The Talon Family Bloody Snow Part 6

The Talon Family

Bloody Snow

January

Draft_2

By: Chase L. Currie

“How are you feeling?” Raphael asked his sister as she gathered her strength to put her armor back on.

                “I’m still hurting,” she told him not wanting to sleep for another week after been asleep for the last few days. The storm raged outside, and all they could was read, eat, and sleep. It was starting to drive both of them a little mad.

                “We need to move,” Gabriel said. “Get to the base and find out what is going on.”

                “Are you sure?” He asked. “I mean you are not in the best fighting conditions right now.”

                She held up her rifle with her good arm and smirked, “I can still shoot better than you.”

                “Alright,” he said with a half hearten sigh. “Let’s go cause some pain.”

                They marched through the heavy snowstorm following the sound of the beckon to the base somewhere far over the ice. They spent the next two days moving and resting until they came upon the clearest skies either one of them had ever seen. The blue almost burnt their eyes at how bright it seems to swim in their gazes, and the eye of the storm seems to be hovering over the base as if there was some shield stopping the winds.

                “Why isn’t this weird to me?” Raphael asked looking up at the clear blue sky.

                “Because this is not the weirdest thing we have seen before.”

                “The killed octopi were much weirder than this,” he said turning back to the base.

                Gabriel wasn’t going to mention the werewolves they fought the summer before or the humanoid lizard wizard working in Paladin, which she thought was far weirder than the storm being kept at bay by something. She guessed it was magic, was almost sure about it. Paladin had all kind of magic users within its ranks, but she never heard of anyone so powers they could control the weather. No, this was something different, something more powerful and mostly more deadly than anything she knew Paladin had.

                “They have looked outs,” Raphael said pointing to the three-guard at the top of the tower. The base had three towers with a rectangle like building in the middle of the triangle, and they could see where the snow had been pushed away from the doors to allow people to enter and leave. There were quite a few footsteps around the building, and if they followed the paths, they saw the bodies. A hole had been dug in the snow where people had been put, who was shot in the back of the head and pushed in. The snow around the hole was a deep blood red like some had drop red ink on a perfect white piece of paper.

                “That’s not good,” Gabriel said.

                “No, not at all,” Raphael told her glancing back the wall of white around the base.

                “Let’s wait for night,” she said.

                He looked back to scan the building see a few tracks of snowmobiles heading out from the base. Some of the tracks were from larger vehicles as if meaning something brought back to the base. “Looks like they are sending patrols out.”

                “Right,” she agreed. “Let’s watch until night and then plot our next move.” It would be hard for any of the guards to pick their white suits out from the snow they laid in and the sniper training they had over the summers as kid help to hide them as well. Someone could walk right up beside of them and wouldn’t even know they were standing next to a living person.

                They watched for hours as the light started to fade, and Gabriel was shocked at how easy it was for her to set everything in her mind aside during the mission, mostly the pain in her body. She wondered if it was a part of the years of training which allowed her to do so or was the years of being on missions where she learns feeling too much could get her killed. She wasn’t sure where the numbing ability came from, but she was thankful for it now. She thought for a cold moment more people in the world needed to learn how to put their emotions aside for a greater mission.

                Then she questioned how much emotional damage was the ability causing her? Most people didn’t deal with life and death on a daily basis like her family, learning how to detach from the station at the time saved their mental lives more than once. The question still stood was it causing them damage in the long run?

                “Look near the tracks,” Raphael said.

                Gabriel pulled her eyes over to see a large snowmobile loaded with old boxes driving into the base. “Are those?” She started to ask but easily seeing the black ink on the side of the boxes in the shape of a Nazi swastika, stopped her question.

                “Wonder if these guys are Neo-Nazis,” She said.

                “Punching out Hitler is on my bucket list,” Raphael said.

                “They did say in their report,” she said, “they found something in the ice, maybe these crates are what they were talking about.”

                “Could it be gold?”

                “You think that’s why they turn against their friends?” She asked.

                “Yeah.”

                “I doubt it,” she said. “Maybe, there is something in those boxes which would explain the weather shield.”

                “I guess we are going to find out one way or another,” Raphael said.

                “Yes, we are,” she said with a big smile under her helmet. She didn’t understand magic, but she loved learning about it.