Kevin Hearne - Hounded

Linguistics aficionados may notice that while the Sisters of the Three Auroras are Polish, they use a decidedly Russian name—the Zoryas—for the star goddesses from which they derive their powers. The Zoryas are known throughout the Slavic world by one name or another (such as Zvezda, Zwezda, Zorza, etc.), but since most of the coven was born in the nineteenth century, when the eastern portion of Poland was occupied by Russia, it made sense (to me) to have them use the Russian name. No one is required to agree that this makes sense; I explain this merely to give the impression that my backstory is remarkably thorough and well-researched.

This story takes place ten months before the events of Hounded, the first book in The Iron Druid Chronicles .

Decembers in Arizona are decidedly cool, but not what I would call cold. People shop at outdoor malls like Tempe Marketplace wearing nothing but a light sweater, and they utterly fail to slip on black ice or lose toes to frostbite, because those dangers don’t exist in the desert. For similar reasons, they fail to get inhaled by ravenous yeti or snacked on by esurient cephalopods. One would think they’d also be safe from the attentions of sociopathic kobolds, but I discovered, to my chagrin on a Monday night, that this was not the case.

Tempe Marketplace is a sprawling shopping mecca anchored by a large cinema and some glowing big-box stores. Near the cinema, smaller retailers and a host of restaurants huddle around like Dickensian orphans, hoping for a scrap of post-movie commerce to feed their hungry bottom lines. (“Please sir, spend some more.”) A cobbled walkway sprinkled with upscale patio furniture and water features permits shoppers to feel casual and la-di-dah at the same time. Best of all, there isn’t any canned music blaring through eight-bit speakers, a rare and special blessing while shopping in America. The music is live Thursday through Saturday nights because the mall sponsors free concerts on its outdoor stage, always featuring family-friendly bands who play as if they’re contractually bound to avoid minor chords. The stage gets used for other events the rest of the week, like visits from Santa Claus and his elves.

The dads were home watching Monday Night Football and the moms had brought out their kids to see Saint Nick and maybe shop a bit for their husbands. ASU students and young hipsters were crowding into San Felipe’s Cantina for happy hour, as well as a few older members of the twenty-something-and-single demographic. I could see them all because San Felipe’s was missing most of its walls, opting instead for a low metal fence behind which customers could legally pound a brewski and enjoy the show, if there was one, as the cantina sat directly opposite the stage. It was between the stage and San Felipe’s that I first became aware that something was profoundly wrong. That was because Oberon, my dog, smelled something that wasn’t human.

Oberon is an Irish wolfhound, and though he’s a sight hound, his nose is still much better than my human one. And since I’d bound my consciousness to his and he’d gradually picked up my language through the link, he’s not limited to barks and wagging his tail when he wants to tell me something. He says it in his mind, and I hear it in mine.

he said.

That would be you, Oberon. Or me, if you want to get fussy with the definition .

That gave me an acute case of shifty eyes. I looked first toward the patrons of the cantina and started to scan people’s auras to make sure they all had human shapes. I saw colors of amusement and arousal sitting next to angst and loneliness, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Oberon said.

I turned my head to the stage, where a corpulent Santa with a curly white beard tried to appear avuncular as an elf placed a screaming child on his lap. Santa’s aura told the truth: He was irritated and wanted to be anywhere but here. Perhaps the kid was screaming because he sensed that. Or perhaps he was screaming because kids don’t have years of logic and science blinding them to the true nature of things. Some primal part of him realized that the “elf” handling him was truly a different species.

Those aren’t elves , I told Oberon, though I could see why he’d make the mistake. They were excessively darling little dudes, and they blended in well with the festive holiday atmosphere. But one look at their auras confirmed that they weren’t locals.

No, they’re not dwarfs either .

Oberon, those are gnomes. That’s what you’re smelling . There were five of them, not quite four feet tall in platform shoes, but only one seemed to be paying any attention to Santa and the line of kids waiting to see him. The rest kept their eyes skimming over the passing throng of shoppers, and I figured we should keep moving in case they noticed the Irish lad and his giant dog staring at them. I resumed my walk past San Felipe’s extensive frontage.

Oberon asked.

No, not garden gnomes. Those didn’t show up until after World War II. These are real gnomes from the Old World. They’re quite rare. If you try chewing on them, they’ll chew back .

Oberon stopped and cocked his head to one side.

I clapped him encouragingly on the shoulder, not wishing to tug on his leash. Come on . Oberon followed and I turned right past San Felipe’s until we were just out of sight of the stage. There I drew closer to the fence separating the sober from the soused and tried to find a space between the bobbing heads through which to view the gnomes unobtrusively. Oberon destroyed that plan.

“Holy shit!” a random customer breathed, putting down a half-raised pint glass.

His buddy followed the direction of his gaze and said, “Damn!”

“That’s a huge fucking dog!” the bright one of the group said.

The first guy got the attention of another guy at a neighboring table and pointed. “Hey, look at that huge fucking dog!”

“Holy shit!”

I sighed. And so it goes .

Oberon wondered, drooping his ears and sitting down as he gave breath to his own heavy sigh.

I’m not sure. People used to say obvious things ironically or as a form of understatement, but in the last few decades they seem to say it with a sense of discovery, and it worries me .

No argument there, buddy. Soon they’ll notice I’m holding your leash and they’ll start asking me questions. I just want to get a half-decent stare at the gnomes .

I discovered a window between a couple of gossiping sorority girls and examined one of the gnomes as best as I could. His aura told me nothing except his race. Unlike human auras, which broadcast emotions in a full spectrum, gnomish auras are a soft, solid brown, like milk chocolate, save for the white line of magic nearest their skin. But his mere presence, and that of his companions, bespoke something terribly amiss. Gnomes despise humans and have as little to do with us as possible. For five of them to be out in public like this—well, it was unheard-of. They were either extremely upset about something—a point of honor, perhaps—or actively insane. They weren’t even bothering to hide their large noses and magically groomed mustaches; the shoppers, of course, blithely dismissed these features as prosthetic parts of their costumes.

If they were here on some sort of vendetta, it would be best for me to stay out of it. But if they were on a suicide mission born of immortal ennui, or something equally dangerous to the people here, then it would behoove me to prevent it. Tempe had proven to be a good hiding place for me for more than ten years, and I didn’t want a few gnomes messing it up by causing a ruckus and drawing attention.