Shade War: A Druidverse Urban Fantasy Novel (The Shadow Changeling Series Book 3)
Shade War
A DRUIDVERSE URBAN FANTASY NOVEL
M.D. MASSEY
Copyright © 2022 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.
For Deanna…
now, and always.
Contents
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
Bonus Short Story: Serpent’s Daughter
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
Epilogue
Chapter
One
The demon was devouring me from the inside out.
It was clear to me now that Fuamnach had always intended it this way. Otherwise, I’d have posed too much of a threat to her. It was far easier to poison a hound than risk letting it turn on its master.
As I sat in meditation, the spasms returned in earnest, wracking my body with pain and nearly doubling me over where I sat. I’d not let my shade feed in months, hoping to starve it into further submission. But rather than making it easier to control, I’d instead started a war of attrition between us.
That was when I realized the wraith had always been meant to kill me. The more I fed it, the stronger it would become, until it subverted my will and took over my physical form completely. Then it would gorge itself on the life energy of other humans until my body could no longer contain its power.
At that point, it wouldn’t need to feed anymore. The life force it had acquired here on the earthly plane would be sufficient for it to return to the Shadow Realm triumphant—and rule.
That was likely the bargain Fuamnach had struck with the entity. Servitude for a time, and my life in exchange for power it could not access on its own. I was to be a temporary tool to serve at Fuamnach’s pleasure, a disposable plaything to entertain her for a time and nothing more. Yet events had not proceeded according to Fuamnach’s plan. I hadn’t become drunk with power, allowing the shade to feed at will as she’d expected.
Certainly, I’d been tempted. The sensation of letting it devour another being’s life force could be intoxicating. And the power I’d have gained from doing so might have been enough to topple my foster mother from her throne. But the gifts Fuamnach gave were always poisoned fruit, as it was with all the fae and Tuath Dé, and I knew better than to trust her.
Fortunately for me, I’d retained a bit of my humanity, even after being mind-wiped and systematically brainwashed over several decades in Underhill. Through it all, a small piece of my true self somehow remained. Intuition told me that my real mother’s influence had played a hand in that. Although I had no proof, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been watching over me from beyond the grave.
A fresh round of spasms brought my attention back to the present, causing me to focus on bringing my shade to heel. I forced my spine erect, straining against my cramped abdominal muscles to do so. Then I exerted my will internally, ignoring the burning agony in my gut and the searing sensation in my chest. Even though my body had been weakened by the shade’s influence, my mind was as sharp as ever, and I was not about to be brought low by some extra-planar interloper that happened to be grafted onto my spirit by eldritch magic.
-Allow me to feed, mortal. Or perish.-
No.
I’d been keeping my communications with the being to a minimum, answering it in clipped, one-word sentences to avoid allowing its influence to contaminate my mind. Still, it whispered heinous suggestions to me constantly. Those thoughts surfaced when my focus drifted, and they were evidenced in the nightmares I suffered while asleep.
Yet I was no stranger to nightmares, having lived one for decades. I could replenish my mind through meditation, and my elixir still served to keep my thoughts sharp and clear. But what I couldn’t do anything about was how I was wasting away physically.
Oh, Fuamnach. You will pay, this I swear.
After several long, agonizing minutes, I managed to mentally batter the demon back into the psycho-spiritual prison in which I’d contained it years earlier. I then reinforced the psychic and metaphysical bonds that restrained the entity, wrapping it in chains made from magic and willpower. Finally, I shored up the walls of the thing’s prison, brick by psychic brick, until its voice was nothing more than a low murmur in my mind.
With the shade safely sequestered in its cage, I’d have access to its magic until it gathered enough strength to attack me again. It would attack again, of that I had no doubt. I only hoped that wouldn’t happen at an inopportune time.
With that task complete, it was simply a matter of systematically undoing the damage the shade’s attack had done. Slowly, ever so slowly, I forced my abdominals to unclench, then I carefully stretched myself out from head to toe, flowing from one pose to another on shaky limbs as cold sweat drenched the floor of my room.
An hour later, I’d recovered enough to shower, dress, eat, and face the world. Not a moment too soon, it seemed, as one of my alarm wards had been tripped at my grandparents’ ranch again. Something had been stalking about the place, for what purpose I knew not.
After performing a magical sweep of the area around my current, temporary home, I donned a jacket and headed for the door, pausing for a moment to look at myself in the hall mirror. The man staring back at me was much thinner than he’d been months before, gaunt even, with dark circles under his eyes and an ashen tone to his skin. I was losing my war of attrition with the shade, that was much clear.
Not before I get my revenge—never that.
Soon, I’d storm the gates of Underhill and stage my assault on Fumanach’s demesne. After I’d dealt with her, the damned thing could finish consuming me for all I cared. I’d happily sacrifice myself in order to turn the entity loose in Underhill. Let the Tuath Dé and fae deal with what their Black Sorceress had wrought.
And then? What of Belladonna? Would you abandon her, for the sake of vengeance?
I discarded the thought, cutting off the internal dialogue entirely. Having conversations with oneself was not exactly a sign of mental stability, and it indicated I was beginning to crack under the strain of battling the shade. Yet I did need to address what would happen to Belladonna after my battle with Fuamnach.
That issue would have to wait. Alarms were going off all around my grandparents’ former home, and I needed to get there soon before the trespasser vanished.
Time to investigate and see what this creature is about.
I’d been inspecting my grandparents’ ranch in McMullen County when I first noticed signs of the interloper’s presence. The purpose of my visit had been to ascertain whether the house that came with the ranch could be remodeled, or if I’d need to tear it down and s
tart over from scratch. Such mundane business decisions normally required little consideration, but I was having difficulty coming to a final determination on the matter.
The property had once been my grandparents’ farm, and it had become dilapidated and rundown through years of neglect. Having recently recovered my childhood memories from before my abduction, I discovered I was surprisingly attached to the old farmhouse. Yet, I wasn’t sure that it was worth saving from a purely financial standpoint.
On my initial visit, I’d spent an hour or so examining the venerable, two-story clapboard residence. After that, I’d gone for a walk through the ranch’s many acres of scrub brush, cactus, chaparral, and mesquite to consider my options. Almost immediately, I noticed deep footprints in the dusty soil around the home, no more than a day old. The tracks were oddly formed, made by boot-shod feet that sunk much deeper at the heel than forefoot.
I had no idea what had made those tracks, only that it was very heavy and wearing shoes. Based on the depth of the tracks, the trespasser was either an unusually large man or a supernatural creature. In light of recent events, my wager rested on the latter option.
At first, I considered placing barrier wards around the property to keep it away from the house. However, that would mean I’d have to track it down to find out what it was. How droll. Better to have the beast come to me, making it easier to deal with accordingly.
Decision made, I’d set alarm wards around the property so I’d know when the thing returned. Then I’d promptly forgotten about the matter, distracted as I was with the disposition of my real estate inheritance.
On returning to the ranch this evening, I immediately shrouded myself in shadow and ran a circuit of the house and grounds. Finding nothing, my attention was drawn back to the house, not by any sign the trespasser was there, but due to the conundrum I faced regarding the disposition of the old place. I agonized over my decision for the better part of half an hour as I wandered aimlessly around the yard surrounding the home. Just when I was completely and utterly lost in thought, that’s when the beast struck.
It was to his advantage to attack me here, preoccupied as I was by emotions and memories the place had stirred up within me. The creature must have been lying in wait, remaining silently hidden until I approached. Yet it was as much chance as foresight that allowed the beast to catch me off guard, as I just happened to draw near to its hiding place when I was most vulnerable.
“You made them do this to me, damn you!” the thing roared as it burst out of the brush at me.
I turned just in time to recognize my attacker as Sheriff Ulrich—or at least what was left of him. Whatever the fae or Vampyri had done to the man, they hadn’t been kind about it. Ulrich had been a tall, lanky man prior to this transformation, but now he was a hulking brute. He stood eight feet tall at least, half as wide at the shoulders, and carried the requisite muscle and bulk his kind were known to possess.
His skin was the color of charred leather, a sort of grayish tan that faded to pink around his eyes, neck, and lips. Short, course black hair grew from his skin like cactus spines all over, stiff and thick enough to stick through what remained of the white Western shirt and tan polyester work slacks he’d worn when last I saw him. His feet were shod in black leather duty boots, the toes flopping and slapping the ground with each step.
As for his forehead and pate, that part of his head was bloated in a manner similar to an athlete who had used too many performance enhancing drugs for too long. His jaw, mandible, and nose had elongated into a porcine snout that made his deep-set, piggish eyes seem all the more brutish. Six-inch tusks curled up from under his lower lip, ending in tips that were sharp enough to gut a person.
They turned him into a wereboar. Unbelievable.
Hard muscle rippled beneath the inch-thick layer of skin that I knew covered his arms, shoulders, and back. That membrane was tougher than rhinoceros hide, able to turn bullets and blades alike. Only an attack to his eyes, throat, or tender belly and groin would have any effect, and then only until his therianthrope healing factor kicked in, repairing even mortal wounds in mere seconds.
No werebeast was hardier than a wereboar, and few were more dangerous and unpredictable. Scrofathropes were hated amongst their own kind, having been hunted to near extinction by ’thrope packs the world over. The reasons for this were simple.
Every last one of the species was possessed by an incredibly voracious appetite. They’d eat anything—animal or vegetable, living or dead. Nor were they averse to killing humans for sustenance, and thus were known to have difficulties blending in with modern society.
Additionally, wereboars tended to fly into fits of rage, usually with catastrophic consequences. This made them a liability for others of their kind, who preferred to live incognito alongside humanity. Murders drew attention from the authorities, and attention was the last thing any ‘thrope pack desired.
Lastly, they reproduced at a phenomenal rate. Where most therianthropes had difficulty bearing offspring the natural way, scrofathropes had no such disadvantages. A single mated pair could easily whelp a dozen young a year, all of them inheriting their parents’ temper and appetite. For these reasons, scrofathropes were seen as a liability by other therianthropes, and they’d been hunted to near-extinction before the onset of the industrial age.
All this went through my mind as the pigman bore down on me, charging out of the undergrowth at speed. Being human by nature—an altered human, but still—I lacked the preternatural reflexes fae, vampires, and therianthropes possessed. Thus, I was unable to move out of the way before the scrofathrope barreled into me, grunting and slavering incoherently. Thankfully, I was not completely without supernatural defenses, and I was able to gather enough shadow energy between us to shield me from the brunt of the impact.
Even so, Ulrich had gained the upper hand through surprise and violence of action. He’d dropped his shoulder just before ramming into me, driving his head and torso up in an attempt to gore my abdomen. My hastily formed shadow barrier prevented the intended disembowelment, but as a consequence I was tossed up and over the pigman’s head as he passed.
As I found myself somersaulting fifteen feet above the ground, I struggled to draw breath into my lungs. Meanwhile, out of instinct and trained response more than any conscious decision on my part, the shadow barrier spread across my body, covering me in a thin, translucent shell that would protect me from the next attack.
Unfortunately, I only had time to form the protective membrane before gravity brought me back to earth. I landed flat on my back, knocking the wind out of me a second time and further ravaging my already abused diaphragm and lungs. As a final insult, my skull bounced off the hard, dusty earth on impact, rattling teeth and brain alike and causing me to black out.
When next I opened my eyes, I was dangling off the ground by my lapels. Ulrich held me firmly in his thick, grimy hands, and he was staring at me from just a few inches away with his piggy eyes. The wereboar snorted from his blunt, porcine nose, then he spoke.
“Fae hurt me,” he grunted. “Because of you.”
His breath was fetid and rank with scavenged carcasses and partially digested corn. The odors combined to form an ammonia-laden effluvium of scents, reminiscent of a corn-mash still in which a rat had fallen and succumbed to alcohol poisoning. I’d actually never experienced such an odor, but I was certain that scenario would produce the closest approximation to this present olfactory assault.
Shaking off my concussion-induced mental haze and forcing down the bile that rose at the back of my throat, I croaked out a reply. “If the fae did this to you, it was because you were foolish enough to parley with them. The fault lies squarely at your now presumably cloven feet.”
He roared incoherently, just before pivoting and tossing me like a track and field hammer in a high arc that looked as though it would end in a mesquite grove some fifty feet away. My shirt and jacket both tore with loud ripping noises, rent nearly in two by the force of b
earing my weight as I was swung about. Whilst sailing through the air for the second time in as many minutes, only one thought crossed my mind.
Drat, that jacket was a Brunello Cucinelli. I’ll make the brute pay for that.
Instinctively, I drew on and directed the shade’s magic to form multiple shadow tentacles, the magic responding as if it were my own. Four such appendages whipped out from my torso, two posting on tree trunks to slow my momentum, the others latching onto nearby tree limbs to guide my trajectory through the thorny branches of the grove. I came through with nary a scratch, whipping around the other side of a largish tree to land lightly, if somewhat shakily, on my own two feet.
Somewhere in the distance, bestial vocalizations and the sounds of snapping tree branches indicated Ulrich was barreling through the undergrowth after me. Thankfully, the beast had tossed me far enough in his rage to allow me a few seconds to recover. While gathering myself and readying my magic, I couldn’t help but reflect on how ridiculous it was that the former sheriff blamed me for his current condition.
Humans—they always see themselves as the victim or hero in their own story, but never as the villain.
As for myself, I had zero issues facing facts. I know who I am, and while I’m no longer a villain, I’m certainly not the hero of my story, either. Perhaps my only saving grace is that I’m not wholly evil.
Of course, I am aware that evil resides within me. Thus, I remain vigilant so I might prevent that malevolence from emerging and harming others. The exception is when I meet people who are fully and unconditionally reprobate. Then, I give my own inner villainy free rein and feel no remorse afterward.