“How cute,” I said. “You have a fanboy.”
“Minion.”
“A matter of nuance. Why not simply cloak yourself in darkness as I’ve seen you do before?”
“We are to arrive without bindings or wards of any kind. No magic is allowed.”
“What? That’s insane! First no sword, and now no magic?”
“They are bound by the same rules. Make sure you follow them.”
“Forgive me, Morrigan, but these Norse gods, whoever they are, might not feel as bound by the rules as you do.”
“This is a formal summit of deities. They would not dare to cross me. Nor will we cross them.”
Padraig returned before I could register any further objections. He held a black evening dress made of silk and lace in his left hand and a tuxedo in his right. He sort of threw the tuxedo at me and then grandly presented the gown to the Morrigan. His eyes drank in her body, and his breathing was already labored. The Morrigan surely noticed this but made no comment.
Since I was certain she wasn’t carrying any cash on her, I didn’t particularly want to see what form of payment Padraig was expecting for these rather expensive clothes. I began to dress as quickly as possible, hoping that I’d be able to exit and wait outside before I had to bear witness to something tragic.
Unfortunately, the dress was a much simpler affair to don than a tuxedo. It slipped over her head, and with a couple of tugs here and a zip there she was ready. The dress was stunning; the black silk was a flat matte in some places but shone with highlights elsewhere. A curling vine pattern of lace interrupted the silk and hugged her curves, allowing her porcelain skin to show through. Starting over her left breast, the lace curved between them and then underneath, tracing its way in a spiral around her torso until it reappeared above her right hip, where it fell in a serpentine wave down the front of her thigh. The dress ended just above the knees.
“You didn’t forget my shoes, did you, Padraig?” the Morrigan said.
A brief flash of panic crossed Padraig’s face as he realized he may have committed an unpardonable sin. “No, no!” he said, hands up in a placating gesture. “I simply couldn’t carry them along with the dress and tux. I’ll go get them and be right back.”
He bolted through the curtain again.
I cocked an eyebrow at the Morrigan. “Do I get shoes too?”
“He might forget,” she replied. “How shall we punish him?”
“Let’s not and pretend we did,” I said. “Let’s leave the poor man alone.”
“That would be unkind, Siodhachan,” she said. “He prayed so fervently for my favor. He’s fully aware that there will be a price for it.”
“What if he’s unable to pay?”
“Oh, they are always able to pay. Was it Shakespeare’s Shylock who was so eager to extract a pound of flesh? I’m like him. I’m happy to carve off a pound. Or two. I never seem to have a scale handy when it’s time to take what’s due.”
Padraig returned with a pair of black shoes for me and some sandals for the Morrigan-the type with lots of leather straps on them to wind around the calves. I dragged a chair over from a desk piled high with receipts and invoices. I parked myself on the chair and squeezed my feet into the shoes. I’d rather have remained barefoot, since anything I wore on my feet would cut me off from the earth, but the Morrigan seemed to have arranged matters so that I would be at my greatest disadvantage when I met whomever we were meeting. My bear charm was just below full, since I’d charged up in the forest before we took wing and only used a little bit of it to transform back to human in the city. It felt good to have something available even though the Morrigan kept insisting I wouldn’t need it. That was simply too trusting of her-yet more unusual behavior.
I didn’t understand what was going on with her. On the one hand, she had nearly wept at the idea of going to see a baseball game with me. Now she spoke of carving pounds of flesh from a man who’d been praying to her. It was like she had swerved toward kindness and sanity for a moment, but now she was overcorrecting and trying to be extra-special savage. I feared what she would do to Padraig; I wanted to tell him to run for his life, because this was the Morrigan that gives Irishmen nightmares. Sandal straps twined sinuously around her calves, she addressed Padraig in a silky tone, if the silk was draped over a knife blade.
“Everything appears to be in order, Padraig. You have done well. Are you ready for your payment?”
“Oh, yes, I’m ready, very ready,” he said.
The corners of the Morrigan’s mouth twitched upward in idle amusement. “Take off your shirt, Padraig,” she said in a husky whisper, and suddenly I felt warm as she began to employ her seductive powers on the poor lad. I’ve always thought them more powerful than those of succubi, but she hadn’t needed to use them on me back at her lair-o-bones because the fertility bindings accomplished the same thing. I was partially protected from her wonted powers of seduction by my cold iron amulet, and in this case they weren’t even directed at me, but Padraig was utterly helpless. He was practically panting as he tore at his shirt and wrestled himself out of it.
“Yes, Morrigan!” he cried. “Oh, goddess!” The front of his trousers twitched and strained as if one of Ridley Scott’s alien babies were trying to erupt from it. The Morrigan placed her hand flat on his chest, just underneath his right collarbone, and he shuddered at her touch. Then her fingernails turned long and black, almost into talons, and she dug into his chest with them and began to slowly rake across and down to his left. Padraig cried out, and both his hands clutched at the Morrigan’s wrist-not to pull her hand away but rather to force it deeper. Blood welled underneath her nails and began to run down his ribs and belly; Padraig moaned and wailed and his hips began to buck uncontrollably as she tore at his chest.
I wondered if he had any customers in the front of the store. Tailor shops are not usually so fraught with pain and ecstasy.
Padraig screamed when the Morrigan’s nails sheared off his left nipple. She pulled her hand away then; Padraig let go of her wrist and fell to the floor, jerking and trembling.
“We can go now,” she said, stepping over Padraig’s twitching body and through the black curtain, leaving me alone with a man having a bloody epic orgasm on the floor.
I wanted to kneel and heal up his chest but suspected that the Morrigan would object in violent fashion. I didn’t know what to do. “Well, thanks! Um. Have a nice day!” I finally said, and followed after the Morrigan. Once through the curtain, I saw that the shop was empty and the Morrigan was heading for the front door. “Aren’t you going to help him?” I said. I had to raise my voice to be heard over the noise Padraig was making.
She stopped and turned, perplexed by my question. “I just did, Siodhachan.”
“He’s losing a lot of blood and he sounds like he’s in pain.”
“Yes, but he’s also in pleasure. He’ll live. And, besides, he asked for it.”
“He asked to be mutilated and-whatever else that is?”
“He will ejaculate for five more minutes and then pass out.”
I blanched. “Is that even possible?”
“Yes. When he wakes, he will experience the most intense period of creativity he’s ever known. His designs will make him one of the most sought-after tailors in all Europe.”
“Oh. So that’s what he asked for?”
“Yes. I’m not a goddess of craft, like Brighid, but I do what I can.”
“He didn’t ask to lose a nipple and be permanently scarred, did he?”
“People who court my favor know what kind of goddess I am,” she replied. “And there are still plenty of people willing to make Faustian bargains. They tend to focus on the results rather than the costs to achieve them.”
She turned away, signaling an end to the conversation, and I sighed in defeat. I hoped Padraig would think it was worth it in the end.
We exited the shop, closing the door on the tailor’s rapture and ruin, then hailed a cab. The Morrigan told the driver to drop us off at the corner of Kirkegata and Radhusgata.
There’s a seventeenth-century building at that location that currently houses one of the finest gourmet restaurants anywhere. It’s the sort of place where you have to dress up to walk through the door and even the toothpicks are posh. Dinners are served in four to six courses, and there’s not only a professional waiter but a professional sommelier at your elbow.
At some point the building had been painted a belligerent shade of mauve-it was mauve, damn it, and proud. It was a generous two stories tall, with frequent narrow white-framed windows blessedly interrupting the Great
