“Yep.” I held my bow, and the quiver of arrows was strapped to my back. Oberon was all set up inside with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on DVD. I’d promised to get him the audiobook version later so that he could appreciate the trip from inside Chief Bromden’s head. “Did you remember to bring a bow?”
“Sure did. An’ I got me a squirt gun filled with holy water for laughs.”
“All right, then. Mind if I drive?”
Coyote laughed. “Sure, Mr. Druid. This is your rodeo. I can’t wait to see where you’re gonna find us some holy arrows.”
“Arrows are right here,” I said, jerking a thumb over my shoulder at my quiver. “They’re just not holy yet.”
Coyote laughed again. “You’re just gonna dip ’em in holy water, aren’tcha?”
“Maybe.” I grinned to hide my irritation. “Maybe not. Wait and see.”
Apache Boulevard wasn’t nearly as bad as Mos Eisley. After the light rail was built, developers began to reinvest in the area and relieve some of the urban blight. But there were still stretches of low-rent trailer parks and cheap stucco boxes that passed for shelter, unpaved driveways, and yards full of soiled mattresses and rusted car parts-visual cues in America that signify poverty and discord and a spiritual wasteland.
At a few minutes after ten in the morning, all the meth addicts were asleep and there was very little for Mary to do. The people walking around Apache Boulevard at that time all had someplace to go; they all had a shred of hope in their lives. Nevertheless, there was a small knot of people crowded around her when I saw a navy-blue dress and white headband between Martin Lane and River Drive. There were even a few stray dogs and some alley cats rubbing up against her legs, as if they were gentle domestics.
To double-check whether I was looking at a true manifestation of Mary, I activated a charm on my necklace that I call “faerie specs.” It’s a spell that shows me what’s going on in the magical and supernatural spectrum-if there’s anything more to look at than the normal collection of proteins, minerals, and water.
“Aggh!” I squeezed my eyes and turned off the specs immediately, jerking the wheel of the Ford a bit.
“What’s wrong, Mr. Druid?” Coyote asked.
I blinked and saw spots. “That’s definitely the Virgin. Bright white light.” I turned the Ford into the first driveway I saw and put it in park. It was the entrance to a decrepit trailer park, covered in gravel and broken glass. Nothing grew there but misery and despair, the people living there cut off from nature and walking the world unbound from it.
Coyote and I got out, and I retrieved my quiver of arrows from the cargo area. As we approached, Mary was blessing a large Latino man dressed like a tough guy-a vato loco would be the slang term. He wore a blue bandanna and dark sunglasses, even though it was completely overcast, and his gray flannel shirt was buttoned only at the top, leaving a white T-shirt to show underneath. Tears were streaming out from underneath the sunglasses.
“Your pardon, ma’am, but I wonder if you would mind blessing these arrows for us,” I said. “We’re off to fight a demon.”
She smiled and chuckled fondly as she addressed me. “Child,” she said-she always called me that, even though I was older than she was-“I came here with no other purpose in mind.”
“The widow MacDonagh wanted me to tell you she loves you,” I said.
“Ah, Katie.” The Virgin’s smile became even brighter. “She prays to me daily, you know. And recently she’s been asking to keep you safe. So you must remain safe, Mr. O’Sullivan, and return my love to her. She has a beautiful soul.”
“Yes, she does.”
“Let us see these arrows of yours.”
Being careful with the fletching, I slowly drew the arrows out of the quiver together and then handed the quiver to Coyote. I presented them to the Virgin across both my arms, so that the heads were pointed north, to her right.
She closed her eyes, laid her hands gently on the heads, and spoke a few lines from the Benediction in the Latin Mass: “O salutaris Hostia quae coeli pandis ostium. Bella premunt hostilia; da robur, fer auxilium.” The form of her blessing was rather unexpected. I was hoping for an original composition, but upon reflection I supposed it was an appropriate sentiment: Our foes press on from every side; thine aid supply, thine strength bestow. She held on to the arrows for about ten seconds after she finished speaking. I’m sure if I had dared to use my faerie specs, I’d have seen some really interesting magic being woven around them-a split second before the light of the Virgin burned out my eyeballs.
When she finished, she opened her eyes and released the slightest bit of tension that had built up in her shoulders. She smiled benignly upon me and then widened it to include Coyote.
“The last of the Druids and one of the First People of Native America are off to fight a fallen angel from the Fifth Circle.”
I’d been smiling back at Mary until I processed the end of her sentence. At that point I didn’t know if I’d ever smile again. “A fallen angel? One of the original host?”
Mary nodded. “Yes. It is twisted and blackened now, the light of heaven snuffed out long ago.”
“Hoo-ee, Mr. Druid. Sounds like powerful medicine to me,” Coyote said. He wasn’t kidding. Fallen angels weren’t ordinary demons. I wasn’t sure Cold Fire would even work against such a being, since they were condemned to spend eternity in hell rather than spawned there.
“And the Fifth Circle,” I said, “if I remember my Dante, is where the wrathful and the sullen are punished.”
“That’s correct, my child,” Mary affirmed.
“Gods Below, how did Aenghus Og manage to summon something that powerful?”
Mary beamed patiently at me, ignoring my invocation of a different pantheon. “I do not think he summoned it so much as provided an avenue for its escape. Still, the binding placed on it as a condition of its egress is still in effect, and that is the only thing keeping it in this area.”
“Meaning that it won’t leave the East Valley until I’m dead,” I said.
“Whoa, it sucks to be you, Mr. Druid.” Coyote chuckled and clapped me a couple of times on the shoulder. “Here, gimme those arrows.” He took them from my arms and placed them back in the quiver. “I’ll be waitin’ in the hot vehicle. This white lady’s a bit too shiny for me.”
“You have an interesting assortment of friends,” Mary observed as Coyote’s boots crunched away on the gravel. “A Native Amercian deity, a pack of lycanthropes, a vampire, and a coven of Zorya worshippers.”
“I wouldn’t call them all my friends,” I said. “More like acquaintances. Mrs. MacDonagh and my dog, Oberon, are my friends.”
“Then you have chosen your friends wisely,” Mary said kindly. “My work here is finished. Yours is just beginning, I fear. You will most likely need to pierce Basasael more than once before he is undone.”
“Basasael?”
“That is his name. He was mighty before he fell with Lucifer.”
“Christ,” I whispered without thinking.
“My son is confident of your victory,” Mary said.
“No kidding? Tell Jesus I said hi, and we should have a beer next time he’s in the neighborhood.”
“I will relay your greetings. Now go, child. You have my blessing upon you.”
“Peace be with you,” I said, and as I turned to resume my journey with Coyote, I added under my breath, “and asskicking be with me.”
Chapter 9
“I gotta admit, Mr. Druid, I didn’t think we’d be seein’ anythin’ like that. You kinda surprised me. How’d you know that shiny white lady’d be there?”
Coyote was dressed the same way as I had seen him the night before, except now he was wearing dark sunglasses. His expressions tended to run to either amused or inscrutable, and right now he was showing me the latter. Perhaps he mistrusted me. I shrugged my shoulders as I steered the SUV south to U.S. 60. “I just had faith, I guess.”
