Druid Bond

by Brad Magnarella

  “I have some more work to do.”

  “Darling, you’ve been working for two days straight.”

  “Just need to check in on my golems, then figure out a hunting spell for a demon’s name.”

  “And before you know it, the sun will be shining through the windows, and you’ll be off on some other errand. I know I give you shit—and yes, you reek horribly—but I can also smell your exhaustion. You need your rest, darling.”

  I looked down at the jar of Colombian dark roast in my hand. The words on the label blurred in and out of focus, and for a second I could have sworn the woman bearing the basket of coffee beans winked at me.

  Damn, Tabitha was right. But I’d made a promise to the Upholders.

  And Arnaud is still out there, a voice nagged in my head. That got me thinking of Vega and Tony.

  “Any calls?” I asked.

  “No, but you did have a caller.”

  “A caller?”

  “Someone came to the door shortly after you left.”

  That would have been after 11:00 p.m.

  “Who?”

  “How should I know? I never answer the door.”

  I double-checked my phone to make sure there were no missed calls or messages.

  “But I was curious,” Tabitha added in her teasing voice. “So I went out onto the ledge. See? I don’t always need your prodding and guilt-tripping to get me to go out there. Anyway, I arrived outside in time to spot a delicious young man leaving the building and getting into a burgundy car.”

  The car’s description set off a chain of associations. “Glasses?” I asked, closing the phone again. “Short hair? Dark complexion?”

  “Why, yes. Who was that scrumptious morsel?”

  “I’m pretty sure it was Vega’s younger brother, Carlos.”

  “I thought the odor at the door was rather like hers,” Tabitha mused. “But why come here?”

  I was considering the same question. Had he learned about the pregnancy? Or was he following up on our meeting from the week before, the one where he and his brothers had told me to stop seeing their sister? Either way, it was one more hassle to deal with on time I couldn’t afford. Tabitha watched me with an arched brow. I hadn’t told her about the pregnancy yet and had no plans to open that can of worms.

  “No idea,” I said.

  I brought a scoop of coffee to the maker and missed entirely. Coffee grounds spilled everywhere.

  “Dammit,” I grunted.

  “Take it as a sign, darling. You’re in no condition to cast.”

  Still swearing, I pulled the small broom and dustpan from the closet.

  “Leave it,” Tabitha said, thudding down from the divan and sauntering over. “I’ll clean it up.” She came around behind me and began butting me from the kitchen with her head. “Get some sleep.”

  I had it in mind to resist, but my sore, magic-spent body yielded to her blows.

  “Why are you suddenly so interested in my well-being?” I demanded as I stumbled into the living room.

  “What, I’m not allowed to care about you?”

  “Since when?” I asked. “An hour ago?”

  “You really are impossible sometimes.”

  This didn’t sound like Tabitha at all. I stopped to face her.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  She sighed and sat back. “It’s this demon apocalypse talk.”

  “What about it?”

  “If it does come to pass, they’re not going to look kindly on a succubus who’s been aiding and abetting a human for the last dozen years. I can only imagine the depravities I’d suffer under such a regime.”

  I looked from her forty pounds to the scatter of dirty plates and bowls around her divan.

  “Yeah, I’m not sure your presence here quite reaches the level of ‘aiding and abetting.’”

  “Can’t you be serious for once, darling. I’m scared.”

  “Look, I’m doing everything I can to make sure a demon apocalypse doesn’t happen.”

  In fact, I needed to be casting on the demon’s name like twenty minutes ago.

  “That’s what scares me.”

  “Gee, thanks.” I headed for the ladder to my library/lab.

  “Not the you’re doing everything you can part,” she said, trotting along beside me. “You’ve had some surprising successes, darling. Well, they’ve all been surprises as far as I’m concerned. But I’ve been around you when you’re exhausted. Your magic’s not as sharp. You overlook the obvious. And with you being the last line between me and what’s coming…” She winced at the thought.

  “It won’t get to that point,” I said.

  The kinds of demons needed to trigger an apocalypse couldn’t breach our world. In addition to whatever push they managed from the Below, they still needed a pull from above. A massive pull. And in the unlikely event people began worshiping a demon lord en masse, the Order would know well in advance. Once more, I questioned Malachi’s vision, or the extent of it, anyway. I should never have mentioned it to Tabitha.

  “Just a twenty minute rest,” she was telling me. “I’ll wake you up.”

  I stopped at the ladder and looked down to find her green eyes imploring me. She wasn’t putting me on. She was actually scared.

  “Are you feeling something?” I asked.

  As a succubus, Tabitha sometimes reacted to infernal currents from the Below.

  “Oh, the usual jostling for position,” she said. “But underneath that, there’s something else. I can’t say what, but it’s playing havoc with my hormones. I find I’m ravenous one moment and then want nothing more to do with food the next. When you mentioned milk earlier, I nearly vomited, darling.”

  I had been surprised when she snubbed the offer.

  “And my existential dread tonight has been off the charts.”

  I peered up the ladder. The thought of climbing eight steps and then having to channel more energy made my vision blur again. If Thelonious hadn’t suspended our agreement, I would have feared a visit from my incubus, but right now I was bothered by what Tabitha had said. Maybe there was more to Malachi’s vision than I was giving him credit for. In which case, I couldn’t afford to be foggy.

  “Fine, I’ll take a short rest.”

  “Praise God,” Tabitha breathed. “Not literally,” she added, peering around as if a demon might have overheard.

  “Twenty minutes, no more.”

  I made a mental note to set my alarm anyway—Tabitha wasn’t exactly reliable. But by the time I’d stretched out on my duvet, still dressed so as not to cue my brain that it was done for the night, I’d forgotten about the alarm. My head swam with a hyper kind of exhaustion that spoke to severe lack of sleep.

  A moment later, I crossed the razor-thin veil into dreaming.

  I was standing in the living room of my apartment, warm sunlight shining through the tall bay windows. A mug of fresh-brewed coffee steamed in my left hand. I took a sip, but only upon lowering it again did I notice the hefty little parcel in my other arm. A surprised laugh escaped me.

  “Well, hello there,” I said.

  My daughter smiled up at me, her thick four-month-old legs kicking from a cloth diaper.

  “What’s got you so happy this morning?”

  She gurgled, then squinted as I leaned in to touch my nose to hers. I inhaled her new-baby smell and blew a raspberry against her stomach. That got her squealing. I held my mug well out of range of her powerful legs.

  “Do you want me to take kiddo or coffee?”

  I turned to find Vega watching us with one of her forbearing smiles.

  “You know the rules,” she said, walking up. “You can’t hold both if you’re going to roughhouse.”

  “Hey, she’s the one roughhousing.”

  “Is that true?” Vega asked her. “Are you being a little troublemaker?”

  “Be honest,” I whispered near our daughter’s ear. “Your mom’s a cop, and a darned good one.”

  She
cooed in answer, which made Vega break into laughter. Tony, engrossed in a book he’d sprawled out with on the floor, looked up and smiled.

  “Here.” I transferred her to Vega. “She’s especially warm and cuddly this morning.”

  As Vega hiked her up her side like a natural mother, the sunlight gleamed off her wedding band. I caught myself remembering how anxious I’d been that this wasn’t going to work out somehow. And now look at us.

  I took another sip of coffee and turned toward the kitchen. “Can I get you a cup?”

  Vega paused in her play. “That’s all right. I’ll get mine in a few.”

  “How about your partner there?”

  “She’s plenty riled up, thanks.”

  I chuckled. “That’s our little…” My voice trailed off. That’s our little who? What in the hell had we named her?

  I turned to ask Ricki—not sure how I was going to explain that I’d forgotten our daughter’s name—and stopped like someone had swung a sledgehammer into my sternum. The apartment was trashed, the walls soaked in blood.

  “Ricki?” I shouted. “Tony?”

  I looked around wildly for my wife, daughter, and stepson. But I wasn’t in my apartment anymore. I was in the East Village walk-up where the vampire hunters had been squatting, and it was the night I’d found them slaughtered. But was it their blood I was seeing or… The sting of bile climbed my throat at the horrible thought Arnaud had gotten my family.

  “Ricki!” I called again, my voice verging on a scream.

  Behind me, something gurgled. Please, don’t be…

  I turned around and found a woman pinned to a wall. Not Ricki, but Blade. Arnaud had skewered her body with her own katana swords, thrusting one through with such force that its tip had punched into the neighboring bathroom. I fixed my gaze on Blade’s sagging head, her scythe of pink hair disheveled and blood-spattered. I didn’t want to see the full horror of what Arnaud had done to her. Not again.

  “Blade?” I asked, my voice scraping from my mouth.

  This time her head shuddered. Her battered face came up.

  Alive? How is she alive?

  “Croft…” she rasped.

  “Don’t move. I’m going to get you down.”

  I forced myself to look at her savaged torso. There was no way she had survived this. Regardless, I couldn’t just start pulling blades. I needed to sedate her. I pawed along my belt for my cane, but it wasn’t there.

  “He has … the scepter.”

  I stopped pawing. “What scepter?”

  “It negates … wizard bonds.”

  I remembered the gray salt the police had found in the apartment and my theory that it had been used to store an enchanted object. A scepter that negated wizard bonds? Fear climbed my throat again.

  “Is that what he came here for?” I asked.

  Her head nodded before slumping again.

  “Blade?” I reached for her shoulder, then stopped, afraid I might hurt her. In my peripheral vision, I could see the shadows of Bullet and Dr. Z. Arnaud had displayed their mutilated bodies for maximum horror.

  “I’m coming,” she gargled. “Coming to help.”

  “No, Blade. Just rest here. I’m going to get my cane.”

  I finally touched her shoulder. It was bony and cold. Her head shot up. I flinched back, only she wasn’t Blade anymore. Her hair fluttered in white curtains that seemed to absorb the scant light in the apartment and then send it out again, making the place seem more radiant, less awful. The woman’s face was aged, wise, and familiar. After a brief search, her eyes focused on mine.

  “Arianna!” I cried out in surprise.

  I took a quick glance around. The apartment was still there, but blurred. Objects had become moving shapes that appeared on the verge of coming apart. Even so, the red-brown tint of blood remained.

  Dreaming, I understood in relief. I’m dreaming.

  And Arianna had contacted me before in my dreams. The senior member of the Order nodded slowly. When she spoke, her words arrived as if traveling through a thick medium or from a great distance. I could barely hear them.

  “Trapped…”

  “Where are you?”

  “Harkless Rift…” Her lips shaped the words more than spoke them. “Trapped…” she repeated.

  “What’s happened?”

  She lifted a bloodied hand—her body remained Blade’s, the skewering swords floating and indistinct—and touched a finger to the center of my brow. Elder magic pulsed through me, flooding my mind with images. And in an instant, I understood. Arianna and the other senior members of the Order remained on the fourth plane. They had succeeded in repelling the demons and closing most of the rupture that Arnaud and the demon horde had arrived through, but when several members attempted to return here to help me and the other magic-users, a powerful force prevented it.

  This explained why, even with her vast power, Arianna was barely coming through now. It also explained why Claudius hadn’t heard from her and the other senior members in more than a week.

  Trapped…

  The word, the feeling of it, seized my throat in a claustrophobic grip. I backed from Arianna’s touch. The apartment continued to bend and blur, as if sitting on top of a watery medium. I grasped Arianna’s shoulders before she could come apart.

  There was so much I wanted to ask her, about the Strangers and this Demon X and what his ultimate ambitions were, but freeing Arianna and the rest of the Order felt far more urgent.

  “What can I do?” I pled. “How can I help you?”

  “Find Arnaud,” she said.

  “Arnaud? And then what?”

  When she opened her mouth to answer, a torrent of water broke through her.

  “Arianna!” I called, but I was caught in the flash flood and tumbling head over heels.

  The roiling waters pummeled me, carrying me far away. When they finally settled, I found myself floating in the same dark emptiness from earlier that night, the place where I’d performed my magic on Finn. Only now I was without my magical implements, and a dark fear gripped my insides.

  “Ritirare,” I said.

  The Word had returned me to the casting circle the last time, to safety. But nothing winched me in now. Instead, a deep grumble shook the black waters below. I’d awakened Demon X. Grunting, I kicked and pulled, desperate to make my way to a surface I couldn’t see and return to waking.

  But Demon X was coming.

  I didn’t have to look to see his furnace-like eyes or mouth of soul-rending teeth. The water was pushing against me in a powerful wall, and I wasn’t going to escape this time.

  Jaws crashed over me, tearing through flesh, sinew, and bone. My remains swirled into a black abyss.

  And then I was a spirit.

  Four figures lay around me, one at each of the cardinal directions.

  The Four? I thought, remembering what Finn had told me. I strained to look up, to see their faces, but I was pinned. We began to rotate like a giant mill stone. Powerful energy crackled through our formation.

  Demonic energy.

  Something terrible was about to happen, and I couldn’t stop it.

  Not by myself.

  Arianna! I cried.

  11

  Wake up…

  I remained rotating in the abyss with the other four figures, dark energy gathering around us in stacks upon stacks of storm clouds. I strained to move, to scream, to stop the terrible thing that was happening.

  Someone’s laughter rumbled like thunder.

  Everson, darling, wake up.

  This time, the words were accompanied by a head shove.

  My eyes opened, and I rocketed upright. Tabitha, who’d been beside me, jumped back, then scrabbled to keep from falling from the edge of the bed. I panted as I peered around, one hand to my chest. The abyss and energy were gone. I was back in my bedroom, bright light coming through the window.

  My gaze shot to the clock on the nightstand.

  “I’m sorry, darling,”
Tabitha said, clawing her way back beside me.

  “N-nine-thirty?” I stammered. “It’s already nine-frigging-thirty?”

  My panic blew apart the already-receding dream like a fan through smoke.

  “I overslept too, it seems,” Tabitha said. “But it just shows how much we needed our rest.”

  My flip phone chimed out a faint ring. I thrashed off the bed and into the living room. At my hanging coat, I dug my hands into the potion-crammed pockets, spilling several vials, until I found the device.

  Tabitha appeared from my bedroom. “You see? You’re perkier than I’ve seen you in days.”

  Please don’t be Jordan, I thought. He was going to want to know if I’d gotten any info on the Stranger’s name when I hadn’t even begun the damn spell. If I’d started it last night instead of falling into a deep sleep, it could have been working for the past six hours. I relaxed slightly when I saw that the caller was Vega.

  I opened the phone. “Morning.”

  “How did it go last night with the Upholders?” she asked.

  “Not bad for a first outing.” As I gave Vega a brief rundown, Tabitha leapt back onto her divan and settled into a mound. Above her, light slanted through the bay window and glowed through her orange hair.

  The angle of light resurrected last night’s dream of Vega and our daughter. I remembered the way the light had gleamed from her wedding band and how contented I’d felt. But now a cold hand gripped my stomach. The dream had shifted, hadn’t it? I nodded. To the blood-soaked horror of Blade’s apartment.

  He has the scepter, she’d said. It negates wizard bonds.

  “Everson?” Vega said.

  I jerked back to the present. “Sorry, spaced out.”

  “You were talking about doing some spell work?”

  He has the scepter. “Where are you?” I asked abruptly.

  “At the safe house, but I’m about to head over to the office.”

  “Stay there.”

  She sighed. “We’ve been over this.”

  “That hunch about Arnaud having an enchanted object? I was right. It’s a scepter, and it negates wizard bonds. That would include the Brasov Pact.”

  “Where is this coming from?”

  “I had a visitor last night.”