CHAPTER 15
Mordred
Moscow, Russia
Mordred sat in the back of a van with Polina, Remy, Diana, and Fiona as the rest of the group sat in the back of a similar van in a parking lot around the corner. They were both well placed to watch the front of the nightclub and see who left and arrived. Mostly it was revelers, and with the time now after midnight, the majority of those leaving were a lot worse for wear.
“Police work sure is boring,” Mordred said. “How about I just walk up to the club and go inside?”
“They’ll know who you are,” Fiona said. “We went through this.”
“Doesn’t make it any less dull,” Mordred replied. They’d been watching the club for the better part of two hours, and he was beginning to feel the stress of staying in one place for a long time. “Also, calling your nightclub the Bear’s Pelt seems to be really quite unpleasant to bears.”
“A werebear used to own it,” Polina said. “Legend has it they kept him in the dungeon for weeks, forcing him to stay in his werebear form.”
“They skinned him, didn’t they?” Diana asked, her voice a low rumble of anger.
“That’s the legend, yes,” Polina confirmed. “It’s said that they keep the skin as a rug for an office.”
“What you’re saying is that the werewolves are bad people,” Mordred said. “I’m going to go say hello.”
“You are not,” Fiona seethed.
“Listen, I get you think I’m evil still, but I’m not. I am, however, Mordred. People know me. People occasionally hate and fear me, but more importantly, people know me.” He paused. “I said that already, didn’t I?”
Diana nodded.
“Right, well, the point stands. I can go in there, and people are going to freak the fuck out. They might try to kill me, but probably not. Viktor probably told them we were coming.” He turned to Polina. “Your people saw him enter the premises, yes?”
She nodded. “Alone and with a lot of looking around to ensure he wasn’t followed.”
“Excellent. He’ll have told them I’m coming, so they’ll be expecting us to storm the place in some covert operation. What they won’t be expecting is me walking into the front with a mic in my ear so I can tell you what’s happening. I’m sure that’s something they’re definitely not going to have planned for.”
“You’re just going to walk in and tell us what you see?” Polina asked.
“I like his plan,” Remy said. “It’s ballsy. And fun. And you know that after twenty minutes of being in there, Mordred will have started a fire or a fight. Possibly both.”
“See, Remy thinks I can do it.”
“Remy likes to blow things up,” Fiona said.
“That makes me sound like a very one-note character,” Remy said. “I have other hobbies. Old guns, old swords. The guitar.”
“Really, the guitar?” Mordred asked.
“Yeah, I’m really getting used to doing some good solo work on it. I’ll have to play you something.”
“This is not the time,” Fiona almost shouted before glaring at Remy. “You are not helping.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize I was meant to be, sorry.”
Mordred rested a hand on Fiona’s shoulder, removing it when she flinched to get away. “Fiona, I either go in and get killed, or I go in and help. Both are better than sitting in this cold van until someone makes a decision about what to do.” He turned to Polina. “I know you want us to wait until the club is empty, but I’m sure I can sort that bit out.”
Polina sighed, opened a small metal box beside her, and passed Mordred a small packet.
He opened the packet, removing the tiny mic inside, before placing it inside his ear. “So, you can hear me okay?”
Polina turned to a laptop and opened a piece of software on it. She plugged in a small speaker and activated it, which made a buzzing noise in Mordred’s ear.
“That okay?” she asked.
The buzzing noise went away, and Mordred nodded. “I’ll talk to you on the way to the club, and once I’m in I’ll give details of what I see, but don’t come in unless I give you the go order.”
“You’re going to blow something up, aren’t you?” Diana asked.
“Now you’ve spoiled the surprise,” Mordred said with a slight smile. “I’m not planning on it, but if that’s my best option, then you’d best expect fireworks. Can you keep the human police away from here?”
“I’ll be listening for any traffic from them coming our way,” Polina said. “I’ll do what I can to stop them, but try not to blow the whole building up. I’m sure they won’t like that, what with the current worldwide attacks, or the fact that people don’t like it when you blow up a part of their city.”
Mordred opened the van door and stepped out into the cold night. “I’ll do my best.”
“That’s what we’re worried about,” Diana said. “Don’t get killed.”
“Not planning on it.” He shut the van door and set off toward the nightclub, where the line to get in had vanished to nothing, although the two large doormen remained outside. Both were over six feet tall, both were bald, and both had tattoos on their hands and skulls.
“Hi,” Mordred said and waved.
The two men exchanged a confused glance, and Mordred guessed that they probably weren’t used to people behaving around them in that manner.
“I’d like to get in,” he continued, this time in Russian.
The men looked at Mordred in his jeans and thick, dark-gray coat made for keeping out the cold, but not really made for fashion. They looked down at his black boots, and then back up at Mordred. “Fuck off,” they said in unison.
“How about this?” Mordred asked, continuing in Russian. “How about, you go tell your bosses that Mordred is out here in the freezing fucking cold, so they can either come out here and let me in, or they can come out here and remove your broken bodies from the street?”
Neither men liked Mordred’s words, and the one closest to him threw a punch. Mordred avoided it easily, stepped around into the path of the second bouncer, and planted his foot right between his legs with enough force to send him to the cold pavement.
Mordred moved away, watching both men, as the first bouncer ignored his friend and threw another punch. Mordred blocked the punch and smashed his fist into the man’s stomach, putting just enough magical power into the blow to ensure he made his point as succinctly as possible. The man crumpled to his knees, and Mordred drove his fist into the man’s face, busting open his nose and dropping him unmoving to the ground.
The second man winced as he lay on the ground and tried to grab hold of Mordred’s leg, but Mordred was too quick and kicked the man in the face, sending him into the same state of unconsciousness as his friend.
Mordred retrieved two guns from the bouncers, emptying both of their magazines and chambered rounds before dropping them back onto their owners. They’d used normal bullets, which was hardly surprising considering their bosses were werewolves, but it also meant that Mordred wasn’t about to be killed by a stray bullet. Besides, he’d left them alive as a warning—if they decided to come after him again, he’d reconsider his goodwill. He paused. He probably should have told them that. He glanced at the two men and was sure that when they woke up they’d figure it out on their own.
He pushed open the door to the club and blinked as the noise from inside washed over him. It was made even worse by the fact that the second he stepped into the club, his magic switched off. He took a deep breath, and while the loud music made him wish he could just turn around and leave, he took a few steps inside until he was more comfortable with it.
There were hundreds of people milling around the bar area at the far end of the floor or dancing near one of two sets of stairs that led up to the floor above. A large bouncer stood guard at the foot of the stairs, and across the floor, at the opposite side, was another bouncer guarding an identical staircase. The set of stairs furthest away from the dance floor was set back from any people. Presumably the guard there would be able to hear people a little easier than the one near the dance floor.
“Lots of armed guards,” Mordred said. “Lots more innocent people. I presume they’re innocent.”
“Some people like to go to dangerous places,” Diana said in his ear. “They like to feel as if they’re close to the danger while being distant from it.”
“Then these people must love being here,” Mordred said, and looked up at the floor above, where he spotted more dancing. “More people on the floor above, and I can see those who are looking over the railings down on the people below.”
“The third floor has the office,” Polina said.
“Who’s in charge of this group?” Mordred asked as he walked through the floor toward the bar, smiling at several women who looked his way.
“The alpha, and I hate that word, is called Alexi Popov. He’s a bad guy, but his second in command is the one you really need to look out for. Her name is Daria Kozar. I’m almost certain she’s ex-KGB.”
“I thought there was no such thing,” Mordred said. “Isn’t that the phrase?”
“So I hear. But on this occasion, I don’t think they’d really want her back.”
“Vodka double, neat,” Mordred said to the barman in Russian. “Sorry, go on.”
“She killed her commanding officer over a disagreement. Escaped from jail, and at some point met Alexi, who turned her into a werewolf. That was in the nineteen sixties. She’s said to be the one who skinned the werebear. She likes her knives.”
“Sounds like my dream date,” Mordred said, and thanked the barman for the vodka. He knocked it back in one shot and made a slight sigh of contentment. “They might be evil, but they serve good vodka.” He placed the glass on the counter and walked over to the stairs the farthest from the dance floor while the bouncer there watched him with a cool detachment.
“Fuck off,” the bouncer said when Mordred was close enough.
“I’d like to see Alexi.”
“Fuck off.”
“Oh, come on, I just want to go upstairs and talk to your boss.”
“And I want you to fuck off.” The bouncer placed his hand inside his jacket.
Mordred stepped forward, grabbing the bouncer’s arm at the elbow with one hand and whispering into his ear. “I know I can’t use my magic in here, but I can really hurt you. So, you either tell Alexi that Mordred is here, or I cut off your arm and bludgeon you with the wet end.”
The bouncer held Mordred’s gaze for several seconds.
“You’ve heard of me, I assume.”
The bouncer nodded, and Mordred saw the fear in his eyes.
“Then you know I’m not screwing around here. I will really fuck your day up. I suggest not making me do that, by letting me see Alexi.”
He nodded slightly and stepped aside. “Alexi is waiting for you.”
Mordred walked up the first two stairs and paused. He turned back to the bouncer. “Just then, when you were scared. That wasn’t because of me, was it? That was because Alexi was talking to you in your earpiece?”
The bouncer nodded.
“You a werewolf?”
He shook his head.
“You like working here?”
He shook his head again.
“Alexi really that scary?”
He nodded.
Mordred turned without another word and walked up the flight of stairs, where once he was at the top a second bouncer, this one female, met him and led him toward a nearby door. She punched in a number on a keypad and pushed the door open, motioning for him to go up the stairs.
He thanked the bouncer and began his ascension to the office above. Once the door behind him closed and locked, he was glad for the relative quiet the stairwell offered him. He reached the small landing at the top of the stairs and opened the door, revealing a spacious office.
Mordred stepped into the office, closing the door behind him. There was a large desk adjacent to him, opposite a row of windows that looked down on the main dance floor. A large leather couch sat near the window, with a drinks cabinet close by, its top made of glass, revealing several bottles of spirits behind it, while the bottom half of the cabinet was wooden. The two doors on the far wall across from the entrance that Mordred had used were closed, and in between them was a glass cabinet with several pistols and rifles.
The first door on the far wall opened, and a short, stocky man exited. He had blond hair tied back in a ponytail and wore an elegant black suit with a deep-red shirt, which Mordred guessed to be silk.
“You must be Mordred,” the man said, walking over to him and offering his hand.
Mordred took it and was surprised to discover that the man didn’t try to crush his hand. “You must be Alexi.”
“That I am. Please take a seat.” He motioned toward the leather couch, which Mordred thanked him for and took a seat.
“Drink?” Alexi asked.
“Vodka, neat.”
“Good man,” Alexi said, opening the drinks cabinet and revealing a small fridge-freezer in the bottom. Alexi removed the bottle of vodka and poured two glasses, passing one to Mordred. “I have this stuff shipped in from a small distillery in eastern Siberia. No one knows about it but a select few.”
Mordred tasted the vodka. It was excellent. “Always nice to know of a good place to get vodka.”
Alexi laughed. “Indeed it is.”
“Nice office, too. I assume you have your own bathroom.”
Alexi pushed open the closest door, revealing a spacious bathroom. “Only the best.”
“What’s the other door for?”
“I keep some important things in there. It’s sort of my get-away-from-everything room.”
“Sounds nice. I should really get me one of them.”
“Viktor told me you were coming.”
“Yes, I figured as much.” Mordred knocked back the rest of the vodka and placed the glass on a coaster on the glass coffee table in front of him. “Good stuff. So, yes, I knew he would; it’s why I didn’t bother chasing after him. People like Viktor think of their own skin before anything else.”
Alexi smiled. “We all know people like that. They put their own needs above the needs of anyone else. Capitalism at its finest.”
“You’re anticapitalist?”
“Not at all, I love money. I love the things it can buy, including power. No, I just don’t like the desperation of those people who pretend to have my kind of wealth. It’s unseemly.”
“So, I assume you’re going to try to kill me soon.”
Alexi knocked back the rest of his vodka. “I was hoping you’d be persuaded to join our side.”
“Your side? And what side is that?”
The smile on Alexi’s face melted, revealing the true man behind it. “The side that’ll win.”
If Alexi thought that a slight sneer was going to scare Mordred, he clearly had no idea of the kinds of things Mordred had seen in his life. “So, if I say no, you’ll kill me?”
“Eventually. First Daria will peel your skin from your body. She does so enjoy her work. You’ll have to excuse her absence from this meeting—she’s on the lower levels enjoying her time with a young man who tried to help Elaine Garlot. He’s probably wishing she’d just kill him by this point. He’s presumably feeling pain the likes of which you’ve never imagined. You come into my club with confidence and a swagger, but if you cross me, I assure you, we will teach you to be afraid.”
Mordred stared at Alexi for several seconds before bursting out laughing. “Holy shit, you’re an idiot.”
Alexi’s expression darkened.
“Seriously, you think telling me tales of some woman who likes to torture is going to make me afraid? Do you honestly know who I am? Do you have any idea of the shit I’ve done to people? Of the shit I’ve had done to me? I was kept alive and tortured every day for a century by people a lot badder and better at it than I’d hazard a guess your lovely friend is. Don’t get me wrong—I’m sure she’s very good at stabbing people with knives, but you think that’s torture? True torture is making it so that you’re broken every single day, until you begin to look forward to it, because your life without that pain and suffering is now meaningless. And then the day they leave you alone you scream at them to come for you, because all you’ve known for so long is the nightmare of having your mind destroyed in a way that never gets put back together.
“Try spending a few decades with a species for whom the word ‘pain’ is synonymous with the word ‘life,’ and see how you think being stabbed with a knife compares. So, while I’m sure your stabby little friend is very scary, she’s not Baldr, she’s not Hera, and she’s not the dozens of people who took their turns on me for a hundred years. You think you know fear, Mr. Popov, well, let me assure you, you’ve never even glimpsed it. And if you threaten me again, I’ll show you fear. I’ll happily make the big bad wolf piss himself.”
Mordred got up and walked over to the bottle of vodka, pouring himself a second glass and knocking it back. “Where’s Viktor?”
A glass hit the wall beside Mordred, shattering. “How dare you speak to me in such a manner.”
“I’ve killed kings and queens, Alexi. I’ve killed people with more guards than you have people in this club. I’ve gotten to people who prided themselves on being untouchable. You’re just a mutt with the delusion you’re someone important. And more importantly, you’ve trapped yourself in a room with me.”
Alexi growled and began to transform into his werebeast wolf form, tearing off his suit as he did. Mordred drank some more vodka, removed the gun from the holster, and shot Alexi between the eyes. All in one fluid motion.
“No one searched me, you fucking idiot,” Mordred said. “That’s what happens when you buy into your own legend. You think you’re immortal. I should know.”
Mordred ejected the magazine and removed the bullet from the chamber of the Glock, placing them both in his jacket pocket, then took out a second magazine from another pocket and loaded it into the gun as Alexi groaned.
“Normal bullets,” Mordred said. “Warning shot. Bet it hurts like hell, though.”
“Gut you like a salmon,” Alexi said.
“Actually I don’t think you will. I now have silver bullets—these won’t just hurt. I’m certain of that. I wanted to see if my theory about this room being soundproof was right. I figured you brought people up here for some alone time with you.” Mordred walked over to the second door and kicked it open, splintering the wooden frame. Inside there was a computer on a desk, a king-sized bed, and a large-screen TV on the wall. The room smelled of sex.
“The runes to keep powers from working, where’s the master one?” Mordred asked. “There’s always a master one, and I’d really like it switched off.”
“Not here,” Alexi said.
Mordred removed a silver blade from the sheath on his hip and threw it at Alexi’s leg. The werewolf screamed in pain as the blade bit into his thigh. “That will kill you eventually,” Mordred said, walking over and pulling the knife free. Blood poured from the wound. “The silver is already in your blood. I can heal it with light magic. Can’t do that without removing the runes, though. So, I’ll ask again: Where is the master rune?”
“You’ll die first,” Alexi said, and started to laugh as the door leading to the stairs outside exploded in a hail of bullets.
Mordred threw himself through the open door and tapped his ear. “Diana, Polina, Remy—is anyone actually there? Because now would be a good time to storm the citadel.”
“We’re on our way,” Diana said. “Just keep your head down. People are flooding out of the club, and until we can get through them, you’re on your own.”
Mordred risked a glance back into the office as two bouncers, one armed with a shotgun and another with a semiautomatic submachine gun, entered the room. He ducked back into the bedroom before anyone could fire another shot.
“If we have to come get you, we’re going to make this hard,” one of them said.
Mordred removed the gun from his holster and stood up against the wall. “That’s funny, because I was going to say the same thing to you.” Mordred reached into his pocket and produced a stun grenade. He pulled the pin, tossed it into the room, and turned away from the small explosion, and several shots fired blindly as the two bouncers were momentarily disoriented.
Mordred counted to three, stepped around the corner, and shot both men in the head. They dropped to the floor as Mordred walked over to Alexi and pointed the gun at his temple. “Where is the master rune? Now.”
“Behind the gun cupboard. It’s etched on the wall.”
Mordred pushed the remains of the cupboard aside, revealing the large rune that had been carved there. It hummed with power, occasionally shimmering black. “Blood magic was used to create this,” Mordred said. “You killed someone to make this.” He knew that if destroyed the rune might backlash power against anyone nearby, so he walked over to the doorway and emptied the rest of the magazine of silver bullets into the wall.
With the rune destroyed, Mordred felt the magical power rush back into him. He walked toward Alexi and placed the Glock on the desk in front of him.
“Daria is going to kill you for this.”
Mordred placed a hand on Alexi’s arm, and his light magic went to work, healing the silver from the werewolf.
“Why?” he asked when Mordred was done and had stepped away from his reach. “What’s to stop me from killing you?”
Mordred watched Alexi get back to his feet. “Because when I’m done, I’m going to come back here and you’re going to tell me where Elaine Garlot is and what your involvement is in her disappearance. And if you’re dead, you can’t do that.”
Alexi chuckled and took a step toward Mordred, flexing his fingers, ready to pounce.
White glyphs lit up over Mordred’s arms and hands, and magical air smashed into Alexi, picking him up like he was nothing and throwing him against the far wall. Mordred flicked his hand, and tendrils of air slithered around Alexi. Another hand flick and the air dragged Alexi over to the windows in the room, pinning him against them.
Mordred used his magic to push Alexi against the glass as it began to crack under the pressure.
“She will kill you,” Alexi seethed.
“She’ll try,” Mordred said, releasing the air magic from around Alexi, moving it around him in a shield. In an instant he used the blood of the two dead bouncers to power his blood magic and, mixing it with the air, smashed it into Alexi, sending him through the glass with ferocious force. Alexi bounced over the railing below and crashed into the empty dance floor as Diana and the rest of his friends entered the building. Alexi was breathing but was no longer going to be a problem. The LOA would deal with him. Now it was time for Mordred to hunt.