Academy of Protectors (The Protector Guild Book 1) Page 19

  “You guys can’t be serious,” Eli said, looking from me and Declan back to Atlas. “Right, Atlas?” Atlas just looked at him, his lips twitching down in a frown. Eli shook his head, ran his fingers through his hair, and groaned. “Jesus. Fucking. Hell,” he muttered to himself. “Fine. Fine, you fucking lunatics. What’s the plan then? My dad’s going to have my head either way, might as well make it worth it.”

  The building itself looked practically abandoned, with chunks of concrete missing from the siding every few inches. It also looked like someone had started painting it white years ago, but never got around to finishing; half of the building was an ugly sweat-stain yellow, and half a washed out gray. I scanned around the block, noticing that all of the buildings looked equally shitty. Most of them had holes smashed through the windows and were surrounded by stray bits of grass and debris.

  Atlas unstrapped his bag, grabbing a few dart guns to knock them out. The big plan was to separate them and pick them off one-by-one, hopefully from a distance. Atlas and Declan were the most experienced and most capable, so they were going to isolate and tag-team the six humanoid supernaturals in the room we could see, while Eli and I made our way around the building, trying to get a feel for how many others were inside, just to make sure we weren’t ambushed.

  So basically, Eli and I were on the equivalent of the B team and Atlas and Declan wanted out of babysitting duty. I tried not to bristle at them too much.

  Sometimes it fucking sucked being the little brother of one of The Guild’s best fighters. Especially now. Atlas was annoyingly protective, and seemed damn convinced that I needed protecting. Even more than usual since Sarah got taken down.

  Eli offered a commiserating smile. “Buck up, Wade. Not much fun for us, but this was the right call.” He nodded to the right. “I’m going to take this side of the building, you go around the other, yeah?”

  Without waiting for a response, Eli started moving, his wavy brown hair disappearing behind the corner.

  “Great, yeah, I’ll go this way. Super fun,” I mumbled to myself. I gripped one of the handles from my set of knives and turned the corner slowly.

  The first few windows on my side were pitch-black inside. I could make out the outlines of some furniture, but between the lack of light and the grime covering the inner layer of the glass, I couldn’t discern much. In fact, I was starting to think that the only action we were going to see was back with Atlas and Dec, when I noticed a soft yellow glow piercing from the final window. The light wasn’t on in the windowed room, but when I pressed closer to the glass, I could see a bright light pooling from behind the room’s door, leaking around the frame. Every minute or so, I’d see a shadow move past, like someone was walking by the door. I looked around, considering waiting for Atlas and Declan, or at the very least for Eli. But I was fairly convinced there was only one creature in there. I had my own dart gun, so it shouldn’t be difficult to handle it without getting within range of an attack.

  Decided, I used the blade of my knife for leverage and lifted the window. Surprisingly, it wasn’t locked, just jammed. As quietly as I could, I pulled myself across the splintered frame, sprinkling paint chips and shards of rotted wood with my landing. The room smelled musty, and cobwebs lined each of the corners. Whatever this place was, it was pretty clear that it functioned as a temporary gathering. The vamps and werewolves hadn’t done much to spruce it up.

  I pressed my ear up to the door, hoping to catch a sound or conversation. Nothing. I dug my fingernails into my palms when I realized that I’d left my comms device and flashbangs on the roof. Lesson learned. Next time I wouldn’t be such a reckless eager fucking beaver.

  After another minute, I was convinced the pacer from before had moved on and slowly turned the door knob, pushing it open a fraction. Still nothing. Maybe the guy had gone to help his buddies. Atlas and Dec had to have them just about handled by now. Those two were always such a force when they were working together. Part of me was convinced that if she’d been there the night Sarah was killed, instead of me, that things would have gone very differently.

  Satisfied that I was alone, I gripped the dart gun, my finger on the trigger, and opened the rest of the door. I took a step back, trying to figure out what the hell I’d walked in on. It was like stepping through a portal into another world. The room was stunning. A large chandelier hung from the middle of the ceiling, and ornate tapestries decorated the walls. In the center of the room stood a long table, with various papers scattered around amongst what looked to be a fully-catered dinner. I had to stifle a laugh, momentary shocked by the difference between this room and the one I’d just left. Who knew hellbeasts had such snazzy taste after all?

  I moved slowly towards the table, resisting the temptation to steal a piece of chicken and glanced at the paperwork. There appeared to be maps of various Guild bases across the world, several of which had a large ‘X’ drawn across them.

  What the hell? I picked up another sheet, finding a long list of names. I didn’t recognize many of them, except for two: Connolly and Bentley.

  Connolly was Declan’s family name.

  “The hell are you doing in here, kid?”

  I turned around, reaching for a knife with my other hand. A tall man with long blonde hair and a thick beard was in the doorway. Dude looked like he’d walked off of a Viking ship.

  Not waiting another moment, I shot a dart, a giant grin stealing across my face as it dug into his chest. Bingo.

  As soon as he went down, the dart gun was knocked from my hand. I watched as it went flying into the opposite wall and spun around. Another guy, almost identical in looks to the first was staring daggers at me. I sprang into action, running towards the guy before he doubled back to me. I was always more on the offense side of things, anyway. Fuck the dart gun.

  With a quick growl, he lifted a hand—or well, it was a hand until it became a claw. By the time I made it to him, slicing into his chest, he was nearly fully shifted. I missed the heart, unable to determine where it would be while his muscles and bones shifted in painful waves and crunches. Fuck. Fuck.

  That was the best chance I was going to get and I blew it.

  The wolf had to be a solid two-fifty of straight muscle. Bright yellow eyes looked into mine, and I was taken back to my last upfront encounter with a wolf. Was this one of the assholes who killed Sarah? Momentarily filled with rage, I lashed out, slicing into the beast’s shoulders and neck. One blade got stuck between two ribs, goring the wolf good, but not doing near enough damage as I needed in order to slow it down. While I tried to dislodge it, the wolf growled and lunged. Sharp teeth clamped on the spot my neck had just been, but I’d dodged just in time.

  Not enough though.

  I looked down, seeing long claw marks raking down my left arm. I needed to act two seconds ago if I wanted a chance of surviving this. The wolf prepared to snap again but I kicked out at its front leg, smirking when I heard the satisfied snap of bone. With a whine, the animal toppled to the side and, not willing to waste any time, I plunged my knife into his chest cavity. With a shudder rolling through his body, the beast grew still. We wouldn’t be bringing this one back with us. But at least I wasn’t dead. That would have to be enough.

  Staring down at the dead wolf, I thought back to that night—back to Atlas. It felt different now, wrong almost, killing one of these things. The creature was large, and now that it was no longer trying to attack, it seemed almost peaceful. Why did death have a way of doing that? Of erasing the bad?

  This wolf seemed surprised to see me, which meant that Atlas and Declan most likely took down the six in the lobby with no problem. It didn’t seem like anyone else in the building was alerted. I could hear nothing but the steady breath pulling from my lungs, in and out. Did we get them all?

  Almost as soon as I’d thought the thought—which was my own fault, really—the door swung open.

  “Hey Ray, boss—” the girl stopped talking and looked down at the dead wolf I was straddling with absolute horror stretching across her face. “Ray?”

  Tears pooled in her eyes as she looked at the wolf, Ray I guess, beneath me. I had a feeling I’d either just killed her boyfriend or else a family member.

  Steely resolve transformed her features, her cool blue eyes landing on mine. With a loud battle cry that would’ve been funny if it weren’t filled with so much anguish, she turned towards me. She was maybe fifteen feet away as her muscles began convulsing.

  Another one then. Eli was going to be jealous that he was missing out on all the action.

  The girl shifted more quickly than I’d ever seen a werewolf shift before. One second she was there, all sad and angry, and then she shimmered like the air on a hot day. Next second, she was a wolf about half the size of her friend, coat as dark black as her hair had been.

  And she was already coming towards me at an impressively fast pace. What she didn’t have in size, she more than made up for with speed.

  I ripped my knife out of the dead wolf’s heart, not able to reach a second blade in time from this angle, and turned to face her. Her first move came in hot and I ducked under her without a second to spare. In fact, she’d swiped a nice little scratch into the top of my scalp. She was faster and angrier than her friend had been, so this was unexpectedly going to be more difficult.

  I kicked out, aiming for ribs, but she swatted my leg away with a powerful paw. The push caused me to lose my balance, but I still managed to swipe my blade across her neck, drawing a thick line of blood. Not enough to kill her, or even stun her, but it was something.

  Only now she seemed even more angry.

  Wolves were a lot faster than protectors, and far more powerful. Hopefully Atlas and Declan were done, and on their way to track down me and Eli. If they weren’t I was royally screwed.

  She rammed me into the long table, scattering the papers and upsetting several platters. A loud clank sounded by my feet, and my hands slid into something with the consistency of mashed potatoes.

  Shaking my knife to try and dispel the white chunks, I hit the wolf across the face, wincing slightly. I knew that she was a werewolf and that she was on the bad guy side ride now, but it still felt wrong decking a girl in the face. The momentum of the move had me sliding, my left foot slipping on whatever goop had been knocked over. My nose was filled with the weird combination of iron and starch. It was only a brief second of distraction, but that was all the wolf needed.

  Suddenly, I was flipped over the table, my right shoulder slamming at an odd angle against the bulky wood. I stood as quickly as I could, gripping my knife and ready to square off again. Except, my hand wouldn’t grip. I looked down, and my stomach sank. My hand was twisted at an off angle and I was pretty sure my shoulder was popped out of the socket. Thank god the adrenaline was high, so I didn’t feel too much. My knife clattered to the ground, but I was able to pick it up with my functioning hand.

  Only it was slightly too late. Claw marks dug into my side and my neck, like the wolf was trying to give me an overly aggressive and extremely awkward bro hug. I smelled blood, so much blood.

  She knocked me off my feet again, using her strength to pin me as she tore into my side. This was it, this was how I was going down. I suddenly wanted to laugh, thinking how senseless I’d been, charging in here solo, with nobody to cover my back. Atlas would blame himself. I didn’t know if he could get over my death, if Father would let him. Guilt flooded my belly.

  “What’s going on in here, Annabelle?” a deep, clear voice echoed around the room.

  With a growl turned whimper, she looked towards the door. Neither of us could see the figure from the floor.

  Unwilling to waste the opportunity, I bucked my hips to gain some distance and slid my knife into her abdomen. It took less than a second, but I shoved the hilt up, drawing a line through her stomach, eventually embedding the blade into her heart. Her blood, mixed with fleshy ligaments, spilled onto me as her dead weight dropped down.

  Gross.

  A soft clicking sound echoed across the room, the ominous figure looming closer.

  “Everything okay, boss?” a gruff voice echoed. At least three more pairs of feet followed the boss in.

  With a deep breath, I closed my eyes, preparing myself to go down fighting. I wouldn’t die hiding underneath a wolf carcass. My thoughts flashed briefly to Max and I held onto the image, giving myself permission to linger briefly on her inquisitive eyes and full lips.

  I gave myself a second, just one, and then I heaved the body off of me, and jumped to my feet. The bloodied knife made an awful squelching sound as it left Anabelle’s chest cavity and I held it to my side, deep red blood covering me from head to toe. I wasn’t sure how much of it was mine and how much of it was hers. Right now, I just had to hope that I wasn’t too fucked up to get out of here alive.

  Just as I’d guessed, four new, enraged faces were positioned by the doors, blocking me in.

  No chance of me escaping then. Fuck.

  Two of them had eyes locked on the dead wolves, the third pulled back his lips in a deep growl, revealing white pointed canines. Another vamp, then. Great.

  My eyes locked onto the final figure, though, and a deep shiver involuntarily crawled up my back. The man was dressed head-to-toe in black, his hair and eyes so deep they almost looked blue. Power radiated off of him and my skin crawled as he studied me, almost as if he could see through me. Where the three others looked ready to murder, this creature appeared almost bored, nothing but an arched brow revealing anything more than apathy towards the situation.

  “It appears you clowns have been breached,” he said, voice low and cold. The sound alone sent shivers down my spine, filling me with more fear than I could ever remember feeling. He looked up at me, his lips twisting in the shadow of a sardonic grin. “I doubt he’s alone, so kill him quickly, I’m sure we’ll have more soon. Protectors are like ants, they travel in swarms.”

  The creatures were hovering in silence until the last syllable echoed through the room. And then, as if in a symphony, they moved as one, two going left and one right.

  My only chance was to try and run, but they had me caged in, like a bug in a spider web. I was fucked.

  I gripped my knife hard, and ran towards the one, figuring he was my best chance at clearing a path. I’d try and take at least one of them out, maybe two before I went down—give the rest of the guys time to get out and come back with reinforcements so that they could burn this place to the fucking ground. Sometimes it was the only way to get rid of an infestation.

  I reached the solo vamp first, using my momentum to slide into his legs, elbowing him in his junk. Generally, it was sportsmanlike to avoid a guys dick, but this was an emergency and I needed every strategy I could grab. The combination of my weight and his pain knocked him to the ground, and I pulled him on top of me as the two wolves jumped towards us. They ripped into his skin, almost happy to dig through him to get to me. Apparently wolves and vamps weren’t working together with quite as much comradery as we feared then. Taking advantage of their confusion, I snapped the vamp’s neck, relying on his associates to provide some leverage and slow his response time down. A broken spine wouldn’t kill the vamp, but it would stun him for a while and give me time to take on one of the wolves.

  Using my legs, I pushed the vamp off of me, unbalancing one of the wolves. Weirdly, they were only partially shifted, but with a growl they simultaneously finished the transformation, like mirror images. With my good arm, I threw my potato-caked knife, smirking when I saw the heavy metal sink into the white wolf’s eye, all the way up to the hilt. A loud, venomous roar billowed from the creature, and I watched for a moment as it tried to rip the knife loose.

  Taking advantage of the distraction, I ran behind the other wolf. This one was a boring beige. I sunk my fingers into his flank as I tackled him to the ground. His claws ripped into me from at least two places, but I was too high on the fight to feel anything. The white wolf was circling us now, waiting for its chance to join back in and I reached into my boot, pulling out another blade. As his white friend lunged, I sank the silver into the beige wolf’s heart.

  The wolf was dead, but I didn’t have the energy to move off of him, or maybe I’d just lost too much blood and was halfway to dead. My eyes locked onto the fourth man, and saw him watching the scene with casual interest. He clearly didn’t mourn the deaths in this room or, if he did, he was excellent at disguising it. Black eyes bored into mine and I watched as the man’s nose flared briefly.

  Just as the white wolf landed on my back and sank a claw into my already ruined side, the man muttered a soft but firm “stop.”

  As if programmed, the werewolf removed its paw, one nail at a time, and I felt the shift of weight as it moved away from me.

  What the hell? Were they going to kidnap me and keep me in a research dungeon like we did to them? Fear flared through my body, renewed tenfold at the thought. That would be worse than death.

  Black boots edged closer, and I watched with morbid fascination as the man stepped into the pool of blood, likely a mingling of three different species. Even so, it all just looked—red.

  The man crouched, tilting his head and studying me like I was an interesting exhibit in a modern art museum—the kind you had to pretend to understand. I studied him back, cataloguing his deep olive skin, tailored suit, and stern posture.

  He’d avoided the fight today, but I could tell from the intelligence in his eyes as he studied the scene, and in the way that he held himself, that he was a formidable opponent. What was he? I wasn’t getting wolf or vamp vibes, just raw, unbridled power.

  All at once, recognition crossed his dark features and a creepy smile spread across his face.

  “How interesting,” he whispered, “I see it now.”

  He reached a hand forward, ready to finish the job. My thoughts drifted to Atlas and the rest of the team. They’d be okay. They’d have had time to get away.

  Then I thought of Max, and regret filled my belly, but so did relief—she wasn’t here. She was safe, back home. My team would take care of her.