Druid Bond

by Brad Magnarella

  Druid Bond

  Prof Croft 7

  Brad Magnarella

  Copyright © 2019 by Brad Magnarella

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Available Now!

  Author’s Notes

  Free Books, Anyone?

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  Croftverse Catalogue

  The Prof Croft Series

  PREQUELS

  Book of Souls

  Siren Call

  MAIN SERIES

  Demon Moon

  Blood Deal

  Purge City

  Death Mage

  Black Luck

  Power Game

  Druid Bond

  MORE COMING!

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  1

  I knocked twice and hid my sword behind the left drape of my open coat. Above a television’s murmur, heavy shoes paced toward the door. Seconds later, a shadow occluded the disc of light in the door’s peephole.

  “Who is it?” a voice barked.

  I cleared my throat. “Pizza delivery.”

  I raised the large, grease-spotted box for easier viewing. A moment later, light returned to the peephole.

  “Someone order a pizza?” the voice asked.

  A muffle of negatives responded until one voice rose above the others: “Just take it.”

  Bolts thunked and the door opened until I was looking at a gaunt, whisker-faced kid in a black denim jacket and combat boots. The eyes that squinted back at me were raw. I tried not to react to the foul odor coming off him as I consulted the ticket still taped to the box.

  “Let’s see… That’ll be twenty-four even.”

  “I have a coupon saying it’s free.” A switchblade popped from his fist.

  “Whoa. Guess you do.”

  He grinned with crooked teeth as I held the box toward him, yellow flecks glinting from his eyes. That cemented it: I had my man. When he grabbed the weightless box I’d foraged from a Dumpster behind the building, his smile staggered.

  “The fuck is this?”

  My turn to grin. “Return to Hell day.”

  I drove my hidden sword through his gut and shouted, “Disfare!”

  White light flashed from the blade’s topmost sigil. The demon had time to release half a hoarse scream before the banishing enchantment blasted him from his host in a cloud of sulfuric smoke. At the same time, healing energy drew around the blade, and I slid it from the kid’s stomach. I hip-checked him so he’d land in the hallway and willed a shield of crackling light around myself.

  Inside the apartment the four remaining demons launched from couches and easy chairs. They had been watching The Price is Right on an old cathode ray TV, no doubt awaiting their master’s next marching order.

  Reaching into a coat pocket, I fisted a handful of vials and, shouting another invocation, slung them into the room. The vials exploded in pops, showering the hellion crew with holy water. Screams went up along with hissing bursts of steam. The demon closest to me reared back, fists grinding into his bleeding eyes. I drove my blade through him and performed my second banishment of the morning.

  Something crashed over my head—the coffee table, judging by the raining glass—sending me into a stagger. I’d let a demon circle my blind side, dammit. Pieces of splintered frame crunched underfoot as I recovered my balance. Another demon palmed the television and hurled it toward me.

  “Respingere!” I called, sending a bright pulse from my protective shield.

  The pulse smashed into the TV in a geyser of sparks. The force also blew through the three remaining demons. Still weakened from the holy water, they rag-dolled over furniture and into walls. A heavy bookshelf toppled, burying a demon in magazines and an impressive collection of glass bongs.

  Have to be careful. Don’t want to cripple or kill the hosts before expelling the demons.

  I grabbed the nearest two demons with shaped forces and pulled them onto my blade for banishments three and four. Pre-possession, the gang of denim-clad teens had been using the apartment as a crash pad. The demons had claimed them wholesale, maybe to better disguise themselves. They had escaped magical detection, thanks to their passage through the Harkless Rift, but they still behaved like demons. Some demons were also known to have giant appetites. Disappearances around the building coupled with a high volume of jumbo pizza deliveries had led me to this unit.

  I looked toward the fallen bookcase now and swore. The final demon wasn’t there anymore.

  “I blocked the doors and windows,” I called, turning in a circle. “No way out. Might as well take your medicine like your friends.”

  I opened my wizard senses until the astral plane bloomed into full view. Faint void-like trails streaked the apartment, all filling in except for one. It trailed from the mess of the toppled bookcase, where rank bong water was spreading into a pool, to the back of the couch. Thin tendrils of steam rose past a set of drawn curtains above the couch: holy water wounds.

  Using magic, I swung the couch out. The exposed demon tried to skitter for cover, but I hardened the air, pinning him to the threadbare carpet.

  “Do you know who you’re fucking with?” he spat toward the floor.

  “No, tell me.”

  He rotated his head. Dank, dark hair dropped across a face highlighted by glowing yellow eyes. The eyes grew as they stared, pulsing brighter. Looked like the demon’s master was coming through for a visit.

  Good.

  “Despus,” he said in a voice that was suddenly deeper.

  “Sorry, but is that supposed to mean something?”

  He snorted. “You’re in over your head, wizard.”

  “And yet you’re the one making love to the floor.”

  I could feel hints of the demon master’s power, but he was too large to breach the rift that my Order was defending and repairing. His presence, mediated by this minion, a lesser demon who had bum-rushed the rift with hundreds of others in Arnaud’s wake, was just a sliver of the actual demon master.

  “Release me,” he said, “and I’ll forget this happened.”

  Despus had been lucky to get five minions into the world, and now it looked like he was down to his final one. He knew that keeping him here was critical if he hoped to claim souls and maintain his place in the underworld hierarchy, never mind moving up. That gave me a powerful bargaining chip.

  “I’m already on the shit list of a demon lord,” I s
aid, referring to Sathanas, whom I’d banished from St. Martin’s Cathedral two years earlier. “So being on yours isn’t exactly tremor inducing. You’re going to have to do better than that.”

  Despus hissed and went into a fit of writhing against his containment. I crossed my arms and leaned against a wall. Within seconds, the demon came to a panting rest, sweat streaking the sides of his face.

  “Release me, and I’ll make it worth your while,” he amended.

  “Too vague.”

  He wriggled his fingers, releasing currents of infernal energy. His transparent confinement rippled with the collision of magic, but I could barely feel it.

  “You done?” I asked.

  He swore and dropped his hand. “What is it you want?”

  “Information.”

  “I’ll tell you whatever I know after you release me.”

  “Before,” I countered. “And I won’t release you, but I’ll agree to postpone your banishment for seven days, provided your information is useful.” That would mean extending the host’s servitude for another week, but I didn’t feel too bad. According to the police, these guys had been far from Boy Scouts.

  “No deal,” Despus said.

  I strolled toward him, looking up and down the length of my blade. “You’d rather I banish you now?”

  I could feel the demon’s glowing eyes on me, trying to determine just how badly I wanted that information. When I reached him, his eyes switched to the sword, the banishment rune now radiating holy light. I raised the blade overhead, tip centered on his back. When he flinched, I paused with the blade in thrusting position.

  “Your terms are … are acceptable,” he grunted.

  I lowered the blade as the energy of the demonic agreement bonded us.

  “First question,” I said. “Do you know where the demon Arnaud is?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I don’t know,” he growled.

  I believed him. Hundreds of lesser demons had come through the Harkless Rift back in October. My fellow magic-users had been hard at work tracking and banishing them. Claudius dispatched a sizable number at the stone quarry in New Jersey just days earlier, sending them to distant dimensions. Now only a few dozen demons remained. Given their heated competition for souls, demon masters were no doubt keeping the whereabouts of the survivors a closely guarded secret from one another. Even so, I was guessing the masters had intel on who their demon minions were competing against.

  “But you know who he is,” I said.

  “I might,” he replied.

  “What do you know about him?”

  “What’s there to know?” he said, his voice sharp with condescension. “He’s just another peon.”

  To a demon, anything beneath him in the hierarchy was a peon. “He’s also managed to remain in the world,” I pointed out. “Which is more than I can say for eighty percent of Team Despus.” I looked over the sprawl of slumbering bodies. I righted one of the chairs and sat in it, forearms propped on my knees. “What’s his master’s name?”

  Despus glared at me from his prone position.

  “The terms of our agreement give you a chance,” I said. “A thin one granted, but anything’s better than immediate banishment, right? That said, you’re not getting out of this. I can tell you that right now.”

  I thought of the cell awaiting him at 1 Police Plaza. Warded by yours truly, it not only contained sufficient power to hold the demon for the next week, its dislocation sigils would sever him from the rest of demon-kind.

  “Even so,” I continued, “it doesn’t mean you have to keep the other demons in the game. Tell me what you know, and we’ll take out Arnaud and the others, make this round of Invasion Earth a wash. You can start fresh the next time.”

  Of course, there wasn’t going to be a next time. The Order would make damn sure of that.

  “Now I’ll ask you again,” I said, prodding his leg with my staff. “What’s the name of Arnaud’s master?”

  When he drew his lips into a taut line, I thought we were done. “He’s known as Malphas,” he said.

  Malphas, I repeated to myself. “That doesn’t sound like his true demon name.” Contrary to popular belief, having his true name wouldn’t allow me to control him, but I could certainly use it to hunt him.

  And Arnaud, by proxy.

  “It’s not,” Despus spat back, “and I won’t speak it.”

  More than defiance now, I heard fear. That suggested Malphas was higher than him in the hierarchy, possibly much higher. I considered threatening him with the sword again, but any penalty I could impose would pale in comparison to what this Malphas would do when he tracked the utterance of his true name back to Despus. Plus, he and I were still bonded by the original agreement, and he’d kept up his end so far. Failing to keep up mine could have any number of foul consequences, including tainted magic.

  “All right, new subject,” I said. “What do you know about the Strangers?”

  He snorted. “They’re off chasing creatures and half humans. They’re not my concern.”

  “Does the same demon control all of them?”

  “Yes.”

  That was important to know.

  “Do you know that demon master’s name?”

  Despus seemed to weigh how much to reveal before giving a nod. Unlike with Malphas, he clearly thought the demon master in question was beneath him for going after merfolk, druids, and half-fae. “It’s—”

  He stopped suddenly, eyes gone wide.

  “Hey,” I said. “You all right?”

  Gagging, he clutched his throat with one hand and stretched the other toward me like a man drowning. Before I could figure out what in the hell was going on, much less what to do, the yellow light shrank from his eyes and his host’s body crumpled. I peered around to make sure we were still alone. By the time my gaze returned to the body, the host had stopped moving and Despus was gone.

  Something attacked him in the Below.

  The host’s face looked like a rubber Halloween mask without a wearer, empty eyes sunk into his head. I dispersed his confinement and checked the young man’s pulse to make sure. Yeah, dead. And there was no restoring him.

  Behind me, the four hoodlums I’d released from demon bondage started to moan and stir. At least their souls were still intact. I peered around the room until my gaze landed on a digital clock. I checked it against my watch. 10:59 a.m.

  Why was that time important?

  The answer arrived with a rude jolt. “Crap!”

  I made for the door, bounding over two of the recovering teens.

  Surprise, surprise. I was late.

  2

  I arrived in the exam room, gasping like a blowfish. Vega was sitting on the end of a padded table in a plain hospital gown. Her sock-clad feet, which had been kicking idly above the floor, stopped. She cocked a stern eye at me in question.

  “I am so sorry,” I said, stuffing away the kerchief I’d used to mop my sweaty face. “Got tied up with a case, then had to run six blocks before I could flag down a cab.” I leaned down and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Did I miss anything?”

  In contrast to my harried, disheveled state, Vega appeared calm and composed, her midnight hair in a thick ponytail that showed the lovely nape of her neck. I decided to kiss her there too, lingering for a couple seconds.

  “Only the urinalysis,” she answered.

  “Way to kill the moment,” I joked. “And?”

  She gave me a quick thumbs-up. Before I could respond, she cut her gaze meaningfully across the room. Partially blocked by the door I’d just thrown open sat a middle-aged woman with silver hair and a white lab coat. Oh, shit. The doctor stared back at me from a humorless face as I closed the door again.

  “Dr. Greene’s in the middle of our exam,” Vega said.

  “Oh, ah, please continue,” I stammered, feeling like an idiot. I lowered myself onto the chair beside the exam table. The doctor cleared her throat and returne
d her attention to Vega.

  “Breast tenderness or enlargement?” she asked, fingers poised above a computer tablet.

  “Some tenderness,” Vega replied.

  “Nausea or vomiting.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Shortness of breath?”

  “With exertion, a little.”

  “Increased urinary frequency?”

  As I tried to keep up with the rapid volley of questions and answers, all thoughts of the demons I’d encountered only twenty minutes earlier were gone, replaced by the bass drum pounding inside my chest.

  Holy shit, this is happening, it seemed to be saying. This is really happening.

  I missed the next question and watched as Dr. Greene recorded Vega’s response, which I’d also missed. As the doctor’s silver hair glinted beneath the fluorescent lights, my mind clenched in suspicion.

  Fae?

  I wasn’t picking up an aura, but that could be glamoured, especially if the doctor were an advanced caster. Before my overprotective thoughts could barrel out of control, though, I hit the brakes.

  Lots of women color their hair silver.

  “When was your last period?” Dr. Greene asked.

  “Six weeks ago.”

  “Then we’ll be looking at mid-July.”

  “Mid-July,” I echoed. “That feels soon.”

  Vega shook her head. When I looked over at Dr. Greene, I caught the tip of her tongue slipping back into her mouth. Wait, did she just lick her lips? And just like that, my mind was thinking fae again, possibly even night hag.