Trapped (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Five) by Kevin Hearne Read Free Book Online

MacTiernan.”
    Brighid bestowed a nod of recognition, and I assumed Granuaile returned it. A murmur of appreciation rippled through the Tuatha Dé Danann. A new Druid would be most welcome.
    “She is not yet bound to the earth,” Brighid noted, seeing no tattoos on Granuaile’s right arm.
    “No, but she is ready. I was on my way to begin the process when we were interrupted.”
    “On your way where, if I may ask?”
    “I was searching for an appropriate place in Arizona.”
    Brighid frowned. “You cannot bind a Druid to the earth in the New World.”
    That set me back on my heels a bit. “You can’t?”
    Brighid seemed as bemused as I was. “It may be done only in Europe. Only the Eurasian plate has agreed to participate in the ritual. I thought you knew this.”
    “No.” I had never tried to bind an apprentice elsewhere—in truth, I had bound precious few apprentices to the earth in the first place. All three Druids of my “issue” were dead now. Two had been ambushed—or perhaps assassinated, shot in the back—and another had died in the civil war that resulted in the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire. I hadn’t attempted to train anyone since the death of Cíbran, my last apprentice, in 997. And so it was no wonder I had never discovered this particular proviso to a Druid’s binding, but it made sense. All levels of the earth, from elementals to plates to Gaia herself, must be involved, and the plates were notoriously loath to get involved in anything but their own slow movements and ceaseless grating against one another.
    Manannan spoke up. “Brighid, if I may interject?” She waved at him to continue, and he rose to address me. He commanded everyone’s rapt attention. “I cannot speak for all, but I hope I speak for many of the Tuatha Dé Danann when I say we welcome Granuaile MacTiernanto Druidry, and I, for one, would like to see you train many more apprentices. Druidry has been neglected far too long on the mortal plane.” Emphatic nods among the Tuatha Dé Danann supported his statement.
    “Thank you, Manannan, and all of you who agree,” I said, and privately cursed myself for not taking note of who hadn’t visually concurred. “If I could find such excellent apprentices as Granuaile, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to continue teaching. However, for me to accomplish this goal, I need to have a modicum of security. To that end, I humbly request that you keep my existence a secret, especially from the Olympians and the Norse.”
    Furtive glances warned me that I had made a troublesome request.
    “If … that is possible?” I asked.
    Flidais spoke up. “The Olympian Bacchus asked us to inform him if you ever showed your face here.”
    “Well, the Olympian Bacchus can go blow a goat.” There was no love lost between us. I had called him a “petty god of grape and goblet” and derided him as a pale echo of Dionysus. All the Roman gods were; their worshippers had possessed so little imagination that they hadn’t even moved them off Olympus. Two pantheons lived atop the same bald peak, albeit on different planes.
    “Attempting to conceal it will strain our relationship with the Olympians,” Brighid pointed out.
    “Perhaps you do not have all the facts here. Bacchus does not want to know of my whereabouts so he can send me a skin of his best cabernet. He wants to kill me, nothing else. He has sworn to Jupiter that he will do so. You cannot strain our relationship any more than that. So do you want more Druids or not? If you do, then don’t tell the immortal god of madness where to find me, and keep a close watch on your faeries.”
    “Regrettably, it may already be too late,” Fand said,in a liquid sort of lilt that perfectly matched her appearance. “I’m quite sure many of the Fae have already spread word of your audience here. Word will circulate quickly that you are back from the dead. Bacchus will hear of it sooner or later.”
    Three kinds of cat shit,