“All right, Hal, what else does she smell like?”
“I’ve told you all I know, Atticus. You can shift to a hound and smell her yourself if you want.” He placed his hands flat on the table and drummed his fingers, deliberately trying to goad me.
“Thanks, but I’m going to find out the old-fashioned way. She’s going to tell me what’s going on-after I’m through with you.”
“Ah. Is that my cue to leave, then?”
“Almost. This might take a while, so I want you to take Oberon with you to the widow MacDonagh’s house.”
Hal winced and Oberon whined.
‹Do I have to?›
“Must I really?”
“Yes,” I said to both of them.
They left a bit disgruntled but quietly enough, leaving me to settle up with the waitress. She looked at the plates of bangers and mash, which looked like they had been licked disturbingly clean, and then at the plates of fish and chips, which had a few scraps of detritus and slaw on them as normal plates would-and then glanced at me uncertainly, knowing that something was very wrong but unable to imagine a satisfactory explanation.
I really enjoy moments like that. Thinking it would be amusing to create another, I dispelled Oberon’s camouflage so that the sudden appearance of a huge dog would be sure to startle someone on Mill Avenue, and if that someone was Hal, so much the better.
The fine bar at Rula Bula had a few more stools available as the slightly sauced lunch crowd returned to their jobs, and Granuaile had nothing to do but polish glasses when I sat down in front of her. Head slightly bowed, her green eyes locked on to mine as she seductively licked her upper lip, a coy smile playing at the edges of her mouth. Refusing to be toyed with, I looked up at the high shelves full of whiskey and knickknacks as if she were doing nothing more interesting than predicting another day of dry heat, and she chuckled at me.
“What’ll it be, Atticus?” she said, placing a napkin in front of me.
“A name, I believe, was where we left off.”
“You’re going to need a drink first.”
“Tullamore Dew, then, on the rocks.”
“You got it. But you’re going to have to be patient. I’m going to tell this my way.”
“Your way? No one else’s? Like, no one else in your head?”
“That’s right. My way,” she said, pouring me a generous shot over ice. She placed it squarely in front of me, then folded her arms under her bosom and leaned against the bar, her face only a foot away from mine. Perfect skin, a slight tilt to the end of her nose, strawberry gloss on her lips. It was difficult not to think about kissing her, especially as she pursed her lips for a moment before saying, “So. You’re a Druid.”
“If you say so. What are you?”
“I am a vessel,” she replied, and then her eyes grew round. “Or maybe you should think of me as a Vessel with a capital V. That would be more impressive, more mysterious and Scooby-Doo, you know?”
“Okay. A vessel for what, or for whom?”
“For a very nice lady from southern India. Her name is Laksha Kulasekaran. You should not be alarmed at all by the fact that she’s a witch.”
Chapter 19
Gods Below, I hate witches.
Since one of them was probably listening to me through Granuaile’s ears, however, I thought it more discreet to keep that observation to myself. But doubt would be permissible to express where outright disdain would not. I gave her my best Harrison Ford half grin o’ cynicism, worn by every character from Deckard to Han Solo to Indiana Jones, and picked up my glass. “A nice lady, huh?”
“Very nice.” Granuaile nodded slowly, ignoring my look of disbelief.
I took a luxurious sip from the glass and waited for her to continue, but apparently the ball was in my court. If doing things her way meant I had to ask more questions, so be it. “And how long has this nice lady had a timeshare in your noggin?”
“Since shortly after you came back from that trip to Mendocino.”
“What?” Even though I had just taken a sip of fire water, I suddenly felt cold.
“You remember. You turned into a sea otter and removed a pretty golden necklace set with rubies from the hand of a skeleton that was-what?-only fifty feet below the surface and a couple of feet beneath the sand?”
Chills and thrills at the Irish pub. “How do you know about that?”
“How do you think? Laksha told me.”
“Right, but how does she know?”
“She was originally the owner of that skeleton, but that particular mortal coil failed her in 1850. Since then, and up until recently, she resided in the largest ruby of that necklace.”
I decided to save all my questions about turning rubies into soul catchers for later. “Then what happened?”
“Well, you can probably figure it out from there. Once you got the necklace, what did you do with it?”
“I gave it to a witch named Radomila-”
“Who is not as friendly as she likes to pretend and happens to live upstairs from me in a very stylish urban condo-”
“And she promptly exorcised Laksha from the necklace-”
“And that’s how I got a roommate in my skull!” Granuaile pushed back from the bar and clapped manically for me as if I had just finished playing Rhapsody in Blue in a third-grade talent show.
“Well, okay, I understand now, but I think we skipped a few of the details.” I downed the rest of my whiskey, and when I put the glass down, Granuaile was there with the bottle, ready to refill it.
“You’re going to need a double,” she said, pouring more than was probably advisable. “Nurse that for a bit while I get some work done.” Then she slid out of my vision to attend to her few remaining customers.
I had plenty of thoughts to nurse along with the whiskey. Indian witches, in my limited experience, were capable of some really dark hoodoo, and any witch capable of jumping out of one body into a gemstone and then into another body after 160 years or so had some serious magical muscle. My main question was how I could get the witch out of Granuaile’s head safely-and who else would have to suffer to make it happen.
The witch obviously wanted my help with something, and I could only assume that she wanted a new body to inhabit. But I didn’t have any of those currently in stock, and bodies were one of the few things you couldn’t buy (yet) on Amazon.
Whatever this Indian witch wanted from me, I knew it would mean quite a bit of trouble, and it didn’t escape me that I owed the lot of it to Radomila, along with so many other recent woes. A confrontation with her-and, by extension, her entire coven-might soon be unavoidable. On this gloomy note, Granuaile returned.
“Right about now I bet you’re wondering what Laksha wants,” she said lightly.
“That thought had indeed crossed my mind.”
“But what you should be wondering is what your favorite bartender wants.”
“Is that so?” I grinned.
She nodded. “It is. You see, I kind of like having Laksha in my head. She’s been teaching me all kinds of stuff.”
“Such as?”
“Such as, all the monsters are real-the vampires and the ghouls and even the chupacabra.”
“Really? How about Sasquatch?”
“She doesn’t know about that one; it’s too modern. But all the gods are real, and for some reason almost everyone who knows him thinks that Thor is a giant dick. But the most interesting thing she’s told me so far is that there’s still one honest-to-goodness Druid walking around after all the rest have died, and I’ve served him a whole lot of dark beer, bottles and bottles of whiskey, and occasionally flirted with him shamelessly.”
