Guardians (Chosen Trilogy Book 2) (18 page)

I
tried to wipe the weariness from my eyes. When that failed, I grabbed a mug of strong coffee. No, scratch that, we were in Orlando. It was more like a bucket of coffee.

I sat on one of the comfy chairs arrayed around
the lobby. Beside me sat Leah Aldridge. We had landed a couple of hours ago.

Curious, she
’d been quizzing me about everything that had happened so far. I’d tried to go through it all, leaving nothing out. This girl deserved the hard, bleak truth. A glass of water and a thick chocolate milkshake sat on the table before her. Watching the struggle between water and shake, between Leah and Kinkade, made me feel sorry for the hurt we’d inflicted upon her.

“I apologize for the
gargoyle,” I said. “I really don’t think we knew how hard it would be for you.”

Leah made a face. “Well,
at least I know now. Been bugging me for a while, this strange change in me. Bed this guy, bed that guy. Eat peanut butter. Try Marmite. Jeez, I even had feelings toward Behati Prinsloo once.”

I tried to look shocked. “Really?”

“Yeah. Who the hell do I sue for damages?”

“Umm. Well, I
—”

“Ha. Don’t worry. Just kidding around. It’s been kinda fun, to be honest. Had me a few parties I might never have risked. Tried
. . . different foods. Everything. Gotta ask though—when’s he coming out?”

I tried to gauge what was behind her startlingly blue eyes. I couldn’t. “Seriously, you should
talk to Giles. Or Cheyne. I’m just the muscle.”

“Yeah?”

The sudden attention unnerved me. I let my eyes drop. “Well, not really. I still don’t know what the hell I’m actually doing.”

Leah laughed, a happy sound that made me smile.
“Been like that my whole life. Each day as it comes, right?”

“I guess.”

My own life had been much more regimented; necessarily so after Raychel left and Lucy required a single-parent upbringing. But it had been worth it—every single second.

“So what’s next?” Leah reached for the water, then quickly grabbed the shake. Before she knew it the glass was to her lips and she was drinking, shaking her head a little ruefully. “Bastard.”

I managed not to apologize yet again. “Well, we have two artefacts. That leaves five. They have one. Our other team are chasing another. Two are in hell, hopefully being acquired by Ken Hamilton and his team.”

“And the seventh?”

“Nobody knows. We think they’re leaving the last one till near ceremony time to make it easier.”

“But without all seven artefacts they can
’t complete the ceremony.”

I made an unhappy noise. “We don’t know. Maybe if they get only three artefacts they can open only three hellgates. We’re researching
the whole thing.”

“Three hellgates?” Leah gulped. “Would be enough.”

“Maybe.”

Giles and Cheyne appeared then, stepping out of the elevator. Giles had a determined look plastered across his face and walked toward the seated Leah without acknowledging me.

“Kinkade,” he said. “We need to talk.”

Leah blinked at him. “So how the hell does that work?”

Giles huffed a bit and straightened his tie. “Kinkade?”

“What
do you want?”

I started in shock. The voice was the same, the eyes were the same, but I had the distinct impression that two pairs of eyes now studied me, Leah’s bright blue ones and, behind them, an ancient set of much darker, much wiser ones.

“We need you,” Giles said. “Back in the gargoyle statues. This seventh artefact and the location of the final ceremony is crucial, it could mean the difference between victory and total destruction. We need your help.”

“I do not wish to leave this paradise.”

“I understand. But the needs of the human race and the world in which you thrive are far, far greater than your own.”

A moment’s silence, then Kinkade said, “What is to be my reward? It should outmatch even this.”

I frowned. Was that even possible? Could he inhabit two at the same time? The entire flock of angels?

Giles pretty much snapped his hand off. “Done. Now let the girl go and return to your ancient post. Communicate in the same way as before. And please, Kinkade, we are quickly running out of time.”

With no discernible act the gargoyle departed. My only clue was the sudden calm that inhabited Leah’s face, the relief.

“Is that it? Is he gone?”

“Easy to depart,” Cheyne muttered. “Not so easy to install. But, yes, he is gone.”

The supermodel stared at us. “So I’m free?”

“Yes. Free to do as you please.”

“Drink the water
,” I said with a twinkle. “Not the shake.”

She did. Her lips curled down. “Damn, now I have a taste for sugar.”

“You’ll get over it.”

Leah faced me. “Everything you said
—it’s all true?”

Giles gasped. “You
told
her?”

I nodded. “Sure. Why shouldn’t she know the truth? You guys practically whored her out without her knowledge. She deserves a little honesty.”

Leah frowned. “Thanks. But less with the ‘whoring’, okay?”

“Sorry.” My hundredth apology.

“I want to stay,” she said. “I want to help. The tour’s over. That demon guy ruined it. Look,” she brandished her cell, “it’s all over Twitter. The company isn’t promoting until this demon business is sorted out. So,” she said. “It’s actually
in my interest
to help you guys.”

Giles glared at me. I glared back, unrepentant. “Fine
,” he said. “She’s your responsibility, Logan. But, please, stay safe.”

My
responsibility. Oh dear. I wondered what Belinda was going to say.

*

I showed Leah to her room and wondered how on earth she was going to fit in. The pessimist in me corroborated the fact that when one Chosen died another took their place. Maybe Leah could be our backup, our substitute. But crap, that meant someone had to die.

Life wasn’t normal anymore. Never would be.

I entered the room I shared with Belinda to find her asleep on the bed, half a glass of wine still clutched precariously in one hand. I leaned over and was about to kiss the top of her head when a loud bellow practically shattered all the windows. The frames rattled and the glass shook. My head jerked up, adrenalin firing. Though we were on the fifth floor I sensed something standing right outside my window.

A month or so ago the notion would have put me in a straightjacket.

Today, I knew it was hell’s outlandish version of a T-Rex.

Quickly I woke Belinda, taking care not to venture near the windows. She came awake and the creature roared again, sending her stiff with fear. Something huge brushed
against the side of our building, rattling the very foundations. I watched the entire room rock.

“Downstairs
,” Belinda whispered. “Now.”

We vacated the room and headed for the
elevators. Several other people were already there, and I even noticed a few tourists. I’d thought the hotel had been cleared of anyone except Aegis personnel but I guess you can never keep a good tourist down.

“You should probably stay in your rooms
,” I said to a hairy guy with a long-lens camera swinging around his neck and a mobile clutched in one hand.

“You kidding? I gotta take some pics for the kids.”

“This isn’t Universal, dude. Or the Jurassic Park ride.”

“Nah.” The guy grinned bravely. “It’s way better.”

I turned away, wishing I could truss him up and leave him in one of the halls. Maybe I could. But before I could act on a plan the elevator dinged and we all piled out onto the ground floor. Cheyne and Giles were at the far end of the lobby, noses pressed to the glass. Tanya was just arriving out of another elevator bank and Natalie was hovering at the back.

I ran forward. “What have we got?”

“Big legs,” Giles muttered. “Bloody big legs.”

I looked over his shoulder. The guy was spot
on. Massive, mottled legs the size of old trees were planted in the car park. The splayed toes flexed aggressively, the sharpened talons digging chunks out of the asphalt surface. Another gigantic bellow and we all flinched away. That sound was terrifying race-memory, a built-in terror alert passed down from caveman days. Guaranteed to practically stop the heart.

I closed my eyes when Giles looked at me.
Shit, this is worse than facing Gorgoroth.

To their eternal credit the whole group stayed with me as I first cracked open and then exited through the front doors. The parking lot before me was a mass of churned
-up asphalt and wrecked cars. The more I inched forward, the better view I had of the creature. Not a pretty sight, but a damn intimidating one. The dark varicolored skin of its legs stretched all the way to a light brown underbelly. Its sides were knotty and armored, scales protecting its sides like they did the hide of a stegosaurus. Arms hung down at irregular intervals from its sides, six in all, arms that appeared to twist in every direction and were capped by talons, blunt battering rams and a thick, wriggling tentacle appendage. As I watched the battering-ram arm struck the side of our building, sending a thick wave of masonry crashing down to the ground. Transfixed, I continued to look up, and up, until I saw its monstrous skull.

Paraly
zed, I forgot even to breathe.

A jaw crowded with racks of teeth, each one shelved
and individually hinged so they could slide and tilt, dripped acidic saliva like a mountain waterfall. A ridged nose like the side of a ragged cliff. Blazing eyes overshadowed by colossal brows, crags so big that men could scale them with pitons and ropes. As I watched, the small, piercing eyes pinned me like a laser beam.

It bellowed, the saliva blasting down at us
; a hurricane of wind and rain. Its legs shuffled, grinding up the surface. Faster than I could imagine, its great jaw shot toward us, teeth sliding apart and extending.

I backpedalled without thinking, unleashing power I didn’t even know I
’d stored up. Maybe it was from Natalie, but the small surge we managed impacted with the beast’s nose, making it flinch.

Sort of.

I mean, imagine a megaton pile of evil flesh and bone stop and shrug. That’s closer to the truth. In any event we slammed back into the hotel as the jaw came again. Slashing down and striking at the pavement; teeth chewing up the paving flags and gnashing at the dirt beneath. Rubble smashed the windows, bombarding the room around us. I saw the brief wink of evil red eyes and then the jaws were gone again, rising up to the skies.

A roar of bloodlust and carnage rent the air.

“We can’t fight
that,
” I said unsteadily.

“We can and we must
,” Belinda said. “It dies now. It is pure carnivore, Logan. It can’t be left to feed on the innocent.”

“Damn and bollocks.”

I shook myself. Again we ran to the doors and slipped through, just in time to almost get trodden on. The creature was turning. Its left foot destroyed the parking lot just a few feet ahead of us as it crashed down, the ground rupturing, the heel sinking. We halted as best we could, knocked off balance. Tanya hit the ground, but jack-knifed her body straight back up. Already I was filling my inner body with force; the expanding power. I felt Natalie join with me, tentatively at first, but then growing stronger, more confident.

I unleashed the blast, straight at the creature’s ribs. The spear of force impacted hard, exploding with a dazzling light that fizzed off in all directions like fireworks. A snort and a roar blasted forth, the leg buckled
, and the body swayed; an unstable skyscraper.

We hadn’t thought this through.

“
Shit!
”

As the T-Rex leaned over we broke the other way, all sprinting as fast as we could. As I ran
, I heard a pounding sound and turned to see the tourist with the big camera jogging along at my side.

“Forget the kids!”
he shouted. “This mother’s going on my blog!

I turned away, blocking out the final, “Though I gotta remember to mark it NSFW
. . .” and fixed on the T-Rex as it lumbered in a slow-motion collapse.

It leaned, it tipped, it yelled like thunder, but the laws of physics still stymied it. With all its weight on its left
, the enormous monster was only going one way. I pulled up to watch, already drawing on more power.

The behemoth
toppled . . . straight into the side of the hotel. Windows exploded and walls collapsed. Concrete shattered. The whole side of the hotel caved in, destroyed: crashing, crunching and smashing in upon itself and falling in a wave of debris toward the ground. Steel joints exploded under pressure. Iron girders warped.