It shook its head back and forth and tried swatting at the flames with one hand, but there was no avoiding the flames surrounding us. At one point, it stopped to roll over to smother the fire, but that exposed its belly, and the fire greedily took advantage of the new fuel.
Rising, it staggered before thundering forward again with another bellow. I didn’t see the rock wall until the minotaur ran headfirst into it. The rock indented before a chunk broke off over the minotaur’s head and fell to hit it.
The beast shook its head before staggering back. It hunched up and released a keening wail that echoed the forlorn noise the hedges made when the flames started devouring them.
The minotaur’s skin crackled and popped as the flames dug into its flesh. The stench of burning meat filled the air as more of the minotaur’s skin peeled back to reveal the muscle and bone beneath. It stumbled to the side before collapsing with a thud that fanned the flames into my face.
I studied its side as I waited for the telltale rise and fall of its chest. Minutes passed without any movement, and more of its skeleton became exposed until the flames ate its heart. The thing was obviously dead, but I cut off its head to make sure it didn’t return.
Slipping away from the minotaur, I placed my hand against the rock wall and ran my fingers over the jagged edges as I followed it. The smoke clouding the air made seeing difficult, but there had to be an exit somewhere in this place. I’d prefer not to wait until the fire went out to locate it, but I was beginning to fear that might be my only option.
A blast of air from above caused the flames around me to die down before surging up again. I shaded my eyes with my hand as I looked up to discover Caim hovering thirty feet above me.
“This way!” he shouted.
I sprinted after Caim as he led me through the fire.
“It’s right up here!” he yelled. “I have to get back to the others; the horsemen are here.”
“Of course they are,” I muttered though there was no way he heard me over the fire.
I ignored the burning of my lungs and the exhaustion creeping into my bones as I ran. My hand tightened on my sword as I braced myself for the next battle. Unlike us, the horsemen would be well-rested, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t slice them to bits.
Through the rolling flames, I spotted the opening leading out of this place as Caim swooped into the tunnel. A fresh burst of energy caused my legs to move faster, and I sprinted across the hundred feet separating me from the exit.
* * *
Hawk
We were almost to the end of the cave when three of the horsemen appeared. It wasn’t until they blocked out the sunlight streaming through the entrance that I realized we’d spent most of the night in the labyrinth.
I didn’t know if the bastards had managed to get behind us after the fog and been stalking us the whole time or if the smoke had drawn them here, and it didn’t matter. They were here now, and like when they attacked the wall, they were arriving when we were exhausted.
“What do we do?” Aisling asked.
“We kill them,” Corson said.
And that was exactly what we had to do to get free. There was no turning back; the flames effectively blocked any chance of escape behind us. The exhaustion of the others beat against me, but I had a feeling the horsemen would regret coming at us now. We were all too pissed off for their shit.
As we got closer, I recognized Pestilence because of the hundreds of flies buzzing around his head. Quarter-sized, blistering sores covered his cheeks; he was missing the tip of his nose, and something black festered on the skin around what remained of his nose. His horse was the greenish-brown color of snot, and the blistering sores on it had eaten through its hide to reveal ligament and bone in some areas.
Pestilence’s fingers were the same black color, and I speculated that he had leprosy or gangrene. He wore no clothes, and his flesh rippled as if blowing in a breeze. And then I realized the movement wasn’t from a breeze but something moving beneath his flesh.
Lust sat beside Pestilence with a smug smile on her luscious mouth. Her white hair spilled past her waist and across the ass end of her gray horse. Her emerald eyes twinkled in amusement as she threw her shoulders back to reveal more of her bare, voluptuous body.
Unlike the last time I saw her, I only experienced a small stirring of desire, but it wouldn’t be the same for most of the others. Because of the Chosen bond, Aisling and I had a better chance of withstanding these monsters, and so did Corson and Wren, but their effect would be a lot stronger on everyone else.
I didn’t know who rode the third horse, but judging by the scarlet color of the mount and the unnatural rage clawing at my chest, I assumed it was either War or Wrath.
As we got closer to the horsemen, some of the humans fell back while a couple of the demons stopped. Then one demon leapt onto the back of another, took him to the ground, and punched him in the face. We were already losing our fighters to the horsemen’s effects, and the one on the scarlet horse was more powerful than the other two.
I almost grabbed Aisling and told her to run back into the fire. As long as she avoided the minotaur, she would be better off in there, but it would be a waste of time as I knew she wouldn’t leave me.
We were a hundred feet from the end of the cave when the scarlet horse broke free of the other two and charged into the cave. Its hooves rang against the steel as it galloped toward us.
“Look out!” I shouted and pulled Aisling out of the way of the rider.
I hugged her against me as the horse thundered past us. Some of the others couldn’t get out of the way in time, and the rider ran them over. As the rider swept us, I realized it wasn’t trying to attack but was spreading its maliciousness through the cave. I still wasn’t sure if it was Wrath or War when the others turned on each other like a pack of rabid dogs.
“Oliver,” Aisling whispered.
Randy and Nadine stood away from the others, but the shaking of Nadine’s shoulders and the clenching of Randy’s fists indicated the horsemen were affecting them too.
“I have to get Oliver,” Aisling said.
I was reluctant to release her, but I had to let her go; it was impossible to fight the horsemen with her in my arms.
Aisling sprinted across the cave and took Oliver from Nadine’s arms. She cradled the boy against her chest as Nadine practically salivated while eyeing her. “You try anything, and I’ll torch your ass,” Aisling promised her.
Enough reason remained in Nadine that she didn’t turn her hostility on Aisling but focused it on the brawl growing inside the cave.
“Close your eyes, baby,” Aisling told Oliver as she pushed his head onto her shoulder.
The boy stuck his thumb in his mouth as Nadine and Randy jumped into the fight.
“I hate the horsemen,” I snarled.
“You and me both,” Wren said.
She was paler than before, and her lower lip quivered, but she didn’t wade into the fight to separate Nadine and Randy from it; she must have known it was useless. The effects of the horsemen wouldn’t ease until they were dead or gone from here, and fighting our allies wouldn’t help achieve either of those goals.
“They’re not making it out of here alive,” Lix said.
Lifting his sword, Lix charged forward. With a loud battle cry, he leapt into the air and sliced Pestilence’s horse’s head straight down the middle. The sickly-looking creature didn’t move as the two pieces of its head bobbed awkwardly before starting to fuse themselves back together.
“Holy shit,” Aisling breathed.
Lix’s movements slowed with every passing second, but he didn’t stop attacking Pestilence. When his head bowed and his shoulders slumped, I realized Pestilence was doing something to him.
I removed one of the guns strapped to my waist, and before Pestilence’s horse could completely heal, I fired a series of bullets into it and its rider. The shots did nothing to stop whatever the horseman was doing to Lix as his sword tip fe
ll to the ground and he stumbled back.
Corson charged forward, leapt into the air, and buried his talons in Pestilence’s leg. Wren ran in from the other side and sank her talons into Pestilence’s other leg. The hundreds of flies buzzing around the monster’s head became frenzied. Their wings beat so loudly, their noise drowned out the sounds of the battle.
When my gun emptied, I slid it back into my holster. Two demons beat at each other as they rolled past me. One of them had a battle ax strapped to its back. Stepping forward, I planted my foot on the demon’s hip and pulled the ax free.
“Stay with Oliver,” I told Aisling before charging into the battle.
Chapter Forty
Bale
Fresh, cooler air caressed my skin when I stepped into the cave and took a deep breath. I had only a second to enjoy my relief over the minotaur’s death and the destruction of the labyrinth before the reverberating sound of hoofbeats filled my ears.
My eyes flew open, and I lifted my sword as I leapt away from the wall. I glimpsed a scarlet horse before it hit me in the chest, lifted me off the ground, and carried me into the cave. When I punched the horse’s face, it captured my arm and flung me into the flames.
I soared twenty feet through the air before I crashed onto the ground. My lungs seized as air flooded out of them, and none returned. Knocked from my hand, my sword clattered against the rocky terrain as it bounced a few feet away from me. My fingers clawed at the ground as I tried to grasp the handle while my lungs still screamed for air.
A fiery wave of heat filled my lungs as I finally breathed in what little oxygen there was in the inferno. The approach of hoofbeats had me rolling to the side in time to avoid the hooves that would have trampled me.
As the beast and rider disappeared into the flames, I glimpsed broad shoulders and a sword strapped to the rider’s back.
Wrath! I realized when mind-numbing rage coursed through my veins. I didn’t know how I knew it was Wrath and not War, but I felt the identity of this rider deep in my bones.
Kill him! Kill him! Kill! Kill! Kill!
I rested my hand against my forehead as I tried to regain some control over the rage pulsing in my temples while I struggled to recall whose head I wanted to chop off.
It’s Wrath; you want to kill Wrath!
My breath hissed in through my teeth as I pushed myself to my feet and staggered over to reclaim my sword. The familiar weight of it in my hand helped steady me further as I searched the flames for the rider.
Through the fire, I spotted Wrath turning and charging back toward me. The flames licked at the sides of his legs and horse, but neither of them caught fire.
This bastard’s immune to the inferno.
Lifting my sword, I braced my legs apart as I waited for them to draw closer before dropping suddenly. When I acted like I planned to take out the horse’s legs, Wrath jerked up on his reins to steer the horse away, but at the last second, I leapt up and plunged my sword into his thigh.
He grunted as he clutched his leg, but keeping hold of my sword, I jerked it to the side and yanked him from his steed. As Wrath hit the ground, he wrenched his leg back to free it from my blade. I went to plunge my sword into his heart, but it crashed into stone as he rolled into the fire.
I shifted my hold on my sword and lifted it above my shoulder as I searched for him in the inferno. The second he reemerged, I was going to use every ounce of the fury he’d created to chop his head off.
The ring of hooves against rock turned my head as the red horse came back at me. At first, I thought the flames got the best of the beast and it was on fire, and then I realized it was fire. Either it possessed the ability to make the inferno encompass it, or it could make flames sprout from its body.
“Shit,” I whispered.
Shifting my stance, I prepared to take the beast out, but before I could chop off its head, something hit me in the side. I somehow managed to retain my weapon as I was thrown to the ground.
Twisting beneath the weight of whatever was on top of me, I found myself gazing into a set of red and orange eyes that looked like they mirrored the inferno. But as they searched my face, I realized that was the color of Wrath’s eyes.
Despite my hatred for this bastard and his kind, a sense of awe stole through me. He was a magnificent, lethal, killing machine. And if I didn’t stop staring into those eyes, I was going to be his next kill.
Pulling my arm back, I hammered my left fist into his face and smiled when I felt his cheekbone give beneath the blow. The red in his eyes blazed hotter, but before he could punish me for what I’d done, I lifted my knees and somehow managed to wedge my feet between us.
He scrambled to hold on to me but failed to do so as I put all my strength behind my legs and shoved him away from me. He flew backward and disappeared into the inferno. I didn’t kid myself into thinking it was over; he’d be back soon. Rolling over, I searched for his horse but didn’t see it anywhere. That beast was as lethal as its rider, maybe more so.
Through the flames, the opening of the cave beckoned me, but I couldn’t leave here without destroying this monster. I’d cut off his head and stick it on my sword to show to his friends.
Rising, I gripped my sword with both hands and stalked a few feet into the fire. I couldn’t go too far, or I’d allow him to slip up behind me, so I stayed close enough to see the exit. Motion to my left caused me to turn in that direction. I blinked as flames rolled within flames to create a spinning ball of fire.
It can’t be…
And then the flames parted.
No… that wasn’t right. The flames didn’t part; they coalesced into a figure.
A figure that was coming straight at me. I barely managed to keep from croaking out a holy shit as I saw that, like his steed, Wrath could become fire too.
And then, he vanished.
* * *
Aisling
“You have to stay here,” I said to Oliver as I set him inside the crevice I’d discovered in the cave.
“They’re going to kill us,” he whispered.
I rested my hands on his shoulders. “No, they’re not. You’re going to be safe, but you have to stay in here until I come to get you. Do you understand?”
Oliver gazed over my shoulder and toward the continuing sounds of a brawl, but we were too far into the crevice for him to see what was happening. “Yes,” he murmured.
He stuck his thumb in his mouth as he gazed at me with sorrow-filled eyes. He’d already been through so much; he shouldn’t have to endure this too, but the only way to stop it was to kill the horsemen.
I didn’t know why he wasn’t affected by the horseman who’d turned the others into bloodthirsty monsters. He was probably too young to understand the emotion, but thankfully, he wasn’t a spitting, kicking, demon child. I didn’t know if I could handle that.
“It will be over soon,” I said and really hoped I was right. I ran my hand over his cheek. “Close your eyes, baby.”
He settled on the ground and closed his eyes as he rested his head against the stone. He had to be exhausted; maybe, just maybe, he would sleep through all of this. I doubted it, but I held on to that hope as I ruffled his brown hair.
“I’ll be back,” I promised and bent to kiss the top of his head. I wished I could stay with him, but the others needed my help.
He didn’t respond as he kept his eyes closed and huddled deeper into the shadows. It took everything I had to back out of the small hiding place. I kept my eyes on him until I rounded a corner and he vanished from view. Tears burned my eyes when I turned away from him.
I didn’t care what I had to do; I would make sure he got away from this place. Stepping out of the alcove, I was confronted with a group of fighting and gagging people and demons. Some of them were on their knees puking out wretched green bile while others were punching each other even as they groped at one another and tore at their clothes in a rage and lust-fueled frenzy.
The smell and sounds permeating the cave m
ade my stomach turn, but so far, I was still withstanding a fair amount of the horsemen’s effects, though I couldn’t look at Hawk.
When I looked at him, all I could think about was tearing his clothes from him and screwing until we were too exhausted to move.
Lifting my forearm, I wiped away the sweat from my brow and felt the warmth of my skin. I knew that heat had nothing to do with the fire we’d left behind and everything to do with the nausea twisting in my stomach. Saliva flooded my mouth along with the coppery taste that often preceded vomiting. I could not start spewing up green bile; if that stuff came out of me, I’d never stop.
Before the horsemen, I would have believed it impossible to be horny while trying not to vomit, but these assholes were a whole different ballgame.
I ignored the churning of my stomach and focused my attention on Corson and Wren as they battled Pestilence. My eyes kept trying to go to Hawk, but I couldn’t control myself enough to look at him.
Deep breaths. Stay in control. Don’t give in to the urges. You can do this.
Finally feeling in control of myself enough to look at Hawk, I felt like someone punched me in the gut as he ran at Lust.
No! Not alone! You can’t fight her alone!
But that was exactly what he was going to do.
Chapter Forty-One
Aisling
Forgetting all about the sickness churning inside me, I leapt over a group of humans and demons rolling around on the floor. I snagged an abandoned spear from the ground as I ran toward the others. Near the front of the cave, Lix sat with his hands on his knees and his head bowed as he spewed green bile.
A flutter of wings drew my attention to the ceiling seconds before Caim burst free of the cave and crashed into Lust. The impact tore Lust from her saddle, but before Caim could rise into the air with her in his arms, she grabbed one of his wings and yanked it down.
The motion threw off his ascension; they tumbled to the ground in a jumbled heap of white hair and black wings that blended as they rolled with each other. When Lust settled on top, Caim tossed her off and braced his arms under him. He staggered to his feet and steadied himself as his face changed.
Kiss of Death: Hell on Earth Series, Book 3 Page 24