Chosen (The Chosen Few Trilogy #1) (24 page)

Then from behind Ken
came a sleepy voice that
made his heart stop.

“
What
’
s going on, Ken? Is my dad around?
”

Lucy! Logan
’
s daughter!

Ken’s heart froze over as Jondal’s attention flicked towards him. Powerful, incessant words crept into his brain.

Turn. Smile. Walk up to her. Then throttle her. Watch the life fade from the young ones eyes, smile as her blackening tongue escapes her lifeless lips. Take the life of the young one, but don
’
t take your own. Her father will do that for you. Later.

Ken’s face went slack with anguish.
T
error and denial fought Jondal
’
s iron will behind Ken
’
s wide blue eyes.

Lucy stepped towards him.

Please,
he prayed.
Please someone stop him.
Or me.
Don
’
t let him do this.

Ken lurched forward. Lucy stared at him in confusion, then smiled.
“
Are you having a laugh?
”

Please
…

Lucy must have seen the massive conflict in his eyes. For at that moment she paused, and stepped back. She brought a protective hand up to her throat.
“
Ken?
”

Ken collapsed to his knees as Jondal
’
s will
left him. He hit the carpeted floor hard, banging his head and seeing stars. Then
he sensed someone step
past him.

On his knees, on the carpet, he blew the hair out of his eyes and looked up.

NOOO!

Jondal himself now confronted Lucy. Logan
’
s daughter was gazing up at the Destroyer through
vacant
eyes.

Jondal struck her with an open palm. Lucy
’
s head snapped sideways. Jondal hit her again, and Lucy staggered. But after a second she regained her balance and went back to staring blankly up into the Destroyer’s hell-scorched eyes.

Jondal grinned with
malice and handed Lucy the
paring
knife. Ken squeezed his fists into the carpet. He willed his limbs to obey. Jondal nodded
at Lucy. There was a moment, a s
till seco
nd in time
when Ken struggled so much he felt his heart might burst, when Lucy hesitated to turn the blade on herself, when Jondal backed up in surprise as if he thought she might resist him.

Then Lucy cut her left arm, deep, so that the blood welled up and poured. Without a sound she switched the knife and cut into her other arm. Jondal
’
s terrible laughter made Ken want to commit murder, and to cry. He stared helplessly at Lucy, who stood with her arms held at her sides, dripping streams of blood onto the floor.

Ken strained with every fibre of his being, exerting so much pressure he thought his head would explode. He couldn
’
t do it. Couldn
’
t move. Tears of despair sprang from his eyes.

He could not save Dean Logan
’
s fifteen
-
year
-
old daughter.

Lucy brought the
paring
knife up towards her throat.

“
No!
”

Someone used Ken as a springboard. Someone athletic and
confident leapt onto his back an
d then launched himself
at Jondal.
Jesus, man, that
’
s Ceriden!
Ken planted his forearms.
This time.
Trumpets blared as he
gained his feet. Where were the dancing girls?
L
ate, as per fucking usual.

Ken saw Ceriden strike Jondal with every ounce of his impressive bulk, knocking the Destroyer almost through the wall. The thin man hit hard, his bony frame doing nothing to protect him.
Plasterboard cracked amidst
plumes of dust. Jondal gasped
and stumbled, pointing fingers at Ceriden, but the vampire King grabbed his wrist, jerked it high and leapt three feet off the ground to deliver two rib-cracking kicks to Jondal
’
s sternum.

Jondal collapsed, writhing in agony. Ceride
n bent down and delivered a
palm strike to his neck, rendering him unconscious.

“
Step back, my darling
”
Ceriden said to Lucy
.
Lucy backed up slowly, her mouth set in a perfect
‘
o
’
of surprise and shock. Ken thought the pain hadn
’
t registered yet. Ceriden ripped off his shirt and started to bind her wounds.

“
My dad,
”
Ken heard her saying.
“
Where
’
s my dad, Ceriden? He said he would never leave me again.
”

Ken climbed to one knee
and twisted his head around, almost too terrified to look. Dementia stood with her back to the kitchen door, the wicked blade held steady in front of her.
Ou
tnumbered, she practically
hummed
with confidence.

“
It isss sssstaylemaaate,
”
Ken winced at the sibilant tones th
at trickled across her crooked
lips.
“
You willll not take me without blood and painnn, little onesssss.
You might not take me at allll.
”

No one moved forward,
or
back. Not an inch.

“
Sssstand back,
”
Dementia hissed.
“
Sssstand down. Keep Sssspirit. He is of no con-ssss-equense to meee,
”
The demon woman shook her white hair defiantly and
the finger
bones rattled around her neck.

“
Agreed,
”
Myleene said very quickly.

Nothing changed.  Ken knew everyone in that room wanted to take the demon bitch out.

Myleene grated her words more forcefully.
“
Now is not the time.
”

Ken sensed the
tensions slacken
. In a second Dementia had opened the door; in another second she was gone.

3
6

YORK, ENGLAND

Do you ever think that you
’
d give anything,
anything at all,
for that one particular event not to have happened? Picture the event now. Can you see how your entire life might have turned on that one inconsequential or devastating incident?

Sometimes we never see it. Sometimes we see it only in retrospect, and wonder what might have been.

Me, I knew this was it. When I came home from rescuing Belinda and almost getting Natalie
Trevochet
killed, I read the utter devastation in my daughter’s eyes. I read the betrayal. I walked into her bedroom, but stopped inside the doorway, stunned.

Lucy was sitting on the bed, alone and looking so vulnerable and despondent
.

“
Lucy. I-
”

“
Don
’
t you say you
’
re sorry,
”
she said
.
“
You don
’
t get to apologise.
”

“
But-
”
I stopped talking. No excuses. She was right. Did it matter that I
’
d thought she would be safer here than anywhere in the world, protected by elves and a vampire King and so many capable people?

Did it matter?

No. Because I
’
d sworn
I would never leave her again.

I felt breathless all of a sudden, and I had to sit down on the vanity chair. I watched my daughter, my eyes desolate.

Lucy held up freshly bandaged arms.
“
Do you see this?
”
her voice raised.
“
Do you?
”

I stared at her, speechless. I don
’
t think I
’
d ever felt so hollow and wretched. Even after Raychel vanished.

“
Please leave me alone,
”
Lucy stared at the door, at the wall, at the floor, anywhere but at me.

“
Please,
”
she said, and I turned away so she wouldn
’
t see my
anguish
. I left her room, and
closed the door
.

That was the moment.

A conversation was occurring in the big conference room when I walked in. The whole household was there, save Lucy, Belinda, and the
Trevochet
’s
. I took a seat next to Holly and tried to ignore her sympathetic stare.

A few moments earlier my mobile had started ringing- the tone ‘My Immortal’, that amazing, mournful tune. The call was from Lucy’s school. Real life was intruding, making everything more complicated. I threw the mobile against the nearest wall, then spent five minutes picking up the pieces and fixing them all back together.

Now, I caught the tail-end of what Myleene was explaining- how Belinda had been hit out of nowhere by a veritable Molotov cocktail of images. Whilst she struggled to recover, Ashka had injected her with some heady concoction of drugs, and had then driven her and the
Trevochet
’s
over to the abandoned Bonding Warehouse.

“Thank God for Kinkade,” Felicia was studying the bruises that covered her arms, the results of her own bespelled attentions.

“It wa
s Ashka’s chance to hurt us
badly,”
Myleene said.
“
So badly that we might never have recovered. If she had killed Belinda, and then the
Trevochet
’s
I
can
’
t imagine what we would have lost.
”

But evil is evi
l for a reason. And that
means a simple killing is out of
the question. Ashka had
been hoping to draw their deaths out all night.

“
Kinkade saved them. And our efforts.
” Myleene smiled
.

Mai, the vampire girl, cleared her throat.
“Vipas
died out there tonight.
”

Jesus.
I pinched the bridge of my nose.

I missed the next ten or fifteen minutes. Despair played havoc with my heart. I
realized
I was ready to walk away from all this if it meant I could save my relationship with Lucy. I wanted the controlled chaos of our normal life back. Our Victory Wall. The ‘old man-hopeless child’ jesting sessions. Our father-daughter nights out. I mean, why the hell had I been chosen anyway?

I dr
ifted back. A
disheveled
Giles
was explaining how Jondal and Dementia had broken into the house.
“
Call it complacency. Call it lack of foresight. We thought Ashka was our only enemy in York. Gorgoroth
’
s followers are spread so thin, we didn
’
t think there
’
d be
any
more here.
However,"
he paused.
“Their finding us rai
ses that
terrible issue. Again.
”

I tried to focus.

“
Ashka knew where Belinda would be and at what time. Jondal and Dementia knew our location
…”
Giles
let it hang.

Felicia whispered.
“
How?
”

Mai’s normally placid face was twisted with hate. “A
betrayer,
” she hissed, her voice filled more venom than a Black Widow. “One I will find and
kill.”

Undoubtedly now, there was a traitor among us. Someone we trusted worked for an evil so
extreme
it made Satan look like a naughty schoolboy.
Of course, w
e
already
suspected th
is but had done nothing
to flush the traitor out.