Do it, Oberon. Don’t struggle.
<How did she know where we were?>
I don’t know, I said, and wished that I did. I wasn’t as good at strategy and tactics as Atticus was. This entire scheme had been ill advised from the start, and I’d been stupid to think I could outwit two immortal huntresses.
Thirty yards away, Diana’s eyes searched for me. They didn’t fall precisely on my position, but they were close. I tried to move as quietly as I could but felt I had to keep moving. If she got a fix on my position, there would be no time to dodge.
“Your master is dead, young Druid, but you need not follow him,” Diana called. It occurred to me to wonder how precisely they knew Atticus was dead. Did they find where I’d buried him and dig him up? Had someone told them? Or were they able to communicate with their hounds, like Druids could, and learned from them that they’d lost one of their prey? I answered my own question with my next thought: If it hadn’t been one of the Olympians, then dryads had probably told them, or some other spirits of nature. We’d no doubt passed our share during our run. “Release Bacchus and we will spare you.”
“And the hound?” I said, moving as I did so.
“Since you have killed all of mine, I think your hound should die too,” Artemis answered, “but I will be generous if you bargain in good faith now. This is not simply a hound to you, is it? This is a friend.”
“Yes, he is. If you kill him—or harm him in any way—you’ll get nothing from me. Bacchus will be lost forever.” Diana was doing her best to zero in on my voice, her head slightly cocked but her eyes tracking me accurately now.
“I understand,” she said. “Bacchus is a friend of ours. Release our friend and we will release yours. Everyone lives. Everyone goes home unbruised. Our quarrel was never with you.”
<I call bullshit!>
“And yet you’ve hunted me for many miles,” I said.
“Only to recover Bacchus,” Diana replied. She was inching closer, bow at the ready. “We never sought your death.”
“If you wish to talk, then talk,” I said. “Stop moving and drop your bow, Diana, or I might begin to suspect you do seek my death after all.”
Diana gave a tiny smile and stopped advancing but didn’t drop her bow. “Very well, mortal. If you’re willing to be reasonable, we can talk.”
“Diana, wait,” Artemis said. “I don’t think we’re alone—”
Chapter 14
Artemis heard me coming, but it wasn’t in time. Distracted sufficiently by the negotiation with Diana and Granuaile, she realized too late that there was, indeed, someone else out there.
It was me, the dead guy, with Fragarach in my left hand and approaching behind her right shoulder, swinging with all I had at the base of her neck. Slice through the spinal cord fast enough and the brain can’t tell the right hand to slit the throat of a hostage, I don’t care how godlike you are. I sent her head sailing toward the pile of corpses, and her body slumped to the ground. Oberon was free and confused.
<Hey! What? I smell Atticus! Atticus, is that you?>
I didn’t answer him. There was still another huntress to dispatch. Not caring about the noise I made, I chased after Artemis’s head, snatched it up by the hair, and then chucked it directly at Diana. Her bow was fully raised and drawn now and swerving to shoot. She had to duck Artemis’s head, but she straightened right back up to fire, correctly assuming that I was charging her. She was about to release and I was about to drop and roll when something whacked her hard in the back of the knees, and her shot went high and wide. It was Granuaile, of course, and she’d done me proud, taking advantage of the distraction I’d provided.
All kinds of things can happen in a battle to make you freak out, I’d told her once. Freaking out over friends getting slagged, for example, is perfectly normal. Going Hulk because somebody ruined a picture or souvenir of your significant other, that’s to be expected. And if someone returns from the dead to fight again, nobody will look down on you for losing a tolerable amount of your shit. But you always, always have to deal with the threat first and save the freaking out for later, preferably when some decent alcohol is at hand to numb your noggin.
Diana immediately rolled away when she hit the ground, and thus Granuaile’s follow-up struck the earth with a dull thud. I wouldn’t be able to get to the huntress before she regained her feet; she’d rolled with her bow and would be able to nock and fire another arrow at stupid speed if she made it. A blur in my vision announced that Oberon wanted her to stay down as much as I did; Granuaile must have refocused his attention. The huntress did manage to spring to her feet, only to be yanked back down as she reached for an arrow.
I heard Oberon say, <Got her left arm, you get the right!>
Diana’s attempt to free herself by clocking Oberon upside the head met severe resistance from Scáthmhaide; Granuaile didn’t miss this time, and her blow audibly snapped both bones in the goddess’s forearm. The arm pressed into the turf, where Granuaile stomped on it. Diana shrieked and struggled to free herself, but I imagined that Granuaile and Oberon were both juiced on the earth’s energy for extra strength and she had no leverage.
Before Diana could think of using her legs and possibly kicking Granuaile off her arm, I decided to redirect her attention. I dropped my camouflage and said, “Well, hello there, Diana,” as I strode into her view. Her eyes rounded, and her mouth stopped making noise and just hung open.
<It’s Atticus! I knew it!>
Stay on her, buddy. Don’t let go, okay?
<I won’t! She won’t move!>
Thanks. We’ll talk in a minute.
I smiled at the shocked expression on Diana’s face. Normally I wouldn’t behave this way, but something about the Romans brought it out in me. It probably had something to do with how they had helped to wipe out the Druids. “You gave us quite the chase,” I said. I twirled Fragarach once in my hand and halted it abruptly, feigning surprise at an unexpected thought. “Oh! Hold on. Did you think you were hunting us?”
Her eyes narrowed and she took breath to speak, but she never got to say a word. I hacked off her head with one stroke and kicked it away from the body so she couldn’t heal it back up.
“Whooo!” I shouted, allowing myself a fist pump. “That one’s going on my highlight reel.”
Granuaile dispelled her invisibility and Oberon’s camouflage. Her knuckles were painfully white against the wood of Scáthmhaide, and I couldn’t tell by her face if she wanted to kiss me or kill me.
“Right,” I said. “You probably have questions.”
Chapter 15
“Who are you, and why do you have Fragarach?” Granuaile said through clenched teeth.
That wasn’t the question I’d been expecting. “I’m Atticus, and the sword is mine.”
<He’s Atticus!> Oberon’s tail was wagging and he clearly wanted to jump on me, but he held back, seeing the tension in Granuaile.
Heck yes. Snack for you!
“Atticus is dead.”
“I was only dead for a little while.”
<He just helped us kill the unkillable ladies. He’s on our side.>
Ignoring Oberon’s comment, Granuaile drew a knife from her thigh holster—her last one—and raised it over her shoulder, ready to throw. “Tell me who you really are. Are you Loki? Coyote?” I was beginning to understand why the elementals called her Fierce Druid.