by Steve McHugh
“We need to leave,” I told everyone and noticed that Kurt was still bleeding.
“Silver,” he said. “She packed it with normal nails and silver ones. I’m not going to be much use for a while.”
I glanced back at Selene, whose skin had returned to her normal color and whose eyes were human once more.
“I’m spent,” she said.
The ice above us groaned once more, and drops of water fell onto my hand. The explosions had quite probably created fires inside the house—the igloo wasn’t going to hold up for long without Selene’s help.
“What are you doing?” I asked Selene, who had crawled over to several scraps of paper that were on the floor.
“We need to know what’s happening, what Helios’s plan is.”
I placed my hands against the exterior wall of the house and concentrated. Pushing the wall out would only result in a large part of the wall above us dropping down into its place, doing none of us any good at all. Instead, I pushed the wall out and up, using my air magic to hold it in place, the weight of the house trying to push it down onto my head as I slowly moved through the new hole.
“Everyone out now,” I said and was quickly followed by Petra, who was carrying Lucie, along with Kurt. “Get as far away from here as possible. The second I let the magic go, this whole side of the building is to going collapse.”
The strain was immense. I felt my feet slowly pushed into the soft dirt beneath me as several tons of house tried to turn me into wet mush.
“Holding a building up here,” I snapped at Selene, who was still grabbing bits of paper.
She glanced up at me, snatched up the last pieces of paper, and hurried out of the building to join the others.
I crept back slowly, sweat running down my back from the effort of holding the building in place, until I was far enough away, and then I released the magic. As predicted, the entire side of the house rushed to fill the void I’d created, collapsing a large portion of the building onto itself.
I lay on the dirt as Petra tended to a clearly angry Kurt, and Selene looked over Lucie, who hadn’t moved since the explosion.
“Nate, there are some medical supplies in the car,” Petra said. “Can you go get them?”
I nodded and forced myself to my feet. The pain in my stomach and hand was manageable, but it made my movements slow and gingerly. I hoped it was just because of the exertion of using my magic, but it felt as if I’d been stabbed with something silver; a burning sensation tore through my insides, and I wondered if something else had struck me at the same time as the piece of Magali.
I made my way around the side of the ruined house and stopped at the BMW, opening the boot and removing the small medical kit; mostly bandages and ethanol, with some scissors and tweezers. Hopefully, it would be enough to help Petra bandage up Kurt and enable her to take a look at whatever was causing the pain inside me.
I turned to walk back to the group and found myself standing before Helios, who grabbed me by the throat and smashed me up against the BMW, denting the roof and smashing the driver’s window.
Before I could fight back, he plunged his fingers into the hole that Magali’s bone had made and began to move them around, eventually pulling them out, covered in my blood. Roars of pain filled my ears, while my body screamed at me in agony. He held a small squashed item between his fingers, the remains of a chain dangling down by his wrist. He released me and I fell to the ground, gasping for breath as my body no longer fought against me.
“I knew I smelled something of her in your wound. This was Magali’s silver locket,” Helios said, his voice calm and matter-of-fact. “I might have let you suffer, but it had a picture of her husband, Jean, inside it. I think Magali would like it back.” He tossed it back into the now burning building.
He grabbed me by the throat again, lifting me off the ground once more and throwing me aside. I collided with the barn twenty feet away and crashed back down, looking up in time to see that Helios had fully transformed into his dragon-kin form. Like his sister, his eyes were reptile orange, but his scale-covered skin was a brilliant gold. He opened his mouth, dislocating his jaw as fire roared from it. I rolled aside but discovered that he was aiming at the barn, not me. Where the fire had touched the wood and metal, it had simply melted through, as anything near it burned brightly. Another stream of fire left Helios’s mouth, and it wasn’t long before the entire barn was engulfed. I staggered back from the inferno, putting distance between myself and the floating figure in front of me.
On Helios’s back two huge red and orange wings beat softly, keeping him floating a foot above the earth. Each flap of his wings blew up dust and dirt, swirling it around the front of the barn.
“What am I to do with you?” Helios asked me.
“You could tell me whatever your plan is.”
Helios laughed, a deep, rich noise. “No, I shan’t be doing that. I can’t kill you either. Selene is rather fond of you, I believe, and I don’t want this to become a quest for her to gain revenge for your death.”
I got back to my feet, wincing as I moved. My hand was almost healed, but the silver wound in my gut would take several hours.
“Whatever you do, get on with it.”
Helios smiled. “I will leave you with a warning. Flee from Germany; let me continue my plan, and escape with your life, because if you continue upon your path, I will kill you.”
It wasn’t even open to consideration. “Can’t let you murder innocent people.”
Helios sighed. “Selene said you were stubborn. I do not wish to kill you or your friends. But I will if you get in my way. I will even kill Selene if need be.”
“You’ll find that a difficult proposition,” Selene told him as she walked around from the side of the building.
“Ah, little sister, you’re in no position to threaten me.” He raised his hands to the sky. “The sun is in full bloom. This is my time.”
“We’ll free you from Pandora’s thrall,” she said.
“Thrall?” he asked and beat his wings furiously, rising several meters above us. “Oh, my dearest Selene. I sought Pandora out. I agreed to help. I’m not in her control; I’m her partner.” And with that he flew off across the fields at high speed, leaving Selene and me dumbstruck.
CHAPTER 15
Mittenwald. Now.
Once the buses loaded with school children had left the compound, the guard and guardian who had been involved in releasing someone from Tartarus had been brought up to the outside and marched into a building at the far end of the compound’s perimeter. They’d joined a third man, the same one who had stabbed Cerberus.
Hades walked off to talk to them. I can’t imagine it would be a pleasant experience for those who’d been caught.
“It’s been quite the eventful day.”
I turned to see a large, barrel-chested man standing a few feet back. His hair was cut so short to his head that he was almost bald, and he wore an expensive black suit, with a thin black tie and dark boots.
“Kay,” I said and stretched out my hand.
His eye twitched slightly before he took my hand and shook it. Kay, as Arthur’s brother, was one of the oldest of the Knights of Avalon and, like all knights, was afforded the title “Sir.” Most didn’t bother using it, but some, like Kay, insisted on its use. However, while I was never a knight, nor afforded the same status as one, I was also in a position within Avalon that meant that we were of equal footing. In reality it meant nothing more than that we were all the same rank, which wound Kay up, as not once did I ever call him anything other than Kay.
Kay was not a popular knight, or a popular person for that matter. He was rigid, tough, and in many cases a bully and tormenter to those who didn’t stand up to him. After the Second World War, he was placed in charge of the Shield of Avalon, or SOA. The organization had two main roles: to protect Avalon and its people and to root out internal threats. Kay changed the name to Sword of Avalon and set about making it more proactive,
pissing off pretty much everyone in the process. He pushed forward ideas to give the SOA more power and control, losing a lot of trust from those in Avalon and terrifying those outside of Avalon’s immediate touch. Eventually, he realized no one was paying attention and changed the name back in the late 1980s, although I’d heard that he’d changed little in terms of policy, just how it was being implemented against the masses.
“You’re the dignitary?” I asked.
“Yes, it was my turn. Looks like I picked a bad day. Or a good one, depending on your point of view. You missed Hyperion. Just before the attack started, he was lifted away. Shame—I’m sure he’d have liked to say hi.”
I ignored the taunt, my usual course of action when talking to Kay. “Any chance the people who did this knew you were coming today?”
Kay shrugged. “It’s not a private trip. I’m sure they could have discovered it. You think this was done at the same time on purpose?”
“Makes sense, although the bigger question is who.”
Kay turned to a man standing behind him. His Faceless. The Faceless were officially bodyguards to the more prominent or powerful members of Avalon society. They were utterly loyal in all things involving their masters and carried out orders with a detached coldness. I knew from experience that many did more than just protect their master; some killed or stole for them, destroying their master’s enemies or threatening them as needed.
The Faceless are named as such because they all wear a mask that entirely covers their face. Only their master knows their true identity. The design of the mask is up to the master, although all of them cover the entire head, fastening around the neck so as not to be removed, and with a dark material in the eyeholes so that none of the Faceless’s features are detectable.
The mask of Kay’s Faceless was all black with a red swirl around the right eye. The nose protruded slightly, with two holes for the wearer to breath normally. The mouth was a smooth piece of polished metal with two rows of three holes in it, presumably to allow the wearer to talk and be heard normally. The mask was raised in certain parts around the eyes and nose, giving it the appearance of a monster. Kay always did like to make people afraid.
I took in the Faceless. He was about a head taller than Kay and almost as broad. He wore dark leather armor, the buckles and straps holding an unknown number of weapons, and his black cape hung to his knees. Faceless capes had a strip of silver sewn into the hem. I’d seen them used as weapons in the past, and they were more than a little useful in a pinch.
“Is there a problem?” Kay asked me as the Faceless glanced my way.
“It’s just been awhile since I last saw one in full get-up,” I said.
“He’s magnificent, isn’t he?” Kay said with more than a little pride. “Every ounce of his armor and weaponry is custom-made. He’s a one-man army.”
“I’m sure he’s very imposing. It’s almost a shame none of the attackers got out today; he’d have been most helpful in their capture.”
“Death,” Kay corrected. “He doesn’t capture. The standing order is to kill. Unless I say otherwise.”
“He’s very impressive,” a woman said from behind the Faceless, her tone suggesting that she didn’t find the Faceless impressive at all.
I moved aside and caught a glimpse of Lucie as she walked toward us. She wore a gray suit and flat black shoes, with her hair tied up in a bun, and looked maybe ten years older than she had when we’d worked together in Germany so many years previously.
“Good to see you,” I said as she shook my hand.
“You too,” she told me.
“You shouldn’t mock my Faceless, Lucie,” Kay said with a tight smile.
Lucie turned back to Kay. “Maybe if you had him around less, people would be more inclined to trust you.”
“I do not need the weak to trust me, and the strong do not need to fear me.”
“Do you have a minute?” Lucie asked, leading me away from Kay, who went back to his hushed conversation with his own personal slave.
“So, you’re working for Avalon?” I asked after we put some distance between the others and us.
“Sort of. I work for the SOA as Kay’s second.”
“Really? You’re the deputy director of the SOA?”
“You sound shocked.”
“I wouldn’t have expected Kay to be someone you’d want to work with.”
“Been there for nearly ten years now. I work behind the scenes, mostly doing tours like these and checking internal security protocols. I still haven’t found her. I came close a few times, but she’s always eluded me. I’ll get her, though—I promise you that.” The tone in her voice gave me no reason to think otherwise.
“So, you work with Kay. That doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.”
“Mostly I do all the work, and Kay . . . well, you’d be surprised at how much Kay does . . . or rather doesn’t do.”
“I’ve known Kay for over sixteen hundred years, and if there’s one thing I can say, it’s that very little surprises me about him.” The last I knew, he spent most of his day drinking, sleeping with attractive woman, and avoiding as much work as possible.
“We’re not friends, me and you, Nate. Not really anyway. Never will be. Too much has happened and too much has been said, but I trust you. So heed this warning. I’ve heard rumblings of someone planning to change our way of life. I think Kay knows more than he’s letting on.”
“You think he’s involved?”
Lucie shook her head. “I think he’s gotten wind of who it is, and he’s waiting to see how that wind blows, to figure out where he needs to be. He loves his brother, and he would never betray him. But that doesn’t mean he’s against keeping information to himself to aid his own long-term plans.”
“You think he knew something was going to happen today? He knew about the attack?”
Lucie nodded. “He didn’t agree to come here today for the fun of it. I saw the look on his face when he heard about the krampus. He was as surprised as everyone else, but he never goes to these things unless he thinks something is going to happen that will help him in some way.”
“What does he think he’s going to gain from this?”
Lucie shrugged. “No idea. I’m just warning you. I heard you killed a Faceless.”
“Rumors again?” A few years ago, a member of the Faceless by the name of Reid infiltrated the LOA and got several good people murdered, almost allowing a madman to kill Tommy and Kasey. Reid was dead now. I’d put several bullets in him after he’d challenged me. I’d never liked the Faceless, but after that, I found myself trusting them even less.
“Except, we both know that this one is true, as do several members of their order. You know they don’t like it when one of their own is killed. You made some powerful enemies that day.”
“They won’t attack me without their master’s permission.”
“That’s true, but not all of their masters are your allies. Many in Avalon would gladly see you fall, given a clear opportunity.”
“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. Thanks for the info.”
She placed a hand on my shoulder. “Take care. Find out who did this and shut him down. Fast.” And with that she walked off.
I watched Lucie walk off toward Kay. They chatted for a moment before she wandered away to the offices on the far side of the compound. She was right; any kind of friendship with Lucie was out of the picture, but I trusted her judgment, and if she said she’d heard whispers about something that was supposed to be happening, that wasn’t to be ignored. And it meant that Kay probably knew more than he was letting on. I sighed; I really didn’t need the added complication of Avalon politics.
I made my way over to the long, single-story building where the three captives were being questioned, and noticed Hades walking back toward the building where the school children and dignitaries had been housed. I considered shouting over toward him, but he was issuing orders to various members of his guard, and I thought better
of it. Sky was sitting with her back against a small hut nearby, her eyes closed. She was either asleep or trying to remain calm, neither of which I wished to interrupt.
A guard left the nearby building, rubbing his hands. It wasn’t difficult to see that there was a lot of blood on them.
“Did you get anything?” I asked as he walked past.
“No, not a damn thing.”
“You mind if I try?”
He glanced behind me and I turned to see that he was looking at Hades, who was several hundred meters away.
“No, that’s fine. Good luck.”
I thanked him and entered the building, finding it deserted. The building itself was designed to house prisoners and interrogate them. It consisted of a wide corridor with six doors that had been placed at equal distance apart. At the far end of the corridor was a seventh door, a monitoring station that used the hidden cameras and microphones inside each of the other six to record and catalog everything that was divulged or confessed to.
Each of the six cells was of a good size, with no furniture inside and runes inscribed into the very brick to ensure escape was impossible. I’d seen a fire elemental once try to burn his way through them. He’d only succeeded in leaving slight marks by the time he passed out from exhaustion after several hours. Once you’re in those rooms, you don’t get out unless someone lets you.
The cells all had solid metal doors with a drop-down flap that allowed anyone to check on the inhabitants. With the doors closed, the soundproofing ensured that you couldn’t hear anything that was said or done inside. It was an eerie sensation to walk into a building of complete silence when I knew that people were only feet away from where I walked.
I pushed open the first two doors and found both rooms to be empty; the third and fourth were the same. The fifth door opened just as easily as the previous four, but the stench of blood was overwhelming.
I stared at the prisoners as I realized there was no longer anyone to question.
The three men were sitting on wooden chairs in the middle of the room, their feet tied to the chair legs. Their hands were tied to the back of the chairs, making them defenseless against whoever had killed them.
