by Steve McHugh
Several small buildings had been turned to rubble and evidence of magic was scorched all around the concrete remains. The front doors to the main compound were closed, as were several other entrances, and all had runes blazed on them. Mordred knew the word “hellfire” when he saw it, and wondered exactly how many had died trying to get those doors open. The burn marks outside several of them suggested that more than a few deaths had occurred.
Large green tents had been erected at the far end of the compound, near the main entrance, and several military vehicles—including one jeep with a machine gun mounted on the rear—were parked beside them. Mordred knew they would need to ensure that machine gun played no part in whatever they did to get inside.
“Those are Avalon people,” Remy whispered, pointing at the armed soldiers walking around what used to be the entrance to Hades’ compound.
“I smell just over a dozen,” Diana said. “None are weres. Eight are human actually, which is a little weird.”
“And the others?” Hel asked.
Diana shrugged. “Not weres. Magic’s a possibility—it depends how long ago they used it. I can only smell fresh magic. Humans are doing a lot of the dirty work since Avalon created the Inter-species Task Force. The ITF has been responsible for a lot of murders. They’re essentially the new secret police. Except, not so secret, obviously.”
“How far into this part of the compound can you smell?” Hel asked Diana.
“About a quarter of the way, so, yes, there could be a lot more people down there waiting for a fight.”
“Okay, so anyone have any good ideas about how we get into a compound that Hades and Persephone designed?” Hel asked.
“Umm,” Remy said. “They have tanks.”
Mordred looked over toward the entrance to the compound and sure enough there were three gray tanks. “What make are they?” Mordred asked.
“I don’t think it matters,” Remy said. “They’re tanks, that’s enough.”
“If I can get us inside that fence, leave the tanks to me,” Mordred said.
“Do you have a new tank-busting power I’m unaware of?” Remy asked.
“Just trust me,” Mordred told him with a smile.
Remy picked up a rock and threw it at the rune-scribed fence. The rock bounced off and hit the ground. “Thankfully, I don’t think they’re going to design a fence that kills hapless idiots who touch it. We’d see a lot of charred squirrels around here if that was the case.”
“What do the runes do then?” Mordred asked.
Remy shrugged. “No idea. Go read them and find out.”
“Does it scare anyone else that Remy is the voice of reason here?” Diana asked.
Remy showed Diana his middle finger and she smiled.
Mordred left the others and dropped down onto the grass twenty feet below him. Hel dropped beside him and together they walked to the fence.
“You see the spotlights over there?” Hel asked, pointing to the massive lights at the entrance of the compound. “They haven’t looked over here. I assume they’re not expecting company coming in over the fence.”
Mordred had been reading the runes that were inscribed on the concrete posts separating segments of twenty-foot chain-link fence, and pointed to the nearest one. “They’re new.”
Hel walked over to it and placed a hand over the rune. “Lots of power in this. Lots of power. A few days old at most. It’s based on weight. My guess is they have an enchanter on staff.”
“That’s bad news for us,” Mordred said. Enchanters could make complex rune patterns and pour large amounts of power into them, essentially creating powerful, magical mines that could only be changed or disarmed by another enchanter, or someone with intricate rune knowledge.
“How good is your rune work?” Hel asked Mordred. “I’m pretty good, but I know that your friend, Zamek, taught you a few things.”
“He knows the original ancient dwarf runes,” Mordred said.
Hel raised an eyebrow in question. “I thought they were lost to the annals of time?”
“Yeah, well, turns out that Nate Garrett had them buried in his head. He taught Zamek and me a few, although Zamek got them easier. I only picked up one or two.”
“Any that disarm runes?”
Mordred had been channeling pure magical power into his hands and they glowed a faint white color. “Yes, actually, but I think you might want to step back. When this happens, all of you get in, and make sure I have a clear shot at that machine gun. I’d rather not be cut to shreds.”
Hel did as Mordred suggested, moving over to the nearest large tree and standing behind it.
Pure magical force wasn’t like elemental magic—air, earth, fire, and water—nor omega magic—mind, matter, shadow, and light—which sorcerers couldn’t even use until they were several hundred years old. It was not even like when a sorcerer combines his two elemental magics to create something new—in Mordred’s case, combining his air and water magics gave him the ability to breathe anywhere. Pure magic was just destructive. It had no other use. It was wild, untamed, and something Mordred didn’t like to use an awful lot. It made him think of past transgressions, it made him feel like someone who could do anything he wanted. It was not a nice feeling.
He drew the rune he’d memorized from Nate’s teachings onto the concrete pillar and poured pure magic inside. The effect was . . . spectacular. Fifty feet of fence on either side of Mordred exploded. Thousands of tiny shrapnel-like pieces flew into the exterior compound like deadly bullets, hitting anything and everything in sight. Mordred saw soldiers drop to the ground in pain, and heard the shrapnel hit buildings and vehicles in turn.
He stepped over the remains of the fence and continued to build up the pure magic inside his body as his companions rushed in ahead of him. He had to ignore the fighting, hoping his friends would be able to keep themselves safe. One of the soldiers ran toward the jeep and climbed into the back. Mordred was fifty feet away when the machine gun fired at him, and he unleashed the power he’d been building up. He heard no sound as the pure white magic ripped everything apart, turning the jeep, machine gun, and bullets that had been fired into white-hot, molten metal. The soldier operating the gun was vaporized as he took the brunt of the force.
A second jeep behind the first exploded along with several fuel canisters that were nearby, ripping one of the buildings apart and utterly destroying the tents that had been there. Mordred turned toward the tanks at the sound of their engines starting and unleashed every ounce of pure magic he had inside of him.
It hit the first of the three tanks and punched a hole through it that expanded the further it went. The shells inside detonated from the force, tearing the tank in two. Mordred sprinted toward the second tank as it turned its turret toward him. He drove a blade of pure magic into the front of the tank and poured more magic into the hole, ripping it apart from the inside out. Fragments of metal pinged off his hastily created shield harmlessly.
The third tank fired a shell, but Mordred used his magic once again. The force and power of the pure magic hit the shell and turret of the tank, obliterating both. When he was done, three tanks were nothing more than scrap, the soldiers operating them dead.
Mordred had used his magic for less than two minutes, and once he was done, his body sagged with exhaustion. Hel ran to him, helping him stay upright.
“Holy shit, Mordred,” Hel said.
“Don’t do that often,” Mordred said. “Can’t do that again for some time.” That was the main problem with pure magic, Mordred had found. Using it quickly was like holding his finger on the fire button until the guns ran dry in a First Person Shooter.
“Tell me again why we didn’t just come through the main entrance?” Remy asked, joining the others in the middle of the yard.
“We were being stealthy,” Mordred said.
Remy looked around. “Yeah, this looks stealthy to me.”
“We have wildly different meanings for that word,” Hel said with a sh
ake of her head as she walked off toward the main gate of the compound.
“Quick question, where are the rest of the soldiers?” Remy asked. “I was sort of expecting something a bit more . . . ferocious.”
“You all need to see this,” Hel shouted out.
The rest of the group gathered beside her and looked down the steep road that headed toward Mittenwald. Buses sat in the middle of the road. The bodies of the Mittenwald residents lay in ditches on either side.
“There are thousands of people in those ditches,” Hel said. “I can feel their spirits when I reach out. They shipped an entire village here and executed them.”
“I see one of those staffs down there,” Remy said. “Can’t smell the bodies though. The mist must do something to them.”
“Another staff,” Diana said, pointing to a staff that was just outside the compound, surrounded by trees. Hel blasted it with her necromancy, destroying it.
“They break easily enough,” Hel said.
“So will the people who did this,” Mordred told her, his voice cold and hard.
The four of them went to the entrance of the compound. Remy pushed the door open and stepped inside before the others could get there.
The lights were dimmed in the foyer, which was a stark contrast from the last time Mordred had been here. The floor was marked with bullet holes, and there were old bloodstains on the walls.
“There was a fight here,” Mordred said. “A big one.”
“Someone threw a grenade,” Remy said, pointing to the shrapnel blast against a nearby door. “I’m guessing Cerberus lost the compound.”
“Which means that either these assholes haven’t gotten into the realm gate, or they have and are currently in Tartarus,” Diana said.
“That also leaves us with a problem,” Hel said. “If these people have breached the realm gate, how do we get through it?”
Mordred had to admit it was a valid point and one he didn’t have an answer to. “Let’s check that when we get to it. Hopefully the invaders will have a guardian here to open the gate.”
“Someone who will need convincing?” Remy asked with a smile that showed his sharp teeth.
They followed the hallway leading to the lifts that would take the team down to the realm gate rooms far underground. There were more signs of fighting along the hallway: bullet holes, burn marks, and cuts in the floor, ceiling, and walls showed that someone with magic had thrown around blades of air, but there were no enemies in their way.
They reached the lifts and found them destroyed, the doors torn off, the cable inside sliced through.
“Someone didn’t want anyone else to go down,” Remy said.
“There are stairs,” Diana said. “But they don’t go all the way to the bottom. There’s a second elevator further down inside the compound—we’ll have to use it to get to the realm gate, but with this one out of order, it’s going to be a long stair climb down.”
“Hopefully that elevator won’t be broken,” Hel said.
“Anyone else getting a serious Resident Evil vibe from this place?” Mordred asked as they continued on. “The flickering lights, the creepiness, the bloodstains. I swear if we need to find a key with a shield on it and a matching lock, I’m going to be really upset.”
“You play too many video games,” Diana said.
“Or not enough,” Mordred countered. “Video games relax me. I don’t think anyone wants to deal with a stressed-out Mordred.”
“That’s a valid point,” Remy said.
The group reached the stairwell and began to descend. Dozens of bodies littered the stairs as they went down.
“Shit,” Diana said, stepping over a dead ITF soldier, who had been almost torn in half.
“Hades’ people are not known as pushovers,” Mordred said.
It took nearly half an hour to reach the bottom of the stairs. They discovered more bodies of ITF soldiers, and those who had worked for Hades along the way. Once at the bottom, they spent a few minutes moving a large barricade from the hallway. The barricade was makeshift and consisted mostly of tables, chairs, and anything else lying around that could be used to keep the enemy busy. A lot more bodies littered the bottom of the stairwell, most dressed in ITF uniform. There were also several that Mordred recognized from his time coming to the compound over the last few years.
“Cerberus and his people put up quite the fight,” Hel said.
The hallway beyond looked similar and dozens of dead filled the rooms that led off the main hallway. Parts of the walls were missing and the rooms were a mixture of bullets, blood, and crackling magical energy that Mordred could still feel.
Diana picked up an MP5 and ejected the magazine. “Silver. The ITF came to slaughter.”
“Looks like they were given everything back in spades,” Hel said. “I count dozens of dead bodies in the ten rooms off this hallway. I can feel them. I’d like to be out of here as quickly as possible. There are a lot of enraged spirits I’d rather not have to deal with.”
The lift was around a corner at the end of the hallway and was still working.
“Is this a good idea?” Remy asked.
“They might have people waiting for us,” Diana said. “But there’s no other way to get to the realm gate room.”
Everyone stepped into the lift, and Mordred created a shield of air and ice in front of the doors once they closed. Hel pressed the only button on the panel next to the door and the lift began to move down.
During the thirty seconds they descended into the unknown, they readied themselves for a fight. But when the lift doors separated and nothing happened, Mordred removed the ice and air shield. He stepped out into the hallway and immediately wished he hadn’t.
Nailed to the wall with foot-long silver spikes was Cerberus.
“Oh no,” Remy said.
Diana ran over to her friend and tried to pull the spikes out, but the silver burned her hands and she had to stop, screaming in incandescent rage at what had happened.
Mordred, Hel, and Remy removed the spikes, lowering the werewolf’s body to the ground. He’d been killed in his human form, and his hands and feet had been removed with a single stroke of a blade.
Kneeling beside the body, Mordred sighed. He’d liked Cerberus. He’d been no-nonsense and loyal to Hades and his family without question. He was someone who Mordred had fought several times over the centuries, and he’d maintained a healthy respect for him. After Mordred’s mind had been restored, he’d found Cerberus willing to forgive so long as Mordred joined him for a glass of vodka. The pair had drunk several bottles that night, and whatever their past had been, they’d started anew as friends. Mordred was going to hurt someone for what they’d done to him.
He stood and walked along the ramp down toward the realm gate room. Someone fired a bullet at him that Mordred deflected with air magic. He wrapped tendrils of air around a second soldier, crushing him in his own armor, before flinging him at the first, just as a werebeast Diana charged into the soldier, who lived only long enough to scream one last time. Remy ran past Mordred, throwing a grenade into the doors opening at the far end of the room, then leaping aside as the explosion cut through the area.
“Where did you get a grenade?” Mordred asked.
“Found it,” Remy told him, stepping inside the room. He drew his sword and dispatched anyone who lived.
Hel absorbed the spirits of the dead, eyes flickering up into her skull. A smile crossed her face as she used her necromancy to tear the room doors in half, flinging them into the room beyond with incredible force.
Inside the room were Orcus and Enyo, and two people who cowered behind the deactivated realm gate. Enyo finished stabbing one of Hades’ guards, pushing his dead body to the ground. “You’re interrupting my fun,” she said as a snake of blood magic uncoiled itself from around the guard’s throat, wrapping back around her arm, making her shiver.
“Enyo,” Hel shouted. “We would have words with you.”
17
MORDRED
Hel rushed toward Enyo, but was thrown across the room into the wall by Enyo’s blood magic.
“You know about blood magic, Mordred,” Enyo said as she punched a guard he hadn’t seen when Hel had torn the doors off their hinges.
Snake-like tendrils of blood magic from Enyo’s palms grabbed hold of Hel’s wrists, causing her to scream as pain wracked her body.
Mordred hit Enyo in the chest with a blast of air magic, sending the sorcerer flying over a nearby table.
“You okay?” Mordred asked Hel as she got to her feet.
“I really hate blood magic,” she said.
The realm gate activated, and Mordred paused, thinking that Enyo was going to try to make a run to Tartarus, but instead two minotaurs sprinted into the room, roaring as they barreled into the desks that stood in their way. One of the minotaurs charged Diana, sending her through the far wall.
Orcus had been trying to keep his head down once the fighting started, and took that moment to flee, Remy hot on his heels. The second minotaur ran toward Hel, who blasted it in the chest with her necromancy power, turning the spirits inside her into pure force. The minotaur almost shrugged off the blast and hit Hel hard enough to send her flying back out of the room and into the corridor.
The minotaur stomped over to Mordred. Enyo stepped up to it and stroked its massive arm. It was nearly eight feet tall and probably weighed the same as a large car. One of the two horns on its huge bull-like head was broken, leaving only jagged edges. Its hooves scratched against the floor as it removed a long chain with a hook on the end from over its shoulder, swinging the chain around in a menacing fashion.
Mordred didn’t see Hel until she leapt onto the nearby table and punched the minotaur in the face with everything she had. The minotaur staggered back, and Mordred hoped that Hel had enough spirits inside her to keep up the level of speed and strength that she would need for a toe-to-toe fight with a minotaur.
