by Massey,M. D.
Junkyard Druid
A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel
M.D. Massey
Modern Digital Publishing
Austin, Texas
www.MDMassey.com
Copyright © 2016 by M.D. Massey.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Modern Digital Publishing
P.O. Box 682
Dripping Springs, Texas 78620
Junkyard Druid/ M.D. Massey. — 1st ed.
Contents
Preface
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
Epilogue
Preface
Back in 2011, I had this great idea for an urban fantasy novel. For years I’d been writing non-fiction books in my day job and making halfhearted attempts at writing fiction at night, but like most aspiring authors I never could seem to finish anything. But this idea I had about a druid-trained warrior who hunted monsters—something about it grabbed onto my imagination and just would not let go.
So I started sketching out my idea and plotting a novel. Obviously, it was going to be about Celtic mythology, druids, and the fae. Nobody was doing the druid thing at the time, so I figured I was going to write this totally cool, original novel and have an instant bestseller—a sure thing if there ever was one.
Then, in June of 2011, I came across Kevin Hearne’s first Iron Druid novel (which I thoroughly enjoyed, by the way). Sigh. But I just couldn’t bring myself to scrap my idea, so I decided to write it as a young adult novel. And I did, releasing Colin McCool and the Vampire Dwarf in December of 2013. It took me forever to write that first book, since I’d never finished a novel before and I had no idea how to be a writer who finishes what they start. But I persevered, and eventually my first fiction book went up for sale on Amazon and other online bookstores.
The book was a blast to write, and it received great reviews from readers when I released it. But I realized after writing it that I didn’t really want to write YA novels; instead, I wanted to be writing material that was grittier and more violent and mature than what I’d done with that first Colin McCool book. So I set Colin off to the side for a while and started writing a paranormal zombie apocalypse series, telling myself that “eventually” I would come back to Colin McCool and finish his saga with two more novels.
That never happened. For one, I was having too much fun writing the Scratch Sullivan novels. I could make Scratch do things to other people (and suffer through things other people did to him) that I could never get away with in a young adult novel. And, the stories I imagined happening to Colin just weren’t going to go over with parents and educators; it was all just a little too dark and macabre to pass muster. Eventually, I retired the Colin McCool novel from my backlist and focused completely on writing Scratch Sullivan stories.
Then a funny thing happened when I was writing THEM: Counteraction. Good ol’ Colin McCool popped up in the story; in fact, he pretty much wrote himself into the novel. Sure, he was a little older, a good deal wiser, and much more world-weary than the Colin who showed up in that first young adult book. But it was my old friend just the same, and it turned out he was a hell of a lot more fun to write as an adult.
Surprisingly, I received a good deal of positive feedback on Colin’s reappearance. Readers always let you know who their favorite supporting characters are, and who they’d like to hear more from in future novels. So far the character everyone likes best is Bobby (and yes, I have a novel planned that will feature everyone’s favorite werewolf), but I was surprised at how many people said they wanted more Colin.
And I did, too.
So I said, “Screw it, I’m writing an adult urban fantasy series featuring Colin McCool.” I decided that, based on the events of the first novel and his appearance in Counteraction, the best time period in which to write these novels would be during Colin’s college years. That also meant I’d get to write these books to a new adult audience, an age group with whom I’ve always felt a special kinship. I had a shitty childhood and a pretty deplorable time as a teen, and it wasn’t until I got out in the world and on my own as an adult that I came to discover my real, authentic self. Writing a set of novels in the new adult urban fantasy genre featuring Colin just seemed like a good fit.
And that’s pretty much the story of why you’re holding the novel you have in your hands now. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for giving this novel a shot. It has absolutely been a labor of love from the first word to the last, and writing it was like hanging out with my best friends for hours on end, every day of the week. I hope you’ll come to know and befriend these characters just as I did while creating them.
Finally, if you want to let me know what you thought of the novel, or if you have any other feedback for me at all, feel free to message me on Facebook or to contact me via my website at MDMassey.com. That’s all I wanted to say; I’ll quit rambling now and let you get on with the story.
Sincerely,
M.D. Massey
P.S. By the way, I’ve released the original Colin McCool young adult novel again as a freebie. You can find it on my author page on Amazon, or you can download it at my website at http://MDMassey.com when you subscribe to my newsletter. I just couldn’t keep it buried in my virtual slush pile any longer, and I figured it belonged in the hands of my readers anyway.
Prologue
Kingsland, TX—Three Years Ago
I staked the vamp with all my might, pinning it to a live oak tree, and ducked just before my partner’s blade sliced the thing’s head clean off. We’d run into a menagerie of baddies on our way up here, everything from nosferatu to cu sith to giant spiders. The monster we hunted was no small time demon. In fact, she was said to be the mother of all demons, at least in the mythos of Irish legend. Apparently, we’d been running into her “children” since we’d found this trail an hour prior. I watched the head of the nos’ roll away as I pulled the stake out and returned it to my combat harness, following Jesse’s lithe and lovely form up the trail to the cave’s entrance.
We’d tracked the demoness to the shores of Horseshoe Lake, a large body of water nestled in the rolling Texas Hill Country northwest of Austin. The Caoránach loved lakes and caves, so to find her all we’d needed to do was check the crime stats in her likely hiding spots. The trail of bodies had led us here, to the northern end of Horseshoe Lake where the Llano and Colorado rivers met and drained into the reservoir. The hills around the lakes were dotted with caves, and as we suspected, some were connected to the lakes beneath the waterline. Combine that with the steady flow of tourists and anglers who flocked to the area each weekend, and the place may
as well have been custom-made for a flesh-eating demoness/dragon/water serpent from hell.
Nearly all the lakes in Texas were manmade, and the Highland Lakes were no exception. Created back in the 30s and 40s by the newly-formed Lower Colorado River authority, engineers dammed up the Colorado River in six separate places to control flooding and set up hydroelectric plants to generate clean energy. At the time, thousands of people were displaced along with a slew of supernatural creatures, and as I understood it, the LCRA spent a ton of money relocating those creatures willing to cooperate. As for the ones that weren’t, well—people like us were hired to take care of them, before they could sabotage the construction on the dams.
Well, not quite like us. We didn’t hunt the unseelie fae and other things that go bump in the night purely for money; we did it because it was my birthright. My family had been at odds with the fae for millennia, and before I’d even come of age one of the worst of those creatures had come looking for me, to exact revenge for something my ancestor two thousand years removed had done. It wasn’t my fault that Fionn MacCumhaill had been a certified badass, or that his favorite hobby had been beheading monsters. And it wasn’t my fault that he’d been a natural at kicking monster ass and taking supernatural names. And I certainly hadn’t asked to have a bloodthirsty vampire dwarf show up on my doorstep, looking to rip my heart out and drain me like a stuck pig.
Yeah, you’d think that a three-foot tall vampire would be no big deal. And you’d be wrong. Jesse and I had just been sixteen at the time it happened; she was my best friend, the one person who stood up for pudgy little Colin whenever people tried to bully me for being fat and nerdy. The first day we met, Jesse punched a kid’s lights out for pushing me around, and after that we were inseparable. She’d helped me defeat the Avartagh, the vampire dwarf that had traveled halfway across the world to exact his revenge on the last living heir to the MacCumhaill legacy, and had stuck with me over the next few years while my Uncle Finn trained us as hunters, teaching us all manner of magic and violence.
Finn wasn’t really my uncle, you see—he was the world’s greatest druid, more than two thousand years old, and he’d been looking after my family since the fourth century AD. For the last several years, he’d trained Jesse and me to hunt every kind of supernatural creature, how to beat them at their own game. As far as we were concerned, there was no glamour that could fool us, no magic that could hold us, and no fae that could outsmart us. We’d slain trolls, goblins, vampires, werewolves, demons, ghasts, and ghouls, all across the Lone Star state, and had gained a reputation as hunters who got the job done.
Unfortunately, our overconfidence would be our undoing.
It was the summer after our senior year, and this assignment was to be our grand opus, our graduate thesis, the culmination of all our training. Finn had told us that the Caoránach was still weakened by all the energy it took for her to travel back across the Veil, centuries after the last time she’d been defeated. That was the thing with the really old, powerful creatures—you could destroy their physical bodies, but eventually they’d come back. It might take decades or even centuries for their return, but as creatures made more of magic than flesh, you could never rid the world of their presence for good. I guess that’s what had kept our family in business all that time. I wasn’t complaining, though, because I’d grown to love the violence and chaos of battle, the sheer thrill of beheading a creature that could easily rip your throat out with one bite or slash of its claws.
It was exhilarating, and after experiencing it for the first time there was no way I was ever going back to a mundane life. Nope, it was the hunter’s life for me, and Jesse felt the same way. We’d bonded over that first kill, and as we’d matured we’d become more than just friends and partners. We spent our nights chasing unseelie fae through the back alleys and woods of every major city and county in Texas, and our days were spent in other, equally enjoyable pursuits. She was an athletic, raven-haired beauty who could kick ass with the best of them.
She smiled at me with a look that spoke of mischief and an eagerness to get on with the hunt.
“You ready to take this bitch down, slugger?” she asked, with a twitch of her nose and a twinkle in her eye.
“Ready when you are, beautiful. And let me just say, those short swords go smashingly with the earrings I bought you at the Ren Fest last weekend.”
She leaned in and kissed me hungrily, and the scent of her musk and adrenaline drove me wild. As she ended the kiss, she whispered in my ear. “I love it when you buy me sharp, pointy things. But the earrings were nice as well.”
I chuckled and nipped at her ear. “At least there’s never any doubt about what to get you. When the way to a girl’s heart is through expanding her sword and dagger collection, it kind of makes it easy to keep her happy.”
She slapped me playfully on the ass and spun away before I could return the favor. “Well, you certainly keep me happy in other ways. Just wait until I show you what I’m wearing underneath all this leather.”
I had to admit that I’d been wondering that all night. We were both dressed in motorcycle leathers, reinforced with Kevlar through and through. It was sort of like modern armor: lighter than chainmail or plate, yet just as strong. Jesse filled hers out like a champ, that was for sure. She was built like an Olympic heptathlete, one part Crossfitter and two parts collegiate sprinter. My eyes appraised her hungrily, and I marveled at the fact that I got to spend my days and nights with the most beautiful woman I’d ever known. I was in love with her, that was a fact—although I hadn’t worked up the courage to tell her that… yet.
Tonight was going to be the night, though. Once we took care of the Caoránach, I was going to surprise her by taking her to the new flat I’d rented for us in the city. Our parents thought we were leaving for college in the fall, but in truth we’d planned to move in together and make our living hunting creatures of the dark instead. It paid well—and besides, who had time for things like school and work when you were saving the world every night?
I rubbed my hands together greedily and gave her an evil grin. “Well then, I guess we’d better hop to it—that demoness isn’t going to kill herself.” I drew my sword in one hand, and a specially modified Glock autopistol in the other. “You ready to take this bitch down?”
She gestured with one of her short swords. “Gentlemen first.”
It was a little running joke we had. I always took point because I was so protective of her, and she let me, even though it was slightly chauvinistic and completely unnecessary since Jesse could take care of herself. Regardless, I led the way into the cave with her right behind me, guarding my back. And there was no place on earth I’d have rather been at that moment.
If I had known what would happen after we entered that lair, I’d have turned around and dragged Jesse out with me, hung up my swords, and never looked at another hunter job again. I had no idea at the time, but up until that point I’d been living a charmed life. Unfortunately, just hours earlier, the nastiest witch who ever walked the earth had cast a curse on me that would turn my world upside down and destroy everything I held dear.
The moment we walked into that cave, that’s when everything in my life went to shit. Now I’m the one who has to live with the consequences.
1
Cognoscenti Therapy Associates, Austin, TX—Six Months Later
I sat across from Dr. Larsen in her office, which was located in a hip, upscale business complex in a newly gentrified area of East Austin, just a few blocks from the downtown district. She looked at me attentively, waiting for me to answer her last question. I did my best to avoid making eye contact. I tried to find a way to begin, but when I opened my mouth I just couldn’t find the words. So, Dr. Larsen posed her question again.
“Tell me about the night Jesse died.”
“I can’t talk about it—it’s too painful.”
She readjusted her position in her chair, pulling her skirt down slightly to maintain her perfectl
y coiffed appearance. I glanced up at her, and reflected that she sure didn’t look like a Larsen. She was very pretty, with fine Roman features and the kind of olive skin you couldn’t get from a tanning bed or spray booth. She had dark, thick hair, lush, but not quite full lips, and the body of a runway model. I noted this all in a sort of detached, clinical manner, because it distracted me from the topic of discussion.
Namely, how I’d murdered the love of my life.
I’d been referred to Dr. Larsen by Finn’s assistant Maureen, the girl who ran his import-export business. The business was a cover for what we really did behind the scenes, before Finn became an addict. Anyway, Maureen was a half-kelpie who’d been handling Finn’s affairs for several centuries. In the aftermath of what happened at the Caoránach’s lair, Maureen had found me a therapist who knew about the world beneath. Dr. Larsen had a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and a master’s in psychiatric nursing, and she knew all about the supernatural realm. How, I had no idea, but this was just about the only place it was safe for me to talk about what had really happened that night.
The official story, the one told to our parents, friends, and family to cover up what had actually happened, was that Jesse and I had been camping together at Inks Lake. While I’d been on a run to the store, she’d gotten attacked by a black bear. It was total rubbish, obviously, because there’s no way a black bear could do what had been done to Jesse’s body. Only a monster could do such a thing. And that monster was sitting right here in Dr. Larsen’s office.
Dr. Larsen finished adjusting her skirt and tapped her pen once on her clipboard. “You’ll have to talk about it eventually, Colin, in order to process the pain of those memories. Otherwise it’s going to eat you alive. You’ll end up just another statistic. I believe you have way too much potential to throw away your life at such a young age.”
