The Junkyard Druid Box Set 2

by M. D. Massey

  But I didn’t say any of that. All I said was, “I know.”

  Because sometimes it’s more important to be sorry than to be right.

  Belladonna’s voice was whisper-quiet on the other end of the line. “Tell me what you need. If it’s in my power, I’ll do it.”

  She set up the meeting with the Circle’s High Council for three o’clock that afternoon. I requested that time on purpose, because I didn’t want Germain tagging along and suspected he’d fight me about it. It was a dangerous gambit, confronting the Cold Iron Circle’s High Council on their home turf, and Germain would likely insist on being my backup.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t risk it. His participation would likely set the other Council members off, such was their hatred for the supernatural races. The Council was made up of xenophobes and bigots, and people with deep prejudices despised being helped by the people they hated. They saw me as a supernatural threat akin to the fae, vampires, and ’thropes, so it’d be hard enough for them to accept a warning from yours truly. Add in the presence of an elder vampire, and I’d be lucky to avoid an all-out fight.

  I showed up at their glass high-rise building downtown at a quarter to three, because I didn’t want to piss them off for once and being late might do exactly that. When I walked into the front lobby, I was immediately escorted to a high-security room by three hunter-mage teams in full battle-rattle. They relieved me of my Craneskin Bag and every weapon I carried—even the cold-iron hunting knife I kept sheathed at the small of my back.

  “C’mon, fellas—the knife? Really?” I feigned a sudden realization. “Oh, I get it. One of your Council members must be hiding some fae blood in the old family tree. Can’t have cold iron around them if that’s the case, right? Don’t worry—it’ll be our little secret,” I said with a wink.

  One of the hunters didn’t find that funny at all, and he butt-stroked me in the back to prove it. “Shut up and start walking. Elevator is straight ahead.”

  I’d already stealth-shifted, so it didn’t even hurt. But I didn’t want them to know that. The Circle wasn’t aware that I’d just spent six months in the Hellpocalypse learning to be a stone-cold Fomorian killer. They had no idea I could shift while maintaining my human appearance, so those fuckers thought they were safe.

  How wrong they were.

  I marched to the elevator with two goons in front, two behind, and one on each side. The mages had spells at the ready, standard battle magic stuff, while the hunters had M-4 rifles held at port arms, set to “pew-pew-pew” on the fire selectors. Obviously, they were not fucking around.

  After we piled in, the lead flunkie swiped a keycard on the control panel. The doors closed with a whoosh, and I felt the distinct sensation of a magical ward locking itself shut. Within seconds, the elevator car zoomed all the way to the top floor and kept on going. There were buttons on the panel for fifty floors plus the penthouse, but the readout had already hit fifty-nine with no signs of stopping.

  I clapped my hands like a child. “Hooray! We’re going to Olympus! I just love those books. Do you think Aphrodite will be there?” I waggled my eyebrows suggestively. “Hubba-hubba—am I right, fellas?”

  Their only response to that remark was another butt stroke to the back.

  “Shut the fuck up,” the lead hunter growled.

  The door dinged at the ninety-ninth floor, and we exited into a rather mundane-looking reception and waiting area. The floors were cheap carpet and laminate, the walls were painted in drab, neutral colors, and industrial office chairs were lined up against the walls to either side. Roughly twenty feet ahead, a pretty receptionist sat behind a rather large metal and glass desk—the kind you might get at your local office warehouse store.

  “Wow, you guys went all out on this place,” I remarked, kneeling to rap on the floor. “I bet the bean counters were pissed that you went with real Pergo—although I’d have gone with the Pewter Oak instead of the Cocoa Aspen. Would’ve brought out the flecks of slate blue in the indoor-outdoor carpet.”

  The guards ignored me, likely deciding that I wasn’t worth the effort. They each took up posts around the area, eyes and weapons trained on yours truly. I sniffed and approached the receptionist, who didn’t bother to take her eyes off her computer screen.

  I leaned forward and took a peek. She was surfing some celeb gossip site online. “The Duchess of Cambridge is preggers again? That little minx!”

  She frowned at the intrusion, angling her monitor away from me. “Have a seat, please. The Council will call for you when they’re ready.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s a bathroom around here, is there? I went a little hog wild on Taco Tuesday at Rosa’s, and man, that queso flameado is coming back to haunt me.” I leaned over the desk and whispered conspiratorially. “I might have even had an accident in my pants.”

  The receptionist continued to ignore me. “Have a seat, please. The Council will call for you shortly.”

  “Fine.” I flopped down in a nearby chair and grabbed a copy of Popular Magichanics from a stack of periodicals on a side table. And I waited—and waited—and waited.

  Thirty minutes later, I started tearing out pages of the magazine to make paper airplanes, which I launched in the air two and three at a time. Using a little druid magic, I kept them in the air with artificial updrafts while weaving in some hidden spell work each time I renewed the wind pattern. After I had about a half-dozen of them going, I began staging dogfights between them, adding my own sound effects and narration, Snoopy and the Red Baron style, just to annoy the guards.

  “Here's the World War One flying ace high over France in his Sopwith Camel, searching for the dastardly Red Baron! I must bring him down! Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat—oh no, I’ve been hit!” I made an explosion sound effect, followed by my best imitation of a diving bi-plane’s engine whine. “Gah, more krauts just appeared over the horizon. I’m out of ammo, looks like it’s banzai time—”

  On cue, the planes flew at each of the guards all at once, triggering a minor cantrip that caused their tails to smolder and release tiny trails of smoke behind them. Two of the hunters merely batted the planes out of the air, while one of the mages burned a plane to ashes with an immolation spell. The other three dodged the planes as best they could, but I kept them flying around in circles, nose-diving the guards before swooping away.

  Once the guards were suitably distracted, I marched past the secretary and straight into the High Council’s meeting room.

  Several voices were arguing as I approached the door.

  “—not even sure if he’s human anymore,” a high, nasally female voice said.

  A deep male voice responded. “He’s a menace to humanity, that’s what he is. Why we haven’t eliminated him already is a mystery to me.”

  Another female voice chimed in—this one old and raspy, but strong and steady as well. “We tried that already, or don’t you remember? Gunnarson was supposed to be my successor on the Council, yet the druid apprentice sifted him like wheat. Pfah! And here we are discussing a parley with a known supernatural who has killed dozens of our people, not to mention a high-level operative. If you would have listened to me ten years ago—”

  The door was open, so I marched right in and pulled up a chair as all eyes turned toward me.

  “Hey, folks, don’t mind me.” I sat down and propped my feet up on their huge, cheap-ass conference table, and laced my fingers behind my head. “Please, continue planning my assassination. I can wait until you’re finished.”

  Nasal-Voice stood up and banged her hand on the table. “Why—this is highly irregular. Guards!”

  The guards were way ahead of her, already storming into the room by the time she’d finished her first sentence. The lot of them surrounded me, at which point they began lifting me out of my chair by my arms and legs.

  “Fuck, but he’s heavy!” one of them muttered under his breath.

  The old lady made the smallest motion with one hand, and the guards froze. “L
eave him be. If he wanted to cause any real trouble, he’d have done it already. I may not like him, and I might even want him dead. But I’m also curious to hear what he has to say.”

  Like the rest of the Council, she was draped in hooded robes that concealed her identity, but not her age. Her hands were wrinkled and covered in liver spots, and her skin was paper-thin. Yet I noticed that neither her hands nor her voice shook when she spoke.

  A male Council member voiced his protest. “Madam Chairwoman, do you really think it’s wise to allow this cretin to barge in here like this? At the very least, he should be punished for his insolence.”

  The Chairwoman waited a few moments to respond. Even though I couldn’t see her eyes, I knew that she was staring right at me, because I felt the weight of her gaze. You could have heard a pin drop in that room as the seconds ticked by. Finally, she spoke.

  “Perhaps. But we should hear what he has to say.”

  “Sure you don’t want to finish planning my death?” I asked, doe-eyed.

  The Chairwoman was not amused. “That can wait. Please, speak your piece.”

  The guards dropped me back into my chair. I made a show of straightening my clothes and fixing my hair, if only to make them wait. Then, I stood and leaned forward, placing my hands on the conference table. I’d heard it was a “power move” that business people sometimes used in negotiations—at least, that’s what Dr. Phil once said.

  “Ahem. As I was saying…” I looked around at the guards. “Why don’t you morons take a break and let the adults have the room?”

  Their leader looked at the Chairwoman. She nodded and they filed out, but not without shooting me a few nasty looks on the way.

  I popped the cuffs on my coat. “As I was saying—you have a traitor on your council.”

  17

  The room erupted in a chorus of grumbling and protests, only to be silenced when the old Battleaxe—as I was beginning to think of her—raised her hand. “And just what leads you to believe we have a traitor in our midst?”

  I didn’t want to outright accuse one of them of stealing Balor’s Eye from me, so I went with the facts as I knew them.

  “Long story short? I recently went undercover inside the New Orleans coven. And why would I do that, pray tell? I did it to check out an anonymous tip that someone on your Council is working with the vamps.”

  “Preposterous!” Deep Voice shouted.

  “Let him speak,” the Battleaxe said.

  “Now, here’s where it gets tricky. My cover got blown, and Remy didn’t take kindly to my tricking him. So, he sics a hit squad on me—not to kill me, mind you, but to capture me for his ‘business partner.’ I escaped by jumping out a second-story window, right into a portal that opened about ten thousand feet above Bastrop.”

  “Lies!” someone said.

  I turned toward the voice, but couldn’t tell who’d said it. All the Council members looked the same, and they were spelled up to cover any identifying scents as well. It had been a female voice, so I decided to focus on a slight figure who had curves in most of the right places.

  “Tell me something, cupcake—how many mages do you know who could cast a portal ten-feet wide that opened up three miles above a very specific geographic location? Because I can tell you for a fact, whoever cast it knew what the hell they were doing—and they were waiting for me when I hit bottom.”

  “No one could survive a fall from that height,” Deep Voice protested.

  “He could,” Battleaxe said as she turned toward me. “If he had time to shift. If your story is true, and you really did survive a fall from that height, that means you’re getting better at controlling your ability to change forms.”

  I shrugged. “It takes over when I’m in danger. I’m sure you know that, because you have a whole dossier on me, just like you have on everyone you see as a threat to your”—I spread my hands wide, gesturing at the Council and the building around us—“whatever it is you have here.”

  Battleaxe’s voice took on a serious tone. “You are a threat, Mr. McCool. Surely you realize that? Or have you forgotten about how Ms. Callahan died?”

  She was referring to Jesse, of course. “Low blow much? No, I haven’t forgotten. But, you should know that my—condition—has become much more stable of late.” I crossed my arms and pulled my shoulders back. “These days, the only thing I’m a threat to is anything that threatens me and mine. Gunnarson found that out the hard way, as did your man, Keane.”

  “And Lieutenant McCracken,” Battleaxe replied.

  “McCracken was a good man. You know as well as I do that Keane killed him to frame me, so he’d have an excuse to hunt me down. Of course, you had to disown your pet attack dog after he got off the leash. Wouldn’t do for the Council to be seen openly breaking the deal you made with the other factions by trying to off the Justiciar. Never mind sacrificing one of their own in order to take out an enemy.”

  Battleaxe remained silent for several moments. “Continue your story, Mr. McCool.”

  Thus far, my plan had been to get the High Council together in one place so I could pick the mystery man out. Now that I was here, I realized that had been wishful thinking. At least three of the council members had remained silent through the entire proceedings, and about half of them sat with their hands hidden in their robes.

  Even if I asked them to show me their hands, it wouldn’t matter. It would only require a simple illusion spell to conceal any disfigurement. Claw hand or no, I couldn’t rely on appearances to reveal the traitor’s identity. Instead, I was going to have to force my enemy’s hand if I wanted to expose the turncoat in their ranks—no pun intended.

  I cleared my throat before continuing my story.

  “Anyway, when I woke up after falling out of the sky, I was in some kind of cell. And let me tell you, this was no ordinary prison. For starters, the only way in or out was a portal. Plus, the whole thing was warded nine ways to Sunday with negation spells—the kind that cancel spell craft and shifter magic. Left me helpless as a newborn babe.”

  Nasal Voice laughed. “I’d say we need to find this mage and hire them.”

  I gave Nasal Voice a hard stare. “No need. The person who captured me is in this room.” More shouts and protests ensued until Battleaxe settled them down. “Ask yourself, who else knows that much about my powers and weaknesses? Who else could have known how to capture me, and also have the power and motive to do it?”

  “Could’ve been any number of entities,” Deep Voice said. “From what I understand, you’ve pissed off the Fae, the Tuatha De Denann, and several minor gods and demigods from various pantheons. Not to mention all the creatures you hunted back when you freelanced with your girlfriend.” He held a hand up as he’d made a faux pas. “My apologies—your late girlfriend.”

  I tsked. “You jackasses just don’t get it, do you? Someone on this Council has been manipulating Circle resources and staff to take me down. Think about it—did any of you order Gunnarson to go after me? Or Keane? Even better, who promoted McCracken and appointed him to be my liaison?”

  The room grew silent.

  “What, no takers? Of course not—because none of you knows who gave those orders. Or rather, one of you knows, but he’s not talking.” I looked at each of the Council members who’d chosen to remain silent.

  “How do you know this person is a ‘he’?” Battleaxe asked.

  “Just a hunch. When he came to taunt me, my captor appeared to be male. But then again, that could’ve been an illusion. Hell, for all I know, Madam Chairwoman, it could have been you.”

  “It might have been at that, druid,” she said with a certain degree of smugness in her voice. “But it wasn’t. And I’m not about to tear this Council apart by starting a manhunt for some supposed traitor, based on the hearsay and wild speculations presented by a supernatural aberration such as yourself.”

  I squeezed the bridge of my nose. “Look, I know you all hate me—some more than others. But I’m telling you, so
mething bad is coming—like catastrophically, world-ending bad—and the traitor on your Council is behind it.”

  Deep Voice chuckled, condescension in his voice. “Now he wants us to believe he can see the future.”

  My eyes hardened as I swept my gaze over each Council member in turn. “Believe me, or don’t—but it is coming. And here’s the truth: ‘Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.’”

  “Is that a threat?” Nasal Voice asked.

  “A warning,” I said. “Ignore it at your own peril.”

  Battleaxe pushed herself away from the table and stood. “We’re done here, Mr. McCool. Security will show you out.”

  I sighed and hung my head. “No, Madam Chairwoman. I’m afraid we’ve only just begun.”

  Unbeknownst to the Council, I had the mother of all magical barrier wards henna tattooed on me under my clothes. It was a trick I’d learned from Finnegas, and Crowley had been more than happy to do the honors. I believe his exact words were, “Of course—anything to irritate my former employers. And please, do give them my regards when you destroy their offices.”

  I slapped a hand to my chest and spoke the trigger word, activating the wards. Immediately, a thin barrier of dark, wispy shadow magic enveloped me from head to toe. As a magician, Crowley was easily a match for any of the Council members here. His work would ensure that their spells slipped and skittered off me for the precious twenty seconds or so that it would take me to shift.

  The only problem was, shifting would warp the weaves, runes, and glyphs the shadow wizard had painted on my body. So, the further my transformation progressed, the less effective the magic would be in deflecting the Council’s spells.