Trapped

my back and began to strip.
    » Do I get to tell you to keep your underwear on? « she said.
    » You could if I was wearing any. «
    I bound myself to the form of a stag as soon as my jeans dropped below my hips. Granuaile climbed onto my back with Fragarach slung over her shoulder and her staff gripped in her right hand. I didn’t have any convenient mane for her to hold on to, so she leaned over, wrapped her arm around my neck, and said she was ready.
    I turned east and set a pace that I thought I could maintain for a while without tiring too much. Eventually I’d have to draw some energy from the earth to keep going, but I thought that, rather than constantly drawing little sips with every step, it was best to do just one, or even none, if I could manage. Honestly, I doubted they could smell me burning my own draws for energy, but I’d keep it down just to be safe.
    The long trek out of the Olympian wilderness gave each of us plenty of time to think. In such situations, I tend to talk with the ghost of my archdruid, whose harsh language and mannerisms live on in my memory. I rationalized that it was better than talking to myself—and, in truth, it was like visiting a different headspace. My archdruid had a way of distilling complicated problems into simple solutions. I didn’t always agree with him, but the way he thought occasionally served me well. This time, I shared with him my impossible relationship with Granuaile and the recent evidence—dropped from the lips of Bacchus himself—that this whole setup in Olympus had been a trap after all. A trap, I noted, that we still hadn’t escaped.
    » If ye escape, « the archdruid said, » ye should tup the lass as soon as possible. Ye can’t teach her any more, and yer probably going to die anyway. «
    » I think you’re speaking with the desperate voice of my libido right now, « I said. » So I’ll ignore that. I’m thinking our safest bet is to scamper off and wait this out. «
    » There ye go again, « my archdruid said. » Using your colon instead of yer brain. Ye believe yer thinkin’ because yer workin’ hard, but all yer doin’ is squeezin’ out shit. What good would runnin’ do, me lad? It’d teach yer apprentice that yer not much of a fighter, for one thing, and that all ye have to do to defeat a Druid is to make his life inconvenient. And, apart from that, ye need to help out the Norse, like ye said ye would. Ye can’t go take a few months off to frolic in Mag Mell when ye got Loki runnin’ around ready to set the world aflame. «
    » And what do you suggest I do instead? «
    » Stomp on some nuts, boy! Go on the offensive! Find out what’s really going on! «
    That was advice I couldn’t easily ignore. There was certainly more going on here than anyone in Tír na nÓg was willing to admit. Two Roman gods were colluding against me, and they might or might not be working with dark elves, vampires, and someone powerful amongst the Tuatha Dé Danann. Nobody was going to volunteer answers; we were going to have to apply some pressure of our own.

Chapter 15
    One of the odd details about sporting goods stores is how incredibly full of steel and straight lines they are. The ambient atmosphere is harsh and fluorescent because, at some point in the planning stages, an executive said, » What, you want windows? Sunlight and moonlight? Fuck that noise. «
    If nature were Little Red Riding Hood and a sporting goods store were the Big Bad Wolf, nature would observe, » My, what orderly rows of synthetic products you have, « and the store would say, » The better to dominate you with, my dear. «
    People go into sporting goods stores ostensibly to prepare themselves to get closer to nature, but, in fact, every time they buy another plastic doodad, they’re doing just the opposite.
    Still, if you’re wanting to go Bronze Age Rambo on some Bacchants and their principal deity, there’s some great stuff for booby traps in sporting goods stores. Rope. Twine. Nets. Sharp, pointy tools of all kinds, perfect for throwing and getting stabbity.
    But to get the best selection, you have to be in a pretty big city, full of people who are desperate to buy things to get them closer to nature. That’s why Granuaile and I were in a store in Thessalonika, a large port city to the north of Olympus, browsing the selection of sharpened instruments designed to kill and gut all the animals people love. My theory was that someone out there had to make knives of