The Guardian Chronicles 2: Dark Horizon (3 page)

“Gabriel?” Sean asked, poking his head in.

“What’s up?”

“Well, I think I got an even better idea than a movie…”

“It was my idea!”

That would have been Tim, Sean’s best friend. Tim Clark was about the same size as Sean; both were on the gymnastics team and had builds that showed it. However, Tim’s parents had adopted him from Korea when he was a young boy. Tim had brown eyes and a mess of shaggy black hair. Tim was a good kid but he tended to have a slight wild streak in him, which could land both himself and Sean in hot water on occasion.

“Ok,” Gabriel said, sitting up. “What is this brilliant idea of yours?”

“There’s a party going on down in Morton Park tonight…”

“No way!” Gabriel snapped. “Nope, not going to happen, negative…need I go on?”

“Aw, come on,” Sean whined. “All the cool kids are supposed to be there…”

“And you do know that Morton Park is probably in the worst area of town, right?”

As much as Gabriel hated saying that it was a true statement. Morton Park was located in the northern corner of the city, surrounded by areas that had been rife with crime for the past twenty years. Gangs ran rampant in that area, as did drug dealers, prostitutes and several other people of less than upstanding moral character. Not even the police journeyed into that area unless they were in force.

“First off Morton Park is near the border of what you call the ‘the worst area of town’,” Tim stated, making air quotes. “And secondly, there are going to be a ton of kids there and I doubt that anyone is going to mess with a gathering that size.”

“I still think that it’s a bad idea,” Gabriel said. “Mom and dad would flip if they found out.

“Then we don’t tell mom and dad,” Sean smiled. “Come on bro…”

“And what do we tell them?” Gabriel asked. “I mean sure it makes sense that you are gone…you have a social life but what about me?”

“We’re going to tell them that we are all staying the night at my place,” Tim smiled. “My parents are out of town and I doubt that your parents are going to check up on what my smiling face said.”

Tim was wickedly charming when he tried. When he got older, Gabriel knew that it was going to get him into some serious trouble, entertaining no doubt but trouble nonetheless.

“And why would mom and dad believe that I was staying over with you guys?”

“Because I’ll charm them into believing it,” Tim smiled again. “Come on, you aren’t going to be doing anything else tonight aside from sitting around sticking your head in a book.”

Gabriel wanted to come up with an argument against what Tim had said but he didn’t have one readily available. Mostly because what Tim was saying was completely true. Even with his ability to talk his way into or out of anything, Gabriel still wasn’t sure that Tim could pull it off or whether or not he would even go through with taking them all down to the park.

“Guys…”

“Great!” Tim said, clapping his hand together and rubbing them. “I’ll go rehearse my little speech to your parents. Oh and you might want to actually pack a bag, I don’t imagine that we’ll do a lot of sleeping but it will look more convincing.”

Gabriel wanted to protest but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to mount a defense good enough to get either his brother or Tim to change their minds.

“You’ll have fun,” Sean smiled.

“Sure, just assuming that we don’t get robbed, beaten up, or killed,” Gabriel groaned.

“Have a little faith.”

Gabriel groaned again and slumped down in his chair. His night was about to get a lot more interesting and he wasn’t entirely sure that it was a good thing. He was ok with his life, as boring as it seemed on occasion. At least he knew that would be safe and not getting drug off to some park in the middle of the night. Gabriel shook his head, he hated the fact that Sean and Tim had talked into something so easily. He stood, went to his closet, and started looking around for his sleeping bag.

CHAPTER 2

Ethan Blackburn was not a patient person. He preferred action instead of talk and standing around doing nothing was not something that considered himself overly skilled at. He sighed heavily, turning to look at the others on the rooftop with him. He had been pacing around for what seemed like hours, in reality it probably had been only a handful of minutes

Currently, he was standing on the roof of a rundown building in one of the worst neighborhoods in the city. It was a haven for those that defied the law and had it not been for the fact that he was here on a very specific mission, he would have had a good time rounding up some drug dealers and other less than desirable human beings.

“You need to relax.”

Ethan rolled his neck; he could feel the muscles tensing with annoyance. He checked his watch again and let out a long sighed. That prompted an eye roll from both Cody and Ryan.

“I don’t do the whole relaxing thing,” Ethan snapped. “I do the whole save the day thing…I doubt that he’ll even show up. He’s stupid, but I doubt that even he is that stupid.”

“Aye, but he is greedy,” Cody tossed in, looking through his goggles again.

“I’m still not seeing how you can pull that off every day?” Ryan sighed, shaking his head.

“And what’s that?” Cody responded.

“This,” Ryan gestured toward his friend. “You’re one of the best shots on the planet, you’re like Legolas with that thing yet you continually manage to pull off the dork card.”

Cody shrugged. “It’s not easy mate that damn wig gets pretty itchy
.”

“Aw but you look so cute with long hair,” Ryan swooned, batting his eyes at the young Irishmen.

“Oh, toss off,” Cody responded, sticking his tongue out.

“Yeah, you two are real mature,” Ethan grunted.

Both Ryan and Cody ignored that comment.

Again Ethan could feel his frustration building and the banter of his two teammates did nothing to improve his mood. He cracked his knuckles, rather loudly despite the expansive space of their surroundings.

“Do you have any idea how bloody annoying that is?” Cody snapped.

Ethan just shrugged.

“You know, you could just use a gun, right?” Ryan asked, referring to the bow on Cody’s back.

Cody shrugged. “Do you have to ask that question all the bloody time?” Cody growled, through clenched teeth. “I happen to like the thing and you know that specialized payloads have saved your arse more times than you’d admit too.”

“I think that goes more to the fact that we aren’t entirely human,” Ryan shrugged. “And all those wonderful skills that have been drilled into us since we were kids.”

“Or I just rock and you just suck.”

“Ladies,” Ethan said, halting his pacing. “Do me a favor and shut the hell up.”

Ethan found it oddly amusing that most of the fantasy tales told about vampires, werewolves, magic, demons, and other things that went bump in the night were written off as nothing more than fiction. If the world only knew that all those things and more existed, life would be more interesting.

But that would also incite a panic like no other – knowing that there were monsters out there that the forces of nature could be magically controlled by a select few. No, that would be anarchy. Nations would clamor for control of those individuals, rush to figure out how they did that and in the process probably plunge the world back into the dark ages.

As much as Ethan would have liked to have thought that society had moved beyond the ability to discriminate he saw it firsthand every day in school. All you had to do was look at the way Gabriel was treated; he had no magical abilities, he wasn’t a different species, his only crime was being attracted to the same sex. And yet, for as much as tolerance was preached throughout TV, books, and the web he was still virtually ignored.

Ethan fiddled with the gauntlet on his armor, running a hand over the smooth metal surface. The armor was black, made of interlocking metal plates. He idly picked dust out of a bullet hole that had appeared in the chest of his armor, which had been easily stopped by the dense yet lightweight material.

“What’s going on over there?” Cody pointed toward the large park to the north. They could see crowd had gathered. From this distance they could see several lit bonfires and what appeared to be a makeshift stage.

Ethan and Ryan turned to look toward where Cody had indicated, both grabbing their goggles off their belts and looking in that direction.

“People,” Ethan said. “Lots and lots of people. Is there some big party that I didn’t know about or something? Cause if there is then I need to find some new personal assistants.”

“Concert, it looks like,” Ryan said. “And you knew about this, the band invited you yesterday.”

“Oh,” Ethan said, lowering his goggles. “Wait, are you sure I was there? I wasn’t like asleep or anything was I?”

“Nope, you were just doing your rude and usual thing by ignoring them,” Ryan answered.

“Good to know, do you think that it will be a problem?”

Both Cody and Ryan shrugged.

“Not really, I mean you are always a bit of a wanker,” Cody said.

“Not that you idiot,” Ethan growled. “The concert.”

Cody shrugged and adjusted the quiver of specially designed arrows on his back as well as the arm guard on his right forearm.

“That’s all you got for me?” Ethan asked. “Just shrugging?”

“What did you want me to say?”

Ethan didn’t answer him and instead went back to staring at the trucks and SUVs that were already parked on the street, though there didn’t appear to be anyone in them. By now they could hear the music from the park and even from this distance the band didn’t sound all that bad.

“You know, I talked to that Gabriel kid earlier,” Cody offered.

“Why?” Ethan asked.

“I dunno,” Cody added
.
“Maybe I felt bad for him, and he did stand up to those guys for me, that has to count for something.”

“You could have totally kicked their asses,” Ethan pointed out. “You were never in any danger.”

“I know that,” Cody huffed. “But he didn’t, doesn’t make it any less heroic.”

“No, makes him more stupid than anything.”

“How do you figure that?” Ryan asked.

“It was a tactically stupid decision,” Ethan responded. “He went into a situation without knowledge of the enemies strength and without that a backup plan.”

“It's high school,” Ryan said, rolling his eyes. “And not everyone thinks in terms of battlefield maneuvers.”

“I can’t think of a better place to think in terms of battlefield maneuvers.”

“I talked to him on Facebook earlier,” Ryan added casually.

“What? You too? What is with you guys?”

“I felt bad for him,” Ryan said, with a shrug of his shoulders. “And it did take guts to stand up to David and his goons.”

“We aren’t out to save everyone single person we come across,” Ethan huffed.

“It was your idea after all,” Cody grumbled.

“I was bored,” Ethan stated, he was not idly fiddling with the straps on his combat gloves. “Who is Sainte-Pierre supposed to be meeting again?”

“Members of the New Aryan Nation,” Cody responded. “Think KKK on steroids, they’re plonkers, seriously bad blokes. So far they’ve managed to pull off a ton of things without getting caught.”

Jean Saint-Pierre was a dealer in black market weapons and explosives. His glowing red eyes and near flawless skin after being alive for three hundred years or so marked him as something other than human.

That wasn't damning in and of itself, but the real problem was that he sold weapons of every kind to pretty anyone that would pay for it. That included supernatural weaponry as well, which was what brought him to the Guardians' attention.

“And why are we concerned again?” Ethan asked. “Other than the fact that Cody can’t speak freaking English.”

Cody stuck his tongue out at Ethan this time.

Ryan snorted in annoyance. “Do you ever read the briefing reports? You know those things we get at least twice a day sent to our inbox.”

Unlike Ryan, Cody appeared to be entirely unfazed by Ethan’s lack of report reading.

“Because we want to know why a slime bag like Saint-Pierre is meeting with a bunch more slime bags like the New Aryan Nation,” Cody explained. “Saint-Pierre is a capitalist; a murdering, ruthless, psychotic capitalist, but is still always after one thing.”

“Money,” Ethan nodded.

“Aye,” Cody responded, pointing at Ethan. “And since we know that Saint-Pierre can be counted on to provide a whole slew of conventional and supernatural weaponry they wanted us to check out their meeting, I’m guessing they are going to trade more than just da’s lager.”

“The question is how the New Aryan Nation found our capitalist psychopath?”

“More likely he found them. He probably didn’t tell them what he really was, either, or they would have never have agreed to the meeting, since they are righteously doing God’s will and all,” Cody shrugged.

“Right,” Ryan snorted. “Cause that’s what God wants, now I just wanna go down there and hit them, thanks.”

“Not in the mission profile,” Ethan reminded him.

Now it was Ryan’s turn to given Ethan a rude gesture.

“Hold on a sec, looks like we have company,” Cody said, pointing toward the street.

A black SUV had pulled up and parked next to the gathered trucks. Behind the SUV came a moving van, although they suspected that there probably wasn’t furniture inside it. Sainte-Pierre stepped out from the vehicle, followed by his escorts. They weren’t human either. Their obsidian colored skin, glowing red eyes, and lack of any real identifying features marked them as Darklings.

“That’s him alright,” Cody nodded. “Bollocks, looks like he has some Darklings with him too.”

“I hate those guys,” Ryan muttered.

“Oh, but they just love you,” Ethan cooed.

“Buggers aren’t very smart,” Cody grunted. “It doesn’t look like they are packing anything besides melee weapons though.”

“How many?” Ethan asked.

“Just four, although is it just my imagination or is the back of that truck…moving?”

Now everyone grabbed their goggles and focused on the back of the truck, which was now shaking like it contained something that really wanted out.

“Uh oh, what do you suppose the idiot did this time?” Ryan asked, he was already checking his shotgun, which he affectingly called Reaper.

“Dunno,” Ethan sighed. “Although maybe we’ll get lucky and whatever it is will eat everyone down there then we could go over to the concert.”

“I thought you didn’t want to go to the concert?” Ryan asked.

“That’s when I thought they were going to suck,” Ethan shrugged. “They are actually pretty good.”

“Focus,” Cody snapped. “Damn, we should have brought Tony and Everett along for this too, this might be more then we can handle.”

Ethan made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Please, we got this. As long as whatever is in those trucks stays put we don’t have anything to worry about.”

Of course that was when all hell broke loose. There was a high pitched growl and then the sound of metal being ripped apart. The back of the moving van came apart with a large amount of force and crawling from it came four very large and very pissed off looking creatures.

“You just had to say something, didn’t you,” Ryan snapped, glancing sideways at Ethan.

Ethan recognized them instantly, about as tall as a horse and as long as small car, they looked very much like massive centipedes. They were blood red in color; the Guardians referred to them as Sintipedes; a nice little variation on what they looked like. Like the Darklings, they weren’t overly smart but that didn’t make them any less dangerous. They were strong, fast, and could inject a deadly venom into their victims.

Cody reacted instantly, dropping his goggles and pulling several arrows from his quiver. He stood up, sighted up his target and fired three in rapid succession. The first two slammed through the back of one of the monsters, causing it to roar in pain. The third landed dead center in the middle of his head, killing it instantly. The other three had already slithered on, heading toward the concert in the park.

“Ok, that is so not good,” Ryan snapped, racing for the fire escape.

The commotion of the Sintipedes escaping had sent the New Aryan Nation into a panic, most of them took off down the street in an attempt to get as far away from what was happening as possible. Jean Sainte-Pierre disappeared as well, although it appeared as if he sent the Darklings after the creatures, intent on not losing what was probably very expensive merchandise.

“You see, this is why you should have listened to me,” Ethan grumbled, following Ryan down the fire escape. “One or two RPG’s and we wouldn’t have to worry about those things or the New Aryan Nation getting away.”

“Now is not the time Ethan!” Cody snapped, hot on their heels.

“And you also didn’t listen to me when I told you we should have brought Tony, Everett, and the girls…”