Extraits

Atticus is off to confer with some crabby old man from the past—according to him, an unwashed, potentially explosive type, sort of like the human equivalent of a propane tank—while I get to hang out in Colorado with the hounds. I think I have the far better deal.

“Sure. I’ll buy. Can you walk yet?” I glanced at his legs, which had been broken in the stress of removing him from the Time Island. He’d had some time to heal here, under the ministrations of the healer Fand, Manannan Mac Lir’s magic bacon, and his own healing powers, but I didn’t know if it was enough.

“I think so.” He nodded. “Bones bind quickly, but it’s the bruising to your muscles that always takes time. We’ll walk slow and drink fast.”

He scowled and flared up. “I fecking taught ye how to tame a manticore, didn’t I? Don’t try to tell me I didn’t! That isn’t my fault.”

“I didn’t say—”

“And I remember ye complaining about it too.” He affected a falsetto to mock me. “ ‘When am I ever going to meet a manticore?’ ye said. ‘Why do I have to learn Latin? When are we going to learn about sex rituals?’ ”

“Hey, I never said that!”

“How long was I on that island, Siodhachan? You still look pretty young. By the looks of ye, it can’t have been more than three or four years.”

Oh, was he in for a surprise. “I will tell you in exchange for something I’d like to know: your name.”

“My name?”

“I’ve never called you anything but Archdruid.”

“Well, it was right that ye should, ye wee shite. But now that you’re grown a bit and a full Druid, I suppose I can tell ye. I’m Eoghan Ó Cinnéide.”

I grinned. “Ha! If you Anglicize that, it’s Owen Kennedy. That will work out just fine. I’ll call Hal and get you some ID with that name.”

“What are ye talking about?”

“That’s a question you’ll be asking a lot. Owen—I hope you don’t mind me calling you that, because I can’t walk around calling you Archdruid—you’ve been on that island for more than two thousand years.”

He scowled. “Don’t be tickling me ass with a feather, now; I’m asking seriously.”

I hope that if I ever travel two thousand years into the future, there will still be bacon.

Few things trigger old memories so quickly as authority figures from our youth. I’m not saying those memories are necessarily good ones; they’re simply old and tend to cast us back into roles we thought we grew out of long ago. Sometimes the memories are warm and blanket us like a mother’s love. More often, however, they have the sting of hoarfrost, which bites at first, then numbs and settles in the bones for a deep, extended chill.