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church, or an old house. A feeling of time and pride and wealth.
    And he’d seen demons. There was no denying they existed.
    “So how did you come into all this?” he asked Jessica. “You said before that you weren’t a Sentinel.”
    “No,” Jessica replied. “However, ordinary people have been welcomed into the Sentinel fold for centuries. Those with particular talents. That’s why I was brought in. My Sensitivity meant that Isabel was training me to become a Sentinel, though she didn’t tell me that at the time. When she died, leaving none to take up residence in Hallow House, I became the Vaktarin .”
    “Esus saw the potential in her,” Isabel said. “He had watched her since she was a child. I suspect he thought she was somebody else.”
    “And I have protected the house ever since,” Jessica explained. “It is my magic that shields the house from external forces. For five hundred years, a barrier has enclosed the house – a barrier that you punched through when you pulled Raymond Snelling inside.”
    The guilt was a blow to the gut, but Nicholas saw that Jessica wasn’t reprimanding him. Understanding shone in her eyes. Perhaps she knew how isolated he’d felt since moving here; that he knew things were being kept from him. Could that be the reason she was telling him all of this now?
    “The barrier has been reinforced,” Jessica continued, no doubt attempting to prevent Isabel from adding her own commentary. “What happened with Snelling won’t happen again.”
    Nicholas felt dizzy with all that he’d learnt. “Well…” he began. “That just leaves me. How do I fit into all of it?”
    “You’re an emissary of the Trinity.”
    The new voice boomed into the cavern. It set Nicholas’s teeth on edge.
    Esus.
    The mood in the underground chamber changed as the phantom emerged from the shadows.
    Nicholas wasn’t sure if he’d been there all along, listening to them talk. The silver mask caught the candlelight and pitch black eyes flashed like polished pebbles.
    “What does that mean?” Nicholas asked, refusing to be intimidated by the figure, despite what he’d just heard about him. He couldn’t fathom how ancient Esus was.
    “Restrain from using big words, they confound him,” Isabel drawled and Nicholas shot her a glare.
    “You were born with certain gifts.” Esus’s voice drummed hollowly. “You were chosen by the Trinity even as you slumbered in the womb, but a seed of a man. It was you they chose, you they imbued with a drop of their heavenly power – and you who can revive them again.”
    “Revive them?” Nicholas began. “What do you–”
    “The knowledge resides dormant in you. It is your duty to unlock it by any means necessary.”
    Nicholas was dumbfounded. This was what was expected of him? This was the reason he posed such a threat to Malika and the Harvesters? He didn’t want to believe it. He felt a delirious impulse to laugh, or demand proof. And he would have if it wasn’t for the three pairs of eyes fixed on him. He swallowed, his mouth dry.
    “Why would they choose me?”
    “It was not you alone. There was another,” Esus continued. “A girl. The Trinity chose two. You were raised within the Sentinel fold by Sentinel parents, but she is lost to us. You must find her, return her to us. The Trinity chose the two of you for a reason. Only together will you be able to rouse the Trinity and banish all that ails the world. Without her, it’s possible we are all doomed. If the agents of the Dark Prophets should find her first...”
    Nicholas wasn’t sure how to defuse the pressure building in his head. Perhaps this really was why Jessica had kept things from him. He imagined steam blasting from his ears.
    “We have reason to believe that she is in Bury St Edmunds,” Esus intoned.
    Nicholas knew the town. It wasn’t far from Cambridge. He’d been there when he was younger.
    “Which is precisely where Mr Wilkins is headed,” Jessica added softly. “A