staff, and tossed her tunic and pants toward Ogma. They became visible as soon as they left her hand. There was much laughter at Ogma’s disappointed face. I saw that this could not have turned out any better; though Ogma had technically won, Granuaile had lost nothing and had, in a sense, outmaneuvered him. And no one would patronize her after this.
A familiar faery in Brighid’s livery appeared in the doorway to the shop and cleared his throat pompously. Recognizing the herald, everyone stopped and stared at him. His voice, like a foghorn, projected certain doom.
“All of the Tuatha Dé Danann are called to the Court immediately to hear a message from the Olympians.”
Luchta frowned at the herald. “From the Greeks or the Romans?”
“From both. Hermes and Mercury have come together to deliver the message.”
Granuaile tilted her head toward me and whispered, “How did they get here?”
“As messengers of the gods, they have the ability to walk the planes like we do,” I explained. “Just not in the same way.”
“Any idea what they’re on about?” Goibhniu asked the herald.
The faery coughed softly into his fist and paused, as if considering his answer deeply. “While I cannot say for sure, my speculation would be that it has something to do with the Iron Druid.”
Several heads started to turn in our direction, but they caught themselves and none spoke a word about our silent, invisible presence.
“We’d best go, then,” Ogma said. Everyone nodded and murmured agreement and began to file out of the shop. Granuaile and I followed; we asked Oberon to wait for us in the workshop. I gave her my tunic so that she’d be covered up in case we were forced to show ourselves, but I fully intended to behave like the proverbial fly on the wall—the one that always gets away and never gets swatted.
When we got to the great wide meadow of the Fae Court, Granuaile found it interesting that there were far fewer Fae assembled to witness the audience of the Olympians. There were hardly any, in fact, aside from the assembled lords, and even they were not fully in attendance. All the Tuatha Dé Danann appeared, however, shifting themselves on short notice to the Court on Brighid’s command.
The Olympian messenger gods floated three feet above the ground, perhaps ten yards from the small hillock on which sat Brighid’s throne. She was dressed far more formally for this occasion, draped in flat silken panels of royal and powder blue. She affected boredom as she waited for the Tuatha Dé Danann to assemble. When all seats had been filled, she turned her head to the gods in a dilatory manner and said, “All are present. You may proceed, sirs.”
There are teachers out there who like to tell their students that the only difference between the Greek and the Roman gods is their names. This is patently untrue. Apart from the wings on their ankles, Hermes and Mercury have very little in common—and the same is true of every Olympian pair. The Greeks and Romans were different people, after all, and imagined their gods differently.
Hermes lacked body fat to a rather indiscreet degree, and I desperately wanted to lob a cheeseburger in his general direction to see if he’d let it fall. There were ribs and veins showing, and some of the veins also appeared to have whipcord muscles of their own. His eyes were red-rimmed, haunted, and supported by baggage that wouldn’t fit easily in the overhead bin, but they were fixed professionally on Brighid’s defenses, unless I missed my guess. If the shit went down, Hermes would be ready. His hands were large, with square-cut, chunky fingers, like those in Frank Miller sketches, and his bare feet were also oversize. He had the skin tone of a mime and spoke like one too —that is, he let Mercury do all the talking. He held his caduceus in his right hand as if ready to brain someone with it.
Mercury looked as if he’d just been shat out of a Milanese day spa. In modern popular imagination, his was the silhouette that delivered flowers quickly to your loved ones. Bronzed skin and whitened teeth made me suspect abnormally high levels of asshattery. His feet were sandaled, and he steepled his fingers together in front of his stomach before he spoke.
“The gods Pan and Faunus and the goddesses Artemis and Diana demand the immediate return of the dryads kidnapped from the slopes of Mount Olympus.”
Holy shit. I’d thought that Brighid’s herald was pompous, but Mercury was schooling him on that with every word. Oil and contempt practically dripped from his lips.
“If they are harmed,” Mercury continued, “the life of the Druid Siodhachan Ó Suileabháin is forfeit, and blood price will be required of the Tuatha Dé Danann for not controlling him. His life may be forfeit anyway,” he added, “because the god Bacchus has sworn to slay him.”
“Your gods and goddesses address their suit to the wrong party,” Brighid replied, “for we are not the Druid of whom you speak. Nor do we have any control over him. He is not our subject and we cannot be held responsible for his actions.” She turned to her assembled kin. “Do any of you have any knowledge whatsoever about these kidnapped dryads?”
She let the silence linger for the space of ten heartbeats, then regarded the Olympians again. “There is your answer.”
“We hear you and will deliver your message even so to Olympus.”
“Before you go, a question,” Brighid said. “In case I am able to contact the Druid, is there any guarantee of his safe conduct if he returns the dryads?”
The Olympians exchanged a glance, and Hermes gave Mercury the barest of nods.
“He will be safe from all save Bacchus if he returns the dryads within the night,” Mercury said.
Hermes finally chose to speak after all. His voice was a melodic aria struggling to break free of base speech, as if someone had shoved a wee creative genius into a gray suit and a grayer cubicle and told him to just fucking
Well, that was it for me. I wanted to return the dryads immediately. So did Granuaile.
“Atticus, let’s go,” she whispered.
“Yeah, let’s.”
We turned our backs on the Court as Brighid exchanged farewells with the Olympian messengers. We had a mission.
“The faster we do this, the better off we’ll be,” I said to Granuaile once we were out of earshot. “While all the Olympians wait around for Hermes and Mercury to talk things over and send messages back and forth, we’ll get this done.”
“I’m all for it,” Granuaile said, “but I’d like a fresh set of clothes first.”
“Oh. Right.”
We returned first to the workshop to pick up Oberon, then we shifted to a safe house of sorts in the Uncompahgre Wilderness in southwestern Colorado. It was a cabin located near the old Camp Bird Mine, some ten miles west of Ouray, and I had bought it under an alias six years ago to conduct some business with Odin. Surrounded by a forest tethered to Tír na nÓg, it was an ideal rendezvous point and a place to store changes of clothes for times like these. It was also out of Coyote’s territory and a safe place for Oberon to spend some time by himself if necessary, since it was equipped with a large doggie door and plenty of food and water— not to mention squirrels and deer galore.
Granuaile and I changed clothes quickly and told Oberon he’d be on his own for a while.
<How long?>
“Hopefully only a few hours. Less than three months. You are terrible with time anyway. Now, listen, you are absolutely forbidden to go into any mine shafts around here. They’re off limits, you understand? If a squirrel runs inside, you count him dead; you don’t go after him. And you don’t get to pretend that they are Batcaves either. You can’t save Gotham from here.”
<Okay. I remember the rules.>
“Have fun hunting, buddy.” I petted him and he wagged his tail. Granuaile finished strapping on a replacement set of throwing knives and kissed his head.
“I hope we’ll get to go hunting with you soon,” she said.
<Yeah! Maybe we’ll try for caribou. There are fewer pungent aromas in the tundra.>
