CHAPTER 20
Mordred
Siberia, Russia
The helicopter ride from Moscow to the middle of nowhere fifty miles southeast of Tiksi was about as unpleasant a journey as Mordred had ever taken. Not just because of the wind, and the snow, not just because of the freezing cold that seeped into the helicopter despite the heater being on, but because of the low mood that everyone felt. They’d discovered where Elaine was being held, or at least where she’d been taken to, but their time in Moscow had taken a heavy toll.
Morgan hadn’t spoken to Mordred since they’d left the city, and he knew the signs that said she wanted to be left alone. If they’d been anywhere else, she’d probably have vanished for a few days, but instead she’d retreated inside her own mind. Mordred knew the effect using her mind magic to make people more compliant—or break their minds in more extreme cases—had on her. The fact that she couldn’t use that magic without exceptional concentration didn’t make it any easier. She had to purposely stop what she was doing and force herself into the psyche of another living being. Cruelty was not something she found easy. It was the thing that over the centuries he’d found most endearing about her. No matter what barbaric acts Mordred carried out, she never lowered herself to his level. She was better than him. And he admired and loved her for it.
“Landing in sixty seconds,” the disembodied voice of their pilot said into their headsets.
Mordred gave a thumbs-up and tried to smile, but he didn’t much feel like being all that celebratory, and it came out as more of a grimace, which made Diana laugh.
“Glad someone still has a sense of humor,” Mordred said. “I think I left mine in Moscow.”
“You haven’t even made a Mario joke, or hummed that cursed tune,” Remy said. “I’m beginning to wonder if you’re feeling okay. I forgot to ask: How was your nightclub fight?”
“You know, you build these things up in your head and they’re never quite as good in practice as they are in theory.”
“Like threesomes,” Diana said, making several of the group look at her. “I lived through ancient Rome. Yeah, there was the occasional orgy. It’s not a big deal.”
“The more I learn about you, the prouder I am of you,” Remy said.
“Are you okay?” Fiona asked Mordred.
Mordred figured she was still worried that he was going to snap at any moment and try to butcher everyone. He doubted there was a lot he could do to change her mind about that. Didn’t mean he wouldn’t continue to try. For some reason changing people’s perceptions of him from what he used to be to what he was now sat as an important thing to do in his mind. He wanted . . . no, needed people to understand that he had changed.
“I am fine, Fiona,” Mordred told her. “I do not plan on any homicidal rages at the moment.”
“You should make sure we know in advance,” Nabu said. “I like to plan ahead.”
“Was that a joke?” Mordred asked.
“Holy shit, Nabu made a joke,” Remy said.
“Actually I really do like to plan ahead,” Nabu said. “It’s sort of my thing.”
“Are you still joking?” Remy asked, clearly confused about the conversation. “I really don’t know with you.”
“I am one of life’s little mysteries,” Nabu said with a warm smile.
The helicopter touched down a few seconds later, and everyone waited for the engine to be turned off before getting out. Everyone in the group had several weapons and a backpack with supplies, all given to them by Polina, along with a gentle suggestion not to return to Moscow anytime in the near future.
Mordred opened his dark backpack and removed an energy bar, taking a bite as he pulled his fur-lined hat further over his ears.
“Well, this is desolate,” he said, looking across the frozen landscape. The large open plain where they’d landed was covered in several inches of snow and was close to a forest. Mountains could be seen in the distance.
“How far to the abandoned village?” Nabu asked.
“A mile or so,” Diana said. “I contacted my friend. She’ll be there.”
“Feel like telling us a little bit more about her?” Fiona asked.
“Her name is Chao Wei.”
“She’s Chinese?” Remy asked.
Diana nodded. “Yes, she settled here about a century ago. She isn’t exactly full of social graces. She kind of likes her own company, and that’s why she lives in the middle of nowhere.”
“So, what is she?” Morgan asked.
“She’s a huli jing.”
Mordred was glad that based on the expressions on everyone’s face, no one else seemed to know what that meant, either. “What’s a huli jing?” he asked when it became evident that no one else was going to.
“Nine-tailed fox,” Nabu said. “A being that can turn themselves from human to fox. They can sense anything around them for dozens of miles. Any change, anything out of the ordinary. They can make people forget things, or poison them, and generally they’re just about screwing around with someone as much as possible. They’re a rare, and dangerous, species.”
“That sums Wei up pretty well,” Diana said.
“How is it everyone you know is dangerous?” Remy asked.
“I’m just lucky,” Diana said with a smile. “We’d better get moving.”
The group made their way toward the nearby forest, where the snow was less abundant.
“Anyone worried about tigers?” Remy asked.
“I am now,” Morgan said, looking around.
Diana sniffed the air. “There are no tigers within the vicinity. Trust me, you can smell them coming.”
“Well, you can,” Mordred said.
Remy sniffed the ground. “Bears, though.”
“Let’s get to the village,” Diana said. “Bears consider werebears a threat. If we’re in bear territory, it could see my presence out here as a challenge. We could do without the waste of time.”
The rest of the trek was done in silence, and an hour later they walked over the crest of a hill and looked down on a village built close to a series of cliffs that led further up into the mountains behind it.
“That would be some good climbing,” Nabu said. “That cliff face there must be a hundred feet high.”
“There’s a path that leads around it,” Diana said, pointing to a barely perceivable pathway that led from the village up around the cliff.
“So, where’s your friend going to meet us?”
“She’s already here,” Diana said. “About thirty feet to the left, closing in.”
Remy sniffed the air. “I smell fox.”
“I’ll go meet her,” Diana said, and walked off, leaving the rest of the group alone at the edge of the forest.
“You see that?” Nabu asked. He removed some binoculars from his backpack and looked through them before pointing to a large building at the side of the village. “What does that look like to you?”
“A prison,” Morgan said almost immediately after being given the binoculars. “A small prison, but a prison nonetheless. The windows are barred. The door has some big locks on the exterior.”
She passed the binoculars to Fiona, who took a look and passed them on to Mordred. “That’s a very old building,” she said.
“The structure is,” Mordred said. “But the locks and bars look new. They’ve also painted over an old Soviet Union sickle and hammer. Did the humans use this place?” He took a moment to look around the rest of the village he could see. It was mostly just small huts, dozens of them, and a few larger buildings that looked considerably sturdier, and warmer. Presumably they were for the guards.
“They had prisoners mine up in the mountain,” Diana said as she returned with Wei, who looked less than thrilled about being in the middle of Siberia in the winter.
She wore a white winter coat, and gray trousers that made Mordred think of something he’d once seen an artic explorer wear. She removed a dark-gray hat, and chestnut-brown hair fell over her shoulders.
“I’m Wei,” she said.
“Thanks for coming,” Fiona said.
“Don’t thank me just yet. I’m not exactly an Avalon supporter.”
“That’s okay. Neither am I at the moment,” Remy said, making Wei smile. “Between them and the humans, they keep trying to see who can fuck up the most.”
“How’s that working?” Wei asked.
“Too early to tell.”
Fiona gave Remy a glare. “My husband and friends are down there somewhere.”
Wei nodded. “Yes, I heard. Do you know what there is?”
“An old gulag being repurposed by people who’d like to kill a large number of very innocent people,” Nabu said.
“There’s a mine in the mountains,” Wei explained. “Humans were used as prisoners here at one point a long time ago. Actually at several points. I don’t know what they were looking for, but I had a friend from back in the day tell me and he didn’t know, either. And he worked with Avalon during Soviet control. Whatever it is they’re doing in there, they kept it secret.”
“Who’s they?” Remy asked.
“Avalon.”
“So, not mining as such,” Morgan said.
“If the mine was being used to produce something, it was something that never left this area,” Wei explained. “It was something that even high-ranking members of the Soviet-era government had no idea about. This was a place where Avalon used to send its prisoners. It was disused for decades, but a few years ago it started up again. I tried to get into the mountain to see what they were doing, but there were too many guards at the time.”
“Someone who works for Avalon,” Mordred said. “Based on her previous form, it could be Hera.”
“That’s possible,” Wei said. “I heard you swapped sides.”
“Less swapped and more realized I wasn’t exactly fighting the right people.”
“And how’s it working for you now?”
“About the same number of people want to kill me,” Mordred said. “But on the other hand, most of those people probably deserve to die, so I don’t feel so bad about venting my anger in their general direction.”
“Are you going to help us, or what?” Fiona snapped.
Diana placed a comforting hand on Fiona’s shoulder, but she shrugged it off. “My husband is in that hellhole, and I’m up here discussing niceties.”
“Diana asked me here because I’ve been here before,” Wei said. “It’s nice to see another nine-tails here.”
“Oh, I’m not a nine-tails,” Remy said. “Just the one tail, see.” He wiggled his tail to prove his point.
“Interesting,” Wei said, staring at Remy for several seconds before looking back at Fiona. “I lived in a village close to here just before the Second World War was finally over. Fortunately the arrival of troops gave me the incentive to leave, but I came back a few years later when one of those in the village asked for my help. Avalon shut this place down just before the war, but it reopened in the fifties. Several people were abducted and forced to work here. Humans, I might add.”
“Do you know the mines?” Fiona asked.
“I don’t know too far down, as it was heavily guarded and I was only interested in finding those abducted. For some reason that mountain shields me from tracking people when you’re inside it. I think it’s got some sort of magical quality to it. I scouted the village a little before you arrived. I found nothing of note, apart from a few dozen armed guards patrolling the far end of the place.” She pointed down toward the village. “You see the curve just there? The village opens out just behind there, but you can’t see it from here because it goes around to the opposite side of the cliff. There’s a building there that looks a lot like the one you were interested in. I saw guards going in and out, but I couldn’t get closer. “
“Could people be held prisoner in it?” Fiona asked.
“Yes. I couldn’t get inside to check, but I know for a fact that it’s big enough. When I rescued the abducted humans, they were being held in there. Inside there’s a set of stairs that leads down into the actual prison area. It’s underground. When I checked earlier, though, I saw runes drawn on various places, although I don’t know what they did. They’re new.”
“So, we’ve found our first destination,” Nabu said.
“I’ll go,” Mordred said. “I just need a distraction.”
“You sure?” Diana asked. “No offense, Mordred, but you’re not exactly stealthy.”
“I’ll be fine. Besides, you’re going to be better equipped at making enough noise to wake the dead.”
“You’re going in alone?” Fiona asked. “Because that’s not happening.”
“Fiona, whatever bullshit you think you know about me, push it aside. You want your husband back in one piece? Well, I’ve been sneaking in and out of places for hundreds of years. Normally to assassinate someone, but that’s not exactly the point that’s relevant at this point in time.”
Fiona looked around for an ally and, finding none, resigned herself to the situation. “Fine, but if you do anything to put his life in jeopardy—”
“I don’t plan on putting anyone’s life in anything close to trouble. I plan on getting in, finding out what I can, and getting out. Or, should the need arise, getting in, killing everyone inside, and letting you guys come to me.”
“You want us to take out everyone else in the village?” Morgan asked. “That wise?”
“It’s necessary,” Mordred replied. “If I get in there and someone can’t leave under their own power, we need a clear line to escape.”
“Or hunker down,” Remy said. “This could turn into quite the protracted battle if anything goes wrong.”
“Well, aren’t you just a bundle of sunshine?” Diana said.
“Sunshine fucked off about two days ago,” Remy told her. “Right now I’m a bundle of barely-held-together anxiety, rage, and just a smidge of sexual allure.”
Everyone got a laugh out of that.
“That dreadful image aside,” Morgan said, “we need to make this fast. We also need to figure out how we’re going to get away from here. The chopper wasn’t going to wait around for us.”
“I brought a truck,” Wei said. “A big truck. That should do the trick, yes?”
“It’s better than walking,” Diana said.
Five minutes later and Mordred had removed a sheathed dagger, which he hung from his belt, along with a holster, and Heckler and Koch P30 .40 S&W. Thirteen rounds of hollow-point, silver-tipped bullets. He removed three more magazines and placed them in the pockets of his black hoodie. He didn’t need a silencer—he could always use his air magic to try and make the noise less pronounced, but he was hoping he wouldn’t have to use the gun at all. Knives are a lot quieter, and reusable, too. He tied the bag to a head-height tree branch and dropped his jacket over it. It kept him warm, but it was too bulky and obtrusive.
“Everyone ready?” he asked.
Everyone nodded.
“This isn’t going to be fun,” Nabu said. “Whoever these people are, whoever they work for, will have expected someone to come to free any hostages. And if Elaine is down there, you can be certain they’ll want to keep her that way.”
Mordred nodded.
“Be careful,” Morgan told him. “I don’t think you get to die twice.”
“I’ll be fine,” he promised. “Keep safe.”
“Mordred,” Remy said, calling after him when he’d begun his descent toward the village.
Mordred stopped and turned back.
“Just don’t die, okay?” Remy said. “We’ve had enough deaths. I can say from experience. We’ve all become somewhat fond, if sometimes through duress, of having you around. Stupid songs aside, we’d like to keep you in one piece. Besides, if you get killed here, Nate will never let any of us live it down.”
Mordred smiled, turned, and continued down the side of the hill, keeping to the dense forest while he checked ahead for signs of enemy combatants. Mordred had told the rest of the group to count five minutes and then launch an attack on visible guards patrolling the furthest side of the village. He’d hoped that would be enough to draw away however many people were hidden from view. He didn’t want to run around a corner into a battalion of heavily armed assholes.
Mordred reached the tree line and glanced back up at where his friends had been but saw nothing. The forest was too thick, and even so, he hoped they’d started to make a move. It was sixty feet across open ground to the first building in the village. If he got spotted, he was dead. It was that simple. He looked around, saw no one, and risked it.
He sprinted with everything he had, running toward the first building. As he got closer he saw that the door was ajar, and he slammed into it at full speed, rolling into the one-room building and coming to a stop by the far wall. The building had a bed, kitchen, and bathroom in one small space. It gave Mordred the impression of a jail cell more than somewhere someone might live. The kitchen consisted of a small stove and pans. There was a sink that had long since turned brown, an old mattress that Mordred wouldn’t lie down on for all the money in the world, and several holes in the wooden floorboards.
Mordred placed a hand against the floor and pushed his air magic out, across the floor. The magical air seeped into the cracks between the floorboards, and when he’d used enough, he pulled the magic back toward him, tearing several boards free in an instant. He paused and looked out one of the grime-covered windows to ensure no one had heard. He could use his air magic to muffle sounds, but he couldn’t have done that and used the magic to pull up the floor.
When he was certain he was okay, he dropped through the floor to the cold, hard ground beneath the small building. Like most of the buildings in the village, it had been built above the ground, leaving a gap big enough for him to crawl under. He’d thought about diving straight under the crawl space to begin with but wasn’t sure what was under there, and diving headfirst into a dark crawl space was on his list of things he didn’t want to do unless completely necessary.
Once under the hut he crawled to the edge of the building and pulled himself out of the crawl space so that he was between the hut he’d just broken and the one next to it. It was dark between the two buildings, and Mordred moved around the second hut, darting from cover to cover as he made his way through the village, thankful that the slope of the cliff became higher and higher until it cast a shadow over the huts. He’d moved past seven huts and was preparing to run to the eighth when he heard voices.
He stopped at the edge of the hut and peered around the corner. There were three guards twenty feet in front of him. All three of them huddled around a metal barrel, which had been used to start a fire. They wore dark-gray uniforms, sturdy boots, thick trousers, and thigh-length coats. And they weren’t cheap clothes, either. Mordred couldn’t remember the last time guards wore expensive coats and boots. None of them had any kind of insignia on their clothes, but all of them carried Sig SG 553s. He considered going out there, killing all three of them to take one of the assault rifles, but decided it wasn’t worth the agro it would clearly cause.
He waited for several seconds, using his air magic to pick up what the men were talking about, but it became clear that it was mostly about how cold they were, how long they’d have to be here, and how they all really wanted to get drunk.
Mordred moved on, putting distance between him and the guards, but the further he moved around the cliff, the more guards were on patrol. Eventually he made it to a hut that allowed him a good visual of the large building at the end of the village. As Wei had said, it looked like a place to put prisoners. There were bars on the windows, and four guards stood outside the only entrance. If Elaine, or anyone else, was going to be held somewhere, it was in there.
Mordred took a step around the corner, almost directly into the path of an approaching guard, whose eyes widened in surprise. The man’s hand dropped to his sidearm, but Mordred was too fast for him and used his air magic to wrap around the guard, pinning his arms in place, before dragging him back over. Mordred grabbed the man and threw him up against the rear of the hut he’d been hiding behind, slashed open the guard’s throat with his dagger, and pushed him to the floor, rolling him under the hut.
Mordred cursed himself for moving too quickly and not checking for approaching guards. He looked around the corner and was thankful that none of the other five guards out in the clear had seen what had taken place. He wiped the blood off his dagger but kept it in his hand as he continued toward the edge of the hut just as an explosion rocked all around him.