Guardians (Chosen Trilogy Book 2) (21 page)

The cloud engulfed them. The pilot nosed the aircraft down as fast as he dared. For a moment the skies outside the window grew so thick with demons that Lysette saw only blackness
; not the F16s, not the clouds, nor even a speck of light. Terrifying faces smashed into her window, inches away, scraping the glass and snarling, then falling to the side only to be replaced with more. The plane juddered.

Jade strapped herself in. Lysette closed her eyes in terror and did the same.

“If you know any angels,” Jade said. “Pray to them now.”

Before Lysette could speculate as to the meaning of that statement
, the sound of an explosion numbed her ears. Their aircraft rattled and shook. But a second later the skies cleared and she could see once more.

Though she wished she couldn’t.

Shockingly, blood dripped down the outside of her window; thick black glutinous blood. Some demon hide stuck to the glass too, fluttering like an angry wasp. Beyond that was a scene of madness, a tableau straight from a renowned artist’s vision of hell on earth.

Demons flew through the skies, flitting
, weaving and flapping their membranous wings. In their jaws were parts of aircraft and parts of men. Their talons dripped blood. Below, several jet fighters spiraled toward the ground, defeated, leaving trails of debris in their wake. Other F16s had now arrived, and the battle for victory raged through the skies above Florida; the strangest and possibly greatest aerial battle the world had ever seen.

Thousands of demons fought dozens of jet fighters; this was
hell calling on all its reserves, every demon that had made it through, and this was every available fighting plane that could make it to the battle. Bullets were drifting clouds in the air, blowing apart clusters of demons in a wet haze. Missiles streaked in between. Several planes were almost covered in crawling demons, with many more flapping and hovering outside windows and cockpits, clawing furiously at the glass, snapping at metal and supports. Clever pilots sent their planes into death-defying aerial maneuvers, shrugging demons off at every twitch and turn, but there were always more. Many more.

Up close, Lysette stared in horror at the bunch of demons
that sat on her wing. Like a row of fairground gargoyles they perched, peering across at her, a mischievous fury in their inferno-bright eyes.

“Please no
,” she breathed. “Please don’t.”

The ground rushed up at them, the pilot now starting to level off a little. She hadn’t realized they were so close to the ground.
She could see hangars, parked planes, racing vehicles full of men, and a terminal building.
But even so,
she thought,
even so, what chance do we have?

“Stay strong
,” Jade said as if
she
could read
Lysette’s
thoughts. Maybe she could. Elves did communicate through telepathy.

The plane roared. Demons streaked by outside, not realizing how close they were to the ground and struck hard at terminal velocity, becoming mere bowling balls of dead parts. F16s swooped in as low as they dared, darting up at the last possible second and ridding themselves of dozens of enemies whilst many more simply crashed into the concrete runway.
Another F16, felled by the winged horde, crashed to the side of the runway, fire exploding from its heart.

Lysette sucked in a deep breath as the demons at her side reached for both the left engines and ripped them viciously from their moorings. The same thing must have happened on the other side because, without jet propulsion, the
airplane fell out of the skies, dropping like a heavy stone.

Lysette clutched her plastic seat handles with every ounce of her strength, as if they could save her from dying. The empty space through which the
airplane dropped seemed to take an age to pass by. The impact was late. She found herself leaning forward and going rigid, every muscle taut.

Then, leisurely, the line of demons took off, a black cloud rising, and she knew the impact w
as imminent.

The landing was horrendous; the wheels folded, the belly crashed down hard. Lysette saw Lucy and Ethan, Ceriden and Cleaver, Jade; all holding on for their lives
, but she had thoughts for nobody now but herself. That was the thing about plane crashes. Essentially, when it came down to it, you were well and truly on your own.

Overhead
baggage compartments crashed open, deploying their cargo. Jade moved her head out of the way as a metal suitcase crashed into the back of her seat, denting the headrest. Lysette’s lower body hurt as she pitched in her seat, the seatbelt strap doing its job. Her skull smashed against the bulkhead and she saw a demon flying along outside, watching their progress and snapping its jaws together as if in anticipation of the coming kill. Sparks flew up all around it, leaping from the contact between fuselage and concrete runway. Like a missile it shot along, dragging its body and breaking up as it went. Lysette saw the cockpit shear off and then knew they were in trouble.

Real, mortal trouble.

Deadly debris whirled down the middle of the plane, swirled by a gust of sudden air. The front of the plane had gone. The pilots were gone. The aircraft’s fuselage veered at a thirty-degree angle. Structural cracks shot through the structure, one over Lucy’s head and another to the far side.

Lysette could only watch.

Already demons were flying in through the exposed nose, filling the gap and flapping to prevent themselves from being blown inside too fast.

And still Lysette could only watch.

Then it happened. The horrible thing. Lysette had set Lucy in her charge, tried to look after her, and pretty much failed. Now, the plane burst open around the sixteen-year-old. The cracks separated and her part of the plane swerved and rolled to the left.

Disintegrating as it went.

Everything descended into chaos.

Lysette threw up as the plane juddered to a sudden halt. Demons swarmed inside, their wings smashing against bulkheads, their beaks snapping plastic and metal apart. Even so, Lysette cast a glance over her shoulder and out of the window, but Lucy’s part of the plane was just a mash of fragmented rubble.

No . . .

She saw
Marian Cleaver rear up, shotgun in hand and start laying waste to demons like they were garbage. Shell after shell blasted them apart, smashing them even as they croaked and died against the far bulkhead. Ceriden scooted past him, all vampiric rage and vengeance. His strength came to bear, letting him tear limbs and heads from the attacking creatures. Jade was a little slower, hurt by the various impacts, but she soon shook it off to engage in battle. Lysette pulled out a handgun, her only means of fighting, and tried to decide who to shoot.

Why am I Chosen? Why me?

Demons descended on Cleaver in a wave. Surely they could smell the artefact. And then Abaddon himself stalked through the plane, ripping seats and doors apart as he moved, nosing his way toward the beleaguered Cleaver.

Lysette saw truckloads of troops squealing to a halt outside.

And then she heard it . . . a faint whisper . . . a tiny voice in her head . . .

Help. Oh, help me. It hurts
. . . hurts so bad . . . help, please . . .

Words. But not said aloud. Heard only in Lysette’s head and belonging to only one person.

Lucy!

Abandoning
all notions of battle, Lysette jumped from her seat and leaped out of the nearest hole. Her feet hit the concrete hard, her legs folding, and then her forehead struck, scraping across the hot surface.

She saw stars. But it didn’t matter.
Only the voice mattered now.

Do it. Please. I’m dying. Can’t you see? Dying
. . .

Lysette cried. Tears ran from her eyes as she flew faster than she’d ever run before. Her heart heaved. Behind her the battle escalated as the soldiers arrived and engaged the demons. More flying beasts dipped down out of the skies. Lysette ran amidst the horror and the hell, narrowly missed by at least two swooping killers.

Lucy needed her.

She neared the wreckage and saw straight away. She couldn’t stop her stomach from clenching, her throat from choking. She couldn’t stop the sobbing that exploded from her chest.

Do it. Ethan. Don’t . . . don’t . . . I’m going to die, Ethan.

And then the young girl’s eyes met Lysette
’s.

Tell m
y Dad . . . tell him I’m sorry . . . I do love him.

Lysette
couldn’t stop crying. Her knees buckled. Lucy lay in Ethan’s arms, the heavily-cloaked vampire not caring that his exposed hands were on fire. He held the body of the girl he loved, cradled her gently, and he cried along with her.

Lucy lay broken, a piece of metal the size of a steering wheel jutting out of her stomach. Eyes fluttering, she barely moved. But Lysette could hear her thoughts. Ethan couldn’t.

“She keeps saying ‘do it’. To you. Do you know what that means?”

Ethan
sobbed harder and then nodded. “I . . . think so.”

Lysette wiped the tears away. Little Lucy’s eyes flickered once more, pinning her own.

I died when I pushed my mother away. I love my dad so much, but it’s not enough . . . not enough to be whole again.

Lysette sniffled. “You didn’t push her away. She left you because she couldn’t fucking hack it.”

Lucy blinked. She paused. The word-train of self-hurt, of self-blame, stopped streaming through her head for one precious moment.

T
hen she died.

Lysette rushed forward, feeling the girl’s spirit give out.

“Do it!” she screamed at Ethan. Whatever the hell
it
was. “Do it!”

Ethan didn’t hesitate. He bent forward, fangs lengthening and sank them into Lucy’s neck. He drank from her. Then he slit his own wrists and
held the pouring blood to her lips, forcing them open and letting the thick liquid teem down her throat.

Lysette pulled up, horrified.

“She meant . . . she meant . . . oh no.”

Behind her
, screeches and shrieks blasted forth. By pure reaction she turned to see dozens of demons, including Abaddon, rip through the top of the plane, tearing the metal with their claws and teeth. They rose in a huddle, a black beating heart of madness, and they held Marian Cleaver in their midst.

Lysette barely had any emotion left within her, yet still she screamed.

The demons ripped at Cleaver’s body, shredding him. But then Lysette realized that they had only shredded his big duster coat and Cleaver had managed to wriggle out of it, plummeting back down to the floor of the plane.

Score for Cleaver!

But he left the artefact with the demons and Abaddon, seemingly satisfied and already taking fire from the newly assembled army units, screeched a command and led the pack of flying demons up into the skies. Within seconds they were out of sight, leaving a mass of death, flames and heartbreak in their wake.

Lysette turned back to Ethan. “What will happen?”

The boy stared sadly at her. “Within a day she will reawaken—a vampire.”

Lysette could only curse herself. The shock and horror was overwhelming, impossible to take in.
The young girl, Lucy, was gone forever. What would take her place in her poor body?

And what of Logan? The most powerful of the Chosen.

What would he do when he found out?

I was just bidding farewell to the crazy dino
hunters, wondering why I was absolutely certain that we would cross paths with them again—when I got word of Lucy’s plane. At first it was bedlam, sheer hell.

They were under attack. The F16s saved them. More demons flew in through the clouds. More F16s tried to contend with them.

Then the crash. The hell of it all. The long, long minutes of not knowing. I listened with all my heart and soul, all my love, faith and feeling at the forefront of my mind, as the F16 pilots and the guys stationed on the ground radioed in what was happening.

Lucy’s plane hit hard, I knew that. The pilots died.
Demons swarmed it. My heart and my life was in my mouth. My friends were arrayed all around me, listening hard. We knew we could never make the airport in time to help. It was up to the guys on the ground.

Belinda grasped my hand. Tanya Jordan had tears in her eyes, and I knew she was thinking of Lucy. Cheyne and Giles looked as strained and terrified as I
’d ever seen them. Even Natalie put a hand on my shoulder.

We all prayed for our friends. New and old. Family and colleagues. Soldiers and pilots. We prayed.

Then the demons were gone, stealing the artefact from Cleaver’s grasp.

I waited some more, shaking, sweating, grinding my teeth, until someone came on and told us they
’d spoken to Lysette Cohen and Lucy was unresponsive as yet but that she’d be okay. She wasn’t lost to us.

That was all I needed to hear.

THE END

Here ends Chosen
Part Two, written at last, nine years after starting on Chosen Part One and five years after finishing that book. Honestly, there were times when I thought Logan and friends would never get to complete their story.

But they will. Chosen
Part Three will be written and released in 2015. At this stage I’m guessing summer, but please check my website for updates. And check out and Like my Facebook page between October 2014 and March 2015 for a weekly giveaway, including paperbacks! You can find the link on my website.

In other news, my next release will be Alicia Myles 1 in December 2014 and then Matt Drake 9 in March 2015.

If you enjoyed this or any David Leadbeater book please leave a review on the page where you bought it. Seriously, they are invaluable and even more appreciated than rum and chocolate!