“It’s not exactly flowing water, but it’s better than nothing,” Diana told Mac before turning back to Mordred. “The others are mopping up. These were almost entirely humans. I recognized a few more of those escaped prisoners from The Hole. What the hell is going on here?”
“Where’s Alan?” Fiona asked after sprinting up to the group, with Remy and Morgan jogging behind her.
“Fiona,” Mordred began, but Fiona shoved him aside and ran into the prison building.
For several minutes they all stood outside and waited, until Fiona re-emerged and saw Mac slowly getting to his feet. Apart from the dried blood on his face, he appeared almost normal.
“Where’s Alan?” she snapped.
“He escaped a few hours ago,” Mac said, and picked up a handful of snow, rubbing it over his face.
“Escaped? What the fuck does that mean?” Fiona asked.
“Fiona,” Diana said softly.
“No,” Fiona snapped, raising her hand in Diana’s direction but not turning back to face her. “Where is my fucking husband, Mac?”
“I don’t know,” Mac said. “That’s why they’ve been kicking the shit out of me. We were the last two left alive and decided to make a break for it. He’d stolen a key a few days ago, and we used it to get out of the cells, but we got grabbed. I held them off while he ran. Like I told Mordred, I think he’ll have gone up to the mountain. It’s where Elaine is.”
Fiona looked around at everyone and nodded before walking off.
“Shit,” Remy said. “So, we’re not done here?”
“Since when have things ever been that easy?” Diana asked him. “Besides, I’d really like to find out exactly what is going on here.”
“I’ll come with you,” Wei said. “I’d like to find out the truth, too. Besides, I think you’re going to need all of the help you can get.”
“Me, too,” Mac said as he tried on the clothes of another dead guard. “I want some payback, and more than that, I just need to finish this mission. Elaine is up there. I was meant to help find her, and instead I got captured and tortured. I can’t go home without knowing I did everything possible to fix that.” He picked up an SG 553 and checked the ammo. “Silver rounds. They might have been human, but they were armed to kill us.”
“And what a wonderful job they did,” Morgan said.
Mordred heard the gunshot almost immediately after Morgan dropped to her knees. Mordred felt like he was moving in slow motion as he ran toward Morgan, who was already on her back, her face pained, her eyes registering the shock of the bullet that had struck her.
Mordred covered Morgan’s body with his own and created a shield of dense air, just as the second bullet struck it.
Diana was picking up Mac and running with him back into the prison building, where Remy and Fiona were already heading. Mordred picked up Morgan and with Wei’s help followed the others. They descended the steps, and Mac opened one of the doors with keys he’d found in a guard’s pocket.
“It’s where they brought us to help heal,” Mac said, helping Mordred place Morgan on a bed before using scissors to cut away her jacket, revealing the blood-soaked clothes beneath it. “Mordred, you need to step back. She’s been hit in the chest.”
Mordred placed his hands where the wound was, and his light magic ignited, but nothing happened.
“I don’t understand,” he said, feeling completely helpless.
“We’ll figure it out, but I need to examine her first,” Mac said.
“Save her,” Mordred said, walking to the door.
“Where are you going?” Fiona asked.
“I’m going to find who did this and make them understand their mistake.” He turned back toward her, and she almost recoiled.
“Your eyes,” Diana said. “It’s like Nate.”
Mordred turned away.
“I’ll join you,” Wei said. “I know the forest around here.”
Mordred nodded and left the room. He didn’t care who joined him in his hunt, so long as they didn’t get in the way. He wasn’t good at waiting around and watching people die; he needed to be doing something. And that something meant spilling the blood of those involved. No matter how much he’d changed over the years, that was something that had remained inside of him.
“Mordred, wait,” Diana called as he walked down the corridor toward the stairs.
Mordred paused. “Don’t try to stop me.”
“I’m not. I’m trying to tell you there was no scent from the forest above. If I’d have smelled something, no one would have gotten close enough to fire. So, they were either too far away for me to get a scent, which makes it an exceptionally good shot, or . . .”
“Or what?” Wei asked.
“Or, do you remember that Nate said something about a sniper killing people and leaving no scent behind?” Diana said. “A witch. The same witch Nate and Tommy said was working with Mara Range, you remember her?”
“The woman who made the tablet that let us into the dwarf realm, I remember,” Mordred said. “You think the witches are here? That they’re helping to keep Elaine prisoner?”
“Mara Range has more than a few links to Hera. And whoever took Elaine had to have a lot of power.”
“No witch has that kind of power.”
Diana nodded. “But Hera does.”
“I don’t care who’s up there right now, Diana. I’m going to find who shot Morgan. If I have to go through Hera to get to them, so be it.” He began to ascend the stairs again.
“Don’t do anything to get yourself killed,” Diana called after him as he continued to climb the stairs without listening to her. “Damn you, Mordred.”
Mordred waited at the entrance to the prison. He was grateful that his magic returned to him halfway up the staircase. He poured air magic out of the prison, manipulating it to go up above the building toward the edge of the cliff, but it was too far and there was no way he could use his magic to reach where Diana had suspected the shot had come from.
“Let me,” Wei said. She moved her hand, and a nine-tailed fox appeared on the ground just outside the prison. It ran over to where Morgan had been shot and then sprinted across the clearing to a building on the other side, close to where the path up the cliff face started.
Mordred wrapped himself in dense air and stepped outside. If the shooter had used a silver bullet, his magic wouldn’t have stopped the second shot from hitting earlier. That meant the bullet that had hit Morgan might also have not been silver, which meant despite how bad the wound might be, and how much blood she’d lost, she had a good chance of making it. Mordred pushed the thoughts of Morgan’s survival aside and had made it two paces when he extended the shield and looked up at the cliff face.
“They’ve gone,” Wei said. “If Diana is correct, how do we hunt someone who leaves no scent?”
“I have no idea,” Mordred admitted. He sprinted across the clearing toward the cliff, putting his back against the jagged rocks that made up its face. The run up the pathway was done as quickly as Mordred was able, using his air magic to increase his speed as much as he could as Wei kept up with seemingly little effort.