Scorched Shadows (The Hellequin Chronicles Book 7)

by Steve McHugh

  Mordred went back down to the main hangar, avoiding the dozens of people milling around, and entered one of the rooms at the far end, where a quartermaster asked him what he wanted.

  Mordred handed over a list.

  “You planning on fighting a war?” she asked. “Because I think Arthur just declared it.”

  “Just going to blow up my bit of it.”

  She collected the silenced Glock pistol, silenced MP5, and Accuracy International sniper rifle that were on the list, along with a stab vest, and several blocks of explosives. “This isn’t like human explosives. This stuff will fuck your day up if you’re anywhere near it,” she said, placing it all in a satchel.

  Mordred took the bag from her, putting on holsters for the pistol MP5 and picking up the bag she’d just put the sniper rifle in. “I don’t plan on being near it. At all.”

  “These are all Avalon editions of those weapons. Silver tipped, a few modifications here and there—these aren’t exactly available on websites.”

  “I’ll bring them back. I promise.”

  “You’d better.”

  Mordred turned to find Morgan watching him. “Where are you going?”

  “Bear hunting,” Mordred said.

  She eyed the weaponry.

  “It’s a bloody big bear,” Mordred said, miming how big with his hands.

  “Does it live in a tank?”

  “It might. Bears are smart.”

  She crossed her arms. “What are you doing, Mordred?”

  “What I can. You stay here. Please.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s dangerous, and I need to do this without worrying about you.”

  “And Irkalla and Remy are going because?”

  “I don’t mind if they get used as collateral damage.”

  “You’re not funny.”

  “Fine, I don’t want you to come because your head is thinking about Nate, not about what I’m going to do.”

  “Tommy, Olivia, Kasey, and Selene are all taking turns at holding a vigil over him. I don’t think I’m wanted.”

  “Go find out. Morgan, you loved him once, and they will understand that. But the last few weeks, I’ve seen you get more and more exhausted as you push yourself. Eat, sleep, go talk to coma Nate. He can’t talk back. Trust me, it’s brilliant.”

  Morgan smiled and kissed Mordred on the cheek. “Don’t die out there.”

  “Why do people keep telling me to be careful? It’s not like I have . . .” He paused. “Yeah, I can’t even finish that sentence. I’ll be fine. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  He walked off and met Irkalla and Remy at the front of the hangar. “You feel like telling me your plan?” she asked.

  “I thought you liked being surprised,” Mordred said.

  “I also like knowing how crazed you are.”

  “We’re going to kill someone,” he told her.

  “We figured that out,” Remy said. “Who is it?”

  Mordred pulled his hood up. “That envelope contains information about Viktor and Daria. Both escaped from LOA custody after Polina’s team were attacked by people saying they were to take charge of the investigation. Polina and two others escaped with their lives. Sky and Olivia pulled a few favors, and I discovered that Viktor and Daria are both in a hotel in New York. Both have been a great asset to Merlin and his people, and I plan on ending that help.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Mordred

  New York City, USA

  They arrived in New York, and after a day of planning and checking the target’s location, Mordred, Irkalla, and Remy had finally put together a way into the twenty-story hotel that allowed them to get out again without having to jump out of a two-hundred-foot-high window.

  Mordred drove the black Mercedes AMG C63 to the Stewart Hotel in Manhattan and parked in one of the few available spaces in the underground parking garage. They had a valet service, but when time is of the essence, waiting for someone to bring your car back does not make for a quick escape route.

  “Are you sure you want to go in there alone?” Remy asked through the earpiece that Mordred wore.

  “Yes,” Mordred said as he walked through the parking lot to the lift that would take him up into the hotel lobby above. “You’re the best shot, so you get to play with the rifle and cover my ass.”

  “And Irkalla gets to be my spotter,” Remy added with some enthusiasm.

  “I am not your spotter,” Irkalla said tersely.

  “You have binoculars—therefore you are my spotter.”

  “I can see why Diana is always threatening to kill you.”

  “Sky, too,” Remy said cheerfully.

  “Yes, he’s a regular ladies’ fox,” Mordred said as the lift doors opened and he stepped inside.

  “You still hear me okay?” Irkalla asked while the lift began its ascent.

  “Loud and clear,” Mordred confirmed. “I’ll let you know when I’m heading up to the penthouse.”

  The doors to the lift opened, and Mordred stepped out into a bright, albeit busy, lobby. His magic switched off as he knew it would. According to Mordred’s research, Avalon employees picked the hotel because it didn’t allow powers during visits. The runes were built directly into the very fabric of the building.

  Mordred smiled at a guard in front of a set of lift doors and walked around to the reception area of the lobby. He leaned up against a wall and pretended to look at his phone while he checked out the few dozen people milling around. Most of the crowd were dressed in suits, huddled over one of the many tables, looking at laptops, or drinking coffee and chatting to colleagues. A large sign said there was a business conference in the hotel and anyone involved should go to the lobby and check in. Mordred had put on an expensive suit for that purpose. He’d also only been able to take the silenced pistol, as the MP5 was too big to hide under a jacket, so he’d subbed it for a belt of throwing knives that sat against the small of his back. Eight knives, each one with a silver finish. If he needed more than that, he was probably already dead.

  There were a few people at check-in, but he discounted them as a threat since they were clearly tourists with children. So that left four people in the lobby and check-in area who presumably worked for Avalon. The good thing about having been on the outs with Avalon for so long was that most people didn’t know what Mordred looked like now. He assumed that people would be on the lookout for someone with shoulder-length dark hair, so he’d buzzed his head as close as possible without being bald, and he’d already been in the process of growing several weeks of beard, so he just left it alone. He knew it didn’t exactly make him the friendliest looking person, but he also didn’t care.

  Mordred walked over to the reception and smiled at the woman behind the desk. “Hi, I’m here for the conference,” he told her.

  “Ah,” she said. “The main talk has already started.”

  “Is it okay if I just check in and wait for the talk to finish? The person giving it gets funny about being interrupted, so I’d rather not get shouted at. Also, it gives me time to freshen up.”

  The receptionist smiled. “That’s fine. And your name, sir?”

  “Matthew Drew. I believe I asked for the Azure Suite.”

  She tapped a few things on the computer. “That’s right, Mr. Drew. We have you here. You get to use the private elevator at the end of the hallway over there. Please be aware that we have several dignitaries staying in the penthouse, so there will be a guard traveling up and down with you in the elevator.”

  “How exciting,” Mordred said as he passed the receptionist a credit card. “Anyone famous?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” the receptionist told him. “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. At least I know I’ll be secure with all these guards about. Best not let Jerry get drunk at the conference, just in case he gets seen as some sort of security threat. Actually that would be funny.”

  “I don’t advise you do that, sir.”

  “I’m jok
ing. I won’t really let Jerry get tazed, no matter how entertaining it would be.”

  The receptionist passed Mordred the keycard to his room. “Enjoy your say.”

  “Thanks.”

  Mordred went to the lift door and showed his keycard to the guard there. “I’m in the Azure. I assume you’ll be going up with me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Can’t have me pressing the wrong button and ending up in the penthouse.”

  The lift came, and both men got in. “So, who’s here?” Mordred asked after showing his card to the reader on the control panel and watching as the word “Azure” flashed up above it. “See, you didn’t need to come with me. This only lets me go to one place.”

  “It’s my job, I’m afraid.”

  “Yeah, Gawain’s a real ballbuster.”

  The guard took a second longer than he should have to register what Mordred said. Plenty of time for Mordred to turn and smash his elbow into the man’s throat. He removed the gun from the guard and placed his knee against his throat. “No bracelet. So, what is it, you human, or they don’t trust their employees not to go all crazed?”

  “We use guns, not magic. No powers allowed on site—that’s the rule. We can’t be seen to scare the humans.”

  “That comes later, right?”

  The doors opened, showing a hallway with only one door, and Mordred placed the gun against the man’s temple. “Out. Now.”

  The pair of them walked out of the lift, the guard first. When they got to the door, Mordred made the man kneel and link his fingers behind his head while Mordred opened the entrance to his suite.

  “In,” Mordred said, helping the man to his feet and pushing him inside. “Don’t fuck about. You might live.”

  “Who are you?” the man asked.

  Mordred shot him in the head with the silenced pistol. Unlike most human silenced guns, it made no noise at all. “What a waste of ammo.”

  Mordred removed the keycard from the dead guard’s pocket, which identified the man as William Talbot. He went back to the lift, using William’s card pass to activate it. He stepped inside and placed the card against the reader, where a star flashed on the screen above. “Classy,” Mordred said as the lift began to ascend.

  Mordred stood to the side of the lift as the doors opened, showing a hallway identical to the one below. He stepped out and shot the two guards in the head, moving on past them toward the door.

  “You ready?” he whispered.

  “When you are,” Irkalla said. “You’ve got a two-story penthouse. My necromancy says there are nine souls in there. Four upstairs, five down. Two are directly on the other side of the door, three further in. You got this?”

  Mordred placed the card against the reader outside the door. “Oh yes.” He opened the door and shot the first guard in the temple before he even stepped inside. He had to move around the open door to get the second, who required two shots in the chest before a third took him in the center of his forehead. He holstered his gun and drew two knives—he wanted to save as much ammo as possible.

  He looked around and found himself in a long hallway with stairs to one side leading to the floor above, and a large arch in front of him. “Guard coming your way,” Irkalla said.

  Mordred ran to the side of the archway, out of sight of the guard, who clearly spotted his dead friends. He called out to one of them, stepped into the arch, and never breathed again, as Mordred buried one of the knives in his heart and slit his throat with the other. He pushed the guard aside, removing the blade, and threw it at a fourth guard, catching him in the head.

  Mordred cursed himself as he spotted the problem of a paladin walking up the stairs to the floor above. “Shit, we have an issue here.”

  “What’s wrong?” Remy asked.

  “There’s a paladin here.”

  “That’s not great,” Remy said. “Did you know?”

  “It was always a possibility. He’s why you’re here with me,” Mordred whispered. “Can you see him from above?”

  “No, the windows on the top floor are covered with something.”

  “Guard right on the other side of the wall,” Irkalla said.

  Mordred stepped into the main area of the suite, grabbing the guard’s arm, and forcing the gun up toward his head. Mordred pulled the trigger, shooting the guard in the throat. The noise was deafening, and as his secrecy was well and truly up, he shot the guard with his own gun twice more in the head.

  Mordred dropped the gun, ran off to a kitchen area, and huddled behind the counter.

  “There’s a mass coming toward you,” Irkalla said.

  “Can you see me down here?” Mordred asked Remy.

  “Yep. You want me to shoot you?”

  “Does that honestly need an answer?” Mordred almost shouted.

  “Just checking.”

  “Mordred, is that you?” the paladin asked from just outside the archway. “It can’t be Nate, he’s dead, but I figure you or one of your idiot friends would try something stupid. Didn’t think you’d try to hit us here.”

  “I like to be unpredictable,” Mordred said. “Shouldn’t you be with my father? Or Arthur, or Gawain? I forget whose ass you’re currently kissing.”

  A bullet smashed into the top of the kitchen counter, spraying pieces of marble all over the floor. “Your father was turned to us a long time ago. I helped.”

  “You’re a traitorous piece of shit.”

  “A realist. Unlike you and Nate, I know what Avalon should be. I believe in the vision of an Avalon where the powerful rule and everyone else bows before us.”

  “Well, you’re already a massive dick, so you’re halfway there.”

  “You remember when you told Merlin about being experimented on? Do you remember when it drove you over the edge?”

  “Well, I guess I know why he didn’t listen.”

  “I remember Gawain telling me about it. My word, how we laughed.”

  A second round hit the kitchen counter just above Mordred’s head. “I’ll get you eventually,” the paladin said. “I prefer swords, but a gun is just as good in a pinch. Actually I’d prefer my magic, but I can’t have everything.”

  “Take the shot when you get it,” Mordred said.

  “Oh, I will,” the paladin told him.

  Mordred stood up and made sure to put part of a wall between him and the paladin, forcing the larger man to come into the room to get a shot.

  “You’re going to die here,” the paladin said. “I might send your head back to Morgan as a gift.”

  “You first,” Mordred said.

  The first the paladin knew of the shot was when his chest exploded and he was thrown back onto the floor.

  “He dead?” Remy asked.

  Mordred glanced at the hole in the extra-thick glass window, and then down at the paladin. His white shirt was quickly turning dark red. Mordred walked over to the severely injured man. “I want you to tell my brother that I’m coming for him. I want you to tell him that I’m going to end everyone who stands beside him and Abaddon. If my father and Arthur are truly gone, they’ll have to die, too.”

  Mordred took a step and turned back to the paladin. “Fuck it, they’ll figure it out.” He shot the paladin three times in the head.

  Mordred loaded a new magazine and walked toward the staircase, keeping his gun up as he ascended. He reached the top, which consisted of a large open-plan room with two doors at the far end. He turned into the room and found it empty but noticed two more doors at the other end, where he thought the bedrooms were.

  “You happen to see anyone here?” he asked Irkalla.

  “Two to your left, one to your right. Who’s the third target?”

  “Who says there’s a third target?” Mordred asked. “Okay, yeah, there is, but we’ll get there in a minute.” He took a step to the right and grabbed hold of the door handle just as it was pulled in, forcing Mordred to stagger forward into a punch to his jaw.

  Mordred rolled to the floor,
coming back to his feet in the open area of the floor as Daria appeared. But he noticed he’d dropped his gun under the nearby cupboard.

  “No powers this time,” Mordred said.

  “Means I can take my time,” Daria said with a slight snarl. She dove toward Mordred, who smashed his elbow into her face, breaking her nose and knocking her over a nearby chair.

  She got back to her feet, and kicked Mordred in the knee, and he dropped to the ground, rolling away to put distance between the two of them. He got back to his feet slowly, watching Daria as she removed a long, curved dagger from behind the nearby chair. She unsheathed it and wiped her bleeding nose with the back of her hand, smearing blood over her face.

  “You’re not exactly right in the head, are you?” Mordred said. “And that’s coming from someone who knows that look.”

  Daria screamed in rage and charged Mordred, who threw two of his knives at her, each one taking her in the chest, but she kept going, as if they’d done nothing. He drew another blade, parrying her strike, but she kicked him in the stomach and he fell back against the wall, unable to stop the cut that went across his stomach.

  Daria darted back, and Mordred reached down, relieved to feel the attack hadn’t gone through the lightweight stab vest he’d taken from Hades’s quartermaster. Daria’s expression darkened, and she moved toward Mordred once again, swiping with the dagger, forcing Mordred to move along the wall as he waited for an opening.

  After the fifth swipe from Daria’s blade, she overstepped her reach just a little, giving Mordred the moment to move to Daria’s side and slam a throwing blade up into her armpit. He cut down toward her ribs before twisting the blade free, then punched a second blade up into her throat.

  She swiped at him with her dagger, but it was feeble, and Mordred easily disarmed her, stabbing her in the heart with her own blade and leaving her to die on the expensive carpeted floor. He noticed the six-inch cut along his forearm for the first time and cursed himself for not being quick enough to dodge her.

  “You okay?” Remy asked.

  “No,” Mordred said, retrieving his gun from under the wardrobe. He walked to the other side of the room and pushed open one of the doors, revealing an empty bathroom. He kicked the second door with everything he had, causing whoever was behind it to yell out in pain.