by M. D. Massey
I cracked my neck and rolled my shoulders out. “Just take care of the sniper, create a diversion, and I’ll handle the rest.”
“Ooh, so forceful,” Jesse cooed. “It almost makes up for the whininess.”
“Again, I’m ignoring you,” I said as I headed back to the oak tree.
“You’re so cute when you pout,” the dryad replied in a baby talk voice, pinching my cheek as she danced past me.
Nineteen
When we arrived at the oak, Jesse extended her hand to me, and in response I crossed my arms and frowned. Bitchy resting face was the default setting on my current, altered facial structure, so it didn’t take much effort.
“C’mon, don’t be a scaredy cat. I won’t bite—much,” she said with a devious wink.
Reluctantly, I placed my hand in hers. One heartbeat later we were earth-side, standing on a large limb fifteen feet above the ground in the druid oak. The tree’s thick canopy of leaves concealed us from spying eyes. Even so, I was more than a bit nervous about being up there, with nothing but a few leaves and branches for protection from the sniper’s gunfire.
“Two questions,” I whispered. “How are you going to deal with the sniper, and how am I supposed to get down from here when you do?”
Jesse held a finger to her lips. “Hush, I need to concentrate.” She placed her fingertips on her temples like a carnival sideshow mentalist. “Watch carefully, directly in front of us.”
A hand-width tunnel opened in the leaves ahead, offering us a window to the world outside that focused directly on a rooftop to the south. I suddenly had the sensation I was moving forward at speed, then realized it was the image of the rooftop zooming in for me. Two men wearing dark fatigues and body armor were on that roof and looking in our direction—one with a spotter’s monocular, the other scanning the junkyard through a high-powered scope.
“Don’t worry, they can’t see us,” Jesse assured me. “Now, to take care of that sniper team.”
She plucked two twigs and two leaves from a nearby branch, cupping them inside her hands. Pursing her lips, she blew in the space between her thumb and forefinger, then rubbed her hands back and forth gently a few times. The dryad nodded once, opening her hands to reveal two wooden darts. Their shafts were made from polished oak, and their fletching had been fashioned from thick, fern-like leaves.
“Neat trick,” I said in a low voice.
“You’d be able to do it too, if you could be bothered to read the owner’s manual.” I opened my mouth to protest, but she held a finger up. “Ah ah, still concentrating. Now, for the finishing touch.”
Jess licked the needle-sharp tips of both darts, then laid them in her palm pointed at the sniper team. “Fly true,” she said, and the darts did her bidding, zipping down the leafy tunnel and hitting each member of the men in the neck. They slapped at the darts, then each slumped to the roof’s surface.
“Are they dead?” I asked.
“No, merely sleeping. I may be capricious, but I’m not evil.” She wiped her hands together as if dusting them off. “Well, my job’s done. Guess you’d better climb down and do your thing, oh mighty druid.”
I tsked and tongued a molar. “I don’t remember you being this sarcastic in your former life.”
“You try spending a few years as a ghost, and see if you don’t get a bit salty. Now, shoo—I’ll do what I can to help you escape from here.”
I gave her a peck on the cheek on sheer impulse. “Thanks, Jess.”
She smiled, in a way that reminded me of a tiger twitching its tail before pouncing on an easy meal. “Tick-tock, slugger. Your spider-demon awaits.”
“Here goes nothing.” I scrambled down the tree’s trunk, managing to avoid falling until I was halfway to the ground. I landed in a crouch, then spoke the trigger word to activate magical traps along my fence line that normally remained dormant. Once I was satisfied they were ready, I made a beeline for the front lot.
As soon as I was in the open, the spells and gunfire began. I made it halfway to the front gate before I was forced to take cover behind a stack of cars. Bullets whizzed past me, pinging off engine blocks and car frames and punching through glass and sheet metal. I winced at the money the junkyard was losing, as body panels and windshields with bullet holes tended not to sell very well.
A fireball whooshed overhead, hitting an old Ford van twenty feet behind me. I ducked behind a hood that leaned against a rust-ridden Ford LTD just before the van’s gas tank ignited. The vehicle exploded in a flash of heat and smoke, pelting the area with shrapnel that dented, and in some cases partially penetrated, the thin piece of steel protecting me.
Enough of this—time to reel them in.
“You missed me, asshole!” I yelled from behind the stack of cars.
“You can’t hide forever, McCool!” a gruff voice shouted from beyond the fence.
“Keane, is that you? Damn, Circle healing magic must be getting better. I figured your team would be down for at least a few days, considering the ass-whooping I put on you.”
“Laugh all you want now,” he replied. “We have this place surrounded and my men are closing in. You’re done, druid!”
“Your men? That’s a bit gender-exclusive, don’t you think? Do they not have sensitivity training in the Cold Iron Circle?”
“Just the kind of talk I’d expect from a liberal, hipster pussy like you, McCool. Sit tight, and we’ll have your pretty boy ass hogtied in no time. Then we’ll see how smart-assed you are with a gag in your mouth.”
Why does everyone insist on calling me a hipster? Is it the hair?
I chose to ignore the jibe. “That’s a little too much kink even for you, Keane. Again, I think I’ll have to decline.”
By this time, I’d sensed multiple Circle teams in assault positions around the perimeter of the junkyard. Probably waiting until their mages have breaching spells ready. On Keane’s command they’d blast holes through my fence, shut down my magical defenses, and then converge on me all at once in the Circle’s typical shock and awe fashion.
Magic wards were great for keeping out supernatural beings and magical objects, but they couldn’t keep humans out—a fact the Circle’s mages knew as well as me. Still, there were consequences for trespassing on a wizard’s land, as most set traps to prevent mundanes from crossing onto their territory. I’d never used mine before, because keeping humans out would be antithetical to the nature of our business—not to mention being hella difficult to explain to an insurance adjuster.
That’s how the Circle had gotten through, both times.
Of course, they’d be expecting my traps to be activated this time. And while one wizard might have to take their time getting through those traps, with their numbers they could easily overwhelm my defenses by attacking them in concert.
What they didn’t know was I’d prepared for this eventuality. After Gunnarson and his jackbooted thugs had killed Elmo and Uncle Ed, no way was I going to allow the Circle to jump my fence again. So, I’d devised a way to deal with them, if ever something like this were to occur.
“Maighnéadas,” I commanded, releasing the spell I’d placed on the junkyard fence.
It was a fair bet that, if the Circle ever attacked my home again, their mages would be warded against standard magical traps and their effects.
So, I’d had to devise something they weren’t expecting.
Magical traps typically used elemental magic, and they were generally designed to release lightning, fireballs, area-of-effect freezing magic, and so on with a tripwire cantrip. Typically, a good warding spell or device would protect you against one or two strong elemental attacks—maybe more, if the person creating or casting it was particularly talented. Some magic users got around this by setting traps that released multiple, timed attacks, but that could be dealt with by using adaptive grounding spells, insulating wards, or heat sink charms.
Finnegas had taught me that offensive magic was much more effective when spells were crafted for a sp
ecific task and target. If you were fighting an efreet, you’d want a ton of cold spells on hand. If you were fighting a frost giant, you’d want fire and heat spells. If you had to battle a mage who used shadow magic, you’d want to prepare by crafting a shit-ton of light spells. It was an obvious approach, but one that most magic users tended to ignore, simply because over-specialization meant you’d only be prepared for a tiny fraction of the potential magical threats you were likely to face.
Still, the old man was no fool. You didn’t survive for two thousand years without learning to be a crafty son of a bitch, and Finnegas was damned tricky. Being a sneaky bastard, he hadn’t confined his studies to druidry alone, but instead studied many disciplines and experts over the years, including military tacticians. Most notably, he was especially fond of Sun Tzu.
In The Art of War, Sun Tzu famously said, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”
Druids, as a matter of course, followed this very same axiom, because our magic tended to be extemporaneous and therefore weaker than prepared spells in some regards. For that reason, we made it a habit to apply the right spell at the right time. When a druid knew their enemy, and they had time to prepare spells in advance, the enemy was fucked.
Despite their use of ancient magic, the Cold Iron Circle was a particularly modern outfit, and they tended to take the best from both worlds when equipping their operatives. Modern equipment like firearms, load-bearing harnesses, belt buckles, knives, and the like contained a lot of steel and iron.
Knowing that, I’d created a spell to turn the junkyard fence into one ginormous magnet. Granted, magnetism might not seem like powerful magic, but under the right circumstances it could yield devastating effects. I’d tested my spell before I’d placed it, and estimated the magnetic force was equal to or greater than the electromagnetic crane we used to move cars in the yard. In fact, that’s where I’d gotten the idea in the first place.
When I said the trigger word to release the spell, the night sky lit up over the junkyard like the aurora borealis. Everything that contained even the slightest bit of metal within twenty feet of the perimeter was pulled toward the fence. A moment of silence followed, then I heard the clatter of three dozen bodies hitting the corrugated metal panels of the junkyard fence. The impacts made a tremendous noise, kind of like change being tossed into a coffee can, only a hundred times louder.
Next came the screams, shrieks, and curses of all those Circle operatives who’d gotten slammed into my fence at speed. Imagine running as fast as possible into a sheet metal fence, and that’ll provide some idea of how those jokers fared.
But, I wasn’t done. Belts could be unbuckled, harnesses could be cut, and firearms could be removed or abandoned. So, I said the second command word.
“Scaoileadh.”
That set loose the many lengths of heavy steel cable I’d painstakingly cut and buried, just underground, around the entire perimeter of my fence. As the magnetic spell latched on to those lengths of cable they flew through the air, slapping into place at waist level to firmly entangle and ensnare every Circle operative who’d been captured by my magic.
The involuntary grunts and cries of pain that accompanied the second part of the spell were well worth the time it’d taken to bury all that steel cable.
I stood and glanced up into the tree’s branches. “See anyone I missed?”
Jesse’s light green face popped out of the leaves above me. “Nope. Looks like you got them all, Polaris.”
“Cosmic Boy is cooler.”
Jesse raised an eyebrow. “Not Magneto?”
“Naw, that guy’s a dick.” A frown flashed across Jesse’s face. “What’s up?”
“Just a sec.” She squeezed her eyes shut, and a man screamed in the distance. “Missed one.”
My eyes and ears zeroed in on the source of the scream. Just over the fence, Keane was hanging upside down from the branches of a live oak, restrained by a network of creeper vines that had come alive under Jesse’s command.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” I muttered in disbelief.
“Neither did I, until just now,” Jesse replied.
I was about to remark on how creepy her powers were, but thought better of it. “This has been fun, but I gotta go. My magnetism spell will wear off in a couple of hours. Don’t kill anybody while I’m gone, alright?”
“If I do, they’ll never find the bodies,” she said with a wink.
I couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not, but I had bigger issues to deal with.
After placing every piece of metal I owned in my Craneskin Bag, I hopped the fence at the front gate. As I exited the junkyard, I ignored the groans and cries for mercy coming from the Circle operatives pinned to the fence—they’d had it coming. And if I stepped on some heads and hands on my way out, it was purely unintentional.
I walked out to the street with a smile plastered across my face. See? Being evil isn’t so bad, a voice inside me said. I ignored that voice as I scanned both ways for a ride. Bingo.
Circle operatives always rode in style, and as luck would have it, one of the teams had left a black Chrysler 300C with dark limo tint across the street. Popping the lock with a spell, I searched the interior until I found a spare key fob tucked in the visor. Typical. I hit the ignition and grinned as three hundred and sixty-three of Detroit’s finest horses rumbled to life. Leaving a strip of rubber and a cloud of smoke in my wake, I fishtailed the car across four lanes of Congress Avenue and headed south for Highway 290 East.
Twenty-five minutes later, I pulled off on FM 969, a narrow country road just a few miles west of Bastrop. Nameless was quiet on the seat beside me. The night raven had barely twitched a feather for the last few miles, making me wonder if he’d croaked.
“Hey, bird, you still with me?”
The pile of feathers and shadow stirred, and the night raven shakily raised his head. “The time I spent captive in your extra-dimensional druidic demesne nearly killed me—but yes, I’m still alive. As if you cared.”
I chuckled. “It’s what you get for kidnapping children in Maeve’s territory. You should’ve known she wouldn’t put up with that behavior.”
The bird cawed softly. “Maeve, as you call her, has committed more than her fair share of crimes against humanity. I assure you, my trespasses are minor in comparison to the Bitch Queen’s. For her to sic her favorite junkyard dog on me, all for merely doing what is in my nature, is the highest form of hypocrisy.”
“Damn, bird, you sure do love to hear yourself talk. You’re going to get along great with your new host.”
“If you say so,” he mumbled, shakily lowering his head back to the nappa leather seat.
Five minutes later, I pulled down another two-lane country road, and a few miles later onto a cracked blacktop drive, marked by two pillars made from fieldstone and mortar with a rusty metal gate attached. Weeds had overgrown the entrance, giving it an abandoned look that I knew was just for show. I put the car in park and waited patiently, and the gate creaked open a minute or so later. There were no security cameras or other technological devices to alert the occupant to our presence, but the owner didn’t need them to know he had visitors.
I drove the vehicle through the gates with bated breath, half expecting us to be fried to a cinder as we crossed the property line. No lightning or fireballs—guess he’s taking visitors. With a sigh of relief, I hit the gas and pulled up to a dark, abandoned-looking farmhouse. About fifty yards distant, I spotted the charred remains of what had once been a barn. On its side, behind the house, sat the toppled sections of a converted grain silo that had once served as living quarters for the person who owned this farm.
I stepped out of the car and walked toward the house, eyes searching the darkness around me. “Come on, Crowley, I know you’re here. Quit stalling already. I need your help.”
A tall, lean figure with a pole vaulter’s build stepped out of the shadows along the far
side of the house. He wore jeans, dress shoes, and a charcoal hoodie under a black leather trench coat. The hood was pulled up, hiding his face in shadows that I knew were not altogether natural.
“Hello, McCool,” he said. “How did you know I was here?”
“It’s my job to know these things. How’ve you been?”
The wizard ignored my question. “Is it really your job, Colin? Or do you insist on sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong because of that pesky savior complex you maintain?”
“A little of both, I guess. Anyway, I have a favor to ask, and I think it’ll be right up your alley.”
“I paid for my sins and then some when I helped you traverse Underhill. Did you know, despite the gates being closed, Mother’s assassins come for me on an almost weekly basis now? I’m fairly certain she spends all week gathering enough energy to cast a portal, then she sends someone or something through with instructions to kill me, only to start the process all over again when they fail. It’s the most attention I’ve received from her in years.”
“This isn’t about paying for our sins, Crowley. It’s about helping a friend in need.”
Crowley lowered his head with a sigh before turning toward the vehicle. “I suppose it has to do with that creature you brought.” He stood silent for several seconds, which likely meant he was weighing me by the scales of Osiris. “Fine. Bring the creature and come with me.”
I reached into the car and plucked Nameless from the seat. He’d shat and molted all over the upholstery. The smell was atrocious, but this time I didn’t mind.
“C’mon, bird. Your new home awaits.”
Crowley had vanished by the time I’d retrieved the night raven from the vehicle. I searched the area, curious as to where he’d gone. Finally, my eyes alighted on a spot where the base of the grain silo had once stood. A dark archway shimmered in the air there—a black two-dimensional doorway that appeared to be made of shadows and darkness. It looked somewhat like a magical portal, but lacked the usual massive power signature that accompanied such workings.
