Besieged: Stories from the Iron Druid Chronicles(31)

“Understood.” Oberon moved closer to Granuaile, dipped his head under her hand, and flipped it up, inviting her to pet him. She hugged him around the neck and cried on him a little bit, and he bore it in silence—or at least silence as far as my apprentice was concerned.

<She doesn’t remember hitting me down there, does she?>

I don’t think so. Probably best not to bring it up. You can see that she loves you. And so do I.

<That so?>

You know it is. But to erase any doubts, I’m going to see if we can arrange a liaison. An amorous rendezvous.

Oberon’s tail began to wag. <Are you talking about a black-coated poodle?>

We will call her Noche. There will be sausage and occasion to frolic.

Oberon got so excited about this news that he barked, startling Granuaile. She reared back and he turned his head, licking her face.

“What! Oberon!” She toppled backward and hit her head on the back of the gaming booth. “Ow!” Then she laughed as Oberon swooped in and slobbered on her some more. The laughing, however, proved a gateway to sobs as some of the shock wore off, and the restrained tears she had shed earlier gave way to a more cathartic release.

<Extreme sadness alert, Atticus! We need an emergency snuggle, stat!> Oberon folded his legs and laid his giant head in Granuaile’s lap. She petted him with her left hand and bent her head down over him, dropping tears into his fur as I sat back from my squat to rest against the booth wall beside her, taking her right hand. She gripped it tightly.

“I’m sorry,” she said between sobs. “There were just so many of them.”

“No, it’s fine. It really is. I understand. And I would understand if you’d rather rethink this and do something else.”

“No,” she said quickly, and looked up at me, shaking her head. “No. This is what I want to do. I want to save people and save the earth too. More than ever.”

“Okay.”

She nodded at me. “Okay.” She let go of my hand and returned to petting and crying on Oberon, and we both waited patiently for that storm to run its course, knowing that there would be calm and recovery soon enough and, with it, burgeoning growth.

One way or another, dogs make everything better.

Except my fear of Kansas. I still have that.





This story, narrated by Atticus, takes place during Granuaile’s training period, after the events of “The Demon Barker of Wheat Street.”





Anyone who’s had more than one child—or more than one pet, for that matter—knows all about the grief and stress that comes with having multiple demands on their time. Imagine being the only Druid that the world’s elementals can call on for the better part of two millennia. There would, admittedly, be long stretches where everything was just fine, followed by intense periods where everything happened at once. Training a new Druid in secret was like that—long stretches of peaceful routine interrupted by days of time-consuming errands. When our normal errands were compounded by requests from elementals in New Zealand and Zimbabwe and a sly, half-drawled demand from Coyote—all on the same day—Granuaile overheard me mutter that it was as bad as the Gold Rush and asked me about it later, when we had returned to our routine of mental and physical training followed by relaxed evenings in front of the fire pit.

“What happened during the Gold Rush, Atticus?” she asked, as the logs popped and sent orange sparks into brief arcs of glory. We were having barbecue, smoked brisket and baked beans washed down with some cold beers. I told Oberon to stay away from the beans, to save my nose later.

“A bunch of idiots were into summoning demons at the time, and I had to pop around the world to deal with them when I was supposed to be hiding.”

“You mean like covens summoning hordes of hellions, or what?”

“No, individuals in different places. And if they’re summoning them, trading their souls or whatever for a favor, and then banishing them, that’s usually fine and none of my business. Elementals inform me that something’s being pulled through the planes just in case it gets out of hand, and sometimes it does.”

“Out of hand how?”

“Well, you remember what happened in Kansas not so long ago?”

“I could hardly forget those ghouls and all those poor people. The smell of it still haunts me.”

Oberon, my Irish wolfhound, with whom I have a mental bond, paused briefly from devouring his barbecue to chime in. <Yeah! Ghouls and demons smell really bad! Like, way worse than mustard.>

“The danger to the earth wasn’t so much the ghouls—I mean, they were certainly a danger to the people they were killing, but not a danger to Gaia. The danger was the demon who’d opened that portal to hell and was draining the earth to keep it open. When the demons get loose, they almost always want to bring as many of their buddies along as they can to party with them, and that is without exception at Gaia’s expense.”

“So demons got loose in the mid-nineteenth century?”

“Just one. But a really old and powerful one.”

<Was it worse than Gozer the Gozerian, who took the form of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?>

“Yes, Oberon, much worse than Gozer the Gozerian.”

“Excellent. Do we get a story for dessert, then?” Granuaile asked. “It sounds like this will be most instructive.”