Three of us were nearly speared at once. We’ll never last at this rate.
“You’re scared of Paca,” Jude bites out, wheezing through the pain now. “I can feel it.”
“You won’t win. Surrender or die.”
More spears appear in their hands, and they ready them again.
“Final warning. What is your decision?” it asks.
We hesitate, stalling, waiting for inspiration…
“Wrong decision,” it says as all the spears are launched at once.
My breath hisses out, my eyes widen, and I prepare myself for—
The spears slam into an invisible barrier of some sort, glancing off it and falling all around us. My gaze darts around as a familiar black ooze sprays all around, and red lightning crashes through the cavern right behind it.
The entire room booms and rattles as chains shoot up from the ground, and in a matter of minutes, a large chunk of the tin soldiers turn to pure ash.
“Wrong decision,” the voice says again as the rest vanish from the room, blinking out so quickly that it doesn’t even seem like a true siphon.
I spin, spotting Manella, along with a fully healed Pico. A freshly healed Caesar, who has two arms attached to his body, moves into view as well.
They’re silent as they stare at us, and Gage leans down with Ezekiel to lift Jude from the floor.
“Why’d you help us?” I ask them, readying myself for whatever retaliation they may have in store for the beating Paca delivered.
“They truly are still ungrateful little brats,” Pico drawls as he twirls his wand before it disappears from sight. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Manella yawns and stretches.
“Jahl breaching Hell with his fleet of dead, surrendered souls is old news. The cage weakens more daily. You should be more careful. Stay with your girlfriend instead of going off on your own, since you’re all still embarrassingly weak,” Caesar states in a flippant, bored tone as he picks lint off his shirt.
“If anything happens to you four weaklings, our very powerful, yet completely young-again sister, will blow everything to pieces. She doesn’t have much control,” Pico adds as he begins examining his nails.
“We didn’t realize this was even a fucking issue. Why wouldn’t someone warn us about this?” I snap.
“I meant to,” Manella says as he turns and starts walking away. “I forgot. It’ll take Death a few days to heal, and it’s going to be a long, miserable recovery,” he says as he disappears.
“Wait! What the fuck do we do?” Ezekiel calls to the Gemini Twins, as they turn to leave as well.
“There’s nothing you can do. He’ll have to heal organically, and fight the temptation to surrender,” Pico says as he looks over his shoulder, smiling as he does. “It’ll be pure agony. Tell Paca we saved the rest of you. Maybe you’ll learn your lesson now.”
They disappear after that, and I crack my knuckles as I silently wish for the day I can take them on by myself. Surely Paca made us more powerful too, we just haven’t reached that level yet.
Jude’s strangled, muffled roar of pain has me turning around, as he fights not to show too much weakness. But I know it must be damn bad if he’s struggling this much.
“Let’s get out of here,” Gage says in a quiet, lethal tone.
“We’re going to need to get a lot stronger,” I say in the same hushed tone, paranoid we’re being watched or listened in on.
We siphon out, barely managing to make it to the Heart’s true hallway, when the siphon cuts out and we all stumble into the walls.
“What the fuck is happening?” I snap.
“That illusion fucked with our minds,” Ezekiel says, shaking his head as he staggers as well, struggling with Jude.
Jude flops to the ground, cursing and grunting, as I sway on my feet as well.
“Just being in its presence was unbearable, and now the adrenaline is wearing off,” Gage says as he clutches the side of his head, blinking rapidly. “We really aren’t strong enough.”
“It feared Paca,” Jude says through strain, choking on his own blood again.
“Conveniently after her showdown with her siblings and her level-up,” I add.
The clicking of heels against the marble surface has my head jerking over to see Paca strutting down the hallway in a leather outfit of some sort.
It’s mostly a bunch of leather strips strategically placed over her body with tall leather boots to finish off the look. There’s a whip in her hand, and her lips are lined red, as she smirks at us.
“The blood has a temporary effect, apparently. I’m still powerful. Bow before me and this won’t be so bad,” she says as she cracks the whip, and…hits herself in the ankle with it.
She winces, but quickly schools her features. “That worked way better in my rehearsal rounds.”
She cracks the whip again, managing to snap it away from her body, as I just stare at her in confusion.
“Lick my boots,” she says as though it’s an order.
“Did something happen to her head too?” Jude asks from the ground as though that’s paramount in this moment.
He’s still drunk.
It’s probably a good thing for him at the moment, considering the agony Pico promised would come.
Paca’s expression changes, and she drops the whip as her eyes widen.
She turns phantom and zaps to her knees at Jude’s side, shoving his hair away from his face. Her eyes turn volcanic in the next instant, and the hallway starts to wilt all around us, pictures and frames bursting into flames.
“Who did this?” she asks as the walls begin to rattle.
Pico’s warning about her lack of control springs to mind.
“Calm yourself before you implode,” Ezekiel says as he kneels next to her, smoothing a hand up her back. “You weren’t ready for this level-up if you’re struggling this much to control it.”
“Who?” she asks in a chilling tone of her own as her voice seems to echo.
His eyes widen, and he answers as though he’s been compelled to do so. “Jahl.”
She stands abruptly, and I catch her hand.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” I ask her as she struggles out of my grip with too much ease.
She’s a lot stronger.
“To kill the beast,” she says.
I barely manage to throw my arms around her waist, and she cuts those creepy fucking eyes toward me as the room starts burning around us.
“Paca, stop! You can’t go fight him! You’re not ready. Control your wrath for now. Stow it. This isn’t something you can just charge into and half-ass your way through the motherfucking motions!” I yell at her, keeping her pressed to me so she can’t siphon without me, even when she goes phantom.
She doesn’t go phantom, though.
Did she break Lucifer’s hold? Because she went phantom moments ago.
“The twins said to bring Jude to you, and now I see why,” Gage tells her, grabbing her hand and pulling her away from me.
I look down as the flames roll over Jude, and his wound sizzles as the smoke stops pumping out of him. The fire extinguishes the red and black smoke, and Jude breathes out in some relief.
The flames all cease at once, and the smoke reappears.
Jude cries out as though he’s startled by the surprise reappearance, and he clutches his head as he begins to writhe on the floor.
Paca’s eyes return to normal, and she dives to his side, her hand landing on the wound as flames emerge. The smoke disappears once again, and Jude’s hand lands on top of her fiery one.
“Please don’t stop,” he whispers as his eyes roll back in his head and his body goes slack.
His clothes have turned to ash, and he’s naked on the ground. Mine are singed and almost burned, but just barely not. Gage’s are untouched, since he’s still a gladiator. Ezekiel’s are in the same ash pile next to Jude’s.
“He passed out. He’ll be vulnera
ble in this state if you let that flame go out,” Gage tells her. “Stay with him, Paca. Don’t go after Jahl without fully regaining all your power, and give us the chance to get stronger so we can redeem ourselves from this ambush.”
Her shoulders sag in defeat, and Ezekiel siphons the three of them away.
My eyes connect with Gage’s, as we share a silent look. He spins his sword until it vanishes, and his jaw tics.
“Maybe Paca is taking this more seriously than us if she’s advanced that much more than we have,” he states with some ire and restrained fury.
“One thing at a time. Jude needs to heal. We’ll discuss this after he wakes up,” I tell him as I siphon out.
I went from feeling powerful to helpless in the span of one day’s events.
Tomorrow better be fucking better than today.
Chapter 13
PACA
Jude has been still and unconscious for two days, and I’m barely not blowing up. Literally.
More than once the room has caught fire, and everything in it has had to be replaced. Multiple times. We’re now on the floor, because apparently the room got tired of refurnishing itself, and everything is heavily singed or in ashes.
The flame in my hand hasn’t gone out for even a flicker of a second, and my entire body is shaking with fear.
“She’ll need to rest at some point. We have to try to wake him and give her a break,” Gage is saying.
“No,” I state quietly as my nose continues to drip blood, the same as it’s done for two days.
My migraine is almost debilitating. I only crack a joke when I’m dizzy and on the verge of passing out.
I haven’t felt anything but serious.
Hence the reason I’m on a nuclear brink.
“Paca, you fought all your siblings, leveled-up, and you’ve been fighting Jahl’s poison for two days without any rest. He needs to wake,” Kai states softly from behind me, brushing my hair away from my shoulder as he kisses it.
The door opens and shuts, and Ezekiel walks in with Pico on his heels. I snarl in Greed’s direction, but he just quirks an eyebrow.
“Is that any way to greet a helpful brother?”
“You could have warned us about Jahl’s poison before it was used on one of them,” I say as I feel my eyes shift.
His smile falls as the room ignites, and he curses and hops around as he tries to extinguish the flame that’s spread to his arm.
“Paca, hear him!” Ezekiel shouts.
The flames extinguish, but my eyes refuse to turn back to normal.
“I see your control is still heavily lacking,” Pico says as he glances around the fried room.
At my glare, he swallows and rocks back on his heels.
“Lucifer has forbidden all of us, including your little annoying buddy—Lamar—from telling a great many things. Manella joked when he said he forgot to mention it. The truth is, Lucifer has blocked a lot of your information stream, and there’s nothing that can be done about it,” he tells me as he moves through the room, putting his hands behind his back as he studies a few of the scorch marks.
“Why?” Kai asks.
“Because he’s the Devil,” Pico answers, giving us a wry look. “He only gives you the information he wants you to know. He doesn’t want you to challenge Jahl, because you can’t win. You won’t hear reason when you set your mind to something, though. Never would. So he lets you learn things the hard way.”
He gestures toward Jude, and…frowns.
“Why isn’t he in screaming torment?” he asks.
“Because her flame overpowers the poison, so long as she keeps it pressed to him,” Gage answers, pushing off from the wall to move closer to us.
Pico opens and closes his mouth, but no words escape.
“Isn’t that why you told us to bring him to her?” Ezekiel asks him as he narrows his eyes.
“No,” Pico says hesitantly, curious gaze on Jude. “She needed to see the power Jahl has. Even from the confines of its cage, it still manages to do something this elaborate.”
He moves closer, and he waves his hand. Jude’s eyes blink open immediately, and he glances around the room. His eyes narrow on Pico, as one of his arms circles my waist and drags me fully against him.
My heart is in my throat as I study him. The wound closed up after the first few hours on the first day, but he didn’t wake.
“What’s going on?” he asks as his scythe appears on the bed beside us.
Pico gives him an amused expression. “You couldn’t handle Jahl’s lackies but think you can take me on?” he asks, almost as though he’s goading Death.
“Why are you here?” I ask Pico.
Jude’s thumb swipes my lip, pulling back blood that he examines, but I don’t pay him much attention. My eyes stay trained on the second most lethal person in this room.
Hell is full of untrustworthy people with suspicious intentions and incalculable motives. It becomes more and more apparent why the guys failed to trust me for so long.
It’s also more and more apparent why I’m not part of the unit yet. It’s hard to break through that wall when they’ve built it up and fortified it.
No one down here does anything because of the goodness of their cold, black hearts.
Pico’s expression changes, and a bowl of caramel popcorn appears in his hand, as he takes a seat on a mostly intact chair.
“Because I rather like my life the way it is. Humans are feeding Caesar more than ever, and I also feast quite plentifully in this era, more than any other. Aside from you, of course. Wrath will always be fed the most greedily,” he tells us as he throws a piece of the popcorn up and catches it with his mouth.
He gestures around us.
“Five centuries ago, you couldn’t have burned me that way. You relied too heavily on your storm surges—”
“Storm surges?” I ask him.
“You’re The Apocalypse. Of course you have storm surges,” he states with idle abandon. “You fight differently now. There’s a certain passion behind your punches you lacked back then—back when you were cool, seasoned, and calculated. I don’t know what all you’ve changed, but it’s not surprising that you haven’t learned that part of your power yet. If anything, you wanted to retrain yourself, get stronger, and seek that passion that dries out with age.”
His eyes level mine.
“At least that’s my theory, based on my own observations during our battle. There’s a certain excitement that comes with learning everything anew, and a newfound excitement for learning can be more empowering than unlimited knowledge.”
He stands abruptly.
“Unlike Lucifer, I don’t particularly care if you die. If there’s a chance you can win, I’d appreciate you taking it.”
He disappears abruptly before I can ask more questions, and I sigh as I drop my head to Jude’s chest.
“I’m not sure if he was trying to crush our spirits or give us hope,” Ezekiel states flatly.
“Why am I naked?” Jude asks from under me. “And what happened to the bed? Why are we on the floor?”
They all look at him, I keep my head on his chest as I continue to keep my flame alive on the spot where his wound was.
“It’s been a serious couple of days,” Kai drawls, glancing at me.
“Were you stuck in silent agony?” Ezekiel asks him.
“No…I blinked, and the next thing I know, Pico is in the room with us and the room is burned all to shit. What happened?”
“I wish I’d been stabbed now,” Kai grumbles as he goes to sulk in the corner.
Even I find that odd to say.
Gage shoots him a look, but Kai closes his eyes as his head falls back, and he crosses his arms over his chest.
“You got hurt, which means Paca has been on crazy mode. See? He’s fine,” Kai says, keeping his eyes shut. “You can rest now. We all can rest now. Everyone except Jude. I think I should get some attention.”
“What’s his problem?” Jude asks on
a tired huff.
“He’s attention starved,” Gage says dismissively.
Kai grunts, but he doesn’t comment.
“Release the flame, Paca. Let’s see if he’s okay,” Ezekiel says softly as he moves in behind me, kissing my shoulder as I hesitate.
Jude pats my hand as though he’s encouraging the same, the flame kissing his skin, but certainly not burning it.
Warily, I let my flame dry up for the first time in forty-eight hours. My eyes immediately dart up to Jude’s, finding him intently staring down at me.
Kai starts snoring in the corner, and…nothing else happens.
“Is it gone?” Ezekiel asks, peering over, presumably to see if the red and black smoke reappears.
Jude’s eyes stay locked on mine as he slowly nods. “It’s gone.”
“Well, that’s good to know,” Gage says as he sags to a chair and runs a hand through his hair. “This thing isn’t a joke. It’s powerful. That spear ripped right through you, and even drunk, you should have been able to take them down. It’s like it knows our movements, and sees them before they happen. The only ones who died by our hand were put in our paths as intentional sacrifices to slow us down. Maybe we caught a few by surprise, but…”
He lets his words trail off, and Ezekiel clears his throat, as my heart hammers in my chest.
The only reason I’m not storming off to blow holes in my siblings is because three of them saved my guys.
“You’re not allowed to go anywhere without me. Ever again,” I note aloud. “Not even the Black Heart. I promise I won’t blow everything up.”
Ezekiel sighs heavily as he lies down on the ground. “Anyone else feel emasculated?”
At the silent response, he adds, “No? Just me? Awesome.”
“She has a point,” Gage says quietly as I return my attention to him in surprise. “Until we figure out how to fully recharge our batteries, it’s best if she stays close. She’s moving along quicker than us now.”
“That’s because I learned—”
I stop short, deciding not to tell them that if I push myself into survival mode from the beatings…I feel the power-ups. Nope. I don’t want them doing that.
One Apocalypse (The Dark Side Book 4) Page 10