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Chapter 12: My team and I get sneaky and hope prevails
Thursday the 12th of October, 2006 – Shields Crossing, Ontario
“I know this is bad timing with us heroically headed to fight the council but um… am I free?” Grant asked. He looked younger than his nineteen years and I felt bad for him.
“As far as I know, Luc is no longer a threat. Your soul is your own. But you’re not free, you’re still a Gatekeeper and you’re still stuck with me,” I said with a smile.
The group laughed awkwardly and Grant said, “I’m okay with that. Um… how do we find Lance?”
That was a good question. I knew that he had a house in Toronto and an apartment in New York. Sylvie said my thoughts aloud before I had the chance, “He’s got to be close. No way he’s sending waves of public domain assassins at us from across the province. Maybe I should call my fiancée and see if she can track his cell?”
She hadn’t finished the whole statement when my phone rang. Since I was driving, she reached into my pocket and said, “It’s him.” She put it on speaker.
I took a deep breath and said, “Hey Lance. We found Galaus, he’s no longer a threat.”
“Excellent. You’re well on your way to redemption. Did you find his base of operations?” Lance sounded excited. I could faintly hear bells in the background.
“No, sorry. We had some issues with a superpowered devil Aetherborn.” You bastard, I added in my thoughts.
There was a silence and then Lance said, “I guess that’s okay. I’ll get a team out there to clean up your mess. There’s a report of gremlin-like creatures in Winnipeg. I want you and your team to take care of it. Your new recruit should head back to Westmeath and start getting ready for her apprenticeship. Bruce down in Lima will be training her.”
Sylvie made a face and looked angry.
“Sure boss,” I said.
“Good job not screwing this one completely up.” Lance hung up and everyone started asking questions at the same time.
I had to stop at a train crossing. The lights and bells were ringing to tell me a train was coming. “Bells!” I exclaimed over everyone’s shouting..
“What?” Sylvie asked.
“The bells. I heard faint bells on the call with Lance. This train is coming from the west, where Shield’s Crossing is, which means he’s there.
“Shit,” said Galaus. “He’s planning an ambush.”
“Or he believes us and thinks we’ll run along on the new errand without hesitation,” I suggested. “Let’s give him exactly that. We’ll go to the motel to pack up and pretend to head out. Then we’ll double back and catch him at whatever he’s doing here.”
Everyone agreed and I was thankful the rental van had tinted windows to hide Galaus. It didn’t take us long to pack up. Lance would be expecting us to head to Westmeath to get a new van and drop this one off. It was almost dinner and we could make it if we hurried. Traffic into town would be bad but since we weren’t going, I didn’t care.
Maybe it was my imagination, but I could swear someone was watching me the entire time we packed up. I tried really hard not to look for them.
“Sylvie, where’s your car?” I asked, not remembering her ever using it.
Looking mischievous, she replied, “I don’t have one.”
“How did you get here then?”
“That’s classified,” was the only thing she’d say.
I knew that Yggdrasil Command was working on strange stuff but I had no idea how she’d gotten here.
“How do you plan on hiding a big white rental van?” asked Robin as she climbed in.
Before I could reply, Sylvie said, “Leave that to me.”
When everyone had piled into the van, we drove toward Westmeath.
When we were fifteen minutes out, we turned into a rural road and parked out of sight of the highway. “Did anyone follow us?” I asked.
Everyone said, “No” and I turned to Sylvie.
“My fiancée makes me little gadgets,” She placed a small metal cube on the dash and flicked the little switch. I felt the magic rush over the van but couldn’t see any difference. “It makes the vehicle invisible. It only works for a few hours before it needs to be charged again.”
“I’ll be careful driving,” I said and turned back onto the main road. It was dark now and I was fairly certain Lance would be at the fancier hotel that was near the train tracks.
There were a dozen cars in the little parking lot and most of them were rentals from Ottawa or Westmeath. That wasn’t unusual in itself but I suddenly got a bad feeling.
“Either the Halloween festival is attracting guests early or there’s a conference in town,” Ursula said. Her deep voice sounded annoyed. “Should I take out my sword to see if there are any illusions?”
“No. We’re hidden by one now,” I reminded her.
“Oh, right.”
“If that’s the council of Gatekeepers, we’re in trouble,” Galaus remarked. “No offence but you’re all young and in need of more training.
That’s when the council members, including Lance, came out of the hotel. I had met them all before but never in the same place. What were they doing? The twenty members from all around the world drove off in the same direction and I followed them.
“Whatever they’re up to it can’t be good,” Galaus said somberly. “The last time they were all together, they blamed me for killing the previous council.”
The cars drove to the same field that we’d just left, and with a wave of Lance’s hand it turned into an old stone agora.
Whispering, with a quiver of fear in his voice, Grant asked, “What can we do against twenty Gatekeepers that throw magic around like mages?”
No one had an answer and we watched as they started some sort of ritual. Magic was pouring into it and the members were all so focussed on what they were doing that they didn’t see the two dozen musketeers take aim and shoot at them. I didn’t see until it was too late either.
I swore as all the members of the council except for Lance fell to the ground. Not thinking, I jumped out of the van and ran to the nearest member. They were dead and I could feel their magic being drained by Lance.
“You killed them all? Why?” I shouted and summoned my sword.
Lance smiled a toothy grin, “Power. The Gatekeepers are mine and it’s time we showed the world our true strength. Join me, and together we will rule this realm as gods.”
“Wow. He’s gone full Bond villain,” quipped Sylvie. She had her gun out and shot at him. The bullet turned into a rain of rose petals that fell at Lance’s feet.
Lance tossed a bolt of pure power at me. My sword already in hand, I tried to parry it and was shocked when it worked. It made a sort of sense, our blades were made of Aether barrier energy and that held the magic at bay. What other knowledge had we lost because of the council’s lust for power and control?
“I can’t let you get away with this. You’re making a mockery of everything it means to be a Gatekeeper. We’re meant to protect people, not control them!” I shouted as I rushed him.
He met my blade with his but he was slower than me and not as careful as Galaus. We traded blows but I was confident I could beat him.
“You don’t understand, we are just power. There’s no higher calling, no noble knight, if the Ladies of the Lake wanted us to be honourable they’d have stopped me by now.”
There was a certain logic to his words but they still made me angry. I was promised honour, mercy, and a mission to make the world a better place. My anger grew at the betrayal of everything we were, and my black blade started to glow a silver light.
“Lance, you are a disgrace to Gatekeepers and I won’t let you get away with it.” I put all my feelings of betrayal and anger into a downward cut, and Lance raised his sword for an easy block.
My sword sliced through his, releasing all the magic stored in him into a wave of brilliant light. His sword sizzled and disintegrated.
“NO!” he screamed and made the motions to cast a spell and nothing happened. Sometime during our fight, the musketeers had disappeared.
“Lance, I strip you of your power and position as a Gatekeeper,” I said and felt a reverberation in my sword. I knew I was broadcasting the message to all other Gatekeepers. Another thing I didn’t know we could do. “The council was killed by you in a gross misuse of power. I think it’s time to make this a democratic institute.”
There was a lot of politics and setting up before the Gatekeepers could work as a cohesive unit again, but I was confident we could do it.
Maybe it was time to pick an assignment. I heard Baker was missing Gatekeepers. It was time to go home.
While you wait for the next chapter, check out the previous serial stories:
