The Guardian Chronicles 2: Dark Horizon (33 page)

“You won’t make it out of here alive,” Gabriel hissed. “I’ll kill you.”

“Even if you could there junior Power Ranger you won’t because they want me alive, no they need me alive and you won’t...”

Sainte-Pierre let out a strangled grunt as Gabriel’s blade slammed into him from behind, burying it’s self-up to the hilt in Sainte-Pierre’s shoulder. He clawed at the weapon, dropping his own in the process. Aequitas continued to push forward toward Gabriel desperately wanting to get back to its master.

“You won’t win,” Sainte-Pierre spat. “You have one good arm...”

Gabriel caught him across the face with a left hook, sending him spinning around. He yanked Aequitas free, sending a spray out blood outward. Sainte-Pierre yelled in pain and dropped down to one knee, grasping at the wound.

“You...won’t...kill...me...” Sainte-Pierre rasped. “They...need...me...alive.”

Gabriel leveled Aequitas at Sainte-Pierre’s throat.

Never let your heart turn dark, Imogene’s words echoed in his head. He didn’t have a choice; Sainte-Pierre would disable him and then kill his friends. He couldn’t let that happen. He knew that he couldn’t hold Sainte-Pierre alone, even if his arm wasn’t broken. He had no idea how he would restrain him without assistance and looking around at the rest of his team, it was clear that they were going to be unable to offer any aid.

He had only one choice.

He stabbed the sword forward, right through Sainte-Pierre’s neck.

CHAPTER 15

“I thought that I said bring him back alive!” Jonathan yelled.

Gabriel winced, doing his best to keep himself under control. After he killed Sainte-Pierre he had rushed to Ryan, but by that time Cody had come around and started tending to Ryan’s wounds. They found a laptop on the helicopter that had a vast amount of information on it. It was a saving grace considering Cody’s arrow had pretty much demolished the communications room at the castle.

Gabriel looked over to Marissa, aside from Elise and Tony; they were the only ones present in the command center. Everyone else was down in the infirmary getting checked out. Gabriel had a cast hurriedly placed and then was whisked away to talk to Jonathan about the mission. Personally, Gabriel would have loved to have stayed in the infirmary.

“We needed him for information!” Jonathan snapped again.

“I didn’t have a choice,” Gabriel responded.

He had been telling himself that over and over again for the past few hours, trying to justify what he had done. Could he have really taken down Sainte-Pierre one handed? Did he have to resort to killing him? The more that he thought about his actions, the more he started to second guess himself, it was a dangerous pattern of thinking that could lead to inaction at the wrong time if he wasn’t careful. He needed to talk to someone about it but had other issues he had to take care of first.

“I had a broken arm, the rest of the team was knocked out...if I didn’t take action then he would have disabled me and then killed them.”

“He does have a point,” Elise nodded. “And it wasn’t a total loss, we have his laptop and a massive amount of information. We’ll find out who his partner is.”

“And let’s be honest here,” Tony interjected. “We probably couldn’t have made Sainte-Pierre talk, the man practically invented torture I’m pretty sure he knew how to keep his mouth shut.”

At least some of the Guardians were on his side in the matter.

“The intelligence in his mainframe and network alone could keep us busy for weeks, we’ll find something to tie him to his ally and go from there,” Marissa shrugged. “In the mean time I suggest that we start looking into all the leads that Anton gave us, we might be able to cross reference them with Sainte-Pierre’s files.”

“As soon as Everett is rested up, get to work on it,” Jonathan ordered. “Despite the outcome, that was a good job...all of you. I just wished that he had ended differently.”

“I think that we all do,” Gabriel nodded.

“I’m giving most of you the next several days off,” Jonathan nodded. “I’ll contact you all when we have something from Anton’s leads or from the information that we pull from Sainte-Pierre’s mainframe.”

Gabriel nodded exited the command center, the rest of the team in tow. He let out an exasperated sigh; he hadn’t wanted to get into it with Jonathan. All he really wanted to do was go down in the infirmary and hang out with his wounded teammates. He still couldn’t believe what he did, killing Sainte-Pierre or any of the Unkari like that. He shook his head, pushing those thoughts away as he entered the infirmary.

“Hey,” Gabriel nodded, when he saw Cody.

“Have I mentioned how thankful I am for you saving my arse again?” Cody asked.

“I didn’t really have a choice,” Gabriel sighed. “How is everyone doing?”

“They are recovering well,” Aadesh said, setting down his tablet. “Everett will just need some rest, I’ve already released Ethan. Ryan just finished his dip in the tank and should be ready to go home tomorrow. How is your arm?”

“Throbs a little,” Gabriel admitted. “And still hurts but nothing that I can’t handle.”

“We’ll get you in the tanks tomorrow, “Aadesh smiled. “Ryan should be awake enough for visitors if you want to talk to him.”

Gabriel nodded and walked over to the bed that Ryan was lying in. He was currently fiddling with the tape that held his IV in place.

“I hate these things,” he grunted. “Always so itchy.”

“Eh, they could be worse,” Gabriel said, pulling a stool up next to him. “How are you feeling?”

“Sore,” Ryan shrugged. “But I’ve actually had worse.”

“Worse?” Gabriel asked.

“Oh yeah,” Ryan nodded. “Way worse.”

Gabriel arched an eyebrow at that comment.

“So, how’s your arm?”

“Still broken,” Gabriel shrugged. “And it hurts like hell, Cody stitched me up as soon as we got back here, he’s pretty good at that stuff you know.”

“Considering what Sainte-Pierre could have done to you I’d say that’s actually pretty good,” Ryan said. “Thanks, we all owe you one.”

“Just doing what you would have done,” Gabriel said. “I’m sorry that you got hurt though.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ryan shrugged. “I’m just glad that Sainte-Pierre missed my important parts,” Ryan smiled.

“Look, I know that we needed to bring him back alive...”

“Do you know who Helmuth von Moltke is?” Ryan asked.

“No idea,” Gabriel said, shaking his head.

“He was a German military strategist,” Ryan continued. “He said ‘No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy’, in other words even the best plans can get pretty screwed up once you hit the real world. If you hadn’t defended yourself he would have taken you out and then killed us, possibly even the rest of our team outside.”

Gabriel nodded, what Ryan was saying made sense.

“You saved our lives.”

“I should let you rest,” Gabriel said, standing up. “See you tomorrow.”

Ryan nodded and settled back into his bed.

Gabriel stepped out of the shower. His body was covered with bruises, scrapes, and a few stitches. He forgot how many Cody used to close up his wounds; he did remember him telling him that they were waterproof, much like the cast that he was now sporting. He dried off and slipped on some athletic pants before venturing out to the main area of the locker-room. He set his bag down and went to the sink, splashing water on his face.

When he looked up in the mirror he was struck by the face that looked back at him. Gabriel wasn’t entirely sure that he recognized the young man staring back at him. He was broken out of his train of thought as the door to the locker-room opened. He turned around as Ethan came around the corner.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Ethan responded.

They stood in silence for a moment.

“Thanks.”

Gabriel nodded. Looking at Ethan there seemed to be something different about him. His stance seemed more relaxed, his eyes seemed almost less intense, and there was something lighter in his voice when he talked.

“Your arm okay?”

“It’ll be fine,” Gabriel responded. “Aadesh wants to dunk me in the tanks in the morning just to cut down on the healing time, I think he wanted to get everyone else through first. How’s your head?”

“Fine,” Ethan shrugged. “Why did you do it?”

“Why did I do what?” Gabriel asked, in confusion.

“Kill Sainte-Pierre,” Ethan asked.

Gabriel winced, aware that he couldn’t hide it from Ethan.

“I’m not accusing you of anything,” Ethan said, picking up on Gabriel’s discomfort. “I just want to know.”

“I’m...I...look, I had a broken arm,” Gabriel finally managed to sputter out. “I couldn’t defend myself let alone you guys and he already said that he was going to kill you as soon as he got me under control.”

“You made a tactical decision,” Ethan nodded.

“I’m not sure that I am cut out for this,” Gabriel sighed. “I killed a lot of Unkari...”

“Who were trying to kill you,” Ethan said, leaning against the sink next to Gabriel. “You were defending yourself, just like killing Sainte-Pierre meant that you were defending your team.”

“It’s not that simple for me,” Gabriel hissed.

His mind was already whirling with the consequences of his actions. He could handle killing the other Unkari, as Ethan pointed out they were trying to kill him. With them it wasn’t personal, he was merely defending himself but with Sainte-Pierre it was an entirely different story. He wanted revenge; he knew that going into the mission.

He knew facing Sainte-Pierre was a very real possibility on the mission and that he might have to fight him but he thought that he could reign in his feelings. He was wrong, the moment that he started fighting Sainte-Pierre he could feel his rage growing, morphing into something that was a lot harder to hold in check then he originally thought it would be.

Gabriel was torn, he really thought that he could keep his feelings in check but as soon as his teammates were wounded...well he threw the mission parameters out the window. It was not something that was setting well with him; he was starting to feel like he had made the biggest mistake of his life.

“Aren’t you worried that I killed him for the wrong reason?” Gabriel asked.

“Is there ever a right reason?” Ethan responded. “You did what you had to do. Now you have to live with it, taking a life is never easy, no matter how easy it looks.”

“Even a scumbag like Sainte-Pierre?”

Ethan nodded. “You saved lives today, not just mine and the rest of the team’s but probably thousands of others but not allowing Sainte-Pierre a chance to sell a whole lot of assholes some really good weapons.”

Gabriel turned to say something else to Gabriel and then caught him looking right at him. Gabriel expected a gaze filled with accusation or malice, instead he found one of...understanding. It was odd, seeing as how Ethan was usually riding Gabriel about something or insulting him.

“Maybe they should have just let them mind wipe me,” Gabriel sighed.

Ethan shrugged. “You aren’t as bad at this as you think you are.”

“Um...thanks.”

“Get some rest,” Ethan ordered. “See you tomorrow.”

Gabriel slept for what seemed like days, thankfully peacefully and soundly. The nightmarish dreams that had been plaguing him for the better part of two weeks stopped, though he had a nagging feeling that wasn’t really the end of them. They seemed to always be there, lurking around the edge of his subconscious, waiting for a moment to pounce back in.

His parents appeared to not notice the cast. He suspected that it had something to do with the glyphs etched on the outside of it. He hadn’t even thought about asking how he was going to hide such a thing from his parents but it appeared, as usual, the Guardians already had the situation well in hand.

The pain had subsided somewhat, although it still throbbed. Aadesh assured him that after a dip in the Phoenix Tank, he’d be almost as good as new within a few days. Gabriel was actually hoping for some more time off, although given what they knew, or accurately didn’t know about Sainte-Pierre’s partner, he didn’t see any of them getting a long vacation.

Gabriel really wanted to believe what Ethan said; that he had acted for the good of his team...he shook his head and stepped into the shower. Thinking like this wouldn’t get him anywhere, he really wanted to head back to Castle Veritas and talk to Imogene, for some reason he had a feeling that the weapons maker would have something insightful to tell him. At least, he hoped that she would have something insightful to tell him.

He got dressed and then headed downstairs and out the door. He passed Sean and Tim, both of whom were passed out on the floor in the living room. He quietly slipped outside and got into his car and backed out of the driveway. He drove all the way to Aegis in silence, not even bothering to turn on the radio. The bustling complex was amazingly quiet for a Saturday morning; Aegis usually ran twenty four seven.

He found the command center full of people, including Ryan and Everett. Everett looked much better than the last time that he had seen him, as did Ryan. Jonathan entered a few minutes later, followed Aadesh. Neither one of them was wearing the happiest of looks.

“Good to see you all again, this time under much better circumstances,” Aadesh smiled, as he took his seat. “Gabriel, we have a tank ready to go for you after the briefing.”

Gabriel nodded; he didn’t remember his first dip in a Phoenix tank and was a little nervous about going back into one. Everyone on the team had assured him that it wasn’t nearly as bad as it sounds.

“How are things going with Sainte-Pierre’s mainframe?” Tony asked.

“Slow,” Marissa nodded. “Very, very, slow. He has some of the best encryption and network security out there; we’re talking CIA level stuff. We can work around it but it’s going to take us awhile. That’s not the most alarming development though.”

“There’s more bad news?” Gabriel asked, raising an eyebrow.

“That war golem that we fought,” Marissa went on, typing away on her tablet. “Well, that was one of ours, stolen from a storage facility in Russia.”

“How did we now know that it was missing?” Jonathan snapped.

“Someone hacked into the security system; it was only after they went back and did a visual inspection of both the storage facility and the debris that they managed to figure it out. Every storage facility around the world is going through their inventory as we speak, just to make sure that everything is accounted for.”