Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

NATE GARRETT

The senators had been right, and on the way through the White House to the West Wing, we found multiple rooms with bodies in them. Most had been shot at point-blank range, but more than a few had been attacked by things that were definitely not human. The rage I felt at such needless slaughter made my desire to find Gawain and hold him accountable even stronger.

"They're going to know we're coming," Sky said.

"I hope so," Zamek said fiercely. "I prefer beating the shit out of people who are prepared for it."

"They executed so many people," Selene said angrily.

"I'm guessing guards and Secret Service who weren't on board with Avalon's vision," Sky said.

"And anyone who looked at Gawain funny," I added bitterly.

"He always was a twat," Selene said. "So what do we do with him when we've got him?"

"We'll take him to Mordred," I said. "He has Excalibur; he can use the sword to get the answers we need without having to tear him to pieces."

"Can we tear him to pieces just a little?" Remy asked. "Asking for a friend."

I shook my head as we reached the first floor, where Diana was waiting for us. "Kase is sat in the Green Room calming down," she said. "She's angry, Nate, but she hasn't tried to kill anyone. I took her to the pantry and had her wash herself down. None of these hostages need to see a blood-drenched Kase and wonder if the cure was worse than the disease."

"Fair point," I agreed.

"I moved the hostages to the East Room too," Diana said. "It's away from the West Wing entrance, and I didn't want any snipers taking shots at them."

"You're on a roll," I said with a smile. "Roberto and his people will be here soon, but there are snipers on the roof. You think you can deal with them?"

Diana nodded. "I'm sure I can manage."

I chased after the rest of the team as they continued down the stairs to the ground floor of the residence building and along to the Palm Room, which looked out over the Rose Garden and entrance to the Oval Office. I saw no one out there, but that didn't mean they weren't waiting.

Remy drew his revolvers, and I placed a hand on the Sig that I'd kept from the third floor. Sky and Selene were unarmed only in the sense that they didn't have guns or swords, and Zamek kept his bloodstained battle-ax in his hand.

I looked over at the wall that separated where we stood from the press offices. "Any chance you can make a big hole in there?" I asked.

Selene followed my stare, turned into her dragon-kin form, and spat a jet of ice to cover a huge piece of the wall, which Sky punched, her fist wrapped in her necromancy power. It took a few blows to get through, and eventually Sky got fed up with punching it and just blasted it with the same power, tearing the wall to bits and leaving us with a makeshift archway.

The press offices were empty, as was the briefing room beside them. I'd considered just using the West Colonnade to get around to the Oval Office quickly but was certain that Gawain would have people watching it. And I didn't want to have to deal with whatever traps and unpleasantness he'd have prepared for anyone trying that tactic.

We stopped at the stairwell and stepped out into the corridor. "We'll split into two teams," I said.

"I'm coming with you this time," Selene said, leaving absolutely no room for argument.

"Fine," I said. "The rest of you, go through the press secretary room, around the maze of corridors, to get to the Oval Office past the study. We'll go the more direct route and generally piss everyone off enough that their attention will be on us."

"Do not kill the president, even if he is a traitor," Sky said. "We kind of need him."

"Well, that's my afternoon ruined," I told her sarcastically.

"I'm just reiterating for the sake of those who are here who might forget."

Everyone turned to look at Remy.

"Yeah, that's fair," Remy said unrepentantly.

When everyone left, Selene turned to me. "Right, just how exhausted are you?"

I shrugged.

"It took you longer to deal with those people on the third floor than I'd expected," she said.

I nodded. "Yeah, well, I didn't want to go all out because who knows what we're going to face with Gawain."

"There's something else too," she said.

"Yeah ... I'm worried about losing my temper," I admitted.

"Why?"

"Honestly? Because once that anger is let loose, it might not stop. If I'd lost my temper up there, my magic would have destroyed that entire floor. There would be pictures all over the world of a sorcerer who had just ripped the White House apart. I don't want the people who feared Arthur and Avalon to fear us too. We're better than them. I figured restraint on my part would be for the best."

Selene kissed me on the cheek. "Just try not to get hurt. I doubt that Gawain and those in the Oval Office with him are going to be as easily dispatched as everyone we've faced so far."

"I've been saving myself," I told her with a grin.

There was an explosion somewhere within the West Wing, powerful enough to shake the walls.

"Remy?" we both said in unison.

"I guess we're doing this, then," Selene said.

We walked down the corridor past the Cabinet Room until the hall turned right toward where the president's secretary normally sat. The position was currently occupied by two large men. They spotted Selene and me and charged to meet us.

One turned into a werewolf midstride and collided with Selene, who threw him over her shoulder into and through the wall behind her. She tore through the remains of the wall into the Cabinet Room as the man before me paused, looking a bit more cagey about what his chances were.

He created a sphere of air in his hand and threw it at me, but it was half-arsed, and I deflected it, sending it into the now-ruined wall of the Cabinet Room as I continued to move toward him.

"How many are in there?" I asked.

The man was sweating. His tattered suit suggested he had once been Secret Service. But now he was nothing better than a traitor to his own people.

"Five paladins, the president, and Gawain," he said, the second sphere of air in his hand dissipating to nothing. "They were meant to take the place bloodlessly."

The shadows around me crept across the carpet and under the man's feet.

"I can't lie," I told him as the shadows leaped up, dragging the man down into them as he screamed. "You deserve worse."

Selene stepped through the hole in the wall, covered in blood that I was certain wasn't hers. Her face was halfway between her human and dragon-kin forms, and I doubted the werewolf had fared well.

A tinge of power ran through my body as the wraith finished his meal.

"Nate, Selene, we have a problem," Sky said through the earpiece. "There are mines in the walls."

I stopped moving and looked around the short corridor we were in.

"Say again?" Selene asked.

"Mines in the fucking walls," Remy repeated. "Not magical ones but modified to contain silver pieces. One of them detonated while Sky was fighting a sorcerer. The sorcerer took the brunt."

"It killed them?" I asked.

"No, I did," Sky said. "But I doubt getting a face full of silver shrapnel felt too good."

"Found two more," Zamek said. "They appear to be attached to motion sensors."

I searched the room.

"Bollocks," Selene said behind me.

I turned and followed her finger to the large device that was inside the remains of the wall. How it hadn't detonated when the wall had been partially destroyed, I'd never know.

"Okay," I said. "We're going to get to the Oval Office. You hear that, Jinayca?"

"I did, as did Roberto," Jinayca said. "He's getting a team ready to search this whole place when we get inside."

"There will be some mines inside the rooms either side of the Oval Office," I said.

"Seeing how this is Gawain, I would certainly assume so, yes," Jinayca said.

"Have I told you lately that Mordred's brother is a dick?" I asked.

"It's come up once or twice," Jinayca said dryly.

"Everyone hear what Jinayca said about the team?" Selene asked.

Everyone confirmed that they had.

"What are the chances that they've put up runes to stop any magic being used?" Selene asked me.

"No idea," I said. "Let's assume they have."

We stood on either side of the door to the Oval Office. Selene grabbed the door handle and wrenched it free, tearing the door off in the process. I created a dense shield of air and stepped into the office to find four paladins kneeling on the floor with their hands on their heads and Gawain sitting behind the president's desk. A large glyph on the far wall had been cut through. The president, his chief of staff, and three senators were all sitting on comfortable-looking sofas. The president had a smug look on his face, which told me pretty much everything I needed to know about what was going to happen next. Nothing good.

The opposite door was ripped apart, and Zamek, Remy, and Sky stormed inside.

"What the ... fuck?" Remy said, a sword in one hand and a gun in the other, ready to raise hell on anyone who moved.

"We surrender," Gawain said.

"Not going to lie," Zamek said. "I didn't expect that."

"Snipers are clear," Diana said in my ear. "We're heading down to you."

"What does that do?" I asked, pointing at the damaged glyph on the wall.

"We felt that if we were going to be arrested, we should remove the glyphs stopping your power," Gawain said. "As a show of good faith."

"Good faith?" Selene asked.

"You want me to talk, I will, but right now, I imagine you must have your hands full with a large contingency of my allies coming from the north."

Remy laughed. "Hey, butt plug, I don't think you should be considering backup to be your best way forward at this time. I think they've got their own problems."

"Butt plug? Remy, that wasn't great," I heard Zamek whisper.

"Yeah, I can do better," Remy admitted.

Zamek stood by one of the senators and put his arm around the seated man. The senator, normally a man of power, looked like he was going to pass out from fear. "And your own problems are much more immediate." He hissed the last word into the senator's ear, and the man visibly paled.

"You have absolutely no proof I've done anything wrong," the president said, still looking relaxed and smug, while the senators beside him looked a lot more terrified.

"We have lots of proof," Sky said, looking up from the third paladin she was disarming. "Like, all of it."

The president frowned. "Well, that's that plan gone to shit." He looked at Gawain with raised eyebrows. "What am I supposed to do now?"

"What you were paid for," Gawain said with a pointed look. "Improvise."

Everyone turned to look at the president, who gave them a snide smile. "Is he going to juggle or something?" Remy asked.

"Sky, can you please remove the president from my sight and make sure he makes it outside in one piece?" I asked her.

"I feel like that was directed at me," Remy said. "I could guard the president. I've never stabbed a president before; I see no reason why I'd start now."

The president stared at Remy with pure hatred.

Remy blew him a kiss.

"Why surrender?" I asked Gawain when everyone else had gone.

"Because you won't kill me. You need me," he said.

"I'm not sure I'd use the word need," I said. "This feels like a trap."

"It might be," Gawain said, sitting back in the chair and putting his feet up on the desk. "I could be sitting here lulling you all into a false sense of security."

"You're not smart enough," Selene said.

"She needs to keep quiet," Gawain snapped, pointing at Selene.

"Does he need all of his fingers to talk?" Selene asked, her eyes narrowing in anger.

Gawain wisely stopped pointing. "You see, there's a lot I could be telling you," Gawain said. "I know where Arthur is, I know how to get to him, and I know you want that information. I might talk; I might not. I'll see how I feel and how nice you are to me."

"Arthur is in Atlantis," Zamek said. "We know."

Gawain's expression was quite frankly worth the trip to Washington. Although he soon had his mask of smugness back in place. Gawain smiled as he stared at me. "You still missing Tommy?"

Selene placed a hand on my shoulder as my anger bubbled inside of me.

"Fuck you, Gawain," I snapped.

"I know the things that have been done to him. The torments he's endured." Gawain laughed. "But more importantly, I know where he is. But sadly, he'll be dead before you ever get there." Gawain laughed again.

I blasted him in the chest with a torrent of lightning and air, which tore the entire back of the Oval Office apart, flinging Gawain into the garden a floor below.

I walked over the ruined desk and stepped out into the darkness. It had started to rain heavily, and Gawain had hit a patch of grass, ripping it apart and quickly turning it to mud as he scrambled to get away. I used my air magic to slowly float to the ground, remaining just above it as I moved toward Gawain.

"I cut him," Gawain shouted at me. "Your pet wolf. I cut him good, and I watched as he knitted himself back together. Over and over and over. It was fun."

I continued toward him without a word, lost in my rage and desire to hurt him.

Gawain got to his feet; a whip of fire grew from his hand.

Shadows sprang out of the ground to hold Gawain's wrists before he got close enough to be an issue. Gawain was an old sorcerer and, given time, a dangerous one, but his level of power was never going to be anything I needed to worry about. And he knew it. Even so, he swiped at the shadows with the whip of fire, and they shrank away. But it gave me the opening I needed to slam a sphere of lightning into his chest and detonate it.

Gawain was picked up and thrown back fifty feet toward the front entrance of the White House. He'd covered himself in a shield of earth, which took the brunt of the explosion, but it must have hurt.

I caught up to Gawain and punched him in the face before kicking him back toward the White House. He threw a ball of fire at me that I swiped out of the way, smashing an elbow into his ribs before twisting and catching him with an uppercut to the jaw when he staggered forward. He managed to stabilize himself and kicked out at my knee, forcing me to hold back and giving him the opportunity to dive toward me with a dagger of fire.

I hit him in the chest with a gale of air that threw him across the front of the White House steps, where he collided with a column.

Gawain scrambled up the steps and threw a ball of fire at me that I deflected up toward the first floor of the White House. The magic exploded, tearing out a large part of the balcony above us and raining rocks down over the ground.

Tendrils of air wrapped around Gawain, and I dragged him back from the White House door, using my matter magic to enhance my strength. I flung him back across the tarmac, and he skidded onto the lawn as his earth magic kept him from more injury.

Thunder boomed.

"Where is Tommy?" I asked Gawain, using my air magic to ensure he heard every word.

"I can't say," Gawain said. "I won't say. Not even Excalibur can force me to talk. I have runes on my body; I will not give away anything."

"Then what use are you to us, you coward?" I asked him as the gates to the White House burst open and Roberto, Jinayca, and several dozen others ran toward me. The sounds of people shouting my name were drowned out by the roar of thunder above.

"You won't kill me," Gawain said, spitting at me. "I'm not afraid of you. None of us are. You can't defeat Arthur; he's too powerful. He will kill you all and drink from your skulls."

I raised my hand, and lightning streaked down from the skies and hit my outstretched palm. It flooded through me, mixing with my own magic. Lightning poured out of my eyes, my mouth, every part of me trying to contain the power inside.

"Tommy is in Atlantis," Gawain screamed.

I spotted the tiny red light as it touched Gawain's face, and I turned, unleashing the power directly into the third floor of the White House, where the sniper was. As the magic hit, it vaporized a large portion of the front of the floor, leaving a massive hole where the Solarium and its balcony had once been. The remains of the sniper toppled out of the building.

I turned back to Jinayca as she arrived with a flustered-looking Roberto. "Apparently, we missed one," she said.

Roberto continued to stare at the hole in the White House.

"Gawain's all yours," I told them. "The president is untouched. As are his senators. There are a few paladins in the West Wing. They all surrendered. Gawain was bounced along the lawn because he decided to open his mouth."

"Nate," Jinayca said softly.

"Tommy is in Atlantis," I said, ignoring her. "We already know that's where Arthur is, so now we just need Gawain to tell us how to get there. Or if Mordred has already figured it out, we don't need him at all, and you can just execute the little weasel."

I set off back toward the Oval Office and spotted Kase and Diana standing where Gawain had landed, Kase's mouth open in shock. "You asked me why I'm not full of rage at the thought of your father being Avalon's prisoner. That's what happens when I let it go for just an instant. Tommy is in Atlantis, and when I find those who have kept him, that rage is going to be aimed directly at them."

Kase continued to watch me as I walked over to the broken West Wing. If Gawain and his allies hadn't feared me before, they clearly hadn't been paying attention.