Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Six)

vital signs. That should have done it, but it was having to answer Oberon, saying it aloud, that broke me.
    “Yes,” I cried, my voice quavering. “He’s gone. I can’t do anything.” And then we both howled. We howled the way people do when they don’t care about speaking anymore because the words don’t exist that can properly convey their emotions. Only ragged, broken, discordant noises could come close. And there are always tears and snot and gasping too, gasping because thereisn’t enough wind to cry all that they feel in a single breath.
    For what else was there to do? CPR wouldn’t help with a head wound. I couldn’t make his heart beat if his brain wasn’t
fucking there
. Druidry only gave me the power to heal, not resurrect.
    He’d died before he finished falling. The little black hole in the side of his head swelled until it filled my vision—a distortion brought on by my tears. Knowing I’d already avenged him gave me no satisfaction.
    I had him for only a few weeks. I’d thought we would be happy together forever. And I think I might have said that out loud, to his body, in a sort of high-pitched, incoherent keening that approximated speech but wasn’t intelligible. Twelve years of longing and being with him every day—closer to thirteen if you counted the year of flirting at Rúla Búla before I began my training—thirteen years of repression and stupid surrogate boyfriends so that I would be a stronger Druid, but only a few weeks of openly loving each other, ended by a small black hole in the side of his head. No chance to tell him goodbye or let him know one more time how grateful I was to be bound to the earth. No chance to let him tease me and then tease him back harder. No chance to cuss at him in Old Irish because he said it made him feel young again, or put on strawberry lip gloss and watch him go dizzy. He’d always had a thing about that for some reason.
    I don’t precisely know how long we cried over Atticus, but the moon was high in the sky, probably close to midnight, and my throat was raw before I remembered that Artemis and Diana were still after us. We’d probably cried away much of our lead.
    Oberon
, I said,
we have to go
.
    
    We have to. The huntresses are coming
.
    
    Atticus would care. You know that. He would want us to run and thwart them. We will bury him and say our farewells, and then we will honor him by sticking it to the Olympians
.
    
    By making it to England. Surviving will piss them off and make Atticus proud
.
    
    I know, Oberon, but staying here and letting the Olympians kill us won’t make him happy. Us either, for that matter
.
    Oberon ignored my wisdom and asked,
    I didn’t know where he was. Normally the Morrigan would escort spirits to their final resting place, but she was dead now. Perhaps Manannan Mac Lir would know. Maybe Atticus and the Morrigan were together somewhere.
    I’m not sure where he is, Oberon, but I’m sure we can’t see him. The dead and the living can inhabit the same planes in the Summer Lands, but they do not mix
.
    
    No, Oberon. I need you to stay with me. Please? Let’s send him off properly
.
    
    We will have whiskey as soon as we find a liquor store
.
    Fragarach was lying a short distance away, so I retrieved it and placed it on the ground in front of him. I didn’t roll him over or anything like that. I couldn’t bear to see the other side of his head. The small black hole would haunt me forever as it was; I didn’t want to see anything worse.
    I closed my eyes, pressing tears down my cheeks, and used my Latin headspace to contact the local elemental, Saxony.
    //Druid needs aid / Bury body and sword here / Keep surface undisturbed//
    //Harmony// came the reply. Atticus and Fragarach sank into the earth, and the turf nearby sort of stretched and closed over him, adjusting itself to make it appear as if nothing had ever happened there. No blood. No marker to indicate that the finest Druid to ever walk the earth ended his walk in this nameless field.
    My voice wasn’t up to speaking aloud, so I spoke mentally to Oberon.
Here lies Siodhachan Ó Suileabháin
, I said,
known as