by Steve McHugh
“I don’t know a damn thing. I made sure of that.”
“In that case, you’re still going to be going to prison for helping Siris murder Brutus and a bunch of other people. Hera might have Merlin in her pocket, or maybe it’s vice versa, but no one will be able to stop Olivia from sending you to The Hole.”
Gilgamesh darted across the clearing, increasing in size as he went. He grabbed the deer carcass and threw it at where I’d been sitting. Unfortunately for him, I’d already moved into the shadow realm.
I came out behind him, a sphere of lightning in my hand, and unleashed the magic an inch from his back. He flew through the air, and smashed into several trees, tearing more than one of them apart with the force.
“Stay down,” I told him.
He ignored me and got back to his feet, roaring in anger before charging forward. He grabbed hold of one of the tree trunks beside him and flung it in my direction. A second sphere turned it into pulp. I didn’t want to keep going in and out of my shadow realm; I’d have gotten too exhausted. There was no way to beat Gilgamesh if I wasn’t at my best.
I gathered the thousands of pieces of wood all around me in a bubble of air and flung them back toward Gilgamesh at high speed. He’d started running toward me the second he’d thrown the trunk, and couldn’t avoid the incoming wooden shrapnel. Instead, he raised his arm to protect his face. Pieces of wood were embedded in his arm, but he showed no outward pain at it, and continued on, unabated.
I dodged aside at the last possible second, throwing a torrent of air at Gilgamesh’s legs, hoping to trip him. But he managed to turn toward me faster than I’d anticipated and grabbed hold of my leg, lifting me off the ground and flinging me toward the trees.
A blast of air stopped me from breaking bones when I struck the huge trees, but it still hurt, and Gilgamesh was already charging toward me once more.
“Last chance!” I shouted.
He ignored me until the shadows burst out of the ground, wrapping around him and stopping him in his tracks.
He tore himself free from several of the tendrils of shadow, but I was adding more and more with every second, faster than he could destroy them.
“Don’t fight it,” I told him.
He roared in fury and lurched forward, growing in size again, ripping the shadows apart, enough to gain momentum. I removed the shadows, which surprised Gilgamesh and he stumbled forward, catching his feet just as I drove a three-foot-wide sphere of lightning into his chest. The magic exploded all around him, tearing at the earth, and throwing him back.
Gilgamesh found himself on the floor, his chest a mass of bloody, raw flesh. He bared his teeth and used a nearby tree to get back to his feet. I raised one hand toward the sky and the rumble of thunder sounded above us. Lightning flashed down from above toward my finger and then traveled through my body out of the other finger that was pointed directly at Gilgamesh. The bolt had absorbed my magical power as it had traveled through, increasing its already considerable power.
It hit Gilgamesh in the torso and drove him back into and through several large trees. The earth beneath me shook as they hit the ground, along with Gilgamesh a moment later. The old king, covered in branches and leaves, pushed them aside with anger as he clawed himself back to an upright position. Blood poured from multiple wounds on his body, but he would not quit.
The hand that the lightning had left had become charred and painful; it would take some time to heal. I’d hoped the use of real lightning, mixed with my own power, would stop him, but I hadn’t been that lucky. He pushed several tons of trees aside as if it were a garden fence and began striding toward me once again.
“That it?” he demanded and ran forward, screaming the whole time. I used my air magic to try and slow him down, but fighting one-handed hadn’t been my first choice. And the pain from using my magic with a busted hand was excruciating. He grabbed hold of me, picked me off the floor and dumped me on the ground.
“You think I’m going to let you take me in, Nate?”
“Unfortunately, no,” I said. “I wish it had been different, though.”
Gilgamesh reared back to strike the killing blow, not paying attention to the shadows moving beneath me, until we both began sinking into the shadow realm. He released me and tried to grab hold of something, anything, to claw his way to freedom, but it was too late, and soon we were both standing in my shadow realm.
Gilgamesh’s power faded to nothing, and he dropped back to his normal size.
“What is this?” he demanded to know as I got to my feet.
“Shadow realm. It’s where my wraith lives.”
“A wraith?” Fear crept into his voice for the first time.
“Want to meet him?”
Gilgamesh shook his head.
“You have no power here, Gilgamesh. You can either surrender, or die. Pick one.”
“Don’t leave me in here,” he almost shouted. “I’ll come with you.”
I could feel the wraith gliding about in the darkness beyond, just waiting for an opportunity to feed on the new arrival. It was disconcerting.
I took Gilgamesh out of the shadow realm and left him lying on the dirt as I retrieved a sorcerer’s band from my bag. He allowed me to put it on him, and got to his feet.
“You’re a monster,” he said.
“I’ve been called worse.”
We marched forward, Gilgamesh in front, until there was a crack of a rifle and Gilgamesh fell to the side with considerable force. A second crack, and another round hit him before he’d struck the ground. I dove back, putting the trees between me and the rifle. Tommy wouldn’t have taken the shot; he’d have known better.
I fished out my radio. “Tommy?”
“Nate, we’ve got a shooter. They’re a few hundred yards south of me. I can’t see them.”
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 t
he 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 m
eaning 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.”
