I hadn’t planned on staying in the area, but the idea had some appeal now that I thought about it. Reservations don’t get much satellite surveillance, and there wasn’t a gauntlet of security cameras recording your every move. Besides that, I needed to stay nearby to keep a close eye on the coal mine. And I could make trips down to the valley every couple of weeks to work on the wasted land around Tony Cabin and then reward myself with fish and chips at Rúla Búla.
“So what was in the envelope?” Granuaile asked, returning inside.
“New identities and a place to live, courtesy of Coyote. See for yourself.” I handed her the sheaf of papers.
A giggle escaped Granuaile’s lips and she covered them up with her hand. “You’re going to spend the next twelve years as Sterling Silver?” she asked.
“Yours isn’t much better,” I said.
Her laughter cut off abruptly as her eyes found the blank with her new name in it. “Oh, that bastard. He put me down as Betty Baker.”
“Let’s get him back by stealing his truck.”
Her eyes flicked to the big black truck Coyote had driven onto the site, and she nodded. “Yeah!”
After retrieving Moralltach, I turned on the truck’s ignition with a binding — there was no way I was going to search for keys in Coyote’s remains — and Granuaile got us on the road back to Flagstaff. There was a hound down there who needed some hugs.
Epilogue
April Flores didn’t want to let Oberon go.
“I’ve never seen a dog heal so fast from a broken shoulder,” she said, “not to mention the ribs. He shouldn’t be able to walk for a few more weeks, but now it’s like nothing ever happened to him. I keep thinking it’s some kind of miracle. I’d like to keep him for some more tests — no cost to you, of course. Just some X rays and things like that—”
“Sorry, but we really must be going.”
<I heard that!> Oberon said. <Outside that door there are oodles of poodles to ogle!> He barked once to punctuate the sentence for the veterinarian’s benefit.
“What happened to you?” Dr. Flores asked, pointing to the bandages on my right hand. I couldn’t tell her I’d fought a giant locust any more than I could tell her Oberon had fought a vampire, so I stuck to the original lie.
“I hunted down that bear.”
“Congratulations,” she said, clearly not believing me. She petted Oberon regretfully and wished him farewell and no more encounters with “scary bears.”
<See how she’s keeping her voice low, Atticus? If Granuaile had admitted me under the name of Snugglepumpkin, she’d be in dog-whistle territory right now.>
Your sample size is still too small. You haven’t made it past mere coincidence yet.
<You know what would be cool? We should experiment on the Borg Queen. Once she hears my name is Snugglepumpkin, resistance is futile! Though I’m not sure if she’s a dog person. Or a person at all. Whatever. We’re going to Scotland, right, for sixteen succulent boar sausages?>
Right. Gotta dye my hair and take some pictures first, but then we can take off for the Scottish Highlands.
<I smell sheep already!>
I watched Oberon’s gait carefully as we exited the vet’s office. You look like you’re doing okay, no limping. How does that shoulder feel?
<I get a little twinge of pain, but it’s not that bad. Not sure I want to run on it yet. That nasty tea of yours sure helped.>
Good, I’ll make you some more. Need you to feel perfect again so we can go hunting.
<That’s right! You feel that subtle shudder in the wind? Around the world, squirrels are cringing in fear right now and they don’t know why.>
We ran errands in Flagstaff — getting more herbs for Oberon’s tea and some for myself, plus a particularly inky hair dye that would completely ruin me for a while. Dyeing my own hair didn’t scare me as much as saying good-bye to Granuaile’s: The sun wouldn’t shine on it the same way anymore, and she’d probably remind me uncomfortably of the Morrigan. But then I thought it might be a good thing for us to be unattractive to each other for a while, and this alteration of our appearance would be a blessing. Coyote had probably done me more favors than he actually intended. I knew he’d gotten us a place to live so I could keep the coal mine closed and his gold mine open, not out of any sense of guilt for tricking me or any other sense of obligation.
Granuaile didn’t like the dye job at all. We got a hotel suite so we could do it properly. She looked terminally depressed when she emerged from the bathroom with raven hair and, as a result, rather Goth by accident. She didn’t want to get her picture taken.
“Aughh!” she said miserably, looking in the vanity mirror in the truck of the cab and fingering a wavy curl near her temple. “This sucks more than anything has ever sucked before. You know what we look like? A couple of emo douche bags.”
“Well, look at the bright side, Granuaile. Emo Douche Bags would be a great band name.”
<That’s brilliant! It’s already the unofficial name of more bands than I can count.>
We spent some time at one of those office/print stores where you can use the Internet and fax and so on, sending our new likenesses to Hal at Magnusson and Hauk and asking him to work us up some new IDs.
“You hardly had time to get used to the ones I just gave you!” he grumbled on the phone. “I can’t get these overnight, you know. It’s going to take a few days.”
“Understood. We’re going to get out of the country for a while and then come back to get ourselves settled in these new names. They should last us a good decade or so while I’m training Granuaile.”
“I’m looking at these forms right now. You’re going to let people call you Sterling Silver?”
“I didn’t pick the names, I swear. It was Coyote.”
“Before you go,” Hal said, “thought you might like to know that Leif has severed all ties with our firm.”
“He’s left the state?”
“No, just our law firm. He’s still very much in the state. He’s back in charge too, from what I can tell. There may be a few stragglers here and there in the corners, but no one is going to give him any trouble after the coup he pulled. Antoine and the boys are well fed right now,” he said, referring to the local ghouls. “And I delivered your message. He knows he’s supposed to stay out of your way. He asked me to express his deepest regrets. Believe that if you want.”
I thanked Hal, assuring him I’d be back in touch in a week or so, and rang off. In a way it was soothing to have Leif back in charge; like a despised dictator, he was easy to hate, but at least he provided stability. Much as I wished to hunt him down for what he did to Oberon and me, letting him live (or continue in undeath, whatever) would keep Arizona a slightly safer place to train Granuaile. And I had already seen what happened to people when they pursued vengeance above all else. Besides, no matter how I tried to rationalize Leif’s actions as self-serving, there was the undeniable fact that he had saved me from bleeding out and gotten me to a hospital. Had he wanted me dead, all he had to do was nothing at all. Saving me had to count for something, even if he was the one to imperil me in the first place. Still, I planned on creating a new charm for my necklace as soon as I could set up a new shop in which to work metals. My experience with Zdenik proved that a mental command for unbinding a vampire would be extremely useful.