The Guardian Chronicles 2: Dark Horizon

by Matthew Burkey

  “So what changed?” Gabriel asked, looking down at the image.

  “Sainte-Pierre was meeting Daniel Cray, leader of the New Aryan Nation, we presume to buy weapons. Normally, something like this we would leak to the FBI or ATF, but the situation changed somewhat when we received information that he might be dealing in not so conventional weaponry. We sent a team into investigate…”

  “And the unconventional weaponry turned out be demons?” Gabriel asked. Some of the events of that night were starting to make a lot more sense.

  “Precisely,” Jonathan nodded. “And you managed to get caught in the crossfire.”

  “But why was Sainte-Pierre selling lesser demons to the New Aryan Nation?” Gabriel asked. He mentally patted himself on the back for remembering the terminology that Jonathan had used to describe the ones that attacked him.

  “That we don’t know,” Jonathan sighed. “And to make matters worse it appears as though he has already disappeared off our radar again. We’ll find him, he won’t stay hidden for long but until we do I am afraid that we are going to be left with a lot more questions than we have answers.”

  Gabriel nodded. “Everyone I’ve met seems pretty good at their job, I am sure that you’ll catch him in no time.”

  “I can only hope,” Jonathan said, retrieving the tablet. “In the meantime, I wanted to thank you for coming aboard and let you know that should you need anything don’t hesitate to contact me. My contact information has been added to your phone.”

  “Thanks,” Gabriel said.

  “I’m sure that Ryan and Tony are anxious to get started on your training, I’ll check in with you later.”

  That apparently was a signal to go; Gabriel stood up and was almost out the door when he remembered that that he left his sword propped up against his chair. He was about to go back in and retrieve it when it leapt from where it was standing and landed solidly in his hand. He was sure that his yelp of surprise came out way more high pitched then he would have wanted it too. Jonathan looked up from his desk and chuckled.

  “They didn’t tell you about that little trick yet, did they?”

  “No sir,” Gabriel said, taking a deep breath.

  “Your weapon has been chained to you, through magic. Whenever you call for it, it will come to you…like now. You thought about picking it up and voila! It ended up in your hand. Very useful in combat, but not so useful around the house. Tony and Ryan can go over some basic mediation and techniques to make sure you don’t put a hole in the living room wall.”

  Oh great, Gabriel thought. Now I have to worry about putting holes in walls with my thoughts? This is turning out to be a real good day.

  Gabriel headed out of Jonathan’s office and back out to where Tony and Ryan were sitting.

  “Alright, let’s get back to Aegis,” Ryan said. “You’ve spent enough time wandering around looking at stuff. It's time to get down to work.”

  Gabriel wasn’t sure exactly what that meant but he had a feeling that he was going to be very sore person tomorrow.

  Six hours later, Gabriel was sweaty and exhausted. He was sore and had a feeling that he wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the morning. Ryan and Tony had been relentless in their drills, first putting him through a grueling three mile run and then two hours of weight lifting (turned out he was stronger than anyone thought) followed by several hours of actual combat drills. He went through boxing lessons, martial arts lessons, shooting lessons, sword combat lessons…pretty much everything that they could think of.

  Now he was standing underneath an almost scalding hot spray of water, letting it ease his suffering. He knew that it would be hard but he hadn’t prepared himself for this level of physical activity. The first ten minutes into the run he felt like he was going to puke his guts out. But Ryan and Tony wouldn’t let him rest and demanded he to keep going. The two of them seemed to have a good routine down; Ryan playing good cop and Tony playing bad cop. It was highly effective.

  After standing under the hot spray for what seemed like hours, he stepped out. His muscles were already protesting the workout that he had been through and to make matters worse, he knew that they would through it all over again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day…he shook his head. Thinking like that was not going to make things easier; he needed to take one day at a time. He changed back into his clothes and stuffed the sweaty ones back into his gym bag.

  He was limping by the time that he left the locker room and met up with Ryan and Tony. Both of whom looked just as refreshed as if they had just gotten up from a long night’s sleep. Then again, they both had been doing this considerably longer than himself and he had a feeling that nothing they did today even remotely got close to having them break a sweat.

  “Feel better?” Ryan asked.

  “I hurt in places that I didn’t even know I had muscles,” Gabriel grunted. “It’s going to be a lot worse tomorrow, isn’t it?”

  “Oh yeah,” Ryan nodded. “Take a lot of ibuprofen and drink a lot of water; you’re going to be sore for weeks.”

  “That’s not all that up lifting.”

  “No one told you that it was going to be easy,” Tony reminded him. They set off down the hall, Gabriel doing his best to move his already tired and strained muscles. They made their way slowly toward the elevator that would carry the back up to the main floors and the exit. Once outside, they bid Tony farewell. He walked over to his motorcycle and moments later peeled out of the parking lot.

  “Isn’t he worried about falling off that thing?” Gabriel asked, as he continued to limp toward Ryan’s truck.

  “Hasn’t yet,” Ryan shrugged. “Keep moving, sitting still won’t help you any.”

  “Moving doesn’t feel like it’s helping me out a lot either.”

  Ryan chuckled a little at that comment. They reached his truck and climbed in, Gabriel happy to finally be sitting down again.

  “So, what are you going to do tonight?”

  “Find a tub of ice and sit in it.”

  Ryan frowned at that comment. “Nope, you’re hanging out with me.”

  “I am?”

  “Yeah, you are,” Ryan nodded, as his truck growled to life. “Besides, we have a whole lot of other things to go over. Demons, mages, and such.”

  “Oh right, that.”

  They took off from Aegis and got back on the highway.

  “Hungry?” Ryan asked.

  “I’m starving!”

  Ryan nodded, he always got famished after a hard workout and what they put Gabriel through was the definition of hard. He took the next exit and swung through a local drive through. Normally, he would steer clear of fast food, mostly because you didn’t get a lot out of it but he figured that Gabriel wasn’t that picky and he knew that every once and awhile a little indulgence never hurt anyone, especially not the way that they trained.

  After ordering their food they continued on toward Ryan’s house. He wasn’t sure what they were going to do, although as long as it didn’t have anything to do with a lot of moving around he didn’t really care. He wondered if Ryan’s house had a hot tub, given what he had seen of it, he had a hard time believing that it didn’t.

  “Come on,” Ryan said, as he parked his truck. “Let’s head out back, I can start a fire and you can start exercising your mind too…unless of course you want to step back into the ring.”

  “Oh good lord no,” Gabriel moaned. “I think that you have sufficiently kicked my ass enough for one day.”

  Ryan chuckled. “All things considered, you did a pretty well, you’re more agile than I would have thought and you’ve got the athleticism and coordination, all we need to do is get you to focus.”

  “I was in dance for a few years,” Gabriel said, inwardly cringing as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

  “Cool,” Ryan nodded, as they entered the house. “Explains your agility, everyone keeps giving guys crap about that but really, it’s a great way to improve your flexibility and agility. They
do the same thing with guys that are into gymnastics.”

  “My brother is into that,” Gabriel responded. “And last I checked he could bench more than me…isn’t Tony also into it?”

  “Yeah,” Ryan nodded again, leading him toward the back of the house. “And he is really good at it. Even if he wasn’t a Guardian, I still don’t think that I would want to mess with him.”

  Gabriel nodded in agreement, slowly lowering himself down to one of the benches. Ryan jogged back to the house and then reappeared a few moments later, holding bottles of water for both of them. Gabriel took the offered water and began to greedily chug it down. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was and eagerly gulped down almost the whole bottle in one go.

  Ryan rummaged around in his back pack and pulled out a tablet, handing it over to Gabriel.

  “Here you go, courtesy of the Guardians,” Ryan smiled. “Makes it easier to follow along and we added a few pretty nifty apps for our line of work.”

  “Thanks,” Gabriel said, taking the tablet.

  Ryan pulled out his own tablet. “Alright Guardian 101, you already know something about what we do but it’s a lot more complicated than just killing bad guys.”

  “I gathered as much after Jonathan told me about Sainte-Pierre.”

  “Oh yeah, that guy,” Ryan growled. “Tactically I guess it makes sense but from a moral perspective, it’s really annoying.”

  “Yeah, I guess I can understand that.”

  “You already saw magic first hand and experienced it through the portals and with your sword. Demons generally fall into two categories, lesser demons and greater demons.”

  “Lesser demon being animal like, right?” Gabriel asked.

  “Very good,” Ryan nodded. “There are literally thousands of those, like the ones that attacked you. They can be called forth by mages, although most come through a hell rift, an opening that occurs naturally in our world.”

  When Gabriel looked down at his tablet, he realized that it had opened an app that was highlighting most of what Ryan was saying. The application was titled Codex and seemed to have thousands of entries, prompting Gabriel to realize that he had a lot to learn.

  “Portal to hell?” Gabriel inquired, his eyebrows shooting up. “Can you shut those kinds of portals?”

  “We can,” Ryan nodded. “But you can never truly destroy them.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It would destroy the world as we know it,” Ryan said, with a shrug. “The Guardians and others have tried to destroy them before, usually with some pretty bad results. It seems they are anchored to this world, destroying them would tear apart the fabric of space and time, at least that’s what Everett keeps telling me.”

  “So, there are different kinds of demons?”

  “Yeah,” Ryan nodded, tapping his tablet a few times to change the screen. Gabriel noted that his screen changed as well. “Greater demons are a lot like us, except the fact that they are, you know, demons. Typically speaking they are stronger and faster than normal humans.”

  “Are they all evil?”

  “You mean are all of them out to steal your soul or eat babies?”

  Gabriel grimaced Ryan’s wording. “Um...yeah.”

  “No,” Ryan responded, shaking his head. “Some actually a lot just want to live a normal life. There are some, like Sainte-Pierre that choose to make a living doing less than honorable things. Others actually help the Guardians from time to time.”

  “And how do you kill demons?” Gabriel asked.

  “Demons can only be killed by blessed metal. You can use conventional weapons to wound them, even blowing them apart with a rocket launcher doesn’t kill them, and it just takes them longer to reform. The only way to truly destroy a demon is with blessed metal.”

  “And you can’t create blessed metal bullets?” Gabriel asked.

  “Blessed metal doesn’t react well to the chemicals in modern firearms. We’ve been studying it for decades and can’t figure it out.”

  Well, there goes the idea of mowing them down with a machine gun, Gabriel thought.

  “Now, vampires are another matter entirely,” Ryan went on. Gabriel turned his attention to his tablet, tapping the screen and bringing up the information on vampires that had appeared in his Codex.

  “They have an extreme allergic reaction to silver,” Gabriel read. “So you can shoot them full of silver bullets?”

  “Sure,” Ryan shrugged. “Enough silver will kill them. Otherwise completely destroying their heart is the only way to go and taking their head off works too. They can’t enter hallowed ground though, so there are some grains of truth to the myths about them. They’re fast and strong, too but nearly as fast as the lycans.”

  Gabriel took note that there was a lot more reading material on them; including various known covens. He had a feeling that he would be coming back to this text and reading through more than once.

  “Do they sparkle?”

  “Vampires don’t sparkle and unless you want your ass tossed across the room you will never, ever ask one that question,” Ryan continued. “Next we have lycans.”

  “Werewolves?” Gabriel asked.

  “Yup,” Ryan said. “Generally speaking most of the myths about them are true, except that they don’t need the moon to change into their feral forms anymore. Also they aren’t nearly as blood thirsty as books and movies make them out to be. Guardians have more trouble with vampires than they do with lycans. If you have to kill one blessed metal works just as well as silver.”

  “Wait, do they really turn into half man and half wolf?”

  Ryan smiled at that comment and shook his head. “Not at all, that’s a Hollywood myth. When they do turn they turn into a large wolf, most are at least shoulder height to me.”

  “Do they always turn into a wolf? I mean what’s the advantage of turning into a giant wolf when you can just use a machine or explosives?”

  “The lycans are extremely deadly in their wolf forms,” Ryan went on. “They are twice as fast as the vampires and twice as agile. In wolf form they have an extremely high healing factor They’re greatest assets is their speed and agility, trust me you don’t want to get on their bad side, their claws and teeth can rip through some of the toughest body armor.”

  Gabriel nodded again, soaking in the new information. “What about ghosts, are they real?”

  Ryan nodded. “Yes, there are a ton of different spirits.”

  “And psychics?” Gabriel asked.

  “You mean like the kind that you see on TV? The ones that claim to read your future or your palm or something?”

  “Yeah, those,” Gabriel nodded.

  “No way,” Ryan said, shaking his head. “There are psychics in this world but none of them use their talents commercially, most help the police and other law enforcement agencies by acting on their talents in disguise, you know like just being a really observant private investigator or even law enforcement officer. They prefer not to broadcast that they are different.”

  Gabriel could certainly understand the feeling; he had been wishing that he could fit in ever since he came out. Most people wanted to stand out but he preferred that it had nothing to do with who he found attractive.

  “Telekinesis?” Gabriel asked.

  “You mean as in people or as in the actual act?”

  “Both?”

  “Then yes,” Ryan answered. “Telekinetic force is real, just ask Tony, poor guy nearly had his family jewels crushed form across the room after he gave a pretty hot girl a look that was all smoldering, she didn’t take to kindly to that. I have no idea why though, really women are usually throwing themselves at Tony.”

  “Ouch,” Gabriel winced.

  “Mages can use it, it’s a pretty easy spell actually,” Ryan continued. “There are others that are born with the ability, certain demons, lycans, even a few humans and vampires. It’s pretty uncommon though.”

  “Unless you are mage?”

  “Right,” Ryan nod
ded.

  “So, you survived?”

  Both Ryan and Gabriel turned around to look at Ethan striding toward them. He was still dressed in the worn leather jacket and dark jeans, which once again, Gabriel noticed clung to his body in a very attractive way.

  “Ask me again in a few hours,” Gabriel grunted.

  “We’ll go a little easier on your tomorrow,” Ryan added.

  “He’s lying, they won’t.”

  “Did you come out here just to annoy me?” Ryan asked. “Or to bother both of us?”

  “A little of column A, a little of column B,” Ethan stated.

  God, Gabriel hated that smiled, it made him want to do whatever it was that Ethan said.

  “Besides, you weren’t doing anything but going over the boring stuff,” Ethan huffed, taking a seat. Gabriel scooted away slightly from him, Ethan didn’t appear to notice.

  “Boring but important stuff,” Ryan tossed in.

  “But boring,” Ethan added. “I hear you got a sword, can I see it?”

  Gabriel pointed to where Aequitas was resting against the bench. Ethan hefted the blade and inspected it, unsheathing it and swinging it through the air a few times. Gabriel still marveled at the lightness of the weapon as well as the glowing metal of which the blade was composed of. Ethan sheathed the blade before handing it back to Gabriel.

  “Imogene still does fine work after all these years,” Ethan said. “Here’s a tip, don’t ask her how old she is unless you want her to totally kick your butt.”

  “You asked her how old she was?” Gabriel remarked, brow rising. “That seemed like a bad idea.”

  “You’re telling me,” Ethan grunted. “But I was curious.”

  “Do you always indulge your curiosity?” Gabriel asked.

  “More often than not,” Ethan smiled.

  There it was again, that sly smile that made Gabriel blush before he even realized it. He mentally slapped himself for such an act, this was the kind of distraction that he didn’t need. He turned his attention to Ryan instead who was idly swiping the screen of his tablet, trying to ignore the apparent interruption.