Guardians (Chosen Trilogy Book 2) (9 page)

Samael howled again, jerking his hands so hard Ken thought his wrists might break, but he held on, recognizing their only chance. At last, as the demon swung its body around so hard Ken struck one of the castle walls in mid-flight, the sword came away and hit the floor.

Flesh sizzled along the blade. Demonic flesh.

Samael stared at his own tattered hands, screaming either in pain or disbelief or disgust. Shock registered high on the decibel meter of that scream.

Ken raised the sword again. “Want more?”

Unable to comprehend its sudden vulnerability, the creature from hell leaped through the nearest gap and was gone.

Lilith ran up to them, sobbing. “Oh thank you. Thank you! I
’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but we must go right away. We must lose ourselves and hide our trail before he returns.”

Ken nodded at her. Eliza stared at the body of Mai and tried to hide her
grief. Milo didn’t; tears sprang from his eyes. Ken raised the sword, looking along its bright edge in disbelief. Only now did he remember Cheyne’s words of what now seemed a lifetime ago, something relating to the sword he carried.

It had once killed the Devil. Why the hell hadn’t the witch
queen told him more?

“
The second hell is just ahead,” Lilith said. “We should go.”

Ken gulped.
The second hell?
Crap. We’re almost there . . .

I
found myself swept away in a sudden explosion of events. On losing the artefact to Beelzebub, we quickly reconnected with the team back in Florida and tried to get up to date. The sudden movement of events stunned us.

The
hierarchy demons were clearly finding their feet, or
hooves
, as it were. Already one had been detected searching through the city of Vienna and another was causing havoc in Honolulu, Hawaii. Tanya’s ears pricked up immediately on hearing that news and she was first to voice her desire to fly in and protect her home town. The news degenerated even further though—our second team, Lysette, Cleaver, Ceriden, Jade, Ethan and Lucy had already been dispatched to Vienna with orders to grab the artefact first.

Giles blinked hard at this and scratched the beginnings of a four-o
’clock shadow. “Orders? From whom?”

Our contact, one of Cheyne’s witches merely called Lucinda, sounded unhappy when she said, “The Library of Aegis sent down the orders. We were told they can step in when Mr. Giles is incommunicado.”

“Well, they can,” Giles blustered. “But I wasn’t exactly
incommunicado.
”

“We couldn’t reach you or Cheyne, sir.”

“Look. It’s fine,” Cheyne broke in. “Someone had to go to Vienna. Might as well be them.
We
should go to Honolulu and do the same.”

I listened to the discussion, not really taking anything in. Not only had we just lost Johnny and been defeated by
Beelzebub, but now Lucy was part of a group headed for Vienna. Talk about coming of age and going your own way. Talk about a stomach full of worry. My life had become an unstoppable rollercoaster that careened and lurched hard around every corner, never knowing if it would collapse. And, so far, there was no end in sight.

Belinda touched my arm. “She’ll be fine. She
’s part of a capable team.”

I nodded, thinking
,
So was Johnny,
but not saying the words whilst Natalie was in earshot. It was pointless saying them at all. We were evolving, becoming a powerful entity, a force of guardians advancing with every victory and every setback. If
we
yielded who would save our planet then?

The hours passed in a whirl. Cheyne didn’t forget Kinkade’s request and, without Leah Aldridge’s complicity, arranged for her to attend a Hawaiian
tropic fashion show on Waikiki Beach the very next day. It would at least put the gargoyle within talking distance. Then we boarded an Aegis jet bound for Honolulu and settled back to rest.

Belinda lay flat out beside me, the seat cranked all the way back. She’d changed her t-sh
irt for the flight and the slogan read—
Mile High Club Black Card?
–
Ask me about the Benefits.
I shook my head yet again. I didn’t ask. I knew there’d be a juicy true story and just didn’t want to know.

We were no closer to finding out how to locate the artefacts. It was tough enough sifting through the thousands of pages written about all the
hierarchy demons, never mind identifying which parts might be truth and then reducing those down to clues as to the whereabouts of some ancient artefacts. All we knew was that they were a part of the demons themselves, a part that called to them. It didn’t need to be said that with every second that passed we were falling even further behind in the race.

The plane finally landed and we disembarked. Even in the airport we could track the demon’s progress.
The seas off Waikiki Beach were a mass of mini-typhoons and sudden tidal waves. The skies were desperately angry, red with wrath. Thunder and lightning stalked the waves like vengeful gods. Seen in its entirety, the newscasters were shouting about the end of the world.

Cheyne
led the way. “I wish we had the elemental with us,” she said carelessly as we all jumped into waiting cars. “The seas and oceans are her dominion.”

She meant Lucy. I knew the witch was under pressure but it still took a hard squeeze of my arm from Belinda to keep my mouth shut. Of course, we were all under pressure. A ton of it.

If only we’d known the sacrifices we’d have to make. If only we’d known the depths we’d have to plumb. The lives we would lose . . .

It almost felt like we were back in Miami as we parked up and headed for the beach.
The demon, identified as Astaroth, rolled back and forth out across the ocean waves, looking for something, searching, trying to piece together a part of some ancient puzzle that would bring all of hell to earth.

As we watched
, a towering waterspout swirled across the tops of the waves, making a beeline for the beach. Lightning flickered and struck a jagged path before it, sizzling as it hit the water, bolt after bolt stirring up a swirling froth. Thunder clapped so loudly I thought the sky might be falling in.

“It knows we’re here!” Giles cried above the clamor. “Brace yourselves!”

The waterspout homed in on our position, shooting as if it had been blasted out of a cannon. Time stood still for a second, then Belinda bore me roughly to the ground. I saw Cheyne flinging her arms at the small typhoon, conjuring some sort of shield, before I got a face full of sand. A moment later water cascaded over me in sheets, making me feel like a Mini in a monster wash, and stopped me breathing. I coughed, breathed in a lungful of water, coughed again. More chutes of water poured over my head. Sand pushed its way up my nose. In the midst of this tumult I heard the repeated striking of bolt after bolt of lightning. I felt the beach shake each time it struck. Thunder blasted all around until I thought it might be the last sound I would ever hear.

The clouds came down on me.

End of the line.

Then I heard Belinda scream, muffled against the sand but raw with acceptance and endur
ance. Instant wild fury burst from my chest; crazy strength infused my body. I rose up, kneeling amidst the deluge, feeling its waves wash down my chest but fighting against the angry force. The power rose inside like a phoenix, an eagle, ready to take flight. And even though I could not see—for my eyes were full of running water—I felt one other join with me.

Tentatively. Tenderly. Deftly.

We unleashed the force, sending it blooming out at every angle. The pure strength of it was absolute. Nothing could hope to stand in its way. The waterfalls stopped almost immediately with a last downpour, similar to a curtain falling, then nothing. Soaked to the bone, we lay and knelt on the beach, looking to the ocean.

The seas were calm again, the waves back to normal height. The skies were dark but clear. A black
-robed figure groaned on the beach before us; half-in, half-out of the water.

Was it Astaroth?

I pulled Belinda to her knees. Five whole seconds passed before we realized the enormity of the event that had just transpired.
We had bagged a hierarchy demon!
The first advantage we’d gained.

We crawled fast and then dragged ourselves up to run, desperate to reach the demon before it recovered. The surf rolled and foamed around its prone body.
Giles was closest and reached it first, dropping and rolling it over. What greeted us was the sight of a bald-headed monk clad in ecclesiastical robes, a string of beads clasped between the hands. The lips were moving slightly, as if reciting a prayer.

Then the eyes opened.

Pits stared at us; pits of hopelessness and savage hunger. The visage changed instantly from one of young innocence to one of evil incarnate. It seemed shocked and tried to move. But too soon; its power had not yet recovered and it slipped in the churned up sand and rolling waves.

As it fell, its hand opened wide, dropping the beads. A millisecond later it
realized what it had done and shrieked loudly enough to partly deafen me. The sound was horrendous, a man suffering his worst nightmare or a demon seeing its greatest possession fall away.

Cheyne understood instantly.
“
That’s
the artefact. Grab it. Whilst the creature struggles!”

As one, we waded in.
Giles kicked it in the face. I reached down to grab the beads. Belinda and Tanya fell upon its inert figure, striking hard at sensitive pressure points. Our job now was to weaken it so that we could steal the artefact, or until the creature died.

Could it even die? I didn’t know, but
I had to believe that these things could be killed, otherwise where were we going with all this?

I clutched the beads, cold and slippery
, and backed away, building another surge of power in my chest in case it was needed. The action reminded me that last time I’d been aided in some way. There was no help this time, just the barest, faintest whisper of assistance, nothing substantial. It made me wonder if one of my colleagues, Tanya or Belinda, might share some of my power. No one knew. No one knew where these primeval powers the Chosen had inherited derived from.

Astaroth
struggled against Belinda and Tanya. Cheyne kept him down with a spell that fell over him like a lead sheet, pushing his head beneath the waves. I couldn’t get over the shock that still registered on his face. It was as though this beast had just been hit harder than it had ever been hit before, and couldn’t accept it.

And yet, shocked, out of its stride and still reeling, the demon managed to shrug Belinda away. Then Tanya.
It burst upward, a show of power knocking Cheyne to her knees. As it rose I struck again, firing a bolt right at its chest. The monk’s robes shredded away, leaving a naked hard-bodied man roiling and twisting in the air above us.

I clutched the artefact for dear life.

Astaroth glared down, resplendent in his nakedness, small whirls of water and little crackles of lightning emitting all around his body.

“It matters not. The fires will consume you all.”

“We will never bow down,” Tanya spoke up. This was her home, the place she had stood up to and defeated an abusive husband. “We will never kneel to you. We will fight. Our spirit is unquenchable.”

Astaroth
turned and sped away, a carnivore tearing through the night skies. His departing scream of fury rattled the very windows in the rows of hotels at our backs.

I held out my hand. The beads looked very small, very fragile, and totally powerless.

“So,” I said. “What do they mean?”

*

There would be no sleep for us that night. The adrenalin had spiked, my heart was beating faster than Usain Bolt’s legs. We covered our path back to an Aegis house in the heart of Honolulu, reached through an obscure door beside the Top of Waikiki restaurant. We followed Giles up a narrow flight of stairs and emerged into a lavish suite of rooms. Giles found a drinks globe and mixed himself a stiff one. Natalie joined him. I placed the beads on a glass table and left them for cleverer people to examine.

I wandered over to the window. Belinda slipped an arm around my waist. “You wired, muffin man?”

“Totally. I can’t drink. Can’t sleep. Not sure what to do.”

“You can start by servicing me for an hour or two.” She pointed toward a doorway that led deeper into the suite. “Bedrooms are over there.”

I glanced askew at her. “Do you have an appropriate t-shirt for the occasion?”

“
Oddly, I wasn’t planning on wearing one.”

“How about a costume? Anything like that?”

She laughed and swatted at me. I grabbed her hand and we headed out of the room. As we approached the open door, however, someone else popped their head around the frame.

It was the Victoria’s Secret model, Leah Aldridge.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Do I know any of you?”