“Yes, that’s my father’s name. My real dad, not my stepfather.”

“Is your father an archaeologist?”

The conversation was beginning to worry me. “Yes, he is.”

“I was afraid of this. That is why I took the trouble to divine your location and call you. I believe your father is here. Did you know he was digging in India?”

“No, but that doesn’t surprise me. He digs all over the world.”

“I am afraid he found something that would have been better left buried. He unearthed a clay vessel recently and he opened it, either ignoring what was written on the outside or encouraged by it. It wasn’t empty. The vessel contained a spirit that had been trapped inside for many centuries—trapped for very good reasons—and it immediately possessed him.”

“Possessed him? Shit. How? The way you do it?”

“No, but it is similar. His spirit still dwells within his body, but the possessing spirit is dominant.”

“What can you tell me about it?”

“I found the vessel at the site. Your father had dropped it, or perhaps shattered it on purpose. I pieced it back together in order to read the Sanskrit markings. They warned that there was a raksoyuj inside.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“A raksoyuj, which means a yoker of rakshasas. It’s a type of sorcerer that I thought had been eliminated before I was born. They are capable of summoning demons and bending them to their will, and that is what he is doing. The rakshasas your father has summoned are spreading a pestilence throughout the region. People are dying.”

“Wait, you’re saying my dad is killing people?”

“The spirit possessing him is responsible, but it’s his body. I can imagine that someone will be wanting to stop him soon, and they might not be very careful about how they do it.”

“Oh, gods—”

“Yes, them too.”

“Okay, I can be there in a few hours.” I’d need to run back to the cabin and throw some things together and then find Atticus, but shifting around the world wouldn’t take any time at all. “Where should I meet you?”

“Meet me at the entrance to the Brihadeeswara Temple. We are eleven and a half hours ahead of you, so it will be fully dark when you get here.”

“See you then. Thanks for calling me.” I thumb the OFF button, ask the hounds to wait, and dart into the leather shop to return the phone to the manager.

Oberon asks, "Is there something wrong, Clever Girl?" when I return outside.

Yes, I answer him mentally, then make sure to include Orlaith. We have to return to the cabin quickly. Jog with me; no stopping unless I stop.

"No more town?" Orlaith says.

No more of this town. We will go to a different one.

We turn around and eat up ground quickly, especially since it’s downhill. People on the sidewalk move out of our way.

"I heard you say someone was possessed," Oberon says. "You weren’t talking about Atticus, were you?"

No, it was my father. Laksha says he’s in India and he needs my help.

"Am I going too?"

Well—damn. I can’t take both Oberon and Orlaith with me unless I make two trips. I don’t have enough “fully furnished” headspaces for it, and a Druid needs a separate headspace for each being she takes along when hopping between the planes. We can slip our friends into the worlds built by scions of literature, splitting our consciousness into self-contained partitions. Atticus explained it to me like so: The tethers are roads, and Druids are the vehicles that drive on them. Headspaces are like seats for passengers. Thus far I have memorized only the world of Walt Whitman, and that would allow me to take one person—or hound—with me when I shift to Tír na nÓg and thence to India. It would be more practical to have Atticus join us if he could; he has six headspaces. He’s like one of those old-fashioned boatmobiles, where I’m only a two-seat Smart Car. Well, scratch that. I’m more like a two-seat Jaguar F-Type. I’m not sure, Oberon. I’ll have to see if I can find Atticus.

Once we cross the bridge over the Uncompahgre River that leads to Box Canyon Falls, we zip behind some undergrowth and I shuck off my clothes before shifting to a jaguar. I abandon my jeans and sandals but decide to carry my Laser Vaginas T-shirt back in my mouth. Those are rare, after all. We sprint back to the cabin together, the hounds enjoying every moment of it, unconscious of my worries—as they should be.

When we get home, they both head straight for the water bowl and I head for the bedroom to get dressed for a fight. I doubt that physical weapons will be of any use against a spirit, but the sorts of spirits who possess people tend to have ways to manifest physical threats. I throw on another pair of jeans and a nondescript T-shirt, a simple solid black. No customs agents, metal detectors, or anything like that will delay my travel, so I strap on two holsters that carry three throwing knives each and hide another pack of them between the waistband of my jeans and the small of my back.

Oberon and Orlaith, I’m going to find Atticus in Tír na nÓg. Hopefully it won’t take long. Are you okay on food?

"That depends on how you define okay," Oberon says. "I haven’t had my morning sausage yet."

"Sausage now?" Orlaith asks, and I smile despite my stress. They are two of a kind.

Okay, I hear you, I reply. We must adhere to our priorities. Forcing myself to take the time, I fry up some sausages for the hounds and toast some sprouted-grain bread for myself. While I hope this will be a quick trip, it could easily turn into something more lengthy, and I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to eat again—and, besides, I haven’t had breakfast yet either.

Recognizing that the same uncertainty applies to the hounds, I haul out a bag of kibble and pour it into two gigantic bowls.

"You don’t expect us to eat that, do you?" Oberon says.

“It’s a backup plan,” I reply. “Just in case. You’re free to hunt, of course, and there’s all the water you want in the river. I hope I’ll be back in a few minutes and none of it will be necessary. But you know how weird things can get when you expect Atticus to behave normally.”

"Do I ever! Sometimes he eats vegetables!"

“The point is, you won’t starve while I’m gone, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

We all make short work of our breakfast and I give the hounds hugs before I shift away to Tír na nÓg, the primary Irish plane to which the Irish gods have tethered all others, allowing us to travel as we wish. I check at Manannan’s estate first, but Atticus isn’t there. Nor is he at the Time Island; the boat he used is moored at the shore with a rope tied to a stake plunged in the ground. He isn’t at Goibhniu’s shop or at the Fae Court, and that exhausts all the places I know to look for him in Tír na nÓg. No one I ask knows where he and the old man have gone. I don’t have time to waste looking anymore, so I shift back to Colorado and find the hounds playing down by the river.

Oberon! Orlaith!

"Clever Girl is home!"

"Granuaile! Race!"

There are no creatures better at making someone feel welcome than happy hounds. Though I had been gone perhaps only a half hour, their joy at my return was no less than if I had been gone half a year. I wish sometimes that humans could greet each other with such unreserved delight. Leaving out the face-licking, perhaps.

I can’t play with them, however, and though it breaks my heart, I have to leave Oberon behind if I’m going to go to India.

“I couldn’t find Atticus. I need you to stay here and explain where I’ve gone so that he can find me,” I tell him. We enter the cabin, and I grab a pen and paper to scribble down a note.

"What do you want me to tell him?"

“Tell him I’m with Laksha; we’re trying to find and help my real father, who’s in trouble, and the details on where to find me are in this note I’m leaving. Don’t forget to tell him about the note, okay?”

"I won’t forget."

“Good hound.”

"Do you think it would be creepy if I had you tell Orlaith from me that I will miss her while you’re gone?"

I smile and answer him privately. You’ve seen too many human movies. Hounds are allowed to miss whomever they want at any point in a relationship without any creep penalties.

"Oh, yeah! We have different rules."

I will miss both you and Atticus, I say, picking up my staff, Scáthmhaide, and walking outside with Orlaith trailing behind. I hope to see you soon.

"You will!"

I put my hand on a tethered tree and ask Orlaith to put one paw on me and one on the tree. Orlaith says, "Bye, Oberon! Play later!"

I tell Oberon what she said, and then we shift away to India.

Chapter 3

“Why did they do it?” Owen asked. “Cover up the earth?”

“They would say it speeds their transport system, but I think primarily it’s an aversion to mud. They don’t feel the magic of the earth like we do, so it’s not a moral decision for them. It’s convenience.”

“Oh, Siodhachan,” he said, shaking his head in despair. “Are you going to tell me that everything’s worse? Hasn’t the world gotten better in two thousand years?”

The bartender arrived with our shots and beers, and I thanked him. “Some things have improved dramatically,” I said, looking down at our drinks.

“What’s this, then?” My archdruid scowled at the glasses, distrust writ large on his face.

“A sampling of Ireland’s genius,” I replied, and switched to English for the next sentence. “Whiskey and stout.” I picked up the shot glass and returned to Old Irish. “Begin with this and toss it down. Then follow with a few sips of the dark beer.”

“All right,” he said, picking up the shot glass. “Your health.”

“Sláinte,” I replied in modern Irish.

The whiskey burned precisely as it should, and the Guinness was a perfect pour.

Owen coughed once and his eyes watered. “Oh, thank the gods below,” he said, putting down the pint glass. “My people aren’t completely lost.”

We both laughed—a common enough occurrence, but one that I couldn’t recall ever sharing with him—and then I answered a stream of questions about what he’d seen on the way to the inn. That turned into a stream of questions about what he saw inside the bar and what was this strange new concept called science anyway?

We talked through a couple more rounds, and the after-dinner crowd started to filter in. Owen became particularly animated at one point, and this amused some young toughs at the bar. They laughed and one of them aped him—an astoundingly poor decision, which meant that his night of fun with his mates was about to turn into The Night He Got His Ass Kicked.

“Shut your hole, you,” Owen growled at him. It was in Old Irish, but the tone was unmistakable. The grin disappeared from the punk’s face, and he put down his drink and did that jaw-flexing thing that some guys do because they think it makes them look tougher.

“Are you talking to me, old man?”

In the punk’s experience, that was the point where most people backed down. He’d left room for Owen to say, “My mistake,” and look away, and he thought that would be the end of it. But my archdruid wasn’t the average senior citizen. He knew a challenge when he heard it, and he had never refused to accept one. Keeping his eyes on the punk and sneering the entire way through his next words, he said, “Siodhachan, tell him his mother makes badger noises when I tup her sideways.”

I grinned but elected not to translate. There was no need; there was plenty of offense to be taken from Owen’s body language and voice, and the punk was happy to take it. He balled his hands into fists and approached the table.

“Look, old man, if you want trouble, I’ve plenty to give you.” He raised a fist and pointed at Owen when he got near. “In fact—”

That was it. Owen grabbed his arm, yanked it toward him, and head-butted the punk. He went down with a yelp and Owen stood up, kicking his chair away behind him. “Respect your elders, lad!”

The inn got quiet the way things will when shit gets real. The punk had four friends at the bar, who had just seen him lose in less than a second to a man who looked to be more than seventy and unable to pay for his drink. For a brief moment they had a choice regarding their mate: They could laugh at him and give him unending grief about it for the rest of his life, or they could back him up. Owen wasn’t going to let them get a laugh out of it. He kicked the punk in the gut and beckoned the others forward.

“Come on and have your lesson, then,” he said, and though they didn’t speak Old Irish, his meaning was unambiguous. The dinosaur wanted a fight, and the huge grin on my face probably didn’t help matters.

“Now, wait, boys—” the bartender said, but they all put down their drinks and rushed Owen. Pride and brotherhood wouldn’t allow them any other choice. I didn’t move but muttered words to boost my strength and speed in case they decided to involve me.

The first one came in with the intent to tackle Owen to the ground, the better to pummel him into submission. It wouldn’t work out well; the archdruid used to have us charge him in just such a fashion for training, because it was a common tactic in unarmed combat. Owen feinted to his right, causing the punk to veer that way, then hopped left, slapping the outstretched right arm away to ensure he’d pass by. Pivoting as the poor bloke chugged past and keeping his fists near his sternum, the archdruid delivered a blow with his left elbow to the lad’s temple and then kept spinning around, taking the charge of the next guy in the back and stunning him with a right elbow to his guts. The punk stopped, bent over, and Owen raised his right arm again, still cocked, and completed his turn, this time giving the man an elbow to the jaw. He lost some teeth on the way down to the floor.