Chapter 24 Soldiers
Soldiers
ANGELO
My twin and I let our wings loose first, then Javier does his weird Sailor Moon-esque sparkling transition to his fiery phoenix.
Rogue is watching with her mouth hanging open and I chuckle to myself.
Because of his ridiculous parents, Javi keeps his bird pretty low-key, and it’s probably been a long time since she’s seen it.
The difference between a younger phoenix transforming into a decent looking but not hugely remarkable bird is one thing; an adult in his full glory is something else entirely.
“Morrigan, save me,” our girl mutters as Javi glitters up into the sky like a feathered disco ball. “That’s so pretty that it hurts.”
Rebel snorts, rolling his eyes at her. “You are way too easily impressed, lil’ sis.”
“Oh, yeah. Like I’m the one who almost died on the spot when we met those ice birds a couple of years ago.” Her words drip with sarcasm and I look at my old friend curiously, noting the red face he’s sporting now.
There’s a story I want to hear.
“We can ask about it later, Ang,” Damon says as he pushes off, flapping his wings to gain altitude quickly. “We have shit to do right now.”
He’s right; my twin almost always is. His logical, pragmatic side directly opposes the softness he hides behind it, but Damon is good at switching to ‘mission-mode’ when need be.
I wink at Rogue, then follow him into the sky, splitting off in the direction we agreed on mentally.
I’ll head to the training building. He’s taking the main, and that leaves Javi to cloak himself so he can peep into the dorm-like structure.
I would have liked to send Reb to that big monstrosity at the south end, but I’d rather he stay with our girl and Archie, just in case.
“We’ll have to check it out at some point, though,” I mutter to myself as I bank on a breeze and head for my target. As I get closer to the buildings, I clear my throat and intone, “Vide modo quid vis videre.”
That’s not a cloaking spell like my phoenix brother, but it will trick the beings in the vicinity enough to keep me off their radar for a bit—I think.
Vengeance demons have magic, obviously, but our ability to use it affects the people we’re using it on more than ourselves.
The real question is if the beings who inhabit this fucking place are used to seeing supes or if they go about their days not expecting creatures with preternatural powers to exist.
“Here’s hoping,” I say as I pull my wings in and descend towards the roof of the immense building.
I’m careful to brace myself, letting my dive become a gentle coast when I’m almost there, so I don’t make a suspicious ‘thump’ when my feet touch the surface.
It doesn’t have windows or a skylight, but when I look closely, it appears it might have a hatch that opens.
Not using that—who knows what I’d drop into?
But it’s curious—what are they using the hatch for, I wonder?
If it really is a training facility, what would create the need for coming in and out of a roof?
Certainly not sports, nor regular classes—there’s something very sketchy about this place.
Shaking my head, I walk slowly so my steps are silent, memorizing the shape and detail of my landing spot.
If there’s something hidden up here, I’m going to find it; otherwise, I’ll take off and try going a level lower.
Nothing stands out up here, which is annoying as hell.
It also confirms my belief that the people running this place do not expect supes.
Seemingly no aerial protection and nothing that trips on the roofs?
That means you think nothing with wings might lurk, and you believe there are no actual threats anywhere.
Otherwise, why the unholy Hell would you have such accessible, unguarded buildings? You wouldn’t.
I close my eyes, reaching out to my twin mentally.
This works better when we’re closer together, but I try to send the vibes I’m getting from this stupid arena, so he knows it’s likely not dangerous to land on the dorms. Once I do that, I walk carefully to the edge and take flight again so I can find a good window to peek in.
I glide away from the training center, making sure there’s enough space for me to circle around and check all the angles first. There are a few tall windows that might have a vantage point, but I need to stay away from the lower ones.
The mid and ground-level ones are bigger, but I’d end up too exposed, especially in the daylight.
Annoying as fuck, but I’d prefer not to set off alarms until we have an idea what beings use this school.
“Is it possible they only use human-style security?” I wonder as I circle again, trying to decide which one of the windows is best. “If so, there have to be cameras around here somewhere. But none on the outside? So fucking strange.”
The house we stopped at definitely had a wall and a gate, plus dogs, but this huge, fancy-ass school or college or whatever is completely unguarded as far as I can tell.
It speaks to how confident the admin and staff are—they believe no one will attack, and if they do, the population inside can handle it.
Could it be some kind of secret mercenary-type training facility?
No, that only happens in movies, Angelo; don’t be ridiculous.
There’s nothing like figuring out you’re wrong in the most spectacular fucking way.
I’ve spent the past half hour watching the shit going down inside this damn arena, and to say I’m flabbergasted would be an understatement.
The biggest room on the ground level is a wide open space divided into sections—weight training, a fight ring, cardio equipment, and bleachers to watch.
Groups of ten to twenty humanoids, many of them bleached blond dudes, have been working their spot in the circuit furiously.
I don’t know what in the motherfucking shit they are, but they seem to have superhuman speed, strength, and senses.
Five or six more guys are in polos, observing and yelling at the ‘students’ as they lift, fight, or exercise.
Another group of twenty plus humanoids sit in the bleachers, wiping themselves down with small neck towels as they drink from water bottles.
They don’t look completely spent, but I suppose I am far enough away that I might not be able to tell.
None of the groups have many females, and that alone is odd, but the few that are present seem to be more varied than the men.
A lot of them look very similar to one another in facial features and how they move—another oddity to figure out.
My phone buzzes in my pocket as I watch the extremely well-trained people continue to work, amazed by how precise and lethal they look even when they’re on the treadmills.
It’s seldom a demon as old as me feels impressed by this sort of thing, but…
it’s like this damn campus is honing weapons in person form.
What for, I couldn’t say, but they’re doing a damn fine job of creating a goddamn army.
“What?” I whisper into the receiver as I clutch the side of the building with demon claws. “This feels like a bad idea. You guys don’t have a clue what I’m seeing here. You’d flip your shit, trust me.”
Reb huffs, then snaps, “Then tell me, asshole. It doesn’t help to be mysterious.”
“This is definitely a school or whatever, and they’re using some sort of super humans to create walking weapons.
I think, at least. It might be the influence of superhero movies, but dude, these guys and a handful of women are bad asses.
They’re fast as shit, strong, and they’re being taught multiple fighting styles, from what I can see.
And I’m only looking at what’s happening on the ground floor.
Who knows if they have subterranean levels for other shit. ”
“Are you sure they aren’t supes?” Archie says. “That would make a lot more sense, Ang.”
“He’s right, babe. There’s a fuckton of supes who have humanoid forms—demons, Fae, vampires, shifters, sirens, mer-folk… the list is enormous. Not to mention demis and those kinds of jagoffs.” Rogue laughs at her own insult and it makes me smile for the first time since I laid eyes on this crap.
“It could be any of those, but I haven’t seen even one of them change into…
anything. Even the ones in the fighting ring aren’t shifting or losing glamors when they’re getting beaten down.
That’s pretty high-level shit and I don’t think anyone could hide this many of them from the Society and the Councils.
” Frowning as I lean forward, squinting to see better.
“This gym has over a hundred of them, and I assume it’s only one section. ”
Reb goes quiet and when he speaks again, his voice is quiet. “If that’s one class full, this campus likely houses hundreds of these super-whatevers.”
“Super soldiers,” Archie interjects and we all groan. “Like Captain America, dude.”
Chuckling, Rogue takes over. “As cool as that would be, I don’t think we’re dealing with a comic book situation.
I don’t have a fucking clue what it actually is, though.
Even if they are humans juiced up somehow, this doesn’t have any government or official flags, logos, signs…
nada. It could be some kind of black site, but…
I just don’t think they could hide it, especially from our kind. ”
“Then what?” I muse. “Something outside of both the humans and the supes? That doesn’t exist.”
“Angelo, an hour ago, we didn’t think some weird in-between dimension where your dad and other dickwaffles could hide existed.” Archie’s sarcastic drawl isn’t meant to be mean, I know, but it wakes me up. The lion is right; acting like this couldn’t be something totally out of our sphere is dumb.
“Have you guys heard from Damon or Javi yet?”
Changing the subject will make it easier not to feel like an idiot.
“Javi is in bird form; we will not hear a damn thing until he’s done,” Rebel grumps. “But yeah, we’ve heard from D.”
“Well?”
He doesn’t answer as quickly as I’d like, and this whole thing is making my horns twitch below my skin.
“He says the main building looks like offices, and it’s hard to see much because of the curtains.
A couple of things stand out so far—a top floor that has to be for the person in charge, a fancy receiving room on the ground floor, and an elevator on each floor.
That might mean it has lower levels, too. ”
“I don’t like this one bit,” I growl softly. “If we were wondering how Lucian, Luca, and whatever other losers are building their movement without being detected, this place is definitely the answer. They could meet here for decades and no one would be any the wiser.”
“They probably have been, Angelo.” Our girl sounds angry, and I don’t blame her. As a Guardian, she has to protect her charge when they assign it, and not knowing about a secret hidey-hole full of super soldiers puts them all at risk. “This is a huge deal. Reb and I have to let our handlers know.”
“You can’t,” Archie says and I blink. “Even I know that until we verify who knows about this place already and who doesn’t, we can’t go around handing over the info. We’d lose our edge if the bad dudes have spies where they shouldn’t be, right?”
“Actually, he’s spot on.” I can almost hear Reb tugging on his hair in irritation and it makes me grin.
“We should tell them because it’s our duty, but we really can’t.
We’ll have to carefully feel around for knowledge of this place when we’re at HQ for missions and maneuvers.
And we all have to keep this shit locked down to everyone except our family—no one else can know. Not parents, not friends… no one.”
Well, that’s going to suck if Luca and Lola go on one of their paranoid ‘everyone’s out to get us’ phases; hope D’s ready for that.