Lies Ripped Open

  By Steve McHugh

  THE HELLEQUIN CHRONICLES

  Crimes Against Magic

  With Silent Screams

  Born of Hatred

  Prison of Hope

  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.

  Text copyright © 2015 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: 978-1503946408

  ISBN-10: 1503946401

  Cover design by Eamon O’Donoghue

  For my Dad.

  Thank you.

  CONTENTS

  LIST OF CHARACTERS

  PROLOGUE

  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

  CHAPTER 38

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  LIST OF CHARACTERS

  Flashback

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

  Diana: Half werebear. Roman goddess of the moon, the hunt, and birthing. Brutus’s lieutenant.

  Fiona: Conjurer. Undercover Avalon agent, answers only to Elaine.

  Alan Daly: Summoner and thief.

  Felix Novius: Sorcerer. Creator of the Reavers.

  Elaine Garlot: Sorcerer. Mentor to Nate. Currently acting ruler of Avalon’s council.

  Enfield: Sorcerer. Reaver. Murderer.

  Merlin: Sorcerer. Mentor to Nate. Supposed ruler of Avalon’s council, but currently obsessed with keeping Arthur alive.

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

  Current Timeline

  Nathan (Nate) Garrett: Sixteen-hundred-year-old sorcerer. Once worked for Merlin as the shadowy figure, Hellequin.

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

  Thomas (Tommy) Carpenter: Six-hundred-year-old werewolf. Owner of a security company. Nate’s best friend. Partner to Olivia. Father of Kasey.

  Kasey (Kase) Carpenter: Fifteen-year-old daughter of Tommy and Olivia.

  Avalon Members

  Sir Kay: Director of SOA (Shield of Avalon). Brother to King Arthur.

  Lucie Moser: Half-enchanter. Ex-employee of Hades. Current Assistant Director of the SOA (Shield of Avalon)

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

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

  Fiona Daly: Conjurer, SOA agent. Married to Alan Daly.

  Lir: Water elemental. Arranges transport from British mainland to Avalon Island. Father to Mac.

  Manannán mac Lir (Mac): Water elemental. Arranges transport from British mainland to Avalon Island. Son of Lir.

  Kelly Jensen: Fae. SOA agent.

  Pack Members

  Ellie O’Neil: Werewolf. Female alpha in the South of England werewolf pack.

  Gordon Summers: Werewolf. Partner to Mathew Sheppard and aide to South of England werewolf pack.

  Matthew Sheppard: Werewolf. Partner to Gordon Summers and Male alpha in the South of England werewolf pack.

  The Hole

  Alan Daly: Summoner. Thief. Currently incarcerated. Married to Fiona Daly.

  Warden Philips: Warden for The Hole prison complex.

  Anthony Walker: Guard in The Hole.

  Livius: Ogre. Guard in The Hole.

  Helios: Dragon-kin. Brother to Selene and Eos. Son of the Titan Hyperion. Incarcerated.

  Miscellaneous

  Liz Williams: Psychic, ex-Avalon. Married to Edward.

  Edward Williams: Enchanter, ex-Avalon. Married to Liz.

  PROLOGUE

  November 1888. London.

  It’s not every day you get to meet the Queen of England. It’s even rarer when a human who rules a country gets a visit from someone in Avalon and the human ruler is happy to see us. But Victoria was a tough old lady, and someone I respected, if not liked. I’ve met her a few times since she took power, but only once since the death of her husband, Albert, some twenty-seven years ago. I found her to be a strong, honest woman, who said what she thought and rarely cared one way or the other about offending anyone. She was the queen; if you were offended it was your problem, not hers. But she wasn’t exactly easy to get on with. She resented Avalon’s influence in the world, and by extension resented the visits from Avalon’s emissaries, such as myself.

  But on this occasion I actually got a smile from her that didn’t look like she was considering whether or not to attack me with a walking stick.

  She’d thanked me, and then as she hurried away, clutching the small item I’d brought her, I’d been asked to leave so that she might have a moment alone. It was a fair request; I had returned something of her husband’s, after all. Something that had been stolen by an annoying insect of a being by the name of Alan Daly.

  I stepped out of Buckingham Palace and walked the few miles to where a carriage was waiting for me. It was outside of a house in Whitechapel that the SOA—the Shield of Avalon, Avalon’s internal security force—used when spending time in London. The two horses were busy eating from their feedbags, although I didn’t see either of the SOA agents that were supposed to be watching the prisoner. I reached the horses and patted one of them on the side of his neck. He flicked his ears in response, but was clearly more interested in his food than in me, so I left him be and checked the coach, but found it empty.

  On the one hand, the locks were still in place and there was no blood inside the comfortable carriage, but on the other, Alan was a slippery little bastard. I entered the house and checked every room, but it was empty, too. One of the rooms had been changed to a prison cell, complete with rune-marked walls and floor, but it had been decided that we’d transport Alan the second I returned, so he’d been moved to the carriage.

  His absence didn’t raise any immediate level of concern. The likelihood was high the two SOA agents had taken him into the seclusion of nearby streets to give him a good kicking. They’d wanted to do it all day, and with Alan’s almost continuous taunts about their wives, sisters, girlfriends, and in one particularly rage-inducing speech, their mothers, I figured he’d probably brought it on himself. Ordinarily I’d have left the agents to their fun, but they were liable to kill Alan, and for all of his irritating qualities,
he didn’t deserve to die.

  I made my way back outside and walked off into the nearby gloomy streets in the hope that, just maybe, I’d find them before one of the many criminals in the city decided to find me.

  Whitechapel, like a fair amount of East London, was riddled with crime and death, and large numbers of people doing incredibly unsavory things, a lot of whom lived in squalor. I’d questioned why they’d put a safe house in the middle of the area, but had been informed that it was the safest place to put anything. No one asked questions in Whitechapel, probably because they were afraid of the answers.

  Even during the recent spate of horrific murders a few months earlier, no one had come forward to say they’d seen anything. And no one ever would. Either the police would resolve it, or the local people would get to the killer first, and then no one would ever find him. Those living in the East End of London trusted your average copper probably less than they did your average criminal, and people taking the law into their own hands was fairly common.

  I had a pretty good idea where the SOA agents would have taken Alan. There was a small park down an alley a few hundred meters from the safe house. It was somewhere I’d heard that the police took suspects to question them when needed. It was dark, and from what I’d heard, it was a well-known area to stay away from, even in Whitechapel.

  I reached the alley after being propositioned by half a dozen women, although I noticed that no one stood close to the mouth of the alley, as if it were creating its own barrier of fear.

  I walked down the alley. The light from the street lamps appeared to be pushed back by the darkness, which was a stupid thought to have, but even so it still made me pause. Something about this place wasn’t right. About half way down I heard grunts and groans.

  “That’s enough,” I called out while using my fire magic to give me a semblance of night vision.

  One of the SOA agents sat hunched over, leaning against the wooden panels that surrounded the park’s long grass.

  I walked over to the second agent, whose back was toward me as he stood a little further into the park, and placed my hand on his shoulder. “That’s enough,” I repeated, but he spun around and all of the breath left my body at once, followed immediately by pain as it exploded across my torso. I glanced down as a shimmering blade of ice was pulled free from my chest. It was covered in my blood. I dropped to my knees and watched as the magical weapon vanished from view. The pain forced me to abandon my night vision, and the darkness once again took control.

  The overwhelming thought that bounced around my head was that neither of the SOA agents had been sorcerers.

  My attacker crouched beside me. “They interrupted me and my prey got away,” his accent was from East London, but sounded slightly different from many of those living in the city. As if he’d been away from here for a long time, and had not quite remembered how the accent was meant to sound.

  I glanced up at him, still unable to breathe; the blade had punctured a lung. It wouldn’t kill me, but it would be a few hours until I was back to normal, and without my night vision I could have been staring into Merlin’s own face and I’d never have known.

  The man got back to his feet and kicked me onto my back. “I should make sure you remember your time here, but I’m sure your comrades over there will be able to do that better than I could.”

  He sat on my chest—the weight of him making me gasp as the remaining air left my body—and placed his finger to my forehead. He moved his finger slowly, removing it every few seconds before returning it, newly wet against my flesh. “Don’t go forgetting me now,” he said, before almost jumping off of me and running down the alley.

  “Anyone conscious?” I wheezed.

  “Your agents are dead,” Alan said. “I hope you weren’t friends.”

  I closed my eyes and sighed, trying to control the anger that flared inside of me, while at the same time managing the pain that still coursed through my body.

  I rolled onto my side. “What happened?”

  “Your companions took me here to give me a good beating. But we found that man and a woman already here. She got free and ran for it, so he took it out on the agents. He had a knife.”

  “Not that blade of magical ice?”

  “No, a real knife. He cut your boys to pieces.” There was an unmistakable strike of match, and a sudden flare of light. Alan held the meager flame against a piece of paper he took from his pocket and soon there was enough light for me to see him.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered. “Did he cut you?”

  Alan shook his head. He was drenched in blood; it covered every single part of him that I could see. “All of this blood belonged to your friends. He killed them while they were next to me.” He raised his wrist, showing me the sorcerer’s band—a small metal band that stopped him from using his powers. And would explode if he tried to remove it. “I couldn’t do a damn thing.”

  “You could run now,” I said. I coughed, which caused more pain, but once it had eased off I finally managed to sit up and use my own fire magic to illuminate the area. Night vision took too much control for me right now.

  “Shit,” I continued. One of the two bodies was in the deep grass, invisible to me as I’d entered the park. The side effect of my magical night vision was that everything was in shades of orange and yellow, so blood was harder to pick out.

  “I’m not going to run,” Alan told me, his tone hard and full of anger. “I used those agents to get me here so I could escape. I wasn’t going to do this to them though. No, I’m going to help you find the man who did this. And then I’ll escape.”

  I chuckled. “Deal. But first we need to get back to the safe house.”

  “Actually, first you need to know what that asshole wrote on your forehead,” Alan told me.

  “What?”

  “It’s in blood.”

  “What does it say, Alan?” I demanded, anger dripping into my words.

  “It’s just two words. It says From Hell.”

  CHAPTER 1

  New Forest, England. Now.

  There are people out in the big wide world who don’t believe in luck. They don’t believe that luck plays any kind of part in our lives. These people are, if I’m brutally honest, fucking idiots.

  The idea that luck plays no part in our day-to-day existence on this massive rock ignores the fact that it played a part in us being able to exist in the first place. Luck is evident in our lives wherever you look. Sure, ability, coincidence, and just downright hard work all play a massive role, but luck can sometimes mean the difference between being in the right place at the right time and, well, not.

  Case in point, it was clearly a little bit of luck, whether good or bad, that saw me in the living room of my house, turning on the large HDTV and switching to one of the twenty-four-hour news channels at exactly the same moment as they cut to a clean-shaven, young man with short, dark hair, wearing a dark suit and talking in somber tones about a hostage situation that was taking place in the Southampton shopping center, West Quay.

  I went to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water from the fridge and returned, taking a seat on my leather couch and increasing the volume of the TV.

  “We’re now entering hour four of the standoff,” the man said.

  Hour four? I’d been working out in the forest that surrounded my property, running and practicing various fighting and magical techniques, and had no idea of the crisis that had unfolded during that time.

  “What, if anything, can you tell us about the situation?” asked a pretty blonde woman as the picture cut to include those sitting in a studio.

  “We know that at approximately 10:30 this morning, an armed man entered Hopkins jewelers and proceeded to take the occupants hostage.” The reporter turned aside to give a better view of the Southampton high street and the entrance to West Quay. Police vans littered the area, along with several ambulances. The police themselves were either shielded behind their wall of cars, or stood at the cordon not al
lowing anyone to get close to the situation.

  “Has anyone been injured?” the news anchor asked.

  The man nodded slowly, showing sadness, although I wasn’t sure it managed to reach his eyes. This was clearly a big news story, and he was front and center. Still, it would have been nice if he wasn’t quite so excited about the possibility of being part of such a big story. “It’s believed that one man was shot as he fought back against the armed attacker. We haven’t been updated as to his status since we learned that information.”

  “And is there anything else the police are saying?”

  “Not at this time. As you can understand, it’s an incredibly complex and fluid situation, where at least eighteen people’s lives are at risk. The police are planning on giving a press conference in an hour, but it’s believed that the information given out will be slight.”

  “Keep us informed,” the anchor said as the camera cut back to her. She quickly started discussing the situation with an expert in the studio, and I switched the TV off. Studio experts being dragged in only meant one thing; they had nothing other than speculation and theory to fill the news with, but didn’t want anyone to change the channel. Just in case something exciting happened.

  I stood up and walked back to the kitchen to throw the now empty bottle of water into the recycling bin, before making my way upstairs and having a nice long shower in water that was hot enough to ease any tension from my shoulders.

  Once out, and dry, I threw on a pair of dark blue jeans, and a black T-shirt with blue and red lightsabres crossed over the front and Darth Vader’s head behind them. My best friend, Tommy, had picked it up for me a few months back, presumably in the hope that I’d join him in his love of Star Wars. It didn’t work, but then his level of geekdom for those movies was something few people could possibly hope to match. I’m pretty sure he owns his own storm trooper costume. Which worries me greatly.

  I sat back on my bed and breathed out slowly. A year previously I’d been involved in trying to stop Pandora from massacring everyone who’d ever pissed her off, including the woman I loved, Selene. We’d gone our separate ways after it ended—for various reasons—though I was hopeful that one day we’d be able to reconcile. But as Tommy’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Kasey, explained, I couldn’t sit around and mope about it.