Hounded

know I’m there to spot me. I figured it was best: Naked women rarely welcome the approach of strange naked men, except in porn movies.
    Tiptoeing around to the left of the trio, my suspicions were confirmed: Somehow, this coven of callow witches had succeeded in capturing and binding a forest elemental. A small metal cage was fairly bouncing on the forest floor, and inside was frenzied Kaibab squirrel in the most exquisite pain, because it was trying to contain the spirit of the entire forest in its wee little body. Kaibab squirrels are unique to the plateau, with white fluffy tails and black, tufted ears that look like tassels. They evolved there in geographic isolation and occupy a vital ecological niche—they’re the face of the plateau, in many ways—but they aren’t constitutionally capable of holding an elemental inside of them. I think the only reason this one was still alive was because the elemental really wanted it that way. Its fur rippled and its eyes bulged, it twitched and spasmed and chittered in terror, and I felt sorry for it.
    And angry.
    I looked around to see if I could discern how they had managed this. There wasn’t an obvious cauldron hanging over a fire with an unholy stench bubbling forth; there wasn’t a stone altar with a sacrifice on it, bleeding its life away. They had to have used some mechanism to bind Kaibab—they could not have simply bid him to come and take up residence in a squirrel. Finally I spotted it: Carved carefully into the bark of the ponderosa behind the stone circle was the Seal of Arielis, a pernicious seal from the Seventh Book of Moses originally intended to bind one of the Seven Great Princes of Hell. Since its publication in nineteenth-century Germany, witches of various stripes had been using it to bind all manner of spirits and compel their obedience. They’d found it to be one of the few fail-safes in magic: Either the spirit would come and be firmly bound by the Seal, or it wouldn’t work, period, and all they’d lose was some time and maybe an eye of newt. These witches had traced the carving with crushed knotweed, a common herb used in binding spells, and the same Seal was printed on a piece of parchment resting underneath the squirrel’s cage.
    I sighed. » You know, when that elemental gets out of there, « I said, » you’re going to wish you’d left well enough alone. «
    » Who said that? « Coffee spun in my direction but utterly failed to see me as I remained still. Pinky and Coppertone started looking all around, even up in the trees, but they had no better luck than Coffee did.
    » Where are you? « Coppertone asked.
    » Who are you? « Pinky called.
    » Who I am doesn’t matter. What I am is a Druid, and you’ve broken Druidic law by binding an elemental against its will. «
    And they’d picked one of the weaker, more vulnerable ones, probably on purpose. I doubt they would have been able to bind Amazon, for example, or Appalachia. They’d settled for one of the smallest elementals on earth, thinking perhaps its wee size and isolation would keep anyone from noticing what they were doing. But I would have heard Kaibab’s call from anyplace on the planet and come running; it was their bad luck they’d tried it when I was so close by.
    They were all gazing directly at me now, because I’d helpfully given them a direction to look by speaking again. They still didn’t see me, though.
    » How does he know what we’ve done? « Coppertone whispered.
    » I thought the Druids all died before Rome fell, « Coffee said.
    » All but one, « I said. » The Romans never found me. «
    » I still can’t see him, « Pinky complained in a frustrated whisper. » Can’t do anything. « That told me they would have thrown some juju at me already if they had line of sight.
    » Show yourself! « Coppertone shouted, taking a couple of steps in my direction. They weren’t shy. They’d made no move at all to cover their nudity.
    » I’m sorry for you ladies, « I said over the pained cries of the squirrel. » You obviously have some magical talent, and you might have turned out to be great witches. But I can’t let you have Kaibab’s power. It needs to be free. « I still didn’t know what kind of witches they were. The Seal of Arielis suggested a Kabbalistic background, but it had also been used by priests of Voodoo and Obeah and teenage girls who had found the damn thing on the Internet. Whatever they were, they were clever enough to adapt the