All of the Pulmer’s, my mom, my brothers, Vivian, and Viola, were gathered in the large basement, as Gabriel instructed us on the best way to take down the Guarde and the Originals.
“I don’t want to hurt him,” I whined.
“Ugh,” Gabriel shoved Jonathon out of the way and stood in front of me. “If you won’t hurt him, maybe you’ll hurt me.” Dancing on the balls of his feet, he said, “The Guarde are highly trained, they’re skilled fighters, so you all need to know what you’re doing. We do have an advantage in the fact they’ve never had to use these skills before.”
“Yeah,” Mason snorted from the corner of the room, “because no one’s been stupid enough to try before.”
Gabriel’s smile was less than friendly. “If you’re not going to take this seriously, you can leave young one.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Mason stood his ground. “I was just saying-”
“What you were saying isn’t important. You all need to pay attention,” Gabriel instructed. When everyone’s eyes were on him, he began. “Their neck,” he pointed to a spot on his own, “is their weakest point. But the Guarde all wears protective armor. It covers all of their bodies except for their head.”
Joseph stepped forward, his hand raised slightly like a kid in school. “Why do they need protective gear? They’re vampire
s, right? Our bodies are protection enough.”
“They are vampires,” Gabriel confirmed, “but since they’re protecting the Originals, they wear a special kind of gear, made by the Originals themselves. It’s very strong. Almost as strong as our natural skin. But not quite enough,” he smiled menacingly. “There’s a weak spot in the armor, behind the knee. Your hope is to engage them in combat long enough to kick that spot, and then you want to remove their head from the rest of their body.”
I cringed.
Up until now, all the fighting had been done by everyone else, but now I was going to have to take part in it as well. I didn’t know if I would be able to kill another being so…savagely…the same way I watched my own father die.
“I’m going to attack you now,” Gabriel warned me. “Remember, kick me behind the knee at the soonest opportunity.”
I squared my shoulders in preparation. Gabriel was spending the most time training me, since I had such little experience. Even my brothers had more experience than me, since when they were human, they’d both taken karate from the time they were little boys through all of high school.
I watched Gabriel closely, waiting for the first sign of a twitching muscle.
His right arm began to swing out, his hand fisted. With the back of my arm, I smacked his away. The sound of our flesh meeting echoed around us.
Gabriel dropped to the ground, swinging out his leg, in the hopes of taking my own out from under me. I easily jumped over his leg.
In a standing position once more, he prepared to punch me again. I ducked and swung my leg out, kicking him behind the knee. He went down and I grabbed his neck in one hand and cupped his chin in the other, as if I was about to tear his head off.
“You’re a feisty little thing, aren’t you?” He chuckled. “I should’ve known not to be worried about you.”
I released him, both our chests were heaving, like someone after a hard workout, even though neither of us needed the oxygen.
“Who’s next?” Gabriel asked.
Danny stepped forward.
“Let’s go Danny boy,” Gabriel waved him forward.
It took Danny three tries to take Gabriel down, which made me extremely giddy. I had the least amount of training, and yet I’d taken Gabriel down on the first try.
“I can do better than that,” Mason punched Danny’s shoulder playfully, and took his place in front of Gabriel. “Ready pretty boy?” Mason asked cockily.
Gabriel tilted his head. “The question is are you ready?”
Before Mason had a chance to respond, Gabriel had him flat on his back, with a hand clasped around his throat.
“You’re dead,” Gabriel smirked.
“I didn’t know you were starting,” Mason croaked.
Gabriel released him. “The Guarde isn’t going to give you a warning. Neither am I.”