Kevin Hearne: Hounded

Worry clenched at my heart. Had I become unbound from the earth, unbound from my friend? I tried something else. Oberon, can you hear me?

he said, and I sighed in relief.

Yes. I need you in the meadow to the east .

There is trouble at Jacob Lake . Coffee Witch came immediately to mind, but I had no idea what she and her friends could have done to upset Kaibab. Can you find your way there by getting back to the road and following it north?

I’m going to fly there . I unloosed the knot that bound me to hound form and tied myself to a different shape, this time a great horned owl. Look for me nearby or wait by the lakeshore if you don’t see me .

I don’t know. Maybe .

Oberon trotted into the meadow as I leapt into the air, flapping hard to gain altitude.

Thanks, buddy. I’ll see you soon . I circled to the north and tried to gain speed. Owls are more renowned for their silence than their swiftness, but I still figured it was the fastest way for me to get back to Jacob Lake, and if there was trouble there, then a silent approach would serve me well.

Jacob Lake is actually a dissolution sinkhole formed in the limestone of the plateau. It’s been there for ages, and it’s the main watering hole for wild animals in the area. A large meadow surrounds it, and farther back the ponderosas and aspens give it a majestic skyline. There’s also a tiny village by the same name a bit to the north, where the inn is located, so I didn’t know if the trouble was by the actual lake or “in town.”

I floated just above the tops of the trees so that I wouldn’t waste any time in maneuvers, taking the straightest line to the lake. Once in range of the meadow and the lake in the center of it, I spied nothing down there but a dozen wild horses munching on the last grasses of the season. I thought a circuit of the lake would be prudent, so I began to circle it counterclockwise, staying above the trees and looking below. When I got around to the west side—nine o’clock in dogfighter’s terms—I saw a flash of pale flesh below the canopy and banked around to take a better look. I heard odd screeching noises, too, and then tense voices:

“I don’t think you should kill it, because that will be like releasing it.”

“It can’t break the circle even if it escapes the animal. It’ll still be bound.”

“Fine, but how do we get its power into us ?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t expect this half-assed splicing of spells to work!”

“So you didn’t even plan for the eventuality?”

The voices belonged to three familiar naked women, who were all witches beyond a doubt now. They were clustered around something on the ground, and I decided to light in a pine tree behind them to take stock of the situation and prevent them from seeing me accidentally. What little noise I made upon landing was masked, no doubt, by the frantic animal cries coming from the vicinity of the women. Their bodies were blocking whatever was making the cries, and they were the types of bodies that cause distraction.

They were easy to tell apart even without their tracksuits on. Coffee was on the left, pale with an occasional dark freckle and her hair still tied in a ponytail; the blond, thin-lipped one whom I called Pinky was in the center, and Coppertone stood on the right—tanned all over, I noticed. None of them had neglected to visit the gym regularly. “No, I didn’t,” said Pinky with some asperity. “And neither did either of you, so you can aim that blame somewhere else.”

“Well, we have to try something,” said Coffee.

“Don’t you think I know that?” Pinky snapped.

Though I thought I knew what was going on, I couldn’t quite believe that they had managed it. I needed to know more before I leapt to any conclusions. I glided silently to the earth and released myself from the owl shape, back to my human form again.

I quietly cast camouflage on myself, which is the nearest I can come to invisibility. It binds my pigment to my surroundings, so that I become practically invisible when I remain still. People can see me if I move quickly, but if I imitate the Rock of Gibraltar they have to really know I’m there to spot me. I figured it was best: Naked women rarely welcome the approach of strange naked men, except in porn movies.

Tiptoeing around to the left of the trio, my suspicions were confirmed: Somehow, this coven of callow witches had succeeded in capturing and binding a forest elemental. A small metal cage was fairly bouncing on the forest floor, and inside was frenzied Kaibab squirrel in the most exquisite pain, because it was trying to contain the spirit of the entire forest in its wee little body. Kaibab squirrels are unique to the plateau, with white fluffy tails and black, tufted ears that look like tassels. They evolved there in geographic isolation and occupy a vital ecological niche—they’re the face of the plateau, in many ways—but they aren’t constitutionally capable of holding an elemental inside of them. I think the only reason this one was still alive was because the elemental really wanted it that way. Its fur rippled and its eyes bulged, it twitched and spasmed and chittered in terror, and I felt sorry for it.

And angry.

I looked around to see if I could discern how they had managed this. There wasn’t an obvious cauldron hanging over a fire with an unholy stench bubbling forth; there wasn’t a stone altar with a sacrifice on it, bleeding its life away. They had to have used some mechanism to bind Kaibab—they could not have simply bid him to come and take up residence in a squirrel. Finally I spotted it: Carved carefully into the bark of the ponderosa behind the stone circle was the Seal of Arielis, a pernicious seal from the Seventh Book of Moses originally intended to bind one of the Seven Great Princes of Hell. Since its publication in nineteenth-century Germany, witches of various stripes had been using it to bind all manner of spirits and compel their obedience. They’d found it to be one of the few fail-safes in magic: Either the spirit would come and be firmly bound by the Seal, or it wouldn’t work, period, and all they’d lose was some time and maybe an eye of newt. These witches had traced the carving with crushed knotweed, a common herb used in binding spells, and the same Seal was printed on a piece of parchment resting underneath the squirrel’s cage.

I sighed. “You know, when that elemental gets out of there,” I said, “you’re going to wish you’d left well enough alone.”

“Who said that?” Coffee spun in my direction but utterly failed to see me as I remained still. Pinky and Coppertone started looking all around, even up in the trees, but they had no better luck than Coffee did.

“Where are you?” Coppertone asked.

“Who are you?” Pinky called.

“Who I am doesn’t matter. What I am is a Druid, and you’ve broken Druidic law by binding an elemental against its will.”

And they’d picked one of the weaker, more vulnerable ones, probably on purpose. I doubt they would have been able to bind Amazon, for example, or Appalachia. They’d settled for one of the smallest elementals on earth, thinking perhaps its wee size and isolation would keep anyone from noticing what they were doing. But I would have heard Kaibab’s call from anyplace on the planet and come running; it was their bad luck they’d tried it when I was so close by.

They were all gazing directly at me now, because I’d helpfully given them a direction to look by speaking again. They still didn’t see me, though.