Blood Scent: A Junkyard Druid Urban Fantasy Novella (Junkyard Druid Novellas Book 1)

by M. D. Massey

  What these dickheads didn’t know, and what I couldn’t seem to get them to understand, was that their constant harassment was only increasing the chances of my curse triggering. And if one of them tried to take me out? Then that other side of me would come out to play.

  I held my hands up as I exited the café, smiling as I made eye contact with each of the thugs in turn. They were dressed like a couple of clichés, wearing tactical cargo pants, compression shirts, desert combat boots, and photographer’s vests—which were intended to conceal the various firearms and bladed weapons that each Circle member carried. One was shorter, slimmer, and blonde, while the other was taller, more muscular, and bald. They also wore mirrored aviator sunglasses and looked like a couple of private military contractors pulling security duty in Mosul.

  “Hey, fellas, how’s it hanging? Burn down any magic forests lately? Such a shame that we’re not still living in the Dark Ages—must be hard to get all your raping and pillaging in, what with mundane law enforcement looking down on that sort of thing.”

  Skinny spoke first. “So, druid, we hear you’re in cahoots with the vamps now. You turn Renfield, or what?”

  I ignored the comment and attempted to walk past them, but they closed ranks and blocked my way. I dropped my chin to my chest and sighed. “Fellas… come on now. You remember what happened to the last hunter-mage team that tried to shake me down. Let’s not make a scene, shall we?”

  Baldy chimed in. “Yeah, we remember. Those guys are our squad mates, and you made them the laughing stock around the locker room.” He stabbed me in the chest with a thick meaty finger. “And we don’t appreciate it when shitheads like you make us look bad.”

  I backed up a half-step and angled myself so I could vault the rail and have space to move if things got ugly. I didn’t like the fact that they had me boxed-in, and berated myself for not paying better attention to my surroundings.

  “Tell you what. Luther makes a mean frozen mochaccino”—I held up my drink to prove it—“so what do you say I treat you boys to a round, on me?”

  The smaller one sniffed and twitched his nose. I figured he was the mage, since baldy had to be the muscle. If they moved on me, I’d have to take him out first. “Shut your trap, druid. You’re not going to talk yourself out of this one. We’re going to make you pay for what you did to Davis and Simpson, and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.”

  I raised my hands in the air and shrugged. “Hey, what’s a little bladder incontinence between friends? How was I to know that your commander would show up right when my spell made your buddies piss their pants? And besides, it’s not like I blasted them with a lightning bolt or something. It was just a little harmless cantrip to get them to back off.”

  Baldy clenched his fists. “Because of that little stunt, our squad got shit duty for a week. I had to miss going to Vegas for SHOT Show because of you. And now, it’s time for payback.”

  I took a sip of my drink before responding. “You sure we can’t talk this out?”

  Blondie shook his head. “Uh-uh, not a chance. Any last words?”

  “Eeny, meeny...” I said in a high-pitched voice.

  The two morons looked at each other. “What the fuck is wrong with this guy?”

  I made my voice go even higher. “Miny… hey, Moe!” I shouted as I kicked Blondie square in the nuts. He grabbed his sack with both hands and folded like an accordion as he dropped to his knees, hard. So hard, in fact, I heard his kneecaps crack on the concrete.

  Unfortunately, I’d misjudged which of the two was the mage. Baldy was making complicated gestures with his hands and muttering in a language that might’ve been ancient Sumerian or gibberish for all I knew. I could care less; what I was mostly concerned about was the ball of fire coalescing between his hands.

  “Aw, hell. Just remember, you asked for this,” I said, raising my voice. I shot my hand out toward his eyes with my fingers extended in a classic bil jee strike. The bil jee, or finger jab, was one of Bruce Lee’s favorites—both for its simplicity and its effectiveness.

  The strike landed home, and I felt my fingertips sink into the squishy orb of his right eyeball. One thing most mages forgot was that it took time to cast a spell. Circle mages were used to having their hunter sidekicks closing the gap with their enemies, acting as a sort of human shield to give the mages time to spin up their magic. In this proximity, he’d have been better off throwing a punch.

  Live and learn, I supposed. The mage stopped casting his spell immediately, and the fire dissipated as he reflexively lifted his hands to protect his eyes. Sadly for him, the spell hadn’t completely dispersed, and he singed his eyebrows and eyelashes in the process.

  “It’s burning my eyes!” he screamed, batting at his face with his still flaming hands.

  I couldn’t imagine what burning your eyeballs felt like, but it had to hurt.

  “Don’t worry, man, I got this,” I said as I popped the cap off my frozen mochaccino and tossed it in his face. Then I kicked him square in the nuts, harder than I’d kicked his partner. He collapsed to the ground, curled up in the fetal position.

  I stepped over him on the way to my scooter. “There’s your mochaccino, asshole. Now, tell all your buddies that I just want to be left the fuck alone. The next time you jackasses try to shake me down, I won’t go this easy on you.”

  14

  I knew I needed to move fast if I was going to catch Cécile at her hideout. Before the night was out, someone would find Cade. Or, his arms and legs would heal and he’d bust himself out of those restraints. Either way, the clock was ticking. I headed to the location where he’d said Cécile hid out during the day, parking a few blocks away from the witch’s pad.

  And what a pad it was—a condo on the upper floors of one of the ritzier high-rises downtown. To me, it was just another concrete monstrosity fucking up the view of the capitol building, but to others, living in such a building meant luxury and prestige. Condos in downtown high-rises went for a pretty penny; apparently, selling illusion charms and glamours to the city’s supernatural underworld paid well. Or, she’d killed someone and stolen their identity. The more I thought about it, the more the latter option made sense.

  A soucouyant fed in much the same way your typical vampire did, with a few major differences. First, they rarely killed their victims in one feeding, preferring instead to feed from the same person, over and over. And when soucouyants did kill their victims, they had the ability to steal their skin and assume their form.

  Second, they preferred to shed their skin to travel and feed. In their non-corporeal form, they looked and moved like will-o’-the-wisps. In that form, they could travel great distances very quickly, slip in and out of homes unnoticed, and were very hard to kill. Unless you found their original skin sack, that was. Destroy that, and you destroyed the soucouyant, for good.

  I hoped Cécile would be gone when I arrived. If so, I could take her skin sack, hide it, and use it as a bargaining chip to force her into helping me find the vampire. Of course, now that I knew what she was, I’d have to kill her before I went after my mystery vamp. No way I was going to leave yet another rogue vampire loose in the city. If I was lucky, Luther would bump my pay for killing Cécile, too.

  It was close to four in the morning by the time I got to her floor. I’d had to take the stairs, since the lobby was guarded by security and the elevators only operated with keycards. By the time I hit the fourteenth floor, I felt like I was about to pass out. I swore I’d never let myself get out of shape again.

  I knew she had to feed each night, because that’s how soucouyants powered their magic. So, Cécile was likely to be elsewhere when I arrived. She’d have to be back before dawn, just like any other vampiric creature, so I needed to work fast. I disabled the wards on the door, spelled the locks open, and entered the apartment.

  So this is how the other half lives, I thought as I carefully shut the door and listened for any sign of movement in the condo. All was silent
. I made my way through the place, silver-inlaid sword in one hand and pistol in the other.

  After clearing the living area and kitchen—and taking a moment to admire the million-dollar view of Ladybird Lake—I headed for the bedrooms. In the first, I found photos of a woman who looked like Cécile. At least, what her disguise had looked like at The Hammer and Anvil.

  I searched the rest of the room, taking note of the woman’s photos as I did. In every photo, she was smiling as she posed with what must have been her friends and family. Had Cécile been wearing that woman’s skin earlier? I had no idea how the mechanics of the magic worked, but it was highly possible. That meant she’d killed the condo’s occupant, just as I’d suspected.

  Yeah, she was definitely going down.

  The rest of the room was more or less your typical thirty-ish professional’s bedroom. A large wardrobe in the closet. Historical romance and business books on the nightstand. A vibrator hidden in a lacquered jewelry box in the bottom drawer, along with a .38 pistol that she’d likely never had a chance to use against the witch. I felt like a voyeur as I searched what had once been this woman’s private domain. But now was not the time to respect the privacy of the dead. I had to find the soucouyant’s skin, and fast.

  I continued tossing the place and found absolutely zip.

  As I walked into the next bedroom, I smelled something familiar that stopped me in my tracks. It was a combination of desiccated flesh, grave dirt, and heme.

  A vampire’s lair.

  The bed had been tossed aside, almost casually, and left tipped awkwardly against the wall. There were no windows in this space, which made it the perfect place for a vamp to rest during daylight hours. A large wooden box sat in the center of the room, roughly the size of a coffin. It looked to be a shipping crate of some sort. I snuck up to it and gently lifted the lid back.

  Moist dirt covered the bottom, but it was otherwise empty.

  Was this where the witch rested at night? Or could this have been where Raffy had been hiding out all along? And if so, were he and Cécile allies of convenience, or something more? Was he her maker? I’d never heard of a higher vampire making a different kind of vamp than their own kind—but with older vampires, anything was possible. Some delved into black magic, and I’d heard rumors of very old vamps summoning various kinds of supernatural creatures to serve them.

  This case was getting crazier by the minute. I checked my watch; it’d be daylight soon. I needed to find that witch’s skin and get the hell out of Dodge. Where had I not checked yet?

  I had a flash of intuition and headed for the kitchen. I popped open the fridge, and sure enough, there sat a large stone mortar. I looked inside and found two neatly folded sets of human skin, with the hair and nails completely intact. I shuddered as I unfolded one to make sure it was what I’d been looking for. No doubt about it; it was the genuine article.

  I stuffed the mortar into a shopping tote, tied it off with some string, and threw it in my Craneskin Bag. Then I scratched out a quick note on a nearby notepad, tore it off, and left it in the fridge. Once that was done, I beat feet out of there, heading for the stairwell just as fast as my long, lanky legs could carry me.

  Somewhere around the fifth floor, I heard a high keening sound coming from somewhere above me. The witch’s wailing cry echoed off the walls of the stairwell, filled with rage and grief. I ran faster, nearly stumbling as I hit the last set of stairs. I skidded out the stairwell door, around the corner, and ran for the front doors of the building at a sprint.

  As I cleared the doors, the first rays of sunlight were beginning to peek over the horizon. I ran for the nearest open space, which was in the direction of Ladybird Lake. As I looked east to the sunrise, I noticed the last few bats flying for safety and darkness under the Congress Avenue Bridge. I suppressed a shiver as I spent a moment basking in the morning sun.

  Safe, for now.

  I headed back to the junkyard to prepare for nightfall, and to get some rest. Come sundown, things were going to get hairy. And I had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

  15

  As I went home to prepare, I wondered if I should have stayed at the condo and attacked during daylight. It would have been a risky proposition, but one with a potential payoff as well. Vampires were weaker during the day, and exposure to sunlight was their one universal Achilles’ heel. Problem was, that back bedroom would have been dark as night, even in the daytime. And if I’d ended up facing Cécile and Raffy at the same time, I’d have been toast for sure.

  In her incorporeal form, Cécile would be a handful all by her lonesome. Wisps were hard enough to fight, because they moved fast, never tired, and only certain weapons had any effect on them. Add in the potential for magical attacks, and one of those little balls of light could do some serious damage. A soucouyant in wisp form had all the same advantages—plus they could feed on you, just as any vampire could in physical form.

  So, fighting Cécile and a centuries-old vampire all at once was out of the question. Not a chance I’d risk it, even if it meant catching two vamps in their lair during daylight hours when they were weakest. No, my best shot was in keeping them separate by drawing Cécile out and then using her to lead me to Raffy.

  To do that, my plan was simple. I’d drop the undead ward on the front gate of the junkyard, but leave the rest of the wards in place. That’d allow Cécile to enter the parking lot, but she wouldn’t get much farther than that. Then we’d have a little chat, I’d get the info I needed—and afterward, I’d incinerate her skin sacks and end her worthless un-life for good.

  I readied a few minor spells, rearranged my Craneskin Bag so I had the stuff I needed near at hand, then did some work around the yard before catching a few hours of sleep. At five o’clock, my alarm went off. I got up and had some coffee and a bowl of microwave ramen, then went to work.

  The first task at hand was making sure no one was working late in the yard, shop, or warehouse. All I needed was for one of the other yard hands or a mechanic to decide to work late and become a snack for Cécile. I checked all the buildings and walked the yard; not a single soul was around, including Finnegas.

  He was probably passed out somewhere in a gutter with a needle stuck in his arm. I’d long since stopped trying to rescue him, and had decided to leave him to suffer the consequences of his actions. At least it meant I wouldn’t have to worry about him tonight. While he may have been two thousand years old, and once a powerful magic-user, I doubted he’d be worth two shits in a fight these days. Addiction was an unforgiving bitch, that was for sure.

  It was getting close to dark. The note I’d left for Cécile told her to come to the junkyard after dark if she wanted her skin back. It was really no secret where I lived—everyone who was clued in around these parts knew that. It’s just that no supernatural creature was stupid enough to try to accost me here. A few had tried and paid with their lives by tripping my wards. I might have been shit with most spells, but I knew how to set a ward like no one’s business.

  Plus, with all the metal around the yard, it made it damned uncomfortable for fae to come near. That part was an added bonus to living in a junkyard. The only bonus, really, besides the dirt-cheap rent.

  I walked the yard one last time and checked my watch. It’d be sundown in fifteen minutes. I rattled the gates, making sure they were locked up tight. Then I dropped the ward that kept the undead out and took a seat on the front steps of the warehouse to wait.

  It wasn’t long after sundown when she arrived. Shortly after the eastern sky began to darken into night, I saw a ghostly ball of flame hurtling out of the sky toward the front gate of the yard. That was the only safe entry point for her kind at the moment, so over the gates she came. I sat on the steps and observed her as she approached, a sphere of pale orange and yellow flames that held the barest outline of a hag’s face in the center.

  When the sphere floated within ten feet of me, I held up a hand. “That’s close enough, Cécile. Come any far
ther, and I’ll start throwing handfuls of rice on the ground. You’ll be counting grains until sunup—and then neither of us will get what we want.”

  The ball of swamp gas halted its advance, and the face within the fire became clearer and more distinct. The sphere grew brighter, save for the old hag’s eyes. Those were two empty orbs, black as night and devoid of any light at all.

  Her voice sounded like a roaring furnace as she spoke. “I should burn you to ash where you stand. Fry you to a crisp, and take what’s mine.”

  In this form, she had just the slightest hint of a Creole accent that I hadn’t noticed when she was in human form. It made me wonder how and when she’d been made. For all I knew, Cécile could be a few centuries old. Legend had it that when the French had colonized the Caribbean, European vampires fed on and infected their slaves. Some of these slaves had practiced black magic, and from that mix of magic, the first soucouyant had been born.

  If she was that old, I needed to play this situation very carefully. She might have other tricks up her sleeve that made her far deadlier than I had originally anticipated.

  I nodded and frowned. “Yes, you could do that. But then you’d never get what you came for—you can be sure of that.”

  The face in the flames appeared to sniff the air. “Where is it? My skin. I sense it is nowhere near. You playing games with me, boy?”

  “It’s very close by—but somewhere you could never find it, not in a million years.” This was partially true, because whatever I put in my Craneskin Bag became dimensionally displaced. While her mortar and skins were within arm’s reach, they were also in a completely different plane of existence, one she could never access. The Bag was attuned to me and me alone. I could have locked her mortar up in a bank vault and it wouldn’t have been as secure.