by M. D. Massey
Just when I thought I couldn’t take any more, the scene faded into darkness. The sword was still in my hand, burning a molten scar into the concrete floor. It was dangerously close to damaging the circle of protection I’d drawn around the coffin. I flipped it around and thrust the tip in the ground, out of the way, keeping a grip on it so it would stay lit. Just then, I needed the comfort of firelight. Without it, I feared I might go mad.
“I know what you’re doing. It won’t work,” I whispered.
“That remains to be seen,” Whiro’s voice teased.
The shadow things swirled and reformed again, and another scene appeared around me. I was back in the cavern, trying desperately to save Belladonna’s life. Blood seeped out from around my fingers, and nothing I did could staunch the flow. What remained of her life spread out in a warm pool of red around us, soaking into the dust and rock of the cavern floor.
Her heart stopped, and the scene reset.
Next, I was fighting off the dead, battling in vain to keep them from dragging her away from me. Rotting hands and fingers grabbed at her from everywhere. I shot, kicked, cut, and clawed at them, breaking and severing limbs—only to find that two more took the place of each one I dislodged.
Belladonna’s face was a mask of absolute revulsion and fear. “Don’t let them take me,” she whispered. A ghoul lapped at her wound, and I shot it in the head. Dead, flaccid arms and hands grabbed me from behind, pulling me away from Bells and preventing me from saving her. I held onto her hand as long as possible, but she slipped from my grasp. Her eyes accused me as she was consumed alive, just a few feet away from where I watched helplessly.
Thousands of times I experienced the pain of letting her die, and each time it drove a knife into my heart. But somewhere inside that madness and chaos, I remembered that she hadn’t died. We’d saved her—me, the trolls, and Finnegas.
And I laughed because I knew that somewhere, somehow, Belladonna was alive and well. I came back to reality immediately, draped across Hemi’s coffin with a death grip on the sword’s hilt.
“Told you it wouldn’t work,” I croaked.
“There’s more pain there to tap,” the evil one replied. “A deeper wound, one that’s pure and true in all its festering misery. Let’s reopen that one, shall we?”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I whispered. Game fucking on, bitch.
33
I knew where Whiro would take me next—to the cave where Jesse and I had faced the Caoranach. It was the place where I’d first suffered my ríastrad, my so-called “warp-spasm.” This was the place where I’d killed Jesse in a mindless rage that had been triggered by the demon’s overwhelming attack and a very close brush with death. How many times had I wished it had been me who had died, and Jesse who had lived?
Every detail was as clear and real as the day it had happened. The damp cool of the cave, the acrid smell of guano and musky scent of dragon nearby, Jesse’s perfume and her soft, warm lips on mine just before we entered the cave. The rough feel of the cave wall as I paused, leaning on the rock as I strained my senses, because something just was not right.
There were bones strewn about, both human and animal—some old and dry, while others still had bits and pieces of rotting flesh attached. There was a presence there, of something old that was better left undisturbed. But we ignored it, because our intelligence had said that the Caoranach had only recently physically reincorporated, after having been slain many centuries earlier by Saint Patrick—who’d apparently gotten cozy with my ancestor Oisín and gotten wise to the world beneath.
At any rate, we were expecting a cakewalk. What we got was a massacre.
I experienced the quiet as we crept deeper into the cave, sensed the gnawing sense of anxiety the farther we went, and saw the looming shadow of the demonic dragoness as eighty feet of scales, teeth, and talons cut off our only path of escape. I felt her claws pierce my abdomen as she pinned me to the floor of the cavern, and smelled her fetid breath as it caressed my face, warm and scented of death and decay.
Somewhere nearby, a foreign sensation brushed the far reaches of my awareness. Whiro was living the memory with me. Was that… lust? Admiration? Respect? I couldn’t be sure, but he was gushing over the Caoranach, that was for sure—and it was enough to remind me why he was making a mistake by bringing me here, to relive this memory.
The demon’s claws raked my body and face, and hot blood splashed the floor and walls of the cave. She trampled me, once, twice, three times, with enough force to break my spine—but not enough to kill me. Yet. She wanted to save me, and make me watch while she tortured and killed Jesse.
One swat from her talons and my love was tossed against the wall with a sickening crunch. She fell to the floor, blessedly senseless. I screamed and raged as I attempted to drag myself along the floor using my arms alone, because my legs weren’t responding to my brain’s demands. Inch by inch I dragged myself along, all the while witnessing the Caoranach savage Jesse, feeling my life seep out onto the cavern floor beneath me.
The dragoness used her talons like scalpels, slicing away bits and pieces of the love of my life, then tossing them into the air to snap them up in her massive jaws. How she could even derive any gustatory pleasure from such a minuscule piece of flesh was beyond me—but I realized she fed on pain and terror, not flesh and blood.
I heard Whiro’s coughing cackle come from somewhere close by. He was as yet unaware of what was about to happen.
“Man, but you are so fucked,” I whispered.
That’s when the dam inside me broke, and my Hyde-side was loosed from his cage. I felt the transformation come over me, and in this instance, it wasn’t going to happen in half measures. This time, in this place, it was happening for real.
I didn’t even fight it. Instead, I just let my other side take over. But before I gave up control completely, I “called” for Balor’s Eye, inviting it to the party. Then, figuratively speaking, I sat back and enjoyed the show.
That other side of me emerged as he always did, in a near-instantaneous malformation of flesh and bone that transformed me into something large, misshapen, and not altogether human. Fomorians were the bane of the ancient Celtic world, the boogeymen who lived under the bed, the terrors that stalked the night. For all their power and magic, even the Tuatha Dé Danann feared them.
Between the magic that the Dagda had temporarily imbued me with, and the Fomorian shifter magic of my ríastrad, I had a feeling Whiro was in for quite a shock. As my Hyde-side took over, and as my body shifted into a massive, nine-foot-tall cross between Quasimodo and King Kong, the imagery around us faded away and the cabin came back into focus around us.
Don’t break the building, I thought, hoping he’d hear me and listen. Thankfully, he must have heard, because instead of busting down a wall we tore out the front door and ran into the rainforest outside the hut. All around us, shadows blanketed the trees and vegetation in a manner that was highly unnatural and altogether wrong.
Was Whiro hiding while he made his escape?
Somewhere deeper inland, we sensed a presence retreating under the cover of night. I’d been right! Whiro didn’t know precisely what he’d set loose, but one thing was clear: he didn’t want any part of it.
My alter-ego swiveled his head in the direction of the fleeing figure, and spoke a single word. “Burn.”
It would be my pleasure, the Eye replied.
34
Hours later, just as the first rays of dawn crept up to the east where the ocean met the sky, I sat outside the hut sipping L&P and contemplating the mess we’d made of the forest around me. The Eye’s magic had vaporized great swaths of trees and vegetation in multiple directions. And where the rainforest hadn’t been vaporized, tree trunks had been knocked over, the ground had been gouged and disturbed in every imaginable way, and small bits of liquid night pooled here and there like blood.
Because that’s what it was.
I sensed a portal opening nearby,
and heard footsteps approach. I stood, just in case it wasn’t a friendly face approaching. Henny walked around the corner of the hut, but instead of a glare, she wore a smile across that stern face of hers. She carried a gourd wrapped in a woven net, and held one hand tightly around the neck, her thumb on the wooden stopper.
“I see you upheld your debt to my son.” She walked up to me, getting well inside my personal space, and grabbed me by the shirt collar. At first, I thought she was going to kiss me, but instead she touched her forehead and nose with mine. She held me there for a moment with her eyes closed, so I closed my eyes and waited. Besides, even if I’d wanted to break free I couldn’t have. She was just that strong.
After several uncomfortable moments, she released me and stepped back. “Now, tell me of all you have seen and done while protecting my son. He will want to know these things when he awakens.”
“Um… don’t you want to… you know… replace his spirit?”
She laughed, and while it was a pleasant sound, it had a fierceness to it that threw me off. “Oh, that’s already been done. It seems most of the magic the old giant left for you has been spent, so it was nothing to bypass your spells and send my son’s spirit back where it belongs.”
I pointed at the gourd. “If Hemi’s… um… back to his old self—then what’s in the bottle?”
She snorted as her mouth curled into a smirk. “This? It’s herbal tea, to help Hemi recover. Now, tell me what happened, and leave nothing out.”
So I did, doing my best to avoid embellishing anything out of respect. Besides that, I wasn’t all that proud of what I’d done. Not that Whiro hadn’t had it coming—but if I’d been looking out for Hemi, he never would have died in the first place. I put that thought out of my mind while I related the night’s events, and when I was done, Henny pursed her lips and nodded.
“Not bad, pākehā, not bad. Sounds like you sussed him out good. I doubt he’ll show his face for a few decades, at least.” She paused and scratched her chin. “But a word of caution—when he does, he’ll remember the hiding you gave him. He’ll want revenge.”
I sighed. “It’s not a normal week if I don’t have some deity or immortal pissed at me.”
She frowned, but the twinkle in her eye told me she wasn’t angry. “Yes, Hemi told me how you like to stir things up.”
I glanced back at the hut. “Is he awake?”
“Nah. He’ll need some time to recover, so you won’t be seeing him for a while. But you did your duty, and have earned the right to call my son your friend.”
I nodded, acknowledging the compliment without looking like I was feeling my oats. “Henny, if you don’t mind me asking—why’d you leave me to guard his body? Why not call one of the… Hemi’s other family members instead?”
“I had intended to recruit some help for you. But once I saw the magic the old giant had left you, I knew you could handle it without any assistance. Besides that, Hemi tells me you’re rudderless—adrift in your own indecision and self-doubt. You needed to experience what real power feels like—what your power feels like—to give you something to strive for, a purpose.”
I looked off into the distance. “I’ve just had to deal with a lot of loss, is all. It can shake a person’s confidence.”
“Everybody deals with loss, druid. In many ways, how a person handles it determines their measure.”
“I guess I haven’t always handled it well.”
“Nonsense. From what my Hemi tells me, you’ve handled it better than most.”
I looked away, embarrassed by the praise.
“Hmph. Despite that smart-assed façade, you do have some humility. Maybe a little too much, if you don’t mind me saying.” I arched an eyebrow, and she smiled.
“He talks about you often, you know. He looks up to you—but more than that, he believes in you. Hemi was raised around the atua, and he knows a power when he sees it. Look what he sacrificed, all because he believes in you. Isn’t that enough to make you want to quit messing about and do something with your life?”
I sat up and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Point taken. And believe me, I’m working on it.”
She narrowed her eyes and gave me a stare that could melt ice. “Well, work faster. If you get my son killed again, I’ll feed you to Whiro.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Now, come inside and let me cook you something to eat before I portal you back to Texas.” She poked me in the ribs, a little harder than was comfortable. “You are way too skinny. If we’re going to find you a nice Maori girl, we need to fatten you up.”
I realized I’d rather face Whiro again than disappoint Hemi’s mom, so I followed her to the front door of the hut. She stopped abruptly at the door, and I almost ran into her backside as I skidded to a halt. Henny stood there gazing around the room, tapping her foot as she took in the damage.
“The bullet holes, I can understand… but if that’s permanent marker, young man, we’re going to have a serious talk.”
Gulp.
This concludes Blood Circus, but you can read more adventures featuring Colin, Belladonna, and Hemi in the Colin McCool Paranormal Suspense series, available on Amazon. Click here to check the series out now!
And, be sure to read Druid Blood and Blood Scent, two additional novellas that serve as prequels to the Junkyard Druid series of novels!