The Three Kings: Strike

Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.

Disclaimer (2): The iPad is owned by Apple Inc. FaceTime is owned by Apple Inc.

Warning: Mentions of systematic genocide, theft, character death, misgendering, starvation, hallucination/memory loss, gore, suicidal thoughts, and gun violence.

Chapter 9: Ad Interim

"Why 'The Last'?" Seto asks, after Nurnok sends Kuirmet to find them some refreshments. He sits in the chair sitting across the desk from the goblin queen.

Nurnok doesn't answer him right away, instead making a vague clawing motion towards the wall. The stone there shift and molds itself into a series of seats, enough for all of his companions. As they make their way over, Seto makes a fist with his right hand and holds it over his heart in the traditional, silent goblin symbol of thanks. Nurnok makes the corresponding action, a flick of her wrist starting from her temple.

"How much do you know about what happened to us after your death, Pharaoh Seth?" She asks, dark eyes unblinking.

"I know that the line of the Goldsinger lasted for thousands of years, strongly defending its traditions in magical stone and metal work," Seto begins. "I know that your ancestor Ragnuk fought beside King Arthur himself during the Battle of Camhalnn before being cut down by Salazar Slytherin after a duel that lasted for nearly an hour. And I know that the last time we mages had any contact with the line of Lurtet was in 1612, when we allied ourselves one last time in the fight to strike against the wizarding Coalition of Sacred Brothers."

Nurnok takes this information in stride, "I'd say that you know a lot of a man who's been dead since the collapse of the Bronze Age, but then again… You remember your Cycle, don't you?"

Seto raises an eyebrow, "You know of Cyclers, Your Majesty?"

Nurnok grins, all teeth and laugh lines, "It looks like I know something that you don't, Great Pharaoh. I'm pleasantly shocked." She hums, thinking it over, "I'll give you this piece of information for free, then. We all Cycle. Only some are lucky enough to remember."

A ripple of surprise makes its way around the room. Seto does his best not to show any emotional reaction, but his mind is whirling. Gods, it's been so long since we've had magical contacts outside of our own people. How much as magical theory advanced since the wizards went underground?

Instead, he just makes the symbol of thanks once more. Nurnok returns it.

"'Only some of us'?" Seto parrots. "So then, there's been some other point in history that caused those caught up in it to remember?" He thinks about it for a moment. "The Battle at the Lake of Avalon."

"Very good," Nurnok smiles. She pauses, her eyes seeming to unfocus for a moment. When she comes back to reality, she looks at Serenity and says, "You were there. Do you remember a goblin named Kurnoff? He would have lived in the castle."

"I do," Serenity says softly, her smile sweet. "He sang at the Yuletide feast each year. He had a beautiful voice."

Just then, Kuirmet comes back into the room with water and mulled apple cider. He sets the glasses on the the table and asks Seto which he would like.

But before he can answer, Nurnok says, "Kurnoff-" And Serenity gasps, "It appears you have an old friend in our midsts."

Kuirmet blinks up at the queen, who nods her head towards Serenity. He looks at her and smiles so brightly, "Shaloena. I didn't recognize you."

"Kurnoff," she laughs. "It's so good to hear from you again."

"And you, my lady," the goblin takes his hand in his and presses her fingers to his mouth.

Seto's not going to pry, but he thinks that those two have more of a history than is appropriate to discuss in the current company. Serenity's cycles have always been her own, barely spoken of outside of her immediate family.

"We'll catch up later," Kuirmet tells her, before releasing Serenity's hand and bowing low to Nurnok. She dismisses him before turning her gaze back to Seto. Surprisingly, she offers him the sign of thanks this time.

He responds, but asks why.

"Kuirmet's a good friend. And he misses her. A thousand years is a long time to wait," she says wistfully. "Now, where were we? Ahh, yes. The Coalition of Sacred Brothers."

Nurnok straightens her back, "Before I say anything, I need you to know something. Back then… we were fighting a war that we could not win. Even you must have known that." Seto gives her a single blink of acknowledgement, something sinking in his gut. "My ancestor, King Luggus, he is who you made your alliance with, was it not?"

"Yes."

Nurnok shook her head, "Luggus had been in talks with wizarding command for weeks before you reached out to him. But he needed something to hold over them, some form of leverage, because if he didn't… well, we'd live, but we'd get the same deal that the elves settled for after Ravenclaw destroyed their connection to the earth. Enslavement. The bastardization of our magic." She licks her lips, "Luggus did what he had to do."

Seto tries to brace himself for what he knew was coming next, but even then, it feels like a physical blow.

"Luggus played you, played both sides. And he won, in a way," Nurnok tells him. "He sent his own sons to carry out his mission because he could not ask any other goblin family to give up their own children. They took from Isidore Greengrass what we needed. But when it came time to escape, your mage, Tomisław Brzozowski, discovered what they'd done and tried to bury the treasure in the inn with all of them inside. Only Farnar, the youngest of the three, made it out alive.

"Luggus gave the wizards Brzozowski as a sign of good faith that we would not use what he stole from Greengrass. And," Nurnok gestures around her, "here we are."

Seto takes a minute to compose himself, trying to wrap his mind around what he'd just been told. He leans forwards, "Was it worth it?"

Nurnok shrugs, "In some ways, yes. In others, no. But it was the best choice that we had at the time. Pharaoh Seth, they won. They won a long time ago. What Luggus did ensured that, for the last four hundred years, my people have been been able to sleep safely with pockets full of gold. That is more than can be said about yours."

"You never answered my question, though?"

"Oh," Nurnok raises an eyebrow. "Which question was that again?"

"Why are you called 'The Last'?"

Nurnok's mouth tightens and she bites her bottom lip. She's hesitant, Seto thinks. I've caught her off guard.

"Goblin magic is different from the magic of humans," Seto continues. "Whereas mage craft is soul based and wand craft is blood based, goblin magic comes from the hive-mind connection you all share to the line of Lurtet the Goldsinger, the mortal child of Maglubiyet, who was the divine first goblin. As long as his blood remains on this earth, goblin-kind will flourish-"

"Stop," Nurnok holds up a hand. "Just stop."

"If you truly are The Last-"

She cuts him off with a sharp look. Seto gives her thirty seconds.

"You can't prove it, can you?"

"Prove what?"

He sighs, "That they're targeting your family."

Nurnok snorts, "Oh, we can prove it. It's just that no one cares. What gave it away?"

Seto rolls his eyes, "In order to get into this room, you have to pass through a series of hallways that have all been guarded with several very well concealed Death Knell spells, designed to kill all humans within their range at a drop of a hat. You have placed yourself in a room constructed almost solely of stone that you have the power to control. You have Kurnoff, the Scourge of Badon Hill, guarding your door and your husband, the Prince-Consort Srags, at the very gates of Gringotts."

"You don't know he's my husband," Nurnok says quickly.

"Unless goblin weddings have changed drastically in the last four hundred years, the fact that he carries a spear with your family's crest on it means that I'm right," Seto points out. "And finally, the fact that I'm down here, talking to you, getting an audience with the Queen herself, means that you're as desperate as I am right now."

Nurnok lets out a very slow, very controlled breath. When she finally speaks, she says, "Queen Allus."

Seto makes a noise of confusion.

"My older sister. She died in the vaults seven years ago. She fell, the aurors told us," Nurnok admits. "Five years before her, our other sister, Ulnok, was bitten by a chimera we have on the lower levels. Before her was my mother, and before her all her sisters and their mother. And before her, her father and all her family." Nurnok swallows hard, "I am the third daughter of a third daughter, of a cadet branch of a cadet branch of the Line of Lurtet. And until I have children of my own, I am The Last. So yes, I am desperate. Because Luggus's treasure is the only thing keeping me alive right now." The goblin queen clears her throat, "But do not mistake my desperation for a need for your help. I am speaking to you only out of respect for the old alliance we had between our peoples. Unless you offer me something worth risking everything for, I will trap you and your companions in the lowest vault that we have and let you starve to death."

"We can help you."

"By doing what?" Nurnok asks, "No offense, Pharaoh Seth, but unless you can prove to me that you've had a victory in the last century, there's nothing you can offer me."

The way she says it, though, sounds almost as if she knows that Seth has something up his sleeve. The children of Lurtet always did have Seer abilities.

"Not true," he says, confirming what he suspects Nurnok already knew, and slides a newspaper that Vivian had slipped into his pocket from a world away across the table. Nurnok takes it and reads the front cover: MINISTER PALAMO TO ADDRESS CONFEDERATION REGARDING DANGERS WITHIN DEPARTMENT OF MYSTERIES

"I heard about this… from our American branches. I knew it wasn't the Department, but… I didn't realize...?" She says after a momentary pause. Then she frowns. "This is today's paper. Printed only an hour ago. In America. How do you have this?"

Seto smirks and nods to the others. Catherine stands up and moves forwards, placing an iPad on the table.

"Her name is Vivian Wong and even amongst us mages, she's quite interesting," Seto explains and calls up Wong's profile on the iPad so that Nurnok can see her face. "She has an ability so well integrated with modern technology that, had she been born a century ago, she probably wouldn't have even been considered a mage."

"This is… muggle technology," Nurnok pokes at the iPad with her clawed fingers, her voice full of awe. "How is it working in here?"

"Vivian is a technopath. Amongst some of her other abilities, she is able to download herself onto the internet and email herself around the world, along with anything else she wants to take with her," Seto explains. "And right now, she and a friend of ours is inside the Department of Mysteries Archive in Philadelphia."

"That's impossible," Nurnok looks up. "There's no muggle wires down there."

"Except there are," Serenity pipes up, rising to her feet and leaning on her cane. "I sensed them in the walls when I was down there during our first break in. We didn't know it until we were actually inside the building, otherwise we would have called upon her back then."

"How?" Nurnok glances between the iPad and Seto. Then she realizes how, muttering in the riddles that Seers often speak in, "The Mage of Muggles dances in the walls of The City Built in the Maze, aided by the Guardian… The Dragon King makes a promise he can keep… A lost treasure is returned…"

"The American Ministry of Magic currently resides in Philadelphia's abandoned underground pathway system, a project that was apparently scrapped by City Hall halfway through it's completion," Catherine explains, relaying information that the Jackals had gathered over months of research. "Wizards took over the final half and, a couple months later, open up their Ministry to the public."

"Except," Mai says, "they took over after the power lines went in. And Vivian can travel through those just as well as the internet. She perfected it with the help of a Spellcaster friend of ours."

The iPad lights up as Vivian FaceTimes them.

"Oh, wow, hi!" Vivian's voice comes through the speakers. Seto can't see her face, but he can see Nurnok's. She looks absolutely dumbfounded.

"You're in Philadelphia. You're in this box, but you're in Philadelphia," Nurnok mutters.

"It's not a… You know what, never mind," Vivian pauses and Seto imagines that she's turning the iPad to face the shelves and shelves of artifacts that the Department has hidden down there. "See anything that's yours?"

There's also the sound of someone getting choked into unconsciousness so Seto pictures Rafael with his hand around an Unspeakable's throat.

Nurnok covers her mouth with her hand, eyes shining bright, "That's… This is…"

"We return to you the creations of your people, the ones that have been stolen by men and women who have no regard for your laws," Seto asks, but Nurnok doesn't seem to hear him.

Very quietly, she says, "On the left side, halfway up the shelf. There's a ring."

"Uh… yeah, I see it. Raf, can you-"

There's a grunt and, a few seconds later, a thud. Rafael's voice asks, "This one?"

"Yes," Nurnok nods.

"Okay," Vivian says. "It might take about a minute. The connection in here is shit."

Except, when the email comes through a moment later and Seto shows Nurnok how to download the attachment, there is no word in the English language to describe the look on her face when she holds the tiny circle of gold and says, "King Ragnuk the First gave this to his wife during their wedding. It's said that he wove so many protective enchantments into the metal that she once went into battle wearing nothing but her night shirt and received not a single wound."

Seto understands why Nurnok chose this one first, out of all the goblin made artifacts in the Archives. She was terrified for her own life and for the lives of her people. A ring that would make her practically invulnerable would be godsent.

"Is there anything else?" Vivian asks as Nurnok slips the band onto her forefinger.

Nurnok looks up at Seto, "It won't be enough. No matter what you have down there, if the Department decides to come after us in force-"

"I know," he says, licking his lips. "This is an act of good faith, nothing more. If you want to walk away from me now, Vivian will still send you whatever it is that you want from their vaults."

"If this is your act of good faith, then what are you going to promise me in exchange for my help? Because I'd rather not dance around that question any longer," Nurnok responds.

Seto reaches into his pocket and pulls out two vials. He holds them out to the Queen, who takes them with wide eyes and shaking hands.

"Is this… what I think it is?" She asks, her voice quivering. Seto nods. Nurnok gasps, "Gold blood."

"They're here. They're alive," Seto says.

"Only two, though?" Nurnok stops him quick.

Seto relents, "Only two. But two is going to be enough to take down the Department."

"You don't know that for sure," Nurnok says.

"Actually we do," Serenity interrupts. "They're doing it as we speak."

"What?!" Nurnok stands up from her chair, "You've declared war-"

"No. They did," Seto tells her, his voice low and dangerous. "The Department of Mysteries attacked our home. We are retaliating."

"Your home?"

"San Francisco," he answers. "Looks like I'm not the only one who doesn't know things."

"You have a city?" Nurnok implores.

"We took a city from them and no one knows," Seto confirms. "We have people inside the walls of the American Ministry of Magic, the most heavily guarded government in the wizarding world, for the second time in a month and no one knows. We have the name and locations of every wizard born mage in the entire world and no one knows. We have people landing on the beaches of the Department's headquarters right now and no one knows. We have five people inside of Gringotts bank in wizarding Britain and no one knows."

"The Department of Mysteries isn't the force that it used to be," Mai says. "They're stealing wizarding children to fill their ranks. The mage conversion program is a fraud because they have no money. People inside their own forces are turning on them," and while that last one is an exaggeration, the rest of it is true.

Seto continues, "They cover up what we have taken from them because they are weak and bogged down in red tape and they can't let the public know that we are winning. So tell me: what did you see in the vision you seem to be talking about?"

Nurnok stares at Seto for a good, long while before answering. "An alliance is forged as the Mage of Muggles dances in the walls of The City Built within a Maze, aided by the Guardian. A War is put to rest on an island with no name. The Dragon King makes a promise he can keep, offering the Final Queen a lost treasure to be returned. The God Beyond the Rip returns, the Truth is Learned, and the Secret Keeper keeps the secret no longer. The Three Kings stall return where lands meets water. Sand shall turn to clay, then back to flesh, and blood shall run gold as the Destroyer meets his maker at the hands of mortal magic."

Nurnok glances down at the gold blood in her hands, shifting the vials around with her long spidery fingers. "Pharaoh Seth, hypothetically, in return for two vials of mythical golden blood, what exactly would the support of the goblin race look like?"

"As Queen, I assume you have access to any bank account within the Gringotts organization," Seto says.

Nurnok nods and waits for him to continue.

"I need to make a withdrawal," he answers.

Nurnok raises an eyebrow, "Out of which account?"

Seto smiles and tells her, "All of them."

A noise rowses Kisha from her sleep. At first she thinks it's Royce again, except it's far too quiet. And there's certainly no Morgan snippering in the background.

It's a whisper from someone near the main entranceway. Kisha shakes Delphia awake and together they wait for whoever is coming to take them again.

"God, this place is a morgue," whispers one of the voices. "Where the fuck is everyone?"

Kisha frowns. She feels like she's heard that voice before.

"Dunno, dude," comes another and there's the sound of soft footfalls before they come into view.

Kisha's stomach drops, "It's you."

It's the Asian kid with the muggle tattoos, one of the ones from the shop that had come in that cloudy Thursday. One of the ones that the Unspeakables have been desperately tearing her mind apart for any scrap of information. He's dressed in green clothing with a thick black vest strapped to his chest. His hair is covered by a cap and, in his inked up hands, a long muggle gun.

The mages, she realizes. Oh my god, they're mages.

"Oh my god," the kid says when he looks at her. He lowers the gun and lets it hang from a strap around his shoulder. He grasped the bars of her cell, "You're from the clothing shop."

"Wait, I know you," Royce appears to have woken up and he's pointing at the blond guy behind the Asian kid. "You were the waiter. You stole my wand."

"What are they doing here?" The Asian kid asks his friend.

"They don't… They'd know what we looked like, but…" the blond guy says. He's carrying a smaller gun than the Asian kid in one hand, gloved except for his fingertips. In the other, he's tapping uselessly at a piece of unuseable muggle technology. "I mean, they could have gotten that information from anywhere. Why take them?"

"Unless…" the Asian kid blinks and just stares at Kisha from beyond the bars. "The idea of the whole attack thing was to scare them, show them that we could strike back. The last time we did something like that, wizards freaked out so badly that they went completely underground. So-"

"So they kidnapped their own people? Put them in jail? Tortured them?" Blond Guy frowns. "That's… What the actual fuck?"

"We scared them. We scare them," Asian Kid sounds like he can't believe his own words. He won't stop staring at Kisha.

She swallows and breaks eye contact, looking behind her at Delphia. The older woman isn't doing too well; she's been so dizzy that she can barely stand up and, last night, Delphia had become convinced that Kisha was her daughter, then her granddaughter, before finally forgetting who she was entirely.

She's dying, Kisha thinks desperately, looking back towards Asian Kid, who can't be much older than her. She makes a decision that she hopes she won't come to regret.

"What do I have to do to convince you to let us out of here?" Kisha asks, keeping her voice as steady as possible. Her mind is coming up with a million and one things that Asian Kid and Blond Guy could make her do, but if it gets them out, if it gets Delphia some god damn water, she'll do whatever they ask.

Except, the way that Asian Kid looks away nervously when she says it makes her think that, perhaps, maybe he's the one she should be trusting in this good-auror-bad-auror situation.

"What the hell are you doing, girl?" Shouts Morgan Sammons, who can honestly take his pride go and fuck himself with it because there is literally no other option right now. She doesn't need him judging her. She continues staring Asian Kid down, waiting for him to return eye contact again. When he glances up at her, she can see him swallow hard, the apple in his neck bobbing with uncertainty.

"Jono…" He whispers, addressing his companion, whose glancing around the cells like he's trying to decide what to do.

They're interrupted by the sound of footsteps. Asian Kid and Blond Guy (who's named Jono? Like the hero of legend?) turn, but make no reaction as the newcomers come into the prison, which means that they're allies. Kisha comes up to the bars and sees a bunch of ragtag kids come into view.

"Tadesse," Asian Kid nods towards a huge black man, the only person who looks like an adult in the group. Beside him is a spindle thin boy with slightly lighter skin, similar to hers, and zits on his chin that Asian kid addresses as, "Lee."

"Devlin," Lee says back, grinning and revealing crooked teeth, with an accent straight out of Jamaica. He glances at the cages and the easy grin slips from his face, "These ain't your people?"

"No," Jono the Blond Guy says, eyes down. More people are coming around the corner. Kisha thinks that she's losing her only chance of escape.

"Then let's go. They should be around here somewhere," Tadesse says, his voice as deep as he is tall.

Kisha launches herself at the bars, wrapping her fingers around the bars, brushing them against Asian Kid (Devlin. She finally has a name for him). Devlin looks back at her, startled.

"Please," she tries again. "Please. If you won't take me, then take Delphia. She's sick. They haven't come down to feed us in forever. I think they're just trying to let us starve. Please, just help her. I'll do whatever you want."

"We need to leave," Tadesse says again. "They're not what we came here for. They'll just slow us down."

"They aren't what we came here for," Jono agrees and Kisha's heart sinks. Except, the guy keeps talking, "But returning them to their governments would be good leverage."

Lee makes a noise of confusion, "I thought you had people working on that already?"

"Well, it never hurts to have a plan B," Jono shrugs. Kisha just barely catches him making eye contact with Devlin and realizes that he's literally pulling an excuse out of his ass right now, "Can you get these doors open?"

Lee shrugs, "For the record, I think this is stupid. But the Captain says you're in charge, and I ain't gonna lose another ear for pissing her off."

Kisha notices Lee's lack of right ear as Tadesse grunts in acknowledgement.

By now, Morgan and Royce are looking on from their cell across the hall, paying attention in a way that they hadn't before. There's a hope in their eyes for the first time in a while.

"There's aren't any keys. The locks are shut with magic," Royce says.

"So they'll open with magic," Lee says, pulling out his own wand. Kisha watches with wide eyes as he approaches Royce's cage, eying the lock. "You cause me trouble and you're dead, you here?"

"You're a wizard..." Morgan says dumbly, sounding exactly like how Kisha feels. Of all the things she expected, it wasn't for mages to have have wizarding allies.

Lee isn't listening. He's analyzing the lock, muttering something in a language that Kisha vaguely recognizes as Patois, from the years that she heard her grandmother doing the same thing.

"What are you doing? Just unlock the door!" Morgan shouts, his voice cracking in desperation. He looks across the way at Kisha, as if she can do anything about his situation, as if she actually wants to get him and his racist garbage out of here.

"Bother me again and I will leave you in here," Lee doesn't even look at Morgan when he answers. He frowns, tapping the lock a couple of times with his finger and listening to the sounds it lets off. He puts his wand away. Instead, he reaches for the knife on his belt, sliding the blade into the keyhole. There's a spark and a flash as the spell surrounding the lock is broken and the door swings open.

"Thank you! Thank you!" Royce cries, practically running out of the cage, but is stopped by Jono, who pulls his gun on him, raising it so that the barrel is in line with his forehead.

"We're not doing this for you," Jono says as Lee moves to Ellen Messer's cage. She jerks awake and clambers towards the back corner of her cell. "Where are the other prisoners kept?"

"I- I don't know, I swear. You gotta believe me," Royce stammers. "If I knew, my… my friend, Shawn, he might be down there, but I don't know…"

Lee gets Messer's door open, rolling her eyes when she screams, refusing to move. He flicks of his wand and she's dragged out like there's an invisible rope pulling on her ankles. Lee comes over to Kisha's door.

"Wait," Kisha calls, looking at Devlin. She points through the bars at the unresponsive Unspeakable laying on his back in the cell beside Royce and Morgan's. He's awake, but has barely even twitched since the mages came in. Kisha honestly thinks he might be broken. "Him! His name is Keith and he used to work here. He might know."

Devlin glances over at the cage containing Keith, but it's Tadesse that approaches the bars. The huge man takes one look at the Unspeakable inside and, before anyone can stop him, blasts the lock open with his wand.

An alarm, shirl and constant, blares around them.

"What the actual fuck?!" Lee shouts as the door to Kisha's cage swings open. "Why the fuck do you think I'm picking the fucking locks?! They've got curses on them, you fucking idiot!"

"You were taking too long," Tadesse growls, turning his back on Keith for just a second. It's the second mistake made that evening.

Keith springs forward, apparently not as comatose as he'd led them to believe, stealing Tadesse's wand from his hand. But Tadesse reach is so long that he just grabs Keith by the neck, slamming him into the ground. He probably would have chicked the Unspeakable to death had more footsteps not sounded out from the hallway entrance.

"Take cover!" Devlin shouts and pushes Kisha back into her cell just in time to avoid being shot by the flashes of green lights and the calls of Avada Kedavra coming from the Unspeakables down the hall. Jono and a couple more of the mage supporters clamber in next to her and Delphia, while Tadesse dives into Keith's old cell, dragging the Unspeakable with him. Kisha sees Royce Land cowering in his former prison across the way, his hands covering his mouth and tears streaming down his face.

Kisha follows his gaze and sees Morgan Sammons and Ellen Messer lying dead on the ground, their eyes wide and faces curled in shock. Beside them lies the body of Lee, half fallen against the cell door that he'd just tried to open.

Oh Merlin, she prays. Please, please, I just want to make it out alive!

Kisha watches as Tadesse throws a curse blindly over his shoulder, having taken his wand back from Keith, who actually seems to be out cold this time. Jono fires his gun in short bursts while trying to look around the corner. A killing curse crashes into the wall just beside his head, spraying them with debris.

Delphia clutches Kisha's arm so hard that she might break Kisha's skin with her nails, now long and chipped from their extended captivity. Kisha looks to Devlin in the hopes that he might be able to do something.

"Their aiming high, not low," Devlin comments, his voice almost a whisper. "They always do that."

Kisha nods, repeating the lesson that her old Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher used to drill into their heads, "Curses usually work best when connecting to the heart or brain, so you usually aim for the chest or just above it."

"Really? That's why?" Devlin questions, raising his eyebrow at her, "Huh… Always just assumed it was because center mass is the bigger target…" He pulls a thick, stubby tube from one of his many pockets and moves in front of Jono, so that he is closest to the hallway, "Cover your eyes and ears, okay? This thing's gonna be loud."

"What are you doing?" Kisha yells as Devlin pulls the pin attached to the top of the tube.

"Saving our asses," he shouts back and rolls the tube down the floor of the hall. Kisha hears it clunk on the stone tiles three times before she follows Jono, Devlin, and the rest of the mage supporters in closing her eyes and ears.

The bang the tube makes is so loud that it she can hear it loud and clear through the shouts of the Unspeakables caught in it's way, the flash so bright she can see it behind her eyelids. It leaves her disoriented and confused, and when she tries to open her eyes, all she can see are blurry shapes moving in and out of her vision. There's an intense ringing in her ears that deadens every other sound in the room, until it clears suddenly and Kisha drags herself around the corner to see Devlin disarming an Unspeakable with his bare hands before moving to strike him in the throat.

Devlin moves like a blur, throwing fast kicks and punches, bouncing from one target to the next without pausing for breath. From far away, the Unspeakables had felt like this impossible force that they could never beat, but with Devlin up close, they fell to the ground like flies.

When the final witch falls, Devlin calls, "All clear," and Kisha rises to her feet, staring at him with awe. Because she's never seen someone do anything like that before, except inside the muggle books that she read, pilfered from Ana Parks' collection at Salem.

The alarm is still blaring overhead.

"We have to go," Jono declares, rising to his feet. "Did we find out where the other prisoners are being held?"

"This one's got a map of the facility. Must be a new guy, or something?" Devlin says as he pilfers a piece of parchment from one of the downed Unspeakables' pockets. "Says there's another detention facility three floors beneath us."

Kisha lets them talk to each other and runs towards Royce, pulling him to his feet and dragging him around Morgan's corpse. Delphia, looking a little dazed, stubbles over to where they are.

"We have to go with them. It's our best chance," Kisha says, her voice as soft as she can make it. Her heart is still pounding against her ribcage, so hard she thinks that it might break bone. Delphia nods, slowly and stiffly, while Royce makes a noise that Kisha takes for agreement.

When she turns back to the hallway, she sees Tadesse moving over to where Lee had fallen. He kneels down, placing one massive hand on the top of his head, and mutters a prayer under his breath.

"Was he your friend?" Royce asks him.

Tadesse stands, "He was my daughter's boyfriend."

"I'm sorry," Royce manages to force out, unable to come up with anything else to say.

Tadesse levels them with a stare, "You better be fucking worth it. Or I'll snap your necks myself." He turns, calling out to the group. "More will be coming soon. Circle up. We'll blast our way through."

The large man turns his wand on the floor itself and barks, "Reducto!"

The tiles shatters, crumbling down onto the lower levels, leaving behind a wide open space for them to jump down into.

"Wait…" Comes a voice from behind them. Keith is waking up behind them. "Wait…" He tries to lurch to his feet, but can't seem to stand straight. Tadesse's hit must have really hurt.

Beside Kisha, Devlin eyes widen, his body going stiff.

"You…" He spits out and Kisha realizes that he somehow recognizes Keith the Unspeakable. "You fucking bastard!"

It takes the combined effort of Jono and Tadesse to hold him back, to drag him back towards the hole.

"Duke! The fuck, man! This isn't the time-" Jono shouts, but he's barely heard over Devlin's screaming.

"Her name was Lindsey, you fucker- Joey, let me go! I'll kill him! I'll kill him!"

"Lindsey? Who the fuck is Lindsey?" Keith asks, sounding concussed.

"She was my sister! And you killed her! I hate you! I hate-"

Keith's eyes widen, "Wait… oh…"

"I remember you! I remember- I'll kill you! You killed Lindsey"

"Lindsey Devlin. The girl from Oklahoma…" Keith whispers. "She wore a Katy Perry t-shirt…" Then, Keith frowns. "But, she had a sister…"

"I'm her brother!" Devlin shouts and finally manages to squirm his way out of Jono (Joey's?) hold. He leaps forwards before anyone can stop him, grabbing Keith by the collar and punching him in the jaw, sending the older man crashing to the ground. "She was good! She was kind! She was my sister and you killed her!"

Devlin straddles Keith, hitting him repeatedly with his fists, his knuckles coming away bloody. Kisha doesn't know what comes over her, but she rushes over and wraps her arms around her torso, pulling him away from the broken Unspeakable.

"Please, please!" She keeps saying. "Please!"

Devlin wretches free and pulls his gun out of it's holster, pointing it at Keith. The Unspeakable laughs.

"Fucking do it," Keith says around bloody teeth. He's smiling, "Just… take me out of my fucking misery."

Devlin is shaking so badly that Kisha can hear the gun rattle in his hands. He spits, "I hate you."

And, before she can do anything to stop him, Devlin pulls the trigger.

Hello again!

I'd like to thank those who reviewed for the last chapter: Moonfirekitsune, Felisha Smith, Tz342, Eliphas-Chaos, BalaaSweetSlaughter, iceprincess reniee, anita15, dragomira, green lilah, and Dana Sto Helit. You guys are awesome!

Well, we've solved a few mysteries this chapter, haven't we? Nurnok reveals that everyone participates in the cycle, just not everyone remembers (this is accompanied by a cameo of one of Tristan Taylor's prior cycles in the form of Tomisław Brzozowski), as well as hints towards how the goblins have survived for so long. We get a full version of the prophecy regarding that the mages only have a piece of (the final bit, which Serenity reveals to us in her first chapter back in Hunt). We also get concrete confirmation of the identity of the girl from Oklahoma, who I've been hinting throughout Strike to be Duke's sister, Lindsey.

And, of course, the cliffhanger. :)

Also, as Strike is entering it's final arc, I was wondering if you could all do a similar favour for me that you did when I was in the final stages of Hunt. Could you ask me random questions about the characters? It will help me to flesh out their storys a little bit as well as help with my overall writing process. I'll even answer plot related questions as long as it doesn't get too far into spoiler territory.

Thank you all so much!

Until next time,
AlcatrazOutpatient