The Proclaimed
'You're the Proclaimed. You are the only one who can carry the Laminia.
Who can kill with the Laminia.'
When Phoebe Murphy hears these words for the first time she doesn't really think much of it. Yes, it's delivered by the two bad boys at school, who may or may not be violent drug dealers but who even knows what the Proclaimed means?
But then before she can even understand their warning, Phoebe is fighting demons who were once her friends to the death and falling further and further into a world she can barely comprehend and learning to trust boys she barely knows. With secrets between everyone around her, a vengeful ex-Proclaimed on the loose and her friends all potential demons, can Phoebe survive this new world?
Excerpt from The Proclaimed:
It was raining, an annoying drizzle that messed my hair and made me feel damp but never wet or drenched. A perfect night for sitting in bed, reading a book, watching a movie doing anything else, except sitting on the edge of a skateboard bowl, watching Wade Rolly and his three stoner friends celebrate his eighteenth birthday by lighting joints and trying to pull off tricky skate board manoeuvres while drunk and high.
Somehow Bennett had got the three of us an invitation to this very intimate, very low key gathering. I’d never met Wade, never heard of him but apparently he was turning eighteen tonight and that put me on duty. I sat on the edge of the bowl, my legs dangling beside Arlo who sat with me, both of us giving up on staying dry. Bennett sat with Wade and his friends, talking in low murmuring voices that I couldn’t hear.
‘Sometimes we get invited,’ he replied optimistically.
‘What happens if they don’t have a party but Narnia anyway?’ I asked.
'Natus,’ he automatically corrected me. ‘Usually we have the Scire to tell us before the change, so we’re kind of flying blind at the moment. I don’t know what we do in that case though I kind of hope not to find out.’
‘How many demons have you faced?’ I asked hesitantly, not really wanting to hear a number overwhelmingly large.
‘Too many to count, but they’re not all as hard as ...Miles.’ He stumbled on the name, wanting to respect my memory of him.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Some are easier, less hand eye co-ordinated to start with. Some aren’t meant for this world and can’t see, or even hear. One demon couldn’t even stand after the Natus. It was like some big earth worm thing, one of Meg’s fastest kills.’ He chuckled at the memory.
‘What was she like?’ I was so curious about this girl who seemed to cast a shadow over every part of their world.
‘Headstrong, determined, fiery. She definitely kicked ass.’ He stared off into the distance, wistful, but almost searching, as if she would suddenly appear.
‘Good luck living up to that,’ I mumbled sarcastically to myself.
‘It wasn’t all superhero girl power stuff though, she had a darker side, more vindictive.’ Arlo turned to faced me.
‘What? Come on, you and Bennett clearly adored her.’
‘I loved that girl no doubt, but I didn’t often like her.' He sighed, glancing at down sadly at his friend. 'Bennett did, loved her without question and basically blinded himself to her other side. That’s not love though, that’s infatuation.’
I couldn’t add anything to that; I’d never met Meg so I didn’t live with this complicated memory that clearly clouded both Arlo and Bennett every day. I’d seen her at school, but before I knew who she was and want that meant to me. Like the two boys she hung out with, I’d thought she was the coolest bad girl I’d ever seen, so different from everything I was. She was tall and lean almost skinny but thinking back, I remembered she had muscle. She sported long greasy ratty blonde hair with darker roots, but in the edgy biker girl way; wild, rebellious and uber-cool.
I’d never spoken with her and never saw her speaking with anyone besides Bennett and Arlo but still, she was a presence that people noticed. She’d sit in classes so clearly not wanting to be there, that the teachers wouldn’t even bother to reprimand her, they just work around her as if she wasn’t a student. Guys had tried to hit on her when she first arrived, but her reactions varied from mockery to downright cruelty and word soon got out that she was dating Bennett anyway, so people just steered clear. Teachers, students, even parents, it was a wilful defiance that scared everyone, and now I was learning possibly even scared Arlo.
‘Listen Meg’s complicated and isn’t something you should worry about. Just focus on you, what you’re doing.’ Arlo tried to steer us back, and put himself back into mentor mode.
'What am I doing? Watching Wade get stoned, watching his friend trying to light his farts on fire because we think he’s some super demon,’ I groaned in frustration, kicking my legs against the concrete.
‘Not everyone is an obvious choice-’ Arlo started but was interrupted.
‘Choice for what?’ Sam sat down next to me, Cara trailing behind him, clearly not happy to be getting wet but following along none the less.
‘What are you doing here?’ I turned in shock to my brother, my squealing causing the other party goers to look in our direction.
‘Following you,’ Sam responded angrily. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m here for Wade’s birthday,’ I mumbled weakly, clearly not convincing either of them that I was really involved in the low-key celebrations.
‘Sure,’ Sam hit back sarcastically, looking at the collection of skater boys I would never before yesterday have voluntarily chose to hang out with.
‘Sorry dude, I know it’s weird but Phoebe was just being a good friend,’ Arlo tried to rationalize our sudden and very fast friendship.
‘Since when were you two so close?’ Sam rightly questioned, looking at both of us, with a disbelieving glare. His query wasn’t answered though because at that exact moment, Bennett called out to Arlo.
‘We got some movement here,’ he shouted, indicating to Wade who was now lying on the ground, shaking violently. In our confrontation with Sam and Cara, no one had noticed that Wade’s friends had passed out, and were now lying unconscious at the base of the skate bowl, a giant heap of bodies. Bennett clearly had been spiking their drinks with something, anticipating a possible encounter.
Cara yelped in shock at the scene and both Sam and her leapt to their feet, their instincts rightly telling them to back away from commotion. I turned back to Wade, his body shaking with tension, his arms bending unnaturally and my breath hitched, my own hands began trembling and for a second I couldn’t focus. Arlo grabbed my wrist, almost painfully and whispered urgently, ‘Phoebe, focus, you can do this.’ Despite my internal voice screaming at me to back away, Arlo moved us both forward and helped me slide down into the bowl, whispering in my ear constantly to breath, to focus, to relax. My heart was pounding against my chest, my head yelling in fear at the thrashing body in front of me and my weightless hands wanted to ignore Arlo’s instructions and run away. I wasn’t ready for this, I wasn’t ready to fight another demon, how could one afternoon of breathing techniques even begin to cover the violence I knew these things were capable of.
‘Phoebe, get out of there,’ Sam yelled at me, his protectiveness overriding his own self preservation as he stepped towards to edge of bowl, clearly preparing to get into the fight, despite what he was seeing.
Wade lay at my feet shaking, thrashing, slowly beginning to transform, and I felt Arlo place the knife in my hand, as I watched Sam crouching down and Cara shouting her protest at both of us. The entire scene was spinning wildly out of control and then it lurched again.
‘Hello boys,’ a throaty voice cut across the group and we all spun towards the direction it had come from.
Meg stood there, smiling at us all, enjoying the absolute shock and confused fear that raced through the group merely from her presence. She was exactly as I remembered her, tall and lean, wild blonde hair, and a look of disdain for everyone in front of her. Within an instant she’d run around the lip of the skate bowl towards Cara and Sam, who had barely anytime to react, both just cowering as she threw herself onto them and slammed them both to the ground, punching them both out cold, violent fists connecting brutally with their faces.
‘No,’ I screamed at her and tried to run up the bowl but the rain made it so slippery and I slid backwards, awkwardly into Arlo who was at the same time grabbing me back to him, trying to restrict my attempted rescue efforts. Bennett just stood there frozen, staring at Meg as if he were seeing a ghost.
She rose slowly, confidently, her own Laminia casually resting in her hand and surveyed the scene.
‘Guess you didn’t mention I wasn’t dead huh Arlo?’ She winked over my shoulder to him and I immediately felt Arlo’s grip stiffen, pulling me towards him even tighter.
Meg jumped into the bowl, sliding down the lip and skidding to halt in front the now uncontrollably thrashing Wade, who I’d completely forgotten about.
‘Meg, what are you doing here?’ Arlo uttered, trying to remain calm but even I could detect fear.
'You thought it was over,’ she laughed, her hair swinging across her face with little braids running haphazardly throughout. Her close proximity made her even more frightening because I could see how calm she was, her eyes wide and clear and it was completely unnatural. ‘You thought a simple Lacuna release and I’d just disappear.’
‘Honestly, yes.’ Arlo answered her, talking of things I didn’t understand.
‘Awwwh, that’s a little deluded isn’t it?’ she cooed and then turned her focus to me. Her gaze inspected me, standing there soaked and bedraggled, clutching the knife toward my chest, fear coursing through my veins and clearly visible, not matter how much I wanted to pretend otherwise. I tried to stand straighter, but I just looked pathetic and weedy next to her and we both knew it.
‘My replacement huh?’ She sniffed at me, immediately dismissive. ‘Well, good luck with that,’ she sarcastically grinned.
The boy formerly known was Wade jolted beneath our feet, drawing everyone’s attention to him, as the demon crawled, almost like a dog, towards me. Meg stood back and waved her free hand at me, as if kindly offering me the kill. I stood there though, shocked and open mouthed and it wasn’t until Arlo nudged me forward did I realise I was supposed to act. I meekily lunged at it, the knife raised weakly and I knew even before I attempted it, what a hopeless effort it was. The demon dog reared back quickly, its claws catching my shirt and ripping a gash across my stomach that had me screeching in pain. Without hesitation Meg, moved forward, flinging me aside and grabbed the demon by its neck and slashed its throat clean open, then stamped it down with her army booted heel, and stood triumphantly over its body. The whole encounter was over in seconds, and she didn’t even seem out of breath. Meg never hesitated, never showed any fear, just moved with simple ease and almost enjoyment and as she stared proudly down at me, I knew this girl was more trouble than any demon I was going to face.
I sat curled on the ground, gasping through the pain of the stomach wound, blood trickling between my fingers. Meg stepped towards me, but Arlo blocked her path, staring her down.
‘Don’t,’ he commanded, fuming.
‘This isn’t over,’ she hissed angrily at him. ‘You can have this one,’ she pointed her knife at the now returned body of Wade Rolly. ‘After this though, from now on, I want them.’
‘Meg, if you do this, people will die,’ Arlo suddenly pleaded with her, his voice hitching with pain. She paused for a moment then looked directly at him, the eerie calm returning to her face.
‘I don’t care,’ she shrugged, and almost skipped away, but then stopped and walked towards a still frozen Bennett, who hadn’t moved a muscle since she unexpectedly arrived.
‘All grown up now, are you?’ she giggled at his motionless face. ‘Good, you needed to toughen up. That whiny love sick thing was so annoying.’ Meg smiled at him, running her finger across his cheek, leaning so close to him, I was convinced she was about it kiss him. She didn’t though, just smirked again, and climbed effortlessly out of the skate bowl and swaggered away.
