by M. D. Massey
“Whatever.” She looked around the chamber, curling her lip in a silent snarl. “Guess it’s time for us to bail on you, huh?”
“La Onza has my back. Besides, I need you to see what happened with Mendoza and his thugs. If they’re waiting for us, sneak out another tunnel and meet up with the Pack at the rendezvous point.”
Fallyn eyed the stone faced bruja, who stood off to the side with her arms crossed. “Double-cross him, and I’ll strangle you with your entrails,” she said. “Let’s go, Hemi.”
The big guy gave me a reassuring smile and a bro hug. “This is your moment, cuz. Go finish it.”
“See you topside, buddy,” I said, patting him on the back.
La Onza waited until they were both long gone before she spoke. “If you are killed, I will do my best to make sure your body is unfit for the Dark One’s purposes.”
“Wow, you’re good at these pep talks, aren’t you?” I quipped, scratching my head. “Look, I’m fine with you doing the same number on the Dark Druid that you did on Ernesto. Stay hidden until you know you can tip the scales. No sense in both of us going down today.”
The dwarfish little witch gave me an inscrutable look, then she transformed into a mountain lion. La Onza headed into the dark, her voice fading as she stalked away from me.
“I will give you what assistance I can, druid. Just be sure to keep your word as well.”
With that, she blended into the shadows and was gone.
I checked my gear and took one last look around the chamber, just to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything. For the hell of it, I torched the skinwalkers’ corpses, making sure they were burning bright before I turned my attention to other matters.
You’re stalling, Colin, a familiar female voice inside my head said. It wasn’t really Jesse, but just my conscience speaking to me in her voice. Or maybe my subconscious wishing she were here. This was about the time she’d normally show up, when the shit hit the fan or thereabouts.
Even though I knew it wasn’t her, I answered that voice just the same.
Yes—I am stalling.
You can’t delay the inevitable, so you may as well get it over with, Jesse’s voice replied.
I never wanted this, you know. I wish we could just go back to the way things were, before the Avartagh showed up.
You can’t go back, slugger. There’s no rewind button in this life. I died, and you’re stuck with it.
Ah, but I’m learning time magic, I answered back.
Don’t get any bright ideas, please.
I chuckled, because my conscience was a real smart-ass. Jess would’ve approved.
“Fine. Time to send this fucker to hell.”
The Dark Druid was right where I thought he’d be. The moment I exited the last stope the bat had shown me, the signs of his passage were everywhere, in the most literal sense. Senses on high alert, I stopped to examine his work.
Well, this is a new level of fucked up.
Fresh human corpses—sacrifices, obviously—lay in twisted, desecrated heaps at intervals up and down the tunnels. As he’d done at the graveyard chapel, the Fear Doirich had used his victims’ life energy to power necromantic spells that he’d painted in blood on the walls, floors, and ceiling of the tunnels. Some spells I recognized, since I’d been studying up on death magic and necromancy since our first encounter—those spells had been used to raise and control the dead. Others were unfamiliar to me, but I could take a guess as to their purpose.
When the time came, he’d trigger them and use them to force my spirit out of my body so he could take it over. And, if my hunch was correct, he’d trap me inside another phylactery, then torture my soul over the course of many, many centuries. I’d heard of necromancers forcing captive spirits to inhabit human corpses, animal carcasses, dead fish, you name it—sometimes for the sake of experimentation, and at other times, for the sheer pleasure of torturing their souls.
Could he do it to me, now that he had possession of Jesse’s weird life and death magic? I had no idea, but I was betting that I’d still have some residual resistance to necromancy left over from the time I possessed Balor’s Eye. I also theorized that being in my full Fomorian form would provide me with additional resistance, but it was a theory I’d never tested.
Maybe the combination would be enough to combat the Dark Druid’s necromancy and Jesse’s powers, maybe not. One way or the other, I’d know for sure soon.
As I followed the Fear Doirich’s handiwork further down the tunnel, I checked the corridor for wards and traps along the way, but there were none. Now that he’d gotten what he wanted, the Dark Druid had no need for subterfuge, nor for concealment. To quote a certain famous sorcerer, we were in the end game now, and at this point the prick wanted me to come and find him.
Oh, and I’m coming with bells on, I thought as I called my Hyde-side forth.
After shifting into my full Fomorian form, I took a deep breath and drew Dyrnwyn. It was more like a short sword in my hand now than a full-sized blade, but I figured it might give me a slim advantage. For my final preparations, I readied a few spells and sent some instructions to the Druid Oak, then marched down the corridor toward my destiny… or doom.
Sixty feet in or so, the tunnel opened into another long, narrow stope chamber. This room was roughly thirty feet across and eighty feet long, with a few smaller side chambers where miners had chased veins of cinnabar until they’d petered out. As in the other stopes, the miners had used room and pillar mining techniques, leaving a ceiling high enough for me to stand with a bit of head room, although I had to duck my head when I came near the hourglass-shaped pillars.
Save for the graffiti, the entire room glowed with a sickly green light—not the bright neon used to portray radioactivity in the movies, but the diseased viridian hues of algae-covered swamp water, of pond scum on an alligator’s back, or maybe green mold on old plaster. It pulsed softly, coming from everywhere and nowhere, illuminating the chamber in pestilent light that, to my magical senses, stank of piss and shit and decay and death. That magical “scent” was layered on top of the odors my physical senses took in, which were just as horrifying and overwhelming.
Just like the corridors leading in, the walls of this room had been painted with necromantic symbols and runes. More bodies were scattered across the floor at random intervals, slain and discarded with no concern for decorum or solemnity. Some appeared to be from across the border, others looked like vacationers and hikers who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and still others wore park ranger uniforms. I lost count at fifty, and soon simply diverted my eyes because I was starting to lose my shit—not due to fear, but anger. I needed to be clearheaded to win this fight.
The Dark Druid stood at the other end of the chamber, hood pulled back to expose the putrefied flesh of his face. Maggots squirmed beneath his skin, and pus ran in rivulets from wounds and sores. Dark, gangrenous veins stood out under what intact skin remained, and all that remained of his hair were a few stray wisps of gray.
He might not be locked in that body, but he damned sure looks to be suffering in it. If I can keep him from jumping ship, then I just might have a chance.
The old necromancer observed me with keen interest as I entered the room.
“I knew you’d come,” he rasped.
I glanced around the chamber and tsked.
“You might know necromancy, but you’re a shitty interior designer,” I said. “Two thousand years of extended life, and yet here you are rocking the Dark Ages necromancer from hell look. Although the green lighting is a welcome break from your past work, you really should consider expanding your color palette. The ‘Christmas in Hell’ thing is so passé.”
This sort of banter annoyed the Dark Druid, although I’d never throw him off his game with it. He was too old, clever, and controlled to let a little shit-talking trip him up. So, the only reason I did it was because I was petty like that.
“Are you done?” he asked.
“Well, now that
we’re on the subject, we really need to talk about your wardrobe as well. I—”
A loud rumble cut me off as the tunnel entrance crumbled behind me.
Gulp.
“Jest all you want, McCool—you won’t delay the inevitable.”
Now, where have I heard that before?
“The inevitable? The colonization of Mars? The end of the two-party system? The nationwide decriminalization of marijuana?”
The Fear Doirich licked the corner of his mouth with a sickly gray tongue that reminded me of a hagfish’s tail. “I grow weary of your games, apprentice, and I’m impatient to inhabit that wonderful Fomorian body of yours.”
I grimaced and held my hand up, palm out. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hate to tell you, buddy, but this thing called the hashtag-metoo movement happened, and that kind of talk is just not socially acceptable anymore.”
“Enough!” he rasped, slamming his hand on a rune painted in blood on the wall behind him. All those runes that I didn’t recognize lit up at once with the same sickly green glow that was coming from the walls, floor, and ceiling above. Yet the runes flared brightly with luminescence, and within that light were flecks and streaks of black.
Life and death magic together, just like La Onza said.
I had little time to reflect on the Dark Druid’s methods, because as soon as he triggered the spell, I immediately felt as though I was being pulled apart at the molecular level. It was like each cell in my body was being forced to split in two all at once, and every neuron lit up with excruciating, burning pain. The only way I might describe it was that half of me was being ripped out of my skin, cell by cell, by a million tiny invisible hands.
“Oh, I don’t feel so good,” I said as I stumbled to my knees, vomiting bile and blood all over the place.
20
The Dark Druid calmly walked toward me, rubbing his decaying hands together slowly as he explained what I was experiencing.
“Ah, yes—that’s the wonderful effects of the former dryad’s magic at work,” he said in a casual tone. “Normally, life and nature magic cannot co-exist together in a single magic-user or spell casting. However, your young lady friend was a very unique creature. After living in the realm of the dead, and then being raised again as a kind of nature goddess, then becoming human—well, death and life found a way to co-exist within her, it seems.”
“And then you killed her again, you fuck—gah!”
I vomited again, and was starting to see double. Or, at least, that’s what I thought I was seeing. Then, I realized what I was really seeing were two versions of me being ripped apart, one human and one Fomorian.
“What are you doing to me?” I demanded in two voices at once.
“You must be referring to the fact that there will soon be two of you. That’s the brilliant thing about the way your former paramour’s magic works—or rather, worked, until I killed her and stole it. As you’ll recall, formerly I couldn’t use necromancy against you because of the immunity granted to you by Balor’s Eye. But recently I realized that immunity had to be hidden within your Fomorian DNA, because no human could wield—much less retain—even a smattering of the Eye’s magic.”
With a monumental effort, I lifted my heads to look up at him—now I was really seeing double as my body and soul split into two separate entities. In that instant, I could feel my spirit being ripped apart, with my human spirit energy going with my mortal body and the beast going with my Hyde-side. Neither one of us liked it, but there wasn’t a lot we could do about it at the moment except groan in agony and vomit more bile and blood.
“But…” I struggled to get the words out, because I was controlling two mouths, two voices. Or maybe two people were trying to say the same thing in unison—it was hard to keep it all clear. “There’ll be two of us to fight now, instead of just one.”
The Fear Doirich stood close now, and he knelt down to look me in my eyes—or rather, he looked back and forth between both sets. “Ah, but that’s the delicious thing, you see. Once you’re split, it’ll only take me a moment to imprison your spirit so I can inhabit your human body. Then, before this”—he gestured at my Fomorian half—“beautiful, powerful beast can respond, I’ll rejoin your two halves and have the benefit of your full powers, all in one glorious, immortal body.”
“I’ll kill you for what you d-did to Jesse, a-and everyone e-else. I swear i-it.”
He smiled and licked his pale, decaying lips with that disgusting gray-green tongue. “She felt every bit of it, you know. The agony you’re experiencing now? That’s nothing compared to the feeling of having your magic, your life essence, and your soul sucked out of your body all at once. Connected as I was to her at the time, I heard her in my mind, screaming for mercy and to make it stop. My only regret was that I couldn’t capture her soul—a pity, really. I could’ve tortured you both together, for eons. Now, wouldn’t that be romantic, hmm?”
“A-all this because a young girl wouldn’t love y-you. Y-you’re pathetic.”
“Ah yes, Sadhbh,” he croaked. “But as you’ll recall, I had my revenge. I always have my revenge.”
At this point I saw two of his dead, decaying, sneering face, and seeing one of that fucker was enough. It occurred to me that I was about to lose this fight before it had even begun, and that pissed me off almost as much as what he’d done to Jesse. I struggled to move, to attack him, to do something—but when I tried to get my bodies to respond, both refused. I was completely locked within the grips of the Dark Druid’s spell and Jesse’s magic.
So weak. Have to fight this—but how?
A voice echoed in my mind.
-You have the means, although you are unaware of it.-
La Onza?
-I told you I would lend what assistance I could. Since I’m no match for the Dark One, I’m lending you my hundreds of years of knowledge and insight—wisdom that you, in your youth, lack.-
I’d rather you bite the Dark Druid’s head off.
-If I show myself, he’ll kill me. There isn’t much time, so listen closely. This magic he uses, he stole from that young girl who was your companion, yes?-
Yes, but—
-¡Escúchame, pollino! Where did that magic come from?-
From the Druid Oak, but—
-Are you so foolish that you can’t understand what I’m saying? Who is the master of that magic now?-
The truth of what she was hinting at hit me like a ton of bricks.
I am.
-Then, what are you waiting for? Reclaim what is yours, and end this.-
La Onza’s voice faded away inside my head. The split was almost complete now. I could tell because the double-vision effect was fading away, and my connection to the beast was becoming weak and tenuous.
Okay, let’s see if she’s right.
With a thought I reached out and called Jesse’s magic to me, and to my surprise it obeyed me instantly. My body soaked it in like a sponge soaking up water. Sapped of all the energy behind the Dark Druid’s spell, the effects dissipated. Once the spell failed, the two sides of me snapped back together, like a rubber band that had been pulled taut and released. This resulted in a tremendous backlash of magical energy that sent the Dark Druid tumbling across the chamber.
I looked down at my hands and arms, and thankfully saw only one set. Yet the form I’d taken when my two sides rejoined was somewhere between my full-on Hyde-side and my human body. My skin was thicker and hairier, my joints were knobbier, my teeth and nails had grown longer, and my muscles were larger, yet I was only slightly taller than normal. If I had to describe it, it felt like I’d fully shifted, just without the bulk of my full Fomorian form.
Weird. Hope I’m not stuck like this.
Across the chamber, the Dark Druid pushed himself to his knees. His eyes met mine, first wide with shock, then they narrowed as his face contorted into a rictus of pure, impassioned hate.
“Impossible!” he howled as his hands began to glow with silver light. “There’s no way yo
u could have broken free from that spell!”
“That magic was borrowed from the very beginning, asshole. It didn’t belong to you, any more than it belonged to Jesse.” I raised my hand in front of my face, closing it into a fist as thick bands of warm, green, translucent magic appeared around it. “I’m its master now—and I do believe that makes you my bitch.”
“You think too much of yourself, apprentice,” the Fear Doirich rasped as a silver ward circle appeared on the cavern floor around him. “You might possess power, but what you lack is the knowledge and experience to use it. Allow me to show you what a master druid can do, since your mentor never saw fit to teach you himself.”
The sickly green light was gone from the chamber, replaced by a healthier green glow that emanated from me, juxtaposed against the silver light that shone from the Dark Druid’s hands and the runes on the floor around him. That silvery glow meant he was using druidic battle magic, and to be honest that had me worried. Before he’d become a necromancer, the Fear Doirich had been only second in druidic skill to Finnegas, and he’d mastered the entirety of the craft—including druidic battle magic—nineteen hundred years before I was born.
Me? I’d barely scratched the surface of that branch of druidry in my studies with Finnegas. Not to mention the asshole had kicked my tail with battle magic before. I certainly didn’t want a repeat of that performance.
Think, Colin! What’s your advantage here?
I snatched Drynwyn off the floor as I ducked behind a support column, chewing my thumbnail as I thought the situation through.
For one, he’s made himself immobile. That ward circle will protect him, but only so long as he stays inside it.
Second, we’re surrounded by rock and stone. I could use that against him.
And third, he’s afraid of me—else he wouldn’t have spent precious moments casting those wards.
“Duck!” Larry’s voice yelled from somewhere to my left. I complied, just as a molecule-thick sheet of compressed air sliced the column in two where my neck had been a moment before.