Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

NATE GARRETT

"Kase, I know you're struggling right now," I said. "But we don't really have time."

Kase let out a low growl.

I turned to everyone behind me. "I've got this—go secure the hostages. Be aware of more guards."

"Why didn't they shoot?" Diana asked, looking at the dead. "Their guns are still holstered."

"I must have dumped her right in the middle of this lot," I said. "She was probably too fast. And there's nothing in this room for them to use as a weapon. Fists against a werewolf is never going to end well."

"It's all in here," Zamek said, looking through the passage from the Green to the Blue Room. "The exits on the other side into the Red Room are boarded up."

"Diana, go with him; see if you can make sure that no one tries to escape from the dining room."

Kase tracked them both as they exited through the passageway to the room beyond. Then she looked back at me, her eyes showing nothing but a need to fight. To hurt someone.

"Kase," I said softly. "Come on—I don't want to have to fight you."

"You should be looking for my dad," she said, her words flooded with rage.

"I don't know where he is," I told her.

"Why aren't you looking for him?" she shouted at me. "Why aren't you tearing this realm apart, tearing all the realms apart, searching for him? You're doing nothing."

I knew that this wasn't Kase talking; this was a year of emotion boiling over and letting out the beast inside of her. The beast only wanted to fight, to kill, and I was as good a target for that anger as anyone else. She was close to losing control, and if that happened, we were going to have a really big problem.

"That's not fair," Sky said from behind me.

"I don't care," Kase said. "He was meant to be my dad's best friend. And he's done nothing. My dad has been kidnapped, and Nate and the rest of you have gone about your day like nothing happened. Arthur has my dad." She screamed the last few words.

"You could have triggered the guards to kill the hostages," Sky said. "People could have died here."

"I landed in here," Kase said. "I lost control. I lost my temper. I didn't care about anything but hurting these people."

"Sky, go help everyone else, please," I said.

Sky looked between Kase and me before nodding and walking away.

"Why aren't you looking for him?" Kase asked.

"What am I meant to do?" I asked calmly. I didn't want to trigger her anger and give the beast more control. I needed her to calm down; I needed her to realize how close she was to losing the fight against the werewolf inside. "I don't know where he is; I don't know where Arthur or Merlin are. There's no way to get into Avalon, and the only person who might know something is Gawain. And you lost control, and now you want to pick a fight with me."

Kase looked around at the chaos and death she'd caused. "He's my dad," she whispered, but her voice was still angry.

"I know that, Kase. He's my friend, and I die a little every day that we can't find him. But this is a mission! You're done here," I said. "I can't risk you losing control again."

"No," Kase snapped, punching her hand through the wall.

"Yes, Kase," I said softly. "If you want to be angry at everyone for having done nothing, we'll have this conversation later. I thought that by keeping you busy, you'd keep it together, but honestly, I just think you need time away. The beast is too close to the surface; it's too close to being let loose. I can't risk that. I really hoped that the mission might help you focus, but I didn't realize just how close to the surface the beast is. You need to sit this one out."

"You can't," she said.

"I can," I told her. "I can't send you back to the base—certainly can't do it with you covered in blood. So you're going to have to stay here."

"I want to help."

"No, you want to hurt people, and while we are going to do that, I can't risk you running in and tearing Gawain's head off before we've even had the chance to talk to him."

Kase looked at me in a way she never had before. There was nothing but contempt in her almost wolflike eyes. The beast was gaining control.

"So I just stay here?" Kase asked.

I nodded. "Until I say otherwise, yes."

"And if I don't want to?" Kase asked, the growl in her voice rising as she took a step toward me.

"Do not push me, Kase," I said, my voice hardening a little.

The beast only knew a pecking order. The only way to stop the beast from thinking of me as prey was to make sure it damn well knew what would happen when it came out, giving Kase time to take it back under control.

"Push you?" Kase asked, taking another step. "You have left my father in the hands of Avalon. You have condemned him to torture and pain. Push. You. You have no idea what I want to do to you."

"Do not do this, Kase," I said, my voice holding more than a little anger now.

Kase shoved me in the shoulder. "Make me."

Diana appeared in the doorway. "Hostages on this floor secure. Twenty-six in total, all human. No guards out there, so I assume they didn't deem the humans dangerous enough to need more than the dead ones in this room. Thankfully Kase killed them all without a single shot, so we still have the element of stealth on our side. Still more hostages on the floors above, but it's a start. They're going to stay where they are until we're done clearing the place out." She looked between Kase and me. "Kase, I would seriously consider stepping back," Diana said.

"You don't get to tell me what to do," Kase snapped without turning away from me, her eyes now very much those of a wolf.

"Fine, but if you pick a fight with Nate, he's going to bounce your skinny ass across the White House lawn like a fucking tennis ball."

Kase remained where she was for several seconds before turning and walking away, pushing past Diana into the Blue Room.

"She's angry," Diana said.

"Yes, she is," I said. "She's angry, hurt, scared ... and all of that has let the beast closer to the surface than we'd thought. It's not aimed at anyone in particular, but she needs to get the beast under control, or she's going to hurt a lot of people."

"I know that feeling well," Diana said sadly. "She wants a fight. The beast wants a fight even more so. You were trying to get her to swing at you, hoping you could put her down and calm the beast?"

I nodded. "Didn't work out so well, but hopefully benching her has given her time to think."

Sky entered the room from the door behind me. "Kase will calm down."

"I hope so," I said. "Because if she sees Gawain, I can't trust that she won't kill him. Or try to and have to be stopped."

"I'll stay with her," Diana said. "Send any hostages you find back down this way, and I'll make sure they're all kept in one place and that they stay away from the death room here." I thanked her and left Diana to deal with an angry and scared werewolf.

"I hope we get information about Tommy from Gawain too," Selene said, having returned from her search of the nearby rooms.

I nodded. The alternative didn't bear thinking about.

Zamek walked back into the room. "Found two wards," he said. "Both simple stuff—a child could do them—but they contained a great deal of power. They're disarmed, but let's not be thinking they're the only ones."

"Remy, Selene—with me," I said as everyone gathered outside the Blue Room. "We're going to take these stairs on the left. The rest of you on the right. The remaining hostages are in the Yellow Oval Room, and we have no idea just how bad it's going to be up there. Stay in contact; let us know when you're in position."

We split into two teams and made our way up each staircase to the floor above. Voices could be heard before we'd reached the top of the stairs. I reached out with my air magic, slowly moving it out of the stairwell and across the second-floor hall. The number of rooms up here was larger than the first floor, so there were more places for enemies to hide and wait to ambush us. While Roberto had told us that the internal security systems had been stopped, my main concern was the eight guards between us and the hostages. We had no way of knowing exactly what those eight guards were.

"We're in position," Sky said through my earpiece. "Any chance we know what we're up against?"

"Not a clue," I said. "We've been lucky so far, but I doubt that we're going to be able to take out those above us quietly. The ones here were guarding people they didn't deem a threat; they were stupid. Let's not assume all of them are."

"I have a suggestion," Remy said. "Nate goes up to the third floor; we deal with these assholes on the second floor."

"As I just said, there's a good chance Gawain has put some more wards up there," Zamek said. "A very good chance."

I looked over at Remy. "And you want me to go up there alone?"

"You can make as much noise as you like up there, Nate," Remy whispered. "We'll be dealing with these guys. You only have to keep them busy—or kill them all, depending on what you think is best."

"I'm hesitant to say that Remy has a good idea, but apparently that's the world we now live in," Zamek said.

"Something about dogs and cats living together and mass hysteria," Selene said.

I smiled. "You going all film geek on me?"

"You know you love that film," she said. "Besides, it felt apt. Anyway, we don't have all day. Pick a plan."

I sighed. "I'll see you guys back down here. I'll keep going."

Selene looked over at me and winked. "Just be you, and it'll be fine," she said with a smile.

I moved around the top of the stairs and continued on up. It wasn't that I was worried about what I'd face—I'd been up against superior numbers before—it was more about trying very hard not to do anything that might jeopardize the hostages. If a stray bolt of lightning hit a ward, it could explode and take half the floor with it. Trying not to get innocent people killed always made things harder, I'd found.

I reached the top of the stairs and pushed out air once again to sense my surroundings. Four people in the hallway beyond. I was going to have to be quick. One of them had a dagger of ice in his hand and was spinning it up into the air and catching it again. A sorcerer. At least that confirmed these were the bad guys.

I tapped my earpiece. "Ready when you are," I said.

"Go," Selene said.

I rushed out of the stairwell, straight into a man dressed in combat fatigues. The shock on his face lasted only a second before I drove a blade of lightning into his chest and detonated the magic inside him, turning his internal organs into paste. I removed his head as he fell forward, just in case. Not everything could be killed by magic, but pretty much everything died when decapitated.

I continued on, toward the sorcerer with the daggers of ice. He threw one at me, and I raised a shield of fire, pushing it out toward him, forcing him to move aside. Then a blast of air magic hit him in the chest, sending him back through the wall behind him.

Two more came at me, one turning into her werewolf form and the second sending a plume of fire at me that I had to wrap myself in a shield of air to avoid.

After throwing a ball of lightning at the werewolf, I detonated it with a snap of my fingers, causing her to dive into a nearby room to evade the blast. It hit the flame elemental in the ribs, taking him off his feet and dumping him in the room beyond the broken wall where his friend had been thrown.

The sounds of gunshots below distracted me for a split second, just as the werewolf let out a roar and charged, her razor-sharp claws dragging through my shield of air like it was paper. She was clearly much more powerful than a regular werewolf, and that meant that decapitating her might not actually kill her. Powerful werewolves were weird like that.

She swiped at me with a claw; I moved aside, smashing a lightning-wrapped elbow into her ribs, then hitting her in the jaw with an uppercut. I detonated the lightning magic wrapped around my fist, and it tore up through her face, destroying part of the ceiling above. A blast of air sent the werewolf flying back, and I turned the air into a whip and snapped it shut around her legs. I heard bone snap before she screamed.

Ice and flame poured out of the hole in the wall where I'd thrown the sorcerer and elemental. I covered myself in a shield of air and sank into my shadow realm, found the correct shadow to leave from, and ended up behind them. The shadows leaped up from the ground around the elemental, who screamed, throwing balls of fire at the darkness, which caused me pain as it retreated.

The sorcerer saw his opening and darted forward, but tendrils of shadow leaped out of the ground, wrapping around his arms and throat. I stabbed him in the head with one of my soul weapons—manifestations of my necromancy power. In this case a jian, a weapon that had meant a lot to me when I'd first been given it centuries ago.

The sorcerer died with a blade of fire to his temple.

The elemental hurled fire at me, and I wrapped myself in a shield of flame, walked through it, and created a sphere of air that I drove into his chest and detonated, throwing him to the floor. The shadows leaped out of the ground and pulled the semiconscious elemental into the shadow realm as I walked toward the werewolf, who was struggling back to her feet. I removed her head with a blade of fire, feeling the wraith feeding on the elemental, and sent her down to join him. I walked down the corridor toward the Solarium and stood to one side of the door before using my air magic to tear it apart. I threw the head into the room, and gunfire filled my ears as bullets tore into it.

I waited for the shower of bullets to finish and glanced inside the room, igniting my matter magic. Matter magic allowed me to be stronger and faster, neither of which were very helpful if I stepped inside the room and my magic cut off. In this case, I just wanted to be able to see all the runes, and my matter magic let me see where they were and which ones were weaker than others.

There were two men with AK-47s in the middle of the room, and a woman was guarding the seven hostages.

"We're good down here," Hel said in my ear. "Just dealing with the hostages."

"All clear apart from three assholes in the Solarium and seven hostages," I said. "Multiple runes; they all have guns."

"You need a hand?" Selene asked.

"I'll be okay," I said. "You guys head up here; it'll be over by the time you're here."

"See you shortly," Selene said.

"You three want to put your guns down and head out peacefully?" I shouted.

"You come in here and these fuckers are dead," one of the men shouted. "You hear me?"

I heard him. I sank into the shadows and came out in one of the bedrooms, which had a wall joining to the Solarium and a glass door that would let me out onto the promenade. Something I'd noticed when scouting the room was that the curtains were closed, presumably so that no enemy sniper could take a shot.

Moving out of the bedroom doorway, I tapped my ear. "Jinayca, you got eyes on any guards on the promenade outside the third floor?"

"Two shooters," Jinayca said a second later. "One at each corner. You want them taken out?"

"No, it's okay," I said. "I'm already on it."

Once past the offices, I exited the building through a door to the promenade and spotted the first sniper at the corner, looking over the front of the White House. I moved slowly toward my target and used my air magic to snatch him away from his post before driving a blade of air into his temple.

I removed the sniper rifle from the floor and picked up a Sig Sauer P320 that he'd had in a holster on his hip. I checked the load and found it had silver bullets inside. Perfect.

Taking the weapons, I moved back inside the White House, stopped at the end of the corridor leading to the hostages, and crouched down. My magic wouldn't work inside the Solarium because of the wards, but it sure as hell did outside it. I ignited my matter magic, increasing my speed, and moved around the corner, raising the M24 rifle as I did and firing twice. I hit the female hostage guard twice in the head before dropping the magic and firing twice more, once at each remaining hostage taker. I hit the first one in the shoulder and the second just above the eye. I dropped the rifle and drew the Sig, firing as I did, hitting the hostage taker who was still alive twice in the knee and once in the head as he fell forward. All three down in under ten seconds.

I motioned for the screaming hostages to get down and stepped inside the room, feeling my magic vanish. I knelt down and aimed at the rear door to the room as it opened slightly. I fired twice into the rune next to the door, which exploded outward, blowing the door apart and throwing the sniper who had opened it over the balcony to the ground three stories below.

My magic flooded back into me, and I dropped the gun on the nearby table. "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here to rescue you," I said as my team came running along the corridor behind me.

"We've got a hostage taker over the balcony," I said, passing the rifle to Sky, who took it to go look.

"Senators," Selene said. "Glad you're unharmed."

"We were too important to hurt," a male senator said. "They killed people, though—took them into the other rooms, and we heard them executed. No one wanted to fight after that."

"How many?" I asked.

"A dozen, maybe more," a female senator said grimly. "The president isn't here; he joined them, walked off with them. He threatened to have us executed too."

Well, that was unexpected. "How's his family?" I asked.

"Shaken," she told me. "I thought I knew him. I've known him for thirty years, and I know he's been acting odd recently, but I just put that down to stress. For him to turn like this ... it just wasn't like him."

"Where is he?" I asked, wondering exactly how entrenched the president was with Arthur.

"He's in the Oval Office," a male senator told us. "Lots of guards. And there's an Englishman with him. I've never met him before, but he's the one in charge."

"Gawain," Remy said. "He's a dick. We'll kill him too."

The male senator stared at Remy, obviously bemused by the talking foxman, before Remy winked and blew him a kiss. The senator turned away, and I caught a smile on Remy's face.

"I need you all to move down to the dining room," Zamek said as a shot sounded out from the promenade. Sky returned to the room.

"He's done," she said.

I placed a finger to my ear. "Roberto, the hostage takers are dealt with."

"Casualties?" he asked.

"A lot," I said. "Sounds like it, anyway. They were taken to other rooms and executed, according to the senators. A dozen at least. Gawain is in the Oval Office. So that's where we're going next. All the hostages will be in the dining room, where Diana and Kase are. I would advise your people to stay as far away from Kase as possible. She may not be in the mood to play nice."

"Anything I need to be concerned about?" he asked.

"The president might be a traitor," I told him.

"What?" he shouted.

"Not sure yet," I said cheerfully. "We'll figure it out."

"And the snipers on the roof?" he asked, clearly exasperated.

"Ah, bollocks," I said. "I forgot about them. I'll get Kase and Diana to deal with them."

"We'll wait for your signal, then," Roberto said.