Einar sighed but nodded. "I asked you if you understood - I'd hate to kill you unnecessarily", Agatha continued.
"Yes Agatha I understand. But I'm not going to hurt my brother. It really is unnecessary."
Agatha snorted "Nice try - you can try and explain that 'brother' comment later. Right now we need to get out of here as fast as possible. They thought they could take us all, we thought we could take them all - we were both wrong. There could be more reinforcements on their way. You're right that we need to leave." Azim backed the LandCruiser up to the porch, and they were all relieved to see it was ex -Military, with bench seats along the sides rather than the standard back seat and large boot.
"Marcia - Keep Griffin alive and do what you can." Agatha began thundering orders at the others. "Liam, Joakim, Grab all the packs and weapons you can near the house. Put 'em under the seats, then cover Griff's blood. Leave as little as possible." Liam nodded and pulled two bottles of high strength hydrogen peroxide out of his pack. He striped off his pack and ghillie suit and shoved them under the bench seat they were lying Griffin across. He went to the house, policed the brass from Griffin's Saiga and poured the hydrogen peroxide over the pools of blood on the porch to degrade it so he couldn't be identified from it. Finally he went to help Joakim with the packs that the assault team had shucked at the edge of the clearing. He pulled the axe out of the body at the edge of the clearing and put it into the four wheel drive as well.
Azim looked at Agatha and Joakim. "Incendiaries? Or leave it standing?" Agatha shrugged, but Joakim thought about it and shook his head.
"No, this time of year it'd likely spread and cause a more thorough investigation. Better to leave it as is."
"Time to go then. Come on new boy tell me where we're going."
"We can go back to your monastery if you want but they might have figured out where you're likely to be. I'd suggest you turn left onto the highway and I'll give you warning when you'll need to turn again - my family has a property about 100 clicks from here." As they drove off he turned to Agatha. "Can I at least fry my surveillance net? I'd hate to leave them something they can use behind." She nodded, and he pulled the small electronic device out of his pocket. They heard several soft cracks as they drove off to his 'safe-house'.
Chapter 6
February 9th, Blue Mountains, Australia.
Following Einar's directions they went onto back roads, past smaller and smaller towns. After about half an hour Marcia loosened Griffin's tourniquets. Finally, they turned onto a dirt track that wound through the woods. Eventually it led to a dilapidated looking weather-board house with a tin roof and surprisingly small windows. The only truly odd features of the house were the skylights cut into the tin roof. You didn't expect them on a house that looked as rundown as this one was.
Einar spoke up "I suggest you let me turn off the security system while you get ready to move Griffin. I'll bring out a stretcher. Take him through to the room at the back left of the house - that's where most of the supplies we'll need are." He looked at Agatha who nodded at him. "I wouldn't want to be gutted over a misunderstanding here."
She glared at him and said "yes, go on. Marcia go with him and check that the room is clean enough for us to start getting the shrapnel out of his leg. We can't take him to a hospital and we need to reduce the risk of infection."
"Yes Ma'am" Marcia replied, unbuckling her seat belt as Joakim and Einar did. She allowed Einar to get out and head to the front door. At the door he pressed a panel and a hidden section opened out to reveal a touch pad. He punched in a fifteen number code causing it to beep, then closed the panel and unlocked the door. As it slid it across he held out his hand, stopping Marcia before she could walk straight in. With a smile he bent down and disarmed a tripwire connected to a double barreled shotgun aimed at chest height on a stand bolted to the floor. Marcia Looked at him and muttered "Paranoid much?"
"It's not paranoia in the world deep behind the 'Gilded Veil' most people can't see past. I'd have thought, working with the Paladins as you obviously do, you would realize that."
Marcia looked at him, confused. "What do you mean 'the Gilded Veil'?"
"I'll explain later, come on let's get the stretcher and get him into the medical room." he sighed.
Marcia looked around the house and did a double take. From the outside it looked like a rundown hell-hole, but the door was thicker than it looked, and the inside the walls were stone. The house was meticulously clean and was more like a fortress behind the facade.
It was going to be a long day for Einar. The first task was getting all the shrapnel they could out of Griffin. Then he had to explain to these folks what he understood to be the true nature of the world they were actually in.
They moved to the back room and he picked up the portable stretcher. He gestured to the large steel table in the middle of the room.
"That's where we'll pick the shrapnel out of him. We're gonna have to move fast, before he heals over if possible." Marcia nodded. "The stuff we'll need should be in that cabinet, get it out while I get him moved into here."
He pointed to the cabinet in the far corner. Opening it, Marcia found every thing they would need to get the shrapnel out of Griffin. Kidney bowls, dissolvable thread, angled and straight long nose tweezers, scalpels, needles and just about everything else she could think of needing for removing shrapnel or bullets.
'Who is this guy and who does he work for?' She pondered. Even the secure medical rooms of the orders of St Michael and St Rosa weren't this well equipped with supplies. They were larger though.
Einar walked back out with the stretcher, pushed up the bench seat up and out of the way and slid the stretcher into the back of the LandCruiser. Agatha, Joakim and Liam carefully moved him to the stretcher, then carried Griffin to the room at the back of the house, following Einar. They then moved him onto the table and Marcia started cutting his pants off.
"Come on get his vest and shirt off Agatha - we need to make sure he has no deep shrapnel hits close to something important that we missed. Hurry up!"
Einar meanwhile was taking off his own leather armor. He passed the greaves and bracers to Joakim as he removed them. Joakim looked at them, fascinated. Behind the hardened boiled leather there was a layer of ceramic plates, and behind that there was Kevlar. That would make the armor less for show than he had first thought, and probably pretty good against most of the weapons they had.
With his armor and shirt off Einar helped Agatha get Griffin out of his vest and shirt and helped them both roll the bloodied Champion. Looking at his head there was a streak of blood where one of the pieces of shrapnel must have grazed his skull. Maybe that was why he was out cold?
Einar ordered "Everyone, roll up your sleeves, wash your hands and start looking for pieces of shrapnel on him." After they'd washed, Marcia took his legs while Einar looked for strikes on the upper body. The obvious ones on the leg had hit at an angle, leaving long but not very deep scratches, and there were none on his inner thighs, so there was no risk to his femoral arteries.
Agatha had noticed that both Griffin and Einar had a birthmark on their right shoulder. They looked similar, like a spear with a pair of wings, and were remarkably detailed for such an anomaly. After he pulled the final couple of pieces of shrapnel out of Griffin's arm he turned to Agatha. He had to snap his fingers to get her attention "Needle and thread"
Agatha started out of her reverie. "Oh right", blushing she rushed off to the cabinet to grab several needles, thread and two small pairs of scissors. While she was gone Einar shook his head in amusement and started cleaning the wounds with raw alcohol. When she returned he took the equipment from her. Cutting a long piece of the thread and passing it to Marcia, who had taken several pieces of shrapnel out of his leg. After about an hour both Marcia and Einar were fairly sure they'd gotten all the shrapnel out and were finishing stitching up the sometimes jagged-edged wounds.
Einar stretched, washed his hands and put on some music in the b
ackground. He then went to the kitchen fridge and grabbed out a cider, yelling "Grab what you want, sit where you want. Mi casa es su casa." He walked into the large living room and sat down on one of the worn and older lounges.
Agatha said "Liam, Azim, bring everything in from the transport. No need to leave it out there." They nodded and moved to gather everything they had left.
After they returned Einar asked "Can you give me a couple of your 'special' slugs?"
"How about you explain why you helped us and how you knew where we, errr Griffin, would be?" Agatha asked.
"Well, the first part is easy. Our father sent me to protect him. He's my brother. I need to explain some things to him. So our family has looked for activity that might attract him. It's not like we didn't know what he was doing, we've kept track since World War One, and we've been trying to get in communication with him for decades. When we figured out what was going on out here, we thought there was a good chance here to gain some positive contact. Those Ajyeto were like waving a red flag to him and your 'Order.'"
"One of the reasons I asked for the slugs is I need the ampule from them for part of my explanation. Feel free to take them out yourself if that makes you happier. Now where was I... Oh yes. Let's start with the Gilded Veil..."
Chapter 7
February 10th, Blue Mountains, Australia.
"It's really quite simple. The 'Gilded Veil' is a reference to all the weirdness. All the sorts of things we've just been talking about. Anyone who finds out about the reality of magic, werewolves or whatever has moved beyond the Veil that most people have in front of them. Moving beyond the Gilded Veil simply refers to that - finding out and believing in things that most people consider insane to accept - or that would drive most people insane if they saw them unprepared. But it's a more dangerous life beyond it, as I'm sure you've noticed."
"I set the traps for the simple reason that I was working alone, in the world we all live in, and that's always a bit... riskier than working as part of a group. Precautions are simply good sense then wouldn't you say?" He raised an eyebrow at her and simply waited. After a couple of minutes he saw that all of them were nodding. "I don't call it 'the veil' for the simple reason that every so often I find out something that contradicts what I previously knew. So it's not like it's the only veil. Just the first one, the hardest one most often for ordinary people to see through."
He took out a knife and started slivering the lead off one of the slugs until he got down to the ampule within it. He removed the thumb-tip sized ampule very carefully.
"The first thing you are going to have to accept moving past the Gilded Veil, or your version of it, is that the God you worship is dead. So is his son." He paused at the mutters and disagreements. "You think this is blessed water or some such. I can prove to you it's not, quite easily, if one of you possess a silver object you consider holy." There was some mutters, but eventually Agatha agreed they could use her cross.
He put the cross in an empty glass, carefully cracked the ampule open and poured the liquid over it. Immediately there was a sulfurous odour in the room and over the next few minutes the cross turned black. "It's simply sulfuric acid in them. Well, concentrated sulfuric acid I suppose for it to have started smelling so strongly so quickly."
"At a guess at least some of the leaders of your 'Order' have to know this or they'd be depending on the 'holy water' to work still and relying on simple blessed water. They aren't, so they obviously realize something about your God's death."
"I would suggest that your Order has been subverted by secular groups. Some of the targets you have taken out have been perfectly ordinary humans. Some we can see why they would take out. Conspiracy theorists that have found out too much about the world beyond the veil perhaps, or that aren't considered complete nutters and may find it out. Others we have no clue about. But we need to explain this to my brother Griffin."
Agatha scowled "That brother thing again. What makes you so sure?"
Einar chuckled and pointed to his birthmark. "Do you think the matching birthmarks aren't a big clue? Beyond that, Griffin is the right age to be the child of one of my Father's flings, at least he says Griffin is. Feel free to run a DNA test if you want - I don't need one run. I feel it already." Although it seemed accurate, Einar was obviously more confident of his claim than could easily be explained. To everyone in the room it's obvious there were other reasons he is sure, but equally obvious he would not disclose them. "Still, I must insist that we explain this to him and everything that the others in the group here knows. After all there are at least two with different knowledge of something foul in the Order."
"You can't just dump all of that on him." Joakim growls. "He's led his life for over two hundred years holding firm in his beliefs. You dump all of that on him and he could go berserk if he doesn't believe you. If he does accept what you tell him, best case he basically shuts down. Worst case, he'll kill himself and I doubt all of us put together could stop him from succeeding."
Agatha responded "He'd cope fine Joakim. He's not a wilting flower, and he'd want to learn the truth. Do we even have the right to keep this from him? Besides, we're all probably listed by the Order as MIA. Not that I could ever go back after finding out how they've been using us."
Then her eyes narrowed. "How come you are taking it all so well? Something is off about how you're reacting. I mean out off all of us you've been at this the longest. And you're the one I'd have expected to fall apart when Einar started explaining everything." Einar had put the Celtic sword in a locked box, with her permission. She still had a feeling that he was hiding something about it but he'd been so nervous when she reached for it earlier she'd acquiesced at the insistence of Joakim. She still had the xiphos though, and her hand went to its hilt.
Joakim gave her a disgusted look. "I've known most of this since my master left the Order and I took his place. The wizard community has known about the Order for a millennium or more. We've had a Master hidden in the order for at least five hundred years. Most of the witches and warlocks I've killed have broken the rules of their own community, the rest I faked killing. Why do you think I operate alone or with one or two others," he glanced at Liam "most of the time."
Agatha glared at Joakim, who just glared back, then at Liam who wouldn't meet her gaze and stared out a window off into the distance, looking very uncomfortable.
"Let me guess, you faked Marcus's death too right."
He only nodded at her.
"I can't believe this. And no-one wanted to tell me? I wasn't good enough for the truth?"
"No, not that," Azim said "You were too close to Griffin." All eyes turned on him. "Hey, I found out about something off before my first encounter with the vampires. My Captain had been transferred from a long stint in Army Intel before he commanded us. He'd seen my record and heard enough about me that he trusted me with some of his findings, and a connection. After I'd recovered from my wounds I followed it up."
"There's a bunch of really manipulative bastards who are using most religions, but mainly Christianity and Islam, to consolidate power under themselves. They don't have true faith, but they see religion as a means to control the masses, along with fear. They're also nutjobs of another kind too. They want human purity - they want to not only wipe out the vampires and werebeasts, which may or may not be a good idea, but anyone whom they deem inhuman. And the list changes sometimes. Although to be fair Hitler disgusted them too. But they want to kill all who have 'unnatural' or 'inhuman' abilities."
Everyone, even Einar stared at him. "Wait a tic" "What do you mean?" "WHAT?"
"Look I'm not the only one that's been declared KIA on a military mission that somehow became a suicide mission. When I got back to the world I managed to contact an old commander of mine. He'd had the same thing had happened to him. He'd decided to stay completely black when he'd gotten back 'home'."
"When we combined what he'd figured out with what I'd been given we got a better picture, but a lot of what Eina
r's told us is new to me too. Not particularly surprising, but new. It explains some things including what the group playing puppeteer to the Order is doing. And why there always seemed to be factions amongst those controlling the religions. I mean if none of the 'Gods' are around now then the people in charge of the religions are either believers or manipulators."
He paused for a bit, obviously considering something. "Without the occasional burned hand from pissing off something that had Godly power then there are the manipulators. There are going to be people who work to get higher office in religions simply for the power it gives them."
Einar was scowling at this point "My father isn't a charlatan. He is descended from Odin, as are Griffin and I." He seemed to focus on something and there was a cool breeze through the room. "And we can access the same forces the Gods could. Don't assume you know everything."
Azim only responded by saying "Okay, where are the vents and the fans in them?" with a bored look on his face. However Joakim was obviously impressed.
"So even after everything you've seen, even with the evidence of how long Griffin has lived. You think I'd resort to charlatan's tricks?" His anger was obvious, and he pointed to the bottom of Azim's pants and muttered something under his breath. They caught fire. For the next minute Azim was frantically beating at them, and when he was done he looked at Einar with fear.
"Is that enough proof? Or should I do something more permanent?" Agatha however, despite seeming to not react at first, drew her sword and charged at Einar. He skillfully dodged to the side and placed his hand up in a pacifying gesture, internally cursing his anger at the jibe and remembering his father's directive.
"Peace Agatha. I have not hurt him." He stepped back from a swing at his gut. "But you all must believe these powers exist if you are going to survive." She stabbed at him but he stepped forward past the blade and grabbed her wrist. "Enough. I don't want to harm any of you, but I will defend myself. Drop the blade." Agatha struggled for a moment, trying to break free, but his grip was like an iron manacle. She knew she wasn't going to be able to break it. She heard Joakim behind her.
Paladin (Betrayed by Faith Book 1) Page 5