Staked

“No!” Whud. “Telling!” Fump. “Who!” Thud. “Could!” Smack. “Get hurt!” Whump.

“Granuaile!” Orlaith’s voice intrudes, and I look up at her. “You said you didn’t want to be violent!”

“Oh,” I say in a tiny voice, rearing back and realizing that Beau has curled up into a defensive fetal position. I have just beaten the hell out of an old man. An evil old man, to be sure, but I’ve failed miserably at keeping the moral high ground. Now the entire confrontation will be about my violence instead of his decades of ruining the earth for profit. I’m torn, because it felt so good to lay into him like I’ve always wanted to, but I also wanted to be better than that.

“Also, watch out for the dudes.”

Looking up, I see that a couple of the guards have won free of their shoes and one is circling around the desk to get behind me while the other is moving to the door. He opens it a crack, shouts to the secretary to call for backup, and closes it again. The other two guards will be free in another couple of seconds. I need to leave.

The guy who’s trying to pounce on me from behind moves too slow; his body language screams that I spooked him with the shoe thing. He can’t explain that shit with science so he’s got a clenched-teeth aggro face and nostrils flaring like a bull. Still, when I scramble to my feet, retrieving Scáthmhaide, he somehow summons the courage to try to bash me in the head with his baton. I knock it aside and then before he can swing it back around I whip the bottom end of my staff up into his unprotected groin. He goes down with a whimper, all the aggro gone and the totality of his existence now consumed with the throbbing of his bruised balls.

Movement in my peripheral vision alerts me that one of the guards is climbing over the chair and lunging for the desk. I get there a split second faster and snatch up Beau’s dropped gun.

“Nuh-uh,” I say, pointing it at him. “Back off. Drop the batons. All of you, away from the door. Move fast, now, or I’ll drop you with a bullet to the knee.”

I gesture, they scoot, and I mentally tell Orlaith to head for the door. She growls as she passes them, essentially exchanging positions with the guards, and stands in front of the door. The three guards—the last one finally free of the chair—keep their hands up and their eyes on me. Beau is still lying on the ground, moaning. With the guards disarmed and Orlaith out of danger, I take my eyes off the three guards just long enough to carefully step past the one I’d nutted. Couldn’t have him tripping me up.

When I reach the door, I’m afraid Beau might not take the proper lesson from this. “You were right, Beau,” I say, calling to him. “Granuaile is dead. I’m someone else. Someone you can’t control.” A line from Whitman floats up into my consciousness and I seize on it. “I help myself to material and immaterial, No guard can shut me off, no law prevent me. Bye now, Beau. Shut down Thatcher Oil and Gas and move on.”

Out the door when it opens, Orlaith, I tell her. I take care to turn on the safety, shove the gun in my waistband, and open the door. Orlaith trots out smartly.

The secretary is on the phone, calling for reinforcements, but looks up at our exit.

“Oh. Oh god. She’s here.” The phone drops from her fingers and she raises her hands. “Please don’t kill me.”

“Nobody’s dead. Just don’t move,” I say, closing the door and concentrating on the wood—a paneled composite, I realize, rather than the solid hardwood I was expecting. I’m still not good with binding the unseen, so I forget the lock and perform a different binding instead, fusing the wood of the door to the jamb. Beau and his minions will have to be hacked out of there to get out. My hand is still on the doorknob and someone tries to open it from the other side as I work. I maintain my hold on the knob until I complete my binding, and then he can rattle the doorknob all he wants after that.

“Call 911!” the guard shouts from behind the door. “We need an ambulance!” Binding complete, I let go of the door and turn to the secretary.

“Did you hear that?”

She nods at me, eyes huge like hardboiled eggs.

“Well, better get on it, then. Tell them to bring something to hack through the door.”

I head for the stairwell, ruling out the elevator as a death trap. The secretary watches me go until I’m past her desk, then she grabs for her phone.

Move down these as fast as you can manage, Orlaith, I tell her as I open the door. But stay in contact with my hand. As soon as it clicks shut behind us, I speak the binding that will turn us invisible again, drawing on a dwindling reserve of energy. I’m still somewhat stiff from my encounter with Weles, despite my opportunities to heal, so I can’t move as quickly as I would like. After a few flights down we hear the door above slam open and boots clomping after us. Additional security must have arrived via the elevator only to be told by the secretary that we went downstairs. On the third-floor landing, I hear a door open below and hold up, telling Orlaith to stop.

Squish yourself against the wall right here, away from the banister, I tell her. More boots pound upstairs and soon three black-clad security guards round the banister, stick to the rail, and hurry right past us on the landing, soon to meet the other guys coming down. I wait for them to round the next flight before giving Orlaith the all-clear. Let’s keep going down, but try to go quietly.

“My toenails click,” Orlaith mourns.

I think it will be okay. Their boots are loud. Plus they’re shouting at one another now, wondering where we are.

We sneak out without incident after that, I toss Beau’s gun into a public trash can—the kind with a lid on it, so people can’t see it in there—and I keep a hand on the back of Orlaith’s neck to guide her a couple of blocks away, out of the immediate vicinity of the building and security cameras. The invisibility melts away in an alleyway before I can dispel it, the energy completely drained from the silver reservoir of Scáthmhaide, and then, as sirens wail on their way to aid my stepfather, I shudder from the adrenaline comedown and wonder what I should be feeling.

I sink to my knees and wrap my arms around Orlaith’s neck. “This is so strange,” I tell her. “I feel terrible and awesome at the same time. Pretty sure that’s wrong.”

“Why?”

“I’m supposed to feel just terrible for utterly failing to be a good person up there.”

“You’re a good person! The best person.”

“But I didn’t need to be violent. Even when he pulled that gun, I could have used Druidry instead of my weapon. Thrashing him felt good, but still I’m horrified at my lack of control. Thank you for stopping me from doing anything more.” The fact that he needed an ambulance was bad enough.

“You’re welcome. Maybe it was a mistake? Everyone makes mistakes. That one time I chewed up your slippers was a mistake. It was fun to chew them, but once I knew it was wrong I didn’t do it again.”

That makes me laugh. “You have a point there.” I think, not for the first time, that Oberon and Orlaith are far more emotionally stable than humans. Hounds have much to teach us, as do all the creatures of the earth. I’ve made my share of mistakes, but thank all the gods that I have yet to regret choosing to become a Druid. I get to my feet and dust off my knees. “Okay, back to the park, and then we shift out of here.”