Crimes Against Magic (Hellequin Chronicles Book 1)

by Steve McHugh

  "Scared, Mordred," I taunted.

  "Fuck you," he snapped, but his eyes remained on his subordinate.

  "You're not even going to get the information yourself." I tutted. "I thought I meant something to you, I thought I was special."

  Mordred stalked toward me until his face was an inch from mine. "My psychic over there is going to tear everything I need from your brain and then I'm going to fucking kill you."

  I stared passed my old nemesis, toward Surfer guy, infuriating him even more. He'd started scratching his arm, raising his lab-coat to show off the unmistakable swirl of a blood magic glyph. "You cursed him."

  "Good help is hard to find," Mordred said. "If he betrays me, he dies. It's a nice little curse I've perfected over the years. I'd love to show you, but it has to be done willingly. Shame really, I think that would have been fun."

  "My lord, how long will it be before those marks vanish?" Surfer guy asked, his voice breaking slightly from nerves.

  "It depends on just how intertwined these are with what was done to Nate all those centuries ago, and how much energy Jenny managed to expel. They could all vanish now, or take hundreds of years. Blood magic curses aren't exactly a science."

  Mordred glared at me once again. "You've caused me no end of trouble in the past few hundred years. France, Holland, Istanbul, everywhere I go, you're right behind me, fucking up my plans as best as possible. I imagine screaming will be involved during your last few hours on earth. I might record it to play back on my iPod when I get bored. We'll use what information we drag out of you to make me more powerful."

  The past ten years had done little for Mordred's sanity. "In all of your plotting and planning, you forgot something," I said.

  "And what would that be?"

  "Two things, actually. Firstly, you should have killed me when you had a chance. That was really stupid."

  Mordred laughed. "And secondly?"

  "Secondly, you should have remembered. Never piss off a sorcerer." Glyphs blared across my body, brilliant whites and oranges mixing as the table became engulfed in flame. In the blink of an eye the wood weakened to the point that I launched myself from it, the manacles still attached to my hands and feet as I landed a few feet away from a sprinting Mordred.

  I looked around the room at the remaining scientists, Mordred had bolted through the door, taking Dani's mum, and locking it behind him, leaving five people in a room with me – a very angry and deadly sorcerer. And then the screams began.

  *****

  The first scientist tried to attack me with a scalpel. A stream of molten hot fire the size of my finger, hit him in the throat.

  The female scientist who had taken my blood had started screaming almost immediately, intensifying as I killed two more of her colleagues who hadn't learned from their dead workmate and had tried the exact same attack with their scalpels. Two razor sharp blades of air appeared at the end of each of my hands. I cut through my attackers, drenching the surrounding floor and wall in blood. Three down, killed in a matter of seconds, two to go.

  I turned to the still screaming woman. "Will you please shut up?" My words had an effect as her screams transformed into a soft whimpering. "Now, before anymore of you have to die, would anyone like to tell me where I can find the keys for these things?" I raised the manacles. I could have used magic to remove them, but as they were silver, the amount it would take would have left me weak immediately afterwards.

  Surfer guy fumbled in his pockets and tossed me the key, which I caught as it sailed over my head. The psychic ran at me, his palms toward me readying an attack, but I had plenty of time to direct a blast of air in his direction. It slammed into his chest, driving the air from him as he collapsed to the floor with a gasp.

  I unlocked the manacles from my wrists, dropping them to the floor with a satisfying bang, followed by the ones on my feet. The manacles were heavy and uncomfortable, I was grateful to have been able to remove them.

  The scientist who'd taken my blood huddled in the nearest corner like a frightened rabbit. But before I asked her anything, Surfer guy got back to his feet, holding one hand against his chest and breathing heavily. "You've probably got a few broken ribs," I said. "Maybe a punctured lung." As if on cue, he started coughing up blood.

  "Last chance," I said.

  He took a step toward me and I used a strong gust of wind to pick up one of the scalpels, and flung it at Surfer guy. He didn't notice it until it was too late, and then he fell to the floor. A thin trickle of blood fell between his eyes after the razor sharp blade pieced his brain. Only the tip of the handle remained visible. "They're silver," I said to the remaining scientist, who nodded profusely.

  "My lord wanted to kill you slowly. So he demanded we use silver on you."

  I knelt in front of her. "His name is Mordred." I was utterly fed up of his people considering him better than he was. "And you have two choices. Help me, or die."

  "What do you need?" she asked without pause.

  "What's the best way out of here? The door or the window?"

  "The air compression chamber outside will be locked," she said. "There's no way through it unless you rip the door apart. And that will take hours, it's silver laced."

  "So, the window then," I said glancing at the large glass portal.

  "That window is a few inches thick. You'd need a bullet to get through it."

  "Are you saying we're trapped in here?"

  She nodded. "Are you going to kill me?" her voice was small.

  "Why would I do that? Are you going to try to kill me?"

  She shook her head.

  "Then you're safe," I smiled. "I do have one question. How many people did you kill here?"

  Her eyes darted around the room, searching for an escape that was unlikely to come. "I didn't kill anyone. I just did the work on their bodies."

  I kept smiling. "How. Many?"

  "A few dozen. But they were already dead," she pleaded. "I didn't kill anyone. I just did my job."

  "So did the Nazis," I said, and with a wave of my hands, I removed all of the oxygen from her lungs. Her eyes bulged in panic and she started to move, but within seconds she was unconscious on the floor. I had no intention of killing her, but that didn't mean I had to help her either.

  I made my way to the viewing window and stared into the darkness beyond. People would have been running around trying to lock the building down—having a pissed off sixteen-hundred-year-old sorcerer wake up and kill a bunch of workers; tended to cause people to panic. That meant only the most ardent of employees would have stayed behind, with a few inches of glass to separate them from me.

  I concentrated, forcing as much heat as possible out of my glyph-covered hands and into the glass. The unconscious scientist had been right, the glass was thick, and it took a massive amount of force to melt all the way through to the other side. But once the initial hole had formed, the rest of the glass gave way like it was made of paper, until the hole was large enough for me to climb through.

  As I'd guessed, the room beyond, although dark and uninviting, was empty. It contained only chairs and tables, used while viewing whatever sick and twisted experiments Mordred's employees carried out at his request.

  I was about to open the door and leave the room, when a noise from behind it caused me to pause. After a few seconds of silence, and no repeat noise, I wondered if I was going mad. I'd just had a millennium and a half of memories dumped in my head, and I still felt a little groggy from it. Maybe I was hearing things, but just as I'd pushed the thought aside, I heard something else.

  I placed my hand against the door and used my air magic to create sonar of whatever was outside the room. I got three pings. Three people waited for me to come through the door, one directly behind the door and two more slightly down the corridor. A small smile creaked across my lips. If they were waiting for me, it would be rude not to oblige them.

  The heavy door exploded outward in a tornado of howling wind. It hurtled into the armed gu
ard who happened to be behind it, taking him off his feet and crashing into the nearest wall.

  The other two guards were in shock. Their guns were still in holsters against their hips as they held electric batons, a bit like a cattle-prod, to use as weapons. However, unlike a cattle-prod, everything beyond the handle is used to deliver a massive shock, easily the equivalent of a taser.

  I darted for the closest guard, avoiding the humming baton as it swung toward me and removed his revolver from its holster. I flicked the safety off and kept moving, placing a round between the second guard's eyes and putting distance between myself and another swing from the first guard's baton. Panic appeared in the guard's eyes and he flung the baton at me. It was easily avoided and countered with another bullet. This one caught him just above the top of his Kevlar vest, ripping into his neck. He dropped to his knees, and a horrible bubbling sound left the wound as he died.

  I picked up the thrown baton and went to check on the first guard who'd been crushed by the flying door. It didn't take long to figure out he was dead, the massive piece of wood sticking out of his chest was a giveaway. I left the body alone and took a look at the baton. I'd not seen one in years, but remembered that they hurt like a bitch. I touched the switch on the handle and the baton hummed to life, the small Tesla coil it contained made the baton turn slightly blue. I switched it off and tossed it to the floor. I didn't like using them, and the last time I'd heard about them they'd had some teething problems.

  The one thing their use told me, though, was that Mordred wanted me alive. Otherwise, the guards would have opened fire and been done with it. That gave me the advantage, because I certainly wasn't about to show his guards the same level of stupidity.

  No one else bothered me as I walked down the corridor, which surprised me as I'd expected a little resistance. I turned a corner toward the lifts and found the mystery lady from the phone standing in front of them. She held a katana in her hands, the tip pointing toward the floor in a casual way. The second she saw me, the sword was lifted and pointed directly at me. "This is where I have to stop you," she said.

  I didn't move. "Do you have a name? Your real name, I mean?"

  "Anne," she said. "My real name is Anne."

  "So, Anne, I assume your daughters were taken from you long ago."

  "Ten years," she said with more than a touch of anger and sadness. "Both have forgotten about me. But they are my daughters, and I will not let them come to harm."

  "Mordred threatened to kill them if you didn't go back to working for him?"

  She nodded.

  "You really want to fight me? You do know what I used to do for a living, right?"

  "You're a spy, assassin, basically whatever was needed. I know I can't beat you."

  "I assumed Mordred would want to keep you out of harm's way."

  "He's more concerned about saving his own skin." Her words were loaded with hate. "If I kill you, then he wins. If not, then he still gets away to safety. But if I don't try, he will kill my daughters."

  "Did you say good-bye to them?"

  A single tear fell from Anne's eye, but she didn't even flinch to wipe it away. "I've not seen them since they were brought here."

  "I'll make you a deal then. You go say good-bye to your kids. And I'll wait here. Then you can come back and die."

  Her eyes grew cold. "I'll put up more of a fight than you can imagine."

  "No doubt," I said nonchalantly. "But I can see half a dozen weaknesses in your stance. Three of which would permit me to move through your attack and strike with impunity. You'll be dead within...thirty seconds."

  Anne looked shocked, and more than a little scared. "You can't know that."

  "I can," I assured her. "Thirty seconds from your first attack, you'll be dead. How old are you?"

  "A hundred and forty," she said.

  "But you're only a psychic, yes? So you're still basically fighting at a human efficiency. Peak human, no doubt, but still human." I took a step toward her. "I'm not. I fight at a level no human can hope to match. I'm better than any human fighter you've ever met. Thirty seconds and you die. Or you leave and go try to save your daughters. Maybe you live, maybe you die, but at least your last act would be to do something for those you love."

  "Jenny thought you were worth saving."

  "I will not forget what she did for me. Nor will I allow her death to be wasted." I pushed anger from my voice. I wanted to save that rage and hatred at what had been done to Jenny, for those responsible. I wanted it intact until I needed it. "And I will kill everyone involved. Including you, if you push me. Now decide. Stay and die a meaningless death, or for the first time do something with your life."

  Anne held my stare, and a moment later lowered her sword. "Mordred will be heading to the roof to use his helicopter. Between there and here are maybe twenty men and Achilles. My daughters are two floors down. If I can't get them to safety, and if you survive, you must help them."

  "I give you my word," I said. "Nothing on earth will keep me from them."

  Anne pressed the lift call button before retrieving a card from her pocket and passing it to me. "This will get you access to the stairwell. They won't be expecting that."

  I took the card and looked around. "Where's the stairwell?"

  Anne pointed to a nearby door. "Go through there. It's designed to look like an office from the outside. But the stairs will take you where you need to go."

  I took hold of the card but Anne refused to let go of her end. "You kill Achilles and Mordred, if you don't my daughters will always be in danger."

  I nodded. Anne released the card and stepped into the open lift. "I'll hold you to your word. If you've lied, and I live through this, we'll be seeing each other again."

  I smiled. "I'd expect nothing less," I said before the lift doors closed.

  Chapter 38

  Anne hadn't been wrong about Mordred's men not expecting me to take the stairs. No one was waiting outside the door at the top of the stairs, not even a lone guard. The corridor was filled with plotted plants and office doors, the contents hidden by blind covered windows. There was no natural sunlight—halogen lamps did the work of nature. The whole place felt sterile and claustrophobic.

  "Hello," I shouted, hoping that at least someone might come investigate. My hope was answered when four guards appeared at the end of the corridor fifty feet away, each holding a baton. "Where's Mordred?" I asked.

  One of them radioed to his friends whilst the other three rushed me.

  A two foot long blade of blazing fire extended from my hand, cleaving through the first guard's neck as soon as he reached striking distance. I darted under the arterial spray and caught the second guard in the chest. The blade sliced through the bulletproof vest as if it wasn't there, killing him just as fast as his now dead friend. The blade vanished as the third guard reached me, and I moved the dead guard's body to take the impact of the massive electric shock that the baton delivered. The dead guard danced slightly as I shoved him aside and slammed the remade blade of fire into my would-be-attacker's throat.

  The fourth guard had finished on the radio and was obviously more intelligent than the first three combined as he stood back and watched with a mixture of shock and terror.

  "Where's Mordred?" I asked as my blade vanished from my arm once more.

  He opened his mouth but nothing came out. He had the fear of a man who had just seen his three armed friends decimated in a matter of seconds, and who realised that he could end up the exact same way. I sighed and walked toward him, batting the baton aside and slapping him across the face, hard enough to knock him to his knees with a split lip. "Mordred," I said again. "Where is he?"

  "That's not your concern," said a voice from the end of the corridor, which got my immediate attention. "You won't get to see him."

  "Achilles," I said, and watched the frightened guard run over to the gargoyle. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't a warm welcome. The gargoyle grabbed the young guard and snapped his ne
ck, throwing him aside like he was nothing. "I've had enough of incompetent guards. Mordred only hires humans because they're cheap, and he knows they won't try to take his power. But I say he could do better."

  I walked backwards; down the corridor, and Achilles stalked toward me, never allowing the distance to grow between us. He was followed by a dozen guards, all of whom appeared rather pleased with themselves. Not one of them gave their dead comrades’ bodies so much as a glance. It was as if they weren't even there. In some cases the new guards actually stepped onto their bodies as they walked toward me. It was one of the creepiest things I'd witnessed in a long time.

  "Since when has a gargoyle needed a cheerleading squad?"

  Achilles glanced behind him. "Who am I to turn away people who want to see me work?" The men jeered and howled with laughter and menace, attempting to put me off. In the confined space of the corridor, it made more sound than I'd have thought possible with such a small group.

  "The real Achilles was the greatest warrior who ever lived, and you choose that name? Think pretty highly of yourself, don't you?"

  Achilles smiled. "I am the greatest warrior who has ever lived. No one can beat me."

  I chuckled and shook my head. "You're not fit to use Achilles' name, hell you're not fit to be mentioned in the same breath as him." Achilles' face contorted with rage, so I continued. "You're a pale imitation of him. I've never even met the original, he died well before my time, but I still know he'd be ashamed to discover that his name was being used by a jumped up little prick who thinks being able to bully and murder people entitles him to use the name of the world's greatest warrior. You're not the world's greatest anything. You're just a joke."

  Achilles roared. None of his cheer squad made a sound. I was willing to bet that any noise they made might mean Achilles' rage would be turned on them. "I have never lost in battle!" he shouted.