you again, Nathan.'
'You, too, Doc, although this isn't exactly how I thought I'd be spending my day.'
'On that, we can agree,' he said with a forced smile. 'Forty-seven dead down here-a further eighteen upstairs in the library, it's quite the display of brutality.'
'Were they all killed in the same way?'
'Partially eaten, yes. But that's not all. I believe Director Green has something to show you in the main hall. You may wish to steady yourself for what you'll see there.'
'Olivia said the same thing about what happened in here, how much worse can it get?'
'Ah, Nathan, now you know it can always get much, much worse.'
More people arrived to help clean up, or tag the bodies, or whatever horrific job they needed to do, and I for one was happy to leave them to it.
'You never answered my question,' I said to Agent Reid, who'd received the information he'd needed and had left the hall with me via the nearest door.
'I can't really sit on my ass all day when there's someone out there doing this,' Reid said, removing the shoe coverings from his boots and placing them, and his blue latex gloves, in a yellow hazard bag that had been left outside the hall.
I removed my own covers and shoved them in the bag, then used fire magic to heat up my hands, burning off any blood that might have remained on my fingertips.
'Nice trick,' Agent Reid said.
'It's sort of depressing that I need a trick to get rid blood on my hands.'
'You think what we're about to see really is worse than that?' he pointed to the hall behind us.
I didn't answer right away. Instead we followed the directions of several agents who said Olivia was searching for me, until we came to a room that was guarded by two more LOA agents. They moved aside to let us in, and I immediately realised that I was wrong. It could get worse.
The room we entered housed a large TV, a pool table, and a few other games for the inmates to enjoy, including a collapsible table tennis set that had been folded in half with someone inside still it, crushing the man to death. Three massive couches had been upturned and thrown to the sides, exposing a large, empty section of floor. A lone arm, torn off from the shoulder, sat in the very centre in a pool of blood.
At the far end of the room, the TV had been torn from the wall and tossed aside. In its place was a body. Or at least the remains of one. Two pool cue ends protruded out of his chest, and blood had sprayed from his torso where his arms should have been, drenching the wall in red on either side of him. Identification was difficult since the victim’s head was missing.
'What the fuck happened here?' I asked, not sure if I wanted to know.
Olivia turned away from talking to one of her agents. 'The best Doctor Grayson can determine is that, Neil was nailed to the wall by those pool cues, after having his arms and his head ripped off and thrown into the nearest bin.'
' That's Neil Hatchell?'
Olivia nodded.
'So, the lich did this,' I said. 'But how? Surely Neil would have transformed to at least fight back. He'd have still lost, but there'd be more evidence of a struggle.'
Olivia passed me a clear bag containing a bracelet. 'This is how.'
'A sorcerer's band? You mean he couldn't defend himself?'
'We had to make him wear one. He was in a human prison, we couldn't exactly have him running around turning into a wolf whenever he liked.'
'Why was he in a human prison at all?'
'He implicated members of Avalon. We had to put him somewhere anyone involved wouldn't find him. Looks like it didn't work.'
'I hate these damn things.' Sorcerer bands were narrow bracelets with runes etched into the silver, which prevented the wearer from accessing their abilities. Neil would still have been fast and strong, and his innate ability to heal wouldn't have changed, but he wouldn't have been able to access his wolf form at all. I'd worn a sorcerer's bracelet for a while a long time ago, and it had felt like I'd lost a part of myself. They're horrific things, and to compound my dislike, each one has a rune inscribed that sits against the wearer's skin. If the band is removed by the wearer, or by someone else with a band on, the runes ignite with the equivalent of magical napalm. The rune can be changed depending on what will hurt the specific person the most, but the end result is always the same. Death.
'You and me both,' Olivia said.
'Wow, this is not what I was expecting.'
I turned at the sound of the newcomer's voice, watching as LOA Agents darted to the room's entrance, barring her from entering.
'It's okay, she's with me,' I said, and the guards parted.
'Nate, it's been a while,' she said with a smile, sweeping past the guards without a glance, her high-heeded boots clicking on the linoleum floor.
'And you are?' Olivia asked, taking the bagged bracelet back from me and passing it to a nearby agent.
'Ah, you must be Director Green. I've been sent here to assist you with your lich problem.'
'Olivia,' I said. 'Let me introduce Sky. She's our necromancer.'
Olivia's expression softened and she shook Sky's hand. 'Good to have you on board. I hope we can figure out how to kill this thing.'
'I'll be doing that,' Sky said. 'The lich killing, I mean. But first bring me up to speed on what happened here, and why that man has no head.'
For the next few minutes we did just that, explaining about the ghoul attack on the prison, and everything that came before it. Sky didn't ask questions, but occasionally glanced at the headless body as it was removed from the wall by some of Doctor Grayson's men.
'This lich is strong,' Sky said when we'd finished. 'I heard that you killed a ghoul with magic, Nate. The lich will want revenge for what you did, you should be careful.'
'Then we'd better hurry up and kill it,' I said. 'What's the plan?'
'How many prisoners are unaccounted for?' Sky asked Olivia.
'Nearly four hundred.'
'Then we've got a few hours before we'll have to deal with four hundred new barren as well as a lich and probably five ghouls. Not great odds.'
Another agent called Olivia over and she quickly ran off to find out what they needed.
'I've been wondering something,' I said to Sky. 'How did four hundred men disappear at once? Where'd they go? And how did the lich get them there without a fight?'
'You kill a few of those who want to fight back, and everyone else becomes very complacent. Besides the thought of freedom is a big motivator,' Sky suggested.
'How many guards are missing?' I asked one of the agents.
She flicked through several sheets of paper on a clipboard before answering. 'Twenty-two, ten are confirmed dead and fifteen were locked in the comm or guard's room. Apparently there was no communication with the outside world for an hour, and all internal alarm systems were shut down. One of the guard's wives got worried that she couldn't get through to her husband on his mobile and called the police. The police notified us two hours later, and we gained entry and secured the building an hour after arriving.'
'Why let any of the guards live?' Sky asked.
'They were on a break,' the agent said. 'They weren't in the wing when the attack commenced. My guess is they locked themselves in to stay alive, and they weren't important enough for the lich to bother with.'
I did some quick maths in my head. 'I need to speak to Olivia. Now.'
'What's got you all worked up?' Agent Reid asked, as Sky and I made our way over to him and Olivia.
'They were in here for an hour before anyone was even notified that something was wrong,' I said. 'What time did you actually gain entry?'
'Half eight this morning,' Olivia said.
