Guardians of the Portals

by Nya Rawlyns

  “Do they want us alive?” Caitlin could barely form the words, not sure she wanted an answer.

  “Oh, yes indeed. Alive, but not necessarily unharmed. I want to minimize the damage.” Jake took her chin in his hand. “It’s not your fault, girl. You did good.”

  “But, Dad, if I hadn’t shifted, if...”

  “Don’t worry about it. We both screwed up. We’ll deal with it. I need for you to get to the ground and get somewhere safe. I can handle Knutr’s goon squad.” Squeezing her shoulder, he gave her a small shove toward the ledge.

  ****

  Trey watched what looked like a military exercise from a small bluff near the Liberty Reservoir on the western edge of the industrial park where he’d determined Greyfalcon’s location. It afforded a reasonable view of the headquarters and the main parking area. He used a high-powered scope to augment his already enhanced vision. He was intrigued when an older man and a younger woman exited from a decrepit minivan. They disappeared from his vantage point once they climbed the steps to the main entrance.

  Though there was no way to know for sure what was going on, he could make an educated guess. The ninth floor remained well lit while the remaining floors had cycled down to evening status. Wherever the two were going, it surely had to be there. When he’d scanned across the woman, he’d had a strange sensation in his gut—almost a recognition of sorts, though he’d never seen her before. The older man also pinged a memory cell. He’d seen his face but couldn’t come up with a time or place.

  He set the custom-built Tactical M40T4 rifle with the Nightforce scope onto a portable sandbag mounting device. He flicked the sand sock at the rear out of the way and sighted carefully. He was well outside the thousand-yard range and would need to get closer if he wanted to take out any of the targets.

  His uncle’s “you are there to observe only” admonition rankled. He seldom got this close to a Greyfalcon nest of vipers. To lose the opportunity to reduce the numbers of the competition seemed a serious waste of time and effort. He had no idea what more intel he could learn as a glorified peeping tom.

  The last words of the O’Brien woman flashed through his consciousness: “You will know her as your own.” It played on an internal feedback loop like an inane song that repeats endlessly, testing patience and sanity alike. The image of the young woman, her height and body build, all reminded him of something. He tried to dismiss the outlandish uniform, if indeed that’s what it was. There was no mistaking the sniper rifle slung at her hip. She was there as more than eye candy.

  He mused, red hair, there’s something wrong with that. He gathered up the rifle and its supports and lunged to his feet. He’d have to think on why such a bodacious Amazon would tickle his fancy. You might want to rephrase that, he smirked to himself. Turning away from the tree line, he ambled down a narrow deer trail and dropped off a small bank onto a dirt road. The Porsche lay hidden in a narrow opening in the forest, well away from the cones of light from vehicles driving on that lonely stretch of road. The reservoir might attract young lovers and gang member’s intent on business transactions, but during the middle of the week he doubted he’d need to concern himself with that. He’d had his techs alarm the vehicle for silent operation. His implant would alert him to any tampering.

  He loved technology. If only he could transport the M40 through the Portals he would be a happy man. He stroked the barrel fondly, but his thoughts morphed into a vision of him caressing the long, lean thigh of the redhead in the ridiculous outfit. All she was good for, the sniper rifle notwithstanding, was a distraction. That thought kick-started a chain reaction. Trey broke into a run toward his vehicle. Something wasn’t right. His gut told him so, and it was seldom wrong.

  ****

  “You got it loose?”

  “And coiled, yes sir.” Caitlin found it oddly satisfying to revert to addressing Jake as if he were still military. She guessed you could take the man out of the Marines but you’d never take the Marines out of the man. That sounded like something he’d drummed into her and Kieran from a young age. Such mantras afforded a measure of calm in the face of certain disaster.

  Jake went into a semi-crouch and crab-stepped his way across the roof to a point where a ventilation shaft and the roof ledge sat no more than three feet apart. It would shield her from the helicopter, which would lift from the opposite end to their position and afford her precious seconds for her leap of faith.

  Jake rapidly threaded one end of the mountaineering rope through the rappel anchor, pairing it with the opposite end. After pulling the ends to the halfway point, he quickly tied them off with a figure-eight knot, then tossed the rope over the edge of the building, all the while giving her last minute instructions.

  “It’s just like we did at the gym; you walk your way down and lean back like I showed you.”

  Jake adjusted the climbing harness, gave Caitlin a pat on her cheek and helped her up on the ledge.

  “This is the hard part, darlin’. Hop back and out, easy like. I’ll stay and get you started.”

  Caitlin moaned, “Dad, I can’t leave you.”

  “It’ll be fine. Don’t go into the woods. They’ll be expecting you to head to the section over by the reservoir.”

  “Where should I go?”

  “There’s a coupla fair sized corporate buildings across the road. Angle to the south, along the tree line, and then cut over. You can ease your way in. Be like running a maze for them. Stay low ’til the dust clears. Then head on home.”

  “What then, Dad? Won’t they be waiting for me?”

  “I’ll, uh, tell them otherwise. You just get on home, pack and get the hell out of there. You know where the Jeep’s located. The key’s under that rock; you know the one?” Caitlin nodded, tears stinging her eyes. Jake took a shirtsleeve and roughly wiped her face.

  Caitlin teetered on the ledge as Jake peered down to check for any activity. She took a deep breath and lightly floated away from the building to land six feet lower, her booted feet pressed against a narrow vent. If she bobbed up and down she could still catch a glimpse of the action on the roof.

  Jake muttered, “Love you,” and skittered back to the A/C unit. The helicopter rotors had begun their slow whine as they picked up speed. He knew it would be all over soon. He yanked his Glock from the waistband of his pants, picked up an ancient AK-47 off the floor, and made best speed to the front of the building. Though the pilot was likely a GFI lackey, he was determined not to risk possibly harming a civilian. He had too much death on his hands already.

  He listened for the tell tale sounds of an assault on the safety door. Knutr would carefully orchestrate the attack to minimize the damage, at least to Caitlin. The capo would want the helicopter in position first, with his men at the safety door ready to storm the roof, while the rest of his militia guarded other egress points. He eyed several vehicles scattered about the parking area, two hemming in their ancient mini-van. Jake sighted down the AK-47’s barrel and proceeded to lay a pattern around the chopper and the closest vehicles. Even from the roof, he saw the pilot’s panicked look as he backed up and away from the building, frantically trying to gain altitude and distance. Satisfied that the pilot would continue north and away from Caitlin’s position, he dropped the magazine, inserted a new one and proceeded to make mincemeat of the vehicles within range.

  ****

  Trey pulled into the driveway leading to a set of squat office buildings slightly south and across the road from Greyfalcon headquarters. He killed the vehicle lights as he idled into the parking lot.

  “What the hell?” Trey gasped as gunfire erupted across the road from his position. He gunned the Porsche and barrelled around the corner of the building out of range of any stray bullets. He parked it toward the rear of the lot, in a relatively dark area. The flat black of the finish would help camouflage the car from any casual passers-by. He jumped out and ran back to the road, taking care to keep to the shadows.

  A helicopter rose at a sharp angle an
d skittered across his field of view, the pilot having trouble controlling the craft. Trey could sense something amiss with the craft as it canted right and slipped below the trees to the north of GFI’s building. Since there’d been no explosion, he had to assume it had landed more or less intact, but he doubted it would be operational any time soon.

  The spat of gunfire had a familiar sound, the AK-47 quite distinctive compared with his own custom weapon. He watched as men scattered to the left of the building toward the dense underbrush at the perimeter of the parking lot. To the right, the way lay open to the road into the industrial park, but it lacked cover. Trey noted how the shooter laid a sweep in a north-south line at ninety degrees to the main body now making haste toward the woods, almost as if he were herding them for a particular reason. None were kill shots, though here and there one of the men on the ground would cry out as bullets ricocheted off any number of surfaces.

  Trey rubbed his chin, not exactly sure what to do. He had no cause to join the fray and would be best served to stay out of sight until he could determine who was on which side. His gut told him the shooter on the roof might be an ally, but he wasn’t convinced it was wise to intervene at that point. The image of the young woman buzzed in his head. It had him in its grip and refused to let go. It couldn’t hurt to maneuvre around to the rear of the building and see if there was anything of interest out of everyone’s line of sight.

  Using his low center of gravity, he sped behind the next building and then cut across the road to come up somewhat south and east of GFI’s headquarters. The shooting continued but the dense woods and the building itself blocked most of the sound. He listened carefully for the chopper but only heard the sound of his own heartbeat and a soft rustling in the brush off to his left. He ducked into a crouch in a dense stand of rhododendron, slowed his breathing and set his shields at minimum. He wanted to hear what was going on but not be locked in a soundproof box and miss all the action. The warm air wavered and danced, then settled as he concentrated on holding the energy steady. For some reason he’d always found it easier to deal with the enormous energy requirements of a Portal rather than the narrow focus of his personal body shield.

  Booted feet rushed past his position. He recognized the buckles running up the calves of the boots. It was the woman from the van. Or was it? Though on a low setting, the wavelengths refracted enough that it made getting a clear picture a challenge. He could have sworn that the woman had red hair, violently red, no mistake about it. And she’d been ... curvaceous. The vision floating past him looked like a scarecrow, tall, but reed thin and in no way warrior-like. She wore the same outfit, though it hung loose and not quite functional, like she’d been playing dress-up with her warrior mother’s clothes. He couldn’t tell for sure if she were armed, though he doubted it. There was nowhere to hide a weapon in that get-up.

  The woman scooted across the road using the same line he’d chosen. He looked up to GFI’s roof. Where it had been dark before, it now glowed like an illuminated football field. The firing had ceased and the indistinct shouting of men giving and taking orders indicated that the shooter was either dead or in hand. He had no doubt that the older man had given himself up in place of the woman making her way toward the two buildings across the road.

  ****

  Jake lay bleeding on the ground with a gut wound that looked worse than it was. He was sure the bullet had passed straight through. All they needed to do was get the bleeding under control, though nobody moved to make it so. They all hung back, weapons pointed at his head. He was a dead man if he so much as twitched. After what seemed like an eternity, Knutr puffed his way through the safety door and approached his captive cautiously.

  Knutr waved a man wearing a white lab coat forward and pointed to his captive. “Tend to him, then bring him to the examination room.”

  Jake breathed a sigh of relief. Knutr could have had him shot. That the capo seemed willing to tend to his wound indicated that he hadn’t run out of cards to play. He surely didn’t hold a good hand, but it was all he had. He needed to hang on just a little longer for Caitlin to make her escape.

  The medic slipped a needle in his arm. The last thing he heard was Knutr asking one of his men where ‘the woman’ had got to.

  “Gone, Sir. Found some tracks and broken limbs off toward the reservoir. We’ve called in the dogs and sent two squads out to track her.”

  “Good, make sure you have her by...”

  ****

  Trey set up shields and waited until the two squads were well past his position. He’d made a quick dash along a hiking trail, veering off to the left and right erratically, just as a human would do when rushing through dense woods in the dark. He swiped at bushes and low hanging limbs to recreate a scene of chaotic and frantic flight, leaving boot marks on the soft dirt. The woman was as tall as he though she massed only half his not inconsiderable bulk. He doubted, in the dark, the pursuers would know the difference.

  He trotted quickly across the road and skidded around the corner of the first building. Satisfied he hadn’t been noticed, he risked a peek toward the access road as a truck with holding pens for dogs approached at speed and turned into the drive to GFI. If the woman had left a discrete piece of clothing or anything that could be used for scent, it wouldn’t take long for them to figure out the subterfuge. If they took a dual scent off the older man, it would take time to sort it out. He’d need that time to find the woman. She likely did not enter the first building if she were smart. He couldn’t risk her making the poor choice and having him go off on a fool’s search wasting valuable time.

  Trey assumed she would have used one of the rear entrances. He touched each of the push bars in turn seeking an energy signature. The one on the far end still retained residual heat. He muttered, “Damn it, woman.”

  He pulsed an energy wave at the card reader and cracked the door open. Other than enhanced vision, he had few tracking abilities. Two of his brothers excelled at that and he’d always been jealous of that ability for it brought honor and approval from Gunnarr. His special ‘gift’—as Eirik called it—did not manifest until long after he’d thrown his lot in with the Althings. He doubted his father even knew that he carried the ability to fashion Portals from time-space. It was a secret few knew outside the closed-mouth circle of scientists who guarded him and their research with a blood oath to the death.

  He’d need to work a search pattern. If she were moving he’d be screwed for he’d likely miss her unless she made some fatal mistake. The way she’d floated past him, on gossamer wings, as he’d hovered within the shields, made him think of a fairy, light as air. He shook his head at the fanciful notion. His lack of focus disturbed him at some level, as did the niggling feeling, like butterflies in his gut. He decided to work from the top down, using the stairwell to ascend quickly to the fourth floor. He thanked the gods that neither building had more than four floors and each was relatively small compared to GFI’s more imposing structure.

  He worked at a steady pace, seeking residual energy, but found nothing. The building felt cold, abandoned. Indeed many of the offices stood empty and a few were still under construction. By the time he finished with the second floor he knew he was wasting time. He smashed the safety door open, no longer caring about revealing his presence. Leaning over the rail, he jumped to the floor below, landing easily.

  As he raced across the lane dividing the buildings he heard the dogs in high voice, coming rapidly toward him. Not good. Shields protected him from humans but not from their canine trackers. They would smell him long before he could hope to find the woman.

  Cursing as he charged across the access road, he skidded behind the building, smack into the woman huddled behind a stand of azaleas. He managed to catch himself before he buried her under his weight. He thrust her against the brick wall and mashed his palm over her mouth to keep her from crying out. She still managed an audible ‘umph’ and connected with his groin, sending spasms of pain cascading through his lower t
orso. He bit his lip to stifle the groan. The sweet iron taste of blood in his mouth triggered a sensual rush of heat to his head.

  “I’m here to help you, woman! Stay still. We have to leave. Do you understand? The dogs have your scent.”

  The woman nodded assent and whispered, “I’m so sorry,” when Trey removed his hand. As he pressed against her lean body, a surge of power passed through and over him, the like of which he’d never encountered. She seemed unaware that anything unusual had happened, but for him it opened every nerve conduit. Pleasure and pain morphed and oscillated and blended until his head swam with sensation. Body and soul separated, then merged and he knew a thing she did not; she was his and he ached to explore her essence. He pushed away, physically sickened by the separation. This was the one the witch had charged him to save, her daughter. How could this have happened?

  He wasted precious seconds drinking in her aura, invisible before he’d bonded with her, but now glowing like a beacon for his enemies to see. He’d just branded her with the mark of death in this world. He wrestled with the tangled mess his feelings had become. He didn’t ask for this. He didn’t want it. How dare the O’Brien woman task him with this burden, for burden it surely was. Already the demands of the bond gnawed at his belly, turning his world upside down, distracting him from his mission. Why him? Why now? He dare not risk it all, his world and his people, to feed this need. The only way out was to summon the berserker rage, let it wash over him, sweeping away the hold she had over him. He had no choice.

  Trey allowed the anger to build, not at a festering, toxic rate, but at full rolling boil, a volcano ready to blow. When the woman mouthed ‘who are you’ and squirmed against the pressure of his muscular body driving her frail form into the unforgiving brick, he dissociated, allowing the berserker rage to erupt in an inferno of anger. He slapped her face hard, rocking her head against the brick, the blood flowing freely from her nose and mouth. Long before he’d exhausted his furious descent into madness, the woman had sunk to a heap at his feet.