Guardians (Chosen Trilogy Book 2)

by David Leadbeater

  “Never mind that.” Ken waved the way ahead. “Let’s go.”

  Felicia loped beside them for a minute then gradually began to change back into human form. Ken quickly moved to help her tie some of the rips in her clothes together to keep her modesty. Felicia swatted him away.

  “Stop that. I’m used to it. I can do it quicker alone.”

  The vamps were waiting. Ken watched their faces carefully, wondering if any of them would come up with the inevitable put-down—good dog. If they did he was ready to step up to her defense.

  What had they done to help?

  But Eliza briefly inclined her head before nodding over the blasted expanse of the playground. “Shall we continue?”

  Lilith brushed herself off. “Another half day and we should reach the secret way. The fifth hell.” She shook her head. “Well, they only get worse from here on down.”

  “I can hardly wait.” Ken shrugged.

  “The scent left by Dementia does not extend this far,” Felicia told them. “When we were by the grand staircase I sensed it strongly. She definitely descended below the fifth hell, but beyond that we should try to regain her spore.”

  Ken noticed Lilith’s eyes light up. It seemed that she was about to say something, maybe give them a clue as to where Dementia might go, but then the dark clouds descended over her eyes and she clammed up. Ken said nothing. In time, he knew, she would learn to trust them.

  He just hoped they lived long enough to see the day.

  SEVEN

  I walked back through the lobby of our hotel, unable to speak. The journey back had been made in a terrible, heavy silence. All except for Natalie Trevochet, who wept uncontrollably. I still couldn’t get out of my head the fact that I had once left her to die, to be strangled by a rope, as I leaped to save Belinda. Of course, I had assumed someone else would save her—and they had—but that was far from the point. Johnny and I had come to an uneasy truce. Now, we had not only lost Johnny, but the demon Asmodeus and the artefact. Another of the Chosen had fallen, one of the major players, and we were lagging far behind in this apocalyptic race.

  I entered our rented conference room. One whole side was laid out with an American buffet breakfast, many bowls lined up along a white-sheeted table. I headed for the water cooler, not trusting my stomach to keep the food down. Not surprisingly there were bottles of Budweiser and miniatures of Jim Bean and Southern Comfort lined up near the corner and I stopped as if recognizing an old friend, mesmerized.

  Lucy tugged my arm. “No. Not now. They need you more than ever.”

  I grimaced, not moving. I latched on immediately to the word she hadn’t spoken. She hadn’t said I need you. She’d said they need you. I felt sadness swamp me and thought irritably that Ceriden and Ethan must be close by. Damn it all. If the whole world didn’t need the Chosen right now I’d take my daughter and get well away. Take her to some place where all this madness was a distant memory, a nightmare. But I was trapped.

  Wasn’t I?

  The gleam of the bottles seemed so much brighter, that much more enticing. Before I knew it I had pulled away from Lucy and was another step closer. Time stood still. I saw heaven and hell waiting on either side of my next decision and thought about poor old Johnny, the second of the Chosen to have fallen since we met on Miami Beach and, I was sure, not the last.

  My hand closed around a bottle of Bud. I heard an intake of breath at my shoulder then a hand clamped down over my wrist.

  “Are you crazy, you whacked-out fruit and nut?” a distinctive voice said. “What you’re doing is wrong in about a dozen different ways. It’s not easy to face death, Logan. I do it every hour of the day. But you can never run away from it. Not like this.”

  I let go of the bottle, a little reluctantly. “The urge never goes away.”

  “It helps you forget, not survive. It drags you in deeper, never giving you a lifeline. It changes your personality, not your position in life.”

  I turned to Belinda. “We might not see tomorrow.”

  She shrugged. “Neither might the rest of the world. These things we do now, the actions we take, will shape the future of mankind for centuries to come. Think on that the next time Anheuser Busch looks like a tasty alternative. You really wanna be remembered as the ‘alcoholic dropout’?”

  I watched as she creaked away, joining a table where sat Cheyne and Giles, Cleaver and Lysette. She sat with her back to me, showing me the options. My eyes sought Lucy’s and weren’t shocked to see her in the company of Ethan. The vampire kid looked as somber as the rest of us, and stared sadly toward the still weeping Natalie Trevochet. Tanya Jordan had stepped up to comfort her, the Hawaiian’s easy-going, calm manner no doubt casting a small but welcome balm over the situation.

  I drifted over to Belinda’s table as Ceriden also approached. Cheyne had a cellphone held against her ear.

  “Thank you,” I heard, and then looked expectantly as she folded closed the phone.

  “All right.” She looked around at us. “Do you remember the Text of Seven? The archaic document that Emily Crowe stole from the Louvre. It’s how she conjured the seven hierarchy demons to our earth, our realm, but it’s the source of much more than that. It holds information, valuable resources that we need to stop this. I just spoke to the Library of Aegis,” she nodded at the phone, “and they’re e-mailing and faxing a copy across.”

  “Let’s hope we can make some sense of it.” Giles rose as they heard the nearby fax-machine ring.

  I placed my hands on Belinda’s shoulders and whispered, “Thank you.”

  “No worries. We’re all running in the same race, Logan.”

  I looked across the room toward Lucy. Her face was not as forgiving.

  EIGHT

  Emily Crowe, ex-lead singer of the all-girl rock group Supernatural, and once one of Gorgoroth’s Destroyers, albeit a double-agent for the Devil, had tricked, conned and beaten everyone to the punch. It was she that had engineered the return of the hierarchy even as the ridiculous humans struggled and died trying to defeat the World-Ender and, in doing so, paved the way for a grand future of hell on Earth. The affair was not without its hitches and glitches, but what glorious battle plan ever was?

  She sat now, cross-legged in the desert, a flickering camp fire in front of her. Across the other side her new acolyte, Melissa Thorne, sat rigid in the same pose. Above them, the clear vault of the skies seemed to stretch forever, from one side of Death Valley to the other. Old rocks and hills, and flat stretches of salt lay all around, attesting to the ancient nature of this place.

  It held many secrets.

  And it would become her base, their base, the base of newly emerged evil. It was large and powerful enough to contain them. The creatures of hell would come here, and from here they would conquer all. But first—the problem.

  A well-established trailer park sat quite close to the national park, so close that it would have to be eradicated. Crowe had known it as soon as she’d come down here, and had been looking forward to the task ever since. Melissa Thorne was a former resident of that trailer park, and had willingly divulged its details, even before Crowe had worked her wiles on her. As of now, Melissa was simply struggling to remember which day it was or know the precise hour. Soon, she would struggle to remember her name, her past, and then the fact that she’d once been human.

  Crowe spread her arms, chanting softly. She rose to her feet and divested herself of every stitch of clothing. Melissa did the same. Neither of them felt the desert’s night chill. Shadows began to stir within the flames and then to writhe among them. Crowe flung her head back and chanted loudly at the stars.

  The night spun around her. It was at times like these that she remembered her initiation. How she and twelve others had somehow managed to raise a specter, a spiritual force, for the fun and audaciousness of it all, and then how everything had gone badly wrong. What had started out as a rock-band dare, something to take their wild-child image to the next level and maybe outdo ev
en Fleetwood Mac, had turned into an all-too-real savage nightmare. The spiritual entity they’d raised had been taken over by something terrible, a malevolent force that had hijacked the room. She never knew how it had happened. Maybe it was a chance in a hundred million. Maybe the dire entity had been searching for a conduit to Earth. Either way, it wasted no time in exerting its brutal authority. Two of her friends had immediately murdered two others, then flung themselves atop the bleeding bodies to start an inhumane copulation. The remaining eight had found themselves spreadeagled around the sides of the room, arms and legs held apart by an implacable force, unable to even blink. A demonic visage had materialized in the center of the room, right above the rutting bodies, born out of ferocity and abhorrence, and then blasted toward all of them and shattering apart in their faces. Many had screamed, some had died. But Crowe had suddenly felt different. She’d felt whole. Capable. A woman who, since childhood, had never known family, was now part of some enormous hierarchy. And she liked it. The chance to get a little revenge, a little power and a lot of fun.

  She fancied she’d always been a psychopath. But now she had the power to live out her dreams and never get caught.

  That night every one of her twelve friends’ bodies were inhabited by a different demon, seven of the greatest from the hierarchy and five more. Every one of them threw her down to the floor and shamed her into enjoying their degradations, every one of them drew blood, every one of them drew a promise.

  She would serve them. Always. And she would be rewarded with power and a seat beside a throne. Somewhere. When the Earth was subjugated.

  Now, though, the time was firmly at hand. So far, her servitude had proven faultless. The hierarchy was pleased with her. Now, the final few tasks neared completion. Her focus snapped back to the present as the shadows elongated above the flames, washing the desert floor with deep reflected crimson. They gathered, writhing up and out and around like eager serpents. They began to coil over at their apex, flowing fluidly toward both women, now wrapping and entwining their naked bodies. Crowe luxuriated in it. The intimate sensation of her flesh being touched all over by unknown bodies, by a terrible animate force, brought every nerve to life. She squirmed against them, rolling her hips suggestively, running her fingertips across her stomach. The shadows drew black energy from her, becoming even more lively, flitting and jetting about, galvanized by power.

  As the force grew, Crowe opened her eyes and checked on Melissa. Good, the girl was performing nicely and that meant she lived another day. The trailer park wouldn’t. Crowe gathered all her energy and flung her open arms at the skies. Instantly, the shadows shot up high, zooming like black comets up at the glittering stars, and then arched away like dark missiles, an eclipse of evil armament, with only one destination in mind.

  Crowe listened hard as the sensations fell away. Melissa collapsed to the ground, heaving and spent, but eyeing Crowe with a certain amount of healthy lust. In another moment Crowe heard screams as the inhabitants of the trailer park were systematically torn to shreds or, even better, succumbed to the shadows and tore each other to shreds. Judging by the sounds, trailers were being toppled and gas bottles blown up. Men and women were murdered. Crowe had fulfilled yet another task.

  Death Valley was ready to accept new residents.

  Crowe turned her attentions to Melissa, walking over and lifting the girl to her feet. Her lips were full, pouting and blood red.

  Crowe bit into them.

  NINE

  I listened in as Cheyne again and again consulted with boffins over at the Library of Aegis. They employed a human computer geek named Nathan and a clever vampire—Taryn—who, it turned out, was Ceriden’s first thrall and first-turned. From shade to first-turned in a little over a year and now ensconced inside the relatively safe library, Taryn must be very dear to Ceriden. Belinda spoke of her as a vampire of repute, known to have carried out many selfless acts and several for the wellbeing of humankind. And, of course, when Ceriden spoke to her his voice softened and his eyes went far away.

  The only other creature that introduced himself through phone and video conference was a kind of demon named Kage. He was on the run from the Devil, and from hell, and had been allowed to hide out at the library; most likely as a source of valuable information, since this kind of mole could not be ignored. I drew the conclusion from Giles’ and Cheyne’s reactions that Kage was seen as a bit of a joke and was being used by Aegis. Indeed, the only thing to recognize him as anything other than human were the two small nubs of horn that protruded from the sides of his head, just above his ears, and a third in the center of his forehead.

  Lysette, ever the mind reader and the woman that remembered people through her use of appropriate nicknames, said, “I’d call him ‘extra-horny’, but I just know how a certain person would get jealous.” She nudged Giles.

  The Englishman straightened a stiff-looking tie. “Ah, well, down to business then. We have the Text of Seven right here.” He touched a button, flicking the image on his computer screen up onto a white wall so all of us could see. “Take a few minutes to absorb it.”

  I blinked at the big lettering. When I got my head around it the sentences began to take shape.

  Collect ye seven artefacts and speak mine sacred chant that onlee ye daemon brethren may utter at lowest abode, where Lucifer once dwell’d. The Seven Hell Gates shall forthwith be sundered apart and shall admit all manner of creatures to the earth and they shall traipse up from every level, even the Pit, and so bring forth the new Lord, Lucifer himself.”

  I reread it several times. On first and second glance it seemed pretty straightforward, but then I began to notice a few references that should be raising questions.

  “Lowest abode?” I said. “Where’s that then?”

  “Where Lucifer once dwelled?” Belinda coughed. “On Earth? I never knew he lived here. Did any of you?”

  “The Devil,” Cheyne said. “Lucifer. Is a being of many faces. Many disguises. He has visited our realm thousands upon thousands of times, and all for research, I guess. He could have lived anywhere. Everywhere. Keep in mind the numerous places that are named after him. Perhaps some of them are clues.”

  “And . . .” Giles said, “‘Speak mine sacred chant’,” he quoted. “That means this text was written by a very powerful demon, and a famous one by the sound of it. This text could hold several clues.”

  Nathan, the library’s computer genius, said, “We’ve learned a little more about the demons and their relation to these so-called artefacts. They are indeed drawn to each other, simply because each artefact belongs to or is a part of each demon. It’s a part of their makeup. A clever idea by the one that dreamed it up. They simply . . . attract.”

  “All right,” Cheyne said. “So start spelling the text itself, and we might get a fix on their whereabouts. By the Sacred Broomstick, we sure need to catch a break somewhere in this case.”

  Giles nodded. “By God too. We do.”

  Ceriden’s eyebrows rose. “By Beckham’s Sacred Boot. We do.”

  Belinda joined the action. “And by my trusty pink vi—”

  I interrupted fast. “How long will that take?”

  Cheyne unsuccessfully tried to crinkle her nose. “It requires a fine concoction of alchemy and ancient magic. I cannot say. Hours? A day?”

  I felt a deep anxiety twist queasily through the pit of my stomach. “We don’t have that long.”

  TEN

  Ken drifted to the back of the little group, watching Felicia as she ranged ahead and sought out a safe trail for the rest of them to follow. The wolf had barely spoken to him since their little encounter back at the house, and he sensed an awful lot of reservation and a touch of regret there. It pained him. A pleasant feeling had risen inside him that he’d never felt before. He actually felt like sticking alongside Felicia, maybe trying out a relationship. And, damn, he knew how ridiculous that sounded.

  She was a wolf. Born to be wild. Mate to freedom and to free-runni
ng. Nothing alive could hope to restrain her. He was a fool. Born to be a jackass.

  The vampires kept on giving him odd looks. Maybe they knew about his recent dalliance. Of course, he didn’t care. But, the looks Mai the vampire was giving him stirred more than just feelings. Twelve hours after feeling a sudden attachment to the wolf he was wondering if they might not be severed in favor of the vampire.

  But no. The vamps were merciless and heartless, cold. Felicia was comforting and warm and pretty; she cared. A petite Joss Stone. She deserved him. Or did he deserve her? Whatever, he thought. They were meant to be.

  At length, they crawled down an ancient spiraling walkway, a cleft between cliff faces, and found themselves treading the deadly byroads of the fifth circle of hell. Ken noticed an instant difference. Even the air down here tasted of desperation, of something tainted and bad. Every time he put his foot down the ground puffed out little bursts of what he imagined was dusty poison. Rows of empty crosses littered the roadside, the hills and the mountains. Ancient manacles clanked against the wood, the only evidence that once, millennia ago, they had seen use.

  “You mentioned a grand bazaar?” Eliza half-turned toward Lilith. “I see and sense no signs of life around here.”

  “No. It is near the eternal grand staircase that dissects all the levels. We will have to travel there first.”

  They tramped on, the mood only darkening the further they went. Depravity lay all around them. Rotted gallows. Tall, deadly guillotines with shiny blades still intact. Graveyards with endless rows of marker stones, all covered in slime and black blood. This vision of hell was corrupt in the extreme. Torture devices stood arrayed upon the hillsides, standing stark against the pale light behind them, no doubt even now tended to on a daily basis by some degenerate watchman. Wooden stakes were everywhere, their bases piled high with short sticks as if waiting for the next burning.