“Fuck you,” he spat.
I shot him twice in the head and put another bullet in the skull of the attacker who was still whimpering on the other side of the door. In the hallway there was a man emerging from under the darkness of the staircase, his gun rising up toward me. I shot him twice in the chest, but the vest must have stopped the bullets, as he continued to struggle, grabbing hold of my gun hand and trying to force the gun aside. A second man walked through the front door as I headbutted the struggling man, who released my hand, letting me use my gun on the newcomer. I twisted to the side of the attacker while he was dazed, bending his arm until it broke, letting me shoot him in the head with his own gun.
More shots upstairs took my attention, and after reloading my gun, I took the steps two at a time, only to find four dead bodies in the hallway above.
“Another couple of cars turned up,” Brooke said as she walked toward me. She was bleeding down her arm but had swapped the gun to her other hand.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Shoulder took a round when it hit the window and changed direction. It’s just a flesh wound.”
“And Jess?” I asked.
“I’m good,” Jess called out shakily. “Got three trying to climb up to the window.”
“How many did you get?” Brooke asked. “We heard a lot of shooting.”
“Twelve or thirteen; I stopped counting,” I told her to looks of shock from Brooke and Jess.
Before either of them could say anything, a scream from the front lawn took everyone’s attention, and we rushed to the window that overlooked the front of the house. Orestes stood with a gun against the head of a middle-aged man I didn’t recognize.
“That’s Fred,” Jess said. “He’s our neighbor.”
“Come on out, everyone,” Orestes shouted. “Or this kindly man gets to bleed out all over your driveway.”
“I have to,” Jess said.
“We do, yes,” I said. “When it’s time—you’ll know when—get Fred.”
“What are you going to do?” Brooke asked when we got to the bottom of the stairs.
“Piss off a sorcerer,” I said with a smile. “Jess, I need you to go out first. I want Orestes to focus on you until I come out.”
Jess nodded and stepped outside.
“That’s right, Jessica,” Orestes said. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Where’s your boy?”
“Safe,” Jess said.
“We’re going to need him,” Orestes said, tightening his grip on the back of the neck of a clearly terrified Fred.
“You okay, Fred?” Jess asked as she continued to move around Orestes.
“Came to see what was going on,” Fred said. “Kind of wish I’d stayed in bed.”
“You’ll be fine,” I said, stepping out of the house, my gun at my hip.
Orestes turned to look at me, the expression on his face changing as he recognized me.
“You’re dead,” Orestes whispered in horror.
“You first,” I said and shot him in the face.
Fred practically threw himself toward Jess as I walked over to a still-moving Orestes and emptied the gun into his chest.
“Is he dead?” Jess asked.
I shook my head and removed two of the silver serrated knives from under my belt.
“Did you forget normal bullets can’t kill me?” Orestes asked, his voice raspy.
“How long will it be before you heal?” I asked, kneeling beside him. “An hour, two?”
“When they find out that you’re alive,” Orestes said, “when Hera and Arthur realize that you’re here . . . they’re going to take pleasure in turning this entire town and everyone in it to molten slag.”
“Probably,” I said. “So better make sure they don’t.” I drove one of the silver knives into his chest.
Orestes screamed in pain, dropping back to the ground and writhing around.
“They’re not exactly made for killing sorcerers,” I said, turning the other knife over. “But in a pinch, they’ll do. Bet it hurts.”
“I do not fear death,” Orestes hissed at me.
I dropped down over Orestes’s chest. “Do you fear pain?” I grabbed the handle of the knife and twisted, causing the centuries-old sorcerer to scream. “The bullets and now the silver means you’re too weak to actually use your magic. And you were never that powerful in the first place. Any chance you’ll answer my questions?”
“Arthur is going to rip off your head and fuck your skull.”
“Now, that’s an image I could have done without,” I said with a sigh. “You manipulated Mordred all those years ago to try and kill me, didn’t you?”
Orestes nodded. “You knew?”
“I do now. I assume Mordred didn’t know.”
“Not for thousands of years. Once he was reborn, he tried to kill me, though. Didn’t do a very good job.”
“I’ll do better.” I drove the second silver knife into his eye, killing him instantly.
Brooke’s mouth hung open in shock, and Jess’s eyes were wide. “What the hell?” Brooke asked.
“He’s a sorcerer,” I said. “Or was. Fred, you need to go home, and it would probably be best not to talk about this to anyone.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to be a problem,” Fred said, walking away.
“You think he’ll keep it to himself?” Jess asked.
“He’s in shock,” I said, removing a mobile phone from Orestes’s pocket and calling Chris.
“Who is this?” Chris asked.
“It’s me. We have a problem,” I told him and gave him the address and a rough description of what had happened.
Jess went to check on Simon, and I told Brooke to make sure that no one left the house while I waited for Chris to arrive, which he did twenty minutes later, followed by a white Ford Transit van.
Chris stopped his Chevy pickup near me, got out, and looked down at the bodies of Orestes and Sheriff King. “Fucking hell,” Chris said. “He was a good guy.”
“Sheriff King?” I asked. “He tried to warn us about them coming, but we saw him shaking hands with Robert Saunders.”
“Yeah, he was trying to figure out what the KOA wanted, and unfortunately, that meant having to play friends. There was a cop of his that he was trying to get put undercover too. The deputy who you nearly went for at the station? His name is Devlin Harper.”
I was genuinely surprised. “He plays his part well.”
“Yeah, he does. We’re going to have to get him out of danger now. And by ‘we,’ I do not mean you.”
“The Kuros and Brooke are all inside still. Their neighbor Fred got involved. He’s alive, but he’s pretty shook up and probably needs talking to.”
Two men and a woman got out of the Ford Transit. They all wore military gear and carried MP5s.
“Cleanup crew?” I asked.
Chris nodded. “Something like that. They’re here to make sure that the cleanup crew doesn’t go crazy.”
The woman walked to the rear of the Transit and opened the doors, and two large white men got out. They were both bald, with metal masks fixed across their mouths. Metal bands inscribed with ancient dwarven runes sat on both men’s wrists. Sorcerers’ bands to prevent people from using their abilities. Anyone trying to rip one off without the key got incinerated in seconds. I hated the things.