by Steve McHugh
“I never would have let you go if I’d known,” Merlin said. “Never. You are my son, and at one point I loved you. But you were never the man I hoped you were. You were never good enough. And there are some things more important than love. Like my duty, and Avalon’s need to be strong.”
“You’re My Liege, aren’t you?”
“You have to die, Mordred, because you oppose me, and that can’t be allowed to stand.”
Magical power flowed out of Merlin, and Mordred reacted in an instant, throwing a torrent of powerful air magic at the top of the tunnel. Merlin screamed in rage as tons of rock and dirt fell in front of him, covering the exit to the tunnel.
A wicked smile appeared on Mordred’s lips. “Stay buried, Dad. I don’t think you’re going to like what I do to your Avalon if you and your friends take back control.” He placed his hand on the bracelet and vanished from view.
CHAPTER 24
Nate Garrett
Realm of Shadow Falls
Antonio and Leonardo took us through the mountain, creating new tunnels and stairs out of the sheer rock around us. They hadn’t said much beyond the need to see a prison cell and some elven runes, and that they needed our help. It wasn’t like Leonardo to remain silent for long, so whatever was going on was either really bad, or really, really bad. There were no good options when it came to a quiet Leonardo.
“We won’t have long,” Selene said from beside me. “Those prison guards are going to notice we’ve gone.”
“And then they’re going to come find us,” Zamek said. “I don’t relish trying to explain why we’re escaping when we’re not really sure ourselves.”
“So who does this cell belong to?” Sky asked.
“Asmodeus,” Leonardo said, to the surprise of everyone else.
“Asmodeus’s prison was never meant to be in Shadow Falls,” Lucifer said. After knowing him as Grayson for so long, I was finally coming around to using his original name.
“Where was it meant to be?” Sky asked.
“No one knew for sure. It was a secret. And not supposed to be anywhere near people.”
“Leonardo, can you please tell us what’s going on?” I asked. “In slightly more detail. Is Asmodeus still in his prison?”
“No, it’s empty,” Antonio said. “And Leonardo is not talking, because he’s trying to shift the rock behind us to make it look like we went in another direction.”
“He can do that?” Zamek asked. “That’s incredibly powerful alchemy. Actually forget that. What he’s doing is dwarf-level alchemy.”
Leonardo stopped walking and turned back to face the rest of us. “Thank you for the compliment. I assure you, it took many years of practice. Also, I should inform you that those sorcerer’s bands can be removed whenever you wish. I didn’t put explosives in them like the Avalon ones. I tend not to want to put cruelty into my inventions anymore.”
I pulled the sorcerer’s band from my wrist and tossed it to the floor; the others did the same. My magic flooded back into me. “Thank you. I did wonder how long I had to wear that blasted thing.”
“We’re almost there,” Leonardo said, completely ignoring me once again and walking off to move more rock.
“It’ll be worth it,” Antonio promised. “He’s been excited and terrified in equal measure about this thing since we found it.”
“If it’s Asmodeus’s prison,” Lucifer said, “I’d be more terrified than excited.”
“So, have you finally told everyone you’re Lucifer?” Leonardo asked as he moved several tons of rock out of the way, creating a new passage.
“How long have you known?” Lucifer asked.
“I figured it out when I found the prison a year ago. You’ll see why.”
We were silent for the rest of the journey until Leonardo led us into a gigantic cavern. Purple writing glowed across the walls, and in the center was an empty dais that was big enough to put several dozen people. I walked over and found that it had similar writing to what was on the walls, although there was no color to it.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“What is this writing?” Selene asked at almost the exact same moment.
“There’s no prison here,” Sky said. “Unless it’s invisible, which is a distinct possibility considering the weird shit I’ve seen in the last few days.”
“It’s further on,” Leonardo said. “I just wanted you to see this, too.”
“It’s elvish,” Lucifer said. “I can’t read it, though.”
“The only elvish I know is from blood elves,” Zamek said. “And this isn’t anything like that.”
“I recognize this word here,” Lucifer said, pointing to a long mass of swirling patterns. “It means ‘moving,’ or ‘forward,’ something like that. It’s hard to explain, as elvish writing is a difficult thing to master. The elves kept their language a secret. There were no manuals, or people willing to teach it. What you learned you had to figure out on your own.”
“We believe that Shadow Falls was once an elven kingdom,” Leonardo said. “A shadow-elf kingdom to be exact.”
“That would be quite the coincidence,” Selene said.
“I think whoever came here first and named this place Shadow Falls knew it was always called that. I’ve found information that suggests this mountain was always known as Shadow’s Peak. So, whoever first came here probably knew the history of the realm.”
“So, if shadow elves lived here, it would have been before the elven civil war,” Zamek said. “Long before.”
“Thousands of years before, yes. There’s evidence of old ruins to the north. I think it was an old city that was razed to the ground at some point. It’s hard to say exactly when. I can’t read all that much elvish. There’s something you need to see, though.”
Leonardo led us under an archway at the edge of the cavern, and down a long, winding slope to a second cavern, which made the first one look about the size of a matchbox. Dozens of crystals in the ceiling lit the room, casting a blue-and-pink glow over everything.
“You could fit an aircraft carrier in here,” Sky said.
The cavern was the largest I’d ever seen outside of the dwarven realm, something Zamek appeared to think, too, considering the look on his face.
“You okay?” I asked him.
“It’s like home. It’s a lot to take in. Are you saying this isn’t dwarven, Leonardo? Because elves aren’t alchemists.”
“No. These caves were probably made by dwarves. I have no way of confirming that one way or the other, though. Do you notice there’s no writing?”
“What the fuck is that?” Sky asked, pointing to the center of the cavern.
In the center of the cavern was a cell. It resembled a huge bell with a metal door and several barred windows on what appeared to be two floors. Chains ran from the ceiling to the top and sides of the cell. Separating us was a twenty-foot-wide gap. I walked to the edge and looked down.
“Seven hundred feet deep by our last estimations,” Leonardo said. “There’s a bridge just there.”
I looked where he’d pointed, and indeed there was a sturdy-looking metal bridge.
“It’s the giant statues I’m more interested in,” Selene said.
Four fifteen-foot-high stone elf statues stood around the cell, all looking down on the cell. Each held a sword and shield that were taller than most people, and if the idea was to intimidate whoever was inside the cell into behaving, someone had certainly gone to a lot of effort.
“We don’t know what they are,” a voice from behind us said.
I turned to see Caitlin, Galahad, and Harrison enter the cavern. “Glad to see you made it down here okay,” Galahad said.
“Look, if you’re here to fight—” I started.
“We have a lot of explaining to do,” Harrison assured me.
“Those statues are one of the reasons we think that this was an elven realm,” Leonardo continued, as if the three newcomers hadn’t entered the room. “We’ve found
plenty of items that we’ve taken from here showing drawings of elves, various pieces of writing. There’s a lot we don’t know, but we’re almost certain Shadow Falls was an elven realm.”
“What the hell is going on?” Sky asked.
“You might all want to sit down,” Galahad said, pointing toward a nearby workbench. “There’s a lot to go through.”
Once we were all seated next to the lengthy workbench, Leonardo picked up an old leather-bound book, passing it to me.
I flicked open the first page and found a drawing of Lucifer. “You’re in here,” I told him, showing him the picture of someone who looked almost identical to him.
He took the book from me and flicked through several of the pages. “Abaddon,” he said, showing me the picture of her. “And this is Asmodeus.”
Asmodeus looked like the kind of suave, sophisticated vampire that people wrote books about. He was handsome and in any other walk of life would probably have graced the covers of modeling magazines or would’ve been a big-name actor. He didn’t look threatening, or menacing. In fact there was a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
“He doesn’t look like someone I should be scared of,” Zamek said. “He looks like someone who enjoys preening in front of a mirror for hours on end.”
“He’s a monster,” Lucifer said. “Let me assure you of that.” He went through more pages. “The rest of the devils are in here, too. All seven of us. And then there are details on their positions in what realms. I can read the occasional word, so I’m only guessing, but I see the names of several realms here, and not all of the writing is in elvish. This book was used to keep an eye on us. It ends just after the rest of them were banished. This book is thousands of years old. I knew the elves did something to their paper to make it not age, but this is astonishing.”
“The dwarves do the same thing,” Zamek said. “Although we use our alchemy to do it.”
“Okay, anytime someone wants to explain everything,” Selene started.
“Yes, I think we’re owed that much,” Lucifer continued.
“We’ve had some problems over the last few weeks,” Galahad began as he took a seat. He’d cut his dark hair since I’d last seen him, and grown a short beard. There was a small scar on his cheek that I didn’t remember.
Caitlin sat beside him. She wore jeans and a T-shirt instead of the suit she’d worn as a member of the FBI. It was good to see her again, and I hoped that the last few years had been kind to her.
“A few weeks ago a man by the name of Lee O’Hara arrived in the city, claiming to be your friend,” Harrison said to me. “I assume you know that name.”
I nodded, feeling the shock of the name of an enemy for the first time in years. “He’s the son of a crime boss in London. When I lost my memory, after Mordred’s attack, I worked as a thief for the family. Lee was a monster. Human, but evil. He tried to have me killed, and almost got his sister killed in the process. His family had him exiled from the UK for it. He doesn’t like me a whole lot.”
“Well, he’s not human anymore,” Galahad said. “He’s a vampire. A very powerful one.”
“He murdered people,” Caitlin said. “Left marks saying it was the work of Hellequin. He ran off to the forest at the north of the city. We sent people after him, but they didn’t come back.”
“And more than one person in the city defected to his cause,” Harrison said.
“You had traitors in your midst again?” I asked.
“It would appear so,” Harrison said between clenched teeth.
“How can Lee be so powerful after only a few years? Vampires take centuries to become powerful.” I glanced at Lucifer. “Asmodeus, I presume?”
“Those he turns are abnormally strong,” Lucifer said. “It’s possible this Lee is one of his. And if that’s the case, we have a problem. Wherever Lee is, Asmodeus will know about it. He can track his creations, but more than that I doubt very much Lee’s arrival here is a coincidence. Asmodeus must have sent him.”
“What does that have to do with us?” I asked.
“You are Hellequin,” Galahad said. “And several of my council decided that if you arrived, you should be arrested and questioned. That demand only increased when someone calling themselves Hellequin starting murdering humans on Earth realm. So, I needed to make your arrest look good so that when you emerged from prison, everyone would be convinced that I’d discovered your innocence.”
“Yes,” Harrison said. “We had to arrest you all, unfortunately. It wouldn’t have worked if we’d just taken you, Nate.”
I noticed that Galahad hadn’t apologized for what he’d done, although I wasn’t about to hold a grudge about it. “Did you have to punch me, too?”
Harrison smiled. “No, that was just for fun.”
“You’re such a dick,” I told him, and enjoyed seeing that smile falter.
“We don’t have time for this,” Galahad snapped. “We need to discuss what’s happening.”
“Well, Avalon is declaring war on you because someone using my name is murdering humans and attacking Tartarus,” I started. “They killed Rhea and Cronus. They wrote Shadow Falls in blood near their bodies. Someone is doing an excellent job making people think that you and Shadow Falls are behind it all. In just over a day, Avalon will launch an offensive against you. They will expect you to hand yourself to them for questioning. They will expect you to allow their forces into Shadow Falls.”
“Then they will be very disappointed,” Galahad said. “You came here to do what, convince me to let it happen?”
“We came here because we hoped you’d be able to talk to them before this went any further,” Sky said.
“If you can talk to Arthur and make him realize what’s happening, a war might be averted,” Selene said. “You need to let Arthur and some of his people into the realm to discuss what’s going on.”
“So they can try and take control?” Harrison asked. “Never going to happen.”
“This isn’t about taking control,” I snapped. “This is about Avalon’s war machine marching to your front gates. If you can’t convince them of your innocence, they will try to force the issue.”
“Then they will be upset,” Galahad said. “They will not come into this realm. They will not be invaders.”
“Then go talk to them,” I said. “Arthur is coming alone. He’ll be here in hours. I will go with you, to neutral ground. The pair of you can talk.”
“I tried,” Galahad snapped. “About a month ago I was given word that Avalon was looking for reasons to invade.”
“A month ago?” I asked, looking over at Sky and Selene, who both shrugged.
“What can I say? Avalon already has ideas to take this realm for themselves.”
“You really believe that Arthur would invade Shadow Falls without reason?” I asked. “He came to me before all of this death and told me that he’d heard rumors of a Shadow Falls expansion plan into America. He asked me to come here and find out what’s going on. He doesn’t want war with you, Galahad.”
“I agree. I don’t believe he wants war,” Galahad admitted. “But that’s not to say that people who want control of Avalon for themselves wouldn’t move Avalon into a war with us. A war they could capitalize on.”
“Hera?” Selene said. “That sounds an awful lot like her.”
“Or Baldr, or Merlin, or any number of a dozen people who want what we have,” Leonardo said.
“The crystals,” Caitlin finished for him. “You remember those, yes? An unending source of energy. A weapon of immeasurable power, and a way in which Avalon could gain more and more control over all of the realms.”
“They’re unstable,” I said.
“You think they’ll care about that?” Galahad asked.
“Are these the same crystals that created the blood elves?” Zamek asked.
“Similar, yes,” I said. “Less stable, and there have been no adverse effects of magic on people.”
“Blood elves, th
ey used to be the shadow elves, yes?” Leonardo asked. “Before the civil war with the sun elves? Before they lost and were sent to be watched over by the dwarfs?”
“Yes, that’s them,” Zamek said. “Before that, the elves and dwarves lived and worked side by side for hundreds of years, right up until the point they attacked us, killing thousands. You say the crystals here have had no effect? Well, we didn’t think they affected the elves until they became crazed monsters.”
“But the elves are the only species the crystals affected,” Selene said. “And that was after hundreds and hundreds of years of exposure. Before then the humans worked with the crystals with no ill effects.”
“That’s true,” Zamek said. “But who wants to bet that certain people in Avalon will want to experiment with those crystals? You really think that Hera won’t try to create her own blood elves, but with a different species?”
“Zamek, can I discuss the crystals with you?” Leonardo asked.
Zamek nodded and walked off with Leonardo and Antonio.
“I’ve seen what those crystals do in the wrong hands,” I said. “You had us all arrested to appease people in your government. What happens now, Galahad?”
“Now we make out that you were all questioned at length and you’ll be helping with inquiries. I am their king, but I’m not all-powerful. I can’t have my council and advisers fighting amongst themselves.”
“So, why not just question us in the prison?” Sky asked.
“Because you needed to see this,” Caitlin said. “Specifically, the cell over there.”
“It’s a very nice cell,” Selene said. “Asmodeus isn’t inside.”
“No, it appears to be empty,” Galahad said. “It was shut when Leonardo found it during an expedition into the mountain. And then, a month ago, we came here and it was open. Back in the room with all of the purple writing, there was one dead blood elf. That was the first time I’d ever seen one of their kind. It was a bit of a shock, and it took more than a few calls and favors to even figure out what it was.”
“Okay, so it’s quite possible that Asmodeus was inside and is now free,” Selene said. “In fact it’s probable considering that it appears someone turned this Lee guy into a powerful vampire.”
