by M. D. Massey
“So, if we don’t do something to prevent it, we’re facing a nuclear war, a mass invasion of the undead, and the near-extinction of the human race.”
Click shrugged. “Ye saw it wit’ yer own eyes. Do ye really want ta curse those poor little lads ta such a wretched and hopeless future?”
“Wait a minute, I was there. Are you saying it hasn’t happened for them yet? That everything that I saw and experienced over the last six months went ‘poof’—up in smoke when you pulled me back to this timeline?”
The immortal mage shook his head. “Not exactly, no. ’Twas real ta you though, aye? Well, that’s the thing about the Twisted Paths, lad. Once ye experience a timeline, it becomes real ta ye, personally. Sure, in this timeline those lads are still wettin’ their beds and dreamin’ o’ getting video game consoles fer Christmas. But in that other timeline, well—that really happened. Or, it is happening. And it will happen ta everyone ya’ care about if we don’t prevent it.”
“You’re making my heart ache and my head hurt, Gwydion.”
“I know, lad. ’Twas kind of the whole point of the exercise.” He looked around nervously, dropping his voice to a whisper. “And I’d be pleased if’n ya’ didn’t be callin’ me that.”
I nodded, promising myself that I’d find out who was after him and why. It never hurt to have leverage over a minor god. “Click, I can’t help but think I have to get back to them. That Anna, Mickey, and the boys are going to be toast in that timeline without me there to help them survive.”
A sly smile split Click’s face. “Well now, that’s the right lush thing about time magic, isn’t it? O’ course, I kin take ye back, anytime I please. But what if I told ye there was a way for us ta’ jump the line with yer magic studies? Ya’ know, ta help ye better deal with the enemies that’re ta come?”
I sat down on a low pile of old tires. “I don’t follow.”
“Think, lad, think! Have ye noticed anything about the time ya’ spend inside that great green pocket dimension ya’ have over yonder?”
“You mean when I visit the druid grove? I hadn’t thought about it.”
Click scrunched his face up, giving me a look like I was the slowest kid in the class. “Have ye noticed that when ye enter said grove, ye come out at nearly the same time ye entered?”
“Honestly, I try to avoid spending much time in there at all. I can’t remember a single occasion when I spent more than thirty minutes inside the grove.”
“Then listen close, lad. Time doesn’t pass inside the grove like it does out here. The Dagda designed the groves in that manner when he created them, in order ta allow the druids ta delve deep into their studies, advancing decades in knowledge and wisdom whilst time virtually stood still here on Earth. Just think about how much yer skills advanced in the short time ye were away in that apocalyptic hell. Now, what if ye could do that multiple times?”
I clutched the sides of my head. “Shit! You mean all this time, I could’ve been using the grove to plan, study, heal—hell, to catch up on sleep—in a virtual chronological limbo, completely separate and detached from the flow of time on Earth?”
Click winked. “Give the lad a cookie.”
“I am so going to give the Dagda a piece of my mind the next time I see him,” I growled.
A loud rumbling erupted on the other side of the junkyard, and the oak tree’s limbs began to shake and sway in the distance.
“An’ that would be me cue ta leave,” Click said.
“Wait a second—I have so many questions! Like, why can’t we just bring Anna, Mickey, and the kids back here? And why can’t we just send me back down our own timeline once the apocalypse starts, so I can tell myself how to fix it or who to kill to stop it?”
“She’ll be free soon.” Click gave a nervous backward glance toward the druid oak, then looked at me and sighed. “Look here, lad, and pay attention. Time travel is not ta be taken lightly, and there are consequences ta mucking around with timelines. Especially when yer meeting yer own self in another timeline. Things are sure ta go pear shaped if that happens. Which is why I can’t bring those poor folks here, ’n why you can’t go warnin’ your future or former selves o’ whatever trouble might be comin’ down the pike.”
“But you sent me to the future!”
“Yes, but ’twas a future without you in it.” Click’s eyes softened as continued in hushed tones. “Ah, I see it in yer eyes—someone told ya’, they did. That’s the only reason I could send ye there, ’tis.”
“And why you chose me to help you fix this mess.”
Click tapped the side of his nose. “Precisely, lad. I needed someone capable and invested, and yer it.” A feral, high-pitched scream erupted from the general direction of the oak tree, causing Click to start slightly. “Aye, but she’s a handful now, ain’t she? Best be speaking to that druid friend o’ yours, real soon. Now, I’m off, but be advised that we won’t be able ta use yer grove for yer chronomancy lessons, fer obvious reasons. So, we’ll need ta make other arrangements.”
“What ‘other arrangements,’ Click?”
“All in good time, me lad, all in good time. Oh, and I almost fergot ta’ mention—don’t go tellin’ a soul about yer little sojourn down the Twisted Paths. Fer one, certain powers that be frown on time travel, and second, ye might break the timeline if ye do.”
“Wait—what?”
“Never ye mind, lad, it’ll all work out fine. I’ll be in touch.”
And with that, Click disappeared. The ruckus in the junkyard continued, with Jesse ranting and raving about tearing “little gods” limb from limb. Roscoe and Rufus, our half-Pitbull, half-Doberman guard dogs, both hid behind my legs, nudging my hands and whining. The two were normally fearless, but they instinctively knew they were no match for Jesse’s temper.
“Relax, fellas. I’m about to go deal with her.” Rufus let out one last low whine, then lay down on his stomach, covering his eyes with his paws. Roscoe, on the other hand, hid underneath a broken-down van. “Sure, leave me to deal with her alone,” I muttered as I headed for the druid oak.
Jesse couldn’t stray very far from the oak, and until today I’d only seen her on this side when she was in contact with the tree. So, for her to appear even a few feet away from the source of her power was disconcerting, to say the least. I suspected it had to do with her worry over my absence from this reality. And, I sincerely hoped it wasn’t a feat she could easily replicate. If she developed the ability to foray further from the oak, I’d never get any peace.
I turned the corner around a stack of junked cars and ducked back on instinct, barely dodging out of the way of a Volkswagen engine that buried itself in the dirt a few yards past.
“Jesse, for fuck’s sakes, calm down. It’s me!”
“Sorry!” she replied. “I thought you were that weird wizard-god-thingy. He sort of defies convention—did you know that?”
“I did. Now, are you done pitching a fit?”
“So long as the little god is gone, I am. But I make no promises if he comes back.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. I was exhausted, terrified about a future I might not be able to prevent, and my nerves were shot from spending six months on the run, fighting for my own life and the lives of my companions. I just wanted to crash and forget about everything for a few blessed hours of sleep. But first, I needed to make sure my mentally-unstable ex-girlfriend wasn’t going to destroy my place of work.
I peeked around the corner of the stack I’d been hiding behind, only entering the clearing after I saw the dryad had calmed down. Since she’d taken this form, her moods had been as mercurial as any creature I’d seen, and while her range was limited, her powers were not. I worried that one day she’d expose her existence to the staff or, worse, do harm to an employee or customer.
“Jess, you can’t just throw things around out here. For one, someone might see—or get hurt. And second, I have to sell that stuff to keep this place open. I know it’s junk, but we have to ke
ep it serviceable or else no one will want it.”
She put on a long face and trailed a toe in the dirt. “Sorry.”
Save for a few strategically-placed leaves, the girl was naked as the day she was born. While I was gone I’d had a lot of time to think about my feelings toward her, and how she’d been manipulating those feelings to her benefit. Dense as I could be about such things, eventually it had occurred to me that she had ulterior motives for her lascivious manner of undress.
Yup, this version of Jesse was as devious as the day was long. I needed to be on my toes around her, else I might end up in her thrall… or worse.
“Jess, it might help if you put some clothes on. And can you make yourself look more human? That way, if someone accidentally sees you, they won’t freak out.”
She struck a pose against the tree that reminded me of an old-time pin-up model. “What, you don’t like what you see?”
“Look, it’s not that—” I caught myself before I fell into one of her verbal traps. “Besides, that’s not the issue at hand. What we were discussing was public safety, and not revealing to the staff that we have a dryad living in the junkyard.”
“But you do like what you see?”
I grabbed a handful of hair with both hands. “Gah! You’re impossible, you know that?”
“I can think of other ways to drive you crazy, Colin,” she said, running her light-green tongue across her lips.
“Jesse, please—”
“It’s been quite a while since I came back, you know.” She paused to cross her arms and place a finger on her lips. “How long has it been?”
“Long enough, believe me,” I replied in all seriousness.
“Exactly,” she exclaimed, cocking her hip. “And in all that time, you’ve barely given me a kiss on the cheek. Don’t you think it’s time to go back to the way we used to be? I know you want to—I can smell your testosterone levels rising from over here.”
Her hips swayed seductively, and after six months without sex I was sorely tempted. But, there was no way I would do that to Bells, break-up or no.
“Sorry, Jess, but I’m just not there yet.”
She winked playfully. “Give it time, Slugger. I’ll wear you down eventually.”
Without another word, Jesse disappeared from sight, presumably back to the alternate dimension that was the druid grove.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I whispered.
4
Some time later, I awoke to a strange yet familiar sound. I ignored it for a time until I realized it was my ringtone. I’d left the damned thing charging inside Crowley’s death trap of a car when Click had taken me on the vacation from hell. Now, it sat on my nightstand, buzzing and playing the first few bars of “The Imperial March.”
That could only mean one thing—Maeve was calling.
Rather, her people were calling, likely to send me on some errand or another in the name of fulfilling my duties as druid justiciar. Well, I’d had a lot of time to think about my role while I was gone, and fuck them. Fuck all of them. I let it go to voicemail and began drifting back to sleep.
Soon the phone rang again, this time playing “Born To Be Wild.” Again, I ignored it, until the ring tone switched to “Vampires Will Never Hurt You” by My Chemical Romance.
Yeah, gonna have to change that one, for sure.
I rolled out of bed with a groan and grabbed the phone, noting the date and time. More than twenty-four hours had passed. It was nearly 8:00 p.m. on the following day.
“Luther, what’s up?”
“Is not Looter, you know he never uses modern technology,” a woman replied in a thick Russian accent. “Is Sophia Doroshenko, chudovishche. There is, how you say, situation. I pick you up in ten minutes.”
The line went dead. So much for my coma. My bed was calling, but this “situation” had to be serious if I was getting calls from the Coven, the Pack, and the Fae. Reluctantly, I got up and grabbed some clothes along with my Craneskin Bag. Then, I remembered that this thing called coffee existed, and my heart skipped a beat. I stumbled over to my espresso machine and grabbed my coffee canister, practically ripping the lid off so I could take a deep whiff of the contents.
“Oh, come to papa,” I purred.
Twelve minutes and two sugary espressos later, I was nursing a third from a paper cup while sitting on the back of Crowley’s car. Going to have to return this heap, and soon.
Tomorrow, I’d send one of the troops out to bring the Gremlin back on the flatbed and get someone to replace Crowley’s windshield. Just before my little excursion to Hades, Bells had tossed me through it in a surprising outburst that involved her breaking up with me and the revelation that she was a serpenthrope.
Had I worked out how I felt about that? Depended on which part. The serpenthrope thing I could live with, but the break-up, not so much. We had a connection, maybe not as deep as what I felt for Jesse—the old Jesse—but a connection nonetheless. I’d never been the type to abandon people on a whim, and if she needed space or wanted to friend-zone me, so be it.
For a moment, I considered what it would be like if she busted out in scales while we were going at it. Get your mind out of the gutter, McCool. That was a tall order. After a long sleep and a megadose of caffeine, I was hornier than a rutting buck on Viagra. Hell, even Sophia might look appealing to me, cold slab of meat that she is.
When the vamp pulled up and I opened the door to her Corvette, I realized how far off base that stray thought had been. Her scent was a mixture of dried blood, expensive perfume, and the faint, almost imperceptible odor of decaying flesh. I paused before getting into the car, breaking out in a cold sweat that had nothing to do with my caffeine high or the chilly fall air.
Prior to being away, I’d never noticed the smell on higher vamps before, but life in the killing fields had sharpened my senses like no amount of practice or training ever could. They all had it to an extent—a musky pungency reminiscent of dry-aged beef. I doubted I’d ever be able to enjoy an air-ripened porterhouse again, and it took every bit of self-control I could muster to climb into that car instead of riddling it with bullets.
Sophia looked at me and clucked her tongue. “What is wrong, druid? You look as though you have seen ghost, no?”
“I—smelled something bad. It’ll pass.”
She gave me a sideways glance and put the car in gear. The blonde vampire put her foot down, and we shot out of the parking lot like a rocket. “Druid does not seem like type to have weak stomach. I hope I did not leave a poor impression last time we worked together. My reaction to your… unique abilities… was unprofessional. It vill not happen again.”
I looked at her, bug-eyed, then busted out laughing.
“Vat is so funny?”
Wiping my eyes, I took a few shuddering breaths as I calmed myself. “It’s not you, Sophia, it’s me. I forgot what it was like, being around vampires who—”
“Who what? Say it. I am no shrinking violet.”
“Who have manners, is all.”
She nodded as if what I said had made all the sense in the world. “Da, is true. Many vampires forget what it is like to be human and develop disdain for human ways. These kind fail to remember—civility is what holds society together, is what maintains peace. Manners matter, druid. And this is why I am ashamed for my behavior, last time we meet.”
I rubbed the last bit of wetness from my eyes and took a couple deep breaths. There it is again, the scent of death. Suppressing the instincts screaming at me to plant a silver nine-millimeter slug in her skull, I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and smiled.
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of at all. Believe me, your reaction was well-founded.”
“Da? How so?”
I let just a hint of my Hyde-side creep into my voice as I replied. “Because I’m the boogeyman to all boogeymen, Sophia Doroshenko. And don’t you ever forget it.”
Instead of waiting for a response, I leaned my head back and shut my eyes. And if m
y undead companion happened to grip the steering wheel a bit more tightly, I pretended not to notice.
Sophia Doroshenko drove us out near Buescher State Park, to The Virginia Harris Cockrell Cancer Research Center near Smithville. The campus itself consisted of a series of research buildings scattered over a couple of acres, nestled within the idyllic piney woods area of central Texas. I mostly stared out the window, admiring the view as we drew close to our destination. The surrounding area was both peaceful and breathtaking.
Much of the loblolly pines in the area had fallen victim to a massive forest fire several years back, but this area had remained relatively unscathed. It seemed an odd setting for a major supernatural emergency, so I asked Sophia to fill me in on what had happened there that might warrant a five-alarm response.
“Is best you see for self, druid,” was her response. “That way, you may view scene with fresh eyes, da?”
The vamp briefed me a bit about the lab as we drove through the woods, saying the place was a primary research campus for M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Scientists and physicians performed groundbreaking research on epigenetics and carcinogenesis there, seeking to find a cure for the deadly disease.
Or, at least, they had. Now, the place was a charnel house.
When we pulled off Park Road 1C and onto the campus’ main drive, I felt a brief wave of panic envelop me.
Fuck me. It’s started already.
Bodies were scattered all across the grounds, some in various states of dismemberment and evisceration. Others were decapitated or sporting large-caliber bullet wounds to the head. I’d witnessed scenes like this many, many times during my foray to the future, and I didn’t need to be told what it was.
Zombie outbreak.
“Druid, please—is rental, and I would like to return this car in one piece.”
I snapped to my senses, releasing my grip on the door handle as pieces of plastic and foam crumbled beneath my hand. “Sorry, Sophia. I—had a bad experience once, fighting the undead. Seeing this scene brought up some nasty memories.”