by Steve McHugh
We rode in silence, me and Sam on Valour and Mapiya on her own dark brown horse. I couldn't help but watch Mapiya ride with confidence. She was a natural.
"She's beautiful," Sam said from behind me.
"Yes, she is," I said and looked down at the glint of a knife which I could see strapped to her ankle. I smiled.
After a long ride, Mapiya stopped her horse at the top of a slight hill. She pointed toward a large fort in the distance. "Fort Pennywise," she said. "Named after some General, although can't say I ever learnt why."
"There are no lights," I said. "And no one on the walls."
She didn't wait a heartbeat, just went from standing to galloping toward the open front gates. "Hold on," I said to Sam and set off after Mapiya, reaching the gates only a few lengths behind her.
She practically jumped down off her horse and removed a Winchester rifle from its holster, before tentatively entering the dark fort.
"Wait a few minutes. If you hear shooting, get on Valour and get out of here," I said to Sam as he dropped down to the ground. I followed suit and grabbed my own rifle, ensuring it was loaded before following Mapiya once again.
"See anything?" I asked when I caught her up.
She shook her head. "Can't see a damn thing."
There was movement from up ahead, past two cannons that lay dormant at the far end of the yard. I raised my rifle. Light flickered on inside the huge main building, and several large men walked out to join us. "And you would be?" I asked.
The men didn't answer as they lit several torches around the yard, illuminating everything. One man hadn't moved. He was a head taller than I was, with a bare chest and long dark hair that was tied back and stretched down to his waist. He wore a feathered headdress, although the light didn't allow me to tell their colour.
"I am Chief Blacktail of the Crows," he said, his voice was a low rumble that commanded respect.
"Nathan Garrett," I said.
"And you are?" Chief Blacktail asked Mapiya.
"My name is Mapiya."
Chief Blacktail smiled. "A Sioux name."
"My father was Chief of the Sioux."
I pushed aside my surprise at Mapiya’s revelation. “Why are you all here? What happened to the soldiers who should be here?”
The Chief turned his gaze from Mapiya to me. “I don’t think you’re in any position to ask questions.”
I walked toward him and handed over the bloody tomahawk. "Someone tried to frame one of the tribes for the murder of a ranch owner not far from here. I think we need to have a talk before anyone else dies.
Chief Blacktail glared at the tomahawk. "I'm afraid it might be too late for that."
Chapter 11
New Forrest, England. Now.
I hadn't been sitting long, maybe a minute at most. Enough to recline the black leather chair, before Olivia had almost thrown the living room door open in her haste to find me.
"Are you going to explain why you think Amber Moore was the killer's first victim?" Olivia demanded. She would have probably questioned me earlier, but her phone had gone off, giving me time to leave the kitchen.
"I will, but I need to see the body first," I said.
"If you have information-"
"He's not hiding anything from you," Tommy interrupted. "Are you?"
I shook my head. "I don't want to tell you something if I'm wrong, thus wasting your time and mine."
Olivia set her jaw. "Tommy, give us a minute, will you?"
Tommy left the room, presumably to find more food of mine to pilfer.
Olivia closed the dark, wooden door behind Tommy and sat at the end of the leather couch closest to my chair. I pushed my legs down, bringing myself upright and waited for her question.
"Would you consider working for the LOA to bring whoever is committing these murders to justice?"
That was basically what I'd expected to be asked, and I already knew my answer. "No."
"Thanks for your help," Olivia said and got back to her feet.
"I'll work for you," I clarified. "Only you, not Avalon."
She turned back to me with a quizzical expression on her face. "Why?"
"Don't trust Avalon," I said. "This is an agreement between you and me."
"I can't pay you without putting your name on something."
"I never asked for money," I said.
Olivia sat back down. "What?"
"I've accumulated a tidy sum over the years, I don't need money. But I do want something from you."
"No," she snapped. "I'm not about to jeopardise my career for anyone."
I laughed, I couldn't help it. "Bloody hell, Olivia, nothing like that. What do you know about what happened to me a decade ago?"
"Tommy said that Mordred grabbed you while you were helping children escape his experiments. That he had your memory wiped."
"That about sums it up. But Mordred was getting help from someone, and I'm certain Avalon was involved. So, all I want you to do is call Avalon and ask them to send all the information they have on Mordred, to you."
"Why?"
"Because they'll either comply, which means they have nothing to hide, or the merest mention of his name will have someone calling you to tell you to stay away from it. In which case, we'll know something's going on."
"Mordred's fingers were in a lot of pies, was well known within Avalon circles. He had a lot of friends before he decided to cut ties and go it alone."
"Mordred never went it alone. He just gave Avalon plausible deniability."
"Did you know that he's dead?" Olivia asked.
I'd been the one looking down on him through a sniper scope in New York several months earlier, the one who pulled the trigger and blew the back of his head off. But I wasn't going to tell Olivia that.
"I'd heard that, yes," I said.
"But you're still hoping to jog loose anyone who was helping him."
I nodded, but didn't say what I was thinking. And then I'm going to point out to them how stupid it was to let me live. Preferably over the course of many hours in private.
"That could get me fired, or killed," Olivia said.
"Be quick then."
She raised an eyebrow.
"They're not going to just kill you. You'll get warned to stay away long before that. It probably means someone of power is behind it."
"Tommy told me that you saved a lot of kids from Mordred's filthy hands. That they caught you when you went back to save more. Why'd you do it? You didn't work for Avalon anymore. You haven't worked there for about a century."
"I did it because no one else would," I said. "Because it needed doing. And because I was no longer required to sit by and watch horrific things happen for the greater good of Avalon. They're not always the good guys."
Olivia dialled a number on her mobile. "This is Director Olivia Green of the LOA."
There was a pause whilst someone on the other end replied.
"I need access to Mordred's file."
Another pause.
"Yes, that Mordred."
Pause.
"You don't need to know why, just that I want it. How long will it take?"
Pause.
"Excellent, get back to me." Olivia hung up.
"It'll be a few hours," she said to me. "Most of his file isn't computerised."
"Thank you," I said. "I expect you'll get a call before then to telling you to mind your business."
"What do I say when they ask why I want it?"
I shrugged. "Make something up. Just make it sound believable."
"So, do we have a deal?" She held out her hand.
I sighed and shook it. "I'll need full access to the investigation."
"Deal. You're not what I expected from an ex-member of the Faceless," Olivia said as we left the room together. "Every member I've met before was very cold, almost clinical, closed off to others. You're not like that."
"Probably why I'm an ex-member."
Olivia's phone rang and she walked away
to answer it.
"You two sort out what we need to do," Tommy asked as he came in from the kitchen, apple in hand.
"Did you leave me any food at all?"
Tommy bit into the apple and shrugged. "Hungry."
Olivia returned and removed her coat from the back of a nearby chair. "Well, you might not be in a minute," she told Tommy. "That phone was from one of the attendants at the morgue. Apparently there's something we need to see."
Olivia and Tommy took his truck and, as the weather was nice, I decided to use my bike again. Not only did I enjoy riding it, but it allowed me some time to think about what I'd gotten into.
I'd left Avalon in 1890, under what couldn't exactly be considered the best conditions. I cut all ties and spent the next hundred years doing jobs for friends and travelling the world. It had been a good life, and now I'd almost come full circle, although I hoped this agreement with Olivia would be short-term, letting me slip back once again into blissful obscurity
I resisted the urge to over-take Tommy, now driving at a reasonable speed, so that I didn't arrive at the LOA headquarters in Winchester by myself, and have to explain who I was and why I was there. Much easier to arrive with their boss and have people leave me alone.
I'd never actually been to the Winchester office before. It had been built four years ago, when I was in the middle of my memory-wiped years. But as I pulled up to the huge steel entrance gates, it certainly made an imposing impression.
Anyone coming over the fifteen-foot-high, barbed-wire topped brick walls would have to contend with a few hundred yards of open field before getting to the main building. There were two guard posts, one sat on either side of the front gate, and both appeared to be manned. Further inside the compound, to either side of the main building, were two smaller buildings. Each of these had a sniper nest towering at least sixty feet off the ground. Those inside would have complete view of anything coming from any side of the compound.
Tommy had told me that the rear of the building was used as a training facility, and often full of highly trained, not to mention heavily armed, Avalon personnel. The only way someone was getting to the main building was if they were allowed in or if they had an army.
I pulled up behind Tommy's truck as Olivia spoke to one of the guards, who in turn signalled for the gates to be opened. Soon after, I was parking my bike and looking up at the structure of the main building.
Thirty stories high, and a mass of steel and glass, it dominated the landscape. The edges of the building were curved slightly, giving it the unusual appearance of twisting as it rose, but it was impressive nonetheless. The front entrance reminded me of Tommy's business. Completely circular, it sat in front of the main building. Although it only had one floor, it had a huge dome of stained-glass atop it giving it the height of a four story building. From the top of the larger building to the ground that we were standing on had to be over three-hundred and fifty feet.
I removed my helmet and placed it on the bike's seat. "You work in there?" I asked Olivia as she left the truck.
She looked up toward the top of the building. "Floor twenty-nine," she said. "It has one hell of a view."
"How many people work inside?" I asked as we entered the building.
"Over three hundred during the day, maybe fifty at night," Olivia replied as she nodded to several armed guards who watched us enter.
A woman with dark, curly hair that reminded me of Medusa sat behind the receptionist's desk and waved at Tommy and Olivia, reserving a scowl for me as I passed and waved, too.
The stained glass dome above looked even better from inside the building. It depicted the removal of the Sword in the Stone by Arthur, and as beautiful as it was, I wondered how many people here knew exactly what Merlin had done to ensure that Arthur became King. How many lives had been sacrificed. I swallowed my anger. Damn him to hell.
"You okay?"
Sara sat on one of the many leather chairs in the lobby, reading a magazine, which she placed on the glass coffee table in front of her. "You okay?" she asked again as she walked toward me.
"Miles away," I said with a genuine smile.
"I called Sara, and asked if she'd meet us here," Tommy said.
"At the morgue," I pointed out.
"We're not going to dissect anyone, Nate," he said, exasperated. "But if there's anything that you're uncomfortable with, Sara, just walk out. After yesterday, I certainly wouldn't be here if I didn't have to be."
"I'll be fine," Sara said, as the lift doors opened and we all got inside.
Olivia removed a long, thin key from her pocket and inserted it into a panel under the buttons of the above floors. The panel popped open revealing several hidden buttons, L1 to L6. She pressed L5 and the doors closed.
"Are all six levels the morgue?" I asked as the lift began to move down.
Olivia shook her head. "1 through 3 are all rune work and security, 4 to 6 is where the morgue is. Sometimes you want as much distance between the dead and the living as possible."
Unsurprisingly, the rest of the journey was completed in silence.
The lift reached its destination with a slight shudder before the doors slowly opened, revealing a corridor straight out of every hospital in the world. The only remarkable thing about it was that the signs on the walls had arrows that pointed to 'magical dissection' and 'rune removal'. Not something you see in most hospitals.
Olivia led us past several men and women, all of whom were either reading from clipboards or talking to someone else about what was on a clipboard.
We made our way to the far end of a corridor, and Olivia went through one of two doors next to one another without knocking. It led to a wash area, with one long metal sink, taps above, and liquid soap dispensers fastened to the wall. The opposite wall had a glass window that allowed us to look into the room next to us. A bald man sat beside a desk, writing — probably something to go onto another clipboard. I smiled. It wasn't funny, but when surrounded by death, I'll take levity where I can get it.
Behind the bald man were several dozen closed, silver hatches. On a table lay one body, thankfully covered in a dark blue sheet with red symbols etched into it. Sometimes the dead really don't want to stay that way.
Olivia passed each of us some green scrubs and waited until we'd put them on before she opened the door next to the window.
"Doctor Grayson," she said.
The doctor stood and shook Olivia's hand, smiling the whole time. "It's good to see you, Director. Well, sort of, you understand."
"Of course," she introduced Sara and Tommy, but stopped when it came to me. She obviously wasn't sure if I planned on using my real name or not.
"Nathan Garrett," I said with a shake of his hand. "Nice to meet you."
"An outside contractor I assume," Doctor Grayson said. "I hope you can help."
"I'll do my best."
The doctor walked past us to the table. He was short, no taller than five-foot one or two, with a small white goatee which did its best to cover a noticeable scar along one cheek. I'd seen scars like that before. Whatever had done it was sharp, and if experience was any indication, it had probably been deliberate.
"So what do you have for us, Grayson?" Olivia asked.
Doctor Grayson picked up a file and started to read from it. "Female, Caucasian and human. She was twenty-four, her name-"
"Amber Moore," I said.
The doctor glanced up at me. "That's right." He grabbed the side of the sheet and hesitated. "Are you all okay with this?"
Everyone glanced at Sara. "I've already seen her dead, not going to get a lot worse than that."
"That's probably not a theory you'll want to stick with if you stay around here," Doctor Grayson said, and pulled the sheet down to Amber’s waist, exposing her naked and brutalised torso.
"Fucking hell," Tommy whispered when the mass of purple that used to be Amber's ribcage was exposed.
"Yes, this is quite bad," Doctor Grayson said in the same tone as you
would ask someone if they wanted milk in their coffee. "The throat was slit from ear to ear, that was the killing stroke, so to speak, but she had a multitude of injuries sustained before that."
"We'll start from the head." Doctor Grayson reached into his blue lab coat, also adorned with red runes, and removed a small metallic pointer, extending it. He rested the tip of the pointer against the ear closest to us. "The skull was fractured, just above the ear, and her ear drum was burst. Not done at the same time, in fact the ear drum rupture was probably two months old."
He moved the pointer. "She had a broken nose. It had been broken twice, one several months ago, and again a few weeks ago. Three teeth knocked out, and a broken jaw that was several months old."
"What about recent injuries?" Olivia asked, a slight nervousness to her voice.
"Okay," Doctor Grayson said without any hint of irritation at being hurried along. "Within the last month, her sternum was broken, along with eight ribs, and her collarbone. The last time I saw an injury like this, they'd been hit by a truck. The pain must have been immense.” The doctor pulled back the sheet completely, exposing all of Amber's naked body. "Her left femur was snapped, as was her left ankle. She was also raped. Repeatedly."
Sara darted from the room.
"I'm sorry, should I stop?"
Olivia shook her head as Tommy left the room to check on Sara.
"Anyway, that's the last of the injuries. Any questions?"
"I have one," I said. "Any evidence of runes either applied or removed from her body?"
Doctor Grayson appeared taken aback. "How did-"
"Educated guess."
"You probably want to see this for yourself." The doctor switched off the room's lights and ignited a dark light.
I couldn't help but gasp. "Fuck," I said softly.
Amber's body was covered, from her neck to her knees, in runes, only visible under UV light. Despite the fact that the rune used appeared to be the same one each time, the runes covered so much of her body and were invisible to the naked eye meant that the power used must have been immense. It explained why I’d felt so much magic back at the farmhouse.
