“Oh. They’re tracking me, you mean.”
“Yes. You are not so anonymous as you once were. But my point was that this is now an inter-pantheon power play. We removed Bacchus from the board, so now they’ve killed the Morrigan and penciled in a hash mark under the column that says badass. If they can’t finish us off, though, with everyone watching, then that makes the Morrigan’s death a fluke—or what it truly was, which was suicide.”
“Suicide?”
“Yes. The Chooser of the Slain chose herself.”
“But why?”
I wasn’t ready to discuss that with her yet. Primarily, of course, the Morrigan had felt all the weight of an eternal prison sentence; she could never change who she was, because of the constraints of belief. But the question of why she wanted to change would lead to a discussion of our strange relationship. The revelation that the Morrigan had loved me dumped a load of guilt ferrets on the back of my neck, and I hadn’t managed to shake them free. I doubted it would be a comfortable topic of conversation. We’d have to talk of it soon, but now wasn’t the best time.
“Let’s talk about her later, if you don’t mind,” I said.
“Okay, as long as we don’t forget.”
“I won’t.”
“You were saying about the Olympians?”
“They’re going to be anxious to keep this confined to the huntresses as much as possible. The more effort they have to expend in taking us out, the smaller their victory over the Morrigan and the more ridiculous they appear. I mean, entirely apart from the fact that they were forbidden to interfere, they would diminish themselves in the eyes of every other pantheon if they have to exert their full might to be rid of us. That’s probably why they can’t see past our camouflage; this time, Minerva is staying out of it.”
“But they’ve already involved quite a few of them. Neptune started that earthquake back in Romania, and then you have Pan and Faunus spreading pandemonium to keep us from shifting. And the forge gods made them new chariots, right?”
“Exactly. It’s bad enough as it is. But if snuffing us was all that mattered to them, consequences be damned, they could have done it by now. Say that Ares, Mars, Athena, and Minerva dropped down here right now in front of us, and both of the Apollos. Would we stand a realistic chance of taking them out if they were fully prepared?”
“Eek! No. I guess not.”
“You guess right. They’re all weakened compared to their glory days, but they are still powerful beings and more than a match for us if we can’t surprise them. That means our deaths aren’t paramount yet; how we die is still more important, so there’s definitely politics at work here.”
We spent some time after that catching up on what had happened between me getting shot and arriving in time to dispatch Artemis. I think Granuaile edited out some of what she felt and thought while she believed me dead, but that was okay. I didn’t tell her everything I thought and felt when I was in the gray wash of depression either.
Our run southwest passed quite pleasantly until Hermes and Mercury paid us a visit. They accosted us before we could cross the border into Belgium. They dropped down from the sky on their wee ankle wings and hovered, keeping pace until we stopped. Mercury did all the talking, as usual, while Hermes stared on silently.
“Release the goddesses,” Mercury demanded in English without preamble.
“Oh. Hi, guys!” I waved at them with Fragarach and smiled. “Are you speaking for yourselves or delivering a message?”
“These are the words of Jupiter and Zeus.”
“Nice, very nice. Well, you might have noticed that I don’t respond well to commands. Are you willing to talk a little bit this time, or are you here to deliver another ultimatum and then unleash some more Olympians on me when I refuse?”
Mercury seethed but confined himself to saying, “You wish to speak, mortal? Then speak.”
“Thanks! Last time you didn’t seem very anxious to listen. Kind of makes me wonder how much you care about Bacchus, actually, since if you kill us you’ll never get him back. Did I make that plain earlier? No one knows where he is but us. You can’t ask the Tuatha Dé Danann. They have no clue.”
“So he is a hostage.”
“No, he’s not a hostage. I don’t want any ransom in a bag of unmarked bills. I’m perfectly fine with leaving him where he is. And if you are fine with it too, which it seems you are since you’ve been busy trying to kill us, then we’re actually on the same team here and I’m not sure why you’re so hostile. Could you clarify that for us? Do you want Bacchus back or are you willing to write him off?”
The messenger gods exchanged glances and then Mercury sighed. “We want him back.”
“Awesome. Thank you for admitting it. I will freely admit to you that I would like to be left alone. In fact, the entire reason we’re here is because you won’t leave me alone. I didn’t pick this fight, okay? Bacchus and Faunus did. So the solution here is very simple, and I would appreciate it if you would relay my proposal to Jupiter and Zeus.”
Mercury nodded and Hermes blinked to indicate that they were listening.
“There’s only one rule: Don’t fuck with the Druids. The best part about that rule is that it requires no effort to follow. Easiest rule in the world. You can have the huntresses’ heads back when you agree you won’t allow them to hunt us or pursue any kind of vengeance on us through surrogates or associates of any kind. And the same goes for Bacchus. I’ll happily give him back to you once I’m assured he won’t be allowed to pursue his inclination to destroy us. And just to be safe, that goes for all the Olympians. If Jupiter and Zeus give me their word that members of their pantheon won’t keep attacking us, then we won’t have to keep defending ourselves and humiliating your dumb asses.” I thrust Diana’s head out to him by way of punctuation. “Message ends.”
Mercury sneered at first but then grew uncertain when he took a closer look at Diana. “We will deliver you even so.” He and Hermes launched themselves into the sky and disappeared into the sun.
“That was less than diplomatic,” Granuaile commented, using Old Irish.
I responded in kind. “I know, but there’s nothing to be gained here with a soft shoe. The sky gods aren’t being serious yet. They’re sending minions to make demands of us. We’re going to have to up the stakes to make them pay attention.”
“How do we up the stakes?”
“We’ll figure it out in England. The Morrigan saw a way out for us there, but damn if I know what it is. Until we’re there, all we can do is buy time, and I just bought us a bit more. Let’s keep running.”
“Yes, let’s.” Granuaile’s eyes dropped down from my face and landed on Diana’s head, whereupon she gasped. “Atticus, wait. Is Diana, you know, still with us?”
“What?” I peered at Diana and saw that she was slack-jawed. She’d never struck me as the mouth-breathing type, and even if she was, there was no way she could breathe at the moment. Turning my body so that my back was to Granuaile—and therefore to Artemis—I untucked the head from my arm and held it in both hands.
Diana’s eyes were closed and her mouth hung open. I lightly slapped one cheek to see if I got a reaction, even reflexive. Nothing. I shut her jaw and it fell back open.
Being careful to continue speaking Old Irish, I asked over my shoulder, “How is your goddess doing?”
“She’s fine. I mean, she looks more than a little angry, but she’s alive. Yours?”
“Well, we may have a problem.” I cast magical sight and saw that the white glow of Diana’s power was gone. So was her entire aura. She appeared to be truly dead. “Hold up your head for me?” I asked. I craned my neck around and saw that Artemis still shone with energy. “Okay, thanks.”