by Steve McHugh
The commander walked back the way he’d arrived, while the three elves appeared very happy to have escaped lightly. I recounted the conversation to Mordred.
“How do they know I’m here?” Mordred whispered. “It’s not like they have photographs. And no one could have foreseen that I’d be close by when you were all zapped here. And they know you’re not dead, but that you’re meant to be. That thing said so.”
“Someone has been relaying information to this realm. Someone who didn’t want to fight all of us in the open. It’s someone who knows I’m here, knows I was meant to die in London, and knows what you look like. That’s a slight concern, and probably a very short list of people.” It also confirmed my suspicion that Jerry, Kay, and Asag were working with whomever sent the tablet to Diane.
“My money is on Kay and his friends,” Mordred said, as if reading my mind.
“Mine, too. You ready to get rid of these elves?”
The three elves started walking away. All of them carried swords on their hips. One had a hammer.
Mordred started after them, slowly, the grip on the dagger intensifying, his knuckles white. I wondered just how much he was looking forward to killing these elves, but then it was probably best not to think about it.
Mordred paused at the corner of a building and raised his hand, signaling for me to remain still. He looked back at me, raised two fingers and pointed to his left, before slowly creeping back. I stayed low, and walked to the corner, peeking around it. The shadows of the building kept me hidden.
Mordred had been right. About fifty feet in front of us were two of the three elves. Both stood outside the entrance to a building, and both were holding their weapons out in front of them.
It was the first time I’d been able to get a good look at the swords they carried. They appeared to be dwarven in design, but as if they had been made by someone who hadn’t quite figured out how a dwarven sword should look. While dwarven swords were elegant, these were rough and ragged, as if the blood elves’ own appearance had been recreated in sword form. The edge still looked sharp, though, and the unusual design of the blade probably spoke to the chaotic side of these monsters.
“The third must be inside,” I whispered.
Mordred pointed to the roof of the building. “I can get up there.”
“You take the one inside and I take the other two?” I asked.
Mordred nodded.
“I’ll go first. I need to get their attention so you can climb up there. You go around the back of these buildings and across the street further down.”
Mordred remained quiet as he looked back and forth across the roof. “Done. Won’t be long.” He set off along the back of the buildings.
I sprinted across the street, just as one of the elves looked my way. I stopped and waved, before continuing to the side of the building. The elf shouted something—I couldn’t quite catch the words—and made off toward me, while the second stayed at the doorway, talking to someone inside, apparently believing that I wasn’t worth his time or effort.
I ran around to the rear of the building and waited until the blood elf ran past me, then leapt out, barreling into the elf, and took him off his feet. We were out of sight of the others and I needed this to be quick so that I could deal with his friend before Mordred could get into the building. I rolled to my side, kicking the sword out of the elf’s grip.
Ignoring the sword, the elf swung a punch, which I blocked. I grabbed the leather armor on his chest, spun him around, and threw him into the wall. He hit it headfirst, putting a considerable hole in the stone with a crunch that usually meant a person wasn’t getting back up.
Apparently elves were made of stronger stuff, because, despite the gash on his head and the massive amount of blood streaming down his face, he still wanted to fight. But my necromancy allowed me to use the blood-elf soul I’d taken to increase my power and strength. The blood elf in front of me had no chance of winning; he just didn’t know it yet.
I kicked him in the knee, dislocating the joint. He grunted, but otherwise gave no outward sign that he felt pain. Before he could do anything else, I picked up the sword from the floor, drove it into his throat, and decapitated him.
A second later, I heard a commotion inside. With the sword in my hand, I ran toward an elf who was just about to walk into the building. I threw the sword like a javelin, using my air magic to keep it moving in a straight line while maintaining its speed. The elves might be able to shrug off my magic, but I doubted they could shrug this off.
The elf couldn’t do a damn thing but turn at the last moment and watch the sword go into his chest. It lifted him off the ground and pinned him to the wall behind. He snarled and tried to pull out the blade, but I was in front of him in a moment. I pushed the sword in further, turning it slightly before pulling it out and driving it back into his chest. The second elf died a moment later, just as the third crashed through a window above me, landing in the dirty street. Cuts laced its face and arms; one hand was partially severed, blood still pumping from the wound as he tried to get back to his feet.
“These things don’t like to die,” Mordred said as he appeared beside me and threw the knife, which caught the elf between the eyes, dropping it to the floor.
I looked from the dead elf to Mordred, who was bloody and looked exhausted.
“That was not as much fun as I was hoping,” he said, leaving the dagger in the elf’s head and taking the sword from his hip. “I managed to go from roof to roof around the top of the street. Unfortunately, the bastard was right there when I dropped into this building. Luckily, I didn’t give him time to draw this or I might not be here right now.”
I turned away and picked up the sword I’d used to kill the other elf. “So, which one do we take back?”
Mordred picked up the elf he’d killed and slung it over his shoulder. “We should hide the other two.”
“The other one is around the corner. He’s missing his head, but the darkness around there makes it difficult to see.” I grabbed the elf by his feet and dragged him into the building, which, like all the other buildings around here, had presumably been someone’s home at some point. Now it was just full of dust and dirt; any possessions had been long since looted or destroyed by the elves.
I went back outside and saw that Mordred was standing in the middle of the road, the dead elf still on his back.
“You took your time,” he said. “This thing is heavy.”
“Probably shouldn’t have waited then,” I pointed out. Somewhere in the distance the sound of a horn blared. “Let’s get it back to William so we can get going. Sooner or later more elves will come, and I’d rather not be here when that happens.”
CHAPTER 18
William hadn’t ingratiated himself with Kasey. When we returned, her foot was on his throat and he was trying to breathe while also trying to apologize.
“What did this idiot do?” I asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Kasey said, glancing down at him. “I didn’t like it. Or him. In fact, the longer my shoe touches his bare skin, the longer I feel like I’m being tainted.”
Mordred dropped the corpse on the floor beside William, and cut through his bindings with a blade of air magic. William stared at the dead blood elf, his eyes opening wide in need.
Kasey removed her foot and walked out of the building, saying, “I don’t need to see or hear that.”
“You staying?” I asked Mordred, who shook his head, and followed Kasey and me out of the building as another horn sounded.
“They’re still hunting us,” Mordred said. He walked away to be by himself in a secluded little spot where he could see anyone coming but was invisible from the roads or houses around us.
I sat beside Kasey in front of the wall we’d been crouched behind earlier. “Would it be really stupid to ask how you’re doing?” I asked.
Kasey smiled. “I’m okay—honestly. This is all weird, and fucking horrible, but it’s one of the many weird, horrib
le, and frankly messed-up things I’ve seen in the last few years. I would have thought that being a half-werewolf would be the weirdest thing to happen to me before I turned eighteen. It’s not even in the top ten.”
“Chloe told me she’s gay,” I said, wanting to change the subject to more pleasant topics.
Kasey smiled. “I know. I’ve known for a long time. It’s nice that she can out herself, and it’s nice she’s comfortable enough with people to be herself. Not her mum, though.”
“How does her mum feel about Chloe living with you, Tommy, and Olivia?”
“I don’t think Mara is thrilled. She threatened my mum with lawyers once because she wasn’t allowed to see Chloe, who had told her she didn’t want to see her. Mara backed down when Avalon arrived and explained what would happen if she threatened a director of the LOA again.” She turned to me. “What about you? Morgan here? That’s gotta be weird.”
“That is one way of putting it, I guess. I loved Morgan, but she has no bearing on my life now, or anything in it.”
“What’s going on with him, then?” Kasey asked, meaning Mordred.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “He’s different. That look of rage and anger has gone, replaced with something I don’t understand. He says he’s still going to kill me, though, so who knows what’s going on in his head?”
“I’ve been thinking. Someone wanted to get rid of Diane so they could attack Brutus. Why? Brutus has a lot of power, and security. Could someone really do that: hit Brutus?”
“Anyone can be gotten to with enough patience, backing, and skill. Why Brutus, though? His removal would have no effect on the day-to-day running of London. Most Londoners don’t know he exists, and he delegates a lot of the important matters to other people. Someone else would just step in, and there’s no way Avalon would accept someone like Hera or one of her friends taking the job. It seems like a lot of effort for not a lot of payoff.”
Kasey was quiet for a few seconds. “Do you think the others are okay?”
I nodded. “Hopefully the dwarves can help us find them, but there’s no way Diane or Remy would allow anything bad to happen. They’re probably in a better place than we are.”
“I hope so. They could be anywhere in this city.”
“If they’ve gone into the catacombs far below us, we could be searching indefinitely,” Mordred told us as he walked over.
“You’re such a ray of sunshine,” Kasey said.
“I was merely telling the truth,” Mordred said. He paused. “I’d really like some enchiladas.”
Kasey and I shared a glance.
“Sorry. Like I told Nate, my brain sometimes goes off on tangents. Even so, an enchilada would be great right about now. And nachos. I love nachos.”
“I don’t think anyone delivers here,” Kasey told him.
Mordred looked sad. “Probably. Like I said, my brain sometimes goes off on a tangent.” He walked away without another word.
“So, how do you go from loving someone like a brother to wanting to murder him every time you get within spitting distance?” Kasey asked.
“I don’t know. I wish I did, but Mordred has never been one to explain that. I don’t even know if he knows anymore. Maybe his reasons got lost in time, and now we just hate one another out of habit. It’s become a Pavlovian reflex—we see one another and want to fight.”
Mordred re-entered the building and came out a moment later. “He’s finished, apparently. Also, I take back what I said. I really don’t want any food right now.”
Kasey and I got to our feet, and while I felt no interest in re-entering that house, I did it anyway. Kasey followed.
The smell was my first clue: the stench of blood and death. And as I entered the building and my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, I saw the horror of what William had done.
“I feel full now,” William said with a belch. His face, hands, and pretty much every other part of him were stained black with the blood of the elf. I looked at the corpse and immediately wished I hadn’t. William had eaten a large portion of its face, almost to the bone in some cases. I maintained my composure and left the building, followed by Kasey and Mordred.
“What the hell was that?” she asked. “That was fucked up.”
“He did it for show,” I told her. “He wanted to see our reactions.”
“He’s not exactly a well man,” Mordred said. “In fact, I do believe he thinks this is funny. Even the old me would have found little humor in eating someone’s eyes, lips, and tongue.”
“Thanks for that,” Kasey said and sat down.
“Would it help if I told you seeing things like this gets easier?” Mordred asked.
“How the hell does that help? So eventually I’ll become so desensitized to this sort of sick crap that I’ll just shrug and move on?”
“Not really,” I said. “You remember what I told you about taking things and putting them aside in your head: not seeing the dead as people, but as just things? It takes a long time to learn, but it does help. That’s one of the more disturbing things I’ve seen someone do, however.”
“So what do we do now?” Kasey asked. “We can’t drag him like that through the city. He needs to ingest their blood, not bathe in it.”
“Mordred, we need water. Any chance you could use your water magic on him? Clean him up a bit?”
Mordred glanced back at the house; he didn’t look keen to go back inside. I couldn’t say I blamed him. “I can hose him down. I assume you’ll be accompanying me.”
I nodded. “Shame there’s no water on tap. I could use a drink.” I dug around my memories. “Actually, the pipes are still there. The elf I killed, Mythanus, remembers drinking water. It comes straight from outside, a lake about fifty miles to the east of the mountain. The elves sent people up there to check the supply. Mythanus has been a few times, and the lake is essentially an ocean from what the memory shows me, so I doubt it’s dried up. I wonder if it’s drinkable, though? We should take a look while we’re here.”
“The pipes will come in from the roof; we’ll have to go up there.”
“You can’t drink magical water?” Kasey asked.
“You probably can, but I have no idea what effect it would have on you. Some things you’re just better off not knowing.”
Mordred smiled. “On the plus side, water-element users never get dehydrated.”
“Okay, so what do I do?” Kasey asked.
“Stay here and keep a lookout. Those elves are hunting, and they will be here soon enough. Just let me know if anything comes along.”
Mordred and I went back into the house of horrors to find William drinking the elf’s blood from a cup. “Tastes so good. Thanks for this.”
We ignored him and walked upstairs, continuing upward until we found the exit to the roof, which we climbed onto.
“With no rain under the earth, dwarven buildings have flat roofs,” Mordred said, like he was narrating some weird nature documentary. “It allowed them to use the extra floor space.”
I stared at Mordred while he found one of several pipes sticking out from a nearby rock formation, one of which was joined to the roof of the house. White glyphs ignited over his arms, showing that he was using air magic, although the reason behind it eluded me.
“What are you doing?” I asked after a few seconds of watching him concentrate.
He didn’t turn around as he spoke. “Using my air magic to place a bubble inside this pipe. There’s no water coming, which means a blockage somewhere. I’m trying to find it.”
“Maybe there’s no water full stop?” I suggested.
“If that were the case, this whole process would be irrelevant,” he snapped, before taking a breath. “I am having difficulties being in this place. My mind keeps showing me what happened the last time I was here. It is—I do not know how to deal with it.”
The words left my mouth before I could stop them. “You want to talk?” I could not believe I’d said it.
“You ha
te me, remember.”
“Because you tried to kill me. A lot. And you murdered innocent people. A lot. Including children.”
He stopped and turned back to me. “I never killed a child. Not one.”
“You tried to kill the children in the tower,” I reminded him. “And what about when you were working for Mars Warfare, and you were putting children through the Harbinger Trials? How many of them died?”
The glyphs on his arm faded. “You stopping me from killing the princes was probably the best thing you ever did for me. And I was never part of those trials. Never. That was all Ares. I went to work there to get close to Hera. I wanted information—information I never got, as it turned out. So, yes, I did awful things while I was there. I turned the other way, and allowed the worst of our kind to have free rein, but I have to live with those decisions. Even if they were not really mine.”
Mordred ignored me and the glyphs reignited. Unfortunately, that also ignited my temper. “What does that mean?”
“It doesn’t matter. We need to leave this place.”
“Right. I’m sure you want some time to come up with a good excuse as to why you allowed the murder of innocent children, and why you tried to kill the princes in the tower. You can make a list of other people you blame for your own actions.” I said it before I could stop myself. “I’m sorry. I know you’re not him anymore. It’s just difficult: seeing you, remembering everything that happened over those centuries.”
“I was an evil man, Nate. I know that, and I will have to live with that every single day for as long as I live. I can’t blame you for being wary, or for having anger at me inside of you. I never thought seeing you again would be easy—for either of us. But I am glad I got to see you. I’m glad I got to say sorry. I don’t ever want to forget the horrific things I’ve done. I just want to try and somehow make them better.”
I walked over and stood beside him. “We need water. Let’s work together.”