The Guardian Chronicles 2: Dark Horizon (30 page)

“Yeah, repulsive,” Gabriel nodded. “Like even thinking about kissing you sort of makes me want to gag a little bit.”

“What? Are you kidding me!”

“Um...no,” Gabriel said, in confusion. “Wouldn’t most straight guys be happy that their gay friend has no physical interest in them whatsoever?”

“Well...yeah but isn’t repulsive a little harsh?”

“Look, I really think that you are making a mountain out of a mole hill here....”

“I mean you could have said I just don’t have feelings for you...”

“Ryan...”

“Or even maybe something like just not my type,” Ryan went on. “But repulsive?”

“Ok, look maybe I should have worded it better...”

“Unattractive, not appealing, but repulsive?”

“Fine!” Gabriel snapped. “I’m sorry.”

It was then that he noticed the grin on Ryan’s face.

“You did that in purpose!”

“Well, duh,” Ryan said. “We better get some sleep that is assuming that you can sleep next to someone as repulsive as me.”

“Oh for the love of god!” Gabriel snapped.

Ryan let out a snort of laughter. “You know what your problem is?”

“I have jerks for friends,” Gabriel retorted.

“No, you’re entirely too easy to get.”

“Do you really think that the plan will work?” Gabriel asked.

“Well, it’s so simple that it should work,” Ryan offered. “But it’s risky, Sainte-Pierre hasn’t survived this long by being stupid, he might see right through the whole thing.”

“That would not be good for us.”

“We don’t really have any other options,” Ryan said. “We need information and in order to get that we need to capture Sainte-Pierre.”

“You’re right,” Gabriel sighed. “Goodnight man.”

“Night, sleep tight.”

CHAPTER 14

“That’s your plan?” Jonathan asked, incredulously. “You want to launch an assault on a fortress, a literal one, with just a single team and only close fire support?”

“Well, I doubt that he would be expecting it,” Elise shrugged.

“You’re right; he would assume that we aren’t that stupid.”

“It’s not that stupid of an idea,” Ethan responded. “But it’s pretty ballsy, that’s for sure. And unless you happen to have a better idea than I suggest that we get our butts in gear.”

“You can’t actually expect me to approve this plan?” Jonathan asked, shaking his head. “You are going into a completely unknown and hostile environment.”

“We’ve set up several drone passes,” Elise countered. “We’ll have everything well mapped out before we even begin the assault and like Ethan pointed out, we really don’t have a lot of options on this one. We need him, especially with the information that we got from Anton about secret alliances.”

“I don’t like this,” Jonathan sighed. “We should wait until we can get more teams in place.”

“You don’t have to like it,” Ethan pointed out. “We know the risks, we are the ones that came up with the plan remember, we need to move fast, there is no telling how much longer Sainte-Pierre will be there. A large scale force would only tip him off, especially if his spy is still here.”

Jonathan pursed his lips, looking between Ethan and Elise.

“Are you sure that everyone understands the situation?”

“Yes,” Elise nodded.

“Then mission approved,” Jonathan sighed. “Bring him back in one piece; he has a lot answer for.”

“We’ll do our best.”

Elise and Ethan exited Jonathan’s office, a little surprised that he had gone for it so easily. Then again, Jonathan knew how important it was that they catch Sainte-Pierre.

“That went well,” Elise said. “I really thought that he was going to put up a lot more of a fight than that.”

“We do make a good team,” Ethan smiled.

“Don’t start,” Elise snapped, as they resumed their walk down the corridor. “Get any ideas about us getting back together out of your head right now.”

Ethan paused. “Would it really be so bad?”

“Don’t do this to yourself,” Elise said, in a low voice. “It’s over Ethan, whatever feelings for you I had I got over...you know why it would never work between us.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence. Everyone had assembled in the lounge in the interim, waiting for Elise and Ethan to pitch their idea to Jonathan. They all looked up as soon as Ethan and Elise stepped through the door.

“So?” Ryan asked.

“He went for it,” Elise nodded. “We’ll head out in a few hours, after we get all the gear checked out. I already contacted Vertias they’ll have transportation ready for us to actually get us close to the target once we get there.”

“Assault is planned for tonight,” Ethan added. “Tony, you’ll be in charge of the heavy arms fire, I want to bring everything you can that makes things go boom, we got you access to the heavy stuff too.”

“Oh sweet,” Tony said, rubbing his hands together. “Greek Fire Grenades?”

“All yours,” Ethan smiled.

“I am going to have way too much fun with this,” Tony said, nearly sprinting from the room.

“Does it bother anyone else how much he gets into the explosives?” Ryan asked.

“I need a moment alone with you two,” Ethan said, gesturing toward Ryan and Gabriel.

The rest of the Guardians filed out, leaving Ethan alone with Gabriel and Ryan.

“We need to talk,” Ethan said. “I need to know that I can count on both of you.”

Ryan made a face. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Gabriel nodded. “You’re worried that I’ll want to kill him.”

“Do you?” Ethan asked.

“Way to be direct,” Ryan sighed.

“No,” Gabriel said. “He’s right, he needs to know, you want me to promise that I won’t kill him, right?”

“I’d like that, yeah,” Ethan nodded. “We need him back here alive if we have any hope of unraveling whatever it is that he and his partner are up too.”

Gabriel stared at Ethan for a few heartbeats, silence hanging in the air.

“I know what you want me to say,” Gabriel finally sighed. “But that wouldn’t be the truth, I know that we need him alive and I wish that I could tell you that I would be in total control of all my emotions but I can’t. I’ll do my best but that’s all that I can say.”

Ethan stared at Gabriel for a long moment. “That’s good enough for me and you?”

“Me?” Ryan asked.

“You wanted to kill him earlier; I saw it in your eyes on the yacht,” Ethan snapped. “You damn near threw yourself off the boat to chase him down.”

“It that was the mistake,” Ryan snapped.

“Mistake or not you nearly got yourself killed,” Ethan said. “I need clear heads on this, Sainte-Pierre comes back alive, do you both understand me?”

“Understood,” Ryan said.

Gabriel only nodded.

Ethan turned and left the lounge, leaving the two of them alone.

“Throwing yourself off a boat to chase him down, huh?” Gabriel asked. “When did we step into the Twilight Zone and you suddenly become the irresponsible one?”

“Momentary lapse of cool,” Ryan responded.

“Ah, well that explains it then.”

The rest of the time passed quickly enough, with the team busying themselves with preparations for the upcoming assault. For the most part, Ethan kept to himself, dealing with a lot of tactical ground work. Tony went around collecting pretty much every heavy duty piece of firepower that he could get his hands on while Elise worked logistics.

Ethan had been right about one thing; part of Gabriel still wanted revenge in Sainte-Pierre for what he had put him through. Everyone had been asking about his torture at the hands of the demon but Gabriel had declined to commit on it. It wasn’t an experience that he felt like reliving in any form. He grabbed another set of Heat round clips and slid them into place on part of his armor.

“Hey man,” Cody said, entering the armory. “You ready for this?”

“Not really,” Gabriel sighed.

“Look,” Cody said, placing his hands on Gabriel’s shoulders. “You’re pretty much a bloody badass or you wouldn’t have lasted this long just relax and you’ll do fine, after all you did kill a demon while the rest of us were running around in circles.”

Gabriel gave a slight snort of laughter at that comment. “I still think that a large part of that was luck.”

“Aye,” Cody nodded, letting go of Gabriel. “It might have been but you kicked arse regardless. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Gabriel shrugged.

“Why did you step in back at school?”

Gabriel slid Aequitas back into its scabbard. “I guess I don’t really know, something inside me snapped when I saw you getting picked on...like something had been building for a long time. I guess I just thought that I should try and make a difference.”

“You certainly have,” Cody smiled.

“Thanks,” Gabriel smiled.

Gabriel wanted to believe in the confidence that Cody and the rest of the team had in him but the truth of the matter was that he didn’t really know how he was going to react when he came up against Sainte-Pierre again.

“Come on,” Cody said, slapping him on the back. “Let’s get to work.”

“Looks like they have the area pretty heavily guarded,” Tony said, looking through his NVGs. “I count five humans on the upper wall and at least half a dozen Darklings around the base of the wall. No Unkari though.”

“At least we might be able to avoid all the hand to hand then,” Marissa tossed in.

“Bah!” Tony snapped. “Where would the fun be in that?”

Elise, Everett, Tony, and Marissa were stationed on a small ridge, overlooking the large stone structure below. So far they had gone un-noticed, although that was about to change. Their team was to make sure that they were noticed so that Ethan, Ryan, Cody, and Gabriel could scale the wall on the opposite side and capture their quarry.

The ridge that they were currently situated on was two hundred meters or so from the castle wall. They had yet to encounter any resistance.

“I’m not seeing anything on thermals or infrared spectrum,” Tony remarked, setting down his NVGs. “Anything magical?”

Everett shook his head.

“Looks like it’s time to get this party started.”

“Are you going to be able to throw those things that far?” Everett asked, gesturing toward the large black ammo case that Tony had next to him.

“I’m not going to throw them,” Tony smiled. He turned around and grabbed what appeared to be a launcher of some sort. “I modified the grenades to be fired from a launcher, pretty cool, right?”

“I cannot believe that you did that,” Everett sighed. “You know how dangerous that stuff is and you want to fire it out of a rocket launcher?”

Tony just shrugged.

“I hate it when you do that,” Everett huffed.

“Are you ready?” Elise asked, looking over at Marissa. Her Lancer sniper rifle was set up and sighted in, ready to rain death down on the unsuspecting enemy below. She gave Elise a thumbs up.

“Alright Tony,” Elise said. “Light’em up.”

Tony grinned from ear to ear. He moved to a kneeling position and grabbed the launcher and flipped open the ammo case. The Greek Fire Grenades weren’t all that large, about as big around as baseballs. They looked like they were made of glass, encasing a swirling green flame within.

“Fire in the hole!”

The launcher bucked and sent its mythical payload toward the wall. It impacted a few seconds later with a flash and tore into the wall with enough force to rip apart mortar and stone. A column of fire shot skyward from the impact, lighting up the night sky momentarily. The blast scattered flaming Darklings all around the area.

“Wow,” Tony said. “That was awesome!”

“It appeared to get their attention,” Elise nodded.

The smoke had started to clear, allowing them a clear view of the damage that the grenade had done. There was a six meter by six meter hole; the edges still alight with flame that penetrated all the way through to the inner courtyard. No one that had been present before Tony launched the grenade remained.

“Here they come,” Marissa reported. “Darklings and Unkari, they’re heavily armed.”

Tony loaded another grenade and fired, shredding another knot of Darklings and sending several of the Unkari bouncing off the walls engulfed in the eerie green fire.

“Tony, Marissa, keep up the pressure and try and not kill us,” Elise ordered. “Everett, we’ll deal with the Unkari.”

Elise and Everett got to their feet and leapt off the ridge. It was only a twenty foot drop that they handled with ease, as soon as they hit the ground they took off running toward the castle. Tony switched to his assault rifle and along with Marissa was raining down Heat rounds on the masses of Darklings that continued to pour through the destroyed section of the wall.

There was no way that you could have missed the explosion or the sound it made in the dark of night. It actually caused Gabriel to jump slightly, which gave everyone else he was with reason to smile. The column of fire that rocketed skyward was impressive to say the least.

“I’d say that’s our cue,” Ryan nodded.

They fired the grappling guys that they had been outfitted with for this particular mission and slowly started to ascend the vertical wall. Cody was the first to go over the top, seconds later they heard a muffled thump. When Gabriel climbed over the wall he looked down to see one Unkari lying dead on the top of the wall, an arrow protruding from his forehead.

Ethan motioned them forward, Ryan taking point. They knew that had to travel down at least one more level before they reached the tower that they were pretty sure Sainte-Pierre was hiding. The first several meters were missing guards of any sort, at least until the door at the top of the tower opened and the next patrol came rushing out, no doubt to check the walls for another other attacks.

The first Darkling dropped dead as Cody’s arrow pierced its throat. The second and third Darklings took Heat rounds through the chest as Gabriel and Ethan opened fire and by then they realized that they might have been in trouble. They settled for rushing forward, trying to swarm the Guardians.

Ryan grabbed Reaper off his back and fired, blasting through two Darklings and sending them tumbling over the edge. Glowing bullets whizzed around him, slamming into more of the oncoming bodies and tearing through them. Several arrows flew by as well; perfect kill shots on every target that they hit.

Another explosion echoed through the night.

“Get down!” Cody shouted.

Everyone hit the deck as Cody fired another arrow, this time the arrow slammed into the first Darkling, unleashing a powerful explosions that not only shredded bodies but hurled most of them off the top of the wall, sending them raining down into the courtyard below. The remaining Darklings tried to retreat but Ryan made short work of them with Reaper.