Reign of Evil

The man who would be King Arthur reached out.

Walker sidestepped. “I don’t think so.” He knew what it was trying to do. If he let it touch him, the Tuatha could transfer, then it would probably make him kill himself.

King Arthur turned and ran.

Walker spied a spear on the ground. He snatched it up, brought it back behind his head, ran forward a few steps, and threw it. The spear went true, piercing the back of the man, sending him careening to the ground. His crown fell free and rolled several feet before it came to rest at a pair of high-heeled feet.

Sassy Moore reached down and picked it up. She looked at it, wrinkled her nose, and tossed it over her shoulder.

“Don’t touch him,” Walker warned.

She pulled a bag from her cargo pocket, opened it, and dribbled it along the ground until King Arthur was surrounded with a circle of what appeared to be white dust. “The other Tuatha ran. I’ll not let this one get away. This is bone dust from the Giant of Castlenau and it has trapped you in this place.” Her voice was ragged from use but contained a power that compelled. “Hold my hand, Walker. I need your anger.”

He gave her his right hand and she took it with her left. Her right hand began to manipulate the air. She began to speak in guttural German.

He stood watching, noticing when the figure on the ground began to writhe, legs and arms beating against the ground. Walker focused his entire being on his anger for the murders of Jen and Trevor and everyone else who’d lost their lives in this attempt at a white hegemony. He focused on Preeti and knew how terrible she’d felt at Trevor’s death, knowing it because he’d owned the very same feeling. He thought of Jen and their last night together, how he’d swept a stray hair from her forehead right before he kissed her. He focused on it all, letting memory after memory after memory shoot through him and into Sassy Moore to fuel her spell, until he was once again face-to-face with Jen’s soul-forged hound of the Wild Hunt. His hand now felt like it was holding on to an electrical current. He couldn’t let go of the witch even if he wanted to. Sobs ripped from him as he screamed at the creature in the circle. Soon he couldn’t hear anything except for his own shouts of outrage.

Then there was silence.

He realized that his eyes had slammed shut.

He opened them and saw that only black ash remained in the circle of white.

Sassy pulled at her hand. “You can let go of me now.”

He opened his hand and stared at it.

She put her other hand on his shoulder. “You loved her terribly, didn’t you, son?”

He nodded dumbly.

“She’s in a good place now, thanks to you.”

He felt the truth of her words. He closed his eyes once more. An image of Jen flashed and held in his mind. She was smiling. He smiled back at her. She waved and turned and was enveloped by light.

Hands gripped him.

He turned to find YaYa and Yank.

“Come on, bro.” Yank pointed toward the helicopter. “We’ve got to get Laws to a hospital.”

Walker realized the battle was over.

He let himself be pulled until he was running with them.

“Anyone else get hurt?” he asked.

“Nah.” YaYa flashed a grin. “Just all of us.”

“You’ll be okay,” Walker said to Laws as he climbed into the Sikorsky and it took to the air.

Ever the goofball, Laws grinned. “I know. It’s merely a flesh wound.”

EPILOGUE

RAF CHICKSANDS. THREE DAYS LATER.

SEAL Team 666 sat in the main salon of the priory, sipping from mugs of dark local ale. They wore civilian clothes and could have been a group of footballers, if they all weren’t sporting bandages on their arms, faces, heads, and hands.

Sassy Moore had just left after paying her respects to Preeti. Ian and the team had held a private ceremony for Jerry and Trevor, one that had begun with solemn ritual, then ended up a circle of tearful laughter as each of them began to tell story after story of how the two men affected their lives. When Preeti had told her and Trevor’s origin story, Yank and Laws, who hadn’t heard it before, had both cried.

Preeti returned from the ladies’ room at the same time as Ian arrived with a platter of fresh pints.

“What’s the plan now that you’ve been given the building back?” Holmes asked.

“Magerts is coming on as my second. Of the fourteen Marines who survived the battle, eleven have agreed to join us.” Ian passed out the beers, then sat down, bringing his own two-cubed glass of scotch to his lips. He closed his eyes and made a relishing sound. Then he continued. “We still have a long way to go, but it’s a start. The thing about disaster is that it tends to remind people what’s important.”

“And the roundup?”

“Sir MacDonald’s chief of staff rolled and gave MI5 a list of everyone involved. It goes all the way up, including several high-ranking military officials.”

“Was it really that bad?” Walker asked. “Why go to all that effort?”