Shattered: The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Seven by Kevin Hearne Page A
Authors: Kevin Hearne
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out of me way right quick.”
I didn’t really say that. I didn’t know what a monkey was until one threw shite at me a couple of days ago, and now that I’m remembering this conversation and writing it down after the fact, I wished I’d known about them in time to be clever.
Instead, I told Siodhachan I wasn’t ready for an animal companion yet. I had so much to learn right then that I’d be a poor friend to it, and I never was one to form such relationships anyway. I suppose I’m ornery. Siodhachan tells me that’s the English word for my character. Or my disposition. Or some other big fecking word for the same thing. English is full of words like that.
And it’s full of fancy words for the ache in your knuckles and every other pain ye might have. Siodhachan warns me that I have to watch my health and heal infections in the blood as soon as they appear. Tells me I’ve never been vaccinated and I don’t have any antibodies or immunoresistance to modern disease and I’ll be dead shortly if I don’t monitor myself closely and break down infections. All those big words require lengthy explanations, and eventually I cut him off when he gets to modern drugs people take with side effects worse than the problem they’re supposed to fix.
“Ye could have stopped at ‘watch your health, nasty diseases around here,’ ” I says.
Siodhachan has taken me to some place in Gaul—which they call France now—to touch up his tattoos. Says manticore venom is evil brew, and he isn’t lying. His skin is a mess even after he’s had time to heal, and I’ve never seen a wound like it.
“It’s the strongest poison I’ve ever encountered,” says he, “and I’m not sure I even got a full dose, because I removed the thorn before it was finished pumping the toxin into me.”
“So where did you run into the manticore?” I asks him. “Because we’d heard about them and how to tame them from Druids on the continent—they were supposed to be monsters from the east somewhere—but none of them ever showed up in Ireland.”
And he says, “You probably won’t believe me. It was in Tír na nÓg, in the home of Midhir, where it was chained up and waiting for me. One of the Tuatha Dé Danann put it there. And I figure it was the same member of the Tuatha Dé Danann that strung up Midhir in iron chains and cut his throat so that he’d bleed out, separated from the earth.”
“Gods below, lad, that’s a terrible way to go. Who would do such a thing?”
“That’s what I can’t figure out. Someone is playing me for a fool, but I don’t know who. They didn’t just kill Midhir at Brí Léith, but they conspired against me with the Fae, a good number of vampires and dark elves, and the Roman gods as well. I bet they told Loki where to find me a few times and sent those Fir Darrigs after us too. And it’s not only me they’re fooling. They’re also keeping it secret from all the rest of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Either that or they’re all in on it, but I seriously doubt that.”
“What have ye been
doing
for two thousand years to make someone hate ye so bad?” I says.
“Hiding out, mostly. I could use your help figuring out who’s after me. You’d bring a fresh perspective to the problem. And by spending time in Tír na nÓg, you wouldn’t have to deal with all the shocks of modernity right away.”
It’s taken me a while to figure out what to call Siodhachan inthis new language, but I think I have it figured out: He’s a bullshit salesman. You’ll walk away thinking you got something for free, but Siodhachan’s a buy-now-and-pay-later sort, and the coin you pay for buying his bullshit now is grief later. I knew right away that this talk of me spending time in Tír na nÓg would be for his health and not mine. “What do you expect me to do, lad? Go ask the Tuatha Dé Danann one by one if they’d like to stick a sword in your guts?”
“Perhaps you could be a tad more subtle than that.”
“What’s
I didn’t really say that. I didn’t know what a monkey was until one threw shite at me a couple of days ago, and now that I’m remembering this conversation and writing it down after the fact, I wished I’d known about them in time to be clever.
Instead, I told Siodhachan I wasn’t ready for an animal companion yet. I had so much to learn right then that I’d be a poor friend to it, and I never was one to form such relationships anyway. I suppose I’m ornery. Siodhachan tells me that’s the English word for my character. Or my disposition. Or some other big fecking word for the same thing. English is full of words like that.
And it’s full of fancy words for the ache in your knuckles and every other pain ye might have. Siodhachan warns me that I have to watch my health and heal infections in the blood as soon as they appear. Tells me I’ve never been vaccinated and I don’t have any antibodies or immunoresistance to modern disease and I’ll be dead shortly if I don’t monitor myself closely and break down infections. All those big words require lengthy explanations, and eventually I cut him off when he gets to modern drugs people take with side effects worse than the problem they’re supposed to fix.
“Ye could have stopped at ‘watch your health, nasty diseases around here,’ ” I says.
Siodhachan has taken me to some place in Gaul—which they call France now—to touch up his tattoos. Says manticore venom is evil brew, and he isn’t lying. His skin is a mess even after he’s had time to heal, and I’ve never seen a wound like it.
“It’s the strongest poison I’ve ever encountered,” says he, “and I’m not sure I even got a full dose, because I removed the thorn before it was finished pumping the toxin into me.”
“So where did you run into the manticore?” I asks him. “Because we’d heard about them and how to tame them from Druids on the continent—they were supposed to be monsters from the east somewhere—but none of them ever showed up in Ireland.”
And he says, “You probably won’t believe me. It was in Tír na nÓg, in the home of Midhir, where it was chained up and waiting for me. One of the Tuatha Dé Danann put it there. And I figure it was the same member of the Tuatha Dé Danann that strung up Midhir in iron chains and cut his throat so that he’d bleed out, separated from the earth.”
“Gods below, lad, that’s a terrible way to go. Who would do such a thing?”
“That’s what I can’t figure out. Someone is playing me for a fool, but I don’t know who. They didn’t just kill Midhir at Brí Léith, but they conspired against me with the Fae, a good number of vampires and dark elves, and the Roman gods as well. I bet they told Loki where to find me a few times and sent those Fir Darrigs after us too. And it’s not only me they’re fooling. They’re also keeping it secret from all the rest of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Either that or they’re all in on it, but I seriously doubt that.”
“What have ye been
doing
for two thousand years to make someone hate ye so bad?” I says.
“Hiding out, mostly. I could use your help figuring out who’s after me. You’d bring a fresh perspective to the problem. And by spending time in Tír na nÓg, you wouldn’t have to deal with all the shocks of modernity right away.”
It’s taken me a while to figure out what to call Siodhachan inthis new language, but I think I have it figured out: He’s a bullshit salesman. You’ll walk away thinking you got something for free, but Siodhachan’s a buy-now-and-pay-later sort, and the coin you pay for buying his bullshit now is grief later. I knew right away that this talk of me spending time in Tír na nÓg would be for his health and not mine. “What do you expect me to do, lad? Go ask the Tuatha Dé Danann one by one if they’d like to stick a sword in your guts?”
“Perhaps you could be a tad more subtle than that.”
“What’s
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