CHAPTER 26
Nate Garrett
The forest at the northern part of the city of Solomon was big enough that some Earth-realm cities could have been placed in the middle of it and lost forever. It took several days to get from one end to the other, but we didn’t have that kind of time.
Fortunately Galahad’s people had been tracking Lee since he fled after he’d commenced his killing spree. He’d murdered several guards in his escape from the city and had laughed the whole time he was tearing them apart. Lee was always unhinged—he once beat a man almost to death for bumping into him—but that was over the line even for him. With great power might come great responsibility, but for some people, with great power comes a need to use that power to hurt everyone. Lee definitely fell into the latter group.
“So, do you wish you’d just killed him?” Harrison asked me as we walked toward the destination where his recon troops had said they’d seen Lee.
“Yes,” I replied, not really wanting to dwell on the subject. “How long before we find him?”
“It’s about an hour away, apparently. My people say he’s in some old ruins not too far from the city.”
“Elven ruins?”
“Apparently so. At least that’s what Leonardo says they are. He found the entrance about a year ago while trying to figure out if there was any more evidence for this place once being a shadow-elf realm.”
I spotted several of Harrison’s men off in the front. There were fifty of them, along with Lucifer, Zamek, and Selene. Selene had taken to the sky to try and track Lee from above, but she wasn’t having a lot of luck, judging from the fact that she’d been up there an hour.
“So, I need to ask you something,” I said to Harrison. “Are we good? I know you punched me, and you had me locked up, and that was all to make it look good, but are we good?”
“Sure, why not? I’m sure you’re not involved with whatever is happening. And if you are, I’ll kill you.” Harrison walked away, leaving me alone, which was probably for the best considering how frustrating it was to deal with him.
“He really doesn’t like you an awful lot, does he?” Selene said after landing beside me.
“He’s not a fan, no.”
“When this is over, however long that takes, I think we should go away somewhere remote and relax.”
“Remote? Like a desert island in the middle of nowhere?”
“I was thinking like a realm in the middle of nowhere.”
“I’m sure we can arrange something.”
She took my hand in hers and squeezed slightly. “If it comes down to it, and you have to kill Helios, will you do it?”
I nodded. “He’s had his chances. He’s squandered them, and he has no interest in anything but killing and causing pain and suffering to others. He needs to be stopped, and he won’t be taken alive.”
“I know. I’d hoped otherwise, but I know. And I know that it’s you he wants to hurt. I just wanted you to know that if you do have to kill him, I won’t resent you for it. I know you’ve spared him for me in the past, but don’t do that again. I don’t want you to put yourself in harm’s way just to keep him alive. You need to do what you need to do.”
“I know.” I paused. “Thanking you sounds weird, so I won’t do that, but I’m glad you told me.”
“Do you think you can beat him?”
“Yes,” I said without a second thought. “I’ve done it before; I’ll do it again.”
“I’d very much rather you didn’t die, Nathan Garrett.”
“You and me both.” I leaned over and kissed her. “I’ll be fine. I’ve survived everything else that’s been thrown at me over the years—what’s one more thing?”
“Even if your enemy is more powerful than any you’ve faced before?”
“You know that as far as pep talks go, you suck at them.”
Selene laughed. “Yeah, sorry about that. I can buy a cheerleader outfit if that would help.”
I shrugged. “It might. I wouldn’t want to commit to something until I’d seen it myself.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t want to commit? That’s very kind of you.”
“You’ll just have to see how I react to you wearing one, and we’ll go from there.”
Selene stopped walking and pulled me back, kissing me on the lips. “Oh we will, will we?”
I winked. “I could wear the cheerleader outfit, if you’d prefer. I’m not sure I have the legs for it.”
Selene laughed again. “I think you’d look sexy.”
“Are you two done?” Harrison called. “Or do you need to get a room?”
“Do you have a room available?” I asked. “Just curious.”
“We’ll resume this conversation at a later date,” Selene said. “In private.”
“I look forward to it.”
I kissed Selene and ran to catch up to Harrison. “You might not be taking this seriously, but my men sure as hell are,” he snapped.
“Harrison, I take everything seriously when I hunt someone. But you know what? I don’t think a little levity in a situation like this is a bad thing. I’m not a soldier, I’m not regimented and regulated, and we have some time until we reach the area you think Lee is hiding. But for you, I’ll look somber and scowl a lot more.”
“You want to know why I don’t like you? It’s because you don’t take things seriously. You joke and mock. You don’t show anyone the respect they’re due.”
“I show a lot of people the respect they’re due, if I think they’re due it. I respect Galahad. I mock him because we’re friends.”
“He’s a king.”
“Not my king. You don’t have to like me, Harrison. I may joke and mock people, I may be sarcastic and a smart-ass, but when it comes down to it, I’m fairly sure you’d rather have me on your side than opposing you. The joking is just my way of dealing with everything, of allowing myself to not be consumed by the awfulness of everything happening around me. If you don’t like that, tough, because I haven’t changed for people I respect a lot more than you.”
“I understand why you have so many people who want to line up to kill you,” Harrison said through gritted teeth. “I just don’t understand how you’re not dead a hundred times over.”
“Essentially it’s because I’m stubborn. I’m just too stubborn to lie down and let death take me. And it won’t be taking me today, either.”
“Commander,” one of Harrison’s guards said.
“Yes, trooper,” Harrison said to the young female guard.
“We’ve had a report from the recon team. The ruins are approximately twenty minutes’ walk from here. There are no obvious guards there, and nothing to stop us from going inside.”
“Excellent. Tell everyone that they’re to maintain silence on the way there.”
“No,” I said. “I want you all to make as much noise as possible and move on beyond the ruins, as if you have no idea they’re there.”
“That’s insane,” Harrison said. “Why would we want to let Lee know we’re coming?”
“Because you’re not.”
“Want to explain?” Selene said as she caught up with us.
“I’m going in alone,” I said.
“That seems foolish,” Lucifer said. “Even by the standards of stupid things you do.”
“And there have been a lot of them,” Zamek said. “And I haven’t known you long.”
“Okay, and thanks for that,” I started. “But something has been bothering me about all of this. These people . . . Lee, Deimos, Helios, and Atlas. They’re all people who have wanted me dead, and they’re all working for this My Liege group. On top of that, they’ve all come out at the exact same time as someone pretending to be me. So, I want you to make a loop around the ruins and come in after I’ve had a few minutes to get inside and hopefully find Lee.”
“You’re seriously considering this?” Harrison asked. “This isn’t time for a dick-measuring exercise.”
“Actually that’s exactly what it’s time for,” I said. “Lee is all about the dick measuring. That’s the most important thing to him. Looking like the biggest, baddest asshole in the room. That’s all he cares about, and when someone questions that, or makes him look weak, he goes after them. But he always wants people to know why he’s gone after them. He always liked to explain to people why he’s doing it.”
“He’s a James Bond villain,” Lucifer said.
“Yeah, but even dumber. And I don’t plan on getting killed by someone whose IQ is comparable to a wet sponge.”
“And if you’re wrong and he tries to kill you right off the bat?” Harrison asked.
“Then I kill him and bring out his corpse. Or most of his corpse, depending on how it goes.”
“If he’s a creation of Asmodeus, that won’t be easy,” Lucifer said.
“If he somehow got hold of Asmodeus’s soul jar and absorbed a part of the soul, that means he has friends who got him the jar, got him the runes he needed to get the jar to work, and got him the ritual he needed to absorb part of the soul. He didn’t trip and fall and absorb Asmodeus’s soul.”
“Okay, we’ll do it your way,” Harrison said. He turned to the trooper beside him. “Tell everyone we’re going past the ruins. We’re going to make a loop all the way around, and come back at it on the second pass. Officially it’s so we can scout out for possible traps and allies of Lee. Do not tell anyone Nate’s stupid plan. I’d really rather not have people think that stupidity is a good trait to have.”
The trooper ran off.
“You believe in me—that’s touching,” I said to Harrison.
“You’re an idiot, but you’re a powerful idiot who I’ve seen fight. If this Lee asshole wants to fight you, I’d rather you were down there containing him than allow him to have full rein to go at my people. If you do get yourself killed, though, I’m going to laugh my ass off. Fair warning.”
Harrison walked off, leaving me with Selene, Lucifer, and Zamek. “This is a stupid idea,” Lucifer said. “But it’s probably the least stupid idea we could have at the moment. You want someone to come with you?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want him to realize that there’s more than just me, and if fifty soldiers go down there, he might start trying to pick them off in the darkness.”
“What if Lee has allies down there?” Zamek asked.
“He’ll want me for himself,” I said, feeling hopeful about being right.
“You have three minutes, and then we come in,” Selene said. “If he has help, and they’re ignoring you, that gives us something to do while you have Lee’s attention.”
“See, I’m all about delegating the hard work to everyone else,” I said.
We stopped at the entrance to the ruins. “If you didn’t know they were there, you’d walk right past,” I said after crouching down behind a tree large enough to conceal a dozen people. The only part of the ruins that were visible were three large stone columns, and even they had been mostly consumed by vegetation.
“The entrance is behind the columns,” Harrison said. “My people are already moving on around the back of the ruins. If anyone is watching for us, they’re going to think we couldn’t find them. Or at the very least that we’re going to ambush them.”
“I don’t have to tell you to be careful, do I?” Selene asked.
“I’ve done this kind of thing before,” I said.
“You’ve done this kind of thing before?” Zamek said. “You’ve gone up against a vampire who may or may not have at least part of the soul of an ancient vampiric devil inside of him?”
“Every Tuesday,” I replied. “And twice on Fridays.”
“You’re so full of shit,” Zamek said with a grin as he removed the battle-axe from his back and tested it for weight. Harrison had made sure the things taken from us when we were first arrested had been returned, and Leonardo had given us all any extra weapons we’d need. For a man who hated the idea of his inventions being used for war, he sure was good at creating them.
I unsheathed the silver broadsword that Leonardo had given me and walked around the tree toward the hidden ruins. As it turned out, they weren’t so hidden when you got close, and while vegetation had grown all around the steps moving down into the ruins, it only made them difficult to see from a distance.
Small purple crystals lit the inside of the ruins. I’d been worried that I’d have to use my fire magic to let me see in the dark, a simple proposition in the Earth realm but one that was liable to start a forest fire in Shadow Falls.
I waited at the bottom of the long staircase into the ruins and allowed my vision to become accustomed to the new lighting before continuing. The plant life of the realm had long since overrun the ruins, and occasionally I’d hear something scurry around in the darkness, but I had no interest in finding out exactly what it was, so I hurried on.
The elven ruins would probably have been beautiful back in their day, and evidence of that beauty still existed in the ornate carvings on the walls, and pillars with stone that shone brightly as the light from the crystals touched it. After thousands of years of disuse, their work remained functional and impressive. Occasionally I saw something that interested me enough that I wished I’d the time to stay and examine it more, and it was easy to understand why Leonardo loved coming here to excavate. Elven culture was a mystery to most of us, and even to those who lived at the time it was something that had been kept largely secret, so to be able to wander around their achievements, even after millennia had passed, felt like how humans must have first felt when they’d finally discovered the Rosetta stone.
I occasionally stumbled over loose stone, which was neither stealthy nor particularly heroic, and I made sure to omit that detail from any epic storytelling I’d undertake about my descent into elven ruins to fight a master vampire.
“Nate, you came.” The voice echoed all around me just before I entered a large room with several exits. The room had a high ceiling, where the crystals lit up the remains of the faded murals.
“I’m not doing this,” I called out. “This isn’t some bad-vampire-movie crap. I’m not doing the follow-the-disembodied-voice shit. You’re not Christopher Lee, and this isn’t a Hammer horror.”
The voice laughed.
“My word, you’re a dick,” I said.
The laughter stopped. “Take the third path from the left. There are no traps. I want you to see me for who I am. I want you to witness my glory before you die.”
“I want you to shut the fuck up, but that doesn’t seem to be happening, either.” I walked over to the exit Lee had told me to take and stepped inside. It wasn’t going to be a trap—I was confident of that. Lee thought he was more powerful than I was—if he didn’t, we wouldn’t have been having the conversation—and I knew that Lee would fight fair if he thought he would win.
I followed the path to a second large room. At the far end of the room was a throne, upon which sat Lee. He’d changed a lot since I’d last seen him. He’d kept the goatee, proving he was in fact evil, but grown his red hair out so that it was long enough to touch his shoulders.
“You look like something out of a romance novel,” I said. “I assume you swoon about, too.”
Lee stood up, revealing the long coat and expensive suit.
I sighed. “Seriously, that’s what you think you should wear as a vampire? Haven’t we all moved on from the stereotypical bullshit?”
A flicker of anger moved across Lee’s face before being replaced with a calm smile. “It’s been a while, Nate.”
“Not long enough. So, you’re a vampire. How’s that working out for you?”
“I was made an offer, and I just couldn’t refuse it. Do you know what that offer was?”
“To look like you stalk young high-school girls? Did they teach you to talk with a really bad Eastern European accent, too? Say, ‘I vant to suck your blood.’ Make sure it’s ‘vant,’ though, not ‘want.’ That’s very important.”
“You think you can mock me? With all the power I possess, I could snuff out your life in an instant.”
“You are literally the least threatening vampire I’ve ever seen. The count from Sesame Street looks more badass.”
“You think you can goad me into making a mistake.”
“Mate, you made a mistake the second you got up and decided that was a good look.”
Lee smiled. “You know the horror I inflicted in the city, yes?”
“Yeah, it came up. I’m beginning to think someone else did it, though. Because if you killed them looking like that, I’d think they were more embarrassed than anything.”
More anger, this time staying for a few moments longer. “I murdered those people and bathed in their blood.”
“It’s good for the skin apparently.”
Lee walked down the steps from the stone throne, standing only a dozen feet from me. “I killed my parents. You remember them, yes?”
I nodded. Mark and Lyn O’Hara had been in charge of a criminal gang back in London. Despite their profession, I’d liked them both. “How?”
“I went to them—they were so shocked to see me. And then I butchered everyone in the house. I would have killed Holly, but she lives with her new husband in Scotland, and frankly I didn’t have time. Maybe later, though—I hear she had a kid. Did you know that I really don’t care how old my victims are? The bloodlust is insatiable. I just need to feed, and prey is prey.”
“So, how’d you get turned into a vampire?”
“Abaddon found me. Searched me out because she knew how valuable I was to the plans. She introduced me to this older guy, who had these containers of blood. I had to drink some. They told me it was the blood of a god, a vampire sorcerer. That it would change me. It certainly did that, and I became something better. A vampire the likes of which is rarely seen. And with that power, I was taught how to use it, how to be the man I needed to be.”
“In a year?” I asked. “It takes decades.”
“They hooked me up to a machine,” Lee said. “They made me live my life in my mind, years of life all in the space of six months’ real time. They called it—”
A shiver went up my spine. “The Harbinger trials,” I finished for him.
“You heard about them,” he said with a smile. “The man said you’d recognize it. He told me to tell you all of this. He wants you to know that you’re going to watch your friends die. He wants to break you.”
“Who is he?”
“Told me his name was My Liege. That was all he said. I dealt with Abaddon more than anyone else. She told me that you’d come. She said you’d arrive in Shadow Falls.”
“She sent you here to cause fear and confusion.”
Lee laughed. “And I’m not done yet. I knew you’d want to help the second you heard my name. You and Galahad are friends, after all. And he’s the kind of person who puts trust in his friends. Much like you. You’re going to take me to see Galahad.”
“Are you about to invoke the Accords? Because I really don’t have the time or effort to give two shits about them.”
Lee laughed. “The Accords are as worthless as the paper they were written on. You know, I was told to keep you alive, but your blood, it smells so . . . nicccccce.” His speech became almost a hiss as his spoke. “I can smell the power. It’s smellssssss so good.”
The torrent of fire that left my hands smashed into Lee the second he leapt toward me. Unlike on the Earth realm, the microscopic particles of the crystals in the air of Shadow Falls made my magic unpredictable. A small amount of fire could cause an inferno with ease. And down in the ruins, far away from anyone who might get hurt, I didn’t hold back. The flame turned white hot in a second, and it took more than a little effort to switch my magic off before it started to adversely affect the stone supports.
The stone floor remained bright red for several seconds as Lee’s smoldering body lay on the floor. His clothes had been burned away, along with his skin, and a large amount of muscle. White bone showed on what remained of his legs. A breath escaped his body.
“Still alive?” I asked.
He moaned in pain.
“Why were you down here?” I asked, looking around. “What were you doing?” I wasn’t expecting an answer; I wasn’t even sure he was capable of speech. I was mostly just talking to myself as I performed a circuit of the room, looking for hidden exits and trapdoors.
Zamek, Lucifer, and Selene rushed into the room. “We didn’t hear fighting,” Lucifer said. “We figured something must be wrong.”
They all looked down at Lee. “Fucking hell,” Zamek said. “Did you do that, Nate?”
“Yeah, he tried to kill me,” I explained. “And I really didn’t like the idea. He’ll live and heal. It’ll just take him a while.”
“What about the answers we need?” Selene asked.
“He doesn’t know anything. He was sent here by Abaddon to just cause trouble. But I don’t think he was down here by accident.”
“What are you looking for?” Selene asked as I started to tap on the walls.
“Something doesn’t feel right. He let his bloodlust override his common sense, but he was meant to be captured.” I looked at my friends. “I guess he got his wish.”
Harrison and several troops arrived, making the room a little more crowded than it was when it was just me. “Holy shit, is that Lee?” Harrison asked.
“He wants to see the king,” I said. “He wasn’t very hospitable about it.”
“Fuck him.” Harrison stepped forward before anyone could stop him, and Lee moved slightly, causing at least one of the guards to jump.
“Don’t let him bite you,” I said. “Blood will heal him. And right now I’d rather he wasn’t healed.”
“How do we get him back to the castle?” Harrison asked. “He looks like he’ll fall apart once someone touches him.”
“Bring the prison cell here. I’m sure he was in these ruins for a reason. I think we need to search them—something doesn’t feel right.”
“Do you have any idea how far underground these ruins go?” Harrison asked. “Leonardo hasn’t even finished mapping them. There could be miles and miles of tunnels that stretch as far as the realm allows.”
“Then we’d better get searching, because he came here for a reason. He was going to allow himself to be taken, for a reason. He wants to see Galahad for a reason.”
“Maybe he wants in the palace?” Lucifer asked.
“That’s where he would have been taken,” Harrison confirmed.
I was about to say more when a young guard ran into the room. She saw the charred living remains of Lee and blinked before looking up at Harrison. “King Galahad sent me, sir,” she told him.
“What does our king want?” Harrison asked.
She pointed at me. “Nate needs to come back to the palace,” she said. “Arthur has arrived.”