Druid Justice

by M. D. Massey

  Huh. Then I guess there’s not much for you to consider.

  -I will remove the mental block and repair the physical damage to your brain, allowing you to shift into your Fomorian form. Brace yourself—this will not be pleasant.-

  It felt like a bomb went off inside my head. There was an intense pressure, followed by increasing pain that started behind my eyes and spread out to encompass my entire skull. My jaw clenched involuntarily, and I felt teeth crack. Despite being under the influence of a paralytic, every muscle in my body convulsed all at once. It was easily on my list of the Top Ten Most Painful Things Colin Has Ever Experienced.

  Mercifully, it was over seconds later, and I heard the Eye’s voice inside my head.

  -Neurological repairs complete. You may shift into your Fomorian form at any time.-

  Alright then… let’s do this.

  I was preparing to shift when I heard the whine of electric engines and the ceiling above began to roll away. Then I heard the most welcome sound possible… Belladonna’s voice.

  “Colin, thank God. Guys, tie that rope off over there so I can climb down.”

  An unfamiliar, nasally male voice echoed from overhead. “Not a clove hitch, you idiot. Use a figure eight.”

  A very young-sounding male voice responded. “A figure eight? Duh, we need to get out of here quickly without leaving any sign we were here. A clove hitch is clearly the best quick-release knot for this application.”

  “You guys are idiots,” a third, older and deeper voice replied. “You use a bowline knot to secure a rope to a stationary object. Here, give it to me.”

  The three voices descended into bickering over who would tie the rope and which knot they’d use. Finally, Belladonna’s command cut through the din.

  “Just tie the fucking rope off so I can get down there and pull him out! I’ll cut it when we leave, alright?”

  “A simple and elegant solution,” the deeper, older voice said.

  “That’s why she’s in the field,” nasally voice muttered.

  “I’d plow her field, any day,” the teenaged voice replied.

  “Like you’ve ever had any,” nasal voice said. “You wouldn’t know what to do with her, even if you had the chance.”

  The older voice cut in, sotto voce. “Might I remind you two that her boyfriend can hear you—you know, the one they’re calling ‘God-Killer’? So, maybe you should cool it before he rips you in two and wears your intestines for a necklace.”

  I chuckled inwardly at the last remark. That was one I needed to keep in reserve for future use.

  -It appears we are being rescued. Might I suggest a partial shift, if only to shake off the effects of the tranquilizer?-

  Good idea.

  I’d gained much greater control over my ability to shift forms during the time I’d spent trapped and starving in Maeve’s underground portal chamber. Without any food to sustain me, I’d had to shift each day to heal myself. Yet every time I had, my body had consumed fat and muscle for energy to shift, which speeded up the wasting process considerably. For that reason, I’d learned how to only partially shift forms to conserve energy.

  I triggered the change, stopping it when I’d completed about a quarter of the transformation. As soon as I shifted, the teenager began babbling, his voice rife with panic.

  “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! He’s already hulking out. He’s going to kill me and make face paint out of my liver, I just know it! I am so fucked. Hide me, quick!”

  As the yammering above continued, I began to regain control of my muscles, just enough to blink and stand. Belladonna was already scrambling down the side of the pit, and when she hit bottom she quickly closed the distance to give me a hug. She cut the gag away and held some sort of key fob device next to the manacles. I heard a beep and a click, and they fell off my hands.

  “I thought you were dead,” she whispered. “The nerd herd intercepted a message from Gunnarson telling his people that you’d been captured and to proceed with contingency plan oh-five-three. I had no idea what that meant, but I figured it couldn’t be good, so I headed right over here.”

  I worked my jaw around and shook my hands, feeling the blood rush back into them. From deep in the back of my mind, I felt a murderous prodding—just the faintest urge to rip-snap-maim-torture-kill…

  Belladonna snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Colin, are you alright?” She called up to her companions, two of whom were now standing at the pit’s edge looking down at us.

  I shook off the evil thoughts and focused on Belladonna’s voice. “Yeah,” I replied in a near-whisper. “Just a bit woozy, is all.”

  A black guy in faded jeans, purple Converse All-Stars, and a t-shirt that said “Fuck Lab Safety, I Want Superpowers” stared at me with interest. “Oh man, see that look in his eyes? I think Dex is right—McCool really is going to eat his liver.”

  A muscular, middle-aged Asian guy in wife beater, cargo shorts, flip-flops, and a Hawaiian shirt replied. “Oh yeah, Dex is definitely screwed.”

  The only response I heard from “Dex” was a high whine and rapid footsteps fading away, which made the other two researchers laugh hysterically.

  Hawaiian shirt guy pointed with his thumb toward the exit. “You think we should go get him, Deets?”

  Deets scrunched his face up and scratched his head. “Cameras are down and Belladonna pwned Gunnarson’s entire security team.” He waved a hand at what I assumed was Dex’s retreating form. “Eh, let him sweat it ’til we leave.”

  Belladonna hung her head, massaging her temple with one hand. “Do I have to remind you guys that Gunnarson and the rest of his team could come back at any minute? Now, go get Dex before someone shows up and captures him.”

  Deets looked at his buddy. “She’s right, Kien. Let’s go find him before he gets lost.”

  The urge to hurt someone, anyone was getting stronger, so I shifted back into my fully human form. I still felt some after-effects from the drugs, but I was strong enough to move. As the thoughts faded and my mind cleared, I remembered the dire situation we were all in.

  “Bells, give me your phone.”

  “What? Why?” she asked, handing me her mobile. I checked the time—Ed would be on his way to open the junkyard soon.

  “The last thing Gunnarson told me was that he was going to tie up some loose ends—namely you, the geek squad, and uncle Ed.”

  “Colin, we had no idea. I only brought the nerd herd along because they said they could bypass Gunnarson’s security.”

  Ed’s phone just went to voicemail, so I called Fallyn’s cell.

  “Colin, it’s seven o’clock in the morning—this had better be…”

  I cut her off. “No time to explain. Tell Samson to send the Pack to the junkyard, now. Ed’s in trouble.” I hung up before Fallyn could reply. “C’mon, Bells—we have to go, now.”

  We left no trace of our passing back at Gunnarson’s. The geek squad had shut down all Gunnarson’s surveillance when they’d broke in. Then, Belladonna had snuck up on a guard, knocked him out, and used his tranquilizer gun to take out all the rest before they knew what hit them. We left them where they fell, and Deets locked the place up tight, making it look like I’d disappeared or teleported out of there. At the very least, it would keep Gunnarson guessing.

  Bells and the research team had “borrowed” a surveillance van from the Circle’s motor pool. It was a Mercedes Sprinter that had been decked out with electronics, with a modified suspension and a souped up engine. Belladonna drove, flooring it the whole way, while Dex and Kien worked the communications array inside the van, to keep local law enforcement from pulling us over for speeding.

  “They think we’re Homeland—nobody’s going to stop us,” Kien said, giving me a sympathetic look as he handed me my gear.

  I took it without comment, suiting up and steeling myself for come what may. Then, I called Finnegas. His phone went to voicemail, no surprise there, so I dialed Maureen’s mobile and told her what wa
s going on. She promised to find the old man and meet us at the junkyard.

  Gunnarson’s place was a forty-minute drive from the junkyard, but Bells did it in twenty-five. When we pulled up there were half a dozen Harleys in the lot, and Sledge and Trina were guarding the front gate. Their grim expressions told me everything that I didn’t want to know.

  “We’re sorry kid,” Sledge said as I jumped out of the van, his face awash in guilt. “We came as fast as we could, but we got here too late.”

  Trina, used to seeing all manner of tragedy in her day job, was much more stoic but no less sympathetic. “We hauled ass the whole way here, as soon as Fallyn got the call. I am so sorry.”

  I shook my head as I shouldered past them, unwilling to hear what I already knew. Fallyn walked out of the office, stopping me before I hit the front stoop.

  “It’s bad in there, Colin. You sure you want to—“

  I pushed her aside. “Ed! Ed, you in there?” I shouted as I slammed the door to the office open.

  Samson was kneeling beside Ed, wiping his hand with a bandanna. Ed lay behind the counter in a pool of blood, his body riddled with bullet wounds. The computer was missing, the register had been smashed, the cash drawer had been flung to the side. Loose change was scattered everywhere.

  Samson stood aside as I approached. “He was almost gone when we got here. I held his hand and stayed with him as he died. They made it look like a robbery, but I smelled magic, deep and strong when I walked in—the kind you use to erase evidence. Circle magic.”

  Tears flowed freely down my cheeks as I walked over to Ed, squatting down to grab his hand. Of all the people who’d stepped in after Dad had died, Ed was the one who’d always been there for me. He’d drive all the way in from Austin to watch my games, he’d let me hang out for hours watching him work on cars, and he was the one who’d taught me how to fix just about anything.

  Anything but this.

  I hadn’t really realized it, but Ed had been much more to me than an uncle. He’d been my surrogate dad.

  “Ed… oh hell. I never thought—I mean, shit. Why didn’t I see this coming?”

  Samson placed a firm, warm hand on my shoulder. “If I could take this away from you, I would. I’ve seen a lot of kin die since I got turned, and it doesn’t get any easier over the years. I’m sorry, Colin.”

  I wiped my eyes and looked up at him. “Thanks for coming, Samson. I know there was nothing you could have done.”

  “I wish I’d been a few minutes faster, kid. I really, sincerely do.”

  I nodded. “You’d better go. I’m going to have to call the cops, and it would probably be best if you guys weren’t here when they arrived.”

  Samson replied with a grunt. “Don’t worry about us. If you need anything, you know who to call.”

  The grizzled old ’thrope left without another word, but none needed to be said. The implied message was, “Call us when you find who did this, because the Pack looks after their own.” It was a small comfort.

  What the hell am I going to tell Mom? Her only brother, dead. And it’s my fucking fault.

  Belladonna walked in the office as soon as Samson left. “Blaming yourself already, aren’t you?”

  I raised a hand, warning her off. “Bells, this isn’t the time—”

  She spun me around to face her, grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me. “You listen to me, Colin. There will be time to mourn later, but right now we have to take care of Gunnarson. He will be coming after us—all of us—and if we don’t go on the offensive right now, soon there’ll be nowhere left for us to hide.”

  I took a deep breath, letting it out in shuddering gasps that gradually became steadier as I calmed myself by focusing on the task at hand. “You’re right about almost everything, Bells. Now isn’t the time to mourn, and we do need to go on the offensive. But there’s one thing you’re dead wrong about.”

  “Which is?”

  “We’re not the ones who need to find a place to hide. He is.”

  Twenty-One

  The Pack and nerd herd split before I called the police, and by the time they got there I’d used magic to sweep the parking lot free of tire tracks. It might look suspicious, but I figured it was better to let the police puzzle over it than to have them looking for a bunch of bikers instead of the real killers. Of course, they’d never catch the real killers, and this case would go unsolved—just like a half-dozen other famous murder cases in this town.

  And that was fine by me, because justice could be served in more ways than one.

  Bells and I told the cops that I’d stayed the night at her place, and when she’d dropped me off I’d found Ed in the office, dead. That story went over like a turd in a punchbowl at a debutante ball, so we spent the next several minutes being grilled and saying, “I don’t know” over and over again.

  Maureen showed up a half-hour after the cops got there, with Finnegas and Manny Borovitz in tow. Borovitz was the hotshot attorney who’d helped Hemi when he’d gotten pinned for a murder he didn’t commit. He was sharp, well-connected, and respected by the cops, so once he got involved the cops left us alone and went about their investigation.

  We allowed the police to process us for evidence, of course. Finnegas and Maureen surreptitiously used magic to clear us of all gunpowder residue, and neither of us had any blood on us so we passed that litmus test with flying colors. With a promise from Borovitz to bring us down to the station for further questioning, the cops left us to our own designs. Belladonna went to meet the geek squad to gather intel and figure out our next move, and I stayed so I could see to Ed’s personal affairs.

  I spent the rest of the morning speaking to Ed’s employees, who’d been gathered outside the front gates speculating as to what happened. Everyone had loved Ed, and as it turned out he’d been a father to more people than just me. If you’ve never seen a bunch of hardened mechanics and heavy equipment operators cry inconsolably, trust me, it’s not something you want to experience twice. Nobody asked about their jobs, or whether the junkyard would remain open. They were too gutted about Ed’s death to think of themselves. It was a true testament to the man he’d been.

  Breaking the news to Mom had been the worst. She’d cried and cried on the phone with me after I’d explained what had happened—the story we gave the cops, at least. Finnegas offered to stay with her while she was grieving. She believed he was an older relative on my dad’s side—we’d called him “Uncle Finn.” I knew his presence would help her during the grieving process, so I took him up on his offer. Besides, I knew if he was with Mom, she’d be absolutely safe.

  As Finnegas was leaving, he grabbed me in a fierce hug, squeezing me tight before releasing me and gripping me by the shoulders. The emotion he displayed surprised me, because Finnegas was not known for such displays of affection. He looked me dead in the eye, his grey-blue eyes wet and bright as he spoke.

  “He was a good man, your uncle Ed. He took me in when I was at my lowest, helping me in small ways with kind gestures that most would overlook. Ed helped bring me back from the brink, you know. ‘Finn,’ he once told me, ‘that boy needs you, clean and sober. I know you’re going through a rough patch, but my nephew looks up to you like no one else. So, you stay here as long as you need to get back on your feet, because Colin’s gone to a dark and lonely place, and he needs your help to find his way back again.’”

  “I… I don’t know what to say.”

  Finn squeezed my shoulder. “There’s nothing to say at times like these. Nothing will make things any easier or help it all make sense. Just know that your uncle was a decent man, and he loved you a great deal. In another time he’d have made a fine warrior, someone who would fight by your side to the very end. I’m proud to have known him, and there are damned few I can say that about, even after all my time on this earth.”

  With that, Finnegas left, and then it was just me and the dogs. They’d been locked up in the main section of the yard when it had happened, and Rufus near
ly cut his front paws to bits trying to get through the gate to help Ed. Every once in a while, Rufus would let out a mournful howl—but Roscoe just sat down at the office door and stayed there, as if waiting for Ed to appear by magic.

  “Sorry, boy, but no amount of magic’s going to bring him back,” I said as I patted his head gently. I puttered around the office after that, trying not to look at the blood while I put things back where they belonged. I soon realized that everything had blood on it, so I started sorting things and tossing what wasn’t needed. Finally, I tackled the dark red stain where Ed’s body had rested, mopping it up and scrubbing the floor as clean as I could get it.

  With that grim task done, I suddenly found that I wanted to be anywhere but there. I walked out and sat on the curb in front of the junkyard, looking at the sign over the entrance that bore Ed’s name. I glanced down at the smaller sign I’d taped to the gate to let people know we were “closed until further notice,” and wiped a hand across my forehead.

  “Fuck!” I screamed at the sky, clenching my fists and roaring in anger as a little of my Fomorian side seeped through. As it did, those nagging subconscious urges came back, telling me to rend-tear-smash-gut-rip-destroy. The impulse to hurt something—anything—nearly overwhelmed me until I managed to calm myself down.

  It occurred to me that anger was a weakness right now, because if I went on a rampage I might never come back from the brink of madness—and Gunnarson would escape justice forever. So, in place of anger, I let a cool, calculating sense of righteous indignation sink down into my chest, turning my heart to ice so I could stay focused on what needed to be done.

  I’m coming for you, Gunnarson. And when I find you, I’m going to make your whole world burn.

  I sat on the curb until the sun was low in the sky, then I got up and started walking aimlessly, working things out in my head. It was long after dark when Belladonna called. I considered letting it go to voicemail, fearful of losing her too. But I needed her help, and Bells had her own stake in this game.