Chapter One

Chapter One

MORDRED

Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean

Now

Mordred stood at the rear of the open cargo door on the heavily modified Airbus A400M Atlas. Hades had made some calls to a few friends who still had access to military equipment and found two identical planes that he'd been able to borrow.

The Atlas's twin had already made its pass and was on its way back to its base in England. Hopefully without difficulty.

"Don't tell me you're afraid," Hel said from beside Mordred, using her earpiece and mic to communicate over the sounds of the engine.

"No," Mordred said as the plane continued along above the clouds. "Just hoping this works out as planned." He touched his cheek, just under where his eye had been ripped out almost a year earlier. The eye itself had grown back, but he still couldn't see out of it, and occasionally the constant healing itched.

"We have a good team here," Hel assured him.

Mordred looked behind her at the team. Each of them had joined knowing they were going to do a military free fall, or HALO jump. Few of them had done one previously, and certainly never one that culminated in landing on a moving target. Mordred wasn't even sure it would be possible, but his air magic was going to ensure it was as smooth a landing as he could make it.

"We ready, then?" Remy the foxman asked as he pulled down the visor on his specially designed mask. He made sure the two black-bladed swords in the sheaths on his back were in place and did the same for the two custom Colt revolvers in holsters against his hips. "I'm looking forward to this."

"Me too," Diana said, loading her MP5 with hollow-point silver rounds. As a werebear, she was acting as the muscle of the group, muscle that Mordred was fully aware was going to get a workout, but not everything could be killed by brute force or magic, so everyone apart from Remy carried an MP5.

Heading up the team were Zamek the dwarf and Chloe Range-Taylor, an umbra with the power to absorb and redirect kinetic energy, both more than capable of holding their own. Although Zamek had been less than thrilled about having to wear a face mask for the jump. He held his double-bladed battle-ax in one hand, rolling his shoulders as if about to fight the clouds themselves.

"No one tell him what happens if there's lightning," Remy said in a stage whisper.

Zamek gave him a scowl and placed the blade of the ax in a sheath before attaching it to his back.

"We know what we're here for," Mordred said to his team.

"Yes, but maybe next time we could pick something to land on that isn't moving on an ocean," Zamek said. "Like not a passenger ship."

"I like his suggestion," Diana said.

"You all complain a lot more than you did before I was king," Mordred said as the red lights beside him flashed green.

"We'll complain more later, if we survive," Chloe said with a grin. She was the first to jump out of the plane, followed by everyone else, with Mordred last.

He wrapped himself in a shield of air as he fell through the clouds. He spotted his teammates below him and pushed the air out in front of them to ensure that they moved smoothly.

The target was thousands of feet below, a small patch in an ocean of blue. If this went wrong, they'd be hitting the water or the cruise ship fast enough to, if not kill them outright, certainly do a lot of damage. None of them were human, but that didn't mean that they were invulnerable to being killed or seriously injured.

Mordred had not made his council very happy with his announcement that he'd be joining the mission. They'd wanted him to stay back in Shadow Falls, to help organize the resistance, but as he'd pointed out, the resistance didn't need him to organize anything. His friends did need his help. Mordred was a target, and landing on this cruise ship was going to make him bait. The mission needed the enemy to be focused on him and his team.

The Harmony of Oceans moved ever closer. The ship was one of the largest in the world. According to the reports, it could hold more than five thousand passengers. Mordred hoped that there would be considerably fewer people aboard to deal with than five thousand.

"If we're wrong about this ...," Hel said over the comms.

"Then we'll grab some cocktails, sit on a sun lounger for a bit," Mordred said. "Nothing wrong with a lovely day out with friends."

He heard Remy snort through the comms.

Mordred started to hum the theme tune to Final Fantasy IX's battles as he checked the reading on the altimeter. He had several thousand feet to go before he needed to pull the cord for his parachute, so he continued to watch his friends beneath him, each of their lives in his hands.

The closer they got to the gigantic ship, it seemed to Mordred, the faster they moved. Another check on the altimeter told him he was only a short distance from needing to pull his chute.

Mordred built up a massive amount of magical air around him, pouring more and more power into it, then used the magic to reach out in front of him like a huge invisible hand. He tapped the comm button on his helmet. "Now," he said.

Everyone pulled their rip cords at once, but there was not enough distance between them and the ship to ensure a safe landing. Not without Mordred's magic, anyway. He used the air that he'd pushed out in front of his team like a huge brake, slowing them all down as they descended toward the ship and touched down softly on the deck, close to a huge swimming pool.

Mordred was still a thousand feet above them when the sirens climbed out of the portholes just below where everyone had landed. They clawed their way up and over the railings, moving toward the team, who were themselves heading toward the nearest door to take them into the ship. It looked as though they were unaware of the danger of the approaching enemies, but Mordred knew that wasn't the case.

Encased in a shield of dense air, Mordred disconnected his own parachute and plummeted to the ship at high speed. He hit the swimming pool with an explosion of air and water, using his water magic to freeze the contents of the pool as it exploded up around him. Thousands of shards of ice drove into the dozen creatures who were all in front of him, waiting to move into the ship. None of them had time to escape the frozen projectiles. Most of the water dropped back harmlessly into the pool, and Mordred walked out completely dry, deactivating his magic.

The door to the ship opened, and Hel stepped out. She looked down at the bodies of the sirens. "Nice work," she said. "We could have taken them."

"Not quietly," Mordred said. "At least one of them would have made a noise or jumped overboard. Couldn't risk it. Besides, there are plenty more inside you can deal with."

"Where to first?" Zamek asked, poking one of the sirens with his foot. It had a three-foot spike of ice embedded in its eye and emerging from the back of its skull. Sirens looked human, right up until they were hunting. Then features became almost serpentlike, with long, thin gray-skinned bodies covered in hardened armor across their chests and necks. They were made for killing. Their razor-sharp claws on long bony fingers and their sharklike teeth were more than capable of tearing a human adult to shreds in seconds. "I always thought sirens were female."

"No one really knows," Diana said. "They can change their appearance at will. Lots of sailors were men, and these things like humans. To eat. Turns out when attractive women make suggestive comments to large numbers of sailors who have been at sea for months, they become easy prey."

Mordred and his team unslung their weapons and reentered the ship, moving from the bow through to the main living areas of the guests, who would normally be out and about. It was eerily quiet.

"Nothing good happened here," Diana said. "It reeks of death."

"A lot of death," Remy said.

There were chandeliers in the middle of the main foyer, as well as a stunning staircase that Mordred assumed would normally have a mirror shine but right now was, like everything else in the foyer, drenched in blood.

"This was a massacre," Hel said. "How many people were on board this ship?"

"Just over four thousand," Remy said. "The distress call was sent out for exactly twelve seconds, before someone cut it off and said that it was a false alarm."

"And no one came to check?" Mordred asked.

"USS Burton," Hel said. "A destroyer-class ship was the closest one to the emergency signal."

"What happened to the destroyer?" Mordred asked as he looked around the foyer for signs of anyone who might still be alive.

"Two hundred men died," Hel said. "Those sirens out there tore the inhabitants of the destroyer apart. It was found floating a hundred miles off the coast of Nova Scotia with all hands lost."

These creatures were not pushovers; they had murdered thousands of people in their insatiable need for blood and flesh.

"Why, though?" Remy asked. "Sirens are a pain in the arse, but so long as you're not a horny, drunk sailor, you're pretty safe. And for them to attack a cruise ship is unheard of."

"Did you read the mission briefing?" Diana asked Remy.

"I skimmed it," Remy said. "Sirens, missing ship, bad guys, possibly some kind of mobile prison. The ship has been missing for three months, the tracking removed. All attempts to get out here have been met with hostility. It's all very interesting, but nowhere does it explain why they attacked and took control of a cruise ship. Nor does it explain why they didn't just blow it up."

"There are innocent people on this ship," Diana said. "Not sure how happy the public would be to hear that a government blew up several thousand people because they were scared of sirens."

"Besides, someone is leading them," Mordred said. "We find out who and stop them, and hopefully nothing gets blown up."

"Do we know who's behind this?" Zamek asked.

Mordred shrugged. "I have no idea. That's why we're here—to find out."

"The intel said something about prisoners," Remy said. "We know how many might still be alive?"

Mordred shook his head. "Honestly, I'm not sure what to expect. This ship has docked in three separate ports in South America. Each time it docked, we have intel telling us that prisoners were brought on board. We don't know why. We just know that they were Avalon prisoners, so we can assume they're high-value targets."

"A rescue mission where we don't know who we're rescuing," Diana said. "Sounds about right."

"So we don't even know if they're still alive," Chloe said. "A lot of people have died in here already. There were a lot of passengers on this ship too. I wonder how many of them became food after the initial attack."

Diana picked up a piece of blood-drenched uniform. "Marines died here," she said. "The sirens waited until this ship was boarded before they attacked."

"So if you're in charge of this ship, I assume you'd want to stay somewhere nice," Zamek said.

"We'll try first class later and go from there," Mordred said. "Bridge first."

They slowly walked up the staircase, Mordred wishing the floor wasn't so sticky.

Diana led the group up a second flight of stairs, these thankfully clean, to the floor above, which was devoid of blood-splattered surfaces.

"Someone cleaned up," Remy said as the group stopped just outside the door of the hallway where the first-class cabins were. "I smell lemon disinfectant."

Mordred looked out of the massive windows beside him. The uninterrupted view of nothing but ocean stretched as far as he could see.

"How long do you think before the rest of the sirens go looking for us?" Chloe asked.

"I imagine they'll be with us soon enough," Mordred said. "Whoever is in charge probably knows we're here. Maybe they want to meet us themselves first."

They moved around the top floor of the foyer toward a sign that said EMPLOYEES ONLY. There was a bloody handprint on the white door, next to the card reader.

"So, key cards," Remy said. "Anyone have one of those?"

Chloe placed a hand on the card reader and used her power to burn a hole in the door, completely destroying the lock.

Chloe took a step to the side, frowning as everyone else filed through the door, leaving Mordred last. "You okay?" he asked.

Chloe nodded. "Missing Piper is all. I read the manifest for the people aboard. Most were couples just wanting a romantic getaway. Wrong place, wrong time."

"We'll make sure to get justice for them," Mordred said, walking through the door after Chloe and up the short flight of stairs. "How is Piper, anyway?"

"We've spent the last year grieving for everyone we lost in Asgard and then trying to find Arthur," Chloe said. "I'm not sure we've done either properly. Piper has been helping the search party for him, but everyone involved is exhausted and frustrated. The monster is still out there, God knows where, doing God knows what."

"More blood," Diana said from the top of the stairs, which, according to the blueprints, would lead them to a horseshoe-shaped hallway with the bridge at the front, overlooking the bow of the ship.

There were several doors along the pristine white corridor, but after Diana stopped at the first and a low growl left her throat, no one really wanted to open it.

Hel sighed and pushed open the door, revealing the mass of blood and gore from what had once been people inside.

"Holy fuck," Remy whispered.

"The sirens' storage area," Chloe said. "It's why it's so damn cold in here."

Mordred hadn't noticed the temperature, but she was right: it was at least twenty degrees colder inside the room than in the corridor. He had no idea what the room used to be for; any remnants of its old purpose were lost in a sea of horror.

"The sirens are killing these people and then just storing the bodies for when they're hungry," Zamek said. "Parts of them, anyway."

Diana closed the door as everyone left. No one wanted to check the other three rooms before the bridge, but they did anyway. They contained piles of body parts similar to the first. No one spoke until they reached the door to the bridge, which was already open.

The dozen people inside almost screamed in terror as Chloe and Zamek burst through the door, demanding everyone get down on the floor. The seven men and five women did as they were told. All wore grimy white shirts and black trousers and were clearly members of the crew.

"Captain?" Mordred asked.

A middle-aged man with a bald head raised his hand.

"Okay, everyone back on their feet," Mordred said, helping the captain up.

"Everything is fucked," Chloe said, pointing to the radio.

"The navigation is still working," Zamek said, checking various instruments and panels. "But it's not in use. The engines aren't propelling this ship. They've been switched off, except to create power for the ship itself. It's an interesting piece of technology. The ship uses partial solar energy to—"

"Later," Mordred said.

Zamek nodded solemnly. "Apologies."

"Not needed," Mordred said, looking out the window down onto the bow. "The sirens' bodies have gone."

Hel joined him. "Shit. Do we know what sirens do with their dead?"

"Eat them," Remy said. "That's my best guess, anyway."

"He's actually right," the captain said.

"I'm smarter than I look," Remy said.

"You'd have to be," Zamek said with a smile.

"I'm pretty sure this is now bullying," Remy said with mock indignation.

"What happened here?" Mordred asked the captain.

Several of the humans shared concerned glances.

"My name is Mordred," he said. "We're here to stop whatever is happening and hopefully get you all home safely. But I need to know a few things."

"They came at night," the first officer said as she helped one of her colleagues up and put him in a chair.

"Let me take a look at that," Chloe said, moving over to help with what looked like a nasty wound on his leg.

"The passengers in the ballroom were attacked," the captain said. "Hundreds of them died. The survivors were separated, the crew kept alive to maintain the ship and feed the bastard. The lifeboats have been mostly destroyed—a few tried to take one of those remaining, but they were killed the second the boat touched the ocean."

"The sirens?" Diana asked.

The captain nodded. "We didn't have a name for them."

"Who's the bastard?" Remy asked.

"The man in charge. He's in a suite in the first-class cabins. They keep us in here and the adjoining rooms. There are twenty of us in total. Two shifts a day. The sirens bring their kills to the corridor outside so we know our place."

"Any idea of how many are alive?"

The captain shook his head. "The marines boarded us and were all killed. Anyone who fought back was killed. I think a lot of the passengers and crew are still alive, belowdecks. That's what he told us. We've stopped three times to refuel. Venezuela, Brazil, Morocco. Each time we picked up supplies and people."

"Prisoners," Mordred said. "Any idea where they are?"

The crew shook their heads. "The chef and his team will. They're in the kitchens; all of them are still alive, so they tell us. They have to prepare food for two thousand people."

"The bastard likes his good food," the first officer said with barely contained anger.

"Okay, so we have a lot of crew alive," Diana said. "Sounds like a lot of passengers too. Why keep them alive, though?"

"Food," Zamek said. "I'm beginning to think there are a lot more sirens down there than we'd anticipated. Also, it sounds like the marines filled them up for some time, so there are more passengers alive. Sirens eat once a month at most."

"How do you know all of this?" Remy asked.

"I read," Zamek said. "I watch videos online."

"I bet your search history is all kinds of messed up," Remy said.

Mordred ignored the others and looked out of the huge wraparound windows. The water moved unnaturally, as if disrupted by something beneath the waves. He continued to stare for several seconds, until a siren launched from the sea toward the ship. A second later dozens more did the same.

"I think we have company," Mordred said. "Any chance we can get those doors on first class unlocked?"

"I have a key. The one leading them is in room 102," one of the people on the bridge said, fishing it out of her pocket and passing it to Chloe as the sirens reached the deck and screamed as one up toward Mordred and his team.

"I think they spotted us," Zamek said.

"All of you, get somewhere safe," Mordred said to the crew. He touched his fingertip to the comm unit in his ear. "Room 102. First class. We'll give these creatures something to think about."

"See you soon," the male voice on the other side said.

None of the crew needed to be told twice, and all of them on the bridge left through a door that took them outside onto a balcony, around to where the rest of the bridge crew had been kept.

"Good thing these assholes didn't lock the door," Remy said, drawing his swords.

"No one needs locks when there's nowhere to escape to," Diana said.

"We need to make some noise," Mordred said. He placed a hand on the window of the bridge and used his air magic to shatter it before capturing the huge amount of glass from the massive windows and flinging it at the sirens like a thousand daggers as they swarmed up the walls, scurrying like insects in their haste to get to Mordred and his team.

Mordred leaped out of the window, blasting half a dozen sirens away. Remy and Zamek leaped out behind him.

Remy landed next to Mordred and began shooting anything that moved, as Zamek unsheathed his ax and removed the heads of two sirens before they could get close enough to be a problem. Diana landed in her werebear beast form, larger and more terrifying than any normal bear that Mordred had ever seen. She tore into the sirens as if they were made of paper.

Hel used the necromancy power inside of her as pure force, blasting sirens over the side of the ship before they'd even managed to touch down on the bow.

Mordred hit an incoming siren that had leaped toward him—deceptively strong arms stretched out to plunge its claws into his body—with a blast of light hot enough to rend flesh from bone. The creature dropped to the deck and screamed in pain, only silenced when Mordred put a round from his MP5 into its head. He fired at the attackers, taking out a dozen sirens in less than a minute as they continued to scramble over the deck of the ship.

When the gun ran dry, instead of reloading, he created a sword of light in one hand and cut through the sirens that continued to attack, until they were almost overwhelmed by numbers.

A siren sliced across Mordred's cheek, and another barreled into him, knocking him off his feet and into the swimming pool. The siren opened its mouth, showing the dangerous teeth, and screamed, the blast hitting Mordred in the face just as he raised a shield of air in defense.

The water around them boiled as Mordred's hands turned bright white before he detonated his light magic, causing the siren to cry out, even underwater. It swam for the surface, with Mordred on its heels.

He reached the siren just as it was leaving the swimming pool, only to watch the creature fall back in, a huge chunk of its chest missing. Chloe reached out and offered Mordred a bloody hand. She noticed and offered the other hand instead, giving Mordred a sheepish look of apology as he climbed out of the pool.

Mordred created a sphere of light in one hand and threw it into the air. "Eyes covered," he shouted and waited for the count of two before detonating the sphere.

The blast rushed out across the bow of the ship, followed quickly by the screams of every single siren that hadn't been shielding its eyes. The screams continued for several seconds, becoming more and more distant as the sirens dived into the water.

"Well, they know we're here," Diana said.

"Good," Mordred said. "That's sort of the idea."

The team made their way to the entrance to the first-class compartment, where Chloe used the key card to open the door. They walked down the hallway beyond before stopping outside room 102 and using the key card again. With the door unlocked, the team stepped inside the lavish suite. Everything was tastefully decorated, and the windows were open, leading to a private balcony.

A man sat in the middle of a large leather sofa. He had bare feet, white three-quarter-length trousers, and an open blue-and-yellow shirt, revealing his hairy chest and six-pack. His dirty-blond hair was long and tied back with ribbons of varying colors.

"Mordred," he said with a sigh. "I've been watching you play with my sirens." The man pointed to the large monitor on the wall, which showed camera feeds from around the ship.

"Poseidon?" Diana asked. "You little fucker."

Poseidon's hand turned into water. "I wouldn't, Diana," he said. "Let's not make this any worse for you."

"You notice you're outnumbered, yes?" Remy asked. "There is only one of him, right?"

"I am a god," Poseidon said.

Remy shrugged.

"You had thousands of people murdered," Chloe snapped.

"Actually, the sirens did that; I just didn't stop them. Workers need to feed, you know." Poseidon got to his feet and paused. "Why are you smiling?" he asked Mordred, walking behind the sofa, putting it between himself and Mordred's people.

"I wasn't sure it was you," Mordred said. "We knew about the cameras, though. We found someone who worked on the ship; they told us that there had been a special request for it. I'm guessing you were in part the financier of this ship."

"I have lived aboard this ship for some time," Poseidon said. "Always moving, always near my beautiful oceans. And I like people watching. I paid a lot for the privilege. It's why I didn't have the crew killed. I need them to make the ship work, but also to keep me in the manner I'm accustomed to living in. Can't very well murder the people who change my sheets and cook my food."

"Well, we also knew that you'd be watching us when we landed," Mordred continued, ignoring the man who climbed up over the railing from the ocean. He wore all black and had a balaclava on, hiding his face. He crept slowly across the carpet until he was behind Poseidon.

"You're going to answer some questions," Mordred said.

"And if I tell you to go fuck yourselves?" Poseidon asked with a smirk.

"You know, I think I'm powerful enough to kill you myself," Mordred said. "Almost certainly, but someone else wanted to say hi, and I told him if he got here before the questions started, he could take part."

A blade of lightning punctured out the front of Poseidon's chest. He convulsed and dropped to the floor, whereupon the masked man removed the balaclava to reveal Nate Garrett.

"Hey, Poseidon," Nate said, looking down at the man, whose eyes filled with sudden terror.

Mordred walked over and stood beside Nate, looking down at Poseidon. "I think we'll find a way to get the answers we want. I just don't think you're going to enjoy them very much."