Druid Arcane: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel (The Colin McCool Paranormal Suspense Series Book 11) by M.D. Massey

Author:M.D. Massey [Massey, M.D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Modern Digital Publishing
Published: 2020-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

I fell about twenty feet, landing on a heap of bones with a loud crunch. Thankfully, the pile was large enough to keep me from being impaled on the rusty iron spikes that lined the bottom of the pit. Based on the height of the stack, dozens of grave robbers and other dungeon delvers had died here. Some had fallen prey to the spikes, while others appeared to have perished from injuries suffered on impact.

Lucky for me, Fomorian bones didn’t break easily. I stood unsteadily, bones crunching underfoot as I scanned the chamber for an escape route. The stone trapdoor I’d fallen through revolved on a hinge in the center of the slab. As it tilted back into place above, I heard something click, then a tiny pulse of magic flowed through the trapdoor.

So, the trigger was magical as well as physical. Interesting.

It made sense, considering it would be impossible to get a giant stone slab so perfectly balanced that it would swing open at the slightest pressure. Magic would be required to make the trap work, either to reduce friction between the stone and hinge or to overcome inertia and get the trapdoor moving—or both. Using a pressure plate to trigger the spell was a simple, yet elegant solution. No need for complicated spell weaves, just a few carved runes that would complete a circuit when the plate was depressed.

Slick.

It was ingenious enough to impress me, and I knew a lot about creating wards and magic traps. Yet the sapper’s ingenuity also meant I couldn’t easily trigger the latch from underneath, even if I could reach the door above.

Piss.

“Well, it could be worse,” I muttered to myself. “Imagine if some of these skeletons were alive.”

At that precise moment, a thin, bony hand latched around my ankle.

“What the—?”

The hand was definitely not disembodied, although that was the first thing that came to mind when I looked down. Instead, it was attached to a gray leathery arm, one with ancient Nordic runes tattooed into its flesh. Its grip was supernaturally strong, enough to cause me pain even in my stealth-shifted form. I suspected that if I had been in my fully human form, it would have snapped my ankle.

As if being grabbed by an obviously undead creature while stuck in a pit full of human bones wasn’t bad enough, the thing shrieked beneath me. The creature’s howl was a cross between a moan and a roar, and it echoed with the sort of frustrated rage that only the undead can manage. In the Hellpocalpyse, I’d heard similar cries on a nightly basis. I’d spent most of my evenings there hiding on rooftops and in attics, drifting off to sleep while the living dead wailed their never-ending lament below.

It still gave me nightmares.

On instinct, I released a very weak lightning bolt spell that struck the creature on the back of the forearm. The shock did very little to harm it, but that wasn’t the point. As the electrical charge hit the nerves and muscles I targeted, the hand slightly flexed open for a brief instant.

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