Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Six)

is take.”
    “Well, I think you should take me out to a ball game or five after this. I will admire the grace under pressure and you can get off on the despair in the dugout. Greatfun for the both of us. I’ll spring for the Cracker Jacks and maybe buy you a jersey. What do you say?”
    “You want to simply … spend time with me?”
    “Yeah. It’s what friends do. How does it sound?”
    The Morrigan smiled and her eyes glistened. “It sounds like a gift. I would be grateful.”
    “We are going to Norway now,” the Morrigan announced as soon as we left the room of harmony, abundance, and fertility and stood in the hallway of bone. Her tone immediately returned to the cold, businesslike rasp I was used to, and I was on my guard again.
    “Why?”
    “For an exquisite meal. And a rendezvous with certain gods who very politely requested a word with you.”
    “Which gods?”
    “They wish to introduce themselves.”
    “They’re not Norse gods, are they?”
    “They are.”
    “I can’t see them!”
    “You must. I have given my word.”
    “That’s not
my
problem.”
    Her eyes locked on mine and glowed red. “Oh, I rather think it is, Siodhachan.”
    After our heart-to-heart talk in the binding room, this severe return to her old, implacable self was a bit jarring. “Could we maybe go back into the room of harmony and discuss this?”
    “No.”
    “Morrigan, I’m supposed to be dead, remember? If the Norse find out I’m alive, they’ll just want to kill me all over again.”
    “Some of them are already well aware of the deception.”
    “That’s the same as all of them.”
    “No, it is not. Come. You will be safe.”
    This statement, meant to put me at my ease, utterly failed to reassure me. I remembered that the Morrigan’s definition of safe varied widely from mine. Hers included excruciating pain and severe injury just short of death. Mine included beer and a recliner chair. The fact that she felt it necessary to repair my healing capability before we made this trip suggested very strongly that she knew it would be dangerous.
    Hand in hand, we used one of the yew trees in her fen to shift from Ireland to Tír na nÓg and from there to an evergreen stretch north of Oslo. We took our bird forms and flew into the city until we banked down a narrow alley, where the Morrigan shifted to her human form as the last rays of sunlight moved off to the west and left us in darkness. I shifted as well and felt doubly naked without a sword over my shoulder in enemy territory. No one witnessed our metamorphosis, nor did anyone spy our public nudity. The Morrigan unbound a locked access door, and we stepped into the back room of what looked like a tailor’s shop.
    “Padraig,” she called. “We are here.”
    I cast a questioning glance her way. That wasn’t a Norwegian name.
    “There are plenty of people outside Ireland who pay me respect, Siodhachan,” she said. “Don’t look so surprised.”
    “Of course,” I said.
    A short lad with a florid complexion bounded through a black curtain that presumably led to the front of the shop. His eyes grew wide when he saw us and he started to bow to her, but the Morrigan stopped him.
    “Never mind that,” she said. “We don’t have time. Just fetch our clothes.”
    “Right away!” he blurted, joy writ large on his features, and he fled back through the curtain.
    “How cute,” I said. “You have a fanboy.”
    “Minion.”
    “A matter of nuance. Why not simply cloak yourself in darkness as I’ve seen you do before?”
    “We are to arrive without bindings or wards of any kind. No magic is allowed.”
    “What? That’s insane! First no sword, and now no magic?”
    “They are bound by the same rules. Make sure you follow them.”
    “Forgive me, Morrigan, but these Norse gods, whoever they are, might not feel as bound by the rules as you do.”
    “This is a formal summit of deities. They would not dare to cross me. Nor will we cross them.”
    Padraig returned before I could register any further objections. He held a black evening dress made of silk and lace in his left hand and a tuxedo in his right. He sort of threw the tuxedo at me and then grandly presented the gown to the Morrigan. His eyes drank in her body, and his breathing was already labored. The Morrigan surely noticed this but made no comment.
    Since I was certain she wasn’t carrying any cash on her, I didn’t particularly want to see what form of payment Padraig was expecting for