CHAPTER 34
Nate Garrett
I was hoping you were going to kill him,” Gawain said from the doorway. “You needed a push in the right direction. Why else would I have allowed you to escape from your cell? Why else would I have sent Ares to fight you? I didn’t think he’d take the bracelet off, though—that was not a smart move on his part. Looks like I’ll be needing a new director of the LOA. Anyone you recommend?”
I stared at Gawain for several seconds. “And Deimos?”
Gawain walked across the courtyard toward me. He patted me on the shoulder. “I just never liked the little bastard. I honestly wasn’t sure you were ready, but I really hoped. How’s that magic feeling? Sorry we had to threaten you so you’d kill Deimos without it, but I really needed to find out if you were capable.”
I looked down at the bracelet on my hand. “It feels good.”
Gawain laughed and motioned for me to join him, and we both walked back toward the compound. Abaddon nodded her head toward me as I walked past her, back through the open door.
“You’re going to have to finish your training,” Gawain said. “But I’ll be taking over from here. Ares was such a blunt instrument, although maybe if he’d been there with Mordred it would have only taken weeks and not decades to break him. Still, he started you on the right path. I’m thinking the Harbinger trials to ensure you’re completely loyal. I know you already did them, but they’re a good way for you to undergo years of conditioning in only a few months.”
“Mordred,” I said, and feelings of anger and hate filled my heart, but they were pushed aside as quickly as they came. Killing Ares had not removed the need to hurt my friends.
“Yes, Mordred. He was a mistake to leave alive. A costly mistake, but a mistake that needed to be made. You’ll kill him. Kill all of them. You’ll be one of the inner circle, Nate. The man helping to rule this realm, and all others.”
I stared at Ares’s headless corpse.
“You should give him to your shadows,” Gawain said. “It’s fitting that his power would power you.”
For a second that felt like an excellent idea. I stood and created a sphere in my hand, spinning it over and over again until it was a blur, and only then did I pour in other types of magic, growing the sphere three feet wide. I folded the magic over my arm, down to my forearm, like a gauntlet of spinning power. I looked over at Gawain, who was still smiling.
“You’re feeling the power you have, aren’t you?” he asked. “I bet it feels glorious.”
I nodded and took a step toward Gawain. “Why me? Why not one of the others? Why not Mordred?”
“You had the most potential. Out of you and Mordred, you were the one I actually thought would fight alongside me. You just needed the right push.”
I sprinted forward and launched myself at Gawain, driving my fist into his chest and unleashing the magic. It tore the entire wall behind Gawain apart, throwing debris all over the courtyard outside. Dust obscured my vision for a few seconds, until I cried out in pain as someone grabbed my hand, crushing it.
The dust moved aside in an instant, and Abaddon stood before me, her hand wrapped around my fist, squeezing tighter and tighter as more bones and tendons snapped. She let go of my hand and kicked me in the chest, sending me sprawling into the courtyard.
“You dare!” Gawain screamed at me as he got back to his feet. “After all I’ve done for you, you throw it back in my face?”
I got to my feet, but Abaddon struck me in the stomach, driving her knee into my face, pushing me toward the ruined wall. I flicked a whip of lightning behind me, but her necromancy power threw me back fifty feet. It felt as though a train had hit me.
“How many bones are broken?” Gawain asked as I had trouble standing. Abaddon hit me with another blast, knocking me back toward the fence, shattering bones.
Gawain walked toward me, raising a hand at a dozen blood elves, who ran over to see if he needed help. “You can’t beat me. You can’t beat Abaddon. And even if you could”—he pointed over to Merlin, who stood in the ruined wall—“you can’t beat us all. You’re weak, and hurt, and you can’t have much left.”
My magic went to work healing me, but Gawain was right: I had nothing to fight with. Didn’t mean I was going to stop.
Shadows leapt from the ground around Gawain, who was suddenly shocked at the attack. The wraith’s hand clawed out of the shadows, grabbing hold of Gawain’s leg. I was about to pull him in when the breath left my body in one go, and I looked down to see a curved spirit weapon sticking out of my stomach. It vanished, and I dropped to the floor as pain flooded my body and Abaddon stepped around me, kicking me in the face and sending me to the floor.
“No,” Gawain said as Abaddon was about to give the killing stroke. “Killing him will unleash the nightmare, and frankly I have more important things to do. Take him somewhere quiet, and make sure to kill that nightmare when it turns up.” Gawain’s face appeared in my view above me. “You could have been a god.”
“Fuck you,” I said.
“I’m going to make sure that no one ever remembers your name,” Gawain said with as much venom and hate as I’d ever heard a person use. “I’m going to kill everyone you love, everyone you care for. Everyone who even helped you. I’m going to butcher them all so that no one would dare even whisper the name Nate Garrett.”
“You promised me,” Atlas bellowed from across the courtyard. “You promised he was mine to kill.”
Gawain sighed. “Yes, I did, didn’t I? Fine. Atlas, take some men, take him out somewhere, and kill him.” Gawain bent down and removed the bracelet from my wrist, forcing my magic to vanish and more pain to wrack my body. “What a damn waste of time you became.”
Atlas and five blood elves took me over to a van, opened the rear doors, and threw me inside, where several runes ensured that my magic wouldn’t return. They didn’t even bother tying my hands behind my back—I was beaten and broken. My body was a mess, and without my magic I couldn’t even heal myself. So, I lay there on the cold metal floor of the van and pictured whatever horrific death Atlas had planned, hoping that at some point I’d get my chance to escape.
That chance came when we stopped at a petrol station and Atlas got out to fill the van. There were three blood elves in the back with me, and as I moved to sit up, I smashed my elbow into the knee of one and punched the next in the jaw. I was about to hit the third when the rear doors opened and Atlas reached in. He dragged me out by my ankles and punched me in the stomach, dumping me to the frozen ground.
“Just once don’t fight,” Atlas said. “I wanted to offer you dignity in death, so how about you just let that happen and we can call it a day.”
Once I was outside the van, my magic returned to me, and I created a blade of air to drive up into Atlas’s chest, but he grabbed my hand and hit me so hard that I saw nothing but darkness.
I woke up and found myself in the back of the van. A sorcerer’s band sat on one wrist, but I was alone. I moved slightly, and my head throbbed, so I lay back down and tried to figure out how to get out of this shitty circumstance.
I’d thought of nothing when the doors opened and Atlas reached in, dragged me out, and dumped me on the snow-covered field. “You know where this is?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Excellent. Then no one will ever find your body.”
“You suck,” I said as Atlas pulled me to my feet. “You suck so damn hard, Atlas. You’re just a piece of shit.”
He punched me in the stomach as a blood elf came over. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”
I couldn’t think of a comeback that didn’t contain the phrase “fuck you,” so I went with that and got a punch to the face from the blood elf for my troubles.
I was semiconscious as they half carried, half dragged me through the snow before dumping me on the ground.
“Wake up, Nate,” Atlas said, and slapped me across the face.
I blinked. “You again. Can’t you just kill me and be done with it?”
“I think you should kneel.”
“Why, is Zod around here?”
Atlas looked confused. “I don’t know what that is.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t about to explain it to my executioner. Two blood elves forced me into a kneeling position while another passed a shotgun to Atlas. “Any last words?” he asked.
“Not really. I genuinely hope someone flays you. Is that a good last thing to say?”
Atlas looked over at a ridge a few hundred feet behind us.
“You expecting someone?” I asked.
Atlas shrugged.
I stared at him for a second before laughing. I couldn’t help it.
“What’s so damn funny?” he demanded to know.
I shook my head. “You won’t get it.”
The heads of the two elves beside me exploded in a shower of blood and bone, covering me. A second later two more elves went down, both shot in the head. The last blood elf turned its weapons toward the ridge and died a moment later.
“Atlas is fucked,” I said, but remained on my knees. I had no power, so any fight between us would be over within seconds. Best to wait and see who my guardian angel was.
It took a minute for me to see Mordred, Tommy, Diana, and Selene hurry toward us. Mordred and Diana had rifles over their backs, while the other two carried no obvious weapons. Selene ran over to me.
“No,” I snapped a little more forcefully than I meant to.
“What’s wrong?” Selene asked as the others reached us.
“Ares fucked his head up,” Atlas said. “The last month has been hard on him.”
“A month?” I asked. “Fucking hell, a month.”
“We tried to find you,” Mordred said. “But while Merlin has a compound in Toronto, which we raided, he took you to the north of Wisconsin. We’re close to Lake Superior.”
“Do not take my sorcerer’s band off,” I said. “Ares did something to my head. He made me want to kill you all. I can feel it, the hate and need to hurt you just under my skin. It’s not Merlin. Gawain is My Liege. He’s manipulated everyone.”
Selene grabbed Atlas and pushed him up against a tree. “You were meant to keep an eye on him.”
“Wait, you’re working with them?” I asked Atlas. “And the punch was for what reason?”
“I don’t like you—that’s reason enough.” Atlas turned to Selene. “To keep an eye on him, not to get killed trying to rescue him. Gawain doesn’t trust anyone, especially not people who only joined up because he hates the other guy more. That’s not exactly a basis for a budding friendship.”
“So, what does this mean?” Tommy asked. “You hate us?”
“It’s like a voice deep inside of me telling me to hurt you,” I said. “It gets louder the closer you are. I don’t know how to get rid of it. Or rather, I know exactly how to get rid of it; I just don’t know how to tell you.”
“Mind magic?” Diana asked. “We can find someone who knows it.”
“It won’t work,” Atlas said. “It’s ingrained.”
“His brain needs to be completely rebooted,” Mordred said. “Like mine was.”
I nodded.
“Are you suggesting we have to kill him?” Selene asked, releasing Atlas and standing between me and Mordred. “Because I’ll tell you right now how that shit is going to go down.”
“Selene,” I said. “I want to hurt my friends. I want to feel their blood spill over my face. The only reason I haven’t attacked anyone is because the sorcerer’s band is keeping my power in check and at the same time appears to be keeping whatever Ares did to me in check, too. I can’t live this way.”
She turned to me. “We’ll get you help.”
I shook my head. “Mordred has to kill me. Has to. Not just because of this, but because he kills me in the Fates’ prophecy or I murder my friends. I see why now. I see why he has to do it.”
“No,” Mordred said. “The prophecy was fake. Hera forced it into the Fates’ heads.”
I laughed. “So, I’m just going to become a murderous asshole because of reasons other than destiny?”
“I’m not seeing the funny side. So, you’re just going to die?” Tommy asked. “That’s not much of a cure.”
“I won’t die,” I said. “One of the blood elves at the compound said that Gawain didn’t want me dead because Erebus would take control of me. You know this, don’t you, Mordred?”
Mordred nodded. “I wasn’t sure it was the same for you, but that’s what happened to me. You killed me; my nightmare took control and healed me. All the curse marks vanished.”
“Gawain is scared that if I die my nightmare will take control and fight back. Gawain and his allies are too powerful. I barely got a scratch on him. I need those marks gone—it’s the only way I get stronger. It’s the only way I can stop whatever Ares did to my head.”
“This is not a good idea,” Tommy said. “What if you’re wrong?”
“I don’t know, man. I just know this has to happen. I just know that if Mordred doesn’t do it, then I’ll have to live with a constant need to hurt people I care about. I can’t defeat Gawain, I can’t stay with you all, and I won’t live a prisoner in my own mind.”
“Maybe we can force Ares to help,” Diana said.
“Ares is dead,” Atlas said. “Nate killed him. I saw the remains of his body. You don’t want that level of rage aimed at any of you. Gawain wanted to use him to become the new assassin of choice for Avalon. You can’t let that happen.”
“I killed Deimos, too,” I told Selene.
“He was an asshole. I can’t just let you die,” Selene said, her frustration almost boiling over.
“I’m not planning on dying for good,” I told her. “I die. My nightmare takes control before irreversible damage is done, and then I get better.”
“You hope,” Mordred said. “It’s not exactly like we’re doing a scientific study here.”
“No time like the present,” I said with a forced smile.
“You want to do this out here?” Tommy asked.
I nodded. “You’ll need to get Hades here. If my nightmare attacks, you’ll need as many as you can to stop me. No offense to you, but I know you’ll try and take it easy on me, and I know Hades will put me down because it’s the right thing to do.”
“I won’t let you die,” Selene said, crouching in front of me. “I’d rather never see you again than that.”
“Then let Mordred kill me. It’s the only way to remove the junk in my head and unlock that last mark. Isn’t that right, Erebus?”
Erebus appeared on the ground beside me. He nodded. “You figured it out.”
I looked at each of my friends in turn. Time hadn’t frozen, and they all stared at me as I spoke to the nightmare inside my head, but none tried to interrupt. “My death unlocks the last mark,” I said.
“It was never meant to. It was meant to unlock naturally like the others. Hera’s meddling caused you a lot of unnecessary heartache.”
“Will this be the last I see of you?”
“I honestly don’t know. I assume so, but I can’t tell until that mark goes.”
“Then if this is the end, it was a pleasure to know you.”
Erebus stood and offered me his hand. “The pleasure was mine, I assure you.”
I shook Erebus’s hand, and he vanished.
“If this doesn’t work,” Tommy said. “If this goes wrong—”
“It won’t,” I assured him. “Hera screwed around with the runes when the blood-curse marks were added to me. They were meant to vanish naturally over the years, but it never happened. My death is a reset. I know that for a fact. It’s why Gawain made sure not to kill me. He knew that if he couldn’t kill the nightmare, too, then I’d return even stronger. Same with Mordred, and others like us. Erebus, my nightmare, believes I’m right.”
“So, are we all meant to say something to you?” Diana asked. “Because I’d honestly, from the bottom of my heart, like to call you a fucking lunatic.”
I laughed. “Can’t argue with that.”
She leaned down toward me. “You best not die, Nate. I don’t want to come down to the afterlife and kick your ass to get you back here.”
“Noted.”
Selene kissed me on the lips, and I had to force down the hate and rage that burst into my mind. Rage and hate that Ares forced me to feel about the woman I loved. I regretted a lot of things in my life, but his death wouldn’t be one of them.
“I love you, Nathaniel Garrett.”
“I love you, too,” I told her. “More than anything or anyone I’ve ever loved. Tommy included.”
Selene sniggered and kissed me again. “You best come back to me in one piece.” She stood and walked over to Diana, who was on her phone.
“Your turn, Tommy?” I asked.
“You know what I’m going to say,” he said. “You know it, and you’ll say what you say and I’ll cry like a baby. Damn you, Nate. Don’t you dare stay dead for long, you understand?”
“I’ll try my best.”
He turned and took a step away before pausing and turning back to me. “I love you.”
I looked up at him. “I know.”
Tears fell down his face, and he smiled. “See, this is some bullshit right here. Goddamn Han Soloing me.”
It was Atlas, Mordred, and me left. I turned to Atlas. “Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“I don’t like you,” he said. “But I’m not going to join the insane ramblings of a psychopath, either. This isn’t a them-or-you situation. This is a what-side-of-history-do-I-want-to-be-on situation. Besides, Hades told me that if I helped him, he’d make sure that you and I could fight. Fairly, no powers. Gawain just promised to let me kill you. I don’t want you dead, Nate. I just want to beat you.”
He removed a key from his pocket and knelt beside me. “When I remove this sorcerer’s band, your power, and by extension whatever shit Ares put in your head, will flood back.” He looked at Mordred. “Pick up one of the rifles here.”
Mordred removed a gun from a holster against his back. “I brought one with me.”
“You knew this would happen?” I asked.
“I had a good idea it would come to this, yes. I’m sorry, Nate, but when I heard that Ares and Abaddon had you, I figured they’d try the same thing on you that they did on me. I didn’t want you to try and murder your friends, and I thought that maybe killing you would work the same way it worked on me. I guess this is where we find out if we’re right.”
I nodded. “If this goes wrong, Mordred, I want you to know it’s been an honor being your friend. I know he’s your brother, but kill Gawain, and burn everything he controls to the ground.”
Mordred took a deep breath and nodded. “In your name, my friend. But nothing is going to go wrong. I’ll see you real soon. What about Arthur?”
“I don’t know. Gawain was saying things I didn’t understand. It sounds like they tried to do the same to him as to us.”
“I’ll look into it. We’ll try to find him,” he promised.
I turned to Atlas. “Take it off.”
He removed the band, and my magic flared up, as did the hate and rage I felt for Mordred and my friends. I growled something incomprehensible and was about to spring toward Mordred, a blade of fire on one hand, when everything went quiet, and I blinked. An instant later there was an explosion of sound, followed by another. Darkness folded over me, enveloping me in its peaceful embrace. And then nothing.