The city boat launch parking lot was closed and blocked by a gate. But that doesn’t stop a Chaos Wizard.

Nehemiah backed up his pickup truck until the boat brushed the surface of the water. We hopped out of the truck and I got Tain out of the truck bed. Nehemiah directed Rob and I until we had the boat completely in the water and ready to cast off.

I held the boat as everyone else got in one by one. Except for me.

“Come on Sean, let’s make haste!” said Rob. Tain barked in agreement.

The old tin boat had seen better days. It felt incredibly thin, like there wasn’t that much between me and the water.

“Guys I don’t know if I can do this.” My voice sounded a little shaky and my arm twitched.

“Don’t tell me you can’t swim,” said Nehemiah.

“It’s not that. It’s just that… I have this thing with large bodies of water.”

“Do you want to save the girl or not?” said Nehemiah.

“Obviously.”

“What’s the matter, Sean?” asked Rob.

I closed my eyes and focused on breathing through my nose. I felt the small hand on my shoulder and looked to see Rob with a concerned look on his face staring into mine.

“My sister… she drowned.”

Nehemiah shook his head. “I’m sorry Sean, that’s too bad.”

“She drowned herself— sort of. It’s complicated.”

“You don’t have to do this,” said Nehemiah. “There’s a good chance this girl is already gone. Time can move differently in Tir na nOg. It could have only been an hour for the girl, or a day. A week even. There’s no knowing.”

I shook my head. “I can’t accept that. She’s alive.”

“Get in the boat then.”

It took everything in me to step onto the boat. It felt like walls were closing in around me and I breathed heavily.

Tain sensed my discomfort and moved his head under my hand encouraging me to pet him. The act of scratching him behind the ears helped. Nehemiah started the engine and we were off.

We sputtered along for what seemed like hours. We went North up the Napa River. Vallejo was on our right and Mare Island on our left. We passed the Ferry building and the Marina.

Vallejo was basically the dead center of California, meaning that a drive in any direction for three hours or less would put you in a completely different biome. Everything from rocky snow-capped mountains, deserts, beaches, vineyard wine country, redwood forests, rolling hills, flat plains, and our current destination, marsh wetlands.

By the time we passed under the Highway 37 overpass that I had used over an hour ago, ten minutes had already passed. “Holy crow Nehemiah. This is gonna take so long!” I said. “Seriously man, can’t this boat go faster?”

“Nope. That’s why it was cheap. Thank you Craigslist.”

I rolled my eyes. “Can’t you just use your magic to get us there faster?”

“Nope,” said Nehemiah.

“Why not?” I asked him.

Nehemiah licked his lips, “I need to conserve my usage. Who knows what we’re walking into tonight? Plus it’s not an end-all answer to solving issues. If anything it can be a burden.”

“You got that right,” I said. “I haven’t been able to consistently use mine.”

“That’s because, like all first-time magic users, you triggered it emotionally at first. You’ve trained your mind that emotional extremes are the only way to access power.”

“You didn’t produce that force field out of fear when the Banshee attacked you?”

“Sure, during the fight I didn’t want to get hurt. And I was somewhat fearful,” said Nehemiah, shaping his hands into a circle. “But my ability to conjure the orb around me had nothing to do with my emotional state. Just comes with practice.”

“Where do I get training?”

“Not from me,” he said. “I use the exact opposite magic as you. My magic is generated from Chaos and then wielded as Bad Luck.”

On our right was the body of water that led right up to the old Kmart lot and to our left was the greater marsh wetlands.

I changed the subject slightly. “How come we’re able to do magic?”

“Both of us have Druid blood.”

“Druids? Like old-school Irish wizards?”

“Old-school Celtic wizards,” he corrected me. “The Irish descended from the Celts.”

I frowned at him. “But you’re not Celtic.”

“How you gonna tell me?” Nehemiah jutted a thumb at me. “This white boy.”

“You’re the one that told my mom you are a shaman. Isn’t that some kind of African wizard?”

“That’s true too. I do have Zulu blood in me,” he said. “But don’t you know most African-Americans have Caucasian blood in them too. Some of my ancestors run all the way back to the Celts, back to Druid blood. And others all the way back to South Africa.”

We were winding our way through a slough stream now. The slough was as wide across as three city streets. On either side of us marsh grass and tall wetland weeds grew high, obscuring our view of Vallejo in the distance. We were more than halfway to Skaggs Island now.

I squinted at him and nodded. “And what are Druids?”

“You mean what gives them powers?”

I nodded.

“The legends and myths aren’t exactly congruent in that area,” he said. “Some say they are the offspring of the Tuatha de Danann and humans, others say they were humans blessed by the Tuatha de Danann. And yet others say the Druids were the ones who bestowed power to the Tuatha. Either way they were humanoids that somehow inherited immense power and immortality. Some of their descendants inherited the Gift, the ability to channel magic.”

Rob tugged on my arm trying to get my attention.

“Hold on. I need to hear this,” I said to Rob. “So the Tuatha are all powerful beings?”

“They would like us to think that. Or at least they were way back when they ruled Ireland. But ever since they were banished back to Tir na nOg they’ve displayed that they’re not in complete control, that their power is limited.”

“Are they controlling the Sluagh?”

“I doubt one of the Tuatha de Danann is controlling the Sluagh. Seems more like Fomorian work to me.”

“The Fomorians, are like the mortal enemies of the Tuatha de Danann?”

Nehemiah nodded. “Exactly. You can think of the Tuatha de Danann like beautiful elves—”

“The sexy kind,” said Rob. “Like in Lord of the Rings.”

Nehemiah rolled his eyes. “...and Fomorians like massive ugly grotesque giants and such.”

“Not so sexy then?” I said.

“Definitely not,” said Nehemiah shaking his head. “Their outer appearance is but an extension of their inner corruption brought on by the Chaos that controls them.”

“But don’t you use Chaos magic?”

Nehemiah sighed. “The way I use Chaos is too advanced for you right now.”

“So you’re like Mace Windu who channels the dark side of the force as a Jedi. Of course that’s not canon, that’s only in the comic books and stuff.”

Nehemiah looked at me like I was from the moon.

“Oh come on, you don’t know Star Wars?”

“That stuff’s for losers.”

“But it’s Star Wars man!”

Rob tapped my shoulder this time. “Sean—”

“Hold that thought,” I told Rob. Another pressing question I needed to ask the wizard popped into my head. “So what’s with the Shepherd’s Guild?”

“What about it?” he said.

“Back in the laundromat you asked me if I was from the Shepherds Guild.”

“Remember MIB?”

“Will Smith. Tommy Lee Jones. The best. Yeah we talked about it last week.”

“It’s like that,” he said, as if it was the only explanation I needed.

I held up my hands, “That’s it? Come on man. I need more.”

“You know what would be the worst for you right now Sean?” said Rob, interrupting.

“What?” I asked.

“If Sluagh sensed your Keening and attacked us on the water. Especially with your whole aquaphobia thing.”

“Not even kinda funny dude,” I said.

“Tell me,” said Nehemiah, “Why is this Leprechaun here again?”

”He owes me a life debt because—” I started to explain.

Rob, Nehemiah and I all stopped talking. Tain began growling. Our monster senses were going off simultaneously.

“More Sluagh?”

“Yep,” said Nehemiah.

“Look,” said Rob. “On the horizon.”

I was about to ask which direction, but I didn’t need to. Whether I looked Northeast, Southeast, or true East, I could spot wings beating in the moonlight. And each one carried the faint outline of a struggling victim.

“We’ve got to do something,” I said, balling my fingers into fists.

“We are doing something,” said Nehemiah. “They’ll lead us right to the Threshold.”

“Don’t you know where it is?” I asked.

“I can sense it,” he said. “But it’ll be easier to follow. We just need to lay low. We can’t do anything from the boat anyways.”

Several more Sluagh soared in, faster than the rest. They were not carrying victims. They sensed my Keening.