by Steve McHugh
“I might have to kill again?” Images of Chloe cowering before a demonic Layla flashed into her head.
“Maybe. But let’s try not to let that happen. Unfortunately, that’s the world we live in. Too many things want us dead to think that we won’t have to step over that line. Just take care of how easily you cross it, because doing it for the wrong reasons sometimes leaves you on a side you can’t return from.”
“The spirits said something similar.”
“Smart spirits.” Diana turned and walked back to the door. “I need to call Tommy. I’ll be right back.”
Layla nodded and looked out of the open window.
Have you decided to accept me yet?
The voice sent a shiver up Layla’s back, but she refused to look back at the demon. “You told me if I accepted you, I’d murder my best friend.”
And if you don’t, you’ll murder a lot more people. Not a choice I’d want to make.
“Do you get off on causing misery?”
Yes. Humanity has so much optimism. Did you know that? I get that there are wars and strife and bullshit even demons couldn’t think of coming up with, but under it all, you’re an endlessly optimistic species. I like to poke that optimism with a big sharp stick. I like to make it bleed a little, to pick at it until it’s an open wound. He paused. I’m sorry, I lost my train of thought for a second. Oh, yes . . . essentially, I like to ensure that whatever optimism you people have is crushed under my boot. It’s fun.
“I won’t let you win.”
The demon laughed. My dear, I’ve already won. You’re just too stubborn to see it.
Everything in front of Layla’s eyes burst into flame as the screams of people reached her ears. It was only there for a second, but a second was all it took for her to scamper back from the window.
You’ll be mine. That woman can’t help you. And your friend, Chloe, she can’t help you either. And if you think those spirits can help you, then you’re just deluding yourself.
Layla turned around to face the demon, who was leaning up against the bathroom doorway, its arms crossed over its chest. The demon’s appearance was the same as before, except it was now considerably more female than it had been when she’d seen it in the cage. The demon wore a black suit, which did little to diminish its fearsome appearance.
“You’re a woman now?”
“I can change as I feel the need. Our sexes are fluid; we change with a mood, or just because we can. It’s weird that so many of you here are so rigid. Besides, I look damn good in this suit no matter my sex.”
“I wasn’t criticizing,” Layla snapped defensively.
The demon laughed. “I don’t care. I give exactly zero shits about the thought process of a human.”
“Umbra.”
“Umbra? You’ve accepted that, have you?”
“If you’re not here to show me anything else horrific, you can just go.”
Terhal shrugged. “You can’t make me. Not until you’re strong enough. Until then, your mind is my playground.”
“So, you’re going to try to kill me?”
“Oh, my word, no. If you die, I get to go back into storage for the next however long. No, I don’t want you dead. A dead you is a bored me. Can’t have that.”
Layla climbed onto the bed and lay down. “One day we’ll be on an equal footing, and then we’ll see who wins.”
Terhal’s laughter reverberated through Layla’s skull. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.” She walked over to Layla, her face was only a few inches from her. “I can smell the fear on you.”
“That’s my deodorant. It smells of flowers, apparently.”
Terhal’s expression hardened. “Don’t mock me, girl. I don’t appreciate it.”
Layla held Terhal’s stare. “Leave. Now.” To her surprise the demon vanished, leaving her alone in her own mind.
“Nicely done,” Rosa said from the foot of the bed.
“Do I have to always have one of you out here?” Layla asked.
“You need to pick one of us to be your main guide through your powers. You need to learn how to use them properly, and not just to melt the legs of a table. You can’t do this alone. The better the control you have over the power you wield, the better your chance of being able to stop the demon from entering your waking moments until you decide whether or not you can accept us.”
Layla sat up. “Whoever I choose, I can still talk to the others, though, right? This isn’t forever?”
“Nope. Just while you learn.”
“Then I choose you. You’re the only one who accepted the demon and spirits and didn’t go insane, or allow the demon to murder everyone you love. Gyda’s kill-yourself platform isn’t really for me.”
“You’re okay with having an assassin as your guide?”
“Your memories are already bleeding into mine. I can’t stop that. I can’t stop your abilities from becoming second nature to me. So, I may as well embrace it.”
Rosa nodded an agreement. “None of the spirits can take control of you now; none of them can make you do anything you don’t want to. Our training starts when you next sleep. Until then, I’ll let you relax. Trust me, you’re going to want to eat and make sure your strength is as high as it can be. Training will be taxing on your mind and body.”
“Something is going on here. With Chloe, and Tommy and Diana. There’s something they’re not telling me. I’m not sure if it’s about my powers, or if it’s because they think they can use me to get to my father, but something is weird. My phone doesn’t connect to the Internet at all, and the hospital Wi-Fi doesn’t work. I need to find out what’s happening. I need some answers, and I don’t think they’re going to give them to me.”
“You think they’re hiding something from you for malicious reasons?”
“I don’t know. Elias mentioned the LOA. You ever heard of them?”
“Avalon? Sure. They essentially rule the world from the shadows.”
“I need to know more. I need to know what I’m dealing with. I want to look into Tommy’s security firm too. I can’t do that from here.”
“You don’t trust them?”
Layla shook her head. “No, it’s not that. I trust that they’re not trying to hurt me, and that they really want to find and stop Elias. I’m all for that. But there’s a lot they’re not telling me, and I get the feeling it’s stuff I need to know. I need to get out of here. I need to go back to my place and use my computer.”
“Elias could be there.”
“No. He doesn’t know where I live—he admitted as much to me. It’s why he came for me at my work. I’ll be safe there.”
“There’s more. You can’t keep it from me, Layla.”
Layla paused. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever get used to having the spirits know everything she knew. “My father’s contact details. The details of the agent in charge of the case. They’re meant to be classified, but I have them all written down. If Elias does find out where I live, and he finds those, he’ll know where my father is, and he’ll know who put him there. That’s a dangerous amount of information that needs to be destroyed. I can’t tell Tommy and Diana because they might want to use that info to talk to my father too. And maybe they’ve already convinced Chloe that it’s the best course of action. She might think she’s trying to protect me.”
“So, we’re going to break out?” There was no part of Rosa’s tone that suggested she disagreed with Layla.
Layla grabbed her trainers, which Chloe had brought for her, and put them on. “That’s the plan, yes. But I need to do it quietly, and I need to be back here by morning. Can the training wait until tomorrow?”
“You want to come back here?”
“If Tommy and Diana aren’t as trustworthy as they seem, they’re only going to come after me. Staying off-grid is something I’ve managed to do for a long time, but I’m pretty certain they find people who don’t want to be found.”
Layla walked over to the window and removed the metal cag
e from it, taking metal from the window beside it and using it to create a ladder. “It doesn’t reach the bottom. I need more metal.”
“When you get to the bottom, use some metal to anchor yourself, and then turn the rest into the remainder of the ladder.”
Layla looked over at Rosa. “This isn’t an overly sensible thing to do, is it?”
“Sometimes sensible and right aren’t the same thing. You need proof you’re working with the good guys now. Let’s go get some.”
Layla climbed out of the window and began to descend the ladder. She touched the ground a few minutes later and dissolved the metal ladder before running off into the night. It was a few miles from the hospital to her home and she wanted to get there as soon as possible. It was time for her to start discovering facts for herself.
18
It didn’t take Layla long to get home, although by the time she’d gotten there, she’d realized she didn’t have her keys. She sighed.
“Move metal, remember?” Rosa said from beside her.
Layla felt incredibly stupid for a few seconds. “I didn’t think of that.”
“It’s been a long few days. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Layla reached the rear door of her building and found it to be unlocked. She pushed it open and almost crept through the hallway to her apartment. She didn’t really want to melt the lock, mostly because she didn’t want to have to pay to get it fixed. But she guessed when this was all over she’d have to move. Again. The landlord could get the lock fixed out of her deposit.
She placed her finger against the dead bolt and pushed slightly, feeling the hard metal give way as it turned to liquid and spilled out down the doorframe. She took hold of the door handle and it too turned to liquid. She gave the door a small push and it swung open.
“Any chance you can check ahead to make sure no one is in there?” Layla asked Rosa.
“We’re spirits—we only see what you see. We can’t go exploring for you.”
“Well, balls,” Layla said, and stepped into the dark apartment. She walked the length of the hallway inside, moving slowly and checking each room to ensure she was alone.
When she’d completed the task, she decided not to bother switching on the lights, just in case someone was watching from outside. Instead, she went to her bedroom and fished out a torch from a bedside-table drawer.
Layla went back into the living room and pulled the red and white rug off the floor, exposing a safe. She tapped the six-digit code into the keypad and pulled open the door. She placed the torch on the sofa behind her, ensuring that the light remained on her at all times, and removed the shoebox from the safe. She placed it to one side and closed the door.
“I want to use the computer first. I’m not sure I’ll be in the right frame of mind to think much once I’ve opened this up.” Layla spoke mostly to herself, and wondered if Rosa would think she was crazy for doing such a thing. But something inside told her that, no, Rosa wouldn’t think that. She had an unpleasant past all of her own.
Layla switched on the desktop and waited for Windows to load, which, despite the feeble power of the machine, only took a few seconds. A heartbeat later and she’d opened the Internet and typed in “Enhanced Security,” the name of Tommy’s company.
It brought up a website with lots of nice pictures of the main headquarters and several quotes from happy customers. Everything about it appeared to be legit. There were no pictures of staff members, and the names of everyone bar Tommy were missing, but Layla imagined that was a security precaution.
She left the page and began going through Google to check for any reports on them, but found little apart from the occasional website forum where someone recommended them to someone else. There was nothing to suggest that it was anything more than a normal, human organization.
She added “Avalon” to the search, and after digging further and further into the results, she began to see the sort of things she was looking for. The first page was another forum, by the name of “Fangs and Claws.” After reading the first dozen posts, which extolled the virtues of Tommy and his team, there were several which badmouthed Avalon. Three separate posts called it a police state, with one suggesting that trusting them was the same as nominating yourself for execution.
She stayed in the forum and searched for “Law of Avalon”, and got dozens of hits. Several of them said how everyone posting here would be caught and arrested if they were anti-Avalon, and a few sounded like conspiracy theorists. She’d seen some of them after her father’s arrest suggesting the reason he was out of the public eye was because he was a CIA wet-work assassin.
Layla rolled her eyes at several of the posts, and found a members-only section that she couldn’t access. She tried to create an account, but it kept saying that she was not old enough to view these details.
“People don’t trust Avalon,” Rosa said. “That’s why they’ve put a block on it. Change your birth year to 476.”
Layla did as requested, and it allowed her to create an account. “What happened in 476?”
“The Roman Empire died. A lot of people who distrust Avalon use that date as the day Avalon failed to stop something they desperately didn’t want to happen. It’s the proof that Avalon isn’t all powerful.”
“Is this all stuff I’ll eventually learn as your memories and mine blend?”
“Probably, but do you really want to wait that long?”
Layla shook her head and opened the first members-only forum post, and her eyes widened in shock. “This says that a decade ago Tommy and a Nate Garrett saved a bunch of werewolves from being murdered. They helped people, saved lives, and ensured that those responsible were brought to justice.” Layla turned to Rosa. “Werewolves too?”
“Of course. There are many, many things in this world that aren’t human. Werewolves aren’t that hard to believe, are they? And that’s your proof that Tommy is one of the good guys.”
“Because he saved werewolves?”
“No. Nate Garrett, although I knew him as Nathaniel. If he’s friends with Tommy, if he worked with him, then Tommy can be trusted. Nathaniel is a good man.”
“So, Tommy and Diana are the good guys?” Layla asked. “Doesn’t explain why Chloe is hiding something from me.”
“Maybe I can explain that?” a voice said from the front door.
Layla shot to her feet, ready to fight, as Tommy walked around the corner and into the front room.
“Not here to fight,” Tommy said softly. “Just talk. Diana figured out you’d absconded. I thought it was time you learned the truth about a lot of things. You can’t trust me to be honest, if I can’t trust you with that honesty.”
Layla relaxed and Tommy switched on the lights. “It’s okay, I’ve got half a dozen agents watching this place.”
“How’d you find me?”
“I’m a werewolf. I’d show you, but these jeans and t-shirt are nice and I don’t want to ruin them. You’ll just have to take my word for it.” He turned his hand over as his nails grew several inches. “That’s about as much as I can do without going all wolf. Who were you talking to?”
“One of the spirits. Her name is Rosa.”
“Hi, Rosa,” he said, without a hint of mockery. “You mentioned Nate’s name. He’s a friend of mine. My best friend, actually. That incident you read about where we saved those werewolves, he also saved my life and the life of my daughter Kase.”
Layla recognized the name Kase from somewhere, but couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She motioned for Tommy to sit, and he sat down on the sofa, while Layla took the armchair. “You said you’d tell me the truth. All of it?”
Tommy nodded. “We’ve kept you in the dark because we were worried how you’d react. You have a lot going on right now, and we didn’t want to add to that.”
“You were worried I’d let the demon out?”
“A little. Chloe told us you had that under control. And I trust her.”
“Why?”
“She works for me.”
Layla felt like she’d been slapped. “Works for you? She owns a coffee shop.”
“No. Well, actually, yes, but not in the way you think. Three years ago, she left the world of Avalon to get away from that life. I asked her to move to Ocean Village, and then I asked her to keep an eye on you.”
Layla felt like she couldn’t breathe. “Keep an eye on me?”
“You want the facts, or do you want to be angry?”
“Let him talk,” Rosa said softly.
Layla motioned for him to continue.
“Chloe is a highly trained employee of mine. Her job was to keep an eye on you because we know who your father is. And more importantly, we know what you father is.
“Your father is an umbra, Layla. He found a scroll way before you were born, and decided to use it to help others. Over time that turned into him killing lots of people because, as you may have noticed, he’s insane. But you are the only documented birth to an umbra. Ever. We had no idea what that power would do, so we kept an eye on you and your mother. Your mother knew for the most part. When she brought you to England, she went to my wife, Olivia, and explained everything, and Olivia told her we’d watch over you for as long as it was needed.
“But then your mother died, and now we had a grief-stricken daughter who may or may not have incredible power buried inside her head. As it turned out, you didn’t, not until a few days ago, but we didn’t know that at the time. Also, we knew that Nergal was looking for your father.”
“Why?” Layla interrupted.
“Your father’s power allows him to find anyone, anywhere, in any realm. He just needs to think of that person, or have something belonging to them, and he can find them. It’s how he tracked his victims. He’d find evidence at a crime scene and track it right to whoever it belonged. More often than not, it was the criminal responsible. Nergal wants that power so that he can track other umbra like your father. He wants to create an army.”