Staked (Iron Druid Chronicles)

by Kevin Hearne

  Knocked over and trampled by a quarter-ton animal, then run over by the weighted carriage wheels, ribs broken and bleeding internally inside a restrictive corset, all poor Gwendolyn could think of was getting to see Nigel one more time. She first dragged herself and then got some help to make it to the flat stone steps of the seminary, where she died mere seconds before Nigel emerged to investigate the cries for help. Seeing his fiancée’s pale dead face there and the callous driver of the carriage continuing down Bloor Street as if nothing had happened, he was filled with a rage unbecoming a minister. Everything he cared about had been ripped from him, and he wanted an eye for an eye. Or at least a chance to deliver a good punch to the jaw, or maybe three. So he rashly chased after the man who had run down his girl and eventually caught him. And then he got himself killed, for the driver of that carriage was armed with a revolver and ill-disposed to fisticuffs with a muttonchopped ginger man wearing a gray pinstripe and gold pocket watch.

  Nigel’s spirit quite sensibly moved on wherever it was he thought he should go, no doubt missing that he had just been given an object lesson on why it’s better sometimes to turn the other cheek. Gwendolyn, however—she had unfinished business. The horribly mangled cake didn’t matter except as a visible symbol of her undying love. She couldn’t move on until she told Nigel she loved him and heard him say it in return, just one more time. So her spirit moved in to the seminary building, where she searched for him and haunted the building as the Lady in Red for decades afterward.

  my hound said as I soaped him up.

  “You think?”

 

  “Yes, I am.”

  No one had warned me about the Lady in Red before I entered that building in 1953. No reason why they would, really. She was a shy and retiring sort of spirit, looking for a ginger man named Nigel with muttonchops and wearing a gray suit. If you didn’t meet the criteria or catch her feeling sorry for herself, you’d probably never see her. During that time the building was in a sort of limbo, used by the university as an administrative dump and also to proctor certain exams. The Royal Conservatory of Music didn’t take over the building until the 1970s. I had to go there to take exams and on my first visit noticed that many of the rooms were unused and might make ideal rendezvous spots. Such spots were prized by college students because dorms were very closely monitored to prevent “lewd and immoral acts.”

  Well, opportunity eventually presented itself and I met a coed who had a strange thing not for muttonchops or gingers but for guys named Nigel. Being fit was just a bonus to her; somehow there was nothing so attractive to her as the name of Nigel Hargrave—she told me it sounded rich and aristocratic. Maybe that’s what she was actually into—aristocracy, I mean, not my name; I never really figured her out. But I was lonely and not particularly principled, so I arranged a meeting at one of those rooms in the old building. The scheduled exams were listed on a bulletin board in the entrance hall, so we chose a room on the second floor, I picked the lock, and we entered to take consensual delight in each other on top of a desk.

  And while we were in the middle of those delights, half dressed but fully enthusiastic, Gwendolyn, the Lady in Red, finally discovered a man who bore a striking resemblance to her fiancé, Nigel. That he was in sexual congress with another woman displeased her mightily, and she could not be mistaken—she knew it was her Nigel, because my partner kept shouting that name, and I had the ginger muttonchops and the same gray suit she’d expected him to be wearing that day she came to deliver the lovey-dovey cake. It was at that point that the shy, retiring ghost became a completely unhinged poltergeist. Desks began moving in the room, including the one we were on. Chairs left the floor—wildly inaccurate at first, like the Imperial stormtroopers in Cloud City, but growing closer as a cry of betrayal built and built and effectively killed the mood dead.

  My partner stopped calling out my name and appropriately freaked out, dashing half-clothed from the room. I never saw her again.

  “NNNNNigel! Hhhhhow could youuuuuu!” a breathy, ethereal voice raged at me.

  “I, uh … think there’s been a mistake. Who are you?”

  A red apparition swirled into form, very proper and charming and allowing me to note details of the dress, which helped me place her origins later. The illusion of propriety broke down around the mouth: It gaped unnaturally wide as it shouted at me. “I’m your fiancée! Gwendolyn!”

  “What? Hey, I’m not the guy you’re looking for. My name’s not really Nigel either.”

  “Liaaaaarr!”

  The furniture got really aggressive at that point and clocked me pretty good, and there was very little I could do but run. There’s nothing a Druid can do about a ghost, honestly. Nothing physical about them to bind or unbind, and my cold iron amulet is just a hunk of metal to them.

  That does not mean, however, that ghosts are not subject to being bound—they are typically bound to a space near where they died, albeit by intangible spiritual tethers rather than anything tied to the earth. For me to escape her, all I had to do was escape the building. Or so I thought.

  As I pelted through the hall and then down the grand staircase leading to the exit, all manner of papers and books and dust devils followed me along with her screams. I got a textbook to the temple at one point and fell down but scrambled back up again, staggering a bit. She chased me right out the door in a rather shockingly immodest display and then, much to my horror, kept going. Now that she’d found her Nigel, she had moored herself to me and unchained herself from the building. I had to skedaddle, which I think is the best possible word for getting the hell out when a poltergeist thinks you’ve jilted her. Where the university’s law library is now, there used to be a giant old oak that I had tethered to Tír na nÓg, and I used that to shift away to safety and do some research on who or what she was.

  Later on, I shifted back in and waited to be attacked, but Gwendolyn the poltergeist wasn’t lurking by the oak. She had probably returned to the building she had haunted before, but there was no way I was returning to check. I picked up what few things I had at my lodgings and took off before she could locate me again, never to return to Toronto until today.

  Oberon said as I rinsed him off.

  “Yep.”

 

  “Yep. She appears to have quite the impressive memory for a ghost.”

 

  “That’s right. Except this time I will try to be her Nigel instead of the pre-med student she mistook for him. She’s capable of talking—she has things she desperately wants to say to Nigel, you see—and I have something I need to say too.”

 

  “Uh, that’s breast, Oberon, savage breast, not savage ghost. William Congreve wrote the original line, and he gets misquoted a lot.”

 

  “You’ve been a good hound in the bath. Let’s get you dried off and feed you a sausage or two.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Few things chap me tits worse than big cities. Smelly things, choked with cars, and the horizon choked with big rectangular signs telling people to buy newer cars. I says to Greta, “I love it when ye kick me arse, but this city is doing it in a way I can’t fight back. This Paradise Valley of yours is no paradise to me, love. I simply can’t live here in this fecking wasteland of concrete and cactus. I need me trees.” And gods bless her, she says she’ll move to the country with me. Sort of.

  “How would Flagstaff be?” she says. “We’ll live on the San Francisco Peaks, with all those pines and aspens, and we can go into town when necessary.”

  That sounds dodgy to me. “When would it ever be necessary?” I
asks her.

  “Well, we’d have to get food once in a while.”

  “Why go to the city for that? We can hunt and grow our own. Get some sheep and goats and chickens.”

  “All right, Owen, if you want to do that, I suppose it’s possible.”

  “It’s more than possible. It’s the only way to live.”

  She smiles at me and I feel hope again. “Then I’ll transfer myself over to the Flagstaff Pack,” she says. “It’s far past time for me to pick up and move on, and Sam and Ty are good guys.”

  “Aye, good sparring partners,” I says. The leaders of the Flagstaff Pack are younger wolves than Hal Hauk and much of his crew in Tempe, but they’re a happy couple, share their beer, and don’t mind going a few rounds with a bear every so often. Truth be told, I’d rather go back to Ireland, but I can’t ask Greta to do that. She needs a pack to run with when the moon is full, and I’m not sure they have one over there.

  A lot of business with something called a Realtor happens after that—they have people these days who do nothing but sell houses, and they aren’t even the ones who built them. Makes no fecking sense. “Here,” says I to Greta, “here’s this field full of prairie dogs I found and it has a shack to shite in. I will sell it to ye for stupid money. Is that how this Realtor thing works?”

  “More or less. Except it’s the owner of the shack who puts it up for sale, not the Realtor.”

  “Well, then, why do you need the Realtor person?”

  “Lots of legal reasons. And it prevents the buyer and the seller from getting into fights.”

  “Oh, well, I can understand that, then. I bought some bad venison once from a man who lived in a bog, and I wanted to pound the piss out of him. Should have had a Realtor do it for me; that would have been handy.”

  “No, Owen, that’s not what Realtors do—”

  “Well, they fecking should! There’s all manner of men living in bogs who need a good thrashing, and I bet there’s people who would pay. Could be a full-time job. Maybe it should be my job. Siodhachan says I’m supposed to have one.”

  Greta gives up trying to explain Realtors after that, and I stop asking and just let her handle the modern horror of it all. She finds a place outside city limits, which suits me fine, with plenty of tree-dotted land attached to it and a house that’s way too big but she says will come in handy.

  “Handy for what?” I asks. “I don’t need a fecking castle.”

  “You might,” she replies.

  I have no earthly idea what she means and she says to wait, she wants to sit me down with Hal and Sam and Ty and talk through something.

  The sit-down comes a couple days later at Sam and Ty’s house when Hal drives up special from Tempe. They give me fancy beer and smile a bit too wide. They have cheese you can spread on crackers and clearly expect me ancient mind to be destroyed by the sheer cleverness of the idea. They must want to ask me to do them a favor and they’re afraid I’ll say no.

  “All right, what is it, then?” I says. “If you’re going to try to convince me to get one of those cell phones, ye might as well give up now.”

  “No, nothing like that, Owen,” Greta says. “As far as we know this is something you actually want.”

  “All right, I’m listening.” I sink into a brown leather couch, and it sucks away at me backside like it will never let me rise again.

  “From things you’ve said to me, I believe it’s your wish to train additional Druids.”

  “Right, right. Not sure where I’ll find parents to let me do that, though. These people don’t believe in magic, and if they do they don’t want their kids involved in it.”

  “Well, there are some parents who do believe in magic and would like their kids to be Druids very much.”

  “There are?”

  “Yes. Parents who are werewolves.”

  “What’s that, now? I thought ye couldn’t have kids. The transformation would kill the baby every time.”

  “That’s correct, but there are a few recently turned wolves around the world who had children before they were bitten. And of course they’re worried about them. They don’t want their kids to become wolves, but neither do they want their kids to feel excluded from their lives. They see Druidry as a perfect compromise. Their kids can remain in the magical world and even run with packs once they can shape-shift, but they never have to live with the curse of lycanthropy.”

  “How young are we talking?”

  “Let me ask instead, what would be the ideal age?”

  “Six to eight. They absorb languages easier when they’re young, and I can shape their minds to handle headspaces much better than if you start later. That way they would be bound to the earth when they’re eighteen to twenty,” I says.

  The wolves exchange a glance, and it’s Hal Hauk who speaks next. “We know of six children who fit that range. If you’re agreeable, we’ll have their parents transferred to the Flagstaff Pack and then you can be in charge of their instruction going forward.”

  “Well, hold on a minute now.” I try to sit forward on the couch and it fights me. I have to paw at the damn armrest to pull meself up. “You’re suggesting I start a grove here in Flagstaff? On Greta’s land?”

  “Why not, Owen?” Greta says. “We have the space. We have privacy. We have lots of trees on the property. And you can build what structures you want in addition to what’s already there. A greenhouse, maybe, for herbs and vegetables.”

  Six apprentices at once. With the full support and resources of the werewolves. It sounds suspiciously good.

  “These kids haven’t been bitten, right? You can’t bind ’em to Gaia if they’ve been bitten.”

  “No, no, they’re perfectly normal in every way,” Hal assures me. “It’s just their parents who are different.”

  “Once they’re bound, you know, they can’t ever be affected by a bite. Gaia won’t let them turn into werewolves. It’s why I can spar with ye without fear.”

  “That’s a definite plus as far as we’re concerned,” Greta says.

  “They’ll be vulnerable until then, mind.”

  “We understand. Strict safety measures will be in effect. They already are.”

  “Well, then,” I says, “I’m not opposed.” Smiles break out and I hold up a hand to stop them. “But don’t get too excited and don’t do anything yet. We don’t want to start something like this if Siodhachan is going to come along and cock it all up. I haven’t heard from him or Granuaile in a while, and I should make sure they know to leave me alone from now on.”

  Hal’s face suddenly looks tired, but he nods. “Probably best, you’re right. I know he’s worried about vampires right now—I am too, I suppose. One that used to work with us claimed the entire state as his territory. I don’t think he would mess with us, but should he decide to turn nasty it could be quite disastrous.”

  “Aye. So we’ll be cautious. I’ll check in with Tír na nÓg. Brighid has already given me her blessing in general to start training Druids, but I would like to get her specific blessing on this. We may enjoy the protection of the Fae as well as that of the pack.”

  Greta leaps up from her seat and pounces on me, pressing her mouth to mine and returning me to the clutches of the leather couch. “Thank you for considering it, Owen. It means a lot to us.”

  She’s warm and her hair smells like berries and vanilla and her breath comes quicker as we kiss, and then she rears back and twists me nipple hard before backing away to the door, a wicked smile on her face. “Run with me, Teddy Bear,” she says, using that nickname she thinks is cute but still confuses me. I am nothing like a teddy bear.

  “If I can ever get out of this thrice-damned couch, I will,” I says. But before Greta can bolt out the door, someone knocks on it. She opens it and a voice asks for me.

  “Who would be asking for me here?” I wonder aloud, and struggle to get up. “Damn this fecking couch, Sam; take an axe to it and set it on fire already!”

  Laughing, he extends an
arm to me and says, “I can’t do that. It’s Ty’s favorite.”

  Ty looks wounded, and I feel like an ox box for making it happen. “Sorry, Ty, never mind me. I’m an ornery shite. Take it out of me hide next time we spar. Defend the honor of your arse-munching couch.”

  The man at the door is Creidhne, one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He has a couple of flat wooden boxes under his arm, and he smiles when he sees me.

  “Ah, Owen, I’m glad I caught you. Brighid said this would be a likely place to look.”

  “She did? Well, I guess she’s been watching me more carefully than I thought. What can I do for ye?”

  “Just accept these. I’ve finished your knuckles, and I have some gifts from Luchta as well.”

  “Me knuckles?” I’d forgotten all about them. Creidhne had taken measurements of me fists and promised to fashion some kind of weapon for me, as a personal test of his skill. I hadn’t asked for them—he volunteered. I suppose that the Tuatha Dé Danann are longing for glory again now that there are Druids in the world once more—I mean, more Druids than Siodhachan, who was in hiding for two thousand years.

  “Aye. Can’t wait to see you try them on. Have you a minute to spare or have I come at a terrible time?”

  Greta catches my eye. “We can run later, Owen,” she says. “But expect a rough one.”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” I reply, then I tell Creidhne he’s welcome and introduce him to all the wolves. Ty fetches him a beer and I raise my bottle. “To Goibhniu and his craft,” I says, remembering his brother, killed by a spriggan during Fand’s attempted coup on Brighid. “Not a day goes by I don’t miss him.” We drink to his memory and then, at Sam’s invitation, Creidhne sets down his boxes on their dining room table. One is larger than the other, but both are custom varnished maple. Creidhne opens the smaller of the two, and the interior is lined with red felt. A set of brass knuckles rests inside, etched with bindings that the god of craft cannot wait to explain.