return. That’s when I will serve him with divorce papers.”
“You already have them after a week?”
“Granuaile suggested a background check on him before I took Selai’s body. He’s been keeping a mistress, as one might expect of a man with a wife in a coma. We have photographic proof and a divorce lawyer already on retainer. I will be keeping the house, I think,” she finished smugly.
Once at Los Olivos-in a room of blue glass and gray stone, with an indoor fountain splashing in the background-we chatted amiably over chips and salsa about the myriad charms of North Carolina. Over plates of green chile burros, enchilada style, the conversation turned as serious as the food.
“All right, Mr. O’Sullivan. Tell me what you wish of me,” Laksha said.
“I want the Bacchants out of town.”
The witch cackled at me, making a belated attempt to cover her mouth politely. “I see. We begin with the humanitarian option. You imagine I have such powers of persuasion?”
“I hoped you would at least consider it seriously instead of laughing at it.”
“Mr. Chamkanni said much the same thing in bed the first night home from the hospital!”
Granuaile nearly spat out what she was chewing and slapped the table repeatedly as she struggled to control her mirth. I steepled my fingers over my plate, elbows on the table, and waited patiently for the women to wind down.
Laksha finally said with an expression reserved for small children or idiots, “Mr. O’Sullivan, you know I am not the sort of witch who changes minds. I’m the sort that ends lives. That is why I am here, yes?”
“It is.”
Granuaile abruptly ceased to find our conversation amusing. “Wait.” She looked at Laksha and then at me. “Are you suggesting that Laksha should kill the Bacchants somehow?”
“You know precisely how she operates,” I said.
“Atticus, how can you?” asked Granuaile, scandalized. “That would be murder.”
“Not to mention very bad karma,” Laksha added airily. This was a fight I’d seen coming, and I wanted not only to win it but also to teach Granuaile that she could and should question me, especially on questions of morality. Just as the Tuatha De Danann look at the world from a Bronze Age perspective, I look at it from the Iron Age, and though it’s tempered by a whole lot of modern scruples and centuries of experience, my original Celtic cultural values don’t always square with American laws and mores.
“Look, they’re not fully human anymore,” I explained. “They’re more like walking disease vectors, spreading madness amongst the hoi polloi. They have absolutely zero chance of becoming the persons they used to be, now that they’re thralls to Bacchus.”
“But that doesn’t mean they’re monsters, does it? It sounds to me like they’re victims of Bacchus or his magic, and they shouldn’t be punished for that.”
“They may have been victims at one time, but what you have to focus on is what they are now, and what they are is a dozen superhuman women immune to iron weapons and fire. They can turn a dozen more women into creatures just like them tonight and ruin whatever human potential they possess. And the madness will spread exponentially if someone doesn’t stop them.” I thought of a modern analogy and laid it on her: “It’s kind of like those zombie movies. The humans in those movies don’t look at a brain-eating zombie and let him go because he’s a victim.”
“Okay, fine, but these aren’t zombies, right? There has to be a better way to stop them than killing them,” Granuaile persisted.
“Like what? Put them in prison? Can’t happen. Police either get swept up in the frenzy themselves or they die trying to resist.”
“Well, can’t you work some of your own magic on them?” Granuaile asked.
“Yes, Mr. O’Sullivan, what about your own magic?” Laksha said with great interest.
“My magic is earth-based.” I shrugged, eyeing a succulent bite of burro. “They will be in a completely artificial environment, and I doubt my ability to resist catching their madness. I would be as susceptible to it as any other human. And, besides, even if that weren’t the case, I don’t have a spell up my sleeve to turn a Bacchant back into a normal woman.”
“Well, then, can’t you talk to Bacchus or go over his head to Jupiter? You talk to the Morrigan and Flidais, why not these other gods?”
I took a bite of the burro and shook my head sadly at her as the beef, green chiles, and tortilla melted in my mouth. “Bacchus is the Roman god of the vine, and the Romans hated Druids like no one else. They and the Christians killed us all, actually, yours truly excepted, and they would have gotten me too if it weren’t for the Morrigan.” I put my fork down and leaned back in my chair, dabbing at my mouth with a napkin. “So I think Bacchus would roast me on a spit before he’d have three words’ conference with me. And if he thought I even existed, much less got myself involved in killing his Bacchants tonight, he might decide to show up personally.”
“Won’t he show up anyway?” Laksha asked.
“I doubt it very much,” I said. “His worshippers fluctuate like no other’s. Their numbers swell like viruses until they madden someone with a large army-or, more likely, magic users protecting a territory like this one-and then they’re ruthlessly snuffed. He binges on a glut of worship and then deals with the hangover, just like his worshippers have to deal with the aftereffects of their debauchery.”
“So, if we are going to do this thing,” Laksha said, “we must discuss payment.”
“Wait.” Granuaile held up her hands. “I’m still not sure why we’re even discussing it. You’re talking about killing people for money.”
“Not for money.” Laksha shook her head.
“For whatever. It’s wrong.”
“I thought we’d settled this,” I said. “It’s like killing zombies.”
“But zombies are already dead and they want to eat your brains. Bacchants are living people and they just want to have drunk sex on the dance floor. That’s a significant difference. Make love not war, you know?”
As Malina had done to me, I explained to her the far-reaching consequences of letting even one night of bacchanalia go unchallenged in what was now our territory. I also explained to her the Druidic belief that the soul never dies; killing the bodies would actually free their souls from Bacchus’s slavery. The combination of these arguments did not fully soothe her, but she subsided and allowed for the possibility that I had chosen a reasonable course of action.
Laksha followed the reasonable argument with an unreasonable demand for payment. “Since I am performing a service for you that you cannot perform yourself, I want you to do me a service in kind,” she said.
“Is this a service to be named later, or did you have something particular in mind?”
“Oh, yes, I have something very particular in mind.” She smiled, circling her finger around the rim of her water glass. “I want you to bring me the golden apples of Idunn.”
I laughed. “No, seriously, what do you want?”
“I’m quite serious. That is what I want.”
My grin slid off my face and crashed into my burro. “How is that a service in kind? It’s on a completely different scale.”
“I think not. A dozen frenzied Bacchants silenced for you in exchange for a few apples-that is not so much.”
“It is when the apples are in Asgard!”
“Asgard?” Granuaile gaped at me. “You know how we can go to fucking Asgard?”
“Yes, Druids can walk the planes; that’s why she needs me to-hey, look, Granuaile, there’s no ‘we’ in this scenario.” I turned back to the amused Indian witch. “Laksha, this is between us only. My apprentice is not involved whatsoever in this deal, and my debts do not accrue to her under any circumstances, is that clear?”
Laksha nodded lazily. “That is understood.”
“Good. Now, as I was saying, these services are not of equal value nor of equal risk. You can kill these Bacchants with little fear of reprisal from Bacchus, but I cannot steal the golden apples of Idunn without certain reprisal from every member of the Norse pantheon. It’s not just Idunn who’d be after me,” I said, ticking off gods on my fingers, “it’s Freyja, it’s Odin and his damn ravens, and it’s Mr. Tall, Blond, and Lightning himself.”
Laksha smiled conspiratorially and leaned forward. “You know what Baba Yaga calls Thor?”
I leaned forward. “I don’t care. You’re missing the point.”
