Lost Paladin: A Dark and Twisted Urban Fantasy (The Broken Bard Chronicles Book 2)

by eden Hudson

  “So, no, to the name thing?” I started walking again.

  Somewhere along the way I’d forgotten what it was like to be in NP towns, to have everyone assessing what they wanted from me and how I could best be persuaded to hand it over.

  Tough—he was when I forgot. He’d been the most sincere person I’d met in forever.

  Yeah, and look how that ended.

  “Just listen!” Finn grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him. He was glaring—not the deep brooding stare he’d affected before, but a furious snarl.

  “Get your hands off me or I’ll start praying.” I guess that Vampires 101 lecture with Harper had finally kicked in.

  Except I was looking him in the eyes.

  Crap. I locked onto at a spot just above his perfect eyebrows before he could mesmerize me. Once bitten…hardy har.

  Finn let go and held up his hands to show that he wasn’t a threat. “Tell me what you want. Anything. I’ll do it if you’ll let me drink off you again.”

  “That’s what this is about?” I said. “Just go to the cemetery and pick up a vamp-groupie.”

  “If you’re going to be a bitch about this, then tell me what you are.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll leave you alone if you tell me what you are.”

  Up at the front of the crowd, Kathan had ended the press conference. He went back to Tempie and took her hand. Together, they headed toward a waiting limo.

  “I don’t have time for this.” I broke into a jog.

  I made it three steps. Then something smashed into my backpack and knocked me forward. I threw my hands out to break my fall, but ended up skidding on my hands and knees in the grass. I didn’t even have time to wonder what happened.

  Someone grabbed my shoulder and flipped me onto my butt.

  “I’ve been cold for three and a half fucking years,” Finn growled. “If you think I’m going to take ‘Fuck off’ for an answer—”

  My brain was still struggling to catch up when a blur from my right knocked Finn off his feet.

  “Nobody touches my sister.” Tempie stepped in front of me, fists clenched at her side. “Especially not some no-account vampire pretty-boy. We are the Destroyer, the Godkiller, and you had better learn some respect or you will be one of the first assholes up against the wall when the last battle comes.”

  I don’t think Finn heard her. He was too busy writhing on the ground, holding the newly concave side of his face.

  “Come on, nerd. Let’s go home.” Tempie slipped her hand into mine and helped me to my feet. “And don’t you dare say anything about Mom. I mean our new home, our real home.”

  Tiffani

  I left the cabin numb. The pain hit a few miles later, halfway across the Hickses’ field. I stopped walking and patted my pockets for cigarettes. Took a shaky breath.

  That was a mistake. I smelled Colt everywhere. This was his footpath I was following, an as-the-crow-flies line through the sun-scorched hay toward Halo. His scent had faded over the past month and a half while he was with Mikal, but the super-smeller picked it out of the dirt, out of the oldest weeds and grass, right out of the damn air. Gun oil, tattoo ink, sweat, heat, sunlight.

  The raw scratch of his voice echoed in my head, “You’re the last person I want to remember.”

  A month ago, if you’d asked me, I would have said nothing could hurt like the day I found out Mikal had enthralled Colt. Fifteen years ago, I would’ve said nothing could hurt like the day Tough stumbled into my bakery, bleeding from his eyebrow, and asked me to please call his daddy because the angel hurt Mommy. Thirty years ago, I would’ve said losing Shannon to Danny. And fifty years ago, I would’ve said finding out I was the reason Aaron and I couldn’t conceive, losing my husband to his very fertile secretary, and having my family shun me because of the divorce.

  When you’ve been a vampire for as long as I have, you begin to get perspective that most humans don’t live long enough to see. You start to realize that there’s always going to be something that hurts worse.

  If it had just been the territorial vamp reaction of hearing Colt say that he loved Mikal and didn’t even want to remember me, I could have handled it. I had been suppressing emotion since long before I’d gotten made. Vamp instincts weren’t much different.

  But Colt had gotten under my skin. Known exactly which buttons to push. So much like Shannon and yet so different. Shannon had found a sweet boy her own age to fall in love with and marry. Colt had just kept following me around like a lovesick puppy, smiling those self-conscious smiles, making those dry jokes, letting me lean against him for warmth.

  I fought the urge to scream, bit my tongue. Vamp venom leaked into my mouth for a few seconds before the healing closed the wound.

  Two days ago I’d been resigned to the fact that Tough was going to have to kill Colt to save him from Mikal. I’d known Tough wouldn’t have time to make Colt a vampire before Mikal killed them both, but I had convinced myself I was okay with that. Anything to get Colt away from that bitch. Anything to stop the hell she was putting him through and put an end to his suffering.

  I laughed and swiped at my eyes. I should’ve known Colt was too damn stubborn to stay dead.

  Truth was it was my fault for getting my hopes up, for thinking this resurrection would be my second chance, that Colt coming back from the dead was a sign. By now I should have known that there were no second chances.

  But for five years, I had listened to his heart race whenever he saw me. Felt his muscles tighten like whipcords whenever I touched him. Smelled the endorphins and arousal and relief whenever we were together. I never made a move. Convinced myself there were too many things wrong with it. Even if my having been in love with his mother wasn’t enough, Colt was still young enough to be my great-grandson. He still loved God and believed in the holy war that Danny had convinced Colt they’d been chosen to fight.

  Colt should have found someone his own age, some good, sweet girl who would make him happy. Someone who shared his faith and his passion and who would’ve gotten him help when he started to fall apart. Someone who deserved him.

  Colt shouldn’t have wanted me. Five years I’d told myself that. Now he didn’t. I’d gotten my wish.

  I laughed again. This was the most I’d laughed in more than a month. It hurt like hell.

  Ryder

  “Sunshine?” I squatted down on the bedroom floor.

  Colt hugged his head down tighter to his knees and kept on rocking back and forth.

  “Please, God, make it go away, please—” He sounded like somebody had taken a grinder to his throat. But that’s what you get when you spend all day screaming and all night talking to yourself.

  The only light in the cabin was coming off the flaming sword laying on the floor next to him. The Sword of Judgment. He had sent Mikal to Hell, so he got to keep her steel. Kind of made sense in a life’s-one-big-video-game sort of way. But not in a keep-sharp-incendiaries-away-from-nutcases kind of way.

  “We don’t got time for your mental breakdown bullshit right now, Sunshine,” I said.

  It was a miracle an army of fallen angel foot soldiers hadn’t burnt the cabin to the ground yet. Or blown it to hell. Kathan would probably get a chubby at the symmetry of blowing up the crazy holy soldier who’d blown up half his compound and sent his second-in-command to Hell, all while ruining that fancy Armistice Celebration welcome party.

  I’d already tried shaking Colt. Smacking him. Yelling at him. I hated to kick a guy in the sack, but if there was a chance that might snap him out of it…

  “Listen up, Sunshine,” I said. “You got ten seconds to pull your shit together. After that, I’m going to ring your bells with my boot.”

  Nothing.

  I took my Copenhagen out and got a dip. Tapped the can for a little while, then put it back in my pocket. Spit in my spit bottle. I even made a lap around the bedroom—while making sure to avoid stepping on the flaming sword.

  I stopped pacing and
looked at Colt.

  “Fuck!” I yelled. “I told you this would happen! Why don’t you ever fucking listen to me?”

  Because bullheadedness runs in our family like cancer. That’s why.

  I scrubbed my hands across my face. “What’s the point of even having me around if you’re not going to listen?”

  But I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that one, too.

  Here’s how I think it went down: I was chilling in Heaven with Jesus and Mom and Dad and Sissy, maybe talking to some pretty little country thang died in a hunting accident or four-wheeler rollover—something sexy like that—when I heard Colt clicking for me.

  Back in elementary school, me and Colt figured out how to click our tongues just right so that the sound would carry about a mile—or at the very least, down the hall from the sixth grade classroom to the fourth grade classroom during standardized testing. Which, as it turns out, will get your ass in trouble. But the clicking came in handy later on when we figured out how to use it to keep track of each other during battles. It doesn’t waste breath yelling and it can call your buddy to you without warning a fallen angel that you’re about to double-team him.

  Anyway, I figure Colt clicked for me and I heard him up in Heaven and God was like, “Yeah, go help your brother. Git ‘er done.”

  If that’s how it went down, I don’t blame Colt. He was trying like hell to hold his ground, but Mikal just kept breaking him down. He couldn’t handle it by himself.

  What I do blame Colt for is the part where he decided he needed to go back into the Dark Mansion to bust Tough out. I told Colt if he went back in there, he’d never be right in the head again. You just get one brain and that has to last you your whole life. Colt had enough cracks in his brain before Mikal started fucking with it. Going back to her—sending her to Hell—that pulverized whatever jagged little pieces of sanity he had left.

  I waved my spit bottle in the general direction of the Dark Mansion.

  “Kathan’s going to come down hard on you for taking Mikal out,” I said. “Tough, that dumbass, who knows what kind of stupid shit he’s getting into? And, oh yeah, the end of the world’s coming and you have to keep the forces of evil from winning the last battle. The whole world and all of Heaven’s depending on you, Sunshine. You think just because you’re crazy you get to quit? Well, I got news for you—you don’t. Get your shit together. You ain’t done yet.”

  Colt went still and quit talking to himself.

  “Did you just hear me, Sunshine?” I shoved off the bed and dropped to my knees in front of him. “Can you—”

  Something screeched outside. Sounded like feedback from a PA system.

  “COLT WHITNEY.” Rian—fallen angel foot soldier and the next worst thing Halo had to a corrupt backwoods sheriff. “COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS OVER YOUR HEAD OR WE WILL BLOW THIS CABIN APART WITH YOU INSIDE.”

  I grabbed Colt’s arm and dragged him toward the bedroom window. “Come on, Sunshine. Time to haul ass.”

  Colt pulled away from me long enough to grab Mikal’s fiery sword off the floor. Wouldn’t want to forget the crazy guy’s sharp object.

  “I’LL GIVE YOU TEN SECONDS, WHITNEY,” Rian said. “ONE. TWO. TEN.”

  I smashed the glass out of the bedroom window. Damn thing always sticks in the heat, anyway.

  “READY OR NOT, HERE WE COME.”

  More glass shattered out in the living room and kitchen. A bunch of heavy, metallic-sounding shit hit the floor, bounced, and rolled. Nothing quite as effective as the sound of ordnance dropping to put some hustle in your get-along.

  Colt climbed through the window. He cut his arm up pretty good on the way out, but it didn’t slow him down. He hit the ground running and sprinted for the trees. Would’ve been a great plan if he hadn’t been carrying a bright, burning target in his hand.

  “Toss it, Sunshine,” I hollered. “Drop the sword!”

  He didn’t listen to me. Imagine that.

  Less than a yard into the tree line, Colt skidded to a stop, kicking up dead leaves and sticks.

  I was just about to scream myself hoarse with frustration. Because seriously, fuck this. Fuck trying to help crazy lunatics live long enough to save the world.

  Then I saw why he stopped.

  The light from Mikal’s flaming sword glinted off the business end of half a dozen rifles. Each and every one of which had a fallen angel attached to it.

  Out in front of the cabin, the loudspeaker clicked on again.

  “OH, HELL.” You could hear the shit-eating grin in Rian’s voice. “DID I FORGET TO MENTION THAT WE GOT THE PLACE SURROUNDED? DON’T YOU GO TRYING TO RUN OFF, NOW.”

  Desty

  I had ridden in a limo once before—when Tempie got her boyfriend to rent one for prom—but that time, the limo had been full of partying seniors. Tempie had laughed and drank and took turns sticking her head out the roof to “Whoo-hoo!” with the rest of them. I’d sat by the door, trying not to get stepped on or spilled on, and wished I would’ve stuck to my guns about staying home.

  But I’d let Tempie talk me into it—like always—because she said she wouldn’t go if I didn’t and twins should stick together. Never mind the fact that we barely saw each other anymore because I spent half my non-school time working at the grocery store trying to pay bills Mom should’ve been worrying about, while Tempie spent most of her time with her boyfriend or locked in our room with her music cranked, working on her fallen angel groupie blog.

  Looking back, I guess prom was the last time Tempie and I actually did something together. Two months after that, she ran away. Maybe she had wanted me to go to prom with her as a goodbye. Only Tempie would think you could say goodbye forever in a limo full of drunk idiots.

  Now, as we drove away from the square in the fallen angels’ limo, I watched my twin. She was lounging on Kathan’s lap, fingering the lapels of his suit jacket.

  Mayor Kathan Dark, fallen angel alpha, leader of the first NP-run town in the US, creator of the NP legal system, potential commander of legions in the last battle. One thing you could say for Tempie—she didn’t do things halfway.

  And apparently neither did Kathan. He pulled Tempie into a kiss that probably bruised the pit of her stomach. She moaned around his tongue.

  “So,” I said, louder than necessary. “A press conference.”

  Kathan disengaged himself from Tempie.

  “Alerting the media is a necessary evil in the Age of Information,” he said. “The human and NP communities of Halo look to the Dark Mansion for stability and strength when something like this happens.”

  Tempie squirmed on Kathan’s lap while he talked. Apparently, he had a much easier time switching gears from sex to professionalism than she did. I tried not to look at her.

  “How often does something like this happen?” I asked.

  Kathan smiled humorlessly. “More often than you would think around here.”

  “Because of Colt,” I said.

  Kathan shifted Tempie off his lap.

  “I know you’ve spent a lot of time with the Whitneys over the past week, Modesty—and yes, I know about your part in their attack on the Dark Mansion. I want you to understand that I don’t fault you for being sucked in by them. Harder-hearted, more experienced women than you have fallen for Tough’s act.”

  “This isn’t about Tough,” I said. Which was a straight-up lie. Blowing up the barn and the foot soldiers’ barracks had been a distraction so Colt and I could get Tough out before Kathan staked him.

  “Modesty, I know what happened,” Kathan said, his face a mask of concern. “Gossip travels fast in a town this size. What Tough did was in no way a reflection on you. It wasn’t because you weren’t good enough or beautiful enough. He would have cheated on you eventually no matter who you were. There isn’t a human or NP in existence who can give that boy enough love or attention to satisfy his narcissism. You were just a body to him.”

  I bit my lips together. The nights at the bar came back to me. Wa
tching Tough play, listening to the crowd screaming for him, seeing the way he transformed as soon as he stepped onto the stage. It was like he came alive just for that second.

  But what about all the times I’d found Tough alone in his room, playing that beat-up acoustic guitar? Jax had said Tough did it to get away. He couldn’t leave physically, but he could when he was playing.

  “You’re wrong,” I told Kathan.

  “I wish I was.” He was giving me a look I’d seen way too much over the last few days—like he felt sorry for me for being so naive.

  “And what about Colt?” I said. “Telling everyone he’s a racist, like some Human Rights terrorist—”

  “Modesty, he hates an entire race. If you can supply me with another word that captures that, I’ll be happy to amend my statement.”

  “Some words might be correct by definition, but in practice, they’re as false as any other word,” I stuttered. But the whole time I was grasping for my point, my brain was screaming, Idiot! You think he doesn’t know that? He’s been lying with the truth since pre-prehistory. He probably invented words.

  Kathan smiled at me like a patient teacher with an exceptionally stupid student. “Even disregarding his hatred for my kind, Modesty, you can’t argue that Colt isn’t a danger to himself and those around him. Quite honestly, as close as you got to him, it’s a miracle you’re still alive.”

  This time I kept my mouth shut. Just that morning I’d had Colt’s hand around my throat, the muzzle of a gun digging into my cheek. I could still see the slow turn of the gun from my head to his. I could hear him begging me to understand why he needed to kill himself. “Once she’s in, there’s no other way to get her out.”

  “I’ve given Colt every opportunity,” Kathan said. “Tried to get him help. When they were in school, I tried desperately to get all of the orphans of the NP-Human Conflict into counseling, but none of the Whitney children would go. I felt—I still feel—partially responsible for Colt’s mental instability. Giving him to Mikal after he murdered her familiars was the kindest thing I could think to do. It was meant to be a quick end, a time of peace, a few days without having to fight the hell inside himself before death. And Mikal loved him in her own way, tried to protect him from himself. But we underestimated just how far gone he was. I can’t make that mistake again, Modesty. Mercy is no longer an option. Too many NPs and humans have suffered because of my lenience.”