Crimes Against Magic (Hellequin Chronicles Book 1)

by Steve McHugh

  "Laurel," I said and she looked up at me, her blood soaked face unable to hide the anguish it showed. "He needs a hospital."

  She shook her head. "He won't make it," she said. "I've given him something for the pain, but he won't let me make him into a vampire."

  "I can't live forever," Jerry said weakly. "Not even for the woman I love."

  "I can not let you die," Laurel yelled at Jerry, who raised his good hand and placed it in her's, squeezing gently. "Please, let me..."

  Jerry shook his head, the movement small and barely noticeable, before looking up at me. "They took Dani," he said in between coughs. "We had no chance. I brought her into the office to hide, but that damn stone cunt ripped my arm off."

  "You should let Laurel turn you, Jerry," I said. "It's got to be better than dying like this."

  "What if the power drives me mad? What if I kill innocent people?" he looked back at the Laurel. "You say this won't happen, that you'll help me, but we both know there's no way of predicting how I'll react."

  "I'll make sure it doesn't happen," she pleaded before looking up at me. "Make him agree." Her words came out angry, hurt, but as much as she wanted Jerry to be with her, she would not go against his wishes. But that didn't stop her fighting him until he changed his mind.

  "Why don't you inject him with vampire blood?" I suggested.

  Laurel shook her head. "He's already had it once, a few years ago. Doing it again would heal his wounds, but drive him insane."

  I tried to think of a way I could possibly help. There had to be something I could do. "If you do this, if you become a vampire," I started. "I'll make sure you never hurt an innocent."

  "How?" he asked.

  "Because if you do, I'll kill you," I said. "Let her save your life."

  Jerry stared at me for a heartbeat. "I'll hold you to that."

  I stood. "Now let Laurel save your damn life." Laurel's relief was almost palpable.

  "Where's Francis?" I asked her.

  "Hospital room," she said and I left before she could start turning him, closing the office door behind me and running toward Francis.

  I found him sitting beside the obviously dead Robert. The mute man was missing part of his chest. "I'm sorry," I said.

  "He fought the gargoyle. But apparently even werewolves can't survive having their heart punched out of their chest."

  "They took Dani."

  Francis nodded. "We were out matched. They came during this morning when the vampires were sleeping. Hell, I was sleeping until it was too late. How's Jerry?"

  "Laurel's turning him now," I said and covered Robert's body with a sheet from the floor. "Where are your vampires?"

  Francis didn't bother to hide his shock. "He agreed? And the vampires are resting; it is still daylight out after all. I don’t need any more angry and tired vampires wanting revenge.”

  I told Francis what I'd said to Jerry.

  Francis raised an eyebrow. "Did you mean it?"

  I nodded. "Of course."

  "My vampires are dealing with the removal of bodies. We managed to kill a few of the attackers before they got away." There was an uncomfortable silence between us for what felt like an eternity. "You've changed, Nate," Francis said. "You never would have said that before. Whoever you used to be, it sounds like he was capable of a lot." He pointed to a small MP3 player on the floor. "They left you a message."

  I turned on the player and selected track one, turning up the loud speaker. The voice was tinny and occasionally crackled, but it was easy to make out the words. "We have Dani and Samantha. They are both safe, for the moment. However, Jenny is now surplus to requirements. You have twelve hours to arrive, unarmed, at Mars Warfare, and we let her go. Fail and she dies. I'll send you her body parts in the mail to prove that her death was neither quick nor pleasant. There will probably be film too... I like to document these things." Then the audio went dead.

  Neither of us said anything for an age and I started to walk away, lost in thought. Eventually Francis broke the silence, "Do you have a plan, Nate?" he called after me.

  I turned back to my friend. "I'm going to give myself up."

  *****

  A lot of shouting had followed my announcement, even more so than when Francis had discovered I was going to blow up his car. I tried to explain that giving myself up was the only way to get my memories back and get Dani, Jenny and Samantha to safety, but Francis hadn't wanted to listen.

  I'd thought about mentioning that the Fates had told me what would happen if I didn't go, but that wouldn't have made a lick of difference. To be honest I probably still would have done it even without the Fate's input. Hopefully after getting my history back I'd be able to figure a way out of the mess I was about to throw myself into. Either that or I was going to get myself killed for nothing. But I had nothing left to try. They had Samantha, Jenny and now Dani, something the mystery woman on the phone had gone to great lengths to ensure didn't happen.

  Francis insisted I take a weapon, but that wouldn't do me any good- I was, after all, trying to give myself up peacefully. Besides, the message had been explicit in the no weapons rule, and after my use of Jerry the last time, I knew that they'd be expecting me to do something.

  So, I found myself standing before the ominous Mars Warfare building in Canary Wharf, trying to get my breathing under control. I was scared. I had no idea what was going to happen to me, but I was pretty certain it wasn't going to be fun. More than that, I was scared that I would lose who I was. I had no idea if my old personality and the one I'd had since I woke up on a cold warehouse floor were even remotely similar.

  I took one last deep breath and walked through the rotating front entrance and into the building. The armed guards glanced over, but didn't recognise me, so I continued uninterrupted to the large reception area, where a young woman sat behind her desk. She wore a black headset and was hastily talking to someone, as she typed on the keyboard in front of her.

  "My name's-" I started.

  The woman placed her hand over the headset's mouthpiece. "I'm busy here, please wait for a minute."

  Well that was unexpected. And I hadn't come all the way here to be told to wait. Instead I walked over to a set of six identical chairs arranged near one of the doors, where two men sat talking in hushed tones. I nodded to one of them, picked up a chair and, with a helping hand from some air magic, threw it through the nearest window.

  The sound it made was deafening as glass exploded outward, but there wasn't a single noise from anyone around me. Utter silence descended, probably only for a few heartbeats, but it felt much longer. "My name is Nathan Garrett," I said loudly. "Tell your boss I'm here." I took another chair and sat, as the armed guards all rushed toward me, guns out ready to use what they deemed as necessary force.

  No one touched me, there was no violent struggle, they just stood, glaring and pointing semi-automatic weapons in my general direction as the receptionist made a dozen phone calls to let people know I was here.

  The two men who'd been sitting near the now broken window, had seen the writing on the wall and found a reason why they shouldn't be anywhere near me.

  I was quite impressed with how soon someone came to get me. I'd expected Achilles, or maybe even the boss himself, but it was a woman of about thirty years of age. She was athletically built with straight, shoulder length dark hair. A small scar sat on her left cheek, and another on her chin. She wore no jewellery that I could see, and the knuckles on one hand had been broken at some point in her life. A fighter's injury, and combined with the scars it meant she was the company's security, assassin, or mindless muscle.

  "Come this way, please," she said, gesturing back to the lifts.

  I immediately recognised the voice as the mystery woman from the phone calls. "Are you okay?" I asked once we were alone in the non-descript lift.

  "Mister Garrett, I am here to escort you to my lord, not to make conversation." She opened a panel beside the door and placed a key inside a small hole, t
urning it once. This opened a second panel with the higher floors’ numbers on it.

  "That would have come in handy when I broke into the place," I said, but received no reply and we rode the rest of the journey in silence. I found the small security camera in the corner of the lift, and it took all of my restraint not to flip it off.

  Once at our destination, we stepped out of the lift and I glanced out the windows next to me. The orange numbers beside the lift doors confirmed that we were thirty-eight floors up. Anyone with an office this high up must have done something good. Or, as was more likely, something really bad.

  The mystery woman led me down more corridors and through a set of double doors. I was amazed at the lack of security. We stopped outside a door with a numeric keypad, next to card reader. My escort swiped her card and entered the code, before opening the door and leading me inside.

  Without a word, she stood still as the door clicked closed behind us and a hiss of air sounded above us. "What's happening?" I asked.

  "Decontamination. We're going into a lab." She said nothing more as the hissing stopped and the door in front unlocked, allowing her to push it open.

  The sounds that escaped from the room beyond were, compared to the silence a moment ago, immense. There were a dozen people inside, all wearing white suits and latex gloves. A pair, a man and woman, were hunched over a table at the far end, looking through a microscope and jotting things into a book. Others were mixing materials together and chatting amongst themselves.

  We walked through without stopping, and into another room. This one contained more tables and chairs, but was empty of people and smelled of disinfectant. A large window sat behind the table, allowing people to watch what was going on without having to go through the rigmarole of the decontamination process. The glass was tinted slightly, but I knew that people were inside watching me.

  "Stay here," the woman said and vanished through the only door.

  I took the time to wander around the room, opening the many drawers and cupboards, but found nothing of interest. There was a hissing noise again, coming from behind the cupboards. It grew louder and I started to feel dizzy, my vision turning dark. I rushed to the door, but it was locked and a stream of fire thrown at the window did no damage. I fought whatever drugs were being pumped into the room for as long as possible, but eventually my body succumbed and the darkness took me.

  Chapter 35

  1414, France.

  Bodies lay at my feet as we walked through the largest building of the prison compound, mostly more French soldiers who Mordred had decreed were expendable. The walls were splattered with their blood. It didn't look like they'd fought back against their attackers. The soldiers hadn't expected to be betrayed.

  Thomas, Ivy and I made our way past the carnage to a large hall in the centre of the building. At one time it had probably been awash with people, but the only reminder that it had ever been in use were the four banners that had been hung from the ceiling. The French flag hung on either side of the huge double doors, which were the entrance to the room. At the far end, sat an orange flag with the picture of an ancient Greek warrior, holding a large spear painted black. I'd never seen it before and certainly had no idea who might use it.

  I ignored the décor and waited as Ivy and Thomas followed me into the hall. Thomas limped slightly on his right leg. It had taken a hard blow when the nightmare had hit him and broken it badly. He was lucky werewolves heal fast. In the meantime, Ivy walked beside the large werewolf allowing him to put less weight on his injury.

  "Where do these doors lead?" I asked Ivy.

  She looked around us, glancing back and forth from the two doors at opposite sides of the room. "The right leads up to the cells, the left to the experiment area. There's a corridor behind this room that goes between the two."

  "Right, you two go up to the prisoners, free anyone you find. I'm going to the experiment room. Mordred will want to remove evidence of what they've done, hopefully he's not had time to finish and escape."

  Thomas grunted and set off toward the door with long, slow strides, but Ivy stayed behind, staring at me. "You promise you'll come back," she said.

  "I'll finish this with Mordred and come back for you. Just keep Thomas out of trouble."

  Ivy shook her head. "I meant that if anything happens, you'll come find me."

  I looked down into the blue eyes of the girl who stood before me. They were filled with fear and concern. And a little hope. "No matter what happens, I will come find you."

  Ivy maintained eye contact and then nodded once before running off to join Thomas. I watched them walk through the door together, an injured werewolf and a terrified girl. Two people I liked who'd had their lives destroyed by Mordred and his companions. One thing was certain—Mordred was not going to find me in a good mood.

  I ran to the door, throwing it open and continuing my pace as I raced down one long, anonymous corridor. There were no windows or doors, the only decoration appeared to be the occasional smear of blood against the stone walls.

  The corridor got steeper as I reached the end, where a huge iron door sat. I grabbed the looped metal handle and pulled it up with a click, before pushing the door open. The room beyond was bigger than the hall upstairs had been, in fact it was probably double the size. Cages, with runes carved into the metal, sat on one side of the room against the cold, thick walls. Apart from being made of Iron instead of Silver, the cages were identical to the one in Soissons where Mordred had kept Ivy, although these now contained only a collection of books and papers, which were furiously ablaze.

  The rest of the room contained training equipment, dummies, sand bags and thick wooden bull's-eyes. I realised that it wasn't just somewhere people were experimented on, it was where they trained.

  At the far end of the room was another door, which was ajar. I quietly made my way toward it, getting almost half way before Mordred stepped into my path. His eyes widened in shock for a split second, before hardening like glass. "I assumed the nightmare would have finished you off."

  "Then you're an idiot," I said. "Although I plan on making sure you don't make another mistake like it."

  "Are you going to kill me, Nathan?" he mocked. "You've been trying for so long, I wonder if you've actually got it in you." He walked in a large arc around me, never dropping his gaze. He knew I only needed one chance, and he was too good to give it to me willingly. "Morgan still talks about you."

  "Shut up," I seethed.

  "No, she does. She wonders if you'll ever forgive her. A thousand years and she still won't let it go."

  "She betrayed me."

  "Betrayal?" Mordred snapped. "You dare talk to me about betrayal. Did Merlin betray you? Did he try to have you killed and to destroy everything you cared about? So I destroyed the thing that he cared for the most—his beautiful Arthur. I got Arthur to go to that little cabin and find you and Morgan in bed. The only reason she interjected herself in the fight was to save you."

  I had no idea what Mordred was talking about. The words came out before I could stop myself, "Save me?"

  "Does that twist inside you, knowing that Morgan saved your life that day?"

  I shook my head. "You're lying. It's what you do best."

  "Actually, killing people is what I do best," Mordred said. "Lying is sort of a... hobby. But right now I'm telling you the truth."

  Mordred's speech allowed him to circle around me. "I'll give her your best," he said and sprinted across the room and through the open door.

  It took only a moment to realise what his plan had been and give chase, remaining only a fraction of distance behind him as he reached the great hall. He didn't even stop to open the door, just used his magic to blast it into tiny shards, which he gathered with more magic and threw at me a giant ball of deadly sharp pieces of wood and iron. It forced me to draw a shield of dense air to stop the thousands of projectiles from slamming into me. Instead they bounced off, striking the surrounding stone and imbedding themselves dee
ply into the castle walls.

  As the final shard vanished from view, I forced the air out in front of me like a powerful ram. It hit Mordred's back, throwing him through the air. He crashed down onto the throne in the centre of the hall, pieces of wood scattering all around him. One flick of my hands and the wood burst into flame, causing Mordred to scramble away as the fire threatened to engulf him.

  "Not a bad attempt considering," he said once back to his feet.

  He opened his mouth to say something else, but another wall of air slammed into him, driving him back against the side of the hall with viscous speed.

  Mordred grinned. Even with the distance between us, I could see his eyes turn black, as if someone had poured tar into them. He flicked his hands and the wall of air holding him in place separated in two, crashing into the stone behind him as he dropped silently to the floor.

  "Elemental magic that weak won't kill me, Nathan." Blood magic glyphs, black and terrible, glowed as they crossed his palms and up his naked forearms, mixing with white air glyphs. "You need to use something with a little more power." He suddenly raised his arms, palms toward me and flicked his fingers.

  The column of air was immense and slammed into me like a runaway horse. I raised my arms to protect myself, casting another sphere of air around me as the main door exploded behind me. This sphere needed much more powerful magic than the one I'd used to deflect the door shards. The noise in the hall was deafening and continued to echo as the black glyphs on my palms faded.

  "I thought you'd forsaken blood magic," Mordred said with a chuckle.

  "Whatever works," I said through gritted teeth.

  Mordred smiled. "This will be fun." He charged toward me, his right arm forming a dark blade, which arched up, aiming for my throat.

  I blocked the blood sword with a hastily created guard of air on my forearm, but the vibration from the blow caused me to lose my footing and I staggered back. Mordred took the opportunity to stab at my eyes and I had to roll aside.