Three Slices Read online

  “Yes.”

  “He won’t be eating my breakfast or peeing on it, will he?”

  “No. He’s very well-behaved.”

 

  I’m sure there are wild dogs about. Not sure if they’re that wild, though.

  “Well, come on in and sit down, then,” Mekera said, pulling open the steel door and audibly releasing a puff of coffee-scented air from inside.

 

  Yes. She’s the reason I found you when I did.

 

  We followed her down a stairway into the main living area, which was comprised of a stone table and four wooden chairs I had bound together myself, and which led to the kitchen that I had expanded in the nineties to include modern appliances. She still had a stock of candles, I saw, but had switched to lamps with high-efficiency bulbs for the majority of her illumination.

  “You were expecting me?” I asked, washing mud off my hands and arms in her sink while she poured coffee. We both took it black.

  “Yes,” she said, and then took the mugs over to her table and waited for me there while I dried off with a kitchen towel. We took appreciative first sips before she continued. “I didn’t see you in a divination, though—it was just a logical probability based on past events. Did you catch the thrall outside?”

  I frowned at her. “No. What thrall?”

  “The vampire thrall. He’s been stalking me despite my strict no-stalking policy. Watches me during the day. Watches my door, anyway. Probably saw you come in here.”

  “No, I didn’t see him,” I said, cursing myself for not being more cautious in my approach. “But I think we got the vampire before dawn—that’s why we’re muddy.”

  An eyebrow rose on Mekera’s face to indicate mild surprise. “You got the vampire? Well, it won’t matter. The thrall will call you in and we’ll have a whole bunch more vampires here before the night is through. Probably just saw my last sunrise. It’s no wonder I couldn’t see what was going to happen today with you around. That amulet of yours messes everything up.”

  “I know. That’s partly why I’m here. I don’t trust my own divination anymore. I was never terribly good at it to begin with.”

  Mekera pointed with a finger at the base of my throat. “It’s that cold iron. Don’t you ever take it off?”

  “I can, but then I have to forgo its protection. Risky business for me these days. And since I’d like to know about my own future and I’ll certainly be wearing it in the future—”

  “You can’t rely on what you see while you don’t have it on,” Mekera finished.

  “Right.”

  “You came a long way to get your fortune told, my friend. All the soothsayers on the other side of the planet too busy?”

  I’d been listening to the Morrigan most recently, but she was gone, and the situation amongst the Tuatha Dé Danann right now was less than optimal. “I don’t trust them.”

  “Huh. Meaning you trust me? You shouldn’t.”

  “Why not? That tip you gave me in the sixteenth century regarding coffee as the next big commodity was spot-on.” I jabbed a finger at my mug. “This made me the bulk of my fortune. I was the world’s quietest coffee baron.”

  Mekera grunted. “That so? And what happened to all that fortune?”

  “It’s a long story, but a man named Werner Drasche got access to my accounts and liquidated them. The money’s all gone.”

  “Don’t have to tell me the story. I already know it. I’m the one who told him to go after Kodiak Black if he wanted to get to you.” I flinched and a cold feeling collected in the pit of my stomach.

  Kodiak Black and I had enjoyed a very long friendship. He was one of my oldest friends, in fact; I met him before most of the Old World had heard there was a New World. He spent summers as an enormous bear and the rest of the year as a human, what he called his hibernation. When the continent began filling up with people who weren’t so careful or considerate of nature, I did what I could to make sure the salmon runs he adored in Alaska remained open and unpolluted, and he looked after the majority of my finances as that became a project worthy of a custodian. He got killed for managing my money, though, and in a way that made me shudder for his spirit. I had serious doubts that his spirit existed anymore, for the very life had been drained out of him by Werner Drasche, the arcane lifeleech.

  “Told you,” Mekera said, “I’m not to be trusted.”

  “You betrayed me?”

  That earned me a sneer. “I was never loyal to you in the first place. But hell yes.”

  “Why? What did I do?”

  “Not a damn thing, Siodhachan. Look, it’s not like I was out to get you. That crazy ascot-wearing fool was going to kill me. Came here with his own private nest of vampires and all of them looked at me like I was a snack. They were watching—listening—and they would have known if I was lying. I had to do it out of self-preservation. Did he kill Kodiak?”

  “Yes.”

  She dropped her head and said in a low voice, “I’m very sorry to hear that. He didn’t need to go that far.”

  I let that obvious statement pass without comment. “Why’d he let you live after you helped him? That doesn’t sound like Drasche’s style.”

  Mekera looked up. “He thought you might come looking for me afterward, and then he’d have you. And look!” Her eyes widened in mock surprise and she spread her hands like a game show hostess. “Here you are!”

  I flicked a nervous glance toward the entrance. “Drasche’s out there now?”

  “Nah, but you can bet he will be soon enough.”

  “We can be long gone before then.”

  “You and the hound? I know. Doesn’t help me.”

  “I was including you. You can come with us.”

  “But I like it here. Got my lab and my sky and no junk mail. Don’t want to move.”

  “Fine, stay here if you want. But what you did to me—what you did to Kodiak—you need to make it right.”

  Her eyes flashed and she stabbed a finger at me. “I didn’t do anything to you or Kodiak. That lifeleech threw down all the evil here. All I did was save my own ass and I don’t owe you anything for that. You want to talk about betrayal? Ask yourself how Drasche knew where to find me.”

  “I didn’t tell him.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting that. I’m saying somebody you know sent him after me.”

  “Who?” I said, already dreading the answer.

  “Leif Helgarson.”

  “Damn it.” I ground my teeth together, clenched my fists, and asked, “But how did he know you were here?”

  “He found me in ninety-five; don’t know precisely how. Told me he’d been seeking out the world’s best soothsayers to figure out where he could find the world’s last Druid.”

  “And he threatened you just like Drasche did, so you told him I’d most likely be in Arizona in the late nineties.”

  “Tempe, to be exact. Didn’t know if you’d actually show up or not. But he didn’t threaten me. He straight-up laid down a glamour and I spilled.”

  It was facepalm time for me, because I remembered Leif spinning a tale about meeting Flidais in the eighteenth century and waiting for me to arrive “in the desert” based on her advice. I swallowed it at the time because I was so intent on keeping a promise to him that I couldn’t accept that he was playing me. Now, though, I can see it for the bullshit that it was. Flidais wouldn’t have told him a thing—she’d have unbound him on general principle if she ever met him. But with Mekera’s information, he could go to Tempe, ingratiate himself with the werewolf pack there, and wait for me to show up and make courtesy contact with them.

  This meant that Drasche and Leif were still on speaking terms. Conspiring terms, even. I thought that I had managed
to set Drasche against Leif back in France, but apparently I hadn’t sown enough doubt. Or, more likely, Leif was simply better than I was at manipulating people. I wondered now if his ignorance of language was all feigned, a device he used to humanize himself. He would have taken issue with Mekera’s use of “straight-up laid down,” for example, and I would have felt superior in explaining it to him, when it was all part of his long con.

  “Why did he leave you alive?” I asked. “You could have warned me. You should have warned me when I came to fix up your place and you told me where to find Oberon.”

  “Told him the same thing I told you: I don’t owe you anything. I look out for myself. And he said he could appreciate that.”

  “I bet he did.”

  “And he also said he’d find me again if you didn’t show up by the millennium.”

  “Ah, there was the threat.”

  “But it just so happens,” she continued, her hand spreading out like a stop sign, “that my ass needs saving again and I probably can’t talk my way out of it this time. So, whatever you’re wanting me to divine for you, I’ll do it if you protect me from Werner Drasche and the vampires until you’ve killed them all. Because that’s what you’re aiming to do, right?”

  I stared at her in shocked disbelief. “I can’t believe you’re asking for a favor now when you’ve just admitted to selling me out twice.”

  “I’m not asking for a favor. I’m naming the price for my services, and my services are worth it. I helped you find your dog there and kept you away from that god you were running from, didn’t I?”

  “Aenghus Óg found me in Tempe,” I pointed out.

  “Only because you stayed too long.” She closed one eye and cocked a finger at me. “I told you ten years and you pushed it, didn’t you?” I sighed in defeat because I did stay there longer than I should have. “All right, then. I’ll tell you the future and you be my shield.”

  “I can agree with that in the abstract,” I said, “but I honestly can’t protect you here. Best I can do is take you somewhere they won’t be able to reach you until it’s all over, then bring you back.”

  She narrowed her eyes, wary of a trick. “This is someplace nice you’re talking about? Not a hole in a city somewhere?”

  “Oh, yes. It can be very nice. I can take you to a different plane if you want.”

  “Which plane?”

  I paused to consider where she’d be both safe and free from harassment. “How about Emhain Ablach, one of the Irish planes? It means the Isle of Apples. No vampires there. No lifeleeches, either. Not even junk mail.” And almost no faeries except for the seagoing kind. It was Manannan Mac Lir’s bailiwick and very few Fae visited it unless they had his permission. He wouldn’t mind having a special guest there for a while.

  “What about people? Or your Irish gods?”

  “No people. The god doesn’t visit often and I’ll make sure he’s okay with you staying there. You might see some selkies, but they won’t mess with you.”

  “That does sounds pleasant. All right, it’s a deal, if we live long enough to get the tyromancy done. You’re out for blood, so you need a blood cheese.”

  “Pardon me?”

  Oberon needed to weigh in at the mention of food.

  How do you know about kosher?

 

  “I mean I’m going to have to use rennet derived from an animal rather than what I normally use to curdle the milk,” Mekera said. “As a rule, I use rennet derived from mallow. So we’re going to have to go hunting.”

 

  I’ll explain as we go. I said to Mekera, “You don’t have any rennet available?”

  “Not the kind I need for the tyromancy you want. We should get a kid hartebeest. I have the milk already.”

 

  Yes. You need rennet specific to the milk; sheep’s rennet won’t work as well on cow’s milk, or vice versa.

 

  That’s the kind of mystery I’d prefer not to solve.

  “Okay,” I said, “if that’s what we need to do, let’s do it.”

  She finished her coffee, rose, and strapped on a belt with a large hunting knife that hung on a hook by the ladder to the exit. “I don’t need to bring my bow, do I? You’ll bring the animal down?”

  “Yeah, we’ll take care of it,” I said. “You know where to find them?”

  She snorted. “I’ve been living here since 1945, remember?”

  “Fair enough.” I frowned as she turned away, the length of that time span finally hitting me. That was a lifetime of living alone, and she still wasn’t sick of it—she wanted even more solitude.

  Mekera rummaged in a cupboard until she found a box of freezer bags, then she took one, folded it, and tucked it into her belt next to the knife scabbard. “The hartebeest are a few miles to the north,” she said. “We could walk it if you want, or if you’re in a hurry, you could give me a ride.” She smiled at me for the first time and I shook my head. She wanted me to change into a stag and let her ride on my back, but I thought she’d already taken me for a ride too many.

  “We’ll run as we are and I’ll feed you energy to keep your strength up,” I said.

  Her smile disappeared and she shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  The run to the north took an hour, even with me boosting our speed via bindings, but eventually we topped a knoll with knee-high grasses and looked down on plain full of grazing antelope. More than a hundred animals roamed there, and sentinels on the edges looked out for predators like us. There were a few kids, I noted, which is what we wanted.

  “There you are, boys,” Mekera said. “There will be hyenas around and vultures soon enough. Might even be a lion. As soon as you bring one down, you’ll have to guard the kill until I get there and harvest the stomach.”

  I slid my eyes sideways. “Now that you mention it, how are you going to get to it safely with all those hungry things looking around for something slow to eat?”

  Mekera’s eyes shifted to meet mine. “You’ll have the elemental make them look somewhere else, of course.”

 

  I suppose I will.

  I have never been a proponent of any kind of divination that demands blood—that’s why I use wands or augury—but sometimes magic demands that price, and weaker forms of divination wouldn’t serve me well now. At least in this case, nothing would be wasted; whatever we didn’t use would feed the food chain here.

  “Please hold on to my clothes,” I said, stripping down and folding them up. “I’ll tell the elemental to watch out for you. You can follow behind us as soon as we take off.”

  Mekera only nodded in response and wordlessly accepted my jeans and shirt before I bound my shape to that of a wolfhound. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving Fragarach behind when there might be a vampiric thrall about, so I took it into my mouth and told Oberon I’d flush one to him and he’d have to do the actual killing.

 

  I reminded him that this was going to be quite different from hunting a single deer or a small herd like we usually did, my mental voice slightly altered by my shift to a hound. I said,

 

 

 

 

  my hound said. />
 

  We sprinted away together through the tall grass, gray ridges of fur slicing across the top of the growth toward our prey.

  I’m reevaluating my weapons after that battle in Tír na nÓg against Fand and the Fae. At one point, I had grabbed an axe embedded in Atticus’s arm and tossed it at a goblin. It took him out instantly—no twitching, no last desperate swing at me—he was simply done. It’s gotten me thinking. Had I thrown an axe instead of a knife at Fand, we might have ended the whole battle before it truly started. But there had been good reasons, during my training, to stick with knives instead of heavier weapons. I could carry and throw far more of them than I could axes, and I also turned out to have good aim and simply preferred them. Atticus had me train with axes somewhat—he had me try almost everything at least once—but I set them aside in favor of knives because knives would allow me to draw, throw, and return quickly to a two-handed grip on my staff. I truly relished the smash-’n-poke action of Scáthmhaide, and I had thought that committing to anything larger than a knife would mean I had to forgo many of its advantages.

  But now I’m thinking differently: Why can’t I keep the knives and simply add an axe? For those times when you absolutely, positively have to bring a mofo down from a distance without a firearm, an axe designed in the tomahawk style—that is, a single-bladed hand axe ideal for throwing—would serve me much better than a knife, especially against armor; the force I could bring to bear behind an axe head was much greater than a knife’s point.

  Firearms would work too, of course, but I like being able walk around in public with my staff and have people think I’m a harmless if quirky personality instead of a potential mass murderer. Adding an axe wouldn’t be that strange; I live in the forest above Ouray and a hand axe would be endlessly useful. Everybody would think, “That’s for firewood” and not “That’s for skulls.”