Our cliff breaks off, startling me just barely, and it floats through the air until we’re hovering at a closer angle to watch them.
“They won’t make it through this section without needing help,” she says with a wicked curve to her lips.
My own smile grows when a bowl of popcorn appears in my lap, and Lamar appears next with a purple, leather upholstered throne with black trimming.
“It’s beautiful,” I state in slight awe as I hurry to take my seat.
His lips twitch as Hera shoots him a look, but he stands stoically at my side otherwise.
“Be glad my brother is devoutly in love with you,” she says through clenched teeth.
I’m confused about their stare-down, but he cordially bows to her at last. “I can assure you I’ve done nothing to interfere in your match,” he tells her.
She cuts her eyes away, returning her attention to the match below. They’ve begun fighting with some creepy crawly skulls on spider legs that have some blue goop spraying from their mouths. The guys dodge the blue goop, sliding over the ground and striking from whatever angle they can.
I’m now wondering if these four really are my guys, given the weird tension between Lamar and Hera and the mention of some bet between herself and Manella.
Some of their moves seem so familiar, but there are a lot of ways they move that I’ve never seen my guys do. Considering I’ve studied them more intently than anyone, I’m the resident expert.
Still, I can’t actually tell if they’re—
“Let’s see how they fare with the vortex keepers,” Hera says, cutting through my thoughts.
My gaze darts to Lamar, who bristles as though he’s suddenly uneasy.
“What’s a vortex keeper?” I ask him.
“A desperate ploy to win Manella’s crown,” he mutters under his breath.
“That doesn’t tell me anything,” I point out, really confused now.
A raging battle cry has me jerking my head back toward the fight, while shoving popcorn in mouth, because this fight just got good.
The vortex keepers are apparently black knights. It’d be anticlimactic…but…as the scythe wielder manages to slice through one’s torso, it splits and quickly regenerates. Only it regenerates two knights instead of one.
“That’s going to be impossible,” I say, moving to the edge of my seat as the triton wielder and swordsman make the same error with two others.
Now there are six knights attacking instead of three.
The staff wielder does the same thing, causing another split. The more they fight, the more knights seem to form.
I hear a grunt of frustration that sounds very Jude-like, but surely not. They’d be smart enough to figure out when to quit slicing and come up with a new plan of attack.
They switch from offense to defense, fending off the knights’ unified attacks without splitting them into even more. I see the stern concentration in their eyes, and this close up, seeing those more and more familiar skills, I blow out a long breath.
Damn it. These are my guys.
“There’s no way to fight something that only multiplies when it should die,” I say as more and more dread creeps up my spine. “Will my fire burn them, or will they just regenerate again?” I ask Lamar, looking over at him.
“I’m sure they can handle it,” he says, as presumably Kai swings the triton at the front line that closes in on them.
It splits a whole bunch of them in two, and he gets cursed when the multiplication-regeneration crowds the increasingly small space.
“Can they do this without my help?” I ask, darting a worried look over to Hera.
I have a feeling they’ll be pissed if I interfere, since they’ve figured out what I’m up to and have gone to the trouble of showing up all the less than sub-par candidates, who are…officially recycled.
Oops. I forgot to pay them any attention, and apparently Hera forgot them as well.
I guess she did make that part of the course too hard for most. My guys really are that much stronger than even her hand-selected warriors.
Not important.
“Answer me,” I say, turning a glare on her when the guys are forced to fight back and end up multiplying their foes even more.
Hera smirks as she looks over at me. “Without you taking care of things for them, they’d need to summon their collective power—the Unity Strike.”
“What is that?” I ask, annoyed that I’m still getting information I should have already had.
I cut my eyes toward Lamar, and he gives me a timid smile. “It’s been a while. I struggle to recall all their details. They always seemed far less important to me than you,” he says in his defense, doing the thing where he flatters me to cushion my anger.
“They haven’t achieved that level of power yet, so it’s not like it matters,” Hera cuts in. “Don’t worry, Paca. You can step in and save them whenever you please. In fact, I encourage you to do it now that you see there’s no other way. No need to be hostile.”
“I’d like to advise against that course of action and think of a way to counteract the multiplication attacks until they wear them down. Vortex keepers don’t have the ability to sustain their power for longer than a few hours,” Lamar goes on. “If they can hold out, they can cut them down—”
“I increased their stamina levels. This could go on for days…if the guys don’t die first,” Hera adds in a rather chipper tone.
Lamar’s look changes, and he shoots me a small grimace. “Never mind. You really should step in, even though I hate to say that and cost Manella his crown.”
“What’s a Unity Strike?” I ask him, trying not to panic, now that I realize these things have the ability to actually do real harm to my guys.
“The Unity Strike is a collective power they have to summon with a simultaneous thought, something only a strong bond can help wield. They were only able to do it once, even when they were at their strongest,” Lamar tells me, which forces me to exhale harshly.
“And goodness knows their bond is definitely weak, given all the fighting that’s been going on lately,” Hera adds.
There’s a winning gleam in Hera’s eyes, and a prideful piece of me wants to let them figure this all out on their own.
They may be fighting a lot, but it’s the tension, hesitation, and conjoined fear of losing it all to a battle we shouldn’t have to fight that’s causing the discord.
At the end of the day, Jude is going so far as to force himself to love me just to make me stronger. Even though he cares for me, he’s not doing that for me. He’s doing that for them, in spite of the struggle it’s clearly become under the time crunch.
My lips tug up on one side in a sad smile, because I went and made myself important to them. It’s all I wanted.
Now I wish I never had, because it’s possibly put their lives at stake.
Yet the old me wanted me to fall back in love with them, and them with me, or she’d never have tethered me to them in the first place.
This hesitation is mine. That Paca had a plan. I just…don’t know what it was.
A remembered verse from my journal flits through my head as if prompted.
You’ll need answers to the puzzle you’ve laid. To seek such, refer to all things from your favorite decade.
“That doesn’t help,” I say to myself, chewing on my nail as Jude gets really pissed off, releasing his power in a dark funnel that tears through the multipliers…and creates so many new ones that the guys are down to one last corner of the room, fighting off the stabbing forces of endless knights.
Kai’s face piece gets ripped away as he narrowly dodges one man’s sword, the fabric catching on the tip of the blade.
As if seeing proof of their identity is what I needed, a song starts playing in my head. I can’t remember where I’ve heard it, and I can’t really remember the lyrics either, but it seems damn important if it’s just springing up in my head during an anxiety attack that is taking place at a moment when I fi
nd myself being hella indecisive. Considering I’m torn between trusting the old me and second-guessing the old me’s plan...this really upbeat melody doesn’t make much sense.
I think the song’s from a boy band. A boy band from the nineties.
Hmm…
Boy band from the nineties…
That doesn’t narrow it down a damn bit.
“Lamar, give me some help. What are the names of some boy bands from the nineties? More specifically, boy bands from the nineties with four members,” I tell him.
“You think now is the time for pop music trivia?” he asks in confusion. “I think the temperature here is affecting your brain now that you’ve been back in Hell for an extended period of time. You need to be helping to figure out what would prompt their next level—”
“What do you mean the temperature here?” I ask him, brow furrowing as I look over.
He frowns. “Purgatory is like an ice wasteland caught between the planes of the surface and Hell.”
“That’s because you never leave Hell. The surface is much cooler,” Hera drawls. “Well, in some regions during certain seasons, anyway. In fact, it’s a nightmare up there.”
She shudders.
“What’s the temperature?” I ask like that’s somehow important information.
“Currently, it’s what it usually is. Ninety-eight degrees,” Lamar answers.
As though a clock’s gears grind into place at the midnight hour, a gong sounds in my head, and the song starts playing loud and clear, lyrics and all.
“That’s it! That’s the boy band!” I shout with way too much enthusiasm…since I don’t understand the purpose of the song at a time like this.
Sheesh. The old me even predicted this moment? I was so awesome. I hate myself for being that awesome back then and setting the bar so damn high for the new me now.
I decide to sing it aloud so the guys can hurry up and help me piece this puzzle together before I have to save them and piss them all off at me.
“True to your heart! You gotta be true to your heart!”
They barely spare me a glance, staying busy with all the pointy ends of the weapons still stabbing at them.
I start dancing, singing louder, and reciting the words verbatim.
“And when you’re true to your heart, I know it’s gonna lead you straight to me.”
They still don’t look up here. If they don’t help me figure it out soon, I’m going to be forced to take drastic measures. Because I’m not saving them.
At least not until one of them gets terribly wounded. Then I’ll probably blow up half of purgatory, since I have zero control these days.
But if they can’t figure out how to be true to their hearts, we’ll have to trust mine. And mine always tells me to do crazy things that piss them off.
Chapter 20
EZEKIEL
“What the fuck is she singing for right now?” Jude snaps, hissing out a breath as he bends way back, narrowly dodging a strike that would have caught him in the throat.
I can’t believe Paca is singing and dancing instead of blazing her purple fire all around. That was the damn point of wearing these stupid fucking veils—to stop her from overreacting to the situation.
However, this reaction? I have no idea what’s going on with our crazy fucking girlfriend right now.
I tear my veil away, along with the headdress, cursing when I get a metallic kiss from a sword that stings like a bitch.
The blade pulls back, leaving the small gash on my arm, and I tense, waiting on purple fire to rain down on us.
No overreaction.
No reaction at all…
Paca is still singing, as I’m forced to slice this one in two, and he…turns into two fuckers I now have to deal with.
At this rate, we’re going to have to ask for her fucking help, even though we came in with the intentions of avoiding it and proving we’re it for her.
“Open your eyes. Your heart can tell you no lies,” she continues, singing that damn chorus again.
A sharp harmonica draws my attention up to the floating chunk of land. Lamar is the one playing the harmonica, eyes shut as he gets into it. He dances right alongside her, as Hera starts singing harmony, clapping with the beat, even as she smirks at us like she’s enjoying our misery.
What the fuck is Paca wearing? It’s like some sexy, Asian-inspired thing that is really distracting with all the skin it’s showing.
“Fucking keep your eyes here!” Kai shouts, drawing my attention back to see he’s just taken a blade to the shoulder that was likely intended for my heart.
Shit.
“Why the hell is she trying to distract us right now? Does she think we’ll give up if we fail and call for her help?” Gage grinds out, slicing through a sword that breaks against his.
I can’t help but glance up when Lamar puts his all into it, taking a solo with the harmonica, as Paca dances dramatically behind him, singing twice as loud once the solo ends.
I jerk my head to the right, dodging a spear, blinking as Paca runs her hands down her sides.
“You got me stabbed! Are you happy?” Gage shouts, cursing as he breaks off the end of the spear that’s jammed through his side.
“You’re really undermining the very intense situation down here!” Kai gripes, spinning and countering three strikes with just one maneuver.
“When things are getting crazy,” Paca keeps singing, as Gage shouts to me, “How do we kill something that only multiplies in death?”
“And you don’t know where to start.”
“If I knew, I’d have already done it!” I shout back at him, unable to tune out Paca’s ridiculously upbeat song that really doesn’t jive with the suspense we have going on at current.
“Keep on believing, baby. Just be true to your heart!”
After a few more pointless lyrics, her song comes to an abrupt end.
“I’m not saving your ungrateful asses. I guess you’ll just have to watch them pummel me until you figure out what the clue means for yourselves,” she calls down as Lamar continues playing the harmonica. “This is what it means to me.”
I look up just as a shadow falls over me, and my eyes widen as she lands on top of one of the guys in front of us, collapsing and fumbling around until she scrambles to her feet, and shoves her hair out of her face.
“That was way cooler in my head. Gotta work on my landing,” she chirps, smiling over at me.
My eyes widen, and a roar of rage comes from Gage, as a spear stabs through her shoulder from behind.
She winces, shutting her eyes as she takes a calming breath, and stops the spear from traveling through her far enough to reach me.
“Yeah. I made those weapons myself,” Hera calls down with far too much glee in her tone. “They’ll cut deep, dear sister. All of them. Even against you.”
Kai goes to rip one out, but she turns, her eyes widening, as a blade cuts through her middle.
Hera picks up singing the song, starting teeny bopper melody over, as my heartbeat starts thundering in my ears.
“That’s catchy!” Hera calls out mid-chorus, and then jumps back in without missing a beat.
I grab Paca, yanking her to me, as Jude swings his scythe up to block the next strike against her. Black blood oozes from her slowly closing wound, as she looks up and gives me a lazy grin.
“You fucking cruel bitch. Don’t you dare. Get your ass back up there. We’ll get ourselves out of this, and prove to you that we’re the only motherfucking Horsemen you can have at your side,” I bite out through mostly clenched teeth.
She spins out of my arms, catching the tip of a blade intended for my back that I left too exposed.
The sword spears her through the middle, and Gage dives for her, as I stare in horror at the smile that grows on her face.
“True to your heart,” she sings, jumping in with Hera, even as blood starts staining her teeth.
The floating island moves in front of us, while Lamar dances, even
as Paca struggles to free herself from the sword impaling her.
“Attack only her,” commands a familiar voice from overhead.
My own blood starts boiling when Paca rips free from the sword in time to throw herself in front of Gage, taking the blow from a club that knocks her to her knees, even as she clings to his sides. She releases a startled cry of pain this time, as the club bashes her again from behind.
It all happens so fast that none of us have time to react.
I feel frozen to my spot, as Gage struggles to try to shield her, getting overpowered by her as she forces her way between him and the next several blows that come in quick succession from several assailants. She’s too strong for Gage to conquer, and she continues to use her body as a shield.
My gaze swings up to find Manella lounging in the throne Paca vacated, but my attention quickly moves to her again, watching as the vortex keepers follow his order.
“Don’t listen to him! Attack the Horsemen, not her! Make her want to save them!” Hera shouts, even as the knights follow Manella’s orders, striking Paca over and over and over.
Even when I try to dive into the fray, Paca lifts a hand, blowing me back, taking the next several strikes, as blood drips from her collection of wounds.
She’s never successfully used so much power on us before, and I almost hate her for doing it now.
“Why are you ignoring me?! I’m your master!” Hera gripes louder, as Lamar disappears from sight, the chunk of land floating lower and lower.
So many distractions. So much of Paca’s blood.
She pins me down with her next pulse of power, along with the others, when we’re all blown back and end up stuck to the wall. Just like in the arena that day, all we can do is watch as Paca takes the beatings, the knights surrounding her, as she refuses to defend herself.
“This is my trial! Go make your own if you want to work your agenda! Don’t steal mine, you lazy asshole!” Hera says, still berating Manella.
It’s like white noise. Sounds that don’t matter but grate on your nerves, while watching something you’re powerless to stop.
One Apocalypse (The Dark Side Book 4) Page 17