perhaps she’d come to tell me where she’d been for the last three weeks. Or maybe she was ready to work on her own version of my protective amulet, and the bag contained her cold iron.
The Morrigan slid into the bathroom in her human form just as I was about to step into the shower. She was naked and beautiful, and her eyes were half lidded with desire, and I thought, ohhhh, crap.
After I killed Aenghus Og, the Morrigan had graphically communicated that the entire episode had turned her on, and she promised to “take me” soon. People like her from the Bronze Age weren’t shy about sex and never felt they had to pretend they didn’t want it. As a child of the Iron Age, I was only marginally less wanton, if at all, but the Morrigan, for all her beauty, wasn’t my top choice of bedmates. She might look like a fantasy pinup now, but when in her crow form, she ate dead people, and that made me throw up a little bit when I thought about it. I’d been hoping she’d forgotten all about her declaration of desire, but apparently she was determined to make a conquest of me.
It’s difficult to say no to the Morrigan when she really wants something. Next to impossible, really. And it’s never a good idea to offend a Chooser of the Slain. The politic thing to do-the safe thing to do-would be to give her what she wanted and try to enjoy it. And once the Morrigan decided she wanted to seduce a lad, she could turn on all the wiles of a succubus without that bothersome business of being damned in the bargain. I confess to not putting up much of a fight. I think I might have said, “Hey!”
The Morrigan is not a creature to take you down slow and easy, though. Over the next few hours, I think I had one moment where I wasn’t at least partially in pain. It was the first kiss-soft and tender and delicious to the point where I thought I might enjoy this after all. But then her nails were scratching me, I got slapped a few times, there was a whole lot more biting than I’ve ever endured, and I lost a handful of hair at one point. And if I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to-like the several times when my phone rang and I wanted to answer it, thinking it was Granuaile calling to ask why I hadn’t shown up for work-her eyes glowed red and she spoke like Sigourney Weaver telling Bill Murray, “There is no Dana, only Zuul.” There’s just no arguing with that tone of voice. In other words, I was fucking scared, and that’s the way the Morrigan liked it.
In the last hour she began to speak in a tongue older than I was: I think it was Proto-Celtic, a couple of vowel shifts and aspirated consonants away from anything I recognized, and since she didn’t seem to expect me to respond, I let her babble away. It sounded ritualistic, and it gradually dawned on me that we were performing sex magic of some kind, though I had no idea what she was trying to accomplish. She eventually declared herself satisfied and gave me permission to stop. We’d long since moved to the bedroom, and I collapsed, gasping, onto the sheets.
There really isn’t any postcoital afterglow to speak of after that kind of sex: There’s just a sense of relief that you survived without disfigurement, plus a dire need for Gatorade.
“Oww,” I whispered.
“You’re welcome,” the Morrigan chuckled.
“For the pain?”
“No, for the ear.”
“What?” I reached up my hand to where my cartilage niblets had been and pinched my fingers around something there that felt remarkably ear-shaped. “Is this real?”
“Of course it is.”
“Is that what you were doing with that chanting and, uh, stuff?”
“Yes.”
I was overwhelmed with gratitude. Regenerating my demon-chewed ear had proven to be far beyond my abilities, and now I felt whole again. “Morrigan, thank you so much! That was so nice of you-”
The breath whuffed out of me as the Morrigan’s fist slammed down onto my stomach and pushed up on my diaphragm. “What did you just say to me?” She grabbed my jaw and yanked it to face her, so that I saw her eyes glowing red as I fought to recover my breath.
“Ca-cuh-curse your meddling,” I managed to wheeze.
“That’s better,” she said, and released me. I guessed there would be no cuddling session.
‹Um, Atticus, are you maybe finished now? I’m really hungry.›
Oh, Oberon, I’m so sorry. She wouldn’t let me go.
‹It’s all right. Are you okay? Because it sounded like she was pulling out your short ’n’ curlies in there.›
Yeah, I bet you never had a French poodle treat you like that.
I turned to the Morrigan and remembered my duties as host. “May I offer you any refreshment?” I asked. “Perhaps a meal within the compass of my limited pantry?”
“I will accept whatever you see fit to offer me,” she said.
Statements like that cannot be taken at face value. It sounded like she’d be happy with a sardine sitting on a Ritz, but, in truth, if I offered her anything but the very best in my house, I’d be insulting her.
I tiptoed gingerly out of bed, bruised and bleeding and stinging where sweat had trickled into the wounds. Everything hurt because I was completely drained of power. I’d have to go back outside and draw some strength from the earth to begin healing, and I felt as if all I did anymore was spend my time fixing up my damaged body.
‹Holy Cat Fight, Atticus! She scratched you up pretty good,› Oberon said when I emerged from the bedroom.
Yeah, it was a festival of pain. Let me close up these cuts and I’ll start in on our very late breakfast.
Since I’d completely missed the morning routine I’d been looking forward to upon waking up, I decided I’d have it anyway, even though it was afternoon. I put on a pot of coffee and then spent a few moments in the backyard, soothing my screaming skin. Feeling marginally better, I returned inside and played the latest release from Rodrigo y Gabriela on the stereo while I cooked an enormous breakfast: three-egg omelets with cheese, diced ham, and chives, a couple of packages of maple-flavored sausage (mostly for Oberon), skillet potatoes mixed with chopped white onions and red bell peppers, and toast with butter and orange marmalade.
The Morrigan emerged from the bedroom as I was plating everything. She was freshly scrubbed and groomed and nude, and she sat down at my kitchen table without a shred of self-consciousness. I didn’t have a stitch on either, and I felt pleased to have a small time where I could behave like a Celt again, without worrying about the social customs of Americans.
The Morrigan was making an extraordinary effort to be affable as I served her. I think she tried to smile politely as I gave her a cup of coffee (she took it black), but it was a dismal failure and I pretended not to notice. Oberon, for his part, was eating his sausages as quietly as he could, casting nervous glances at the Morrigan to make sure she wasn’t coming after him with those fingernails.
She paid me compliments on the food and drank five cups of coffee to my one, in addition to a glass of orange juice and a taller glass of water. She also asked for a second omelet and two more slices of toast.
‹Where is she putting it all?› Oberon asked as he watched her shovel it down.
I don’t know. Go ahead and ask her if you like.
‹No thanks. I want to live.›
Once she finally proclaimed herself full and dispensed with another round of obligatory thanks, the niceties of custom had been observed and she could proceed to business.
“Have you wondered where I’ve been the past few weeks?” she asked.
“Yes, the thought had crossed my mind.”
“I’ve been occupied with a civil war in Tir na nOg. The battles have been glorious.”
“What? Who was fighting whom?”
“Aenghus Og’s partisans decided to rise up against Brighid and myself, despite the fact that their leader had fallen and failed to follow through on his promises. After the first wave broke, a purge was necessary, and that took the majority of the time.”
“Did any of the Tuatha De Danann fall?”
The Morrigan shook her head. “They were all lesser Fae to one degree or another. But they had some impressive weapons bequeathed to them by Aenghus Og. Brighid’s new armor got a strenuous test.”
“Brighid took up arms herself?” The Tuatha De Danann are loath to put themselves in mortal peril when they can get someone else to die for them.
The Morrigan nodded. “Aye. And I am forced to admit she acquitted herself well. She is as fearsome a foe as she ever was.”
