Acacia Gold

Chapter 10

The Sirens sounded, deafening us and ringing throughout the warehouse. The red light stopped and a Yellow began flashing. Damn a hostage situation. Not the best situation but not the worst either. From worst to best, red was execution, blue was attack, gold, even though the light was yellow, was hostage, black was abduction, green was injury and white was, of course, surrender.

“Code grey” Guy roared grabbing bags of weapons. He skidded past me yelling, “Bring the case”.

The case was highly volatile and dangerous, but it was way cool. Elijah Ferguson, our very own Mr. smarty pants, had created it. It was a bomb of sunlight that would blow any vampire in a radius of five hundred meters to smithereens. Elijah had been perfecting it for months and we all had been dying to test it.

I grabbed the medium sized metal box and sprinted to the truck.

Darren drove and I grabbed Sage’s hand as she pulled me into the back of the truck. The heavy metal doors closed with a thunk and we sat in anticipation.

Sage Storm was the only other girl on the team. She was very aware that her name sounded like some sort of super hero identity and we teased the hell out of her for it, but she’s great company and a hell of a battle and tactic planner. 

She had the color skin you get when you mix hot chocolate with milk. Lovely and natural. Her eyes were deep like honey. She wore her hair short and dyed blonde. She stood at five foot six and slender.

She joined our team when she dropped out of university and abandoned her parent’s hopes of her graduating with honors in biology. 

Darren and Eloy were up front. Guy stayed at back with the rest of the team to brief us.

“There are two hostages and five vampires as far as we know. The hostages’ names are Akasha Rowan, medium height and build, of Afro-Caribbean heritage, and Nathan Owens, tall, medium build, brown hair”.

Guy turned his gaze to Hunter and Sage.

“I want you two to scout the area, here are blueprints and guides to the A.C. shafts” he took two identical paper booklets sealed in plastic wallets from his bag and handed one each to Hunter and Sage. “Go to each one and place a series of bombs. Time them for three and a half minutes”. 

“Eloy will stay in here with Elijah. You each have an earpiece. Use it, Elijah and Eloy will guide you if you get into any trouble”

“Darren will be ready with transport. Cacey and I will go to the source, plant the sunlight bomb, get the hostages and run” 

He turned to speak to whole group. He was made for the job.

“You may encounter vamps, we don’t know how many there will actually be. The place could be swarming with them. You stick to the plan! It’s in and out, people. No loitering. I want everyone alive”.

The truck pulled to a standstill. Darren and Eloy hopped in the back and we all synchronized watches, checked earpieces and ran over the plan again.

“Ready?” Guy asked.

We all nodded in unison. We filed out of the truck in pairs. Sage and Hunter jogged off to the left, no place to hide in broad daylight, but we were safe in the sunlight, after all the vamps tended to toast badly if they go out. Darren closed the truck doors with a little salute to Guy and myself. I picked up the case and we jogged in the opposite direction to Hunter and Sage.

“Side door” I motioned with the bomb case and Guy nodded taking lead. We stealthily slid through the steel side door ignoring the large and complicated code block. Yes we had thought of that but boy genius Elijah had disengaged them for all of ten minutes that we should take without raising the alarm. If need be he could keep them unlocked forever but then the vamps would know we were there.

We hurried through bleach white corridor after bleach white corridor, until finally we came to the mid section of the building. The building was an abandoned hospital and way too many rooms to navigate in what little time we had.

“Your time to shine Eloy” I whispered, hoping the earpiece would pick up the minor sound. It did. We listened closely.

“The central rooms are right in front of you Acacia. But you need to take the left corridor, turn right, go down three doors on the right, enter into some sort of operation room and take a left turn again. You’ll be in a corridor, take the door straight ahead and you’re there”.

“What of the hostages?” Guy asked.

“The thermo receiver is showing two beings of human temperature in the central rooms”.

“Thanks”. Guy said

“No problem, take care Guy, Acacia” he signed off our connection.

We followed Eloy’s instructions, guns at the ready. Guy was one step ahead of me, a gun in either hand. He looked like a tougher superman crossed with a S.W.A.T. member. I had no intention of doing so, but I watched his ass as we made our way down the corridor. With my gun raised, I raised my eyes too. We were at the corridor. I took a deep breath and nodded to Guy.

He motioned, signing for me to duck down, move quick and straight ahead. He’d cover me.

“Count of three” he mimed.

One, two, three…

I ducked and side stepped along the floor as Guy threw a smoke bomb overhead. The sound of guns blazing rumbled through my brain but I carried on until I reached the center of the room. I unpacked the sunlight bomb and set it up. All I had to do was activate it. 

There was a little code on the side of the circular metal bomb and my fingers just tingled to punch in the code, but I would wait for Guy to finish them off.

I saw Guy’s boots turn away from me and heard firing. Behind him were another set of shoes creeping up. I pulled out my gun, flicked on the automatic and fired. The gun pretty much severed his ankles from his feet and he fell to the floor mouth open in blood curdling screams. 

Guy turned, looked down at the vamp, then winked at me and dropped to kneel next to the bomb.

“Nice touch” he grinned.

“You too” I looked at the bodies scattering the floor. He damned skilled, more so than anyone I’d ever met.

“Hostages” he said. We stood and saw two bound and blindfolded shapes sat on chairs. I untied the woman, while Guy untied the man.

They blinked frightened eyes at us, then looked to the floor and smiled. They knew us.

Guy told them how to get out while we finished up, “take my gun. You know how to point aim and shoot right?” 

The guy, Nathan nodded.

“Good, now go” Guy ordered. They disappeared across the room in a hurry.

“Hostages coming your way” I told our Eloy, “Open the truck and get ready to drive in four minutes”.

He replied “ready and raring”.

“Come on, we need to set the bomb” Guy said walking back to the bomb.

I hit the code in while Guy did the same the other side. I needed two code simultaneously entered to work. Safety in numbers huh.

The bomb made a little whirring noise, beeped five times and began flashing. Three minutes.

“Let’s get out of here”.

We stood. I bent to pick up my weapon when a foot stepped on it. I was about to tell Guy to quit jerking around    when I realized they weren’t his boots.

I looked up. 

“Oh my god” I breathed in shock.

Icarus grinned down at me, handsome, evil and very much alive. Guy hadn’t caught up yet and told me to hurry up. Icarus grabbed my wrist and I fired wide. None hit him but I scared him and he let go. 

“Give my best to Myckah” Icarus laughed.

Guy turned and fired. Icarus disappeared in a flash before our eyes.

“Guys what’s taking so long?” Eloy’s voice in our ears; “Sage and Hunter have set the bombs; you don’t have much time. Get out of there”.

I was still in shock immovable, finger gripped on the trigger of my gun. Guy took my gun from my hand and pulled me backwards with an arm around my waist. I stared blankly at the spot Icarus had stood a few moments before. Had I imagined it? I didn’t think so. 

Guy chucked me over his shoulder, which gave me a flash back of the time Icarus’ servant; Westley had done the same thing. I hadn’t had a flash back in over a year!

I shook away the bad memories like cobwebs and saw the lat two lights flashing on the bomb. Those two lights changed to one.

“One minute guy” I panicked. Guy didn’t falter in step, but hoisted me higher and picked up speed. He race through the corridors like batman on speed. We reached the exit in good timing.

The truck squealed to a stop at out feet. Arms reached for us. Guy rolled me into the back of the truck and jumped in himself. 

Darren pushed on the accelerator and we thrummed away just as the bombs exploded. We watched out the back of the truck as the building blew like popcorn cooked too long. The sunlight bomb went a second later. I shielded my eyes from the bright blare.

The light seemed to expand forever, and then it went back in on itself, sucked in, like a star turning into a black hole. The building was left in little but its original stucture. No vampire would survive that. There was no chance any of them would be rising to see a full moon again. Would Icarus? That was the question.

I sat back against the side and rested my cheek against the cool metal. Hunter grabbed the doors, pulled them closed and bolted them. Guy slid down next to me and pulled me into a hug.

“Don’t you ever f*****g leave it that late again, do you hear!”

I looked up, shocked by his anger, but his expression was soft. The rest of the team pretended not to notice the intimacy between Guy and me, but I was sure they’d all at least heard, if not understood.

I guess we weren’t pretending nothing had happened.

Icarus was back.