Brighid is just finishing up when I rejoin them. “All right, Andy,” I says to the herald. “Let’s go.”
“It’s Coriander, sir.”
I grin at him. “A four-syllable name is impractical in battle, lad, and in most poetry too, if ye care about what the bards say. I’ll give ye only two syllables until ye actually save me bones from the Fae. You can pick. Cory, Ian, Andy, Gobshite, I don’t care. What’ll it be?”
“Coriander, sir.” He shoots a pleading glance at Brighid, but she looks amused, and I laugh at him.
“How about Fuckstick? Aye, that’ll do.” He doesn’t have a ward against me calling him the wrong name. I know it makes me a fecking arsehole, but he’s a far sight more smug than I can stand. And besides, I have to carve off what wee slices of amusement I can from this situation. I’m pretty sure the First Law of Owen is about to enforce itself.
last week a vampire exploded in my bar in Warsaw. Not spontaneously: I unbound his undead ass because he came in to threaten me, and he went sploosh in spectacular fashion. People screamed and panicked. One of my regulars thought it was so metal, though, and he’s become one of my favorite people. I give him free shots of Żubrówka with his beers now. Much of the vampire’s remains landed in his pudding and kind of ruined his nice leather jacket, but he just snapped pictures of the gore for his Instagram.
Since Atticus and Owen are in Tasmania helping out the elemental there, I’m pretty much on my own—at least during the day—enforcing the treaty with the vampires. Specifically the part where it says all vampires need to be out of Poland in order to keep a promise Atticus made to the Sisters of the Three Auroras. A vampire older than Leif Helgarson by the name of Kacper Glowa emerged in Krakow and said he wasn’t going to leave, and neither were the rest of the vampires, so he’s thumbing his pale boogerless nose at both the Druids and at Leif.
I don’t know: Do vampires have boogers? Leif finally admitted that they sorta-kinda poop—or, more accurately, excrete in the most disgusting fashion possible—but maybe I’m assuming too much on the booger front.
Leif is helping me with the problem, and we did clear out a nest in Krakow, taking out twelve of those suckers. But Glowa wasn’t among them, even though it was his property. Leif thinks if we take out old Kacper the rest will fall in line and leave the country. All we have to do is find him. Which is proving difficult because you can’t divine the dead, and he’s old and rich and very, very good at hiding.
So I am back at work at Browar Szóstej Dzielnicy in Warsaw, even though I was shot in that nest raid a few days ago, because we’re hoping he’ll try to come after me or at least send a minion we can hopefully trace back to him.
Who comes to visit me instead? A decidedly dejected member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, looking out of place in hunting leathers with a bow strapped to her back. She sits down at the bar next to my metal regular, Maciej, drawing stares from pretty much everyone since she appears to be cosplaying for a Renaissance festival. Well, that, and she’s a red-haired goddess renowned for her sexual appetites. She kind of projects an irresistible vibe, and the stares are mostly of the wanton and lusty sort.
Maciej is too startled to feel much else but surprise, however. “Oh, hey!” he says in Polish, which I’m pretty sure Flidais doesn’t speak. “You have tattoos like Granuaile has. Or used to have.”
The Polish word for tattoos is almost identical to English, and that, combined with his pointing to her Druidic tats and then my arm, is enough for Flidais to piece it together.
“Yes, hello, my tattoos are like hers,” she says in English, then her eyes turn to me. “Hello, Granuaile. Would you—wait, what happened to your tattoos?”
I don’t respond in English because it wouldn’t do to have Maciej hear. I use Old Irish instead. “Welcome, Flidais. I still have them. They’re just under a nice magical cloak that the Sisters of the Three Auroras gave me. I got too many comments about them and it was distracting.”
“You two could be sisters,” Maciej says, switching to his accented English. “Are you sisters?” I can see Flidais getting annoyed and think perhaps I should defuse that before she acts on the violence in her head.
“Pardon me a moment, Flidais?” I say to her. “I’m just going to explain who you are.” I switch to Polish for Maciej’s benefit and also so I can speak frankly to him about the mortal peril he’s in. He needs to know that Flidais is not my sister and she will most likely mess somebody up, and I don’t want him to be on the receiving end. I hope my grasp of the language is up to the task; it’s much improved but I’m not sure it’s solid.
“Wyglądamy podobnie, ale nie jest moją siostrą. Ma na imię Flidais i jest naprawdę niebezpieczna, mówię serio. Zobaczysz—potrafi naprawdę zepsuć człowiekowi dzień, kiedy ktoś ją wkurzy. Nie chcę tylko, żebyś to był ty, dobra?”
Maciej agrees but asks for clarification. “Dobra. Więc mam z nią w ogóle nie gadać?”
I confirm that for him, continuing in Polish: “It’s safer if you don’t say anything. Enjoy your drink—it’s on me, all right? And let someone else make the mistake. Just tell her right now it’s an honor to meet her—because it is—and ask her to forgive your interruption. Trust me.”
Maciej nods quickly, his long hair flowing around his head like he’s rocking out to Trivium or HammerFall. He does trust me, and I like to think it’s not just because I give him free booze sometimes. He turns to the Irish goddess of the hunt and speaks slowly in his best English. “Is an honor to meet you, Flidais. Please pardon my interruption.”
Flidais’s expression mellows from hostility to only mild disdain. “I appreciate your courtesy, mortal.”
“Mortal?”
I shake my head at Maciej vehemently and he gets the message not to pursue that. Flidais ignores his question, fortunately, and just talks right over him.
“Please pardon me while I talk to Granuaile for a while.”
“Of course,” Maciej says. “Please.”
Flidais awards him a brilliant smile for his compliance, and I beam at him also. He blushes a little bit and then looks down politely. I breathe a sigh of relief. That could have gone wrong so quickly for him.
“What can I get for you, Flidais?” I ask.
“Whatever you have that’s closest to something Goibhniu would have brewed,” she says.
I almost ask her, “Short or tall?” but catch myself just in time. She’s an Irish goddess. If I give her a tiny glass of beer she will hurt me. Instead, I merely nod and pull her a true imperial pint of my favorite local brew, a thick oatmeal stout with chocolate notes and a clever bit of mint thrown in.
“There we are,” I say, and set it down on top of a coaster. “It’s great to see you. To what do I owe the honor?”
“I have a message for you from Brighid, but that can wait. This can’t.” She picks up the twenty ounces of stout and chugs the whole thing in one go. By the end of it, both Maciej and I have our mouths open in awe. “Ahhhh,” Flidais says, thunking the empty glass down on the bar, a thin mustache of foam on her upper lip. “That was surprisingly satisfactory. Another.” She meets my green eyes with hers, and I recognize the expression from the mirror whenever I feel like I could kill something.
Oh, shit. Something’s up. I take her glass, place it in the sink, and fetch her a fresh chilled one, pulling another pint. She quaffs it just like the first and demands a third. Maciej looks like he might be falling in love just a little bit.
If it were anyone else, I would have said no. I would have been required to say no; forty ounces of beer in two minutes was going to hit her hard pretty soon—and it’s not like this was some watered-down, mass-produced American swill. That stout has a beefy 11.2 percent ABV. But, like me, Flidais can heal the poison of alcohol anytime she wishes. She must, therefore, be drinking for a purpose, and has come to me to help her achieve it. My duty is clear. But drunken deities are rather infamous for collateral damage. I don’t want to see Maciej—or anyone, really—get hurt over whatever’s bothering her. And that could be almost anything these days, what with the turmoil going on in the Fae planes.