Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

NATE GARRETT

It took a while to sort everything out from the fallout of Lamashtu's attack. One shape-shifting psychopath had done a lot of damage. She'd separated us, hurt us, killed innocent people. And there would be recompense for that.

Jinayca was like a bear with a sore head after the attack, which had left her with a bruised sternum and a bad case of being pissed off.

I found myself sitting on a park bench overlooking a familiar stream, where I'd once fought an evil man.

"The Atlantis realm gate works differently," Lucifer said as he sat beside me.

I nodded. "I'm sure it's fascinating."

"Not really," he said. "It's really dull. But apparently it'll expand to take everyone in the dungeon at once. No need to go through the gate itself."

"Expedient," I said. "So basically it's what Zamek turned the realm gate on Avalon Island into?"

Lucifer nodded. "It seems the Atlantis gate was created by forward thinkers. Zamek and Jinayca have discussed the merits of such a device for all realm gates, and I snuck out. I think Mordred's asleep."

I smiled for the first time in a few hours. "When are we going?"

"A company of dwarves will be first through, along with Tarron, because if anything goes wrong, they can actually get back here. They go through, activate the gate at their end, and we start filtering in. We have several thousand people to send to Atlantis. It's going to take a while, no matter what we do."

I nodded.

"You're angry and anxious, and I get that, but people need to see you," Lucifer said. "You're a damn talisman to some of these people. The boogeyman on their side. You can't come out here and mope."

"I'm not moping," I said, sounding petulant even as the words left my mouth. "Okay, I'm having a momentary mope. Lamashtu escaped, she has a basilisk blade, and we have no idea where she's gone next."

"You don't have any ideas at all?" Lucifer asked.

"She pretended to be the president; she escaped and came here. But there was a rebellion here, too; she escaped, and then we all turned up, and she had to escape again. She's going to go somewhere safe and regroup. If Mordred was the target, she would have tried to kill him, surely. I think I was a target of opportunity. All of this happened because we caught her in DC."

"She's reacting," Lucifer said.

I nodded. "I get she was the president. She was there to make sure that Arthur's agenda was followed. Much easier to use a tame shape-shifter than a human who may not play ball. But what's her plan now?"

Lucifer shrugged.

I had a thought. "Any idea where Chloe and Layla are?"

"Chloe is with Piper in the hospital," Lucifer said. "Piper will be fine. She's hurt but healing quickly."

"Good," I said, relieved that Avalon hadn't taken someone else from us. "Layla?"

"Realm gate temple, I think," Lucifer said. "You're going to send her after Lamashtu?"

I shrugged. "Thinking about it. Chloe will want revenge, and I wonder if Gawain being in Washington might make Lamashtu try to free him. Seems logical."

"We should have killed Gawain," Lucifer said.

"Not disagreeing," I told him.

"Lamashtu would break him out?"

I nodded. "Again, it's what I'd do. Gawain knows too much. You break him out, or you kill him. One way or another, problem solved."

"Lamashtu is old," Lucifer said. "Really old. And deadly. I've only ever met her twice, and the first time was because someone hired her to kill me. I literally had to fake my own death to stop her from coming after me."

"And the second time?"

"I caught her butchering a family in Belgium during the First World War. She just about escaped with her life, although I doubt she enjoyed being shot in the face a bunch of times."

"So now she knows you're alive," I said.

"I think she has bigger issues," Lucifer told me.

"She could be anyone," I said.

"She needs to taste the blood of the victim," Lucifer said. "That's her link. So yes, I guess she really could be anyone."

"At any point are you going to try to make me feel better?" I asked.

"No," Lucifer said.

I noticed Zamek making his way toward us.

"We're ready," Zamek said.

"Any traps?" I asked.

"Shitloads of them," Zamek said. "Most of it rune based, and most of it done in the last few decades. Some of it is ancient, though."

"I assume they're all gone," Lucifer said.

"Yes," Zamek said. "The dwarves went through; they activated the gate on their end. There were enemies there, but they've been taken care of. But one of the dwarves said it was weird."

"Define weird," I said.

"You'll see. Let's go." Zamek motioned for us both to get up.

"I'm going to the realm gate temple first," I told him. "I need to see Layla."

Zamek nodded. "Sure, don't be long."

I reached the realm gate temple to find Chloe and Layla sitting outside with Piper.

"I thought you were in the hospital," I said.

"I felt better," Piper said.

"You look like shit," I told her, which made her smile.

"Motivational speeches still aren't your thing, are they?" Chloe said.

"I'm heading back to Shadow Falls," Piper said. "Just wanted some air. The hospital needed the room for someone who's really hurt."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"She'll get the care and support she needs in Shadow Falls," Chloe said. "And it's safer there."

Tego padded out of the temple and stopped next to me so I could scratch her behind the ear.

"You have a job for us?" Layla asked.

I nodded. "Lamashtu is on the Earth realm," I said. "I'm pretty sure she'll head to Washington, DC."

"To get Gawain?" Chloe asked.

I nodded.

"That's what you'd have done, isn't it?" Chloe asked me.

I nodded again.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're pretty scary?" Piper asked.

"It's come up once or twice," I told her.

"You want me to take a team to DC?" Layla asked.

"Your picks are going to be a bit limited, unfortunately, but I don't think Gawain is done," I said. "He surrendered too easily, and no matter how many people are guarding him, Arthur is going to consider him either a useful ally or a threat. Both reasons give his pet shape-shifter a motivation to get to him."

"Chloe will go with her," Piper said. "She'll argue with me about it when you're gone, but she will."

Chloe looked like she wanted to argue with her about it now.

"Look, just take who you need to," I said. "But go to Shadow Falls first, make sure Piper is okay, and then head to Washington. Roberto should be able to tell you if he's seen anything weird."

"What's her endgame?" Layla asked.

I shrugged. "She tried to kill Piper and me. I can't imagine that she was here to do either, though. Piper was to escape, and me was because she had the opportunity to. Who knows what her endgame is. If you find out, let me know."

"We'll head over," Layla said. "I'll go straight to DC and speak to Roberto; these guys can head over to Shadow Falls and make sure Piper is in good hands."

"I'm sorry you won't have more assistance," I said. "Do not engage Lamashtu alone. She's more than a little dangerous."

"I won't," Layla said. "Be careful in Atlantis."

Tego licked my hand.

"I will be," I said and turned to Tego. "Keep her safe."

Tego snorted as if to say, What else am I going to do?

I left everyone outside the realm gate and headed back to the palace, walking past dozens of soldiers who were guarding the entrance.

Eventually, I reached the door to the realm gate room. "So what's the plan?" I asked, entering the room.

"We're going to go fight the bad guys," Selene said. "When people stop arguing."

"Why are people arguing?" I asked.

"Because apparently I shouldn't be going," Mordred said.

"Fuck that. Get your ass to Atlantis," I told him with a smile.

"A sentiment I have expressed myself," Mordred told me.

"He is the king," Hades said. "And thus we need to ensure that he's not just running off after Arthur the second we arrive."

"He's got to come with us," my mother, Brynhildr, said. "But we're concerned that his emotions will lead him to make mistakes."

"My emotions," Mordred said with a thumbs-up. "I'm a bubbling Crock-Pot of testosterone and vigor."

"I'm pretty sure we're all pregnant now," Lucifer said dryly.

I turned to Jinayca. "Let's argue later. My best friend is in Atlantis, as is the man I need to kill for taking him."

"This is the end, people," Jinayca said. "Come back with your shield or on it."

"Easy," Mordred said, standing beside me. "I never liked shields. Let's go find Tommy and kill a tyrant."

The room went bright purple, and there was a flash, and the next thing we knew, we were standing on a dais in the middle of a large field.

"Can someone tell me what the hell happened here?" I asked, noticing the several hundred people standing all around us.

"That doesn't look good," Mordred said, pointing to the purple sky as we stepped off the dais.

Several dozen people walked off the dais with us. There were a few bodies littering the ground close to where a group of dwarves stood guard.

"You had trouble?" Mordred asked them.

"The little fuckers tried to stop us from keeping the realm gate clear," one of the dwarves said.

The dead wore red-and-black leather armor and had black leather helmets, although they'd been little protection against rune-scribed battle-axes.

"You ever been here before?" I asked Hades as the hundreds of soldiers and personnel began to arrange camps for those arriving through the gate.

He nodded sadly. "Many times. Last I was here, the sky was bright blue; the air smelled of flowers. There was laughter in the city. The buildings as tall as anything you would see in a major city today on the Earth realm. The abilities of the alchemists who lived here were spectacular, and before they'd ever arrived, the ancient dwarves and shadow elves made this place a paradise."

"Until the Titan Wars," I said.

"Until then," Mordred said.

"The city was destroyed," Persephone said. "I came here just after the death and destruction. They caused tens of thousands of people to die horribly here, unleashing a plague and a war upon a peaceful people. All to get to us."

"And now Arthur calls it home," I said. "And I assume that monstrosity is where he lives."

The black citadel was easy to spot even at this distance. It loomed over everything around it; even the tallest of the other buildings couldn't touch it. The citadel was practically touching the clouds above.

"That is not going to be a fun climb," Mordred said.

"My father is in that city," Kase said, her voice low and full of menace. "We need to move."

"I don't disagree," I said. "But we need to make sure we're ready for a full attack." I looked around as more people emerged from the realm gate and Hades, Persephone, and Mordred ordered troops into formation.

I walked over to the edge of the clearing, next to the beginnings of a forest of blackened trees, and watched the horizon. That wasn't a lot of guards for a realm gate, and the nearby city didn't appear to be inhabited. The gates to it were up, and the walls were high enough that I doubted anyone could climb them quickly.

"The dwarves did some scouting," Mordred said, passing me a pair of binoculars. "Part of the city wall is more climbable than the rest. It's through the forest, though, a few miles that way." He pointed behind me. "A small team could get inside, scout out, get that drawbridge open."

"Am I part of that small team?" I asked, looking through the binoculars at the city, taking in the massive citadel, and trying to figure out where the enemy was.

"You could sit here and admire the beauty of all this, if you'd prefer," Mordred said sarcastically.

"Normally, on the eve of battle, you don't send the entire army to camp outside a city without having good knowledge of the city first," I said with a sigh.

"This won't be your typical battle, then," Mordred said. "The second the dwarf scouts came through, Arthur knew about it."

"So why hasn't he attacked?" I asked him.

"That is a question we need an answer to," Mordred said. "Along with where my father is and where Tommy is."

"He's in there somewhere," I said. "Both of them are."

I passed Hades the binoculars as he joined us, and he looked through them. "There's a drawbridge," he said. "It's designed to look the same as the stone around it, but it's there; I can see the gears on either side. Get that down, and we can get into the city in two places. That might be our best shot."

"Mordred, you coming with me?" I asked as Selene and Persephone walked over.

Mordred nodded, taking the binoculars. "Wouldn't miss it. We'll take a team through the forest and into the city, where we'll split up. I'll take half of the team to bring down parts of the wall and drawbridge; you take the other to find out where we're meant to be going. If you can find a map of the city, maybe on a noticeboard or just lying in the open, that would be useful."

"I think that's just in video games," I said.

"Shame. That'd come in real handy about now," Mordred said.

"Has anyone else considered that this is all far too easy?" Selene asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, there's an air of trap about the whole thing. The realm gate is in the middle of nowhere, and it's not guarded by anything larger than a cursory group. Arthur wants us here."

"It's now or never," Hades said. "We knew this wasn't going to be easy."

"While that's true," I said, "I'd like to know where Arthur and his forces are."

"They're over there," Mordred said, pointing to the city. "See, that was easy."

I narrowed my eyes at him, and he winked.

"You'd best be quick, then," Hades said. "We'll start moving toward the forest here, put some of these trees and hills between us and the city."

While I agreed that we needed to get this done, and the need to get inside the city and find my friend was almost overwhelming, I couldn't shake the idea that something felt wrong. Arthur might have sent people to stop us using the realm gates on the Earth realm, but he would have had contingencies for our arrival. And abandoning Avalon was ... odd.

It was a thought I couldn't shake off, even as Mordred, Remy, Zamek, Lucifer, Diana, Irkalla, and I crept through the woods, then stopped at the riverbank before walking across where it was shallowest.

We all crouched down behind a rocky outcrop that led forty feet up over the wall. It was a sheer drop from the overhang to inside the city, but it was the safest way in. And while I was sure Arthur knew we were here, that didn't mean he knew what we were doing. Hopefully the moving army held his attention.

"I'm quite impressed you didn't make any jokes about Lord of the Rings," Irkalla said to Mordred as we were scaling the cliff face that looked away from the city, hopefully keeping us hidden for as long as possible.

"I thought it might be too obvious," Mordred said. "I don't want people to think I'm just that guy who's all nerd and nothing else."

"We've always thought that," Remy said.

Mordred and Irkalla reached the top of the cliff first, and Lucifer came last as the rest of us crouched down on the overhang. We all dropped down into the city, Mordred and I using our air magic to help everyone else land safely.

"All of you, head toward the drawbridge," I said. "I'm going up around the side of this cliff."

"No, you're coming with us," Irkalla said.

"Yeah, don't be daft," Diana said.

"Look, we don't have time to search this entire place," I said. "There's a guard post up there. I saw it through the binoculars. That's as good a place to start as any."

Everyone's eyes followed where I was pointing.

"This strikes me as a terrible idea," Lucifer said. "But we're here now, and all of our choices are terrible. It is the least terrible of all our terrible choices."

"I'm coming with you," Irkalla told me. "Don't argue."

I sighed. "Fine, you come with me, and we'll go see what we can find. We'll meet you back here once the drawbridge is down, and we'll collapse this wall. Hopefully by then we'll have an idea of where inside the citadel Tommy is and where Arthur is waiting for us."

"If you're not back here by the time we get that drawbridge down, we're coming to find you," Diana said.

We all went our separate ways into the city. All the buildings were made with the same black stone that I saw in the citadel, and the buildings themselves came in two forms: lanky buildings that stretched high above and low, squat buildings that were single story but three or four times as long as normal houses. I didn't know what the purpose of either building type was, but there didn't appear to be any actual houses.

The streets were set out in straight lines, with alleys between each building. Unfortunately, the gap between them could be several hundred meters, and a lot of the time moving through the city required me to use my shadow magic to conceal us from the dozens of guards who patrolled. Their red-and-gold armor was similar to what the paladins wore.

It took us twenty minutes to get through the city to where I'd seen a squat building that had been built into the hills that sat along one side of the city. We waited in the shadow of a large building and watched as several nonarmored personnel left the guardhouse and walked down the steps to our level before entering another structure nearby.

"I can sense dozens of people in there," Irkalla said. "I'm guessing it's a barracks of some kind."

"What is Arthur doing here?" I asked, almost talking to myself. "These buildings are just weird. And we haven't seen a single person coming or going from them."

Irkalla looked around. "I noticed that. It feels very sterile."

The last of the guards entered the barracks, and Irkalla and I sprinted across the open road and took the steps two at a time. I burst through the door at the top with a blade of flame in one hand, and Irkalla stood beside me with her sword in hand.

"There's no one here," Irkalla said.

The room was completely empty. I looked out of the windows and saw no one coming to find us.

"Why would guards be coming in and out of this place?" Irkalla asked. She walked to the end of the one large room and pushed open the door. "Nate," she called out.

I looked beyond the door, which was built into the cliff, and the tunnel that led down underground.

"Do they all have this?" I asked.

"That would explain why we haven't seen anyone aboveground," Irkalla said. "They're all beneath us."

"This is getting weirder," I said.

The front door burst open, and Mordred, Remy, Diana, and Lucifer ran into the building. "We have a problem," Mordred said, closing the door before looking around. "This is creepy."

"How'd you know where we were?" Irkalla asked.

"I have your scent," Diana said.

"Could you try to not make that sound terrifying?" Mordred asked.

"I thought I was," Diana said with a shrug.

"The problem, Mordred?" I asked.

"The drawbridge is manned by dwarf slaves," Lucifer said.

"They're wearing shock collars and rune-scribed tunics," Zamek said angrily. "There are similar runes on the drawbridge. I think if we blow the drawbridge, the links sever, and the runes on their chests burn through their bodies."

"We'll find another way," Irkalla said.

"Yes, we will," Zamek said, looking down the tunnel.

"You found a hole," Mordred said.

"This whole place is off," Lucifer said.

"I think there are a lot of these," I said, explaining my theory about why we hadn't seen anyone. I walked to one side of the cabin and looked down over the edge of the city wall and the forest beyond. It was a sixty-foot drop from where I stood. A rune came to life on the wall, blazing blue.

"That's bad," Remy said. "I assume, anyway."

"I may have just set off a magical trip wire," I said.

"This is now the most terrible of all our terrible choices," Lucifer said.

"Ummm ... you should see this," Diana said from beside the door of the cabin.

I looked over at the hundreds of identical red-and-gold-armored soldiers marching toward us, Merlin in front of them.