The Guardian Chronicles 2: Dark Horizon (23 page)

“Remember the last time you were out here?”

“Yeah, when I first woke after getting attacked,” Gabriel nodded. “It seems like a long time ago though, you know before I really got sucked into this world.”

“You know you like it,” Tony smiled, as they came up to the fire pit. “Firewood is over there under the tarp.”

Gabriel walked over to the pile and started gathering up several logs before taking them back to the pit, where Tony was hard at work laying them out and getting his kindling ready. It didn’t take long before Tony had constructed a base and lit a match, prompting the fire to slowly build up around logs.

“So, do you regret it?” Tony asked, warming his hands near the fire.

“Regret what?”

“You know joining us,” Tony shrugged. “Becoming a badass and all that.”

Gabriel snorted. “You guys are the badasses, not me.”

“Dude, you killed a demon, in my book that falls under badass,” Tony smiled. “And not some pansy demon either, one with a pink beam-o-death.”

“When you say pink beam-o-death, it sounds a lot less impressive.”

“Nah,” Tony said, shaking his head. “It was still awesome.”

They stood in silence for a few more minutes.

“You know it doesn’t bother me,” Tony said.

“What doesn’t bother you?” Gabriel asked.

“You liking guys,” Tony shrugged. “I wanted you to know that it doesn’t bother me...I mean like if you started dating a guy you could totally bring him around and it wouldn’t bother me. Unless he was a jerk or something in which case I am pretty sure that it’s in the bro code that I smack him around a bit.”

Gabriel found himself smiling at that remark.

“Well, I assumed you guys were cool with it...but I didn’t want to ever bring it up.”

“Why not?” Tony asked. His face was one of confusion. “It’s a part of your life and as your friend, even if I don’t get it, I’m still going to support you. No one deserves to be alone.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel sighed, tossing a twig into fire. “Assuming that I can find a guy.”

Tony crossed his arms and looked at Gabriel. “Are you serious? Really, if you can find a guy? Come on man, are you kidding me! You’re smart, funny, nice, and even I’ll admit not bad looking, you should have no trouble landing a dude.”

“Thanks,” Gabriel said. “I just hope that the other guys are cool with it.”

“Ryan doesn’t give a damn,” Tony shrugged. “And Cody...well I’m not entirely sure about him. You get some alcohol in him and he’s been known to do some pretty strange things. Everett doesn’t care either.”

“And the girls?” Gabriel asked.

“Neither one of them is that close minded, I mean look at what we do.”

“And Ethan?”

“Ethan?” Tony asked. “Oh that’s right, you have a total crush on him.”

“I don’t!”

“Sure,” Tony nodded. “You don’t have a crush on him at all.”

Gabriel wanted to refute that fact vehemently but he knew that it was true. If Tony picked up on it then it was a good bet that others had too, possibly Ethan.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Tony shrugged, clapping Gabriel on the shoulder. “Ethan knows he’s hot and he flaunts it every chance that he gets. You wouldn’t be the first guy to fall for it.”

“Gee, way to make me feel better,” Gabriel grunted.

Tony only smiled.

“I’m impressed that you have managed not to burn the whole field down,” Ryan said, striding up to them. Elise, Cody, and Marissa were in tow. “Everett and Ethan are on their way, they stopped off to grab some snacks.”

“Cool,” Tony nodded. “I was just telling Gabriel here that we don’t care if he started dating a guy and brought him around.”

“Way to be tactful,” Ryan grunted.

“Really, you don’t think that you could have phrased that better?” Elise asked, taking a seat. “I swear Tony, sometimes your only redeeming quality is your ability to kick ass.”

“Hey,” Tony snapped. “And my ability to woo women, you forgot about that.”

“You aren’t as good as you think you are,” Marissa smiled.

“I know several women that would disagree with you.”

Ethan and Everett soon arrived afterward, carrying bags full of chips, candy bars, and all sorts of other junk food. Generally speaking Gabriel avoided most junk food these days, but he figured the occasional exception couldn't hurt.

“So,” Gabriel asked, as he tore into a bag of nacho cheese chips. “What made you guys want to become Guardians. I mean, I know from all the lore lessons that just because you are born into a clan doesn’t mean that you go on to become a Guardian.”

Cody was the first to speak up. “My da was a good for nothing wanker and my mom was gone in the head. My aunt always took care of me; she was a Guardian so I followed in her footsteps.”

“What in the hell did he just say?” Gabriel asked.

“See,” Ethan pointed out. “No one can understand you!”

“His dad was a lazy good for nothing dolt and his mom was crazy,” Ryan responded. “Did I translate that well?”

“Good enough,” Cody nodded.

“And you?” Gabriel asked, looking at Ryan.

“My father was a Guardian and so was my mother,” Ryan shrugged. “I always like the idea of fighting evil and where else do you get to play with all these cool toys.”

“And the girls,” Tony added.

“Oh yeah and the girls,” Ryan nodded.

“Oh come on,” Elise said, rolling her eyes. “Girls just don’t throw themselves at you.”

“You did,” Ethan shrugged.

“You are such an ass,” Elise growled.

“Yes but it’s oh so fine.”

It was evident in Elise’s face that she was fighting down the urge to leap over the fire and throttle Ethan right there.

“Most of us have family members that are Guardians,” Elise explained. “Most of my family members have been Guardians since the order was first conceived. It’s not for everyone though; my brother was evaluated at an early age and didn’t make the cut.”

“What happens to them then? I mean does he even know what you guys do?” Gabriel asked.

“A permanent block is placed in their mind and all memories of the Guardians erased,” Elise continued. “We want them to live out a normal life and as you can probably figure out, that’s a lot easier when you don’t know what goes bump in the night.”

“It’s just me in my family,” Marissa sighed. “My parents retired as soon as they could and haven’t looked back. It was probably for the best though; to be honest they weren’t very good at it anyway. They got interested in the whole corporate world a while ago and couldn’t wait to get out and make millions. ”

The regret that seemed to come along with those words surprised Gabriel, usually Marissa was nothing but pleasant, though clearly there was some resentment there. Maybe she was embarrassed that her parents had abandoned the exciting lifestyle of fighting evil for something as mundane as Wall Street.

“My whole family has always been involved with the Guardians,” Everett said, shoving another handful of chips into his mouth. “I don’t think that we have ever done anything else, so it just sort of made sense for me to keep going. I have a sister and a brother that will be entering the academy next year.”

“And what about you?” Gabriel asked, looking at Ethan.

“Do you really think that they would be able to get along without me?” Ethan smiled. It was one of those stupid smug smiles too, one that probably had the girls falling all over him.

And in this case, you too, Gabriel reminded himself.

“I never wanted to do anything else and really, would you want me doing anything else but saving the world from the clutches of evil? Plus, in the words of the great Will Smith ‘I make this look good’.”

“He’s super modest too,” Cody said, taking a swig of his pop. “Bloody hell man, your ego gets any bigger and we’ll have to build a fire for it too.”

“Just stating the obvious,” Ethan shrugged.

“What about you?” Gabriel asked, looking over to Tony. At the moment Tony was cleaning his Enforcer pistol, seemingly lost in the process and ignoring the rest of the conversation. He looked up, cocking his head to the side and thought for a moment before answering.

“I like to blow stuff up,” Tony smiled. “And the ladies, this job always gets you the ladies.”

“Oh for the love!” Elise snapped. “That is not true!”

“Don’t act like you two haven’t used it to your advantage; remember a few years ago, at the Christmas Ball...”

Elise blushed instantly. “Do. Not. Share that story if you want to live Irishmen.”

“Aye,” Cody nodded. “But you just proved my point.”

“Anyone know any good ghost stories?” Gabriel asked.

“We live ghost stories dude,” Tony smiled. “Though I suppose some of our missions might actually fit that description, we can tell him about the time me and Elise went up against those Wendigos.”

“You just want to tell him that story because you both got to use high powered explosives,” Cody said, shaking his head.

“It still makes for an amusing story,” Tony smiled. “And you don’t have any better ones that won’t scare him, so just sit back and listen.”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “Oh please like that was that scary, you want to make him wet the bed tell him about that time we fell into that zombie horde, I was scrubbing entrails out of my armor for weeks after that.”

The next morning, Gabriel did everything like he usually did. He got up and went to Aegis, worked out, ran, and then got in some target practice before changing and heading out to his car for the trip back home. They had been given the rest of the weekend off and Gabriel intended to use his free time to catch up on a lot of reading.

He pulled out of Aegis and turned toward home, maybe he could convince Sean and Tim go see a movie or something. Ever since he started training with the Guardians he hadn’t gotten a chance to spend that much time with Sean. He felt bad about that, mainly because for a while, Sean was the only friend that he had.

It wasn’t as cold as it could have been for December in Nebraska, for which Gabriel was eternally grateful. He made a turn toward the highway, cutting through another part of the industrial district. It was mostly abandoned, although there were still a few businesses left. He wondered if Aegis would ever expand this far, effectively revamping yet another city block.

A light rain started to fall and Gabriel eased off the accelerator slightly. It would be embarrassing to survive an attack by a demon and then end up slamming his car into a telephone pole or something. He made a right turn and headed toward the highway.

And then things went straight to hell.

His mustang spun as a much larger SUV slammed into him from the rear. Gabriel struggled to get control of his vehicle and keep it from careening into a nearby dumpster. He finally got the car stopped, he shook his head and got out. He was more irritated than worried...at least he was until he saw the six Darklings charging at him.

“Oh hell,” Gabriel muttered. He was at the disadvantage, his weapon was back at Aegis and he had no idea if he could tackle that many Darklings. He didn’t have that much time to think about it, however, because soon they were on him.

He ducked under a blow, caught the arm that threw it and launched the attacking Darkling backwards through an abandoned building’s window. He took a hit the face, slicing open a wound on his cheek. Gabriel back flipped; getting himself out of the mass of Darklings so that he had could form a better battle plan.

Of course the only plan that currently came to mind was surviving. Another Darkling went down when he slammed his fist into its face, snapping the neck on impact. Gabriel blocked another series of attacks, more grabs and clumsy punches than anything, before unloading a series of snap kicks, that knocked another Darkling away.

He never even saw what took him down. He felt a searing blast of pain and then blackness swallowed him up.

Gabriel awoke with a throbbing pain in his head. His limbs burned and he could taste blood in his mouth. When he finally got his eyes to focus he realized that he had no idea where he was, save he was in an office of some sort. He had been chained to the floor and stripped down to his compression shorts. For a brief moment a very unlikely situation like something out of Fifty Shades of Gray passed through his mind...however he quickly realized that wasn’t the case.

The office was large, a lot larger than any of them at Aegis. They were overlooking the Omaha skyline and it was now completely dark outside. A large wooden desk dominated one corner of the room, to his left there was a seating area occupied by two beige leather couches. A low credenza was situated behind him. The doors opened and in walked someone that Gabriel had only seen in images.

“Sainte-Pierre,” he growled.

“I’m glad to know that my reputation precedes me,” Sainte-Pierre smiled. “I’m terribly sorry about your clothes but you Guardians can hide the most interesting things in there. We had to make sure that you didn’t have any tracking glyphs on them or something.”