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?”
FIFTEEN
Lysette Cohen loved Vienna. Though a resident of Monaco, a refugee of a battle with her ex-husband, she always wished she could have set up her life 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 was here, the badass boxer and troubleshooter from Miami. 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 even want to think about trying 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 all concerned. 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 and 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 she had 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 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 potential victims gathering below. Strings of drool fell slowly 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 h
is duster. “Jeez. That thing’s gigantic.”
Ceriden sent a shocked look across the line. “Demons this powerful can portray any image 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 dare 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 found out 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 were allowed to 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, Gorgoroth and the hierarchy demons.
It 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 shattered 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 the unguarded notions ran 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 out right there 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 ran hard in Ceriden’s footsteps, taking advantage of the gigantic beast’s slowness. She grabbed Lucy and herded her ahead, 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 an 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 looking for anything. It could be anywhere. What are we supposed to do?”
At that moment the doors shook, the building rocked and a great shriek rang out. Lysette ducked instinctively but nothing happened. They were greeted to the sound of beating wings, the screams of trapped onlookers, and then another shriek, this time further away, higher. Lysette looked fearfully up toward the roof.
“Oh no. It’s not . . .”
They waited, moving closer to the sides of the vast room. After what seemed an eternity Cleaver let out a long sigh.
“Beastie’s gone,” he said. “And get this. Team Cheyne grabbed an artefact off old Astaroth over there in Hawaii, and now they have a theory. They believe that each of these artefacts used to belong to each demon, before they were turned. Y’know, when they were still one of us. That’s why the pieces draw them, call to them. It’s like an old memory. But sometimes memories need searching out, sorting through, and then clearly identifying. We’re of the belief that’s why the hierarchy demons appear to be hunting, searching in the same spot and returning again and again. They know the thing’s there, but it takes a while to locate it. So . . .” He extended an arm toward the doors.
“Abaddon will be back,” Ceriden said.
“Yeah.”
“So we need to prepare.”
“I’d say.”
Ceriden let out a long, pent-up breath and headed back toward the doors. “Then follow me.”
SIXTEEN
Lysette suppressed a shiver. Not far out of Vienna, where the hills rolled gently and formed the foothills and gateways to even loftier places, a castle perched in shadow, its high spires pointing to a place its occupants could never go. Reminiscent of the Cinderella castle in Disneyworld, it contained none of the cheeriness of a theme park and none of the safety.
It was a vampire fortress, a black bastion for night crawlers and bloodsuckers. Ceriden’s first undertaking was to take them there. His second was to warn them to always be on their guard and never walk alone. Lysette saw the way Ethan grinned at his king’s words and, young or not, resolved to watch the little kid like a hawk.
Once inside, the dark menace of the place fell over them. Cleaver consciously unfastened his duster and kept a hand close to his shotgun. Jade walked on the balls of her feet, always ready to leap into action.
“Don’t worry,” Ceriden said to them, constantly vigilant himself. “New country. Different house. But I am king. There are many vampires here. A sizeable security force.”
“And my master. My king,” Ethan said happily. “This is his place.”
“Ah, yes.” Ceriden stuttered a little. “Strahovski. He’s the king of Europe and number two to my reign. He is . . . a tricky old chap.”
“Tricky?” Lysette echoed with arched eyebrows.
“Think of me as David Beckham and him as Roy Keane. That might help.”
“It would if I followed bloody soccer. I don’t. Do you two have a problem?”
“Strahovski is unruly. We have some rivalry, nothing too nasty, but best left unpoked. He is a wild child. If Britney was a man and had fangs she would be Strahovski.”
Lysette tried to imagine it. Failed. “So we’ll play it by ear then.”
Ceriden nodded. “That sounds
good to me.”
The black castle groaned and echoed to the sounds of good-natured vampiric shrieks. The fanged creatures congregated to watch them pass. Their nostrils flared. Lysette thought about Daniel in the lion’s den. She thought about poor old Ken and his group, walking the byways of hell.
She moved deeper into the castle.
SEVENTEEN
Lysette tried hard to hide her incredulity when she was shown to a room, given clear and firm instructions never to wander the halls alone, and advised to cover her windows with the provided drapes, despite the fact that her room was at least ten stories high.
When her entourage and friends were gone she locked the door behind them and basked in a moment of peace.
No voices in her head. No obvious danger. No nervous, desperate rush to be someplace. And there, right in front of her, the opaque plastic doors that screamed glorious revitalization to her mind.
Shower!
Feeling excited, and more than a little foolish, she skipped toward it, shedding clothes as she went. Blouse on the bed, trousers on the floor. Everything else landed wherever it bloody well landed and then she was inside. The first blast of water was freezing cold, making her shriek, but then the temperature rose and she was laughing at herself, luxuriating under the intense force of streaming water. The sensation was wonderful.
How long had it been?
She didn’t like to think. All she needed was the sumptuous warmth and to close her eyes and let the water wash away all the recent memories—at least for a while. The heat and steam rose around her. For a short time she let the pounding water massage her shoulders and her back, her face, her hair.
Bliss.
Afterward, she wandered back into her room wrapped in a white towel. If nothing else these vampires ruled by Strahovski knew how to look after their guests. The bed was made up with fresh sheets. A plush white robe lay on the pillow. Lysette dropped the towel and snuggled into the robe.
Guardians (Chosen Trilogy Book 2) Page 10
