Chloe's Guardian

by Cheri Gillard

  Chloe screamed, “Horace!”

  CHAPTER 20

  Flying glass and splintered wood rained down on Horatius as he tore around the side of the house. Seconds later, Chloe’s scalp-peeling scream ripped through the window opening.

  He couldn’t get up there without flying, but he had to remain hidden from his father. What am I up against? I can’t transfigure and give away my location. He concentrated on the vines growing on the house and willed them to become a ladder.

  Nothing happened.

  Damn it, Mebahel. Don’t block my power now!

  In the glow of the bare bulb he saw a ladder by the garage. He ran to it and got it beneath the window.

  He was to the top in three quick steps. Michelle stood just inside the broken window. Satarel had her. She threw a chest out the gap in the wall and it slammed into Horatius’ face.

  The impact knocked him off the rung and he fell seven feet down and slammed his shin against the lowest metal crossbar. His bone cracked. The pain blurred his vision. With no time to process, he focused on his bone and thought the ends back together again, willing the fracture to knit into one strong shaft.

  Nothing happened. Damn. Damn. Damn!

  He opened his eyes wide, took a deep breath and made his leg obey him. He forced it onto the next rung, put his weight on it to heave his body upward. He made it take the force, the agony. Chloe needs me. He had to take it!

  By the time he reached the top, perspiration blurred his eyesight. His whole body shook. The pain was so loud he couldn’t hear anything.

  Chloe cowered in the far corner of the room. Her mouth was open in a terrifying scream, but Horatius couldn’t hear it over the torture in his leg.

  Michelle rounded on him, reached through the broken window opening and pulled him into the room like he was her stuffed toy. She slammed him against the wall, up high next to the broken window and held him there with her demonic strength.

  As he hung against the wall, the sounds all at once screeched back into his ears. Chloe was screaming for Michelle to come back. But Michelle was too busy squeezing Horatius’ throat shut, using Satarel’s strength to crush his airway.

  His vision darkened. His brain blinked as the oxygen ran out. Sounds faded again.

  Then he was on the floor, with Michelle sprawled next to him, looking stunned and confused.

  Music filled the room.

  Chloe was playing her cello—music as beautiful as Horatius could remember ever hearing. The notes filled the room with a melody so clear and resonant, it lifted the dark despair that had held them captive.

  “Good, Chloe,” Horatius choked out. “Keep playing. Michelle, you okay?” He coughed.

  “What happened?”

  Chloe kept playing and said, “Horace? Is it gone?”

  Horatius gritted his teeth and scooted up against the wall, dragging his broken leg along. “For now,” he puffed out. “Keep playing while I think.”

  Chloe’s music faltered.

  “Keep playing!” he said. “I need you to buy us some time.”

  “I’m shaking so bad, I can barely play.”

  “Just keep playing. Make it beautiful.”

  “I don’t know if I can.” Her voice quivered.

  “You must! My leg is broken…I need you to do this for me.” He calmed his voice as best he could. “You can do this. You’re a strong woman.”

  Chloe seemed to gather her strength and her music resurged.

  “We’ve got to…get to a church. But you have to keep playing,” he said again.

  Chloe kept her bow moving back and forth and her fingers fluttering along the neck. “If your leg is broken, how can we go anywhere? And I can’t run playing a cello.”

  Someone knocked on the bedroom door. Chloe jumped and her bow scratched. Michelle screamed.

  “Satarel wouldn’t knock,” Horatius said. It sounded sardonic rather than comforting.

  The door opened and Kaitlyn poked her head in.

  “Hello, Cello. You’re practicing in the dark in the middle of the night?” she said around a yawn. “Unique. I brought up my viola.” She held it up but then her eyes locked on the hole where the window used to be. The street light glared through the gap and a hot breeze blew in. “Where did your window go? What have you been doing?” She turned on the light. “Why is there a huge guy behind that bed?”

  Chloe kept playing a weird, nondescript series of notes. Horatius worried it was not full of enough beauty to ward off another attack.

  “We need more music. Something beautiful and holy. And portable,” he told Kaitlyn.

  “What’s going on?”

  “A demon—here. Attacking us,” Michelle cried. “Hovered—came inside—it was awful!”

  Kaitlyn didn’t blink. “Should we do an exorcism?”

  “We need complex music, full of beauty, and intentionally holy.” Horatius cringed at a wave of pain.

  “Bach? I have some cantatas on my iPhone,” Kaitlyn said. “They’re sacred.”

  “Yes,” Horatius said, struggling against the wave of pain that was getting too loud again.

  “It’s downstairs. I’ll get it.”

  “Please. Hurry.”

  Kaitlyn dashed away and returned in a blink. Or Horatius was blacking out. He couldn’t tell. Chloe’s music faltered. Kaitlyn turned on her iTunes and Chloe stopped playing, her last note sounding like she’d just run out of breath.

  “Turn it up. We’ve got to get to a church,” Horatius said.

  Chloe put her cello down. “Can you keep up with us?”

  “I have to. The church isn’t far. He’ll want you now. He knows I care about you.” He sucked in a deep breath to wake himself up.

  Chloe looked at him with a mixture of trepidation and tenderness. “Can you make it to the car?” Chloe asked gently.

  “I’ll get there.” Horatius made himself get up, putting all his weight on one leg. “You and Michelle can walk on either side of me and help. I’ll be okay.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Michelle whimpered from the corner by her headboard where she’d backed in.

  “Michelle,” Chloe pleaded.

  “I’m staying.” She pulled her pillow and knees up and hid her face.

  “I’ll do it,” Kaitlyn said. She tucked her iPhone into her pajama waistband and stepped under Horatius’ arm. The room swam and Horatius leaned much harder on the girl than he wanted to.

  Chloe got on the other side of Horace. He was so big and heavy, how would they get him down the stairs, let alone to the nearest church?

  “When we get downstairs, I’ll get you Nana’s walker.”

  Outside the room, the three of them hobbled to the top of the stairs. Benji still slept like only a toddler could in his little bed against the far wall. He stirred when Bach invaded his alcove, but it was not enough to wake him. What was the noise of Bach compared to a window being blown out by a demon?

  Horace sat down on the top stair and lowered himself down, step by step. Once they all got downstairs, Chloe dashed to where she’d left Nana’s walker by the back door and brought it to Horace.

  “We need to go out the front. The back is too narrow and steep.”

  The street light filtering through the living room sheers lit their way past the furniture to the front door. Bach from the iPhone kept a tenuous bubble of safety around them. The walker rattled in a rhythmic clunk as Horace lifted it, dropped it, then shuffled along without a word.

  “Nana and your mom are still asleep?” Kaitlyn whispered.

  “They're on their drugs,” Chloe said. “Thank goodness. Neither needs this.”

  Kaitlyn stepped ahead and pulled the door open. Chloe stayed next to Horace with a supportive hand on his back. She could feel him tremble with the effort. It killed her to see him so vulnerable. And obviously in incredible pain. How could he possibly walk on a broken leg?

  Horatius’ arms shook from the strain of holding himself up. The pain obliterated sound. The walker was
too heavy to lift over the threshold of the doorway. Chloe’s mouth was moving, but nothing audible was coming out.

  He stared and concentrated, trying to hear her, to stay conscious, to keep standing. He blinked. Several times. He got the walker past the door and stepped onto the porch.

  “…going to do?” she cried, jumping at Kaitlyn and clawing at her pajama waistband.

  He was starting to hear again. But it was too silent.

  “Turn up the music,” he murmured. “It’s not loud enough.” He swayed, staying up only because of the walker.

  “It stopped!” Chloe said. “I told you, Horace. The battery died.” Kaitlyn held a button down, arguing with the phone. Chloe turned in a frantic circle, looking up and searching the sky.

  Which was the only reason the explosion did not take out Horatius.

  A flash of lightening hit the porch in front of Chloe. Satarel could not see where Horatius was, but he could see Chloe and think she was looking at him.

  Chloe screamed, which made Kaitlyn scream. Two more flashes of gaseous energy shot through the porch like cannon balls. The window frames and soffit burst into flame.

  “Do not look at me,” Horatius commanded. “If you speak my name or think substantial thoughts of what I am doing or where I am, you will give me away to Satarel.”

  Kaitlyn squeezed past Horatius in the doorway and ran to the top step of the porch, facing the front yard.

  “Go ahead and run away, you coward Horace!” She screamed it down the street, shaking her fist away from the house. A flash of lightning took out a mammoth cottonwood in the direction she yelled.

  “What do we do? What do we do?” Chloe screeched. “Horace, do something!” She was looking right at him.

  Another crack of light hit just beside Horatius and the front of the house erupted into flame. A beam of wood fell down across him, knocking him sideways in the walker. But he pulled back onto his feet. He had to.

  “Cello,” Kaitlyn yelled, “we have to wake everyone up. I’ll go get Benji and Michelle. You wake Nana and your mom. Now, Cello. Do it.”

  Chloe screamed for her family from the porch, trying to get past Horatius.

  Horatius backed into a wall of flame, hot and biting into his skin. The smell of burning flesh singed his nose. He teetered in the doorway, trying to stay alert enough to react. Chloe pushed to get past him, but he couldn’t let her.

  “Let me by,” she screamed. “I have to go back.”

  Horatius wanted to say something wise, something about staying safe, but he couldn’t form the words. Cries came from upstairs. Several more explosions shook the house. Even Kaitlyn wouldn’t stop screaming now. He had to do something.

  Horatius closed his eyes. Unconsciousness would be so merciful. To let go of the pain and slip away. But he had to do something. What? He couldn’t remember. Oh yes. It came to him.

  A mighty metamorphosis shook what was left of the porch. Horatius was all at once nine feet tall, glowing with power, and completely healed. As soon as he transfigured, Satarel appeared hovering over the front lawn, backed by his henchmen, all with flaming weapons at the ready. Horatius only had the moment before a thought to react.

  He grabbed Kaitlyn and Chloe, each around her waist, and blasted over the heads of the demons in a move so unanticipated, they couldn’t react fast enough to stop him.

  CHAPTER 21

  Though Horatius got away by unexpectedly buzzing the demons, Satarel didn’t waste a moment to take off after him.

  Horatius flew as fast as he could through the sky, unable to consider the comfort of the girls. The only thing he could do for them at the moment was create a force field of protection around them to help them deal with the speed. As he passed Mach ten he could only hope they could cope. The bubble he created around them might keep them from pulling too many Gs. If not, they would lose consciousness from the force.

  As he streaked through the blackened stratosphere, he dared to call Darryn of the Gate for help. He’d put humans in extreme peril and he needed help. A multitude of help.

  Darryn answered in Horatius’ thoughts.

  “What have you gotten yourself into? They is not going to like this,” he said in his quick, nervous voice. “I will do what I can to get you help as soon as possible. Hold on. I will get right back to you.”

  Hold on? That’s what he was doing. Barely. And he couldn’t do it much longer. Satarel was so close, he could feel the heat from his sword whipping at his heels.

  Horatius dropped into the troposphere. Satarel flew straight past, far above him. Even with the protective field, the girls screamed at the sudden change in velocity. This would make any roller coaster ride seem like a nap on a couch.

  Horatius skimmed over cold, black waves lifting up out of the sea. Far in front of them, light grew in the darkness like someone turned up a dimmer switch. They were moving east, almost at Mach Four. He had to push it that hard.

  He saw what he wanted and moved so fast that the girls moaned. He plunged down in elevation, did a slingshot around the spired clock tower, and headed straight for the church below.

  Just as he dropped, Satarel swooped from beneath with his flaming sword aimed at his heart. He was between them and the church. Horatius blasted back up into the clouds, but above were Satarel’s demons.

  Horatius yelled in his head to the sentries of the church he’d just tried to enter.

  As fast as he did, three sentries dashed up around him, drawing their swords against the demons. The demons moved in, slashing swords and shooting off arrows. The sentries bore their shields against them, making a wall around Horatius and the girls.

  “Kaitlyn, quick! Climb on my back and hold on. And Chloe, grasp around my waist. I need to free my hands.” He didn’t wait for them to agree but pushed Kaitlyn up and around on his shoulders. He’d have to encase them with the protective field to help them hold on. If he could spare the strength. He pulled his sword and prepared for the moment the defense would break down.

  One of the demons got an arrow through the barricade and Horatius barely deflected it with a late strike of his sword. The same demon strung another arrow and pointed it right at Chloe. He pulled the bowstring taut and his lips curled into a ghastly smile.

  Darryn of the Gate broke into his thoughts. “I am sending over two Guardians. No one else is available. They should be there—”

  The air cracked and sizzled with static. A deep thunderous rumble erupted. Mebahel and Jabamiah appeared in their midst with flaming swords drawn. The arrow let loose and Jabamiah took it before it reached Chloe. When the burning shaft went through him, he shrunk in size and substance, and quivered in obvious pain.

  At the same time, another of the sentries hurled a cannon ball of fire and caught one of the demons dead center. His sword sputtered and dimmed and he, too, shrank in stature.

  Horatius knew he had to get the girls into Sanctuary. The second the opportunity came, when each Celestial was engaged with another, Horatius dove for the church.

  But Satarel had his eye on him. As soon as Horatius made his move, Satarel abandoned his opponent and darted after him. Mebahel jumped in front of Satarel and collided with him in an explosion. Mebahel faded to a mere glimmer of existence, but the impact diminished Satarel and slowed him enough.

  Horatius harnessed his energy, connected to all the electrons in his essence and the girls’ makeup, and he shot toward the church roof. Just before colliding with it, they skipped it and appeared on the other side.

  He pulled to a halt inches from the stone tile floor of the church. They stopped behind a tomb in a burial vault off the main nave of a chapel. He shut down their protective encasement, let Chloe down onto her feet first, then swung Kaitlyn around and down next to Chloe.

  Chloe’s eyes were wide and she was stunned to silence. Kaitlyn peeked out over the effigy on the tomb in front of them.

  “No way!” she whispered. “This is Westminster Abbey. Cello, we’re in Westminster Abbey!”

&nb
sp; A couple walked by and admired the tomb behind which the trio stood. They each held an audio guide to an ear. The older man nodded to Kaitlyn and Chloe. They glanced at an inscription posted by the tomb and moved on.

  Kaitlyn said, “How come they ignored you like that? You’re huge, you glow, you’re gorgeous.”

  “They can’t see me unless I will them to.”

  Chloe looked dazed and had not yet started to blink again.

  “You all right there, Cello?” Kaitlyn asked.

  “We just…” She did not finish.

  Kaitlyn comforted Chloe with a hug. Horatius tuned in and listened to the battle in the heavens above them. The Pure were calling Michael for help. They’d gone right to the top. And their voices were faint. It must have been bad. The thoughts of the Fallen were cocky. And loud.

  A deep, demonic battle cry echoed through the rafters of the cathedral.

  Horatius stole a glance outside of the tomb vault. Most of the tourists out in the chapel didn’t notice. One rubbed the shivers that ran up his arm. Among a superfluity of nuns, a solitary woman among them and one young girl looked around like they’d heard the noise. They’d registered something. And it was not holy.

  In a shower of sparks, Jabamiah appeared inside the high ceiling of lacy arches, flailing and falling in rapid descent. Satarel appeared after him, but he entered with greater power. Satarel and his sword were twice the size of the Guardian, who was dogpaddling the air as though trying in vain to gain altitude.

  Satarel raised his sword to finish Jabamiah and eliminate him from the sector. One of the sentries crashed past the ceiling with only a little more control than Jabamiah. While still in his tumble, he hurled a cannon ball of holy fire at Satarel, which distracted him long enough for Jabamiah to manifest his flaming sword.

  Horatius ducked back into the burial vault. The Sanctuary was breached! The unprecedented invasion was an apocalyptic omen. Disaster was imminent.

  “We have got to go. Now,” he said.

  “What was that?” Kaitlyn asked.

  “My house is on fire. My family…” Reality was breaking through Chloe’s fog.