then just sat there. My initial thought was that someone had heard that Hellequin was back, and decided to take a shot at me.
I stepped out onto my porch and leaned against one of the wooden posts, as I wondered how long I was going to be made to wait, but someone was making a point.
A short time later the car stated moving again, eventually parking with the driver's side door facing me. It opened a few seconds later, and Reid stepped out into the cool air.
I suppressed my initial instinct to kill him. He was working for someone, and I wanted to know who.
'Nathan,' Reid said with enough smugness that I immediately regretted not blowing his car up. 'I'm sorry it took so long to get to you, but I've been very busy dealing with the fact that you stopped Peter. You pissed off a lot of people with that.'
'Good, they deserved to be pissed off.' I stepped out from under the porch. 'You feel like telling me who those people are?'
'It's your lucky day. I'm here to take you to them. I think I'll even get some rewards for bringing you in. Dead or alive, though, I'd prefer the latter.'
'They can't interrogate a dead person, right?'
'Something like that. Personally I'd like to kill you. You impersonated one of the Faceless and that can't go without punishment.'
'Your bosses don't know you're here, do they?'
'How perceptive. No I kept that information to myself. I wanted to surprise them. Besides if I'd told them what I was going to do, they'd have sent far too many people to get in my way.'
'You have a plan, I assume.'
Reid stepped forward and shook off his jacket, revealing a white t-shirt beneath. 'I invoke the accords.'
'I'm sorry, what?'
'I heard about you and that werewolf. Clearly you're a man of honour and I want to make sure you don't die. If I use my abilities to take you in, it may take too long. A one-on-one fight between the two of us will be short, I assure you.'
'No powers, no weapons, just you and me?'
'I win, you'll be unconscious. You win, I'll tell you what you want to know.'
'You're very sure of yourself.'
'You have to agree, you have no other options.'
'Actually, I can think of one,' I told him, and then shot him in the throat.
Reid crumpled to the ground, holding the wound in his neck as blood pumped through his fingers. I walked toward him and placed the gun on the roof of his car. I'd grabbed the Heckler and Koch from the table near the front door on my way out to greet my guest, just in case.
'You're a fucking idiot. You think you can come to my house and quote the accords? I don't live by the accords. The only reason I didn't tear Randal into tiny bite-sized chunks was because following the accords was better than not at the time.' I searched Reid's pockets and found his mobile. 'Which number is your boss?'
Reid made a noise that sounded like pleading.
'I shot you with a silver round. You'll die from it without help, but you have a few minutes yet. You answer my question truthfully, and I may help you live to see the sunset.'
He held up three fingers and I hit speed dial 3. I held the phone to my ear and waited for it to be answered.
'So, can I assume you completed whatever you needed to do?' a male voice asked.
'No, he's currently bleeding to death all over my driveway,' I told him.
'Mister Garrett, I assume,' the man said without bothering to keep his disdain from his voice.
'And you're the asshole who sent Reid to infiltrate the LOA and then betray them. He got a lot of good people killed, and hurt a lot of people I care about. I assume you won't be telling me your name.'
'You have no need to know it, but you should know that Mister Reid will tell you nothing.'
'I know, he's a member of the Faceless and they're all tough and never betray their master, but he was pretty quick to tell me which number was yours.'
'I never said I was his master.'
'That's true, and that also means that you can give Reid's master a message for me.'
'Are you going to threaten me, Mister Garrett? You have no idea who I am. And certainly no idea whom I work for.'
'And you clearly have no idea who I am.' I put my hand over the mouthpiece and bent down to whisper into Reid's ear. 'I'm Hellequin.'
I stood up under the watchful terror of the injured man.
'Your pet Faceless now knows who I am, and I think he just shat himself.'
'You're making a grave mist…'
'Shut up and listen to me, you pompous ass. You can come after me as much as you like, you can send assassin after assassin to do your dirty work, and I'll send them back to you in tiny boxes. You can bankroll a serial killer and pull strings to get a psychopath released from prison. Hell, you can even buy him a nice penthouse and let him do whatever he wants. But if you ever come after people I care about again, I will hunt you down. And I assure you that by the end of our time together, you will have a very personal view of exactly who I am.'
I picked up the gun up and aimed it at Reid. 'You tried to get my best friend and his daughter killed. You murdered your own partner and betrayed everyone who counted on you.' I put two silver rounds into his forehead, killing him instantly.
'You're going to need a new pet,' I told the man on the phone. 'And if our paths ever cross, you're going to need a whole lot more than him.' I crushed the phone with air magic and tossed the remains over Reid's body, before walking off to make a call of my own. I needed a piece of crap removed from my drive.
