The Iron Druid Chronicles 6-Book Bundle

  The roof of the pit was nothing but a finely woven carpet of alfalfa roots strengthened with a binding in the middle to prevent sagging. Carpathia closed up the tunnel behind us as we left.

  We hoofed it out of there to the northwest, loping downhill now, planning to skirt the Polish city of Jasło to the southwest. By following that general course—keeping to rural areas as best we could but darting into villages here and there to get what we needed—we would avoid all the mountainous terrain of Poland and Germany. Once into the Netherlands, we could swing south and west through Belgium until we hit Calais, France.

  Journeys sound so easy when you string together destinations in a sentence. But one does not simply run into Britain.

  Chapter 4

  I don’t think people today fully understand the genius of The X-Files, a sci-fi show that dominated much of the nineties. It had a way of getting into your head. At least, it got into mine in ways that I didn’t realize until later. Smoking men in suits now fill me with existential dread, for example. Whatever I’m doing when I see one calmly sucking hundreds of toxins into his lungs, I feel somehow that the smoking man manipulated me into doing it. I then have to flee and do something random in order to feel that I am not a pawn in his master plan. And let’s just not talk about bees, okay?

  Mostly the series taught me to fear silhouettes in open spaces backlit by strange lights. That’s why a thrill of fear shot down my spine when I saw thirteen figures waiting in an onion field to the west of Jasło. Maybe they had Mulder’s sister. Maybe we wouldn’t be able to kill them unless we stabbed a shiv into the base of their skulls. Maybe they were dark elves.

  The light providing the silhouettes wasn’t coming from behind them, I saw as I drew closer, but rather surrounded them in various shades of purple. They seemed like silhouettes because they wore black, but the lights swirling around them were familiar and lit up some faces I knew. They were wards I recognized; these were the Sisters of the Three Auroras, the Polish coven led by Malina Sokolowski, with whom I had signed a nonaggression treaty years ago.

  Malina was in front, her wards the most colorful and undoubtedly the strongest, and her long blond hair was still breathtakingly beautiful. She hadn’t aged a day in twelve years, and neither had I. But circumstances had certainly changed. The other members of her coven that I recognized—Roksana, Klaudia, Kazimiera, and Berta—were grouped close to Malina.

  She had eight new members of the coven who had never signed the treaty, and I had Granuaile, who hadn’t signed it either. If Malina wanted to get nasty, she technically could, via her proxies. Granuaile wasn’t protected from spells, as I was, but she could get nasty too.

  Through Oberon I communicated to Granuaile that we should shift back to human and slow down. She shifted simultaneously with me and we approached at a slow jog, weapons in hand. “They fight with silver knives,” I muttered to her before we came into hailing distance. “Faster than human.”

  “Got it.”

  “And don’t stare at their parts. They use alluring charms to control people.”

  “How lovely.”

 

  Malina sounded surprised when she addressed me, though it might have been an affectation. “Mr. O’Sullivan? What are you doing here?” She did not add, “naked, in an onion field,” but it was in her expression.

  “Miss Sokolowski. I could ask you the same.”

  “It’s Sokołowska in Poland. There are genitive endings on names here that I didn’t bother with in America.”

  “Ah. Thank you. I really do need to learn Polish. It seems congratulations are in order. Your coven is strong again.”

  “Yes, we are. And it appears there is another Druid in the world.”

  “Indeed. Malina, this is Granuaile.”

  The two of them exchanged pleasantries, and then Malina, as was her habit, got straight to business, ignoring our nudity.

  “We divined some great cataclysm to come. Might you know anything about that?”

  “Well, yeah. It’s Ragnarok.”

  She thought I was being flippant. “I’m serious, Mr. O’Sullivan.”

  “So am I. The last time we met, at Four Peaks Brewery in Tempe, I was about to screw everything up for everybody. I’m fairly certain I succeeded. Now I’m trying to do what I can to delay its coming or soften the blow if I can’t stop it. I think we have a year left before it all goes pear-shaped.”

  “Why a year?”

  “Well, Loki is free from his long imprisonment, and Hel has a massive army to deploy against the nine realms. They could have started it already, you see, but they haven’t because we’ve distracted them and wounded their confidence. And I’m counting on a prophecy, which pointed to next year.”

  Malina scoffed. “Whose prophecy?”

  “The sirens who tempted Odysseus.”

  Malina exchanged a look with Klaudia, the waifish witch who always looked like she’d just completed erotic exercises. She managed to wear her clothes in such a way that you were certain she hadn’t been wearing them a minute ago. “The sirens told Odysseus that Ragnarok would begin next year?”

  I shrugged. “Not in so many words, but the evidence does point that way. They said the world would burn. Loki is quite the pyromaniac, and I have no doubt that, once Surtr leaves Muspellheim, there will be much aflame. But, honestly, I don’t know what the prophecy truly means. Maybe they’re talking about lots of forest fires during an especially hot summer.”

  “I doubt that. The sirens did not speak idly to heroes of insignificant events.”

  “Ah, so you’ve heard about their accuracy?”

  “Indeed. Is there something we can do? Because our divination suggested some sort of fire would be started here.”

  “It did?”

  “Yes. You know I do not joke about such things.”

  “Well, yeah, but I don’t know why a fire would start—what?” Granuaile had tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention. Once she had it, she pointed up. “Oh,” I said. “Now it makes sense. Incoming!”

  A large ball of fire was headed straight for us, arcing out of the western sky. We gave ground, and a palpable shock wave buffeted us when the fireball hit the earth. A twelve-foot-tall madman cackled in the midst of it while clasping his hands together in glee.

  “There!” Loki said, his face intensely pleased. “Fff-fff-fffound you!”

  Chapter 5

  I drew Fragarach and charged him; there was no time to talk. He could set everyone on fire with a wave of his hand, so I preferred that he focus on me rather than watch him cook Granuaile and Oberon to ashes.

  I was a little fire-shy after getting cooked myself by some dark elves, but Loki’s fire was the magical sort and I knew my cold iron aura would protect me from it. He giggled as his right hand disappeared and the stump of his wrist became a flamethrower. Heat rained down on me as I leapt at him and slashed down with my sword. He was quick and stepped back, but I opened up a long wound down his right thigh.

  Loki roared and turned off the flames. His eyes boggled at me as his head twitched. I should have been barbecued but clearly wasn’t. “You can’t burn us, Loki Firestarter,” I said. “We’re all protected.”

  You’re not protected, I told Oberon with a quick thought. Get Granuaile out of range.

 

  Loki waggled a finger at me and squinted. “You are nuh-no construh-uh-ukt,” he stammered. “Dwarf-ff-fffs sssay they don’t nuh-know you. Llllliar!”

  “Who cares what the dwarfs know or don’t know?” I smiled in a fashion that I hoped was unsettling. He was already mentally unstable and might therefore be more susceptible to intimidation. “All you need to know is this: I’m the guy who’s going to kill you.”

  Loki’s eyes widened and he took a couple of steps back as I advanced. But then his right arm disappeared behind him, he arched his back a bit, and the arm reappeared holding a very long sword that ignited from guard to ti
p as I watched.

  I frowned. “Now, where, exactly, did you pull that from?” His daughter, Hel, had done something similar; she kept her knife, Famine, lodged between her lower ribs on her left side. She must have learned the trick of using the body as a scabbard from dear old dad. As shape-shifters, they would have the knack.

 

  Oberon, tell Granuaile to talk to the witches. They need to charm Loki if they can.

 

  Loki’s eyes went dark and he raised his sword. Hurry, Oberon! The flaming blade fell, but I wasn’t there. I leapt directly at him again, because the best thing you can do when facing someone with enormous reach is to get inside it. I didn’t hack or stab at him but delivered a straight kick between his hips, right in his center of gravity. He doubled over, let go of the sword as he staggered, and then fell heavily. I heard Polish behind me but kept my eyes on Loki. He shrank and morphed and sprang to his feet—this time as a Vedic demon with blue skin, four arms, and a blade that he pulled directly out of his body in each hand. He smiled with especially sharp teeth and twirled the swords at me, and I didn’t have time to wonder until much later how he’d ever come across that particular form.

  I had to fight my feet not to give ground. It had been quite some time since I’d practiced against more than two blades. When I was younger and everyone had a sword, you were more likely to run into that sort of thing. Nowadays you were more likely to run into multiple guns than multiple swords.

  Loki’s newly black eyes shifted from my face to a point over my right shoulder. He blinked hard, blinked harder, shook his head, and his swords stopped moving. He tried to refocus on me but his eyes drew away once more, and this time he flinched backward and dropped a couple of his weapons. The hands slapped at his eye sockets, and then he pressed his palms into them.

  “Nuh! No! Ssstop!”

  Worried about me, he lowered his hands and peeked over his fingers to make sure I wasn’t about to run him through. That’s when Malina stepped in front of me and tossed her hair at him. That did it. His hands dropped, his jaw dropped, and the other two hands still holding swords dropped as well.

  “He’s charmed now,” Malina said over her shoulder, her gaze locked on Loki. “You can kill him and get this over with.”

  “No, we don’t want to kill him,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because if we do, Hel will know it and launch her army out of spite. Ragnarok will begin. Hel would much rather start the show with Loki than without him, see. She has daddy issues and doesn’t want to win without his approval and participation, so if you keep him busy we’ll be in good shape.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Loki’s been looking for me for about four months now. Well, he’s been sleeping for most of it, but still. Hel didn’t make a move in all that time except to protect him.”

  Roksana, the witch with a mass of curly hair tightly bound behind her in a ponytail, spoke up in her proper diction: “You want us to keep him charmed for an extended period?”

  “Yep.” I grinned at her.

  Malina snorted. “This man is extremely unstable, and it will take a lot of work to keep him calm. You saw that it took several of us to subdue him just now. What do we get out of this, Mr. O’Sullivan?”

  “Well, you get a world without Ragnarok, for starters. And I can buy you all some of those shiny black boots you tend to like.”

  “That is unacceptable. I might as well let him go right now.”

  “You’d help bring about the end of the world?”

  “He seems to want to end you first, Mr. O’Sullivan. So tell me why shouldn’t we let him go.”

  “I can score you some Girl Scout Cookies. You can’t get Thin Mints in Poland, can you?”

  “Be serious.”

  “Samoas, then?”

  Malina simply glared at me.

  “All right,” I said, “what do you want?”

  “You have given me the impression that we’d be not only saving your life but saving the world. We need more than cookies for that.”

 

  “Understood, Malina. But what? I don’t know what you think I can give you.”

  “I want Poland to be free of vampires.”

  A silence grew in the field and Granuaile eventually broke it by saying, “Is she trying to be funny?”

  “When and for how long?” I asked.

  “After Ragnarok comes and goes or in a year: If we are here, and you are here, and vampires are here, you keep Poland vampire-free by whatever means necessary.”

  “All big ifs. But, all right, it’s a deal: One month of keeping Loki captive equals one year of vampire-free Poland.”

  “That is acceptable.” We shook hands on it.

  “By the way,” I said. “Hel has this hound called Garm, who can track anything, even across planes. She will send him to find Loki. When he does, Hel will bring an army of the damned to protect her father. Good luck with that. Oh, and Artemis and Diana are on my tail, so they’ll be coming through here soon looking for someone to shoot. Bye. Gotta run.” I gave her a short wave and took off running west. Granuaile and Oberon followed.

  “What?” Malina’s outrage was plain. “Mr. O’Sullivan! Come back!”

  I grinned and kept running. It wasn’t every day I got the best of Malina. I was sure to pay for it in the future, but in the meantime you have to surf the waves that come your way, and this one was super shaka nar nar.

  Chapter 6

  I cannot share the euphoria I feel, because Atticus would take me to task. His eyebrows would draw together and he would attempt to convey through his expression how very, very old he was, and as a comparative youngster—even a whippersnapper—I could not possibly know how inappropriate it would be to feel euphoric. But I cannot help but feel that way, even though we are running for our lives. Because we are running fast through satin darkness with strength coursing through our bodies, a percussive corps of hooves and paws tapping out a rhythm of flight, clods of earth kissing us farewell and swishes of grass caressing our ankles, like the soft fingertips of mothers who don’t want to let their children leave home but know that they must; they let go but keep contact as long as they can, extending hands and arms until their children finally pass beyond their reach, and then they feel sad yet proud and live on a kernel of hope that someday their children will come back to them and say, Mother, I am home. That is the source of my euphoria: I feel a mother’s love with every step I take on the earth. Wherever I go now, I am welcomed home, embraced and adored and supported. I am a Druid of Gaia, beloved of the earth, and the wonder of it is still fresh in my heart.

  When I was a child unbound—in my old life—my mother and stepfather used to take me to places with mountains and trees for family vacations, since we lived in the flattest part of the country and saw little of nature but the sky and amber tops of wheat fields. Walking through the forest and touching the white trunks of aspens, I suspected that the trees kept secrets, but they would tease me, using the wind in their leaves to whisper of mystery and then rustle and fade, dry chuckles of merriment at my expense, the ginger girl from the plains. I thought the aspen groves must know something important, something cool, because when they loomed over my head and whispered amongst themselves, they shook slightly in their excitement. But now the world is undressed for me, naked and gorgeous and waiting for me to explore it, and all its secrets would be vouchsafed to my ears if I simply took the time to ask.

  I know we’re in terrible danger. It’s the kind that Atticus kept warning me about—he tried to scare me into quitting my apprenticeship so many times. And it’s true we have been in a whole lot of danger ever since he began the binding process. Still, though we are running for our lives, it’s all I can do to keep from busting out
a barbaric yawp like Walt Whitman.

  Now, there was a man who knew how to celebrate life and tell us about it. Atticus prefers the British poets and has memorized all of Shakespeare, but, while sublime, the Bard dwells too much on the dark side of human nature to capture my unswerving devotion. During my training, I had to memorize a large body of work as a first step to learning how to operate in different headspaces, so I chose Walt Whitman’s. Whitman saw the world for the endless wonder it was. He called grass the handkerchief of the Lord.

  I wish I could go back in time and tell him how deliciously close to the truth he’d been. It’s Gaia’s handkerchief, Mr. Whitman, but you got the rest right. The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, / And if ever there was it led forward life … / All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, / And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

  Not that I look forward to dying anytime soon. Or that the Morrigan’s death was lucky. But I think she must be well on one of the Irish planes now, at peace in the green somewhere. I will ask Atticus later, when the shock of her end is not so fresh. It is an object lesson that even gods are not eternal.