Druid Bond Read online

  Arnaud pulled the scepter to his side. “Yes, but it’s not just the power of the Brasov Pact he wields. He also carries the blessings of the Great Faiths. And the protection replenishes every time he visits one of their houses.”

  “Servants are claiming souls for my competition,” Malphas said. “Perhaps I should be recruiting them.” Something in his voice suggested this was more than idle threat.

  “But how many souls?” Arnaud asked.

  The disembodied pair of red eyes narrowed.

  “What I’m saying,” Arnaud added quickly, “is that they may be claiming souls, but in ones and twos, yes? When we take control of the city, the numbers will be in the hundreds and then thousands.” He pushed a little vampiric persuasion into the words, a power that when used judiciously worked on his master. “With the wizard out of the picture, it will be a cinch. Why, look at what we’ve accomplished in just a few short days.” He gestured around them. “The most expensive penthouse in the city’s most expensive hotel. You should see the names on the waiting list, and yet I’ve leapt past them all. Do you think taking the reins of the city will be any more challenging for me?”

  When Malphas fell into a brooding silence, Arnaud wondered if his boast had negated the persuasive power of his voice. He had also begun to straighten his body, he realized. He corrected this by hunching his upper back.

  “Well, how much longer must I wait?” Malphas asked.

  “The power protecting the wizard will flag after two days. With a third, I’ll be able to overwhelm him. It’s a matter of keeping him from the holy houses. Unless, of course…” He let the words linger and tease.

  “Unless what?”

  “Your greatness would deign to grant me more power.”

  “More power?” Malphas spat. “From my meager reserve?”

  “It will not be meager for long,” Arnaud reminded him, slipping more persuasion into the words. He had to be careful with just how hard he pushed, but he needed his master to accede, for he had plans of his own. Namely breaking his bonds to Malphas. He kept those plans hidden in the obscuring mists of his vampiric power.

  “No,” Malphas said. “I have another undertaking for you.”

  “Another? But—”

  “Silence!”

  Hastening to repair the snapping web of persuasion he’d spun around his master, Arnaud said, “But surely we should adhere to the plan. In just a few days—”

  “I said silence!” Malphas thundered.

  Arnaud cowered, fearing his master’s anger now.

  “You’re too ambitious,” Malphas said. “And I don’t trust the ambitious. I want more eyes on you than just mine.” The red eyes in the smoke narrowed. “I’ve made arrangements for you to join a unit.”

  “A unit?” Arnaud’s teeth gnashed at the thought.

  “It’s a command position.”

  Arnaud raised his head slightly. “Yes?”

  “You’ll have lieutenants, a small army—one I’ll expect you to grow. It will mean a power of sorts, though not the sort you were after.” He went on to describe the position and who he would be commanding.

  While Arnaud listened, he read between the lines. Though Malphas berated and demeaned him, his master also recognized his value. Not at first, no. Arnaud had emerged into the world a pathetic creature. He’d wriggled, crawled, and cowered in a hole, drawing meager strength from the foul blood of rodents and pigeons. Malphas had no doubt dismissed him, figuring he would expire sooner or later. But when Arnaud began to channel infernal energy and took his first human, Malphas took notice. He called Arnaud to a Dread Council, restored his leg—damaged by the bastard Croft—and granted him additional powers. Now, barely a week later, Arnaud had not only left his hole for this lavish penthouse, he possessed a valuable artifact, one he’d slain three skilled vampire hunters to claim.

  Yes, Malphas understands my value, Arnaud thought. But he also senses the danger. Malphas could only yank the hooks that bound them so many times before that lost its edge. The solution was to surround his servant with forces Arnaud would command but that would also balance against him if needed.

  “This will strengthen our position,” Malphas finished.

  “I understand. And the servant you promised me?” he asked meekly.

  To preserve his own plans, Arnaud would need allies.

  Malphas scoffed. “Do you mean that pathetic human you were lusting after? The one who fled at the first sign of trouble?”

  Now Arnaud understood that his master had summoned him when he did, not to inconvenience him, but to deny him a loyalist. For Malphas’s strategy to work, he needed Arnaud isolated.

  Malphas grunted. “Please me in your new role, and we’ll revisit the matter of a servant.”

  “Yes, master,” Arnaud whispered.

  “Now go. You have work to do.”

  The cloud dispersed, and Malphas’s presence rushed from the bathroom. As Arnaud stood and dragged a foot through the blood symbol, a part of him wanted to be furious at the change in plans. But he’d been dealt setbacks before. He would determine how to turn this into an opportunity—not only to destroy the wizard Croft, but to sever his ties to Malphas. Clasping the scepter, he stalked from the bathroom.

  “Come, Zarko,” he called into the empty penthouse. “We have work to do.”

  Yes, master, his faithful servant answered.

  6

  With shivering hands, I cinched my coat against a bracing wind that carried the stink of rotten fish from Lower Bay. My feet, meanwhile, felt like mini infernos. It was the waders. The damn things didn’t breathe. I curled my right foot, trying to scratch away a mad itch on the bottom of my big toe.

  “You all right?” Malachi whispered.

  I looked over to where his eyes hovered in the night. The rest of him was concealed by the stealth potion he’d taken a few minutes earlier. I could only see or hear him at all because the same magic cloaked me.

  “Fine,” I whispered back. “You?”

  He gave me a ghostly thumbs-up.

  I smiled even though I was ready to tear off the calf-length boot and dig my fingernails into the prickling flesh until it bled. But this was the last place to be caught without footwear. New York’s tides had transformed the island marsh into a repository for washed-up drug needles, condoms, and other disease-ridden debris.

  The timing would be bad too. We were at the ambush point on Staten Island. Gorgantha and her pod had already tracked across the marsh—that had been a sight—to deposit their scent before slipping downwind. Jordan waited on the other side of the marsh clearing, his druidic powers blending him into the ring of scrubby trees. Seay crouched opposite him, using a fae glamour to conceal herself. With no real abilities besides his exorcizing and dream-time divinations, Malachi remained at my side for protection.

  “Shouldn’t they be here by now?” he whispered.

  A stack of dunes blocked our view of the shoreline and Lower Bay. I’d considered warding the beach to detect the creatures’ arrival, but I didn’t want the magic to tip them off to the ambush. The hands of my watch showed six past midnight. The creatures would latch onto their preys’ scent soon enough.

  “We’re good,” I told Malachi. “Just be ready.”

  When I caught the fear in his nod, I reminded myself he was still a boy, barely older than drinking age. He might have read and memorized everything in the Church archives on demons, but he’d never actually faced one. Neither had the other three. By default, that made me the authority.

  Uncertainty nagged at me like the itch on my foot as I reviewed our plan. Had we overlooked anything? I responded by digging my toe hard against the bottom of the boot. Take your own advice and get your head in the game.

  It took me a moment to realize that the marshland had fallen quiet, the full-throated chorus of frogs from just seconds before gone mute. I squinted toward Lower Bay. Though I couldn’t see anything beyond the dunes, the rotten stench on the wind had turned fouler. I brought the
bonding sigil on my hand to my lips.

  “They’re coming,” I whispered.

  The magic in the sigil broadcast the message to the others.

  “I don’t see anything,” Jordan replied a moment later.

  “Look again,” Seay said.

  Indeed, silhouettes had begun cresting the dunes in a low creep. Even in the poor light, I could see the transformation from what the merfolk had been to the monsters they’d become. Ragged fins stood from their heads like mohawks and jutted from their thick shoulders. Purple eyes glowed beneath the sharp shelves of their brows while tendrils writhed around an underbite of jutting fangs.

  Scary hardly began to describe them.

  “Hold your positions until they’re all here,” I whispered.

  The possessed merfolk appeared in twos and threes, tracking the scent of their kin. As they descended toward our clearing, I noted the lack of legs. Bladed tails that had turned serpentine shoved their upright bodies toward the salt marsh in squelching thrusts, hands wielding jagged spears.

  Malachi clutched my arm as the first ones slid past where we were hunkered. Gorgantha had estimated fifty or so mercreatures, but after only a few groups appeared over the dune, they stopped coming. Had they sent a partial force, or were the others hanging back in the water?

  “I only count thirteen,” I whispered.

  A moment later, Gorgantha answered, “No more of ’em in Lower Bay.”

  She and the rest of her merfolk had circled in behind to cut off their escape.

  “Is Finn with them?”

  “Has to be if they came for us.”

  Which told me she hadn’t actually seen him. Shit, no going back now.

  “Okay, wait on my word,” I broadcast to the team, watching the monsters’ progress. The final mer slithered past, feet from us. Malachi’s grip on my arm tightened as the creature’s glowing eyes roved toward us.

  “Now!” I called.

  Fae light burst from Seay’s position in a beautiful flash that lit up the entire marsh. When the flash glimmered out, the closest mer creature to us was frozen, the purple of his eyes replaced by a full-spectrum shimmer. The others stood in similar statuesque poses, jaws gaping to reveal their lethal teeth.

  “They’re enchanted,” Seay confirmed.

  Jordan emerged from the trees and thrust the end of his quarterstaff into the marsh. Druidic power spread from the contact and went rippling out. When it reached the mercreatures, clutches of reedy grass thickened and began writhing up their tails. The dense growth soon cocooned the creatures’ bodies to their necks.

  “Banishment time,” I said to Malachi.

  We stood and splashed into the salt marsh. I wasn’t planning to drive my sword into the thirteen creatures. That was for combat situations, and Malachi and I had worked out something more efficient, less violent.

  Holy light broke over my blade as I aimed it at the closest mer and activated the banishment rune. With another Word, I sent the power into the bound creature. The light sputtered as it collided with its demonic energy, then sprang up again, joining the thirteen creatures in a web-like matrix.

  “Ready?” I asked Malachi.

  He reached a tentative hand forward. I took it and closed his fingers around the sword’s hilt beneath my own grip. He drew a sharp breath as the light climbed his arm and enveloped the Latin Bible he held open at his chest. But he didn’t falter like I thought he might. In a strong voice, he began to recite the exorcism. My body hummed as each Latin word sent more power down the blade.

  Jordan and Seay watched from the edges of the clearing, the light glowing against their faces. One by one, the mercreatures’ heads cocked back. The white light of the banishment began breaking through eyes, ears, mouths—not just purging the infernal energy from the hosts’ bodies, but burning it away. With a final shouted phrase, Malachi completed the exorcism. I staggered as the light came roaring back into the sword.

  Malachi unwrapped his hand from the hilt and stepped away. The power of the exorcism had exhausted our stealth potion, and I could see him plainly in the dim clearing. Points of light lingered in his eyes.

  I scanned the mers’ sagging heads. “Well done,” I said.

  “Why do they still look like monsters?” Jordan asked, stepping forward. “And where’s this Finn?”

  With a wave of his quarterstaff, the grass bindings fell from the mercreatures. Their bodies collapsed into the marsh with splashes. I waded over to the nearest one, knelt beside him, and touched my staff to his brow. A quantum of my magic pinged around the hollowness before fading out. I exhaled through my nose. I was going to need to be really damned careful how I worded this to Jordan.

  “Listen,” I said, rising as he squelched up beside me. “We banished the energy controlling them, but there was no soul to fill the void.”

  He looked from me to the mercreature. “What are you saying?”

  “This one’s dead. They all are.”

  “So, you killed them?”

  “No,” Malachi asserted, but his gaze wavered.

  “Demon X had already put the souls to other purposes,” I explained. “Used them up. The mercreatures were running on infernal crude. When we banished that energy, there was nothing left to power them.” I’d known that was a possibility, but mission planning hadn’t felt like the time to have that conversation.

  “Then how were Seay and the half-fae able to recover some of their own?” Jordan challenged.

  “They got to them early,” I said. “And—”

  “There’s no way you can restore them?” His chest heaved. “Pull them back in?”

  He was thinking of his wife.

  “Listen to me, Jordan,” I said softly. His dark eyes met mine in a way that said, You better have some good answers. “This doesn’t mean all the Strangers’ victims are beyond our help. The Strangers need agents up here. With the druids and half-fae, those agents are only as effective as their magic, right? Well, that magic doesn’t work if the souls of the possessed are used up or ground down.”

  “Until you decide to tell us otherwise,” Jordan said thinly.

  I could see in his eyes that he knew I’d held back information.

  Before I could respond, he turned to Seay, who was checking the other bodies. “Are any of them Finn?”

  “No.”

  The answer came from Gorgantha, who was striding over the dunes, her tall, muscled form glowing faintly beneath the cloud-covered half-moon. When she arrived at our mercreature, she peered down at him somberly.

  Malachi brought a hand to her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Gorgantha.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she said. “They were ganked the second Finn got his hands on them. I felt it up in Maine. When they came back to the pod, there wasn’t nothing left inside, even before they changed into these suckers.”

  She shoved the body with a webbed foot.

  Jordan huffed. “And no sign of Finn in the bay?”

  “Not where we were. I sent the rest of the pod back to the reef to check.”

  “Great,” Jordan muttered. “So no leads, either.”

  How in the hell is this anyone’s fault? I wanted to fire back. But he was just desperate to find and recover his wife. God knew, if I was in his position, Vega missing, I’d be half out of my mind. And with no merfolk recovered and no Stranger to put the screws to, the mission had been a disappointment.

  I was about to express my own condolences to Gorgantha when her head cocked suddenly. The rest of us followed her gaze.

  “It’s the other mers,” she said, concentrating into the pod bond that connected them. “They didn’t find Finn, but they picked up a scent in the harbor. There are more mercreatures.”

  I pulled up a mental map of the park. The mercreatures had arrived from the south. Great Kill Harbor was only a short distance to our west, accessed from Lower Bay between a sandbar and greater Staten Island.

  “They were flanking,” I said in understanding. “Have the pod bl
ock off the harbor.”

  “They’re coming this way?” Jordan asked, the air around his staff stirring with fresh magic.

  “That was probably the plan before they realized they weren’t just facing merfolk,” I said. “They’re in retreat.”

  Jordan got the message: it was now a race to the water. He bowed his head as druidic energy took hold around his body. In the next moment, a dark bird with a heavy bill and shaggy throat hackles flapped into the air. With a deep croak that sounded like a battle cry, Jordan broke toward the harbor in his raven form.

  “Wait,” I called, but he was already disappearing into the trees.

  I swore as the rest of us splashed into a run behind him, light from my staff crackling into a shield.

  7

  We ran from marsh to woods before breaking out into a garbage-strewn field. And there they were: a mass of thirty-odd mercreatures racing toward the harbor’s choppy waters. They’d been moving overland to cut off Gorgantha and her pod’s escape before realizing it had been a trap. And now the damned things had a solid head start back to the water.

  I’d managed to arrange our team into a formation behind a shield of light, me at point, Seay and Gorgantha flanking, and Malachi safely behind us. Jordan was somewhere ahead, but I couldn’t make out his raven form against the night sky. Repeated attempts to communicate with him had gone unanswered.

  What in the hell does he think he’s going to accomplish on his own?

  With my unwieldy boots kicking up clods of earth, I shouted in an attempt to slow the creatures. Several in the rear turned and began heaving spears. But the rest continued their slide toward the harbor. Sparks burst as the first coral projectiles shattered against our protection, their accuracy scary good.

  “None of you hold back,” Gorgantha panted as we closed the distance. “They’re not my crew anymore. I can’t even tell who’s who.”

  Seay took that as her cue, and a gold bolt shot past me. Her magic enveloped a mercreature in brilliant fae light, dropping it to the ground. Its body jerked under the lethal enchantment. She fired a second bolt, hitting another of the rear creatures. The mers ahead of them continued their race to the water.