Born of Hatred (37 page)

I turned to the sheriff. "You were useful to him, that's why he let you and your men live."

The sheriff nodded. There appeared to be no fear in him, no concern that anything would happen to him. "He needed someone who wasn't dead to help during the day."

"He chose you, because you had power, and you convinced the rest of the town. You told people that the lich would protect them and make them money, but you always knew he was going to kill them all."

"Yes, I knew. It wasn't meant to happen so quickly, but when he discovered that you'd been here, he knew he had to act. So he started the transformation of the townspeople. But there was no lie. Montana was going to become a haven of the kind of America that we wanted. Free from outsiders. Free from crime."

"You just all had to become monsters to do it."

"You say monster, I say free."

"You murdered Sam's father and took his revolvers. Sam here wants to kill you with one of them."

The sheriff shrugged as best he could. "He doesn't have the balls to kill me."

"Screw you," Sam screamed. "You killed my dad. He was just doing his job. He was here trying to protect people."

"He was in my way." The sheriff spoke in the same way you'd describe trimming a hedge or knocking down a wall, a job that needed to be done to make life easier. "He was looking around. A marshal in my town; I couldn't have that. So, we killed him. Or we did after the lich was through with him. Do you want to know how he screamed? How he begged to be allowed to see his son again? How he cried and pissed himself like a fucking coward?" The sheriff stared directly at Sam, his eyes never leaving the boy’s face. "He died slowly and painfully screaming your name over and over until I put a bullet in his head just to shut him up."

Sam pulled the hammer of the revolver back, as tears fell from his eyes. "You ruined my life, I have nothing now."

"So, kill me. Don't be a fucking pussy, just shoot me and be done with it. Because I'm not spending the rest of my life in some fucking prison, rotting for all to see."

Sam's shoulder tensed, as if he was willing himself to pull the trigger, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

"Sam," I said. "You have every reason in the world to kill him. Hell, no one out there would turn you over to the authorities if you did. This man deserves justice. Your dad believed in justice, I'm betting that's why he was a marshal. But this isn't justice, this is vengeance. And I know vengeance, Sam. I know it well. I know what it feels like to hold the life of a man who took someone important from you. To be able to decide if they live or die. And I know what it's like to kill him."

"Just let him fucking do—"

I kicked Sheriff Bourne in the head, knocking him to the floor. "Sam, look at him. Look at the man who tortured you and your dad. Look at this pathetic reason for a human. If you kill him, you're going to lose a part of yourself. His face will stay with you forever, the face of the man you executed. Whenever you think of your dad, that piece of shit on the floor will always be close by. I promise you, it will fester your memories until just thinking about your dad will cause you to remember what you did here. Or you can walk away, right now. Go live your life; do what your dad would have wanted for you. The choice is all yours."

There was no painfully slow wait to decide what he was going to do. He released the hammer and re-holstered the gun. 

"Fucking pussy," the sheriff said as he got back to his knees. "I knew you were a gutless coward. Like father, like son."

Sam shook his head. "You had to tie my dad up and torture him to make you feel like a man. You were too scared to face him one on one. He will always be the better man, because you couldn't bring yourself to deal with him like anything but the tiny coward you are." Sam walked out of the bar and back outside.

The sheriff laughed. "I actually thought he might shoot me for a second. So, where are you going to take me to prison? Or do I get a hangman's noose? Because I have a whole lot to talk about to whoever wants to listen. The army’s involvement in murdering Indians, monsters roaming the lands killing ranch folk. It will be quite the tale."

I picked up an Army Colt that someone had dropped on the floor during the fight, and checked to see that it was loaded. Three shots left. It was an old piece and well used. I placed it on the table near me.

"Sam's a good person," I said, and glanced outside onto the street in front of the bar, but couldn't find him. "He's going to move on from this, get a nice job and settle down with someone who cares for him. Or not. His life is utterly open to live how he sees fit."

"Why do I care?"

"Why? Because, although Sam is a good person. I'm not." I picked up the Colt up and shot the sheriff through the eye. The bullet exited through the back of his skull and sprayed blood and brain matter over the destroyed room behind him, as he toppled to the floor. I emptied the last two bullets into his forehead. I didn't want him coming back as anything, just in case. 

I dropped the gun on the ground and poured fire out of my hands all around me. The alcohol soaked room ignited and was quickly turned into an inferno. I stepped out of the fires of hell back onto the street, where I was greeted by Sky. 

"Sam went for a walk with the Chief," she said. She passed me the leather book. "You dropped this."

"Thanks, I'll make sure that Merlin gets it."

"And then what?"

I flicked through the old pages and fought the urge to incinerate it. "If it's up to me, it'll never see the light of day again."

"So, do you have any recommendation as to what you want to do with this place?" Hades asked as he joined Sky and me.

The fire from the bar was hot against the back of my neck. "Burn it to the ground. Wipe it off the face of the earth."

Hades' smile contained no humour. "With pleasure."

Chapter 34

Winchester, England. Now.

Olivia asked me a question, but for the life of me I couldn't have said what it was. My attention was centred totally on the picture of the lich who had almost killed me over a hundred years ago. The realisation that I was unlikely to fair better against his great-great-grandfather hit me like a truck. I was grateful I was already sat down, because I was pretty certain that my legs had gone weak. 

"Nate?" Olivia said, crouched before me, concern in her eyes.

I told her about the photo and what it meant. 

"So, he's a fifth generation psychopath."

"Someone gave him these notes on how to become a lich. I'm glad we've got Sky here to help with this. Otherwise, we wouldn't stand a chance."

"Peter Jarvis was a misogynistic coward, who couldn't even kill those weaker than he unless they were tied up and powerless."

"He's not going to need to tie us up to kill us anymore," I pointed out, and threw the journal onto the desk.

"Yet he still has to tie women to trees in order to kill them. And he's now so physically hideous that he has to enlist someone to bring the women to him. He sounds pathetic. And he will be even more so once Sky gets done with him. You and Sky have history, I assume."

"You could call it that, but we're just friends." I didn't really want to discuss it, but was grateful for the excuse to get off the topic of liches and their psychotic tendencies. 

"Sure,
friends
," Olivia said with a smile. "I'm going to check in on Tommy and get some more agents in this building. I want Peter's home gutted and searched from top to bottom." 

She walked out of the room to make the call, leaving me alone with my thoughts. And with the fear of what was out there, waiting. I pushed it aside as I'd learnt to do long ago. "
Fear is just a tool to be used like any other emotion,"
Merlin would say. "
You need to control it. Do not let it control you."

It was a lesson he'd drilled into me, over and over again, making me face my fears until I could control them. But I never stopped feeling fear. No one can do that. No one sane anyway. 

The vibration of my phone shook the memory away. 

"Hello, Nathan," Peter's voice, his actual voice, was deep and wispy, the sort of voice you'd imagine a snake would have. 

"I figured you might call at some point," I said. "You want to brag about something really impressive? Killed a few more defenceless werewolves or something?"

"Are you really upset over Neil's death? He was a rapist, a murderer and generally the scum of the earth. I did you a favour."

"Is that why you paid for his nice penthouse?"

"Paid for?' His laugher sent shivers up my spine. "I think you're overestimating the cash-flow of a man who recently returned from the dead. You need to look elsewhere for that answer."

"The answer will wait, then, I guess. So, what do you want, Peter?"

He laughed again, a humourless, evil noise that would have made fingernails on a chalkboard sound like a symphony of elegant beauty. "How's Olivia holding up?"

"She wants you dead. Again. Preferably on a more permanent basis."

"We both know she can't do that, but I'll give her the opportunity to try soon enough. But the reason I'm calling is you, Nathan. I warned you to leave this alone. That it didn't involve you. I warned you to run away and never come back. And you not only ignored me, you brought a necromancer with you to end my plans."

"Sorry about her, her father just insisted I bring someone along to kill you."

"Her father?"

"Hades," I said. "Her father is Hades. So even if you do manage to get away from Sky, what do you think Hades will do to you?"

There was silence for a few heartbeats. "You think I fear him?"

"That shake in your voice tells me you do, yes. You're not stupid. You hurt Sky, even by accident, and Hades will rain down horror on you that you can barely comprehend. He will tear your soul in two and keep the pieces as a plaything for when he gets bored."

Peter chuckled. "He can't come onto English soil. Not without starting a war."

That surprised me. And the shock of his knowledge quickly turned to concern when I realised that someone had to have educated him on matters of Avalon court. I decided to take a gamble. "Your friends in Avalon tell you that?"

"My friends tell me all sorts of things. They tell me that you stumbled into this from loyalty to your friends. That was the only reason I was going to give you an out. But you wronged me, and now it's time to pay the price. I warned you."

"Are you about to blow your old place up?" I asked flippantly as I quickly searched around the room for anything that might suddenly explode. 

"I left you a gift, something very important that I think you're going to want to see. I'm looking at it right now. The cliff that lets you look down over the forest. Apparently this place is special for you. Your gift is here. And you might want to hurry. I don't think it's going to keep long." And the phone went dead.

I don't even remember leaving the apartment. The next thing I knew, I was on the stairs, sprinting to the building's front door as Olivia's calls for me to slow down rang out behind me. I jumped onto my bike and started the engine.

"Nate," Olivia tried again as she ran down the outside stairs. 

I forced myself to stay and tell her about the call. 

"I'll get help, they'll follow my GPS," she said. 

I opened the bike's throttle, speeding off toward my destination, weaving between traffic and ignoring traffic cameras and stop lights alike. It didn't take long to reach the outskirts of the forest I'd taken Sara to.

I pulled into the clearing, my heart pounding a beat in my throat. At first I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. I stopped my bike and climbed off, ignoring the calls in my head to run and find whatever Peter had left for me. The more rational side of me insisted that the lich could still be around, waiting for me to make a mistake.

But my rational thought lost out the second I saw the woman tied to the tree, a hood pulled over her head so that I couldn't make out who it was. I sprinted toward her and pawed at the hood, tearing at the poppers holding it to her coat, ripping it off and throwing it aside. 

Sara's beautiful face was untouched apart from a slight bruise on her cheek. But her eyes were closed and I had no idea if she was dead or alive. I forced myself to calm and searched for a pulse on her neck, finding it to be slow, but steady. 

I used a small measure of wind magic to create a hardened blade of air and remove the cable ties that held her arms behind her, around the tree trunk. She sagged forward, but I caught her, lowering her to the ground as sirens exploded all around me. I couldn't see any obvious injuries and there were no marks on her bare legs or blood on the blue and white dress.

Olivia's car skidded to a halt near my bike, followed closely by an ambulance. It hadn't been too long ago that I'd had to watch another friend of mine, Holly, be carried away in one of those with life-threatening injuries. It wasn't something I wanted to do again.

The paramedics moved me aside and got to work on Sara. One of them, a young woman, sat with her and asked her questions, tapping her on the shoulders and shouting in her ears in an effort to get a response. 

The whole event was a bit like a terrible dream. I watched with horror as nothing the young paramedic did, appeared to rouse Sara from whatever stupor she was in. And then, just as my thoughts turned to the darkest corner of my mind, Sara coughed and opened her eyes. 

A flood of emotion crashed down over me and I had to place a hand against the tree until it had eased. Peter, and whoever was supporting him, had taken Sara as a message to me. And for that someone was going to suffer. 

Sara's scream from the rear of the ambulance had me sprinting toward it.

"Nate," Sara said, her voice groggy and soft.

I climbed into the ambulance and sat beside her, as she forced a smile. 

"They didn't do anything to me," she said softly. "You need to know that. You need to know that nothing that happened here was because of you. I know that's what you're thinking. This is not your fault."