Scorched Shadows (The Hellequin Chronicles Book 7) Read online

  By Steve McHugh

  THE HELLEQUIN CHRONICLES

  Crimes Against Magic

  Born of Hatred

  With Silent Screams

  Prison of Hope

  Lies Ripped Open

  Promise of Wrath

  Infamous Reign

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Steve McHugh

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by 47North, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and 47North are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542046602

  ISBN-10: 1542046602

  Cover design by @blacksheep-uk.com

  Cover illustration by Larry Rostant

  For my readers.

  Thank you.

  CONTENTS

  LIST OF CHARACTERS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PREVIEW: A GLIMMER OF HOPE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  LIST OF CHARACTERS

  Nathan (Nate) Garrett: Sorcerer. Once worked for Merlin as the shadowy figure Hellequin. Partner to Selene.

  Erebus (Nightmare): The living embodiment of Nate’s magic.

  Mordred: Sorcerer. Once nemesis of Nate, now friends.

  Selene: Dragon-kin. Partner to Nate. Sister of Helios. Daughter to the Titan Hyperion.

  Tommy, Friends, and Employees

  Thomas (Tommy) Carpenter: Werewolf. Nate’s best friend. Partner to Olivia. Father of Kasey.

  Diana: Half-werebear. Works for Tommy’s security firm.

  Zamek Merla: Dwarven warrior commander. Works for Tommy’s security firm.

  Remy Roax: British son of a French aristocrat. Turned into a fox-human hybrid by a witch coven.

  Irkalla: Necromancer. Mesopotamian goddess of the underworld.

  Nabu: Och. Mesopotamian god of wisdom.

  Grayson: Unknown species. Doctor.

  Avalon Members

  Arthur Pendragon: Sorcerer. Recently woken from coma. Head of Avalon.

  Merlin: Sorcerer. Onetime mentor to Nate. Obsessed with keeping Arthur alive.

  Elaine Garlot: Sorcerer. Mentor to Nate. Aunt of Mordred. Once acting ruler of Avalon.

  Gawain: Sorcerer. Brother to Mordred. Head of Merlin’s security force, the paladins.

  Olivia Green: Water elemental. Director of southern England branch of LOA (Law of Avalon). Partner to Tommy. Mother of Kasey.

  Fiona Daly: Conjurer. Agent of Avalon. Answers to Elaine. Married to Alan.

  Alan Daly: Summoned. Reformed thief. Married to Fiona.

  Manannán mac Lir (Mac): Water elemental.

  Hades’s Family, Friends, and Employees

  Hades: Necromancer of incredible power. Husband to Persephone and adopted father to Sky.

  Persephone: Earth elemental. Wife to Hades and adopted mother to Sky.

  Sky (Mapiya): Necromancer. Half Native American. Birth parents murdered when she was a child. Adopted by Hades and Persephone.

  Cerberus: Werewolf. Controls the Tartarus compound when Hades isn’t there.

  Tartarus Inhabitants

  Lorin: Griffin. One of the guards of Tartarus.

  Charon: Ferryman for Tartarus. Member of the Titans.

  Atlas: Siphon. Member of the Titans.

  Hyperion: Dragon-kin. Father to Selene and Helios.

  Shadow Falls Inhabitants

  Galahad: Alchemist. Father to Caitlin. King of Shadow Falls.

  Caitlin: Alchemist. Daughter to Galahad. Onetime FBI agent.

  Rebecca Dean: Guardian. Runs The Mill bar in Portland, Maine.

  Harrison: Alchemist. Head of Shadow Falls security.

  Leonardo: Alchemist. Partner of Antonio. Tinkerer and inventor.

  Antonio: Alchemist. Partner of Leonardo. Leonardo’s assistant.

  Miscellaneous

  Deimos: Negative empath. Son of Ares.

  Ares: Negative empath. Son of Hera. Husband to Aphrodite.

  Mara Range: Coven member. Mother to Chloe.

  Helios: Dragon-kin. Brother to Selene, son of Hyperion.

  Chao Wei: Huli jing. Friend of Diana’s.

  Polina: Head of Russian LOA task force.

  CHAPTER 1

  Mordred

  Manhattan, New York, USA

  By the time Mordred reached the front of the queue in the coffee shop, he’d read their winter menu a dozen times and discounted each of the drinks available as either too sweet or something he’d only drink under torture. Coffee, he decided, should not have sprinkles in it, on it, or close to the cup.

  “Large Americano, please,” Mordred said with a smile to the young man standing behind the counter.

  The server looked vaguely disappointed that it was something so simple but rang up the order. “Your name?” he asked, poised to write it on the side of the cup.

  “Mordred.”

  The young man was ready to write but instead looked back up at Mordred. “Seriously?”

  “Who would possibly make up that name for themselves?” Mordred asked. “Yes, my name is Mordred.”

  The young man wrote something that was at best barely legible on the cup and passed it over to a second young man, who made Mordred’s drink.

  Mordred began to hum the theme tune to The Legend of Zelda, gaining a few strange looks from people, which he promptly ignored. A minute later Mordred was passed his drink, and he walked off up a set of stairs to find a comfortable seat on the floor above.

  The red leather couch he found was exactly what he’d been looking for, and he sat down with a slight sigh and looked out a large window beside him at the street below. He placed his drink on the pale wooden table in front of him and shrugged off his jacket. He was in Manhattan to meet Elaine Garlot. Elaine had been the ruler of Avalon before Arthur woke up and everyone assumed he would take control. She was also Mordred’s aunt, and someone he had a genuine affection for.

  Over a decade ago Mordred had been shot in the head, and instead of finding himself very much in the land of the dead, he woke up sans bullet hole. There had been a few benefits to being shot, a fact in and of itself he found strange, but the main one was that after over a thousand years of wanting to murder people, he was finally free from hi
s homicidal desires. He was finally able to start putting things right.

  It had been nearly three years since he’d revealed to Nate Garrett that he was alive, something Nate had been at first unhappy about considering he’d been the one to shoot Mordred in the first place. Gradually Nate began to trust Mordred, and now they were both in a place where they could be friendly, each man not having to worry about the other trying to kill him. Well, mostly, anyway.

  It had been foretold by the Fates that Mordred had to kill Nate, because otherwise Nate would go crazy and murder everyone. Nate was, understandably, upset by this news, but the very idea of killing his friend made Mordred feel queasy. He’d spent the better part of twelve hundred years trying to kill him, but at last he was in a place where they could be friends again. Yet this specter of the future hung over them both. Mordred hoped they could find a way to avoid it; in fact he’d spent several months trying to figure out just that but hadn’t come up with any ideas.

  Concerned that he’d have to murder his friend to fulfill some prophecy he wanted no part of, Mordred avoided Nate for the better part of a year, trying all the while to find a way out of a future he was certain would come to pass.

  Mordred took a drink of his coffee and thought about the many changes that had occurred in the three years since he and Nate had begun to re-form the bonds of friendship. Arthur Pendragon, once comatose by Mordred’s own hands, had woken and taken charge of Avalon—the organization that secretly ran the world far from the gaze of humanity. Mordred hadn’t seen Arthur since he’d reclaimed his position as the head of Avalon, and he had little interest in doing so. He was almost sure that Arthur would be in a much less forgiving mood than even Nate had been.

  The enemies of Avalon had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth, too. Even Hera, who had claimed London as her own only months before Arthur had woken, had been quiet. Any trouble had seemingly been taken control of by Avalon as Arthur sought to regain control of an organization that had been trying to tear itself apart for too long.

  The lack of people trying to kill him and his friends had made it easier for Mordred to walk away from that life and try to find answers. He’d traveled the world and eventually arrived in America so that he could talk to people there who were considerably older than even his own sixteen hundred years. Elaine had been around for thousands of years. She’d probably seen everything there was to see. If anyone had an answer, it would be her. Elaine had contacted him a month earlier to give a date, place, and time to meet. She told him she had information about the prophecy that he needed to hear.

  One of the big problems with the Fates was that while they often saw a future, it was not necessarily the future, and frankly the whole thing made Mordred’s head hurt. Just because the Fates saw something didn’t mean it would happen, but they’d told Mordred that they had seen no other way forward for him and Nate.

  He was still thinking about his reason for being in New York, and trying to stop whatever future lay before him, when someone cleared their throat. Mordred looked up at a woman on the other side of the table, standing next to one of two leather chairs.

  “Is this seat taken?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Mordred said with a smile. “Sorry, I was miles away. Do you do miles? It’s kilometers here, isn’t it? I’m never all that sure which British words Americans understand.”

  The woman smiled. She had a nice smile, Mordred thought. In fact she was a very attractive woman. Her long hair had been dyed a mixture of greens, blues, and even a little red. Several strands of bright-green hair had been tucked behind her ear. She had a multitude of hoops in both ears, and a dragon tattoo on one arm that started on her wrist and vanished up the sleeve of her blue T-shirt. The other arm had several different tattoos, but Mordred was only interested in the Mario and Princess Peach tattoo on her forearm.

  “So, it’s taken?” she asked.

  “Sorry, I said of course, didn’t I?” Mordred motioned toward the chair. “Please take a seat and ignore my inane ramblings.”

  She placed her drink on the table between them and sat down.

  “Nice tattoos,” Mordred said, pointing to her arm as he tried to decide whether she was human. Or whether she was an enemy.

  “Thanks, I’m a big Mario fan. You play?”

  Mordred smiled. “I’ve been known to annoy friends by humming the theme tune, so a little, yes.”

  The woman laughed. “I’m Cass, by the way.”

  “Mordred.”

  She offered him her hand, which he shook, and he noticed that on each of the nails on her hand was a Mario 1-Up mushroom. The small green image made Mordred chuckle.

  Cass looked at her nails. “Yeah, I’m a bit obsessed. Zelda, too.”

  “A woman after my own heart,” Mordred said. “I only recently got into playing video games. I had some things to work though, and they genuinely helped. Wind Waker was a special favorite of mine.”

  “Ah, that’s a beautiful one. So, what do you do when you’re not drinking coffee or playing Nintendo games?”

  “Oh, not just Nintendo,” Mordred said quickly. “Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid . . . and I just realized you weren’t asking me about my video-game habit. Sorry.”

  Cass laughed. “It’s okay. You’re passionate about it.”

  “That is one way to put it. As for what I do, not much of anything at the moment. I’m in New York to see a friend of mine.”

  “King Arthur?”

  Mordred shook his head. “I hope not.”

  “Were your parents big fans of the folk story?”

  He quickly understood that he was being mocked, albeit with affection. Mordred decided she was human, after all. He was certain that anyone who knew of Avalon, Arthur, and Merlin wouldn’t call it a folk story. “The Mordred thing. Yes, I’m afraid it’s my real name. My parents gave it to me and everything, although I have no idea why. You get used to it.”

  “Well, you’re the first Mordred I’ve ever met.” She smiled and sat back in her chair, as if at ease in her surroundings. “And I’ve met a lot of people with unique names.”

  “So, what do you do, Cass?”

  “Ex-army. Left two years ago, and now I work at a charity helping people like me readjust to normal life.”

  “A noble goal.”

  “Thanks. Sometimes it’s hard going back to being a civilian. You see things—do things—that maybe others don’t understand. Things you don’t always want to talk about with anyone who wasn’t there.”

  “No, I get that.”

  “You military? You have that look.”

  Mordred’s smile was tinged with sadness. “I guess you could say that, yes. I’ve certainly seen and done things that a lot of people wouldn’t understand. Done things for my government that maybe I’m not proud of but at the time I thought were the right things to do.”

  “You’re from England, right?”

  “Yes,” Mordred eventually said after realizing he hadn’t replied for several seconds. “Born and mostly raised. Where are you from?”

  “Texas. Dallas to be exact. Dad was an army ranger, and Mom was a teacher. And there was no way I was going to follow in my mom’s footsteps. Other people’s children make me twitch.”

  Mordred laughed. “Don’t they say you should never work with children and animals?”

  “I think that’s for acting.”

  “Yeah, it would be a bit restrictive otherwise, I guess.”

  Cass chuckled. She had a nice laugh that went with her smile. Mordred hadn’t come to New York intending to meet someone, but it was always nice to have a new friend, and if he was being honest, friends weren’t something Mordred had in abundance anyway. People who knew of his past were always worried he was going to kill them.

  “So, how long are you in New York for?” Cass asked after a while.

  “A few weeks, maybe. I’m not a hundred percent sure.”

  “Would you like to get together again for another drink?” Her smile w
as somewhere between flirting and being coy.

  “I’d like that very much.” While Cass was attractive, and more importantly interesting, romance wasn’t something Mordred had either the time or inclination to engage in. Still, it was nice to be able to talk to someone who didn’t know his background, who didn’t know exactly who he was.

  Cass removed a card from her pocket and passed it over to Mordred. He stared at it intently, memorizing the phone number and email address without even thinking about it. Old habits were hard to break.

  “Call me,” she said. “It was lovely meeting you, Mordred.” She stood up, and Mordred followed. He offered her a handshake, and she accepted before leaning over and kissing him on the cheek. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Mordred watched Cass walk toward the stairs with a mixture of sadness at being alone again and happiness at how he’d met someone like Cass. He hoped he’d be able to do it again.

  He was about to settle back for a few hours of doing nothing when he noticed that she’d left her wallet behind. The small blue leather object must have fallen out of her handbag, or pocket. It shimmered slightly as he turned his head to look at it from a different angle. Mordred shook his head; he was beginning to fixate on something pointless again. He reached over and grabbed the wallet, placing it on the table beside his cup, before sending a message to Cass to inform her that he had it. Hopefully she wouldn’t be worried about it.

  “Mordred,” a man said from the foot of the table.

  Mordred looked up, surprised that someone would use his name in such an angry tone. The man was just over six feet tall, and thin, with a small, dark beard and shaved head. His stare was completely neutral, as if he cared neither one way nor the other about being there.

  “Yes, how can I help?”

  “I have a message for you.” The man had an American accent, although Mordred couldn’t quite place it with any degree of certainty. Somewhere in the South maybe—he wasn’t great at placing accents at the best of times.

  “Okay, is it from Elaine?”

  “It’s from My Liege.” The man tore open his shirt, releasing a mixture of glyphs painted there, before he raised his hands and shouted, “For My Liege!”

  Power blasted out of him, forcing Mordred to put up a shield of magical air to stop being torn in half, and even then he was thrown back through the window behind him. Before he’d hit the ground, a second blast tore through the ground floor of the coffee shop, slamming him into a taxi with enough force to tip him up over it and into the road. He quickly rolled to the side, avoiding whatever might be coming, and pushed himself up against the side of the taxi.