Druid Vices and a Vodka: The Guild Codex: Spellbound / Six

by Marie, Annette

  The golem lurched upright. Almost pitching off its shoulder, Robin’s demon seized its helmet to stay in place, my legs swinging wildly with the motion. The golem’s massive fingers shot for us.

  The demon’s arm loosened around my waist and I had just a moment to clutch the thick helmet. Releasing me, the demon caught the golem’s fingers, knees bending as he coiled his body.

  He launched off the golem’s shoulder, forcing the arm back, metal groaning as the limb bent the wrong way. The golem teetered, thrown off balance. Gripping the helmet with my knees, I pulled on two corners of the folded fabric, yanking them apart.

  The Carapace of Valdurna unfurled.

  Shimmering purple cloth swept out. The fabric billowed—and magic poured from it. Streams of glittering purple and blue rippled off the Carapace, its edges softening into pure magic. Glowing indigo light bathed the parking lot, and a heavy, sweet tang filled the air, so thick it was hard to breathe.

  I swept the fabric onto the golem’s head. It settled over the steel in a swirl of light and magic. Power crawled up my arms, hot and cold, numbing all sensation.

  The golem reached for me—but the glowing runes across its body were dimming. The luminescent markings darkened from bright pink to deep, burning red, then that too faded. In five seconds flat, it was inanimate steel once again.

  Holy. Freaking. Shit.

  I clutched the heavy fabric, wanting to let it go before the numbness spread even farther up my arms, but I was afraid to lift the artifact off the golem in case it returned to life. The Carapace had sucked out its magic, but would that magic return if—

  Metal creaked—and the golem plummeted face-first toward the pavement.

  Hoshi shimmered out of nowhere and her tiny paws seized the back of my jacket. Weightlessness washed through me and the golem fell away from my legs. It smashed down with a horrific bang, and I landed on its back, my feet touching down so softly they didn’t make a sound on its hollow torso.

  With a flick of her long tail, Hoshi let go. My limbs regained their usual weight as she faded away with a silver shimmer.

  I looked down. Clutched in my hands was the purple fabric, magic rippling and sparkling off it in spectacular waves, its light washing over everything. As I raised it, the draping fabric fell into its proper shape: an ethereal purple cloak.

  “Wow,” I breathed.

  “Tori?”

  I looked around, belatedly realizing the cacophony of combat had quieted. The only sounds came from the golem limbs scraping on the pavement and the crackling flames spreading through the guild headquarters, the orange light competing with the Carapace’s indigo radiance.

  Cautiously approaching, Izzah sheathed her twin knives, her wide eyes on the Carapace. “Celaka, Tori. What is that?”

  “Uh, this? It’s … on loan from a friend.” Giving the cloak a shake, I folded it in half, then folded it again. It should’ve taken ages to gather it into a tiny square, but it shrank unnaturally with each fold, and before I knew it, it was an innocuous square again. Shoving it in my pocket, I jumped to the ground.

  A faint splash accompanied my landing; dark liquid had leaked from the fallen golem’s joints. Nose wrinkling, I hurried to Izzah. “Is everyone okay?”

  “Ya-lah, we all got out of the building, and the rogues were no problem.” She glanced over her shoulder at the final canine golems, lying on their sides, legs scrabbling uselessly for purchase. “It took a few guys to tip them, but we managed it.”

  “Good.” I rubbed a hand over my face. The distant sound of sirens was growing louder. “Did someone call MagiPol?”

  She nodded. “Agents are on the way. We also have …”

  As she trailed off, I followed her gaze. Shane Davila, who I hadn’t glimpsed during the fight, was crouched beside the super-golem, his bare palm pressed to its head. After a long moment, he lifted his hand from the steel and touched the liquid pooled under its torso.

  Shifting my weight nervously, I picked my combat belt off the ground. “Robin and I need to get back to our guild.”

  “I’ll be in touch as soon as we’re done with MagiPol.” Izzah’s cocoa eyes locked on mine. “We’re the third guild now. You know what that means-lah, right.”

  Unease twisted through my gut, and I nodded before hurrying away.

  Robin stood at the edge of the parking lot. Her demon was still out of her infernus, standing passively with a blank expression as she fussed over his hand. Her fingers were smeared with the dark blood leaking from his split knuckles.

  “I don’t think it’s broken,” she mumbled, gently prodding the back of his hand. “The bones seem solid.”

  Joining them, I frowned. I’d never seen a demon contractor show the slightest concern for their demon’s wellbeing. Fenton, the Keys contractor, hadn’t batted an eye when his demon had been gored half to death. He’d been angry that it couldn’t get up.

  “Can he feel pain?” I asked quietly, remembering the sound of him punching a golem in its steel side. “Demons look so blank all the time, like puppets …”

  She glanced at me, then back down at her demon’s bleeding hand. “Yes, they all feel pain, contracted or not.”

  Not wanting to think too hard about that, I brushed the dust off my pants. “We need to go. We have to get back to the Crow and Hammer.”

  She released her demon’s hand. “We do?”

  “You should come with me. We might need you.”

  “Why?”

  My anxious gaze flicked to the massive golem. “Because three combat guilds have been attacked in three days. That means the Crow and Hammer is probably next.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  An hour later, I stood behind the Crow and Hammer bar, not because I wanted to work a shift but because it’s where I felt most in control. Aaron and Ezra sat on stools across from me, their backs to the counter as they watched the rest of the pub.

  Voices buzzed in low, terse conversation. I counted over a dozen of our best combat mythics, from mages like Alistair and Laetitia, to sorcerers like Andrew and Gwen, to the telekinetic Drew and telepath Bryce. Another dozen members were non-combats, including Sin, Sabrina, Kaveri, and her boyfriend, Kier.

  Tension clung to everyone, unease palpable in the air. With the attack on Odin’s Eye, it didn’t take a genius to figure out the pattern: the rogues were targeting combat guilds.

  Our guild was in danger, and we all knew it.

  The front door thumped, then swung inward with a jangle of the bell. Zak stepped inside, his villainous coat sweeping behind him, its hood drawn up and the leather shining with raindrops. Every mythic looked at him, but before anyone could freak out, I raised my hand.

  “Over here,” I called.

  Pushing his hood off, he angled toward me. Dozens of eyes narrowed suspiciously, watching as he passed, but no one demanded to know who I kept inviting into the pub. They probably assumed he was with another guild.

  “Well?” I demanded in a whisper as soon as he was close enough to hear it.

  “She’s preparing her next move.” He leaned against the bar beside Ezra, “but I wasn’t able to learn more than that. The rogues who’ve joined her have all vanished, and the few I found didn’t know anything.”

  I rubbed my hand over my face. “Damn it. So you have no idea where to find her?”

  “If I did, I wouldn’t be here chatting about it.” He glanced around. “What’s everyone waiting for?”

  “The meeting upstairs to finish.” I braced my elbows on the bar top. “Since we don’t know where to find Varvara, our options are either ditch the guild headquarters and let it get smashed to rubble, or gather everyone who wants to defend it and wait here until they attack.”

  He grunted expressively.

  “By the way.” I lowered my voice even more. “The Carapace came in pretty handy earlier, but a bunch of mythics saw me use it, including Shane, and I don’t know if they can guess what it is. You should take it back now.”

  “Not he
re. I’ll take it when no one is watching me.”

  Which wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. Around half the present mythics were eyeing him, some surreptitiously and some with “I don’t give a shit” boldness.

  The conversation rumbling through the pub quieted, and a moment later, a group of mythics descended from the upper level: Darius, followed by Girard, Tabitha, and Felix, his three officers.

  Last but not least came Kai and Makiko. After I’d broken the news of the Odin’s Eye attack, Aaron had called Kai. It seemed Makiko was loosening up, as Kai had not only answered his phone, but also convinced her to join forces with the Crow and Hammer. Common enemies and all that.

  As Kai and Makiko stopped at the far end of the bar, I scanned the room again. No sign of Robin. She’d gone upstairs nearly thirty minutes ago, and I was surprised she hadn’t returned.

  Darius moved to the center of the room, his officers flanking him. As he turned in a slow circle, surveying his guild with somber gray eyes, his gaze caught on my little group.

  “I see we have a guest,” he observed.

  The guild’s collective attention shifted from Darius to the druid. Zak tensed.

  “This is Zak,” I revealed. “He’s a combat alchemist. Very useful.”

  Darius smiled pleasantly. “And how do you know Zak?”

  His question’s real meaning: Why is he here? Shit. How was I supposed to answer that? My head spun with wild theories, and only one made the slightest bit of sense to my scrambled logic.

  “We dated,” I blurted.

  Ezra and Aaron jerked as if Kai had zapped them, while the electramage stared at me. Zak’s mouth thinned but he refrained from shooting me any “you’re an idiot” looks, which I probably deserved, considering he’d specifically told me this cover story didn’t work.

  “It was just a fling,” I added hastily. “Like, two weeks.” I’d spent two weeks at his farm, so it wasn’t that much of a stretch? Okay, it was a stretch. “Anyway,” I rushed on, flapping one hand, “he’s got contacts around here that I asked him to check out.”

  “Did you learn anything interesting, Zak?”

  Cool green eyes met equally cool gray ones.

  “Nothing that can help your guild,” the druid rumbled.

  “Hmm.” Darius’s smile widened unexpectedly, then he turned to the rest of the room. “We’re facing a dangerous situation.”

  A shiver prickled my spine as I stared at the GM. That knowing smile. What … Oh.

  Zak’s voice.

  Those deep, distinctive raspy tones. After my kidnapping and abrupt return from the Ghost’s clutches, Darius had briefly spoken to a mysterious stranger on the phone—a stranger who sounded just like Zak.

  As I hyperventilated over what Darius might’ve figured out, he continued somberly, “Here’s what we know. The dark-arts sorceress, Varvara Nikolaev, is currently active in the city. She’s recruited a large group of unattached rogues and is striking at combat guilds in the downtown area. Last night, she also attacked MiraCo, which some of you may recognize as an offshoot of the Yamada Syndicate, an international guild.”

  Curious gazes darted to Kai and Makiko.

  “The Yamada Syndicate is known for dabbling on both sides of the law, and to Varvara, they’re competition.” He tilted his head toward Kai and Makiko. “Miss Miura is the acting GM of MiraCo and has shared what she knows of Varvara’s activities.

  “We believe Varvara is destabilizing both her competition and the guilds that could oppose her while she takes control of Vancouver’s criminal underground and black market. We also believe she’ll attack the Crow and Hammer soon.”

  “Then let’s find the sorceress!” Darren shouted from the back. “And stop her first!”

  “Dark sorcerers do not advertise their location,” Tabitha retorted coldly. “Finding her will take too long, require too much manpower, and leave our guild unprotected.”

  “Can we protect the guild?” Aaron asked, unusually grim. “It won’t take many of those golems to tear the place apart. They spit acid, breathe fire, and are almost impossible to destroy.”

  “What do we know about golems?” Laetitia inquired to the room. “They’re dark magic, aren’t they?”

  “Rare dark magic.” Andrew drummed his fingers on the table where he sat with Gwen and Bryce. “They’re difficult to make, from what I’ve heard, and aren’t as useful as they seem. They have limited intelligence and—”

  “They have no intelligence,” Zak interrupted impatiently. “They perform basic sets of movements determined by simple stimuli. The better the sorcerer, the more complex the movements and the increased responsiveness to stimuli, but golems can’t think.”

  Again, my guildmates eyed the stranger in their midst.

  “What’s the best way to counter them?” Darius asked.

  “Destroy the animation array. Failing that, let the golem chase you until it runs out of juice. They aren’t very fast.” He folded his arms. “Golems are rare because they’re so limited. They take weeks to charge, but once they start moving, they burn through their stored magic within ten minutes.”

  “The golems that attacked MiraCo lasted longer than that,” Kai reminded him. “At least one was still going after half an hour.”

  “And I told you then that it had to be a different golem.”

  “The ones we knocked over at Odin’s Eye,” I said. “They were still kicking when I left, and it’d been about twenty-five minutes at that point. Didn’t you mention something about an alchemy component?”

  “Alchemy?” Sin repeated, sitting at a table with Kaveri and Kier. “As part of a golem? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “That’s what I said,” Zak rumbled. “The liquid was probably blood, which makes even less sense. Golems use metallurgic ciphering fortified with astral conditioning, and blood alchemy has no overlap.”

  “So it couldn’t be used to make the golems live longer?” I asked.

  “They aren’t alive. And no, human blood doesn’t have any magical properties that could—”

  He broke off, his green eyes losing focus. I blinked in confusion as he went completely still, staring at nothing.

  Kaveri screamed.

  Darkness burst through the ceiling as Zak launched away from the bar. Wings flaring wide, Lallakai swept down in a maelstrom of shadows. Her talons caught Zak’s shoulders, her green eyes glowing from amidst the inky flames that danced from her feathers.

  The guild door flew open, crashing into the wall. Two men burst through, decked in combat gear, weapons in hand.

  Lallakai’s wings closed around Zak. He and the eagle faded out of sight.

  “Where is he?” one of the newcomers yelled.

  Kaveri pointed at the staircase and shrieked, “That way!”

  The saloon doors right behind me slammed and I almost jumped out of my skin. Two more combat mythics sprinted out of the kitchen and leaped over the bar like heavily armed gazelles, while the first two charged across the pub, shoving people out of their way. Everyone was shouting, on their feet, alarmed or angry—except for Darius, who looked mildly annoyed. Aaron was yelling something I couldn’t make out over the racket.

  But we all heard a window shatter upstairs.

  The second pair of mythics changed direction in mid-stride and sprinted for the front door. The first ones continued up the stairs, weapons gleaming.

  I slapped my hands down on the bar, vaulted over it, and ran for the door too. Aaron and Ezra were a step behind me as I burst out into the rain—and red light flared so brightly I couldn’t see a damn thing.

  My vision cleared, revealing four combat mythics positioned in the street. The two mythics who’d run upstairs jumped from the broken second-floor window. They landed in practiced rolls, sprang to their feet with weapons in hand, and took up positions in a triangle formation with the other four mythics—completing a team of six, which included Izzah and Mario.

  The hydromage’s twin knives were drawn and she s
tood in front of Mario. His demon stood a yard in front of her, tall and lanky with a black mane running down its back and empty magma eyes.

  Trapped in the center of their formation, Zak stood with Lallakai’s phantom wings arching off his back and yellow power coiling around his left arm. His hood was up, shadows hiding his face. He extended his right hand and summoned his scarlet saber. The colorful glow of his magic glinted off the wet pavement, joining the rippling reflections of the streetlamps and the glowing windows of the guild.

  As rain poured down, quiet footsteps crunched on the concrete, drawing closer.

  Shane Davila stopped beside Mario, safely behind Izzah and the hulking demon. He surveyed the druid and his terrifying shadow wings without emotion, then slid a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it.

  Clearing his throat, he read in a loud, steady tone, “‘The rogue di-mythic dubbed “the Ghost,” also known as the Crystal Druid, trained by the Wolfsbane Druid, confirmed to wield sorcery, alchemy, and fae magic, has been charged with three hundred and twenty-six felonies under MPD law. Due to the severity and violence of his crimes, the Ghost has been deemed a public danger and his capture is classified as DOA—dead or alive.’”

  Pocketing his paper, the bounty hunter lifted his small eyes to Zak. “Zakariya Andrii, do you surrender?”

  “Shit,” Aaron whispered behind me—and his wasn’t the only voice murmuring beneath the patter of rain. Most of the Crow and Hammer was crowded on the sidewalk to watch the showdown, Old West style.

  “Is that really the Ghost?” someone muttered fearfully. “What’s he doing here?”

  “The Shane Davila is tagging a rogue at our guild!”

  “I don’t believe it,” Kaveri breathed, half awed, half repulsed. “The Ghost and the Crystal Druid can’t be the same person …”

  “Did Tori say she dated him?”

  I winced.

  Indigo magic swirled out from Zak’s feet. It snaked across the pavement in an expanding circle—and the earth rumbled warningly.

  “I’ll give you one chance,” the druid rasped in a voice like black ice, “to walk away.”