The Guardian Chronicles 1: Rise of the Phoenix (26 page)

“I’ve never seen him this concerned,” Ryan whispered to Gabriel. “Something serious must have gone down.”

“Two hours ago Veritas received a communication from a majority of the vampire covens,” Jonathan explained.

“Well that can’t be good,” Ryan muttered.

“The vampires are withdrawing from the peace accords,” Jonathan stated. “They’ve declared war on the Guardians and the human race.”

Silence hung in the room. Aadesh was the first to speak again.

“Guardian command is working out a series of threat analysis. The vampires have numbers but they won’t be able to subdue the human population overnight.”

“With those hybrids they might,” Ethan snapped. “We need to go on the offensive, get allies. Clearly this is something that they have been planning for a long time.”

Gabriel’s heart was hammering in his chest. Just when things were going good with Alex, something like this had to happen. He wondered if he would ever see him again or if Jonathan and the Guardians would forbid him from having any future contact with him.

“There are some that have decided against this course of action,” Aadesh continued. “Valentine has chosen to side with the Guardians; he has pledged his forces to defending humanity.”

Gabriel looked at Ethan and saw a bit of anger flash in his eyes but he otherwise kept his mouth shut.

“There is more,” Jonathan continued. “Along with the message from the vampires we also received a brief video message from a previously unknown man. It’s clear now that he was the one working with Sainte-Pierre.”

Jonathan tapped his tablet and the large screens around the conference room blazed to life. The image was that of a man, his face covered with a black mask. He had an athletic build and wore dark robes. Long white hair flowed out from around the mask.

“My name is Janus and I am the end of your order,” the man said. “Whether you believe me or not is unimportant. What you do need to know is that I have an army at my disposal that can and will crush your own. I don’t want to destroy the world, all I want is to ensure its continued existence. Mankind cannot continue on the course that it’s on. We’re working toward mutual destruction and someone has to step in and stop it. I will give you two weeks to surrender your forces, after that the blood will be on your hands.”

The image winked off.

“That is so not a good sign,” Gabriel muttered.

“Who the hell was that guy?” Ethan snapped.

“We don’t know,” Jonathan admitted. “We’ve never seen him before, though it is a logical assumption to think that he was the one that implanted the spy in our midst. Intelligence is working in gathering any information that they can from the video.”

“You won’t find any,” Gabriel stated. “He’s way too smart to leave clues like that lying around. He said he had an army, what do you think he meant about an army?”

“The hybrids?” Ryan offered.

“It’s possible,” Aadesh said. “Though it seemed as if he was talking about another army. Perhaps that was what Sainte-Pierre was looking for in the Well of Souls?”

“Speculation isn’t going to help us,” Jonathan snapped.

“Which means we need information,” Marissa sighed. “And fast.”

“What does this mean?” Gabriel asked. “There really can’t be enough vampires to wipe out humanity, right?”

“You’re forgetting the part about them being able to turn those that they bite,” Ethan said. “They could create an army and with those hybrids and whatever it is that Janus has up his sleeve means that the bad guys could outnumber the good guys pretty quick.”

“That does not make me feel better,” Gabriel said.

“You’ll have orders in the morning,” Jonathan stated. “We’re going to strike at them the first chance we get. We need to take the heads of the coven’s captive and force them to end this war before things get out of hand.”

“We’re at war with the vampires,” Gabriel muttered. “Things are already out of hand.”

“Good thing you learned that new trick,” Ethan smiled, as they all stood up. “Sounds like we’re going to need your help, flaming hands and all.”

“Over two hundred years of peace,” Gabriel said, shaking his head. “And now it’s all over. Whatever this Janus wants to do, he seems pretty convinced that he can do it.”

“Yeah, we’ve heard that before,” Ryan grumbled.

“And what stopped them?”

“Us,” Ethan smiled. “Come on boys and
girls it’s time to go to work.”