The Junkyard Druid Box Set 2

by M. D. Massey

  The skinwalker stood in the shadows of the alleyway—the same one who’d tried to capture then kill me outside of Keane’s little hideout. His look was a hard one to forget, with his dark skin, Eurasian eyes, stringy black hair, hooked nose, and lean, rangy build, reminiscent of a coyote. He had a hippie-looking teenage boy in a rear-naked choke—not tight enough to put him out, but enough to make him hold still.

  There was a ball of sickly green and black fire in the skinwalker’s hand, which he’d placed behind the kid’s head. Little wisps of death magic kept licking at the kid’s hair and dancing around his skull like a diseased halo, withering hairs and slowly destroying his man-bun. Thankfully the kid couldn’t see it, or this rescue would require a mind-wipe from one of Maeve’s fixers. Still, if I didn’t do something soon, the poor little bohemian was going to go bald before he exited puberty.

  Let’s see if I remember how to bullshit properly.

  “Oh, I remember you,” I said with a smile. “You’re the freelancer who tried to catch me for Keane and his buddies. You know, you’re looking a little gaunt there. How’ve you been? Skinwalker life treating you good?”

  “Keep talking, and the boy doesn’t live to see his first set of tits,” the skinwalker replied. “Just do exactly as I say, and no one will get hurt.”

  The boy actually had the balls to speak up. “I-I’ve had some tit before. I-I’m n-not a v-virgin.”

  The skinwalker and I both shouted at the teen in unison. “Shut up, kid!”

  Catching the kid’s eye, I added, “Let the adults in the room talk, and you might just live to see third base.”

  The kid clamped his lips together and stared at the ground.

  Forcing myself to remain calm, I made a show of looking around the alley. “Where are your little fur-babies?”

  The skinwalker grimaced. “Scattered.”

  I nodded. “Ah, I see. So, what do you want, then?” I snapped my fingers. “Hey, are you still sore about that stole I stole from you? I mean, that matted old coyote skin?” The look he gave me said I’d hit the nail on the head, so I started fumbling around in my Bag. “Pretty sure I left it in here somewhere.”

  “Stop! I’ll kill the kid, I swear I will!” the skinwalker screeched.

  “I think he means it, mister,” the kid whimpered. “And I don’t feel so good.”

  The boy was starting to look a little green around the gills, so I froze and locked eyes with the skinwalker. “Geez, chill out, dude. I’m not reaching for a weapon—just looking for something.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  I arched an eyebrow at him like he was stupid, because he was. “Duh, your stole—er, I mean your coyote skin—so I can return it.”

  The guy looked genuinely perplexed. “Why would you do that?”

  “Well, it’s not mine, is it? Besides, I just took it from you because I needed to get away, and I didn’t want you chasing after me in your other form. But that was all just business, right—part of the job?”

  “I guess…” he replied, still confused.

  I dug around in my Bag some more. “Ah, there it is!” I exclaimed, pulling the coyote pelt out of the Bag. “Here, catch.”

  I lobbed the pelt at him using a bit more speed than necessary. Obviously, the skinwalker couldn’t “catch,” because he had his hands full of death magic and teenage boy. My throw was meant to hit him in the face, and it did. The coyote skin landed exactly where I’d aimed.

  As soon as his vision was obscured, I leapt forward and clocked him as hard as I could through the pelt. Luckily, my punch caught the skinwalker right across the jaw, and he dropped like a ton of bricks, straight to the asphalt beneath our feet.

  The kid still stood there, unharmed but looking more confused than the skinwalker had been. “Um, why’d that guy grab me, and what did he use on me that made me so nauseous?”

  Digging around in my Bag, I grabbed a plastic “junior police academy” badge that I’d snagged off my friend Sgt. Klein over at the Austin PD. It wouldn’t fool a pro, but it’d do just fine for a woozy, confused teen.

  “Chloroform—he used chloroform on you,” I replied.

  “B-but, who are you, and why did he want that mangy skin back so bad?”

  “Stolen property.” I flashed the plastic badge at him. “Look, kid, I’m bail enforcement, and this is one of my skips. He didn’t want to go back to jail, so he thought he’d use you for leverage.”

  “Like that guy on that show with the beard and the mullet?”

  I nodded. “Just with better hair, and no camera crew.”

  “Y-yeah, but he was waiting for you when you came walking by. Why didn’t he just run?”

  I waved his protests off with a smile as I knelt over the skinwalker. “Don’t try to understand the criminal mind, kid. It’ll drive you nuts. Now, go on about your business, and pretend this never happened. Smoke a blunt or something—it’ll make you feel better.”

  The kid shrugged and stumbled down the alley, shaking his head and mumbling about deranged kidnappers. Hmm, maybe I should’ve called in a fixer. Now, let’s see who this guy is. I dug around in the skinwalker’s jeans until I found a wallet. Stanley Bylilly—better make a note of that, for future reference.

  The address was somewhere on 183 North, way past Cedar Park out in the sticks. I took a picture of his I.D., stuffed his wallet back in his pocket, and draped the coyote pelt over his chest.

  “Sweet dreams, Stanley. Better hope you don’t try this shit a third time. I won’t be as patient then.”

  Maureen hadn’t been kidding about the size of the stipend payments I’d received. Except for the Cold Iron Circle, the members of each faction had been around for quite some time. In the case of the fae, they were near-immortal, and both ’thropes and vamps lived much longer than humans—centuries, in fact. Thus, they all were able to amass incredible amounts of wealth over the course of their very long lives.

  I supposed it made sense that they should compensate me accordingly. No supernatural creature liked owing favors to humans, especially not the fae. Paying me handsomely ensured they wouldn’t feel any obligation beyond the delivery of my stipend each month.

  And wow, what a stipend. Maureen said she’d deposited a portion of it into the account she’d set up for me, leaving the rest to keep the junkyard afloat. Quite frankly, what she’d deposited in my personal account amounted to lawyer money. I had no idea what I’d do with all that cash, but what I did know was that I wasn’t shopping at the Army surplus store.

  After leaving the boot shop on SoCo, I drove to an outdoor shopping center on the north side of town that had row after row of upscale stores and shops. The very first thing I did was find a men’s clothing store. Of course, walking into a high-end clothing store in a grease-stained mechanic’s uniform and slush boots earned me quite a few stares.

  Walking out in a new pair of jeans, a cable-knit sweater, and a classic men’s overcoat made me less of a spectacle—but not by much. It might have been the haircut, or perhaps the haunted and shellshocked look in my eyes, but I was betting on the slush boots. A trip to the barber’s and some shiny new shoes took care of the rest. Soon, I was looking like my old self—if not a more gaunt, hollow-eyed version.

  A few hours later, I had several shopping bags full of fashionable yet serviceable clothing sitting on the truck seat beside me. Along with that were six pairs of tactical boots, several pairs of Chuck Taylor high tops, the pair of custom dress boots I’d purchased earlier, and another bag of clothes that were suitable for special occasions.

  Got that little chore out of the way—what’s my next step?

  The answer to that question lay in tracking down the vamps who would soon be responsible for starting the apocalypse. But I couldn’t tell a soul about why I was meddling in vampire and Circle affairs. At least, not if Click was to be believed. I knew squat about chronomancy, so I’d need to keep my investigation on the sly and my motivations to myself, at least until I could affir
m or disprove the trickster’s dire warning.

  Of course, being the druid justiciar meant I had some leeway regarding where I went and who I spoke with in the supernatural world. I only hoped my authority would be enough to explain away the actions I’d have to take in the coming days. And I hoped those actions wouldn’t put me at odds with Luther.

  Luther—what’s he going to do if I have to kill one of his coven? Maybe I’ll be able to cross that bridge without burning it down.

  Based on what the Eye wanted, and my experiences living in that hell on Earth for six months, I’d long had a sneaking suspicion it had manipulated both the Cold Iron Circle and the vamps to fulfill its ultimate goal. The Eye had once said that by allying itself with the Cold Iron Circle, it had a very good chance of fulfilling its prime directive—namely, to destroy all the earthbound fae. Once that happened, the Eye would be free from the geas Balor had placed on it all those millennia ago.

  There were no fae in the other timeline, at least none that I’d ever come across—and no Cold Iron Circle, either. The distinct absence of fae in that reality told me either the Eye had used the vamps to destroy them all, or they’d split back to Underhill when the vamps and other undead took over.

  That had been my theory, anyway—then my little chat with Clara had cinched it. During her interrogation, the diminutive coven leader had indicated that the vampires were at least partially responsible for triggering the undead Armageddon. She also told me they’d killed all the Circle’s wizards… all except the one who helped start the apocalypse. Clara said they feared that one, because the wizard possessed an object so powerful, it could burn the strongest vamps to ash with a thought.

  I only knew of one magical artifact that could give a human wizard that kind of power, and that was Balor’s Eye. The way I figured it, the Eye had offered to lend its power to whoever stole it, so long as that person helped it get rid of the fae. Then the wizard helped the vamps take over, in exchange for their help killing the fae off or chasing them back to Underhill. In fact, the only way the gates to Underhill could be opened again was with the Eye’s power, because that’s what I’d used to seal them.

  The more I thought about it, the more it all made sense. And if I was right, I simply needed to discover which vamps were responsible for throwing the proverbial shit into the fan, then I could track them back to whoever currently had possession of the Eye.

  As for how I intended to deal with the vamps, I planned to take them out one by one, following them like a trail of breadcrumbs back to the Eye. Without a doubt, someone at the Circle had the artifact, someone connected who knew how to cover their tracks. Vamps… Cold Iron Circle… Balor’s Eye. Unless Clara had lied, that’s where the trail would lead.

  Thankfully, I doubt whoever took the Eye will be able to use it. Fomorian genes don’t exactly grow on trees these days.

  Or, at least, that’s what I hoped. Not that it couldn’t choose to cooperate with whoever stole it. It was an independent intelligence possessed of free will, after all. But for whatever reason, the Eye had to channel its powers through a willing agent in order to utilize them fully. And only a person with Fomorian genes could wield it. But eventually, the thief would find a way, else they wouldn’t have stolen it. So, I needed to get it back before then.

  Could I march into the Cold Iron Circle’s headquarters and start busting heads, demanding they give me the Eye back? Sure, but I’d probably only last a few minutes against the combined might of the Circle. Once the Council showed up, I’d be facing dozens of hunter-mage teams plus eight master magicians.

  No bueno.

  In my last brush with the Circle, I’d had a rough enough time taking out Commander Gunnarson and his much smaller tactical unit. I didn’t care for the odds I’d be facing if I went into their HQ guns blazing, so I’d have to go another route. What I needed was proof, something I could take to the Council that would force the turncoat—or turncoats—from hiding. And once I flushed the thief out, I would get the Eye back and make sure that it never saw the light of day again.

  Find the Eye, save the world… or something like that. And thanks to Clara, I knew just where to start.

  Ten hours later I was in New Orleans, headed into this anonymous dive bar in a seedy part of Bywater near the metal factories and docks. The place didn’t have a sign, nor did its boarded-up façade offer an entrance that a tourist or passerby might easily notice. You had to go around the rear of the building and down an alley to get to the entrance. Around back, you’d find an unmarked and windowless metal door, scratched and covered in a half-dozen layers of peeling, multi-colored paint.

  Here be monsters, eh?

  There was no doorman or bouncer there to keep the riffraff from coming in, because if you were at this place you either knew what you were about or you were about to meet your end. It was a vamp hangout, plain and simple, and no human would turn up there without good reason. My sources—vampire chat rooms buried in the deep, dark web—indicated this place belonged to Remy DeCoudreaux, leader of the New Orleans coven.

  Just the vamp I wanted to see.

  Unlike the Austin coven, NOLA vamps weren’t exactly human-friendly. They still kept to the old ways, hunting humans at their whim and leisure, ruling NOLA’s world beneath with an iron fist. So, how did they get away with it?

  After Katrina, lots of people just up and vanished, and even to this day the population in poorer areas tended toward transience versus permanency. New Orleans was a city where people came to disappear, and local law enforcement was notoriously lax about following up on missing persons cases.

  Case in point… In 2012, a journalist won a judgement in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, and his attorney was allowed to search NOPD’s record storage room. And guess what? They found not a single missing persons record in storage—not one. Thus, New Orleans was just about the perfect place for an evil vampire coven to operate.

  In the short time we’d spent together, Clara had given me lots of info but little actionable intel—save one critical detail. She’d said her maker was a member of Remy’s coven, which was why I’d decided to start my search for the Eye here in New Orleans. Somebody in this coven knew something, and I intended to find out who.

  But first, I’d need to gain Remy’s trust. I still owed him a favor, which gave me an excuse to show up on his doorstep. Remy’s coven consisted of dozens of higher vamps, and a great number of them were more than a century old. Older vamps were tougher to kill, because they got stronger as the years went by, and they typically started developing special skills around the century mark.

  That could mean teleportation, the ability to take another form, hypnotism—the list went on and on. Older vamps were also more resistant to sunlight. Sure, they could be damaged by it, but UV light wouldn’t always boil their blood and kill them outright like it would a younger vamp.

  Meaning, if I were to take on Remy’s coven, I’d be facing a few dozen incredibly fast and strong vamps. Many would possess special skills and abilities, and a good number of them would be at least partially resistant to my sunlight spell. Shit.

  I’d fought an ancient vamp years before, a nos-type, and his powers were so far beyond mine I wondered if I’d be able to take him even in my full Fomorian form. And while Remy’s crew was nowhere near as powerful as that vamp had been, I didn’t like those odds any more than I liked my chances of attacking the Cold Iron Circle in their own headquarters.

  Which was why I was walking into a known vamp bar, at night, alone, to find the one individual who might possibly lead me back to the Eye.

  I slammed the front door of the bar open and stood in the doorway. Almost instantly, every set of eyes in the place was drawn to the scent of human blood… and the sound of a warm, beating heart.

  “Alright—which one of you leeches do I have to fight, fuck, or feed to get an audience with Remy tonight?”

  6

  As it turned out, walking into a vamp bar and calling them all leeches was
a great way to start a fight. Who knew?

  A tall, stocky, bald vamp with pale skin, numerous jailhouse tats, and a bare chest under a black leather biker vest stood up… and up… and up. The guy was big, taller than my friend Hemi and just as wide.

  Well, the bigger they are, right?

  “You’re going to regret saying that, human,” the giant vamp said as he smacked his fist into his palm.

  I looked across the room, taking in the many hateful and hungry glares I was receiving. Then, I turned my gaze back to Goliath. “Ah, so we’re going to fight then. That’s great, because there was no way I was going to feed or fuck one of you walking cold cuts. You know what it’s like, being human and trying to snuggle up to something that cold and clammy? Me neither, and I don’t intend to find out.”

  Someone shouted from the back of the bar. “Get him, Polly—make him pay for dat smart mouth of his!”

  My index finger shot into the air, and as it did I slipped my other hand in my coat pocket. “Whoa, hold up. Is that ‘Paulie,’ like Rocky’s brother-in-law, or ‘Polly,’ as in ‘Polly wanna cracker?’”

  The big vamp looked around, as if daring another patron to laugh. “The second. It’s short for Polycarpe. I was named after a saint.”

  “Huh. If it were me, I think I’d start going with the first option,” I said, shaking my head as I fiddled with the device in my pocket. “It’s just not right for a dude to be called Polly. Kind of like that ‘boy named Sue’ thing. It’s a life-long invitation to an ass-kicking. At least with the other spelling, you have an out.”

  Polycarpe’s chest swelled. “Ain’t nobody gonna be calling me a girl, no. An’ in a minute, you gonna regret all you say ’n more.”

  “Alright, Polly, I got time to tussle. Before we do that, there’s something I want to show you,” I said as I pulled an object from my pocket.