If another mage found this place they could follow the same footsteps I had. No, this facility must be destroyed completely. There must be nothing left. I took a deep breath and reached out with the power. My threads passed across metal girders, which bore lights that had long since stopped working, and into the concrete foundations of the building below me. They exploded out from me in a wave that spread in all directions. With careful precision, I launched fireballs into the main administration complex and watched with approval as the fire tore through the building, consuming everything in its path. As it reached the generators that would have provided power and light over the grounds, an explosion rumbled throughout the complex as long since forgotten fuel exploded when the inferno over took it.
I let my mind pass through the inferno as the scry thread I was using passed through Victor’s office. It was already mostly consumed by flame and I noted with satisfaction that the books on Necromancy had already succumbed to the fire. No one would be learning from them now. Before I left the room, I glanced one last time at the picture of the woman on Victor’s desk. The resemblance to Renee was staggering and I watched the photo curl and bubble in the frame as the fire took it. I could have saved the photo, but I wanted no reminders. Let it burn with the rest of the relics in this place.
I brought the sturdy metal beams supporting the roof down. With a vicious motion I pulled the parade ground concrete up in sheets to reveal the hospital and cell blocks below. With careful precision I directed the fire below to burn clean the evil that had been perpetrated there. My shield crackled red with the power expended to keep the fire from me as the heat and smoke rose in the complex, but I wasn’t done yet.
With telekinetic bands stronger than steel, I tore the foundations from the roof and from the ground beneath me. The rumbling sound reverberated throughout the cavern as the mountain began to reclaim its own. It happened slowly at first; as the supports were removed, dust, dirt and debris fell from the ceiling like rain, scattering with sparks across the surface of my shield. Larger rocks and then huge shelves of mountain began to slide down into the cavern. I should leave this place now, but I wanted to be sure that nothing would survive. I sent a massive shockwave of Mana upwards into the mountain ceiling to dislodge any remaining support beams embedded into the ceiling. The explosion of rock and dirt as the Mana wiped away the structure was staggering, and the noise swept across me like a wave washing through a sand castle. On all sides the walls of the cavern collapsed as the mountain came crashing down upon me.
The last sight before I teleported out was of a huge sheet of rock sliding down on my position. It would have complete decimated the examination room and cellblocks. The landslides and avalanches caused by my destruction of the Nazi complex went on for some time. The tunnel leading into the complex was forever buried under the rock and snow from the mountain above. The outside of the mountain didn’t look that much different from the way it had before, but the complex was gone. Its evil was now buried under hundreds of tonnes of rock, dirt and snow.
I waited for four hours on the snow topped peak of a neighbouring mountain to see if any evidence of the complex remained on the surface, and then conceded victory. It was gone. I could think of no better final gift to Karl, Randall and the others who had died there, including my own victims, than ensuring their final resting place was undisturbed.
I didn’t really know what my next step was going to be. I knew it would be unlikely that Victor would attack me again for some time, if at all. He had just come face to face with his own mortality for the first time in a century. He would be running scared. He would be hiding and waiting. I needed to draw him out so I could finish him, but I didn’t know where to start.
Where had Victor been hiding all these years? If I could find his new hiding hole I could possibly finish him, but I was in uncharted territory. Victor was afraid of me. He wouldn’t face me directly again if he could help it. He could have other agents to send against me in the hope that one of them might get lucky.
I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass. Victor was hurt and he was afraid and for the first time ever he was vulnerable. I had once thought I would have only one chance to destroy Victor, but it seems that the fates had conspired to give me a second. I wouldn’t let this one go to waste. The next time I faced Victor, either he or I would die. There was no alternative any longer. We didn’t live in a world where one could survive while the other lived. Like in the western movies I used to watch as a child, this town simply wasn’t big enough for the two of us.
* * * * * *
I had no idea where Victor had fled to after his defeat in Poland, but knew someone who might. Levenson had already indicated he didn’t know where Victor was hiding outside of his role as an American general. I doubted Victor was going to go back to playing an allied general. That would make him too easy to find, but it was a risk I wasn’t going to take. Every lead needed to be followed up. Levenson looked less than pleased to find me sitting in his office chair when he returned back to his office.
“I knew you weren’t dead,” he muttered as he made his way over to his drinks cabinet. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that’d already cleaned him out.
“Has Victor returned?” I inquired, sipping on the last of his scotch.
“No,” Levenson grunted as he realised his predicament.
“Will he?”
“I doubt it,” Levenson replied sourly. “General Charles Hurstbridge was pronounced dead on arrival after the attack on command.”
“Without a body? I nodded, impressed. “Your doing?”
“Of course,” Levenson muttered. “I think it’s safe to say that our previous alliance is over.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Don’t look so smug,” Levenson snapped. “I still think we’re all dead. I was in the process of putting my affairs in order to disappear before you arrived.”
“It’s a pity you weren’t quicker.” I smiled. “You might have avoided this conversation.”
Levenson scowled at me as he moved to the cabinet on the far side of the office and retrieved another bottle of scotch. It was nice to know he had a spare.
“Why are you here?”
“You know why I’m here,” I replied firmly. “I’m looking for Victor.”
“I already told you I have no idea where he is.”
“You must have some idea,” I asked. “You were never curious? You must have known, as I did, the threat he represented.”
“I looked for him at the start of the war.” Levenson nodded. “But it’s a large world and he is, after all, just one man.”
“I told you how dangerous he was.”
“Yes,” Levenson allowed, “but your memory of the battle of Melbourne was sketchy at best. To be honest, at the time I assumed that you had killed him and were wounded in the battle.”
“No,” I replied firmly, “That’s not it.”
“Obviously not, “Levenson amended, “but at the time, considering no one saw nor heard from him, it made sense that he was dead.”
It did make sense; it was wrong, but I couldn’t fault his logic. Victor had always been amongst the most powerful of our kind and one of the most active. It didn’t make any sense for him to remove himself from the world the way he had.
No, actually, that wasn’t right at all. It all made perfect sense. Victor didn’t understand this world. He was a product of a forgotten generation. He had no place in this world and the culture today didn’t make sense to him. That perhaps explained why he had pursued such an isolationist policy in relation to our kind. When our kind had chosen to reveal themselves and start a fucking world war, of course Victor would hide. He had seen this all before, he had already been involved in a world war. To him we would have been nothing more than children squabbling in the dark.
The real question was, why had he chosen to come back? What had changed?
I didn’t know, but I knew who might. I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this.
I wasn’t sure I had the strength, but I had no choice. I would have to find May Chen. She had known where Victor was hiding Renee and my son. My feelings on this matter were divided; I really wanted to see Renee again and I feared it with all my dread. It was time to pay for my sins.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Finding May Chen would prove easier than I had thought; - I used the same trick that she had used to find me. I had held onto that damned phone for long enough to remember the phone number attached to it, my memory skills had been enhanced by Victors teachings. And of course, once I had the number I could use GPS coordinates to locate them. Levenson was able to provide the coordinates easily.
According to the data provided, they were in South Africa. The southern continent of Africa hadn’t been involved in the war. It had swept across Europe and over to the Americas but it hadn’t moved too far south. South Africa would have remained largely untouched by our kind. May had indicated that Renee and Gabriel had escaped from Victor, so I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be there.
I took a phone from Levenson before I left the base and programmed in May’s number. It would be polite to send notification of my arrival before simply teleporting into the base. It would be unfortunate to be dragged into a fight simply because I hadn’t announced myself. I teleported to a location five kilometres from where the GPS signal from May’s phone had last been registered and waited. The fact that we were able to get a GPS signal at all showed that the phone was on, or as May had told me at least indicated that the battery was in.
I held the phone before me, but I just couldn’t seem to press the dial button. I stared at the screen until the numbers made no sense, but I just couldn’t click on that little phone icon on the screen. My stomach made me feel like I was going to be sick and my hand was shaking.
Why couldn’t I ring the damn number? I had gone into battle with less angst than this.
It took me a full ten minutes before I was finally able to steel myself sufficiently to press the dial button. It seemed to take forever before it was answered.
“Hello?” May’s voice finally answered. “Who is this?”
“May,” I gasped, more of a whisper than a word, “its Devon.”
There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the phone.
“Why are you calling?” May murmured down the line.
“I need your help,” I said. “Can I teleport to you?”
“You know where I am?”
“You’re not the only one who can track GPS.”
I could almost hear the indecision in the silence between her words. She still didn’t trust me, she’d made that pretty clear from our last meeting, but she also knew how loath I was to see Renee again.
“Renee is here.” she finally grunted. “I kept your promise, she doesn’t know you’re alive.”
“Thank you,” I mumbled, “but this is more important.”
“Your son is here.”
“I know.”
“Should I tell her you’re coming?” May left the question hanging.
That was the million dollar question. Was it better for her to know that I was alive and that May had kept it from her? Or would it be better to simply see me alive for the first time. I had no idea. The old Renee might very well have clocked me out at first sight, but I didn’t know if she had changed. She must have changed. Hell, I had been changed by all this.
“I don’t know,” I finally admitted.
“Then you’re a fuckload of help,” May sneered down the line. “I tell you what, I’ll let you tell her yourself. I’d like to stay out of it.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I replied.
It took me more than a few minutes to get the nerve together to teleport. When I finally did muster the courage, May was waiting for me outside. It was a small farmstead on the outskirts of a small town, about as remote as you could get and still have access to modern amenities. The building looked old, and had a decidedly colonial English feel. The house had been remodelled several times since its construction, but retained its original style. It looked comfortable and safe. This seemed like a good place to wait out the war.
“Devon,” May greeted coldly. “I trust that nothing is following you.”
“No.” I nodded. “I’m not bringing danger with me.”
“Last time we spoke you were going to kill Victor,” May continued. “Is he dead?”
“No,” I admitted. “I wasn’t able to kill him.”
“Then we are in danger,” May concluded.
“No, I may not have killed him,” I said, “but I didn’t lose. He fled.”
May sucked in her breath at the statement. “Then he can be defeated.”
I nodded my head. “And he now knows it.”
“That makes him more dangerous than before,” May warned.
“It only makes him more scared than before,” I corrected.
“Why are you here?”
“I need to know where he’s hiding.”
“I don’t know,” May blurted out.
“I know.” I smiled sadly. “I’m not here to ask you.”
“They’re inside,” May whispered, “and she’s probably aware of you.”
“I know.” She would have felt me teleport in. It was an inelegant way of announcing myself to someone who thought you were dead, but I had no better way.
“I’ll give you some space,” May called as I headed towards the door of the homestead.
The inside of the building looked nothing like the outside; inside was modern, sleek and stylish. The doorway led into a large lounge room that looked over a large section of land to the south of the building. The homestead was built onto the side of a large hill, so the view of the African savannah was pretty impressive, but I didn’t notice the view at first. I didn’t notice anything around me at all. I only noticed the woman in front of me. Renee was looking out the windows. She hadn’t acknowledged me, but she knew I was there. I could tell by the taut strain of her neck and her hands clasped into fists behind her that she knew I was there.
“Hello Renee,” I murmured. My voice sounded oddly discordant as the soft words echoed throughout the room.
“Devon,” Renee replied. Her voice broke a little as she said my name. She still hadn’t turned to look at me. My name sounded strange coming from her lips, as if she was speaking a stranger’s name. I was so used to her calling me ‘Twitch’ that my real name sounded wrong.
I didn’t know what to say. In all my most fevered dreams I’d never imagined it like this. My subconscious had dreamed of meeting Renee in a hundred different ways and tortured me of her death in a thousand more, but none of that was worse than the reality.
“I knew you weren’t dead,” she whispered. “Somehow I knew. I don’t know how. I guess I thought I would have felt it if you’d died.”
“Renee,” I began, but my voice cracked. How do you respond to that? Do I try to explain myself? Do I beg for forgiveness? I deserved the opportunity for neither.
“Why have you come? Now of all times?” Renee asked quietly.
“You know why I’m here,” I replied.
“You’re going to kill my grandfather,” Renee said sadly.
“Yes.”
“Oh,” Renee replied casually. “I thought you might have wanted to have seen your son.”
Her words pierced through me like a dagger and ripped out my heart with all the viciousness of a tiger devouring its prey. I couldn’t deny them though, she was right. I should have wanted to see my son, but that thought scared me more than any battle I had ever faced.
“I don’t know what kind of father I would have made,” I replied, but Renee cut me off with a small sigh. Her stance suggested that she was readying herself. The Mana was flaring up and down the length of her arm like wildfire and yet it didn’t appear to be trying to protect itself. There was no readiness to conjure a shield, nothing that would indicate an attack. I cursed myself for the maniac I was. This was the woman I h
ad once loved, the woman who still loved me in a strange, twisted way, and my psyche was analysing her, looking for weakness, waiting for an attack. What was wrong with me?
Renee took a deep breath and turned to face me. Her face was hard and cruel and there was nothing but ice in her eyes. Her features faltered when she saw me though. Her eyes widened as she looked upon me and it was like ice breaking. The hard shell crumbled and I could see the woman within.
“What has happened to you?” Renee whispered. Her eyes cast over the construct that I used to keep myself mobile and I saw only pity. I’d never seen that look from her before. Pity? I didn’t want her pity! I didn’t deserve it.
“I have become the monster your grandfather intended me to be,” I whispered as I allowed Renee to complete her inspection. Every glance, every flinch was like a knife wound to my heart. I bore it with stoic duty though. I deserved this. I owed her this.
“He thought he had killed you. He told me he killed you,” Renee murmured, “I didn’t believe it, but you never came back.”
“He did all but kill me,” I replied softly as I took a step closer.
“Don’t!” Renee snapped. “Just… stay there… Just, give me a few minutes.”
I let Renee continue her inspection. Every second of it was torture as her eyes passed across each scar on my face. How much did her eyes see? Did she see the evil that I had perpetrated in the name of my cause? Could she see the marks that it had left in me? Surely she must have; I wasn’t the same stupid kid she had once known. That kid was as foreign to me as a stranger on the street.
“There is nothing of you left that I recognise,” Renee whispered. “You’re a different man. I now understand why you didn’t come back to me. You were dead.”
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