Hellequin Chronicles 4: Prison of Hope

by Steve McHugh

  “We’re a camel. See, a great big lie and we can say it. So, we want you to know, we lied about the tea, about the Vanguard and who employed them, about it being our blood in the vial—because it obviously was. We lied about a lot. Helios started our plan so many years ago, but you stopped him. You can’t stop me this time.”

  I slurred something in response, and Pandora rubbed my cheeks before removing my gun and placing it in the band of her jeans. “Try again, slowly,” she said.

  “You said ‘me,’ not ‘us.’ ”

  Pandora clapped. “You noticed that. The Gestapo had some very interesting information about how to merge the two souls into one. Then they decided to dissect me, so I killed them all, but I did learn a lot from them before they had to die. I realized I’d slipped up a few times back in Berlin, and I was worried you’d picked up on it. I was very careful not to do it again, until just now. Obviously.”

  “Hope gone.”

  “Oh, yes, Hope is well and truly a thing of the past.”

  “Helios’s plan was your plan.”

  “That’s very good. Yes, Helios’s plan was to kill Hera and her friends on the first ever live televised event. That was all me. The sarin gas—I heard all about that after—was his idea, which was stupid when you think about it, but Helios is an asshole. Besides, there’s no accounting for brains when you don’t have a lot of choice.”

  “All about revveeeallll.”

  “About what?”

  “Reveal. Revealing us . . . all. To the world.”

  Pandora clapped her hands together. She was certainly enjoying herself. “That’s exactly it. I don’t just want Hera dead; I want to out the whole fucking lot of you. They took an innocent girl and fucked her life up. I think letting the world know that you’ve been behind their entire lives for centuries should go some way toward me feeling better about myself. Once humans realize they’re no longer the top of the evolutionary ladder, at least some of them will do something stupid. They’ll force Avalon to take action.”

  “Many will die.”

  “So? Many die every day. At least they’ll die knowing the truth. Admittedly, that’s not much of a consolation for them. But I don’t care—it’s going to be glorious.”

  My head sagged forward.

  “The drugs will wear off in a few minutes. Just long enough.”

  “How’d . . . you . . . know . . . know . . . Germany?” I asked, taking a guess at something.

  “How’d I know you were in Germany?” she asked.

  I attempted to nod.

  “Mara had been bitching and moaning about your presence in Germany for weeks before the trip. She was furious, according to Justin. She told Sarah, who told Justin, who informed me. And what’s a girl to do? So I told Sarah to track you and convince you to leave. I didn’t want you throwing a spanner in the works, now did I? But Justin wants you dead, either out of jealousy of the bond we share or because he felt that was the best idea—I don’t know. But while I’ll be sad if he kills you, I can’t have you coming after me.”

  “Witches.”

  “The witches were all Sarah’s idea. She really didn’t like that Mara woman, so she arranged to have her be the fall guy. But unfortunately for Sarah, she got sloppy and then she got dead. I felt her power rush into me, which I can tell you for a witch was some serious mojo. A fully powered Cronus would have been better, but you take what you can get when you’re in a jail cell.”

  “Kram—”

  “The krampus.” Pandora bounced around with glee. “That was a brilliant touch. Sarah went to go use some criminal idiots, really vicious little bastards who deserved to die. She found some glorious souls to take, and then, even better, she found the exact person to become the krampus. It was beautiful. I assume you killed it.”

  I couldn’t manage a full nod anymore. It was too much hard work.

  “Figured as much. You’ve grown stronger in the last few decades. Killing a krampus is no mean feat. Part of me hopes you live through what’s about to happen. It’s a small part, but enough. I genuinely like you, Nathan. But needs must. And you must be sacrificed for my needs to come true.”

  “Can’t just walk out,” I said as my brain began to feel less fuzzy.

  “Walk? Oh, dear Nathan, look up.”

  I glanced up as part of the ceiling to her cell just moved aside, showing the stars through the opened roof above, which were quickly replaced with a lowering helicopter. I was really beginning to hate those damn spinning bastards.

  A rope was dropped from on-board, and Pandora placed one foot on it and tugged slightly. “I’m sorry it had to finish like this, but finish it must. Good-bye, sweet Nate. Just so you know, I lied about the bombs too. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not going to kill innocent people.” She paused for a second. “Unless I have to.”

  I watched her ascend quickly while my faculties began to clear. People were coming to kill me. I shambled down the hall, using the walls to ensure I didn’t fall over, and fell through the bathroom door, slamming it shut with my leg. I wasn’t going to have long; I had to prepare for whatever Justin and his guards had planned. I fished the dagger out of my belt. Well, if they were going to come for me, they’d better bring their best.

  CHAPTER 37

  The wooden bathroom door was about as useful as asking really nicely, in terms of keeping out anyone Justin sent to kill me. I was pretty certain that anyone he’d hired wasn’t going to be some gung-ho idiot and would probably behave in a professional manner. That also meant that I wouldn’t hear them coming. They weren’t going to make any flippant comments about coming to get me; they were just going to get in position and open fire.

  I searched the bathroom for anything that might help. While I wasn’t entirely sure how thick the walls were, the odds were good that they weren’t going to be bulletproof. I needed something to ensure the bullets didn’t tear through me like paper. The bathtub was a possibility, but bullets shatter enamel, turning it into shrapnel.

  I opened the medicine cabinet’s mirrored door, in the vain hope that there’d be something useful, although it was probably too much to hope that she kept a tiny chain gun in there. Instead, I found some makeup, a toothbrush, and toothpaste, along with various feminine products that probably wouldn’t do me a huge amount of good in a gunfight.

  I took one of the many lipsticks and removed the cap as the sounds of feet trampling along the hallway filled my ears. I drew the dwarven rune on my hand and my magic sparked to life. A second later, I had a shield of air pushed out in front of me as hundreds of bullets poured into the bathroom.

  The sound was deafening. I poured more and more magic into the shield. The bullets deflected off the shield, striking everything else around me. Within a few seconds, the toilet and sink had been destroyed, spraying water into the room. A few seconds more and I had to extend the shield when a piece of bath enamel sliced through my cheek and embedded itself in the wall.

  Using so much magic to keep the shield in place was exhausting my already diminished power. I’d used an enormous amount in the last few hours, and I wasn’t too sure how much longer I could keep it going before the nightmare . . . Erebus decided to come out to play. And I’d really rather not have to deal with passing out once he’d left. Every second I was here, Pandora was getting farther away.

  After a ten count, the bullets stopped, while the water continued to pour into the room, creating a small pond that had began to flow under the ruined door. I removed my magic and then moved as quickly and quietly as possible behind the door. I kept the rune in place, just in case, but I knew that I wouldn’t have long before it started to take more energy than I had available.

  I removed the dagger and took a breath as the door was pushed open. The muzzle of a carbine was the first thing I saw, but I waited as its wielder took another step, and then I snapped to the side, pushing the muzzle away and driving the dagger up into the throat of the man.

  He pulled the trigger on the gun, which destro
yed more of the bathroom, and I twisted the dagger and pulled it free, stepping to the side to avoid the shower of blood that accompanied it. I caught the guard by his bulletproof armor and spun him round, toward the hallway, dragging his sidearm free and putting two bullets in the head of the closest guard. I pushed my shield to one side, intercepting a bullet meant for my head, and put two in my next would-be attacker. Three dead in less than ten seconds.

  I dragged the corpse farther into the hallway and dove aside, into the bedroom, as automatic gunfire slammed into it. I shut the door. It didn’t have a lock, but then it would have been useless against automatic gunfire. I considered barricading it, but thought better; anyone outside of the cell could see me anyway, so they’d know I was out of options, even if I couldn’t see them.

  I put two bullets through the door, on the off chance someone was behind it, and then rolled over the bed, rubbing off part of the lipstick rune, and making me magicless once more, when a shotgun blast tore through the door handle. A second hit the bed I’d rolled over, and a third took out a lamp as the gunman stepped into the room. I lay on the ground and fired into the knee of my assailant, and he cried out in pain, dropping to the ground and releasing his hold on the shotgun. I fired a second bullet as I stood, striking his forehead, and he didn’t move again.

  I left the shotgun and moved toward the door, firing blind down the hallway in a hope-filled attempt to either flush out more attackers or maybe get lucky and hit one. When no one fired back, I stepped out into the hallway, keeping my body low so as to be a smaller target. I crept along, hugging the wall, but when I reached the library and glanced into it to make sure I was free, someone fired at me from the still-open roof. I dove aside, firing up as I moved, and was thankful that I hit my target in the throat. He dropped through the ceiling to the floor, his noises disturbing and awful as he died. But the distraction had been enough, and as I got back to my feet, someone charged into me, smashing me up against the nearby wall and knocking my gun free. I tried attacking with my dagger, but he deflected my arm and struck me in the joint, causing me to drop the knife on the floor between us as pain radiated up the limb.

  He grabbed me by the throat and started choking me, forcing me down to the floor, but stopped once I punched him in the knee with everything I had. The padding he wore around his legs softened the blow, but he backed off, putting distance between us and allowing me to see him for the first time. My attacker was huge, nearly seven feet tall, and probably weighed twice what I did. He was an imposing figure, even without the body armor and combat fatigues.

  “You’re going to get killed by a human,” he said with a slight smile. “How many of my kind get to say that they killed a sorcerer?”

  “You’re human?” I said, rubbing my neck. He was massively strong and, because my own natural abilities were unattainable for the moment, someone I probably didn’t want to go hand-to-hand with.

  He stalked forward, limping slightly when he put weight on his knee. I moved back into the kitchen, forcing the large man into a much smaller space than we’d had in the hallway.

  “Nowhere to run,” he said with a grin.

  “You too, dumbass,” I said and flung open the fridge door, right into his face, before kicking out again at his injured knee. He staggered back as the door swung closed, but regained enough poise to throw a punch. I grabbed a paring knife from the kitchen counter and dodged the blow, pushing the blade up into the larger man’s forearm, twisting it, and pulling it out.

  Blood poured from the wound, and he roared in pain. He was lucky I hadn’t nicked an artery. He staggered back and I moved toward him, grabbing my dagger from the ground and throwing the paring knife at him, which he dodged with ease. There was a look of rage in his eyes; he wasn’t used to being on the business end of an ass kicking.

  As he stepped back, he removed his belt and tied it around his arm, making a makeshift tourniquet so he wouldn’t bleed too much. His left arm was useless, though. I thought about charging forward, taking the fight to him, but there was no way he wasn’t expecting it, so I turned the dagger so that the blade was pointing to my elbow and settled into a fighter’s stance while he took out his own combat knife.

  The serrated edge of his knife was black, and it had a slight curve at the top. It was an evil-looking blade, designed purely to cut and hurt as much as possible. He kicked aside the chair I’d been using earlier and motioned for me to come get him.

  I’d checked both sides of the hallway before entering the library, and had discovered it was all clear, but as I took another step, the man grinned, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I ducked just in time to see a blade come hurling at me from the roof above. I spun and threw my dagger up at him, catching him in the eye. He pitched forward, landing face first on the carpet behind me, with a noise I’d have rather not heard, as his orbital bone shattered from the impact of the dagger’s hilt against the floor.

  The momentary distraction gave the larger man the time he needed, and he shot forward, low and fast, swiping the dagger up at my throat. I moved aside, pushing his arm away with the palm of my hand and striking him in the throat with the other. He whipped the knife back toward me, barely missing a beat, and once again I blocked the knife, but he switched his grip and pushed the blade across my palm, causing my hand to burn from the silver his blade contained.

  He followed through, plunging it toward my stomach, but I moved aside, putting a little distance between us as I edged back toward the end of the hallway. I flexed my fingers. My palm hurt, but it wasn’t a deep wound. I was certainly losing less blood than my opponent.

  No magic, no weapon, and fighting a much stronger opponent. I had to admit I’d been in better situations. And then half a dozen more armed guards entered the house. “For fuck’s sake,” I said to no one in particular. “Guys, you really don’t want to be here right now. I’d run.”

  I placed my index finger against the blood on my opposite palm and then drew the dwarven rune on my opposite forearm. Magic flowed back into me, and I smiled. I wasn’t sure how much I had left, but I either used it or I died. And I was damned if the second choice was even an option.

  “Too late.” I extended my hands and lightning leaped from them. White-hot, terrible lightning that destroyed whatever it touched, turning my knife attacker into a smoking hunk of jerky in seconds and turning the hallway into one long killing floor. The other guards died before any of them even got a shot off. The magic sprang between the walls, tearing the cell apart until I stopped it.

  I stepped over the sizzling corpses of the guards as I made my way toward the front door, where I was greeted by a burst of machine gun fire, tearing through the open front door. I was about to launch myself through the door when the bullets stopped, replaced by a gurgling noise. I risked a glance through the holes that now littered the door and saw Justin face first on the floor. A pool of blood was spreading out from beneath his head, which had an arrow sticking out of the back of it.

  Diana walked up to the body, placed a foot on the back of his head, and with a terrible squelching noise, removed the arrow, taking a chunk of something unpleasant with it.

  I stood and walked around the door as she cleaned the arrow on Justin’s back.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Was that lightning coming out of the doorway?”

  I nodded.

  “Wow, look who got all grown up,” she mocked with a smile.

  “Pandora’s gone. Someone in a helicopter came and picked her up.”

  “Any idea where she is?”

  Tommy and Sky came through the door, Tommy in his full werebeast, the fur on his paws covered in blood. Sky had no blood or injuries on her at all and barely looked like she’d been doing anything, although the idea of Sky sitting a fight out was unimaginable. And then I saw her knuckles and knew the blood on them wasn’t hers.

  “You got cut?” Sky asked, pointing to my hand. “And you’re covered in blood.”

  “Thi
s will be fine,” I said, lifting my hand. “And the blood isn’t mine. Most of it, anyway.”

  “Any idea where she’s gone?” Tommy asked, his voice deep and accompanied by a low growl.

  “Yeah,” I said. “She’s gone somewhere public where Hera and everyone she values will be.”

  “The book fair that Aphrodite mentioned,” Sky said. “When does it start?”

  No one had a clue.

  “Let’s find out,” I said. “And get Hades—we’re going to need him.”

  “Why? I thought you didn’t want him near her,” Tommy pointed out.

  “Yeah, but that was here, when he could have been enthralled. There are going to be thousands of people at that book fair, and the four of us can’t control that many. We need some big guns to keep the people she enthralls from killing anyone, or themselves, while I deal with Pandora. Preferably before she decides to end our way of life and start a fucking war.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Sixty-four people died that night. Twenty-two of them were innocents in the wrong place at the wrong time. The rest were traitors. Brutus had trusted Justin to employ and manage his security staff, and he’d been rewarded with a group of people who were just waiting for the signal to turn on their supposed employer and kill those they worked with. No one dared explain the irony of that statement to a man who’d been on the other end of the betrayal in quite spectacular fashion in the past.

  To suggest that Brutus was livid was an understatement. Once the tranquilizer had worn off, he’d destroyed his flat, tearing the furniture to pieces. Diana had eventually calmed him down, and after an hour we all found ourselves sitting in a meeting room on the third floor. Brutus sat at the head of the lengthy table. Diana sat between Sky and Tommy. Hades and Persephone, who’d both been flown in by Avalon, sat on the other side with me. Licinius had survived his attack and was apparently less than happy about being left out of the meeting, but seeing that he couldn’t walk or even talk for long, it was probably for the best.