Page 26 of Caelum

TWENTY-FIVE

NESTOR

There was a weird scent in the air when we disembarked, and after a few seconds, I recognized it as the rivers. They had a unique smell that always made me want to gag. I didn’t know how the locals could live near the waters the way they did and could only assume they didn’t smell it anymore.

How that was possible was one of nature’s jokes.

It was like how Jason, the Omega Unit’s Sin Eater, didn’t know his feet were fucking rank. His socks would kill more Ghouls than his soul would, that was for damn sure.

The plane had come down on a flat chunk of land that, until last year, had been used for farming yams. They’d wrecked the soil, though, and while that was a shame for the locals, it meant we didn’t have to get on a boat to cross the river to reach Aboh.

The river was wide and housed small islets, but there were no bridges that connected one side to the other. It isolated the city in a way that made it look like it was a bow-tied gift to Ghouls.

As I peered up overhead, I could feel the ticking of time as it began to count down toward sunset. I was sensitive toward the rising of both the sun and the moon. Not simply because of my body clock, but because as a gouille , I was born for these night missions.

I wouldn’t shift, my skin wouldn’t be impenetrable until graduation, but everything else about me was gouille. Even when it was a Vampire day, like today, my gouille was there, ever present. Watching over things and disliking my need to feed.

Our Alpha Unit scouted over the jetty, which was closing for the day. We figured this was where the initial boatload of Ghouls would touch down because it was easiest.

Ghouls weren’t the cleverest of God’s creatures. Especially the grunts Juliet McAllister surrounded herself with. They were numbskulls, pretty much like lemmings just waiting to be guided to a cliff they could walk off.

Only once they’d made it up the ladder did they start to show any signs of intelligence, and that could take a while. For a Ghoul to feed wasn’t an easy thing, and it took specific sustenance to keep several souls in line. I didn’t even want to imagine what Juliet had to eat to be high-functioning. It creeped me out just thinking about it.

While Dre and Stefan argued about positioning, I ignored them both. My gouille worked in ways their souls didn’t, and it automatically helped me ascertain the best locale for monitoring the area.

My body also shut down in a way theirs never would. Gouilles that were in ‘active’ mode didn’t use the bathroom, had no need for food for up to four days, and were capable of staying in one position for a hundred hours or more.

I wasn’t at that level yet, but when I graduated, I would be.

The point my gouille selected was on a faint rise behind the main jetty in the docks. I could see upriver as well as down if they surprised us by going against the flow of the water.

When they saw that I was in position, their argument stopped and I sensed them preparing for the battle ahead, leaving this duty to me.

Ten seconds before the sun was due to set, I could feel the approaching night, and I watched the sun tumble down and waited for the moon to rise.

It was a crescent moon tonight, which wasn’t great for visibility for the others. The Shifter souls would be okay, but the rest, not so much.

It was what it was though. We couldn’t always have the environment on our side, and the last three training missions we’d been lucky. Full moons, small armies of Ghouls, and two of the three had been in low populated areas with little risk to residents.

This mission was definitely a step up.

We’d gone from riding bikes with training wheels on to this one. A hardcore fight that would make or break us.

I didn’t intend on being broken, not when Eve was back at Caelum, wondering where we were and why we hadn’t taken her along.

I regretted not sharing our intentions with her, but we’d decided—even Dre had agreed and he had a hard-on where hurting her was concerned—that we would keep her out of the loop. The faculty had asked us to as well, and because Nicholas, Damon, and Merinda were handling her lessons, she was still in Year One mode, thinking we were just at school for the sake of being at school. Because that’s what kids did. Learned from books.

Caelum wasn’t a regular Academy though. It bred warriors and Eve, although she didn’t know it, had befriended some of the best in the school.

Most missions of this intensity were spearheaded by the warriors who’d hit twenty or twenty-one. Like Jason and his crew were. They were all over twenty now. But Frazer’s unit and ours? We were young to be in this position, but we were the best, and the faculty knew that and were training us to be better.

Even as pride filled me, I didn’t allow it to show as the sun finally set and darkness reigned. The whispers behind me had disappeared, and I knew we were all starting to feel the buzz of what was to come.

This was our first real trial and none of us intended to fail.

The city had slowed down, and although there was a road close by, I hadn’t even seen a car moving down it for two hours.

A hush had taken over Aboh, and the calm before the storm was the only warning I had.

Ninety minutes after sunset, my head tilted to the side when I heard a faint noise in the distance.

An engine.

Another sound came on top of that.

Chatter .

“They’re here,” I whispered under my breath. “Coming from Onitsha as we expected.”

I heard the walkie-talkie, heard Stefan pass on the message, but my attention was on the boat that was coming our way.

Gouilles had sensitive hearing and sensitive sight. We were the perfect guards. Seeing and hearing all.

It took me longer than I’d like because the river was loud, but I stated softly, “Three hundred incoming in four boats.”

The message was relayed.

“Five minutes until they dock,” I whispered, slipping out of the mindset my gouille required and finally getting my Pack ready.

From behind me, I heard the whisper-like movements as men appeared, ready to attack the grunts who were about to be offloaded onto the shore.

Lights flashed, and the arrogance of the Ghouls hit us as the boats began to pull into the jetty not under the shield of darkness, but with spotlights blaring. They weren’t coming in in waves, but in one mass unloading.

I wasn’t sure if they were idiots or geniuses.

“Wait for them to offload,” Merinda’s voice was quiet as it came through on the walkie-talkie.

We froze, waiting for the boats to empty. A low hush overset the Ghouls as they waited on their orders.

Only when they set out, their intention to feed, did we slip out of our hiding places and move toward them.

At first, we stuck to the shadows, then as the wave of Ghouls surged forth, we mingled with them.

They looked just like us, after all.

There was no differentiating between a Ghoul, a creature, and a human.

Until you saw what they ate.

Armed with tasers that were set to Drive Stun, we stuck to the edges, knowing that was the best way to separate the ones we took down with the ever-moving flow of grunts.

Drive Stun was a pain compliance method in humans, but in our kind, it fucked with the muscles and made us pass out. Especially with the tasers that we jerry-rigged to work at a higher voltage.

Being hit in the neck was enough to knock a Ghoul out for an hour. After that, they’d awaken, and the mood they’d be in?

It was like setting a bull on a rampage on purpose.

Each minute was a ticking time bomb that put us in even more danger until finally, the time bomb detonated and we surged into action.

As we took out more and more of their numbers from the sidelines, they finally figured that someone was targeting them.

I used the tasers to pistol-whip most of my targets before stunning them and letting them drop where they fell. Now the news was out, there was no point in dragging the downed grunts to the side.

All around me, creatures worked to contain this particular threat to a city that had done nothing more than dare to get rich with their oil reserves.

No one deserved the fate the Ghouls promised. Not even my scumbag parents. And that was saying something.

Despite us being outnumbered, the grunts were stupid and easy to manage. The upper ranks of a nest were the ones that were hard to take out.

From a strategic standpoint, all we had to do here was waste time by taking out the masses, all so we could see when and if the generals were about to come out and play .

It was a marathon runner’s tactic. Long distance rather than short.

It took thirty minutes in all to eradicate the army, but with no sign of any of the upper ranks, we had no idea if this was a bust or not.

Most of the grunts lay where they dropped, and I pulled back to my earlier position where I could monitor the rivers to see if another boat was heading in. I saw other gouilles doing the same, staggering along the riverbank to monitor for any sign of Juliet McAllister’s nest that might be attempting to infiltrate the area now the cannon fodder had done its job.

As I watched and waited, the scent of burning hit my nose, overpowering the stench of the river as the Incubi, Succubi, and Sin Eaters got to work.

I didn’t envy them their positions.

A sound of exploding flesh ruptured my attention, and I grimaced, my head turning to the side to see which grunt had caused the mess and which poor bastard was covered in Ghoul goo. But as I moved, as my focus broke, I failed to hear the whisper-like movement behind me.

One second she wasn’t there, then she was. Her arms came around me like a caress, with one hand surging upward to cover my mouth to stop me from calling out for help. I struggled even though there was no point. I was held in her arms as firmly as a baby was by its mother as her teeth connected with my throat.

One second it was there, then it wasn’t.

I sank to the ground as blood bubbled from the wound and tipped onto my back regretting, with every ounce of my being, that I’d lied to Eve.

I wouldn’t be coming home.