Crimes Against Magic (Hellequin Chronicles Book 1)

by Steve McHugh

  Dani gasped as she saw the dozens of filing cabinets, each one with three drawers, all lined up in rows. In the middle of everything was a single desk. A PC sat atop it. A white envelope had been taped to the silver tower. Dani walked over and pulled the note off, reading the front, before passing it to me. "I think we've found the research."

  I turned the envelope over in my hands to read the front. It had two words written on it. For Nate.

  Chapter 28

  I had no idea why someone would leave me an envelope with my name on it. It wasn't in my handwriting, and the contents had turned out to be a solitary USB stick. It felt weighty as it burnt a hole in my pocket, willing me to find out what it contained.

  "What is this place?" Dani asked, tentatively moving through the room after I'd given it a clean sweep to check for any more explosive surprises.

  I opened one of the filing cabinets and removed a file at random, flicking through its contents. "I'm going to guess that it's where I hid all of Welkin's research." I removed a photo from the file and passed it to Dani. "That man in the picture is Welkin."

  He'd posed for the photo in front of a table full of scientific paraphernalia—test tubes, microscopes and equipment to separate liquids. A beaming smile sat frozen across his face. "He's creepy," Dani said passing me the photo back. "Should I recognise him or something?"

  I shook my head. If what Jenny had said was true, she'd have been far too young to remember Welkin. It was something to be thankful for.

  I placed the file back in the drawer and closed it. "So, are you going to see what's on that thing?" Dani asked and switched on the computer, which generated a low humming noise as it booted up.

  "I was checking the rest of the room first," I said and joined her at the desk.

  "Liar, you're just worried about what you might find."

  Dani's words may have been spoken in jest, but there was a sliver of truth to them.

  I waited until the computer had finished loading before placing the USB stick into the relevant port and opening Windows Explorer. The stick contained one file, and it was large in size.

  "It's a video," Dani said, allowing me to take a seat on the only available chair.

  The file name said Nate, and according to its properties, it had been created just under a month ago. I double clicked on it and another window popped up, an image of Daniel Hayes speaking in silence. Dani found the on switch for the speakers and Daniel's voice filled the room. I adjusted the volume to no longer ear-bleeding level, and restarted the video.

  "Nate," Daniel said looking directly at the camera in front of him. It appeared that he'd filmed it in the same building where Dani and I stood. Daniel drank a dark liquid from a glass he'd placed on a table next to him and took a deep breath. The date on the bottom of the screen read four weeks previous.

  "I'd written down some things I wanted to say, but I don't really know where to start." He smiled, although it was filled with sadness. "At the beginning always works well, I guess."

  "He's really nervous," Dani said.

  "He probably knew his employers were after him."

  Daniel took another drink, this one much longer. "So, Nate, I've heard rumours that you're actually alive," Daniel started, his voice more confident. He sighed. "I don't even know why I'm doing this, or if you really have lost your memory. But in the hope that you see this before they kill me, or you, and that somehow it might help you finish what we started a decade ago, I have to try."

  There was a noise behind Daniel, and he looked around for the culprit. Finding nothing, he returned his attention to the camera. "Fucking rats. You could have picked a better bloody spot."

  Daniel sighed again. "Okay, from the beginning. I work for Avalon. I'm not high up or anything, just a human scientist who mostly works at universities. Genetics are my field, and I've always thought myself pretty good at my job. I fed Avalon information on human breakthroughs, or indeed non-human ones. Anything that Avalon would find useful or interesting. It was hardly the most exciting life, but I loved doing it. Still do. But I wanted to do more, to help more.

  "You contacted me long ago, maybe fifteen years now, and asked for my help. You said there were few scientists in Avalon who had any interest in genetics, and even fewer you could trust. You wanted me to infiltrate Mars Warfare and discover what they and more specifically, Doctor Welkin, was involved in.

  "I was happy to do it, so don't think for one second that I'm complaining. It was a chance to help a lot of people. And if I'm honest it was exciting. I knew Welkin by reputation. He'd been seen as a genius in the field of genetics, but his ethical line was somewhere just below that of a psychopath." Daniel took another drink. "Quite far below as it turned out. You arranged for me to get a job there—I never asked how, I don't think it was something I wanted to know—and for years I was simultaneously excited, and terrified, in awe and sickened, by the practices that went on in that place."

  "He sounds like he enjoyed it there," Dani said with a touch of anger.

  "That sounds awful," Daniel said as if on cue. "It makes it sound like I enjoyed working for those who killed people. But they gave me everything I could ever want to do my job. It was a good feeling to finally have unlimited funds to explore the ideas I'd always wanted. And for a while that was it. Create, hypothesise and test them in carefully controlled experiments, all the time feeding you information about what was happening. And whilst Welkin was odd, I had no idea of the kind of man he'd become.

  "It took three years before I learned about the things Welkin had done—murder, torture and experimenting on people just to see how they work. All in the name of some twisted science." Daniel paused, thoughtful for a moment. "No, not science. In the name of profit. He did anything if it could either advance his standing within the company, or make him richer.

  "Welkin forced sorcerers to use magic until they'd changed into gargoyles and nightmares. He stopped werewolves from transforming, just so he could record how mad it drove them. The things he did... they were awful. And I had to participate the whole time. Oh, I fed you the data, dates and times of experiments, photos and case notes, but it was like every day I saw and heard those things, a little piece of my soul died. You stopped what you could, intercepting convoys with prisoners, and helping the occasional escape, but there were always more. And you couldn't shut Mars Warfare down without a lot of evidence—Welkin's research. But his experiment a decade ago changed the time frame we'd set in place to acquire that evidence.

  "Welkin decided to push forward with a second set of Harbinger trials. These were meant to be safer. The first set had taken place before my time, and Welkin was secretive about who knew what he was planning for the second trials. I was definitely not included in his inner circle, but eventually he informed everyone that a batch of ten children had been put through the process and most had survived."

  Daniel cupped his hands to his face, rubbing his eyes. When he next looked up at the camera they were slightly red. "Most. How do you quantify that you'd allowed 'most' of the children to live. And he was proud of this. I couldn't stand by and let these kids die. And neither could you.

  "Within a few days Welkin had vanished. At first it was put down to the pressures of work. But it didn't take long for panic to set in around the building. I was interviewed three times about my knowledge of Welkin. I don't think I've ever been more scared in my life. You helped all of the kids from Welkin's experiments escape, along with thirty other inmates. But even as you helped them escape, you were captured, and that was the last any of us heard about you.

  "I was meant to be hidden soon after the breakout, but without you there, and with the crackdown in security, if I'd left they'd have killed me. And then they gave me Samantha to look after. I was meant to be scientific, cold, and clinical about the whole thing. But she brought out fatherly instincts I'd never known existed. And once I had her, there was no way I could leave. They would have hunted both of us."

  Daniel finished the rest
of the drink, he looked sad and tired. He'd been living a lie for a good portion of his life. It must have been hard on him. "The building you're in was where you found Welkin, and where you killed him after getting the access codes and information about the facility.

  "You forced Welkin to tell you where his research was, and then brought it all back here, to this crap-hole of a building, before the break-out. After you vanished, I bought the building to protect the information it contains. You probably found the claymore. It used to be a shotgun, but some drug dealer decided to break in and I had to re-think things after he decorated the far wall. I assumed you'd be the only one capable of getting inside without blowing yourself up."

  "Yeah, didn't that work well," Dani observed sarcastically.

  "You weren't blown up," I pointed out.

  "I wish I could tell you more about who was in charge at Mars Warfare, but he doesn't tell anyone his real name, just 'my lord'. He scares the shit out of me, though. Him and his psychotic gargoyle bodyguard. If you get the chance, kill him. You'll be doing the world another favour."

  Daniel grabbed some paper from beside him, the list of things he'd wanted to mention, and started reading. "Oh yeah, someone contacted the organisation behind Mars Warfare with a lot of info about you. It's how they found you. Not sure who, though. We scientists aren't exactly privy to a lot of sensitive information these days.

  "One more thing. They need this research. They haven't been able to figure out how Welkin got the Harbinger project to work with increased efficiency. You wanted to keep all of it. You said you needed it all for leverage. I just wanted to burn it all." Daniel flicked through the paper once more. When he found what he was looking for, he took a deep breath before speaking. "Samantha, the girl I think of as my daughter, wasn't the only girl placed. And the second girl wasn't just any girl. She's Samantha's older sister."

  I looked at Dani. Her mouth had dropped open, and tears had begun to run down her face. "That's me, isn't it?" she asked. "He's talking about me?"

  I nodded, barely believing what I'd heard. "You have a sister."

  "Nate," Daniel said as he got back to his feet. "If you're seeing this, then I'm probably dead. So I have to ask you, please keep Samantha safe. If they've got her, you must get her free. They use psychics. I'm not privy to the details, but they change them somehow. This is how you can repay me for the years I worked for you. Get my daughter to safety." Daniel was crying now. "And thank you. Thank you for helping me, for allowing me to do something meaningful, for trusting me to work with you. If I am dead, I want you to know; it was an honour to know you. You are singularly the best and most terrifying person I've ever met."

  Daniel's stare hardened. "And if they've hurt Sam, if they've harmed one hair on her innocent, beautiful head. Bury them for me. Turn that whole fucking place into rubble."

  *****

  Dani walked off the second the video finished, saying that she wanted to be alone for a while. I could hardly blame her. She'd only just discovered that she had a sister. I gave her a few minutes before following her, I didn't want to give more bad news, but Dani needed to know the truth.

  I found her huddled next to a filing cabinet, staring off out of the unbreakable window. "I have a sister," she said. "Welkin's Lord has her, doesn't he?"

  "Yeah," I said and sat beside her. "When they took Jenny, the girl I was with when I got shot, they forced her to give over information about Samantha's whereabouts."

  "We have to get her out." She refused to turn back and look at me.

  "We will," I said. "They need Samantha to do something. Until they get you, they can't do it."

  Sobs rocked her body. When she turned back to face me, her eyes were puffy and red. "I want to go through these files," she said. "I want to know why they're doing all this."

  I agreed and we spent the next few hours trawling through file after file. Most of them contained information on experiments that had been conducted, or ideas that Welkin had about future experiments.

  "I need to stop," Dani said after what felt like years of reading true horror stories.

  "Yeah, me too," I said and threw the file at the nearest cabinet, spilling paper and photos over the floor. "This guy's work does not make for pleasant reading."

  "He got them to fight, to find out what they could do," Dani said. "Did you really kill him?"

  I nodded.

  She thought about it for a moment. "Good. He deserved it."

  There was so much anger and venom in her voice, that it shocked me. It was born of frustration, sadness and fear. Even if she'd been the happiest person in the world when she'd said it, I still wouldn't have felt anything wrong in her words. Welkin had needed to die. I'd done the world a service by fulfilling that need.

  "The Harbinger stuff is just as bad," I said and held up a file. "This is what they want, and there's no way we can let them have it."

  "But if you turn up empty handed, they'll kill you and Holly. And then her family."

  I walked to the nearest cabinet and emptied the contents onto the floor, about forty files in all. "There's no way I'm giving them the knowledge to run those experiments on anyone else." I looked over at the ruined front door. "But we can't leave it all here. Someone will eventually find it." I took the USB stick out of the computer and put it in my pocket. "Empty all the filing cabinets."

  Within a few minutes we had several huge piles of paper dotted around the room. "So, now what?" Dani asked.

  "Grab those files there, the ones about the Harbinger project. They're coming with us." We shared the files between us and made our way to the scorched exit. The claymore had made a massive mess, and anyone standing in the way of its blast would have been killed instantly.

  Dani and I stepped back into the hallway and I put the files on the floor. "Those involved with Mars Warfare, who helped do all this, are never going to see the inside of a court room, let alone a jail cell. I must have known that."

  "So what leverage did you want?"

  "I think I was going to use them to get information on Mordred. I think the removal of my memories was him hiding his own involvement." I raised my hands, orange glyphs adorning them, and threw one steady stream of fire into the room. It soon caught hold of the stacks of paper, turning the interior into an inferno within seconds. "The old plan won't work anymore. Jenny said Mordred had vanished."

  "So what's the new plan?"

  I picked up the pile of files and took one last look in the room. The fire had taken hold of everything, including the computer. There would be nothing left of anything by the time it had finished.

  "I don't know yet," I said honestly and looked at my watch. "But I have six hours to figure one out."

  Chapter 29

  "That's a terrible plan," Francis said with more than a hint of anger, after Dani and I returned to the subway station, files in hand.

  "Francis has a point," Laurel said. "You're planning on engaging a gargoyle and his men in combat. It does seem... unnecessarily reckless."

  "It's bloody insane," Dani chimed in.

  I raised my hands in surrender. "It'll work. I'm pretty certain of it. Achilles likes to think of himself as the greatest warrior ever, a man who can't be bested in combat. He'll see no threat going somewhere alone with me. He knows in a straight fight he could kill me without breaking a sweat."

  "You're sort of proving our point," Dani said.

  "But the only way I'm getting everyone out of that place alive is if Achilles is no longer an issue," I pointed out. "He has to be removed, or he'll just start killing everyone."

  Francis glared at me.

  "If anyone has a better idea, I'm open for suggestions." When no one else came up with anything, I decided it best to go sit by myself on the station bench.

  I'd closed my eyes and rested the back of my head against the cold tiles when Laurel spoke. "What do you need us to do?" I hadn't even heard her walk up.

  "The files I brought with me need to be scattered inside the boot o
f Francis' car, so that one glance will show exactly what they are." I opened my eyes and found that Jerry was standing beside her. "If there's not enough paper, get more. I want the boot almost full to the brim. Any paper will do, just make it look full."

  Laurel walked off up the stairs and I glanced down at my watch. There wasn't long before I had to be back at the warehouse.

  "You got a minute?" Jerry asked.

  I nodded, and he took a seat next to me. "You really think this will work?"

  I nodded again.

  "You've got the boss' feathers ruffled. He's not happy that you haven't told him everything."

  "That's ok, he'll be even less happy when he hears it."

  Jerry laughed. "If anything happens to you." Jerry raised his hands. "Not saying it will mind, but if it does, Dani will be safe here. I think Laurel has taken a liking to her. And they won't turn her either. Not unless she asks to be. Francis doesn't like turning people without needing to."

  "So, what are you, Jerry? Because you're not a vampire."

  "Human," he said and noticed my surprise. "I was a Marine, left just before the whole shit with Iraq."

  "So how did you come to work for Francis?"

  "Just sort of fell into it. I needed a job, and he supplied one."

  "It's not exactly the sort of place you can bring a date though," I said.

  Jerry smiled. "I don't think that's ever going to be much of a problem."

  "You and Laurel, are..?"

  Jerry nodded.

  "Good job."

  He smiled and stood. "I wanted you to know that the girl will be safe."

  "Thank you."

  "Just don't get yourself killed," he said and shook my hand. "Francis would complain for years that you never paid him back for that gargoyle cure."