Lies Ripped Open

by Steve McHugh

  “You?” Lucie guessed.

  “I wasn’t here though. Otherwise you’d have two very dead assassins scattered throughout the house.”

  “Someone contacted them, told them to stop the attack and leave. No idea what else could have spooked them into leaving before finishing the job. Maybe they weren’t scared off at all. Maybe the one who stabbed her came back downstairs, found their partner kicking the shit out of an unconscious Fiona, and dragged them away.”

  “It’s possible. Okay, we’ll put that to one side.”

  “I wondered when you’d get here,” a male voice said, in a slight posh English accent.

  I turned to see Remy step through the newly opened front door and into the house. A few centuries ago, Remy had been known as Remy Roax, the English son of a French aristocrat. Remy had moved to England to spend his time avoiding having his head removed by the rest of his countrymen, while drinking himself into a steady oblivion. Unfortunately, he’d met a lovely young lady whom he proceeded to cheat on. She caught him and punished him.

  Witches have funny ideas when it comes to punishment. They tend to be creative. Her coven decided that if Remy was going to behave like an animal, they’d turn him into one. The idea was, according to Remy, they were going to turn him into a red fox, hand him over to a huntsman so he could be torn apart by their hounds at some point in the near future. The spell didn’t exactly work. The twelve members of the coven were using magic well beyond their capabilities and it ended up killing all of them and feeding their souls into Remy. Remy kept his intellect, his human nature and personality, while adding the life force of twelve young women to his newly changed body.

  Remy was now part man, part red fox. He was about three and a half feet tall, and covered in the fur of a red fox, from his fox muzzle to the tip of his bushy tail. He walked upright on legs that were more human in shape than animal, and had fingers, although each of them was tipped with a sharp claw. And he could talk, which allowed him to express his pissed-off-with-the-world nature on a regular basis.

  “They hurt my friend,” he said as he walked into the house. He carried a basket-hilted sword that was specially designed for him, strapped across his back, and a belt of small knives around his hips.

  “I know, we’ll find them, Remy,” Lucie said.

  “I know we will. And then I’m going to tear their fucking throats out,” Remy said with a smile, showing his sharp teeth.

  Lucie left a short time later after getting a phone call from someone at her office, and because neither Remy nor I wanted to spend more time in Fiona’s house than necessary, and as it had stopped raining and was now quite sunny, we took a stroll to a nearby park.

  “I want to help you,” Remy said as we passed a few people walking dogs, one of which became quite enthusiastic at Remy’s presence.

  Its owner pulled the dog, a large mastiff, away.

  Remy sighed. “Every year more people get dogs here. They either see me as potential food, or a potential threat.”

  I doubted that Remy was overly concerned about a dog attack. For a start he was an expert swordsman, but the side effect of having the souls of twelve witches dumped into his body not only gave him the ability to resurrect himself twelve times, but also strength several times that of a normal fox.

  “You found Fiona, I hear,” I said.

  Remy stopped walking and nodded. “I smelled the blood as I reached the front door. She’d left me a key a few years back, so I opened it and went in. I hear the knife she was stabbed with was coated in jorōgumo venom. Nasty stuff. Someone wanted her to suffer. I don’t think she was meant to die quickly. She was meant to be a warning to others. You look into the Reavers and this is what happens. We all knew she was looking into them, she wasn’t frightened about telling people.”

  “She must have found something.”

  “She wanted to talk to you.”

  “What?” I almost snapped. “Since when and why is this the first I’ve heard of it?”

  “About a month ago she told me she’d found something that you needed to see, but she didn’t want to inform you until she could verify it. As far as I know, I’m the only one she spoke to about it.”

  “Reaver related?”

  “No idea. I assume so, but it could have just as easily been about her husband.”

  “Why would Fiona want to talk to me about Alan?”

  “Don’t know that either, just offering possibilities.”

  We stood in silence for a moment, then I said, “If some people in Avalon are involved, your life is in danger. You were Fiona’s friend; you’re looking into her attack. Past actions lead me to believe that you’re likely to be on their hit list.”

  “They’re welcome to try. I’ve still got more than enough souls left to spare a few on those murderous bastards.” Remy looked away across the park. “Do you think she’s going to make it?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so. She’s strong; she’ll fight as much as she can.”

  “She’s one of the few people who treated me like a person, not a sideshow.”

  “I didn’t know anyone treated you like that.”

  “I’m not like a kitsuni; they can change from fox to human, to mist. I’m some way between a were in their beast form and a human. And do you know how many people witches have changed into something like me? Three. In a thousand years, witches turned three people into an animal-human hybrid. Three that we know of, anyway. I’m rare enough to be a curiosity. I guess that means I won’t be having any little fox . . . cubs, I guess, to carry on the family name. I’m a rare fox-human, with the souls of witches inside me. Can you imagine what a certain mindset would like to do with me? I’ll give you a clue; it’s not to re-create a cherished Roald Dahl novel.”

  I could imagine. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

  “And to make matters worse, there was a movie with a talking fucking raccoon in it. Did you know that Camelot has a cinema? That they import movies from Earth? Well, they fucking well do. For months all I heard was how maybe for the sequel they could have me be his stunt double, or that they should paint me brown and make me a star. I began to get angry with the rabid little fucker. And he’s not even real! I was angry at a fucking comic book character.”

  I didn’t really know what else to say. “Good film though.”

  Remy stared at me. “You’re sort of missing the point of my anger, here.”

  “No, I get it. You know, even for my life it’s a little weird that I’m talking to a fox about how unhappy he is that people compared him to a raccoon in a science fiction film about a bunch of comic book characters saving the galaxy.”

  “When you put it like that, I sound downright silly.”

  “Yeah, wording, that’s the issue here.”

  Remy chuckled for a moment, before becoming serious once again. “You know I’m coming with you to find those who attacked Fiona?”

  Talking to Remy was hard work sometimes. He had this tendency to switch topics at the drop of a hat. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  We left the park and caught the tube to the residential area at the far edge of the city. It was dusk by the time we arrived. It was quieter here, more open spaces and fewer buildings. Most of the people who lived here were high-ranking officials, and the increase in guards was evident for anyone to see.

  Visiting dignitaries, which is what Olivia as a director of the LOA was, were all placed in one of two huge hotels next to a sizeable park. Before Remy and I entered the hotel complex, I spotted Tommy and Kasey running in the park.

  We were maybe a hundred feet away when Remy and I entered the park, but Tommy stood up sniffed the air and looked back at me. I waved and he began jogging over, Kasey just behind him.

  “What are you doing here?” Tommy asked, after giving me a hug.

  I explained about what was happening with the Reavers, the hostage situation, the murders of the Williamses, and Fiona’s attack. Despite Kasey standing by Tommy’s side, I left nothing
out. She was fifteen and about to have her own naming ceremony, she was old enough to hear the truth in this matter. Tommy had told me long ago to continue being honest to her, to never sugar coat anything just because she was his daughter.

  “We should talk to Olivia,” Tommy said when I’d finished. “She might be able to help.”

  “I was going to go to Merlin or Elaine,” I said. “But Olivia sounds like a better idea.”

  “You came all this way to talk to Merlin?” Remy asked with a slight laugh. “And they say I’m crazy.”

  “I never said he would be happy to see me,” I pointed out. “Hence my reason for also saying ‘or Elaine.’”

  Tommy opened his mouth to say something, but all that escaped was a low growl. I turned my head and saw the half dozen men walking toward us.

  “Kasey, go over to the trees with Remy,” Tommy told her.

  “Dad . . .”

  “Please.”

  With that one word, Kasey nodded and rushed over to the nearby trees, only to be confronted by another half dozen men leaving their shelter. Remy and Kasey immediately ran back over to us.

  “How can we help you?” Tommy asked.

  “You and the girl can leave,” a short, thin man with a bushy beard, said. “We just want the freak and the sorcerer.”

  “Did he just call me a freak?” Remy asked. “That’s uncalled for.”

  “You do realize they’re probably going to try to kill us,” I said.

  “Of course, but they could at least be polite about it.” He drew his sword. “I guess they need to be taught manners.”

  The four of us backed away from the two approaching crowds. This had the unfortunate side effect of them merging into one larger, more dangerous crowd.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Bushy Beard said. “Take the girl and her dad too. They had their chance.”

  There are probably a lot of things in life to ensure you remain part of the living. Threatening the child of a werewolf is not one of those things. Threatening the daughter of Thomas Carpenter is akin to walking into a pub in Liverpool and saying that Manchester United is great. There’s a chance you’re going to make it out alive, but it’s remote, and if you do, you’re going to forever remember the time you had your head inserted up your own ass.

  Tommy’s growls became more pronounced and it wasn’t long before the ripping of fabric signified his change from human to werebeast. He howled and the hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention.

  “You know, I wondered how long it would be before you got into trouble.”

  The crowd almost as one turned to find Lucie standing behind them. She wore only a blue sports bra and some green Lycra shorts. Her tattooed runes were available for all to see.

  “My name is Lucie Moser. I am the deputy director of the SOA. You gentlemen have two choices. Surrender, or die. Pick quickly, my werewolf friend over there is impatient.”

  Several of the twelve had turned into werebeasts of their own. I spotted four wolves and a lion, the latter of which had its gaze firmly set on Tommy. Werewolves and werelions had been at war for centuries, before they signed an uneasy peace between the races. Some of them still held grudges.

  “Kill them all,” Bushy Beard demanded. “But leave Hellequin alive long enough to tell us what we want to know.”

  “Keep Kasey safe,” Tommy shouted just before the werelion charged into him, lifting him from his feet. They both tumbled down the nearby steep bank, the splash signaling that they’d found the stream that ran through the center of the park.

  Two of the werewolves ran toward me, both gaining blasts of air for their eagerness, which sent them spilling back into the rest of the group like big, hairy bowling balls.

  “You okay?” I asked Remy and Kasey.

  “Go,” Remy replied. “Kasey is safe with me. We’ll get her back to the hotel.”

  I sprinted toward the group and drove a blade of fire into the nearest werewolf, who howled with pain. I dodged a swipe from a silver blade from another attacker, pushing the wounded werewolf into my path, so that it got sliced across the belly. The werewolf dropped to its knees as the silver burned its flesh, and I threw a ball of air into the face of the knife welder, knocking him back several meters.

  Lucie was taking on a brute of a being without breaking a sweat. Every blow it threw at her was countered or dodged. She was fast, and her punches and kicks were doing serious damage to her attacker.

  I glanced over at Kasey and Remy and saw that Remy was using his sword against one of the werewolves, while Kasey kept behind him. Another werewolf stalked toward the pair and I ran toward it, wrapped air around its body and squeezed tight, until I felt its bones break.

  I removed the magic, and struck it in the back of the neck with a blade of fire. It probably wouldn’t kill the werewolf, but having some of his vertebrae severed would hopefully put him out of the fight long enough to deal with his friends.

  “Are you o—” I began to ask Kasey, but was grabbed around my waist and tackled to the ground.

  A werelion, this one much darker in color than the one Tommy fought, was kneeling on my chest, raining down blows, which I avoided as best as I could, until I heard a low growl and something slammed into the werelion with incredible speed, taking it off me.

  I rolled to my feet to see a werebeast Kasey, her tattered clothing clinging to the muscles and fur that had torn through it, trying to disembowel the werelion.

  The werelion took a moment and then caught one of Kasey’s hands in his, lifting her up off the ground as she snarled and tried to bite him.

  I created a sphere of air in my palm, slowly rotating the magic until it was a blur. “Release her, or die,” I said.

  “I’m going to tear her arm off,” the werelion said, as Kasey continued to thrash in his grip.

  The werelion laughed, and I took a step forward. I needed to be able to get to the werelion without Kasey getting hurt. The sounds of the fight around me faded as everything in my world became the werelion and Kasey. The werelion’s smile faded as water exploded from behind him, swirling over his head and arms, before freezing solid into hundreds of spikes, which punctured his chest and head.

  The werelion released Kasey and pitched forward onto the ground. Olivia stepped over the body and took her daughter’s hand in hers, speaking softly to the obviously scared Kasey.

  I turned back to the melee and found Tommy, covered in blood and wounds, barreling into the fray, tearing chunks out of anyone in his path. One of Lucie’s arms was limp, hanging uselessly by her side, but two werewolves lay unmoving at her feet.

  Whips of fire trailed from the ends of my hands. One cleaved through the nearest werewolf, decapitating it, while a second removed a chunk of flesh from the chest of another.

  I turned as a wood troll strolled toward me, murder in his eyes. At ten feet tall and probably weighing the same as two of me, he didn’t need to hurry. Wood trolls are usually quite pleasant and shy away from violence unless forced into it. From the expression on this one’s face, that wasn’t going to be an option.

  I removed the whips and created another sphere of air in my palm, allowing my fire and air magics to merge until the normal white and orange glyphs that adorn my arms and chest when I use magic intertwined. The sphere of air crackled as it changed into one of pure lightning.

  I ran toward the troll and plunged the sphere into the creature’s stomach, which caused it to scream out as its body was torn into. Then I released the magic. It cleaved into the troll as if it were shot from a tank cannon, ripping the troll apart as the magical maelstrom consumed it, before throwing it back toward the tree line with incredible force.

  The battle stopped around me. Lucie and Tommy stared at me, while our enemies moved aside. I’d just used the kind of magic that makes people take notice. A huge amount of magic that turned a troll into several hundred pounds of bloody goo. It might still be alive, but it certainly wasn’t going to be feeling good about itself.

 
; There were four attackers still standing, and several still moaning on the floor. Those capable of verticality charged at me, but the fight was short-lived. Tommy, Lucie, Remy, and I ensured that each of them would never be an issue again.

  I glanced at my bloody and battered friends, and then over at Olivia and Kasey, who was now lying on the ground.

  “She passed out,” Tommy said. “She’s not gone through enough changes to be able to cope with the strain.”

  “Grab those still alive,” I told everyone, feeling the anger settle inside me like a cold stone. “I’ve got some questions they’re going to answer.”

  CHAPTER 16

  As it turned out, very few of the attackers had actually been killed. Of the initial twelve, three had died at the scene, including the werelion that had attacked Tommy and the one who’d grabbed Kasey.

  Of the remaining nine, five were too seriously injured to do very much other than be arrested and transported to an LOA lock-up. The last four, who included the person I assumed had been in charge, Bushy Beard, were all taken to a building just outside the city limits. The building was well known throughout the various Avalon agencies as a place to take people you wished to interrogate. Whether that meant physically or conversationally was entirely up to those who brought them.

  I’d left the interrogation to Olivia’s people, who after an hour had confirmed that they weren’t saying much.

  Lucie had joined us and spent most of her time on the phone to various people yelling at them. She wandered off after a particularly intense conversation and only returned after half an hour.

  “We have a problem,” she told me.

  “And that would be?”

  “The five who were being taken for medical treatment never made it. The transport was found abandoned about ten minutes north of the city.”

  “Any of the SOA agents hurt?”

  Lucie shook her head. “They’re all gone too.”

  A horrible feeling bubbled up inside me. “Is there a security detail on Tommy and his family?”