by Steve McHugh
I occasionally stumbled over loose stone, which was neither stealthy nor particularly heroic, and I made sure to omit that detail from any epic storytelling I’d undertake about my descent into elven ruins to fight a master vampire.
“Nate, you came.” The voice echoed all around me just before I entered a large room with several exits. The room had a high ceiling, where the crystals lit up the remains of the faded murals.
“I’m not doing this,” I called out. “This isn’t some bad-vampire-movie crap. I’m not doing the follow-the-disembodied-voice shit. You’re not Christopher Lee, and this isn’t a Hammer horror.”
The voice laughed.
“My word, you’re a dick,” I said.
The laughter stopped. “Take the third path from the left. There are no traps. I want you to see me for who I am. I want you to witness my glory before you die.”
“I want you to shut the fuck up, but that doesn’t seem to be happening, either.” I walked over to the exit Lee had told me to take and stepped inside. It wasn’t going to be a trap—I was confident of that. Lee thought he was more powerful than I was—if he didn’t, we wouldn’t have been having the conversation—and I knew that Lee would fight fair if he thought he would win.
I followed the path to a second large room. At the far end of the room was a throne, upon which sat Lee. He’d changed a lot since I’d last seen him. He’d kept the goatee, proving he was in fact evil, but grown his red hair out so that it was long enough to touch his shoulders.
“You look like something out of a romance novel,” I said. “I assume you swoon about, too.”
Lee stood up, revealing the long coat and expensive suit.
I sighed. “Seriously, that’s what you think you should wear as a vampire? Haven’t we all moved on from the stereotypical bullshit?”
A flicker of anger moved across Lee’s face before being replaced with a calm smile. “It’s been a while, Nate.”
“Not long enough. So, you’re a vampire. How’s that working out for you?”
“I was made an offer, and I just couldn’t refuse it. Do you know what that offer was?”
“To look like you stalk young high-school girls? Did they teach you to talk with a really bad Eastern European accent, too? Say, ‘I vant to suck your blood.’ Make sure it’s ‘vant,’ though, not ‘want.’ That’s very important.”
“You think you can mock me? With all the power I possess, I could snuff out your life in an instant.”
“You are literally the least threatening vampire I’ve ever seen. The count from Sesame Street looks more badass.”
“You think you can goad me into making a mistake.”
“Mate, you made a mistake the second you got up and decided that was a good look.”
Lee smiled. “You know the horror I inflicted in the city, yes?”
“Yeah, it came up. I’m beginning to think someone else did it, though. Because if you killed them looking like that, I’d think they were more embarrassed than anything.”
More anger, this time staying for a few moments longer. “I murdered those people and bathed in their blood.”
“It’s good for the skin apparently.”
Lee walked down the steps from the stone throne, standing only a dozen feet from me. “I killed my parents. You remember them, yes?”
I nodded. Mark and Lyn O’Hara had been in charge of a criminal gang back in London. Despite their profession, I’d liked them both. “How?”
“I went to them—they were so shocked to see me. And then I butchered everyone in the house. I would have killed Holly, but she lives with her new husband in Scotland, and frankly I didn’t have time. Maybe later, though—I hear she had a kid. Did you know that I really don’t care how old my victims are? The bloodlust is insatiable. I just need to feed, and prey is prey.”
“So, how’d you get turned into a vampire?”
“Abaddon found me. Searched me out because she knew how valuable I was to the plans. She introduced me to this older guy, who had these containers of blood. I had to drink some. They told me it was the blood of a god, a vampire sorcerer. That it would change me. It certainly did that, and I became something better. A vampire the likes of which is rarely seen. And with that power, I was taught how to use it, how to be the man I needed to be.”
“In a year?” I asked. “It takes decades.”
“They hooked me up to a machine,” Lee said. “They made me live my life in my mind, years of life all in the space of six months’ real time. They called it—”
A shiver went up my spine. “The Harbinger trials,” I finished for him.
“You heard about them,” he said with a smile. “The man said you’d recognize it. He told me to tell you all of this. He wants you to know that you’re going to watch your friends die. He wants to break you.”
“Who is he?”
“Told me his name was My Liege. That was all he said. I dealt with Abaddon more than anyone else. She told me that you’d come. She said you’d arrive in Shadow Falls.”
“She sent you here to cause fear and confusion.”
Lee laughed. “And I’m not done yet. I knew you’d want to help the second you heard my name. You and Galahad are friends, after all. And he’s the kind of person who puts trust in his friends. Much like you. You’re going to take me to see Galahad.”
“Are you about to invoke the Accords? Because I really don’t have the time or effort to give two shits about them.”
Lee laughed. “The Accords are as worthless as the paper they were written on. You know, I was told to keep you alive, but your blood, it smells so . . . nicccccce.” His speech became almost a hiss as his spoke. “I can smell the power. It’s smellssssss so good.”
The torrent of fire that left my hands smashed into Lee the second he leapt toward me. Unlike on the Earth realm, the microscopic particles of the crystals in the air of Shadow Falls made my magic unpredictable. A small amount of fire could cause an inferno with ease. And down in the ruins, far away from anyone who might get hurt, I didn’t hold back. The flame turned white hot in a second, and it took more than a little effort to switch my magic off before it started to adversely affect the stone supports.
The stone floor remained bright red for several seconds as Lee’s smoldering body lay on the floor. His clothes had been burned away, along with his skin, and a large amount of muscle. White bone showed on what remained of his legs. A breath escaped his body.
“Still alive?” I asked.
He moaned in pain.
“Why were you down here?” I asked, looking around. “What were you doing?” I wasn’t expecting an answer; I wasn’t even sure he was capable of speech. I was mostly just talking to myself as I performed a circuit of the room, looking for hidden exits and trapdoors.
Zamek, Lucifer, and Selene rushed into the room. “We didn’t hear fighting,” Lucifer said. “We figured something must be wrong.”
They all looked down at Lee. “Fucking hell,” Zamek said. “Did you do that, Nate?”
“Yeah, he tried to kill me,” I explained. “And I really didn’t like the idea. He’ll live and heal. It’ll just take him a while.”
“What about the answers we need?” Selene asked.
“He doesn’t know anything. He was sent here by Abaddon to just cause trouble. But I don’t think he was down here by accident.”
“What are you looking for?” Selene asked as I started to tap on the walls.
“Something doesn’t feel right. He let his bloodlust override his common sense, but he was meant to be captured.” I looked at my friends. “I guess he got his wish.”
Harrison and several troops arrived, making the room a little more crowded than it was when it was just me. “Holy shit, is that Lee?” Harrison asked.
“He wants to see the king,” I said. “He wasn’t very hospitable about it.”
“Fuck him.” Harrison stepped forward before anyone could stop him, and Lee moved slightly, causing at least one of the guar
ds to jump.
“Don’t let him bite you,” I said. “Blood will heal him. And right now I’d rather he wasn’t healed.”
“How do we get him back to the castle?” Harrison asked. “He looks like he’ll fall apart once someone touches him.”
“Bring the prison cell here. I’m sure he was in these ruins for a reason. I think we need to search them—something doesn’t feel right.”
“Do you have any idea how far underground these ruins go?” Harrison asked. “Leonardo hasn’t even finished mapping them. There could be miles and miles of tunnels that stretch as far as the realm allows.”
“Then we’d better get searching, because he came here for a reason. He was going to allow himself to be taken, for a reason. He wants to see Galahad for a reason.”
“Maybe he wants in the palace?” Lucifer asked.
“That’s where he would have been taken,” Harrison confirmed.
I was about to say more when a young guard ran into the room. She saw the charred living remains of Lee and blinked before looking up at Harrison. “King Galahad sent me, sir,” she told him.
“What does our king want?” Harrison asked.
She pointed at me. “Nate needs to come back to the palace,” she said. “Arthur has arrived.”
CHAPTER 27
Nate Garrett
It took me an hour of jogging to get back to Solomon, where I found Galahad outside the palace waiting alone. “I heard Arthur arrived,” I said, and accepted the pitcher of water that Galahad had brought for me.
“Feel better?” he asked as I downed the cool drink.
“You are a beautiful person for bringing this.”
“Arthur is waiting at the Mill. I had word sent that I’d be a few hours, as I was waiting for you.”
“And how was that received?”
“Arthur took the time to go have a nap.”
“That doesn’t really sound like the behavior of someone who wants to overthrow you and your government,” I said as we entered the palace.
Galahad didn’t bother to reply, instead allowing me to fill him in on what Lee had said and done. With that finished, and with Galahad seemingly lost in thought, we made our way through the palace and into the throne room. The high ceilings and ornate decoration were something that I knew Galahad was less than happy about. He’d never been into the grandiose side of things, but he’d once told me that being king meant an expectation of a certain level of pomp and ceremony, so he put up with it.
“Do you ever actually use the throne?” I asked him as we walked past it. Several people in the room bowed to Galahad, who waved and said hello before we continued.
“No,” he admitted when we’d finally left the throne room. “Not often, anyway. It’s uncomfortable, and gaudy. I’d rather just have a table.”
“A round one?”
Galahad looked at me and shook his head. “Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not. I remember the table. It was very big. Not round, though. Never really got why that part was so important.”
“It was so no one was better than the others.”
“Galahad, I understand why Merlin said it; I just never understood why he felt the need to say it. He made it up—the table never existed. I just found it weird he made up a story about it instead of just, you know, making the table.”
“Ah, sorry.”
We continued through the palace, passing dozens of guards, until we arrived at the huge palace doors, which Galahad unlocked with a touch of his finger. He pushed one of the doors open, and we both stepped out onto the top of the steps looking over a large part of the city of Solomon and his kingdom of Shadow Falls.
“You were never one of the knights,” Galahad said. “Why was that?”
“You know why. It wouldn’t have been a good idea for someone in my line of work to be associated with all of you fine knights in your lovely shiny outfits.”
“You’re mocking me again.”
“Always,” I told him, looking over the ramparts to the city below.
“Can I tell you something?”
I looked back at him.
“No mocking,” he continued.
I laughed. “I guess so, sure.”
“I miss you. I miss you, me, Mordred, Morgan, Gawain, Mac, and the others. It was a time of camaraderie, and friendship, and I just miss it. I miss fighting back against the evil that infected the lands we lived in. I miss being heroic. I’m getting old.”
“You’re my age, and I don’t feel old.” I paused for a few seconds. “But I know what you mean. Things were easier.”
“They were. And none of us had even hit our first century, and we thought we could take on the world. All of it. Our biggest problem was dealing with Kay and the assholes he was friends with.”
“Kay isn’t going to be an issue again.”
“Mordred told me you killed him. That Kay killed your wife. I’m sorry for that. I wanted to reach out and ask how you were, but I wasn’t sure how to put the words together. It’s weird—we fight, we bleed, we stand side by side, but I can’t figure out how to say I’m sorry you discovered someone we knew murdered your wife. How are you dealing with it?”
“I killed him, Galahad. I dealt with it well, considering.”
“Nate, when she died, you went really dark. I saw the swath of pain and misery you cut across a continent. I saw that it took Tommy to bring you back from that brink of darkness and self-destruction. I know how hard Mary’s death hit you, so I’m asking if you’re feeling similar.”
“No,” I said. “Mary’s dying changed me, but I put that behind me. I put the anger and hate I felt behind me. I killed Kay because he deserved it. Not just for Mary, but for so many people whose lives he ruined. I’m in a good place about everything. What about you? You seem to be doing well as a dad.”
“It took some getting used to, yes. It took more than I’d have expected. I sometimes have to remind myself that she’s a grown woman who managed for a long time without my interference. It’s difficult to juggle the need to be protective with the need to let her remain independent. I never thought I’d have children. I certainly never thought I wouldn’t find out about one until she was an adult, and that the mother would be a crazed psychopath.”
“Surprise.”
Galahad laughed. “Yeah, it really was. What about you and Selene?”
“I love her. I’ve always loved her. That’s it. We decided to move in together.”
“Marriage?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea. Neither of us has had good experiences in that department, so we haven’t really talked about it.”
Galahad hugged me for several seconds before saying anything. “I’m happy for you. Genuinely happy. I always wanted to see you in a good place again. And I was worried you’d never allow yourself to go back to that place, and the fact that you did it with Selene, again, is good to see. Don’t ever piss her off, because she’ll kick your ass.”
I laughed. “Yeah, no kidding.”
After that, conversation was kept to a minimum. I couldn’t blame him—if I was in his shoes, I’d probably be nervous, too. Galahad and Arthur hadn’t seen one another in centuries, and there was no telling how either man would receive the other. I knew both of them, and they were both capable of being more than a little stubborn.
We used a private version of the rail transport that linked the various parts of the city with the temple and palace, traveling in as close to silence as possible. I got the feeling that Galahad wasn’t looking forward to seeing Arthur.
It didn’t take long to reach the temple, and Galahad passed his sword to one of his guards. Galahad was possibly the finest swordsman I’d ever met, with very few exceptions, and rarely went anywhere without his sword. Maybe he was really trying to ensure that Arthur had no excuses to start something. I certainly hoped so.
“You got a second?” I asked as we walked through the temple to the realm gate. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“Lee went through the Harbinger trials,” I told him. “Whoever Abaddon is working with, they have access to Avalon procedures.”
“Didn’t you go through those trials?”
“Yeah, something like that.” In fact, whereas the Harbinger trials weren’t officially to be performed on anyone under one hundred years of age, I’d only been a teenager when subjected to them. A fact that could have easily killed me. The Harbinger trials were designed to take someone who was already powerful and allow them to unleash their potential far more easily than they would normally. While unconscious they would live out everything happening to them, making it feel as though years had passed, when in reality it was only weeks or months.
“Okay, so what aren’t you telling me?” Galahad asked.
“Merlin. Merlin has access to the Harbinger trials. He has the power and expertise to put someone through them without getting them killed.”
“You think Merlin is this My Liege character?”
I nodded.
“It could be Abaddon,” Galahad suggested.
“Agreed, it could be, but either way one of them is working for the other one. I don’t know Abaddon well enough to say that she’s the kind of person who would be okay with being the second in command, but I know that Merlin wouldn’t be okay with it.”
“Unless it was Arthur who was in charge.”
“You don’t think Arthur is My Liege, do you?” I asked.
Galahad shrugged. “I’m not counting anyone out until we have proof one way or the other. You don’t, I suspect.”
“I find it hard to believe that if Arthur is My Liege he would have asked me to come here and try to defuse the situation. Or promote Lucie. Or have Merlin placed under house arrest.”
