Chapter 2 #4
A large shadow appeared in the torchlight behind the spider, and a deep voice said, “I see it over there.”
Bodach stumbled back as a gigantic clansman rushed around the corner and ran toward him, stopping only to lift his boot and stomp on the spinning arachnid.
That crushed it flat and severed the web strand connecting it to the other side of the barrier.
The McKeran chieftain then took down a torch and set fire to the remains of the spider.
The fire flared wildly up around his hand just before he tossed away the torch and stepped back from the burning arachnid until the flames engulfing it died down.
“Will you idiots ever stop interfering?” Bodach muttered.
As if he’d heard him, the chieftain straightened and looked directly at the distortion, meeting Bodach’s gaze through the opening.
The big brute strongly resembled the clan’s laird, but then all of the oversize bastards did.
He wore a chieftain’s pin on his tartan, so he was one of the clan’s senior men.
He had eyes that appeared deceptively mild; in them Bodach saw something dark and dangerous that made him take a step back without thinking about it.
The chieftain leaned forward slightly as if peering through the hole in the enchantment. “What do you here, coward?”
Realizing he could see him through the gap in the barrier, Bodach silently cursed himself as he spun around and disguised his true form.
But as he did so, it also registered that the new opening might be something he could use.
He turned around and muttered a fear spell before he sent a flick of power through the opening.
“Come for the wee lass?” the chieftain taunted as he drew his sword. “If you want her, you go through me.” As the spell hit him he took a step back. “The fack?”
The opening in the distortion disappeared, but the clansman still stood on the other side staring at him as if he could see him. Did he have druid blood? Bodach wondered. That might explain why he wasn’t cowering in fear from the spell he’d just cast over him.
“Come through if you dare,” the chieftain taunted, beckoning rudely at him without looking the least bit frightened. “Face a man in a true fight instead of tormenting wee lasses and hiding in the shadows, you bastart.”
Interfering ox.
The spell had failed to take hold. For a moment Bodach wanted to use his power again, this time to punch a hole through the spell trap, seize the man and tear off his head.
He also knew if he did that he could disrupt the imprisoning enchantment, which might collapse and destroy the castle on both sides.
The backlash of such an act would then descend on Bodach and likely obliterate him.
“Aye, I saw you, old man,” the chieftain said, coming as close as he could to the distortion without triggering its repelling power. “Dinnae come here again, for we’ll skewer you proper before you step one foot inside our home.”
Bodach knew the man couldn’t hear or see him. Something about the way he was threatening him, however, made sweat break out on his brow. Had the failed spell backlashed on him?
“I’ll save my gloating for when you become my slave,” he murmured.
He turned his back on the McKeran fool, and made his way to his lair. He would have to send another spider into the trap, but wait until he was sure no one was waiting to destroy it. The giant idiot who had seen him surely had only a pea-sized brain.
“Hey, Mr. Beaumont?” a mortal male voice called out, forcing Bodach to resume his guise before turning away from the enchanted entrance to his concealed chamber.
“What is it?” he asked as he gathered his power to strike.
“I thought that was you.” A tall, thin man dressed in black with an expensive-looking camera in his hands approached him. A lanyard with his ID still dangled from around his neck, but he wasn’t wearing the golden spider badge. “We need to talk for a minute.”
With a snap of his fingers Bodach could make the photographer explode like a soap bubble, or bespell him to walk down to his seaside lair and feed himself to the vampiric red Fae crystals he kept there.
Yet he might be able to use him for an evening of personal entertainment, something he had sorely missed since losing his previous minion, Rona Dickens, to a meddling ancient do-gooder.
“You were told to exit the premises,” Bodach said, trying but failing to read the young man’s mind.
Perhaps he was just another simpleton gripped by a desperate need for attention and deference, like so many in his field, but the thought block suggested something more.
Why was he being plagued by such resistant yet ignorant mortals? “What do you want?”
“You.” The man grinned and moved closer to walk his fingers up his chest. “I saw you checking me out when you were talking to the crowd.” He boldly pressed his other hand over his crotch, his smile widening as Bodach’s cock swelled in response. “See? I knew you liked guys.”
Not particularly, Bodach thought. He could easily control women, who tended to be more quickly terrified.
Men required more effort. Female mortals also provided him with the kind of pleasure he most desired while being too weak to cause him any worry.
Yet he wasn’t adverse to anyone so stupid as to try to seduce him.
“Were you counting on having sex with me tonight?” he asked the photographer. “Because I’m rather busy at the moment.”
“No, I have something for you.” The man stepped back and cast a few etched round rocks between them. In a very different tone he said, “I am Dax Ballar, head man of the Sons of the Sickle. Now, you will open your spell trap and draw out the son of Chomha of the Briseadh tribe, or I will slay you.”
“Oh, dear, then I’m done for.” Smothering a yawn, he rolled his hand. “You win. Please, slay me.”
Ballar uttered a brief incantation, and the spell stones came alive with green-brown magic.
It formed a wall between them, and started to enclose Bodach.
He folded his arms as the enchantment enveloped him, chuckled as it was neutralized, and then smiled as it was sucked into the red crystals he always carried in his pockets.
“Do you have anything else?” he asked the mortal, who now stared at him with bulging eyes.
“A crushing spell to make the castle fall on my head? A fire spell to set me ablaze? Anything?” When Ballar’s shoulders slumped he made a tutting sound.
“Come now, my aggressive friend. If you’re going to try and steal magic from a dark Fae living in the mortal realm, you must arm yourself with something more than a pitiable come-on and a few enchanted pebbles. ”
“They told me this would work.” Ballar fell to his knees and clasped his hands together. “Please, don’t kill me, Master Goblin. I can… I can help you. Serve you, I mean.”
As annoyed as he was, Bodach considered his offer for a moment.
He had grown used to Rona catering to and looking after him; taking another mortal to serve him would fill that void nicely.
While he preferred females that he could torment and fuck as he desired, he had used a male in the past, several times, and they could prove just as entertaining.
The problem was what this failed druid attacker obviously knew about one of the McKeran that he did not.
He’d also somehow discovered Bodach was a goblin.
Really, life had become a little too interesting lately.
“Tell me why you wished me to retrieve the son of Chomha for you,” he said to Ballar.
“He shares the last pure bloodline with the Briseadh.” When he didn’t react the mortal yanked up his sleeve, revealing a tattoo of a black, spiral-hilted reaping hook.
“We’ve been in hiding since someone slaughtered most of our tribe back in the day.
There are only a few of us left now. We need the elder to teach us how we can use our magic and become powerful again. ”
That backstory explained why the photographer was impossible to read.
Dax Ballar and his cohorts had been spawned by the deadliest druids ever to walk the earth, and as a birthright carried their intimidating magic in his veins.
Why the mortal spoke of them as if they were a social club made it clear he also knew very little about his ancestors.
He and his kin had obviously never been initiated in the dark mysteries; if they had they would have cut out their own tongues before speaking the hyper-secretive tribe’s name out loud.
“How many of you are there?” he asked the idiot. The last thing he needed was a gang of baby killer druids coming here to look for their missing compatriot.
“We’re a coven of thirteen.” Ballar lifted his receding chin as he tried to look down his nose at Bodach. “Not counting the bitches, of course. Our families had almost as many daughters as sons, but we keep them in line. There are two or three of them for each one of us.”
A coven with bitches, descended from the darkest and most feared of rogue druids.
No doubt Ballar and his kindred would inbreed until they littered the realm with their kind; cockroaches always did.
Even now Bodach could imagine the black souls of every Briseadh in mortal hell wailing with despair over the prospect.
That said, he could certainly work with this pinhead and his miscreant kin, of course.
“Stand up. Summon your coven—just the boys, please—to meet me here tomorrow night at midnight,” he told the mortal. “I will show you how you may all serve me, and if you do so satisfactorily I will retrieve and give you the armorer in return.”
Ballar’s expression filled with suspicion. “How do I know you won’t kill us all once we come into your territory?”
The hodge-podge of this mortal’s knowledge of immortal kind would have been amusing if it wasn’t so tragic.
“I could tell you that goblins can’t lie to druids, but we both know that isn’t true.
Come with me and I’ll show you why.” He gestured for the photographer to follow him through the stone wall illusion, and into the old dungeon chamber he now used to monitor the spell trap via a Fae viewing scroll.
Once on the other side he tapped the enchanted parchment and said, “Show me the son of Chomha of the Briseadh inside the spell trap.”
Ballar uttered a sharp sound as the scroll lit with the image of a towering, heavily muscled man working in front of a blazing furnace. The armorer wielded a giant sledge as he pounded a long length of glowing metal, sending sparks that bounced off the leather apron over his chest.
No wonder Rory McKeran always seemed so different from his brothers. He has dark druid blood as well as Fae.
“This brute has enough pure evil in his veins to kill everyone inside my spell trap,” he told the mortal.
“Yet instead he toils for them, and even fights to protect them on occasion. I can’t battle the McKeran because of his presence among them.
Only if he leaves the trap can I prevail over my old enemies.
So your intentions dovetail quite nicely with my needs. ”
The idiot’s jaw sagged. “You mean, our ancestor Rory is more powerful than a Fae goblin?”
“Oh, yes, my boy. His sire was a Fae hunter-warrior, and with his mother’s evil blood that makes him more powerful than any ancient outcast like me.
” Bodach smiled as he saw the furtive gleam of greed flash through Ballar’s eyes; he was falling for the entire ridiculous story.
“So, bring your brethren here tomorrow and together we’ll work to yank him out of the trap.
I’ve no doubt he’ll be so grateful he’ll share his power with all of you, while I will finally be able to deal with the rest of his clan once and for all. ”
“Yes, yes. I’ll tell the others.” The photographer glanced at the scroll as the image changed and then frowned. “Who is that woman with the elder? She looks like one of our bitches.”