Guardians (Chosen Trilogy Book 2)

by David Leadbeater

  She screamed without let up.

  Her eyes dulled and became blank. Her world was at an end.

  TWENTY FOUR

  Lucy has become a shade. A thrall.

  Lysette shuddered deep down as she thought about Ethan’s words and what the sixteen-year-old had done. Lost Girl had sought out a new family, and embraced it with all her heart.

  With no thought for her dad whatsoever.

  Lysette had seen this struggle within the girl. She had seen it as far back as that night when Logan and she had wandered the gardens of the house of Aegis, years ago it seemed now, on the night of the attack. She had warned Logan. But what on earth was the man supposed to do? Battling demons, both imaginary and frighteningly real. Battling a god. Coping with the emergence of a strange new power that already seemed to be heralding a new development in the human race.

  The species had evolved, it seemed. Of course, she thought, Stan Lee’s genius was never in doubt. It was always going to evolve.

  But this?

  Too personal. Too close to home. A girl’s life had been ruined. Lysette wondered if, even now, there might be a way out. Lucy couldn’t go out like this, a stuttering light quenched by the dark, just another vampire’s shade lost to the night. There had to be a way.

  Funny thing was, she almost trusted Ceriden. Still. So it was him that she sought out, and believed when he stared at her in surprise.

  “Lucy?” he gasped. “Already? Oh, dear, that’s going to be an issue.”

  “I’ll say. Not only is she the daughter of your most powerful weapon, she is also Chosen and an elemental. Now a shade. You’re messing with things you don’t even know how to control.”

  “I never wanted this. I never courted her. It is Ethan, one of Strahovski’s hot-headed lot. They are impulsive. Rash. Damn the Viennese. I tried to fill her mind with fantastic fashion. Gucci and Armani. But,” the vampire king sighed, “they just aren’t so popular anymore. The heathens now have Superdry and Duck and bloody Cover. Mercedes Benz instead of Lancia. Bugatti instead of Maserati.” Ceriden fairly swooned. “Oh, the depths to which we have fallen.”

  Lysette tapped his shoulder. “Jeez, try to focus, big guy. Besides, didn’t Lancia pretty much rust themselves to death?”

  Ceriden flinched as if struck. “Reel in your flapping tongue, hillbilly!” After a second he seemed to collect himself.

  “Really?” he asked. “She has truly become a shade at this time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, dear. Logan was warned, you know.”

  “I do know that. But look at what the man has had to put up with. Look at what he did, for God’s sake! Helped save the world.”

  “Yes. The poor man deserved more. Does he like soccer? Or models? I can offer introductions, you know.”

  Lysette stared hard into the vampire’s eyes. There were no obvious signs of subterfuge and his mind was clear, serene. She believed that this was a being that lived in a particular, defined world, a bit like a politician, and had no real idea of what people went through outside his specific sphere of influence. “Tell me. Is there anything we can do?”

  “For Logan? Well, aside from the introductions—”

  “No. I meant for Lucy.”

  Ceriden frowned. “I’m not following.”

  “To help her, you damn fool. To make her right again. To give her father a chance.”

  Ceriden’s eyes flashed and anger crept to the forefront of his brain. Lysette saw an evil will and black things slide forth, and instantly reviewed her opinion of Ceriden.

  “We are her family now. She has crossed over. Lucy has joined us, and we will fight tooth and nail for her.”

  “But . . . what of Logan?”

  “He will deal,” Ceriden rasped. “Or he will find the entire vampire race set against him. Lucy is ours now.”

  Lysette backed away, hands up. In the midst of all this warfare, this unceasing battle, she had hoped to find an ally in Ceriden. He seemed to understand the stakes and the uncertainties of what was going on. But she had only found prejudice, jealousy and small-mindedness. There were no visionaries anymore, just charismatic people with agendas.

  She left the room hurriedly and sought out Lucy. She, for one, would not let this lie. Not this night.

  *

  Outside the door that led to Lucy’s room, she paused. Voices came from within. The soft, lilting girl’s voice interposed with the still light but deeper boy’s. Her tones were happy, her laughter quick and genuine. His was reflexive and cheerful.

  Then something hit her. There was no subterfuge going on here. The feelings these two were experiencing were genuine. Who was she to jump in the middle?

  Damn it, it’s the girl. I see myself fifteen years ago. I see The Bastard and how he was going to kill me. I see . . . innocence lost before its time. Broken. Not allowed a chance. I see . . . a future of promise dashed on the rocks.

  And the rocks were the dark wills of evil men.

  Lysette Cohen had wanted a baby. It was her purpose, her reason. It was a deep devotion that existed in her belly, in her heart and mind. The best that she could ever be. That dream had been torn from her when she’d started running—the very power that had saved her life then forced her to sift through the minds of others.

  Could she ever risk her child with even the most gentle of the men she met? Deep down, everyone seemed to harbor some kind of demon.

  So now she fought them for real, every chance she got. Ethan was a demon. Ceriden was a demon. Lucy would not live to regret such a bad decision.

  Lysette walked into the room.

  The scene stunned her to the spot. Lucy sat on the low bed, legs crossed and her hair pulled away from one entire side of her face. Her lips were curled in laughter, her eyes happy. Ethan bent over her, fangs poised just above the skin between ear and neck.

  Blood dripped from their points, spattering the bed. Small, angry red holes pulsed near the nape of Lucy’s neck. Lysette gasped.

  The two turned to her. Lucy scooted across the bed, hiding her neck with her jacket. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

  “Come with me,” Lysette managed, stepping forward. “Come with me and I will protect you.”

  Ethan blocked her path, fangs still protruding and gradually turning into a snarl. “Stand back.”

  “Out of my way, Fangoria,” she said. “I’ve chastised bigger toddlers than you.”

  But Lucy didn’t want saving. “No, wait,” she said. “You can’t take me. I don’t want to go.”

  “It’s for your own good.” Lysette sidestepped Ethan, trying not to look at the blood coagulating along his gums.

  “This is my decision. I made it.”

  “Your father’s not here. You shouldn’t be here. But you had nowhere else to go. It’s bad luck, but we can fix it.”

  “No, you can’t fix me. I’m broken forever. I . . . I—”

  “Come with me, Lucy. Please.” Lysette held out a hand.

  “Stop trying to be my mother. I don’t have a mother! She left and then Dad left and now . . . now . . .” Lucy took an enormous breath, pushed her shoulders out and fixed Lysette with blazing eyes.

  “Leave me alone. I don’t want your help.”

  Lysette hesitated.

  “Can you read my mind?” Lucy all but taunted her. “Can you?”

  Lysette did. She saw hatred—for her, and she saw love and acceptance—for Ethan and his race. She saw disgust—for her father, and she saw belief—in the vampire family.

  She saw a girl turned around. A girl lost.

  Feeling like she herself was stumbling in the wilderness, Lysette instantly turned and ran for the door. The tears that streamed down her face were not self-seeking. Not egotistical.

  They were for someone else.

  TWENTY FIVE

  Ken crept and crawled through the filth. Barely conscious. The tumble down the hillside had disoriented him, the cracks and bumps on the head damaging nothing but still shaking
him up. When he landed, the world was black—both the physical and mental world—and when he tried to move nothing seemed to work. Not only that, but all sound had vanished too. He lay there, barely conscious, for how long he didn’t know, but gradually, bit by bit, the last few minutes before his fall crept back into his consciousness.

  It grew clearer when he tensed reawakening fingers around the object clutched in his right hand. A soft, rolled-up piece of robe.

  His lips moved, dry against the cold ground.

  “F . . . Felicia . . .”

  Ken fought. He set his palms firmly on the ground and pushed up with all his might. Pain exploded through his joints. Ken ignored it, steeling his heart. Felicia had been captured. The playful Lycan was in trouble. Ken would not rest another minute until he found her.

  Struggling to his knees he let out a breath. Every muscle ached. Every bone felt bruised. The good news was that nothing appeared to be broken. More good news—he’d bounced so far no one had tracked him. Sounds reached his ears: The caterwaul of exultant demons. He could almost picture them capering and dancing around the lycan’s cage, none of them bright enough to fully grasp the loss of the artefacts.

  But Dementia would. And the demon-bitch had lost her brother to Felicia. Her wrath would not be easy to withstand.

  Where are they taking her?

  Ken resolved to sneak around the hillside. Again, the dilemma struck him. The artefacts were more important, far more important than any one individual. He’d already sent Lilith off with one of them. But he couldn’t abandon Felicia. Now, if it had been one of the vamps . . .

  Crap!

  It hit him then. The vamps had been caught too. He was going to have to save all of them!

  Ken’s back fairly bowed beneath the weight. Never had he felt such responsibility. Never had he expected to. Surfer boys from California led relatively uneventful lives, rich with frivolity and heavy on recklessness. Falling for werewolves and rescuing vampires was really as far from his to-do list as anything was likely to get.

  He skirted the dirt-ridden foothills, a shifting fiery sky above and a blasted landscape at his back. When he came around the final bit of curve he was expecting a shock, but it was far worse than he could have expected. Many, many demons stood, cavorted or slouched their way around three cages. Thick trunks were being inserted through the tops of the bars so some of the demons could carry them.

  Inside the cages, bloody and beaten, were the remains of Ken’s team. Milo, so big his head was bent down near his feet, his huge back pushing at the bars. How they’d crammed him inside was beyond Ken. Eliza, smaller, had been forced up against the bars; her arms and legs stuck through to either side, then bound. She could barely move.

  And then there was Felicia. The poor lycan was similarly crushed up against the bars, but shook, smashed and rattled at them with every breath. She howled her fury at the skies. She wanted freedom; liberty. Ken looked away, unable to watch any more.

  Dementia came under his scrutiny. The demon-bitch was screaming, gesturing, and generally kicking out at anything that didn’t move quickly and to her liking. Demons sprawled all around her, gingerly picking themselves up. One had had enough. It leaped fast, claws outstretched, bellowing, but Dementia plucked it from the air, a hand around its neck, and squeezed until there was an audible snap. She dropped the demon and left it where it lay, not even deigning to glance in its direction.

  Ken tried to stay optimistic. The game wasn’t up yet, not by a long shot. He cast a careful eye to the top of the hill, sighted in on a landmark—the battered side of the house with three empty windows—and carefully buried the artefact right at the base of the foothill. He sighted it in with several more distinctive stumps and bushes and then crept away, confident he could find it again.

  Dementia screeched, apparently the signal to get under way. Half a dozen demons hefted each cage over their shoulders and set out along a barely discernible track, heading predictably toward the distant glow that Lilith had pointed out earlier.

  The Pit.

  Ken let them range ahead. They wouldn’t be hard to follow. He clung to the dark periphery, using the shadows as cover, a fact he found rather ironic considering who and where he was. The demons were a noisy bunch, like a gang of drunken lads out on a Friday night bar crawl. Ken half-expected bottles of tequila to be passed around. He wasn’t surprised when Dementia started screaming at them and cuffing them back into line.

  The march continued with a little less enthusiasm. The vampires were silent behind their steel bars. Felicia continued to howl, despite repeated blows. Ken’s heart leaped with every yelp, every heartfelt wail. He couldn’t stand to hear her that way.

  Time passed. Ken rummaged around for some food, realizing only now that his supplies were dwindling. The water situation was a tad better. He ate and drank, then studied the horizon. The flickering glow up there was becoming less hazy. Details were now apparent, details he didn’t really want to see.

  The ground descended gradually toward the Pit. Ken flicked his eyes around, almost unable to believe what they showed him. To the right lay a far-reaching graveyard, thousands of tombstones erected among ribbons of lava snaking along the ground. Gnarled trees reached beseechingly toward the blazing skies, their hopeless requests lost in dreadful eternity. Hell was eternal. Once down here . . .

  Ken preferred not to finish that thought. The landscape to the right was even freakier. Sharp, jagged rocks, some of them curved like gigantic tusks, jutted from the ground, rising to dizzying heights. Lava snaked down their sides and spurted from blowholes, raining across the skies. Tables of rock clung to the sides of several mountains, their curved plateaus odd and empty in this forsaken place.

  Ken slowed as Dementia and her demons navigated a wide lava river. As Ken drew closer he was startled to see a shape—no dozens of shapes—swimming in the hot bubbling liquid. Human in form, bare skulls screaming, they reached out desperate hands toward him, begging for help. They reared up from the lava only to be dragged back down again. They screeched in agony. All were fully dressed in human clothing, but that only served to make their bony skulls even eerier.

  Burn in hell, Ken thought, might have more meaning than I first thought.

  Were these souls damned to eternal agony for all the bad deeds they’d done? Or was this where failed reality TV contestants were cast? He backed away, inwardly making light of the situation to stay sane. The figures seemed alive, aware, beyond desperate. Ken watched as Dementia and her demons trod a rickety rope bridge across the boiling inferno, once almost losing their footing and sending Milo’s cage crashing down among the flames. Dementia caught the scrawny demon that had slipped, taking its place and flinging it over the side.

  Ken flinched away as several burning figures leaped out of the flames to claim the plummeting body, devouring it on sight.

  He knelt in the shadows, trying to ignore the plaintive appeals. He stared at the ground, waiting for space to cross the bridge. His sword felt hot to the touch.

  At last the way was clear. Ken took great care as he walked toward the bridge, trying to clear his mind of the nightmares below and concentrate on the steps and the rope-handles. The first step was one of faith. The bridge swayed beneath him, rolling gently. He gripped the ropes to each side hard enough to turn his flesh white. One more step and he was on the bridge proper, suspended over the lava lake. A figure leaped up, flames leaping off his body, and swiped high, not quite reaching the bottom of the bridge. Another tried and fell atop the first. The pair fell writhing back into the fires. Ken stepped cautiously, placing one foot in front of the other and reciting silent prayers.

  Halfway across, the bridge swayed uneasily. Ken fixed his eyes on the far bank and just kept walking, trying to ignore the tiny plumes of burning smoke drifting up from the soles of his shoes. Firm ground drew nearer and nearer. He had never been so happy to see the rotting filthy earth of hell. Beyond the decayed bank lay a paved area, offering another sensory shockw
ave to Ken’s already shredded senses. A low squat building stood around the paved area, old and laden with earth-like architecture. What appeared to be a domed church took center stage. Other out-of-place buildings were dotted everywhere. Church spires climbed toward the skies. Castle walls ran from nowhere to nowhere, crumbling along their pointless lengths.

  He walked away from the river of lava, leaving the burning supplicants behind. Still downward they walked, descending into the wide Pit. The landscape was too irregular to see right into its heart, but Ken could guess what might be there.

  He shut it out of his mind. The buildings would offer perfect cover. It was likely the best chance he was going to get to save his friends.

  As if in sardonic agreement, Dementia stepped from the blind side of a building up ahead. “Did you think we could not sssseee you?” she hissed before he could catch his breath. “Ssssmell you?”

  Ken felt a rush of anger and hefted his sword. From both sides, more demons stepped. Still, he would have taken his chances in battle, had not Felicia’s cage been brought into sight. At shoulder height, the lycan was still bent almost in half, crushed between bars, only now demons shoved pointed sticks through the small gaps, eliciting whimpers and grunts of pain. They had stuffed some kind of gag into her mouth.

  Ken felt the fight drop out of him. Felicia’s blood ran out of the bottom of the cage. Demons queued to lap it up.

  “Please,” he said. “No more. Leave her alone.”

  Dementia pointed at his sword. “Put down the Lionheart blade. It shinessss with a vilenesss not unlike your ownnnn.”