The Junkyard Druid Box Set 1 Page 2

  “I’m fine—now run!” she screamed as she limped away from the fallen, lifeless figure behind her.

  Instead of fleeing, I moved toward her, intending to give her an assist while we retreated and regrouped.

  I never got the chance.

  Just before she reached me, an invisible force sent her rocketing across the cave. Like a rag doll thrown by an angry child, she slammed into the limestone surface with a sickening crunch. Momentarily stunned, I watched helplessly as Jesse slid down the wall in a bloody, crumpled heap near a cluster of stalagmites.

  And that’s when a huge, scaly, reptilian creature coalesced in the center of the cave.

  The dragon was easily forty feet from the tip of her nose to the end of her tail. Ruby-red, slitted crocodile eyes, set deep beneath a bony brow on her serpentine head, fixed me with a predatory stare. Her body was a cross between that of a lion and a lizard—powerful and built for speed, but with large, leathery wings draped along her sides. Scales and spiny protrusions lined her back, fading from inky black to deep crimson on her sides, and ending in bright red on her underbelly.

  I glanced at where Jesse had fallen in a crumpled heap, and she wasn’t moving. Based on the sound her body had made as she hit the cave wall, I suspected that she was badly injured. Time was of the essence, and I desperately needed to get Jesse back to Finnegas. The old man’s skill at healing magic was second to none, and if anyone could help her, he could.

  First things first—deal with the dragon.

  Swishing her spiked tail, Caoránach watched me like a cat as she absently clicked her long, dagger-like claws on the cavern floor.

  “Hello, hunter,” she hissed in a deep, rich female voice.

  Fuck—she’s huge.

  Finn’s intel had been wrong—oh, so wrong. We were supposed to be facing a weak demoness locked inside her humanoid form, not a grown dragon. A succubi-level creature, I could handle alone, but a full-on wyrm? No.

  So, my priority was getting us the hell out of here. But, that wasn’t going to happen unless I took out the dragon. The only problem was, I didn’t have anything handy that could slay her.

  Maybe I can’t kill her, but I can wound her badly enough to save Jesse.

  I holstered my pistol, while angling my body to hide my right hand as I slid it inside my Craneskin Bag. It operated like a bag of holding, the only difference being that my Bag was where Gygax and his gang had gotten the idea in the first place. Frankly, the thing kind of creeped me out, but it was great for storing surprises—like the one I’d spring on Caoránach.

  “Were you expecting someone…smaller?” the dragon taunted.

  “In fact, I was.” I acted as casual as possible while I stared down a creature that could bite me in two with one snap of her jaws. “Our sources told us you were stuck in your human form. Funny how that info could be so very wrong—almost like we were fed bad intel.”

  She chuckled, a sound so deep I felt the bass in my chest. “When you deal with fae creatures, you should expect misdirection. But, enough of this. You’ve killed an ample number of my subjects, and it’s time I dealt with you pesky infants, once and for all.”

  Caoránach drew herself up to her full height, opening her jaws like a snake ready to strike.

  Now.

  When the dragon’s head came down at me, I sidestepped and pivoted. Simultaneously, I pulled my spear, point first, from my Bag. As her huge jaws clamped down on empty space, I lunged forward and thrust the spear at her left pupil. The tip of the enchanted weapon was razor-sharp, so I met only a small amount of resistance as the spearhead pierced the surface of her eye. I continued the thrust, burying the leaf-shaped blade to the shaft.

  The dragon’s eye burst outward, showering me in the clear vitreous fluid that had filled her eyeball. She roared with pain and anger, jerking her head away so quickly the spear was snatched from my grasp. Before I could dodge out of the way, she swiped her massive front claw across my midsection, gutting me from stem to sternum.

  I looked down at what had been my abdomen, only to find that Caoránach had practically disemboweled me. Half my intestines were strung out across the cavern floor, and what remained of my midsection was a wet mess of bloody, shredded tissue. Falling to my knees, I grasped at my innards in a futile attempt to stuff them back inside my body.

  “Motherfucker.” I stared at the mangled guts I held in my hands. “This did not go the way I planned.”

  Then, something burst within my stomach cavity, and a flood of hot, red liquid flowed through my hands. My senses were immediately overwhelmed by the metallic smell of my own fluids, combined with the odors of shit and undigested food that leaked from the tattered remains of my bowels. Instantly weakened by massive blood loss, I fell in a limp heap, my innards squishing and splashing around me.

  Aorta must’ve burst. Damn, I did not think I would go out this way.

  Too weak to move, I watched Caoránach pull the spear from her eye. With another primal roar, she tossed it away. The edges of the scene before me began to blur, and my heart fluttered, failing within my chest.

  Not enough blood left to pump. This is it.

  As darkness crept in and my consciousness faded, my last thought was that I’d failed Jesse.

  Sorry, Jesse. I’m so very sorry.

  Then, my body spasmed. Every muscle contracted at once. Simultaneously, my thoughts became clearer, although I no longer could control my movements. It seemed as though I was having an out-of-body experience, except my point of view stayed right inside my head. It was quite different from movie death scenes, where the POV drifts up to the ceiling as the camera pans down to a lifeless corpse.

  Is this what dying is like? You just stay trapped inside your dead body, watching helplessly as it decays away?

  Before I could further puzzle over my current situation, a second presence emerged inside my mind. No, not inside my mind: inside me. It was almost as if I’d birthed a second personality from the depths of my own identity and ego, except it wasn’t me at all.

  No, this secondary presence was hostile and feral. It growled at me, then it came to the fore, shoving my own personality out of the way as it stepped front and center into the light. Suddenly, I was a passenger inside my own head, and someone else was piloting the ship.

  An inhuman howl of rage boiled up from within my body, totally and completely independent of my conscious, autonomous control. As that primal roar escaped my lips, my physical form began to change. Even worse, I saw myself transform into something new and hideous, through eyes that were no longer my own, from inside a body I no longer controlled…

  That’s when the real nightmare began.

  1

  Cognoscenti Therapy Associates, Austin, TX—Six Months Later

  I sat across from Dr. Larsen in her office, which was located in a hip, upscale business complex in a newly gentrified area of East Austin, just a few blocks from the downtown district. She looked at me attentively, waiting for me to answer her last question. I did my best to avoid making eye contact. I tried to find a way to begin, but when I opened my mouth I just couldn’t find the words. So, Dr. Larsen posed her question again.

  “Tell me about the night Jesse died.”

  “I can’t talk about it—it’s too painful.”

  She readjusted her position in her chair, pulling her skirt down slightly to maintain her perfectly coiffed appearance. I glanced up at her, and reflected that she sure didn’t look like a Larsen. She was very pretty, with fine Roman features and the kind of olive skin you couldn’t get from a tanning bed or spray booth. She had dark, thick hair, lush, but not quite full lips, and the body of a runway model. I noted this all in a sort of detached, clinical manner, because it distracted me from the topic of discussion.

  Namely, how I’d murdered the love of my life.

  I’d been referred to Dr. Larsen by Finn’s assistant Maureen, the girl who ran his import-export business. The business was a cover for what we really did behind the s
cenes, before Finn became an addict. Anyway, Maureen was a half-kelpie who’d been handling Finn’s affairs for several centuries. In the aftermath of what happened at the Caoránach’s lair, Maureen had found me a therapist who knew about the world beneath. Dr. Larsen had a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and a master’s in psychiatric nursing, and she knew all about the supernatural realm. How, I had no idea, but this was just about the only place it was safe for me to talk about what had really happened that night.

  The official story, the one told to our parents, friends, and family to cover up what had actually happened, was that Jesse and I had been camping together at Inks Lake. While I’d been on a run to the store, she’d gotten attacked by a black bear. It was total rubbish, obviously, because there’s no way a black bear could do what had been done to Jesse’s body. Only a monster could do such a thing. And that monster was sitting right here in Dr. Larsen’s office.

  Dr. Larsen finished adjusting her skirt and tapped her pen once on her clipboard. “You’ll have to talk about it eventually, Colin, in order to process the pain of those memories. Otherwise it’s going to eat you alive. You’ll end up just another statistic. I believe you have way too much potential to throw away your life at such a young age.”

  “Potential? You mean for hunting them? Let me tell you, that part of my life is over. All it’s done is brought misery to me, tragedy and heartache to Jesse’s family, and—”

  I stopped, because I couldn’t say what I’d been about to say next. Dr. Larsen finished my sentence for me. “And it cost you the love of your life.”

  I nodded and looked off at the wall. My voice was paper thin and nearly inaudible as I replied. “Yes.”

  “And you still blame yourself.” A statement, not a question.

  I flew out of the chair and roared at her. “Of course I blame myself! I remember everything—everything! Every moment of madness as the curse kicked in. It was like the real me stepped outside myself, and another me—a darker part of me—took over. I was just a passenger as I watched it all happen. And there was nothing, nothing I could do about it!”

  I slumped back down into the chair, feeling defeated and drained just by that simple admission of guilt and shame. “You don’t know what it’s like living with a monster inside you. Every day I live in constant fear that it’ll happen again, and that this time I’ll kill someone else I love. And every night I relive those moments in my dreams. I can’t sleep, because when I do I have to go through it all again. I can’t eat, because I get sick to my stomach every time I think about the feel of her blood on my hands.”

  I paused and stared down at those hands, curled into fists in my lap. “I can still feel her neck snapping beneath my fingers, and see the light leaving her eyes. And I can’t bear it any longer. I just want it to be over, everything, over and done with.”

  “But you can’t die, can you? You’ve tried to kill yourself—how many times now?”

  I snorted with derision. “Seven, if you include the walk I took off the Frost Building last week.”

  “And every time, the curse takes over, and you wake up somewhere alive and perfectly healthy.”

  I nodded and placed my head in my hands. “Yes.”

  She leaned forward and grabbed my hands, pulling them into hers. “Look at me, Colin.”

  I looked down at the floor, but she continued squeezing my hands, waiting patiently for me to respond. After a few seconds, I looked up and met her gaze. As I did, I caught just the slightest hint of gold in her unnaturally blue eyes.

  “You know, your story is not all that unique in the supernatural world. Many a were-creature has had a similar experience the first time they turned. And, much like your predicament, many therianthropes have tried to commit suicide in the midst of their grief and self-loathing, only to wake up the next day with one less round in their gun. They find themselves no worse for the wear, physically speaking.

  “I want you to know that I’ve treated dozens of people who have had equally tragic experiences, who faced comparable tragedy and loss. I don’t say that to diminish your feelings or what you’ve experienced in the slightest—I am sharing this with you so you know there is hope after such a tragedy. Things will feel just a little less heavy and a little easier to bear as time goes on. While the memories and pain will never completely go away, they’ll fade over time. Eventually, you will learn to live again.”

  She squeezed my hands a final time and let them go, and I sank back into the chair and laid my head back against the cushion to look at the ceiling. “That may be true, Dr. Larsen, but I just can’t find a good reason to keep on living.”

  She nodded. “It’s absolutely understandable that you should feel this way. And no one, not one soul has the right to blame you for not wanting to go on. But the fact remains that you really have no choice in the matter.

  “Now, for someone in your situation, there are only a few motivating factors that would be strong enough to keep a person moving forward through the process of healing and recovery. One of them is to seek redemption.”

  I tilted my head forward and glanced at her. “And the other?”

  She sat back and crossed her legs. “Revenge. And frankly, given the choice between redemption and revenge, I’d strongly advise you to choose the former and not the latter. One way offers forgiveness and healing, while the other will only lead to more violence and suffering.

  “Moreover, if you seek revenge you could easily have another episode. As you said earlier, there’s no telling what could happen should that occur. So I suggest that you continue to work on the mindfulness exercises I’ve shown you, that you get involved in a spiritual community somewhere where you can connect with loving, caring people, and that you stay on your medication.”

  She scratched out a few lines on a pad in her lap and tore the top sheet off, handing me a script for a refill of the antidepressants she’d prescribed me. I took it from her with a silent nod, knowing I’d toss it away the moment I left her office.

  “Colin, please know that I’m here to help. You can call me at any time if you need someone to talk to.” She glanced at an old school planner that sat next to her on a side table. “I have our next appointment scheduled at the usual time on Wednesday of next week. Will I see you then?”

  I forced myself out of the chair, swaying slightly as I stood up. These sessions always took a lot out of me, and I had low blood sugar from not eating since forever. “Gotcha. Meditation, church, people, meds.” I tipped my ball cap at her. “Same time next week.”

  She stood and walked me to the door, reassuring me with a gentle touch on my shoulder as she held it open. “You will get through this, Colin. Have faith.”

  Faith. Right.

  I pasted on a smile, because I liked her and I didn’t want to be rude. “Alright, Dr. Larsen. I’ll try.”

  As I walked out of her office, all I could think about was that choice between revenge and redemption. To be honest, revenge sounded really, really good to me right now.

  But I had enough blood on my hands already. There was no way I’d risk another episode by hunting down the sorceress who cursed me. And since I didn’t think I deserved redemption, it occurred to me that I was screwed.

  Journal Entry—Eight Months and Three Days A.J. (“After Jesse”)

  Dr. Larsen said I need to write this stuff down, since I can’t seem to talk about it in therapy. She says it’s necessary for processing my pain. So, here goes…

  In every great love story, tragedy strikes, so I suppose our story is no different from the rest. When I was just a kid, my dad was killed fighting the war in Afghanistan. Losing my father so young had devastated me, and it didn’t help that I was pudgy, shy, and nerdy as all hell, too. I withdrew inside myself, and quickly became the target of some pretty vicious bullying. My saving grace was making friends with a pretty little tomboy by the name of Jesse Callahan, who was also a bit of an outcast. From the day we met, it was us against the world. Nothing they could do to us matter
ed, so long as we had each other’s backs.

  A few years later, we were both introduced to the world beneath our own when a vampire dwarf came looking to chow down on my still-beating heart. As it turned out, I was the last in a long line of male descendants of the great Fionn MacCumhaill, a.k.a. Finn McCool. Sometime in the way distant past, Fionn had defeated this vampire dwarf, the Avartagh, staked him, and buried him upside down so he couldn’t escape his grave. Well, two thousand years later a construction crew accidentally dug him up, and after he slaughtered them he tracked Finn’s family line to America, where he came after me to exact his revenge.

  That’s when Finnegas the druid showed up. Uncle Finn, as my family had always known him, had been training the McCool family line to fight supernatural creatures for nearly two millennia. And while he hadn’t planned on introducing me to the family tradition for a few more years, his timetable got moved up when the Avartagh took over our town and cast a glamour that made everyone’s wildest dreams come true.

  Only it was nothing like Napoleon Dynamite. People walked around in a daze, the town was a wreck, and the local economy took a nosedive. If you couldn’t see through the glamour, everything looked perfect, but in reality people were living like animals and being hunted by unseelie fae without anyone being the wiser. It took a “chance” encounter with a leprechaun to open my eyes to what was happening, and after that the first thing I did was free Jesse from the Avartagh’s spell. Then, we went after him.

  Long story short, I nearly died killing the thing, and soon after that, Finnegas started training the two of us to become hunters and champions. At the time we both thought it was great. We had a secret lair where the old man trained us in hand-to-hand combat, spellcraft, and all manner of violence and mayhem. And we could see through the glamour that kept humans from noticing the supernatural creatures that existed all around them. It was like living in a J.K. Rowling novel… for a time.