Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Six)

these rather expensive clothes. I began to dress as quickly as possible, hoping that I’d be able to exit and wait outside before I had to bear witness to something tragic.
    Unfortunately, the dress was a much simpler affair to don than a tuxedo. It slipped over her head, and with a couple of tugs here and a zip there she was ready. The dress was stunning; the black silk was a flat matte in some places but shone with highlights elsewhere. A curling vine pattern of lace interrupted the silk and hugged her curves, allowing her porcelain skin to show through. Starting over her left breast, the lace curved between them and then underneath, tracing its way in a spiralaround her torso until it reappeared above her right hip, where it fell in a serpentine wave down the front of her thigh. The dress ended just above the knees.
    “You didn’t forget my shoes, did you, Padraig?” the Morrigan said.
    A brief flash of panic crossed Padraig’s face as he realized he may have committed an unpardonable sin. “No, no!” he said, hands up in a placating gesture. “I simply couldn’t carry them along with the dress and tux. I’ll go get them and be right back.”
    He bolted through the curtain again.
    I cocked an eyebrow at the Morrigan. “Do I get shoes too?”
    “He might forget,” she replied. “How shall we punish him?”
    “Let’s not and pretend we did,” I said. “Let’s leave the poor man alone.”
    “That would be unkind, Siodhachan,” she said. “He prayed so fervently for my favor. He’s fully aware that there will be a price for it.”
    “What if he’s unable to pay?”
    “Oh, they are always able to pay. Was it Shakespeare’s Shylock who was so eager to extract a pound of flesh? I’m like him. I’m happy to carve off a pound. Or two. I never seem to have a scale handy when it’s time to take what’s due.”
    Padraig returned with a pair of black shoes for me and some sandals for the Morrigan—the type with lots of leather straps on them to wind around the calves. I dragged a chair over from a desk piled high with receipts and invoices. I parked myself on the chair and squeezed my feet into the shoes. I’d rather have remained barefoot, since anything I wore on my feet would cut me off from the earth, but the Morrigan seemed to have arranged matters so that I would be at my greatest disadvantage when I met whomever we were meeting. Mybear charm was just below full, since I’d charged up in the forest before we took wing and only used a little bit of it to transform back to human in the city. It felt good to have something available even though the Morrigan kept insisting I wouldn’t need it. That was simply too trusting of her—yet more unusual behavior.
    I didn’t understand what was going on with her. On the one hand, she had nearly wept at the idea of going to see a baseball game with me. Now she spoke of carving pounds of flesh from a man who’d been praying to her. It was like she had swerved toward kindness and sanity for a moment, but now she was overcorrecting and trying to be extra-special savage. I feared what she would do to Padraig; I wanted to tell him to run for his life, because this was the Morrigan that gives Irishmen nightmares. Sandal straps twined sinuously around her calves, she addressed Padraig in a silky tone, if the silk was draped over a knife blade.
    “Everything appears to be in order, Padraig. You have done well. Are you ready for your payment?”
    “Oh, yes, I’m ready, very ready,” he said.
    The corners of the Morrigan’s mouth twitched upward in idle amusement. “Take off your shirt, Padraig,” she said in a husky whisper, and suddenly I felt warm as she began to employ her seductive powers on the poor lad. I’ve always thought them more powerful than those of succubi, but she hadn’t needed to use them on me back at her lair-o-bones because the fertility bindings accomplished the same thing. I was partially protected from her wonted powers of seduction by my cold iron amulet, and in this case they weren’t even directed at me, but Padraig was utterly helpless. He was practically panting as he tore at his shirt and wrestled himself out of it.
    “Yes, Morrigan!” he cried. “Oh, goddess!” The front of his trousers twitched and strained as if one of RidleyScott’s alien babies were trying to erupt from it. The Morrigan placed her hand flat on his chest, just underneath his right collarbone, and he shuddered at her touch. Then her