Druid's Due Read online

  The she-wolf paused at the edge of the woods, hiding among some shrubs as she scanned the riverbank ahead. As I settled in next to her, being sure to keep myself hidden, I noticed that she’d zeroed in on something down by the river. I followed her gaze, and there ahead of us in waist-deep water was a woman holding two young children. She cried over them, weeping hysterically as they hung lifeless from her arms.

  “¡Ay, mis hijos!” she wailed, over and over again.

  Were we too late? Was this Mrs. Guerra, mother of the missing siblings? Had she found her children here, drowned in the shallow waters of the Rio Grande? Or was it a family caught in tragedy, one of the many thousands who crossed the border each month, desperately seeking a new life north of the river?

  Distantly, in the recesses of my mind, a warning bell sounded.

  Something about this isn’t right.

  Yet within seconds my instincts had been suppressed, replaced by a sadness that settled on me like a familiar, threadbare blanket. Despair crept over me then, a despondent melancholy of a type I hadn’t felt since Jesse died. Within moments, I felt the sort of deep and abiding sorrow that said nothing and no one would ever be right in my world ever again.

  What’s the point of looking for these kids? I thought. They’re probably already dead, anyway. I should just head back to camp instead of wasting my time out here.

  I looked up at the woman, crying over her children as she stood holding their heads just above the water.

  Yes, that’s them. Dead, of course. Like everything in this world, their passing was like a wisp of smoke on the wind. Pointless. Senseless. Transient. And no one will remember them when they’re gone.

  I glanced at the river’s waters. Green, peaceful, calmly flowing to the sea. Beckoning me.

  Maybe I’ll wade out there, too. Just walk out to the middle, and let myself drift to the bottom. It’d be nothing to let the air seep out of my lungs as the water filled them back up again, and then I could drift off and finally be rid of this—

  A sharp pain in my left arm brought me back to my senses. I glanced down to see that Fallyn had her jaws clamped on my forearm. She growled and worried at it like an attack dog working a training dummy, her eyes locked on mine. Momentarily, the feelings of sadness and despair I’d felt subsided, and soon I was thinking clearly again.

  Bitch must be using magic that fucks with your emotions.

  “Thanks for that,” I whispered.

  Shaking off the last bit of fuzziness, I peered out of our hiding place to get a good look at the witch, or whatever the hell she was. Her back was turned to us, and although I couldn’t see her face, she had straight black hair down to her waist that glistened wet in the afternoon sun. The woman was tall and thin, but she came off as being graceful rather than gangly. She was dressed all in black, with a black shawl over her shoulders to match, and her lacy black dress billowed out as it floated on the surface of the water around her.

  Her wailing intensified as she gently lowered the children into the water, hanging on to their wet clothing to prevent them from drifting away. The river was high due to recent rains, and it didn’t help matters that she had taken the children to the deepest part of the channel. I could guess what was coming next, and in that moment I knew who—or rather, what—this evil thing was.

  La Llorona.

  I shrugged off Fallyn’s backpack as I reached into my Bag, digging around as I nudged Fallyn with my knee. “As soon as I attack, you get the kids and run.” She looked up at me with those yellow eyes and whined. “Just do it, and don’t look back!”

  My hand found what I’d been looking for, one of the few things I hadn’t used to feed the Grove during its recovery. Against lesser creatures of the Void, I’d found it to be too useful. Plus, it was great on tomatoes, and the Grove could grow one hell of a beefsteak tomato.

  I ran from cover while pulling a fistful of rock salt from my Bag, muttering a spell to infuse the salt with kinetic energy. Sprinting down the river bank, I yelled at the spirit while building up the enchantment in order to achieve the maximum effect. I might only get one shot at her, and I wanted to make sure I did some damage.

  “Hey, bitch—leave those kids alone!”

  It wasn’t the finest example of a witticism I’d ever uttered, but the idea was simply for her to turn her head. I figured a face-full of enchanted rock salt might get her to release the children, then Fallyn could grab them and run. Time seemed to slow as La Llorona responded to the sound of my voice while I closed the distance between us.

  What the fuck is up with her face?

  When the specter turned to look at me, her face simply wasn’t there. In its place was an unbroken expanse of dusky skin vaguely formed in the shape of a woman’s facial features. Yet she had no eyes, or lips—or eyebrows, for that matter. I wondered for a moment how she could cry without a mouth to form words, and eyes to form tears.

  That’s when I learned the bitch could scream.

  “¡No puedes tener mis hijos, hombre!”

  The ghost’s voice was a piercing wail that drove daggers of pain into my skull, driving me to my knees as I skidded to a halt on the muddy bank of the river. I vaguely heard Fallyn cry out somewhere behind me. Her hearing was much more sensitive than mine, and if I was in this much agony, I couldn’t imagine what she must be experiencing.

  I covered my ears with my fists, not wanting to release the only weapon I had that might do some damage against an ethereal creature. Forcing myself to open my eyes, I took stock of the situation as the pounding in my head subsided. La Llorona was already back at her gruesome task, a child in each hand as she submerged them under the water.

  No you don’t, bitch!

  “Scaoil!” I shouted, releasing the spell as I tossed the rock salt at her back.

  The pebble-sized granules took off like buckshot from the barrel of a shotgun, forming a tight pattern as they struck La Llorona cleanly between her shoulder blades. She screamed again, but this time the effect was greatly diminished. Instantly, her corporeal form disintegrated into a cloud of dark mist, but not before she turned that faceless mien on me one last time.

  “El hombre oscuro viene, druid. ¡Él viene!” she wailed. Then, her voice trailed off in the distance as the mists faded from sight.

  The kids!

  I saw a hand bob to the surface, just for a moment, then a flash of cloth in the water a few feet away, but both disappeared just as quickly. I leapt from where I was, using my Fomorian strength to dive into the waters where I thought the two children might be.

  9

  When I dove into the river, I lucked out by snagging a child’s coat in my hands almost immediately. I swam to the surface, lifting the kid’s head above the water—it was Robert. Thrashing about frantically, I tried desperately to locate his sister in the murky depths, but with no luck. Soon, Fallyn was there with me, diving under to help me search as we both drifted downstream.

  I’d almost lost hope when Fallyn finally surfaced, now in her human form, holding the young girl in her arms. We scrambled for shore, me with the boy and she with his sister. Neither was breathing as we lay them down on the muddy bank. I checked the boy’s pulse—it was weak, but there. Fallyn did the same for the girl, but she shook her head.

  I thought back to my first aid training, trying to recall vital information that would tell me what needed to be done. The problem with treating drowning victims was two-fold—water in the lungs, and laryngospasm. Both conditions had the same result, keeping the lungs from perfusing oxygen and carbon dioxide.

  One problem at a time, Colin.

  I uttered a spell, making it up on the fly. All that time I’d spent fixing the Grove had given me much greater control of the elements, and I used those newfound talents to draw the water from each child’s airway. As soon as the boy’s lungs were clear, he took a sputtering breath, coughing out the last drops of water as his inspiratory drive kicked in. As long as his vocal cords didn’t spasm, and so long as he didn’t
develop complications from drowning, he’d be fine.

  His sister was not as fortunate, and she still wasn’t breathing. Despite the fact that werewolves rarely required first aid—they healed like Wolverine, after all—Fallyn began performing textbook CPR on Lydia Guerra. She tilted her head, cleared the airway, and then attempted to perform rescue breathing.

  “I can’t get any air in,” she stated. She repositioned the girl’s airway by tilting her head back, then she tried again. “Still nothing—shit!”

  “Her throat is probably spasming,” I said, as a potential solution occurred to me. “I think I might be able to help. Open her mouth and make sure her tongue isn’t blocking her airway.”

  Fallyn looked at me like I was nuts, but she did it just the same. I closed my eyes, using my druid senses to feel the air that sat in her mouth and larynx. I gave it a gentle push, attempting to force air into her lungs without success.

  In severe cases of airway obstruction, paramedics would either intubate or perform an emergency cricothyrotomy, if they couldn’t place an artificial airway. I’d once performed just such a procedure on Fallyn using the barrel of a marker as an airway tube, but now I lacked anything I could use in similar fashion.

  Time to improvise.

  I focused on the air in Lydia’s throat, compressing it into a sort of wedge. Then, I envisioned her vocal cords in my mind, and ever-so-gently I pressed the tip of that wedge into the spot where her vocal cords met. I felt some resistance at first, then the muscles in her throat slowly parted, allowing air to escape with a strident hiss.

  Slowing my own breathing, I went into a meditative state to maintain focus as I kept her airway open. Then, I held her vocal cords apart using druid magic while Fallyn did chest compressions. Soon the girl’s heart began to beat on its own, and she began breathing again as well. However, her throat was still in spasm, so I had to magically maintain her airway to keep her alive. Meanwhile, Fallyn retrieved her clothes from her backpack and got dressed.

  It was a hell of a thing, maintaining that sort of control over air molecules in such delicate manner, and I soon lost track of time. Before I knew it, the whump-whump-whump of helicopter rotors appeared overhead, and Fallyn’s voice echoed in the distance as she guided the paramedics over to me and the children.

  “The boy is breathing on his own, but the girl, um—she’s wheezing really bad. My friend seemed to think her throat had closed up.”

  “What’s he doing? Praying over her?” a male voice asked.

  “Yeah, well—CPR wasn’t working, so what were we supposed to do?” Fallyn replied with irritation in her voice.

  Soon I was pushed out of the way, and the paramedics began to work on Lydia. “Her vocal cords are spasming—she needs to be intubated,” I said.

  “We’ll take it from here, sir. Now please, let us work.”

  Satisfied that they knew their business, I stumbled to my feet, exhausted from the effort it had taken to keep the girl alive. Vaguely, I heard the paramedics marvel at the fact that Lydia was still alive. They chalked it up to the mammalian diving reflex and luck, but Fallyn and I knew better.

  The life flight helicopter was soon en route to the nearest hospital, some eighty miles distant. Park authorities showed up shortly before they left, and we were detained while they asked us a few questions. Once they verified our story with the paramedics by radio, we were allowed to leave, with the admonition that the park rangers and local authorities might want to question us again at a later date.

  Of course, we gave them false names and showed false IDs, so we wouldn’t be answering any questions anytime soon. The less the authorities bothered us at the moment, the better. We were offered a ride back to our campground, which we declined. It earned us some quizzical looks, but we really didn’t care.

  Neither of us spoke until we were halfway back to camp.

  “Colin, what was that thing, anyway?”

  “A folktale—‘La Llorona,’ The Crying Lady. As the story goes, a poor young woman fell in love with a charming, aristocratic young man. They had children and were happy for a time, but the man had to keep their affair a secret from his parents. Eventually, he was forced to marry someone of his own station, although he swore he’d still look after the woman he loved, and their children.”

  “Something tells me I’m not going to like how this story ends,” Fallyn said.

  “Nope, you won’t. The woman attended her lover’s wedding, dressed in all black. After witnessing the man she loved marrying another woman, she went off the deep end. Maybe it was post-partum depression—I mean, who knew about that stuff back then? When she got home, she took their children to the river and drowned them, then killed herself as well.”

  Fallyn sighed. “And now she haunts rivers and steals kids so she can drown them, just like she did her own children.”

  “So the story goes,” I replied solemnly.

  “Think she’ll be back?”

  “Considering the fact that I didn’t kill her because I don’t know how, and that we robbed her of her intended targets—yes, I do.”

  “Well, hell.” She paused for the span of several footfalls. “Do I need to say I told you so?”

  “No. No, you do not.”

  “Shit magnet.”

  “Bitch.”

  “I was born this way—what’s your excuse?” she countered coyly.

  “The same, Fallyn. The same.” I made an “s” and an “m” by contorting my fingers in a ridiculous imitation of a gang sign. “Shit magnet for life, yo.”

  Fallyn punched me in the shoulder. “You are such a nerd.”

  It was almost dark and we were halfway back to camp when Fallyn whispered to me, barely loud enough for my sensitive ears to hear.

  “We’re being followed.”

  “Human, or other?” I asked.

  “Other, maybe. Smallish animal, moves like a predator. Might be a coyote.”

  “Skinwalker?”

  She shrugged. “It’s been following us for two miles. Would have attacked by now if it was. They’re fairly territorial.”

  “Just in case, let’s set up an ambush before we get to camp.”

  As soon as we rounded the next bend, each of us found a hiding spot in the brush on either side. Crouched and coiled for action, I waited until our stalker came into sight. Despite the fading light, I could make out the shape of a dog-like animal as it quietly and furtively padded down the trail toward our hiding spots.

  It was thin, rangy, and nearly hairless, with pale grey skin, red glowing eyes, pointed canine ears, and a mouthful of sharp teeth that projected past its lips at odd angles. At roughly fifty pounds or so, it was maybe the size of a large coyote or a coy-wolf. Yet it was clearly no coyote.

  Even more strange, the thing was singing to itself. Sort of.

  “Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor,” it chanted, over and over again in a near whisper. Then, it started making the most horrible noises. “Doo-doo-ding, dingle-lang-a-lang! Doo-doo-ding, dingle-lang-a-lang!”

  At first I thought it was in distress, then I realized it was beat-boxing the guitar riff from a Drowning Pool song. From across the trail, Fallyn gave me a quizzical look as she drew a finger across her throat.

  Should I kill it? she mouthed.

  I shook my head “no” and motioned for her to hold tight. Then, just as the thing passed us I sprang, landing on its back and rolling it on its side. I pinned it with my hands at its throat and my knees straddling its torso. The weird creature snapped at me, out of instinct more than anything it seemed, because when it saw my face it calmed down and gave a sheepish grin.

  “Oh, hiya there. Guess you knew I was following you, eh?” The creature had a sort of Brooklyn accent, and his voice reminded me a lot of Steve Buscemi’s. He looked down at my hands with his glowing ruby eyes and cleared his throat. “Can you, uh, ease up a bit? I got sensitive skin, and all this chafing is really gonna play hell with my ecz
ema.”

  “That depends on whether or not I decide to snap your neck,” I replied through clenched teeth. “It’s been a rough day—hell, a rough month—and I don’t have the patience for playing games right now.”

  The creature’s eyes darted to Fallyn, undressing her as he looked her up and down. “Does, uh, she have time for games? Because I could think of at least a half-dozen I could play with her.”

  I squeezed harder.

  “Oh-kay,” he wheezed. “Ease up, already. I meant no harm.”

  “Why were you following us?” Fallyn asked, barely keeping a smirk off her face.

  The thing smacked his lips nervously. “Well, I, uh, saw what you did down at the river. Not that I was spying or anything. I just happened to stroll by while you two were dealing with the lady in black. After I saw how you handled it, and when I realized you two were more than just your average backpackers out for a hike, I got curious. So, I followed you.”

  “Curious, huh?” I said. “Fallyn, are you buying any of this?”

  “He seems pretty harmless.” She looked the creature in the eye. “What are you, anyway?”

  The thing puffed up his chest, despite the fact that I was crushing it with my weight. “Larry the Chupacabra, at your service.”

  “Come again?” I replied. “The bloodsucking monster? Seriously?”

  Larry’s eyelids fluttered. “Hey now, that bloodsucking thing is just a myth. I’m vegan. How do you think I maintain this svelte figure?”

  I looked up at Fallyn. “What’s your gut telling you, partner?”

  She bit her lip and chortled. “I dunno. Is that even what a chupacabra is supposed to look like? I thought they were more… what’s the word I’m looking for?”

  “Anthropomorphic?” I asked.

  She snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “Exactly! Sort of like an imp, but green and scaly.”

  Larry’s voice took on a sarcastic tone. “As if. I can assure you, any artist’s depictions you’ve seen on shows like Destination Truth have been greatly exaggerated. I mean, you know they just act like they’re seeing things, right? Like, Josh Gates goes, ‘Oh, I think I just saw something move in the bushes,’ and then they run around doing the shaky camera thing to make you think it’s for real. Lame!” He winked at Fallyn. “Humans are such suckers—amirite, beautiful, or what?”