Arcane Rising: The Darkland Druids - Book One, R Nicole [suggested reading TXT] 📗

What do the Chimera want with Druid powers?”

“We’re a unique species in this world,” he replied. “What we wield is different from elemental forces the Witches do. We go much deeper than earth, air, fire, and water. Druids can open portals.”

“The Witches guard the Fae portals in Ireland,” I noted, “but the Chimera can’t open their own?”

“No, not from here, and especially not without permission. They’re bound by covenants within their own species, but we are not.”

“They want to come and go as they please…”

“And break free of their own shackles.” He sighed and guided me around a group of slow walkers. “The Chimera have been here for centuries. A thousand years at least. Until the Witches reopened the portals, they were nothing but withered husks, trapped within the confines of Ireland.”

“So, they couldn’t survive without access to the power that came through the portals?” Like a phone without a charger…or a solar panel without the sun.

“They can’t survive long term away from their own world,” he replied. “Now the portals are open, and they have their full strength back.” I wondered how long ‘long term’ meant to a Fae if they’d been here for a thousand years.

“So with the link restored, they came back to life with a vengeance.”

Rory snorted, clearly annoyed. “Thanks to the Witches.”

“You don’t like them much, do you?”

“We were doing just fine until the Chimera began to spread across the planet.”

“When did this happen?”

“The Witches reopened the portals about twenty-five years ago. Though it seems like twenty thousand…”

I buried my hands deeper into my pockets and pulled at the loose threads in the corners. There was no love lost between the Druids and the Witches.

“Rory?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“What do I do with the cat?”

He laughed. “It does as it pleases. Delilah makes them as companions and guardians. Sometimes they pick their targets, other times they are happy to go where she takes them.”

“I’m a target?”

“Not like that,” he replied. “Whoever she put inside is aware enough to know you need its presence.”

I frowned and tried to puzzle out the notion of a human soul in a cat and what it thought it could do for me. A fuzzy shoulder to cry on?

“Who is it?”

“There’s no way to tell.”

An unknown human soul and another unsolved mystery.

“I didn’t check, but I think it is a he, by the way,” Rory added. “There were two wee balls back there.”

I snorted, choking on my own spit. “Wee balls?”

Rory smirked. “What will you name him?”

“Sassenach,” I drawled, causing him to laugh.

“Jaimie Fraser will be delighted, but technically, it is a bad name for an English person.”

“Well, I don’t know then. Maybe he’ll tell me later.”

We’d arrived at the apartments and I fished in my bag for the security fob Mrs. Campbell had given to me the day before.

The moment the tag beeped and I’d opened the door, Mrs. Campbell came charging out of her apartment like it was on fire.

“Elspeth! Oh, lass, where have you been?” she fussed. “I’ve been frightfully worried.”

Rory mused his eyebrows. “Is this your landlady or your grandmother?”

She turned on him and glared. “And who might you be?”

I angled myself between them. “This is my friend—”

“Raurich,” he interrupted, using his full name. “We’ve come to get Elspeth’s belongings.”

Mrs. Campbell scowled at him, then turned to me. “So you won’t be staying then, lass?”

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “It was unexpected, but I understand there’ll be fees I’ll have to pay.”

“Yes,” she said, clearly displeased at the sudden loss of income. “There will be a price. Only three days out of the month!” She clucked her tongue.

“We’ve got an appointment to keep,” Rory said to me, conveying a cryptic message not to linger. “We best not miss it.”

“I don’t have much,” I reassured him. “I’ll be like, five minutes at most. Not even that.”

“Right.” He sat on the stairs and looked at Mrs. Campbell. “I’ll wait here.”

I hesitated, glancing at the older lady. Something else was happening here; something I wasn’t seeing. Right then, I wished I understood how to work the Colour thing inside me.

Continuing up the stairs, I unlocked my apartment and turned on the light. Finding no gremlins or goblins hiding in the shadows, I strode into the bedroom and gathered my stuff, conscious that Owen might already be lurking outside.

I slipped my passport into my crossbody bag and zipped it closed. Then I packed the rest of my things into my suitcase. I hadn’t taken much out, so once I’d stuffed my toiletries inside—along with a few dirty items of clothing—I was pretty much done.

I’d travelled light all my life, thanks to my dad. I was beginning to see it was a blessing to have a medium-sized suitcase with a third less stuff inside. But now I was beginning to understand who he was, and I wondered if it was a passive skill he’d been trying to teach me in case someone came searching for us—like the Chimera.

I shook my head and rolled the case out into the little living area. Looking at the half empty box of shortbread biscuits, I debated taking them with me. Why not. I smirked and shoved them into the top of my suitcase.

I heard a crash echo from downstairs as I zipped my case closed.

My heart leapt and I listened as muffled thudding and the sound of something shattering rattled the floor beneath my feet.

Rory.

I wrenched open the door and dragged my suitcase down the stairs, creating a deafening racket of my own.

Reaching the first-floor landing, I gasped when I saw Rory and Mrs. Campbell wrestling in the foyer…but it wasn’t Mrs. Campbell anymore. The creature wore her clothes, but all traces of the stout old lady were gone.

In her place was a muscled, sinewy, grey humanoid monster with claws for fingers and razor-sharp teeth—I was now seeing the pointy pearly whites as a common trait with the Dark Fae.

Mrs. Campbell was trying to latch onto Rory’s neck as he desperately stabbed his knife at her jugular.