Lies Ripped Open (15 page)

I didn’t really know what else to say. “Good film though.”

Remy stared at me. “You’re sort of missing the point of my anger, here.”

“No, I get it. You know, even for my life it’s a little weird that I’m talking to a fox about how unhappy he is that people compared him to a raccoon in a science fiction film about a bunch of comic book characters saving the galaxy.”

“When you put it like that, I sound downright silly.”

“Yeah,
wording
, that’s the issue here.”

Remy chuckled for a moment, before becoming serious once again. “You know I’m coming with you to find those who attacked Fiona?”

Talking to Remy was hard work sometimes. He had this tendency to switch topics at the drop of a hat. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

We left the park and caught the tube to the residential area at the far edge of the city. It was dusk by the time we arrived. It was quieter here, more open spaces and fewer buildings. Most of the people who lived here were high-ranking officials, and the increase in guards was evident for anyone to see.

Visiting dignitaries, which is what Olivia as a director of the LOA was, were all placed in one of two huge hotels next to a
sizeable
park. Before Remy and I entered the hotel complex, I spotted Tommy and Kasey running in the park.

We were maybe a hundred feet away when Remy and I entered the park, but Tommy stood up sniffed the air and looked back at me. I waved and he began jogging over, Kasey just behind him.

“What are you doing here?” Tommy asked, after giving me a hug.

I explained about what was happening with the
Reavers
, the hostage situation, the murders of the Williamses, and Fiona’s attack. Despite Kasey standing by Tommy’s side, I left nothing out. She was fifteen and about to have her own naming ceremony, she was old enough to hear the truth in this matter. Tommy had told me long ago to continue being honest to her, to never sugar coat anything just because she was his daughter.

“We should talk to Olivia,” Tommy said when I’d finished. “She might be able to help.”

“I was going to go to Merlin or Elaine,” I said. “But Olivia sounds like a better idea.”

“You came all this way to talk to Merlin?” Remy asked with a slight laugh. “And they say I’m crazy.”

“I never said he would be happy to see me,” I pointed out. “Hence my reason for also saying ‘or Elaine.’”

Tommy opened his mouth to say something, but all that escaped was a low growl. I turned my head and saw the half dozen men walking toward us.

“Kasey, go over to the trees with Remy,” Tommy told her.

“Dad . . .”

“Please.”

With that one word, Kasey nodded and rushed over to the nearby trees, only to be confronted by another half dozen men leaving their shelter. Remy and Kasey immediately ran back ov
er to us.

“How can we help you?” Tommy asked.

“You and the girl can leave,” a short, thin man with a bushy beard, said. “We just want the freak and the sorcerer.”

“Did he just call me a freak?” Remy asked. “That’s
uncalled for.”

“You do realize they’re probably going to try to kill us,” I said.

“Of course, but they could at least be polite about it.” He drew his sword. “I guess they need to be taught manners.”

The four of us backed away from the two approaching crowds. This had the unfortunate side effect of them merging into one larger, more dangerous crowd.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Bushy Beard said. “Take the girl and her dad too. They had their chance.”

There are probably a lot of things in life to ensure you remain part of the living. Threatening the child of a werewolf is not one of those things. Threatening the daughter of Thomas Carpenter is akin to walking into a pub in Liverpool and saying that
Manchester
United is great. There’s a chance you’re going to make it out alive, but it’s remote, and if you do, you’re goin
g t
o forever remember the time you had your head inserted up your own ass.

Tommy’s growls became more pronounced and it wasn’t long before the ripping of fabric signified his change from human to werebeast. He howled and the hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention.

“You know, I wondered how long it would be before you got into trouble.”

The crowd almost as one turned to find Lucie standing behind them. She wore only a blue sports bra and some green Lycra shorts. Her tattooed runes were available for all to see.

“My name is Lucie Moser. I am the deputy director of the SOA. You gentlemen have two choices. Surrender, or die. Pick quickly, my werewolf friend over there is impatient.”

Several of the twelve had turned into werebeasts of their own. I spotted four wolves and a lion, the latter of which had its gaze firmly set on Tommy. Werewolves and werelions had been at war for centuries, before they signed an uneasy peace between the races. Some of them still held grudges.

“Kill them all,” Bushy Beard demanded. “But leave Hellequin alive long enough to tell us what we want to know.”

“Keep Kasey safe,” Tommy shouted just before the werelion charged into him, lifting him from his feet. They both tumbled down the nearby steep bank, the splash signaling that they’d found the stream that ran through the center of the park.

Two of the werewolves ran toward me, both gaining blasts of air for their eagerness, which sent them spilling back into the rest of the group like big, hairy bowling balls.

“You okay?” I asked Remy and Kasey.

“Go,” Remy replied. “Kasey is safe with me. We’ll get her back to the hotel.”

I sprinted toward the group and drove a blade of fire into the nearest werewolf, who howled with pain. I dodged a swipe from a silver blade from another attacker, pushing the wounded werewolf into my path, so that it got sliced across the belly. The
werewolf
dropped to its knees as the silver burned its flesh, and I threw a ball of air into the face of the knife welder, knocking him back several meters.

Lucie was taking on a brute of a being without breaking a sweat. Every blow it threw at her was countered or dodged. She was fast, and her punches and kicks were doing serious damage to her attacker.

I glanced over at Kasey and Remy and saw that Remy was using his sword against one of the werewolves, while Kasey kept behind him. Another werewolf stalked toward the pair and I ran toward it, wrapped air around its body and squeezed tight, until I felt its bones break.

I removed the magic, and struck it in the back of the neck with a blade of fire. It probably wouldn’t kill the werewolf, but having some of his vertebrae severed would hopefully put him out of the fight long enough to deal with his friends.

“Are you o—” I began to ask Kasey, but was grabbed around my waist and tackled to the ground.

A werelion, this one much darker in color than the one Tommy fought, was kneeling on my chest, raining down blows, which I avoided as best as I could, until I heard a low growl and something slammed into the werelion with incredible speed, taking it off me.

I rolled to my feet to see a werebeast Kasey, her tattered clothing clinging to the muscles and fur that had torn through it,
trying
to disembowel the werelion.

The werelion took a moment and then caught one of Kasey’s hands in his, lifting her up off the ground as she snarled and tried to bite him.

I created a sphere of air in my palm, slowly rotating the magic until it was a blur. “Release her, or die,” I said.

“I’m going to tear her arm off,” the werelion said, as Kasey continued to thrash in his grip.

The werelion laughed, and I took a step forward. I needed to be able to get to the werelion without Kasey getting hurt. The sounds of the fight around me faded as everything in my world became the werelion and Kasey. The werelion’s smile faded as water exploded from behind him, swirling over his head and arms, before freezing solid into hundreds of spikes, which punctured his chest and head.

The werelion released Kasey and pitched forward onto the ground. Olivia stepped over the body and took her daughter’s hand in hers, speaking softly to the obviously scared Kasey.

I turned back to the melee and found Tommy, covered in blood and wounds, barreling into the fray, tearing chunks out of anyone in his path. One of Lucie’s arms was limp, hanging uselessly by her side, but two werewolves lay unmoving at her feet.

Whips of fire trailed from the ends of my hands. One cleaved through the nearest werewolf, decapitating it, while a second removed a chunk of flesh from the chest of another.

I turned as a wood troll strolled toward me, murder in his eyes. At ten feet tall and probably weighing the same as two of me, he didn’t need to hurry. Wood trolls are usually quite pleasant and shy away from violence unless forced into it. From the expression on this one’s face, that wasn’t going to be an option.

I removed the whips and created another sphere of air in my palm, allowing my fire and air magics to merge until the normal white and orange glyphs that adorn my arms and chest when I use magic intertwined. The sphere of air crackled as it changed into one of pure lightning.

I ran toward the troll and plunged the sphere into the creature’s stomach, which caused it to scream out as its body was torn into. Then I released the magic. It cleaved into the troll as if it were shot from a tank cannon, ripping the troll apart as the magical maelstrom consumed it, before throwing it back toward the tree line with incredible force.

The battle stopped around me. Lucie and Tommy stared at me, while our enemies moved aside. I’d just used the kind of magic that makes people take notice. A huge amount of magic that turned a troll into several hundred pounds of bloody goo. It might still be alive, but it certainly wasn’t going to be feeling good about itself.

There were four attackers still standing, and several still moaning on the floor. Those capable of verticality charged at me, but the fight was short-lived. Tommy, Lucie, Remy, and I ensured that each of them would never be an issue again.

I glanced at my bloody and battered friends, and then over at Olivia and Kasey, who was now lying on the ground.

“She passed out,” Tommy said. “She’s not gone through enough changes to be able to cope with the strain.”

“Grab those still alive,” I told everyone, feeling the anger settle inside me like a cold stone. “I’ve got some questions they’re going to answer.”

CHAPTER
16

A
s it turned out, very few of the attackers had actually been killed. Of the initial twelve, three had died at the scene, including the werelion that had attacked Tommy and the one who’d grabbed Kasey.

Of the remaining nine, five were too seriously injured to do very much other than be arrested and transported to an LOA lock-up. The last four, who included the person I assumed had been in charge, Bushy Beard, were all taken to a building just outside the city limits. The building was well known throughout the various Avalon agencies as a place to take people you wished to interrogate. Whether that meant physically or conversationally was entirely up to those who brought them.

I’d left the interrogation to Olivia’s people, who after an hour had confirmed that they weren’t saying much.

Lucie had joined us and spent most of her time on the phone to various people yelling at them. She wandered off after a particularly intense conversation and only returned after half an hour.

“We have a problem,” she told me.

“And that would be?”

“The five who were being taken for medical treatment never made it. The transport was found abandoned about ten minutes north of the city.”

“Any of the SOA agents hurt?”

Lucie shook her head. “They’re all gone too.”

A horrible feeling bubbled up inside me. “Is there a security detail on Tommy and his family?”

“Olivia arranged it before she went with Tommy to get Kasey checked over. They’re LOA, she wouldn’t let me put SOA agents in her detail. Elaine has put Olivia in charge of the investigation. Apparently it pissed off some of Olivia’s bosses, but no one is going to question it. Besides, if Olivia hadn’t been put in charge, she’d have only done her own investigation. I think Elaine would rather have her doing it officially than busting heads trying to find everyone who helped attack her family.”

“Probably for the best,” I said, knowing full well what a pissed off Olivia is capable of. Better to have her on your side, than doing it herself. “It looks like you have some bad elements among your people.”

“It does appear that way, doesn’t it?” She sat beside me.

“Check your people for the Reavers tattoo. All of them have it. Like some weird badge of honor.”

“Slight problem with that, the ones we took in today don’t have one.”

That was a bit of a surprise. “So, these won’t be the original Reavers. Felix once told me that all of them had to get the tattoo. These are new, and by the way they fought today I’d say they hadn’t gone through the Harbinger trials. On the one hand that makes them easier to fight when they present themselves, but it also makes them harder to identify. I don’t envy your job.”

“Have you heard from Olivia or Tommy?”

“Not yet. I’m going to go over to the hospital once I’m don
e here.”

“We could be here a while longer, yet. It doesn’t sound like the prisoners are very chatty.”

I paused for a moment. “Let me talk to one of them.”

“Not unless I have no other choices. You interrogated a man at Hades’s compound a year ago. I heard what you did to him. I can’t have dead prisoners here; we have to be better than that.”

“I didn’t kill him,” I objected, remembering the murderous bastard who’d tried to kill Hades before he’d been caught.
Unfortunately
we hadn’t stopped him from killing his own wife and children.

“You took his hands. You know he killed himself in our jail?”

“Yeah, well, I’m not going to kill anyone. Just talk. They wanted to kill me back in Southampton, now they want to take me to talk. I’d like to know why. And I heard your prisoner died by getting into a fight with another prisoner.”

“He walked up to a cave troll and kicked him. The troll tore his head off and threw it fifty feet away. What would you ca
ll that?”

“Suicide by troll. That’s new.”

Remy came out of the building and walked over to us. “They’re not talking at all. We had to restrain one before he bit his own tongue off. There’s a possibility they’re a little fanatical.”

“Only a possibility?” Lucie asked.

“They could be clinically fucking insane,” Remy said with a slight shrug. “Possibly both.”

“Do we know any of their names?” I asked.

Remy shook his head. “They haven’t been forthcoming, and as you know Avalon doesn’t keep fingerprint or DNA records, much to my annoyance.” He turned to Lucie. “Look, boss, I know you don’t approve of violence against prisoners, but on this
occasion
I can’t see how else we’re going to get anywhere. These guys aren’t talking, and everyone is getting fed up with going through the same spiel. It’s getting us nowhere.”

“I don’t want my agents committing violence against them,” Lucie said.

“Is it my turn now?” I asked.

“You okay doing this?” Remy asked.

I shrugged. “It’s something I’m good at.”

“And that is why I’m grateful we’re on the same side,” Remy said with a chuckle.

“Nate,” Lucie said, taking hold of my arm. “It looks like I don’t have a lot of choice in this, does it? No deaths, no missing parts. I’m asking you to go in there as Hellequin and get answers.”

“You’re Hellequin?” Remy asked.

“You’d not heard?”

“I’d heard rumors about his re-appearance, but didn’t know it was you. You’re a celebrity. So long as you call someone who a bunch of people actively want to kill a celebrity.”

“No killing,” I said to Lucie, ignoring Remy. “Promise.”

I entered the building and was taken by one of four guards to a corridor containing the first set of interrogation rooms on the floor above.

“Which one is Bushy Beard in?” I asked as I glanced around the four identical doors, arranged as two opposite one another.

The guard pointed to the room closest to the end of the
corridor
. “Best of luck,” she said and walked off.

I opened the door to the room and found Bushy Beard
sitting
on a chair with a table between us. I grabbed a second chair, which was closest to the door, and sat down. There were no two-way mirrors or hidden cameras in the room. There was one quite visible camera above the door and another at the rear of the room. They recorded on a continuous loop when someone was inside the room. The feed was displayed on a monitor on the ground floor, which I was sure was currently the most popular monitor in the building.

Bushy wore a sorcerer’s band. It’s a small metal bracelet with runes carved into it, which negates the magical abilities of
whoever
wears it. I hate the things, but I had to admit I didn’t mind Bushy wearing one.

“Do you know who I am?” I asked.

“Hellequin, of course I know. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“You have? That’s nice, why’s that?”

“You are one of those we will slaughter for past transgressions against the Reavers. You thought us dead, we will never die.”

It didn’t surprise me that he knew I was Hellequin. Those in West Quay had known who I was, so I assumed it was common knowledge throughout the Reavers. “You attacked me and my friends. I wondered why there were no magic users or elementals in your group.”

“Too flashy. We were meant to overpower you. But Lucie and
Olivia arrived. We hadn’t expected them. Nor that werewolf
and his young bitch.”

I fought the urge to dent the table with his face. “I wonder, why not just wait until I was alone?”

“I was impatient. I thought you’d be an easy target with so many of us.”

“That’s not working out so well for you. First West Quay, now Camelot. Two public venues, precisely zero me deaths.”

“West Quay was a mistake. They should have waited. They did the best they could.”

“So, who’s feeding you information about what happened in West Quay?”

Bushy paused. “We are a large organization. With many willing members. The information will always get to those who need to know it.”

“Why did you want to talk to me? You wanted to kill me back in Southampton.”

“Things have changed.”

“What things?”

“You know where Felix Novius is. You will tell us.”

“Who told you I know that?” I wondered.

“That’s not important. You will tell us where he is or we will exact pain upon those you care about. After that you will die, and die soon. At the hands of the newly reborn
Reavers
. Once our enemies are out of the way, we will ensure that
Avalon
becomes the force it needs to be. A force of power and strength.”

“Tonight, twelve of you got your asses kicked by two werewolves, a fox-man, an enchanter, an elemental, and a sorcerer. And one of those werewolves is a fifteen-year-old girl. That doesn’t strike me as an overly strong group. You’re not even the original Reavers. You haven’t gone through the Harbinger
trials
, you haven’t got tattoos. You’re a pale imitation of those I helped destroy. Lucie is going to make it her mission in life to root out any and all Reavers within the SOA and purge you from
existence
.”

“We may not have the knowledge of our predecessors, but we have the numbers and the will to do what must be done. As for Lucie, she’ll be dead long before that happens.”

“You’re going to kill Lucie?” I laughed. “I’ve seen her go toe-to-toe with Helios. You think a few assholes with delusions of grandeur are going to stop her?”

“I’ll see your head on a pike beside hers, before our mission is done.”

“Does Merlin know you’re back? I’m betting not. I doubt Elaine allows him the sort of freedom he used to have.”

“Elaine is a traitor. She will be purged too.”

“You’re going to kill Elaine, now? Wow, you really are fighting above your weight class. Even Merlin wouldn’t start that fight, and from the last time I spoke to him, I didn’t think there was much he wouldn’t do anymore.”

Bushy launched himself up, his face a mass of redness. “
Merlin
is not aware of our existence. We do these things to make us strong. Not to make him strong.”

He immediately realized his error in having told me
anything
, and lunged at me. I grabbed his hand and twisted, forcing him face first onto the cold metal table. I punched him in the kidney, and the air rushed out of him.

“That was rude. We were having a nice chat and you had to go and ruin it by being rude.” I held his arm steady; if I’d decided to I could have broken it in half a dozen places. “Now, if I let you go, what are you going to do?”

“Kill you,” he seethed through gritted teeth.

I punched him in the kidney again. “Either you be nice, or I’ll stop pretending I don’t want to hurt you.”

I applied a little more pressure on his arm.

“Fine,” he snapped and I released him, pushing him back onto his chair, while he rubbed his elbow.

“Who’s in charge of this new movement? Please remember, I’m being very nice. If you’d like I could just as easily stop.”

“I don’t know. We get our orders from an agent who works in Avalon.”

“And that agent’s name?”

“We called him Daniels. He was in charge of taking those injured prisoners to the hospital. I assume none of them made it.” He finished his sentence with a smirk.

“Okay, so who attacked Fiona?”

“I don’t—” he began.

“Let me finish. If you say you don’t know, I’m going to hu
rt you.”

“I can’t tell you the answer to something I don’t know. You might as well hurt me.”

I sat back on my chair. “I have a better idea. You’re going to tell me about the Reavers, about their command structure, about why you’ve suddenly started killing people, and why you’re interested in finding Felix Novius.”

“Are you going to beat me if I don’t talk?”

“Actually, I’m going to go into those other three rooms and tell your friends that you told us everything. And then I’m going to make sure that it gets out that you’re cooperating with me, personally. Then we’re going to take you and your friends to a holding facility, where you can all bond together and discuss how much you betrayed them. Or we can let you all go, and see how long it takes for your old friends to find you. I wonder how they’d punish a traitor to their cause.”

For the first time since I’d arrived in the room, Bushy looked genuinely scared. “You can’t do that.”

“Can. And will. I don’t give two shits about your piss-awful excuse for a life. So, wanna help and have it be kept secret, or wanna keep schtum and be a traitor to your precious Reavers?”

“Schtum?”

“Means keep quiet. So which one is it?”

Bushy bowed his head slightly. “They use these on traitors,” he said quietly and lifted his hand. “Sorcerer’s bands. Then they force the wearer to remove it without the key.”

Apparently Bushy feared his allies and what they’d do to him a lot more than anything I could do.

Anyone trying to remove a sorcerer’s band without the key activates another rune inside the metal, which turns the band into a magical napalm bomb, killing its wearer in as horrific and painful a way as possible.

“If no one has ever mentioned it before, the Reavers are one classy group.”

He ignored my taunt. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything you do.”

“You swear whatever I say is between us?”

“Not quite ready to die for the cause?”

Bushy looked at the floor.

“You tell me what I want to know and we’ll keep it between us. If you decide to mess me about, I promise to turn and look the other way while your friends tear you apart.”

Bushy nodded and looked up at me. “The Reavers are set into different groups; each one is given a different task. No one knows the current command structure. That way if any of us get caught, we can’t give the game away. My group was tasked with your questioning and murder. We were also tasked with killing Remy, he’s become too vocal an opponent of ours to be allowed to live. His friendship with Fiona sealed that deal.”

“Who attacked Fiona?”

“I’ve already told you, I don’t know. I can’t tell you how many Reaver groups there are in Camelot, but it wasn’t done thro
ugh mine.”