by M. D. Massey
I wasn’t jealous—much. My man was back home, waiting. I kept thinking about what I was going to do to him when we got back, and it involved a lot of ripped clothing, popped buttons, and messed up sheets.
Something on my chest caught the sun, flashing brightly with reflected light. I quickly pulled my bikini up to hide it, but not before Crowley noticed.
He rolled onto his elbow and lowered his shades. “How do you think he’ll take it?”
“Not at all, because I’m not telling him,” I replied, adjusting to a more comfortable position.
“And you don’t think he’s going to notice that you’re randomly breaking out in scales, all over your body?”
I shrugged. “I’ll just wear long sleeves and cry ‘girl stuff’ if he wants to get busy at an inopportune time.” I sipped on my drink and smirked. “Besides, that boy is putty in my hands. Trust me, he’ll never be the wiser.”
Crowley laid back on his beach mat and towel, adjusting his hat so it shaded his face. “The druid’s not half as dumb as he looks, and not one-tenth as clueless as everyone thinks. So far, he’s outsmarted me, a two-thousand-year-old necromancer, a Norse demigod, and more than one member of the Celtic pantheon. I give it a month before he figures it out.”
I considered his words. “He won’t find out. And I’ll tell him when I’m damned good and ready.”
“So be it,” he replied. “And, Belladonna… did I ever mention how much I love snakes?”
The Vigil
Note to readers: This story also takes place after Underground Druid. Again, there are a lot of spoilers in this short story. If you haven’t read Book 4 in the Colin McCool series yet, you might want to read it before you dive into this tale or Serpent’s Daughter.
27
I was headed to Stewart Island, which was pretty much the southernmost part of inhabited New Zealand, from what I’d gathered. Well, unless you wanted to go to the Auckland Islands—but apparently there wasn’t much there but some rocks and birds.
Hemi’s mother had summoned me, more or less.
Actually, Maureen had gotten the call—a cryptic message from a woman with a Kiwi accent. She’d said that if the druid didn’t bring her son’s body home soon, she’d come to retrieve it herself… and then there’d be hell to pay. Maureen had seemed to think that the reference to hell was literal, and she’d booked me a flight right away, following the instructions the lady had left with her.
The actual flight had “only” been twenty-eight hours, but once I landed in Dunedin, an old Maori man—who described himself as Hemi’s uncle—intercepted me. He shuttled me, along with Hemi’s coffin, onto a rickety old puddle-jumper of an airplane that looked like it’d been built circa World War II. I was pretty sure I saw a faded RAF logo on the fuselage, but decided it was best to avoid asking questions—ignorance being bliss and what-not. It rained like Noah’s holiday the entire way, with thunder, lightning, and turbulence that resulted in a bone-jarring, white-knuckled flight. Somehow, we landed safely in Bluff, a small town on the southernmost tip of New Zealand’s south island.
I asked the old man why he wasn’t flying me all the way to Stewart Island. “Oh, one of my nephews will take you the rest of the way. He’s a fisherman, and his dad pretty much runs things off shore around here. They’ll see you and Hemi safely to his mother, don’t you worry.”
Soon after that, a skinny young Maori who looked to be just past his teen years pulled up in a rusted white Toyota pickup truck. He jumped out and extended a hand in greeting. “You must be my cousin’s best mate. Pleased to meet you, Colin—heard a lot about you. Just call me Eek—everyone does, yeah?”
Eek wore flip-flops, floral board shorts, and a pink wife-beater. He loaded Hemi’s coffin into the back of the truck by himself. Again, I didn’t ask questions. He drove us to a pier where we approached a boat that was little more than a skiff—a sight that certainly gave me pause. As I recalled from the maps I’d looked at, it was a good twenty miles from Bluff to Stewart Island.
“We’re going on the open seas… in that,” I said, pointing at the skiff.
“No worries, mate. It’ll get us there. Trust me, she’s seen a lot more ocean than most sea-liners.” The kid clapped me on the shoulder and began untying the boat. I figured it couldn’t be worse than the plane ride I’d had with his uncle. I shrugged, hopped aboard, and made myself as comfortable as possible.
A few minutes into the boat ride, I drifted off to sleep. I dreamed that Eek had gills in his neck, webbed hands, and fins for ears, and that we were riding on the back of a huge sperm whale. I woke up a few hours later, alone with Hemi’s coffin and my Craneskin Bag on a rickety dock in front of an old shack. It was nearly night, and light from within the shack revealed a woman bustling about the place. I smelled food, and while the smells were unfamiliar, they made my mouth water.
I heard a voice come from the shack. “Ah, he’s awake. Drag my son’s coffin in here, and then you can eat.”
I did as she asked, struggling a great deal more with the coffin than Eek had when he’d loaded it into the truck and boat. Pulling it through the sand was no small feat, but somehow I got it inside, scraping it across the concrete floor of the shack. The single room inside was sparsely furnished, with just a small bed in the corner, a tiny table with two chairs, a counter with a sink and a portable stove, a few cabinets, and some shelves that served as the pantry.
The lady who’d identified herself as Hemi’s mother fussed at the stove. Soon, she hustled me to the table and brought me a plate of food. She’d heaped it with some kind of purple tuber, steamed fish, and a piece of fried bread that looked and smelled delicious.
“Eat,” she commanded. “You have a long night ahead of you.”
I waited for her to sit, then took a seat across from her. “Mrs. Waara…”
“I am not Mrs. Waara. Not by a long shot. Hemi’s father and my husband are two very different men.”
“Then what should I call you?”
She tilted her head with a shrug. “Call me Henny. You’d never get my full name right, anyway. Now, eat—your food is getting cold.”
I dug into the food she’d prepared. The simple meal was filling and satisfying, especially after the long trip I’d had. I’d only nibbled at my meals in flight. The gravity of my task had eaten at me and affected my appetite.
I’d brought my friend’s body home to his mother, and it was my fault that he was dead.
After I finished my meal, Hemi’s mother took my plate and washed it in a basin, then she left it on the counter to dry. I spent some time looking at her while she worked, taking measure of the woman Hemi had held in such awe.
Henny’s face was classically Maori—with high cheekbones, a broad but feminine nose, full lips, perfect white teeth… and a glare that could scratch glass, despite her good looks. Her eyes were brown, and her skin tone was lighter than Hemi’s. I would have described it as almost ashen, if I’d had to assign it a color. She was tall and slender, but not willowy—being strong through the shoulders and hips. That much was plain to see, even in the full-length skirt and oversized t-shirt she wore. Her hair was long, frizzy, and thick, and it draped loosely about her shoulders.
She was barefoot, and her feet, while well-cared for, reflected a lifetime spent walking in touch with the earth. She wore no jewelry, yet she was as regal and composed as anyone I’d ever met or seen. Henny was no common woman, for sure—although I wasn’t quite certain what she was, exactly. I had my suspicions, based on comments Hemi had dropped and what I’d seen since I’d landed in Dunedin.
After she was finished cleaning, she sat across from me again and pulled out a pack of Dunhills, offering me one before lighting up and taking a long, slow drag. She exhaled smoke through her nostrils, making herself look a bit like a dragoness, with her deep-set almond eyes and the lizard-like way she regarded me—almost like a bug she was considering for an evening snack.
Henny pointed her cigarette at me and tsked. “I a
lmost killed you, you know, when Eek left you on the dock.” She took another pull from her cigarette, and the cherry glowed bright-orange in the fading light inside the hut. “But I need you. Eek’s not strong enough to do what has to be done. And Uncle Tay… well… he doesn’t want to get involved.”
She puffed again and nodded. “But you’ll do.”
28
“I’m happy to help out, any way I can. But if you don’t mind me asking, what exactly do you need me to do?”
She set her cigarette in an ashtray on the table and folded her legs under her on the chair. “You took too long to return him to me. So, I have to go home to bring him back.”
I was eager to respond with an apology, and blurted out the rehearsed speech I’d practiced over and over on the trip over. “I’m sorry—deeply sorry—for your loss. Hemi is… was my dearest friend, and…” Suddenly, something she’d said registered. “You said, ‘bring him back.’ I don’t believe I fully understand.”
“Back. From the dead. What’s so hard to understand about that, eh?” She puffed at her cigarette and scratched her cheek. “Wouldn’t have been such a chore, had you brought him here straightaway. If his spirit was still clinging to his body, I might be able to bring him back quick, no problem. But now…”
“You can bring him back?”
“That’s what I said, didn’t I?”
I choked back a sob. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Why would I joke about something like this, the life of my own son?” Tears ran down my cheeks, and she scowled. “Oh, don’t go all soft on me now. Hemi said you were the sentimental type. But I need you hard as stone and sharp as shark’s teeth right now. Understood?”
I nodded and got my emotions under control. “I apologize that I took so long to bring him to you. I was recovering, you see.”
She waved my explanation away and frowned. “Excuses won’t placate a mother’s anger—not when they come from her children, and certainly not those given by their playmates. But what’s done is done. As I said, I have to go home, and that’s a long way from here. And while I’m gone, you’re going to guard Hemi’s body.”
“Okay… but from what?”
“Whiro’s going to come for him, sometime tonight. He wants to eat Hemi’s body, to make himself strong and break out of his prison in the House of Death.”
“Whiro, the god of darkness and evil?” She nodded as she pulled on that cancer stick again. “And just how am I supposed to stop him?”
Henny flicked ash from her cigarette and replied in a haze of exhaled smoke. “Your magic will confuse him, because it’s foreign to him. It should hold him off until I get back.”
“Um, Mrs.—er, Henny—I don’t know if Hemi told you anything about me, but I don’t have much magic.”
She snorted. “He did, and he was right about you—you underestimate your own potential. Trust me when I say you can hold Whiro off until I return.”
I rubbed my forehead and sighed. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but if he’s imprisoned, doesn’t that mean he can’t come for Hemi?”
“Parts of him can—pieces of his power. And, he has many, many who serve him.”
“Great.” She arched an eyebrow at me, and I held my hands up in surrender. “Don’t worry, I’ll do what you ask.” I glanced over to Hemi’s coffin. “I owe him that much.”
She nodded. “And more. Now, let me have a look at my boy.” She stood and walked over to the coffin, removing the straps that held it closed and opening it with little fanfare. “Hmmm… the old tangata nui did a good job of knitting him back together—although I can see where his magic did its work.”
Henny fussed with Hemi’s corpse, touching him here and there. She didn’t seem at all affected by the fact that she was looking at her deceased child.
“Ah, this is interesting.” She crooked a finger at me. “Come here, druid. It seems your benefactor has left something for you.”
I stood and walked over to the coffin, hesitant to see my friend’s body. I still wasn’t good with his death, even after learning there was a chance to bring him back. But when I brought my eyes up to look at him, he looked peaceful, like he was just resting. It was as though he might wake up any minute.
Henny leaned over him and reached into his chest. Not above, but into—as in, her hand went incorporeal and through his breastbone. She dug around inside and pulled something out, something misty and not altogether solid. It was dull grey, but it glowed bright silver by the time she pulled it completely free from Hemi’s body.
“Here, pākehā, you’re going to need this.” She slapped her hand against my chest, and fire filled my body. Then, I passed out.
“You sure do sleep a lot.” Henny closed the lid on the coffin just as I woke on the floor of the shack. I sat up and took stock of my current condition. “Feel better?” she asked.
Surprisingly, I did. Much, much better. “What was that?”
She smirked. “Looks like the old giant wants you to experience what it’ll be like, once you come into your full power. That’s how it always works, you know, with deities. We tease you with a taste of power, then you dance to the songs we sing.”
“Yes, I’m familiar with the custom… Great Woman of the Night.”
Henny sniffed as she regarded me with hooded eyes. “Figured it out, did you? You’re not as dumb as you look.”
“I try my best to avoid being just another pretty face.”
She squatted and grabbed me by the chin, turning my head left and right as she examined me. “Eh, so maybe you’re not. It’s just as well. You’ll need your wits about you when Whiro shows up.” She stood and placed her hands on her hips. “Well, are you just going to sit there? You need to get ready. As soon as I leave, they’re going to come.”
I pulled myself to my feet. “Right… so, I guess wards would be the first order of the day?”
She hissed at me and glowered. “How am I supposed to know how your magic works? Just get it done, and don’t let them take my boy. Because if you do, I will kill you… no matter how much my son likes you.”
Henny was serious. As the Maori goddess of night and death, I knew she could easily end my existence. I gulped and nodded. “Consider it done.”
29
Threats and decrees delivered, Henny disappeared in a whirlwind of shadows—one that apparently served as a portal to wherever she needed to go.
“Crowley would love to meet you,” I mumbled as she vanished into a cloud of darkness and mist.
Presumably she’d gone to the underworld, or what served as such for the Maori pantheon. Why she couldn’t just summon her own son’s spirit from the place she ruled was a mystery, and I hadn’t thought to ask her about it. She’d made it sound as though it was a long journey—and since she didn’t seem to care for me much, I hadn’t asked questions.
Deities were weird, in my experience. They were mortal in that they could be killed, but immortal in the sense that they’d always come back eventually. Some demigods were the same way, and apparently Hemi was one of them. Thus far, I’d deduced that his mother was one of the more powerful members of the Maori pantheon—and I suspected his father was human.
Hine-nui-te-pō had been married to her father, Tāne, before she knew him as such. According to the legends I’d read, she’d rejected the incestuous creep and ran away to the underworld. There, she’d taken up residence as the ruling deity in order to keep Tāne at bay. Thus, it followed that Tāne was not Hemi’s father. It also followed that, although Tāne was Whiro’s immortal enemy, he would not intervene on Hemi’s behalf.
That meant I was on my own here.
I started with what I knew—that Whiro was the embodiment of darkness, sickness, and evil. I’d read that he commanded evil spirits, and Henny had said he had followers, which I assumed would be humans who worshipped him. So, I’d need to be ready to repel spirit-based creatures, and to fight off mortals who’d most certainly try to steal Hemi’s body for their master.
The floor of the hut was concrete, a fact for which I was grateful, because creating wards in dirt, sand, or on a wood plank floor would have been problematic. I grabbed some permanent markers from my Craneskin Bag and warded the place completely, certain to create an iron-clad circle of magical protection around Hemi’s casket. I also wrote wards into the door frame, threshold, and lintel, around the windows, and even into the walls. I hoped like hell that Hemi’s mom wouldn’t be pissed that I’d written all over her house. But I figured she could afford to buy another one, being a powerful Maori deity and all.
When I activated the wards, I noticed something peculiar. Henny had hinted that the Dagda had wanted to give me a taste of my full potential. I’d never considered myself to have any particular aptitude for magic, but then again, I’d never really applied myself. Over the previous weeks, I’d been studying with Finnegas in earnest—partially because I wanted to learn healing magic, to prevent what had happened to Hemi from happening to anyone else I cared about.
But I was also studying with him because I knew I’d royally fucked myself when I’d double-crossed Maeve. Eventually, that bill would come due. If I wasn’t prepared for it, I’d be a goner. So, after regaining my strength I’d spent hours every day reading, taking lessons from the old man, and practicing new and improved spells I’d learned.
That still wasn’t enough to cause the effects I felt when I activated my wards. For expediency I’d linked them all, so I’d only have to activate them once. Activating a ward took time, so by setting them up this way it significantly cut down on the amount of prep time I needed. The only downside was that I’d have zero protection until I was completely finished—but it was a calculated risk.