The Druid's Guise: The Complete Trilogy (The Druid's Guise Trilogy)

by Michael J Sanford

  She thought again and began slowly spinning in place. After three full revolutions, she stopped. “Yep. He leaves every morning at seven, when Nurse Bonnie comes in. She always has a big cup of coffee and sometimes brings the policeman a muffin. Blueberry.”

  Wyatt sighed. “Well, we need to get into the office to get my magic—doesn’t matter. Look, Julia, can you get us into the office. Is it locked or anything?”

  “Nope. The policeman keeps the door open. And Nurse Bonnie always tells him not to in the morning. She asks him if he was raised in a barn. And they laugh. Sometimes the policeman looks at her funny when she walks away. And she always stares at him when he’s not looking. They’re strange.”

  None of it mattered. Even if the office were locked and guarded by an army, Wyatt would still press on. He needed to get it back. And as much as he had wanted to face the shadows—his parents—now that he knew what they were, he could think of nothing he wanted more than to escape back to the Realms, where he belonged no more than he did on Earth. There didn’t seem to be any good options. Just less bad ones. He blinked away hot tears and headed for the door.

  “Come on, Julia. We’ll figure it out on the way.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  JULIA LED THE way, taking Wyatt along another circuitous route, ducking into closets, and cutting through a dark and abandoned kitchen.

  “You need to duck, Dumb-name,” she said softly as she pirouetted around one of the long metal tables.

  Before Wyatt could question the direction, he struck his head on a hanging cast iron pan. The suddenness of the strike and the subsequent pain brought him to his knees.

  Julia groaned and dove back across the table, sliding at his head. Wyatt fell back onto his bottom as she cleared the edge, snared the falling pan, and somehow landed on her feet, crouched in front of him. He stared at her in disbelief. Then he shrugged.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  Julia scaled the table and hung the pan back on its hook. Then she jumped down and bid him follow her again, but to stay low. Wyatt nodded and chased after.

  At the swinging doors, Julia peered through the center crack. Then she turned back and frowned at Wyatt, her arms tightly crossing her chest.

  “What?” he asked.

  “The policeman from B Wing just returned to his corner.”

  “So?”

  “Now we have to wait for him to make another round.”

  “How long will that be?” Wyatt asked.

  “Seventeen minutes.”

  “That’s pretty exact.”

  “You shouldn’t have hit that pan, Dumb-name.”

  “Hey, I didn’t mean to.”

  Wyatt sat down on a stack of boxes nearby. Julia watched him for a moment, arms still crossed, but then she relaxed and plopped down in front of him, crossing her legs and holding her hands in her lap.

  “Can I ask you something?” Wyatt asked after a few silent minutes.

  Julia nodded.

  “How long have the…uh…shadow people been with you?”

  “Forever,” Julia said plainly.

  “Forever? Like since you were born?”

  Julia scrunched up her face in the curious way she did when she thought something over. “I don’t know. Maybe. But they want Lucy, not me. Oh, and you. They definitely want you.”

  “I know.” For a moment Wyatt thought about telling her who they were, but then thought better of it. “How come they want Lucy?”

  Julia shrugged. “I think they just like scaring her. I don’t know. Why do they want you?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “Are you scared of them, too?”

  Wyatt shook his head. “Not anymore. Well, not really.”

  “Good. You shouldn’t be scared. I think the shadow people are fun. I’m not scared of them either, not like Lucy. Only the Bad Man scares me. He scares all of us.”

  “And just who is the Bad Man? Is he a shadow person too? Or one of the nurses?”

  Just as Wyatt got the words out, Julia spun away from him and crawled to the swinging doors. She held up a finger over her shoulder as she pressed her face to the gap. After a moment, she turned back and smiled.

  “He must have to pee. We can go now. But be quick, Dumb-name. And no more head-butting pans. Or anything else.”

  “But who’s the Bad—” Wyatt didn’t bother finishing his question, as the doors were already slowing swinging shut behind Julia as she disappeared into the hallway.

  Julia moved far faster than she had in leading Wyatt to the kitchen. He had to run after the spry girl as she darted along the hallway, slipped into a stairwell, and practically slid down the stairs like an amorphous liquid.

  He was breathing heavily, and his face was slick with sweat when they finally stopped in the open doorway of a supply closet. At the end of the hallway was the main entrance, its massive wooden doors cast in shadows from the small emergency lights that shone softly from nearby corners. As blindingly bright as Greenwood was during the day, it was eerily dark and gloomy at night.

  Julia pointed and smiled.

  Halfway between the supply closet and the entrance sat the main office. Light glowed from its opaque windows, making it look like an oasis in the darkness. There was a door on either side, each opening into a different hallway, and the wall that faced the entrance was an open counter, lined with pamphlets and computers. He couldn’t see whether the door nearest them was open, as Julia had said it would be, but he wasn’t above scrambling over the front counter either.

  “There it is,” Julia whispered.

  Wyatt nodded. From their vantage point, they couldn’t see anything but the light emanating from the office. Wyatt had no way of knowing whether the guard was where Julia said he would be, but he didn’t have any choice but to trust her.

  “All right,” he whispered back to his co-conspirator. “Could you help distract the guard?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. How?”

  Wyatt shrugged. He hadn’t actually come up with a plan. The need to retrieve his amulet was all consuming. “I don’t know. Maybe just run past the counter screaming or pretend you’re sleep-walking. Just get the guard’s attention and get him to follow you. I’ll slip into the office, find my…what they took from me, and then we can meet back in the kitchen.”

  Julia studied him for a moment, and then nodded. “All right. This is your secret mission, Dumb-name. I’m so proud of you. Saving yourself on your first secret club adventure.”

  Wyatt dismissed the strange acknowledgment. He was so close, he could feel it. It was as if the magic of his amulet called to him from its prison, whispering his name, and leading him onward. He had lied when he told Julia that the shadow people didn’t scare him. They shook him to his core, but once he retrieved his amulet…

  They crept along the wall, keeping low and silent, as they approached the door to the office. Drawing nearer to it, Wyatt could see it was wide open, just as Julia had said. That meant that the guard was sitting just within as well. He grabbed Julia on the shoulder and turned her to face him.

  “Go now,” he whispered. “I’ll wait here. Try to draw him down the other hallway.”

  Julia nodded, smiled wickedly, and straightened to her full height. She shook out her limbs like an athlete preparing for her event. When she seemed to have done enough, she turned, winked, and began to walk toward the main entrance. She only took a pair of steps when a deep chime rang out, fracturing the silence, and freezing Julia in place.

  Wyatt held his breath as a second and third chime followed. Then a fourth and fifth.

  Julia turned to face him, her wicked grin replaced by a mask of sheer terror. Tears streamed openly down her cheeks and even in the dim light, Wyatt could see her whole body trembling.

  A sixth and seventh chime sounded, echoing down the hallway.

  “It’s just a clock,” Wyatt whispered, having remembered the towering grandfather clock that stood sentinel in the foyer of the hospital. He hadn’t t
hought it even operational, but the resounding chimes shook that notion from his mind.

  The clock sounded an eighth and ninth time.

  Julia started shaking her head, looking near panic. “No,” she said, the words weaving into the tenth chime.

  Wyatt stared back, perplexed. He quickly glanced toward the office. He saw and heard no movement from within. They were still ghosts.

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  Julia kept shaking her head and brought her hands to her temples. Her eyes were squeezed shut and still tears ran from them, dropping to the tiled floor.

  An eleventh chime sounded as Wyatt carefully approached her and grabbed her by the shoulders. “What’s wrong?” he whispered.

  Julia lifted her head and opened her eyes, breathing a single word. “Midnight.”

  A twelfth and final chime from the old clock rang out, followed by a silence that ran far deeper than it had before. The air was stale and suddenly difficult to breathe.

  Julia buried herself into Wyatt’s chest, panting in terror. “I forgot,” she mumbled. “I forgot. I forgot.”

  Wyatt surveyed the hallway. The office was still and quiet. The echo of the clock had faded, and he thought them alone. But then he saw it. At the far end of the hallway, opposite the entrance, was… something. He squinted, trying to pick out some detail in the brief flutter of movement that he had seen a moment before.

  “I forgot. I forgot. I forgot,” Julia continued to gasp.

  He pulled his gaze back to her and got her to look him in the eye. “What did you forget?”

  Snot ran from her nose, and her eyes were already bright red. “The Bad Man,” she said. “I forgot the Bad Man.”

  “Midnight,” he whispered back, remembering their first conversation through the air ducts. He hazarded a glance back down the hallway, but could see no more than before. “Who’s the Bad Man?” he asked.

  It was the third time he’d tried to ask the question, and once again he received no answer. A force struck him in the side and he felt Julia being torn from his grasp. Wyatt hit the wall, but kept his footing, turning to see Julia sliding across the tiled floor, twenty feet from where she’d been a moment prior.

  A dark shape stood between them. It looked no different than the other shades. But something about the way it stood told Wyatt that the creature before him was not his mother or his father. Something in the shiver than ran along his spine told him that this Bad Man was something else entirely.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  TIME BECAME VISCOUS, slowing as Wyatt’s mind raced. The shade before him was vaguely humanoid, and smaller than the others, if only slightly, but terror pulsed from it like a ripple. It washed over Wyatt in waves. Whatever power it possessed was tangible.

  “Who are you?” he managed to say.

  The thing cocked its head to the side—if you could call it that—and a gap opened, forming a wide smile of nothingness amid the inky blackness. “I’m the Bad Man,” it said with bitter hate and vitriol.

  Wyatt hadn’t expected such a strong reaction. It had taken weeks, months, and years even, before the other shades even took form. He clutched at his chest. The Bad Man laughed.

  “Hey, what’s going on out here?”

  Wyatt’s eyes flicked over the thing’s shoulder to see a bleary-eyed guard step into the hallway, wielding his flashlight like a sword. Wyatt glanced back to the Bad Man—who was turning to face the guard—and knew that even had the light been a sword, it’d do no good.

  The beam of the guard’s flashlight hit Julia first as she sat pressed against the far wall, shuddering. “Hey, are you all right?” He hadn’t noticed Wyatt or the Bad Man yet.

  Julia held up a finger to point in Wyatt’s direction. “Run,” she shouted, breaking through her tears.

  Wyatt didn’t know if she was speaking to him or the guard, but both stood still as the guard’s light pivoted and focused on Wyatt. It cut through the Bad Man, banishing him from sight with a muted hiss.

  “Did you see it?” Wyatt asked, still afraid to move. And still afraid to stay.

  “Now, just what is going on?” the guard said. “Are you harassing Julia?” Without waiting for a response, the guard turned over his shoulder and called back, “Julia, is he harassing you? And just how did you two get out of your rooms? I’m going to have to call Nurse—”

  “Please,” Julia moaned.

  “Please, what? Are you going to tell me what this is all about? It’s the middle of the night.” The guard’s free hand moved to rest on the radio at his belt, but he didn’t pull it free.

  “Please,” Julia repeated. Then she grabbed her head and curled her knees even tighter to her chest. “Please, run. You have to run before he makes you remember.”

  The guard stared a moment before turning back to Wyatt. “What did you do to her?” he asked.

  Wyatt shook his head. “Did you see it?”

  The guard scowled and took a step toward him. “See what, exactly?”

  “The Bad Man,” Julia whispered.

  As she spoke, a veil of black fog rose from the floor behind the guard, solidifying into a vaguely human shape. The guard must have sensed something, for he began to turn around, but he was too slow, too hesitant.

  The Bad Man struck like a viper, catching the guard in the side and sending him hurtling into the wall. His head struck with a sickening crack and he slumped motionless to the floor. Julia began screaming.

  “Yes,” the Bad Man said, drawing out the word as it slowly moved for Wyatt. “The Bad Man has come.”

  Wyatt felt himself take an involuntary step backwards, but then stopped himself. “No,” he said as loudly as he could. “I’m not running. You don’t…you don’t scare me.”

  “No?” the Bad Man said, cocking his head to the side again, until it was nearly horizontal.

  “No,” Wyatt said. “And I’m not going to let you scare Julia anymore. Or Lucy. Or anyone.”

  “Run!” Julia yelled, and for a moment, Wyatt saw Rozen being dragged from the Temple of Ouranos, face streaked in tears, her voice condemning him.

  The Bad Man turned at her voice, showing Wyatt his back. “Oh, Lucy, just where are you, child? You know you can’t hide from me.”

  “Leave her alone!” Wyatt bellowed, a fearsome courage rising from the depths.

  The Bad Man ignored him and walked toward Julia. “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. Do come out and play with me. We always have such fun.”

  Julia managed to stand, but continued to push against the wall at her back. “No,” she said. “I won’t let you scare her anymore. We won’t let you scare us anymore.”

  Wyatt stepped after the shade, but pulled to the side, hanging near the same wall Julia huddled against. If I run, can I get to her first? he wondered.

  The Bad Man stopped and turned its head around to look at Wyatt. It had no face, nor eyes, but Wyatt could feel its dark gaze on him. “Well,” the Bad Man said. “If you won’t come out to play, then we’ll just have to make you come out.”

  Wyatt looked at Julia and readied himself to run for her, but the look in her eyes stalled him. She looked at the Bad Man, then flicked her gaze at Wyatt. Then she shook her head. “Run, Dumb-name. Please, run.”

  “I won’t leave you,” Wyatt said defiantly, turning his attention to the Bad Man. There would be no chance of getting to her without dealing with the shade first.

  Again, the smile appeared, and the Bad Man lunged. Wyatt wasn’t prepared for it to move so quickly, and couldn’t react before an icy hand had his throat. The Bad Man thrust him into the wall.

  “No!” Julia shouted, and her voice was enough to shock Wyatt’s mind into forward thinking once more.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” he said.

  The inky black head leaned close to his and Wyatt could feel something akin to its breath wash over his face. Every hair on his body stood up, but Wyatt kept his eyes honed on the enemy.

  “You keep saying that,” the Bad Man said. “But I can f
eel you shaking.”

  “I know who the other shadows are.”

  “Do you, now?”

  Wyatt grabbed for the creature’s arms, but his hands moved through them as if they really were made of shadows. The Bad Man laughed and squeezed his throat even tighter. Wyatt clutched at the hands and felt only his own throat.

  “Yes,” he gasped, his voice barely audible over Julia’s sobbing. “They’re…they’re my mom…and my…dad. My parents.”

  The Bad Man growled and lifted Wyatt off the ground, still pressed against the wall. In Wyatt’s periphery, he could see the fallen guard, blood slowly pooling on the polished tile beneath his head.

  “Lucy!” The Bad Man bellowed, his hidden gaze still locked on Wyatt.

  “Leave her alone,” Wyatt said.

  “You can’t have her,” Julia said, taking a single step toward them. “Me and Dumb-name won’t let you scare her anymore.”

  Another growl emanated from deep inside the shifting shadows. “Very well, Julia, if Lucy can’t come out and play, then I guess I’ll have to settle for Wyatt here.”

  “No,” Julia gasped, but she didn’t move any further.

  Wyatt thrashed at his bonds, his mind flashing back to his first encounter with the Regency. But there was no Shaman here, wielding dark magic. And there was no Draygan warrior to rescue him.

  Wyatt stopped fighting. Turning to Julia, he said, “No, Julia, you run.”

  She shook her head. “He’ll scare you.”

  “I’m not scared.”

  The Bad Man laughed. “Not yet, but I can show you things. Oh, the things I can show you, Wyatt.”

  “Then show me, you creep. But let Julia go.”

  Julia moved at this, just two short steps, but closer to him. “No, Dumb-name, don’t ask that.”

  “Silence!” The Bad Man shouted. “You had your chance. Now I’m going to play with Wyatt. He’s says he’s not afraid. Let’s see if that’s true.”

  Wyatt bristled and thought to further challenge the creature. He wanted to urge Julia to flee again. He didn’t get a chance to do either, for suddenly the world around him melted away, and all he could see was twisting colors. And all he could hear was his mother’s voice.