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Chapter Eighteen

NATE GARRETT

Realm of Avalon

“You know, I can think of better ways to do this,” I shouted, using my air magic to carry my words to the many windows of the hospital I stood in front of.

Technically, I stood behind a barricade that had been scribed with enough runes to make it almost the safest place I’d ever been, but I was beginning to get fed up with standing and not actually doing anything.

“It’s rude to ignore people,” Remy said from beside me.

“You want to give it a go?” I asked. “I’ll make your words go further with magic.”

“Sure,” Remy said, nodding. “I’m well known for my negotiation tactics.”

I activated my air magic so they could hear him and gave Remy a nod.

“Hey, you hoofwanking bunglecunts, get your fucking dickhead arses out here before we have to come in and start shoving heads into walls.” Remy gave me a thumbs-up. “I think that went well.”

“That was certainly a unique strategy,” Isis said from beside me.

“We still can’t just go in there, then?” Remy asked.

“No,” Isis said. “There are nearly a hundred people in there who we’d like to keep safe. Unless they start killing hostages, and so far I haven’t felt anything of the sort, we stay and negotiate.” She paused for a second. “Which is not what you just did.”

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “I know there’s nothing anyone can do until we get the runes removed from that room in the palace, but I’m getting really fed up with the waiting around because a bunch of assholes can’t just surrender and let everyone get on with their job.”

The main doors to the hospital opened, and several men and women left, their hands in the air as they walked down the ramp while soldiers ran to them, swords and axes drawn, magical attacks prepared.

“Did I just end a hostage situation by swearing at them?” Remy asked.

“I think you may have,” I said. “I’m not sure this is how these things are meant to end.”

No one else said anything for a few minutes, until the last hostage taker left the hospital with the soldiers behind him. They called in a group of medics who had been waiting, and everything suddenly started moving again.

“Well, at least this ended without bloodshed,” Isis said.

“Shame,” Remy said with a sigh.

“That’s a good thing,” I whispered to Remy. “How many were inside?” I asked a soldier.

“A few hundred,” she said. “No idea how many are wounded; we haven’t had a chance to check. Some of the wounds were fresh, though, sir. Some of those people were tortured.”

“Thank you, soldier,” I said. “Do me a favor—find out who was in charge of that torture and ensure that everyone else thinks they ratted them out.”

The soldier’s smile was sly. “Will do, sir.”

“You’re going to get them killed,” Remy said. “I really don’t have a problem with that.”

There were screams nearby, which took my attention, and I saw a bloody woman running toward us. She looked like she’d been in a hell of a fight, and I thought I recognized her but couldn’t quite place from where.

“Athena?” Isis asked as several soldiers intercepted the woman, who raised her hands to show she was no threat.

“Athena?” I said, somewhat shocked to hear the name. “What the hell happened to you?” I asked the question after covering the distance between us.

“Mountain,” she said, placing a hand on my bare arm to stay upright. “Ran from the mountain. Mordred is there. There was something inside the mountain; it attacked us. Killed many. Several wounded.” She collapsed forward, and a soldier rushed to intercept her before helping her to sit on a nearby wooden bench.

“Is Mordred okay?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Athena said. “I was told just to run to get help.”

“I’m on it,” Isis said before I could say anything.

“I’m with her,” Remy shouted, running after an already-sprinting Isis.

“Basilisk blade,” Athena said. “There was someone there in a mask; they used a basilisk blade.”

“The Faceless?” I asked. I’d wondered when the masked bodyguards of high-ranking Avalon members were going to make an appearance. They were usually incredibly powerful and deeply fanatical in their devotion to their masters. Each mask looked different, but all of them wore one, and all of them were dangerous.

Athena cried out in pain. “Mordred told me to wait at the palace, but I heard you were here and had to come find you.”

“Let’s get you to a hospital,” I said.

Athena shook her head. “I’ll be fine. I’d rather be somewhere without people. I’ve been a prisoner here for centuries.”

“Centuries?”I asked with a slow realization. “Damn, I didn’t know; I’m sorry. Look, you need medical attention.”

“There’s a cure,” Athena said. “Arthur used to brag about it. They used basilisk blades on prisoners.”

“Where’s the cure?”

“The dungeon of the palace,” she said.

I turned to the soldiers. “I’ll take her, and you go help Isis and Remy get to everyone at the mountain. Take an army with you if you need to—just get there.”

“It’s been a bit of a shit day,” Athena said.

“You’re not kidding,” I said as I helped Athena up onto a horse that had belonged to a soldier. I took a second one.

We rode through the city as fast as Athena was able until we reached the palace, where we climbed down and walked up the stairs into the building itself.

I knew where the dungeons were, so Athena followed me through the palace until we’d reached the entrance. There was no one on the first floor underground, as the realm gate was several floors down, and the dungeons themselves had been cleared—if not cleaned—out.

We reached the medical room, and I opened the door for Athena, who walked inside.

“So this is a big room,” I said, looking around at the cupboards and desks that stood along one side of the room, while the other had a row of beds. A large number of wooden boxes were stacked up against the adjacent wall. “There’s a second medical room upstairs, if we can’t find it here, but I think this is where they’ve brought any supplies.”

Athena took a deep breath. “You think you could get me some water? There’s no tap or bowl or anything.”

“Yeah, I’ll be right back,” I said, leaving the room. I was standing in the hallway when a rush of power knocked me aside. “What the hell was that?” I asked as I pushed myself away from the wall, feeling a little wobbly.

Jinayca appeared at the end of the hallway before I’d reached it. “Ah, I assume everyone else felt that,” she said.

“Yeah, pretty much,” I told her. “What was it?”

“We broke the last seal,” she said. “On the realm gate—it’s operational. You can go to Atlantis.”

“We have a problem here to fix first.” I nodded to the room behind me.

Jinayca crossed her arms over her chest.

I turned to find Athena without any cuts on her arms and face. “Ta-da,” she said, showing me a vial with Basilisk Cure written on it. “Body is healing now; thanks for the help.”

“No problem,” I said. “Good thing you found that quickly.”

“It was in the second drawer,” she said. “Nasty-smelling black stuff too. It was the only vial, though, so I’m guessing that if anyone else gets hurt, we don’t have more.”

“I don’t know,” I said thoughtfully. “We could find Lucifer; I think he’s at the realm gate temple. We’ll ask him. I think we should head to the mountain first, though. I don’t want to leave everyone in the lurch.”

Athena placed her hand on my arm as if wobbling a little. She nodded. “Good idea. But what if we get there and we need a cure?”

“Valid point,” I said. “Okay, we’ll make a slight detour to the realm gate temple, and then we’ll head to the mountain with more of the cure.”

“I’ll head to the mountain,” Jinayca said with a frown at me. “I can use runes to slow down any poison, but we’ll need more of the cure if anyone gets hurt.”

“Okay, let’s get going,” I said and motioned for Athena to go first.

Jinayca took my hand in hers as we walked after Athena and drummed on my wrist in Morse code. Imposter?

I nodded once. “Hey, Athena,” I said as we reached the outside area of the palace.

“Yes?” Athena asked, turning to me.

“Maybe I should get Judgement to take you to Lucifer; I can go with Jinayca then. Judgement is around somewhere nearby—shouldn’t take a second to find her.”

“I’d rather not bother her just yet,” Athena said. “She’d only worry about me.”

“Of course,” I said as we descended the steps. “Must be hard work to be apart from your sister for so long. I wonder, Lamashtu, do you have a sister?”

Athena stopped walking, continuing to face away from me. “How long have you known?”

“The bullshit about Athena being here for centuries was a big clue. I last saw Athena about fifty years ago. She looked pretty good,” I said. “The monster at the mountain was you just wanting people out of the city. You were going to kill me, I assume.”

“Yes,” Lamashtu said, her eyes blazing red. “Killing you was always in the cards.”

“You used a sorcerer’s band to get here, but then it all kicked off here, and you escaped with a bunch of fleeing prisoners,” I said. “Unfortunately, you tried to get to the mountain, to use the gates there, I presume, and you were discovered by more soldiers, these on our side. Sound about right?”

“Pretty much.”

“How were you going to get out of here?” I asked her.

“I’ll become someone else and walk out,” Lamashtu said. The Athena mask slithered off her face. Her skin was dark, her eyes blazing hot, and a red tongue—long and snakelike—slithered over sharp teeth. She pointed a bony hand at me. “I am Lamashtu,” she said, her voice making my skin crawl. “You are my prey.”

“You couldn’t kill me earlier,” I said.

“Too many around.”

“And the real Athena?”

Lamashtu shrugged. “Dead. She was Arthur’s prisoner for many years. I do not think she died well.” Lamashtu laughed as she glanced around at the large number of soldiers who were moving toward us, weapons drawn.

“I assume you won’t be coming with us quietly,” I said.

“Your mind isn’t very receptive to control from others,” Lamashtu said. “I tried with Mordred, too, but his brain was having none of it. You weapons are quite powerful little wizards.”

“Wizards?” I asked. “Did you just call me a fucking wizard?”

I blasted Lamashtu in the chest with a bolt of lightning, and she flew back across the square, smashing into the side of a building.

I walked over to her as she slowly got back to her feet. “Does it look like I need a fucking wand?” I threw another bolt of lightning, but Lamashtu dived aside, drawing the blade on her belt and throwing it at me. I saw it coming and knew what it was. I sank down into the shadows and came up next to Lamashtu, who threw a punch at me that I blocked. I locked her wrist and pushed back hard enough to take her off her feet and dump her on the ground.

“Basilisk blade,” I said. “I wondered when you were going to use it.”

“That wasn’t the blade,” Lamashtu said, striking me in the throat and kicking up. She drew the basilisk blade and tried for my groin, but I dodged back, and two whips of fire trailed from my hands. Lamashtu smiled, turned, and sprinted into the maze of alleyways that made up the center of the city. The guards chased after her before I could say anything. I looked back at Jinayca, who was sitting on the floor, a blade sticking out of her chest.

“Shit! Jinayca ...” I ran over to help her.

“Well, fuck,” she said. “Nate, you need to find her.”

“I will,” I said. “What the hell happened?”

“She dived into the way,” a male soldier said. “She just pushed me aside and took the blade.”

“I’ve always been an idiot,” Jinayca said.

I pulled the blade out, and thankfully, it wasn’t a basilisk. Just a decoy. “This didn’t go into your heart,” I told her after examining the damage. “It’s just a normal dagger.”

“No shit,” Jinayca said, removing her leather armor and dropping it on the floor. She had silver chain mail underneath that blazed with red runes. “Good job, too, or that bastard thing would have cut right through me. Now go find that bitch before she kills someone.”

I ran after Lamashtu, using my heat vision to track the footsteps of the soldiers chasing her. I found two dead at the end of a long twisty alley and another dead a hundred feet after that. The door to a building had been kicked in, and a man and woman lay dead on the floor. From the positions of their bodies, it appeared the woman’s throat had been slashed as Lamashtu had rushed through the door, the man’s as he stood in her way of escaping.

I continued after Lamashtu and spotted her heading up the hill toward the temple. When I got there, the soldiers inside were unarmed, and the realm gate was just closing. “That woman,” I said. “She used the gate?”

“Yes,” a dwarf said, someone who worked with Orfeda.

“Did you need her?” Zamek asked. “Piper was just heading back to Avalon Island.”

“Wait, what?” I asked him. “Piper went through the gate?”

Zamek nodded and then looked confused. “Was she not meant to?”

“She’s at the mountain,” I said. “The woman’s name is Lamashtu.”

“Open the gate,” Zamek said.

Nothing happened.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

The dwarf at the gate looked back at us. “There’s a problem with the realm gate. I don’t think it’s working anymore.”

“How is that possible?” I asked him.

“It’s not,” he said, clearly worried.

“Unless the other side has been damaged,” Zamek said, heaving a sigh. “I guess that’s the work of your fugitive.”

I nodded. “Get it working as soon as possible; we need to know just how bad it is on the island.” I turned and walked out of the temple, looking back down at Camelot. Lamashtu was a dangerous enemy to have running around. But Arthur was more urgent, so Lamashtu would wait. For now, anyway.