“I know he was a cruel, vindictive tyrant, but he was my brother. And while we weren’t of the same blood, we were the same in so many other ways. I know it sounds stupid, but I feel sorrow that he’s gone. Not even Asmodeus could survive having his head cut off. They shackled him, bled him, and killed him, stuffing his soul in a jar. The elves aren’t exactly the benevolent good guys from the stories, but I didn’t expect his end to be like this. I thought he’d go out in a blaze of glory. I shouldn’t be sad, but I am. I’m sad for all of the lost opportunities. It probably sounds strange.”
“He was your brother. No matter how evil and cruel he was, he was still your brother. I understand completely. I felt the same about Mordred for the longest time. And it took him repeatedly trying to kill me for me to get over it.”
“He knew I betrayed his cause. He knew I had no interest in a rebellion. I told him so myself, and he told me that the next time he saw me, he’d kill me. He’d have tried, too. I just wish I could have killed him myself all those years ago; it would have saved a lot of death and destruction.”
“You can’t think like that,” I said. “You can’t say that it would have changed anything. If Asmodeus hadn’t been alive, maybe someone else would have come along to do the things he did. More than enough people have tried over the years, and at some point someone was going to achieve their goal of being a murderous bastard.”
“If Asmodeus is dead, who is Abaddon taking orders from?”
“I did wonder that myself. I honestly have no idea. Who would Abaddon feel was above her?”
“No one. She answered to Asmodeus, and that was it. Even after the rebellion, she had to be sent away to an unpopulated realm because she refused to work with anyone else. She just doesn’t think anyone but the most powerful should be in charge. Survival of the fittest in its purest form.”
“Doesn’t that mean Asmodeus wasn’t fit enough?”
“Who knows? Abaddon isn’t exactly what you’d call predictable. It’s what makes her such a terrifying opponent. I haven’t had to fight in centuries. And since you came into my life, I’ve had to almost fight on several occasions. And now I’m fighting again, using my magic again. They’re going to know I’m here now. They’re going to come here to find me. There’s no going back to Grayson after this.”
“Isn’t this better? To be yourself, I mean?”
Lucifer shrugged. “Maybe. The jury is still out on that one.” He got to his feet and looked over at me. “Once this is all done, if there’s anything left of that jar, we need to find and destroy it. Asmodeus’s soul is too powerful, too dangerous to just leave lying around.”
“We will, but first things first. Let’s find Lee and make sure he’s not Asmodeus’s reincarnation, or however that works.”
“You know, if he is that, it means someone out there has access to his soul. A month ago someone broke in here, opened the tomb, and took Asmodeus’s body. Leonardo said they hadn’t seen a vase, but maybe he knows something else about it.”
Lucifer and I walked through the mountain, meeting Leonardo and Antonio outside. We waited while they sealed the entrance.
“I’m curious: What if Lee’s not forthcoming about the answers you need?” Antonio asked.
“If I remember Lee O’Hara well enough,” I said, “he’ll be tripping over himself to gloat about how smart he is.”
The four of us began to walk back toward the city of Solomon. “Why is it that everyone who hates you is coming out of the woodwork?” Lucifer asked.
“I wondered that myself,” I said. “I really wish I had an answer, but whatever it is, at some point they’re going to start running out of people to send to kill me.”
“Or they’re going to get lucky,” Leonardo said.
I looked over at Leonardo. “Thanks for that. Always nice to have friends standing behind you.”
“Nate, if there’s anyone who can overcome these odds it’s you, but just once wouldn’t you prefer it if you weren’t in the middle of the storm?”
“I get the impression that’s a fantasy, a dream that won’t come true. Too many people want me dead. Too many people will go through my friends or innocents to achieve that goal. Maybe when we’re done with all of this, we can hope for some semblance of peace and quiet.”
“You’d get bored,” Lucifer said.
“Yeah, but when people are after me, every day has to be my best day. That’s the kind of thing that starts to exhaust after a while. Maybe I just need a few years off. A holiday. A nice long holiday in some remote little place where no one can find me.”
“You’d still get bored,” Lucifer said. “Or trouble would find you anyway. It seems to have that habit.”
I smiled. He had a point: trouble and I did go arm in arm.
CHAPTER 26
Nate Garrett
The forest at the northern part of the city of Solomon was big enough that some Earth-realm cities could have been placed in the middle of it and lost forever. It took several days to get from one end to the other, but we didn’t have that kind of time.
Fortunately Galahad’s people had been tracking Lee since he fled after he’d commenced his killing spree. He’d murdered several guards in his escape from the city and had laughed the whole time he was tearing them apart. Lee was always unhinged—he once beat a man almost to death for bumping into him—but that was over the line even for him. With great power might come great responsibility, but for some people, with great power comes a need to use that power to hurt everyone. Lee definitely fell into the latter group.
“So, do you wish you’d just killed him?” Harrison asked me as we walked toward the destination where his recon troops had said they’d seen Lee.
“Yes,” I replied, not really wanting to dwell on the subject. “How long before we find him?”
“It’s about an hour away, apparently. My people say he’s in some old ruins not too far from the city.”
“Elven ruins?”
“Apparently so. At least that’s what Leonardo says they are. He found the entrance about a year ago while trying to figure out if there was any more evidence for this place once being a shadow-elf realm.”
I spotted several of Harrison’s men off in the front. There were fifty of them, along with Lucifer, Zamek, and Selene. Selene had taken to the sky to try and track Lee from above, but she wasn’t having a lot of luck, judging from the fact that she’d been up there an hour.
“So, I need to ask you something,” I said to Harrison. “Are we good? I know you punched me, and you had me locked up, and that was all to make it look good, but are we good?”
“Sure, why not? I’m sure you’re not involved with whatever is happening. And if you are, I’ll kill you.” Harrison walked away, leaving me alone, which was probably for the best considering how frustrating it was to deal with him.
“He really doesn’t like you an awful lot, does he?” Selene said after landing beside me.
“He’s not a fan, no.”
“When this is over, however long that takes, I think we should go away somewhere remote and relax.”
“Remote? Like a desert island in the middle of nowhere?”
“I was thinking like a realm in the middle of nowhere.”
“I’m sure we can arrange something.”
She took my hand in hers and squeezed slightly. “If it comes down to it, and you have to kill Helios, will you do it?”