” she croaked dramatically. “We must talk.”

“Can’t you take the form of a human?” I said, placing the pitcher on a rack to dry. The motion caused me to notice a spot of blood on my amulet, and I removed it from my neck to wash it off. “It’s creepy when you talk to me like that. Bird beaks are incapable of forming fricatives, you know.”

“I did not journey here for a linguistics lesson,” the Morrigan said. “I have come with ill tidings. Aenghus Óg knows you are here.”

“Well, yes, I already knew that. Didn’t you just take care of five dead faeries?” I laid my necklace on the counter and reached for a towel to pat it dry.

“I sent them on to Manannan Mac Lir,” she said, referring to the Celtic god who escorted the living to the land of the dead. “But there is more. Aenghus Óg is coming here himself and may even now be on his way.”

I went still. “Are you quite certain?” I asked. “This is based on solid evidence?”

The crow flapped its wings in irritation and cawed. “If you wait for evidence, it will be too late,” she said.

Relief washed through me, and the tension melted from between my shoulder blades. “Ah, so this is just some vague augury,” I said.

“No, the augury was quite specific,” the Morrigan replied. “A mortal doom gathers about you here, and you must fly if you wish to avoid it.”

“See? There you go again. You get this way every year around Samhain,” I said. “If it isn’t Thor coming to get me, it’s one of the Olympians. Remember that story last year? Apollo was offended by my association with the Arizona State Sun Devils—”

“This is different.”

“—Never mind that I do not even attend the university, I just work nearby. So he was coming in his golden chariot to shoot me full of arrows.”

The crow shuffled on the bust and looked uncomfortable. “It seemed a plausible interpretation at the time.”

“The Greek deity of the sun being offended by an old Druid’s tenuous relationship with a college mascot on the other side of the globe seemed plausible?”

“The basics were accurate, Siodhachan. Missiles were fired at you.”

“Some kids punctured my bike tires with darts, Morrigan. I think you may have exaggerated the threat somewhat.”

“Nevertheless. You cannot stay here any longer. The omens are dire.”

“Very well,” I sighed in resignation. “Tell me what you saw.”

“I was speaking with Aenghus recently—”

“You spoke to him?” If I’d been eating anything, I would have choked. “I thought you hated each other.”

“We do. That does not mean we are incapable of conversing together. I was relaxing in Tír na nÓg, thoroughly sated after a trip to Mesopotamia—have you been there recently? It is magnificent sport.”

“Begging your pardon, but the mortals call it Iraq now, and no, I haven’t been there in centuries.” The Morrigan’s ideas of sport and mine varied widely. As a Chooser of the Slain, she tends to enjoy nothing so much as a protracted war. She hangs out with Kali and the Valkyries and they have a death goddesses’ night out on the battlefield. I, on the other hand, stopped thinking war was glorious after the Crusades. Baseball is more my kind of thing these days. “What did Aenghus say to you?” I prompted.

“He just smiled at me and told me to look to my friends.”

My eyebrows shot up. “You have friends?”

“Of course not.” The crow ruffled its feathers and managed to look aggrieved at the mere suggestion. “Well, Hecate is kind of funny and we have been spending a lot of time together lately. But I think he meant you.”

The Morrigan and I have a certain understanding (though it’s too uncertain for my taste): She will not come for me as long as my existence continues to drive Aenghus Óg into twitching spasms of fury. It’s not exactly a friendship—she’s not the sort of creature that allows it—but we have known each other a long time, and she drops by every so often to keep me out of trouble. “It would be embarrassing for me,” she explained once as she was ushering me out of the Battle of Gabhra, “if you got yourself decapitated and yet you didn’t die. I would have some explaining to do. Dereliction of duty is difficult to justify. So from now on, do not put me in a position where I must take your life to save face.” The bloodlust was still on me at the time, and I could feel the power coursing through my tattoos; I was part of the Fianna during that episode, and there was nothing I wanted more than to have a go at that pompous snot King Cairbre. But the Morrigan had chosen sides, and when a goddess of death says to leave the battle, you leave the battle. Ever since I earned Aenghus Óg’s enmity all those centuries ago, she has tried to warn me of mortal dangers coming my way, and while she occasionally exaggerates the danger, I suppose I should be grateful she never underestimates it or neglects to warn me at all.

“He could have been playing with your mind, Morrigan,” I said. “Aenghus is like that.”

“I am well aware. That is why I consulted the flight of crows and found them ominous regarding your position here.” I made a face, and the Morrigan continued before I could say anything. “I knew that such augury would not be sufficient for you, so, seeking more specifics, I cast the wands.”

“Oh,” I said. She had actually gone to some trouble. There are all sorts of ways to cast lots or runes or otherwise practice divination by interpreting the random as the pattern of the future. I prefer them all to watching the flight of birds or watching clouds, because my involvement in the casting centers the randomness on me. Birds fly because they want to eat or mate or grab something for their nest, and applying that to my future or anyone else’s seems a ludicrous stretch to me. Logically, throwing some sticks on the ground and making predictions is little better, except that I know that my agency and will in the ritual provide enough focus for Fortune to stop and say, “Here’s what’s coming soon to a theatre near you.”

There used to be a class of Druids that practiced animal sacrifice and read the future from entrails, which I kind of thought was messy and a waste of a good chicken or bull or whatever. People today look at those practices and say, “That’s so cruel! Why couldn’t they simply be vegan like me?” But the Druidic faith allows for a pretty happy afterlife and maybe even a return trip or ten to earth. Since the soul never dies, taking a knife to some flesh here and there is never a big deal. Still, I never got into the whole sacrificing thing. There are far cleaner and more reliable ways to peek under Fortune’s skirts. Druids like me use twenty wands in a bag, each marked with Ogham script representing the twenty trees native to Ireland, and each carrying with it a wealth of prophetic meaning. Much like Tarot, these wands are interpreted differently depending on which direction they fall in relation to the diviner; there is a positive set of meanings if they fall upright, a negative set if they fall downward. Without looking, the caster draws five wands from the bag and tosses them on the ground in front of him, then tries to interpret the message represented by their arrangement. “And how did they fall?” I asked the Morrigan.