The Gunslingers #7: Jace and The Paladins
“Why didn’t you save us, mister?” The little boy asks in a Middle Eastern accent. Through the billowing sand around him, it’s almost impossible to see, but I know it’s them. His mother reaches down and rests her hand on his shoulder. “Well?”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen!” I shout, anger building inside of me. “You don’t understand!”
“Oh, we understand, Jace Abernathy,” The woman says, tousling her sons hair, shaking the sand out of it. The sand feels like it’s growing, burying me, burying them. Their feet are gone now, swallowed up by the now knee-high sand. “We understand how you killed us.”
“It was an accident!” I yell, but my voice is drowned out by the screaming wind. “It was a god damn accident!”
“You came to our home to keep the peace.” The boy was crying now, his tears turning to mud as the rolled down his sand covered face. “What peace did you bring?” The sand was moving faster now, up to the woman’s midsection and the boy’s neck, slowly climbing up to his face.
“Why didn’t you save us, mister?” the boy says as the sand covers his face. He disappears, and with a look of disapproval, the woman turns to walk away, and disappears as well. I try to run towards where they had been, but the sand hugs my legs to tightly, I try to move, but it just constricts, like quicksand. Something sails past my head and lands on the sand in front of me. A small green object, no bigger than an orange. It has no pin. I watch as the grenade explodes showering me with light and shrapnel.
Something hits the left side of my face and my eyes show me the blurry image of Alex standing over top of me. “Jace!”
“What…what happened?” I ask, as I slowly sit up.
“You must have got the full power of whatever that thing was.” Alex says, referring to the ball of light that the Cyclops used to disorient us. “You were the only one who blacked out.” Suddenly I’m awake and alert.
“Where is he!? Where did the bastard go!? He took Annie!”
“We know he did, Jace,” Saul says, “There was nothing we could do. She’s gone man.” The pain in his voice sounds fake.
“She isn’t gone, you heartless bastard, we can find here. He was bringing her somewhere, we can find that place.”
“I hate to be a pessimist here, but that guy was pretty well armed. And look at these two.” Alex motions to the two men on the floor who are still unconscious. I stand up and walk over to the one I took down, his chest still smoldering from where I’d hit him. I pull his pistol out of its holster to examine it. It looks like any regulation police officer’s gun, except painted white with a small cross hanging from the hilt. I rip the cross off and drop the gun. I walk over to the other guy and do the same. “What are you doing?” Alex gives me a confused look.
“Trophies.” I say, admiring the small charms.
“What are we going to do about Annie, Jace?” Saul asks.
“Were going to find another one of these bastards, and then beat the hell out of him till he tells us where they went.” The other two are looking at me oddly, but I ignore it. “Any questions?”
Finding one of those bastards wasn’t hard, the guy with the eye patch must have sent some more of his goons to come back and look for more of us.
“The Radiance will protect me.” He says, refusing to look at my knife as I slowly edge it towards his face. “If you kill me, my body will join with it and I will empower someone else who will strike you down, infidel.” I put the knife back into my bag and he lets out a sigh. My left hand flies forward, smashing the right side of his face.
“The Radiance will save me.”
Me and Saul leave him tied to the toilet and walk back out into the main room of Alex’s apartment. “He won’t budge.” I say, rubbing my sore knuckles.
“What do we do?” Alex asks, she looks like she’s never held anyone hostage before, not that any of us have, but I guess this world numbs the guilt. Alex punches the wall, “What the hell are we going to do, Jace!?”
“I don’t know!” the stress of leadership sinks in, my brain starts thinking of ideas in overdrive.
“Oh, for fuck sakes, I’ll deal with it,” Saul turns towards the washroom and holds out his hand, “Give me your knife.” I’m reluctant, but I hand it over. What Saul could do with a knife I have no idea, but putting the blade into his hand seems wrong. When he shuts the door behind him, we hear nothing for what seems like an hour at least. No sounds, no screams, no talking, nothing. And then Saul walks out, cleaning my knife with his shirt. He hands it back to me after clearing the blood off. “That wasn’t so hard.”
I go to look through the door but Saul shuts it with his foot before I see anything. “What did you find out?” I ask.
“He’s a solider for a radical religious group called The Paladins, they believe that a higher power, they call it The Radiance, is nested inside a man, they call him The Holy Father, whom they are devoted to wholeheartedly.”
“You got all that from him? He would barely say two words to me!”
“Well no, all he said was he was a Paladin and I pretty much knew the rest anyways. I figured that he was when we started the interrogation, but I wanted to be sure.” Saul pushes his hand through his slicked back hair and then rubs his beard. “I also know where their base of operations is in Toronto.”
“They have a base in Toronto? Toronto, Canada?” I said, astonished to hear that anyone would take interest in my home town.
“They have bases in every major city in every country in the world. This is one of the largest religious followings that never have seen the light of day. I guess this whole, ‘end-of-days’ thing has finally brought them out.”
“So what do we do now?” I ask, acknowledging Saul and Alex.
“Do you still have that C4?” Saul smiles deviously.
Alex pulls a bloodied arrow out of the corpse of a fallen Infected and flings the blood away from us, “ugly bastard”. We managed to make it all the way to the Paladin’s Complex without having to deal with any hordes of the dead, but still, it only takes one. I look up at the massive ten foot, bleached-white wall in front of us.
“Was this here…before?” without specifying, Alex and Saul knew exactly what I meant.
“It must have been…there’s no way they could have built it in this short of a time. How long has it been anyways?”
“Is this really the best time to discuss this?” I say, trying to keep some order. “We have no idea what is behind this wall, and whatever is behind it, it’s completely surrounded, so we have no way around it. Do you really think blowing a big hole in it is the best idea?”
“The sound from the explosion would be enough to attract any nearby, what did you call them, Ragers? They would flood the complex through the hole and whoever comes to deal with us will have a much bigger problem.” Saul rubs his beard. “It’ll work.”
Me and Saul kneel down and find the best place to stick the plastic explosive and Alex watches our back while we work. It takes a solid fifteen minutes before we’re sure that it’s going to explode right. “Hand me the detonator.”
“Shit…” I say, groping around my bag. “There isn’t one.”
“Well how the fuck are we supposed to detonate this shit?” Saul says, pointing to the small brown package, almost a hundred feet away.
“I could shoot it.” Alex says, reaching for an arrow from her quiver. “I would lose the arrow, but I can spare one.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, “C4 can only be detonated with a combination of extreme heat and shockwaves.”
“What about you?” Saul looks at me, but I play dumb.
“What about me?”
“Your flames, Jace.”
“It won’t work.”
“Just try it.”
“It’s pointless, Saul.”
“What are you afraid of!?” I can see a genuine anger in his eyes; maybe Annie was right to be afraid of him. “Do you not want to save her?!”
I turn away from him. I have no argument. I raise my hand and try to focus on the flames. There’s a painful sensation in my lungs, as if my breath is burning up. The fire explodes from my palm and collides with the C4, triggering a massive explosion, destroying a six by six foot section of the wall. The pain in my lungs disappears, as if I was underwater and then came up for air.
“Told yah so.” Saul says, looking over at me expectantly. I look at my palm and see that a black circle has formed around the centre, but slowly it disappears. There’s a loud sound from behind us, “Let’s get inside before the freaks show up.”
We sneak in, but someone in a pitch-black guard tower, completely invisible to the dark night, catches us in a spotlight. I duck to avoid any gunfire, but Alex rises to the occasion. She pulls an arrow out and fires it straight into the centre of the spotlight.
“Jesus, Alex, that was at least a hundred and fifty feet!”
“Let’s keep going!” I decide to drop it and ask her later.
From behind what looks like a small supply shed, we watch as troves of men in white suits spill into the courtyard, all of them opening fire on the dead as they clamber through the hole in their defenses. I point to a larger looking building with the words ‘Cell Block’ written in military style writing above the doors.
“Where is she?” Saul asks, and then I see the small, crumpled form of Annie, lying unconscious on the cold floor of the smallest cell.
“Annie!” I run over and start banging on the door, which doesn’t give. “Annie, wake up!”
“She’s been drugged.” I look over and see a small man, a fearful look on his face. “General Omen put her out before he ran off to the battle.”
“Who are you?” Alex asks before anyone else can.
“They call me Engineer Pippen, but you can call me Gary.” He adjusts his spectacles. “I build The Paladin’s war machines.”
“Why are you telling us all this?” I say, edging towards him, my hand grasping one of the pistols on my belt. “Why not just kill us?”
“I despise them, the whole lot. But I do not wish to die.” He shakes his thinning grey hair, “If you let me live, I’ll give you the key and tell no one I saw you.”
I pull the gun from my belt and press it against the small man’s forehead. “What stops me from killing you and taking what I need?”
“Have a heart, sir.” I drop the pistol, and he holds out a small key. “I saw nothing.” He scurries off, out the door we came in. I take the key and look at Alex and Saul, they both nod, knowing that I’d done the right thing. I walk over to the cell and open the door.
“Annie?” No response. “Annie!” this time louder, but still nothing. I lift her up and drape her over my shoulder. “Let’s go.” The sounds of gunfire seem to be getting closer to the door we came in through, so we go out the only other door in the room. Just past the double doors is a long, grey hallway, with only one door at the other end.
“I’ve got a bad feeling…”
“Save it.” Saul says, silencing Alex. “We have no other option.” Silently we walk through the hallway. I open the door on the other end to another empty room, this time it’s less a hallway, more of just a large round room. The walls, floor, and ceiling are all painted a bright white. “Now what?” Saul says, seeing no exit.
The wall on the other side of the room slides down and a tall, dark-haired kid with a long, well-worn katana, walks out of an unseen room. “You shouldn’t be here, infidels.” He raises the sword. I reach for my guns and look back at Saul.
“Get out of here, take them back the way we came, I’ll find you.” Saul nods and the run back out the door. I turn back and the kid is spinning his sword around in one hand.
“Im surprised you didn’t ask for their help, what a shame,” He leans the flat edge of the blade on his shoulder, “I was looking for a challenge.”
I pull out the two pistols and my fingers fly across the triggers, pumping bullet after bullet at the Paladin. Every time a bullet flies from the chamber he spins his blade, knocking every bullet out of the air before they have the chance to hit him.
“The Radiance protects me, fool, can’t you see?” He slams the blade down to the floor and swipes it towards me, sending a blinding wave of light towards me. It takes less than a second to reach where I was standing, but some sort of primal instinct forced me to leap out of the way before it reached me. “You will die by my blade!’
“I could say the same to you, friend,” I say, pulling the small combat knife from my backpack. It’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got. I charge forward and slash towards him, creating a shower of sparks as our blades clash. I swing up and he parries the blow, knocking me down. He raises his blade for a finishing blow but is met with a flaming uppercut to the chest. He soars across the room and smacks the wall with a painful sounding crunch.
“So it’s true then, you are The Firebringer,” The warrior says, using his sword to get back to his feet, “Well I’m more than just a Paladin.” He lifts his sword and a bolt of lightning shoots up his blade and bounces from his blade to his suit and back. “The Radiance may not appreciate this curse that runs through my veins, but by The Grace, I will show The General just how powerful I am!” He thrusts his blade forward and the lighting jumps from his blade and jolts through my bones. I fall, my blood burning, my skin almost flaming. My legs won’t move, I can’t react at all. “You’re a fool, and I am glad I get to be the one to kill you.” He rests the end of his sword on the ground in front of me and lowers his head to pray. I take a deep breath, and the fire explodes from my hand. Once again, he smacks against the back wall, this time three feet above the ground. I hear his ankle bones shatter as he cries out.
“This is your end.” I pick up the sword that he dropped and raise it above my head. “Hopefully this Radiance you keep mentioning saves you in the end.” I thrust the sword down into his chest, watching the pain writhe through his face. This bastard, he’s one of them, I have every right to kill him. They tried to take Annie from me, so I’ll take him from them. I lean down on one knee and lift him by his shirt, pulling him up the blade. I lean my face close to his, a small trail of blood leaks from his mouth. “By the grace of god, or the devil’s curse, everyone dies in righteous fire.” I press my hand, already engulfed in the red flames, against his face and burn away anything that was ever recognisable from him. I let go and his lifeless corpse slowly drifts to the ground. I look at the blade in my hand and decide that I have more use for it now. I take the sword’s holder from the dead warrior’s back and leave the formerly white room, now splatter with the blood of the dead.
I expect to meet up with the group outside or at least meet some resistance from The Paladins outside, but I don’t. The courtyard is empty of anything living. I look to the hallowed ground and see it littered with corpses. They’re all dead.
