Guardians Inc.:Thundersword (Guardians Incorporated #2)

by Julian Rosado-Machain

  “But the stories are true?” Thomas asked again. He was thinking about the swords in the stone, immortal evil lords, and schools of Magic.

  Bolswaithe took over the conversation. “There is a Parliament in England that governs Magic-attuned humans, and regulates Fae, Faun, and Methos relations, their interaction with the non-magical world and with us,” he said. “There are whole communities of witches and wizards, and yes…” he said, “there are schools that teach the arcane arts, and flying brooms.”

  “And the Visas?”

  “The last strong Guardian presence in the British Islands was Richard the Lionheart. After him, the Magical Parliament began to take control of the islands with the support of the Fae and Faun clans. When the first of the Tudor line, Henry VII, became King with their help, he made sure that the British Islands remained separate from Guardians involvement.”

  “Okay,” Tony said. “Enough with the history lessons.” He grabbed Thomas by the shoulder. “The main point is that the British Islands are Magic territory. The U.S. has two strong Pillars in its territory and another five around it; we have like thirty flux wells. England and Ireland have more than a thousand. They have their own laws, they are chock full of wizards, witches, and Mashcrits, and they don’t always play ball with the Guardians. So apart from our embassies and a handful of red tag operatives, all other Guardians need Visas to visit. Got it?”

  Thomas sighed. He had skipped so much of the Guardians’ regular training that sometimes he felt useless.

  “England and Maine.” Tony sat back. “Two places I'd rather not visit.”

  “What's wrong with Maine?” Thomas asked.

  “Horror stories, Thomas. When you reach blue level you can ask Uncle Stevie yourself.” Tony crouched against the side of his seat.

  Thomas decided not to ask any more questions that would lead to even more questions and concentrated on the road.

  Three cities later in Morocco, with Tony and Elise sound asleep in the back seat, he gave Bolswaithe the wheel and prepared to doze off himself.

  Bolswaithe told him that they had done about half of the scheduled stops he had planned, and that Morgan and the Azure Guards still kept pace with them. When they stopped at the Mansion again, Bolswaithe made a quick visit inside to get them some pillows and blankets.

  Thomas fell asleep thinking that having too much of a good thing could become bad.

  ***

  “Good afternoon.” Bolswaithe woke him up, and Thomas scratched his head and yawned. The sky was dark, and they were driving through a two-lane highway ringed with trees. He checked his watch; it was 3:33 a.m. local time.

  “Where are we?” he asked. Behind him Tony and Elise were just waking up too.

  “We are just leaving a town called Zitacuaro in Mexico.”

  “No more city jumping?” Tony asked.

  “Yes and no,” Bolswaithe said. “We’ve mixed it up a little, and we are now very close to the Monarch butterfly sanctuaries, a Magical place by any definition.”

  “What have we missed?” Elise took a sip from a bottle of water Bolswaithe had placed for them on the back seat.

  “Seventy-nine cities, twenty-three archeological sites. Nine known locations of flux wells and the same number of thunder-flashes.”

  “So Gramps is still keeping up?” Thomas took a sip from his water bottle.

  “They’ve slowed down, but not by much,” Bolswaithe said. “All this jumping has taken its toll on them. The on-site teams report that a new Mage has taken over opening and closing the portals.”

  “But Gramps is still with them?” Thomas asked.

  “He has to be,” Bolswaithe told him. “He’s their Cypher.”

  It had to be rough for his grandfather to be keeping up with them. Even with his new twenty-something body, Thomas was sure that all that jumping from place to place had to be taking its toll. They had all fallen asleep after seven hours of traveling, and Bolswaithe had driven by himself another six at least.

  “You want me to drive, Bolswaithe?” Tony asked from behind, a small hint of suspicion in his tone. “Take over a little bit?”

  “No, thank, you,” Bolswaithe answered back. “I did have a restful night while you were sleeping.”

  “Really?” Tony leaned over the seat. “And how did you do that while driving?”

  “Cuthbert took over for me while you slept,” Bolswaithe said without a hitch. “And I took over for him just thirty minutes ago.”

  “I woke up a couple of times and I didn’t see him,” Tony said.

  “He didn’t tell me; did you chat with him?” Bolswaithe smirked at Thomas.

  “Well, no,” Tony said.

  “Did you totally wake up, or did you just open your eyes a little bit?” Bolswaithe asked innocently.

  “I woke up,” Tony said. “Checked what was going on and fell back to sleep.”

  “Ahh…” Bolswaithe said. “I’m pretty sure that all butlers look the same from behind, and he dressed like me, so any Azure Guard scouts would see that the team was the same.”

  Tony brooded for a couple of seconds. “Yeah, I’m sure,” he said, then leaned back in his seat.

  Elise exchanged a look with Thomas; they had made a bet about how much longer Bolswaithe would be able to keep the secret from Tony that he was a robot. Thomas guessed a couple of months, but Elise thought that Tony was so dumb it would be more than a year.

  “All right,” Bolswaithe said aloud a couple of minutes later. “This is new, get ready.” He pressed on his armor harness and the armor reformed around his chest. All three of them did the same.

  “What’s new?” Thomas asked as the car's roof began to reform.

  “Duck!” Bolswaithe grabbed him and pushed him down on the seat while stepping on the gas. A tree swung down from above them, hitting the car on the hood. As it went through the glass, it stopped the roof from reforming, and shards and scales flew in all directions. If Bolswaithe hadn’t accelerated, the log would have hit them in the front of the car instead of on the hood, and it probably would have totaled them instead of just taking half the windshield and the roof.

  “Azure Guard?” Thomas yelled. He was sure that Gramps would have never tried to total the car, much less try to kill him while doing it.

  “No,” Bolswaithe responded. “I don’t even think they’re Fauns.”

  “Where are they?” Tony emerged from the back seat, dart gun at the ready.

  “All around us. In the trees.” Bolswaithe swerved the car as a spray of rocks and sticks peppered them.

  “It’s Fae.” Elise rose from the seat, her hair covered with shards from the roof. She spoke a spell and breathed into her cupped hands—yellow, mist-like strands shot out from her palms toward the forest. Dozens of small creatures were bathed by the mists, and a couple tried to shake it off, but most of them already knew that the spell was harmless; it just lit them up. They jumped from tree branch to tree branch and ran alongside the road. “See them now?”

  “Thank you!” Tony yelled and began to shoot at the creatures closest to them.

  Thomas pulled out his gun too and began to shoot at the creatures.

  “Jumpers ahead!” Bolswaithe said.

  Thomas looked forward; four or five of the creatures were lining up against a fallen tree on his side. He did the first thing that came to mind—he rolled up the window as quickly as he could, and then he immediately felt stupid because he had no roof.

  The creatures jumped at the car, but they had aimed at Thomas, not at the roof. They smacked one after the other on the window Thomas had rolled up, their open mouths leaving trails of slobber on the glass.

  “Good idea, Thomas.” Bolswaithe rolled up his own window, and three of the little beasts smacked against the glass. The last one managed to grasp the top of the glass with a small, four-fingered hand and hung precariously on the other side.

  “Are these Wraiths?” Thomas asked as he stared wide-eyed at the little monster. It was about a foot tall
, it wore a skirt made of leaves, and a necklace of animal bones hung around its neck. Its skin looked like wood, brown with darker grain lines, and one of its eyes occupied what looked like a wood knot. Its dark, green hair looked like grass leaves in a Mohawk style.

  The creature was a little plump, with large, green eyes and just slits for a nose on its round head. The mouth was large with small, flat teeth, and the moment he saw Thomas looking at him, it began to shout gibberish and motion with the little spear he carried.

  Thomas thought that the little monsters looked cute in a feral, angry, cannibal kind of way.

  The beast’s hair stood on end as it sneered at Thomas.

  “Alushes—a Mexican type of sprite,” Bolswaithe said, giving the little monster’s hand a flick, which made it let go. It let out a little high-pitched scream. Thomas looked back and saw the Alushe tumbling on the road, and then it stood up, waving menacingly with his spear.

  “Why are they attacking us?” Thomas asked.

  “I don't know,” Bolswaithe said. “They are basically forest spirits. Pranksters, but not dangerous.”

  The Alushes cheered as they rolled a huge boulder in front of the car, as if trying to set the record straight about their fierceness. Bolswaithe swerved the car and slowed down a bit, just barely missing the boulder. Thomas heard the Alushes letting out a collective moan as their plan failed.

  “The trees!” Thomas yelled, pointing ahead.

  “Hold on!” Bolswaithe stepped on the gas. The Alushes were making the trees bend toward the road, trying to hit the car as they passed under.

  They made it through the first three, but Bolswaithe stepped on the brakes—they didn't have time to cross under the next.

  “Keep going!” Elise shouted as her hands were bathed in blue energy and Bolswaithe accelerated again. Thomas crouched as the tree fell on them, but it struck one of Elise's blue shields before touching the car.

  “Is that the best you got?” Tony yelled, taking shots at the Alushes that were chanting from the treetops. A couple of them fell down with shrill yells from their perches.

  “I'm trying not to hurt them, or the trees,” Elise told him.

  Tony changed his gun's magazine. “But I can try to, right?” He shot a full salvo at a group of Alushes that were concentrated under a huge trunk, and they fell down like bowling pins, fast asleep.

  “Elise!” Thomas yelled, pointing to the road ahead. Six Alushes on each side were pulling on a heavy vine in front of the car, and both ends were tied to a strong tree. What looked like an Alushe shaman touched the vine, and a green tinge ran through it.

  “I see it,” Elise said. “Don't stop, Bolswaithe!”

  Bolswaithe pressed on the gas as Elise stood up on her seat. She closed her eyes and concentrated, and two spheres of red flame rose from her palms. She opened her hands, pointing to each side of the road.

  Behind each group of Alushes the vine turned red hot, then carbonized. Only the last Alushe on the left side realized what was going to happen and let go of the vine. He yelped as the car hit the vine, and instead of stopping cold in its tracks, the car pulled on the vine, taking the Alushe’s friends for a ride. The little beast even waved goodbye at them.

  “Less than a mile to the next town,” Bolswaithe said. “I think we're clear.”

  “Not just yet.” Tony knelt on the seat and placed his elbows on the trunk of the car. The Alushes were screaming wild behind them as the car towed them along. “You wanted to play rough!” Tony yelled at them. “That's what you get!” He took aim, and with each shot one fell from the vine among ohs and ahs from the other Alushes.

  Elise sat down on again. “Can you stop torturing them already?” she asked.

  “It’s like a game for them!” Tony said, felling two more. The remaining two yelled angry gibberish at him.

  “Come on, Tony,” Thomas said. “It's not cool.”

  Tony looked forward. “Okay, okay, you bleeding hearts. Just remember that they started it.” He looked at the trailing Alushes and yelled in pain as the little beasts smacked his face. They had pulled themselves up the vine and were standing in the trunk of the car playing ping-pong with Tony's cheeks.

  Elise snapped her fingers and the Alushes were thrown from the trunk by a blue flash.

  Tony slumped in his seat. “Could've done that faster!” he told Elise as he rubbed his red cheeks.

  “Of course I could have,” she said with a smirk.

  When they reached the Mansion, the Impala was completely scraped—its windshield cracked and its rooftop nonexistent. The right front wheel wobbled a little bit.

  Bolswaithe informed them that if they had traveled in straight lines from place-to-place instead of using the Mansion's transport system they would have covered roughly 151,645 miles. Just little more than going around the Earth six times.

  Another proof of just how powerful and advanced the Guardians’ technology was.

  They heard a loud moan. Babcor, the capybara faun, came running out from behind a bush in the shape of an elephant on the Mansion’s grounds. “Oh my!” he yelled, throwing his gardening pliers and pacing around the car. He put his hands on his forehead and pulled up his red bandanna as he surveyed the damage. “What happened?”

  “A horde of Kachinkos,” Tony said.

  “Alushes” Bolswaithe corrected.

  “Those things…” Tony continued, “They ambushed us.”

  “Alushes are not war-like,” Babcor said. He pronounced the name very softly, with a “sha” sound. “We have them in the Amazon too. They are natural spirits, and most of them even shy away from Fauns.”

  “Not these ones.” Thomas walked around the car, checking the damage. He flinched at the broken taillight and the scratched trunk. What would his dad or grandpa think if they saw this? The family heirloom almost completely wrecked.

  On his first trip.

  Maybe he wouldn’t add all the little details about this trip when he told his grandpa the story. For a second he imagined the future, with him as a grandfather sitting on a chair by a porch and kids around him wide-eyed and giddy with laughter. “Tell us about the time the fairies almost kicked your butt, grandpa Tom.”

  He shuddered, shrinking the thought away. Maybe this could be one of those stories he kept to himself.

  “They were provoked into attacking us by someone else,” Bolswaithe said, “It was a good thing they attacked us in Mexico.”

  “The good thing was that only Alushes attacked you,” Babcor took out a broken scale from the roof. “Had it been Chaneques, not all of you would have made it through and, those forests are rife with Chaneques.”

  “I've heard about those things.” Tony said. “Chaneques... they seem nasty.”

  “Nasty is an understatement.” Babcor said. “Between a troll and a chaneque I put my money on the chaneque.”

  “Okay, we were lucky, I get it.” Elise said cutting short the nasty creature comparison, “So now what?” she dusted off debris from her clothing.

  “Phase two,” Bolswaithe said. “There were the Alushes, but we didn’t see Morgan or the Guards. I think we are ready to go to our target destination.”

  “Finally!” Tony said mischievously. He walked toward the armored vehicle and placed his hand on a panel. The side of the van opened along the rails toward the back. “This, my friends,” he said, standing in front of the vehicle, “is the latest design for Guardian Fireteams. A titanium, tungsten carbide, and various steel alloys chassis…”

  Elise held up her hand, as if to stop Tony, but he kept talking “…supporting the body, which is composed of bonded carbon nanotubes and—” Elise grunted and sped into the mansion.

  “I'll be back in five! ” she said as she ran away.

  “What is its MPG?” Babcor blurted out.

  “Well,” Tony said, “it has a prototype multi-fuel turbine…”

  Babcor was already on the ground sliding under the vehicle. “Is it a gas guzzler?”

  Tony paus
ed, “Ah, we incorporated an electrical back-up system and hydrogen fuel cell technology to minimize….”

  Babcor peeked out from under the car. “Yep! A gas guzzler!” he said accusingly. “And the shocks are insufficient.” He looked at Thomas. “Not a smooth ride; you can probably feel every little rock on the roa—” Tony covered Babcor’s mouth with a hand.

  “Can I finish?” Tony asked him. Babcor nodded. “Anyway, you can all read the specs later if you want…” Tony said, the mood for a speech all gone from him now, but he still managed to do a flourish with his arms. “I am proud to present to you our new vehicle, L’invincibile!”

  Maybe Tony expected some applause, because he waited for them to react, but instead of the applause, Mrs. Pianova suddenly appeared behind Bolswaithe. “Beautiful vehicle, Mr. Della Francesca,” she said “but why name it ‘the imbecile?’”

  Thomas muffled a snort, and Babcor pursed his mouth. Bolswaithe retained a stoic silence, but lifted an eyebrow at Tony waiting for his answer. They all knew that Mrs. Pianova tolerated very little nonsense, and Tony had been the target of her special character in more than many occasions, so they eagerly anticipated how Tony was going to handle her question.

  Especially after seeing how Tony cringed.

  “Well?” she asked again, this time facing him.

  “Ah,” Tony said very softly. “I think that you might have heard the name wrong, Mrs. Pianova.” He paused, but continued when she didn't move. “I named it L'invincibile, ‘The Invincible,’ not ‘the imbecile.”

  “L'invincibile,” Mrs Pianova repeated, mimicking Tony’s Italian accent. “I see.” She turned toward the vehicle assessing it with her eyes. Tony risked a glance at Thomas. “Well,” she said after a second or two. “I'm sorry I heard wrong, Mr. Della Francesca.”

  “Not a problem, ma'am,” he said.

  “Let's hope it is a fitting name. Shall we go now?”

  “Of course!” Tony motioned for her to enter the vehicle. “Wait till you hear her engine purring, ma'am. You'll fall in love with it.”

  “Thank you, but that'll have to wait.” She turned around and walked toward the Mansion. “We've lost enough time already.” Bolswaithe and Thomas fell into step behind her.