The Chosen Trilogy Boxset

by David Leadbeater

  “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 travel to Honolulu and do the same.”

  I listened to the discussion, taking very little 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 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-shirt 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 for details. I knew there’d be a juicy true story and didn’t want to know.

  We were no closer to figuring out how to locate the artefacts. It was tough enough sifting through thousands of pages containing information relating to 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 further behind in the race.

  The plane finally landed, and we disembarked. Even in the airport we could track the Hawaiian 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 Belinda squeezing my arm hard 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 Waikiki 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 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 ever heard.

  The clouds came down on me.

  End of the line.

  Then I heard Belinda scream, her voice muffled against the sand but raw with acceptance and endurance. 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 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, lying 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’d bagged a hierarchy demon! The first advantage we’d gained.

  We crawled 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 down 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 looked shocked and tried to move. But it was 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 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 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 wreathing 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 where she had confronted 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 ran. We walked 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?”

  FIFTEEN

  Lysette Cohen loved Vienna. Though a resident of Monaco, a refugee of a battle with her ex-husband, she’d always wished she could live somewhere in this beautiful old city. She didn’t know if it was the architecture, the history, the museums or the friendly people that called to her but call to her they did. Of course, now that she’d joined Aegis in their fight for human existence all that became a moot point. There would be time and money enough later to uproot.

  A clever and astute mind-reader, Lysette had found it hard to join with her Chosen brethren during the battle on Miami Beach. Outing a traitor was easy. Fighting warrior demons not so much. So now she found herself part of another team. Ceriden the vampire and Jade the elf were here, both enormously powerful beings. Marian Cleaver, the badass boxer and troubleshooter from Miami was here. And Lucy Logan was here too, simply because she was one of the Chosen and Ceriden wanted to keep her close. Lysette didn’t totally trust the vampire’s motives but didn’t want to read the Uber’s mind. Who would want to experience the contemplations of a vampire?

  As was her wont, Lysette had attached a series of private nicknames to everyone. It helped her focus. So Cleaver became Chopper—for more reasons than one—and Ceriden became Bill. Not that he looked much like the vampire out of True Blood, but Lysette could only fantasize. Jade’s name was short and snappy enough not to warrant a change but Lucy would always be Lost Girl.

  Despite the love her father gave her, this girl would always crave her mother’s love. She hungered for it until the need made her sick, weak. Until everything she could become and everything around her didn’t matter anymore.

  Lysette despised the mother that would abandon her young daughter. She thanked her lucky stars that her own husband had betrayed his intentions long before they had gotten around to having kids.

  So now Lost Girl walked with the vampire kid—Ethan—Bird Face to her because he reminded her of an annoying, pecking pigeon the way he clung to Lucy. Ethan was young and lonely to be sure, but he was still temptingly dangerous to a sixteen-year-old girl. The Aegis team left the airport and drove immediately to the place where the latest sighting of the hierarchy demon had been reported, not wanting this long trip to be another wasted journey. Lucinda, the head witch back in Florida, gave them the most recent intel: A ‘serpent’ had been sighted twisted around the heights of St. Stephen’s Cathedral. On any normal day the streets would be thick with tourists around here, but today only the foolhardy remained.

  Lysette took a sharp breath as they approached the Gothic and Romanesque style church. Though the spires and arches and mosaic roof were all impressive and eye-catching they were nothing when compared to the twenty-foot serpent curled around the tallest tower. Its body was huge; its wings, when occasionally unfurled, were of enormous wingspan; and clawed feet hung down on every side, flexing carefully as it eyed the potential victims gathering below. Strings of drool dripped from its jaws, unwinding as they went and pooling on the ground below. Such was the power of its grip, a continuous trickle of rubble and shale fell from the spire.

  Cleaver stared up, slowly unbuttoning his duster. “Jeez. That thing’s gigantic.”

  Ceriden sent a shocked look across their line. “Demons this powerful can portray any visage they wish. I have absolutely no idea how we’re going to engage it!”

  “Well, you’d best think fast,” Lucy whispered. “’Cause it looks kinda hungry.”

  Lysette read the panic in her mind and placed a hand across the girl’s shoulders to help calm her down. “You have power,” she said softly. “Make ready.”

  Lysette wondered if she dared probe the demon’s mind. The last time she’d done that, Emily Crowe’s dark visions had almost unhinged her, but they’d also uncovered the woman’s diabolical plan. Was it worth the risk?

  Fear stripped the evaluation from her mind as the dragon-like creature moved. Its coils slipped around the spire as it stretched, rising up; the wings opened with a whiplash crack, gently buffeting the air. Its snout lifted and let loose a scream of defiance, right up at the heavens. A great chunk of masonry, one of the peaked spires, cascaded down and crashed through the roof of a building below.

  Cleaver slipped out his shotgun. Due to the privacy of Aegis’ planes and the timely nature of their work they could fly between borders without too much scrutiny. Nothing slowed them. Nobody hindered them. Every single one of the world’s governments were playing catch up with the recent worldwide revelations of Ubers, Gorgoth and now the hierarchy demons.

  The demon fell. It didn’t fly, it didn’t swoop; it fell right off the heights of the cathedral and plummeted at them, clawed feet outstretched. Lucy ducked and scuttled backward. Ethan did the same. Jade stared up, transfixed, until Cleaver tackled her roughly around the waist.

  “Get the hell back!”

  Ceriden almost lost his footing as he too rushed clear. The colossal dragon landed like a transit van pushed out of an airplane at a thousand feet. Paving flags smashed under the impact. The entire square heaved, throwing everyone off their feet. Stained glass windows shattered. Cracks ran up surrounding stone walls, a running stitch of wanton destruction.

  And from the dragon’s mouth came the most cultured of voices.

  “Oh, my. It seems I misjudged the landing.”

  Chuckles followed. When Lysette looked up she saw the great beast shaking some misshapen lump from between its toes.

  “Sorry, old chap. Bit slow off the mark, were you?”

  Lysette scrambled even further back. Cleaver was on his knees at her side. “It’s Abaddon,” he said, indicating his earplug and Bluetooth set-up. “Just got word . . . not that it helps us at all.”

  “How can we fight something like this?”

  “I know!” Ceriden shouted. “Follow me.”

  The vampire king set off at a hard run, straight toward the creature’s half-open mouth. Lysette balked at first, then
caught the crazy, high-stakes gamble Ceriden was playing as she read some of the unguarded notions running through his head.

  . . . demon’s at Saint Stephen’s for a reason . . . artefact must be inside . . . it’ll need to shrink down to get at it . . . I hope . . . or we’re dead . . . oh, dear . . . oh, damn . . . craaaaaa—

  Lysette shut it down as Ceriden ran past the snuffling serpent. Its eyes blinked, but otherwise it made no move, preferring instead to survey the extent of its destruction.

  “My, my. Such fragile structures. As are their builders.”

  Abaddon heaved and shoved one foot beneath its bulk. Lysette saw her chance and sprinted in Ceriden’s footsteps, taking advantage of the gigantic beast’s slowness. She grabbed Lucy and herded her in front, letting Ethan take care of himself, though the vampire boy never lost more than a stride on her. By the time Abaddon realized what was occurring the team were through. Cleaver shut the cathedral door behind them, the clunk echoing loudly in the great vaulted space.

  Lysette stopped and stared in awe. The interior was a masterpiece, a stunning work of art. Nevertheless, she knew from her love of Vienna and its rich history that this wonderful building had only been saved from intentional destruction by the brave pluckiness of a German captain. When ordered to destroy it by his Kommandant, Josef Dietrich, to “Fire a hundred shells and leave it in just debris and ashes,” he had disregarded the order. Such was the gallantry of some men and the spitefulness of others.

  A tiled mosaic floor led down the center of the cathedral, flanked on either side by glass cabinets, ornate pews, carved figurines, candelabras and curious niches full of more works of art. At the far end of the cathedral the distant golden high altar shined its glory, the representation of the stoning of the church’s patron, St. Stephen.

  Stephen was regarded as the first martyr.

  Lysette allowed the wonder of the place to wash through her. Then she turned to Ceriden. “Abaddon could be searching for anything. It could be anywhere. What are we supposed to do?”