night?”
“No, it’s from the rough sex this morning.”
“Smart ass. Sorry I asked. Hey, did you get your ear back?”
“Yep. That was definitely the best part of my day so far.”
Hal sighed in relief and waved the newspaper significantly. “I’ll say, you lucky bastard. Police are looking for a guy that matches your description with a missing right ear. I thought they had your number on that one.”
I threw up my hands, perplexed. “How do police even know what to look for? The only two cops who saw me got killed.”
“Well, some of the modern-day fops fleeing the club saw you handcuffed on the ground in custody of the now-deceased police, so naturally the living police are anxious to figure out what happened to said suspect. They have your clothes and hair color along with the missing ear to go on, and that’s it. No descriptions of your face, since you were sucking asphalt.”
“Any mention of my tattoos?”
“Happily not. Your tats must have been facedown because of the way they had you cuffed, so they’re searching for a tatless, earless guy.” Hal sniffed the air speculatively and frowned. “Is something burning?”
“My house was for a while, but not anymore.”
“Oh,” he said, and the fires of his curiosity were extinguished, just like that. “Well, it’s kind of irritating even out here, so would you mind if we sat on the porch?”
“Not at all.” I gestured to a chair and Hal handed me the newspaper as he took it. Oberon thumped his tail against the chair and pushed his head under Hal’s hand.
“Hey, pooch,” Hal said, obligingly giving Oberon’s head a scratch.
‹I win. He smells like citrus on top of wet dog.›
Did it ever occur to you that maybe he’s trying to mask the wet dog smell with the citrus?
‹That doesn’t make any sense, Atticus. Wet dog is a perfectly acceptable way for a werewolf to smell. I think it must be the other way around.›
SATYRN MASSACRE, the newspaper screamed at me; 25 dead including two officers in nightclub nightmare. The photo showed body bags lined up outside the club. SCOTTSDALE: Police are still searching for suspects in the aftermath of the city’s worst mass murder, which occurred last night in the Satyrn nightclub on Scottsdale Road. Witnesses were unsure exactly how the killings began, but the deaths of two Scottsdale police officers ended the carnage.
I scanned the rest of the article quickly. “Huh. They mention the broken bats, but they don’t mention my sword in here,” I said.
“You were whipping your sword around in front of all those witnesses?”
“No, no,” I said. I explained what happened last night and the alibi I’d cooked up with Granuaile via lovey- dovey code. “I still have my receipt from Target,” I pointed out, “and chances are good they’ll find that security tape anyway, if they’re any good at their jobs. So we’ll just say Granuaile’s bats are my bats, slightly scuffed and used from a night of baseball chasing with my dog.”
‹This means I need to chew on some baseballs, doesn’t it?›
Yes, it does. But if you’re nice about it, I’ll put some gravy on them first.
“Prints on the bats?” Hal asked.
“Took care of it.”
“So you couldn’t possibly be their man from the club because you have an ear and you still have your bats intact-I see.” Hal nodded. “That might confuse things quite a bit if it were to come to trial, especially since the missing-ear detail is being so widely reported. There’s your reasonable doubt right there. But you’re still in a heap of trouble if any of those witnesses reported seeing the sword. You’ve been riding around with that thing on your back the past few weeks, everyone up and down Mill Avenue has seen you wearing it, and they might have noticed you didn’t have an ear either.”
“So what? The sword never left its scabbard. Nobody died from sword wounds.”
“They’ll use the sword to place you at the scene, Atticus. Look, do you still have it around here?”
“Of course. I have two fancy-schmancy swords now.” The other one had belonged to Aenghus Og. His sword was named Moralltach-the Great Fury-and it had fallen to me by right of besting him in a duel.
“I suggest you hide both of them right now, and hide them well. Don’t lose a minute.”
“What? Why?”
“I think Tempe’s going to be working with Scottsdale on this to make sure they do things right, because of how royally they screwed up in your shop,” Hal said, alluding to a search warrant gone fantastically wrong that ended up with a Tempe police detective and me getting shot. “Which means they’re going to roll up here with a full search warrant for your place, they’ll do it all by the book, and if they find a sword, they’re going to take you downtown for a long talk.”
“What about bows and arrows and other martial arts stuff like sai and throwing knives and such?”
“Why, do you have any of that floating around?”
“The garage is full of it.”
Hal cursed in Old Norse for a moment, then switched back to English. “Damn it, Atticus, you need to get yourself a bat cave or something for all of your shady shit.”
“Why? I thought it was all legal.”
“It is, but in situations like this, you don’t want them to smell smoke and figure there’s been a fire. Which turns out to be literally true in this case.” He sniffed and wrinkled his nose. “What started the fire, anyway?”
“A visiting goddess.”
“Are you being serious or pulling my hair?”
“Completely serious.” I didn’t tell him the correct expression was “pulling my leg,” because he was doing so well otherwise. Hal was quite a bit younger than Leif and more willing to make an effort to use American vernacular correctly. He usually appreciated it when I corrected him, but I didn’t want to distract him now.
“Anything I should be worried about?”
“Nah, it’s all Irish politics.”
Hal looked at me sharply and shook a finger in my face. “That’s bloody dangerous, getting involved in that. You be careful.”
I gaped at Hal. “I can’t believe you just said that to me.”
‹Yeah, because, like, you’re always careful. Fetishistically so.›
“What?” Hal protested, shrugging his shoulders and looking aggrieved.
“I called to ask Gunnar for help with the Bacchants yesterday and he shut me down. No well-wishing, no pleas to be careful, nothing. So now we’re dealing with the aftermath of what happens when I try to go it alone, and you tell me to be careful about Irish politics?”
‹Can I have a treat for using “fetishistically” in a sentence?›
“Well, I know precisely where Gunnar’s coming from. It’s not our job to keep the magical peace.”
“Neither is it mine.”
‹It’s really hard to pronounce. If you’re not careful, you could wind up saying, “feta shit stick-ally,” and then you’d feel like a puppy who forgot to lift his leg, you know?›
“Well, then, why did you get involved?” Hal asked.
I thought about explaining that I needed a safe place to live and work so I could restore the land around Tony Cabin, but it seemed too arcane and he might not understand why I was so eager to tackle a project that would take years to finish. I shrugged instead and said, “Irish politics.”
“There you go. Bloody dangerous. Our job is to keep you out of jail when you get in trouble, not help you get into trouble in the first place. Come on.” He rose from his chair and gestured inside. “I’ll help you get everything stowed.”
‹I think Hal should get a treat too, if he keeps you out of jail,› Oberon said as we walked inside.
You don’t offer werewolves treats if you want to keep all your appendages. They think it’s undignified and degrading to be offered a treat.
‹Well, the moon must have addled their brains when they were thinking that one through, because I don’t see a downside to treats. Honestly, Atticus, it’s like they have no regard for the Canine Code.›
I beg your pardon?
