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  Druid Apprentice

  A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel

  M.D. Massey

  Modern Digital Publishing

  Copyright © 2019 by M.D. Massey

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  Preface

  This novel deals with the very delicate subject matter of psychological abuse and rape.

  While teaching women’s self-defense courses for more than two decades, I’ve spoken with dozens of survivors. Thus, I know how triggering this subject matter can be to survivors of sexual and emotional abuse.

  These topics are not dealt with in a graphic manner within the pages of this novel. However, I feel it is my responsibility to make the reader aware of the subject matter before they delve into this ninth volume in the Colin McCool urban fantasy series.

  And on a related note, if you are in an abusive relationship, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233 or TTY 1−800−787−3224.

  Your conversation will be held in the strictest confidence, and their trained staff will help you get the support you deserve.

  1

  I fucking hate fighting giants.

  And yet there I was, soaked to the bone and ankle-deep in mud, psyching myself up to face a particularly nasty jötunn. Of course, I had my reasons for being on this God-forsaken piece of property in the middle of nowhere, Texas. Likewise, I had my reasons for avoiding giantkind, including some awful memories of my best friend dying, and the fact that they reminded me way too much of the darkest parts of who I was now.

  Then, of course, there were the apparent drawbacks inherent in picking a fight with a fifteen-foot-tall, cannibalistic humanoid. Getting chewed on like a Snickers bar wasn’t exactly my idea of a peaceful ending.

  Standing in front of the cabin as it pissed down rain, knowing full well that I was about to tussle with one of their kind, well—to say I was in a bad mood would have been an understatement. And on top of that, my druid mentor Finnegas had forbidden me from shifting into my full Fomorian form. The idea was for me to start relying more on magic and less on hulking out when things went sideways. While I’d partially shifted to ensure I didn’t get smooshed before I could get a spell off, I was still giving up the size advantage to the giant.

  I may as well get this over with. Here goes nothing.

  “Norris! Norris Belsterson! This is Druid Justiciar McCool, representing the faery court of Queen Maeve of Austin. By order of the Queen, you are under arrest. Please come out with your hands up, and be advised that if you resist arrest, I am authorized to use lethal force.”

  A deep voice replied in an odd accent that was half Texas redneck and half Scandinavian pig farmer. Although muffled by thick log walls, and despite the pounding rain and distant thunder, the giant’s words carried clearly to where I stood, some twenty feet from his front door.

  “Snorri Býleistr’s son did nothin’ to your queen, drood. Go away and leave me in peace, ’afore I wallop you somthin’ awful.”

  I wiped the rain from my face with a sigh. “Just for once, it’d be nice for a creature to give up without a fight,” I muttered. “Would that be too much to ask?”

  “Not the way you look,” a disembodied voice replied from somewhere to my right. “Hate to break it to you, but you’re about as scary as a young Rick Astley in drag.”

  “That’s pretty scary if you think about it, Larry. Now, shut up and stop interrupting me while I’m working.”

  “Fine, fine,” the chupacabra said in his thick Brooklyn accent. “But when this giant stomps your pale ginger ass into mincemeat, don’t expect me to dial 911.”

  I sagely decided to ignore the chupacabra, turning my attention to the task at hand once more. Going inside that cabin wasn’t an option. The place was warded up like nobody’s business with dangerous, near-god-level magic. It’d take months to unravel those spells, so I needed to convince the giant to step into the open where I could take him down.

  “Work with me here, Belsterson. You broke the rules, and now I have to take you in. Why don’t you make this easy on everyone by coming peacefully?”

  “I didn’t do nothing!” he bellowed back.

  “Seriously? Norris, c’mon—every giant, ogre, troll, and buggane in the demesne knows Maeve doesn’t put up with that shit. You can’t just go around eating cattle and horses like Pez and expect to get away with it.”

  “I was hungry, druid!” the giant roared. “I ain’t supposed to starve, am I?”

  “No, but there are ways to go about these things that you chose to ignore. You left footprints, Belsterson—actual, giant-sized footprints. Now, the locals are up in arms about Bigfoot eating their cows, the story is all over the news, and social media has been lit up with armchair cryptozoologists blaming everything from aliens to skunk apes for the missing livestock.”

  “Weren’t no harm in it!” the jötunn replied. “The mundane folk are always on about that stuff.”

  “No harm? Maybe if you’d just kept it to farm animals, sure. But you also ate a couple of gnomes, Norris—walking, talking, law-abiding members of fae society. Did you think Maeve would let that stand?”

  “They’s just tiny folk, drood, worse’n rats. Ain’t nobody gonna miss any of the tomtenisse when they’s gone.”

  “Maeve misses them, Norris, because they’re her subjects, and thus pay tribute. She’s funny like that.”

  “I only ’et three of them! Ain’t no crime to eat three little gnomes. Practically did her a favor, I did.”

  “Hard to argue with that logic,” I muttered as I pushed the sleeves up on my trench coat. The rain was coming down harder and I was losing my patience, so I took a deep breath before shouting my ultimatum. “Norris, I can see that this conversation is going nowhere. I’m going to count to five, and if you’re not out here by the time I hit four, I’m going to level that cabin.”

  I doubted I could level the cabin, protected as it was—but Norris didn’t know that. Despite the wards and pouring rain, I was fairly certain that I could light the jötunn’s house on fire. He was a frost giant, after all, so the mere threat of fire would likely be enough to get him to come out.

  Thankfully, Finnegas had been teaching me the rudiments of druid battle magic, which started with the refinement of the primary offensive spells that most druids knew. Almost all druids could cast fireballs and lightning bolts, because manipulating nature’s energies was pretty standard stuff. But a battle druid learned to cast spells that were many degrees deadlier, mostly by combining different kinds of energy or by focusing large amounts of energy into a much smaller area.

  I suppose this is as good a time as any to test out that ball lightning spell.

  Ball lightning was a combination of electricity and extreme heat, and according to Finnegas, it was t
he first spell battle druids learned. Out of all the paltry number of offensive spells I had at my disposal, it was the most likely to bust through Belsterson’s wards and start a fire. Besides, it looked a hell of a lot like one of the special attacks from Streetfighter, and any chance to cast a badass spell like that was hard for me to pass up.

  After giving him a few more seconds to mull my threat over, I addressed the front door of the cabin a final time. “You had your chance, Norris. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Ain’t skeered o’ the likes o’ you, drood!” the giant shouted back.

  “We’ll see about that,” I mumbled, rubbing my hands together and mentally gathering energy from the air around me as I spun up my spell. Drawing more heat and static electricity from the sky and atmosphere above, I continued to complain under my breath. “Make me get out in the pouring rain, eh? Now it’s Hadouken time, you gnome-gobbling shit-stain of a pituitary defect.”

  “One…”

  Silence.

  “Two…”

  Nothing.

  “Three…”

  I raised my hands in front of my chest, palms facing each other, focusing the energy of the spell between them as I pulled silicon oxide and carbon from the soil beneath my feet. Electricity crackled between my fingers, and rain sizzled as it hit the sphere of silver-white fire that rapidly grew while hovering in the air between my palms.

  “Four…”

  This asshole is really going to make me do it. I hope you have decent home insurance, buddy.

  “Last chance, Belsterson!” I shouted as the glow around my hands intensified.

  After a moment of silence, the giant replied from within his cabin. “Keep yer panties on. I’m coming out!”

  “Panties? He’s sure got your number,” Larry said.

  “This is already a hostile work environment. Frankly, I can do without hearing your smart-ass remarks on top of it,” I hissed out of the corner of my mouth. “So, zip it.”

  “Don’t blame me for your exotic tastes in undergarments,” the chupacabra sulked.

  “Larry, I swear by all that’s sacred, I will feed you to this giant.”

  The cabin’s front door opened, and a hunched over, hulking figure squeezed through. The doorframe was man-sized, so the giant had to turn his shoulders sideways to fit. It took him a moment to emerge onto the front porch, so I held the spell at the ready in case he decided to charge.

  “He doesn’t look so big,” Larry remarked. “Heck, I could take him.”

  Larry was right—Belsterson wasn’t so big after all. At most, he was eight feet tall, which would be large for a human, but almost runt-like for a giant. Rather than appearing out of the ordinary, he looked almost normal in his huge work boots, blue jeans, and an enormous green rain slicker over a plaid flannel shirt.

  From the shadows of his hood, beady blue eyes glowered at me over a nose that had been smashed flat by being broken one too many times, partially hidden by pale blond hair that fell into his face. A full but neatly-kept blond beard and mustache covered the rest of his punched-in face and prominent underbite, giving him the appearance of an oversized, pissed off Shih Tzu. If I had to describe him in one sentence, he looked like a pro wrestler turned lumberjack hipster who’d just learned that his favorite coffee pub got shut down due to health code violations.

  Belsterson’s eyes fixed on me for a moment before darting to my right. “Snorri sees you, rat dog. Watch yourself, or you may end up in Snorri’s pot.”

  “That’s it, I’m outta here,” Larry proclaimed as he splashed off in the direction of my car.

  The giant chuckled, a deep rumbling sound that I felt as much as heard. “Looks like your ugly cop dog is a coward.”

  I cocked my head. “What, him? He’s not my backup. Larry’s just a groupie—one I can’t seem to shake.”

  Belsterson nodded and stuck his lower lip out, which took little effort considering it was halfway there already. He glanced at the ball of fire and electricity between my hands.

  “Thought you was gonna let me come peaceful-like,” he remarked.

  “Are you?” I asked.

  “S’long as you don’t zap me with that spell.” I shrugged and let the spell fizzle out. The giant stepped off his porch, arms extended and palms up, just like criminals do in cop shows on TV. “Guess you’d better cuff me then, eh, drood?”

  He continued to approach me as I replied. “Actually, Maeve’s people are gonna pick you up. I simply need to give her the sig—”

  Before I could finish that sentence, Snorri Býleistr’s son closed the distance between us with two quick strides, clobbering me with a powerful punch that sent me tumbling ass over teakettle across the clearing.

  What do you want to do with your life?

  That thought ran through my addled brain when I came to, some thirty feet from where I’d been standing when the giant had struck me. It wasn’t something I’d spent a great deal of time pondering, not recently and not ever. What I wanted had never been in question; I’d been reacting to circumstances and events and just trying to survive ever since I’d discovered the World Beneath in my teens.

  I sat up, wiping the rain from my eyes and shaking my head in an attempt to clear the cobwebs. I’d only briefly lost consciousness, and now quick, thundering footsteps warned me of the giant’s approach. I rolled out of the way just in time to avoid becoming human toe jam, a millisecond after Snorri’s massive right boot left a print in the mud six inches deep and three feet long.

  Ah, that’s how he closed the distance between us so quickly—his size is an illusion.

  With my magical sight, I was able to see Snorri’s true form, and it was impressive. Some supernatural creatures possessed strange magic, the kind that could warp reality and bend the laws of physics. An excellent example of that was Maeve’s home, a sprawling hive of ever-shifting halls and rooms, all hidden inside a 4,000-square-foot Victorian manor. In this case, Snorri’s magic allowed him to alter his size, or his cabin was much more than it appeared, or both.

  Regardless, facing a fifteen-foot-tall behemoth instead of an eight-foot-tall pseudo-giant changed the equation considerably. The fact that he meant to kill me didn’t make matters any less difficult. Snorri had hit me with all the power and might a giant of his size possessed. Had I not stealth-shifted before confronting him, I’d have been a goner. In his current form, he towered over me, and I was about to have a hell of a time bringing him down to my level.

  I scrambled backward, desperately trying to get out of the giant’s reach. Unfortunately, a five-yard-tall giant has arms that are longer than the average human male is tall. His hubcap-sized hand reached down for me, hairy fingers spread wide to grasp me around my body, likely in an attempt to crush the life from me. I couldn’t crab-walk fast enough, so I reacted from instinct, blurting out a trigger-word and releasing a spell directly into the giant’s palm.

  “Tintreach!” I shouted, extending my hand until it almost touched Snorri’s. Electricity arced from my palm to his, exploding as the energy from my lightning spell entered his flesh at full force. I’d already covered my eyes before the branching tendrils of magic reached him, as I knew the flash of light could easily blind me, even though I’d cast the spell.

  Kaboom!

  I was fully shielded from the more damaging effects of the spell, so every last volt and amp of that lightning strike struck Snorri’s hand. When the flash subsided, I quickly uncovered my face and opened my eyes to see the damage. As it happened, fear and desperation had caused me to release quite a bit more power than I’d intended, a fact revealed by the resulting damage.

  Blackened and charred flesh surrounded the spot on the giant’s hand where my spell had landed—or, at least, the half that was left. Snorri had reached for me with that hand because he was left-handed, as many supernatural creatures were. Fun fact, that was the reason why some cultures once thought it was evil to be a southpaw. But now, the giant’s thumb, index, and middle fingers were missi
ng, as well as a good portion of his palm.

  Snorri’s eyes grew wide, and his face was writ in horror as he realized what had happened. Then, the pain must’ve hit, because he opened his mouth wide enough to show every last one of his double-row of teeth. He let out a roar so loud it vibrated in my chest and shook the ground beneath me.

  The giant stared at his now mangled left hand, still bellowing in agony as he grasped his wrist to staunch the bleeding. He tore a strip of cloth from his ten-XL shirt, wrapping it around the wound even as his eyes bored into me with hate so noxious I could feel it on my skin. I took that opportunity to scuttle backward as if my life depended on it.

  As Snorri quickly dressed his wound, I observed that, like most giants, he had twelve fingers and twelve toes. So, he’d probably still have some use of that hand. Being no dummy, I wasn’t sticking around to point that out. I jumped to my feet and rabbited off into the woods, with the giant’s thundering steps not far behind.

  Damn it! Should’ve fired off another spell while he was stunned.

  That was one of the many issues I’d faced in learning to rely less on my Fomorian side and more on druid magic. For too long, I’d turned to physical violence as my first line of defense in virtually every encounter. So, I thought like a swordsman and a brawler, and not like a druid. Chaining spells together might’ve been second nature to your average battle druid or war mage, but I’d yet to develop those instincts.

  Thus, I’d squandered the brief window of opportunity that my initial counterattack had provided, and now I was on the defensive again. And Snorri would not make the mistake of letting me snap a spell off at him twice. From the sound of his footsteps and the vibrations I felt through my shoe soles every time they hit the ground, I knew he was right on my tail.