Staked

Mademoiselle Maupin hit the road again, singing, taking a series of male lovers, and occasionally kicking someone’s ass in a duel, until she arrived in Paris and joined the opera there. Her life was only mildly tempestuous for a while—she had to beat the hell out of a misogynistic actor once and her landlord on another occasion—but then she landed in serious trouble again when she attended a fancy ball dressed as a man and kissed a young woman there in front of nobility. This was quite offensive according to the social customs of the time, and she was promptly challenged to a duel by three different men. She went outside and beat them all, one after the other; while they bled in the street, she went back inside and kissed the girl again.

Kissing the girl wasn’t the true problem: The problem was that she had very publicly broken the king’s law against dueling within the limits of Paris and had to leave the country for a time. She relocated to Brussels, sang in the opera there, had several more affairs, and then returned to France, where she sang in the Paris Opera until 1705. Her final affair was with a woman who died in an untimely fashion, and she took her lover’s death quite hard and retired from the opera altogether. She entered a convent, in fact, and died a couple of years later at the young age of thirty-three. It was a short, violent, but passionate life she led. She didn’t give a damn about gender roles, and she kissed and fought whomever she felt like kissing or fighting, and she sang beautifully and snatched bodies when she needed to. That was Julie d’Aubigny, or Mademoiselle Maupin.

“Wow, Atticus. She was awesome! Did you ever meet her?”

“I did not meet her personally, but I did see her perform Tancrède at the Paris Opera in 1702.”

“Was she good?”

“Oh, she was very good. And you are very good. We almost have all this gunk off you. How are you feeling?”

“Something stings pretty bad on my right shoulder. The front, I mean.”

I examined the area, parting the fur with my fingers, and found a shallow scratch from a bone splinter there. I’d taken the brunt of it, but Oberon hadn’t escaped completely. There was some yellow discoloration around the scratch, which meant that it had indeed been ichor-covered and some of it had managed to get into Oberon. I would have to directly heal him or else it would get worse. Ichor poisoning functioned like cancer in that it turned a mortal body against itself, and even small amounts could be fatal eventually. There wasn’t an herbal remedy for it that I knew of, so I’d have to break it down inside him, as I’d done to myself.

“Okay, you’re cut up here. Don’t shake yourself off or talk or anything. I need to concentrate to deal with this. Just let me know when it stops stinging.”

Directly healing another creature by the old laying-on-of-hands is always a tricky business. The Hippocratic maxim of “First, do no harm” is especially true when it comes to using Gaia’s energy, since she frowns rather severely on using the earth’s magic to do any direct injury. But finding what was not Oberon and was clearly invasive wasn’t that difficult—it simply required patience and thorough attention. It turned out there were only a few milligrams of ichor inside him, nothing to send him into shock or seizures now, but enough to do the job eventually if I didn’t stop it. Unbinding the molecular chains of the ichor into their components left a few random proteins coursing through him—they would eventually get flushed out—and rendered the rest of it inert. Oberon was shivering by the time I was finished.

“It stopped stinging, Atticus, but I’m cold and wet now.”

“Okay, buddy, sorry that it took so long. You can shake off now and roll around on a towel. I have to trade places with you and wash myself.”

Once I scoured myself several times and my skin stung all over with the raw thrill of exfoliation, we emerged damp but refreshed from the bathroom. I borrowed Ty’s phone to call Hal Hauk and tell him my Sean Flanagan identity was toast. “I’m going to need a new set of papers,” I told him.

“I’m going to need money for that, and you can’t afford it anymore,” he said. “Your accounts are drier than a high-desert well since Drasche got access through Kodiak Black and emptied them. You’re going to owe me.”

“Understood. I’m good for it, Hal. It’s this war with the vampires. It’s so very draining, hahaha.”

“Gods.” Hal’s voice was weary. “I sentence you to three centuries in pun prison for that.”

“You are the very best of attorneys.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“How’s the Oregon deal progressing?” Kodiak Black hadn’t managed quite everything of mine, and that’s where most of my remaining funds had gone—a cabin property in the Willamette National Forest. For me, the entire point of building up multiple accounts had always been for precisely this purpose: to pay for a new hiding place the next time I had to run. I couldn’t flip houses; I had to abandon them along with my identity every time I ran, and that took cash. Once we had our new safehouse settled, I wouldn’t need to impose on anyone else.

“Almost finished. Few more days. I’ll bring your ID up to Flagstaff when it’s ready.”

“Thanks, Hal.”

We rang off and I turned to find Sam and Ty standing behind me, arms crossed and staring as if I’d trespassed somehow.

“What did I do?” I asked.

“You tell us,” Sam said. “Which Olympian’s ichor did you just wash down our drain?”

“Diana’s.”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “The huntress Diana? You have her on your trail—a trail that leads to our door?”

“I certainly hope not. Jupiter said he’d take care of it.”

“Jupiter can’t even control his own urges,” Ty pointed out. “What makes you think he’ll be able to rein in Diana’s?”

He echoed my own worries about the situation, but I didn’t want to openly agree. “Look, fellas, I’m leaving in a few minutes. I have this thing to do with Brighid on one of the Norse planes. If Diana shows up—and that’s a big if—you’re welcome to tell her I’m in Svartálfheim.”

Sam’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “You’re seriously going to visit the dark elves?”

“It’s either that or displease the Morrigan. I really don’t want to annoy the Chooser of the Slain. But I can’t take Oberon with me. It’s too dangerous.” I clasped my hands together and gave them my best pleading, hopeful expression.

“Hey, wait, what? You’re leaving me here?”

I have to. Svartálfheim is no place for a hound. It’s no place for a Druid either.

Sam shook his head and Ty sighed. “You really are a giant pain in the arse, like Owen says.”

“I’ll find a way to make it up to you,” I promised.

“Oh, no, we’ll think up something ourselves,” Ty countered.

“Thank you very sincerely for watching him. But I gotta warn you guys: After the bathtime story I just told him, Oberon may try to hump your leg and then challenge you to a duel. Or vice versa.”

CHAPTER 11

I’ve had a few days to prepare, but me palms are sweaty when I see the families approaching from the house. I hope I look competent to their modern eyes and not like some wild cock-up of a man. I’m in a robe, since I plan to be shape-shifting, and me bare feet are chilled while the rest of me feels overheated. Sam and Greta are with the group and they smile at me, happy over what is to begin here, but the families and the children look as nervous as I feel. Or maybe they’re just tired; they all had long trips to get here on short notice.