Fated to Die | American Gods

Chapter 7: The Unlucky Luck of the Irish

Watching Sweeney stumble up the slight hill toward herself and Laura Moon's grave was an exhausting and infuriating sum up of how the entire drive back to Eagle Point had been. With the down-on-his-luck leprechaun either sleeping or complaining the entire two and a half hour trip from Chicago to where they were now, Brina was beyond ready to dig up that stupid chunk of gold, ditch Sweeney's annoying ass as soon as possible, and make her way back to Wednesday and Shadow before they inevitably moved on to the next leg on their journey — that is, if they actually managed to rob a bank without being arrested.

"For a guy with such long legs, you sure do move slow as hell." Brina held the shovel and pickaxe that they had purchased at a local hardware store in her hands and impatiently tapped her foot against the ground. "Hurry it up, you lanky fuck. I haven't got all night here."

Shining his flashlight on the grave marker that confirmed the burial site did indeed belong to Shadow's wife, Sweeney glared at the shorter woman. "Just shut your fuckin' trap and hold this, will you?" he handed over the light before taking the pickaxe and making his first swing into the dirt. 

"Jesus, be careful." Brina shone the light so Sweeney could see what he was doing. "God forbid you swing too hard and pierce right through the casket and bury your pickaxe into the poor dead woman's head."

"She's dead. What does she care?" Sweeney retorted as he switched from the pickaxe to the shovel and began to dig. "You know, you could help instead of standin' there like a fuckin' mannequin."

Wiggling the flashlight in her hands, Brina flashed a forced smile. "I'm holding the light, dumbass. Plus, it's your fucking coin, not mine."

Removing his jean jacket and western-styled long sleeve and discarding them on the grass, Sweeney pulled his suspenders down his arms and really started to get into the task at hand. "Such a foul mouth for such a pretty lass," he commented, making pretty decent headway with his digging in the process. "It's a shame, really."

"What can I say? You bring out the worst in me."

Sweeney snorted. "You're not the first lass to tell me that, and you probably won't be the last."

Eventually, after another twenty or so minutes of digging — approximately a meter down into the dirt — Sweeney uncovered the casket. On the top of the white lid was a perfectly round, coin-shaped hole that went through the entire thickness of the material. 

Stepping closer to the edge of the rectangular hole in the ground, Brina shone the flashlight down into what was supposed to be the final resting place of Laura Moon. However, there was no body laying on top of the white satin. 

"That's not good." Brina let her hand drop to her side and shut off the flashlight. "Does this mean what I think it means?"

His eyes full of anger, Sweeney jumped out of the grave, grabbed his clothes, and started marching back toward the parking lot. "Dead wife's got my fuckin' coin!" 

Letting her head fall back out of disbelief and irritation, Brina stared up at the night sky and took a moment to compose herself. "Why couldn't it just have been easy?" she asked no one in particular, more or less just wanting to get the question out into the universe. "Just...why?"

Spinning around, his body almost completely hidden by the shadows due to how far away he had gotten, Sweeney waved for the woman to follow him. "Are you comin' or not?!"

Picking up the pickaxe that the leprechaun had so nicely left for her to carry, Brina began catching up to the irate man waiting for her. "Yeah, yeah. I'm coming. Don't get your panties in a twist."

Once back at the vehicle, Sweeney took it upon himself to squeeze his large frame into the tight driver's seat. Brina wasn't complaining though, because for the entire duration of the previous trip he hadn't offered to drive once. Just barely having slid into the passenger's seat and closed the door behind her, Brina grabbed the door handle for stabilization as Sweeney raced out of the parking lot like he was in a drag race or something.