Promise of Wrath (The Hellequin Chronicles Book 6) (41 page)

I looked over at Gilgamesh, who was lying on his back. He’d been hit twice: once in the heart, once in the head.

“You there, Nate?” Tommy asked.

“You see the shooter?”

“I saw someone take off; I can follow them if you like. I’m not sure how much help it would be, though. They’ve got a hell of a head start.”

“Male or female?”

“Female. Although I didn’t recognize her scent.”

“Leave it. Come over to the cabin. We’ll go from there.”

I searched the cabin, Gilgamesh, and the surrounding area, but found nothing. Both bullets had been powerful enough to leave exit wounds, and both had probably been silver. Like most species the substance can kill, silver is also toxic to giants.

Tommy arrived and helped me bury Gilgamesh before we headed back to the pickup, where we found a transponder and tracker on the underside of the vehicle.

Tommy sighed. “We’ve been followed this whole way. They must have already scouted the area well in advance in preparation for our arrival. So, what now?”

“Now we go home, tell Olivia and Elaine what we know, and try to figure out who the shooter was.”

“She was good Nate. I didn’t even smell her until she’d fired. Not sure how that’s possible.”

“Magic,” I said, taking a wild guess.

We were about to get into the pickup when Tommy said, “Remember a few years back with those witches in Germany? One of those killed a bunch of professionals, and she didn’t leave a scent.”

“Her name was Emily; she was the coven’s enforcer. You think that maybe she did this?”

“We took in Mara, disbanded their coven, and arrested several members. I don’t think the ones who remained free and still worked for Hera were just going to go quietly into the night.”

He had a good point. “Worth looking into.”

We got into the pickup and I took a deep breath. “This didn’t go as planned.”

“Nope. But then things rarely do.”

“There’s a war coming, Tommy. I don’t think we can stop it.”

“Well, we only have one choice, then.” He started up the vehicle.

“Win?”

“Win hard.”

I looked at my friend.

“Nate, we’ll either win, or we’ll damn well make sure the enemy knows they’ve been in a fight to end all fights.”

I smiled. “Too fucking right we will. Too fucking right.”

Tommy started the car at the same time as a call came through on his mobile. He switched the engine off and answered it, his expression growing more shocked with every second.

“What happened, Tommy?” I asked, concerned.

Tommy passed the phone to me. “It’s Olivia. You’re going to want to hear this.”

“Olivia, what’s going on?” I asked, feeling a tightness in my chest.

“Elaine just called me,” Olivia said. “It’s going around Avalon like wildfire and I wanted you to know. It’s about Arthur.”

The bad feeling intensified. “Okay, what is it?” I snapped, probably before Olivia could actually continue.

“He’s awake.”

EPILOGUE

Mordred

A
year after helping to kill a dragon and going back into hiding, and six months after Arthur woke, Mordred sat outside the building humming to himself. He’d been humming the same tune over and over since he’d agreed to do the job he was about to undertake. It was a song he hadn’t been able to get out of his head, but he was okay with that. He liked it and he found it calming, even if it was beginning to drive Morgan up the nearest wall.

He’d picked the spot himself, simply because it was far enough away from the main complex that no one would suspect him, but close enough that he could get over the ten-foot barbed-wire fence without much difficulty when the time came. He was waiting for night because he intended to wear a mask, and frankly people wearing masks in the daylight were usually a cause for concern. At night, you wouldn’t notice until it’s too late.

The mask was of a wolf, for no other reason than he liked it. He’d made the eyeholes a little larger, but thought it looked pretty interesting. The mask didn’t cover his mouth, which left him free to speak to the people in his ear.

“Any chance you could pick a different song to hum?” a woman asked through the earpiece he wore.

Mordred smiled. “Morgan, my dear friend. No.”

“It’s very annoying.”

“It’s from
Final Fantasy Nine
. I like it.”

“It’s the same thirty seconds over and over again.”

“You could say the same thing about modern music. At least mine comes from an interesting place.”

“A video game.”

Mordred didn’t care for Morgan’s mocking tone, and he began humming the tune again.

“Seriously, enough!” a second female voice snapped. “You know the deal here, Mordred.”

“No killing,” Mordred reiterated. He was beginning to get fed up of explaining over and over how he was no longer a psychopath. He thought about making up business cards.

Mordred

Was a Murderous Psychopath

Cured

Mostly

He had to admit, it needed some work.

“Are you listening to me?” Morgan asked.

“Completely,” Mordred lied.

He ran toward the fence and threw tiny blades of air magic at it, slicing through the chain-link with ease, which collapsed as he barreled into and through it. He knew where he needed to go, and made short work of the parking area at the front of the complex, quickly reaching the side of the massive building. It belonged to Avalon, and the interior had been rune-marked so that no magic or abilities could be used once inside. Mordred didn’t have a problem with that; he was more than capable of using his fists and feet and head, and on occasion his knees and elbows. He repeated the word
elbow
over and over in his head. It sounded funny. He chuckled.

“Mordred, you okay?” Morgan asked.

Mordred nodded, and then paused for several seconds. “You didn’t see me nod then, did you?”

There was a sigh somewhere to the side of Morgan.

“I’m fine,” he said. He really did feel okay, too. After returning from the dwarven realm, his head had started to retain more stable thoughts. His focus had improved, and he felt less of a need to go off on a tangent. It’s amazing what having people try to kill you will make you achieve. But on occasion his head was still a jumble, especially when doing something with a high-intensity factor. And breaking into an Avalon building staffed by armed Avalon members to steal back the tablet that they’d brought back with them from the dwarven realm was probably considered a high-stress situation.

“I’m gonna go be a ninja now. Speak to you soon.”

He waited to see if anyone would reply, and when they didn’t, he used air magic to help him scale the side of the building. Climbing it was much easier when you can wrap tendrils of air around any holds and use them to pull yourself up. At the tenth floor, he paused by a window and placed his hand against it. Light cascaded from his fingers, melting the glass, allowing him easy access to the dark building.

Those he was working with had scouted the building well. After all, they knew Avalon better than most, and had explained that the night shift would be light, even if they would also be armed. The second he stepped into the building, Mordred felt his magic stop. It was a horrible sensation: the idea that a part of you couldn’t be accessed. He wanted to get this done as quickly as possible.

He moved through the small office and opened the door a crack, looking out into the corridor beyond. There were several doors leading to offices and rooms he had no interest in. He wanted to get up to the next floor—the top floor of the building, and one only accessible from the floor below.

Avoiding the guards turned out to be quite straightforward, and Mordred found himself enjoying hiding in the shadows until they’d walked past him, before continuing on again.

“I really should have gotten you guys to give me a cardboard box,” he said as he reached the stairwell to the floor above.

“What?” Morgan asked.

“Don’t worry.” He removed the card from his pocket and swiped it against the card reader before punching in the key on the numerical pad. The door popped open, and Mordred stepped inside, closing it softly just as the sound of footsteps began to echo in the corridor behind him. He remained behind the door, crouched down, as the footsteps grew nearer. Fortunately, the guard only paused before resuming his duties.

Mordred crept up the short staircase, then along a lengthy hallway. He paused on occasion to stare through the glass panels that adorned either side, trying to figure out what was done inside each of the rooms, but he knew he didn’t have long. Besides, all he could really make out were some shapes in the darkness.

At the end of the corridor was another numerical pad and card swipe, and he used the second number he’d memorized and swiped his ID once again. He stared at the ID card, which belonged to someone who didn’t exist: a person added to the internal database for this express purpose. Mordred had asked to be called Mario Bros, but they hadn’t found that as amusing as he had. After refusing to be called anything he didn’t like, they’d finally settled on Yoshi Hino. Mordred had been pleased with that one. It was a small victory, but you took what you could get when Avalon was involved.

Something inside the metal door hissed and unseen locks moved before it slowly swung open. Mordred stepped inside—and came face-to-face with half a dozen guards.

“I don’t know who you are,” one of the guards said, a large man with a shaved head and bushy eyebrows, “but you shouldn’t be here.”

“I got lost,” Mordred said. “Needed to take a leak, and I’ve been wandering about for ages trying to find a toilet.”

“You can come with us quietly, or . . . Well, personally I’d prefer the other option.”

“What’s the other option?” Mordred asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“We beat you into a coma,” the man told him, sounding unnerved that Mordred hadn’t figured out his meaning without needing it spelled out.

“Oh, you were being all clever and subtle,” Mordred said. “Sorry, I’m not good with subtle these days. Do you want to try again?”

The six men shared confused glances.

“Um, do you all need a moment?” Mordred asked. “I’m just here for the one thing, and then I’m done.”

“Don’t chat with them, Mordred,” Morgan almost screamed into the earpiece.

Mordred shrugged and darted toward the closest man, kicking him between the legs and shoving him into the man behind. Mordred pivoted and planted a kick in the chest of the third man, who fell back just as the fourth and fifth grabbed Mordred’s arms. The sixth punched him in the kidney and went for a second blow when Mordred used his captors’ arms to lift himself up and planted his heel on the incoming guard’s nose, crushing it.

He kicked the knee of the fourth guard, dislocating it, and broke two of the fifth guard’s fingers when he refused to let go. A knee to the faces of guards four and five rendered them both unconscious.

Mordred’s mind was calm; there were no thoughts to distract him. Fighting was one of the few times his brain shut off, giving him time to himself.

Guards one and two were soon back on their feet, but Mordred was faster, grabbing the hand of one and breaking the wrist as he threw him into the third guard. The second guard managed to land a punch on Mordred’s jaw, which angered him, and he snapped his foot out at the side of the guard’s knee, breaking the joint, and then punched him over and over in the face until he felt the nose and jaw give. Only then, when blood flowed through Mordred’s fist, did he stop, stepping back as the third, and final, guard looked on in horror.

“None of you guys have guns, then,” Mordred said. “Why not in here, but out there?”

“Too sensitive in here,” the third guard stammered. “Are you going to kill me?”

Mordred was actually slightly offended. “No. Why would I do that?” He looked down at the badly beaten guard on the floor. “Yeah, about him. He’ll be fine. The problem is, if I just tie you up, they’re going to know you didn’t fight back. So, I can either knock you out, or you can try to hit me and I’ll knock you out. It all really depends on whether or not you can handle the fact that you got knocked out without fighting back. To be honest, the end result will be the same.”

The guard kicked out at Mordred, forcing him back.

“Nice technique,” Mordred said, smiling under the mask. “Good snap, too. Human, yes?”

He nodded.

“I figured all you guys would be. Can’t trust a nonhuman with all these artifacts. That’s what you’re guarding. Old weapons, supposed lost manuscripts, and the occasional piece of jewelry. Nothing you need to get someone with actual power to guard.”

The guard threw a punch, but Mordred ducked under it, punching the guard in the jaw with an uppercut. The guard staggered back. Mordred caught his shirt and slammed his forearm into the guard’s face. He let the unconscious guard drop, then began humming again.

“Will you cut it out?” Morgan snapped. “Are they all alive?”

“I was told not to kill them, and no one is dead,” Mordred told her. “Hurt, though.”

“The item you seek is in the room to the far left of your position,” the second female said.

Mordred nodded and made his way there, where he opened the door and stood in wonder at the contents. There were row after row of shelves, all with metal trays, each one labeled with several numbers.

“You want six-four-nine-nine-one,” the woman told him.

It took Mordred thirty seconds to find it, open the tray, and remove the tablet from inside. He placed it inside his jacket and left the floor the way he’d arrived, avoiding the guards once again on the level below until he could climb back out of the window and, with his magic restored, lower himself to the ground.

It took him three minutes from grabbing the tablet to sprinting toward the pickup area: a small nearby car park.

Morgan was leaning on a red Nissan Navara, a smile on her face. “You enjoyed yourself.”

“You know what? You’re right. I did,” Mordred told her, as a second woman left the truck and held out her hand for the tablet.

“You think that doing this job will finally convince certain people that you’re no longer insane?”

“It’s a start,” the second woman told her as she left the pickup.

“Olivia,” Mordred said. “I forgot to ask earlier, but I assume Nate doesn’t know of our meeting here?”

“I don’t want Nate involved in this,” Olivia told him. “Not until we know who is and isn’t coming after us. Arthur’s revival has changed things. Things that shouldn’t necessarily be changed.”

“You don’t trust Arthur.”

“I don’t
know
Arthur. People keep telling me he’s the second coming, that he’s going to fix things, but so far, I have no evidence to back that up.”

“He’s not the man everyone thinks,” Mordred said.

“You’ve said that before. Care to elaborate?”

Mordred shook his head. He was certain no one in Avalon would believe him, certain that people would think he was crazy. And maybe he was; maybe his addled brain had made him see things that weren’t real. But something bothered him, and it bothered Morgan, too, so maybe it wasn’t just Mordred’s brain. Either way, he wasn’t saying anything until he knew more. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

“You don’t trust Avalon?” Morgan asked Olivia. “You work for them. Shouldn’t you be slightly more trusting?”

“Olivia doesn’t trust anyone,” Tommy said, leaving the pickup, and nodding thank you to Mordred. “And no, Nate must not know that we stole this back. Those people in there were experimenting on it, trying to figure out how to make more. Hera was seen leaving this facility on several occasions.”

“Couldn’t you have just taken it yourself?” Mordred asked.

“Not without a paper trail, or tipping off someone that we’re looking into their activities. This had to be done quietly. That’s more your territory, Mordred.”

He beamed. “You want me to go steal more of her stuff?”

Tommy shook his head. “I’m surprised you got in and out of there so easily. It’s meant to be high-security. I thought the tablet would be better protected.”

“Hera doesn’t think anyone will ever go after her,” Morgan said. “She’s always been that way.”

“We’ll contact you if we need you again,” Olivia said.

Mordred bowed his head. “Of course. But I’m not an assassin for hire. Don’t ever think I will kill for you. If you do, we’re done.”

Olivia climbed back into the pickup, and Tommy waited outside. “Mordred. Stay safe.”

Mordred gave the thumbs up, but inside his mind was racing. Avalon was breaking apart, just like he always knew it would. Hera and her people would take control one piece at a time, and Arthur’s appearance would only speed that up. The war was going to start, too; he could feel it. And then everything about himself and about Nate would come out in the open, exposing those who had a hand in the misery that had befallen them both. The people responsible for what had been done to them both would feel their wrath, even if it meant sacrificing himself to achieve it.