Fragarach to enforce his will, and Aenghus Og’s dreams of some kind of Pax Ireland were ruined. Even though Conn won that battle and slew Mogh Nuadhat, he had to settle for a patchwork of truces and marriages to keep the illusion of peace, and it all fell apart after his death. The Morrigan has used my name to goad Aenghus Og ever since, not that he needed it. After I bore witness to his cowering before her, there was nothing he wished more than to erase his humiliation by erasing me.”
“How long since you have wielded Fragarach?”
“I will not say.” The goddess’s face fell a bit, clearly disappointed that her gambit had failed, and I grinned. “But if you are wondering if I have kept up with my swordsmanship, the answer is yes.”
“Oh? And with whom do you spar out here? I would imagine that there are few mortals alive who are truly skilled with a blade anymore.”
“You imagine correctly. I spar with Leif Helgarson, an old Icelandic Viking.”
“You mean he can trace his lineage back to the Vikings?”
“No, I mean he really is a Viking. Came to this continent with Eric the Red.”
The brow of the goddess knitted in confusion. There were a few extremely long-lived mortals like me running around, but she thought she knew them all. I could tell she was reviewing them in her head, and when she failed to recall any Vikings, she said, “How is this possible? Has he made some sort of bargain with the Valkyries?”
“No, he’s a vampire.”
Flidais hissed and leapt out of bed, landing in a defensive fighting posture as if I was going to attack her. I very carefully did not move except to turn my head a little bit and admire her perfectly sculpted form. The last rays of the day’s sun were filtering through the blinds, leaving soft striped shadows on her lightly tanned legs.
“You dare consort with the undead?” she spat.
I really hate that word, even though I occasionally catch myself using it. Ever since Romeo and Juliet, I am of Mercutio’s mind when he takes issue with Tybalt’s suggestion that he consorts with Romeo. To mask my irritation, I grinned and tried to affect an Elizabethan accent. “Zounds, consort? Wouldst thou make me a minstrel?”
“I speak not of minstrels,” she scowled. “I speak of evil.”
Oh well. Not a fan of the Bard, then. “Your pardon, Flidais. I was alluding to an old play by Master Shakespeare, but I can see you are in no mood for light banter. I would not say that I consort with the undead, for that would imply a relationship beyond what is minimally necessary for business. I merely employ Mr. Helgarson. He’s my attorney.”
“You are telling me that your lawyer is a bloodsucking vampire?”
“Yes. He is an associate at the firm of Magnusson and Hauk. Hauk is also my attorney; he’s also Icelandic, but he is a werewolf and takes care of clients during the day, and Helgarson obviously does his business after sunset.”
“Associating with a member of the Pack I can understand, and even approve. But frolicking with the undead, that is tabu.”
“And a wiser tabu has never been enforced by any culture. But I have never frolicked with him and have no plans to do so. Leif is not the frolicking type. I merely use his legal services and occasionally spar with him because he is the finest swordsman available in the area-and the fastest as well.”
“Why does the pack member work with the vampire? He should have killed the foul creature on sight.”
I shrugged. “We are not in the Old World anymore. This is a new age and a new place, and they both happen to have a common enemy.”
Flidais cocked her head sideways and waited for me to name said enemy.
“And that would be Thor, the Norse god of thunder.”
“Oh.” Flidais relaxed somewhat. “I can understand that, then. He could make a salamander team up with a siren. What did he do to them?”
“Helgarson won’t tell me, but it must have been bad. His fangs pop out if you just say ‘Thor’ aloud, and he hunts carpenters simply because they use hammers. As far as Magnusson and Hauk go, Thor killed some of their pack members ten or so years ago.”
“This Magnusson is a werewolf too?”
“Aye, he’s the alpha. Hauk is his second.”
“Did Thor have cause to attack them?”
“Hauk says they were on holiday in the old forests of Norway and it was nothing more than a capricious whim on Thor’s part. Eight precisely aimed lightning strikes out of a sky that had been clear moments before. Couldn’t possibly have been a freak occurrence.” Silver isn’t the only thing that can kill werewolves: Humans simply don’t have access to weapons like bolts of lightning, which fry critters before they can heal.
Flidais was silent for a time and regarded me intensely.
“This desert seems to attract an unusual collection of beings.”
I merely shrugged again and said, “It is a good place to hide. No easy access from the Fae planes, as you know. No gods stomping about, besides Coyote and the occasional visitor like yourself.”
“Who is Coyote?”
“He’s a trickster god of the natives. There are several versions of him running around all over the continent. He’s a nice lad; just don’t make any wagers with him.”
“Isn’t the Christian god prominent here?”
“The Christians have such muddled ideas of him that he usually can’t take shape beyond the crucifix form, and that isn’t much fun, so he rarely bothers. Mary will appear more often, though, and she can do some pretty awesome stuff if she feels like it. Mostly she sits around looking beatific and full of grace. Keeps calling me ‘child,’ even though I’m older than she is.”
Flidais smiled and crawled back into bed with me, vampires forgotten. “When were you born, Druid? You were already old for a mortal when first I met you.”
“I was born in the time of King Conaire Mor, who reigned for seventy years. I was nearly two hundred when I stole Fragarach.”
She threw a leg across my body and then sat up so that she knelt astride me. “Aenghus Og thinks Fragarach is rightfully his.” Her fingers began to trace curling patterns on my chest, and I stopped her by covering her hand with mine, with seeming affection. It wouldn’t do to have her put a binding on me. Not that I thought she would; it was merely my customary paranoia.
“The people here,” I said, “have a saying: Possession is nine-tenths of the law. And I have possessed it for far longer than any other being, including Manannan Mac Lir.”
“Aenghus Og cares nothing for mortal sayings. He thinks you have stolen his birthright, and that is all that matters to him.”
“His birthright? Manannan is his cousin, not his father. It’s not like I stole his personal family heirloom. Besides, if it truly mattered to him, then he would have come to get it himself by now.”
“You have not stayed long enough in one place to make it practicable.”
I looked at her with raised eyebrows. “Is that all it takes to finally make this end? Just stay still?”
“I would think so. He will send surrogates after you first, but if you defeat them, he will eventually have no option but to come after you himself. He would be pronounced a coward otherwise and banished from Tir na nOg.”
“I will stay still, then,” I said, and smiled up at her. “But you can move if you like. May I suggest a gentle rocking motion?”
Chapter 6
Located just north of the Phoenix Zoo, Papago Park is an odd formation of isolated hills surrounded by teddy bear cholla, creosote, and saguaro. The hills are steep red rock and riddled with holes, fifteen-million-year-old remnants of ancient mudflows that petrified and eroded over the ages. Now the hills are playgrounds for children in one part of the park, a challenging day climb in some others, and, in a fenced-off area on zoo property, home to a score of bighorn sheep. These last can be viewed-occasionally, if they deign to show themselves-from a part of the zoo called the Arizona Trail. But even then the viewers may be forced to use binoculars to see them well, because it
