End times: a Gabriel Knight mystery
Chapter 8
by AGM, published on April 3, 2002
Grace had told Gabriel everything that had happened in the last few days. With her and Hong and how he was now dead due to some mystery man who had attacked them.
Gabriel filled Grace in on his dream’s and the fact that he had now brought Gran to Rittersberg so that hopefully she could be protected from whatever it is that might come after her.
“So what should we do Gracie?” Gabriel asked now that both knew as much as the other.
She quickly replied. “We've got to go back to Schloss Ritter so we can try to figure out who the third person is, warn them and protect them. And at the same time find out who my attacker was so we can stop him as well.”
Gabriel chuckled. “That’s why I asked you Gracie. I knew you’d know what to do.”
She turned away and gave him a mischievous smile. “That’s because you never do Knight.”
They both felt good. Things were starting to feel right again. Their would be much talk later on, on both of their feelings, on both of their ideas, and whether or not this would be temporary or a semi-permanent engagement again.
But the feeling between both of them was still great. They were on a case. They had a mystery to solve. They were even bickering like they used to! Everything was right in the world again.
The two, still accompanied by a quiet Chadrel began the walk back to camp so that Grace could get her things and the two could leave. Suddenly Chadrel came to a stop and fell hard to the ground, smashing into it face first.
Gabriel ran up to him, picked him up and laid him gently upon his back.
“Sensei! Are you all right?” Grace asked, crouching next to him.
His eyes looked at her, then at Gabriel and he seemed to smile. Then his body was racked with a spasm, which caused him to bruise and scratch himself further upon the rocks on which he lay.
A piece of his clothing became caught upon a rock and they were shocked by what they saw.
A huge gaping hole, where his heart was supposed to be now existed. Cleanly cut with no signs of how it had been created. But stranger enough Chadrel still seemed to be able to draw breath and when Grace placed a finger on his throat she could still detect a steady pulse.
“This is only a sample of my power!”
Gabriel and Grace both whipped around and they both saw standing behind them a man in white robes.
“Hello again Miss Nakimura. And this is double the honor, hello to you Mr. Knight.”
Gabriel turned to Grace. “Is this the guy who came after you?” Grace nodded.
“Listen buddy, I don’t know who you think you are, but your looking at a Schattenjäger, and we don’t scare easily. Now leave before you give me a reason to use this,” Gabriel finished with a gesture towards his talisman.
The hooded man chuckled. “But my dear Schattenjäger, you forget I possess this,” He pulled a hand out of his pocket to show us Chadrel’s still beating heart. He gave it a little squeeze and Chadrel groaned in pain. Gabriel took a step forward but the man held the heart out and waved his finger no.
He pulled his other hand out of his other pocket and pulled out a talisman of his own. It was red looking, a copperish looking metal, that was almost an exact duplicate of Gabriel’s, but where in Gabriel’s medallion the lion seemed to be overpowering the snake, the snake in his seemed to be strangling the lion.
“Very interesting, isn't it Knight? Makes you wonder who and what I am, doesn't it? Well, I'll tell you. Some of your ancestors knew me as, The Hunter of the Hunters. Tell Gran and Gerde I'll be seeing them soon.”
He turned his cloaked head to Chadrel. A red beard was made visible underneath the hood. “Chadrel, consider your journey on this plane of existence over.”
A few snakes slithered free from his sleeves as he vanished into a cloud of smoke and were all that were left on the ground…next to Chadrel’s heart.
Grace not thinking about anything but Chadrel ran over to him to check and see if he was okay.
“Grace! The snakes!” Gabriel yelled.
“Look at their mouths Knight. They’re defanged.
It was true. Two of them stood coiled around one another, neither getting an advantage due to their lack of teeth. But the third, a very large snake, at least a few feet long, now slithered on a slow and leisurely path towards Grace who, now whipping out a cell phone from her back pocket was oblivious to it.
Gabriel began to creep up slowly behind the snake, drawing his dagger from a notch on his belt behind him. The snake turned and hissed loudly at Gabriel, baring it teeth that dripped with venom, and then slowly continued to creep up behind Grace.
Every time Gabriel moved an inch, the snake turned making him back up a few spaces. Finally the snake had slithered within striking range, and Grace now next to a dead Chadrel had realized the snake was behind her.
“Gabriel?” She said in a shaky, frightened voice.
“I know Grace, sit still. I have an idea.”
Gabriel began taking his talisman off from around his throat. He held it up to the snake and it seemed to recoil a little in the face of it.
“Grace, when I yell now I want you to move as far away from my medallion and the snake as possible.”
She nodded and then braced herself to move. Gabriel, now with talisman in right hand tossed it as hard as he could between Grace and then snake.
“Now!”
As Grace rolled away from the snake, and the snake jumped back from the talisman, Gabriel leapt at the snake at grabbing it at its throat began to wrestle with it as it thrashed and tried to bite the hand that held it.
It began coiling itself around Gabriel’s arm, putting tremendous pressure on him and making his grasp begin to slacken.
Grace came running over now, Schattenjäger talisman in hand and began to wave it at the snake. It once more recoiled, and its grasp loosened, giving Gabriel the opportunity to finally jam his dagger into its skin and kill it.
The snakes thrashing began to stop, and eventually it stilled totally. Gabriel dropped it to the ground exhausted.
Grace stood looking at it with a curious look on her eyes, and then reached down to touch it.
Gabriel watched her as she peeled off a bit of loose skin and then jumped back slightly surprised.
“What? What is it?” Gabriel asked moving towards her.
“M.G.” Grace replied. “Someone’s initials are carved into this snake, and I have no idea why.”
Last update: October 24, 2007
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