Druid's Due

by M. D. Massey

  It was still dark as hell inside the cave, but I’d started stealth-shifting so my enhanced vision was kicking in. Shadows receded as something with considerable bulk dropped from the cavern ceiling ahead. The shadowy figure was perhaps nine to ten feet tall—not quite as big as the caddaja demon I’d fought recently in Austin, mind you, but still the size of a fucking truck.

  Huh. I was going to save the full Fomorian monty for a surprise—looks like I should’ve started that party from the get-go.

  At first, the thing looked like a giant, dark-gray cocoon. As it unfurled itself, I realized that the “cocoon” was a pair of huge, leathery wings. The creature had an enormous wingspan, easily twenty feet across, with each wingtip touching the cavern walls to either side.

  As the last wisps of shadow disappeared, my captor was finally revealed. The thing’s charcoal-skinned body was shaped like that of a giant, heavily muscled man. Its clawed feet ended in long, articulated toes that looked like they could grip or slash with equal ease. By contrast, its hands were much more human, but equipped with equally wicked claws.

  Yet easily the most bizarre feature was its grotesque face. From the neck up, the creature looked exactly like a giant bat—complete with the beady eyes, a squished up nose, huge ears, and sharp teeth. Honestly, the damned thing was one of the most hideous monsters I’d ever seen, and I’d seen a few.

  Speaking of which, he did remind me of a certain someone…

  Damn, he’s like a bigger, buffer version of Rafael.

  Rafael was an ancient nosferatu I’d tangled with a few years back. He’d pretty much tossed me around like a rag doll. Considering its size, if this creature had powers that were similar to Rafael’s, I was in deep shit.

  “And just what the hell are you?” I asked, fishing for clues as to its nature and powers.

  The creature puffed out its chest, snapped its wings taut, and drew itself to its full height. “Behold your demise, mortal. I am the night—”

  This again? Yeah, he and Rafael are definitely related.

  I held my hands up, waving them back and forth. “Whoa, whoa, whoa—hold it right the fuck there. ‘I am the night’? You’re really going to lead with that?”

  “You dare to interrupt me?”

  “Yeah, I dare. That line is kind of taken.”

  The bat-like creature’s wings drooped slightly. “By who?”

  “By Batman, duh,” I replied.

  “I’m the Bat-Man,” the beast responded with a self-assured nod. “And I have always been the night.”

  “No, dude, I’m telling you. You are definitely not Batman. Batman is a comic book character, and one of the most iconic superheroes in modern culture.”

  “There is nothing comical about being the night!” the creature shrieked, nostrils flaring. “And I am the night!”

  “Not anymore. Everyone in my world thinks that Batman is the night.”

  “The people of Aztlan worshipped me as a god,” the beast fumed, glaring at me. “I will not allow a human hero to usurp my title.”

  “Well don’t blame me,” I replied. “You can blame Bob Kane—he’s the guy who created the character.”

  “Bob Kane is Batman?” the giant man-bat asked.

  “No, no, no—‘Batman’ is a fictional character. Bob Kane made him, and then other people brought him to life in the comics and movies.”

  “What are these comics you speak of?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “They’re pictures people draw to tell stories.”

  The man-bat’s ears twitched. “If they memorialize the deeds of this ‘Batman’ in pictures, he must be mighty indeed. Perhaps he is one of my offspring, then. Yes, I will definitely kill him.”

  “But you can’t kill him—he’s not real.”

  “Liar!” the creature shouted, flecks of spittle flying from his thin chiropteran lips. “Do not attempt to fool me, little wizard. You just said Bob Kane and his followers brought this ‘Batman’ to life!”

  I grabbed great handfuls of my hair in my fists. “Argh! You don’t understand. Bob Kane made Batman up.”

  “Ah, this Bob Kane is a shaman. He uses magic to create creatures that do his will. I will kill Bob Kane then, and take back my title. Then all will know and fear Camazotz once more.”

  Camazotz—this is starting to make sense.

  Camazotz was the ancient Mayan bat god. He was closely associated with darkness, night, and death. No wonder the damned thing’s identity was tied up with being “the night”—he’d been worshipped as a being synonymous with things nocturnal for centuries.

  “Camazotz?” I asked. “As in the Camazotz? Not just an avatar?”

  Camazotz frowned, an expression that made his already ugly face considerably uglier. “I am no avatar. Pfah! The other gods fear to appear on the mortal plane, so they send facsimiles to placate their worshippers. Camazotz has no such fears. I am the night—I am death! Where I roam, there is Camazotz. No other like me exists.”

  “Except Batman,” I muttered under my breath.

  He bristled. “What did you say?”

  I tensed, slipping a hand inside my Bag in case I needed to draw Dyrnwyn. “I said, ‘Exactly, man.’”

  “Bat-Man,” Camazotz groused. “And your validation is inconsequential. I am the night, after all.”

  “Oh, for sure.”

  My acquiescence seemed to deflate the bat god’s anger, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Demi-gods and avatars were one thing, but I definitely did not want to tangle with a full-fledged deity. I needed to defuse this situation and get back to my own plane of existence, pronto.

  And in the process, maybe I could gain a little advantage should things go sideways with Ernesto. He’d looped me in when I was over a barrel—why not take a page from a bad guy’s book?

  Time for a little fast-talking.

  “I see it clearly now,” I said. “Without a doubt, mighty Camazotz, you are the greatest and only Bat-Man, ever.”

  The bat god’s ears swiveled in my direction. “Yes, everyone knows this. What is your point?”

  “Indeed, you are the Bat-Man. However, the current situation does pose a—no, I shouldn’t speak out of turn,” I demurred with a wave of my hands.

  Camazotz swiveled his weird giant bat head and turned those beady eyes on me. “What?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. I shouldn’t have mentioned it, now that I know in whose unmatched glory I currently bask.”

  Camazotz closed the space between us in an eye-blink. He gripped me by the throat with one massive hand and lifted me off the floor effortlessly. This was in of spite the fact that I currently weighed better than 300 pounds in my stealth-shifted state. The bat god pulled me in close, his rank, metallic breath washing over me as he hissed with low menace.

  “Speak, mortal! You were about to say something, yet now you deny your intentions. State what is on your mind, blood bag, or I will drain you immediately, instead slowly savoring your lifeblood over the course of several decades as I had originally planned.”

  Yeah, let’s not.

  I clucked my tongue. “Well—and I mean no offense by pointing this out—if you’re going to kill Bob Kane, and reassert to the world that you are, indeed, ‘the night’—”

  “I am,” he interjected, with only a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

  “If that’s your intention, you sure can’t kill the guy from here.”

  Conflicting emotions played across the bat god’s wrinkled, blunted face. First, his eyes narrowed, then his nose twitched as his lips drooped in a frown, and finally his expression softened completely. Resignedly, Camazotz dropped me to the floor, then he sat on a nearby boulder, curling his wings in as he propped his chin on one massive fist. It was almost comical—dude looked like a Guillermo del Toro version of The Thinker.

  “Drat! You are correct, tiny wizard. I cannot kill the shaman known as Bob Kane while I am trapped here.”

  “And how exactly did that happen—if you don’t mind my as
king?”

  “I’d—I’d rather not say.”

  I snapped my fingers. “Treachery! I knew it.”

  Camazotz nodded sagely. “You have the gist of it. I was tricked, although I am loath to admit it. The nahuālli is no match for me in a fair fight, powerful though she might be. But like most witches, she is both cunning and deceitful. Thus, she lured me to her lair with promises she never intended to keep, and then trapped me in this place.”

  “What promises? Again, I don’t mean to pry, but—”

  “We were to have intercourse.”

  Alrighty, no beating around the bush then.

  “My apologies. I didn’t mean to inquire into your personal matters.”

  The giant bat-man shrugged. “It is a natural act, and Camazotz takes what he wishes. There is no shame in it. In times past, I would simply bring a loyal priestess into my cave to satisfy my urges. But after a long sleep, I awoke to find that all my followers were gone, and that I had been—”

  He struggled to finish that last sentence, so I stepped in to rescue him. “No need to say it—it’s happened to many gods over the centuries.”

  The bat god’s shoulders slumped. “The witch promised me offspring, minions by which I could rebuild my temples and draw followers to me once more.”

  “But it was all a lie,” I remarked with a slow, sad shake of my head. “That hussy!”

  “Thus, it was not my libido that was my downfall, but hubris. The witch knew my desires, and played upon them to entrap me. When I entered her lair, the spell-traps had already been set, and I walked right into them. I’d been weakened by my long rest, and had not fully restored my strength, so—”

  “Ah—she knew you’d have enough power to pull anything that wandered into her cave across to this side, but not enough juice to free yourself. And that’s how she ended up getting a god to guard her shit.”

  “If by ‘shit’ you mean her possessions, then yes. And here I have remained, for the better part of two centuries.” With a snarl, he smashed a huge fist into a nearby rock wall, sending splinters and shards of rock flying. “Since then, I’ve fed on every single wayward animal and human who wandered close to La Onza’s cave. Yet none have increased my strength enough to allow me to escape.”

  “And by the time another creature or human comes along, you’re weakened again.”

  “Indeed. I could feed on you—you look strong enough to sustain me for a few decades, at least. But there’s no guarantee I’d get another meal before the sustenance wore off.”

  Camazotz sighed and kicked a football-sized stone across the cave as if it were a pebble. The sound of it echoed once, twice, and then all was still again.

  Gah, but this place is creepy. I definitely don’t want to be stuck here—or to become a Scooby snack for bat-boy here. Time to reel him in.

  “Huh,” I said, tapping a finger on my chin.

  “What? You have insight that mighty Camazotz has not yet considered?”

  “Maybe—and don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve known a few gods in my time. If there’s one thing you folks are bad at, it’s asking for help. Being immortal and mighty and all, you often discount the ability of mortals to further your cause—beyond worship and sacrifice, that is.”

  Camazotz scowled. “What are you getting at, little wizard?”

  “Well, La Onza trapped you from the other side—from our world. Doesn’t it make sense that another skilled magic-user could free you from the other side, as well?”

  The bat god’s ears perked up, and if it wasn’t so damned dark I’d have said there was a twinkle in his eye that hadn’t been there a moment before.

  “It does. Camazotz has considered this, but what reason would a human wizard have to help Camazotz?”

  Fish. Hooked.

  “Camazotz, I would have every reason to help you if I knew you’d return the favor at a later date. Now, here’s what I propose…”

  14

  Long after the sun had set, I popped back into my own plane of existence on the other side of La Onza’s wards. There, a short, stout, dark-skinned woman sat with her legs pulled beneath her on the other side of a small campfire that had been built in the middle of the ledge. She pointed to the opposite side of the fire with a stick, which I took as an invitation to sit.

  As I approached, I gathered what little information I could from her mannerisms and appearance. Her features were typical of the mestizos of the region, with brown, almond eyes, a wide face, high cheek bones, a hawk-like nose, and strong jawline. Regarding her age, it was indeterminate—she might have been thirty or sixty, as her skin was smooth, but she had the rugged look of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. Her long dark hair was parted in the middle and pulled back in a ponytail, and I noted that it was flecked here and there with the occasional strand of gray. She wore primitive, handmade sandals, a flowing, ankle-length skirt, and a worn ringer t-shirt with a faded picture of Snoopy and Woodstock on the front.

  “Not many people survive a meeting with Camazotz,” she remarked drily, in only slightly-accented English. “I hope the deal you made was worth it.”

  “La Onza, I presume.”

  She barely hitched one shoulder. “So they call me. And you are the druid the skinwalker sent to kill me.”

  I sat on the other side of the fire, cross-legged. “I refused. I only came here to seek you out so I could get some answers.”

  “Answers about why the dead roam the park? Why La Llorona ranges so far south, haunting and hunting the Rio Grande instead of the Rio Colorado? Answers to why a skinwalker wants me dead?”

  I inclined my head. “Yes. And how to stop it.”

  She tilted her head back and laughed. “Hah! You’re the reason for it, druid. Leave, and these troubles leave with you. But you will not. You will choose to face him here, in this remote area, and me and mine will suffer for it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  The witch pulled a stick from the fire, pointing the glowing end at me. “Do you know what I protect here—what Ernesto Bylilly really wants?”

  “No, I don’t,” I said, squirming just a little beneath her cold, hard stare.

  “Some would call it a kiva, but it’s more than that. It’s not just a ceremonial structure, but an actual gateway that leads to the underworld. The skinwalker wants to use it to draw spirits to himself, evil spirits that will increase his power. I can’t let that happen.”

  I scratched my head. “Now I’m confused. He said he wanted your pelt, so he could steal your powers.”

  “That’s simply the way Ernesto works. He made a deal with the one who seeks you, that if he helped capture you, that one would get me out of the way so the skinwalker could gain access this cave. But Ernesto is clever. If he could get you to go after me, he wouldn’t have to put himself at risk. When you and I fought, you would win, but the cost to you would be high. Ernesto planned to capture you after you’d been weakened by the battle. Then, he’d have what he wanted, and he could sell you to the other for a high price.”

  “Who is this ‘other’ person that you keep referring to?” I asked.

  “You know of whom I speak. La Llorona even warned you of him, although you didn’t listen. Who do you know that hates you, who also has the power to raise the dead?”

  Shit.

  “The Dark Druid.”

  La Onza nodded. “Yes. From what I understand, he engaged the younger skinwalker’s services after you bested him in your most recent battle. Stanley was supposed to keep an eye on you and keep the Dark One updated as to your whereabouts. When he heard you were forced to leave Austin, he sent the skinwalker after you.”

  “Huh,” I sagely observed. “And how’d Ernesto get involved?”

  “Stanley let slip that he was working a job involving a certain druid, and that piqued the old man’s interest. He made his son arrange a meeting with the Dark One, and then Ernesto convinced him he could deliver you in exchange for assistance in dealing with me. But, a
s I said, the elder skinwalker would betray his own mother if he thought it would gain him some small advantage. So, he tried to pit us against each other.”

  I chuckled humorlessly. “If Ernesto thinks he can double-cross the Fear Doirich and get away with it, he has another thing coming.”

  La Onza stirred the coals with her stick. “It doesn’t matter, now that you’ve refused to help him. As he sees it, you’ve broken your agreement, and he’ll do whatever he can to help the Dark One gain his revenge on you.”

  “Speaking of which, how do you know all this?”

  Larry appeared on the other side of the fire next to La Onza. “I, uh, might have been spying on Ernesto for her. Sorry, bud, but we didn’t know if you could be trusted.”

  La Onza absently scratched Larry behind the ears as she stared at the flames. “This one came to me for help in breaking the curse Ernesto placed on him. I told him the only way to break the curse would be to kill the caster.”

  I chewed my thumbnail, out of habit as much as a desire to make things a bit clearer. Old Fionn’s magic did still have its uses, after all. “And that’s a task you’re either incapable of or unwilling to take on. Otherwise, you’d have gotten rid of Ernesto yourself a long time ago.”

  “You speak the truth of things,” she said as she threw another branch on the fire. “We are evenly matched, in both skill and power. I am older and more knowledgeable, but the path he follows allows one to gain much power quickly—but at a terrible cost.”

  “Death magic and necromancy always come with a high price, at least from what I’ve seen,” I replied. “It did a hell of a number on the Dark Druid.”

  “But you are the cause for his current condition.” A branch in the fire crackled, sending sparks and motes of ash into the sky. “Because of that, the Dark One’s hatred for you runs deep, and he’ll do anything to get revenge. But what he wants most now is to escape from his rapidly-decaying body. And you may have brought him the means to do so.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “He’s locked in that body for good now—no more jumping to a new host for him. Finnegas and I made sure of that.”