Still, even at night, we ran through some stretches of English countryside that were utterly sublime. Oberon spotted a herd of sheep sleeping in a pasture and begged me to let him go mess with them.
<Come on, Atticus. If we scare enough wool off them, you can make me a sweater with a huge O on the back. I’ll wear it to the dog park and everything.>
<We don’t want to wake anyone up, Oberon, including the sheep. And you don’t really want to be a rascally sheep-biter. You would come by some notable shame.>
<But they’re so fluffy!> When I didn’t respond, he appealed to Granuaile. <Clever Girl, intercede on my behalf! We’ll go over there and bark a bit and they’ll all wake up and bleat in a charming British accent and then we’ll move on. It won’t take two years!> After a brief pause I heard him say, <Minutes, years, you know what I mean!>
<Oberon, I’m sorry we’ve had days and days with no fun at all, but I promise we will make this up to you with something really good.> Sensing weakness, my hound immediately switched into negotiation mode.
<I want a crazy cinnamon-coated poodle named Nutmeg! And I mean crazy. The kind that barks at fire hydrants and pees on mailmen.>
<I’m not sure we can guarantee something that specific, but it will definitely make up for all this.>
Kent had more preserved woodland than some other bits of England, with small named stands of timber breaking up the farmland and sheep pastures. A stretch of trees west of Sevenoaks called Mill Bank Wood was home to the only Old Way that lay across our path to Windsor. A boulder hidden under moldering leaves concealed a chute that led to a memorial for Lugh Lhámhfhada in Tír na nÓg. We approached it cautiously, expecting it to be guarded by Fae or monsters or human mercs. None of that turned out to be true; instead, when we arrived, we discovered the boulder had been reduced to rubble and the earth churned around the place, effectively destroying the passage to Tír na nÓg. I couldn’t muster the outrage to curse our luck; it wasn’t luck, anyway, but further evidence of a carefully coordinated campaign against us.
We moved on, but I didn’t tell Granuaile or Oberon where we were going or why, in hopes of foiling attempts to divine our destination from here. Directly west, perhaps two or three miles, behind the French Street Burial Ground, the Long Wood offered concealment and a place to sleep, and it said something about my exhaustion that I was too tired to make an adolescent joke about its name. It was damp and smelled a bit of rot after a recent rain, but it was safe for the moment.
I shifted to human and said, “Let’s sack out here for the day,” since it was only an hour before dawn.
Granuaile shifted and said, “Can we afford the time?”
I shrugged. “I figure we have a little bit, yeah. The huntresses probably need brand-new bodies and chariots, and they have to pick up our trail somewhere on the Dover coast. We’re coming to the end, though, and we can’t let them be all refreshed when we’re not. You and Oberon sleep. I’ll watch for a while and then wake you up to take a turn.”
Granuaile drew close to me and planted a soft kiss on my lips. “No arguments here. I’m exhausted.” Granuaile curled up on the ground and Oberon sprawled next to her. Both of them drifted off in a couple of minutes, and I was left to think about how we would survive going forward.
If, somehow, we could defuse tensions with the Olympians, our priority had to be the mystery in Tír na nÓg. Whoever was divining Granuaile’s location was also responsible for sending the dark elves and vampires after us.
Strangely, the safest place for us would be Tír na nÓg. Neither vampires nor dark elves would be tolerated there. Shuttling them through using the Old Ways was one thing and easily hidden—especially for someone like Lord Grundlebeard, who controlled the rangers—but keeping them in Tír na nÓg for an extended period as they came after me would raise all sort of alarms and questions that this shady adversary would wish to avoid. And as for the remaining threat—the Fae—I had a distinct advantage where they were concerned.
If I could find a safe place to leave Granuaile and Oberon, I could go solo and perhaps surprise Midhir or Lord Grundlebeard. If they were behind this, they’d expect me to stay next to Granuaile and wouldn’t be able to use divination to see me coming.
I let Granuaile sleep until midmorning before waking her up to take a watch.
“I needed that,” she said, stretching languorously and perhaps a bit teasingly. “Thanks.”
She levered herself up, but Oberon barely stirred. Poor hound.
“You’re welcome. Wake me up midafternoon. We’ll go get some clothes.” I stretched out next to Oberon and stopped fighting my fatigue.
Chapter 20
An odd shudder traveled up my right leg and rattled my ribs, shaking me all along the length of my tattoos. It woke me with a start and made Granuaile jump.
“Gah! What the hell was that?” she asked, staring at the tattoos on her arm as if they would provide an answer. Frowning, she turned to me and saw I was awake. “Did you feel that?”
Oberon roused and yawned. <Feel what?>
“Yeah, I felt it.”
<What’s happening? Are we about to be trampled by a herd of English football fans?>
“So what was it?” Granuaile said.
“The last time I felt this was when Perun’s plane died.”
“Oh, no.”
“Yeah. Some plane connected to earth has been destroyed.”
“Does that mean Loki is free?”
“Probably. Unless someone else is destroying planes.”
The shuddering continued, and I extended my thoughts to the English elemental, Albion.
//Disturbance detected / Query: Source?//
The reply confirmed my fears. //Old plane of the Finns / Burning//
“Albion says it’s a plane of the Finns.”
“How many do they have? Not as many as the Irish, I hope?”
“No, I can’t think of many. Unless it’s Tuonela, their land of the dead.”
“Why would Loki even care about that?”
“No idea. But if he’s free again, what happened to Malina? Did she let him go, or is she a crispy critter now? Or maybe Hel found them and threatened her, or paid her off, or killed her—who knows.” Annoyed by the lack of answers, I looked up at the sky, assuming that Odin was looking in on us from Hlidskjálf. “And, hey, Odin! Are you listening? I thought you were supposed to be keeping an eye on Loki, since he’s such a potential problem.”
Granuaile considered. “The Finns had a thunder god, didn’t they, sort of like Perun?”
“Yeah. I saw him once. His name is Ukko, which basically translates to old man. God of the sky and thunder. He was part of the crew that came to kill me in Arizona and instead hacked up Coyote into tiny pieces. He seemed a bit more laid back than the other thunder gods, though. Probably because the Finns are just cool like that. Want to guess where they say thunderstorms came from?”
“Oh, ew. I’m not sure, judging by the grin on your face.”
“All that noise and precipitation gets made when Ukko and his wife, Akka, have thunderous sex. Isn’t that awesome?”
Granuaile shook her head. “No, it’s gross. You are such a guy sometimes.”
<Isn’t he a guy all the time?>
She’s not saying I’m occasionally female. She’s implying that I’m shallow.
<Oh, I know. So why did she say only sometimes?>
Hey!