Hexed_ The Iron Druid Chronicles - Kevin Hearne [70]
“My house was for a while, but not anymore.”
“Oh,” he said, and the fires of his curiosity were extinguished, just like that. “Well, it’s kind of irritating even out here, so would you mind if we sat on the porch?”
“Not at all.” I gestured to a chair and Hal handed me the newspaper as he took it. Oberon thumped his tail against the chair and pushed his head under Hal’s hand.
“Hey, pooch,” Hal said, obligingly giving Oberon’s head a scratch.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe he’s trying to mask the wet dog smell with the citrus?
SATYRN MASSACRE, the newspaper screamed at me; 25 dead including two officers in nightclub nightmare. The photo showed body bags lined up outside the club. SCOTTSDALE: Police are still searching for suspects in the aftermath of the city’s worst mass murder, which occurred last night in the Satyrn nightclub on Scottsdale Road. Witnesses were unsure exactly how the killings began, but the deaths of two Scottsdale police officers ended the carnage. I scanned the rest of the article quickly. “Huh. They mention the broken bats, but they don’t mention my sword in here,” I said. “You were whipping your sword around in front of all those witnesses?” “No, no,” I said. I explained what happened last night and the alibi I’d cooked up with Granuaile via lovey-dovey code. “I still have my receipt from Target,” I pointed out, “and chances are good they’ll find that security tape anyway, if they’re any good at their jobs. So we’ll just say Granuaile’s bats are my bats, slightly scuffed and used from a night of baseball chasing with my dog.” Yes, it does. But if you’re nice about it, I’ll put some gravy on them first. “Prints on the bats?” Hal asked. “Took care of it.” “So you couldn’t possibly be their man from the club because you have an ear and you still have your bats intact—I see.” Hal nodded. “That might confuse things quite a bit if it were to come to trial, especially since the missing-ear detail is being so widely reported. There’s your reasonable doubt right there. But you’re still in a heap of trouble if any of those witnesses reported seeing the sword. You’ve been riding around with that thing on your back the past few weeks, everyone up and down Mill Avenue has seen you wearing it, and they might have noticed you didn’t have an ear either.” “So what? The sword never left its scabbard. Nobody died from sword wounds.” “They’ll use the sword to place you at the scene, Atticus. Look, do you still have it around here?” “Of course. I have two fancy-schmancy swords now.” The other one had belonged to Aenghus Óg. His sword was named Moralltach—the Great Fury—and it had fallen to me by right of besting him in a duel. “I suggest you hide both of them right now, and hide them well. Don’t lose a minute.” “What? Why?” “I think Tempe’s going to be working with Scottsdale on this to make sure they do things right, because of how royally they screwed up in your shop,” Hal said, alluding to a search warrant gone fantastically wrong that ended up with a Tempe police detective and me getting shot. “Which means they’re going to roll up here with a full search warrant for your place, they’ll do it all by the book, and if they find a sword, they’re going to take you downtown for a long talk.” “What about bows and arrows and other martial arts stuff like sai and throwing knives and such?” “Why, do you have any of that floating around?” “The garage is full of it.” Hal cursed in Old Norse for a moment, then switched back to English. “Damn it, Atticus, you need to get yourself a bat cave or something for all of your shady shit.” “Why? I thought it was all legal.” “It