Kevin Hearne: Hounded

Gasps and cries and an outraged “Hey! What are you doing?” reached me from various parts of the parking lot as I rolled the man over, looking for anything that might help me in a fight. I was hoping for a pocketknife, but had no luck. However, a bulging, telltale ring on the back pocket of his jeans suggested that he owed his brown teeth to chewing tobacco. I fished the round can out of there, satisfyingly heavy in my hand, and then streaked east toward the quarry—in both senses of the word.

Indignant cries chased me. They probably thought I’d taken the man’s wallet. If they pursued me in earnest they’d risk getting themselves drawn into the fight between the gnomes and the kobold. The sooner this was over, the safer everyone would be.

I scooted along the northernmost edge of the lot, which would allow me to pass the duelists with the grace of maybe three or four yards. As I drew even with the gnomes, I contributed to their cause by chucking the can o’ tobacky directly at the kobold. He saw me and the flash of the can in the light of the lot and desperately whipped a deflection spell at it, perhaps thinking it was a throwing star or some other kind of weapon. It was nothing more than distraction.

It served to open a fissure in the wall of the kobold’s defense, however, allowing one of the gnomes’ binding spells to squirt through and knock him down. The steel thermos clattered loudly on the ground a couple of times before rolling away. Now that the breach was made, other spells piled on. Kohleherz screeched a nerve-shredding chalkboard scream, knowing that his death was imminent and there was nothing he could do about it. I kept running east and left the gnomes to it as they rushed in to make the kobold render them personal, physical restitution; Kohleherz’s cries cut off abruptly with a wet noise—and the sense of wrong I’d felt as a subtext ever since his arrival dissipated.

Sirens approached as my feet found the sandy soil of the quarry. Relief flooded through me as I drew energy up through my tattoos and camouflaged myself. Once I’d topped off the magical tank, I strolled back to make sure Kohleherz was truly dead.

He was. Nothing remained but an oily, oozing patch of asphalt and a group of savagely pleased gnomes. I felt sure they would keep my presence here a secret, and the faery would be telling no tales, since his ashes were scattering in the wind. Goibhniu had come and gone without ever seeing me, so I concluded, as I wished to, that it was safe to stay in Tempe for a while longer. The Rathskellers retrieved the steel thermos, and that was for the best; whatever Goibhniu had brewed, it was not intended for humans. They saw me passing by, my camouflage providing no concealment to their magical vision, and they bowed briefly. I nodded back, acknowledging that I’d done them a favor and someday, if occasion arose, they’d return it.

The smokeless tobacco guy would be getting an ambulance soon, judging by the sirens and the few people clustered around him holding cell phones, so I walked back to where I’d left my dog and got dressed so I could walk in plain sight again.

Oberon said when I returned.

Famished, eh? That’s a pretty big word for a dog to use .

That’s tragic .

Santa leaves gifts for Christmas, Oberon, not a Druid’s holidays .

Okay, just in case. I’m sure you’re on his list of very good dogs .

Had I died when I was supposed to, I would have missed out on all the fun. I never would have played around with an iPad, iPhone, or iAnything, and all the e-stuff, like emails and eHarmony, would have been as impossible for me to imagine as lasting peace in the Middle East is today. I would have missed out on ineffable masterpieces like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales , Beethoven’s Ode to Joy , and Monty Python and the Holy Grail . And toilet paper! Let me tell you, people go on and on about what a great idea electricity was, but I’m going to put toilet paper right next to the wheel and say those are the best ideas anyone’s ever had. Scoff at it if you will, but try living for two millennia without it and then we’ll talk. The dawn of modern civilization was largely cold, wretched, and smelled bad, and the best that can be said about it is that it’s in the past.

Once I got past my first century, I quickly realized that it’s the little things that make life worth living for such a long time. It’s the little things that keep me grounded in the present and loving it, like hunting with my hound, Oberon. We do the kind of hunting where you really don’t care if you find what you’re hunting for, because in truth you just want to spend time in nature with your friend.

We were driving together to the Kaibab Plateau, a unique ecosystem north of the Grand Canyon, in a gas-sipper I’d rented for the purpose.

Oberon said, his words filtering into my mind through the special bond we shared. It’s not the sort of bond I’d form with just any creature—for one thing, it’s a lot of work, and not all creatures are as smart as Oberon, or even willing to talk about anything except food and sex. But once in a while it is worth it, to slow down and see the threads connecting all living things to the earth, to take up the threads of this horse or that bear, bind them for a short time with my own, and see the world from their perspective. With Oberon I had made the binding much stronger, so that he absorbed my language over time and I didn’t have to think in pictures and emotions with him. His head was thrust out the window now, and his tongue flapped on the side of his face.

Couldn’t agree with you more , I replied.

he asked.

I struggled to come up with a simple answer that wouldn’t make him worry. The truth is, I should have died before Jesus walked the earth, and one Irish god, Aenghus Óg, still wanted me dead for getting the better of him two millennia ago. He had all sorts of Fae scouring the earth looking for me, and I can’t spend too much time in the forests because I invariably leave traces—ridiculously happy trees, basically, since I’m the last Druid in the world and they tend to geek out like Joss Whedon fans when I show up. That means I have to hide out in cities. The Fae don’t like to visit places full of iron, and Arizona in particular is nice because the Phoenix metro area is a vast, sprawling city that the Fae find revolting. It’s not that they can’t handle walking around an urban area; it’s more that they’re lazy and can’t get in and out of Phoenix quickly. They travel via oak, ash, and thorn, and there are only a couple of places in the state where they grow together, far from the city. Staying in town was simply safer for me. But Oberon didn’t know anything about my old troubles yet, and I had no reason to burden him with them now. I settled on a pedestrian excuse instead.

Well, there’s the shop to run. I have people who depend on me to make their tea . I run a New Age bookstore in Tempe, near Arizona State University, and in one corner of the store I sell bulk herbs as an apothecary, and brew some proprietary medicinal teas that my customers find simply miraculous. I have a group of regulars who come in every day for a shot of Mobili-Tea, a blend that relieves their arthritis and makes them feel springy and bouncy and ten years younger. There’s nothing especially miraculous about it, nor is there anything mysterious about most of my teas; it’s just that I have twenty-one hundred years of experience as an herbalist, so I know a wee bit about drug interactions.