Scorched Shadows (The Hellequin Chronicles Book 7)

by Steve McHugh

  Eventually he moved toward me, keeping his hands up and bouncing from foot to foot as he moved. I moved my head from side to side and waited for him. I wasn’t going to go to him; I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of making me impatient.

  When he was close enough, he threw a jab, which I knocked aside. I moved around him, either avoiding his punches or slapping them away, making him smile every time I had to back away. He feinted with a jab toward my kidney that I just managed to avoid, but I couldn’t avoid the blow to my jaw that knocked me over one of the tables.

  “Not so good, after all,” Ares said with a laugh.

  I felt like saying, “You see how good you are after someone tortures you for hours on end,” but it wouldn’t have made any difference. Instead, I got back to my feet and blocked a kick to my side, and then another one to my stomach. I brought my elbow down on his knee and punched him in the side. He pushed me away and began to bounce up and down again, shaking his knee as he moved.

  “Nice,” he said. “You’ve got some power in your punches. Didn’t expect that.”

  I remained silent and breathed out slowly before placing myself in a fighting stance.

  “I haven’t seen that style before,” Ares said. “Where did you learn it?”

  I remained quiet, and his irrational hatred of being ignored got the better of him. He snapped forward with a hard punch, which I ducked under, and I smashed my elbow into his exposed ribs and slammed my palms into his stomach. He stepped back but grabbed hold of me as he did, lifting me off the ground and flinging me over his head and across the table behind him.

  “Finesse is over,” Ares said, throwing the table aside. I pushed up from the floor, kicking at Ares’s head as I spun past him. I stood and smiled as blood trickled down his lip. He licked it and charged me. I moved aside, but he was too fast, and he grabbed my arm, using his momentum to wrench it out of its socket. He kicked me in the chest, and I staggered back against the wall. His fist slammed into the side of my head, knocking me to one knee as stars swam in front of me. I blocked a knee to the head, but he kicked me in the ribs, doing more damage to my earlier injury.

  I dropped to all fours, and Ares kicked me in the ribs like he was kicking a football. More of them broke from the impact, and I rolled against the wall, gasping for breath.

  Ares reached down, grabbed me by the throat, and lifted me off the ground before slamming the back of my head into the wall.

  “You are not my equal!” he shouted in my face. He head-butted me and flung me across the destroyed table, where I hit a chair, gouging my forearm. Blood was soon trickling down toward my hand, and I spotted the bracelet that Ares had been wearing. It was on the floor under a nearby table. I was beaten, hurt, and had been tortured for hours. I couldn’t beat Ares. It wasn’t a matter of how good he was—he was fresh, and I wasn’t. I wasn’t even sure I’d have been able to beat him if I’d been at 100 percent, but I knew in my current state, it would only be a matter of time before he killed me or, worse, knocked me out so that he could finish the job on my mind. Sending me out to kill those people I loved the most.

  “You still on the floor, little man?” Ares asked. “I can’t believe how weak Helios must have been to have lost at your hands.”

  “I thought this was going to be equal,” I said, using the table to pull myself upright before slamming my shoulder into the wall, putting the dislocated joint back in place. I cried out in pain. “You’re still much stronger than me.”

  Ares shrugged. “Can’t do much about that, now can I?”

  I shrugged, too. “Guess not. So are we fighting, or are we going to drink tea and eat cake?”

  Ares laughed and walked toward me. I blocked a kick and drove my knee into his stomach. I kicked out at his leg, causing it to buckle, and punched him in the jaw, knocking him to the side. As he moved he kicked out, and despite my blocking it, the power behind it lifted me off my feet and dumped me on the nearest table. I rolled over it and crashed to the floor, grabbing the bracelet and clicking it into place a second later. Power flowed through me, but I stayed where I was on the floor, allowing my magic to heal me.

  Ares threw the table above me aside and kicked my newly healed ribs. “Is that it? Are you spent?”

  He kicked again, and I rolled with it, throwing up shadows all around Ares that dragged him to his knees, pinning him in place.

  “Cheat!” Ares screamed at me as he tried to fight against the shadows.

  “Yeah, you just caught on to that?” I asked, and wrapped air around my fist, bringing it down onto his jaw and snapping his head aside with incredible force.

  Blood splattered across the floor from Ares’s ruined mouth, and I kicked him in the chest, using my shadows to drag him down onto his back.

  “You’re undeserving of calling yourself a man,” Ares said.

  I rained down punch after punch on his helpless body, allowing the rage and anger to fuel me, until his face was a ruined mess.

  “You shouldn’t have put all that hate in me,” I whispered to him. “Maybe I’d have fought fair if you’d just left me alone.”

  I placed the tip of my finger against his temple as he muttered something.

  “I hope this hurts,” I said, and shot a finger width of lightning magic into his temple.

  He screamed in pain and bucked against the shadows. Then I stood up, created a blade of lightning, and slammed it into Ares’s neck over and over again until his head rolled along the floor. The shadows vanished, and I dropped to my knees at the sound of clapping. I turned around to see Deimos and Gawain standing in front of the now-opened door.

  Deimos grinned at me. “My turn.”

  I motioned for him to come on over, and he drew a gun, firing at me while my shield of air kept me alive. After the fifth bullet hit the shield, I pushed it forward, smashing into Deimos and throwing him through the door to the outside of the building.

  I walked past a still-smiling Gawain and wanted to smash his face in as much as I did Deimos’s, but something stopped me, and I continued down the steps to the muddy courtyard outside.

  Deimos was back on his feet, cracking his knuckles and rolling his head. “You murdered my father.”

  I nodded. “Don’t be sad—you’ll go see him soon.”

  “Even if you kill me, you don’t think that it’ll be over, do you? Hera will flay you for killing us.”

  I shrugged and threw a ball of lightning at Deimos, who flung himself aside, avoiding it. I felt pain in my side as one of Deimos’s throwing daggers connected with my stomach. The pain quickly turned into burning agony as the silver from the blade went to work, forcing me to pull it out, giving Deimos time to close the gap between us and strike with another blade, slashing me across the chest. He darted away, throwing two more blades, which I managed to avoid, but a third entered my leg just above the knee, and I crashed to the muddy ground.

  “You cheated against my father,” Deimos said.

  “We both know that after our last encounter, you’re not going to be able to use your power to hurt me,” I said.

  Deimos nodded. “It happened so many years ago, but it still feels like only yesterday. I guess these blades will have to do.”

  “I don’t need magic to kill you,” I said, pulling out the throwing blade.

  “You really do,” Deimos taunted, and threw another blade, which I avoided, rolling to the side and throwing the blade I’d removed from my leg back at Deimos, who easily dodged it.

  My brain swam, and I knew I wasn’t in a state to fight a prolonged battle. I was exhausted, beaten, and about as close to just giving up as I’d ever been in my life, but I was not about to give Deimos the satisfaction of killing me. I pushed myself up off the ground and back to my feet.

  “If you use your magic, I’ll kill you,” Abaddon said as she appeared out of the door with Gawain beside her.

  I weighed my odds.

  “Can you take us all?” Gawain asked.

  The answer was no.
I had no chance of killing everyone. “Why do you want this piece of shit dead?” I asked, looking at Deimos.

  “I don’t,” Gawain called back. “But whichever one of you survives will have a place in our organization.”

  Deimos removed two eight-inch daggers, roared in defiance, and charged me. His two blades were a blur as he repeatedly sliced into the flesh on my arms and hands while all I could do was dodge and avoid mortal strikes.

  At one point he overreached and I grabbed his arm, smashed my elbow into his nose, and snapped his wrist, grabbing the dagger from his hand. He kicked out at me, forcing me back. We were both covered in blood and mud, and the fight had gone on longer than either of us probably wanted.

  Deimos raised his dagger toward me, but I didn’t move. “You are the reason for my downfall!” he screamed at me.

  “You murdered innocent people because you’re a petulant child,” I said back. “So desperate for any kind of positive attention. Thousands of years old, and all you really wanted was for your father to be proud of you. And he never was.”

  Deimos charged toward me, full of anger and hate. Full of emotion. I waited until the last second, then parried his blade and pushed his arm away. I used the dagger I’d taken from him to cut through the flesh around his ribs, causing him to yell out as blood quickly drenched the side of his body.

  He put distance between the two of us, and I watched him without emotion. “You should never have tried to be something you’re not,” I told him.

  “You know, after that bitch Lucie was taken, I put out the bounty on your head. I thought it was funny.”

  The memory of Lucie’s body spurred my rage, and I had to fight to keep control. I said nothing.

  “How’s my wife?” he shouted.

  “How’s your left hand?” I asked. “I assume you married it since we last met.”

  Gawain laughed, and Deimos’s expression darkened further.

  “I’m going to kill you, Nate.”

  “Sure, why not, and then you’re going to piss pure silver and sprout wings.”

  Deimos’s face twitched slightly. “Once you’re dead, I will claim what is mine.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Your woman, for one. She should still be mine. She will be again, or she’ll wish she was.”

  “She’s not my woman, you conceited little prick. Are you so full of hate simply because you want someone who doesn’t want you back? Is that it?”

  “You took her from me.”

  “You never had her in the first place, Deimos. Not once. She has her own mind, and she’s long since decided that you’re a nasty piece of crap. It’s something everyone appears to have figured out a long time ago.”

  “Well, it won’t matter, will it? You’ll be dead, and I can do whatever I like. I am the son of Ares, so who’s going to stop me? You? Your friends?”

  “You’re a spoiled brat. You’re one of those people who think that the world owes them something, simply because you were born to privilege. You expect everyone to behave as if you’re above them. No one has that privilege, no matter how much you want it. The world is not your plaything; the people are not toys for you to destroy or discard as you wish. The fact that you’ve lived for thousands of years and never figured this out is pathetic. You’re an evil little piece of shit, and I won’t let you hurt anyone else. Your days of terrorizing people are done. Let’s get this finished. You bore me.”

  Deimos ran toward me like I knew he would and moved quickly, but I avoided the attack and rammed my dagger into his stomach, slicing his belly open as his momentum forced him forward.

  He dropped to his knees, trying to hold his stomach in as he looked down at the blood that saturated his hands and the floor around him.

  I kicked the dagger he’d been holding away, then crouched before him. “You’re what happens when hate wins.” I drove the blade of the silver dagger up under Deimos’s chin into his brain, killing him instantly.

  I looked up at the sound of Gawain clapping. He grinned at me. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Nate Garrett

  I was hoping you were going to kill him,” Gawain said from the doorway. “You needed a push in the right direction. Why else would I have allowed you to escape from your cell? Why else would I have sent Ares to fight you? I didn’t think he’d take the bracelet off, though—that was not a smart move on his part. Looks like I’ll be needing a new director of the LOA. Anyone you recommend?”

  I stared at Gawain for several seconds. “And Deimos?”

  Gawain walked across the courtyard toward me. He patted me on the shoulder. “I just never liked the little bastard. I honestly wasn’t sure you were ready, but I really hoped. How’s that magic feeling? Sorry we had to threaten you so you’d kill Deimos without it, but I really needed to find out if you were capable.”

  I looked down at the bracelet on my hand. “It feels good.”

  Gawain laughed and motioned for me to join him, and we both walked back toward the compound. Abaddon nodded her head toward me as I walked past her, back through the open door.

  “You’re going to have to finish your training,” Gawain said. “But I’ll be taking over from here. Ares was such a blunt instrument, although maybe if he’d been there with Mordred it would have only taken weeks and not decades to break him. Still, he started you on the right path. I’m thinking the Harbinger trials to ensure you’re completely loyal. I know you already did them, but they’re a good way for you to undergo years of conditioning in only a few months.”

  “Mordred,” I said, and feelings of anger and hate filled my heart, but they were pushed aside as quickly as they came. Killing Ares had not removed the need to hurt my friends.

  “Yes, Mordred. He was a mistake to leave alive. A costly mistake, but a mistake that needed to be made. You’ll kill him. Kill all of them. You’ll be one of the inner circle, Nate. The man helping to rule this realm, and all others.”

  I stared at Ares’s headless corpse.

  “You should give him to your shadows,” Gawain said. “It’s fitting that his power would power you.”

  For a second that felt like an excellent idea. I stood and created a sphere in my hand, spinning it over and over again until it was a blur, and only then did I pour in other types of magic, growing the sphere three feet wide. I folded the magic over my arm, down to my forearm, like a gauntlet of spinning power. I looked over at Gawain, who was still smiling.

  “You’re feeling the power you have, aren’t you?” he asked. “I bet it feels glorious.”

  I nodded and took a step toward Gawain. “Why me? Why not one of the others? Why not Mordred?”

  “You had the most potential. Out of you and Mordred, you were the one I actually thought would fight alongside me. You just needed the right push.”

  I sprinted forward and launched myself at Gawain, driving my fist into his chest and unleashing the magic. It tore the entire wall behind Gawain apart, throwing debris all over the courtyard outside. Dust obscured my vision for a few seconds, until I cried out in pain as someone grabbed my hand, crushing it.

  The dust moved aside in an instant, and Abaddon stood before me, her hand wrapped around my fist, squeezing tighter and tighter as more bones and tendons snapped. She let go of my hand and kicked me in the chest, sending me sprawling into the courtyard.

  “You dare!” Gawain screamed at me as he got back to his feet. “After all I’ve done for you, you throw it back in my face?”

  I got to my feet, but Abaddon struck me in the stomach, driving her knee into my face, pushing me toward the ruined wall. I flicked a whip of lightning behind me, but her necromancy power threw me back fifty feet. It felt as though a train had hit me.

  “How many bones are broken?” Gawain asked as I had trouble standing. Abaddon hit me with another blast, knocking me back toward the fence, shattering bones.

  Gawain walked toward me, raising a hand at a dozen blood elves, who
ran over to see if he needed help. “You can’t beat me. You can’t beat Abaddon. And even if you could”—he pointed over to Merlin, who stood in the ruined wall—“you can’t beat us all. You’re weak, and hurt, and you can’t have much left.”

  My magic went to work healing me, but Gawain was right: I had nothing to fight with. Didn’t mean I was going to stop.

  Shadows leapt from the ground around Gawain, who was suddenly shocked at the attack. The wraith’s hand clawed out of the shadows, grabbing hold of Gawain’s leg. I was about to pull him in when the breath left my body in one go, and I looked down to see a curved spirit weapon sticking out of my stomach. It vanished, and I dropped to the floor as pain flooded my body and Abaddon stepped around me, kicking me in the face and sending me to the floor.

  “No,” Gawain said as Abaddon was about to give the killing stroke. “Killing him will unleash the nightmare, and frankly I have more important things to do. Take him somewhere quiet, and make sure to kill that nightmare when it turns up.” Gawain’s face appeared in my view above me. “You could have been a god.”

  “Fuck you,” I said.

  “I’m going to make sure that no one ever remembers your name,” Gawain said with as much venom and hate as I’d ever heard a person use. “I’m going to kill everyone you love, everyone you care for. Everyone who even helped you. I’m going to butcher them all so that no one would dare even whisper the name Nate Garrett.”

  “You promised me,” Atlas bellowed from across the courtyard. “You promised he was mine to kill.”

  Gawain sighed. “Yes, I did, didn’t I? Fine. Atlas, take some men, take him out somewhere, and kill him.” Gawain bent down and removed the bracelet from my wrist, forcing my magic to vanish and more pain to wrack my body. “What a damn waste of time you became.”