The Guardian Chronicles 2: Dark Horizon by Matthew Burkey

golf carts. Ryan gestured for Gabriel to get in and they moved smoothly into motion, cutting across the driving paths and toward the research and development building.
    “The first thing that we’ll do is take a tour,” Ryan explained. “Then we’ll get you off to the academy to get your weapon made…”
    “Wait a second, weapon? Academy? What are you talking about?”
    "We actually start off training in Paris, at the academy," Ryan explained, as they continued down the corridor. "Once we hit fourteen we generally get sent out to various bases. Aegis has operations all over the world, so it works well for us.”
    “And weapon?” Gabriel asked. “I mean what does that entail? I can barely wield a golf club, let alone a sword.”
    “Who says it will be a sword?” Ryan asked.
    “Huh?” Gabriel asked, now he was really confused.
    “We’ll take you to the weapons master at the academy, she’ll look you over, figure out what is the best weapon to suit you and then build it for you, she’ll makes it personal.”
    Gabriel wasn’t too sure that he liked the sound of that, although he had a feeling that he was about to hear a lot of things that he wasn’t going to really like the sound of. He suppressed the urge to ask any more questions and continued to follow Ryan.
    “After we get that sorted out we’ll actually start your training,” Ryan went on. “We’ll probably start off with basic conditioning training and weight training to get you in shape. After that we can move into the fun stuff. You know the gun range and Martial arts.”
    “Martial arts training? Gun range?” Gabriel asked, as they slipped in another door. “I can think of at least a dozen reasons not to give me a gun.”
    Ryan punched in a code to another set of elevators. “Don’t worry; the shooting thing is probably the easiest thing to get a handle on really. After that we need to start bringing you up to speed on the world that you just stepped into.”
    “You mean demons, vampires, magic, and all that?” Gabriel asked. Even as he spoke the words he was still having a hard time believing that this was all real.
    “Yeah,” Ryan nodded. “You’re going to have a lot of catching up to do. Really, it’s not much different than what you already know, except of course all that stuff is real now. Luckily, most stuff is pretty easy to kill when needed.”
    That prospect brought Gabriel to a dead halt. He had yet to really grasp what it was that he was about to embark on, including the fact that he might be terminating the life of another being. Regardless of the evilness of that being, he wasn’t sure that he would be able to go through with such an act. Ryan must have sensed his hesitation and turned to look at him.
    “Sorry about that,” he sighed. “I should have chosen my words more carefully but it’s the truth. Some of what we do isn’t pretty but it needs to be done.”
    Gabriel just nodded, numbly aware that really hadn’t thought all of this through. They continued moving toward the elevator and stepped inside. A second later the car moved smoothly into motion and then opened up to the underground complex that actually held the Guardian’s main base.
    “Wow,” Gabriel said, as they stepped out of the elevator.
    “Pretty cool, huh?” Ryan asked.
    “This place looks huge!”
    “It’s a lot bigger than you would think,” Ryan explained. “Come on; let’s have a look at the training rooms first.”
    Gabriel nodded and fell into step behind Ryan, passing through the brightly lit corridor. There weren’t a huge number of people milling about but it was a lot more active than Gabriel would have thought. They passed several doors, all made entirely of frosted glass before stopping in front of a large set of double doors that looked like they belonged onboard some futuristic space station.
    “This is our training facility,” Ryan explained, punching in another code.
    The training room looked like something right out