eyes on him or else he would doubtless take advantage when my back was turned. His cursing in Latin certainly indicated he’d like nothing more.
Oberon, wanna play fetch?
he said, understanding precisely what I meant. While Granuaile and I kept the flyboys at bay, he scampered over and scooped up Artemis in his jaws, grasping her ponytail like a tug toy and letting her head dangle off to the left side of his snout. Hermes shouted when he saw that and I stole a quick glance to see what had happened.
Good
, I said, returning my eyes to Mercury,
now bring her over here and drop her at my feet
.
Both Hermes and Mercury tried to intercept Oberon by flying over us, but we backpedaled and Oberon dodged the one pass they had at him. He dropped Artemis at my feet, and I ended it with a wet chunky sound. The Olympians roared in outrage.
“Oh, stop,” I said. “They’ll be fine again before the day is through and you know it. If Zeus and Jupiter would come talk to me we wouldn’t have to go through this.”
They didn’t answer and neither did they attack. Coming after the heads in an attempt to restore the huntresses was one thing, but striking at us and involving themselves in the hunt would violate the terms Odin had outlined earlier. They floated above us, quaking with the desire to show us what an airstrike truly meant, but we simply set ourselves and waited, saying nothing as the storm clouds boiled overhead. Eventually they flew back south toward Olympus and our tense muscles could relax.
Oberon observed.
Chapter 16
There was no rest for us in Belgium. We stopped only once, and it wasn’t for food, which prevented me from investigating a modern mystery: What do people in Belgium call Belgian waffles? Our Waffles, perhaps, or maybe National Breakfast Pastries? It remains for me an inscrutable conundrum. And so it goes for Belgian chocolate and Belgian witbier. I had spent very little time in Belgium since its rise to international fame for delicious foodstuffs. I supposed I would have to use the modern fallback position and Google it.
The reason for our pause was Hugin and Munin, who flew in to give us an update from the all-Odin all-the-time news channel.
Munin pointed at Hugin, indicating the raven with which I was to bond. Odin’s speech filled my head like Oberon’s did, though it was still a bit odd staring at a raven instead of his one-eyed visage.
The Álfar took out thirty dark elves?
Oh. Well, they’re very welcome. I’ll send them some fine Irish whiskey as soon as possible, if you’ll be so kind as to deliver it to them
. Because if someone saves you from a potentiallylife-threatening fight, you owe them booze. It’s a rule that transcends time and cultures.
“Shenanigans.”
“Yes, that’s it,” Odin said. “Shenanigans.”
My aquatic form was a sea otter, and Granuaile could shape-shift into a sea lion. While we could swim the channel like that and Oberon could dog paddle, we weren’t going to kick a lot of ass if the Olympian sea gods got involved. And I could see already how they would rationalize what they were doing; if we were eaten by sharks, well, that happened all the time. It wasn’t direct interference in the hunt.
Though I’d already determined it would be unwise, I asked anyway to see what Odin would say:
Can’t we just take the Eurostar train underneath the channel and avoid all that?
He knew very well I wouldn’t do that.
What about Artemis and Diana? Any word on them?
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