Hammered

Leif didn’t look any better, but neither did he look any worse. Perun and I levered them up to a standing position, then the Russian summoned winds and bore us south to the forest where I could shift us to Tír na nÓg. Once safely on the Fae plane, I did not wish to waste another day shifting only part of the way for Leif’s benefit. It was morning in Arizona, so if we wanted to travel there immediately, we’d need a way to protect his body from the sun. The solution was to build a coffin without any nails.
    Trees are plentiful in Tír na nÓg. The trick is to find one that isn’t vital to shifting planes through some tether or other. We had to walk a mile before I found a young ash tree suitable for harvest. Perun laid about with his axe, cut rough planks, and I bound them together magically, making sure that there were no gaps for sunlight to leak through. We built one for Gunnar too.
    Once ready, we shifted all the way back to the Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness.
    » I have never been here, « Perun said, looking at the stream and the bare sycamores along the bank with pale, fingerlike branches scraping the sky. » It is beautiful. «
    I agreed and cast camouflage on both of the coffins and us. Once we got to populated areas, people would probably feel the wind of our passage and see a blur overhead, but I couldn’t bring myself to get too concerned; I figured they’d blame it on aliens or secret military experiments or the mushrooms they ate and that would be the end of it. But I was careful to cast this using magic stored in my bear charm and not draw anything from the earth. I had a theory that the Hammers of God could track those draws somehow and thus pinpoint my location. It would explain how they knew about most of my activities—but not how they had found me at Rúla Búla. That mystery aside, I was going to be operating on a reduced magic diet as a general policy now that I was back in Arizona. There would be too many people—and perhaps too many gods—looking for me here, and I didn’t want to give them any clues.
    » Where are we going? « Perun asked.
    I didn’t want to fly back to Tempe under these circumstances. Any magic, including Perun’s, was likely to draw attention now. So I named a town about seventy miles from Tempe and hoped I could arrange a ninja operation from there. » A copper-mining town called Globe, northwest of here. I know the perfect place. You can drop me off and I’ll buy you a Big Boy. «
    » I am not fond of children. «
    » Don’t worry, it’s a drink. «
    We reached Globe a little after eleven in the morning by riding the winds, and I directed Perun to an alley behind Broad Street downtown—specifically the alley behind a sports bar called the Huddle. It wasn’t an urban alley full of rats and moldering dumpsters but rather a wide sort of throughway with parking and a couple of trees. Asphalt laid down decades ago was deteriorating, crumbling to gravel and allowing weeds to poke through.
    The Huddle had a back patio constructed specifically for smokers; it faced an unused parking lot on the other side of the alley, currently fenced off with chain link. A single trash can sat in front of that fence, enjoying the shade of a willow acacia tree. I had Perun set us down there, and we stacked the coffins on top of each other about five feet away from the trash can. No one saw us do this, because the Huddle isn’t full of smokers at eleven in the morning. The smokers tend to come out at night.
    » I need to make a couple of calls in there, « I said, gesturing at the back entrance of the bar, » and then we can enjoy our Big Boys. « I’d chosen this place precisely because it had a back entrance; those come in handy sometimes.
    I dispelled our camouflage but left it on the coffins. After a bit of conversation, Perun was convinced that he didn’t need to wear his fur cloak into an American bar around lunchtime. Besides, we were in Arizona now: It was sixty degrees outside in December. He removed the fur to reveal another layer of fur underneath—his own hairy arms and shoulders sprouting from his thin sleeveless shirt. I grinned as I camouflaged his cloak on top of the coffins. Americans have a visceral fear of body hair—a fact exploited by hippies, bikers, and construction foremen—so Perun’s appearance would likely scare everyone in the bar, including the bikers.
    After I reminded Perun to speak English again, we entered the Huddle and I threw a wave at