A Flicker of Steel

by Steve McHugh

  Alfred’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know where you send the spirit scrolls. I want to know where you were going to send those people, and then I want to know whether you’d like a jail cell with a view of the front yard or back.”

  “I ain’t going to jail.”

  “Death or jail. It’s not a great choice, but it’s all you’ve got.”

  “You gonna kill me, little girl?”

  Layla sighed. “I’ve never killed anyone handcuffed to a chair before, but you speak to me like that again, and we’re going to test how many bones of yours I can break.”

  Alfred smiled. “I’ve killed many. Hundreds. Maybe more. I’m good at it. Good at a few things, as it turns out. Killin’, that’s just one of them.”

  “How many are buried in the garden?”

  “Few dozen. Some were thrown into the swamp to let nature take its course. It’s easier. But the girls, well, I needed them close to me. I needed to feel them between my toes as I walked around outside on crisp mornings. I needed to keep our connection. They were no longer of use to me in the physical world, but the spiritual one? Well, now, that’s a whole different matter.”

  “You really like the sound of your own voice, don’t you?” Layla leaned against the nearest wall. “Where do you send the people and scrolls?”

  “To Nergal.”

  “And where is he?”

  “Here and there. I’m not going to tell you anything. Not one of you has the balls to force the information out of me. Not the big woman, not you, and certainly not the sexy little kitty-cat I caught. Pretending to be a kidnap victim, that was very brave. I was going to find out how brave she really was when I got her upstairs.”

  Layla wanted to kill him, but she pushed the thought aside and sighed. “You’re not hurting anyone. Not now, not ever again.”

  The door opened, and a young woman stepped inside the room. Her name was Mapiya, but everyone called her Sky. She had been born several centuries earlier to a Sioux Chief father and a European Missionary mother, but when both had been murdered, Sky had been adopted by a friend of her parents: Hades. Layla had only met the man a handful of times, but, along with his wife Persephone, Hades was one of the few people who made her a bit nervous.

  Sky smiled at Layla. “The helicopter landed just up the road a short time ago. I’m not too late for the interrogation, am I?”

  “No, darlin’, you’re just in time,” Alfred said. “Interrogate away, bitch.”

  Layla punched him in the jaw, snapping his head to one side. “I don’t like that word,” she told him as he spat blood onto the floor.

  “Nice punch. I see that Diana has been teaching you,” Sky said with a slight chuckle. “You want to hit him again?”

  “Can I?” Layla asked.

  “We don’t need him alive. I can drag the information out of his soul. Being a necromancer helps.”

  “Beatin’ a defenseless man,” Alfred said. “If you had any courage, you’d untie me and we’d settle this properly. I see you’ve found my guns. You dare come into a man’s home and take his guns? You bitches have no idea what I want to do to you. But you could just go ask those other three. They’ll give you lots of ideas.” He winked.

  Layla removed the two revolvers from her belt, placing both of them on the table. “You want those cuffs removed? Okay.” She turned to Sky. “Can you get the key to the handcuffs?”

  Sky smirked and left the room, returning a moment later with Diana, who unlocked Alfred’s cuffs.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” Diana asked Layla.

  Layla nodded and retrieved the two revolvers. “Trust me.”

  “Always.”

  “If any of this piece of crap’s prisoners here want to see this, let them. Bring out our prisoners whether they like it or not.”

  Layla opened the double doors to the garden, allowing in the breeze, and then motioned for Alfred to leave the room.

  Alfred now eyed the three women with concern, but swaggered into the garden as if he were still king of his castle. “I buried the first one right here,” Alfred proclaimed.

  Chloe and Remy stopped walking around the garden and stared at Alfred. Chloe took a step forward, but Remy stopped her, shaking his head a little.

  Layla saw the anger on Chloe’s face and walked over to her. “Sorry, I didn’t see you still out here.”

  “That’s okay,” Chloe said. “You think you can get any answers from him?”

  “That’s not why I brought him out here.” Layla walked over to Alfred and tossed one of the revolvers on the grass by his feet. “Pick it up. You seem to think you’re a cowboy. Let’s see how good you are against an itsy-bitsy girl.”

  Alfred smiled and reached for his revolver, keeping one eye on Layla the whole time. He checked the bullets. “We drawing? Like it’s high noon? You don’t look much like Clint Eastwood.”

  “I’m going to give you a chance,” Layla said. “You outdraw me, and I’ll give you an hour’s head start. You all agree to that, yes?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “What if you have silver bullets in that gun?” Alfred asked.

  “This isn’t to kill you. This is to make a point. A man like you only thinks of women as things to abuse. Things to control. You think you’re invincible. That Nergal and his allies will swoop in and save you. They won’t. You’re going to get shot and bleed all over this lawn while I go inside and have a nice cold drink of lemonade.”

  Diana stepped outside of the house with several prisoners in tow, all forced to kneel and watch. Daisy, Veronica, and Amber joined her, but stood well away from Alfred’s accomplices. Diana and Sky stood between the two groups.

  “I don’t have a holster,” Alfred shouted.

  Diana threw one in front of him, and a second on the ground in front of Layla, who put it on immediately. She holstered her revolver. “I want all of you to understand that this man is nothing,” Layla said to Alfred’s people. “I want you to understand that helping us to locate the people he kidnapped is a far better thing to do than believing that people like Alfred will ever get to you. You shouldn’t be afraid of people like him.”

  “You ready, girl?” Alfred asked. “I get an hour’s head start?”

  Layla nodded. “One hour. And we will hunt you.”

  “You’ll be bleeding all over the grass, so I might not bother running. Maybe just the sight of you in pain and agony will be enough to know that I won.”

  “Last chance,” Layla said. “You want to just help us? You want to do something right for a change?”

  “I want to shoot you.”

  Layla shrugged.

  “You gonna count?” Alfred asked.

  “Nope. Just gonna wait for you to—” Alfred went for his revolver, but Layla was quicker and drew hers smoothly, shooting him twice in the chest.

  Alfred looked down at the red spreading across his t-shirt, dropped the gun, and slumped to his knees. Layla walked over and crouched in front of him. “If you ever touch, look at, or speak badly about any woman ever again, without their express permission, I will end you. Your bullets aren’t silver, so you’ll live, even with that sorcerer’s band on. I just want you to know that the pain you’re feeling is nothing compared to what I’ll do to you if we ever cross paths again. You will answer any and all of our questions. Am I clear?”

  Alfred didn’t respond, so Layla shot him in the stomach, just above his groin. He screamed and collapsed on the grass. “Remember that pain,” Layla said. “Remember what happened here, and what I could have done to you. Do you understand?”

  Alfred nodded.

  Layla held the revolver and watched as it twisted into a ball, the bullets dropping harmlessly onto the grass. She bumped fists with Sky as she walked past.

  “Feel better?” Diana asked.

  “Much,” Layla said as she re-entered the house.

  “You think they’ll talk now?” Daisy said from behind Layla.

&n
bsp; Layla turned toward the young woman, who stood in the doorway to the rear of the property. “I hope so. Or it’ll make them think twice about crossing us.”

  Daisy left the house again, and Rosa appeared beside Layla. “I am genuinely shocked. I didn’t think you would challenge someone like that.”

  “I cheated.”

  “What? How?”

  “I moved the metal around the gun, which allowed me to draw it quicker. I couldn’t be sure I’d do it any other way. I was also going to stop the bullets from hitting me if he’d fired first.”

  Rosa laughed. “That’s quite devious.”

  “Yes, it’s clear you’re rubbing off on me. I couldn’t let him get away with what he’d done. He knew that no one here would talk; his people are too scared of him to do anything but wait for the cash to fall their way.”

  “Not complaining. I’d have aimed a little lower.”

  Layla stared at Rosa for several seconds. “I know that parts of our personalities will merge, but I’d quite like it if the penis-removing stayed with you.”

  Rosa was still laughing as Chloe entered the room, walked up to Layla, and hugged her. “Thank you for what you did. Seeing him there all smug and confident was making me feel a bit ill.”

  “He’s not worth killing. It pains him more to live and be reminded of his failures.”

  The front door to the mansion opened and a man stepped inside. He was over six feet tall, had a bald head, and wore a pair of dark trousers with a white shirt. He came across as a kind, gentle person who cared deeply for those he loved, but Layla had seen the other side of this man, the side that appeared when someone crossed him, or when they threatened his people. There were good reasons that Hades was feared as one of the most powerful beings on the planet.

  “Hades,” Chloe said. “Your daughter is already here.”

  Hades crossed the room and hugged Chloe before doing the same to Layla. “It’s good to see you both. How did things go?”

  Layla gave him a quick rundown, and when she got to the part about Alfred and the three young women, she saw Hades’ eyes narrow in anger. When she’d finished, he walked to the window and looked out over the garden to where Alfred remained on the ground.

  “I’d have aimed a little lower,” he said, causing Chloe to laugh. “Anyone who has been hurt by these people will be given all the help they need. I’ll see to it myself. Until then, there’s a ride for Remy and Diana to get back to Tommy and Olivia. I’m sure we’ll run more missions together before this is all over.”

  “Has everyone in your employ started to evacuate from Canada now?” Layla asked.

  Hades had a large secret compound in Greenland, a place that no one but his closest allies knew about. It was where he staged all of their operations, and it was where Layla currently called home. Hades also owned large pieces of land in Canada, territory that Avalon would go after sooner or later. He had shown Avalon more than once that he was not on board with their ideas, and so it was just a matter of time before Arthur turned his considerable war machine on Hades’ influence in Canada.

  “We’ve already started on some of the bigger cities,” Hades said. “Those east of Sault Ste. Marie are pretty much empty of my people, so we’ll head west next and evacuate Red Rock and Thunder Bay. The people there are under orders to start leaving within the next few days, but I’ll have to leave a small contingent in each city so that it doesn’t look like we’ve just fled. By the time Arthur finally gets around to dealing with me—and he’s in no hurry, I assure you—we’ll be more than ready to strike back.”

  “You need to come out here,” Sky said, entering the mansion and waving at her dad.

  Everyone left the building and followed Sky back outside where Alfred was still prone. Standing over Alfred, Remy leaned forward and shook Hades’ hand. “So, the ‘B’ team has arrived. Time to go home.”

  Hades smiled. “I have half-a-dozen people coming to help scour this entire place. Nothing will be left unattended. A car is waiting for you all outside—Diana too, when she finishes tending to Alfred’s wounds.”

  “You mean we can’t just let him bleed out on the grass?” Remy asked. “Because, honestly, that would get my vote.”

  “I can tell you where they’re being sent,” Alfred said through gritted teeth.

  “Where what is being sent?” Sky asked. “Be really specific.”

  “The scrolls and the people,” Alfred answered. “Get me a map. I’ll show you.”

  Diana used the map on her phone and Alfred pointed out the exact place.

  “It’s about four hours from here,” Diana said. “Shoal Point, Texas.”

  “There’s a warehouse close to the beach. There’s a small dock nearby. The supplies are driven through to Galveston Bay and shipped over to Shoal Point. Someone else then picks them up.”

  “Who picks them up?” Hades asked.

  When Alfred didn’t speak, Remy pressed one paw down on the man’s hip, causing him to cry out.

  “I don’t know,” Alfred snapped. “That’s where my role in our agreement with Nergal ends.”

  “If you’re lying to us . . .” Diana said.

  “I’m not,” Alfred told her. “Do I get some kind of lesser sentence for helping you?”

  Layla’s anger bubbled over and she went for the prone man, but was stopped by Sky. “We need him at the moment. Or at least we need his information. My dad and I could kill him and take all of his memories, but, speaking for myself, I don’t want to. I really don’t want to. Okay?”

  Layla nodded and walked back inside. “Is this ever going to end?” she asked, feeling suddenly tired.

  “One day, I hope so,” Hades said, following her. “Arthur can’t fight us all forever. And every bit of damage we do against his organization helps everyone who isn’t a part of it.”

  “Avalon,” Remy said, entering the house. “If you can still call it that.”

  Hades shook his head. “I’ve worked with Avalon for thousands of years. What Arthur has turned it into is not the real Avalon. It’s a vile corruption of what Avalon was created for. I refuse to call it such.”

  “How about giving it a new name?” Chloe asked as she joined them in the house.

  “The Lodge of Dickbags,” Remy suggested. “The Bushel of Cocks. Cockwombles United. You know, if you want, I can keep going?”

  Chloe and Layla turned away to try to stop laughing, and a smile tugged at Hades’ lips.

  “I like the last one best,” Remy said. “I just need to come up with two more words to complete the acronym.”

  “I think we should go now,” Layla said.

  Chloe’s chuckles turned into laughter just as Diana and Sky entered the room and looked at them quizzically.

  “It’s Remy’s fault,” Hades said by way of explanation. “All of you need to go home and rest. Sky, I assume you’ll be staying with me?”

  Sky nodded. “I have a few questions for Alfred and his people.”

  “I want to go to the warehouse,” Layla said. “I need to see this through.”

  “I’m going with her,” Remy said.

  Chloe and Diana also wanted to join them, and Hades said that he’d arrange for the armed personnel who’d arrived with him to accompany the team on one of his three helicopters, while he stayed behind with Sky to see what else they could find out.

  A short time later, Layla, Remy, Chloe, and Diana were onboard the customized Black Hawk helicopter heading toward Shoal Point. Layla watched the land pass far below her and wondered just how many of the humans down there knew how much danger they were in. Arthur and his people had taken great pains to reveal the non-human species to the world, and then gone to even greater lengths to make humanity afraid of them. And Nergal had been beside him every step of the way.

  At some point Layla knew she was going to find Nergal, and she was going to have to stop him. And if that meant killing him, then so be it. But how could you kill someone that powerful? How did you kill someone who w
as once considered a god?

  Eventually, she drifted off to sleep, but her dreams were filled with images of those she cared about being hurt by an unknown force. Layla awoke with a jolt as the helicopter landed, feeling concerned about exactly what the future held.

  5

  “That is not a warehouse,” Diana said as the group stood on the beach at Shoal Point and stared at what was meant to be a large warehouse. It was large, but it was more barn-like than they expected.

  Chloe tapped the screen of her phone a few times. “Is it just me, or is it super-creepy that my map doesn’t have that building on it?” She showed everyone the screen, and sure enough the large wooden barn wasn’t there.

  The six soldiers moved across the beach in well-practiced formation. They’d told Layla, Remy, Diana, and Chloe to stay back and let them do their job. They had to tell Remy this three times. In Layla’s mind this was because . . . well, it was Remy.

  The group consisted of four men and two women, and Layla didn’t know any of them beyond a few first names. They were considered by everyone who worked with Hades as dangerous people—Special Operations in all but name—and they kept to themselves even outside of missions.

  The soldiers moved into the barn, their silver-bullet-loaded weapons raised and ready to engage as necessary. A few seconds later one returned to the beach and waved Layla’s team over.

  “It’s safe,” he called out. “No one home.”

  “I’m glad they’re here,” Remy said. “I don’t know what we would have done if they hadn’t searched the empty barn first.”

  “They’re just doing their jobs,” Chloe said with a roll of her eyes.

  “I could have searched the barn,” Remy told her. “I could have told them there was no one in there from way back on the beach.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Diana asked, a sly smile on her lips.

  Remy shrugged. “Didn’t want them to feel useless.”

  “You’re pouting,” Chloe told him as they reached the barn entrance.

  “Foxes don’t pout,” Remy said, crossing his arms before catching himself in the action and dropping them to his sides.