She twisted around to face me, a scowl on her face, and then she punched me hard on the arm.
“Ow!”
“You’re being willfully dense! For a man who can see the bonds between all living things, you’re remarkably blind to ours. Have you been filtering them out of your vision, seeing only what you want to see?”
Panic filled my frontal lobe and I tensed, though I’m sure all Granuaile saw was my mouth drop open. She was right—I had been filtering quite extensively; I was seeing only what Gaia needed me to see to get the binding done. And then I realized that was a weak excuse.
“Um,” I said. The truth was, I could have looked at Granuaile in the magical spectrum anytime I wished in the past twelve years, and I hadn’t done so unless I needed to teach her something. When I did, I always filtered out everything extraneous to the objective, just as I was doing now while tattooing her. It was denial, pure and simple.
Once I removed my blinders and looked at the emotional ties between us, I knew precisely what I was looking at. I’d seen knots like this before. Some of them were lust. And some of them, the ones I hadn’t dared to confirm for fear that they wouldn’t be there, were love.
Granuaile could see them now for herself, and she’d figured out what they meant without my coaching. She was right. I couldn’t pretend anymore.
What I could do, however, was feel like a complete dumbass. Again.
I’ve lost track of how often I’ve felt that way in relationships. Somehow, despite having more practice than anyone, I’ve never learned how not to feel like a dumbass. It’s like ordering a medium anything at the movie theatre and the teenage employee always, always, asks if you want a large for fifty cents more. Even if you ask them nicely ahead of time not to upsell you, they still do it, because the word medium triggers an automatic response in their brains. Falling in love is like that: You always feel like a dumbass at some point, even if you know it’s coming—it’s unavoidable.
Before I could offer something beyond a helpless monosyllable, Oberon’s voice in my head demanded my attention.
"Atticus, three women and a man in white are headed in your direction. They have those thirsty things you told me about."
You mean a thyrsus?
"Right. They’re speaking some other language, and their teeth look really sharp."
A new panic filled me. Bacchants were on their way.
Chapter 14
Listen, buddy. This is extreme danger. Thanks for the heads-up. Lie down right where you are and keep still. Don’t engage them, don’t follow, and don’t talk to me again until I renew communication. Okay?
"Got it. I’ll take a nap."
Excellent plan. Atticus out.
Granuaile could tell by my faraway expression that something was wrong. “What is it?” she asked.
Before I answered, I sent an urgent plea to Olympia.
“Shut down your magical sight right now. Disconnect from Gaia and put on your shorts. We have to stop.”
“Again?”
“Yes. Don’t draw from the earth in any way. Drop Olympia’s marble if you have to. No magic whatsoever.”
The marble made a soft scratching noise against the stone floor as she complied. “Okay. Tell me what’s happening.”
“Oberon’s spotted Bacchants. They can smell magic, and they’re coming this way.”
“How do you smell magic?”
I lowered my voice. “I didn’t know it was possible until shortly after we met. Remember that time in Scottsdale, when Laksha was helping me against them? I was standing still at night with camouflage on. I should have been undetectable, right? But one of the Bacchants took a deep breath from across a parking lot and walked right toward me. We had a conversation. Her eyes were unfocused, but she knew I was there. My body odor wasn’t that bad, so what did she smell? My camouflage.”
“So the smell of our binding ritual has led them here.”
“Exactly.”
We arranged ourselves so that we were lying on our bellies and able to see a severely screened view of the creek and woods below our wee cave. A flicker of bright white from the south caught my eye, and I jerked my head in that direction for Granuaile’s benefit, wordlessly directing her gaze.
More white appeared, floating draperies weaving through the foliage, and animals fell silent before their advance. We heard nothing but the soft chuckle of the creek below.
Skin gradually stood out from the searing white. Arms and heads. Dark tangles of hair, groomed by static or maybe playful kittens, provided stark chaotic frames for pale symmetrical faces. They might have been pretty by some standards, except that their eyes were glazed and polluted with madness.
And it was little wonder. Behind the three women strolled Bacchus, the lord of madness himself. Unlike the last time I’d seen him, he appeared calm and in full control of his mental faculties. Indeed, he appeared freshly scrubbed and moisturized, as if he’d emerged from a salon rather than spent the last few hours trekking through the wilderness. His lips were not smiling or even turned up at the corners, but he still radiated a sense of being satiated, drowsy eyelids reveling in Epicurean luxury, an androgynous beauty who’d just gorged himself on full-bodied wine and unpronounceable cheese. As I gazed on him, I realized he had known pleasures that I could never know myself, and a twinge of envy trembled at the hollow of my throat. There were many who would do anything to take the smallest sip of the epic draughts of pleasure he had sampled in his immortal life. And once they had wetted their tongues on it, they were his thralls, for they would endure any abuse to taste it again, and, if withheld from them too long, they would go mad. Either way, Bacchus was worshipped and served.
The allure of unthinking animal bliss is powerful; it always calls to us, in the same way as the edge of a cliff or the waves of the ocean: Jump. It is a necessary part of our natures, full of delight and danger in equal measure. Yet to the mind trained in language, taught to spy subtleties and take joy in them, such crude, baser matters can pale after a while. But there lies grave peril also: The propensity to empathize with pain expressed in words encourages a poet to avoid the real thing, and a too-passionate love of books can mew one in a cloister, putting up walls where there should be free range. I decided long ago—to keep myself sane amongst the illiterate and unthinking—that there would be poetry in my life. But there would also be f**king. I would have them both, but follow the sage advice of modern beer commercials and enjoy responsibly. There was nothing responsible about the god of the vine.
The Bacchants stopped in front of the cave entrance but did not see it. They raised noses into the air and sniffed, scowling. One of them spoke in Latin, a language both Granuaile and I understood.
“It was here, or near here, but it’s gone now.”
A second Bacchant observed, “There’s something else in the air. Desire. I wonder if it was sex magic.”
“That’s the best kind.”
“Mmm. Lord Bacchus, might we pause to relax? I’m in the mood.”
I winced. Her mood, if given rein, would kill us both. My amulet provided absolutely no defense against Bacchanalia, and once they drew us into it, we’d be completely in their power. I fervently hoped that Bacchus had a headache.
He didn’t. Instead, he had an agenda. “No. We cannot spend ourselves in sport. Faunus cannot keep him trapped here forever. We must continue to search.”
The Bacchants whined. I very nearly mocked them and gave away our position, but I held my tongue until long after they had disappeared to the north and the birds started to chirp again.
Raising a finger to my lips, I whispered to Granuaile, “We’re leaving. Bring your ID and your weapon. Leave everything else here. We’ll move fast and light but without magic. Don’t tap into the earth for any reason.”
“Okay,” she whispered. “But it’ll be dark soon. Can’t we cast night vision?”
“No. That spell will linger and give them something to sniff out. I have a different idea.”
We slipped out of the cave as quietly as we could, but all our movements felt unnaturally loud now that I knew an Olympian was actively searching for me. My cold iron amulet protected me from divination, and the Olympians probably didn’t know enough about Granuaile or Oberon to try to find me through them, but I still felt like the eyes of Jupiter were tracking my every move. I flipped off the sky just in case.
“What was that for?” Granuaile asked.
“General principles,” I said. “Let’s grab Oberon and go.”
We headed south along the creek bed for about a quarter mile before I reached out to Oberon. I didn’t think our mental link was especially strong magic, but a form of radio silence had been advisable in case they could smell it.
Oberon? We’re near the creek bed heading south. Can you come down and meet us, please?
"Sure thing, Atticus! Are we meeting for dinner?"
Unfortunately not. We have to get out of here, Celtic ninja style. And we shouldn’t talk too much in case they’re able to detect it.
"Roger that. See you soon."
Oberon met us shortly thereafter, wagging his tail. I smiled and petted him while I whispered to Granuaile, “You’re going to ride out of here bareback.”
“On what?”
“On me. When I’m in stag form, I see quite well at night without having to cast night vision.”
“But won’t shape-shifting draw them to us?”
“It might. But it’s a onetime spell, and we’re going to literally hoof it out of here as soon as I cast it.” I unslung Fragarach and handed it to her, then turned my back and began to strip.
“Do I get to tell you to keep your underwear on?” she said.
“You could if I was wearing any.”
I bound myself to the form of a stag as soon as my jeans dropped below my hips. Granuaile climbed onto my back with Fragarach slung over her shoulder and her staff gripped in her right hand. I didn’t have any convenient mane for her to hold on to, so she leaned over, wrapped her arm around my neck, and said she was ready.
I turned east and set a pace that I thought I could maintain for a while without tiring too much. Eventually I’d have to draw some energy from the earth to keep going, but I thought that, rather than constantly drawing little sips with every step, it was best to do just one, or even none, if I could manage. Honestly, I doubted they could smell me burning my own draws for energy, but I’d keep it down just to be safe.
The long trek out of the Olympian wilderness gave each of us plenty of time to think. In such situations, I tend to talk with the ghost of my archdruid, whose harsh language and mannerisms live on in my memory. I rationalized that it was better than talking to myself—and, in truth, it was like visiting a different headspace. My archdruid had a way of distilling complicated problems into simple solutions. I didn’t always agree with him, but the way he thought occasionally served me well. This time, I shared with him my impossible relationship with Granuaile and the recent evidence—dropped from the lips of Bacchus himself—that this whole setup in Olympus had been a trap after all. A trap, I noted, that we still hadn’t escaped.
“If ye escape,” the archdruid said, “ye should tup the lass as soon as possible. Ye can’t teach her any more, and yer probably going to die anyway.”
“I think you’re speaking with the desperate voice of my libido right now,” I said. “So I’ll ignore that. I’m thinking our safest bet is to scamper off and wait this out.”
“There ye go again,” my archdruid said. “Using your colon instead of yer brain. Ye believe yer thinkin’ because yer workin’ hard, but all yer doin’ is squeezin’ out shit. What good would runnin’ do, me lad? It’d teach yer apprentice that yer not much of a fighter, for one thing, and that all ye have to do to defeat a Druid is to make his life inconvenient. And, apart from that, ye need to help out the Norse, like ye said ye would. Ye can’t go take a few months off to frolic in Mag Mell when ye got Loki runnin’ around ready to set the world aflame.”
“And what do you suggest I do instead?”
“Stomp on some nuts, boy! Go on the offensive! Find out what’s really going on!”
That was advice I couldn’t easily ignore. There was certainly more going on here than anyone in Tír na nÓg was willing to admit. Two Roman gods were colluding against me, and they might or might not be working with dark elves, vampires, and someone powerful amongst the Tuatha Dé Danann. Nobody was going to volunteer answers; we were going to have to apply some pressure of our own.
Chapter 15
One of the odd details about sporting goods stores is how incredibly full of steel and straight lines they are. The ambient atmosphere is harsh and fluorescent because, at some point in the planning stages, an executive said, “What, you want windows? Sunlight and moonlight? Fuck that noise.”
If nature were Little Red Riding Hood and a sporting goods store were the Big Bad Wolf, nature would observe, “My, what orderly rows of synthetic products you have,” and the store would say, “The better to dominate you with, my dear.”
People go into sporting goods stores ostensibly to prepare themselves to get closer to nature, but, in fact, every time they buy another plastic doodad, they’re doing just the opposite.
Still, if you’re wanting to go Bronze Age Rambo on some Bacchants and their principal deity, there’s some great stuff for booby traps in sporting goods stores. Rope. Twine. Nets. Sharp, pointy tools of all kinds, perfect for throwing and getting stabbity.
But to get the best selection, you have to be in a pretty big city, full of people who are desperate to buy things to get them closer to nature. That’s why Granuaile and I were in a store in Thessalonika, a large port city to the north of Olympus, browsing the selection of sharpened instruments designed to kill and gut all the animals people love. My theory was that someone out there had to make knives of bronze or other materials besides steel, and if we picked up enough of them, we’d be able to handle a few Bacchants. We’d emerged from the Olympian wilderness near the tiny village of Petra and hired a car from there to drive us all the way to Thessalonika.