We might be observed by traffic cameras on the way, and authorities might trace my path later, but there is no helping it. I have nothing left to keep us camouflaged across the city.

During the jog to the park, I continue to ping back and forth between elation and guilt. I’d undeniably done a good thing for Gaia by shutting down the operations of TO & G, but in hindsight my visit with Beau was definitely a mistake. He doesn’t feel remorse over what he’s done. He doesn’t see that I’m right, only that I can punch him whenever I want and get away with it—and that I can make leather shoes stick to his upholstery. Maybe my leaving that binding in place, along with sealing his office door, will be a nice reminder that I’m not playing by the rules he’s used to. That might be the only thing that gets through to him, short of driving his company bankrupt. I do hope that he decides to get out of oil without further prompting, but it’s more likely that I will have to slowly choke his company to death. And no one should doubt that I will do it, with purpose and vigor and justice for Gaia.

What truly worries me is the idea that the elementals’ habit of calling me “Fierce Druid” isn’t merely a badass honorific. Maybe it points to something darker in my makeup, something latent that I didn’t realize lurked within me until events conspired to yank it to the surface.

The thing to do, if I must be fierce, is to channel it into virtuous channels. I need to study Polish and memorize Szymborska to improve my Druidry, and I have to fight Gaia’s battles until I can’t fight anymore.

Orlaith and I return to the same peaceful meadow in Ecuador to seek some balance after the violence of Wichita. The runoff lake is cold, but I feel cleaner after a swim. And after whiling the day away under a tree in meditation, I open my eyes at dusk and smile, having come to an emotional mountaintop where I can breathe easy.

It was ugly work, dealing with Beau, and I certainly could have controlled myself better. But confronting him was a wall I had to climb to see the splendor of the other side. I think I’ll take Orlaith’s wise advice and not dwell on the mistakes I made while scaling that wall. I will focus instead on not repeating them.

I suspect most people have someone like Beau Thatcher in their lives—a person standing in between who you used to be and who you want to be, guarding the wall and proclaiming that you shall forever be imprisoned by their expectations and obligations. Crossing to the other side will always be a struggle and fraught with dangers that may leave scars. But, oh, the reward when you leap over that wall or break through it and shed the burdens of the past! I am light and free and my path ahead is smooth and wide through a land of burgeoning promise.

CHAPTER 19

Sometimes you get an idea so simple that you wonder why you never thought of it before. What is the point, I asked myself, of having your own goddess of the hunt if you don’t ask her to show off once in a while? Flidais was unlikely to do anything but follow her own whimsy, but since Brighid was on record as wanting the vampire threat eliminated and it was a genuine challenge, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask for Flidais’s help in tracking down Theophilus. A quick trip to Tír na nÓg to present the problem to her was in order. Instead of asking her to help, I challenged her to beat me.

“I haven’t been able to find an ancient vampire for months now,” I said. “I wondered if you could succeed where I failed.”

And, as it turned out, Flidais was longing for something to occupy her attention. She was prone to ennui after hunting everything on the earth over a couple thousand years, and she needed something to distract her from dwelling on Fand’s betrayal of Brighid anyway. She accepted my challenge straightaway and accompanied me back to Prague, bringing a rather moody Perun along.

I worried at first that she was breaking Brighid’s offer of sanctuary by having him leave Tír na nÓg—he was supposed to stay there, and sanctuary was forfeit if he left—but she said not to worry about it, so I didn’t.

I took her to the Grand Hotel Bohemia and said we’d be looking for the oldest vampire there, if that was a trail she could isolate somehow. She brought a couple of scent hounds with her, cast invisibility on them, and entered the hotel with the admonition to give her a few hours. She’d bind with them and coach them on what to search for. I might be able to do something similar but could never achieve the same link she could and be certain they had picked up the right scent; her hunting experience and skill with animals put her in a completely different league from me. I took Perun and Oberon to the Grand Café Orient, near the hotel. The café was determined to take advantage of the sunny weather in winter and offer outdoor seating. They had umbrellas over the tables to protect against sunburns or sudden rain, but I thought the latter was more likely, considering Perun’s sour disposition. Clouds began to form and whirl directly above us. Tourists walking down the cobbled street looked up at them, a bit worried, and then looked at Perun as if the huge man wearing a blue sleeveless shirt on a chilly day was responsible. He was, of course: If there’s some odd weather rolling in, you can almost always blame it on the big guy flaunting his hairy shoulders. People were trying to be cool about it and not stare, but they couldn’t help themselves. They spotted him dwarfing his chair, looking as out of place as one might expect a thunder god in an outdoor café to look, and smiled or laughed at him. A pair of Spanish tourists thought he was an eccentric local and wanted to take a picture with him, and he obliged, grateful for the attention. It cheered him up a bit, I think.

After they left and we had Czech pilsners in front of us, Perun began to speak of what troubled him. He had seen Granuaile recently and she had suggested that Weles was working with Loki. Apparently Perun’s old enemy had squirreled away another god of his pantheon and a horse used to divine the outcomes of battles. Perun and Granuaile had found the horse—and Weles had found them, and then later Loki appeared briefly, proving the link—but they had not found the god, Świętowit.

“I am thinking I go looking for Świętowit,” Perun said. “Others of my peoples too. I thought all were burn by Loki, but maybe they live. The Zoryas do. Flidais may help with looking for others if Brighid does not need her in Tír na nÓg.”

“I wish you luck with that. But if you don’t mind backtracking a bit: Do you know why Granuaile would concern herself with the horse?”

“She is wanting cloak of divination. Witches in Poland give to her if she give to them horse. Good witches who worship Zoryas.”

Interesting. Either she’d removed Loki’s mark and wanted a cloak until she completed binding cold iron to her aura, or she hadn’t and was hoping the cloak on top of the mark would shield her from Loki’s sight. It was all news to me, and I felt a physical ache in my chest at the thought that I should be with the one I love rather than chasing down vampires. And there was a dollop of guilt on top of it, melting like whipped cream on hot pie, for not thinking of her earlier. I could smell that strawberry lip gloss of hers—or at least the memory of it was so strong that it seemed to be in my nose right then. Oberon was thinking similar thoughts, presumably because the mention of Granuaile reminded him of her hound.

“I miss Orlaith,” he said, and sighed heavily next to us.

Hopefully we’ll get to see her soon, I told him privately, and it meant Granuaile for me as much as it meant Orlaith for him. But it was good to hear that she was taking measures to protect herself. I was doing much the same. Removing Theophilus would theoretically remove his death sentence on Druids—which would never have happened if I had kept running when I should have. I shook my head at the realization that all I did anymore was fight to get back to that place where I had only one Irish god after my ass. Aenghus Óg was long gone now, his spirit trapped in hell, but I supposed Fand could fill the role of Irish antagonist quite admirably from her prison.