No one said anything for a few seconds. It’s not every day you see a tie-dyed man with a halo floating above the ground. You want to take time to let that shit sink in, store it in your long-term memory.
“We will listen,” Rabbi Yosef finally said, working through what he was seeing. Demons can’t manifest a halo—it’s against the rules. Angels can do it, but they’re not the sort to lie and say they’re something they’re not. Jesus nodded once before descending back to earth. Once his shoes touched the cobblestones, he turned off his heavenly neon.
“You have sensed traces of my friend’s magic in places where demons have been, but rather than consider he may have been fighting them, which was the case, you assumed instead that he was summoning them.” Jesus continued to explain that it was Aenghus Óg who’d opened a portal to hell in the Superstition Mountains, and I had not only sent most of the demons back to hell personally, I’d also taken care of the fallen angel Basasael.
“But he has befriended a vampire and a pack of werewolves! Witches too!” the rabbi said. I took that as my cue to speak up, albeit weakly.
“I am removing the vampire and the alpha wolf tonight,” I said, which was technically true. The Hammers of God would interpret that to mean I’d be killing them, but that’s why I enjoy ambiguity. “Or at least I will if I feel up to it. And the witches have agreed to leave the state.”
“There, you see?” Jesus said. “You have been persecuting a man who is playing for our team. He offered to buy you beer and you tried to kill him.”
“They might still manage it,” I said, wincing. I couldn’t afford to suppress the pain anymore; I had to use my last dregs of magic to pay attention to blood toxicity. It’s just very hard to focus through a haze of torment. “Hey, Son of Man, a little help here?”
“Please be patient, Atticus,” he replied. “I need to get an answer from the rabbis before we proceed. Will you, sirs, leave this man alone henceforth? He has done us all great service.”
The rabbis all looked at Yosef. He was the one who had called them here. He glared down at me with hatred in his eyes. He didn’t want to let me go. Or perhaps he didn’t want to admit he’d been wrong. He was having trouble coming up with a reason to pursue me, however. What was he going to do, call Jesus a liar to his face?
“There will be a vampire war for this territory,” I said by way of a peace offering. “Pick up today’s newspaper and you’ll see it’s already begun. If you’re all about killing the evil minions of the dark lord, there will be plenty coming here in the next couple of weeks.”
All the other rabbis looked a bit excited about that. They were nodding their heads, and fires lit in their eyes. They probably already had wooden stakes hidden in their jackets.
Yosef saw that he could do no more. “Very well,” he groused. “I suppose this man is free of hell. We will pursue other prey for now.”
“Excellent!” Jesus beamed at him. “Now go and stake some vamps. Especially the sparkly emo ones.”
Yosef and the other rabbis just looked at him with dumb incomprehension.
“Never mind,” Jesus said, waving them off. “Go in peace.” A couple of them bent to get their knives, but Jesus requested that they leave them behind as a gesture of goodwill.
The Hammers of God turned and walked away as sirens began to wail and police drove into the parking lot. They didn’t say good-bye and they didn’t say they were sorry for ruining everyone’s lunch. They didn’t even tell Jesus it was nice to meet him.
Jesus watched them go and then clapped his hands together once, keeping them clasped together in front of his chest. “Right. Well, they’re certainly filed in the right folder, aren’t they? Skilled magicians, but sour dispositions. Let’s get you out of sight of the police so we can talk.” He bent down to pick up all the silver knives, including the one with my blood on it, but left the last knife lodged in my back. I felt this was an egregious oversight at first. Then I realized what he had in mind as he picked up my left wrist and began hauling me prone along the cobblestones toward the Mission Palms Hotel. New pain exploded inside me, and I felt something tear loose in my shoulder where the knife blade had given the muscle a head start on a trial separation. I lost a few minutes there.
I woke up sitting hunched over in the courtyard of the Mission Palms. It can be accessed from the outside without ever crossing the lobby, but still, I wondered why we were unmolested. No one had noticed one man dragging another man across the courtyard? Even supposing I might have been drunk, didn’t the knife handle sticking out of my back raise a red flag? Jesus noticed my look of bewilderment.
“I work in mysterious ways. Let’s leave it at that.”
I grimaced as my ouchies strongly reminded me that they were still there—nerves slapping my brain and saying, “Hey! You paying attention? This shit hurts.” I was completely drained now; I couldn’t shut anything off or heal myself at all. “Thought we were buddies,” I managed to say through clenched teeth.
“We still are. But pain is often instructive, where whiskey and beer are not. Call it tough love.”
“Okay, okay. What’s the lesson? I’m listening.”
“I want you to think about how you got here, Atticus. What was the decision that led you to this moment—a moment where you were almost killed by witch hunters? Follow the causes and effects backward.”
It didn’t take me long. I had already been thinking of this back in Mag Mell. “It was when I decided to stop running and kill Aenghus Óg if I could.”
Jesus nodded. “That’s right. When you decided to kill a god, you set in motion a series of events that led you extremely close to your death. Had you remained meek, you would have inherited the earth—”
“What?”
“No, let me finish. And now that you’ve killed the Norns—yes, I know about that—you have no idea what possible futures lie ahead of you. The aftershocks of that act have yet to be felt, and you’re going to be paying for it like you’re paying now for Aenghus Óg. Killing Thor would only make it worse, Atticus. Much worse. In all seriousness, there are few ways ahead in which you survive, your deal with the Morrigan notwithstanding. And there are few ways ahead in which the world survives, Atticus. Do you hear me? The world is at stake—this world. Killing Aenghus brought you to the attention of these Hammers of God. Who knows whom else you’ve attracted by killing the Norns?”
“I’ll bet you have a pretty good idea,” I said.
“Well, yes, I do, and that’s why I’m here to warn you. Things are already looking grim for you, my friend. You’ve unleashed a significant aspect of Fate, and it rarely chooses a more peaceful and orderly path when given the opportunity to pursue its own course. Please do not make it worse. Killing Thor will set in motion forces you cannot comprehend. The pain you feel now will be a sensual massage compared to what awaits you should you continue.”
I signaled that I understood with the barest of nods. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to sit. It hurt to be conscious.
“Lesson learned?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Right. You won’t be needing that anymore, then.” Jesus stood up from his patio chair and leaned over me, yanking the knife from my back.
“Gaaaaah!”
“Wah, wah, wah, you’re such a crybaby,” he said. “It’s just a flesh wound, as the Black Knight would say. Stand up.”
“Wait. Did you just quote the Holy Grail?”
“Why not? It was an inspired piece of filmmaking.” He winked at me. “Now stand up.”
“You don’t mean divinely inspired, do you?”
Jesus rolled his eyes. “One needs the patience of Job when speaking with you. Come on, I’m trying to help.” He hauled me to my feet by my left arm, eliciting another howl of misery. “Remember this the next time you think it would be macho to face down a god.”
“Why not let me die if I’m so dangerous?” I asked, leaning heavily against him for support.
“Because you’r
e also the only one with a hope of preventing the worst cataclysms from happening.”
“What cataclysms?”
“I can’t tell you. That would be cheating. Now be silent.”
“You’re awful bossy all of a sudden.”
“Doesn’t do me much good, does it? You’re still talking. Hold still.”
Jesus put his hand over my mangled left ear, and a pleasant warmth filled my body. The pain melted away and I felt my muscles knitting back together without a fuss. My kidney healed up and the toxins broke down in my blood. He even fixed the holes in my jacket. And, to top it off, my left ear was good as new again.
“Wow, that was so much easier than the way the Morrigan fixed my other one,” I said. “Thank you. Seriously.”
He beamed and gave me a hug, more sincerely than the man hug we’d traded on our first greeting. “You are welcome. Thank you for the lunch and the drinks,” he said pointedly, bobbing his head toward Rúla Búla and my unpaid tab. “And thank you in advance for making wise decisions in the future.”
I began to laugh, and Jesus cocked his head sideways at me. “What’s so funny?”
“The next time someone asks me if I’ve been saved by Jesus, I can tell them truthfully I have. I can tell ’em you’re my savior. And they will misinterpret that so deliciously.”
Jesus sighed and shook his head with one of those boys-will-be-boys expressions. “Druids,” he said. Then he pointed over my shoulder. “Hey, here come the cops.” I looked behind me and saw no one there. When I turned around, Jesus was gone.
“All right, you got me,” I said, looking up. “That was a good one.”
But Jesus hadn’t been kidding. A moment later, two officers came through the short outdoor hallway that led to Rúla Búla, and they saw me standing in the middle of the courtyard.
“Sir? We need to talk to you,” the first one said.
There are some grassy spots in the Mission Palms courtyard. It’s where the palms grow. I stepped onto one and smiled at the police as I drew power from the earth, replenishing my bear charm. Before they could entrap me into what might possibly be hours of questioning, I cast camouflage on myself and scooted out of there, leaving them bewildered and examining their sunglasses for dirt.
Mindful of my obligations, I crept back into Rúla Búla briefly to settle my bill with Flanagan and leave a generous tip. I figured I needed all the good karma I could get.
Chapter 12
There are certain encounters that one knows will never be repeated so long as one lives. The firstborn child can’t be born twice; one’s virginity, once lost, can never be found again; the sheer awe one feels when laying hands on a giant sequoia cannot be rivaled. Other times escape our notice, slipping by while we are preoccupied, and we do not appreciate their enormity until it’s too late to do anything but regret that we had not paid more attention in the present.
For me, the times I always regret are missed opportunities to say farewell to good people, to wish them long life and say to them in all sincerity, “You build and do not destroy; you sow goodwill and reap it; smiles bloom in the wake of your passing, and I will keep your kindness in trust and share it as occasion arises, so that your life will be a quenching draught of calm in a land of drought and stress.” Too often I never get to say that when it should be said. Instead, I leave them with the equivalent of a “Later, dude!” only to discover some time afterward that there would never be a later for us. I did not intend to let that happen with the widow MacDonagh.
But as I walked up to her house, I saw that a moment had already passed me by. The widow wasn’t on her porch, sipping whiskey and greeting me with a smile. For all that it was painted bright yellow, the house seemed a little forlorn for her absence. A ring of the doorbell and then a knock at the door brought me no welcome. No lights were on in the house—she usually had them on, even at midday—so I told myself that she must be out. Worried that I might have missed my chance to wish her well, I pulled out the lawn mower from the side yard and trimmed her front lawn while I waited for her return. When that was finished and I was still alone, I grabbed a pair of shears and groomed her grapefruit tree, fretting all the while that if she didn’t return by nightfall, I’d have to leave and might never see her again. That would mean my last words to her would be “See you soon,” which I’d said on Wednesday when I dropped Oberon off at her house. That phrase was such an inadequate farewell that I cringed inside to think I might have to let it stand.
She arrived after four, dropped off by Mrs. Murphy in a ponderous minivan. Mrs. Murphy, a neighbor of the widow’s who thought I was nothing more than a punk college kid, seemed relieved to see me waiting on the driveway. She looked a bit harried because her four kids were making plenty of noise in the back, and she might have feared leaving them alone for the brief span it would take to help the widow out of the van.
“Thank you,” she gushed as I opened the door and offered my hand to the widow. She backed up and drove off before we could take three steps away; I deduced from this that somebody in the van must have an urgent need to visit the restroom.
“Thank the Lord yer here, Atticus,” the widow said weakly. She looked frail and stooped, her cheeks sunken in and her eyes weighted with fatigue. “That Murphy lass is a decent soul, but she’s raisin’ a right pack o’ brats, if ye ask me.”
“Well, at least they’re Irish brats,” I observed. “They could be British.”
“Aye, we need to count our blessings, don’t we?” She chuckled softly, and the laugh seemed to restore her somewhat. “I see ye mowed me lawn an’ trimmed the tree. Yer a dear lad.” She patted my shoulder. “Thank ye.”
“You’re very welcome, Mrs. MacDonagh.”
She put her hand on my shoulder for support. “Would ye mind givin’ an’ old lady a hand up to the porch? I’m not as spry as I used t’be.”
“Sure, Mrs. MacDonagh.” She favored her left leg as we slowly made our way to her customary chair. “Where have you been? Haven’t seen you since I left.”
“I’ve been to the bloody doctor for days on end. He’s been stabbin’ me with this and scannin’ me with that and chargin’ me a fortune to tell me I’m not well, which I already bloody knew before I walked through his door.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m older’n Methuselah is what’s wrong. Me body’s breakin’ down, Atticus. It’s tellin’ me it’s tired of bein’ so sexy all the time, hee hee.”
“Seriously, Mrs. MacDonagh, what’s the matter?”
“ ’Tis no matter at all.” She groaned a little as I eased her into her chair and relieved the weight on her legs. “I’ll not trouble ye with it. The list o’ me plagues an’ agues is a fair mile long, an’ the best medicine for me right now is to talk of somethin’ else. Will ye be havin’ a glass o’ the Irish with me?”
“Sure, I have a little bit of time to spend, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather spend it.”
The widow beamed at me and her eyes glistened with gratitude. “Attaboy. I’ll give ye me keys.” She fished them out of her purse and handed them to me, and I went inside to pour two glasses of Tullamore Dew on the rocks.
“Ah, that’s grand,” she said, taking the proffered glass from my fingers. She took a sip and sighed, her peace of mind restored. “Atticus, I need t’tell ye something. I don’t think I’m long for this world. Soon I’ll finally be with me Sean, God rest his merry soul. Every third thought is of the grave.” She peered at me over her whiskey glass. “That Shakespeare bloke wrote that, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did. You’re paraphrasing Prospero from The Tempest.”
“Hmph. I think he might have been the only Brit to have ever been worth the milk he sucked from his mother’s tit. Wise man.”
“Can’t argue with that,” I agreed.
“Right, well, what I’m tryin’ to say is that ye’ve been a blessing to me in my dotage. I thank the Lord for ye and pray for ye, even though ye don’t believe in our savior.”
/> “Oh, I believe in him,” I corrected her. “I know he works miracles too.” I thought of my healed wounds, the multiplying fish and chips, and the guitar case full of dollar bills. “I simply don’t worship him.”
The widow stared at me, bemused. “Yer an odd duck, lad. I don’t know what to think sometimes.”
“You know everything you need to know. Jesus was real and still is. Hold on to that and don’t let go.”
“I’ve been holdin’ on to it for me whole life, Atticus. I’m not going to let it go now.”
“Good.”
“Me children ought to be comin’ to visit soon, figurin’ if they can get in one last good suck-up, I’ll change me will in their favor. I’m in for a world o’ coddlin’ and pamperin’ if ever I live that long. But if I bugger off before they get here, will ye let ’em know? I’ll leave their numbers posted on me fridge.”
“Oh.” I looked down at my feet. “Mrs. MacDonagh, I don’t think I’ll be able to do that. I’ve actually come here to say good-bye.”
She set down her glass and looked at me sharply. “Good-bye?”
“I’m buggering off, I guess,” I said. “I plan on coming back, but there’s a chance I might not, so I wanted to say a couple of things first.”
“Where ye goin’ to, lad? Didn’t ye jest come back from somewhere?”
“Aye, but I have to return for another job, and it’s more dangerous than the first one. Granuaile’s got Oberon with her right now and they’ll be gone for a few days, but when she returns she’ll leave Oberon with you, if that’s all right.”
“Well, how long d’ye think ye’ll be gone?”
“At least a week, but up to three months. If I’m not back after that, I’m not coming back.”
“Oh, now I’ll be worryin’ about ye,” she fretted. “I’ll be watching me Wheel of Fortune and some daft man will buy a vowel, and it’ll be an A, and then I’ll wonder where that mad boy Atticus is and what frightful things he’s up to now.”
“You didn’t used to think I was mad,” I said.
“Well, that was before ye went around losin’ yer ears and growin’ ’em back again, growin’ so fast it’s like one o’ those bloody Chia Pet commercials.”