Scorched Shadows (The Hellequin Chronicles Book 7)

by Steve McHugh

  “Olivia said you’d need warm clothes,” Polina said from the front passenger seat as the car started.

  “You are a beautiful person,” Remy said, putting on one of the dark-gray coats and making a sighing noise.

  “You’re furry,” Diana pointed out as she put on her own coat before buckling the seat belt.

  “Furry doesn’t really make much difference when it’s minus twenty and parts of me have frozen. Besides, I can talk. I’m sure if all foxes could talk, they’d tell you they were bloody well cold, too.”

  “Why don’t you like Viktor?” Mordred asked Polina, not really expecting an answer.

  “He used to be a big shot with Avalon, but things changed and he didn’t take his fall from up high all that well.”

  Mordred relaxed a little. Maybe this wouldn’t be the mess he was expecting. “Any chance he doesn’t mention me by name as he’s cursing people?”

  “He stopped cursing you a long time ago, Mordred,” Polina said. “Mostly he just curses Avalon, and the Kremlin, and anyone else who he feels let him down.”

  Mordred looked out of the car window. He was hoping that what he’d done to Viktor hadn’t set him on a path of self-destruction and anger, but maybe it was all his fault. The number of acts he knew he had to make up for seemed to multiply by the day.

  “If it helps,” Polina said, “I have no reason to hate you, Mordred. Elaine told me you were a changed man. Her word carries a lot here.”

  “Do you know where she is?” Diana asked. “She was taken from a house in Scotland and presumably brought here.”

  “I haven’t spoken to her in a few months. Last I heard she was looking into a place in Siberia. She wanted me to find information on an old gulag there.”

  “What did you pass her?” Diana asked.

  “Just maps, details of who was kept prisoner. Nothing that I’d have thought was reason enough to get her grabbed.”

  “Can you get us those details?”

  Polina nodded. “It’ll take me a few hours, but yes. I did it for Elaine in an unofficial capacity, so I didn’t exactly keep copies.”

  “That would be excellent, thank you,” Mordred said. He hadn’t been sure whether or not to trust Polina. He couldn’t say for certain that she wasn’t involved with My Liege, but seeing how Elaine trusted her, he would, too. He’d lived his life never trusting anyone, always expecting to be screwed over. It took a lot of effort to get rid of that mindset; he didn’t want to go back to it.

  “What does Viktor do now?” Remy asked. “Apart from seethe.”

  “He’s an antiques dealer. And one with more ties to certain underground criminal enterprises than would usually be considered healthy.”

  “Criminal enterprises?” Remy asked. “You mean the mob?”

  “Not the human one, no. Avalon doesn’t have a lot of issues with them, but the human and nonhuman criminal element often work together. We believe that Viktor is involved with a local werewolf pack who owns a nightclub.”

  Mordred’s eyes lit up. “Oh, we’ve got to go there.”

  “Why?” Diana asked.

  “A fight in a nightclub? I’ve never done that, have you? I bet it’s awesome. All John Wick, or some other film with an awesome nightclub scene in it.”

  “Why would there be a fight?” Diana asked. “Scratch that—if you and Remy go in there, it’s almost a certainty that a fight will break out.”

  “We’re classy like that,” Remy said.

  “You do not want to go starting a fight in their nightclub,” Polina said. “People who start trouble in there don’t ever come out. We’ve tried to infiltrate their group several times, and not once has anyone lasted more than a few days. They don’t trust anyone who isn’t known to them, and word has it the underground levels of the club are used to hunt the people who cross them.”

  “Does Olivia know?” Diana asked.

  Polina nodded. “She thinks they have ties to this shadowy group who are working against Avalon. She found out they were involved with a group called the Reavers, who we all pretty much managed to destroy, but those Reavers were working for several people, like Hera. And we think the werewolves and Hera are in bed together.”

  “And Viktor works with these people?” Diana asked.

  Polina nodded. “That’s our thought, yes. He appears to be a money guy. Helping the rich get richer, knowing the right people to do the right job, that sort of thing. It seems to be a lucrative business for him.”

  “Viktor gets rich helping rich people stay rich by screwing over the poor?” Remy said.

  “That’s about the size of things, yes.”

  “Sounds like a dream.”

  “He’s smart, and he’s useful to the right people, so he’s untouchable.”

  “Useful how?” Mordred asked.

  “He keeps us informed when some of the more violent criminals come his way. He’ll help some rich banker move his money around, but he’s not too keen on helping some assassin asshole hide a million dollars in blood money. He has his limits. Doesn’t mean I have to like him. And I certainly don’t trust him, but you squeeze him every now and again and he gives up something worth knowing.”

  “Like who is the leader of this cabal, this My Liege character?” Diana asked.

  Polina shook her head. “I doubt it. He’s not the kind of person I’d trust with that knowledge. If this werewolf pack is involved with any cabal, they’re not exactly on the inner circle, and Viktor isn’t the kind of man you’d want to bring into that circle.”

  The two cars stopped a short time later outside of a large, white-bricked building with a long, curved driveway that led up to a set of steps, at the top of which was a wooden front door. On the side of the house sat a massive garage, which was easily big enough to keep four cars side by side. There were no trees on either side of the house, although Mordred spotted some at the rear of the property. Presumably Viktor wasn’t a fan of not being able to see who was walking up to his front door. The lights on the top floor were on, but other than that it was bathed in darkness.

  “How many entrances and exits?” Mordred asked.

  “Is he going to run?” Polina asked.

  Mordred shrugged. “People tend to run when they see me. It’s something I’m used to.”

  Polina stared at Mordred for a few seconds. “One back, one front. He could leap from the windows, but that’s not his style. He’ll wait to be grabbed. We’ve done this dance a few times. He never puts up any resistance.

  “The building is two stories above, and two below. Vault in the bottom level. It’s all custom designed, and the first floor underground contains a safe room. This is his home, so there’s not a lot of collector stuff here—that’ll be in his workplace. Four bedrooms, although he lives alone, so don’t expect much in the way of other people. He has at least three different girlfriends that we can tell, all of whom like to stay over on occasion. Sometimes more than one at a time. The downstairs has a large kitchen, two reception rooms, and a lockable door to his office. I know that because I kicked it in the last time I was here and he refused to open it. It was empty. He likes to play games.”

  “I’m just going to knock on the front door and see what happens,” Mordred said. “I’d rather not give him any excuse to not work with us. We need his help.”

  “Why?” Polina asked. “What does he know that’s so important?”

  “I have no idea,” Mordred said, opening the car door. “I’m hoping he can tell us that.” He stepped outside into the cold and walked over to the steps, bounding up them as quickly as possible before pushing the doorbell.

  The rest of the group soon joined him as footsteps inside the house could be heard.

  “Step to the side,” Nabu said to Mordred. “If he sees you first, he might run.”

  “Then we chase him,” Mordred said, but he did as Nabu asked and moved aside so that when Viktor looked through the eyehole he saw only Diana and Nabu.

  After unlocking it Viktor o
pened the door, beckoning everyone inside to the foyer of the house. Viktor was a tall, slim man, with a bald head. Several tattoos adorned his arms and hairy chest, and he wore purple silk pajama trousers with no shirt.

  Viktor ran his hand over several days’ worth of stubble growth and sighed. “Mordred.”

  There was an icy silence for a few seconds, and Mordred watched as several of his group tensed up, prepared for a fight.

  Mordred stepped forward. “Viktor. It’s been a long time.”

  “I always swore I would kill you when I saw you next.” Viktor looked down at where his arm had once been. It now ended just after the elbow. “I wear a state-of-the-art prosthesis now. It moves to the commands of my brain. An alchemist designed it. Very expensive, very unique. Much stronger than my old arm ever was. But even so, I wanted you dead.”

  “If you want to try to kill me, I’m right here. Go ahead so we can get this over with.”

  Viktor grinned and clasped a hand on Mordred’s shoulder. “I’m not going to try to kill you, Mordred. I’m going to go one better. I’m going to give you everything you ever needed, and then when you go off to find Elaine, the people who took her will kill you. They will torture you horribly for a long time, and when you finally die at their hand, I’ll know. And on that day I’m going to sleep like it’s the best day ever. I don’t need to kill you; I just need to point you in the direction of the people who will.”

  “Point away, Viktor,” Mordred said, smiling the whole time. “I know I did awful things to you, and I’m sorry about that. I really am. But if you screw with us, and I survive—and I’m excellent when it comes to surviving, just so you know—I’m going to come back here, remove your other arm, and I’m going to beat you to death with it.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Mordred

  Elaine told me you would turn up at some point,” Viktor said after everyone had calmed down.

  He took the group into his office at the rear of the property, which, for a reason Mordred couldn’t quite grasp, had a bar in it. He poured himself a large glass of red wine and sat behind his desk, as if Viktor were in some sort of completely normal business meeting.

  “What did she say?” Mordred asked.

  “That you’d turn up and I was meant to help you. You have the USB drive, yes?”

  Mordred removed it from his jacket pocket and placed the little blue and silver device on the desk.

  “What’s on it?” Remy asked.

  “Documents and software,” Viktor said with seemingly no interest in explaining further.

  “Yeah, we’re gonna need more than that,” Morgan said. “I doubt very much that drive is full of Excel spreadsheets and the occasional PowerPoint presentation.”

  “We’ll have to go into my safe room to access the drive. It’s the only place in the house with a secure server. I don’t trust a lot of people.”

  “Me, neither,” Mordred said. “But on one hand, they only have to betray that trust once.”

  Viktor paused before getting to his feet. “Your thinly veiled threats mean little to me, Mordred. You took my arm. You killed my friends, and you burned my home to the ground.”

  “Don’t say there’s nothing I can do to you,” Mordred said. “It’s clichéd, and you live in a fucking mansion. There’s about a million things I can do to you, and half of them still allow you to remain in use of your other limbs. Look, I’m tired. It’s been a long day. Can we just get on with it?”

  Viktor sighed and took the group down a set of stairs, where they stopped on a landing. There was another set of stairs, leading down into the level below, and a set of large metal doors. Viktor punched in a number on the keypad and scanned his hand before there was a hiss of air and the doors slowly opened.

  “That is not what I expected from a safe room,” Remy said.

  “It’s more of a safe flat,” Fiona said. “It’s huge.”

  “It looks like a penthouse suite,” Nabu said.

  “Just because I have to stay here to be safe doesn’t mean I can’t be comfortable,” Viktor said.

  The floor was all open plan, with a reception area just behind the doors, next to a kitchen and dining area to the right. Viktor led everyone to the right of those, under an archway into a massive living area, complete with oversized TV, and couch big enough to fit a football team comfortably. There was a bar, and pool table, and it looked more like the sort of place you’d go to hang out with friends than somewhere you’d go because something awful was happening and you wanted to be safe.

  “The bedrooms and bathroom are just over there,” Viktor said, pointing through a second archway to a hall beyond.

  “Have you ever used this before?” Diana asked.

  “All the time,” Viktor told her. “Like I said, I like to feel safe. I also like to keep people guessing. I don’t bring guests down here very often, though.”

  “Now I feel special,” Remy said.

  Viktor ignored him and walked over to a computer on a desk at the far side of the room. He tapped the mouse, and the computer screen lit up. “I keep it on at all times,” Viktor said. “It’s not like I can’t afford the electricity.”

  “I tell you what, I’m not sure how you’ve managed to stay single for so long,” Morgan said with as much sarcasm as she could manage. “Because dropping how much money you have into a conversation—that’s sexy.”

  “I’m not ashamed of how much money I make,” Viktor said.

  “How about how you make it?” Fiona asked.

  “Not that, either. We all have to eat.”

  “Yeah, this is barely getting by,” Fiona said.

  Viktor sat at the computer and plugged the USB drive in. “You know, Elaine didn’t tell me you’d all be giving me so much shit for what I do for a living.”

  “I imagine she thought you probably deserved it,” Remy said. “What’s on the drive?”

  “That’s an excellent question,” Viktor said. “I don’t honestly know what’s on it. It’s encrypted and will take a while to open.”

  “Why you?” Mordred asked. “Why did Elaine come to see you? There’s literally no reason I can think of that she would put a USB drive in a box in a cave instead of sending it to Tommy, Olivia, or anyone else she trusts. And she certainly wouldn’t have come to you to discuss things. Besides, you’re not smart enough to be a computer guy. You’re a gangster, through and through. Not a brave or smart one, but still, that’s the life you lead.”

  “She trusted me,” Viktor said.

  “Bullshit,” Mordred snapped. “I don’t trust you, and I’ve actually had dealings with you. You work with whoever will offer you the most of what you want. Money, power, influence . . . Whoever gives you what you need at that time, that’s who you work with. What did Elaine offer you? What do you get out of it? Money? Prestige? Please don’t say women and drugs, because I’d have to feel really disappointed if you do.”

  Viktor turned in his chair to face everyone. “A new realm,” Viktor said. “I get to take my wealth and leave this realm and everyone in it. I get to move to a realm of my choosing and live like a damn king.”

  “Why?” Remy asked.

  “Because just maybe I backed the wrong horse,” Viktor snapped. “And just maybe some people won’t be that happy with it when it’s discovered.”

  “Who did you back?” Nabu asked.

  Viktor and Mordred held each other’s gaze for several seconds. “Elaine.”

  “What are you talking about?” Fiona asked. “She never mentioned you at any point.”

  “You remember when you ripped my arm off, left me for dead, and destroyed my life?”

  “You want me to remind you why I did those things?” Mordred snapped.

  “No. But Elaine found me. Offered me a job working for her in secret. She’d pay for my new arm, my new life, make it look like I’d earned it, and from there I was meant to ingratiate myself with people who might not have Avalon’s best interests at heart.”

  “Like H
era, by chance?” Diana asked.

  Viktor nodded. “I did a few things for her people, yes. I fed back what I could and made some profit where I needed to, but I never betrayed Elaine. Not once. A few months ago she shows up, tells me she wants me to keep some computer equipment here. That there’s software on it that’s been engineered to unlock encrypted data. Told me to leave it on at all times and keep it safe. In exchange she’d get me out of the realm. She said that Hera and her people were starting to move pieces around, that sooner or later I’d be discovered.”

  “So, you sold Elaine to Hera or something?” Mordred asked.

  “No, of course not. I did exactly what she asked.” He turned back to the computer. “Look.” He clicked on a few screens and opened some software, which immediately gave a satellite view of a building in Moscow. “That can’t be right,” he said.

  “What is it?” Diana asked, her tone suggesting Viktor was exceptionally close to irritating her.

  “Good news and bad news,” Viktor said, and Mordred thought there was far too much happiness in his voice for his liking.

  “Just tell us,” Diana said.

  “Part of the encryption was to stop anyone from seeing the tracking device she wore.”

  “And the rest of it?” Mordred asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s still going through the software. Anyway, this device needs contact with a living person to continue to function. So she’s either in that building right there”—he tapped an image on the screen—“or she’s placed it on someone who is there so we can find them.”

  “What’s that building right there?” Remy asked.

  “The nightclub the werewolves own.” Viktor almost tensed as if expecting someone to hit him, and when it didn’t happen he looked around the room to check where everyone was.

  “You didn’t give Elaine up?” Mordred asked, his voice hard, the anger seeping out.

  “No, I swear I didn’t. Elaine was going to keep me alive. I’m not a saint, and I did awful things for money, but no one knew I worked for Elaine. If they had, I’d have been killed years ago.”