“I respectfully disagree. Iron elementals like to eat faeries. I’m sure you can lay hands on a few of those.”
“Easily,” she agreed, nodding. “They breed like rodents in Tir na nOg.”
“Great. Now, when the iron elemental thanks you for the faeries and suggests that you were kind or nice to offer such a tasty snack, do not threaten it with violence in response. Instead, smile and say it’s welcome. You might even share that you rather enjoy a bowl of ice cream now and then and that you imagine faeries must be something like ice cream to them.”
The Morrigan’s face underwent a curious exercise. Her eyebrows knitted together and her lower lip seemed dangerously close to trembling, but then she scowled and the scarlet glow of her anger flared again in her eyes. As quickly as it appeared, it faded, and uncertainty crept again into her features. She looked down at the table, her raven hair falling forward to mask her face, and she spoke to me from behind a black curtain. “I can’t do this. Making friends is not in my nature. I am a stranger to kindness.”
“Nonsense.” I flicked my gloriously shaped right ear. “Here’s living proof of your kindness. Irish generosity thrives within you, Morrigan.”
“But that was sex. I can’t have sex with an elemental.”
Lucky for the elementals, I thought.
“That is true, but there are other ways to be kind to people, as I’m sure you’re aware. I think the trouble is that you never let people be kind to you in return. Tell you what: I’ll get you ready to make friends with an iron elemental. You can practice all the intricacies of friendship with me. I’d be honored to be your friend.”
The Morrigan rose abruptly from her chair and scooped the iron meteorites back into the leather bag, her face hidden by her hair all the while. “Thank you for the sex and the meal and the instruction,” she said formally. “You have been a most gracious host.” She tied the drawstring tightly around the pouch. “I will visit Goibhniu and return when I have the amulets.”
Without another word, she bound herself to a crow’s form right on my table, snatched the pouch in her talons, and then flew out my back door, which opened by itself to allow her egress.
Chapter 14
I spent maybe thirty seconds thinking the Morrigan had left so quickly because she was getting a bit verklemmt over my offer of friendship. I should have known better.
A polite knock at the door startled me and set Oberon off to barking three times before he said, ‹It’s Brighid. She said hello to me.›
Brighid is at the door? A note of panic in my mental voice made my hound laugh, for he knew as well as I that I couldn’t answer the door right now. I was still naked and only partially healed from the Morrigan’s abuse-and that, I realized, was precisely what the Morrigan wanted. Nothing about the timing of these visits was accidental. Once again, I would have to play catch-up with the designs of these goddesses and try to figure out what their true motives were. A few weeks ago they had both played me beautifully to achieve their own ends, and now I could see it was starting again. I should have asked the Morrigan more questions about that civil war in Tir na nOg, for that had something to do with Brighid’s sudden appearance, sure as a frog’s ass is watertight.
“Well, I know how to get some answers,” I said to the door as I scrambled into my bedroom. Oberon met me there with his tail wagging.
‹Answers to what?›
“To all my questions,” I said, throwing on a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a green cotton T-shirt. The door thumped again, not as politely as before; there was definitely a note of impatience in the way she knocked on wood. “Now, look, she can obviously hear your thoughts, so I want you to pipe down and head out to the living room and wait. And when she comes in, I want you to stay behind her at all times.”
‹Why?›
“Just do it, please,” I said shortly, and immediately felt sorry for my arbitrary tone. Usually I enjoy arguing with Oberon. He’s great with the give and take. But he didn’t understand the stakes here, and I couldn’t explain them to him while Brighid was listening in on his side of the conversation.
‹Okay.› Oberon’s tail drooped as he left the room, and I deflated a bit too, but if this was going to work, Brighid could have no warning. I didn’t know if I’d even go through with it, but I had to be prepared. I picked up Fragarach from my dresser and slung the scabbard across my back, then hurried to answer the front door.
Brighid smirked at me when I opened the door, and it was like one of those cheesy commercials they play during football games: An obscenely beautiful, sultry woman in next to nothing appears mysteriously; a ghost wind generated off camera blows her hair in a way that suggests wild abandon; she pouts sexily at this utterly regular schmoe with a weak chin; and he completely suspends his disbelief that she’d ever be interested in him, because he’s got an ice-cold beer in his hand. The mysterious wind in this case was almost certainly generated by Brighid herself, and it wafted her scent to me, which was just as I remembered it: milk and honey and soft ripe berries. Damn.
Now, I’m not a regular schmoe, and I certainly don’t have a weak chin, but I’m as susceptible to beer commercials as the next fella, even though it’s just living vicariously in a pubescent male fantasy. None of those commercials came close to the real, live goddess that confronted me in my doorway.
Brighid looked as if she had jumped out of the pages of Heavy Metal. She was wearing several layers of sheer blue material, tied or bunched in such a way as to barely cover her naughty bits, yet providing a tantalizing glimpse of each through the fabric. A golden torc circled her throat, and another accentuated her left biceps, while delicate ropes of twisted metal adorned her wrists. Around her waist were several thin golden chains. Her red hair cascaded around her face in languorous waves like Jessica Rabbit’s, and she had gold thread braided into it here and there. And the pouty come-hither look, achieved by pursing the lips a bit and looking at me with sleepy eyes? She had that down. The ladies in the beer commercials were hot, no doubt, but when a goddess wants to make an effort, no one else can even open the jar of mustard, let alone cut it.
Brighid was much more my type than the Morrigan. She didn’t eat dead people in any of her forms, for one thing, and it was she who ignited the fires of creativity and passion within the hearts of all Irish. But even if I wanted to give Brighid whatever she had come for-and I wasn’t sure I did-I realized that the Morrigan had done her best to ensure I couldn’t.
The entire cast of the Morrigan’s visit changed for me now that Brighid was standing in front of me. The two of them had never been antagonists, but neither had they been fast friends. A healthy respect and perhaps an unhealthy envy existed between them, a rivalry of equals to see who could be first among them all. What had kept each from the other’s throat before was Aenghus Og and his cabal, but now that there had been a purge in Tir na nOg, perhaps the two of them were clawing at each other and I was either a prize to be won or a means to a different end. The scratchy sex, the ear, the second omelet… it was all the Morrigan’s Machiavellian machinations!
‹Atticus, you know I can hear you when you’re all spazzed up, right? That was a lot of alliteration for a doubtful Druid deliberating over a deity’s dubious designs.›
“Welcome, Brighid. You’ve left me speechless,” I said over the end of Oberon’s mockery. She might wonder what I was thinking.
“Atticus,” she purred. I’m not kidding-she purred at me. Brighid can not only beat Hank Azaria at producing voices, she can do multiple voices at the same time. She can sing three-part harmony all by herself in addition to the lead. It comes in handy when she’s crooning ballads as the goddess of poetry, and now I saw-or rather felt-how it could be used for other purposes. “I hope I have not come at an inconvenient time,” she said in voices evocative of rose hips, caramel, and silk. It made me feel warm inside but I shivered outwardly, like a tuning fork quivering in hot chocolate.
“Not at all. Won’t you please come in?” I stepped aside and gestured for her to enter, the Bronze Age host once more.
“Thank you,” she cooed as she slunk by, a shimmering vision of soft blues and pulsing gold. Damn.
She flicked her eyes around the edges of my living room. “Your modern home is interesting.”
“Thank you. May I offer you any refreshment after your long journey from Tir na nOg?”
