“Hello, Mordred,” a voice sounded from hidden speakers around the floor. “You’re probably wondering what’s happening.”
“I’m wondering why I don’t just tear through this place like it’s made of paper.”
“We can hear you, just so you know.”
“Good. Go fuck yourselves.”
“Funny little sorcerer. This is my playpen. I bring humans down here and force them to run the maze. If they can get through it to where you stand, they can use the door you came through to escape. Want to guess how many escape?”
“They’re just opening doors, so I’m going to guess all of them. Unless you pick people who are unable to open doors, but that’s a really small population. Maybe you put key emblems on the doors like Resident Evil. You know if you do that, I’m going to find those keys and make you eat them. I hate those bloody puzzles.”
“Do you ever shut up? I assure you it’s not so easy to escape when one of my pack is chasing them.”
“Ah, Daria, it is you. And you are in charge. You know I’m going to find you, and I’m going to be really annoyed if I have to run around this stupid maze. Just give me Viktor, and tell me where Elaine is, and I’m almost certain I’ll let you live.”
Daria laughed. “I’ve left you a surprise in the maze. Think you can find it?”
“I hate it when psychopaths think they’re funny.” Mordred opened a nearby door and walked into the room beyond. Another identical room, and another three doors. Mordred really wanted to punch someone.
He did this for a few minutes, leaving the doors he’d gone through open as he made his way into the maze, finding himself in a dead end on more than one occasion. He got fed up at one point and tried to destroy the walls and doors with air magic, but the air harmlessly dissipated. There were splatters of blood in more than one room, and claw marks in a few. The werewolves hunted in here. Mordred wondered if the enclosed fear that the victims must have been going through somehow made the hunt all the sweeter. The thought made Mordred feel even more anger toward the pack.
He eventually opened a door that led to a room identical to all the others, except for the man tied to a chair in the middle. He was bathed in blood, with dozens of cuts and wounds over his naked body. He whimpered slightly at the sound of the door opening.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Mordred said. “I’m going to try and get you out of here.” Mordred moved around the man and used his air magic to cut through the plastic ties holding the man’s limbs to the chair.
The man pulled up the blindfold and stared at Mordred.
Mordred had seen that expression more than once on people who just realized who he was. “Who are you?”
“My name is Gareth Borne. I came to Moscow with Elaine. I was one of her security team.”
“Where’s Elaine?”
“They took her. The tracking device was on her earring, and one of the werewolves tore it off her and threw it on the floor. I picked it up and . . . and took it.”
“You swallowed it, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “Not at first. At first they just left me in my cell, so I just held it in my mouth. It needs contact with a living person to work.”
“They tortured you, you swallowed it, and now I’m here.”
“Elaine said you’d come for her. She was going to use the tracking device to watch someone else.”
“Yep, that’s me, the happy guy who just traipsed across a continent to find someone who happened to be you. Where did they take Elaine?”
“Siberia.”
Mordred put his head in his hands. “Are you shitting me? Siberia is a damn big place. Want to narrow it down a little?”
Gareth shook his head. “Sorry.”
“Okay, what are you?”
“I’m a fire elemental. I’m four hundred years old, so I know what I’m doing.”
“Why didn’t you break free?”
“They forced me to swallow a small stone. It had a glyph on it. It was only about the size of a Tylenol tablet, but I can’t access my power at all. They’ve forced me to take a new one every day for the week I’ve been here.”
“Great, so you’re useless until you take a shit. I’m not sure we have that long. You got any idea where the exit is?”
“No, but there’s something you should know.”
“And that is?”
The door behind Mordred slammed shut, followed by a hissing noise as the room became sealed. A second later a noise from above sounded like someone switching on the central heating, and soon Gareth started choking. Mordred immediately mixed his water and air magical glyphs, just before Gareth dropped to his knees. A second later he was unconscious on the floor.
“That’s not going to work,” Mordred called out. “Daria, this is pointless.” He waited for a few seconds before raising his arms. “You don’t know much about sorcerers, I assume. No? Well, a few of us can mix our elements. It’s very exciting; fire and air makes lightning, water and earth makes these awesome little golem things, and earth and fire does magma. Amazing stuff really, but it’s all very flashy. Air and water is a little less flashy, but sort of more useful in my current circumstances. It lets me breathe. Anywhere. In any situation. A gas-filled room, in water, in a vacuum—I can breathe and talk just like normal. Funny when you think about it. I’m sure you didn’t know I could do that, but now you do, so you might want to forgo the gas, as it’s basically just wasting money for you at this point.”
Mordred glanced down at an unmoving Gareth. He took his pulse and found nothing. “You didn’t need to do that,” Mordred said.
“Funny, though, isn’t it,” Daria said. “Angry yet, Mordred?”
Mordred walked over to the far door and placed a hand on it. The dwarven runes on the door made it impossible for his magic to open it, but that just made him angrier. “Open the fucking door.”
“Let’s wait, shall we.”
Mordred closed his eyes and resigned himself to what was going to happen next. He walked back to Gareth and placed his hand on his chest, allowing his light magic to try and heal him, but nothing happened. Mordred needed to be sure; he needed to be totally certain that Gareth was already dead.
“Isn’t that just wasting your time?” Daria asked.
Mordred removed the dagger he’d kept with him and slit Gareth’s throat, cutting through the artery and placing his hands on the fresh blood that spilled from it. Gareth was dead, so it didn’t pump freely, but there was enough for it to meet his needs. He’d considered using his own blood, but using someone else’s was more potent, and he didn’t want to exhaust himself by using his own energy to power his magic.
When his hands were covered in Gareth’s blood, Mordred walked back over to the door and used the blood to paint a rune on it. “Open it,” he said. “Last chance.”