“Refreshing,” he said. I agreed that it was and then fell silent, waiting for Ganesha to speak. I might be hosting the party in my head, but he was throwing it, so I figured he should set the agenda if I wasn’t going to be able to wake up soon.
“We would like to congratulate you on your recent death,” Ganesha began.
“My faked one, I hope you mean?”
Ganesha gave a soft trumpet of amusement. “Yes.”
“Thank you, I feel pretty good about that death.”
“I was particularly amused by Indra’s role in the affair.”
“He doesn’t know it was all a sham, does he?”
“No. He and the rest of the gods with, ah, shall we say, a lesser understanding were completely taken in. However, I represent a number of others with a keener sight, and you have piqued our curiosity.”
“May I ask who these others are?”
Ganesha chuckled. “Let us simply say that we are all employed in Human Services.”
Oh, gods. I wouldn’t be getting into a pun contest with these guys. I sensed other presences nearby in the jungle; they were out of sight but clearly not out of my mind. Whoever they were, they wished to remain anonymous for the moment. Perhaps they were the other Indian gods, but I suspected they were from other pantheons and Ganesha had somehow been elected spokesperson.
“And why are you curious?”
“We wish to know what you will do next regarding Hel.”
“Can you not simply read my mind?”
“We could if you had made a decision yet.” The elephant’s mouth turned upward around the single tusk. “You have been otherwise occupied.”
“You have a gift for understatement,” I said. “So I assume you would prefer one course of action over another, and you would like me to commit to that course now?”
“A clever deduction,” Ganesha observed.
“And if I would rather think about this later?”
“Then I would be forced to admit that this is a Dream from which you may never awaken.”
“I see.” Ganesha was the friendly face of a rather unfriendly ultimatum: Do what we say, mortal, or you’re toast.
“Any advice you’d like to share with me right now? A helpful hint about what you and your cronies would like me to do?”
“We don’t see the point,” Ganesha admitted, somewhat sheepishly. He raised his hands, palms up, in a gesture of helplessness. “You have been given advice before — very good advice, I might add — and you ignored it. You were even advised not to get yourself involved in this vampire situation, and now look where you are. Unconscious and completely drained of magic with only the most tenuous grip on your life.”
“Is my hound alive?”
“That is irrelevant,” Ganesha said.
“It’s relevant to me!”
Pain bloomed on the top of my head as the spectre of my archdruid returned to discipline me. “Pay attention, Siodhachan!” he shouted, and then added as he dove back into the jungle, “You’re cocking it up again!”
“Gah! Damn it, that hurts! How do you do that?”
“Let us focus, please,” Ganesha said, “and see if we cannot remove the obstacles to your continued existence.”
Right. I could do that. “Allow me to start by saying that I am incredibly open to persuasion if you don’t like my answer,” I said.
“Understood.” Ganesha tilted his head down in the barest of nods, and the tiny smile returned around his tusk.
“Right now I feel that, while Hel richly deserves a shank between the ribs on her hot side, I have seen more than enough of her and all the Norse for the time being. I have an apprentice to train and a friend in the hall—”
“So you will pursue her later?” Ganesha interrupted.
“Much later. Like, after Granuaile is a full Druid in her own right. The whole point of faking my death was to give myself the chance to train her. It would be silly to toss that away now. And, speaking of which, I hope you guys won’t go blabbing to all your buddies that I’m only mostly dead.”
Ganesha stared at me in silence for a few moments, and the jungle rustled with nervous energy. The gods, whoever they were, must have been conferring.
“That is satisfactory for now,” Ganesha finally said. “We will be in touch. Farewell.” He turned his back on me and strode into the jungle without giving me a chance to reply.
“Wait!” I shouted, chasing after him. Leaves sawed at my face and arms as I crashed into the undergrowth. “I have questions! How do I know this is real? What if it’s just a dream with a lowercase d? What if I change my mind about Hel tomorrow?” I stopped. Ganesha was gone, but I still felt presences in the jungle. I turned right and circled around to where I thought they were lurking. I felt them leave as I ran madly through the vegetation, yelling, “Why doesn’t everyone use the metric system? What happened to all of the yeti? How come I’ve never seen my archdruid in Tír na nÓg? Could he be the Most Interesting Man in the World? Why aren’t people from Trinidad and Tobago called Tobaggans? Do you know any Vogon poetry?”
I broke through into the tiny clearing where I’d first appeared. The golden langur monkey screeched and pointed at me. He looked like he was laughing. Then he abruptly vanished, no sound effects or anything. Perhaps he’d been the avatar of a god all along. Or maybe I was just waking up from the Dream.
Chapter 21
Hospitals are buildings of death and give me the fantods. Unlike a field of heather and a benevolent sun shining upon me, they do not give me the sense that the day will bring me joy; they give me the sense that the day will be my last, and I will die cut off from nature. Consequently, when I woke up in the Flagstaff hospital, I couldn’t wait to get out.
Granuaile was there and restrained me with a hand on my chest.
“Lie back, sensei. You’re okay.”
“Oberon?” I asked, my voice tight.
“He’s okay too. Well, he’s not okay, but he’s alive, anyway. Most of his ribs were shattered on the right side and his shoulder too.”
The breath I’d been holding whooshed out of me in relief, and tears escaped from my eyes. “Thank the gods,” I said, choked up. “I didn’t want to lose him.”
“I know,” Granuaile said, and tears spilled down her face as well. “I didn’t want to lose him either.”
“What happened?” I asked. “I thought I was finished.” I’m sure Granuaile hadn’t seen any hint of the Dream on my face while I was unconscious. There had been no gods in the room with their fingers on a red button. Only a traitor.
“When you collapsed, Leif healed up your neck with his little vampire tricks.”
“What? How did he do that?” If it was a magical process, my amulet should have prevented him from doing anything to me. I checked to make sure my amulet was still around my neck, and of course it was. Perhaps the healing wasn’t magical but rather a radical biological process.
“I didn’t see exactly what he did. He squatted down next to you and his body blocked what he was doing — I was still in the hall with Oberon. But when he stood up, you weren’t bleeding anymore — in fact, your neck looked perfect.”
My fingers drifted up from my amulet and found no bandages, no scabs or puncture wounds.
“You were still out but not losing any more blood,” she added, “and that allowed us time to get you over here.”
“What about cops? That room was unholy.”
“Leif just charmed anyone who came by to forget about it. Then he called up some ghouls to take care of the remains. They were already in town. He summoned them from Phoenix right after he called Zdenik to say he’d found the world’s last Druid.”
“He told you all this?”
“Yes.” Her eyes drifted up, remembering. “He said he was dreadfully sorry that Oberon was hurt, and he hopes you’ll be able to forgive him someday.”