Promise of Wrath (The Hellequin Chronicles Book 6) (40 page)

CHAPTER
43

Six Months Later. Canada.

I
’d arrived in the North Shore Mountains after spending the better part of the last few months hunting for those who wanted to plot against me and my friends. I’d coerced Tommy into accompanying me on the trip so that we could track our enemies together.

A lot had changed in six months. Chloe had gone off to try and have some semblance of a normal life. Mara Range had been placed in a deep, dark pit somewhere; I cared little about where. And London had outwardly changed not one bit. There were rumors that Hera was culling those who lived there and disagreed with her, but nothing concrete.

“It’s cold, Nate,” Tommy said from beside me in the Ford pickup we’d hired from a rental place; it was a truck without a working heater. “Even for a werewolf.”

“It’s winter in Canada. It’s meant to be cold,” I said, using my fire magic to warm myself.

“I thought we might have gone to one of those nice non-freezing parts of the country.” He paused for a second. “You’re using magic right now, aren’t you?”

“The very thought!”

Tommy couldn’t look at me because he was driving and needed to concentrate, but I knew he wanted to glare at me.

The tires on the pickup crunched under the fresh snow, and even though the forest and mountains around us were picturesque, I was grateful it had stopped snowing a few days earlier. Despite being on an ordinary highway, the journey was treacherous enough without freshly fallen snow adding to the danger of driving into the mountains.

“How far up this road do we need to go?” Tommy asked.

“There’s a spot to park not far from here. We’ll need to hike the rest of the way. He’s about an hour from Lion’s Bay.”

“He lives in the middle of nowhere is what you’re saying?”

“Pretty much. It took me six months to find Gilgamesh. I’m not going to let him go easily.”

“I don’t think he’s going to let you take him easily, either.”

Tommy had a fair point, but I went back to looking out of the window, hoping that I wouldn’t have to take Gilgamesh by force.

After half an hour, Tommy parked the pickup close to the lake and got out. “Looks beautiful,” he said. “Any wolves in this part?”

I shook my head, and grabbed a small bag from the back of the vehicle. Real wolves and werewolves rarely got along, with the real wolves seeing their were-counterparts as a threat. “Bears, cougars, and coyote are about as dangerous as it gets here, but I doubt we’ll see any of them.”

“What’s in the bag?” Tommy asked.

“Provisions. Some water, fruit bars: that kind of thing. And some beer.”

“Beer?”

“I’m hoping this won’t turn violent, Tommy.”

“Is that why I’m going in a different direction?” he asked, removing a shotgun bag from the pickup and slinging it over his shoulder.

“You’re my plan C.”

“C?” he asked, with a raised eyebrow. “If A is peaceful, and C is a gunshot, what’s B?”

“I kick his ass all over this mountain. I don’t want him dead. Plan C is a dead giant. I’d rather save that for no other choice.”

We set off at a good pace, using a trail that had already been created over the years, until we were an hour away from the lake. We stopped walking, the path leading higher into the forest, and went off the trail into the trees.

“Do you actually know where you’re going?” he mocked.

“No. I figured we’d just walk around for a bit until a bear finds us,” I told him sarcastically. We climbed higher and higher, until the trees broke, turning into bare, and mostly flat, rock.

“This is me.” Tommy glanced off toward his destination. “Best of luck, Nate.”

I watched him walk to the north, across the rock, and drop down at the end. We’d used Google Earth to check the best spot for him, and he was certain that he would have a good line of sight from that location to Gilgamesh’s cabin. I just hoped he wouldn’t be necessary.

I headed west, and it took me another twenty minutes to find the cabin. It had been built in a large clearing, maybe a hundred feet in diameter, with trees surrounding two-thirds of it. I looked through the bare spot, somewhere in that direction among the Rocky Mountains, toward a waiting Tommy with a rifle. Probably looking right at me. He would only have a small window to take a shot, but it was better than nothing.

The cabin looked like it had been there a long time, and I wondered if Gilgamesh had made it himself, or if he had appropriated it. It was a small building, probably only suitable for one, maybe two at a push, and made of dark wood. A small window sat near the front door, which was painted a dark green. There was a fire pit out front in the clearing, and two wooden chairs sat beside it. A stack of wood sat beside the cabin, presumably partly for the fire pit, and if the brick chimney on the roof was any indication, partly for the fireplace inside.

The snow had been cleared away from the whole area, leaving the green grass free from its freezing touch. I removed two bottles of beer from my bag and planted them both in a nearby snowdrift before starting the fire pit and taking a seat in one of the chairs.

I wasn’t worried that Gilgamesh would see me and run; he wasn’t the kind of person to do that. He’d confront me. He might have hidden for the last year, but from what I’d deduced he had come straight here and hadn’t moved around.

It took ten minutes for Gilgamesh to emerge through the trees, holding a deer carcass against one shoulder.

“Nate,” Gilgamesh said, his tone friendly and conversational. He wasn’t surprised to see me.

“Gilgamesh. Nice cabin.”

“Thanks. I didn’t build it, but it’s made for a pleasant home. There’s a town not too far, so I get most of what I need from there. And anything else—” He dropped the deer on the ground. “—I take from the area.”

He shrank down from a ten-foot-high version to his normal size, which was still incredibly tall. His T-shirt and jeans looked baggy on him, and he was barefoot. “I’m going to change. You okay out here?”

I nodded and let Gilgamesh enter the cabin. He emerged a few minutes later in better-fitting clothing, including some boots.

“They don’t make clothes in giant size,” he said. “So I had to make them myself. I’m not good enough to make my own giant shoes, though. And I was traveling light, so could only bring with me what I desperately needed.”

“You want a beer?” I asked, picking a bottle out of the snowdrift.

“The other one,” he said.

I sighed and removed the other bottle, throwing it over to him.

“It’s not poisoned,” I assured him, and used my air magic to pop the cap on my own beer, before taking a long swig.

He removed the cap with his fingers and took a drink, before looking at the bottle. “Japanese? You couldn’t have just brought cheap stuff?”

“I like it,” I told him. “And most beer is awful, so you get what you’re given.”

He drank some more of the alcohol. “It’s nice.”

“Told you.”

“So, are we just going to be all civilized about this? I tried to kill you and Irkalla last time I saw you.”

“Didn’t work out too well for you, did it?”

“Irkalla was stronger than I’d expected. I only just managed to flee.”

“Well, I figured we could do round two, and batter one another around a bit, or we could have a beer, and talk, and then you come with me.”

Gilgamesh finished his beer and put the bottle down. “I can’t do that last bit, Nate.”

I nodded. “I’d hoped you’d see reason. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Gilgamesh stared at me and laughed. “The last time we fought, just me and you, I beat you. Easily.”

It hadn’t been easily at all, but I let him have his ego-polishing moment.

I placed the bottle of beer on the ground. “It’s been a long six months, Gilgamesh. Siris is still missing, Hera is in control of London, and Merlin allowed it. Nothing feels like it’s going to have a happy ending.”

“You won’t find Siris unless she wants to be found.”

“I found you.”

“I had no intention of leaving this realm.”

“You should have kept running.”

“There’s no one Avalon would send that concerns me. I’m surprised they sent you.”

“They didn’t send me,” I confirmed. “I’m here because I want to find Siris and her people and have them stopped. I want Hera out of London, too. And you can tell me where Siris is, and who she’s working with.”

“I don’t know a damn thing. I made sure of that.”

“In that case, you’re still going to be going to prison for helping Siris murder Brutus and a bunch of other people. Hera might have Merlin in her pocket, or maybe it’s vice versa, but no one will be able to stop Olivia from sending you to The Hole.”

Gilgamesh darted across the clearing, increasing in size as he went. He grabbed the deer carcass and threw it at where I’d been sitting. Unfortunately for him, I’d already moved into the shadow realm.

I came out behind him, a sphere of lightning in my hand, and unleashed the magic an inch from his back. He flew through the air, and smashed into several trees, tearing more than one of them apart with the force.

“Stay down,” I told him.

He ignored me and got back to his feet, roaring in anger before charging forward. He grabbed hold of one of the tree trunks beside him and flung it in my direction. A second sphere turned it into pulp. I didn’t want to keep going in and out of my shadow realm; I’d have gotten too exhausted. There was no way to beat Gilgamesh if I wasn’t at my best.

I gathered the thousands of pieces of wood all around me in a bubble of air and flung them back toward Gilgamesh at high speed. He’d started running toward me the second he’d thrown the trunk, and couldn’t avoid the incoming wooden shrapnel. Instead, he raised his arm to protect his face. Pieces of wood were embedded in his arm, but he showed no outward pain at it, and continued on, unabated.

I dodged aside at the last possible second, throwing a torrent of air at Gilgamesh’s legs, hoping to trip him. But he managed to turn toward me faster than I’d anticipated and grabbed hold of my leg, lifting me off the ground and flinging me toward the trees.

A blast of air stopped me from breaking bones when I struck the huge trees, but it still hurt, and Gilgamesh was already charging toward me once more.

“Last chance!” I shouted.

He ignored me until the shadows burst out of the ground, wrapping around him and stopping him in his tracks.

He tore himself free from several of the tendrils of shadow, but I was adding more and more with every second, faster than he could destroy them.

“Don’t fight it,” I told him.

He roared in fury and lurched forward, growing in size again, ripping the shadows apart, enough to gain momentum. I removed the shadows, which surprised Gilgamesh and he stumbled forward, catching his feet just as I drove a three-foot-wide sphere of lightning into his chest. The magic exploded all around him, tearing at the earth, and throwing him back.

Gilgamesh found himself on the floor, his chest a mass of bloody, raw flesh. He bared his teeth and used a nearby tree to get back to his feet. I raised one hand toward the sky and the rumble of thunder sounded above us. Lightning flashed down from above toward my finger and then traveled through my body out of the other finger that was pointed directly at Gilgamesh. The bolt had absorbed my magical power as it had traveled through, increasing its already considerable power.

It hit Gilgamesh in the torso and drove him back into and through several large trees. The earth beneath me shook as they hit the ground, along with Gilgamesh a moment later. The old king, covered in branches and leaves, pushed them aside with anger as he clawed himself back to an upright position. Blood poured from multiple wounds on his body, but he would not quit.

The hand that the lightning had left had become charred and painful; it would take some time to heal. I’d hoped the use of real lightning, mixed with my own power, would stop him, but I hadn’t been that lucky. He pushed several tons of trees aside as if it were a garden fence and began striding toward me once again.

“That it?” he demanded and ran forward, screaming the whole time. I used my air magic to try and slow him down, but fighting one-handed hadn’t been my first choice. And the pain from using my magic with a busted hand was excruciating. He grabbed hold of me, picked me off the floor and dumped me on the ground.

“You think I’m going to let you take me in, Nate?”

“Unfortunately, no,” I said. “I wish it had been different, though.”

Gilgamesh reared back to strike the killing blow, not paying attention to the shadows moving beneath me, until we both began sinking into the shadow realm. He released me and tried to grab hold of something, anything, to claw his way to freedom, but it was too late, and soon we were both standing in my shadow realm.

Gilgamesh’s power faded to nothing, and he dropped back to his normal size.

“What is this?” he demanded to know as I got to my feet.

“Shadow realm. It’s where my wraith lives.”

“A wraith?” Fear crept into his voice for the first time.

“Want to meet him?”

Gilgamesh shook his head.

“You have no power here, Gilgamesh. You can either surrender, or die. Pick one.”

“Don’t leave me in here,” he almost shouted. “I’ll come with you.”

I could feel the wraith gliding about in the darkness beyond, just waiting for an opportunity to feed on the new arrival. It was disconcerting.

I took Gilgamesh out of the shadow realm and left him lying on the dirt as I retrieved a sorcerer’s band from my bag. He allowed me to put it on him, and got to his feet.

“You’re a monster,” he said.

“I’ve been called worse.”

We marched forward, Gilgamesh in front, until there was a crack of a rifle and Gilgamesh fell to the side with considerable force. A second crack, and another round hit him before he’d struck the ground. I dove back, putting the trees between me and the rifle. Tommy wouldn’t have taken the shot; he’d have known better.

I fished out my radio. “Tommy?”

“Nate, we’ve got a shooter. They’re a few hundred yards south of me. I can’t see them.”