by M. D. Massey
Druid Mystic
A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel
M.D. Massey
Copyright © 2020 by M.D. Massey
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
1
I sensed something wasn’t right as I exited the back door to Luther’s café with a twenty-ounce mocha latte in one hand, and a red-eye in the other. The mocha was for me—Finnegas wouldn’t be caught dead drinking bougie crap like that—and the other beverage was for the old man. A “red-eye” was an Americano on steroids, sixteen ounces of coffee served black with a double espresso poured in for good measure. The old druid might as well have been snorting Adderall, considering the caffeine content, but I wasn’t about to scold a two-thousand-year-old seer for his stimulant habit.
Besides, the coffee was a necessity at this point. We’d run out of the good stuff at the junkyard, and both of us were tired and frazzled from having to tie up all our affairs over a three-day period. After my duel with Diarmuid—in which I stabbed the demigod through the eye and made a permanent enemy of his foster father, Aenghus—Maeve had ordered me to leave town until things blew over.
For the last three days Finnegas and I had been running ourselves ragged preparing for an extended trip abroad. It all felt way too much like adulthood for my tastes, even though I had the old man and Maureen to help take care of the details. Of course, I wasn’t too keen on leaving my adopted hometown and all my friends behind. But no matter how I felt about it, the bottom line was that we couldn’t stay in Austin.
Finnegas tried to play it off. “We’ll be back before you know it,” he’d said. “Just look at this as a sort of extended vacation.”
Vacation—right. We’re dealing with gods here. Those fuckers can hold a grudge for centuries. Hell, I might never be able to come home.
I pushed the thought from my mind, choosing instead to address the hidden danger that had the hairs on my neck standing up. With a sigh, I back-stepped so I could set the coffees on the hood of a nearby car, tripping as my foot caught on a crack in the concrete. Just as I stumbled backwards to prevent a fall, my mocha sprouted a leak and hot coffee spurted all over my hand.
“Fuck!” I yelled as I dropped the cups, simultaneously turning my stumble into an awkward reverse roll that took me behind Luther’s late-model Miata. Shaking the liquid from my scalded hand, I glanced at the discarded receptacles. Mine had a slender, nearly horizontal gash on both sides near the top of the cup.
Shit! I don’t have time for this.
I glanced behind me, where three throwing knives were embedded one right next to the other in a red brick wall. Only fae smiths made blades that could easily pierce brick and stone, a fact that instantly cast suspicion on the identity of my attackers. The voice that called out to me from some as-yet-unrevealed hiding spot proved my hunch right.
“The deadline has past, druid,” a bright, clear male voice sang as two more throwing knives embedded themselves in the Mazda’s trunk lid. “And you are now trespassing in the Queen’s demesne.”
High fae never yelled, or hollered, or shouted—their mellifluous voices wouldn’t allow it. Instead, they sang like angels when they raised their voices, although they were anything but. The fae assassin’s words floated like a bird’s song across the parking lot, a pleasing melody of syllables marred by that particular tone of dismissal and contempt that only the aes sidhe could muster.
“Damn it, Eliandres—I still have six hours!”
An arrow whizzed overhead in response, sinking almost to the fletching in the grassy earth beyond as it hit. I quickly calculated angles of trajectory, determining that the knife thrower was hidden a few feet above ground level, while the archer had posted on a nearby rooftop.
“Not by our count,” his female companion replied. “The queen gave you three days. The third day ended at sundown, which passed one-quarter human hour ago. Your life is now forfeit.”
I scowled, even though I was pretty sure they couldn’t see it. “The hell you say—that’s not how we tell time here in Texas.”
“Her words were clear,” Eliandres chimed in reply.
“Quite clear,” Lucindras added.
“Wait just one flippin’ minute,” I protested. “You two are going to kill me just because I didn’t leave town on time?”
“Oh, druid. ‘Kill’ is such a droll word,” the female fae replied. “We prefer to call it, ‘permanent expatriation.’ Doesn’t that sound so much better?”
“It does, Lucindras,” her male accomplice smugly replied.
“And Maeve is okay with this?” I asked.
“Hmm… yes, in a manner of speaking,” said Eliandres.
My voice dripped with sarcasm as I responded, digging in my Craneskin Bag all the while. “So, you’re saying she didn’t expressly sanction this hit.”
Their silence told me all I needed to know. Fae could bend the truth like no one’s business, but they would never speak falsely due to a pact made with mankind long, long ago. That’s why it was possible to cheat a fae creature by forcing it into a situation in which it could tell neither the truth nor a lie.
I didn’t personally know of anyone who’d done so, of course. That shit only happened in the kind of fairy tales you told to kids. The best I could hope for was a short breather while they figured out how to twist the truth to suit their ends.
While they were busy getting their story straight, I screwed a suppressor onto the barrel of my Glock. Earlier, I’d loaded it with iron-tipped ammo in anticipation of running into a Tuatha assassin. When I grabbed those magazines this morning, little did I suspect it’d be my own team coming after me. Well, more or less—Maeve was as much an enemy as an ally, and I could never be certain as to whose side she was on. Still, I seriously doubted she wanted me dead.
Lucindras was the first to break the silence. “The Queen allows us a certain—”
“—amount of discretion—” Eliandres continued without missing a beat.
“—regarding how we execute—”
“—the duties of our unique positions in her court.” Eliandres paused before continuing and I sagely chose not to interrupt. I needed to prepare a few spells anyway, so the more they blathered on, the better. “We’re currently following standard operating procedure, which allows for the use of deadly force to remove dangerous supernatural entities who trespass on the Queen’s lands.”
Done. Time to call their bluff and flush them out.
“Maeve doesn’t know you two are hunting me, does she? Don’t tell me—you’ve been avoiding her for the past few days, denying her the opportunity to expressly forbid you from killing me.”
“Perhaps we might hav
e failed to show our faces at court lately,” Lucindras purred.
“But we can assure you it has nothing to do with a desire to skirt the Queen’s command,” Eliandres added.
“You fuckers sure know how to hold a grudge, you know that?”
“Our personal feelings have nothing to do with it, druid,” Lucindras said. “This is simply business, and nothing more.”
By that time, I’d already cast my first spell. It was one of many Finnegas and I had been working on since my fight with Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, the Tuatha demigod otherwise known as Dermot O’Dyna. That fucker had kidnapped my girlfriend, and when I’d finally defeated him it turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory. I’d slain Diarmuid after the fight, but only after he’d left me permanently wounded and unable to shift into my Fomorian form.
And believe me, I’d tried. Since the wounds caused by Diarmuid only appeared when I shifted, I’d spent plenty of time in the Grove experimenting with shifting into the part-human, part-Fomorian form I’d used in the past. In that form, my internals were Fomorian while my skin and shape appeared human, which was why I thought it might work.
But nope—I’d nearly died from internal bleeding when I tried it. Oops.
Thus, I’d have to face the twin assassins in my fully-human form. I’d done it before, back when I still had limited control over my so-called “warp spasm,” my Fomorian shifter abilities. But the two had underestimated me on that occasion, and in truth, it was luck and treachery as much as skill that allowed me to escape our first encounter relatively unharmed.
It was highly doubtful they’d make the same mistake twice. I also suspected they were well aware that I couldn’t shift, giving them both a physical and psychological advantage over me. But I had one thing working in my favor. The last time I’d fought them, I wasn’t the same druid. While I was still second-rate at wielding magic, I’d been getting better.
The first spell kicked in a moment after I triggered it, and I closed my eyes to avoid the disorienting effect it usually had on me. This particular bit of magic took very little power to cast, but it was quite a handy little casting. The spell allowed me to amplify and focus my druid senses so I could “see” through the eyes of several creatures around me almost instantly, versus requiring several minutes of deep breathing and meditation to achieve the same effect sans magic.
Now that the spell had taken effect I was seeing exactly what the pigeons above me saw—or at least three of them, since that was all I could manage so far. Any more than that and my mind would shut down the connection to avoid sensory overload. But, three pairs of pigeon eyes were enough for me to spot my adversaries.
Ah, there you are.
Eliandres had hidden himself on a second-floor fire escape landing roughly thirty yards ahead and to the right, while Lucindras was perched on top of a neighboring three-story building, above me and slightly to my left. They both had a clear view of the café’s rear exit and parking lot, and if I hadn’t been so clumsy I was certain they’d have killed me outright.
Hmph—dumb Irish luck wins the day again.
At the moment Lucindras was the greater threat. That bow she was using had to have a 150 pound draw weight, based on the velocity of the arrow she’d shot at me and the way it sunk into the ground. Getting hit by one of her arrows would be like taking a saber point to the gut at 300 miles per hour—no thanks.
So, I’d have to deal with her first. If possible, I’d like to take them both out in rapid succession, but I doubted the odds of that happening. As soon as I hit Lucindras, Eliandres would be moving. The last time we tangled, I’d gut shot him and nicked his femoral artery. Chances were good he wouldn’t sit still to let me fuck him up a second time.
Hmm… looks like I’m going to get to use some battle magic after all.
Knowing I’d only get one chance, I cut off my connection to the pigeons as I tossed the pistol in my Craneskin Bag. Leaning to my left, I took a quick peek around the bumper, only to have an arrow whiz past my face for my efforts. Cursing all fae for being both evil as fuck and highly skilled at whatever they put their hands to, I ducked behind the car and spooled up my second spell. White-hot energy gathered between my hands as another volley of arrows and knives thunked into the Miata. A few seconds later, the spell was ready.
Just like Finn’s been saying, that’s way too slow. If I’d had to use this spell in the heat of battle, I’d already be dead. Then again, I might die anyway once I expose myself to release it.
An arrow struck the ground close enough to slice a shallow gash in the toe of my Chuck Taylors. I’d worry about learning how to insta-cast battle magic later—right now I needed to take that bitch out so I could get out of here alive and in one piece. Holding a sphere of ball lightning between my hands like a magic basketball, I poked my head out again for just a split-second. Then, I rolled around the other corner of the vehicle.
I came out of the roll in a crouch, releasing the pent-up energies of my ball lightning spell at the brick wall directly in front of Lucindras’ hiding place. As the white-hot sphere of fire and electricity hurtled toward the building, I was already in motion and casting my next spell at the other assassin. A five-foot-diameter section of wall at the top of the first building exploded just as several knives appeared out of nowhere, whizzing toward me from the second-floor landing of the neighboring building’s fire escape.
Douchebag cast a chameleon spell—great.
It didn’t matter, because near-invisibility did diddly-squat against gravity and falling debris. I muttered the trigger word to release my third spell in mid-sprint, expanding the spread slightly to account for any deficiencies in accuracy that casting on the run might cause. A paper-thin sheet of highly-compressed air shot out from my hands at super-sonic speed, hopefully on its way to slice through the column supports that held up the metal staircase.
More knives flew past, striking cars, windows, and walls along my path. I maintained course at a full sprint, headed for the relative safety of a Honda minivan five yards ahead. Suddenly a sharp pain in my thigh caused me to stumble, and I tumbled head over heels toward cover. My entire leg began stiffening in an involuntary muscle spasm and I barely managed to make it behind the rear wheel of the Japanese grocery-getter before it gave out completely.
Why’s my leg locking up? Did that fucker hit a nerve?
I leaned back against the van’s rear tire, straightening my left leg so I could examine the wound. The handle of one of those wicked knives jutted out of my thigh, and the point was nearly poking through my pants on the other side. Thankfully, the blade had struck vertically and not horizontally, else it would have effectively severed my quadriceps, crippling me.
Still, the wound didn’t account for why my leg was now one big muscle cramp. Normally, when you have an object plugging a hole in your body, you leave it in—that is, unless you think it’s poisoned. I yanked the blade from my thigh, stifling a grunt of agony, and sniffed the blade. Wrinkling my nose in disgust, I yelled over my shoulder at my assailant.
“Poison, Eliandres—really? What, you didn’t think you could take me out without cheating?”
“Don’t be dense, Druid,” he replied, his voice dripping with smug confidence. “We fae don’t subscribe to the human ideals of honor and fair play. The manticore venom is just another tool to get the job done.”
Of course, it was manticore venom. I’d be dead inside of fifteen minutes if I didn’t get back to the Grove for an antidote. This fight was getting out of hand and now that I’d had my curiosity satisfied—and found that it hadn’t been Aenghus or his cronies who ambushed me—it was time to tuck my tail between my legs and split.
“Yeah, yeah. Listen Elly, as much as I’d love to stay and chat about your lack of sportsmanship, I think I’ll be off.”
By this time, the muscle spasms were causing my leg to jerk and shudder, and that cramping sensation was spreading up the left side of my body. I reached out to the Druid Oak, signaling it to whisk me home, but for so
me reason I couldn’t focus my thoughts enough to communicate. I redoubled my efforts, attempting to muster enough concentration to make a connection and get the hell out of Dodge. But my head still felt muzzy and my thoughts remained clouded and scattered.
Whoa, I feel weird.
“Ah, fuck. Wait, did I say that out loud?”
“What’s wrong, druid? Having a hard time securing transport?” the assassin teased. “As every legitimate mage knows, manticore venom is known to cloud the senses, making telepathy very, very difficult. Didn’t the Seer teach you that during your training?”
“Not many manticores in Texas, Elly,” I slurred. “So, fuck you. By the way, how’s your fren’ Lucy doin’?”
He paused, which told me that either I’d missed and the bitch was flanking me or I’d scored a direct hit and sunk her battleship. “She’ll be back in the fight momentarily, I assure you. But for now, I believe I’ll simply keep you pinned down and wait for the toxins to send you into convulsions. Then, I’ll give you a diluted form of the antidote so she and I can take turns cutting small pieces from your body while you remain helpless to resist.”
“Yur’ an evil prick, ya’ know that?” I said, fumbling around in my Bag.
“As one of the queen’s feallmharfóir, I do take great pride in my work.”
I nodded to myself. “I can see that—but zere’s somethin’ you don’t know.”
“Oh really? And what might that be?”
“Well, it takes about four-hunnert licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop,” I said with a mouth and tongue that felt almost too thick to speak. “And that catwalk is in serious need of repairs.”
