The Guardian Chronicles 1: Rise of the Phoenix (15 page)

Instead, however it opened its mouth and let loose a roar that hit him with a solid wall of sound, physically lifting him off the ground and into one of the crumbling pillars that were scattered throughout the courtyard. It leapt at him again and Gabriel sent it tumbling sideways with a blow from his blade.

“Uh oh, I think I just made mine madder!”

“That sounds fascinating,” Marissa retorted. Her whip snapped out, striking her attacker several times, leaving smoking wounds behind on the stone.

“Everett move it!” Tony shouted again. Tony whirled his katana, sending a cascade of sparks down the beast’s back. His Jaguar responded by raking its claws across Tony’s abdomen and down toward his right hip. Tony slammed a powerful kick into it, sending it rolling away. A blast of sound exploded from the Jaguar’s mouth, knocking Tony backwards. He rolled to the side, avoiding his pouncing attacker.

Everett took off in a dead sprint toward the top of the temple, his attacker close on his heels. Marissa’s whip lashed out, wrapping around the Jaguar’s midsection. She yanked it off the steps, sending it tumbling to the ground below. Though, it wouldn’t stay there for long. The three remaining Guardians were in danger of being overwhelmed.

Gabriel sprinted forward, right toward his Jaguar. The stone animal didn’t appear to slow either. Aequitas came up, slicing a deep gash along the side of it. He spun around, catching the Jaguar with a roundhouse kick that knocked it to the ground. He yanked his pistol free and unloaded his Heat rounds at close range, digging out chunks of stone.

Gabriel brought his blade forward and aimed it right at the Jaguar. They crashed together, Aequitas slamming through its gnashing stone teeth lounging deep in the Jaguar’s throat. The Jaguar coughed, sputtered, and then went limp. Gabriel pushed the cat off and watched as it dropped to the ground.

“Go for the mouth!” Gabriel yelled.

“I swear there is a joke somewhere in there!” Tony shouted back.

“Shut up!” Marissa snapped. “And get your head back in the game!”

Marissa’s whip cracked through the air, slicing across the face of both of the Jaguars that had now turned to face her. She was slowly backing up, using her whip as a way to keep both of them at bay. Gabriel slid a new clip full of Heat rounds into his weapon and then unloaded on one of the Jaguars, prying his attention away from Marissa.

“I got it!” Everett yelled from the top of the pyramid.

That seemed to also get the Jaguar’s attention, even more so than Gabriel shooting at it. The remaining three turned away from their targets and started slowly toward the steps of the temple.

“Uh oh,” Everett muttered.

“Oh no, you are so not getting away from me!”

Tony leapt onto the back of his Jaguar, striking it several times with his own weapon. He flipped off of it, unloading a barrage from his own sidearm. Chunks went flying from the stone animal. He dodged a blast of sound before rushing forward to engage it again. He shoved his blade forward, piercing whatever soft spot the thing had deep in its throat.

Marissa lashed out with her whip, wrapping it around the stone cat’s neck. She pulled hard, dropping one of the Jaguar’s that been attacking her to the ground. Before the Jaguar could recover, it was blasted backwards into the jungle by a sphere of rippling telekinetic energy. Everett bounded down the steps, panting hard.

Gabriel bolted ahead, pouring on all the speed and power that he could before he slammed into the remaining Jaguar. The two of them rolled along the ground, a ball of glowing silver/blue and stone fangs and claws. Gabriel launched himself out of the mass of arms and stone limbs, landing in a crouch as the Jaguar rolled to a stop.

“Here kitty, kitty,” Gabriel muttered.

Ghostly blue chains erupted from the ground, looping around the Jaguar’s neck, legs, and torso. The chains jolted the Jaguar, sending magical bolts arcing across its stone skin, causing it to howl in frustration. Gabriel wasted no time in surging forward and slamming his sword down the writhing Jaguar’s throat, dropping it to the ground.

“One left!” Tony shouted.

“Where is the other one?” Gabriel panted.

“I blasted it into the jungle,” Everett grunted. “Not sure if I hit it hard enough to discourage any further attacks.”

“Let’s not wait around to find out,” Marissa suggested. “We need to move with the skull now, before anything else decides that they want an interest in that thing.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Everett responded. He slipped the skull into his backpack as Marissa consulted her wrist mounted GPS.

“Head back the way we came, if we do double time we might be able to make it out of here by nightfall.”

“That’s going to be kinda hard,” Gabriel responded, indicating Tony’s wound. “Looks like fluffy took a chunk out of Tony.”

“It’s just a flesh wound,” Tony grunted.

Gabriel ignored him and gestured for him to sit down, ripping open a pouch on the side of his backpack. Cody had been the team’s primary battlefield medic, at least until Gabriel joined them several months ago. Now, Gabriel knelt down and started taking a good look at the wound that the Jaguar had made.

The Jaguar’s claws had slashed through Tony’s lightweight shirt from just below his belly button down to the right side of his hip, leaving behind three angry bleeding wounds that were about six inches long. Gabriel slipped on a pair of gloves and took a closer look, trying not to touch the damaged tissue. Tony hissed in pain when Gabriel touched gently prodded around the lacerations, especially around his belly button. Gabriel pushed part of Tony’s pants lower.

“Does it hurt much?” Gabriel asked.

“Guess I should be happier that it didn’t go any lower. And if you wanted my pants off, you could have just asked.”

“Shut up,” Gabriel stated, trying his best not to turn red.

Gabriel rummaged around in his pack and pulled out a tube of antibiotic ointment and several large swabs. He slathered the swabs with the ointment and lathered up the wounds, again causing Tony to hiss in pain.

“Oh come on,” Everett said. “Stop being so dramatic, it can’t hurt that much.”

“Why don’t you just shut your mouth,” Tony barked.

“Why don’t you both just shut up,” Marissa offered.

After the ointment was applied Gabriel placed several large adhesive bandages on the wounds and taped them down with heavy duty medical tape.

“You’ll need stitches,” Gabriel said, standing up again. “And new pants.”

“And underwear,” Tony sighed. “I knew I shouldn’t have worn my lucky ones.”

“Ew,” Gabriel responded, making a face. “That’s more information than I needed to know. The bandages should stay on fine; I’ll change them out in a few hours. In the meantime hold still.”

“For what?”

Tony yelped as Gabriel injected him in the arm.

“What the hell was that?”

“Antibiotics,” Gabriel said, as he started to pack up his supplies. “We’re going to be tromping through the jungle, unless you want to get a raging infection.”

“You still could have warned me,” Tony grumbled.

“Yeah,” Gabriel shrugged. “I could have.”

“Let’s get moving,” Marissa urged. “Quickly.”

The Guardians took off through the jungle again.

CHAPTER 10

Janus stood at the window, gazing out on the city below. Once again, he felt an odd sense of calm come over him when he stood there. He could watch the people move about below him going on with their day like they didn’t have a care in the world. Of course, that was one of the reasons that the world was in the state it was. There were too many people that simply didn’t care.

He turned away from the window and moved back to his desk. He sat down and drummed his fingers along the desktop, waiting for the video call. As if by merely thinking it the computer chimed, indicating the incoming call. Janus smiled beneath his mask and reached forward to activate the webcam.

“We’ve got it Janus.”

Another smile appeared beneath the mask. “Are all they all intact?”

“Initial analysis shows that seventy eight percent of the pods are intact. We’ve activated the first three now, the others are coming online slowly.”

“That’s better than we thought,” Janus nodded. “How soon until they are stable enough to transport back to our operating bases?”

“The medical staff believes that they need at least forty eight hours after they emerge from the pods to get fully acclimated,” the man on the other end said. “After that another twenty four hours are needed for the glyphs to fully take effect.”

“Keep them as sedated as you can,” Janus warned. “Until the glyphs fully take hold they could be unpredictable and dangerous. Contact me when the first of them are ready transport to our operating bases.”

The man on the other end of the call nodded and then cut the channel. Janus leaned back in his chair, pressing his fingers together. The Well of Souls was his and with the army that slumbered inside he could finally take the battle to the Guardians. It was a battle that he intended to win.

His computer chirped again and another video window opened up. As usual his spy was dressed in a hooded robe, the voice heavily modulated by a computer. He was in a darkened room, his silhouette barely visible outside the light coming from the monitor.

“The Well of Souls has been found and our teams are preparing the hibernation pods for thawing as we speak. We’ll have our army soon enough.”

“Just like you said,” the spy nodded. “I just hope that it’s enough.”

“Does something trouble you?” Janus asked.

The figure on the other end of the call sighed heavily. “I’m just not sure that we are doing the right thing.”

“You’re worried about the lives that will be lost,” Janus nodded.

“I’ve worked, lived and trained with many of the Guardians. I find the notion of fighting them unpleasant.”

Janus nodded again. He could understand where they were coming from but he also knew that things were more desperate than either of them knew. The world was dying around them, collapsing into chaos unless someone could take control and bring it back from the brink. He had no real desire to harm innocents but he knew that the Guardians were hardly innocent.

“I can understand your hesitation,” Janus spoke. “But remember what the Guardians have done; remember how they lied to you and to everyone else. They’ve been too weak for too long.”

“I know what you’re saying is true.”

“The Guardians should be the ones enforcing peace and order in the world. They should be ruling over the vampires, lycans, and demons. They should be leading the charge not shying away from the light. You know this is the truth.”

Again, his spy nodded. “I know.”

“We’ll still need Gabriel; I trust that you can arrange that.”

“I can work on it,” the spy responded. “He’s trusting of all his team members; it shouldn’t be too hard to lure him into a situation where he can be taken without expending too many resources. Though he has grown powerful over the last few months.”

“Don’t go overboard,” Janus warned. “If you can’t engineer a situation we can wait for the assault on Veritas. The more powerful that he is the more powerful the next generation of our own soldiers will be. This is the right course of action, you and I both know it.”

“Of course,” his spy nodded. “I’ll work on a way to get Gabriel alone.”

“Like I said, if a situation fails to present itself don’t push the issue,” Janus spoke. “We don’t want to alert him to our plans. I’ll trust that you can make that decision.”

“Yes.”

Then channel cut out, leaving Janus alone in his office.

“They’ve found the skull,” Jonathan responded, sliding into his seat at the conference table. The rest of the Guardians had spent the past two days chasing down a pack of demons that had been terrorizing the Montana wilderness, moving from town to town and leaving nothing but a trail of destruction behind them.

“Well that’s a good thing,” Ryan muttered. “Did they have any problems?”

“Apparently Tony might have gotten slightly mauled,” Jonathan reported. “Gabriel’s words not mine.”

“Brilliant,” Cody smiled. “Hopefully Gabriel can stitch him back together again.”

“I’m sure his training was more than adequate,” Jonathan responded.

“That’s assuming that Tony will hold still,” Ryan interjected. “You know that he’s no fan of needles.”

“Anything else on the hybrids?” Jonathan inquired, turning toward Aadesh and Cody. Both of them looked like they had been through the wringer over the past couple of days. Not only had Cody been out hunting down demons he had also been working closely with Aadesh in unraveling the mystery of their new enemy.

“Not really,” Aadesh admitted with a sigh. “I’m afraid that we aren’t going to be able to tell you anything aside from what you already know.”

“Unless we can hack into an Imperial Medical’s network,” Elise suggested. “That’s still our best guess. They have some of the best technology and minds in the nation, not including the vampires.”

“The council won’t authorize any sort of activity that is aimed at purposefully disrupting the normal workings of the vampires, as I’ve stated before they don’t want us drawn into this war.”

“Maybe we don’t have to actively get involved,” Ryan spoke leaning forward. “We could suggest to the lycans that they might want to take a look at Imperial Medical’s network.”

“Oh, I like it,” Cody smiled.

“Like what?” Ethan asked, entering the room.

“Suggesting that the lycans go digging around in Imperial Medical’s network looking for the source of the hybrids,” Ryan answered.

“We’re being bad again,” Ethan commented, flopping down into a chair. “I like it.”

“And where were you?” Jonathan asked. “You were supposed to be here ten minutes ago.”

“I was out,” Ethan said with a shrug. “Had some places to see and some phone calls to make.”

“Assuming that they could even get into the network,” Elise spoke. “The security protocols that they have in place are pretty amazing. The lycans would need a first rate hacker to get in there and find what they are looking for.”

Jonathan let out an exasperated sigh. “Why do I sense that you are all about to convince me that this is a good idea to take to the council?”

“You don’t have to take it to the council,” Ethan said. “You could just let us slowly leak the information to the lycans. Then, since you know we are supposed to protect them, we could go along…”

“Bloody good idea,” Cody beamed.

“Now you’re just playing with semantics,” Jonathan groaned.

“So,” Ethan said. “Even if it is just semantics we aren’t technically breaking their ruling.” 

Cody seemed almost giddy from his seat, though the same could be said for everyone else in the room conference room.

“I don’t suppose that there is a way that I could stop you from helping the lycans to carry this mission out even if they do say no.”

“Aside from locking us up, probably not,” Ethan admitted. “And we both know that you won’t do that.”

Jonathan sighed heavily and settled back into his chair. He rubbed the bridge of his nose several times before responding. “I’m going to regret doing this.”

“Probably,” Ethan said.

“Fine,” Jonathan relented. “But wait until the rest of the team gets back here. They should arrive sometime tomorrow afternoon. In the mean time I’ll need you ready for tonight, we’ve got a pack of demons that got away from one of our patrols in South Dakota, and imaging has them headed this way.”

“Oh joy,” Ryan muttered.

“Maybe you can think of it as a second date mate,” Cody beamed.

“Slaughtering hordes of demons does not count as a second date,” Elise huffed. “I don’t care if you are a Guardian, that’s hardly romantic.”

“Oh please,” Ethan muttered drawing out the last word. “Like you two won’t be making goo-goo eyes at each other while hip deep in demon entrails.”

“Wow, you sure do know how to paint a romantic picture,” Ryan said rolling his eyes.

“Mission time is eighteen hundred,” Jonathan reminded them all. He stood up and smoothed out his expensive looking suit. “Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to go try and explain to the council how this mission won’t jeopardize the already tenuous peace we have with the vampires.”

“Bloody glad he has to talk to them,” Cody stated, watching Jonathan leave the room. “Bastards probably are going to get their knickers in a twist over it. Still a good plan though. I’m going to grab a bite, anyone else interested?”

Before anyone could have a chance to respond Ethan’s phone chirped. It was the receptionist at Aegis upstairs, indicating that he had a visitor. He frowned, no one ever visited him at Aegis, not even his parents.

“Something wrong?” Ryan asked.

“Apparently I have a visitor upstairs,” Ethan said, sliding his phone back into his pocket.

“Someone finally got a paternity test done?”

Ethan dismissed Ryan’s comment with a wave of his hand. “Who do you think I am, Tony?”

Ethan left the room and headed upstairs. The receptionist had sent him to a conference room on the second floor, usually reserved for staff meetings. When Ethan entered the room he had to fight the urge to turn around and walk right back out again.

“Alex.”

“Nice digs you have here,” Alex said, turning away from the window. “My dad called ahead, made sure that it was okay for me to drop by. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“Depends on what you want I guess.”

Ethan leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms. He didn’t want to appear too uptight or too relaxed around Alex. He had a feeling that the young vampire was pretty much studying his every move, almost like he was sizing up some kind of rival.

“I want to know why you followed me and Gabriel on our date. Don’t deny it, you’ll only make yourself look worse,” Alex stated, turning away from the window to finally let his gaze settle on Ethan.

“Well, we know where his loyalties are,” Ethan grumbled. “Hell you two have only been on one date, I’m surprised that you got your hooks into him so soon.”

“His loyalty is with his team and his friends. Something that you might know if you spent a little less time berating him and actually talking to him.” Alex shot back. “But you’re avoiding my question, why did you have us followed?”

“You would have done the same thing.”

“I’m not leaving until you answer me,” Alex punctuated his statement by folding his arms over his chest and taking a few steps forward. Ethan didn’t budge, although he could feel the muscles in his jaw tighten.

“I could just throw you out.”

“You could,” Alex answered. “But then I’d just keep coming back.”

“We could have you banned from the grounds.”

“Or you could just answer my question,” Alex snapped. “Do you have feelings for him?”

Ethan’s eyebrows shot up at that question.

“You think that I’m in love with Gabriel?”

“That’s not what I said,” Alex stated. “I asked if you had feelings for him.”

“I’m not gay Alex.”

“Again, you’re avoiding the question.”

“No!” Ethan barked. “I don’t have feelings for him at least not the romantic kind. He’s my friend. Jealous much?”

“Then why did you have him followed?”

“He was going on a date with a vampire. Someone who has declared war on another species and who’s kind have been calling for war on humans as well,” Ethan answered. “He’s got this stupid idea that everyone is honorable.”

“You mean he was going on a date with me,” Alex said, tilting his head. “You still don’t trust me.”

“After what happened with Dominic, no I don't.”

Alex made a noise in the back of this throat that sounded like a growl. “When are you going to let that go? It wasn’t my fault and it wasn’t my father's fault. We staked our honor on that, you should know enough about us by now to know how serious that is.”

Ethan tensed. “I do.”

“You want to know what I think?” Alex asked.

Ethan tried his best not to roll his eyes. “And what is that?”

“I think that you hate the fact that he’s not drooling all over you anymore.”