by Steve McHugh
“So, Karl, and before him Simon, was using the Vanguard name as a way to get people to hurt Shadow Falls?”
“Simon told me he’d let them believe it to give them purpose. You make people think you’re fighting against an aggressor, make them believe there’s a cause at stake and they can be pretty damn motivated. Doesn’t explain why your mum is involved though. I mean specifically, why her?”
Caitlin shrugged. “No idea. But this is all looking like a trip to Shadow Falls in is order.”
“Unfortunately, you’re right, it does.”
Caitlin stood and walked back toward the house before stopping and turning back toward me. “Nate, you can’t hold back if we go up against them. You have to do whatever you can to stop them.”
“I promise, if they give me no choice, I’ll stop them. But you need to be able to do the same, and I’m not sure you can.”
“This isn’t about my mom and me. This is about stopping a serial killer from causing more harm. I need to do my job and bring her to justice.”
“You know she won’t go to a human prison. Not in a million years.”
“Then we’ll find a great big pit and throw her in it. But she will pay for her crimes.”
The way she said that final sentence made me wonder if she meant the murders Patricia had committed, or the crimes perpetrated against Caitlin’s family.
CHAPTER 22
Roberto’s agents, a man and woman, arrived after about an hour and confirmed that both Charles Whitehorn and Karl had vanished from Washington, which certainly didn’t make me feel any better about whatever they had planned.
A taxi took us to the airport, where true to Felicia’s words, the jet still sat. Whatever fault they had told the staff was with the jet was suddenly solved and a few hours later we were in the air. The pilot told us that he was taking us to Portland, where my Audi would be waiting. Apparently, Felicia liked to make sure her friends were well taken care of. That and she probably liked the idea of me owing her a favor.
Once at Portland we took my car and a short time later were sat opposite the Mill.
“So, this is the entrance to Shadow Falls,” Caitlin said, sounding about as impressed as if I’d just taken her to the dump-it site.
“Yep, it’s in that bar,” I told her and glanced around the neighborhood. A lot had changed in over thirty years. The Mill was much bigger for one, maybe twice the length it had been. Dozens of new builds had been built-up around it, most of them what appeared to be a mixture of bars and restaurants.
“So, do you feel like telling me what Shadow Falls actually is?”
“It’s one of the Hidden Realms.”
Silence hung inside the car. “Yeah, I’m going to need more than that,” Caitlin eventually said.
“Okay, imagine a large white board. The kind of things you see in school. That board is our current realm, realm A, Earth, or whatever the hell you want to call it. Now imagine that board is covered in post-it notes, hundreds of them. Each one of those notes represents one of the Hidden Realms.”
“So, you can only get to the Hidden Realms through this realm?”
“Not exactly,” I said trying to figure out how to explain it. “Some are linked to one another. The only constant is that every single realm is linked to this one via a gateway, which serve as both the entrance and exit.”
Caitlin sat back in the seat and rubbed the side of her neck. “What are the realms themselves?”
“Each realm is its own, self-contained world. They all have their own species, weather, plants, day/night cycle, and a host of other things. You’ve heard of many of the realms before, just without knowing that they were in fact real: Tartarus, Olympus, Valhalla, Albion, and countless others, all exist as realms.”
“So,” she said slowly, obviously turning the idea over in her head. “If you’re a criminal, you could just hide in one of these places and jump from realm to realm never getting caught?”
“It’s happened more than once.” Mordred had done it for centuries; it was why I’d never managed to track him down for any real length of time. “It’s an incredibly difficult thing to do though. The problem is that to go from one realm to another, without coming back to this one, means you need to know where the gateways are. Very few maps of the realms exist; usually whoever lives in one realm maps it out, but then keeps the map in the realm. Most people who try to evade capture usually get stuck in one realm. Then it’s just a matter of sitting outside the gate and waiting, or going in and getting them.”
“Can you tell me about these realms?” she asked. “Do they look like earth?”
“Some do, some don’t. I know that’s not exactly the most scientific of answers, but it’s true. Shadow Falls, for example, can’t use electricity. At least not in the way we can; they have gas lamps in the street.”
“Why is it called Shadow Falls?”
“There’s a huge mountain range called Shadow’s Peak,” I continued. “Once a day it casts a huge shadow that stretches all across the rest of the realm. The people who first found the place probably thought the name was more original several hundred years ago.”
“And the entrance to Shadow Falls is in a bar in Portland?”
“Well, under it, but yeah, essentially.”
“What’s stopping everyone from walking through the gateway, then?”
“The guardians of the realm. Or guardians, for short. They’re the only ones who can activate the gate. Each gate has between four and six guardians, who can only activate the gate by touch. They’re basically immortal, so long as they stay within a mile or two of the gate. Once outside that cordon, they’re just as easy to kill as any other human.”
“So, what happens if the guardian is away from the gate and someone wants in?”
“If anyone touches the gate who isn’t a guardian, those linked to that realm will be alerted. Doesn’t always mean someone’s going to come let you through.”
“How do they become guardians? Are they born like that?”
I opened my mouth to answer and realized that I didn’t have one. “No, at least I don’t think so. I vaguely remember being told that they used to be human. In fact I think only humans can become guardians. To be honest, there is a lot about them I don’t know. They’re a secretive bunch, and beyond knowing that their power is based on proximity to a gateway, I don’t know much else. Oh, they’re linked to a gateway. One gateway per person. But my knowledge of guardians is now exhausted.”
“Anything else I should know?”
“Your phone won’t work, leave your gun in the car, and try really, really hard not to tell anyone that you’re FBI. Plenty of humans live there though, so it shouldn’t be something to concern yourself about.”
“How many people are we talking about?” Caitlin asked as we both got out of the car.
“Including humans and all the species who live there? About a million,” I said and walked off toward the bar, aware that Caitlin was still staring at me from the car.
“I’d like to see Rebecca Dean,” I told a young waitress who came toward us and asked if we’d like a table.
The young woman glanced around, ever so slightly nervous, but the smile on her face never wavered. “Miss Dean is currently in a meeting. Is she expecting you?”
I shook my head. “I doubt it very much.”
“In that case, I can’t disturb her,” she told me, clearly unimpressed that she’d pulled the short straw of coming to talk to me.
“What’s your name?”
“Anna,” she told me.
“Well, Anna, how about this? You go tell Rebecca that Nate Garrett is downstairs in her bar having a scotch. She’ll probably yell a bit, so you may want to make a hasty retreat then.”
“Mister Garrett, she’s in a meeting and can’t be disturbed.”
I lent in closer so I could
whisper. “Ask her if she’d prefer to be disturbed or get to bury her king?”
Anna swallowed and then walked off. I did feel a little bad about getting her to tell Rebecca I was here, and the bury-her-king part was probably overkill, but considering Rebecca arrived under a minute later, I guess it worked.
“Get the fuck out of my bar,” she snapped as she stamped her way toward me.
Several people who were eating stopped and glanced at the curvaceous woman who was bearing down on me like a force of nature.
“No,” I told her.
Rebecca hadn’t aged a day in the over thirty years since I’d last seen her, but her eyes were harder than they’d been and I wondered what had happened to cause it.
“You can leave, or I’m going to throw you head first through that window.”
“Is everyone you used to know like this when you turn up?” Caitlin asked as Rebecca grabbed me by my jacket and slammed me up against the wall.
The air rushed out of me, and my head bounced off the hard brick, making me momentarily dizzy. “Nice to see you, too,” I said.
“I heard what you did. I told you back then that you weren’t going to put your hands on him.”
“To answer your question, Caitlin, it usually depends on how much I’ve pissed them off.” I met the eyes of the woman who held me against the wall with ease. Guardians were strong as hell, and if she’d wanted to she could have really hurt me. But the same was true of me. And I really didn’t want it to get that far. “In your case, Rebecca, that was probably a lot.
You can either let me go and I’ll tell you why I’m here, or I’ll make you let me go and still tell you. I’ve been shot at, attacked, and generally had a shitty night. I’m not in the mood to piss around.”
Rebecca released me and took a step back. “You have thirty seconds; come into my office.”
She turned and walked away, leaving some shocked diners to stare in disbelief at what had happened. I noticed the skull shaped hole in the plaster and rubbed the back of my head, ignoring the customers as I followed Rebecca upstairs to the office. Apart from a different paint job and some modern appliances, it appeared to be identical to the one I’d been in over thirty years earlier.
I almost bumped into Rebecca when she spun abruptly, and with Caitlin directly behind me I couldn’t step away in time to avoid the punch to my stomach. I dropped to my knees and sucked in air, while I tried not to cough up my lungs.
Caitlin quickly stood between me and my assailant. “That’s enough! You’ve made your point, now let him tell you why we’re here.”
Rebecca smiled. It wasn’t pleasant. “He deserved that.”
“Probably,” Caitlin agreed. “Hell, I’ve wanted to do it myself more than I can remember and I’ve only known him a few days. But this is important, and we don’t have time for childish shit. Too many people are already dead. I don’t want to stand around while that tally increases.”
Rebecca leaned up against the desk at the far end of the room. “Thirty seconds.”
“I need to go see Galahad,” I said as I stood, the pain in my gut finally subsiding.
“I think we can end it there,” Rebecca said.
I told her about the werelions and how they were working to Simon’s plan. It probably took longer than thirty seconds, but the second I mentioned Simon’s name and got a reaction, I knew she wasn’t about to kick Caitlin and me out.
“When they brought Simon here,” Rebecca said, “he winked at me. I thought nothing of it at the time, until I was told that he would only speak to Galahad with me present. So, for one day a month, every month, I used to travel to Shadow Falls and sit with Galahad. We did that for the first ten years.”
“And how’d that work out for you?” I asked.
“Simon never said anything of value. He talked about the people he’d murdered or told me how much he liked seeing me. Never anything about what happened in Stratford. He’s a cruel, vile, little man. But he’s also locked up in a dungeon and there’s no way he’s had any visitors.”
“Well he might not be giving the orders, but he knows what they are. Galahad needs to be made aware of what’s happening.”
“You’re right, he does,” Rebecca agreed. “Although I’m unsure why you have to be the person to tell him.”
“Because despite whatever might have happened, we were friends. I’m hoping I can get him to allow me to see Simon and try and figure out what the hell is going on here, because if we don’t, a lot more people will die.”
Rebecca remained quiet for a short time until she picked up the phone on her desk and pressed a button on the base unit. “Get the gateway ready; I think we’re going to have to send two people through it.”
“Thank you,” I said when she’d replaced the handset.
“I didn’t do it for you, Nate. I don’t give a shit if you go through or not, but if I can stop Simon or those who are working with him once and for all, I will do it.”
“Even so, thank you.”
Rebecca went and opened the office door, grabbing my arm as I walked passed her. “One thing, Nate. If you hurt my king ever again, if you lay your little finger on him in anger, I will gut you like a fish.” She released me and walked off without a word, expecting Caitlin and me to follow.
“What the fucking hell did you do back then?” Caitlin whispered.
“Oh, you know. The usual.”
CHAPTER 23
Stratford, Maine. 1977.
Whatever rage and hate I felt as I left Galahad and the forest, both marked with the blood of Rean’s wife and son, remained with me for the entire journey back into Stratford.
I drove through the town, stopping off at the motel to pick up the misericorde dagger and put it in the car. I had a feeling it was going to come in handy. While in the motel, I asked the owner for directions to my target before setting off once again.
The mayor’s house was on the opposite side of town, so it took me a short time to drive through the deserted streets. I drove past the property twice before pulling up to the guarded front entrance.
The house itself was huge, certainly more of a mansion than what I’d been expecting. The street itself was full of half-built houses, all looking slightly smaller than the mayor’s and all utterly abandoned in the darkness.
I walked across the street, the dagger in hand, and gave it to one of the two guards, who stared at it in confusion.
“Someone from here put this in my bedroom,” I told him. “It had to be one of you, because if Simon or his cronies had done it, I’d have found it nailed to a dead rabbit or something much less subtle.”
“Fuck off,” the guard said and moved to shove me back.
I pushed his hand aside and struck him in the throat. He dropped to the ground, trying desperately to breathe, as a blast of air took out the second guard and threw him into the small hut that they’d been using as shelter while on duty. He crashed inside and didn’t move again, as I walked into the hut and pushed the button to open the gates.
“Where’s your boss?” I asked the first guard, who was just beginning to catch his breath again.
He pointed toward the house.
“Yeah, I got that. Whereabouts in there?”
“Not sure,” he said, his voice raspy.
I removed the air from his lungs and allowed him to crash unconscious to the floor, as cries sounded out from more guards who were spilling out of the mansion’s front door.
I cracked my knuckles and walked toward the four men who called out warnings, while one of them aimed a gun at me.
“We will shoot,” the nearest one told me.
A blast of air knocked the first man over into his friend behind him, the sound of the gun going off filled the night as I turned my attention to the two guards who remained upright.
They ran toward me with batons out, err
oneously confident. I wasn’t really sure what they hoped to achieve. The closer of the two reached me and missed with his first strike. I snapped his arm and drove my knee into his ribs, pushing him into the path of his friend. He tried to avoid the injured guard, but walked into a kick from me that snapped his head around and sent him unconscious to the driveway.
The first two guards had finally managed to untangle themselves just as I caught one of them with a vicious elbow shot to the back of the head instantly knocking him out. His friend tried to get away, but I grabbed the back of his shirt and spun him around, throwing him over the bonnet of the nearest car.
“Where’s the mayor?” I asked as I picked him up and repeated the process of throwing him onto the car, this time his head struck the windscreen, cracking the glass.
He slid down the bonnet, leaving a streak of red on the white car. I helped him on his way and pulled him off the car, punching him in the stomach as he moved.
“Don’t make me ask again.”
“Inside,” he said as he crumpled to his knees. “Ground floor, at the back.”
I hit him in the head, sending him to join his comrades in the land of unconscious assholes, before walking into the house.
I’d only taken a step into the large hallway, before another guard came out of a room beside me with a shotgun. I grabbed the gun with one hand and forced it up toward the ceiling, twisting as I moved to claim it from the guard. I jabbed him in the face with the shotgun’s butt then blasted him into the wall several feet away with a gust of air, knocking him and several pictures to the floor with a loud crash.
After emptying the shells onto the floor, I tossed the gun outside and closed the door. The rest of the lengthy hallway remained problem free, allowing me to get to the final door without having to hurt anyone else.
I pushed the door open, just long enough for me to see the mayor and three more guards, at the end of the kitchen. Bullets filled the air, and I dove through the doorway behind the nearest counter.
The second I heard the click of an empty gun, I surrounded my enemies with a wave of air then ignited it, instantly engulfing the three guards. Their screams of fear soon turned into ones of anguish as the fire did its job.
