“He’s seeing through the glamour,” the short, bearded man grumbled to Pixel, his bushy eyebrows furrowing.
“Well duh. We’re on his home turf, and this is his place of power” Pixel replied nonchalantly. “He was pushing back against my glamour yesterday, and I’m not adding two hands to my height.”
Liam set down the socket wrench and ran through the mental inventory of items in the garage that were weapons or could be used as them. The back half of the garage was a workshop, which included the results of his dabbling with blacksmithing and sword-crafting, so the list was considerable. But the most suitable were also the farthest away.
“Can I help you?” Liam stood and brushed off his jeans; a crowbar was three steps away. Where had they come from? Liam hadn’t heard a car or motorcycle outside, and the house was a mile and a half outside of town.
“Ja, you can.” The stout man stopped at the threshold of the garage. His steel-grey eyes flicked from Liam to the workbench and back. He held his hands out, palms down. The hands were larger than his and weren’t strangers to hard work and possibly violence. “And there’s no need to be unhospitable; we come as friends. My name is Einar, and you’ve already met Pixel.”
“Hi, Liam.” Pixel was as bubbly as yesterday. While she didn’t seem to be making the same connection as Einar regarding the workbench, her eyes darted about the cluttered garage and the dim workshop behind it. “Wow, you have a lot of junk.”
“What’s this about?” Liam sidled a half step toward the workbench, regretting he hadn’t kept up on his martial arts. He had three brown belts, a year of kendo, and some miscellaneous weapons training scattered over two decades but not much experience in the way of real fighting. He could probably hold his own in a brawl as long as his opponent didn’t have serious skills. He suspected Einar was more than a Friday night brawler in the local watering hole. “Is she your daughter?”
Einar turned to the purple-haired girl, his caterpillar-like eyebrows gathering. “What did you do?”
“What? I only asked him a few questions and checked him out,” Pixel protested, her hands going to her hips as she squared off with Einar. “It’s not as if I tried to jump his bones right there in the store or something.”
“Look mister, if you think something untoward happened between me and your daughter –” Liam began.
“She’s not my pocking daughter, and I don’t give a troll’s ass if you diddled her,” Einar interrupted, his accent thickening with his agitation. He took a deep breath, his barrel chest heaving. “Now, will you hear me out without you trying to brain me with that tire iron you’ve been eyeing?”
“You said diddle.” Pixel giggled.
“Can you be serious for five minutes, you pocking faerie?” Einar glowered, his leather jacket creaking as he crossed his arms.
“Remember ‘dwarf,’ you’re here as an ‘advisor.’” Pixel included air quotes with the last word, her eyes turning magenta. “The Nine Realms are only involved out of politeness.”
“Politeness! If you pocking Tuatha and Tylwyth Teg hadn’t folded up when the Milesians came at you, maybe we wouldn’t be here to begin with!” Spittle accompanied Einar’s protest. “Tylwyth? More like Toothless!”
“Like your jarls didn’t roll over and show their bellies when the Avramites showed up with their One God and their gold!” Pixel rose up on her toes. “Your people took their god and took their gold and then attacked our ancestral lands!”
“Guys!” Liam had stepped over to the workbench but hadn’t picked up the crowbar. “Are you playing one of those live-action role playing games or something? Because if you are, I’m calling my garage out of bounds. Take your LARP somewhere else.”
“We’ve come a long way to speak to you,” Einar replied, looking away from Pixel. “I’m from Asgard.”
“Asgard? You mean like Thor and Odin? What kind of game are you playing?” Liam hadn’t moved from the workbench, but he’d mapped in his mind the steps he’d need to take to reach a stout pole which would serve as a staff while he back-pedaled to his workshop, where a half-dozen half-finished sword prototypes rested. From where he stood, though, he didn’t feel as threatened. He knew a bit about gamers because there were a fair number of them among the pagan community, and he’d absorbed bits and pieces of it. Maybe someone had pointed Liam out to Pixel as research about druids for one of these games—an over-enthusiastic player who wanted to more convincingly roleplay one.
“Gods I hate those pocking things,” Einar grumbled, rubbing his forehead while Pixel stifled another giggle. “Look, can we sit down and talk to you? This is much more serious than some pocking games you folk play with your costumes and your toy weapons.”
“This isn’t a game, and we aren’t hippies with New Age books and a need for self-validation.” Pixel added. Her eyes had faded to a lavender color. “Liam, we need your help.”
* * * * *
Get “A Reluctant Druid” at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07716V2RN.
Find out more about Jon R. Osborne and “A Reluctant Druid” at:
https://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/jon-r-osborne/
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The Watchers in Exile Page 31
