Scorched Shadows (The Hellequin Chronicles Book 7)

by Steve McHugh

  Atlas and five blood elves took me over to a van, opened the rear doors, and threw me inside, where several runes ensured that my magic wouldn’t return. They didn’t even bother tying my hands behind my back—I was beaten and broken. My body was a mess, and without my magic I couldn’t even heal myself. So, I lay there on the cold metal floor of the van and pictured whatever horrific death Atlas had planned, hoping that at some point I’d get my chance to escape.

  That chance came when we stopped at a petrol station and Atlas got out to fill the van. There were three blood elves in the back with me, and as I moved to sit up, I smashed my elbow into the knee of one and punched the next in the jaw. I was about to hit the third when the rear doors opened and Atlas reached in. He dragged me out by my ankles and punched me in the stomach, dumping me to the frozen ground.

  “Just once don’t fight,” Atlas said. “I wanted to offer you dignity in death, so how about you just let that happen and we can call it a day.”

  Once I was outside the van, my magic returned to me, and I created a blade of air to drive up into Atlas’s chest, but he grabbed my hand and hit me so hard that I saw nothing but darkness.

  I woke up and found myself in the back of the van. A sorcerer’s band sat on one wrist, but I was alone. I moved slightly, and my head throbbed, so I lay back down and tried to figure out how to get out of this shitty circumstance.

  I’d thought of nothing when the doors opened and Atlas reached in, dragged me out, and dumped me on the snow-covered field. “You know where this is?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Excellent. Then no one will ever find your body.”

  “You suck,” I said as Atlas pulled me to my feet. “You suck so damn hard, Atlas. You’re just a piece of shit.”

  He punched me in the stomach as a blood elf came over. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”

  I couldn’t think of a comeback that didn’t contain the phrase “fuck you,” so I went with that and got a punch to the face from the blood elf for my troubles.

  I was semiconscious as they half carried, half dragged me through the snow before dumping me on the ground.

  “Wake up, Nate,” Atlas said, and slapped me across the face.

  I blinked. “You again. Can’t you just kill me and be done with it?”

  “I think you should kneel.”

  “Why, is Zod around here?”

  Atlas looked confused. “I don’t know what that is.”

  I shook my head. I wasn’t about to explain it to my executioner. Two blood elves forced me into a kneeling position while another passed a shotgun to Atlas. “Any last words?” he asked.

  “Not really. I genuinely hope someone flays you. Is that a good last thing to say?”

  Atlas looked over at a ridge a few hundred feet behind us.

  “You expecting someone?” I asked.

  Atlas shrugged.

  I stared at him for a second before laughing. I couldn’t help it.

  “What’s so damn funny?” he demanded to know.

  I shook my head. “You won’t get it.”

  The heads of the two elves beside me exploded in a shower of blood and bone, covering me. A second later two more elves went down, both shot in the head. The last blood elf turned its weapons toward the ridge and died a moment later.

  “Atlas is fucked,” I said, but remained on my knees. I had no power, so any fight between us would be over within seconds. Best to wait and see who my guardian angel was.

  It took a minute for me to see Mordred, Tommy, Diana, and Selene hurry toward us. Mordred and Diana had rifles over their backs, while the other two carried no obvious weapons. Selene ran over to me.

  “No,” I snapped a little more forcefully than I meant to.

  “What’s wrong?” Selene asked as the others reached us.

  “Ares fucked his head up,” Atlas said. “The last month has been hard on him.”

  “A month?” I asked. “Fucking hell, a month.”

  “We tried to find you,” Mordred said. “But while Merlin has a compound in Toronto, which we raided, he took you to the north of Wisconsin. We’re close to Lake Superior.”

  “Do not take my sorcerer’s band off,” I said. “Ares did something to my head. He made me want to kill you all. I can feel it, the hate and need to hurt you just under my skin. It’s not Merlin. Gawain is My Liege. He’s manipulated everyone.”

  Selene grabbed Atlas and pushed him up against a tree. “You were meant to keep an eye on him.”

  “Wait, you’re working with them?” I asked Atlas. “And the punch was for what reason?”

  “I don’t like you—that’s reason enough.” Atlas turned to Selene. “To keep an eye on him, not to get killed trying to rescue him. Gawain doesn’t trust anyone, especially not people who only joined up because he hates the other guy more. That’s not exactly a basis for a budding friendship.”

  “So, what does this mean?” Tommy asked. “You hate us?”

  “It’s like a voice deep inside of me telling me to hurt you,” I said. “It gets louder the closer you are. I don’t know how to get rid of it. Or rather, I know exactly how to get rid of it; I just don’t know how to tell you.”

  “Mind magic?” Diana asked. “We can find someone who knows it.”

  “It won’t work,” Atlas said. “It’s ingrained.”

  “His brain needs to be completely rebooted,” Mordred said. “Like mine was.”

  I nodded.

  “Are you suggesting we have to kill him?” Selene asked, releasing Atlas and standing between me and Mordred. “Because I’ll tell you right now how that shit is going to go down.”

  “Selene,” I said. “I want to hurt my friends. I want to feel their blood spill over my face. The only reason I haven’t attacked anyone is because the sorcerer’s band is keeping my power in check and at the same time appears to be keeping whatever Ares did to me in check, too. I can’t live this way.”

  She turned to me. “We’ll get you help.”

  I shook my head. “Mordred has to kill me. Has to. Not just because of this, but because he kills me in the Fates’ prophecy or I murder my friends. I see why now. I see why he has to do it.”

  “No,” Mordred said. “The prophecy was fake. Hera forced it into the Fates’ heads.”

  I laughed. “So, I’m just going to become a murderous asshole because of reasons other than destiny?”

  “I’m not seeing the funny side. So, you’re just going to die?” Tommy asked. “That’s not much of a cure.”

  “I won’t die,” I said. “One of the blood elves at the compound said that Gawain didn’t want me dead because Erebus would take control of me. You know this, don’t you, Mordred?”

  Mordred nodded. “I wasn’t sure it was the same for you, but that’s what happened to me. You killed me; my nightmare took control and healed me. All the curse marks vanished.”

  “Gawain is scared that if I die my nightmare will take control and fight back. Gawain and his allies are too powerful. I barely got a scratch on him. I need those marks gone—it’s the only way I get stronger. It’s the only way I can stop whatever Ares did to my head.”

  “This is not a good idea,” Tommy said. “What if you’re wrong?”

  “I don’t know, man. I just know this has to happen. I just know that if Mordred doesn’t do it, then I’ll have to live with a constant need to hurt people I care about. I can’t defeat Gawain, I can’t stay with you all, and I won’t live a prisoner in my own mind.”

  “Maybe we can force Ares to help,” Diana said.

  “Ares is dead,” Atlas said. “Nate killed him. I saw the remains of his body. You don’t want that level of rage aimed at any of you. Gawain wanted to use him to become the new assassin of choice for Avalon. You can’t let that happen.”

  “I killed Deimos, too,” I told Selene.

  “He was an asshole. I can’t just let you die,” Selene said, her frustration almost boiling over.

&n
bsp; “I’m not planning on dying for good,” I told her. “I die. My nightmare takes control before irreversible damage is done, and then I get better.”

  “You hope,” Mordred said. “It’s not exactly like we’re doing a scientific study here.”

  “No time like the present,” I said with a forced smile.

  “You want to do this out here?” Tommy asked.

  I nodded. “You’ll need to get Hades here. If my nightmare attacks, you’ll need as many as you can to stop me. No offense to you, but I know you’ll try and take it easy on me, and I know Hades will put me down because it’s the right thing to do.”

  “I won’t let you die,” Selene said, crouching in front of me. “I’d rather never see you again than that.”

  “Then let Mordred kill me. It’s the only way to remove the junk in my head and unlock that last mark. Isn’t that right, Erebus?”

  Erebus appeared on the ground beside me. He nodded. “You figured it out.”

  I looked at each of my friends in turn. Time hadn’t frozen, and they all stared at me as I spoke to the nightmare inside my head, but none tried to interrupt. “My death unlocks the last mark,” I said.

  “It was never meant to. It was meant to unlock naturally like the others. Hera’s meddling caused you a lot of unnecessary heartache.”

  “Will this be the last I see of you?”

  “I honestly don’t know. I assume so, but I can’t tell until that mark goes.”

  “Then if this is the end, it was a pleasure to know you.”

  Erebus stood and offered me his hand. “The pleasure was mine, I assure you.”

  I shook Erebus’s hand, and he vanished.

  “If this doesn’t work,” Tommy said. “If this goes wrong—”

  “It won’t,” I assured him. “Hera screwed around with the runes when the blood-curse marks were added to me. They were meant to vanish naturally over the years, but it never happened. My death is a reset. I know that for a fact. It’s why Gawain made sure not to kill me. He knew that if he couldn’t kill the nightmare, too, then I’d return even stronger. Same with Mordred, and others like us. Erebus, my nightmare, believes I’m right.”

  “So, are we all meant to say something to you?” Diana asked. “Because I’d honestly, from the bottom of my heart, like to call you a fucking lunatic.”

  I laughed. “Can’t argue with that.”

  She leaned down toward me. “You best not die, Nate. I don’t want to come down to the afterlife and kick your ass to get you back here.”

  “Noted.”

  Selene kissed me on the lips, and I had to force down the hate and rage that burst into my mind. Rage and hate that Ares forced me to feel about the woman I loved. I regretted a lot of things in my life, but his death wouldn’t be one of them.

  “I love you, Nathaniel Garrett.”

  “I love you, too,” I told her. “More than anything or anyone I’ve ever loved. Tommy included.”

  Selene sniggered and kissed me again. “You best come back to me in one piece.” She stood and walked over to Diana, who was on her phone.

  “Your turn, Tommy?” I asked.

  “You know what I’m going to say,” he said. “You know it, and you’ll say what you say and I’ll cry like a baby. Damn you, Nate. Don’t you dare stay dead for long, you understand?”

  “I’ll try my best.”

  He turned and took a step away before pausing and turning back to me. “I love you.”

  I looked up at him. “I know.”

  Tears fell down his face, and he smiled. “See, this is some bullshit right here. Goddamn Han Soloing me.”

  It was Atlas, Mordred, and me left. I turned to Atlas. “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  “I don’t like you,” he said. “But I’m not going to join the insane ramblings of a psychopath, either. This isn’t a them-or-you situation. This is a what-side-of-history-do-I-want-to-be-on situation. Besides, Hades told me that if I helped him, he’d make sure that you and I could fight. Fairly, no powers. Gawain just promised to let me kill you. I don’t want you dead, Nate. I just want to beat you.”

  He removed a key from his pocket and knelt beside me. “When I remove this sorcerer’s band, your power, and by extension whatever shit Ares put in your head, will flood back.” He looked at Mordred. “Pick up one of the rifles here.”

  Mordred removed a gun from a holster against his back. “I brought one with me.”

  “You knew this would happen?” I asked.

  “I had a good idea it would come to this, yes. I’m sorry, Nate, but when I heard that Ares and Abaddon had you, I figured they’d try the same thing on you that they did on me. I didn’t want you to try and murder your friends, and I thought that maybe killing you would work the same way it worked on me. I guess this is where we find out if we’re right.”

  I nodded. “If this goes wrong, Mordred, I want you to know it’s been an honor being your friend. I know he’s your brother, but kill Gawain, and burn everything he controls to the ground.”

  Mordred took a deep breath and nodded. “In your name, my friend. But nothing is going to go wrong. I’ll see you real soon. What about Arthur?”

  “I don’t know. Gawain was saying things I didn’t understand. It sounds like they tried to do the same to him as to us.”

  “I’ll look into it. We’ll try to find him,” he promised.

  I turned to Atlas. “Take it off.”

  He removed the band, and my magic flared up, as did the hate and rage I felt for Mordred and my friends. I growled something incomprehensible and was about to spring toward Mordred, a blade of fire on one hand, when everything went quiet, and I blinked. An instant later there was an explosion of sound, followed by another. Darkness folded over me, enveloping me in its peaceful embrace. And then nothing.

  CHAPTER 35

  Mordred

  Wisconsin, USA

  Mordred fired three times, putting two rounds into Nate’s chest and one into his head. The rounds were silver and designed to create the smallest wound possible while still exiting out the back of the body. Nate fell to the snowy ground, which quickly turned red.

  “What now?” Atlas asked.

  Mordred turned back to Selene, Tommy, and Diana, half expecting to see anger and hate on their faces, but Selene hugged him tightly. “Are you okay?” she whispered in his ear.

  Mordred dropped the gun in shock and held on to Selene as the hurt of what he’d just done threatened to overwhelm him. He pushed it down. Nate was not dead. Not for good, but things needed to be done.

  “We need to bury him,” Mordred said. “My nightmare didn’t come out for several hours after I died. I was in a morgue when it happened. And the power I unleashed almost destroyed it.”

  “Burying Nate feels a lot like finishing something,” Diana said. “I didn’t expect to have to bury a friend today.”

  “Before we do that, I need to do something,” Atlas said, removing the phone from his pocket and taking several pictures of Nate’s body.

  “What are you doing?” Diana asked.

  “You need to be quiet,” he told the others before making a call. “Gawain, it’s done. Nate’s dead. The nightmare got loose, killed the blood elves. Fought like a damn demon, but he’s dead. I’ve taken photos for you, and I’ll bury the body.”

  Atlas was silent for a few seconds, listening to Gawain.

  “Yeah, I’ll be back soon,” he said before hanging up. “Right, let’s get him buried.”

  Atlas did most of the work to create a grave before pushing Nate into the four-foot pit. Selene, Tommy, Mordred, and Diana helped to cover Nate’s body with soil, just finishing as the sound of a helicopter broke the silence of their work.

  The modified Black Hawk landed in a nearby clearing, and Hades hurried out before the engine had finished powering down, while several bodyguards remained at the helicopter.

  “Are you sure this will work?” he asked Mordred, who nodded.

  “How long h
as it been?” Hades asked.

  “A half hour,” Selene said.

  Two hours passed by without anyone saying another word while they stayed at their vigil watching the freshly dug grave.

  “I need to head back,” Atlas said to Hades. “I’ve dumped the blood-elf bodies in the back of the van. I’ll dispose of them somewhere away from here. If I can, I’ll keep you updated on what Gawain does. Don’t expect regular chats, though.”

  “Thanks, Atlas,” Hades said, shaking the larger man’s hand. “We wouldn’t be here without you.”

  “Make sure Nate gets healed up okay. I want my match.”

  “You’ll get it when this is all over,” Hades promised.

  “He’s a strange one,” Diana said after Atlas had left.

  “That’s true,” Tommy said. “But we don’t have many friends inside Gawain’s version of Avalon.”

  “He’ll need to remove anyone who opposes him,” Hades said. “There’s going to be a lot of deaths in the coming months.”

  “A giant purge of Avalon staff,” Selene said. “That’s a lot of people to kill just because they won’t follow orders.”

  “It’s already started,” Hades said. “In the last month, since Nate went missing, over three thousand Avalon employees have been murdered or gone missing. And more than double that for the number of people not part of the system but friendly toward Avalon. And that’s not even counting what’s happening in Camelot. Word has it, a lot of people were leaving the realm before Gawain started having them killed.”

  “This is going to get worse, isn’t it?” Diana asked.

  “He wants my help tracking down people he’s labeled as enemies of state,” Hades finished.

  “Fucking hell,” Mordred said. “We’re going to be the bad guys.”

  “I bloody well am not,” Selene said.

  “We are,” Diana argued. “Gawain has Merlin, and after what they did to Nate, presumably Arthur on their side. They’ll make it so that everyone who listens to him thinks we’re the bad guys. We’re the revolutionary assholes hiding away and trying to stop him from destroying the world we live in. If they do manage to turn Arthur to their side, and Arthur takes charge of Avalon, we’ll be considered enemies of the state.”