Underground Druid_A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel
Page 1
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
IRL Resources
Underground Druid
A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel
M.D. Massey
Modern Digital Publishing
Copyright © 2017 by M.D. Massey
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
IRL Resources
1
The scents and sounds in the Lower Ninth Ward spoke of the sorts of dangers that kept tourists away after dark. There were gunshots, sometimes near, sometimes far, beating out a syncopated rhythm that said, “enter at your own risk.” A couple argued a few houses down; the wife accused her man of stepping out, a charge which he vehemently denied. From the sounds of it, he’d be sleeping on the couch with one eye open tonight. And behind me, a group of youths debated whether to mug me or leave me be. They finally decided I was a homeless drifter, and not worth their time.
Smart choice.
I ignored them and kept moving, because I was on the hunt as well.
I cast a cantrip to enhance my senses and took a long whiff of the dank night air. An anemic breeze carried the savory, spicy smells of someone cooking jambalaya, along with the acrid odor of a junkie smoking meth. I smelled cheap perfume from the girls working the corner a block ahead, and the sweet, skunky scent of the blunt they were passing around. Underneath it all lurked the sultry, decaying funk of Lake Pontchartrain to the north, and the earthy, silt-laden aroma of the Mississippi River to the south.
There were other odors on the breeze tonight, but only one spoke to my reason for being here.
Fae.
And also, vampires. Just my luck.
I’d come to New Orleans on a tip from a Vodoun priestess back in Austin. Janice—or Madame Rousseau, as she was known professionally—had recently helped me on a case involving necromancy. She’d heard that I’d helped rescue a group of children from a fae sex trafficking ring, and wanted to help bring the culprits to justice. After doing some digging, she’d contacted me two days ago with a lead on one of the ringleaders, a feldgeister named Claw. He was the last of the fae who were immediately responsible for abducting the kids, and the only link I had to the shot callers behind the operation.
Claw had also planted an arrow in my chest. I still owed him for that one—but I was mostly here to get a lead on his boss, a nasty harvest deity known as the Rye Mother.
I’d searched for him for weeks with no luck, ever since we’d exposed the feldgeister gang to the Pack. They’d been posing as ’thropes for years, using fae magic to fool the Austin werewolf pack in a bid to oust the alpha, Samson, and take over. Their plan had been to use the Pack to expand the Rye Mother’s influence into Austin, right under the noses of Queen Maeve and the Cold Iron Circle.
I’d spoiled their party. Only wish I’d done it sooner.
When Janice had told me Claw was hiding out in New Orleans waiting for an extraction, I’d dropped everything and headed to the Big Easy. My plan was simple—track him down and beat him until he gave me every last piece of info he had on the Rye Mother and her operations. That included where to find her, so I could finish what I started. She’d caused way too much pain and misery to get off scot-free, and I wouldn’t rest until I’d stomped her ashes into the earth.
After spending an entire day crisscrossing the city, I was finally closing in on Claw’s hideout. And while I couldn’t figure out why the Rye Mother hadn’t portaled him out of here already, I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe she’d abandoned him since he’d been exposed, or maybe she just didn’t want to piss Maeve off any more than she already had. I didn’t know and didn’t care. I just wanted the chance to beat him senseless and then burn him to cinders, the same way I’d done with his brethren.
That was the plan… so long as the vampires didn’t get in the way.
But I’d cross that bridge when it damn well presented itself. Right now, all I cared about was tracking down Claw before he got wind that I was on his tail. I took another long whiff of the night air, then course-corrected based on the wind direction and his scent. He wasn’t far—maybe a block or two at best.
I kept to the shadows as I crept between the ruins of houses destroyed by Katrina, some of which sat right alongside new homes that had been built to replace the wreckage. It’d been well over a decade since the hurricane had destroyed the city, and sadly this neighborhood still hadn’t recovered.
I tracked Claw’s scent to an abandoned housing complex that reeked of mold and rot. Amidst crumbling buildings that had been tagged in a montage of spray paint and lost hope, the trail led me to a building that remained mostly intact. I took a sort of grim satisfaction in knowing that Claw was living under such wretched conditions.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
I staked the place out from an adjacent building, watching for any sign of the fae’s presence. A dim light shone from a second-floor window, barely visible even at this distance. The smell of cooking food wafted from the building, blending with the odor of mold spores and rotting wood. Intermingled with those smells was the stink I’d come to associate with Claw and his kind. Freshly-plowed earth, hay, and fae magic.
I loosened my sword in its scabbard and press-checked my Glock to make sure I had a round in the chamber. I spent a moment readying myself to shift, unlacing my boots and setting them off to the side. I kept the rest of my clothing on, because everything else I was wearing wasn’t worth saving. Then, I drifted out of the shadows of the building’s interior, crossing the overgrown lot as quickly and silently as possible.
Claw was as good as dead. He just didn’t know it yet.
I was just about to enter the building when I heard them approach. Six humans, coming from three different directions. Shit. I was dressed in a ratty old overcoat and watch cap I’d bought off a bum for twenty bucks, plus I’d rolled around in a nasty pile of alley trash before entering the Ward. Either my disguise wasn’t good enough to fool these folks, or curiosity was about to kill the cat.
Two men approached in the open to my right, while four more snuck around either side of the building. I could hear them tromping around in the dark—and if I could hear them, so could Claw.
“Hey, man, got a light?”
I h
ung my head and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before I pushed off the wall and turned to face them.
“Really, that’s your opening ploy? ‘Got a light?’ I mean, shit, you may as well tell me you’re about to mug me.”
Two youths stepped out of the shadows and into the moonlight. Both were dressed in ratty gangster attire—wife beaters, baggy jeans, tennis shoes, ball caps, sports jerseys, and hoodies. I didn’t have the heart to put a beatdown on them; it was obvious they’d already been through enough.
The lead youth shrugged. “A’ight, so you know what’s up. Go ahead an’ cough up whatchoo got in those pockets, and maybe we don’t fuck you up.”
I looked up and saw movement in one of the windows. Damn it, I’ve been made.
“Guys, I really don’t have time for this.” I dug in my pocket and pulled out a wad of small bills, tossing it to him. “Here. That’s all I have.”
He picked it up, thumbed through it, and shook his head. “Not enough. Not nearly enough.”
The other four toughs emerged from either side of the building and moved in to surround me. I rubbed my forehead and growled with frustration. “I am telling you, I really don’t have time for this crap. Besides that, you’re about to step into some seriously bad shit—the kind you don’t want to be involved in. Please, fellas, walk away.”
The leader laughed. “Uh-uh, that’s not how it works. Now we gonna show you how it is ’round here.”
Just as the boys began to tense for an attack, something large and four-legged exploded out of the window above us. It leaped over our small group, landing a good fifteen feet past us and breaking into a sprint.
Claw.
“Loup garou!” one of the youths cried out. “Ain’t got no time for that shit.”
I opened my coat and showed the leader the sword and gun at my hip. “I’m here for him, not you. Now, are you going to let me pass, or not?”
The leader’s lip curled in a scowl. “Go. We gonna let ’dem night runners deal with you.”
“Much obliged, gentlemen!” I yelled as I took off at a run after Claw, who now had at least a half-block head start. But I knew how to slow him down. The feldgeister may have looked like a giant wolf in the dim light, but he was made of plant matter… and that made him combustible.
I drew my pistol and fired off two tracers at him. The magnesium-laden rounds ignited as they left the barrel of the gun. One hit Claw in the hindquarters, forcing him to slow in order to bite and snap at the wound to extract the round before he caught fire. I never broke stride. Claw visibly slowed his pace as he ran off into the night.
I was gaining on him now, but I held my fire. I needed him alive.
I was no more than fifty feet behind him, close enough to hear his footsteps as he ran. He was massive in this form—the size of a small pony, and made from a twisted tangle of vines, branches, grasses, and leaves that moved and articulated like flesh and bone. But more dangerous than his size was his magic. As a feldgeister—a field spirit—he had command over plant life, and to some extent, the earth. If Claw happened to pass through one of the nearby empty lots, he’d command the vegetation to trap me. I couldn’t let that happen.
I slowed down to take more careful aim this time and fired off a three-round burst. Bingo. One round hit him in the ankle, crippling him. If that wound had been made by anything else, he’d be able to heal immediately. But as I’d learned from my battle with Claw’s brothers, fire was their weakness. He wouldn’t heal from that gunshot wound anytime soon.
Claw howled and stumbled, then caught his balance and ran three-legged into an alley between two abandoned houses. I skidded around the corner, and what I saw made me chuckle. A rusted-out shipping container blocked the alleyway at an angle—debris that had likely been left by Hurricane Katrina. Claw was boxed in.
I passed the pistol to my other hand and drew my sword, whistling the theme from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as I closed in on him. He backed up, favoring his injured leg, and growled menacingly.
“Claw… fancy meeting you here. I just came down to New Orleans for a few days to enjoy some crawfish, jazz, and a hurricane or two, and whaddya know? I find out my favorite piece of shit roggenwölfe is here on vacation too.”
His voice was a throaty rumble as he replied. “You can fuck off, druid. Go back to your junkyard, before you get hurt.”
I tsked softly as I spun my sword in lazy circles. “Now now, Claw, no need to be rude. I’m just here for a little chat. You tell me where I can find the Rye Mother, and I won’t burn you to a crisp like I did your brothers.”
He shook his massive, leafy head. “Uh-uh. I told you to fuck off, and I meant it.”
I took a deep breath and cracked my neck, left to right and back again. “Alright, I guess this means we do this the hard way.”
I took a step forward as Claw coiled to attack. And that’s when the vampires showed up.
There weren’t just a few of them, there were over a dozen—higher vamps, every last one of them. They were an assorted crew of bloodsuckers, all of them dressed like tourists out for a night on the town. I assumed that was their version of hunter’s camouflage. Vamps in the Big Easy didn’t play nice like my friend Luther’s coven did back in Austin.
I typically found vamps to be weird and creepy, and these were no exception. Some dropped down from nearby rooftops, landing like cats. More sped in from various directions, skidding to a stop near their coven mates in a loose semi-circle behind me. Others jumped on top of the shipping container, cutting off any hope of escape in that direction. They posed, preened, and hissed, trying to intimidate me. Yawn.
I’d known that the coven was tracking my movements, so it was no surprise to me that they’d shown up. I’d been catching their scent on and off since shortly after sundown. I figured they’d made me for a hunter and were curious what I was doing in their territory.
These vamps ruled New Orleans. Long ago, they’d established a foothold here and chased out the fae, the ’thropes, and the Cold Iron Circle. Not that the odd fae or ’thrope didn’t live here—they just weren’t allowed to organize or challenge the authority of the local coven.
And what a coven they were. Luther, the leader of the Austin vamps, had warned me about them. He’d also cautioned me about coming here to track down Claw. Obviously, I’d ignored his warning—but the risk was worth it.
Now, I just had to convince them to let me go free with Claw in tow.
A tall, dusky vamp in a sports coat jumped down between Claw and me, facing me and leaving his back exposed to the fae. That almost made me like the guy. He wore a dark dress shirt left unbuttoned to expose a lean, hairless chest adorned with several gold chains. The vamp had diamond stud earrings in both ears and sported creased dark slacks and shiny black dress boots.
The vamp smiled at me, flashing his incisors. He was trying to intimidate me. It wouldn’t work. Claw growled and swiveled his head to keep an eye on the vamps above and behind him.
“What have we here—a hunter and his prey? Or perhaps it is the opposite, no? The question is, what are a hunter and a fae creature doing in our city, without the coven’s permission?” He spoke with just a hint of the local patois, but his accent sounded more Caribbean than Creole.
I kept my pistol at my side as I spoke. “My business is with the fae and the fae alone. Last I checked, humans don’t abide by the rules of the world beneath.”
The vamp tsked and tilted his head. “They do if they are hunters, operating in my city.”
“Your city? And you are?”
He chuckled and took a slight bow, sweeping one arm to the side and the other across his waist in a grand gesture. “Remy DeCoudreaux, at your service.”
I nodded. “Colin McCool.”
Remy stood straighter and clasped his hands behind his back. “Your reputation precedes you, Mr. McCool. And, as such, you can understand why I might be concerned that you’re operating in my city. One hears things, you know.”
&nb
sp; “Such as?”
He frowned slightly. “Such as that you work for Queen Maeve. That you have ties to the Austin Pack. That you’re close to Luther and have friends within the Circle as well. And, that you have a strange habit of surviving violent encounters with creatures who are much older and more powerful than you.”
I shrugged. “Just lucky, I suppose.”
Remy blinked slowly and smiled. “I’ve observed that luck is most often a product of skill and talent… wouldn’t you agree, Mr. McCool?” When I failed to offer a response, he continued. “I see you’re a man of few words. So be it.”
He gestured at Claw, who had been strangely silent during this entire exchange. “Whatever business you have with the fae here, it stands to reason that you’re operating as an agent of one of the Austin factions. And that, I cannot allow. So, the question remains… do I kill you both, or is there something to gain by killing one and allowing the other to go free?”
“The Rye Mother will pay dearly for my safe passage,” Claw growled.
Remy nodded slowly. “I’m sure she has some interest in the welfare of her children. But, then again, she has many children, no? And from the looks of you, I think perhaps she has abandoned one of her offspring for the sake of the rest.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I need him alive. And believe me when I say this is not a threat, but simply a statement of fact—you do not want to attack me or attempt to do me harm.”
That remark elicited a great deal of murmuring from the rest of the vamps present. Remy raised a hand to silence them. “Mr. McCool, you are outnumbered, outclassed, and many miles from anyone who might offer you aid. Tell me, why should I not kill you where you stand?”