Chapter Six

Chapter Six

NATE GARRETT

Washington, DC, United States, Earth Realm

There was a lot of running around. Reports were coming in that KOA to the north were executing civilians, and while I desperately wanted to join those fighting against them, I elected to stay and deal with Gawain.

Leaning up against the corner of the metal wall, I looked toward the White House. I'd constructed a shield of dense air a meter in front of me, just in case any of the snipers decided to try their luck.

"I assume that you're trying to piss them off," Roberto said from behind me.

"I'm just trying to figure out the best way to get from here to that building without anyone dying," I said without looking back. "It's not exactly an easy spot. I assume the tunnels are a no-go."

"They blew them the second they took the building. Lots of C4 down there too. Even if we could get the tunnels clear, there are too many booby traps to do it safely."

I looked back around the wall. The lights in the garden and around the White House exterior had been turned off, leaving only those inside the structure on.

A bullet smashed into the shield of air I'd placed between the pieces of metal wall, only a few feet in front of Roberto. There was a crack as the sound of the shot registered, and people threw themselves to the ground while I plucked the bullet from where it hovered in midair.

"Good shot," Roberto said.

A second bullet smashed into the shield of air, two feet away from my head.

"Nate," Selene said from beside me. "Stop winding up the sniper."

I took a step behind the wall, and Roberto passed me a map of the interior of the White House, which I studied for a second and then passed back to him.

"Do you have a plan?" Selene asked.

"Sort of," I said. "I need you to get the rest of the team together. No sorcerers."

Selene stared at me for a second before nodding and heading back into the camp.

"What do you need?" Roberto asked.

"You see those big powerful lights that you've got aimed out around the park?"

Roberto nodded. "I think I know where this is going. I'll be back in a minute."

A few minutes later, Selene returned with Zamek, Remy, Sky, Diana, and Kase, the latter of whom was beginning to concern me, as she hadn't given herself a break in a year.

"Good to see you," I said to Sky. "It's been a while."

"Yeah, yeah," she said with a smile. "Let's go be heroes."

"That's the plan," I said.

"I have a question for you," Sky said. "Haven't seen you in a while, but what happened to the blood magic?"

"I've been meaning to ask that myself," Remy said. "I heard it came back after Portland, but you didn't use it on the ship."

"Didn't use it in Asgard either," Diana said.

"It's fading," I told them. "I don't like to use it. Don't like to rely on it. It's too weak to be a serious threat to anyone, and I assume one day it'll be gone completely. I can't even use it to power my magic for more than a few seconds. I'd rather not use it than rely on it. I figured that was what was going to happen seeing as that's what happened the first time my necromancy reared its head, but thank you all for your concern."

"Not concern," Remy said. "Just wanted to know if you were going to go all blood magic crazed if you kept using it."

"Thank you for your concern for yourself," I said to Remy, who gave me a thumbs-up.

Roberto returned. "There will be a lot of light flooding the White House lawn. Can't do it for long, but it should be enough."

"Oh bollocks," Diana whispered. "I don't want to do this."

"What are we doing?" Sky asked.

"The shadow thing?" Remy asked with a sigh. "This sucks monstrous amounts of ass."

"Can't Selene fly us over there?" Diana asked.

"Not all of you, I can't," she said. "And if I take out those on the roof and Gawain radios them with no contact, that's probably some dead hostages. As much as this sucks—and my God, it sucks—it's probably the safest way forward."

"It could be a trap," Remy said. "We go in and get grabbed."

"I do not think they would like to grab me," Kase said softly.

The shadows leaped up from the ground, and my team and I sank through them into the shadow realm.

"I hope none of you have a gun with silver bullets; the wraith doesn't like it," I said.

"I hate this," Diana said.

The realm consisted of darkness everywhere except for circles of light every few dozen feet, until they were only pinpricks of light in the far distance. Each circle corresponded with a shadow that I could use to come back into the realm above. The circles of light were small, though, and none of them were where I needed to be.

"Remind me," Remy said. "You can tell where these beams-of-light things take us back up to, yes?"

I nodded.

There were movements in the darkness. My wraith, who lived in the shadow realm and feasted upon those I sent down here, was prowling just beyond our field of vision.

"And that thing isn't going to kill us?" Remy asked suspiciously.

"Not while I'm here," I said.

The wraith passed through one of the beams of light, which illuminated the dark, shadowlike ropes that covered the skeletal appearance beneath.

"I feel blind down here," Diana said. "There is no smell. No sound, except for the movement of your wraith."

"Would it help if I told you, you get used to it?" I asked.

"No," Diana and Remy said in unison.

All at once the number of light circles quadrupled, and a flood of knowledge entered my head telling me where each light would return us.

"You should know that we have to go out and back in again," I said. My destination was one of the far pinpricks, something I couldn't reach in one jump. The furthest I'd gone in a single jump was about fifty feet; any more than that was impossible, it seemed. I couldn't just walk from one pinprick to another, so I had to drag the next exit over to us, exit the shadow realm, and go back inside. Over and over.

"How many times?" Zamek asked.

"About six," I said. "Give or take. It's about a hundred meters from where we were to where we need to be."

No one looked particularly thrilled at that news.

I moved one of the circles of light toward us, ensuring that we were never in the darkness. Even I wouldn't be able to stop the wraith attacking people if they left the safety of the light. We popped out of the shadows behind a large tree and immediately sank again. We did this three more times. By the third, it was starting to take its toll on me.

"Damn it," I said, blinking as we all arrived in the shadow realm again.

"Two more?" Selene asked. "You okay?"

I was sweating and a little bit shaky as I took us out of the shadows for a fifth time and dragged us all back down into the shadow realm again immediately after. Several of the team looked unwell as I dropped to my knees. I'd never tried to move so many people so far before.

Selene knelt before me and took my hands in hers. "You can do this," she whispered.

"The last jump will put us all on the roof," I said, pointing to the circle of light. With Selene's and Sky's help, I got back to my feet. I tried to bring the shadows toward me, but I couldn't control them enough and ended up bringing three at once. They crossed over one another as everyone but me vanished.

I had no way of knowing where any of my team were. All I knew was that they were either on the roof or inside the White House. The circles of light sprang away from me, leaving me stranded as they began to fade. I got to my feet, stepped out of the light, and walked through the darkness to the nearest circle.

The wraith appeared beside me, its robes passing over the exposed skin on my arms, making them go cold.

"I am not food," I said, turning to the wraith, who towered above me. "You know this."

The wraith bent down toward me. "You are exhausted."

I nodded. "Still have to leave this place," I said. "I can't very well live here."

"Feed me soon," the wraith said again. Its breath smelled of nothing, but it was as if a fan of warm air were aimed directly at me.

"That's the plan," I told it.

It reached out and tapped me on my chest. "Rage hidden. I see it. I see all. Can't hide forever. I will protect you when the time comes."

I stared at the void where the wraith's eyes should have been. Occasionally there was a flickering of orange-and-red light, as if a fire were being smothered.

I looked down at the ground and back up at the wraith. "You'll get your food," I told it before walking into the light and ending up inside a room in the White House.

I looked out of the window at the lawn beyond. The light that Roberto had supplied was being switched off. There were over 130 rooms in the White House, and I had no idea which this was. I was near the door, and there were books stacked all around the room, like a small, untidy library.

The room was well lit, and there were several uncomfortable-looking chairs that had been placed around a coffee table. I opened the door slightly to a familiar place—the lobby. I'd ended up in the East Wing entrance. I heard two voices at the end of the lobby and stepped out of the room. I threw daggers of air at the lights adorning the walls, which got the attention of the two men, although the shadows that snaked out of the group, encircled them, and dragged them into the shadow realm were a surprise to them.

I sank into the shadow realm, only to hear the screams of one of the men as the wraith attacked. The other stood in the middle of a circle of light, firing wildly all around him. I grabbed his wrist and disarmed him before tossing the gun aside. It vanished from view as it left the shadow realm.

"What's out there?" the man demanded.

"Something hungry," I told him, punching him in the face and knocking him to the ground. I felt the swell of power as the second man was devoured somewhere in the darkness. "It will kill you unless I stop it."

"Stop it!" the man pleaded.

"Not yet," I told him. "First, you're going to tell me everything I need to know about the hostages and those working with Avalon."

"The hostages are kept in three places," he stammered. "State Dining Room, Yellow Oval Room, and the Solarium."

"Nicely spaced out," I said. "How many guarding each?"

"Half a dozen for the first two," he said. "The hostages are all humans, so the Secret Service and military contractors brought in are doing that."

Military contractors?I thought, making a note to come back to it. "And the last set?"

"Avalon personnel," he said. "There are nonhumans in the group up there. They had people draw runes in the Solarium a few years ago. Gawain said he was afraid that people would come for him, and he wanted equal ground."

"I'm sure it was all his idea," I said sarcastically. "And these military contractors?"

"They were brought in to work alongside those in the White House," he said. "They were planted as cleaners, cooks, people who worked in admin. They're highly trained, and they've killed already. The president is in the Solarium, his family up there too."

"How many dead?"

"A dozen," he said. "The initial takeover was bloody. That wasn't the plan—it was meant to be cool and calm, but the schedule got moved up."

"Gawain?"

"Yes, him," he said, looking around as the wraith patrolled around the light.

"Where is he?"

"Oval Office."

"How many did you kill?" I asked him.

"What?"

"How. Many."

"None, I swear," he said pleadingly.

He was lying.

"Make it quick," I told the wraith, and I heard the sounds of the agent's cries as I stepped out of the shadow realm. A second later there was another shudder of power. I was beginning to feel normal again. I was pretty sure all the power would be needed to confront Gawain.

After opening the door, I ran down the East Colonnade and stopped at the door to listen for anyone inside the visitors' foyer beyond. None of the hostages were in the East or West Wing, so I didn't have to run all over the premises to find them.

I heard nothing inside the main foyer and opened the door, revealing several dead bodies at the base of the stairs. They all wore the uniforms of Secret Service, suggesting that they had stood against Avalon. They'd paid the ultimate price for doing their jobs.

The door to the library beside me burst open, and Remy, Sky, and Selene exited, ready for battle. They all stopped once they recognized me.

"You okay?" Selene asked.

I nodded. "Tired but good." I explained where the hostages were.

"So we need to split up?" Sky said.

"And find Zamek, Diana, and Kase," Remy said. "I think Kase might be on the edge of becoming murderous and slaughtering everyone who annoys her. Her dad's loss is really affecting her."

"She'll be fine," I said, remembering that Kase hadn't even spoken when we were sorting out the assault on the White House. Tommy being missing was causing us all anguish.

A door further along the corridor opened, and Diana and Zamek exited the room. "We wondered where you'd all gone," Diana said as we walked over to join them. "Map room was very nice."

"No maps, though," Zamek said. "I'm honestly disappointed. On the plus side, the three thugs in there made me feel a bit better."

"Any alive?" I asked.

I got a glimpse of the bodies inside the room.

"Not unless they can live without a head," Zamek said.

"They do look pretty dead," Remy said.

The six of us all took the stairs up to the first floor, where there were no guards at all.

"Anyone else find this odd?" Selene asked.

"We'll leave the hostages until last," I said. "Search these rooms; I don't want to be ambushed."

I set off with Remy to the Green Room, where I pushed open the door to find it covered in blood. Kase stood in the middle of the room, bathed in the stuff from head to toe, her hair matted with it. She was in her human form, and as I looked around the room, I saw dismembered limbs and organs. Ice covered one wall, with at least one person beside it having been frozen before being torn in half.

"Oh fuck," Remy said from behind me.

Kase turned toward us, growling, with nothing but rage in her eyes.

"So I'm guessing this is not your definition of fine," Remy said to me.