Kevin Hearne: Hounded

“Dude, that chick is naked!” Meat Loaf exclaimed.

“Whoa,” said Iron Maiden, who pushed his sunglasses down his nose to get a better look. “And she’s hot too.”

“Hey, baby,” Meat Loaf said, taking a couple of steps toward her. “If you need some clothes, I’ll be glad to take off my pants for you.” He and his friend began to laugh as if this was incredibly funny, spitting out “hahaha” like automatic weapons fire. They sounded like goats, only less intelligent.

The Morrigan’s eyes flashed red and I held up my hands. “Morrigan, no, please, not in my shop. Cleaning up afterward would cause me tremendous hardship.”

“They must die for their impertinence,” she said, and those hair-raising minor harmonics were back in her voice. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of mythology knows that it is suicidal to sexually harass a goddess. Look what Artemis did to that guy who stumbled across her bathing.

“I understand that this insult must be redressed,” I said, “but if you could do it elsewhere so that my life is not further complicated, I would appreciate the courtesy very much.”

“Very well,” she muttered to me. “I just ate, in any case.” And then she turned to the stoners and gave them the full frontal view. They were overjoyed at first: They were looking down and so did not see that her eyes were glowing red. But when she spoke, her unearthly voice rattled the windows, and their eyes snapped up to her face and they realized they were not dealing with the average girl gone wild.

“Put your affairs in order, mortals,” she boomed, as a gust of wind—yes, wind inside my shop—blew their hair back. “I will feast on your hearts tonight for the offense you gave me. So swears the Morrigan.” I thought it was a bit melodramatic, but one does not critique a death goddess on her oratory delivery.

“Dude, what the hell?” Iron Maiden squealed in a voice a couple of octaves above his prior register.

“I don’t know, man,” Meat Loaf said, “but my chubby is gone. I’m bailin’.” They tripped over each other in their haste to get out.

The Morrigan watched them go with predatory interest, and I kept silent as her head tracked their flight even through the walls. Finally she turned to me and said, “They are polluted creatures. They have defiled themselves.”

I nodded. “Aye, but they are unlikely to provide you much sport.” I was not about to defend them or beg for a stay of execution; the best I could do was imply that they were not worth the trouble.

“That is true,” she said. “They are pathetic shadows of true men. But they will die tonight nevertheless. I have sworn it.” Oh well, I sighed inwardly. I had tried.

The Morrigan calmed herself and returned her attention to me. “The defenses you have here are surprisingly subtle and unusually strong,” she said, and I nodded my thanks. “But they will not serve you well against the Tuatha Dé Danann. I counsel you to leave immediately.”

I pressed my lips together and took a moment to choose my words carefully. “I appreciate your counsel and I am eternally grateful for your interest in my survival,” I replied, “but I cannot think of a better place to defend myself. I have been running for two millennia, Morrigan, and I am tired. If Aenghus truly means to come for me, then let him come. He will be as weak here as anywhere on earth. It is time we settled this.”

The Morrigan tilted her head at me. “You would truly offer arms against him on this plane?”

“Aye, I am resolved.” I wasn’t. But the Morrigan is not renowned for her bullshit detection. She is more renowned for whimsical slaughter and recreational torture.

The Morrigan sighed. “I think it smacks of foolishness more than courage, but so be it. Let me see this amulet, then, your so-called defense.”

“Gladly. Would you mind clothing yourself, however, so that we may avoid any further shocks to mortal eyes?”

The Morrigan smirked. She was not only built like a Victoria’s Secret model, but the sun streaming through the windows lit up her smooth, flawless skin, which was white as confectioner’s sugar. “It is only this prudish age that makes a vice of nudity. But perhaps it is wiser to bow to local custom for now.” She made a gesture, and a black robe materialized to cloak her form. I smiled my gratitude and picked up my amulet from the counter.

It would perhaps be more accurate to describe it as a charm necklace—not charms like you will find on a Tiffany bracelet, but charms that will quickly execute spells for me that otherwise would take a long time to cast. It took me 750 years to complete the necklace, because it was built around a cold iron amulet in the center designed to protect me against the Fae and other magic users. Aenghus Óg’s constant attempts to kill me had made it necessary. I had bound the amulet to my aura, an excruciating process of my own devising but worth every second in the end. To any of the lesser Fae, it made me an invincible badass, because as beings of pure magic, they cannot abide iron in any form: Iron is the antithesis of magic, which is why magic largely died on this world with the advent of the Iron Age. It had taken me 300 years to bind the amulet to my aura, providing me with tremendous protection and a literal Fist of Death whenever I touched one of the Fae; the remaining 450 were spent constructing the charms and finding a way to make my magic work in such close proximity to the iron and my newly tainted aura.

The problem with the Tuatha Dé Danann was that they were not beings of pure magic, like their descendants born in the land of Faerie: They were beings of this world, who merely used magic better than anyone else, and the Irish had long ago elevated them to gods. So the iron bars around my shop would not bother the Morrigan or any of her kin, and neither would my aura do them any damage. All the iron did was even the odds a bit so that their magic would not overwhelm me: They had to stoop to physical attack if they wished to do me any harm.

That, more than anything else, was the reason I was still breathing. The Morrigan aside, the Tuatha Dé Danann were loath to subject themselves to physical combat, because they were as vulnerable as I to a well-timed sword thrust. Through magic they had prolonged their lives for millennia (just as I had staved off the ravages of aging), but violence could bring an end to them, as it had to Lugh and Nuada and others of their kind. It made them prone to use assassins and poisons and other forms of cowardly attack when their magic would not suffice, and Aenghus Óg had tried most of them already on me.

“Remarkable,” the Morrigan said, fingering the amulet and shaking her head.

“It’s not a universal defense,” I pointed out, “but it’s pretty good, if I do say so myself.”

She looked up at me. “How did you do it?”

I shrugged. “Mostly patience. Iron can be bent to your will, if your will is stronger than the iron. But it is a slow, laborious process of centuries, and you need the help of an elemental.”

“What happens to it when you change your shape?”

“It shrinks or grows to an appropriate size. It was the first thing I learned how to do with it.”

“I have never seen its like.” The Morrigan frowned. “Who taught you this magic?”

“No one. It is my own original craft.”

“Then you will teach me this craft, Druid.” It was not a request.

I did not respond right away but rather looked down at the necklace and grasped a single one of the charms. It was a silver square stamped in bas relief with the likeness of a sea otter, and I held it up for the Morrigan’s inspection.

“This charm, when activated, allows me to breathe underwater and swim like I was native unto the element. It works in conjunction with the iron amulet here in the center, which protects me from the wiles of selkies, sirens, and the like. It makes me second only to Manannan Mac Lir in the sea, and it took me more than two hundred years to perfect it. And that is just one of the many valuable charms on this necklace. What do you offer me in exchange for this knowledge?”