“It was a lie?” Fiona asked.
Mordred nodded. “It was. But that small act of kindness was something I hadn’t experienced much of, and considering I was near death, I was in no position to hurt them even if I’d wanted to. Except Hera found out exactly where I was, because the young doctor had spoken to someone in a nearby town about me. I stupidly used my real name when they found me, half-dead, delirious from silver poisoning. Hera sent her people to butcher that family. The things they did to them are not worth repeating, and I was still barely coherent when it happened, but I will always remember their screams. Always. The doctor hid me under a trapdoor in the house, and the men who came for me left empty-handed and decided to destroy the house as they left.
“I healed alone and in the darkness for a week until I managed to pull myself free from the wreckage. I found the dead family, and I buried them. I dug their graves myself, with shovel and hands, until all four were done. And then I went to Viktor. I threatened him, and he gave me the names of the people Hera sent. After that I killed his friend, burned down his home, and took his arm. I told him if he ever sold intel on people again I’d take one piece for every innocent it killed. And when I was done, I went after Hera’s men.”
Mordred paused and remembered their screams, their pleas for death as he’d tortured and ripped them to pieces, made them watch as he killed their loved ones, made them dig the graves of people they cared about. “I dealt with my grief and rage by doing the only thing I knew how. I allowed the monster inside of me to have free rein. From there I discovered intel that would later lead me to work for Mars Warfare and Ares. I could use my position to finally kill Hera, but she already knew I was working there and I hear found the whole thing quite entertaining, even if she hadn’t told Ares any of this. In case you didn’t know, Ares is an idiot.”
When no one spoke for several seconds, Mordred started to hum. The humming relaxed him, and he felt incredibly uncomfortable with the silence that followed his confession.
“Viktor betrayed Avalon,” Fiona said.
Mordred nodded. “Elaine knows this, by the way. I told her not long after it happened. I wanted her to know the kinds of people Avalon employed. It didn’t work, because Elaine isn’t a homicidal idiot, and I was. But I hadn’t expected her to use him for her own gain. That was definitely not on the agenda.”
“So, Viktor’s run off to do what, hide?” Morgan asked.
“No, my guess is he’s gone to whoever will offer him the best hope of survival,” Mordred replied. “Elaine is missing, and I’m not exactly high on the list of people he trusts, so he’s gone to someone who probably wants information on us.”
“Hera?” Diana asked.
“A Hera proxy,” Mordred said.
“The werewolves,” Morgan said. “He’s gone to tell them we’re coming.”
“That about sums it up, yes.”
“We’re still going to that nightclub, though, right?” Remy asked. “Because if so, we’re going to need more weapons, and I’ve searched this house and found sweet fuck all. Unless you like the idea of going into battle with a potato peeler, which I have to admit would be kind of funny for about the first thirty seconds.”
“Someone like Viktor is going to have weaponry,” Mordred said.
“Why not screw with the computer before he ran away?” Fiona asked.
“No time. Either that or he wants to hedge his bets. If we make it through the nightclub, it’s almost a certainty that he’ll say he was helping us out by going to the werewolves as a diversion for us to assault the place.”
“Doesn’t deal with the lack-of-ordnance problem,” Remy said.
“What’s in the vault?” Diana asked. “Any chance he has weapons in there?”
Mordred nodded. “I don’t see why not.”
They all left the safe room and descended the staircase onto the floor below, only to be greeted by a single door with a numerical pad beside it.
Remy walked up to the door and tapped it with his knuckles, causing it to make a metallic sound. “Anyone know his code? Because I think this might be several inches of reinforced door.”
Nabu placed his hand against the metal. “Reinforced titanium.”
“How do you know that?” Fiona asked.
“My ability is to absorb information and understand it. But that doesn’t necessarily have to be from books; it can also be from items. Things like computers or anything with multiple working parts takes me much longer to understand, but by using items I can figure things out quickly. While there are locks inside this door, the main problem is the runes that are designed to withstand magical force. I sense the number pad is the only way to get inside without serious time and effort on our part. And it’s an eight-digit code, meaning there are millions of combinations.”
Mordred walked over to the number pad, punched in eight digits, and the door slowly moved open.
“How’d you know that?” Nabu asked.
“The most important person in Viktor’s life is Viktor. He used his date of birth.”
“You know his date of birth?” Morgan asked.
“I studied people before I worked with them,” Mordred said quickly, not adding that it gave him leverage over them if needed.
The vault was fifty feet long and thirty feet wide, and had rows of glass cabinets on either side. At the far end of the vault were ten metal cases, each one six feet high and three feet wide. Mordred ignored the glass cabinets and walked straight through to the cases, with Remy and Diana beside him.
“There’s enough cash here to start your own country,” Nabu said after opening one of the glass cabinets and going through the boxes it contained.
“Diamonds over here,” Fiona said.
“Gold in this one,” Morgan replied. “There’s millions and millions of pounds’ worth of gems and precious metals here. That’s not including the cash.”
Mordred pulled open the first case while Diana and Remy did the same with different ones.
“That’s a lot of weapons,” Remy said. “Rifles, handguns, shotguns.”
“I’ve got some grenades,” Diana said. “And by some, I mean a lot.”
Mordred stared at the submachine guns and rifles that had been neatly hung in the case. Below it stacks of ammunition sat in their various calibers, each one in a different-colored box.
“Take what we need,” Diana said. “Leave the money and gems—we don’t need cash.”
“No,” Mordred said, and then realized he’d said it more forcefully than he meant to. He turned to Diana. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap, but no. Take everything here, including money and gems, up to the front room of the house. Stack it all there.”
“Why?” Diana asked.
“Because we might actually need cash to bribe people with, and diamonds and gold work better for people who don’t like to be traced,” Mordred lied.