Deadbeat Druid (eBook)

1

Adam

Death looked up from beneath a broad sun hat. Like she needed it. As if anything in the cosmos could touch her.

“Adam Lee Binder,” she said in a thick southern drawl. “As I live and breathe.”

“Do you?” he asked. “Live and breathe, I mean.”

She shrugged. He hadn’t expected her to answer. She liked her games, but Adam was in no mood for them.

Still, the situation called for caution. He had no help here, no backup, and not nearly enough magic.

All he had for guidance were the wounds in his heart. The first, the thread connecting him to Vic, thrummed faintly, stretched to its limit. The ache was a relief, to know it was there, that Vic was still alive, even if Adam did not know where he’d fallen.

The other, Adam’s warlock wound, the piece of his soul he’d carved out to stop Mercy, pained him, whispering of danger as he approached the beaten Airstream trailer and the smiling Black woman sitting in a rocking chair in front of it.

“I don’t know what to call you now,” Adam said.

“I always liked Sara if you want to stick with that.”

The elf shadowing Adam said nothing, showing himself to be a little smarter than Adam had expected.

An immortal in what they’d consider their late teens, Vran was an emo chaos monkey, prone to tricks and sarcasm. Adam was glad he knew when to keep quiet.

Always cordial, Sara played the part of a charming, southern witch. She laughed easily, but she was the most powerful being Adam had yet to meet. Subtle and sneaky, she’d planned for him to kill his brother.

It hadn’t worked out that way. Sara had gotten her wish—an end to Mercy—but it had cost Annie, Adam’s sister-in-law, her life.

Sara had left the Binder family alone in the brief time since, but Adam knew better than to trust her.

Still, she was the one power who might be willing to help him . . . for a price.

“I guess you know why I’m here,” he said.

“Vicente,” she said.

“Vicente,” Adam echoed. “Vic.”

Sara stopped her rocking. She leaned forward as she spoke.

“It’s dangerous, what you want to do, what you want to know.”

“I don’t care,” Adam said.

Vran flinched from where he stood to the side, but Adam meant it. He’d go anywhere. Do anything. Whatever it took to get Vic back.

“Where is he?” Adam asked.

“Your elven king didn’t know?” Sara asked.

Adam had tried Silver first. The elves were the power he knew best, but his newly crowned ex had said no, because of course he had.

“You already know he doesn’t,” Adam said.

“True, but I suspect he has a clue and that’s why he turned you down.”

Her words put spikes of red and blue in Adam’s chest. Silver had said no. Adam had reacted badly. He wasn’t certain the trust between them would ever recover after that exchange.

“I’m not here to talk about Silver,” Adam said.

“Too bad, you missed quite a show,” Sara said. “The passing of an immortal crown is a rare sight.”

“His father is dead?” Adam asked.

“I reaped him myself.” Sara shuffled out of her chair and opened the trailer door. “Come on, then. You too, Vran.”

The elf flicked his blue-black eyes side to side, between the door and the field of Reapers behind them. They stood frozen, watching the exchange between Adam and their mistress. That was odd. He’d never seen them not working, bent to their task of taking souls in the field of sunflowers that surrounded her trailer.

Sara seemed fine, but something pricked the edge of Adam’s senses, that place beneath the surface where his Sight ran. Adam opened himself to it, risked trying to sense the Reapers’ mood. He got a bit of static from them, like the crackle and hum of an old TV. He read it as agitation, a worry directed at their mistress.

“She knows my name?” Vran asked, interrupting, which was likely for the best.

Adam would be an idiot to pry too deeply into Death’s affairs. He just wished she’d leave him out of them.

“She knows everyone’s name,” Adam said.

The wink Death shot them was not reassuring.

With a swallow and a duck of his head, Vran followed her inside the trailer. Adam went last, closing the door behind him.

It wasn’t a trailer. It never was.

They stood in a field of grass. It had been somewhere once, probably in the 1950s. Immortals were nostalgic, obsessed with the past, and Death was the oldest of them all.

The giant screen was time-stained and punched with holes. Torn strips fluttered in the breeze. Across the field were steel posts, some with old boxes hanging from them. It looked sad and sort of lonesome in the starlight.

“A drive-in?” Adam asked.

“Oh, this place was hopping once,” Sara said. “Teenagers in cars as far as the eye could see.”

“I’m guessing they only showed horror movies?” Vran asked, eyeing the encroaching scrub oak.

“What’s with the kid?” Death asked Adam.

“He’s a friend,” Adam said, being honest. Vran had saved his life. That counted for something. “Please don’t, you know, destroy him or anything.”

“No promises,” she said.

Vran stiffened.

“She’s kidding,” Adam said. “I think.”

He took a few steps toward the elf just in case.

Death turned and waved her hand. A projector whirred and the screen came to life.

What appeared was a spiral, a pattern, like one of those construction paper mobiles Adam had made in kindergarten, where you cut a circle carefully inward then hung it from a string.

A helpful “You Are Here” arrow appeared with a red dot in the middle. The lens zoomed in.

The spirit realm was labeled, just above the dot on the spiral. Above that was Alfheimr and dozens of other places, realms with names Adam couldn’t pronounce or had never heard of. The spiral wound upward, but the picture turned grainy, obscuring what lay high above them.

“You’re only going upward a little,” Adam said.

“Well, I can’t show you everything,” she said with a wink. “Rules and all that.”

Yes, the rules. Everything in magic, in the universe, especially Death herself, was bound by rules. Adam had no idea who or what wrote or enforced them, but they were powerful enough that Sara obeyed them. He didn’t want to meet anything that could bend her to their will.

One rule he knew was that nothing came for free. He’d owe her for the knowledge she’d impart.

Adam took a breath, gestured to the screen, and asked, “So where is he?”

The spiral turned, the camera descended, and the bottom fell out of Adam’s already churning stomach.

It dropped and dropped, passed names like Gehenna and Tartarus, finally stopping on a dark spot.

“The Ebon Sea,” she said. “Little light has ever reached it.”

“I’m guessing we’re not talking about somewhere in Europe?” Adam asked.

“It’s at the bottom, one of the lowest underworlds,” she said. “The final stop before you sink.”

“I can swim,” Vran said.

“You’re not coming,” Adam snapped over his shoulder. He took a long breath and softened his tone. “It’s too dangerous, Vran. I’m going alone.”

Death eyed the two of them like they amused her, like they were funny children.

An unpleasant heat filled Adam.

Vic was lost. She should care about that. He was her Reaper. He worked for her, never mind that she’d seen the death of stars and empires.

Vic should mean something to her.

He meant everything to Adam.

“So, open a door,” Adam said. “I’ll pay whatever you ask.”

It didn’t matter what he could afford. The price could never be too high, not for Vic.

Vran gasped.

“I can’t send you there,” Sara said, her smile turning sad.

“Can’t or won’t?”

Adam knew he was pushing his luck, but this was Vic’s life on the line. A life Adam wanted to spend with him. He wouldn’t leave him in some hell.

“Can’t,” she stressed. “I’m sorry.”

Adam squeezed his eyes shut, took a breath, and considered the situation.

“What’s there?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t see there, cannot go there.”

Adam stiffened. He wasn’t used to powers admitting their limitations. He knew it should frighten him, but another concern bubbled up, breaking through the anger and the worry.

“Vic didn’t open that portal by himself,” Adam said. “He couldn’t have.”

“So?” she asked.

Cold settled over Adam’s shoulders at the realization.

“What do you want?” he asked. “You told me where he is without setting a price. What’s down there that you want me to fetch back for you?”

Sara grinned.

“Not what,” she said. “There’s a living girl down there, as alive as Vicente. Bring her back to me.”

“I’m guessing you don’t mean Jodi.”

Adam’s cousin had pushed Vic in and fallen with him.

Sara shook her head.

“Who is she?” he asked.

“Her name is Melody. Mel,” Sara said gently.

Adam shook with a rage he could not express. She could destroy him with a...