Druid Bond

by Brad Magnarella

  “And do I understand you’re to be a father?”

  His words speared my chest. I’d come to terms with the fact that he knew about Vega and Tony, that he might target them to get to me, but this revelation that he knew about our daughter felt like the sick twist of a blade.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “I caught that little flutter of a heartbeat while following Ms. Vega the other day. Such a precious sound.”

  Time to fucking end this.

  With a pair of shouted Words, I stood and thrust my sword toward him. The banishment rune glowed white, feeding the force that shot from the blade. A white light gathered around Arnaud-as-Zarko, seizing him like a fist. He grimaced, but before I could pull him to me, he threw his arms out to the sides. Black infernal energy billowed from his body dissolving my invocation.

  Twisting his face in concentration, he shot an arm toward me.

  I invoked layers of shielding between us, grunting as the infernal attack shattered each one in turn. And then it was plowing into me, demonic energy lancing my skin with a thousand red-hot blades. The pain was excruciating. And that was despite having blunted the brunt of the damned attack.

  I hit the street in a series of backward rolls before flopping to a rest.

  Spotting my sword on the street several yards back, its blade still glowing white, I extended a smoking arm and spoke a Word. But the force meant to return the sword to me only gripped the hilt weakly.

  Arnaud brought his foot down on the blade, and the force fizzled out. He grinned at me.

  Through the fog of pain, I grinned back. He might as well have stepped on a bomb.

  I focused on the banishment rune, shouted, “Liberare,” and squinted from the anticipated nova.

  But it never came.

  “You don’t get it, my poor boy,” He stooped and picked up my sword. He was wearing the regal blue suit I’d seen him-as-Zarko wearing earlier in the day, the tails of his coat extending all the way to his white-stockinged calves. “You may be powerful in your world, but here in mine, and particularly in my presence, you are a puny bug. I control the forces here. I can grant them,” he said with a little lift in his voice. Suddenly ley energy was crashing around my prism like released dam waters, too ferocious to channel. “Or deny them.” He dropped his voice, and the energy I’d been trying to gather for another trip through the banishment rune disappeared. I was left grasping at air.

  With only my staff and ring now, I crawled behind a pair of oak barrels and invoked a shield. It crackled weakly around me.

  Arnaud-as-Zarko laughed heartily. “Now that really is quite pathetic.”

  I heard the discharge of infernal energy before I felt it. My shield dispersed as if it had been held together by masking tape, and I was suddenly writhing on the ground, the molten blades I’d felt before now plunging into the marrow of my soul. I screamed for what seemed minutes, though only seconds passed.

  When the energy broke off, I lay there semi-conscious and panting.

  “You had to have considered the things I would do if you were ever at my mercy,” Arnaud-as-Zarko said. “I’ve considered them as well. Perhaps more than is healthy, but after what you did to me…” For the first time, I caught the rage that must have been boiling beneath his breezy exterior this whole time.

  I had considered what he might do. Possibly keep me in his service for a time as a twisted joke. But ultimately, he would torture me in ways I didn’t want to think about before staking my flayed soul in the pits for lesser devils to savage for an eternity, or what would feel like one. I had pissed him off that much.

  “Oh, I’ll spare you the details, Mr. Croft. Except to say this. With centuries as my teacher, I’ve learned to become patient. Mortals?” He scoffed. “How long do you think it will take before Ms. Vega tires of her confinement in that little holy house? At first she may venture out for a few hours. When nothing happens, an hour more, then two. And then one day, I’ll have her. And on that day, I’ll be wearing your soul like a bib so you can witness everything that happens as it happens. Do you follow me, Mr. Croft?”

  I didn’t answer. I was thinking about my ride home, but I wasn’t going to take it without Arnaud.

  I glanced over at where the vampire Arnaud stood, his gaze cutting from me to whom he believed was his servant. I could see the entrancement in his eyes. He would only do what Arnaud-as-Zarko told him, and right now that was to remain silent and out of the way. But his presence sparked an idea.

  “Everyone will remark on how tragic it was,” the demon-vampire continued. “The senselessness of it. Two lives lost: mother and unborn baby. And all because of their unfortunate association with you.”

  Gathering my strength, my will, I thrust myself to my feet and aimed my ring.

  “Balaur!” I shouted.

  The power of the Brasov Pact didn’t require ley energy. The power was stored inside the ring. I only needed to set spark to grain, and the enchantment would do the rest. The ring contracted, then released a deluge of super-focused magic into Arnaud-as-Zarko. I was gambling that with his ability to control ley energy here, he was no longer depending on his enchanted item for protection.

  The energy broke to either side of him, shattering windows up and down the alleyway, but left him unscathed. Grinning at me as he had that morning, he pulled something from his back pocket. The object was slender and gold, a black gem seated at the ornate end.

  Shit. I’d bet wrong.

  He gave the bond-negating scepter a little waggle. “Anything else you’d like to throw at me?” he asked. “Perhaps that rotten cabbage over there?” His eyes glowed a sulfuric yellow through the night.

  I backed away on unsteady legs. I was scared, yeah. But I was also pissed. I’d listened to my magic, and look where it had gotten me. What in the hell could it have been thinking? But there it was, nodding its head again.

  In frustration, I turned and aimed my fist at the vampire Arnaud. Without the scepter for protection, he screamed as the full force of the Brasov Pact ignited his body and plowed him into the wall.

  Arnaud-as-Zarko reacted quickly, enveloping the vampire in a cocoon of infernal energy. The blackness drew the flames into itself and dissipated in a cloud of smoke. The demon-vampire wheeled back toward me, but I’d already made my move. I was behind his scorched and stunned counterpart, one arm around his throat, the fist with Grandpa’s ring pressed to his right temple.

  “Lose the scepter,” I snarled. “Or your 1776 version isn’t going to have a head.”

  He tossed my sword aside and showed his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. “Oh, we wouldn’t want that.” The scepter was no longer in his other hand, but he hadn’t dropped it. It was still on him somewhere.

  I pressed the ring’s ingot with the rearing dragon into the vampire’s waxy flesh. “I’m serious.”

  “Well, that’s the difference between us, isn’t it? I may have my peculiar sentimentalities, but I don’t allow them to become weaknesses.”

  I was slow to catch the swirl of infernal energy, but it wasn’t directed at me. The vampire in my grasp choked and began to shrivel. I shoved him away as his body broke into foul smoke, then yellow flames. I glanced up, sure the real Arnaud was coming at me, but he hadn’t moved. He was simply watching, head tilted slightly, as if the dissolution of his historic self were vaguely interesting. On the street, the vampire Arnaud’s eyes seemed to plead up at me as the surrounding skin melted into a spreading pool.

  Now the real Arnaud broke into a smile that showed his demonic teeth.

  “You humans, on the other hand,” he continued, “become absolutely crippled by them.”

  Bleeding and exhausted, I was ready to take my ticket home, to give Arnaud his damned victory, when another voice spoke.

  “I respectfully disagree.”

  Arnaud wheeled, but too slowly. A column of magic broke into him, knocking him to the ground. He rose, batting out licks of blue fire that had broken out over his body, only to be nailed again. This
time the scepter flew from his coat and went clattering into a pile of garbage. My grandfather stepped from the shadows at the end of the alleyway, the same blue fire whispering around his hands.

  “Our sentimental bonds make us stronger,” he said. “Not weaker.”

  I choked on a noise of surprise. Asmus Croft had said to hell with Lich, to hell with his cover. He’d chosen to believe me again. I sensed that my final words at the farm had left an impression.

  Now, though, I was speechless.

  Arnaud groaned from his back, but he was making a weak sign in the air, shifting the ley energy. I watched in horror as the blue fire around my grandfather’s hands dimmed.

  But Arnaud had fucked up. The shifted energy now poured through me.

  My sword rattled on the street before leaping into my outstretched hand. My next Word was directed at Arnaud. This time, the rune-enhanced force I’d attempted earlier grabbed him and slung him toward me like a doll.

  Strengthened, I set my legs apart and caught him.

  Focusing into my channel home, I shouted, “Retirare!”

  Light crackled around us. The alleyway in 1776 New York disappeared. For a moment, all I could see was an afterimage of my grandfather’s silhouette, one hand raised.

  And then that was gone too.

  38

  The next moments were like riding in the back of a Winnebago hurtling straight down a rugged, roadless mountainside, sideswiping an old growth tree or thirty, plummeting off the occasional cliff, and all at speeds exceeding hundreds of miles an hour. No wonder Osgood had said this wouldn’t be the safest method of return.

  Throughout the violent trip, I focused on one thing: keeping my hold on Arnaud. He struggled, but stunned from Grandpa’s attack, his efforts were weak. And he had none of his cultivated energy to channel here.

  We landed hard on concrete, and I lost my grip. Beneath a glaring white light, we bounced apart, and I landed against a metal wall.

  Holy crap, I thought through my receding vertigo. We made it.

  Arnaud had come to a moaning rest opposite me. Gone was his Zarko disguise from the time catch. Here, he was a bald, naked demon, the back of his neck branded. And we were in the other cell I’d warded at 1 Police Plaza.

  I struggled to my socked feet and recovered my sword and staff. In only boxers and a white T-shirt, I backed from Arnaud and toward the open door. He went from curled up in a moaning heap one moment to launching himself at me the next, teeth and talons bared. But I had my ring trained on him.

  “Balaur,” I spoke.

  The power I’d called forth was weak, but Arnaud was scepterless. The Brasov Pact slammed against him in a burst of ghostly flames and drove him into the far wall. The counterforce pushed me the rest of the way through the cell door, where I fell ass down. I could hear the officers at the desk scrambling to their feet behind me.

  “Where the hell did they come from?” one shouted.

  “Hey, is that Everson?” another asked.

  “Stay back,” I called to them.

  Arnaud recovered and sprang at me. For the briefest moment, a fingernail scratched at my doubt, and I wondered if my wards were up to the task of containing him. He slammed into the field of energy that coursed over the doorway and recoiled with a scream. Flames broke briefly down his arm, bubbling the skin.

  The wards were fine.

  I pushed myself to my feet and stepped forward until I was staring down at Arnaud, the powerful containing magic oscillating the air between us. He had evolved since our encounter at Container City. He stood taller, more upright. The veins that once mapped his body had faded. His head had even begun to sprout a fine layer of hair. Indeed, he looked almost like the Arnaud of old, almost human.

  But he was neither, and I could never forget that.

  He glared back at me from a pair of malevolent yellow eyes.

  “Got you,” I said, and slammed the cell door closed.

  An hour later, I was tiptoeing into the safe house in Brooklyn. It was late—more time had passed here than I’d thought—and the basement level was dark. I found our unit, slid my key into the lock, and stepped inside.

  The converted room was small, not much larger than the cell I’d just left. In just a few steps I was standing over the sleeper sofa that had been pulled out. The glow of a nightlight showed Vega on her side, one arm draped over Tony, who was sprawled on his back, belly rising and falling with the profundity of a child’s sleep. The frame creaked as I sat on the edge and set my cane on the nightstand.

  “Ricki,” I whispered near her ear.

  She started, then rolled her head toward me. A comma furrowed the skin between her sleepy eyes. The borrowed police uniform I was wearing probably had something to do with her show of puzzlement.

  “I’m back,” I said. “It’s done.”

  Her eyes cleared in a flash. In the next moment, she was wrapping her arms around me, pulling herself against me. We remained in the other’s embrace for several minutes, her warm, solid body pressed to mine.

  At last Tony snorted and stirred.

  “Mr. Croft?” he croaked. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m getting you and your mom out of here, buddy,” I said. “We’re going home.”

  Vega closed the door to Tony’s bedroom—he’d fallen back asleep on the ride to their place—and joined me at the dining room table. I’d showered and was sipping from a steaming mug of coffee, one of several luxuries I’d missed while in the time catch.

  “I made extra,” I said.

  “Thanks, I’m good.” Vega stood behind me and began kneading out the knots in my shoulders.

  I winced, but it was good medicine. Pain soon yielded to pleasure. On the ride here, I’d told Vega what had happened. From the version of 1776 New York we’d entered, to the tracking of Strangers two and three, to my grandfather’s assistance, and finally to Arnaud being the fourth and final Stranger.

  “So what’s your plan for him?” she asked, a small edge in her voice.

  “If not for my dream, I would have destroyed him tonight. But if I believe Arianna really visited me, I also have to believe she and the others are trapped in the Harkless Rift and that Arnaud is somehow the key to their release.”

  Her hands paused. “And you’re sure it wasn’t—”

  “Just a dream?” I finished. “Earlier in the same dream Blade told me Arnaud had a bond-negating scepter, and that turned out to be true. I feel like I have to trust what came after,” I said, remembering the way Blade’s face had morphed into Arianna’s. “Now that I have Arnaud, I’m hoping she’ll contact me again, tell me what to do.”

  Vega’s fingers resumed their work, climbing the back of my neck now, but I could feel their tension.

  “Listen,” I said, “Arnaud isn’t going anywhere. Those are the most powerful wards I’ve ever built. They’re designed to take whatever someone like Arnaud throws at them and hit him back fourfold. There are also sigils severing his connection to the demonic realm. Not even his master knows where he is. Denied that connection, Arnaud will weaken until he can’t sustain his form up here. For all intents and purposes, he’ll eventually die. So no matter how you slice it, he’s no longer a threat.”

  “And you can guarantee that?”

  “I’m tapped into the wards,” I said. “He tested them after I left, and he’s still recovering. So, yeah. Plus I’ve got four members of the Sup Squad watching his cell and two more guarding the floor.”

  Vega sighed and clapped my shoulders twice. “I think I’ll take you up on that coffee.”

  She disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later, I heard a mug being poured. She returned and sat opposite me. Her hair was down and she tucked away a strand that had fallen in front of her pensive eyes.

  “I know that look,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “I did a lot of thinking while you were away.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “No, it’s nothing bad. I decided that you were right. At this poi
nt, you deserve to know about Tony’s father. I was wrong to try to keep those parts of my life separate—you on one side, him on the other. Especially now.”

  When she glanced up from her coffee, I nodded for her to continue.

  “I met Ramon before I became a detective. I was working in the Organized Crime Control Bureau, and he was a drug informant. Yeah,” she said when I raised my eyebrows. “Ramon had grown up in a cartel family in El Barrio. From a young age, that was all he’d known, but he wanted out. With his knowledge of the business, he was a major asset to the Bureau. In exchange for ongoing intel, he got indemnity for himself and some of his family. I’m not going to get into how we ended up in a relationship, other than to say it was a bad idea with someone who was actually a really good person.”

  That must have been what Vega’s brothers meant about her getting involved with a felon.

  “We kept the relationship under wraps, of course, for both our sakes. But then I got pregnant with Tony. Given the circumstances, we agreed the baby would stay with me and that Ramon would stay away until the cases wrapped up and he was no longer in danger. We didn’t even put his name on the birth certificate.

  “Then one day, when Tony was two, I learned Ramon visited him at his daycare. I stupidly let that go. I even arranged it so Ramon could visit him once a month under the guise of being Tony’s uncle. I didn’t think it was fair keeping him from his son, and I could see how much Tony loved spending time with him. As long as we were discreet, you know. But a few months later, he took Tony out of the daycare so he could introduce him to his sister and her twins. And that’s when I fucking lost it.” Vega shook her head, eyes dropping back to her coffee. “I had him arrested for felony child endangerment. Ten years.”

  So that explained it.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “The Bureau learned through other channels that Ramon had been drawing suspicion from cartel members. After his arrest, we made sure word spread that he was refusing to turn state’s evidence, which by that point was true. He’d already given us everything we needed. The suspicions went away. So in a weird way, his arrest and incarceration were the best outcome for everyone. But he and I were over. Done. I didn’t want to deny Tony his father, though. So, the monthly calls.”