Besieged

  The confidence and condescension melted away. “Yes.”

  “She’s a friend. So it’s your call: Go back to hell of your own free will, where you will remain powerful and wind up paying no price for this little spree of yours, or stick around and be torn apart on this plane. You’ll be scattered and weak for centuries, and your influence will wane—and actually, now that I think about it, that might be best for everyone but you. I probably shouldn’t give you a choice, but I did say it would be your call.”

  Looking back on that now, I think that might have been one of my greatest cock-ups. What would this country—and, by extension, the whole world—look like now if greed had taken a backseat to other vices in 1850? So many implications I should have thought through. But I wasn’t prioritizing the long term right then. I just wanted Mammon out of there and the short-term threat to the earth neutralized so that I could get back to hiding in Argentina.

  “What’s it going to be, Mammon? Go back whole, or get blown to pieces?”

  He trembled and shook again and the red rage eyes returned, but he had to make a decision and answer. “I’ll go back.”

  I awarded him a smile. “Thank you. Very cooperative. But I have to press you on the matter of when, because this isn’t my first negotiation with folks who like to hide behind nonspecifics. So, will you go back to hell when I open a portal to the plane?”

  “Yes,” he said through a clenched jaw. “But I swear I will—”

  “Shut up now,” I said, and Fragarach cut him off.

  Sheriff Jack Hays strode through the saloon doors and I hailed him. He looked less than pleased to see me.

  “Where the hell you been, Percy?” he said, and that reminded me to switch accents. “We’ve had men dropping dead every night for—Jesus Christ.” He stopped once he took in the shaking form of Stephen Blackmoore. “Is this him?”

  “That’s him, Sheriff,” I said. “And he’s agreed to return to hell.”

  “Well, let’s get him out of here, then.”

  “It would be better, I think, to get everyone out of here. Which is why I needed you. If we take him outside, there are too many things that can go wrong. We could be interrupted by most anyone—or witnessed by most anyone. We don’t want that.”

  “Huh.” Hays glanced around at the busy gambling hall. “It’s gonna be a job to get them out of here when they’re havin’ such a high time.”

  I began pulling chips and coins and cash out of my pockets and put them on the table. “Pay them all off. The proprietor too. Greed is a powerful motivator.” I smirked at Mammon as I said this, and he seethed.

  “Jesus,” Hays said again, and Blackmoore’s body twitched as the sheriff began to gather up the money. He wisely began by visiting Perkins at the bar, then he told the piano player to leave off. He hollered until he could be heard, and once he had everyone’s attention, he told them to finish their current round or hand in their games and then move along, the U.S. Exchange was closing for the night. The loudest grumbling came from the poker players who were currently down in their personal counts. The sheriff went over to them and quietly used my money to take the sting out of it.

  Once everyone was out but Blackmoore, Perkins, the sheriff, and me, the lawman shrugged his shoulders at me. “Now what?”

  “Now I need two things,” I said. “I need a container or two of salt from the kitchen, Perkins. And, Sheriff, I hate to ask, but there’s no helping it because I have to keep this sword holding the demon still. I need you to take off my boots.”

  Sheriff Hays’s lip curled, and he looked like he’d rather dine on hog slop. “Why do you need that?”

  “I need a solid connection to the earth. Again, I apologize. Please keep whatever money you have left as payment.”

  “Think I will,” he said, shoving it into his coat pockets as he stomped over. “Don’t tell nobody I did this.”

  Perkins disappeared into the kitchen while the sheriff pulled my boots off. “Ain’t no earth in here, in case you didn’t notice,” he said.

  “There will be.” I addressed the demon. “All right, Mammon, get up. Walk straight backward until I tell you to stop.” I wanted to do this away from the door in case someone came in, but to prevent that I asked the sheriff to stand guard and keep everyone out.

  When Perkins returned from the kitchen, I used my left hand to sprinkle a generous line of salt underneath my sword hand, extending to either side, then gave the container back to Perkins. “I need you to continue to make a circle around this man, but stay out of arm’s reach the whole way around him, okay?”

  Perkins developed a crease between his eyes. “You been drinkin’ my piano player’s laudanum?” he said.

  “No, I’d never do that. Laudanum’s a hell of a drug.”

  “What’s really going on here? Y’all told me this was a wanted man. Why don’t the sheriff just take him away?”

  “Because, Perkins, there’s a demon inside this man, and we need to get him out.”

  Perkins stared for a few seconds, then turned to Hays. “Sheriff?”

  Hays nodded at him. “Just do what he says.”

  “This is a damn crazy waste of salt,” he said, but he did as I asked while I kept close watch on Blackmoore.

  “Thanks,” I said when he was finished. “Best get back behind the bar now.” As he turned, shaking his head, I used the last of the energy in my bear charm to access more: I unbound the cellulose of the floorboards beneath me so that I could sink through the wood and make contact with the earth. Buildings back then didn’t have cement foundations underneath them. They had stone and mortar foundations around the edges but just wood laid on top of earth in the middle.

  With a fresh supply of energy from Gaia and contact with the elemental Sequoia, I told her I had captured the demon and needed to open a portal to return it to hell. Permission granted, I crafted a ward of containment around the ring of salt as a backup before I got to the really tricky part.

  I had no idea what kind of person Stephen Blackmoore was when he wasn’t possessed, but I couldn’t simply toss him into hell while still alive. He should have his shot at life and a chance at redemption if he wanted to seek it. But to get Mammon out of Blackmoore, I would necessarily need to release him from the binding of Fragarach—and the demon knew it. He couldn’t talk, but he winked and grinned at me. The chances of him meekly slinking back to hell were nil.

  I checked my ward, which was stronger than the salt anyway. I’d create the portal inside it. Nothing for it but to proceed: The longer I delayed, the greater the chance that someone would come along to interrupt—as someone had interrupted Stefano Pastore.

  “When I release the binding, Mammon, you will exit Mr. Blackmoore as promised.”

  “I never promised that. I only said I would go back to hell when you opened a portal.”

  “You can’t take Mr. Blackmoore with you.”

  “Oh, but that’s precisely what I’m going to do. He belongs to me every bit as much as that sword belongs to you.”

  “Not now he doesn’t. He deserves to live his natural life first, and you can have his soul later.”

  “Ha! You have no idea what this man deserves. But what are you going to do? Destroy him to destroy me? You would damn yourself in the process.”

  “No, I’m not going to hell when I die. I belong to the Morrigan.”

  The demon cocked Blackmoore’s head to one side. “The Morrigan?…Oh. You’re one of them. A Druid. I thought they were all dead.”

  “Clearly not.”

  Blackmoore closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled. When he opened his eyes again, he smiled at me. Or, rather, Mammon did. “Very well, Druid. I will leave Mr. Blackmoore when you release the binding and let him live his life.”

  That was a bit too accommodating. “His natural life?” I pressed.

  “Yes.”

  “Fine. Do it.” I released Blackmoore from Fragarach’s grip, and oily orange smoke began to pour out of his ears, nostr
ils, and mouth. It swirled and coalesced behind him into a humanoid form, and when the smell hit me I threw up a little bit in my mouth.

  Eventually the smoke stopped coming out of him, and Mammon manifested in his true shape—a grotesque starved thing of stringy muscles, like an Egon Schiele painting, except that he had a distended belly, pitiless barren eye sockets like mine shafts, and rows of serrated teeth in an unhinged jaw like some nightmare from the Marianas Trench.

  His host wobbled and blinked as he came back to himself. “Stephen, come here,” I called to him. All he had to do was step out of the circle and he’d be safe. “Stephen!”

  “Huh? Gah! Damn, why does my asshole feel like it’s on fire?”

  Those were not, as last words go, particularly inspirational or profound. Mammon reached out from behind him, gripped his left shoulder, and then wrapped his long bony fingers around Blackmoore’s neck, ripping off his head, hat and all. This he threw unerringly at a kerosene lantern resting on the bar, which shattered and immediately ignited the cherrywood. Blackmoore’s head disappeared behind the bar and Perkins cried out in alarm, though I don’t know whether it was at the fire or at the appearance of a demon in his place of business.

  But Mammon wasn’t done. He tore Blackmoore’s corpse apart limb by limb and chucked them at other lanterns in the hall, setting fires elsewhere.

  “You promised him a natural life!” I shouted as he dismembered his victim.

  “And he got one. I killed him quite naturally, with my bare hands,” Mammon said. “And it is natural for predators to tear apart their prey. Step into the circle, Druid, and I’ll show you how natural it is.”

  “What the hell?” Deputy Kasey Princell stepped in to gape at the spectacle just then, and Sheriff Hays drew his gun and thunked the butt of it into Princell’s shoulder.

  “Damn it, the whole place is going to burn down! Go get help or the town could go!”

  I turned and saw that he was right. There were so many fires now and there was nothing but wood in the place. The U.S. Exchange was done for. But Perkins plainly did not want to believe that. He was trying to contain the fire on the bar with a towel while the rest of the hall flared up.

  “Perkins!” I shouted as Princell exited. “Get out of here! You can’t save it!”

  “We can stop it!” he replied. “Help me!”

  “Perkins, we can’t!” I struggled to think of something he loved more than the business he’d built from scratch and gambled on a guess: “Think of Felicity, Perkins! You have to save Felicity! Get her out of here!”

  He ceased his flailing and looked up from his immediate area, seeing that it was true. The building would burn down no matter what we did at that point. The volunteer firemen and bucket brigade would never get there in time. We were both already sweating, and it was a cool early morning.

  “I hope you all go to hell!” he said, throwing down his bar towel and dashing back to the kitchen to fetch Felicity. I think that poodle saved him just by being there; if she hadn’t been, I believe he would have gladly burned with his saloon.

  That, at least, was a silver lining to an otherwise legendary cock-up. As the flames popped and crackled and the heat and smoke grew, I realized what Mammon was trying to do: distract and delay until I had no choice but to leave myself. If I never opened that portal to hell, he never had to step through it.

  The sheriff wasn’t distracted. He had something to kill and a fully functional firearm in his hand, and he’d just seen Mammon tear a man apart and toss his bits around the room. There was really no quibbling over the demon’s guilt. Hays stepped forward into the room to get a better angle and started firing. The bullets were on target but simply passed through. Mammon had taken a shape but was not really flesh occupying space. He just laughed as the sheriff poured bullets into him and the flames grew higher.

  Focusing on the space where Blackmoore used to stand, I chanted the words to first bind that space to its equivalent space in hell, then to unbind the veil separating the planes. Mammon responded to this by plunging his clawed hand into Blackmoore’s headless, limbless torso, ripping out bloody ropes of intestine, and throwing them at me.

  Such situations are a perfect example of why Druids must develop, at minimum, two different headspaces for battle. One must deal with the demands of the physical fight, while the other must remain undistracted to craft bindings.

  I merely held up Fragarach with the flat of the blade presented to Mammon, so that nothing would hit me in the face, and continued. Stephen Blackmoore’s digestive system smacked wetly against either the blade or my body before dropping to the floor, and I was splattered with his blood and shit, but it could hardly be worse than the smell of Mammon himself.

  When the binding was complete and hell yawned before Mammon’s feet, he roared and tossed Blackmoore’s torso at me. I took the trouble to duck under that one.

  “Má ithis, nar chacair!” I told him in Gaeilge, a fantastic curse for one such as Mammon, who always wants more: It means, “May you eat but not defecate.”

  He slid down through the portal as much as jumped into it, pulled by the strength of his own word, and I closed it up behind him. Sequoia would feel that and know that I’d done my duty.

  //Harmony restored// I sent to her, and she replied in kind.

  “I thought I’d seen everything,” Hays shouted past the roar of the inferno, “but I reckon I better rethink that. Come on, Percy, let’s go.”

  “I’m headed out back to make sure Perkins really left,” I told him, pointing at the kitchen door, and he held my gaze for a moment, far too smart to accept that at face value, knowing he’d never see me again. Then a beam cracked above, and we nodded and parted ways. I escaped out the back door through the kitchen, making sure Perkins and Felicity were gone, and remembered to fetch Mustang Sally from where I had her stabled. I headed for the bound trees north of town, hoping I’d be able to shift out before my activity there drew a new batch of faeries from Aenghus Óg.

  That episode turned out to be the second Great Fire of San Francisco, quite literally started by greed, which eventually consumed three city blocks and cost four million dollars in damages. Thanks to Deputy Princell’s quick work, the alarm was spread in time to prevent any deaths other than Stephen Blackmoore’s. And I was able to enjoy a year of peace with Mustang Sally in Argentina before she passed away of truly natural causes.

  —

  Oberon asked.

  No, Oberon, I told him via our mental link. You’re only the second companion I’ve done that with.

 

  Some people—and some creatures—don’t handle long lives very well. It changes them for the worse. But you just keep getting better, buddy.

 

  I briefly glanced at the slobbery hunk of beef underneath Oberon’s paw. No thanks; I’m full.

 

  I’ll tell you some other night, okay? It’s a story in itself.

  “That was quite a tale, Atticus,” Granuaile said. “I’ll be thinking about a world without greed for a while now. I think you might be right: Letting Mammon go back to hell might have been one of your worst cock-ups ever. It’s greed that makes us destroy Gaia bit by bit.”

  I sighed and shrugged. “You won’t get any argument from me. I could have done better, no doubt. But as the world’s only Druid for so long, I’ve been living a life besieged. It’s why Gaia could use more of us.”

  A slow grin spread across Granuaile’s face, and her eyes reflected the light of the fire. “Yes. I’ll be happy to help as soon as I’m able.”

  This story, narrated by Archdruid Owen Kennedy, takes place after Staked, Book 8 of The Iron Druid Chronicles, but before the events of Oberon’s Meaty Mysteries: The Purloined Poodle.

  It doesn’t matter whether we make love or war
or both when we go running together in the woods; Greta always likes to snuggle up afterward for something she calls “pillow talk,” even though we never have any pillows with us. Perhaps it’s because we are so fecking savage when we play together, and she wants a quiet time of conversation to set aside the beast and reassert her humanity. I don’t know; that might be reading more into the bones of the thing than are really there. But, like her, I have come to look forward to our talks as much as the fighting and the sex. She has some wild fecking stories, the kind of thing you’re sure can’t be real except in the fevered dreams of a talk radio host armed only with a microphone and two handfuls of batshit.

  Hunting down wendigos in Manitoba, for instance. Negotiating with ghouls to make sure the pack has access to efficient body disposal. And she claims they had to destroy an actual modern-day necromancer who had raised the dead in Phoenix just to make him tacos and margaritas, and he had to die before he decided to use his power for something more sinister.

  She tells me it’s me turn to share as we lie naked and bleeding on the slopes of Mount Humphreys near Flagstaff. She still shudders from the pain of her shift from wolf to human and clasps me hand as we stare up at a blue sky through the pickets of white-trunked aspens. Seen from the forest floor like that, they seem to be the clutching finger bones of giants long buried in the earth, reaching for one last fine day in the sun.

  When I point this out to her, she squints up at them as if there’s something wrong with her vision. “What if that were true?” she says, and nestles into the crook of me arm. “How do you suppose they would come to be here, lying in the cold ground?”

  I snort at the question. “Might as well ask how we came to be here, lying on top of it.”

  Her head raises enough to look me in the eye. “All right, then. I’ll ask: How did we get here?”

  “What? Are ye serious? Ye already know that. Siodhachan fetched me off that fecking timesuck in Tír na nÓg, and we met at Hal’s house.”