Lies Ripped Open

by Steve McHugh

  My magic stopped and the pain of the venom coursing through my body caused me to cry out. It was nowhere near as painful as it had been, clearly my magic was doing its job, but I was still in agony.

  “That’s right, I’m a void,” he told me.

  “Did the Reavers put an advert in the paper for your kind?” I asked. Just as quickly as it had vanished, my magic returned.

  “You murdered my brother back in an Avalon hospital. Do you remember him?”

  “Was his name Dick too? I’m going to take a wild guess that your parents had a pair of dicks.”

  He punched me again. My stomach and ribs felt as if they were on fire.

  “He won’t get to live to see the Reavers’ plan come to fruition, but then neither will you, if I get my say.”

  “What plan?” I asked. “So far your plan has been to try and find Felix and kill some people. That’s not a plan, I’m pretty certain a plan is meant to have an end game.”

  “No one told you? We plan on taking over Avalon. How’s that sound, tough guy?”

  “Avalon?” I laughed and it hurt like hell, but it was totally worth it. “A friend of yours mentioned that before. I don’t know what shit you’re smoking, but how the hell are you going to do that?”

  “We’ve got power, power you can’t believe. We’re going to find out exactly what Felix knows and then we’re going to march to Camelot. Soon, Avalon Island will be under our control. Kelly has gone to see to it personally.”

  That was news I really hoped was more bluster than fact. “Why am I still alive then?”

  “Because once we take Avalon, we’re going to bring you there so you can watch as your friends are killed. All of them—Lucie, Olivia, Elaine, Tommy, every single one of these assholes here in this room. You die last, covered in their blood.” He shouted the last sentence, sounding very pleased with himself. He certainly believed everything he was saying; the fanatical often do, even if their belief is so wrong no one else can understand it.

  I stared at Dick for a moment. “Did you rehearse that little speech? It sounded rehearsed. The covered in their blood part especially, it’s just so cliché. In fact killing me last is a terrible idea. You go to the trouble of keeping me alive just to watch me have my friends die? Is that meant to break me, am I meant to weep openly at the idea? Because if that’s the case, you need to know who I am.”

  Dick laughed. “I know who you are. The mighty Hellequin. We’ve all been briefed on you. I have to say, so far I’m not that impressed.”

  “That makes me a little sad; I was hoping to impress you. I wanted you to be my groupie. Let me ask you something, how impressed are you at being able to breathe?”

  “You’re actually threatening me?”

  “No, not me,” I said dismissively. “But you really should have made sure that everyone was properly restrained. Just because someone is small, doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous.”

  “Hey, fucko,” Remy said as he stood behind Dick.

  Dick stammered and went for the gun on his belt, but he was far too slow. Remy was on him, jaws around his neck as Remy took the larger man to the floor.

  Fox jaws aren’t as strong as a wolf’s, or even a domesticated dog’s, but Remy wasn’t exactly your normal fox, and like the rest of him, his jaws were much more powerful than they first appeared. A few seconds later and Dick stopped moving.

  “I guess you’re going to want me to let you down now,” Remy said. “If you make a single joke about me playing with Dick, I will bite you.”

  “Give me credit, I’m a bit more subtle than that,” I countered.

  “Yeah, magic boy, real subtle.” He searched Dick’s body and sighed. “The key isn’t here.”

  “So, where is it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said looking all around him exaggerated fashion. “Allow me to use my amazing key finding ability and I’ll get right back to you.”

  “Sarcasm isn’t helping.”

  Remy shrugged. “Helps me.”

  “Just please go.”

  Remy walked off down the tunnel and I waited for him to return, hoping it would be sooner rather than later.

  “Found them,” he exclaimed and jangled the keys at me. A second later and he’d climbed up me, before proceeding to unlock the manacles around my wrists.

  I fell to the floor with an unpleasant crash and a short time later, Remy had unlocked the shackles around my feet too.

  We helped unlock and lower both Ellie and Alan to the ground, the former of whom stirred the second her manacles were removed, showing the silver necklace that had been wrapped around her hands.

  I removed the chain and threw it aside, trying to ignore the burn marks around her wrists. “You okay?” I asked her.

  Ellie nodded, and Alan began to stir beside me.

  “They shot us both full of tranquilizer again,” Ellie said. “I’m beginning to dislike that stuff.”

  “How you feeling, Alan?”

  “Fucking peachy,” he said. “That guy dead?”

  “Yep,” Remy told him.

  “Good. So, what’s the plan, fearless leader?”

  “We get out of here, find Felix, get him away from these nutcases and then burn the fucking lot of them to the ground.” I explained what Dick had said about Avalon Island.

  “We’ll need that helicopter again,” Ellie said. “Felix first though.”

  “Any idea where he is?” I asked.

  “No, he wasn’t brought in here with us,” Alan said. “We’ll have to keep someone alive long enough to question them.”

  “You two up to this?” I asked Ellie and Alan.

  Both replied with a nod.

  We followed Remy out of the room and down the dark tunnel until we came to the massive open area with the pool in the middle. There were no guards about and Remy sniffed the air. “At least two guards in that direction,” he said, pointing toward where we’d met Felix. He sniffed again. “More down those tunnels over there and there.” He pointed to the tunnel where Ellie and Alan found weapons, and a third we hadn’t been down.

  “They come here, attack us, kidnap Felix, and now they’re going to steal from me?” Alan said, his voice steady, but full of anger. “I’m off down there, who wants to join me?”

  “Remy, go with Alan. If you can keep them alive, do so, otherwise, just be quick.” I turned to Ellie. “You want to come hurt the people who attacked us?”

  “Give me a moment.”

  There was a grunt, and then a tearing-like noise, immediately followed by an exhale of pain and something crunching. “All done,” Ellie said, her voice now low and full of danger.

  I turned back to her and found a six-and-a-bit-foot dark gray werewolf standing where Ellie once had. Ellie’s clothes were torn apart, discarded on the floor.

  “Be careful,” I told Alan and Remy and then moved off toward our target.

  It didn’t take long to walk down the tunnel before the sounds of voices filled my ears.

  “Have you found anything?” a woman asked.

  “No, you?” a man replied, evidently annoyed at their lack of success.

  “We need to find something, he’s expecting something.” Fear. Whoever the he was, he made them very scared.

  I glanced over at Ellie. He? I mouthed.

  “Maybe Felix didn’t write anything down,” she suggested. “I mean, maybe what they’re doing to him will give them the answers they need.”

  “This isn’t about answers; this is about removing any evidence for future allies of Felix to use. Whatever they discover up there isn’t the point. We need to make sure there’s nothing here that can link to those in power. Or would you like to go explain to Kelly why we found nothing?”

  “But if there’s nothing to find, then what’s the point? Why not just burn it all?”

  “Because they need to know all of the names on whatever list Felix kept of Reavers. It’s called covering your ass. Now stop complaining and get on with it.”

/>   “I’ve been getting on with it for hours. There’s nothing here we don’t already know. We’ve found lists of Reaver names, but just rank and file. I don’t even know how he managed to get all of the information he has.”

  “He must have had helpers.”

  “I’m sure we’ll hear about that later; right now, we need to get on with this.”

  More paper was moved about and then the man said, “Richard has been in with those four for a long time. You think he’s killed that sorcerer he wanted to give a kicking to?”

  “No, he’s not stupid. Some people with a lot more clout than us really want to do that themselves.”

  “Did you hear, he’s meant to be Hellequin?”

  “I doubt it. Hellequin could breathe fire and tear the souls from the wicked. This guy’s a sorcerer who is about as weak as a kitten after being shot with that spine. He probably used the name to make himself feel big.”

  Ellie and I reached the mouth of the room, where both occupants had their backs to us. I motioned for her to move toward the woman, while I took the man, not out of any sense of chivalry but because the man was closer to me. I crept behind him and snapped up quickly, grabbing him around the neck and dragging him to the ground. I didn’t see what Ellie did, but I heard the growl, the gasp, and then silence.

  “Move and you die, painfully,” I told him, and he went limp.

  I released the Reaver and pulled him up, where he saw Ellie, who held his Reaver friend by the throat two feet off the floor.

  “One of you will talk,” I said. “The one who does first, lives. Where is Felix?”

  “Doncaster Minster,” the woman said immediately.

  I drove a blade of air into the man’s heart. I didn’t know what he was, but I was pretty certain that it wasn’t going to be fun for him. He leaned forward and then pitched to the floor.

  “Why are you all so easy to overcome?” I asked. “I thought Reavers were the elite who couldn’t be Harbingers; so far none of you have really been too much bother.”

  “Harbingers? We never went to being Harbingers, we’re just people who believe that Avalon should be under new management. We’re a group who believed in the Reavers’ ideals of power and the destruction of our enemies.”

  Ellie let the woman drop to the ground. “Who are your enemies?” she asked.

  “Whoever we’re told they are. Traitors, those who would defile Avalon with their lies and false promises. Those who make Avalon weak.”

  “And I’m on that list?” I asked. “As is Felix?”

  “Felix betrayed us, and together you were responsible for the destruction of the Reavers as they were. As they still should be.”

  “And what did you do for Avalon before you decided to join the Reavers?”

  “SOA,” she said proudly.

  “Same as your friend there?” Ellie asked.

  The woman nodded. “You know you’ll never be able to stop the Reavers, not truly. Doesn’t matter how much you attack us, there will always be those who are unhappy with Avalon, unhappy at the people in power and how they squander it, running a once great organization into the ground. We will not go away quietly.”

  “We found the others,” Remy said as he entered the room. “None of them would talk to us though, so we had to dispose of them. If all Reavers are like this, we shouldn’t be too worried, they couldn’t conquer an anthill.”

  “These are just the dregs,” I said turning back to the woman. “What’s your name?”

  “Sophie.”

  “How old are you, Sophie?”

  “Seventy-eight. I’m a sorcerer.”

  “Not even old enough to have your second element. Whoever is in charge is taking those who are easy to influence and getting them to do the shit jobs, like guard this place and search through paper. They told you that you’d have a place in this new world, didn’t they?”

  “Power,” she said, a twinkle in her eyes.

  “Power,” I repeated. “You were never going to get power. You were going to be sacrificed as soon as possible. They only left you down here because they assumed you could keep us all locked up without much hassle, but you couldn’t even do that. The truly powerful ones have gone to Avalon, haven’t they?”

  She didn’t move, until Ellie grabbed her throat once more. Then she couldn’t nod enough. “The griffin is dealing with Felix.”

  “Should we get rid of her?” Remy asked.

  “No, she’s going to come with us. She’s going to watch her great and powerful Reavers torn asunder.”

  “Felix will already be dead,” Sophie declared. “They took him to the Minster to torture him.”

  “For what? And why a church?”

  Sophie shrugged. “No one was in, so they thought it would make a fitting final resting place for Felix. And he knows things.”

  “Names, is that it? Felix knows the names of the people who are running the show. But why would they care if you’re going to go to Avalon and show the world who you are anyway?”

  I could tell from her expression that Sophie had no idea.

  “You find any useful weapons in your travels?” I asked Alan and Remy.

  They both smiled. “You’re going to want to see this.”

  When we’d first arrived at the cavern and Ellie had told me she’d found enough weapons to start a small war, I assumed she was exaggerating. She wasn’t. If anything she undersold it. Weapons adorned every wall: swords, glaives, shields, guns, and even a bazooka in one corner.

  I didn’t fancy blowing up a large part of the city, so I settled for a nagamaki, a Japanese sword with a two-foot-long blade attached to a handle of about the same length. It was a bit like a katana, but with an extra-long handle, or tsuka.

  The tsuka on the nagamaki was wrapped in red and black silk, and as I picked it up, I knew that whoever had made it had done so with utmost care and devotion.

  “Never seen one of those before,” Ellie said as she stood beside me.

  “They were used to fight people on horses,” I told her. “I once fought a general who used one.”

  Ellie placed a finger against the flat of the blade, and quickly withdrew it. “Silver.”

  I nodded. “I thought as much. Don’t need silver to kill a griffin, but it can’t hurt.” I picked up the sheath and placed the blade inside. “Everyone ready?”

  Remy had found his sabre, which he was cleaning in the corner, occasionally mumbling that whoever had touched her last had to be removed from her. Yeah, some people talk to their weapons. Yes, it’s weird, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand it.

  Alan had chosen a pair of M1911 pistols, and was busy loading the magazines. The nickel shone as if new, and I wondered if Alan had stolen all of the things in this cavern.

  “I’m done,” Ellie said.

  “Not taking anything?”

  She raised the deadly claws on her hands. “Don’t need anything else.”

  I turned to Sophie. “There’s going to be a lot of killing soon. While I’m not above killing people because they’re in the way, or because they could cause me problems in the long run, I’d rather leave someone alive for Elaine to talk to. That person is going to be you.”

  “I’d rather you killed me,” she said, a newly ignited fire in her eyes.

  “I know, but Elaine will have questions. So your options are to be handcuffed in the room with all the food, or the one with the dead body of your friend, Dick.

  “Dick?” she questioned.

  “Oh, Richard, I called him Dick.”

  “Richard is dead? He was in charge of those of us who were placed down here. He was a favorite of Kelly’s. You’d best hope to whatever god you believe in that she doesn’t find you once she discovers what you’ve done. She’ll tear you apart.”

  “Good to know,” I explained. “Now choose.”

  “The food.”

  Alan tossed me a sorcerer’s band that he picked up from a box beside him, along with a pair of extra-long chain handcuffs
. I took Sophie through to the food storage and handcuffed her to some piping that led down from the sink. She had enough room to move about and eat as she needed.

  She didn’t fight as I applied the sorcerer’s band. “Someone will come for you soon. But you have enough food and water here for months, so don’t worry.”

  “You took away my magic.”

  “I’m not in the habit of leaving captured sorcerers to their own devices when they want nothing more than to see me dead. You’ll do without your magic for a while.”

  “I hope they kill you.”

  “You’d best not, otherwise you’re probably not going to be happy to see them when they realized we let you live.”

  “You can’t destroy an idea,” she shouted at me as I walked away.

  “Watch me.”

  CHAPTER 28

  The four of us left the cavern and made our way back up the ladder to the outside. I’d expected to have to fight, or at least dispose of people placed to watch the exit, but there was no one there. Either the Reavers were so overconfident that they didn’t think we’d be a threat once we were in manacles, or they were incompetent. Either way, they were going to pay for it.

  It was a good thing is was nighttime, as I imagined that a humanoid fox with a sabre almost the size of himself, a werewolf, and someone carrying a giant sword might have had an adverse reaction. In fact out of the four of us, Alan was the least likely to cause a commotion, which was concerning in and of itself.

  We hurried back toward Doncaster Minster, thankfully avoiding anyone on the journey, and quickly scaled the stone wall, using the trees and shadows to stay hidden a few hundred feet from the church.

  “You smell anything?” I asked Remy and Ellie.

  Both took a big sniff and paused. “Blood,” they said together.

  “Where from?”

  “Inside the Minster,” Ellie said.

  “I need you three to scout the outside. I’m going in to find Felix.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Alan said. “Not a request, Nate.”

  “Okay, but getting Felix out is part ‘A’ of this plan. Killing the bastards who took him can wait.”

  “Agreed.”

  Alan didn’t wait, and took off toward the Minster at a steady run. I cursed under my breath and caught him up as we reached the building itself.