Lies Ripped Open

by Steve McHugh

  Both Kasey and her mum, Olivia, had tried to set me up with various people over the last few months, but relationships should probably start off with the truth, and I don’t think most people who’ve just met me want to know exactly the types of things I do. As Tommy had helpfully pointed out, “trained killer” is probably not what most people want in answer to the question, “What do you do for a living?” In the last five months, I’ve been on several dates. So far, I’ve been “ex-military,” “an Avalon specialist,” and on one particularly boring date, “shark trainer,” mostly just to see if she was listening to a word I was saying, or more interested in playing on her mobile.

  Dating was a relatively new concept and one I don’t think I was destined to master. I could be charming, I was in good shape, and was what most people would describe as ruggedly handsome, but apparently that didn’t translate to “good at this dating thing.”

  So I’d thrown myself into my magic, trying new things and mastering those I could already do. I was able to merge two elements that I could wield—fire and air—into lightning, which now came easily to me.

  Two of the six dark blood curse marks that sat on my chest had vanished, bestowing on me an increase in power, and my necromancy, in that order. No one knew what would happen when the remaining marks vanished, nor how long that might take, but I needed to be prepared for whatever their disappearance might bring. Be it good or bad.

  I’d just decided that I hadn’t bothered Tommy at work for several days and thought I’d take the drive to the massive building that housed his security firm, when I remembered that he was in Avalon with Olivia and Kasey. While trying to figure out who else I could contact, my mobile rang.

  “Nathan Garrett?” a woman asked. Her voice sounded young, but the massive amount of stress in it could be clearly heard.

  “That’s me,” I told her.

  “My name is Kelly Jensen. I’m an agent with the SOA. Have you seen the news about the hostage situation in Southampton?”

  “About twenty minutes ago,” I told her.

  “I’m liaising with the police in charge of what’s happening. It’s been escalated to a specialist branch of the armed response teams, Level 2 Cadre.”

  The Level 2 Cadre were the people who took over a firearms incident when the situation escalated and required a specialist approach. That’s when a Regional Specialist Ops Unit moved in and took command. They have the authority to come in and take over the situation, no questions asked.

  “Okay, what does that have to do with me?”

  “Level 2 Cadre’s entire staff are humans who have been placed there by Avalon.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why you’re calling me,” I pointed out.

  “Because the man who has taken the hostages wants to see you. In fact he’s requested you by name.”

  I was a little surprised. It was certainly the first time anyone who’d taken hostages wanted to talk to me. Usually I was pretty far down on the list of people they’d be happy to see.

  “What’s his name?” I asked, hoping to jog something loose.

  “He won’t give it. He wants to be known as God.”

  “That’s what he calls himself ? God?” I asked, making sure I’d heard her right.

  “Yep. He says seeing how he decides who lives and dies, it’s a fitting name. I think he’s seven kinds of crazy, but that won’t help get those hostages free. We need you to come down here and see if you can help.”

  “You want me to go in?”

  “Hell no,” she said derisively. “Olivia told me all about you. I don’t need a dead hostage taker, and with all the media and human police here, I also don’t want the Cadre to be seen sending in a civilian. You come down, you talk to him, find out who he is and what he wants.”

  “Why is SOA involved?” The SOA, or Shield of Avalon, was Avalon’s internal security force, sort of a combination of MI5 and the Secret Service. They were usually only involved in crimes that directly involved Avalon members, otherwise the LOA, or Law of Avalon was involved. The LOA was a sort of cross between the FBI and Interpol. They investigated crimes against, or perpetrated by, members of the nonhuman community as a whole.

  “There was a hostage injured when the shop was taken. We told the media that he was shot, but he was burned on the leg. The hostage taker is a fire elemental from the sounds of things, possibly a sorcerer. But the victim said the man’s entire arm turned to flame, so I’m leaning toward the former.”

  It certainly sounded like an elemental, a being that was one with their element, able to control it with incredible ease and capable of immense power. But this sounded like something for LOA, so why were the human police involved at all?

  “You haven’t told me why the SOA are involved,” I reminded her.

  “We think the hostage taker might have been employed by Avalon.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “You know I can’t share that kind of information with you. Will you come down here, or not?” she snapped, a little anger in her voice.

  I really hated Avalon political bullshit, and I got the impression that Kelly didn’t like me much. I’ve met several Avalon employees who see my leaving Avalon—and the manner in which I left—as a sort of betrayal of the principles they believe in. Personally, I didn’t much care what she thought of me, so long as she could remain professional. “It’s an hour’s drive,” I told her. “I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

  My proximity alarm rang, signaling that someone was coming up the drive toward my house.

  “Did you send people here?” I asked. “It seems I have visitors.”

  “Those would be the two LOA agents I sent to find you. They’re going to escort you to Southampton.”

  “You don’t trust me to turn up, Agent Jensen?” I asked.

  “Actually I trust you to turn up fine. It’s what you do when you get here that I want to control. See you in forty-five minutes.”

  She hung up and I opened the door to reveal two very large men with shaved heads, both wearing black suits. “Wow, you guys are very intimidating,” I said with a smile. “What are you, half troll or something?”

  The man-tower closest to me smiled. “You ready to go?”

  “Let me get some shoes and a jacket,” I said, grabbing both from beside me, and putting them on before pocketing my keys and wallet from the table next to the door.

  “You’re not going shopping,” the second man said, his voice much deeper than his friend’s, and his accent was South African, unlike his friend’s English. There was some animosity in his voice. He was probably unhappy at having to give me a lift, which, considering the circumstances and that people’s lives hung in the balance, was more than a little childish on his part.

  “Just in case I see a bargain,” I said. “Or, as is more likely, I have to make my own way back here when everyone is suddenly too busy to drive me home.”

  They moved aside and let me pass, walking with me to their black Mercedes SUV.

  “Shotgun,” I called.

  “Fuck off,” the South African said, and both men laughed as they got in the front of the car, leaving me to sit in the back. Couldn’t blame them for having to babysit me on the way from my house to West Quay, but I could dislike them intensely for being dicks.

  “The rules of the road clearly don’t apply to you guys then,” I said and lowered the electric windows, letting in a nice breeze as we sped off to deal with a probably very angry man and his scared hostages.

  CHAPTER 2

  The journey wasn’t exactly one of fun and frivolity. I’d have asked for the radio to be put on, but I already knew the answer and didn’t want to have to punch two agents the second we got out of the car.

  I settled for dozing and trying to figure out why anyone would want to call me when they’d just taken a group of people hostage, managing to seriously hurt one of them in the process. The knowledge that Nathan Garrett and Hellequin were one and the same was now public. A
lthough how far that information had traveled through to my old friends and enemies was unknown. The person calling themselves God could easily be someone who took umbrage with something I’d done over the centuries—either as myself or Hellequin—and decided to get their revenge. I probably should have made a list of possible suspects. But it would have been a very long list of people, and I doubted I had time.

  By the time we pulled up at the blockade, and one of my large escorts had raised the back window so none of the press could see me through the tinted glass—although I could still make out the flash of cameras—I’d come up with only one answer. The hostage taker was crazy.

  The driver parked the SUV close to the entrance of West Quay, next to dozens of other vehicles. I got out and glanced at the massive entrance to the shopping center. West Quay claimed to be one of the biggest centers in Europe, and there was nothing about it that suggested that was an exaggeration. Three shopping levels and a food court, dozens of places to shop or eat, were contained in a mammoth structure of concrete, glass, and steel.

  A tarpaulin had been placed beside two police vans, covering the makeshift command center that the Ops Unit was using.

  “Nice to meet you,” a young woman said as she walked over to me. She was about five-two and probably weighed the same as one of the legs belonging to my two massive babysitters. She was curvy and wore a blue skirt and white blouse that, while looking very businesslike, gave no illusions as to whether she was comfortable in her own body. Her confidence enhanced her natural beauty. She had a small nose and full lips, with dark green eyes that matched her hair in color, if not in tone. Her hair was the color of freshly mown lawn; dark and light greens crisscrossed through it as it spilled over her shoulders.

  “Kelly,” I assume.

  “That’s me,” she said, with no hint of emotion. “Thanks for coming.”

  “You’re fae.”

  There was an immediate flicker of anger, as if it were wiped onto her face in one smooth motion. “Is that a problem?”

  I paused. People don’t like the fae. They’re not the cute little flying things at the bottom of the gardens, that’s fairies, and they’re mean little fuckers who eat people. The fae are creatures of magical energy, like sorcerers, but they’re also mean little fuckers. Ones that hold a grudge like it’s a security blanket, and will do anything and everything to get revenge on people they believe have slighted them. The fact that they’re able to use a person’s blood to track them not only over thousands of miles, but also through realms, means once you’ve pissed one off, they can find you anywhere. The fae have small translucent wings, which they can turn invisible as they wish. Considering I couldn’t see Agent Jensen’s, it was precisely what she had done. The wings give fae the ability to hover. Fae can also control light or shadow magic, but like sorcerers, not everyone who uses shadow magic is evil and not everyone who uses light magic is nice. Also, for some reason their hair and eyes are always shades of the same color.

  “I’m not aware of any problems,” I told her.

  Kelly’s eyes narrowed for a moment, before the smile came back to life. “Good.”

  We left the two mountains standing beside their SUV; I almost waved, but thought better of it. I didn’t want to piss everyone off after only being there for a few minutes; I normally leave that for ten, fifteen minutes at the least.

  Kelly stopped beside a police van and turned toward me. “You’re going to see the Ops leader; he’s human but aware of things about you, although probably not everything.”

  “Not everything?”

  “It hasn’t quite spread to the humans that you’re Hellequin. In fact it’s only just started filtering through to Avalon.”

  I smiled. Over the last few years, I’d started using the Hellequin moniker again after burying it for three centuries. I wasn’t hiding that we were one and the same, but from a small trickle of people who’d been made aware it was beginning to turn into an avalanche. I imagined it pissed Merlin off . . . so I guessed it wasn’t all bad.

  “I’ll try not to bring it up,” I said.

  Kelly placed a hand on my chest; there was a surprising amount of strength in her slim arms. That summed up fae quite well . . . surprising. “Olivia tells me you have a natural disposition to piss people off. I’d rather you didn’t do that today. Everyone is on edge and everyone is stressed. Don’t start a dick measuring contest.”

  I took a step back, forcing Kelly to drop her hand or look pretty stupid, but even so, she only did it begrudgingly. “I’ll try my best not to just whip it out and start flailing it around.”

  Kelly smiled and shook her head slightly.

  “Can you tell me anything more about why I’m here?” I asked. “Other than because some asshole who wants us to call himself God asked for me.”

  “Nope. Maybe they can give you more info.” She pulled back some gray tarpaulin, exposing the “they” in question, who turned out to be four men huddled around a computer monitor, while a fifth man spoke on the phone. Four of the men wore balaclavas and were of completely different heights and sizes. They each held Heckler and Koch MP5s. And all five of them had a confidence that showed that they were not to be screwed around with unless you liked a much shorter life expectancy.

  The fifth man placed the phone on a table and turned toward me. He was over six feet tall, with a short, tidy haircut that was bordering on white, despite the fact that he’d probably not even hit his mid-forties. A dark moustache curled over his top lip, forming a horseshoe around his mouth. He looked hard and tough; a man who didn’t find much funny and was even less inclined to let others joke around in his company.

  “You’re that Special Forces guy,” he said to me, but didn’t offer me his hand or even suggest he was impressed.

  “Sure,” I agreed, “Let’s go with that.”

  “I spoke to Director Green . . . Olivia. She says you’re a good guy. I heard you saved her kid, Kasey, that true?”

  I nodded, and he offered me his hand, which I took. His grip was of a man perfectly confident of his abilities. “I like Kasey, Olivia too, you did good. The hostage taker wants to talk to you. Any idea why?”

  I shook my head. “Been wondering that myself.”

  “This is very unusual. We don’t normally let civilians talk to the person committing the crime; it can make things much worse. You know why, yes?”

  I nodded. “They could hear something they don’t like, or consider talking to the civilian their last act and just start shooting. I understand why you’re cautious. I have no intention of making things worse; hell, I don’t even know what ‘worse’ is.”

  “You can call me Mike,” he said. “This guy in there wants to be called God.”

  “So I heard. You know anything else about him?”

  “English accent, although we can’t pinpoint where it’s from, and from what our injured hostage told us, he’s clearly not human. That’s pretty much it. He’s spoken to our hostage negotiator a few times, but he’s not giving anything away and refused to talk more until you got here. The hostage taker fried the CCTV cameras inside, and the shop is at an awkward angle. Even with the footage we had before he broke it, we still can’t get a look at him or the hostages.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He hurt one hostage, but let him go in exchange for getting you here. I assume you’ve been told the hostage taker is an elemental.”

  “Yeah, it came up. Did you say he let the hostage go before I arrived?”

  Mike shrugged. “He said he trusted us. And that he’d kill one hostage every sixty seconds after ninety minutes of waiting.” He glanced at the watch on his wrist. “Which is in three minutes.”

  “Why ninety minutes?” I asked. “I could have been out of the country.”

  “He knew where you were,” one of the balaclava-wearing men guessed.

  “So, why not just go after you at home?” one of the other officers asked.

  “Because my home has motion detectors. I�
�d have warning of his approach, and I’d be on my own ground. Here I’m not, I have no advantage.”

  “But so long as he has the hostages, he does,” Mike said.

  “You should have told me about the threats to the hostages,” I said to Kelly.

  “I didn’t want you to be any more agitated than you needed to be. You didn’t need to be worried about his threats; you just needed to get here.”

  “As a rule, threats don’t make me agitated,” I informed her. Kelly didn’t trust me. That much was obvious, although why that was the case was something I didn’t understand. Maybe it was purely that I’d quit Avalon and left Merlin, which some people found to be almost traitorous, or maybe it was just that she’d heard rumors about my past and wasn’t sure how to be around me. Of course there was a third option. The head of the SOA, Sir Kay, wasn’t exactly my biggest fan, and I thought he was a bully, thug, and about as much fun to be around as being bitten in the crotch by a honey badger. If Kelly and Kay worked closely together, then that would explain her keeping things from me.

  “We’re ready,” Mike said and passed me a phone.

  “Hello,” said a voice on the other end.

  “This is Nathan Garrett,” I said. “And you are—”

  “God,” he said. He sounded like he was smirking when he spoke.

  “Yeah, that’s the name. You have all the power in the world.”

  “That’s right, I do.”

  I heard screaming in the background, accompanied by whimpering.

  “You don’t need to hurt anyone else,” I said.

  “Don’t tell me what I do or don’t need to do,” he snapped.

  “Fair enough, so why did you want me here?”

  “You’re not here, you’re out there. I want you in here with me. I want to talk to you face to face.”