Chapter Four
Druid Secrets

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Soccer practice was grueling and brutal! Brendan remembered practice from high school as a fairly easy couple of hours, and he used to laugh at how some of the guys got so winded and worn out, but now he was the one feeling the fatigue. All of the other guys, especially the ones who were returning to the Orangeman Soccer Program, were making it look so easy. He was pretty sure he was the one getting laughed at now.

Practice had just finished, and Brendan found himself lying on his back on the sidelines with a wet towel draped over his face. He couldn’t remember if it was wet from being soaked in water or his own sweat. The thought would normally gross him out, but he was too tired to be grossed out. Brendan pulled a corner of the towel off his face to peer at Ken who had said something unintelligible.

Ken had stayed up dancing and had a pretty good time the night before, but he seemed no worse for wear. “Did you hear me?” Ken asked.

The blank look on Brendan’s tired face must have been enough of an answer, so Ken asked again.

“So, are you going with me to Sherry’s Pub and Eatery to get to know Lambda or not?” Ken was so enthusiastic about the college life.

“Not tonight, Ken.” Brendan pulled the towel back over his eyes. “I need to have a good, long conversation with my girlfriend. You know, just to keep the fire lit.”

“I’m not sure those long-distance relationships are such a good idea, Brendan.” Ken plopped down next to the freshman. “I mean, you don’t know if she’s met someone else already, or if you are going to meet someone new.”

Brendan shook his head. “There’s no one better than her, Ken.”

“I don’t know. I saw you having an engaging conversation with that girl last night at the party,” Ken said smugly. “By the way, she was smoking hot!”

“Maybe, but she’s not Dorian.”

“Then Dorian must be a goddess!” laughed Ken. “Alright, man, suit yourself. I’ll catch you later.”

Brendan rolled onto his side, and the towel fell with a plop! onto the grass. He reached over to his bag and pulled out his cell phone. He accessed his voicemail and listened to Dorian’s message for the second time. She had sounded excited, though it was tough to hear her due to the racing of the wind in the background. He’d give her a call later on that evening just as she had requested, but right now it was time for a shower and a nap. He was about to get up, but a feeling of exhaustion overtook him. He closed his eyes.

The world around him became brighter and brighter and that made him open his eyes and then immediately shield them. He coughed and turned onto his side. He was sore and sleepy, but the light was so bright that he had no choice but to move.

He stood up and stumbled over to where he thought the metal bench at the soccer field should be, but he couldn’t find it when he reached out his hand. He cracked his eyelids open a bit and noticed the worn grass path through a group of trees. He blinked enough times to open his eyes and took in a scene that he did not expect.

Immediately, he knew he was having a vision of some kind. So, he did what felt natural to him after so many trips down vision lane: he explored and tried to learn something.

Unfortunately for Brendan, his soreness of the moment was still with him, but he stumbled forward anyway, following the path. He walked for only a couple of minutes before a small village was laid out before him. There were small wooden buildings stretched along either side of the path, reminiscent of Corways, with a few people bustling about.

Brendan strolled forward and listened in on some of the conversations, but nothing seemed noteworthy. The weather this, and the horse that, and the king this, and Brendan found himself yawning and feeling thankful that he was born in an age where interesting things happened and there was a ton of stuff to talk about.

The only people that caught his attention were a middle-aged man and his teenage daughter. They were only noticeable because of how they were so alert, like a couple of rabbits that knew the wolves were stalking them. The wailing in the trees told him that they were right to be skittish.

The father and daughter ran and Brendan ran after them. They had a big head start on him having begun their run from across the village, but he trudged after them anyhow. They were much faster than they looked, and he was having a hard time keeping them in view as they managed the winding path in the forest.

Brendan screeched to a stop when a terrifying howl sounded on the wind. He glanced into the trees in time to see a shadow zip past just over the tree tops. He took off at a sprint even though he was sure that he would be too late.

A horrifying scream in the distance told him he was right. Brendan kept up his pace, but each step he took made the surroundings fuzzy. Three steps later he fell forward and slid across the dirt. His head began to weigh too much and he slipped out of the vision.

His eyes were still closed, but the wailing in the depths of his mind stirred the fear in his heart. He sat up and found that he was back on the field at Syracuse. He pulled his tired body onto the metal plank and tried to analyze the vision.

“Okay,” he said to himself. “Old guy and his daughter were running from some dark, flying thing that had the most terrifying cry of all time.” He took a deep breath and nodded. “I think that sums it up.”

He looked up quickly at the sound of his name. Meghan was waving while she jogged with a group of friends across the campus. He smiled and waved back, but the wail in his mind made the hair on his neck stand on end.

Dorian stretched and popped her back as she got out of bed. She was gearing up for a trip to Leeds; rest was needed and she needed to convince Biddy to tag along. Her intuition was spot on. She grabbed a little food and refreshments and ambled off to find Biddy.

She found her yelling at a couple of youngsters who were supposed to be decorating instead of messing around. Biddy must have decided it was her responsibility to let them in on the difference between the two.

“You blathering idiots!” she hollered to the dismay of the youths. “Do you think the décor for this celebration is a scrap heap? I can tell you, it’s not.”

Dorian hung behind the cover of a cottage and waited for the discipline to end before she stepped out and called her friend.

“Do you believe the nerve of some people?” asked Biddy.

“Oh, Bid, they’re just kids,” replied the Leprechaun Queen.

“Aye, but we were kids, and we weren’t making a mess of things.”

Dorian laughed. How time had made Biddy forget all of the foolhardy things that the two of them did together. “I’m sure they learned their lesson.”

Biddy nodded proudly. “They better have, or they’ll be getting a swift foot to the rear for me trouble.”

“Listen, I need you to come with me to Leeds, England.”

Biddy raised an eyebrow. “Sure, but why?”

Dorian took a few moments to explain what had happened when she met with King Wardicon. “I need your gift to let me know if we are dealing with the kind and gentle folks Wardicon spoke of or not.”

“I’d be happy to help,” replied Biddy. She was confident in her gift of reading a person’s character by their aura. She was sure she could read the witch’s and wizard’s characters easily enough.

“Great! We leave at sundown.”

“Why sundown?” The signs of recognition began to show on Biddy’s face. “Wait. We don’t have to take Griffin, do we?”

Dorian just smiled.

“Ah, nuts!” huffed Biddy with folded arms.

Lizzie was in a terrible hurry. Frank was on his way to pick her up at her house to go to the gym for an impromptu work out. She had planned on an awesome night of reviewing agriculture notes and watching Wheel of Fortune with her dad, but when Frank’s call came in, she had to admit that her heart gave a little jump.

She was in the garage pulling her bag out of the cabinet to hastily stuff her headgear, gloves, and pads into it, when she noticed a peculiar something stuffed in behind her gym bag’s normal location.

The something was solid and covered in dusty rags. It didn’t look like New York dust, if she had to think about it, because it was clay-like and rusty. She pulled the thing down and immediately noticed its heft. Lizzie placed the heavy rag-covered something on the clothes dryer and weighed her options. She could try to unwrap the something and investigate what it was, or she could just store it back in the cabinet and forget about it.

Curiosity won out, and she began to scratch at the crusty rags, which she thought were totally gross! Dried dirt fell away in clumps as she tore into the coverings. Her fingernails finally scraped across a stone surface after a minute of tearing at the rags. Her heart was beating rapidly, and she considered the possibilities of what was beneath. She peeled a stubborn bit of rag away and revealed a dingy, stone corner of what she assumed to be a box.

“Not another stupid, creepy box!” she said through clenched teeth. “Where does he keep getting these things from?”

A horn sounded from the street and she knew Frank had arrived.

“I’ll deal with this later,” she said, grabbing her gym bag. She turned and ran up the few steps from the attached garage back into the house to exit through the front door, leaving the second stone box exposed on the clothes dryer.

The dark stranger materialized out of the cover of the shadow no more than four feet from where the girl had just stood. He had waited for the girl to leave before he dropped his cloaking spell. Although he could have killed her where she stood, his master would not have been pleased. The shadow king was a faithful servant, at least as long as it served his purposes.

He slowly stepped closer to the stone coffer on the clothes dryer and observed it. The markings were shifting and rearranging themselves. He smiled. What would happen next, well, the girl would never have expected, or survived, for that matter. It was fortunate that she left. Her use had not yet finished, and she was important to Elathan’s plan.

A hissing noise escaped the top of the box as a three-hundred-year-old seal broke away. The lid moved ever so slightly as a rush of what appeared to be steam hurried out. The steam dispersed across the room, filling the garage like it was a sauna.

The shadow necromancer stood stock still and waited patiently for the arrival of another ally.

The steam hissed and wailed as the air became a tumultuous, swirling mass. The air quickly mutated into a cyclonic force, tossing objects and toppling shelving in its wake. Finally, the spinning steam settled into an unmoving form on the garage floor. Slowly but surely the being’s shape became more human-like. The veiled stranger knew better than to call what had escaped from that stone prison a human. No, she was a Banshee. She was much more terrifying and much more beautiful, which he knew to be a very dangerous combination.

Her eyes were the first thing he noticed as she began to solidify. They were white and golden and empty, as if the soul of this poor creature had been forgotten.

“Who are you?” demanded the still gaseous and only partially materialized female in a hushed and hoarse whisper.

The shadow man thought about his response carefully. Elathan had warned that this Banshee was the most likely of the three to attack without prompting. “You and I have the same master, Isobel,” he replied.

“And what if Lord Elathan only meant you to be my meal, hmmmm?” she asked as she turned more solid.

The veiled man swallowed hard. “Master thought you might say something like that, my dear.”

“And?” Isobel stood before the veiled man in all of her glory, slim and fit, but not at all frail looking.

“And I was instructed to grant you this.” The veiled man pulled a vial from his cloak.

Isobel darted her eyes to the vial and licked her lips. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Only if you think it is the essence of an O’Donnally that lived on 64th Street.”

Isobel nodded and the veiled man tossed her the glass bottle. She devoured the essence and exhaled a satisfied breath.

“And what do I call you, fellow servant of Lord Elathan?” she asked as a piece of O’Donnally essence settled on her lips.

“You have a little essence on the corner of your mouth,” Conchar said politely. He waited for her to finish off O’Donnally and then answered her original question. “You can call me Conchar.”