by M. D. Massey
My magic pushed back the darkness as actinic sparks danced between my fingers. With both eyes glued to the alley beyond, I pointed a glowing digit over my companion’s shoulder. “Don’t make any sudden moves, and when I say duck—”
The chupacabra whipped his head around and froze as the light from my hands glittered off hundreds of pairs of tiny red eyes. Finally recognizing the danger, he gulped and froze.
“Is that—?”
I nodded. “Yup. Your ex’s victims, apparently.”
“What should I do?” he whispered.
“Duck!” I yelled as I cut loose with lightning bolts from both hands, strafing the narrow passage with electricity while quickly backpedaling from the mass of undead rodents that now streamed toward us. As my spell made contact, dozens of little zombie rat bodies cooked from the inside out, popping like eggs in a microwave. Meanwhile, Larry disappeared, presumably to make his escape while leaving me behind as a convenient distraction.
What’s that old joke about surviving the zombie apocalypse? ‘You only have to run faster than the next guy?’ Thanks, Larry.
Backing out of the alley and onto 7th Street, I sized up the situation as my lightning spell petered out. Norway rats were pretty damned fast, and from the looks of it, being recently deceased hadn’t slowed them down. My spell had certainly cut a swathe through their ranks, but due to their sheer numbers, it had done little to deter the mass of rodents that now flowed forth in a river of decaying rodent flesh from the alley.
Much to my chagrin, there was no shortage of pedestrians and cars on the streets and sidewalks of downtown Austin this night. The crowd was a mix of young professionals, college students, and homeless people panhandling for their next meal or fix. Little did they know they were about to be overrun by a mischief of zombie rats.
Being no stranger to aggressive rodents, the homeless were the first to scatter as the rat swarm flooded out of the alley. But like most people in modern society, the rest of the crowd remained blissfully oblivious to the encroaching danger, and would likely remain so until it was much too late. With a sigh, I drew my Glock and fired three shots in the air.
“Fly, you fools!” I shouted at the people milling about.
Overkill? Not really. A plague of undead Norwegian rats wasn’t nearly as intimidating as a balrog, but the little fuckers could be just as deadly. It’d only take one person getting bit, and we’d be facing last year’s undead outbreak all over again.
Snickering to myself at the tangentially apropos Tolkien reference, I tossed the Glock in my Craneskin Bag. The last thing I needed was to be holding a gun when the cops showed up, and since I was the only person who could access it, the pocket dimension inside the Bag provided a convenient place to ditch the weapon.
Now, to deal with these rats.
By the time I’d gotten rid of the pistol, the crowd had scattered—random gunfire will do that to people these days. The rats remained fixated on me, chasing me farther into the street as cars swerved past, horns blaring. Since police headquarters was right down the street, I estimated that I had about a minute until APD showed up looking to make an arrest.
I did love a good challenge, and the fact that I couldn’t shift made the situation that much more interesting. Despite the bad mood I’d been in earlier, a broad grin split my face as I cracked my neck and bounced on my toes in the middle of the street.
Time to work.
26
First on the agenda was to make sure nobody got in the line of fire, and that I didn’t get run over trying to take these little fuckers out of commission.
Time to try out some of the new spells Finnegas has been showing me.
I thrust my arms out left and right, fingers up and palms extended as if pushing against two invisible walls.
Here goes nothing.
“Balla lasair!” I shouted, channeling magical energy out of my arms and into the street, aiming about twenty feet away on either side of me. Fire gushed from my open palms, and where it hit the pavement, a wall of flame shot up twenty feet high and ten feet deep. I swept the gouts of fire back and forth across the street and sidewalks, sealing the immediate area off with a flame barrier that ran from the buildings on one side of the street to the other.
That oughta keep the traffic and bystanders away, and keep the rats from escaping. Johnny Storm, eat your heart out.
No sooner had I cast my firewall spell than I felt something crawling up my jeans. Instinctively, I screamed like a little girl as I kicked a six-inch-long undead rodent off me, causing it to sail into the wall of fire and burst into flame. A quick glance around told me it was a loner—but the rest weren’t far behind.
“Nicely done there, Jonah Hill,” a disembodied voice quipped from somewhere behind me. “Private Wilhelm’s got nothing on you.”
“Fuck you very much, Larry,” I replied, feigning nonchalance as I quickly checked my leg for bites. “Undead people I can deal with. But undead animals? That’s a whole lot of nope for me.”
“Hey, now!” he protested. “I dated one and she wasn’t so bad.”
“Not so bad? Have you forgotten that Kiki tried to turn you into a zombie? And need I remind you she’s the reason we’re being attacked by a zombie rat swarm?”
“Speak for yourself—from where I’m sitting, they’re after you. And besides, I did my part by finding her minions, didn’t I? My work is done, my friend. Now I’m just over here enjoying the show.”
“Thanks, you’re a real pal,” I replied, scowling as my eyes swept back to the mass of zombie rats rolling toward me. There were hundreds on the street now, and possibly thousands behind them. From the looks of it, the zombie vyrus had spread rapidly through Austin’s rat population after Larry’s ex began feeding on them.
Seems like a pretty rapid rate of transmission for standard zombism. And where have I seen that before? The Dark Druid engineered a more contagious form of the vyrus not long ago, but he’s out of commission. Definitely something to look into, after I deal with this infestation.
The skittering of thousands of little claws on concrete brought my thoughts back to the present. Fearing I’d be overrun, I ran to the other side of the street and scrambled into the bed of a lifted Ford 4x4, knowing it would only buy me a few seconds at best. Rats could climb like no one’s business, and despite my high perch, they’d be running over the sides of the truck’s bed in short order.
If only I could get all the rats in one place—then I could incinerate them with my flame wall spell.
The trick would be getting them bunched up so I could take them out in one fell swoop. Right now, they were crowding around the car, and I’d trap myself if I lit them up. No bueno. What I needed was a way to immobilize them so I could get some distance and then burn them to ash and dust. For that, I was pretty sure I had just the thing.
Mogh’s Scythe should do nicely.
In Irish mythology, Mogh Roith was a famous battle druid known for selling his services to the highest bidder. When King Cormac mac Airt decided to raid Munster—based on bad advice from the fae, go figure—old Mogh singlehandedly ran off his entire army, defeating all Cormac’s druids as well. According to my mentor Finnegas, Mogh was one bad dude, and possibly the most powerful battlemage to ever cast a spell on Irish soil.
Heh—my kind of druid.
One of the spells Mogh created was this badass conjuration known as Mogh’s Scythe. Ingeniously simple in its design but rather difficult to cast, the spell consisted of nothing more than a thin sheet of super-compressed air traveling at high speed toward one’s enemies. It didn’t seem like much in theory, but in practice, it was like shooting giant razor blades across a battlefield.
I’d just started learning the spell, and thus far I couldn’t cut more than a few small sticks in half with it. But rat legs weren’t much thicker than twigs, so I figured it’d be just the thing for dealing with ye olde rat swarm. But, as I said, it was a rather difficult casting. The bloodthirsty little fuckers were alrea
dy piling on top of each other in an attempt to get at me, so I had precious little time to work.
Better hop to it.
The act of compressing air molecules with magic was no mean feat, and against my better judgment, I closed my eyes to cast the spell. In order to make it work, the caster had to super-compress a vast volume of gases—and that was just the first part of the spell. Then, you had to send the air mass out in a specific direction with sufficient velocity to cause injury, all while maintaining mental control over the air molecules so your spell didn’t dissipate before it hit the target.
And I had to do it before thousands of disease-carrying undead rats swarmed my pale ginger ass.
No pressure, Colin, old boy. No pressure at all.
27
In theory, a magus should be able to cast a spell without trigger words, arcane gestures, or spell ingredients. But because magic was, at its essence, a highly conceptual practice, such devices made it easier for spellcasters to focus their magic. That’s why some magic-users—witches being the prime example—required actual physical components to cast their spells. We druids did not, because we relied on our close connection with nature to power and control our magic.
However, it was impossible to maintain individual control over millions upon millions of air molecules at the same time—thus, visualization was the key to casting Mogh’s Scythe. In fact, when casting any sort of druid magic, intent and will were much more important than mechanics. We druids channeled our intentions by visualizing what we wanted our magic to do, then we manifested our spells with sheer willpower and an innate affinity for nature’s workings.
“Ya’ better hurry, druid, or them rats are gonna be havin’ you for a midnight snack!”
Ignoring Larry’s warning and the sound of the rat swarm approaching, I focused on casting the spell. The first step was creating a mental image of two huge hands compressing a hundred-foot column of air in front of the truck. In my mind, I pictured the air being trapped inside those huge hands, building tremendous pressure to be released at my command.
And indeed, air rushed past me to fill the vacuum created as I initiated the spell. It was a good sign, but while practicing in the Grove under Finnegas’ supervision, I’d had difficulty compressing a sufficient volume of gas to power the casting. I could only hope I’d trapped enough air to create the effect I desired.
Time to find out.
“Gearradh trí rud!” I exclaimed, opening my eyes as I triggered the spell.
My druid sight allowed me to observe the effects of the spell in real-time. In the magical spectrum, it looked like a luminescent sheet of glass expanding outward from the focal point of the spell. For a moment, the asphalt and concrete took on an iridescent sheen that traveled from the truck to the cars and buildings opposite in a split-second. The rat swarm instantly stopped its march toward me as tens of thousands of tiny undead rat feet were severed.
There was a moment’s silence, then all those undead rats began to squeal and cry in unison. At the same moment, the tires blew out on every car parked along the other side of the street. A second later, a fire hydrant flew into the sky, powered by a torrent of water that quickly flooded the sidewalk and road.
“Well, that was unexpected—and kinda fucked up,” I muttered, suddenly realizing that the busted fire hydrant posed two very real and troubling challenges to my plan.
For starters, a large portion of Lieutenant Dan’s undead rat swarm was now in danger of being washed into the sewer. Like human zombies, they tended to move in herds when they gathered in large numbers. We’d lucked out by stumbling over their swarm, since it had given me the opportunity to take them all out at once. However, if even one rat got away, it might still bite another animal or human and start a whole new zombie outbreak.
To add insult to injury, the water blowing out of the hydrant had rapidly soaked the zombie rats, making it very, very difficult to incinerate them.
Hmm… then again, maybe I don’t have to.
“Larry, find someplace to hide.”
“Why? They can’t see me, and even if they could I can run faster than—”
“Now, Larry!”
“Okay, sheesh,” he grumbled, cursing me under his breath as his disembodied voice drifted away.
A few rats were already floating toward the sewer drain, carried by the torrent of water shooting out of the decapitated fire hydrant. As my eyes glanced over the errant hydrant that lay in the street, I noticed that it had been cleanly shorn off at the base. Later, I’d puzzle out how I’d been suddenly able to channel so much power into that spell—after I dealt with more immediate concerns.
I turned my attention back to the rats, creating a clear image in my mind of what I intended to do. They may have been soaked and therefore resistant to incineration, but they were by no means immune to heat energy. And as for what I was about to do, well—Maeve’s people would just have to clean it up.
As I readied the firewall spell a second time, I pointed my open palms not at the rats, but at the growing puddle of water that surrounded them. Shouting the trigger words for the spell once more, I concentrated all the heat and flame into the water, forcing the water molecules to absorb the entirety of the energy from the release of magic. Hundreds of gallons of water boiled into steam, cooking every last rat like a mudbug at a cajun crawfish boil.
The stench that resulted was immediate and horrendous. Instantly, the rodents’ skin and flesh deliquesced, creating a putrid, steaming hot stew of dead rat meat, fur, and bones in the middle of one of Austin’s busiest streets. After spending months fighting the undead in the Hellpocalypse, I’d certainly dealt with worse… but not by much. At the rate water was pumping out of that hydrant, it’d soon wash down into the sewers—but the smell would likely last for days.
I shrugged. Not my problem.
Carefully, oh so carefully, I climbed off the back of the truck to search for any rats that might have escaped. After finding none—and retching every few steps—I took a moment to survey the full scope of the carnage. Soon, a giggle bubbled up from that juvenile part of me where my inner ten-year-old remained. Before I knew it, I found myself in a full-on fit of uncontrollable laughter.
After my laughing attack passed, I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture of the slaughter. In a brief flash of inspiration, I quickly texted it to the contact number I had for Maeve’s bootlickers, content in the knowledge that the local faery queen wouldn’t find it half as amusing as I did. Sirens sounded in the distance as I tucked my phone away, signaling that it was time to go. As I contacted the Druid Oak to portal me home, I couldn’t help but crack a smile as I commented on my own work.
“Rats—boiled again.”
28
Even after all this time, portalling back to the Druid Oak was still pretty weird. Shaking off the latent dizziness and general muzzy-headed feeling it gave me, I rubbed my tired eyes and made a beeline for the hot springs.
Until recently I’d been bathing in the cool, clear waters of the Grove’s creek. Then one day Finnegas came along and calmly asked me why I was still taking baths in cold water, when the Grove could easily create a heated, spring-fed pool for me. After kicking myself in the ass a few times, I asked the Grove to take care of it. Since then, I’d been using the damned thing several times a week.
Privacy was rarely an issue inside the Druid Grove, because the Oak only allowed a few select individuals to enter. As the master of the Grove, obviously I was tops on that list. Besides me, only Finnegas and Maureen could come and go as they pleased here; everyone else had to be ferried in by me personally, or brought here by the Oak on request. Since the old man and the half-kelpie were busy getting our affairs together Earthside, I had the place to myself.
Assured I would not be disturbed, I began to strip off my clothes on my way to the springs, starting with kicking off my boots and peeling my nasty socks from my feet. I’d gotten my feet wet while boiling the zombie rats, so the sooner I could get barefoot, th
e better. The boots would be cleaned by the Grove—microbes and all that—but the socks were a lost cause, so I sent a mental message to the Grove to recycle them.
From there, I sniffed my jacket and shirt, only to find that both smelled of boiled zombies. I peeled those off as well, hoping like hell that a good wash in the creek could get the smell out. The t-shirt was easily replaced, but the jacket was an expensive level IIIA bulletproof flight jacket that Maureen had purchased from a supplier in Israel. Apparently she’d ordered it right before I learned to control my ríastrad, and she’d promptly dug it out of storage after my fight with Diarmuid, insisting that I wear it.
I sent a mental image of the dirty jacket, Maureen’s angry face, the jacket clean, and Maureen smiling at the Grove, and received an image of a sunny day in reply. Translation? “No problem, I got this.” I thanked my lucky stars for being a druid with a magical, sentient, pocket dimension at my disposal and began stripping out of my jeans.
“Heya, druid,” a familiar and disembodied voice said from right behind me, just as I was about to free my left leg. Startled, I lost my balance and fell on my ass with my jeans tangled around my ankles.
“Larry? Fucking hell, how’d you get in here?”
“How’d ya’ think? I followed you here, is how.”
“You mean the Oak brought you?” I asked.
“Naw, I just walked right in when you called for your druid Uber.”
“That’s impossible,” I replied. “The Oak doesn’t just let people—or chupacabras—walk in unannounced.”
I could hear the shrug in Larry’s voice as he replied. “Meh, whatever. I’m gonna stay invisible though, if you don’t mind. I get the feeling this place doesn’t like me very much.”
Larry’s presence puzzled the shit out of me, but I decided to chalk it up to the fact that the chupacabra was anything but your typical supernatural creature. According to him, he was a hodgepodge of various natural and magical beings, cooked up in a government lab on Plum Island for who knew what purpose. Larry claimed they’d been trying to create battle Wargs, but from the look of him, I doubted very seriously that was his makers’ intent when they created him.