Knightmare: Nate Temple Series Book 12

by Shayne Silvers

  His tail abruptly shot up, bushing out like he’d been zapped, and I had about a millisecond’s warning before he spun and tackled me to the ground.

  I grunted, looking up to see Ruin hovering over me. “That’s strange,” he said, stretching out a misty limb to withdraw an inky marble from his center mass.

  “Bullet,” Talon snarled, crouching over me protectively. Everyone began to make threatening sounds pursuant to their flavor of monster.

  I flung up a long, curved shield in the direction Talon had been staring, making it large enough to cover us all as I climbed to my feet. I peered closer to see what Ruin held. Because it didn’t look like any bullet I’d ever seen.

  In fact…it looked like a black marble.

  I cursed in recognition. It was a prototype from Grimm Tech, even sporting the logo for my company on the side.

  “It’s worse than a bullet,” I growled. “We’re leaving. Now.”

  I scooped up the marble on a thread of air, careful not to apply any pressure or drop it. Then I ripped open a Gateway and stepped into the Sanctorum, not even bothering to wait for my friends—although they hopped through right after me, looking angry.

  “I will try to find them, Nate,” Ruin told me from the other side of the Gateway, sounding ashamed.

  I waved a hand absently. “Not your fault, Ruin. It was a cowardly attempt, and I bet they’re already long gone. But it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out, like Alex suggested.”

  Seeing that everyone had made it through, I let the Gateway wink shut and began pacing back and forth in the Sanctorum.

  “What is it, Nate?” Alex asked, eyeing the floating marble.

  Instead of answering, I turned to Grimm. “Go back to the Armory and guard the door.” I flung open a Gateway to send him straight there since he didn’t have hands to open his own doors. He nodded, hopping through.

  I let it wink shut, feeling marginally better. I had no reason to think anyone could get inside the Armory, let alone that they could even make it that far through Chateau Falco, but I knew it made Gunnar less twitchy to give Ashley another guard.

  This black marble had changed things.

  I stormed over to the old desk and ripped a piece of paper off the pad of customized stationary. Master Nathin Laurent Temple and my family crest stretched across the top. My parents had loved their strange, pointless spelling of my name, which was why I’d chosen to go by Nate instead.

  I patted my pockets and let out a curse. Of course I didn’t have a phone on me. There were no towers in Fae. I reached into the drawers and pulled out a cheap burner I had stashed there for an emergency. Luckily, it turned on when I hit the power button. I tapped through the settings, found the burner’s phone number, and scribbled it down on the piece of paper. Then I added the words CALL ME! and underlined them.

  Then I stepped back until I found a wide-open space devoid of rugs or furniture, and dropped the paper on the ground. “Step back,” I told everyone, because they’d followed me, trying to figure out what I was doing.

  They obeyed and I took a few additional steps back. Then I took a few more, just to be safe.

  I lobbed the black marble at the paper and flung up a shield in case I had been wrong. The marble struck the marble floor and shattered in a puff of black smoke that almost instantly sucked back in on itself.

  When it was gone, so was the paper.

  “What the fuck?” Gunnar snarled. I turned to see he had shifted back and was fidgeting with the final button of a pair of spare jeans he must have grabbed from the nearby dresser. I kept it stocked for just that reason—shifters were hard on wardrobe budgets.

  Now, two dudes without shirts or shoes were in the house, and he made it look so much cooler. His love handles had love handles.

  I stared down at the burner phone, scowling impatiently.

  It rang, and I had to force myself to wait for the second ring so as not to appear desperate. I flipped it open. “You missed,” I said, by way of greeting. “Do you work for me?” I demanded, gritting my teeth. Because that black marble had never been released to the production team. I had quickly seen the potential risks for misuse.

  Hit someone with that glass ball and you could send them wherever you wanted. It Shadow Walked the target without their consent.

  My Tiny Balls, for the most part, at least gave the person a choice. When they broke, they opened a Gateway and you could choose to step through or not.

  Of course, they could also be used for harm—like a grenade. Toss them directly at someone and the resulting Gateway might just rip them in half.

  But these black marbles—Abductors, as I had called them—could be used to bring someone directly into a trap. A cage, or any other kind of supernatural prison cell—the ultimate kidnapping tool.

  The voice on the other end spoke calmly and rationally, and I found my anger dissipating, replaced by suspicion and doubt.

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  Their answer made me smirk.

  “Thanks for the tip, I guess. I’ll wait to see how it all plays out.”

  I hung up the phone, staring down at it thoughtfully. Truth or lie?

  “You going to tell us what the hell is going on?” Gunnar repeated.

  I thought about it. “I think I have a guardian angel. Or an overly honest abductor,” I admitted. I turned to Alex. “I think that was the assassin you warned me about, but she has a different story to tell.”

  “Which is?” he asked warily.

  I thought about it and then waved a hand dismissively. “These things happen. It’s nothing to get worked up about.”

  Chapter 29

  When it became abundantly clear that I was not going to elaborate on my phone call with my mysterious, would-be abductor, Alex and I traded brief stories, giving each other an update on everything we’d run into in the last few hours.

  Alex looked exhausted, but acted just as anxious as I felt, refusing to sit down for more than two minutes, subconsciously fondling the dreamcatchers hanging from his hip. The Fae dreamcatcher still showed seven Knightmares congregating in one location.

  Suspiciously close to Queen Summer’s palace, just like the Knightmare had told Alex when they were fighting outside.

  So we caught up very quickly, hitting just the highlights.

  Talon and Gunnar had listened in silence with grim, brooding faces.

  Talon just wanted to go back to Fae and find a way to kill Mordred.

  Gunnar just wanted to go kill Thor before his bond with Geri and Freki failed him.

  Alex, although relieved to hear we had solved the mystery of the third dead Knight, hadn’t been pleased to hear about Odin’s ravens eating him. And he hadn’t known of any reason for Mordred to send a Knight to Niflheim in the first place. We did find out that the Knight had been Sir Gaheris—one of King Arthur’s nephews.

  I’d heard his name before, but that was about it.

  In similar fashion, I hadn’t been pleased to learn that the Knightmares who had come to St. Louis had been toying with us, leading Alex and Talon all over town on a wild goose chase. The only logical explanation I could come up with was that Mordred had indeed sent them here as a distraction, so he could set up whatever he was planning outside Summer’s castle. Or maybe because he had needed Alex and Talon out of Fae for a little while—reasons unknown, but probably not good.

  Alex sat down with a huff, kicking his feet up as he processed my story. He looked exhausted. I didn’t point out that he had sat down in his rightful chair, because he didn’t seem to notice.

  King Arthur’s old seat.

  “At least Mordred isn’t holed up in Camelot any longer,” Alex grunted. “If his Knightmares’ location is any indication.”

  I grunted. “Might be a trap.”

  Alex nodded. “If he’s in Camelot, we’ll have to go there by foot.” I arched an eyebrow, frowning. “He’s placed wards surrounding Camelot so that he can immediately pinpoint any sudden arriv
als. Like you, would be my guess. Doesn’t want you sending an army right onto his front steps.”

  I cursed under my breath, realizing Shadow Walking and Gateways were now out of the question.

  Mordred had set up alarm bells.

  Talon absently batted a plastic cup off the table, his tail twitching. It landed on the rug beneath his chair.

  Gunnar glanced down with a frown. Then he picked it up and set it back on the table, murmuring something to Talon, who was fixated on the armor and didn’t seem to notice Gunnar’s help or that he’d even spoken.

  Gunnar shrugged, leaning back in his chair.

  A few seconds later, Talon swiped the cup back off the table, not even seeming aware that he was doing it. Gunnar frowned at him, and then bent back down to pick it up again.

  I burst out laughing. Cats were dicks, always knocking crap off shelves and tables for no reason at all. “Well played, Talon.”

  He frowned over at me, blinking several times as if he’d been dozing. Then he noticed the cup back on the table and narrowed his eyes. “I do not like it there.”

  Gunnar frowned at the cup as if it were a philosophical question, not following along. I laughed harder. Especially since neither understood.

  Cats and dogs, man. Cats and dogs.

  Alex was preoccupied, studying the two full suits of armor laid out on the floor a few paces away. The breastplate, helmet, and gauntlets Gunnar had borrowed from Grimm Tech sat beside them, an incomplete set.

  Alex absently scratched at his beard, a slight frown on his face.

  Time for me to be the asshole.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, Alex, but you need to hunt them down,” I said, gently but firmly. “They are too dangerous. It could be a trap, but if they’re laying siege to the Summer Queen…”

  Alex nodded grimly. “The two of us against seven,” he mused, sighing tiredly. He didn’t complain. He didn’t need to.

  The odds sucked. And the only thing I could do to help balance those odds was to give Thor a Viking funeral. With him gone, Ashley would no longer need protection. I could get Drake and Cowan to join me in Fae. I could reach out to my contacts—Raego, Achilles, the Minotaur, and everyone else who had fled St. Louis when Thor came to town—and ask for their help. To pay me back for ridding them of the god who had chased them from their homes. Gunnar could even get his werewolf pack back. I could bring them all to Fae. An army of my own.

  Except…that would take time. A lot of it. And with the dreamcatcher letting us know that Mordred’s Knights were already locked onto the Summer Queen, we didn’t have any time.

  I frowned at another bleak thought.

  None of those allies had the ability to dent or even scratch a Knight’s armor. They could go up against anyone else Mordred had in his army, but the real problem was the Knightmares.

  And the only way to defeat them without bloodshed was to kill Mordred—who was likely surrounded by said Knightmares.

  Those poor bastards who had been bonded against their will, wanting nothing more than to be good, just, noble men. And they’d been corrupted by a tyrant king—a man dead set on tarnishing his father’s name because his daddy hadn’t loved him enough, or something just as petty.

  Alex didn’t want to kill the Knights. He wanted to save them. He would do what was necessary, but he had made it abundantly clear that he didn’t like it. Because he saw what they had once been, not what they had become—

  I blinked, Alex’s misguided faith giving me an idea.

  Then I slowly turned to glance at the armor. Without a word, I stood from my chair, made my way over to the suits of armor, and knelt down between them. I set my hand on one of them, feeling it out with my Fae magic. The armor came from Fae, I thought to myself. Avalon was supposedly a realm within Fae—although I’d never seen it.

  And Merlin had been a wizard.

  Technically, I had the same qualifications—on paper, at least. I knew how to use both magics—Fae and wizard. I closed my eyes, focusing on that strange Fae magic, and I delved deep into the set of armor—just like I would any element of Fae. Because everything had a soul, of sorts, in Fae. Rocks, sticks, vines, stars, you name it.

  So I reached deep and introduced myself to the oldest part of the armor, focusing on its origin, its creation—the set of armor as a whole, not just one individual piece.

  What it had once been, just like how Alex chose to see the Knights.

  And I almost had a heart attack when it answered back in a gruff, no-nonsense hum. Licking my lips, I internally bantered back and forth, asking how it had been formed and why, who had made it…

  Basically, I asked it to tell me its life story.

  And it obliged. Hell, it was overjoyed to talk about the glory days. I even had to redirect it to focus on specifics, because this armor was a talker. Then again, it had been locked away inside Stonehenge—like all the others—for the past few centuries or longer.

  The strangest part of all was that Fae conversations like this happened almost instantaneously. Because the item didn’t answer individual questions. I simply thought at it, and it thought right back.

  So the whole thing took maybe a minute or two. Three, tops.

  I opened my eyes, blinking. “Huh. They’re parasites.”

  Chapter 30

  Alex glared at me. “They are men, Nate. Good men—”

  I waved a hand, placating him. “No. Sorry. That came out wrong. Give me a second,” I said, scratching my head as I tried to process what I’d learned, and how I might translate it for Alex in a way he could understand. “Okay. The armor. It’s…symbiotic. That’s why Mordred cursed it. The armor works hand-in-hand with the man, influencing him.”

  “Why didn’t the gauntlets turn me into an evil asshole, then?” Gunnar asked, stroking his beard.

  I shook my head. “You’re thinking of it as just a gauntlet. If I cut off your hand and gave it to Ashley, would she love that hand as much as she loves you? Would it make her laugh? Tell her jokes?” I said, waving a hand to indicate a billion other examples. “The hand is just a piece of you. All those pieces of you formed together are what she loves. The whole package—and yes, insert adolescent joke,” I added, before anyone could derail me. “The armor is like that. It’s stronger as a complete unit—like a family.”

  “United we stand,” Alex murmured pensively, nodding.

  I shrugged. “I would have gone with All for one, and one for all, personally,” I said, smiling as I remembered his sword-fighting outside. “If these are cleansed, you should be able to put one on,” I said, trailing my hand down the suit of armor. “You would get all the benefits without being brain-washed. In fact, you—not the armor—will be the one holding the leash. Nothing like Mordred’s Knightmares.”

  Talon’s tail twitched, and Gunnar leaned forward excitedly.

  “Why?” Alex asked. “If it’s so easy to turn the armor against the Knight, why would they risk wearing them?”

  I held up a finger. “Ah. But it’s not easy to turn them. Remember, the only reason Mordred’s plan worked at Stonehenge was because he was technically the only living Pendragon when he woke up the Knights and made them swear their oaths. Arthur’s spirit hit you too late to stop the men from swearing fealty,” I said gently. “And then Mordred used the Blood Curse on the armor to double down. So, in a way, he turned them both—man and armor.”

  I clapped excitedly, shaking my head. Because I also knew how they had originally been made. Enough of an idea to grasp the concept, anyway.

  “I’m amazing. Suck on that, Merlin,” I crowed, slapping my knee.

  Everyone stared at the two suits of armor dubiously, knowing that if I was wrong, they’d become an evil overlord—a Knightmare.

  “How do we remove the curse?” Talon asked.

  My brain had already been pondering that, ever since I realized I could communicate with the armor.

  The original armor had been blessed by both Arthur and Merlin.

/>   I turned to look up at Alex, who was scratching his scruff again like he had a case of the fleas. I glanced down at my own appearance—a ragged wizard wearing only a pair of faded, unclean jeans. “Fuck it.” I turned to Alex. “I’m going to need some of your blood.”

  Gunnar and Talon perked up, staring at the two of us more intently. Alex didn’t even hesitate as he stood from his seat and knelt down beside me. He drew Excalibur enough to reveal part of the blade and then cut his palm. I nodded, and then leaned over to slice my own palm on Excalibur, praying to tack on some extra credit points for sticking to symbolism and tradition. In case I royally screwed this up.

  I took hold of his wrist, moving it so that I could easily access it. “Hold it there. Don’t move. Might as well close your eyes and think chivalrous thoughts,” I added. I took a few moments to memorize the two inverted symbols on the suits of armor beside me.

  Then I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

  I only had two examples of chivalry to go by—one literary, and one living.

  Thomas Mallory’s book, Le Morte d’Arthur—The Death of King Arthur.

  And Alex Arete-Pendragon-Temple, the man. Yes, I chose to include a hyphen with my name. I had adopted him, after all—saving him from the Fae Courts in their Changeling operation when he had only been a young boy.

  I’d earned the right.

  And Arete had been his real name, long ago, before the Fae stole him. Which was a curious coincidence. Arete had several debated translations or meanings attached to it, but they all funneled into one definition, in my opinion.

  To be the best possible form of a thing.

  And it was also on my family crest.

  I focused on my Fae magic—everything I had surmised from my talk with the suit of armor. How and why it had been made.

  And I also tapped into my wizard’s magic, opening myself up to it completely. I let the two streams of power meet at an angle, like two great rivers. They struck with incredible force, hard enough to create figurative white-water rapids in my mind.