by M. D. Massey
“Right. Besides being skin-flints they’re uppity bastards, so they lay glamours on top of everything to make it all look sparkly and new. But without access to Underhill?” He made two fists and opened his hands wide, mimicking an explosion. “Poof! All that magic went up in smoke. Serves them right.”
“Well, that clears up one mystery. Now, about what you told Maeve—“
“The part about you being rígfénnid of the fianna, or the part about you being a plenipotentiary of druidkind, or the part about you being a lord in Maeve’s court?”
“All of it, actually,” I said in a soft voice.
Finnegas scratched his cheek. “All true. Of course, there’s only one fiann right now, and it consists of just one member.”
“Me, I take it.”
“Correct. However, you have the right to take on other members, to recruit and build your fiann’s strength as you see fit.”
I blinked a couple of times, unsure why I might want to build a small army. “Um, good to know, I think. What about the other stuff?”
“You’re one of only two members of our order. Well, three, but the Dark Druid doesn’t count. Anyway, that makes you second in command, and that affords you privileges that an apprentice wouldn’t normally have.”
“Such as…?”
Finnegas coughed in his hand, then he looked at his cigarette and tossed it out the window. “Such as being a representative of our kind—an ambassador, if you will. But it’s more than that. When The Dagda founded our order, his intent was to even the scales between the supernatural races and mankind.”
“Humankind,” I interjected.
Finnegas frowned. “That’s what I said, didn’t I? Stop interrupting.”
As adaptable as the old man was, I doubted I’d ever get him to be politically correct. I’d learned to pick my battles where he was concerned, so I let him continue.
“Now, the Dagda was a crafty old codger, and he knew that humans wouldn’t like it if a bunch of magic-wielding forest rangers suddenly started messing around in their business. So, he taught us to present ourselves as advisors to the Celtic peoples. And where they went, we went, sometimes giving counsel, sometimes acting as protectors, and at other times, meting out justice when and where necessary. Some of us became advisers to kings, a dangerous business, while others were content to lurk behind the scenes, only making our presence known when it was absolutely necessary.”
“Finn, what happened to the druids? If you were so powerful, how did your numbers dwindle over the centuries?”
“Rome had a lot to do with it, and as faith in the old gods faded, so did we. But it mostly had to do with the fae. When the majority of them retreated to Underhill, we thought we were no longer needed. How wrong we were.”
“Why did you choose to stick around—until now, I mean?”
Finn clucked his tongue. “Because I’m an idiot, that’s why.” I raised an eyebrow, eliciting a chuckle from the old man. “Oh, don’t be so sensitive. You know very well it’s because I’d committed to preserving the MacCumhaill line. Being a Seer isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Visions, prophecies, omens—pfah!”
“I don’t suppose you care to expand on that topic?” I waited for him to elaborate, but he remained tight-lipped. “Okay, next question. Am I really a lord in Maeve’s court?”
Finnegas wiped his hands on his jeans. “Sort of. She’d have to confer the title, rights, and privileges to make it official, but you do qualify. Trust me, though, that’s the last thing you want, to be caught up in the high fae’s court intrigues and whatnot. Which brings me to the point of this discussion…”
“Which is? I still don’t fully understand what just happened.”
“What just happened is, I freed you from Maeve’s meddling. Although when you opened your trap, I was almost sure you were going to obligate yourself to her again. But the good news is you didn’t. The better news is that, whether by accident or instinct, you outsmarted her with this last gig she had you do.”
I shrugged. “News to me. I don’t suppose it occurred to you to mention this before we went to see Maeve?”
“I’d been waiting for the right moment to throw it in her face, but the time was never right. Since you’d been avoiding her, I didn’t feel the need to bring it up. And if I had told you beforehand, you’d have just gotten cocky and opened your mouth at the wrong moment. Maeve would’ve manipulated you into another deal, and you’d be right back where you were before.”
“I wouldn’t—”
Finnegas laughed. “Really? And have you forgotten every other time you’ve put your foot in your mouth?”
“Point taken,” I replied, tapping the steering wheel nervously. All this excitement and intrigue was starting to make me anxious. “One last question… how did you know the exact words I used when I made that deal with Maeve?”
Finn’s face split in a Cheshire grin. “I’m the Seer, remember? Seeing is what I do.” He poked a finger in my chest. “And if there’s one thing you should take away from this entire sordid affair, it’s that magic isn’t what made the druids feared by all the other races and factions.”
“It isn’t?”
“Not at all. What made them fear us was our knowledge, and that we were cleverer than everyone else at using it to our advantage. Kind of like your modern attorneys, except we weren’t such sodding pricks.”
“Noted.” My fingers beat a rhythm on the steering wheel as I considered all he’d said. “Hey, Finnegas?”
“Yes?”
“You think Ed would let me get a work shirt with ‘Lord McCool’ stitched on the name tag?”
“I knew I shouldn’t have said that in front of you,” Finnegas replied, cranking the stereo up. As Hüsker Dü’s “Zen Arcade” blared from the truck’s tinny speakers, I wondered if things would really ever be over between Maeve and me. Somehow, I doubted it.
The next day, I got up early to finish everything Ed needed me to do around the yard. After nuking a couple of burritos and washing them down with an energy drink, I washed up and changed into a clean set of jeans and one of my Kevlar motorcycle jackets. Then I gathered my gear, and with a forlorn look at the Gremlin, borrowed the keys for the yard truck from Ed and headed out to Bastrop.
There were a couple of things that bothered me about what we’d learned at Carver’s compound. One was that we hadn’t learned a damned thing, and the second was that Carver was no technomancer. The way Elmo had been killed reeked of technomancy, which meant that Carver had only been there to slow the ogre down.
Which also meant that Elmo’s killer was still out there.
Just to be safe, I parked in the same spot I had the last time when I got the Carver’s place and hoofed it through the woods toward the compound. Staying low, I mounted a rise that brought the compound into view. I crouched behind a tree, hidden by undergrowth as I watched and waited patiently for any sign of movement.
Fifteen minutes later, all I saw were squirrels and some bubbles in the pond. Probably turtles, I thought. Chicken turtles and red-eared sliders were found everywhere near slow-moving creeks, ponds, and bogs in Central Texas. Nevertheless, I drew my Glock before creeping down to the compound.
On my approach to the front of the residence, I noted that everything looked as it had when I’d first seen the place. Bullet holes had been patched up, broken windows had been replaced, the garage door had been repaired, and even the wrecked and burned vehicle was now missing. In fact, I couldn’t even tell where it had crashed. Circle clean-up teams were incredibly thorough, their job being to erase all evidence of a mage-hunter team’s presence.
I rounded the pond on the west side, which was farthest away from the driveway. Taking my time and sticking close to the trees, I scurried toward the fence line on that side, sweeping the area ahead with the muzzle of my weapon. As I cleared the pond and came in full view of the buildings and central courtyard, I paused near the fence one last time.
Not a single sign of life. Outst
anding.
I holstered my pistol and reached into the Bag, grabbing a heavy-duty pair of ratcheting wire cutters. They were loud, but they’d cut through the chainlink fence like a hot knife through butter. I snagged a piece of the fence in the cutter’s jaws and went to work, wincing at the noise. Since I wanted to be in and out of here quickly, I was willing to sacrifice stealth for speed.
And that was my first mistake.
I heard a muffled sucking noise behind me, followed by a disturbance in the surface of the pond. Just a few ripples, nothing to be alarmed by, but I stopped what I was doing just the same. A few bubbles surfaced again, nothing more, so I chalked it up to a fish surfacing, or maybe a big alligator turtle that had taken up residence in the murky waters.
I went back to work on the fence, and that’s when it surged out of the water and grabbed me.
The whole thing happened so fast, I really didn’t understand what was going on when it pulled me under. One minute I was up on the bank of the pond cutting through the fence, and the next I was being pulled deep into the muddy waters. Something large and reptilian had latched on to my left shoulder and arm, and although its teeth hadn’t cut through my Kevlar jacket, I was certain that was only a matter of time.
I’d managed to hold my breath when I was grabbed, but I knew that fighting amphibious creatures under water was always a losing proposition. Getting oxygen was my first priority, and getting back on dry land was next on my agenda. To do that, I had to make this thing release me.
I pulled my pistol and craned my neck to get a good look at it. The thing looked something like a cross between a salamander and a chameleon—or at least its head did. But unlike those two species, it had huge, curving horns coming out of its forehead. One large eye with a vertical pupil regarded me, then the creature proceeded to shake me underwater like a dog with a bone.
I nearly lost my grip on the pistol, but managed to hang on to it by holding it close to my body. My lungs were burning and my shoulder was being crushed, but as long as the thing thought I still had some fight left in me, I knew it’d keep trying to drown me. Instead of fighting I went limp and closed my eyes, hoping it would be enough to make the creature think I was unconscious.
Seconds later, the beast stopped thrashing me back and forth, and when it did I wasted no time in taking action. I opened my eyes and slammed the barrel of the Glock into its eye, pulling the trigger once, twice, three times. The gun had to be fired at point-blank range, else the rounds would be slowed by the water, losing all penetrating force before making contact.
By the third trigger pull, the thing roared and expelled me from its jaws. As soon as I was free I headed straight for sunlight above, gasping for breath. Then I swam like Phelps for the shore, which was only fifteen feet or so away. I was halfway there when I felt something snag my leg. This time, it broke the skin through my jeans.
I barely had time to scream before it started pulling me under again. Reflexively, I shoved the gun toward my leg until the muzzle hit something solid, then I fired it again twice. The beast held on, so I changed position and proceeded to empty the magazine. Six rounds later, I was free. I swam until I hit the shallows, then I half ran, half-dragged myself up onto the shore.
My leg was bleeding in several places, but how badly I wouldn’t know until I exposed the wounds. My left shoulder and arm were still functional, but it felt like something had torn inside my shoulder joint. Ignoring my injuries, I got to my feet and scrambled up the bank and away from the fence, far enough from the shore so that thing couldn’t lunge up and pull me back under.
I holstered the pistol, not even bothering to change out the magazine. A nine-millimeter pistol wasn’t going to stop something this large. In fact, I doubted that it would have even had an effect if I hadn’t hit the monster from point-blank range. I reached into my Bag to grab my sword as I slowly backed away from the pond.
“Come on, you overgrown gecko—stop fucking around so we can get this over with.” I saw a trail of bubbles hit the surface of the still churning water, and tracked them as they got closer to shore. “That’s it, come to daddy.”
If you’ve ever seen a crocodile hunting prey on television, that’s exactly how this thing moved when it lunged out of the water at me. One second it was submerged, and the next it was on shore coming after me. And man, was it ugly.
The thing was at least fifteen feet from nose to tip, bluish-green, scaled, heavily muscled, and it had six legs instead of four. Now that it was out of the water, it looked more like a tegu lizard than anything else, in form if not in color. Those long horns on its head appeared to be more for protection than for fighting, since they were angled too far back to be used for much else. Two rows of ridges lined its back, trailing down to a long skinny tail I suspected might be used to grasp tree limbs.
Or its prey.
I made this entire assessment in a split-second as I scrambled back into the woods. The weird salamander beast roared as it slithered and crawled up the bank after me. I had wounded it, however, and the loss of its eye had slowed it considerably—or at least made it a bit warier of me. Rather than closing the gap completely it slowed about ten feet from me, then began to circle to my left flank.
“Oh, hell no. You are not getting me back in the water.” Realizing what it was attempting to do, I waited until its back was to the fence.
Then, I charged it.
I don’t think the beast had ever faced anything so aggressive before, because rather than attacking or retreating, it froze as I attacked. Rather than fight it face on, I cut to the right at the last minute so I could take advantage of its blinded left eye.
I was rearing back for a swing when I felt something snag my left ankle. Before I had time to react I was yanked off my feet, landing hard on the on the forest floor beneath me. Wasting no time, the thing began to pull me toward the pond again, scuttling with its six stubby legs as it dragged me behind with its skinny prehensile tail. The beast roared to announce its impending triumph, assured of victory once it had me underwater once more.
“Hell no,” I spat as righteous anger flowed through me. As my emotions flared, the sword answered in kind, and I rolled up to raise the burning blade high. I brought the flaming tip down on the creature’s tail just past my foot, slicing it cleanly. The giant lizard cried in pain and anger, and it turned on me with murder in its one remaining eye.
I rolled to my feet, kicking the tip of its tail from my leg as I stood. The creature circled me again slowly, hissing and flicking its tongue as we danced around each other.
“Yeah, you really want to eat me now, don’t you? Fine, here I am, big boy. Come get your supper.”
The giant lizard’s throat rumbled with a growl that shook the trees nearby, and it sprinted right at me as fast as those six stubby legs could carry it. I stood my ground, knowing that I needed to end this before my adrenaline wore off and the shock of my injuries kicked in.
Five yards away.
Four yards.
Three yards.
Now.
The creature leapt straight at me, mouth gaping wide. I knew it intended to snatch me in its jaws, bowl me over, and strangle me with what remained of its tail, killing me in one fell swoop.
Not today, Geico.
Once it was airborne and committed to its attack, I side-stepped and pivoted, bringing the flaming sword down on its neck as it passed. As the blade landed, the lizard’s head tumbled away from its body. Although it squirmed and thrashed its tail after landing, I was certain it was dead.
Just to be sure, I walked up to the corpse and plunged the burning blade up to the hilt, where I thought its heart would be. I twisted it around, listening to the lizard’s flesh sizzle as the sword did its work. Then, I walked over to the head to do the same.
As I kicked the head upright, I noticed something shiny, buried between the thing’s horns. “What the fuck?” I mumbled, leaning in to get a closer look.
Implanted in a spot where one of the creat
ure’s scales had been removed was a small, shiny device, machined from metal and obviously a new construct. It was roughly diamond-shaped, about one-half inch thick and no more than three inches across. Its foremost corner had a tiny camera lens with a small, flashing red light beside it.
18
They were watching me the whole time—probably controlling this thing as well. Now, I was pissed. It was obvious that the killer or killers had left their pet behind, just in case I decided to come back here and look for more clues. I grabbed the severed head by the horns, turning it so I could look directly in the camera.
“Listen, asshole—I’m going to find you, and when I do I intend to bring your entire world crashing down around you. That’s a fucking promise.”
The light blinked for a few more seconds, then it stopped. I raised my sword to smash the thing to bits with the pommel, then I thought better of it. Instead, I put the sword away and pulled out my hunting knife, which I used to cut and pry the device from the creature’s head. Once done I wiped my knife clean, then wrapped the device in a rag and tossed it inside my Craneskin Bag.
“Hah! Try getting a signal from an alternate dimension, bitch.”
I slung my bag over my shoulder, replaced the magazine in my pistol, and headed toward the house. As expected, everything inside the home was undamaged and undisturbed, as if nothing untoward had ever happened on the premises. There were no blood stains, no bullet holes, and zero evidence any act of violence had ever been committed here.
The good thing about having a Circle team clean the place up was that they were instructed to leave everything intact. Sure, they’d sweep the place for magical artifacts, because no self-respecting secret cabal would overlook an opportunity to increase its power. But otherwise, they’d touch only what was necessary to remove evidence of the Circle’s presence, and that was all.
That meant there was a high likelihood of finding a clue to lead me to Carver’s employer. I knew from experience that criminals always left evidence of their crimes in their homes—people who looked for an easy payday were generally lazy, stupid, and often egotistical enough to take trophies and souvenirs. But as I searched Carver’s place up one side and down the other, damned if I could find a single scrap or token to reveal who’d hired the hunter to kill Elmo.