Druid Bond

by Brad Magnarella

  “Any word from the senior members of the Order?” I asked hopefully.

  Maybe it all had been a dream, as Vega suggested.

  “Not since, ah, let’s see…”

  “Last week?”

  “That’s right, last week.”

  My hope deflated. “Well, I have good reason to believe they’re trapped in the Harkless Rift.”

  “Trapped? That’s not good. Why did you say it was good?”

  “I didn’t. I said I had good—never mind. Is there anyone you can think of, anyone at all, who can make the journey to check on them?”

  “To the fourth plane?” He made a puttering sound. “Sure, but they’re already there.”

  “That doesn’t help.”

  “No, I don’t suppose it does.”

  “What about you?”

  “Me?”

  “You can open portals to other dimensions.”

  “I can?”

  I sighed. “I was there, Claudius. At the rock quarry? You were conjuring portals left and right, sending demons to all kinds of places.” I remembered the way he’d shuffled around in his tinted lenses and long black hair. He’d looked like a confused rock star from a bygone era, but he’d been effective. “With some time and focus, can you open one to the Harkless Rift? Give the Order a portal to return by?”

  “I don’t know…”

  “I need you to try. If they’re trapped, they’re in danger. Plus, we need their help up here.”

  Jordan had been watching my side of the conversation, a steep frown set in his face, but now he nodded in agreement.

  “Well … all right,” Claudius said, sounding distraught. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Please do.”

  By the time I ended the call, Jordan was looking less upset and more thoughtful. “Will he be able to reach them?”

  The honest answer was probably not. With Claudius’s failing mind, the scales that kept measure of what he remembered versus what he’d forgotten were leaning more and more to the detrimental side. I wondered how much longer he’d be able to answer phones even. But if I shared that with Jordan, he would see the Order’s dilemma as one more thing I would shirk my Upholder duties to address.

  “Possibly,” I replied. Before Jordan could press the question, I said, “Hey, I’m heading back to my apartment to check on the hunting spell. I’ll be sure to give you a status update.”

  “You said that the last time. I’m going with you.”

  “That’s really not necessary.”

  “With all due respect, Everson, I think it is.”

  “I work better alone.”

  “Not this time.”

  His tone and expression told me the matter wasn’t up for debate.

  Just what I need, I thought, raising my arm for a cab. Birdman here breathing down my neck.

  “Fine,” I said as a cabbie spotted me and pulled over, “as long as we go halfsies on the fare.”

  “I don’t like riding in cars. I’ll follow you.”

  Jordan turned, bounded up the stone wall into Central Park, and disappeared inside some burnt brush. A moment later, a raven rose into view, dusty magic scattering from its batting wings. The raven cawed once and circled overhead. I looked from Jordan’s raven form to Jughead, whose sunken gaze had returned to the hotel.

  “Keep doing what you’re doing,” I called to the golem and climbed into the cab.

  As the driver started south toward the Village, my thoughts returned to the senior members of the Order. If Claudius failed, what other options were there? Could I do anything to help? As though in answer, another fragment of dream floated up from my subconscious.

  Find Arnaud, Arianna’s voice said.

  I turned around and watched the Ludwick Hotel recede down the street. Find Arnaud and do what? As I racked my brain, another caw sounded. I looked out my window and found Jordan gliding above the pedestrians on the sidewalk. His brown eye shifted from me to our direction of travel.

  Stay on task, he was telling me.

  Swearing, I forced myself to straighten.

  “After you,” I said, holding the apartment door open for Jordan.

  He was back in his human form, but instead of entering, he remained in front of the threshold. The sigils at his temples glowed white as he leaned forward to examine the wards. Did he think I was leading him into a trap?

  After another moment, he muttered, “Not bad,” and stepped inside.

  As I closed and bolted the door, Jordan stopped a few paces beyond the coat rack and peered around the industrial loft space. His gaze finally settled on Tabitha. She was awake, surprisingly enough, and peering back at him with what seemed caution. I braced for one of her insults, but she remained quiet.

  That had to have been a first.

  “My cat,” I said offhandedly. “The lab is over here.”

  Tabitha’s green eyes tracked us as we made our way toward the ladder, her ears more flattened than normal. And was her hair puffing out? I turned up a hand to her in question. Her gaze broke from Jordan, and she jerked her head for me to come over. I shook my own head no, but she insisted.

  “It’s just up the ladder,” I told Jordan. “I’ll be there in a second. Oh, and watch the casting circles. They’re still active. Actually, best you don’t touch anything.”

  While Jordan scaled the ladder nimbly, I made my way over to Tabitha.

  “What’s the emergency?” I asked.

  “Who is that?”

  “His name’s Jordan. He’s a druid.”

  “Well, I don’t like him.”

  “You don’t even know him.”

  “I’m getting one of my feelings.”

  “Yeah, and last night you were mooning over Vega’s brother, who I can tell you for a fact is a royal d—”

  Then it clicked.

  When Tabitha had been with me for about a year, I’d taken her on her first walk with a cat harness. In Washington Square Park, she drew the attention of a gang of ravens. No doubt sensing her succubus nature, they started harassing her. Dive-bombing before veering away at the last second, tugging her tail, cawing and cackling in her ears. By the time we made it back to the apartment, Tabitha was a spitting, quivering wreck. From that moment on, she feared and abhorred the creatures.

  “He’s a raven shifter,” I said.

  Tabitha looked at me, horrified. “You brought a raven into my home?”

  “It’s not your home, is it? It’s our home. And Jordan won’t bother you.”

  “How do you know? He’s one of those filthy creatures.”

  “Would you keep it down?” I whispered, glancing toward the lab.

  Her voice went from scandalized to pleading. “You of all people should know my feelings on the subject.”

  “Look, I’ll see to it personally that he doesn’t shift.”

  “Well, I still don’t have to like him,” she pouted.

  “Fine, just … don’t like him quietly. We’re in the middle of something important.”

  And the sooner I could satisfy Jordan that I was doing the promised work, the sooner I could get back to hunting Arnaud.

  I left Tabitha in her sulk and climbed the ladder to the lab. I hadn’t restored the veil over my library, and I found Jordan scanning the collection of tomes. Druids like him mostly drew their power from innate energies in nature, so the concept of spell books was probably a little foreign to him.

  He turned from the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf to the casting circles, his face largely unreadable. In the far circle, the pages of the book I’d set on the stand were flipping back and forth between maps.

  “Your hunting spell?” he asked.

  “Yeah. It’s broadcasting the demon’s true name like a radio signal in search of a receiver.”

  “And when it finds it…?”

  “The book will show us the location.”

  “Any idea how long that will take?”

  “Honestly, no. It’s a thick book, as you can see.”


  I expected Jordan to keep prodding, but he only exhaled his impatience. He had probably come here expecting to find that I either hadn’t started the spell or that I’d gone about it half-assed. Having established that I was on the ball, I expected him to leave. Instead, he pulled the chair from my desk, turned it around, and took a seat facing the casting circles, his quarterstaff clasped between his knees.

  Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.

  “You know what they say about a watched pot never boiling?” I asked. “Same is true for spells. I can call you when I get a hit.”

  “I’d rather watch.”

  When I realized I was grinding my molars, I stopped. “So, what are the others up to?”

  “Gorgantha and her pod are still tracking the mercreatures,” he said. “Malachi is taking care of church business. And Seay?” He shrugged a shoulder. “Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve never understood the fae, and it’s not like her being half-fae cuts that mystery in two.”

  Finally, something we agree on.

  My thoughts went to Caroline Reid, my former Midtown College colleague and crush. A half-fae herself, she’d ceded to her queen mother, married a fae prince, and made a permanent move to the faerie realm in order to cure her human father of cancer. A part of me had admired that while another part felt spurned, especially when she sacrificed her feelings for me in exchange for being allowed to help me against the vampire Arnaud. But that was ancient history. I had Vega and Tony now, not to mention a child on the way.

  If Arnaud doesn’t get to them first, a sinister inner voice whispered.

  I looked over at Jordan, who’d gone silent again. He showed no sign of getting up.

  “You’re more than welcome to stay here,” I said. “But I have some things to do this morning.”

  Instead of answering, he stared past me, his torso straightening. I followed his gaze to the casting circles. The page-flipping had stopped on one of the maps, and a spot of red light, similar to the kind that appeared on my hologram of the city, glowed on the left page. Jordan came up beside me as a foghorn sounded in my head: the signal the spell was done.

  I clapped Jordan’s shoulder.

  “We have a hit,” I said.

  15

  Anxious to see where the Stranger had turned up, I lifted the book from the stand—and groaned.

  “What?” Jordan asked.

  I consulted the maps before and after, making sure I was reading the location right. “She’s in another plane. And wait, it gets better. She’s not just not here, but not now.”

  “What in the hell does that mean?”

  “The demon we interrogated last night gave us more than the Stranger’s name. He claimed that when he asked where she was being sent, she said the question wasn’t where. Now it makes sense. She meant when. She’s hiding in a time catch.”

  “Time catch?”

  “Every so often, a piece of our timeline splits off and gets trapped in another plane, preserved there.”

  I watched Jordan’s eyes as he struggled to make sense of what I was telling him.

  “So the Stranger went back in time?” he asked. “That’s where she’s holding the possessed?”

  “Yes and no. The time catches don’t exist in our continuum. They’re completely separate. They begin, end, then start over, ad nauseam, until they collapse. The people inside have no idea they’re in a catch. They live their lives as they would have during the period in question. Sort of like ghosts but with substance.”

  “How does that work for outsiders?”

  “Visitors can come and go, as long as they’re out before the catch collapses.”

  “So we can travel there,” he concluded.

  “Theoretically, yes.”

  “What do you mean ‘theoretically’?”

  “It requires powerful magic.”

  “Isn’t that why we brought you on?”

  “I’m not sure even Malachi knows why he brought me on, but this is beyond my abilities.”

  “Then how are the demons managing it?”

  “Through a portal of some kind, evidently.”

  If Jordan had been impressed with my magic earlier, his expression told me his opinion was souring.

  “I’d consult the Order,” I said, “but with the senior members trapped…”

  Find Arnaud, I heard Arianna saying. I pretended to search for a book in my library, using the opportunity to check in with my golems. Jughead was still at his sentry, Archie and Betty converging. Veronica was casing an expensive hotel on Fifty-eighth Street. I shifted my concentration to the demon trap. It was still resting beneath the rug, unsprung. I snapped from my trancelike state and turned to find Jordan touching the bonding sigil on his right hand and speaking in a low voice.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Your head’s not in this. I’m calling the other members of the Upholders.”

  “Look, everything’s connecting up: Arnaud, the senior members of my Order, accessing the time catch.” I fought to control my voice. “This is going to require elder-level magic. No elders, no access. Got it?”

  “Then we need to consider other options,” Jordan said, completing the call-out.

  The sigil on my hand glowed white, and a moment later, I felt its psychic pull tugging me to the very spot where I was standing.

  “Wait, you’re calling them here?”

  “Is that a problem?” he asked.

  I peered over the railing. In the living space below, Tabitha was nodding emphatically.

  “No, that’s fine,” I said. “I just assumed we’d be going to the townhouse.”

  Tabitha stared daggers at me before turning her head away in disgust.

  “This will save time.” Jordan stared at the map the spell had locked on. “Is there any way to know what era we’re talking about?”

  “Could be one of hundreds. The only way to know is to find the portal the demons are using and follow it.”

  “We need to get there, Everson.”

  “I agree.”

  And hopefully the others would see the sequence of operations as I did: Arnaud, then Order, then time catch.

  The first knock sounded within fifteen minutes. I opened the door to find Malachi, who had been downtown at St. Martin’s Cathedral. Seay arrived a couple minutes later wearing a sleek white coat down to a fashionable pair of pumps. She threw me a hip bump as she stepped into the apartment.

  “If I’d known you were throwing a party, I would have put on something more appropriate,” she said. “Like a sheer top and mini.”

  “I like to keep these things business casual,” I said. “Any word from Gorgantha?”

  Malachi shook his head. “Presumably still tracking the mercreatures.”

  But no sooner than he’d said that, the door shook with more knocking. A look through the peephole showed our six-foot-six mermaid standing outside in a hooded robe. I unbolted the door and ushered her in.

  “We weren’t expecting you,” I said.

  “Trail went cold around Governor’s Island. We circled but couldn’t find jack.”

  I nodded, considering what that could mean. “Well, we’re all here. Why don’t we convene in the sitting area? I’ll, ah, grab some snacks.”

  When Tabitha saw the motley crew coming toward her, Jordan leading the way, she made a sound of revulsion, thudded to the floor, and squeezed out the cat door onto the ledge.

  Malachi, Seay, and Gorgantha sat three across on the couch, while Jordan took the loveseat. I set out some plates, glasses of water, two sleeves of saltine crackers, and a canister of squirt-on cheese that I’d found in the back of the pantry and hoped was still good. I then settled into my reading chair opposite Jordan.

  On cold days like these, I usually had a fire going in the hearth, but I’d been too busy to maintain the fireplace this season. Probably just as well given Gorgantha’s sensitivity to dryness. I watched her brush salt from a cracker into her water, stir it with a finger, and then d
ab the saline solution onto her temples.

  “As Jordan told you,” I began, “the spell located the Stranger. Only she’s not in our world. She’s in what’s known as a time catch.”

  For the next twenty minutes, I explained the phenomenon and answered questions, most of them coming from Malachi and Gorgantha. Jordan remained silent, tracking the conversation with his serious eyes. When everyone was up to speed, he shifted forward on the loveseat.

  “The question now,” he said, inserting himself into the role of speaker, “is how to get there. Everson says it requires powerful magic, but he’s hyper-focusing on the senior members of this Order.”

  I bristled at his word choice. “If I’m hyper-focusing, it’s because they’re the only allies we have that wield that kind of magic.”

  Jordan looked around our circle. “Does anyone have another idea?”

  Seay, who was squirting a swirly design of cheese onto her cracker, said, “The fae?”

  “What about them?” he asked.

  “My mother’s a fae princess. It’s not as impressive as it sounds—there are literally thousands in Faerie. The queens have like twenty concubines apiece. Anyway, I spent time in my mom’s court as a kid. The fae tolerate half-fae until we outgrow our cuteness, which is to say around eight or nine. Unless we’re powerfully connected, and I wasn’t, we’re dumped back here with our human parent. Almost always the father, who has no earthly idea what to do with us. Mine gave up after a few years.”

  Jordan gave an impatient grunt and circled his hand.

  “What I’m getting to is that back in the court days, I had a best friend who was true fae. She confided in me that she knew a time-walker. His job was to travel to these ‘time bubbles,’ she called them, and dig up dirt on rival fae. True fae live practically forever and have inserted themselves into just about every powerful human society, so if there’s a period stuck in a bubble, you can bet you’ll find fae. My friend was always telling me how dangerous the work was, because even time walkers can be killed there. And from the sounds of it, this one was shining his light into some pretty powerful beds. So, the fae have obviously figured out a way to access these places.”