With Silent Screams (The Hellequin Chronicles, Book 3)

  “Yes,” I said honestly. “Every single one of the bastards involved in this deserves to die.”

  “Maybe killing isn’t the answer. Maybe you need to show force a different way?”

  “How?”

  Rean shook his head and smiled. “I have no idea, I just don’t want to think about you having so many souls on your conscience.”

  “My conscience is clear,” I assured him. “I won’t give these people a second thought.”

  “In that case, I have a request. Make Simon suffer, make him wish he’d never been born. He took my mate and my boy. He made me watch as he ended them. Made me beg for them.” Tears fell down Rean’s bloody cheeks. “I get to see them again, Nathan. I get to see my boy and the woman I love. It’s been so long. I’ve missed them so much, every day I dream of her. And when I wake, she’s not there. I never understood the human term, heartbreak, but that’s how I felt. A part of me died that day and I get to have it back.”

  I placed a hand against his face. “You hug them for me, and you tell them I’m sorry I couldn’t save them. Tell them I wish that you’d grown old together.”

  “My friend, I will hold them so close they will never be able to leave. I will tell them how you saved me back then, and how you came back for me now. When I go to my resting place, where we dance and sing of our life’s exploits, your name will forever be remembered.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” I asked.

  “You mean end it? I don’t want to give those bastards the satisfaction of me dying because of them. I want to go out a warrior, Nate. Can you let me do that? Are you able to afford me the privilege of one last battle?”

  I nodded, but couldn’t look at Rean as I helped him to his feet and retrieved the machete from the floor, almost having to force it into his hand, but eventually he found some strength and held it firm.

  I took a few steps away and, pain or no, I created a blade of fire as brilliant as I’d ever managed.

  I turned to Rean, who raised his blade to his face. “You do me this deep honor, my friend.”

  I copied his pose, bringing my blade down to my side. “The honor is all mine,” I told him as I finally managed to find my voice.

  Rean screamed a battle cry and darted toward me. His final act was to try and sever my head from my shoulders, but he was too weak, and I was too fast. As the blade of fire entered his chest and the machete clattered to the ground, part of me wished that he’d made the blow connect.

  “Thank you, for allowing me to go on my terms,” Rean said softly into my ear. “I will never forget your friendship.”

  “Go see your family,” I told him as he closed his eyes.

  I softly lowered Rean to the ground, where moments later he died in my arms.

  CHAPTER 34

  I left the house full of anger and sorrow that I couldn’t afford the time to bury my friend. Leaving his body in that shithole of a building hurt, but there were very few other choices.

  I staggered outside, my body screaming at me to slow down and let my magic heal me, but I didn’t have time for that either, so I pushed on until I found a truck around to the side of the house, which had probably been used to transport Rean and me. I opened the glove box and found a mobile phone that still had some battery life and dialed Caitlin from inside the truck’s cab.

  “Hi Caitlin,” I said as she answered it.

  “Where the fucking hell have you been?” she snapped. “I dropped that family off at the police station and called Rebecca, who, by the way, was a patronizing ass about the whole thing and tried to tell me that it was impossible for there to be a second realm gate. I was going to drive down there and slap her, but then I figured you’d like to watch. That was over two hours ago.”

  I explained what happened, about the troll and Edward, about how I’d escaped and Rean’s death. “They’re at the church,” I finished. “They’ve got Fern. They’re going to make her tattoo a new guardian.”

  “I’ll come get you,” she said urgently. “Are you okay?”

  “Banged up and bloody, but mostly fine. I’m in a truck, come wake me up when you get here.” I ended the call and, as I could do nothing else, let my body rest and heal.

  The sound of Caitlin’s car pulling up outside the house woke me up. The clock on the phone said I’d been asleep for a half-hour, which had been enough to heal the pain in my stomach, although the wound was still raw and unpleasant, and would be for several hours due to the silver. More importantly, I no longer felt like I was about to collapse, and I got out of the truck to meet Caitlin.

  “Glen—sorry—Father Patterson and Fern are at the church.”

  “Who is going to be the one who opens the gate? Tattoos take time to create, and even longer to heal.”

  “I don’t think healing is going to be an issue, they just need that gate open. And if they have Glen, maybe they can force him to do it while Fern does her work.”

  “You think Glen would do it?”

  “After witnessing their hospitality first hand, yeah, I think they’d get him to do whatever they wanted.”

  “You know you’re covered in blood and topless, right?”

  “Yeah, I’d noticed. Do you happen to have clothes on you that might fit me?

  Caitlin shook her head.

  “Then I’m going to have to go for the crazed lunatic look for a little while longer.” I opened the door to her own truck and got in. “We need to go to the church.”

  “Are you okay?” she asked as she started the engine. “You lost someone a little while ago.”

  “How are you coping with it?” I asked her as we set off. “How are you coping with losing your dad?”

  Caitlin was silent for a long time, and I settled into the seat as the truck’s speed increased. “I’m going to bring my mom to justice. I don’t care what happens to the others.”

  “Well, Bianca’s very dead. And it wasn’t a good death.”

  “So, what about you?”

  “I’m going to find Karl and Charles and every other fucker who arranged all of this, and they’re going to pay for it. And once they’re dealt with, I’m going to get Simon. I’m going to take him somewhere quiet and remote, and I’m going to make him famous. By the time I’m finished, I’m going to show the world exactly what happens when you fuck with me.”

  Caitlin pulled up outside the church, which was cloaked in an eerie darkness, with the remnants of the battle hours earlier still strung across the area.

  “Did you do this?” she asked as we exited the car, her gun drawn and ready.

  “Some of it,” I said as I stepped over a headstone. “Okay, quite a bit of it.”

  We walked the short distance to the church doors in silence before moving around to the side of the building and using the huge hole to gain entry, but there was no one inside. We moved from room to room, taking the ground floor and then searching upstairs, but we found no one.

  “The realm gate is around here,” I said. “It has to be. Father Patterson stayed close to it.”

  “Within a mile of this place is a lot of area to search.”

  “No, it’s closer than that. Easy to get to, and easy to defend. Does this place have a cellar?”

  Caitlin shrugged. “No idea. I didn’t build it.”

  I made another circuit of the ground floor, pulling up rugs, opening cupboards in my search for anything that might turn out to be a set of stairs.

  “Nate,” Caitlin called out.

  I followed her voice and found her beside the pulpit, looking down at the floor.

  “There are some weird marks here,” she said. “Scrapings.”

  “The pulpit moves,” I said and went to the opposite side and started to push, but nothing happened.

  Caitlin climbed the pulpit. “There’s a switch up here, it looks like an ornamental thing, but it’
s different than the others.” She pushed it and something beneath us clicked.

  I gave the pulpit a second shove and it moved, scraping along the ground. A set of steps led down into a hole lit up by dozens of torches.

  “You think they heard us?” I asked and began walking down the steps, where I noticed the lever used to close the entrance.

  “We have no way of knowing what’s waiting for us,” she pointed out and re-drew her gun.

  The steps sloped down for several hundred yards, twisting and turning until we reached a huge metal door. Caitlin and I pushed it open and stepped into the room to find the realm gate directly in front of us.

  It had been activated; hundreds of people were visible through the gate, all lined up in formations as they readied for battle. Fern was being dragged through the gate by Karl, who joined Charles Whitehorn in Shadow Falls.

  “Stop,” Caitlin shouted, raising her gun. “I will shoot.”

  Charles turned toward us with a smile on his face. He wore a long flowing red cloak and an actual crown upon his head. He opened his mouth to speak but an arm holding a knife snaked around his throat slitting it from ear to ear. Blood poured from the wound and the king fell forward to reveal Karl with knife in one hand and Fern’s hair wrapped in the other.

  “I think you may not like what happens next,” I said, fully expecting Whitehorn’s soldiers to attack Karl on sight. Instead, they started cheering.

  “These are not his people,” Karl said. “They’re mine. I placed people, alchemists, and creatures of power in Stratford to wait for the day I would need them. Whitehorn was an idiot, a fool who thought only in terms of Shadow Falls and how he could make money from them. I don’t want money, I want power.” He released Fern and picked up a crystal from a nearby table. “Leonardo discovered these, and I’m going to take them and use them to make me the most powerful man not only in Shadow Falls, but everywhere. Avalon and everyone who works for them will bow down before me when I’m done.”

  “I thought this was about revenge? You and a hundred and fifty people against Galahad and his men? You’re going to get slaughtered.”

  “It was about revenge originally; all I cared about was helping Whitehorn kill that bastard. But then I found out about the crystals and a better plan formed in my mind. As for the hundred and fifty. There are over a million people in this city, if only 1 percent of them are mine, that means ten thousand people all taking up arms for me. All of them killing their neighbors in our name. This is a revolution and the blood of our enemies will flow through these streets.”

  “Does Patricia know this? That you’re not destroying Shadow Falls?”

  “I sent her on first, she and her insane friends. They’ve gone to do whatever they feel the need to do. Once we’re done, we’ll kill them as a threat to us all. I’ll be a damn hero.”

  “Hey, I recognize a lot of those people behind Karl,” Caitlin whispered. “They live in town; hell, some of them say hello to me in the morning.”

  “The humans who work for you, that’s who you’re going to make into guardians,” I said.

  “You have no idea how easy it was to get humans to join me. Money and immortality. That’s all I had to offer them. Sad little creatures. Some of them don’t want to be here, though we thought it a good idea to have some leverage.”

  “I’m going to find you, Karl,” I told him.

  “Not through this gate you’re not.” He walked over and dragged Fern back toward him. “If this gate activates, I kill her. Yes, it’ll be a big waste, but I can always find more kids who have guardians as parents. I’m sure over the years I’ll be able to get a few to help me. I’ve discovered that fear for those you love is a great motivator.”

  Someone walked over to Karl and whispered in his ear and I got a glimpse of a rundown hut not far behind them. “Well, I have to go, people to kill and empires to start. When we’re done here, I’ll come find you, Nate. I think I’d enjoy paying you back for what you did in the club.”

  “I’ll see you before then,” I told him. “And next time I won’t let things end quite so happily for you.”

  “Shut this down,” Karl demanded and the realm gate immediately died.

  There was a cough from the side of the gate, which turned out to be Father Patterson, sitting against the wall, his face badly beaten.

  “You okay?” Caitlin asked as she put her gun away and rushed over to him.

  Father Patterson nodded. “They didn’t seem to understand the idea of me being unable to die while near the gate. Then they threatened several people from the town unless I helped them. Turns out some of those people are actually working for Karl. Even so, they have innocent hostages with them. I couldn’t let them kill people.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll stop them, although we’re going to have to go to Portland to do it. Is there anyway they can open the portal from their end?”

  Father Patterson glanced at me. “You appear to be covered in blood. And you’re shirtless.”

  “Yes, it’s been pointed out. Although most of the blood isn’t mine. So, the portal, can they open it at their end?”

  “Not at the moment, no. But soon enough, they’ll have people who can. You have maybe six hours before the rituals are done and the tattoos on the first guardians are healed enough to use the portal.”

  “She’s the only tattooist they have,” Caitlin said. “They’re not going to work her to death; they’re going to threaten her, but not hurt her. They can’t risk it.”

  “Those innocents they have are the leverage for her to work, just as they were for you to open the gate.”

  “Your arrival changed their plans,” Father Patterson said. “They were going to find Fern and get her to perform the ritual before opening the gate, making me useless, but you started killing off their friends. Karl kept ranting about how the timetable had to change because you turned up in Washington.”

  “I’m glad I could piss off some more people; it appears to be a hidden piece of magic of mine. This realm gate gets you through to the mountains. I saw the area around them. They’ve got a few hours before they reach the city. We’ve got to get to Portland and let them know what’s happening. If Karl’s being honest, there are ten thousand people about to turn on their neighbors and friends. Shadow Falls is going to turn into a war-zone, but first there’s going to be a massacre.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Glen stayed behind at the church, but we gave him a revolver from Caitlin’s truck and enough ammo to keep shooting until his enemies stopped coming. I hoped he didn’t have to use it; he was a priest not a killer. Being so close to the realm gate would heal him up pretty quickly, and he appeared determined to stop anyone that would do more harm to his town. I admired him for that. Even so, I expected a lot of leg and arm wounds if anyone tried to attack him.

  As the Audi was still outside the church, Caitlin and I thought it best to take it and get to Portland as quickly as possible. The decision was even easier to make when we realized that we couldn’t get through to the Mill or Rebecca.

  I grabbed a clean t-shirt from the boot of my car and quickly threw it on before setting off at blistering speed toward Portland, and not once did Caitlin look concerned at my driving.

  We pulled up outside the Mill and ran inside, where we found the entire restaurant and bar empty. “Rebecca,” I shouted, unwilling to bump into her or her people and start some sort of incident, which was also the reason I put a t-shirt on. A half-naked, blood-covered man does not say, please listen to me, I’m not trying to kill you.

  “Rebecca,” Caitlin and I called out as we made our way toward the basement.

  As we reached the door, it opened and Rebecca darted out. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “We have a problem,” I said.

  “No shit, the phone’s out and so’s the power. And we all felt a second gate ope
n.”

  “Karl Steiner took an army of people through it, they’re on their way to Shadow Falls where another ten thousand people are about to start hacking their friends to death. We need to get through to Shadow Falls, right now.”

  Rebecca stared at me and then nodded. “I wouldn’t have believed you if that second gate hadn’t opened,” she said as we walked through the basement. “I’m sorry for being a bitch to you,” she told Caitlin.

  “Let’s just get people to safety,” she said, and the remaining walk was done in silence.

  The main room was a hive of activity, as emergency lighting illuminated everyone trying desperately to figure out the problem.

  “Why can’t you open the gate?” I asked.

  “We can, but I deemed it safe to leave it closed until we’d determined what caused the power failure,” Rebecca said and waved to the same person who opened the gate for us on our initial visit.

  He walked over to the gate and the runes lit up once more, the image in the center showing us Shadow Falls.

  It also showed us carnage. There were several bodies inside the temple and even more people were fighting for their lives. Harrison was transforming the temple itself into weapons, using it to crush his opponents. Apparently the order to turn traitor had already been given.

  “I’m going to help,” I told Rebecca, whose mouth had dropped open.

  “Okay,” she finally managed. “We’ll make sure no one goes through on this end.”

  Caitlin and I ran to the realm gate but the guardian suddenly charged at us, screaming, “For the revolution!” and brandished a dagger.

  I stepped into the attack and smashed my forearm into his throat. He staggered back, but refused to drop the weapon, instead swinging it back toward me. I grabbed his wrist and brought my arm down on the elbow joint, which broke his arm. I twisted the limb once again, noticing bone protruding from his joint and kicked out his knee, snapping his leg with a crack that sounded like a gunshot inside the confines of the room. The guardian dropped to the ground in agony.