Born of Hatred

by Steve McHugh

  "You fight like a wolf," Matthew said as he threw aside a barren's arm.

  I turned to study at the carnage all around me. The wolves were destroying the barren in spades, but there were so many of them that the dense packs of barren stopped any serious progress toward the front entrance.

  "How about your wolves clear a path?" I asked.

  Matthew howled and pointed at the barren before us and within seconds a dozen wolves tore into them, carving a path through them to the entrance.

  "Take care," I told Matthew, who ran off to join his pack in their fight.

  I ran as quickly as possible, using air magic to make me faster, heading for the glass front door of the LOA building, dodging pieces of barren as I went. At some point they had been living people, but to think of them now in such a way would do no one any good. The living had been replaced with rot and decay. Ending their torment was the only humane thing to do.

  I reached the glass door and kicked it open, taking one last glance at Matthew's pack fighting with everything they had, before stepping inside the first building of the headquarters.

  I'd prepared myself for what was going to happen, for the complete loss of my abilities, but it was still a massive shock to the system. I made it to a group of leather couches next to the reception area before I finally succumbed to what the security had done and dropped to my knees. I'd worn a sorcerer's band before; Merlin had wanted me to learn how to operate without my magic. But the fighting I'd done outside tonight and then the abrupt removal of my magic forced me to pause and take a moment to get my breath back. You never realise just how much you rely on magic, until it's gone, and you're just left with nothing but a void inside you. If this was how humans felt every single day, then their life was not something I wished upon anyone.

  After composing myself, I got back to my feet as four loud thuds sounded from outside the building. Four things had struck the ground with massive force, causing one of the large glass panes at the front of the building to crack slightly. And then I saw one of them. The ghouls had arrived to back up the two hundred or so remaining barren.

  "Good luck, Matthew," I said softly, before sprinting toward the stairs that would lead me to find Tommy and Kasey.

  Chapter 42

  The four thuds that had sounded as the ghouls had hit the ground outside told me that I didn't have to worry about bumping into any of them as I made my way to through the two buildings. With one ghoul dead at my hands, Peter only had four left. And while that did leave the possibility that he'd made a replacement for the ghoul I'd killed, I doubted he'd hold it back to guard him when he had so little to be concerned about.

  Even so, I jogged the forty flights of stairs, keeping an eye out for anything that might cause me problems. Blood was smeared along the walls on several flights of stairs, but nothing more concerning than that, until I hit the top floor and found the bodies of two LOA agents – a male and female. The smell hit me before I saw them. Their shirts were drenched in blood, their throats torn open. They'd been murdered in a cold stairwell, yet more victims of the lich and his men who needed to be avenged.

  I left the two agents where I found them, there was nothing I could do done to help them—and opened the door to the top floor of offices.

  The blueprints that Olivia had gathered showed three large meeting rooms on this floor, along with two bathrooms, and several massive offices. One of those offices was Olivia's, which sat at the far end of the floor toward the front of the building, overlooking the grounds below.

  I crept down the corridor, glancing in the windows of two offices adjacent to one another, but found them empty. At the end of the corridor was a wall with the letters LOA spelled out in highly polished chrome. I was about to turn left, toward Olivia's office, when I noticed bloody scuff marks on the otherwise clean carpet. Someone had been dragged along the hallway here.

  I followed the trail down the right hand corridor until it finished by the door to a meeting room. I tried to look through the glass into the room, but the blinds had been pulled down hiding whatever was inside.

  I gripped the door handle and turned it slightly, pushing open the door slowly, in case a nasty surprise waited for me. When nothing jumped out to attack me, I opened the door fully and stepped inside the room, closing the door behind me with a soft click. The room itself contained a large meeting table, a dozen chairs and some book shelves. A large plasma screen TV sat on the wall at one end, but someone had knocked it and it hung from only one of its hinges.

  The blood trail continued around to the far side of the table. I followed it only to discover Tommy lying on his side, hands tied behind his back. I rushed toward him and noticed his t-shirt was slick with blood and he had gashes on his arms. I wiped away the blood on his neck and found a weak pulse. I exhaled and realised that I hadn't taken a breath since I'd found him.

  His hands were bound with a sorcerer's bracelet, probably the same one that had been put on him when Reid had attacked him in his home. I tore it from his wrist and flung it across the room, wanting to put as much distance between him and it as possible.

  "Tommy," I whispered. "You hear me?"

  Tommy made a sound that might have a yes, but quite frankly I was just happy he was able to talk at all. He looked like he'd had the shit kicked out of him, his face was swollen and puffy, and his jaw and nose were misshaped where they'd been broken. The burn marks on his face suggested it had been silver knuckles that had done the job.

  "You won't have access to your wolf," I said. "Don't try to move."

  "Ka... Kasey," his voice was hoarse and croaky; the pain it took for him to talk easy to hear.

  "I'm going to find her," I told him. "I'm going to get you both out of here, but I need you to stay in here for now. Okay?"

  I didn't get a response as Tommy had slipped into unconsciousness. The security system blocked him from changing, but it didn't take away everything his werewolf nature gave him. The re-emergence of his werewolf healing would hopefully mean he'd be able to escape from the building, under his own power.

  "You just stay safe," I said. "I'm going to go find Kasey." I didn't know if he could hear me, but on the off chance he could, I wanted to calm him as much as possible.

  I left the room as quietly as possible and quickly searched the remaining offices on that side of the floor, but found only a few ransacked rooms.

  Once I was certain there was nothing to find there, I made my way to the opposite side of the floor and Olivia's office. The meeting room I reached first was empty, but I could hear the gentle sobs coming from the one directly next to Olivia's office well before I'd reached the door, which was ajar.

  I pushed it open and made my way inside the room. The window's blinds were pulled shut and there was paper all over the floor, but other than the fact that is was slightly larger, it was identical to the one where I'd found Tommy.

  I found Kasey huddled between two book cases; her knees pulled up to her chin and her eyes closed tight.

  "Kasey," I whispered and for a second I wasn't sure if she'd heard me, but then she opened her eyes and almost flung herself at me.

  "Whoa," I said as I caught her. "Are you okay?"

  Kasey held me tightly. Her eyes were puffy from crying and she had a slight cut on her lip. It took all of my will power not to run directly into Olivia's office and attack Peter.

  "Where's my dad? That man kept hitting him."

  "He's going to be fine, but I need you to go to the room he's in and sit with him until your mum gets the security back on. Then you two need to get out of here, you may have to help him."

  Kasey shook her head. "He'll hear me, he'll hurt me. He said he would if I did anything to annoy him."

  "He won't do anything to you, I promise. But I do need you to go to your dad, it'll be safer there."

  A realisation appeared to dawn on her. "Is my mum really here?"

  "She's getting the security shut down, but she's going to be a little while. I'm going to make
sure that the lich doesn't hurt anyone else. But I can't have you here. I don't want you to get hurt."

  "Okay, I'll..." The next sound out of her mouth was a scream as I was picked up by the back of my neck and flung through the hallway window, crashing to the floor outside.

  Covered in bits of broken glass, I felt the blood trickle down the back of my arm. I'd apparently caught myself on a shard. Hopefully it wasn't too deep, but I didn't have time to look as the lich picked me up and threw me back into the meeting room, using a second window as my entry point. I hit the meeting table, skidded over it and landed roughly on the floor.

  I'd managed to get back to my knees when the lich's fist crashed into my jaw, knocking me back to the ground. I spat blood onto the carpet and tried to get back up again, but a kick to the ribs ended that dream. I rolled onto my side and tried to protect myself, but Peter was already walking away, picking up the sword and dagger that had come loose when I'd been thrown through the window.

  "Did you really think you could kill me with these?" he asked, unsheathing the sword and throwing the scabbard through the broken window and into the corridor. He ran the sword's blade across his hand, drawing blood, which he licked from his palm with a smile on his face, and then he threw the sword out into the corridor. He showed me the palm, healed within moments of his licking it.

  "Stupid little sorcerer."

  Kasey began to cry, and Peter's smashed his hands onto the table, breaking it in half. Pieces of wood hit the dagger and skirted it across the floor to the far side of the room. "Will you shut the fuck up?"

  Kasey tried to stifle her sobs, but they came out anyway.

  "Do I need to hurt you and give you something to cry about?" he snapped, pushing one half of the table away and walking toward the upset girl. But before he could reach her, he suddenly doubled up in pain and dropped to his knees, using the remains of the table to steady himself.

  I immediately grabbed Kasey and rolled us away from danger, stopping by the far wall.

  "Bastards," Peter snapped, getting back to his feet and steadying himself against the wall. "They killed three of my ghouls," he shrieked.

  "Good."

  Peter launched himself at me, grabbing me by the throat, lifting me off the floor, slamming me into the nearest wall and holding me there. "You killed one of my ghouls. How did you do that?"

  "Trade secret," I said, as his grip suddenly loosened and he screamed in pain again.

  "Looks like you've lost another," I said and pushed his arm away. "With the one I killed, that's all of them."

  "Now, now," Peter said with an evil smile. "That's only five, and I get to make six. You didn't think I'd leave my sixth ghoul unmade did you? I was just waiting for the right time to wake her up."

  I wondered. The four police officers and Vicky had made up the five I'd known about. And they were all dead now.

  "Vicky's slut of a girlfriend," he said. "How do you think we got into the building? She was just lying there on that doctor's slab until I woke her up. She's down there now, just in case anyone thought to disable the security to this place."

  The realisation I'd been in the room with that young woman's body, talking about her murder, while the whole time she'd been a ticking bomb, was a horrific thought. Even worse was the thought that Doctor Grayson might have been down there with her when Peter finally woke her up.

  "She'll be dead, too, soon enough," I told him.

  Peter punched me in the solar-plexus, driving every ounce of air from my lungs and dumping me on the floor as I fought to breathe. He turned his attention back to Kasey, who scampered along the side of the room, toward the office door. I took advantage of his distraction to grab the dagger and drive it into his leg.

  Peter let out a scream of agony as I pulled the dagger out and plunged it up into his stomach. I tried to get away from him, but he grabbed my arm and head-butted me before I took a step, breaking my nose.

  Peter grunted with pain as he removed the dagger from his gut. "Someone likes to play with knives," he said and grabbed my hand, forcing it onto the remains of the table, before driving the blade through the hand and pinning it to the wood.

  I yelled out as the silver burned my hand, both inside and out, and tried to use my free hand to pull it out, but Peter kicked my arm away and then stomped on my hand when it touched the floor. Over and over again he brought all of his force down through his booted foot and onto my hand, breaking bones and snapping tendons until it was a raw, bloody mess. Only then did he remove the knife from my other hand; the burning sensation creating a whole new kind of pain as blood pumped freely from the wound.

  I dragged my ruined hands onto my lap and tried not to think about the agony, or about having Kasey watch me die.

  Peter kicked me in the head, knocking me to the floor and causing darkness to appear at the edges of my vision. But he hadn't finished. He grabbed me by the front of my shirt and smashed my face into the already broken table, before flinging me across the room and into the far wall, where I fell to the floor next to a terrified Kasey.

  She stood in front of me. "Stop it," she shouted. "Leave him alone."

  Peter watched her with a mixture of amusement and disdain. Kasey was twelve years old, with no powers or weapons and no training, yet she still stood up to one of the most evil and powerful things on earth. She was so much like her father.

  Tears fell from my eyes. I was not about to let a young girl get hurt to protect me and I forced myself back to a kneeling position.

  Kasey glanced down at me and was suddenly trying to help me to my feet, placing one of my arms around her thin shoulders and trying to lift me up.

  Peter's laughter filled the room and I tried to warn Kasey, but my jaw was broken and the words wouldn't form properly. Peter rushed across the room and tossed Kasey aside into one of the windows, which splintered from the impact. She fell to the floor limp, and unmoving.

  "I guess that solves that problem," he said and started laughing again as I collapsed back to the floor, and he walked off to the far end of the room, opening the blinds to look down on the battlefield far below.

  Without warning, Peter clutched his chest and collapsed to his knees, screaming out in pain as somewhere in the bowels of the building, his last ghoul died.

  If I could have moved my face, I would have smiled. Instead, I felt the surge of energy, as my magic rushed back into me like a tsunami. My body immediately started to heal itself, but I remained motionless as I searched for a spirit to absorb using the technique that Sky had taught me. It wouldn't be long before Sky and Olivia reached me, I only had to hold Peter off for a few minutes.

  I have no idea how long I remained like that, trying to find a spirit. A lot of people had died here today, so I knew they were there. I could almost sense them, but that was all I could do. I tried so hard to absorb one like I had when I'd fought Randal, but I couldn't get it to work.

  And then something happened. I'd tried searching further outside the top floor, desperate to find anything that could help, when I felt it. The spirit was angry, hurt and full of pain and grief. I could feel its emotions as a coldness started inside my stomach and soon filled me entirely. I was just beginning to accept what was happening, when I realised that it wasn't one spirit filling me, it was two. The two agents I'd found on the stairway, their names were Margret and Lee. I knew that with a hundred percent clarity, although I had no idea how.

  As the coldness travelled through me, I activated my blood magic, using my own blood as a source, and grunted as the bones in my hand started to heal. I felt my body healing itself at a rate I'd never known before, my face and hands returning to their original state within seconds. Once I'd healed myself and deactivated my blood magic, I felt part of the coldness leave with it. I stood and rested momentarily against the wall behind me.

  "Got your magic back?" Peter asked with a chuckle as he walked toward me. "You heal pretty damn fast, even for a sorcerer. But it won't help."

  When I didn't
reply, he punched me in the stomach, doubling me over, and slammed the back of my head into the wall. I dropped to the floor in a seated position. Peter grasped me around the throat and picked me off the ground, holding me against the wall as he squeezed my throat.

  "No fight left in you?" he asked with a sickening grin.

  "Can't fight," I wheezed. "Concentrating."

  "On what?"

  As Peter had kept his eyes on me, I'd created two spheres of air, much like the one I'd used on Randal, one in the palm of each hand, spinning them faster and faster with my fingers, until they were a blur.

  "On this." I plunged both spheres into Peter's chest as white-hot rage exploded inside me. At first all I heard was Peter's laughter as the magic touched him and he squeezed tighter on my throat. And then the laughter was abruptly replaced with screams as the spheres tore into the flesh of his chest. He released his grip and staggered back, but I stayed with him as his screams were lost in the maelstrom of sound that the spheres created. Right up until the moment I released the magic.

  The magic, needing to go somewhere, rushed into Peter like a tank hitting a wall. Peter was lifted from his feet and thrown across the room, through the wall behind him and into Olivia's office where he crashed against her desk.

  I took a step forward to go after him and immediately saw Kasey. My rage was extinguished and I dropped to Kasey's side. "Hey," I said softly as she stirred.

  "My arm hurts," she said, as she opened her eyes.

  I called more blood magic and placed my hand on the arm she had cradled against her.

  "That better?" I asked.

  "I had to stay still when he threw me. I'm so sorry I didn't fight more."

  I helped her back to her feet and made sure she was steady. "You stood up to a lich, Kasey. You are now officially the bravest person I know, but I've got it from here. Your dad is in the room at the end. He's hurt, but should be okay. You need to get him down the stairs and out of this building. No matter how badly he's hurt, you have to get him away from here."