“Ready to start learning the new language?”
“Aye. But ease me into it and begin with the cussing.”
I began to teach him English, using my Irish accent, and he proved to have an excellent ear for it. His absorption of the language, of course, was Druidic. We shifted from Kilkenny to Flagstaff, Arizona, where it was just after noon and Winter Sun Trading Company was open for business on San Francisco Street. They had the necessary ingredients for Immortali-Tea, including teapots, and there was a forest nearby that Owen would appreciate.
Before walking in, however, I pulled out my cell phone and called my attorney, Hal Hauk, who was also the alpha of the Tempe Pack. Owen was so mesmerized by passersby and the sights of downtown Flagstaff that he didn’t even notice I was speaking to someone with a small rectangular device held up to my ear.
“Hal! Need some ID.”
“You’re kidding. I just gave you some!”
“It’s not for me.” Granuaile and I had ditched our previous aliases—terrible names given to us by Coyote: Sterling Silver and Betty Baker—and now lived under the names Sean Flanagan and Nessa Thornton, though we never used them in private. She was still Granuaile to me, and I was still Atticus to her. “It’s for someone else. Need a complete workup because he’s never been around until now.”
“Who’s this?”
“An extremely old friend named Owen Kennedy. Listen, we’re in Flagstaff and can’t get down there quickly. Is there someone up here who can take the picture and the info and send it down to you?”
“Yeah. Go see Sam Obrist. Swiss fellow in charge of the gang up there. Ready for his address?”
I memorized it and thanked him, promising to bring Owen down to meet the pack when his ID was ready.
After picking up the necessaries in Winter Sun and making a quick trip over to Peace Surplus on Route 66 for a propane stove, a small mirror, some modern clothes for Owen, and one of those backpack shovels, we hiked up to Mars Hill with six gallons of water and hid ourselves in the ponderosa pines a few hundred yards away from Lowell Observatory. I mixed the blend of herbs and then performed the all-important bindings Airmid had taught me long ago to make this particular tea a miraculous rejuvenator instead of a mildly effective blend of antioxidants and detoxifiers. Then, since building a fire would be not only illegal but inefficient, I brewed the Immortali-Tea on the propane stove and told my archdruid to start chugging.
He scowled at the cup after the first sip. “Tastes like shite, lad.”
“But it’s good for you. You’ll start to feel it soon.”
He shrugged and threw it back, then drank several more cups until the first pot was gone. I began to brew another, smiling as I did so, and he spied mischief in it.
“What are you so pleased about?”
“I only drink a little at a time, like half a cup every four or five months, to maintain my current age. Half a cup has a mild laxative effect.”
“What kind of effect?”
“Laxative. It means it loosens your bowels.”
“Half a cup has …? But you just had me drink a whole pot!”
“That’s why I brought the shovel. By the time you finish digging yourself a hole, I imagine you’ll be needing to use it. Here.” I picked up the shovel and tossed it to him.
“You worthless spawn of a she-goat!” he roared, snatching the shovel out of the air. He shook it at me. “I should cave your skull in with this!”
“You won’t be able to do that until you’ve drunk another few pots,” I said. “You’ll be flushing toxins out of your system until we’re through, but they’re nothing you’ll miss. You’ll be getting rid of that ache in your knuckles, for one thing.”
A torrent of profanity gushed forth from my archdruid’s mouth as he turned to choose a place to dig a makeshift latrine. He promised dire consequences for this humiliation.
“My, aren’t we feeling spry already,” I said. “Try to remember that I’m doing you a favor. Rapid cell regeneration and replacement and … Never mind, you don’t know what any of that means anyway.”
The shovel wasn’t strictly necessary; my archdruid could easily move a bit of earth as needed through Druidry, but if he did it that way, he’d have to stop cursing me to speak the bindings, and I knew very well he wouldn’t want to do that. I wouldn’t want him to stop either. He had taken great pleasure in giving me grief for twelve years during my training, so I allowed myself to enjoy a bit of schadenfreude now.
“Oh!” he blurted, interrupting his cussing as internal convulsions rocked him. I heard him throw down the shovel and tear frantically at his pants. “Damn you, Siodhachaaaaan!”
Heck yes, I laughed.
Though he complained bitterly, Owen had to admit that the Immortali-Tea was working. I took out the mirror for him each time he returned from his exertions and got ready to drink another pot. The wrinkles gradually disappeared and the age spots on his hands faded away. His posture improved and his muscles began to fill out. I remembered going through the same process when I first learned how to make Immortali-Tea, but I had erased fifty-plus years instead of the thirty he was shooting for. When he came back after the fourth pot, his hair and eyebrows, as well as his beard, had begun to grow in dark again. All were growing faster than normal as his body shed the markers of age.
“We’re going to have to visit a barber,” I said.
“What’s a barber?”
“Someone who cuts hair.”
“Doesn’t everyone cut hair?”
“No, a barber has been trained to do it, and he or she makes a living doing that. People have specialized their professions to a far greater extent than we used to in the old days. You’ll need to choose a profession at some point.”
“What are you saying? I’m a Druid. That’s it.”
“No, from now on you’re also a Druid. No one will pay you for that now, and you need some way to generate income.”
“Well, what have you been doing?”
“I’ve practiced many professions throughout the years. Most recently I was a silversmith. Before that I owned a bookstore that also sold herbs, like the one we visited in Flagstaff.”
“What’s a bookstore?”
“A merchant that sells books. Books are like bound scrolls, full of knowledge. It’s how people absorb information these days, if they’re still using paper.”
“They learn things from books instead of from Druids?”
“That’s right.”
“Then they must be pretty stupid, am I right?”
“Some of them are,” I admitted. “Mostly the ones who don’t read. But the advantage of books is that any knowledge is readily available to anyone. People who are currently ignorant of something can educate themselves at any time, on their own schedule, and the books never rap them on the head with an oak staff and tell them they’re cocking it up again.”
Owen frowned at the sudden turn to the personal. “Oh, I see,” he said. “I wasn’t delicate enough with your feelings during your training, is that it?”
“It wasn’t pleasant,” I said. “Nor was it necessary to use those methods.”
“Wait, now, lad. Are ye a Druid or aren’t ye?”
“Not only am I a Druid, I am the Druid, if you listen to the elementals of the earth.”
“And have ye outlived all the other Druids?”
“Obviously I have.”
He stabbed a finger at my face. “Then me fecking methods were brilliant. The fact that you’re sitting here feeling your mushy feelings instead of feeding worms is a testament to the value of knocking some sense into ye.”
I kept my eyes on the propane stove and the teapot and said nothing. Eventually he continued in a muted grumble that may have been his version of an apology. “I’m going to be your student for a while, it seems, and I’m sure it will be far more pleasant for me than it was when our roles were reversed. What’s next?”
“Next you drink one more pot and deal with the side effects. Then w
e’ll go into town, get you shaved and trimmed and fed, and I’ll take you to see a werewolf named Sam Obrist.”
“He’s a what?”
“Werewolves are shape-shifters, but they only have the wolf form. Immune to magic and vulnerable to silver.”
“Ah, I was wondering why you chose silver for those charms of yours. Gold would conduct energy better, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, but I felt the trade-off in efficiency for protection was worth it.”
“Are werewolves prone to attacking, then?”
“Not so much anymore. At the time I began to work on these charms, they were. They’re much more civilized now, and the territory boundaries are firm. If you’d like to make some charms for yourself, I can show you how. But first we’ll get the ID process started and then continue your language lessons while we fix my tattoo.”
One last pot of tea and Owen looked and felt fortyish—which was outstanding compared to looking and feeling seventyish. I took him into town to get him cleaned up and buy him a late lunch at Lumberyard Brewing Company. The barber was confused by all the dark hair growing underneath the white, but he didn’t ask any questions, since Owen favored him with a forbidding glare. Owen kept a full beard, albeit neatly trimmed, and his eyebrows were likewise shorn to acceptable standards. He looked as if he should be throwing something heavy into the back of a truck in one of those manly commercials where they talk about durability and payloads in deep bass voices.
Our server during lunch was a very pretty college student, and when she greeted us and smiled, Owen’s expression warned me just in time.
“Wait!” I said to him in Old Irish. “Look at me!”
His leer melted away and he scowled. “What now?”
“I’m not sure what you intended, but this isn’t a tavern wench from two thousand years ago. Smiling at you is not an invitation to grab her ass. If you touch her, she will have you thrown out at a minimum and maybe arrested for sexual assault.”
“What?”
“Keep your hands to yourself at all times, and don’t stare or stick out your tongue or wink or anything. Treat her like the king’s daughter.”
“Is she a noblewoman?”
“As far as you’re concerned she is. Every woman is. Courtship is very different now, and it varies from country to country. Wait a minute and let me order for us. I’ll explain.”
He grunted and looked away. I apologized to the server, who’d been very patient, and ordered a couple of deli sandwiches on kaiser rolls, along with their craft-brewed Red Ale. Catching Owen up on what Oberon would call “human mating habits” occupied our time and frustrated us both.
“No one is as frank about sex as they used to be,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Monotheism made everyone worry about being a slut.”
Owen stared at me blankly. “I don’t know what ye mean.”
“People don’t want to appear too wanton, so you have to take it slow. Plus there are plenty of genuinely creepy guys out there, and women are afraid you might be one of them.”
“What?” He bobbed his head in the direction of the kitchen, where the server had disappeared. “She doesn’t even know me.”
“Exactly. And until she gets to know you, the possibility of a romp is out of the question. I know the behavior sounds strange and unnecessary compared to what you’re used to, but there are reasons for it. Until you’re comfortable with the language and the culture, the best advice I can give to keep you out of trouble would be to wait for the woman to make the first move. And a smile is not a move.”
Owen passed a hand over his face and muttered, “Brighid grant me patience.”
“Yeah, get yourself loaded up with plenty of that.”
After the late lunch, I took him to the address Hal had given me and we met Sam Obrist, alpha of the Flagstaff Pack. Though I’d known there was a decent-sized pack in town, I’d never had occasion to meet him. He was a tall, blond, and square-jawed sort and wore a pair of glasses on his nose that were doubtless some kind of hipster affectation. His house was near the forest—go figure—and he shared it with his second, Ty Pollard, who also happened to be his husband.
“Hal told me you were coming,” he said, and shook our hands briefly. His eyes flicked down to the silver charms on my neck, but he didn’t react otherwise. “Please come in.” He smiled and waved us through the door and offered us beers, on which we passed, having just finished a couple.
He weighed and measured Owen and talked as he wrote down details, like eye and hair color, for the ID. “I’ve heard you can shift to a wolfhound,” he said to me.
“That’s right.” That always came up quickly whenever I met a new werewolf. The fact that I wore silver and shifted to an animal bred to hunt down wolves was understandably interesting to them, but it wasn’t as if I had ever done it. Some werewolves took meeting me as a pleasing thrill of danger. Some took it as a challenge. Fortunately, Sam was inclined to the former.
“You ran with Hal’s pack a few times, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but that was some time ago. Back when Gunnar was with us.”
“Oh, I see. Does he shift too?” he asked, indicating Owen.
“Yes. A black bear, among other things.”
There were a few more questions—did we have specific names or occupations we wished Owen to have in his background? I told Sam to make up whatever names for parents he wished and to use outdoorsy occupations for his work history. Thinking of the nearby university’s mascot, I said, “Maybe make him a lumberjack.”
It wouldn’t be long until we’d be free to begin work on my tattoos, but that would take us away for more than a week and I’d be off the grid the whole time. I thought it would be best to check in with Granuaile.
When I pulled out my cell phone, however, I discovered that I was already off the grid. My last call to Hal must have finished off my battery, and I didn’t have a charger with me. I’d have to shift up to the cabin and tell her in person.
“Would you mind if I stepped out for a short time while you take his picture?” I asked Sam.
“No, that would be fine,” he replied. “He seems harmless.”
“Thanks.” I turned to Owen and spoke in Old Irish. “I want to go check in on Granuaile really quick before we go back to the Old World, let her know we’ll be gone and out of touch for a while.”
“You’re leaving me here?” he said.
“Only for a few minutes. They’re just going to take your picture and let you drink beer. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Don’t be stupid! I don’t know what a fecking picture is, for one thing! Why not wait and take me with ye?”
“Because I’d like to spend more time on your transition to the culture first.”
“Not learning quick enough for ye, am I?” Owen looked at Sam and pointed a finger at me before uttering his first words aloud to another person in English. “Him. No balls,” he said.
Surprised by Owen’s sudden language switch and accusation, Sam and Ty erupted in laughter and I waved goodbye, confident that he’d get along with them just fine. The forest near Sam’s house provided a convenient link to Tír na nÓg, and I was able to shift to our cabin in Colorado near sundown. Granuaile and Orlaith weren’t there, but Oberon was.
He bounded up to me, his tail wagging, and I petted him.
“Days? Are you sure about that, buddy?” It had been a long day for me, but I doubted it had been a full twenty-four hours since I had left.
“Where did they go?”
“What? When did this happen?”
“Yeah, I think I will.” A yellow sticky note waited on the kitchen
table, and Granuaile’s neat script in blue ink spelled out the news:
Atticus—
Laksha called. Father possessed by something called raksoyuj. Going to meet her at Brihadeeswara Temple in Thanjavur. Will try to leave message there. Please come.
—G.
October 21, 9:10 a.m.
“Oberon, this wasn’t written days ago. It was written this morning.”
“She’s been gone nine hours, and that’s way too much time to spend alone with Laksha. I don’t trust her. Why does she have Granuaile’s father in India?”
“So the whole thing could have been a ruse, and Granuaile just rushed off without knowing the situation?” I said, heading out the door.
“What in seven hells is a raksoyuj, anyway?”
“Wait, you’re right,” I said, turning on my heel and reentering the cabin. “I’m rushing things. I should charge my cell phone and leave her a note in case she comes back while we’re out looking.”
“Oh, yeah. I got him. But he’s in Flagstaff right now with a couple of werewolves. He’ll be fine … I hope.”
“He doesn’t know the language well, and he has a short fuse,” I said, plugging in my cell phone and grabbing a sticky note to scrawl down the time we left.
“He’ll be ready for a fight sequence when we get back, but this can’t wait. It’s a potentially hostile situation, so I want you to stick close and be on your guard, okay?”
I adjusted Fragarach, more to reassure myself of its presence than to fix any discomfort, and strode outside toward our tethered trees. “I haven’t been to India in quite some time. I hope there will be a tether somewhere close to Thanjavur.”