by Steve McHugh
"You're right, I'm a killer. I've killed thousands, and very few of them have ever stained my conscience. I can go to a dark place and do whatever I need to. But for those I care about, those I love, I will move fucking mountains to keep them safe. And I care about Tommy and Kasey, whether you grant permission or not."
I turned to walk away.
"I'm sorry," Olivia said, and placed a hand on my bicep to turn me around, her tears flowing freely as we stood in silence. "Will you promise me that we'll get Tommy and Kasey back?" she asked.
"I promise." My words were spoken with utter conviction. "And no one will stand in our way."
Olivia stepped toward me. "They have my little girl," she said softly. "They have my princess." Olivia took another step and broke down in my arms. Her sobs continued against my chest and shoulder, quickly drenching my shirt. She collapsed herself in my arms, and I had to sit us down on the damp grass before we fell. I held her for a long time, until her cries of anguish brought Sky to check on us. She took one look at Olivia and me, and tears fell from her eyes.
Sky helped Olivia back to her feet, with more than a little struggle. "I'll take her to clean up," she told me.
"Thank you," I said as Olivia, let go of me.
"I'm so sorry," Olivia choked out. "I had no idea what you'd been through."
"Not many do," I said. "Go get yourself ready, we have a long night ahead of us."
Olivia straightened up. "What do you need?"
"Blueprints of the LOA building," I said. "We need to know what we're dealing with."
"Then you'll get them," Olivia told me. And with that Sky led her away.
I wasn't really sure what to do after that. I felt drained. I rarely talked about Jane. Very few people knew about her, even fewer than those who knew that I used to be Hellequin. But it had been the right thing to tell Olivia. I'd needed to regain her trust, and sometimes you can only do that by revealing out the things you most want to keep private.
I started walking through the expansive grounds that belonged to Elijah. Although I supposed that used to belong was probably the more accurate phrase. I had no idea what would happen to Elijah or his property after he'd confessed to being a traitor.
"Nathan," Matthew called out.
I turned to find him sat beneath a tree. The low hanging branches created shadows to partly obscure him, and I'd have never noticed his presence if he hadn't called for me.
I walked over and Matthew smiled at me, it was an easy expression and one of friendship. I exploded at him.
"This is your fault, you know," I snapped. "All of this shit that we're going through, it can be brought back to you."
Matthew stammered for a second, clearly not having expected me to go off at him.
"You created a situation where that stupid prick down in the basement got enough support to challenge you. If you hadn't done that, he would never have even thought about challenging you. Hell, the first time he mentioned it to someone, they would have shopped him straight to you."
Matthew got back to his feet, fire in his eyes. "How dare you insinuate that this is my fault? That this is something I could have avoided by not being gay."
"What the hell are you talking about? I don't give a shit what you are. This is to do with that fact that your sexuality is your weakness, because you're making it one."
"Fuck you," Matthew snapped.
"So, you're telling me it's not your weakness? Okay, where's your female alpha?"
Matthew recoiled like he'd been slapped. "I don't have one."
"Why?"
"Because I'm gay."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"I would think it had everything to do with it. I'm not about to pretend that I'm something I'm not. Not so I can appease a bunch of assholes who would be against me no matter what I did."
"It's not about appeasing anyone; it's about having a strong pack. The female alpha is half of your rule. She deals with the female pack members, she backs you and keeps the pack strong. That's her job."
"I have Gordon to do those things."
"No matter how nice Gordon might look in drag, he's neither an alpha nor a woman."
"Nathan has a point," Gordon said from behind me. "My lack of a vagina does get in the way of dealing with the ladies."
"That's not what I meant," I said, exasperated.
Gordon laid a hand on my shoulder. "I was just joking." He turned to his alpha. "Nathan is right. You're missing a large part of your hierarchy by not having a female alpha. I've told you this several times."
Matthew placed one hand on Gordon's shoulder and Gordon covered it with his own and for the first time I realised something.
"You're together," I said. "That's why Elijah hated Gordon, too."
Matthew nodded. "I love this man, and I will not belittle that by bringing a woman into our house to pretend that we're something we're not."
"Then don't," I said. "Everyone in your pack probably knows you're gay, you're not trying to pretend otherwise. You don't have to fuck her, Matthew. You just have to bring her into your life and allow her to do the job a female alpha is meant to do. Without it, you're going to have more people using that as a way to hit you, making your sexuality your weakness."
"I pretended to be straight for centuries, always knowing I lived a lie. I will not go back to it."
"Then don't," I said. "But don't let your hang-ups cause something like this again. Yes, Peter would have found someone else to use, but probably not in your pack. Elijah would have been an annoying little shit instead of someone who arranged to bring you down so he could put himself into that position. Get a female alpha, someone you trust. You don't have to live with her or marry her, but you do have to have a woman in that position. Otherwise you might as well step aside and let someone else take over. Because sooner or later, another wolf is going to succeed where Elijah failed, and next time you might not catch it in time to stop it."
Matthew stared at me for several heartbeats. "Are you truly the Hellequin?"
"Change of subject?"
Matthew smiled. "I will think on the female alpha situation. My pack deserves to be strong, and I will ensure that nothing like this happens again. Maybe the centuries of living a lie have caused me to think unclearly when it comes to other people's perceptions of me."
"And I shall shout at him until he relents," Gordon said, taking out a cigar and lighting it. "It's a dreadful habit, but we all have our vices."
"So, do you plan on answering my question?" Matthew asked.
"Yes," I told him. "I'm really the Hellequin. Did you expect me to be taller?"
Matthew shook his head. "More intense. I thought you'd be all fire and brimstone. Do you really think we can get Kasey and Tommy back in one piece?"
"Yeah, I do. Peter wants Olivia to suffer, so he's not going to do anything until she arrives. He won't want to jeopardise his revenge."
"Matthew," Gordon said, and pointed over to a young man who was running toward us.
"Yes, Simon?" Matthew said to the newcomer.
Simon stood up straight, clearly proud at being spoken to by the alpha of his pack. He was well over six feet tall; if he'd brought a few more wolves like him, I knew we'd have a greater chance of getting Tommy and Kasey out without injury. "The wolves are here," Simon said, "Everyone who wanted to fight came, more than fifty in all."
"Over fifty werewolves?" I asked, shocked.
Matthew smiled. "Let's go see my army."
I watched Matthew and Gordon walk off with the young werewolf, and decided to take Matthew’s old spot under the tree and make a quick call to the local hospital. It took me several minutes to find out if Sara had been admitted there, and I was finally put through to the correct department after explaining that I was her colleague and wanted to know how she was doing.
The nurse told me that Sara had a concussion and was groggy, but she was awake. She then took great pains to explain that she was to have no visitors except famil
y for the remainder of the day, which considering how late it was didn't surprise me.
I hung up the phone with the knowledge that Sara was okay, and sighed. Reid and his cohorts were going to pay for everything they'd done, but knowing that Sara was in no danger took a weight off my mind.
"Sara okay?" Sky asked as she sat on the grass next to me.
"I'm going to make you wear a bell," I told her. "And, yes, they say she'll be okay."
"Good." Sky was silence for a few seconds. "Are you?"
"I'm going to make them pay," I said without emotion.
"My father told me about the necromancy. You don't think you can use it to kill the lich, do you?"
I said nothing.
Sky shifted from next to me and sat in front, taking my hands in hers. "Nate, promise me, you won't try to kill him by yourself. Promise me. You may have some necromancy ability, but there's no way of knowing what you can do and no way of knowing how it will work. You cannot beat this lich by yourself."
"Sky-”
"Promise me, damn it."
"I promise I won't try to kill him alone. I'll leave him for you."
Sky's shoulders slumped in relief and nodded briefly before releasing my hands. "I thought I'd lost you ten years ago, when Mordred erased your memories. We all searched, but couldn't find you. You didn't tell anyone what you were doing, that you were going after Mordred alone. We had no clue where to even start looking. I thought… Nate, I thought you'd died. I don't want to go through that again. I missed you."
I reached out and pulled Sky toward me, embracing her tightly. "I'm not going anywhere," I told her after we pulled apart.
"You're one of my closest friends, so don't do anything stupid," a faint smile crept onto her face.
"Do you remember the last lich we went up against, the one in Montana?"
"I was grateful my father was there. You were shocked."
"Well, you could have mentioned he was your dad."
Sky laughed. "Whatever happened to those kids?"
"Wapi and Tala went to live with their family on a ranch, I stayed around long enough to help clean up and make sure everything was cleared with any authorities who showed up to investigate. We all made a lot of noise that day."
"Burning a whole town to the ground will do that. Did you ever look in on Sam again, I mean after you gave him your horse and everything?"
"He went to live in California, found some gold, made some money, had a nice family. Before he left Montana, I gave him an address in Avalon to contact me in an emergency. He sent me a letter years later telling me he would like to say goodbye. He had some disease, I never learnt what. I arrived just before he died, and said my good-byes. That was 1941; the day Pearl Harbour was attacked."
"You saved him," Sky said. "He was a good kid and you made sure he stayed that way. You helped destroy the lich that day so that people could live on and have families. We'll do the same today."
I kissed Sky on the forehead. "Thank you."
"Just be careful tonight," Sky said as she stood and stretched. "Olivia sent me out here to find you. She's got some blueprints you may be interested in."
I smiled. "I guess this is where I divulge my plan."
"You have a plan?" Sky chuckled. "And I thought you just winged it."
"Not this time, everything is going to be planned out."
"Care to share?" Sky asked as we walked back to the house.
"I don't have the finer details," I said. "But the basic premise is we kill them. Every single motherfucking one of them."
Chapter 40
We found Olivia, Matthew and Gordon huddled over a table in the dining room. It wasn't until I got closer that I could see the A3 sized print outs of the blueprints Olivia had said she'd find.
"How'd you manage to get copies of these?" I asked as I thumbed several sheets.
Olivia removed her phone from her jeans pocket and waved it in my direction. "I can access the LOA files for the building wirelessly. I knew we kept blueprints of where everything was. Now do you mind telling us all what you wanted them for?"
I flicked through the pages until I found one which showed one of the sub-basements. "Your LOA building is equipped with a similar system to the one Tommy uses. It removes the abilities of everyone who enters, unless you're wearing one of those anti-sorcerer band things," I said, bringing the sheet of paper to the top and pointing at one corner of it.
Everyone stared at where I pointed.
"That's the third floor security room," Olivia said. "There's nothing there except…" Olivia smiled. "You want to disable the security system allowing everyone to use their abilities inside the building."
"Bingo," I said. "There's no way in hell that Peter is going to come out and face us. That means we need to go in. Actually, it means I need to go in."
The shouting that followed was expected, but even so we didn't have time to argue. "Listen," I said over the din. "I have to be the person to go into the building."
"Why?" Olivia snapped.
"You promised me, Nate," Sky said. "About half hour ago, you said you weren't going to fight the lich."
"Okay, let's calm down and let Nate talk," Gordon said.
I thanked Gordon. "Right, Olivia you can't go into that building. For one thing you're the only one who knows the way to get into that security office, you're the only one of us who has been there." I removed another page and pointed to an exit at the side of the building. "You'll need to enter here, as you can't go down by lift. You know the combinations for any numerical locks. And Sky has to go with you, because she's the only one of us who knows how to disable this kind of system. It’s not like flicking a switch; you’ll need to break specific connections to the runes around the building. And you’ll have to do it in a specific order."
"It's similar to the one my father uses," Sky said. "In fact it looks like yours might be based on his. But that still…"
"Just wait, before you start yelling again," I said. "Sky knows how to disable the security and Olivia knows how to get there, that leaves me to get Tommy and Kasey away from the very dangerous lich before he kills them."
"You think the lich won't be affected?" Matthew asked.
"I doubt it, there's about one lich every few centuries, why would the LOA prepare for such a random eventuality? We have to assume that he has his abilities, otherwise, why bother attacking the LOA building?"
"Nate's right," Olivia said. "There's nothing in the security, that I'm aware of, which would stop a lich from using his abilities."
"So where will he be?" Gordon asked.
I searched for another blueprint and placed it on the top of the pile. "Olivia's office, on the top floor. This is about you, Olivia; he's going to want you to witness your destruction from where you find the most safety. He'll be there, I guarantee it."
"Why can't we all go in after we get the security cut?" Sky asked.
"Two things," I said. "One-the second the security is disabled he's going to notice something weird is happening when everyone attacks his citadel at once. And two — he's not about to let a necromancer stop him, and he actually wants Olivia to see Tommy and Kasey die in front of her, so the second he sees either of you, they're dead. He thinks of me as a mild annoyance, at best."
"You killed one of his ghouls," Sky pointed out. "That's gonna piss him off."
"Yeah, but I'm no threat to him. Even if I can do necromancy, I don't know how, and I doubt even if I did I'd be able to stop him. But I can buy you time, hopefully keep him occupied and try and get Kasey and Tommy away from being in danger."
"So what do we do?" Matthew asked.
"There's going to be several hundred barren inside that building and a few ghouls. We want them outside so we can work unhindered. That's where you and your wolves come in. You're there to get them to come outside and fight you, and then kill as many of them as possible."
"Now that we can do," Matthew said. "How long do you need?"
"Be ready to go in an h
our. And make sure they know no biting. Barren and ghouls have poisoned blood; it'll paralyse anyone who ingests it."
"We'll be ready," Matthew said and he left the room with Gordon.
"Your plan stinks," Olivia said. "But you're right; if he sees me he'll think Christmas came early for him. You have to be careful though."
"I will," I said and watched Olivia leave the room.
"You are a pain in my ass," Sky said. "You're going to fight that lich and if you do that, you're going to die. You understand that, yes?"
"I'm not going to fight, but I do need to keep him busy… so, any chance of a few lessons?"
Sky's mouth dropped open in shock. "Learning how to use necromancy takes years, Nate. I can't show you how to use it in an hour. And even if I could, we don't know what type of necromancy you can use."
"That's fair, but when I fought with Randal in that pit I felt some sort of coldness over me, somehow I absorbed a spirit. I just need to know what I did, just in case."
Sky sighed. "I can show you some techniques with how to search out for a spirit, but there's no guarantee they'll even work."
"It's better than nothing."
"Nate, the better plan would be to get Kasey and Tommy out of there and then run like hell. Once that security is broken, I'll be with you as fast as I can, but until then you'll be basically human."
"Thanks for reminding me," I said with a smile.
"Don't, Nate. Don't make this out to be nothing. Until that security is cracked, you will have nothing to throw back at someone who would tear a werewolf apart with his bare hands."
"And once that security is down, I still won't have anything. That's why I'm asking for you to show me something that might save my life."
"Then let's get started."
Forty-five minutes later and I was no closer to actually reaching out to a spirit. I thought I'd managed it at one point. A coldness had settled inside me like before, but it vanished before I could use the technique that Sky had taught me, to use the energy of the spirit for my own needs.
