The Sons of Satrina: A Sons of Satrina Novel (27 page)

Kelton stood up and banged a fist on his desk, “Listen to me, you little piss ant waste of oxygen.  Your daughter is missing.  Your daughter has been abducted by the Lamia Mortuorum.  Your daughter is in grave danger.  I personally think that your daughter’s life is worth more than your petty little reputation!”  Kelton spat out the word daughter and banged his fist once again, punctuating the point to make sure this poor excuse for a man understood the position that they were in.  Who did this man think he was?  Kelton only wished that the bastard had been standing in front of him when he’d been speaking.  He’d have knocked him seven shades of Sunday.

“Aisline?  Abducted?”  Now his voice was small and concerned.

“Yes.  It was my duty to inform you.”  Kelton looked down at the floor and fell silent, trying to reign in his anger.

“My little girl?  Gone?”  There was thick emotion in his voice now.  Finally.   Now, he sounded like a father concerned for the welfare of his daughter.  However, in Kelton’s opinion, it was too little too late.

“Not gone.  Kidnapped.  By the Mortuorum.  We’re going to get her back.  As I said, it was my duty to inform you.”  And he hung up.

He knew that it wasn’t the right thing to do, but on top of everything else, her father’s reaction was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  The last thing he needed was the little prick of a man complaining to the council about him, but Aisline was his one and only concern at the moment.

Glancing up at Kayleigh, she had tears running down her cheeks.  Moving to her side, he put a comforting arm around her shoulders, pulling her close and she nestled her face into his chest.

“Oh, Kelton.  I thought she was safe.  I thought she was at home.”

“I know, I know. For a minute, so did I.  He is a narrow minded little man who doesn’t appreciate the amazing daughter he’s got.  He should be proud of her, not denying her.”  His pulse was still racing with anger at the man’s initial reaction.

For a moment, they stood in silence, their arms wrapped around one another, the quiet only broken by Kayleigh’s soft sobs.

A knock on the door interrupted them.   “Come.”  Kelton said, quietly.

Chapter Twenty-Eight.

“Kelton,” Dixon rushed into the room, “We have a lead.  Get your men together.”

Another flood of Master warriors and grad warriors had followed Dixon and were now crowded the corridor outside of his office as Kelton looked up in surprise.

“Talk.” he demanded while moving over towards a locked cabinet.  Opening it with a key that was attached to a silver chain hanging around his neck, Kelton quickly looked over the contents.  Deciding on a couple of hand guns and a selection of daggers, he quickly shut the door and turned to see what Dixon had to say for himself.

Apparently, they had had an anonymous tip off.  There had been a phone call saying that they knew of the whereabouts of the kid who had been taken and mentioned that she was female, which as why they were taking this seriously.  In a situation like this, there was plenty of scope for crazies calling in with bogus information. 

According to the source, she was being held the other side of Brandestowen in a dilapidated old warehouse, in the heart of the Lamia Mortuorum area of town.  The information sounded reliable.  They couldn’t afford to ignore it, or any other lead, if they were to get her back.

They had only a brief time span of hope.  They had to get out on the streets and get her back before day break, or they could kiss goodbye to their chances of ever seeing her alive again.  The Mortuorum hadn’t taken her to sate their bloodlust.  They had taken her to make a statement.  If the Sons of Satrina couldn’t uncover her by morning, tomorrow night they would be finding parts of her scattered all over Brandestowen in gruesome Technicolor.  It was the sort of statement stunt that the Mortuorum would pull.

Not if Kelton had anything to do with it.

As of yet, it was stated in the phone call that she hadn’t been injured or ill-treated, but that they feared for her safety and advised the Sons to move quickly with their extraction.

Who was their informant?  It couldn’t be one of the Mortuorum.  Sure, Kayleigh was living proof that they weren’t all base monsters, but it just didn’t make sense for it to be one of them.  They couldn’t afford to ignore this information though.  They had to take the risk and go in.

And that was just what Kelton planned to do.

Within minutes of receiving the Intel, he’d rounded up the rest of the Master Warriors from the other conference room and were now holed up in one of the sparring rooms, which was one of the only places that could accommodate such a large gathering.  They couldn’t have gone to the main hall or the cafeteria as some of the students may have been milling around there. They didn’t need extra ears and eyes getting involved in this.  This wasn’t a place for the trainees.  They had a limited time and had to use it to their full advantage.  This was the only suitable spot to get everyone together that they needed, with the added privacy from prying ears.

“Can I have your attention, please?”  His voice boomed out loud with authority, rising over the din.

Everyone fell silent and turned their full attention to him.   You could have heard a pin drop in that room.  They were all so focused on what was going to happen next that a bomb could have gone off and none of them would have taken their interest away from Kelton. They needed to get the girl back and soon.

“Gather round.  This is what we’re going to do.” he waved a hand at a blueprint that was laid out on one of the tables and everybody moved forward to get a good look.  “Dixon?  Would you care to explain?”  And he passed the floor over to the other warrior.

Where Aisline was allegedly being held, it was in an area that had long since become derelict so there was little to worry about in the way of human casualties.  But this place was also chosen by the Mortuorum for the same reason - they could do as they please with no witnesses.

They were going to split up into teams.  The first four strengths were going to go in to clear the way and try to drop as many members of the Mortuorum as they could as went.  Then, the second wave would go in and extract the girl.

It sounded simple.  However, it was anything but.  Each wave were going to have teams that would target specific areas of the building, leaving no corner unsearched and no stone unturned.  They weren’t given an exact position where Aisline was being held, but they were told she was situated somewhere at the rear of the building, which meant that they would also have to have more than a couple of teams of warriors securing the outside of the building.  This was going to be a massive operation, even by their standards.

Within minutes, Warrior Kelton had divided up the men into teams, naming Dixon as his second in command for the operation.  Usually, he would have had Merion in that position but he had not yet returned from the Council’s headquarters.

They had a lot of man power here. They’d called in all the Master Warriors they could get their hands on, plus all other warriors of any rank from the surrounding areas.  No students would be going out into the field, of course.  Seeing as that was what had caused this problems, the trainees were to remain under the security of the academy.  The recently graduated warriors would also be among the ranks going in for the rescue and pulling their weight in this one.  They needed all hands on deck.  It was a hell of a way to introduce them to the way of the warrior, throwing them in the deep end like that, but it couldn’t be helped.  They needed every available pair of hands that they could get hold of.

Running a quick weapons check as the other warriors did the same, Kelton strapped his belt on and loaded himself up.  Kayleigh passed him his dagger,
the ones with the sign of the Sons on the hilt.  The look in his eye was determined, deadly, but it softened slightly as he gazed at her.  He knew that she hated him going out to fight, but he was a Warrior.  He wasn’t made to sit behind a desk twenty four/seven.  Training the others was a privilege, but out fighting for his race was his destiny.  She knew that and lived with it as best as she could.

“Be careful.” S
he whispered, trying hard to keep the tremor of emotion out of her voice.

“Always am.”  He replied.

They didn’t kiss, they didn’t embrace.  Going out to fight the enemy required him to stay in the right frame of mind.  He had to be focused.  If he let that focus slip for just one second, then he was putting himself and his men in danger.  They looked at each other. The depth of their stare saying everything they couldn’t verbally or physically express. Kelton turned and signalled for the others to fall in behind him.

As they reached the doors of the sparring room, Kelton stopped short when the doorway in front of him was blocked.

Jackson.

He was stood there, a wall of muscle, with his feet firmly planted and controlled hostility in his expression.  Jackson was dressed in full combat gear, the loops and sheaths on his belt looking forlornly bare.

“Jackson.  Move aside.”

“No.”

If he had thought about it, this response wouldn’t have surprised him, but as it was, it shocked him to have a trainee disobey a direct order, especially when he was heading out on such a delicate operation.  In particular when it was a student he thought so highly of, as he did Jackson.

“Jackson, now.”

“No. Warrior Kelton, I’m coming with you.”  Jackson said.

A quiet fell over the rest of the men.  A lot of them had come across Jackson since he had started at the school and were more than impressed with his fighting skills.  He was a trainee who showed much promise as a warrior.   In such a short space of time, they had never seen such improvement in a single student, or the level of dedication and determination that he showed.  Everything about him was centred on training and absorbing every bit of information and experience he could from the other warriors. 

Kelton wondered for a moment why the kid stood so determined in front of him, and then it dawned on him.  He’d thought before that there might have been something going on between Jackson and Aisline, but he hadn’t seen anything for sure.  This was confirmation, though.  At least on the boys’ part.

“You can’t be going out there in this frame of mind, son.”  Kelton said, softly, but there was an underlying authority in his voice.  He could understand where the kid was coming from.  He knew for a fact that if anything ever happened to Kayleigh, nothing could stop him from going to her.  But, this was different.  He himself was fully trained and had been fighting the Mortuorum for countless decades.  They had a whole army of warriors who were going to her rescue.  They were trained, qualified, experienced. They had this covered.

“I have to go.  I am going.  With or without you.  I‘ll go it alone if I have to.”  Jackson’s deep voice was steady and sure.  He’d already made up his mind and there was nothing Kelton or any of the others could say or do to stop him.  If they didn’t allow him to go with them, he’d find a way to go out there alone.  He was going one way or another.  Jackson knew where they were heading, he’d listened in enough to get the information he needed.  Sure, he’d rather go out there with the rest of them as a team, but he’d go it alone if he had to.  This was the one thing he had feared that would happen, and now that the fear was a reality, he was going to do everything in his power to get her back.

Kayleigh had elbowed her way through the men to see what the holdup was.

“Kelton, he may be an asset.”  Her voice at his side whispered.

Seeing Jackson standing there, it was like a jigsaw piece slotting into place.  He was
supposed to go out with them. Having him there would help them.  It would help Aisline even more when they found her to have him there. Kayleigh knew that Kelton was in warrior mode and that more or less nothing would stop him from being on his way, which was why she used his warrior name to address him.  It was a way to make him consider that this could be the right thing to do from a warrior’s point of view. 

She and Aisline had never spoken about her feelings for Jackson, but it was evident to anyone who spent time with them.  They were crazy about one another and neither of them would admit it.  They were both too intent on their training to let anything get in the way.  Having Jackson there when she was found would help Aisline no end.

Kayleigh refused to believe that they wouldn’t find her.

Sparing a look over at her, he quickly returned his atten
tion to Jackson.  “Grab your weapons. Stay close to me but keep out of the way.”  And moved on his way down the corridor.

Yeah, that makes sense, Jackson thought to himself
.  He wasn’t planning on getting in the way, but he also wasn’t planning on staying out of the action, either.  They had to move on this and move quickly and Jackson was going to play his part in that.

He pushed against the bodies going in the opposite direction, heading after Kayleigh who was beckoning for him to follow her.

“Hurry, Jackson. Here.” she said as she leant down into the locker at the back of the room, extracting an intricately engrave dagger and sheath. Passing it to him, he took a breath to admire the beauty of the weapon before putting it safely away, in the sheath on the right hand side of his body.

She quickly loaded him up with a few more weapons and stood back to assess.  She’d spent enough time at the academy to know what the warriors needed, and that was definitely more than just one dagger.

“Ready?”

Jackson only nodded and without a moment’s hesitation, he turned and jogged quickly after the rest of the warriors.

Kayleigh watched as he went.  He was focused, he was capable.  She just hoped that he got what he set out for.  If anyone could bring her home, Jackson or Kelton would be the ones to do it. 

In them, she trusted.