They both disappear when Paca launches a fireball at them, and a tsking comes from behind us. We whirl around to find Cain shaking his head as he snorts a line of something off his hand.
“If you want to keep them, maybe you should just fucking win,” he states as though it’s the most obvious solution to our debacle.
He disappears before the next fireball can hit him.
“If you want a solution to all your problems, you should come with me,” Hera says as she pops in, absently glancing down at her nails as she props against the wall.
I expect a fireball to be hurled at her head, but Paca tilts her head as though she’s intrigued.
Annoyed with her intrusion, I return my attention to Paca. “I highly doubt trusting Hera with the fate of the world and our lives is in our best interest—”
She goes phantom, and she zaps to Hera. I don’t like the smirk on Lust’s lips as the two of them disappear from sight.
“What could she possibly have to offer?” Ezekiel asks as though he’s confused.
“A wealth of males who could become the Horsemen,” Pride says from behind us, continuing this game of Jack-in-the-Box pop-ups.
I start to come back with a witty retort, when his words sink in.
“What?” Kai asks, pushing by me to gawk at Pride. “Are you just being an evil fuck and playing with us right now?”
“He’s telling the truth,” comes Lilith’s voice from behind us, causing us all to do another one-eighty.
She smirks as she blows us a kiss.
“She doesn’t need you for the battle. She just needs the Horsemen’s unity. You guys are struggling to even reach the ‘level’ required to use your true power,” she adds as she struts around, meeting Pride in the middle.
Greed pops in on her other side, and she props up on him. The three of them seem to gloat about something.
“I do love a good lover’s quarrel,” she says through her growing grin. “Especially between my sister and her ever-loyal little puppets. I suppose it’s fun no matter what life you’re living.”
“She won’t take our power away. It’s part of us. She’d never leave us with nothing,” Gage is fast to argue. “Your smugness is a little premature.”
Evil fucking bitch.
I’m not sure why the three of them smile broader.
“Paca going into battle with four different Horsemen,” Greed says with a snort, as Pride’s smile doubles.
“If it is the end of days, at least it got really damn interesting here at the end,” Caesar chirps as the three of them vanish, leaving us alone in the mostly melted hallways.
“Think we pissed her off enough to be that reckless…or wrathful?” Ezekiel asks on a tired sigh.
I open my mouth to speak, and realize…I don’t know the answer to that.
“My siblings only enjoy this so much because it’s bothered them for centuries how truly loyal you are to her.” Manella’s voice has us looking around, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
“However, they forgot to mention something important,” Manella’s voice goes on, before he slowly fades into view in front of us.
We stare, waiting on him to elaborate, as he stretches and groans like this is a bothersome task. We do our best to be fucking patient.
At last, he adds, “If Paca strikes a deal with a temporary set of Horsemen, she’ll have to seal this deal. You should get there before the ‘handshake.’”
“Why did you say ‘handshake’ like it’s code for something else?” Kai is quick to ask.
Manella’s lips twitch as though he’s amused.
“You should thank Lamar for voiding your deal with a simple lie. He’s excellent at deception. Paca can’t seal a deal with her Horsemen…except for one way. You can imagine what my dirty sister needs to do in order to make a binding agreement with powerful men she pledged her life to. It’s certainly not a handshake. You’re naïve for falling for that so easily. So is she.”
It takes me a second to figure out what he’s saying, and…I’m still confused.
“Paca’s not going to fuck some guys to make a deal with them,” Ezekiel says as though he’s caught on.
I ignore the blood that starts boiling in my veins, because the rage is a little excessive for something that will never happen. Paca couldn’t bring herself to—
“If your lives are at stake and she can find four perfectly acceptable replacements to die in your stead, what do you truly find my sister capable of?” he drawls. “I only tell you this, because I disagree with their plan. Only you four can aid my sister on a battlefield where she’ll face the first true adversary worthy of her insufferable, meticulous strategizing, magnificent power, and cunning battle skills.”
He vanishes without another word, and a chill seems to spread through the fiery air in his absence.
“We should split up and try to find her. We’ll go in pairs. Don’t get caught in any illusions,” Gage says as I turn and follow him quickly through his siphon.
Son of a bitch.
Where do we even begin trying to find them?
Chapter 19
PACA
“Their powers will really return to them once these temporary Horsemen die?” I ask, tapping my chin as I stare over the roomful of men who’ve bowed at my feet, showered me with roses from Eden, and given me some priceless gems just for considering them as possible candidates to die in place of the men I love.
You know, in case things go bad inside the Pure Branch. I’m not sure I understand what makes them so eager to be my dead bitches.
Hera is so giddy that it’s…concerning.
She drags me into the room next to the one where the men are, and she shuts the door.
“Okay, so you’ll have to recycle them if they survive, if you really want to return the powers to your guys,” she tells me like that’s the only catch.
“The deal seems too good to be true,” I tell her, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“Does it?” she asks, lips curving in an enigmatic grin. “I’m not so sure your current harem would agree.”
“Why are you so eager to help me out with this?” I ask her, crossing my arms over my chest as I keep a wary eye on my evil sister.
Both of my sisters are crown thieves. Both of them were harem thieves at one point in my past life. They’re not the most trustworthy.
“Because it’s possible, after you do battle with these very eager-to-please boys, you may choose them for your new harem, should you manage to defeat Jahl without them dying. It’s worth it to me to roll the dice and hope to win a bet against Manella. He bet his crown. I want his crown, Paca. I’ve selected only the best warriors who will put the weaker version of your boys to shame,” she says, rubbing her hands together in glee.
I have no intentions of permanently replacing my guys, but a temporary replacement program?
“How would it work?” I ask, watching her eyes light up with a lot of excitement.
“It’s simple really. I have all your notes about how you infused their souls with the power. You’ll remove it, and with their new balance, they won’t be so reliant on those gifts.”
For the next long, boring, tedious two hours, she says a whole lot of really complicated things that I don’t understand at all. If we do this, I’ll have to be walked through it step by step, because…I’m not even as smart as Hera, it seems.
Not that I tell her that. I nod my head a lot, like everything she’s saying makes perfect sense.
I’m exhausted just listening to the detailed, impossibly hard layout involved in changing the Horsemen. I thought it was supposed to be impossible, but clearly it can be done.
So long as I’m the one who does it…
“It’s a winning deal you can’t pass up. All you have to do is make your selection. I even set up some trials for them to run through today in order to make the selection process easier,” she concludes, wrapping up the longest lesson in history.
I still don’t trust her. There’s
no way she’s serving me the secret answer to all my fears on a silver platter with no strings attached. Even she can’t be so petty as to do this because she enjoys watching us quarrel.
This will definitely be a major argument.
“What are the trials?” I ask…timidly.
She snaps her fingers, and we’re suddenly standing in a section of purgatory, if the gray horizon is any indication.
She gestures out to the grounds, and far in the distance, I can see specks. I think those are the Horsemen candidates who are fighting amongst the beasts of that region.
“Do you remember those monsters you struggled with the day Rafael first tested you? The ones who attack in pairs?” she asks me, not giving me time to respond before she continues on as though she’s so proud of herself for coming up with this. “They’re among the hardest to defeat. I created a few more that are even harder to defeat. I pulled out some of the freak mutations that pack a punch as well.”
The guys struggled really hard with those monsters.
“Don’t give me false hope with a hidden agenda,” I caution her as the roar of a beast echoes so loud it vibrates the ground. “I’d lose my temper if this is a game you’re playing.”
I cut my eyes at her, and her smile wobbles.
“We all have something to lose if you lose in this battle. I rather like my life,” she says as her expression turns more serious. “Though the thought of seeing the five of you split up is certainly delightful enough to motivate this plan, the truth is that they’re simply not powerful enough. And you’re too weak when they’re involved. You’ll spend more time saving them than fighting Jahl, and it’s obvious to all of us you’ll lose. They couldn’t even break Lucifer’s hold, and he used to have no hold over them whatsoever. Weak minds lead to quick deaths in a battle with a being that spares no time for hesitation. You’re the only one of us capable of doing battle with it. The rest of us would be consumed and only empower it.”
I cut my eyes back to the horizon, watching as the battle takes a trip into the labyrinth. I suppose this is them doing their part—everyone fighting me so I could level up, and now looking for ways to give me what I want so I go in completely focused. No one is ready to die.
Or they’re playing me like the deviants they are…
“Come. Let’s get better seats,” she chirps.
We’re suddenly on the side of a cliff, as the maze lies beneath us. The men are all fighting those vicious monsters I even struggled with…a few level-ups ago.
I wonder how I’d fare now.
“These four are in trouble,” she tells me, pointing to a set who are pinned down by five of those huge monsters at a dead-end in the maze. “What sort of gift should I give them?” she asks, more to herself than me.
The chakrams appear on my hips, and I smirk as I throw them as hard as I can.
Purple streaks of flame shoot out, but the flames dry up before they hit the maze. The chakrams zip through the worm-like monsters, cutting effortlessly, and take down all five with effortless ease, before zapping back to my hips.
Hera shoots an annoyed look at me. “What sort of balance did that gift offer?” she gripes as those four look up and drop to one knee, lowering their heads as they place their hands over their hearts in gratitude.
I snort derisively.
“I just wanted to see how much stronger I was since the last time I faced those things. They needed help. It was selfishly selfless of me to spare them while sating my own curiosity,” I say, the words coming out as if on autopilot.
When I glance over at her, she smirks and looks away.
“You sound more like yourself when battle is in the air. That’s probably a good thing, since you’re weak and pathetic as a lovesick mascot for the Horsemen.”
Rolling my eyes, I return my attention to the trial as men fight for the right to die at my side. It’s weird, if I’m being honest.
And also really empowering.
My crown appears on my head as I take a seat.
Each quad set is armed with strikingly similar weapons to my boys.
“For these trials, I gave them gifts to replicate some of the power your boys have, and to familiarize themselves with the identity so they could really get into the role,” Hera tells me like she’s brilliant. “Some went with the strategy to hide their faces so as not to allow you too much bias, hoping you’d see them as true replacements if they had no identity that distracted you.”
“Touch my crown, and I’ll test out how strong my new flame is on Hell-spawn. The last flame did a number on the twins,” I tell her.
She quickly stops her hand just inches from my crown and reels back, before a throne appears for her to sit on.
Damn it. Now I want a throne too.
My attention gets grabbed as I watch four men zip through one part of the maze, easily cutting down those big beasts that seem to be a struggle for most everyone.
Their faces are covered, much like most of the men. I don’t know why. I already met them all and heard them sing me praises. I won’t be able to mistake them for my guys just because they cover their faces in battle.
“Oh, these four look really promising,” she says, watching them with me as they fight in pairs, back to back, during one really nasty dead-end ambush.
They don’t need our help, it seems.
They work in pairs until they’ve thinned down the middle, and then the four of them put their backs together before they lunge outward, attacking from the core and working their circle wider and wider.
“That’s beautiful,” she says in awe. “It was really hard to find quads. Most of them are pairs who’ve agreed to work on bonding with other pairs,” she tells me. “Given their technique, I’m assuming this is one of those groupings.”
The one with a scythe does some fancy twirling before slicing through the back of what looks like a magma rock beast. The one with a triton swaps with the sword guy and goes to fend off the sickening amount of beetles that pour out of a walking skeleton’s mouth.
They fight like they’ve always fought together, and my eyes narrow in suspicion when the one with a bladed staff glances up here.
Those eyes…
Then again, several of the quad sets have those cool blue eyes. Maybe I’m imagining things, but they seem too familiar with their timing, battle skills, and movements.
“My guys couldn’t possibly be in this, could they?”
She makes an indignant sound. “Even if they managed to find us, I sealed these trials. They couldn’t possibly break through my seals. If you see familiarities in them, it’s because the Horsemen were studied for years by pairs and quads alike. Not to mention, I may have started planning this the moment I learned you were all alive again,” she says as though she’s expecting a pat on the back. “They’ve been training and watching your boys to learn how best to aid The Apocalypse.”
They slice through one after another, and my heart gets in my throat when they round one passage, not seeing the three-legged, four-armed, five-horned bull monster with a massive, glowing-red sledge hammer awaiting them.
Three more of those monsters move in behind them, as soon as they begin battling the first.
“These are some of the creations I was telling you about. I didn’t stop perfecting them until Cain found himself struggling to take them down. We’ll have to help them out of this. I probably made it too hard to defeat that many at once—”
She stops talking when the guys split up, and the bull monsters get a little confused, losing sight of them in the tricky maze.
“That’s stupid. They’ll be picked off like flies. How sad. They were so promising, too. I suppose some teams just can’t work together in harmony when times get tough,” she says on a disappointed sigh. “Let’s find another set to grant our attention—”
She stops talking again, and I watch as the one with a scythe comes sliding behind the bull beast closest to him, cutting across its back.
The monster roars and st
omps a hoofed foot into the ground so hard the gray rock under him splits on impact.
As if timed, the one with a sword comes racing out of a hidden cove, sword drawn, as he flips over the top of it, rapidly stabbing four or five times, before landing on one knee.
He doesn’t even bother looking back as the monster turns, roaring again, and charges him from behind. Suddenly, the beast drops seconds before reaching him, and the swordsman looks up at me as the beast bleeds to death on the rock, lifeless.
“That’s not possible. It should take a whole quad to bring just one of those down. Cain struggled with one. He was limited on which powers he could use during the battle, but still, he struggled,” Hera says as though she’s defending her easily downed monster.
My eyes search, finding the triton wielder, as he bursts through one of the maze walls like he’s the charging bull. The monster gets blindsided, and the triton goes through its middle as its pinned into the next wall that cracks.
“These walls were made with soul stones. They can’t be broken,” Hera bites out. “I spent weeks designing this course with only the best materials.”
The four of them reunite, closing in on two of those monsters now. They strike fast, and the beasts fall like they’re pawns instead of the supposed ferocious creatures Hera swears they are.
I’m personally not all that impressed with her design. It’s simplistic and apparently easy to defeat.
She mutters something under her breath, as I eye her throne. How’d she summon it?
I snap my fingers, but…nothing happens.
It’s only mildly disappointing enough to distract me a moment longer from the four who advance into the final section of the elaborate maze.
A lot of dead monsters lie in their wake, and Hera looks as though she no longer enjoys her game, simply because they’re making it look too easy.
“Isn’t it a good thing that four are more advanced than the others?” I ask, gesturing toward the hordes of men who are still trapped in phase one of the maze.
She says nothing, glaring down at the four masked crusaders, who move through the large arena portion, warily inspecting their surroundings.
One Apocalypse (The Dark Side Book 4) Page 16