Kevin Hearne: Hounded

He cursed in surprise, and so did the kobold riding on his back. A querulous bark in Old High German demanded to know why he’d stopped.

The faery’s eyes widened as it sank in that I wasn’t one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. To him, I was a spooky story told round the campfire come to life.

“He’s made of iron!” he squealed.

I smiled at his mistake—though perhaps, from his perspective, it was entirely accurate. I had bound my cold iron amulet to my aura, so to him I looked like naked death. I used some of my dwindling supply of energy to quicken my reflexes and scare the faery even more; he’d see the white flash of the energy course through me in the magical spectrum and wonder what I’d just done.

“Just keep going! We have to get to the quarry!” the kobold’s voice grated.

The faery tried to obey, feinting first to the left and then to the right to get around me, but I matched his moves and he knew he couldn’t get around without me touching him. The game we were playing was Tag, You’re Dead; my aura would dissolve his very substance. I lunged toward him, hand outstretched, and he backpedaled frantically to avoid me. He even turned and began to flee, blindly, back toward the gnomes.

But he’d forgotten he was in the parking lot of one of the most popular shopping destinations in the Phoenix metro area. As he fled, the kobold cursing him, he ran right into one of those giant, manly trucks with a steel ribbon in front of the grille and a chrome steel bumper. Both he and the truck were going perhaps five miles an hour, not normally life-threatening, but all that steel coming into contact with the faery walloped him forcefully, and he fell backward on top of his dark passenger, unconscious before he hit the ground.

At that point, Kohleherz decided that there was nothing more to be gained by stealth and subterfuge. Using the inhuman strength of the earthborn, he kicked the faery off him and then tore through the fabric of the bag. He immediately seized the faery in both hands and threw him up over the hood of the truck to land sickeningly against its windshield. The driver of said truck, already traumatized by thoughts of how much his insurance premiums would go up after this accident, was now nearly apoplexed. He thundered out of the cab, cursing and looking for someone to blame. He wore jeans and a T-shirt with the sleeves torn off; he was one of those people who think their arms constitute a “gun show.” He saw me standing there, naked, but missed the kobold, who was after all much closer to the ground and had skin the color of asphalt anyway. He immediately concluded that the skinny emo boy who’d run into his truck—and then somehow leapt back onto it from the surface of the parking lot—had been trying to escape my unwanted sexual advances.

“What the hell did you do, you pervert? You mighta killed this poor kid! They oughtta lock you away and ’lectrocute your nads!”

I didn’t respond, because naked people never win arguments. They get yelled at, arrested, and Tasered, but nobody ever listens to them. Besides, I had smaller, more dangerous fish to fry. I couldn’t let Kohleherz escape. He’d snatched up the steel thermos and was now checking on the location of Clan Rathskeller. The gnomes were huffing and puffing their way toward us, getting closer, but it was clear that they wished they had some cross-trainers on instead of clunky elf risers.

The faery expired, his system unable to deal with the twin shocks of steel and blunt-force trauma, and began to turn to dust on the hood of the truck, whereupon the driver began to babble a series of what-the-fucks and do-you-believe-this-shit and other modern expressions of impotence.

Kohleherz turned to face me for the first time. “Get out of my way!” he growled, but he didn’t wait for me to comply. He probably assumed that I didn’t speak Old High German. Saying it, however, was a focus for the spell he threw at me. He held the thermos under his left arm, while his right arm swooped up dramatically in one of those aggressive gestures favored by megalomaniacs, as if they’re grabbing the world by its metaphorical balls. I’m quite sure that the spell was supposed to launch me bodily into the air, far out of his path, but it did no such thing. Spells that target me have to get past my aura first, and since it’s bound with cold iron, most spells tend to fizzle on contact, leaving me unaffected. My amulet twitched on my neck, but nothing else moved to indicate that his spell had ever been cast.

Bemused by this, the kobold opted for a do-over. “Move!” he said, cutting the air in front of him this time. Again my amulet twitched, but my feet stayed firmly on the ground, blocking his escape. Clan Rathskeller was approaching fast—or at least as fast as their awkward shoes would let them—and he couldn’t like the odds. He hissed his frustration and, perhaps for the first time, considered me seriously.

I grinned at him mockingly and spoke his language. “I am quite likely older than you, Kohleherz. You cannot toss me aside so easily.”

The kobold blanched, but he didn’t get drawn into conversation as I’d hoped. Instead, my taunting seemed to remind him of someone nearby whom he could toss around easily—namely, the swearing truck driver, who hadn’t shut up or even noticed that I was ignoring him.

Kohleherz’s inky fingers shot out toward the man, and he said “Move!” again, but this time his gesture was very specific instead of a careless swipe. He brought his arm over his head and the hapless man arced up into the sky, a high-pitched scream gurgling incongruously out of him, and then the kobold’s fingers pointed directly at me. So I could move out of the way and let the man splat headfirst into the pavement, or I could catch him. There wasn’t a binding I could whip up in time to save him magically, and in any case my juice was dangerously low. I chose to catch him.

I was hoping he’d thank me for saving his life, but that’s not the way he was wired. He already thought I was some sort of sexual deviant, so finding himself forcibly thrown into my arms and rolling around the parking lot with me was possibly the most horrific turn of events he could imagine. His teeth were stained brown, his breath was foul, and his throat made hoarse panicky noises as he began punching and slapping at me in an effort to extricate himself. I tired of that instantly and hit him back harder than perhaps was strictly necessary. He slumped unconscious, and I looked around wildly to locate Kohleherz.

He was edging backward to the quarry but was involved in a running fight with the gnomes, who’d finally drawn within range to bring their own magic to bear. In the visible spectrum, all anyone would see were five of Santa’s elves walking briskly and waving their arms about somewhat spastically. In the magical spectrum, though, I saw that they were trying to bind the kobold and he was deflecting every attempt. He didn’t counterattack—he didn’t have time to muster a response under the relentless assault of the gnomes—but neither was there a need to as long as he could keep making progress toward the quarry.

I had nothing I could contribute magically at this point. My last dregs of power were needed to keep Oberon camouflaged; I couldn’t have him be seen unleashed and unattended at a mall. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough left to cast it on myself, and I sorely needed it now that other shoppers, drawn by the sounds of conflict, were paying attention to our little imbroglio—especially since they saw a naked man lying next to a clothed man. I could see how that might excite their curiosity. I needed to get out of there and reconnect with the earth—and help the gnomes while I was at it.