by Ari Marmell
The scythe returned to Death’s hand, as it was designed, but it wobbled in its flight, damaged—wounded?—by the Grand Abomination.
A second barrel fired; again Death felt the impact even through Mortis, and again Mortis’s response was weak at best. Too many more of those, and the shield might well give way entirely.
Hell, too many more of those, and he probably wouldn’t have the strength to use the shield.
“Feeble and foolish, Horseman!” Hadrimon’s voice quavered and rasped like an old man’s. “Nothing can stand between us! They—she—will be … We will …”
Death let Harvester fly once more, both scythes at once. The first, aimed at the erratic angel, rebounded almost instantly, accompanied by Black Mercy’s percussive song. But the second …
The second had not been directed at Hadrimon at all. It struck, instead, the crystalline barrier to the Abomination Vault.
With an almost musical cascade of cracks, the window between worlds crumbled. In an instant the full force of the Grand Abominations’ hatred and pain flowed through the gap, a spiritual poison spreading through the substance of this dead world.
Hadrimon had lived so long with the emotions of those ancient horrors blazing in his mind, he had surely forgotten what life was like without them. Yet always they had come to him in faint wisps, impeded by the barrier of the Vault itself. He was not—could not be—prepared for the unrestrained deluge.
It was a risk, but one Death was certain he could manage. The surge might empower the Abomination itself, but it should overwhelm the angel’s own mind long enough to finish this once and for all.
Mouth gaping in a silent scream, Hadrimon slumped to the floor, wings folded as if to shield him, his free hand clutched to his temple. And Death, Harvester once again in the form of a single scythe, staggered forward for the kill.
Augmented by the proximity of its brethren, enraged beyond anything the Nephilim had ever anticipated, Black Mercy itself raised Hadrimon’s arm and fired.
Caught utterly by surprise, Death couldn’t begin to interpose Mortis. Twisting as swiftly as he’d ever moved, he managed to take the shot on Harvester’s haft, but much of the Abomination’s life-draining essence surged through the weapon. The Horseman toppled to lie awkwardly atop the metal scraps; alive, conscious, but weak, far too weak.
The angel stood, limbs shuddering and eyes rolling. Death had no way of knowing who was actually in control as Black Mercy’s triple barrels rose, gaping open before him like the Abyss itself …
“Hadrimon!”
Death breathed—though he’d have denied it to anyone who asked—a sigh of relief at the sound of that dulcet voice. Took our time, did we?
Angel and Abomination turned from the Horseman to watch a colossal figure, bloodied and mauled, squeeze in through the gap Death had earlier opened in the back wall. One massive hand hung loose, seemingly broken; the other sought to plug a sucking wound in the demon’s gut.
“Raciel!” Hadrimon darted forward several steps, halted, shoulders quivering. His eyes flickered madly from the broken angel to the weapon in his hand that struggled, of its own accord, to rise and fire.
“Hadrimon, help me … Please, my love, don’t let them …” She stumbled and coughed, a wet, tearing sound.
It appeared, to Death, a naked ploy, an obvious manipulation until she might once again regain the upper hand. But Hadrimon, in his madness, was far beyond such suspicions. Weeping openly, he advanced once more, his empty left hand held forth, reaching, reaching …
Death felt the surge of roiling malice from across the chamber as Black Mercy rose, dragging the angel’s unwitting arm with it. The shot might well have been the death knell of a world, for it truly seemed that everything fell silent in its echo.
Raciel teetered, oh so briefly, then dropped in a limp, shriveling heap before the broken wall. Hadrimon was so perfectly frozen, gawping in horror at the thing in his fist, that he might as well have been painted on the air itself.
And Death … twitched. He could almost, almost begin to move …
For just an instant, it appeared as though he wouldn’t have to. Mouth agape in a silent wail, the angel raised Black Mercy to his own temple and pulled the trigger.
The hammers refused to fall.
Weeping once more, Hadrimon went slack and began to fall—only to halt half slumped, held upright solely by his grip on a Grand Abomination that refused to fall with him. Black Mercy turned, barrels gaping, hammers shivering in an almost carnal anticipation. Limp, looking very much like an empty robe hanging from a single sleeve, his knees nearly dragging on the floor, Hadrimon rotated with it. His face was slack, his eyes glazed; Death could no longer doubt which of the two, angel or Abomination, held sway.
The Horsemen tensed, preparing to channel his all into a roll he knew could never save him …
“Stop!”
Even Death, who had seen so much, could scarcely accept what he saw before him now. Above the demonic corpse of Raciel hovered a second figure, drifting on outspread wings—wings of purest, gleaming white. She wore armor of resplendent silver, and her ivory hair framed a face that was the truest embodiment of beauty.
He knew her, for all that he had never met her before, for her voice was the same as the demon’s own.
“Hadrimon, stop. Please.”
“Raciel …?” A flicker of life returned to Hadrimon’s eyes. His feet scrabbled for purchase, taking some of his weight from his twisted shoulder and the horror that held him upright. “Raciel, how …?”
“I forgive you, Hadrimon. I could not go; I had to tell you I forgive you.”
The angel gave a sharp cry, his back straightening—and again, the hand clutching Black Mercy began to turn.
“No!” Hadrimon’s entire body shook. Sweat and tears mingled in sticky pools across his cheeks. He leaned at a slant against nothing at all as he struggled to turn the traitorous weapon away. His left hand locked about his right wrist, and the sound of grating bone sawed through the chamber.
Still, though he’d slowed the rise of Black Mercy, it edged ever higher with each passing heartbeat, bringing its maws to bear once more on the breast of Hadrimon’s beloved.
“Not again … Not again! Heaven help me, no!”
His struggles turned him halfway about, bringing him face-to-face with the slowly recovering Horseman. Death gazed deep into the angel’s eyes, his tainted soul. And what he saw in them, here at the last, was a desperate pleading.
With a low groan of pained exertion, using the haft of Harvester as a crutch, the eldest Horseman rose. And just as Black Mercy centered on its target, its raging hatred almost an audible scream, he swung.
On Death’s blade—weeping tears of gratitude, now, his whole face lit with a radiant smile—the mad angel Hadrimon died.
CHAPTER THIRTY
IFORGIVE YOU,’ ” DEATH PARROTED, FORCING HIMSELF TO remain upright despite the weakness racking his body, “You really felt that was the best approach?”
“It worked, did it not?” The angelic Raciel shimmered, the illusion falling away to reveal the slumped shoulders and exhausted face of Azrael. “And I think it was a kindness, at the end.”
“To one who didn’t deserve it. What about her?” Death hardly needed to indicate of whom he spoke. “She was supposed to be dead, and you standing in her place, well before she ever got near the Vault. How is it she’s lying on my floor?”
“I underestimated how difficult she would be to destroy,” the angel admitted. “My surprise attack landed well enough, but she fled before I could finish her. Probably just as well, though. If I’d come through the wall first, I’d have taken the shot instead of her.”
“There’s that, yes. Hell, for a moment—until the body failed to revert to you after it died—I thought you had.”
For a moment they gazed down at the limp body beside them, somehow far smaller in death than it had been in life. But only for a moment.
Death moved to the far wall and raised his ha
nds, reestablishing one thin layer of the barrier over the Abomination Vault. A more comprehensive warding would have to wait until he was stronger. Much stronger.
“What were you thinking?” Azrael demanded then. “Destroying your own ward?”
“I’d planned to take Hadrimon while he was overwhelmed by the emotional flood. I had no idea the Grand Abominations could wield the wielder, as it were. They couldn’t, way back when. I suppose, after all this time of nursing their hatreds …”
He shrugged, then leaned over and hefted Black Mercy from the floor. Instantly he felt the hatreds and agonies fluttering at the edges of his consciousness, but he waved them off as he would a buzzing fly. He knew the Grand Abominations too well.
And he had his own agonies to bear.
Azrael at his side, he wandered to the door and peered outward.
The battle had wound down to a single clump of chaos. Belisatra, her armor rent and smoking, crouched behind a line of myrmidons, her cannon firing constantly. Across the field, War and Ruin sheltered behind a heap of the dead, waiting for any lapse so they might charge in and finish the job.
“Belisatra!” Death called from the doorway, turning sideways so she could clearly see what it was he pointed at her. “Time to quit.”
The Maker’s face sagged as she recognized Black Mercy. Without a word she dropped the six-barreled cannon. The constructs, presumably at some unheard mental command, froze and toppled to the ash.
“I could have handled her,” War groused as he dropped from Ruin and joined his brother.
“I’ve no doubt. But you must admit this was faster.”
“Hmm.”
Death crouched and stuck a hand in the ash. Instantly a trio of ghouls sprang from below, gripping Belisatra by the arms and ankles. She was much larger than they, but the strength of the dead was greater than their size. “That should do for now,” he said.
“What do you plan for her?” Azrael asked.
“Hadrimon was mad.” The Horseman spoke loud enough to be certain the Maker could hear. “She has no such excuse, and still she sought to loose the Grand Abominations on Creation. I imagine the Charred Council will want to introduce her to the Keeper.”
“Keeper? The Keeper of what?” Belisatra’s eyes went wide, and she began to struggle and pull futilely against the ghouls. “Death! The Keeper of what?”
But the two brothers and their angelic ally had already stepped back into Death’s seared and battered home.
Dust was waiting for them within, perched atop one of the scythes on the wall.
“Resting after all your hard work?” Death asked. The crow screeched and began ostentatiously preening the feathers under one wing.
“He makes an interesting traveling companion,” Azrael said. “Not much of a conversationalist, as you once told me, but he does provide the most intriguing scents.”
“You want him? Make me an offer.” He could have sworn the bird actually stuck its tongue out at him.
“It was not difficult infiltrating Raciel’s hordes, once you told me of her involvement,” the angel continued. “But I fear I never could learn who engaged her services in all of this. Apparently none of her underlings ever knew.”
“I didn’t expect they would,” Death said with a shrug. “Besides, I’ve got my own ideas about that …”
War sat down loudly on the bone cot, his shadowed face moody. Death looked his way, then back at Azrael, who also scowled darkly.
“You two do realize that we won?”
Azrael shook his head. “I dislike the deception you had me orchestrate. Masquerading as a demon is bad enough, but abetting the murder of an angel in the guise of his lost love? I feel … soiled. I understood the urgency when you came to me, but I wish I’d not agreed to this.”
The younger Horseman nodded. “It may be a victory, brother, and a necessary one. But there is no honor in it.”
“Foolishness.” Death leaned Harvester against the wall, then lay Black Mercy and Mortis beside it. “It never matters how you win; only that you do.”
“I cannot accept that,” Azrael told him.
“Nor I,” said War.
“No, I thought not,” Death said. “And, of course, the reason we have the luxury to debate this is because we won. The next time, when your need for an ‘honorable victory’ results in the destruction of half of Creation, feel free to come back and argue the point then.”
Azrael’s lip twisted angrily. “We have been allies in this, Horseman. Fought side by side, and it was well that we did; we’ve ended a threat to the Charred Council and Heaven both. For that, you have my gratitude.
“But I strongly recommend that you wait a good, long while before ever again coming to the White City in search of aid.”
The two brothers watched him step through the doorway and soar upward to disappear in the ashen flurries.
“Touchy,” Death said.
“What do you plan to do with the Abominations?” War asked him.
“For now, I’ll return Black Mercy to the Vault and then restore the full wards. Eventually—once the Council’s temper has cooled and they’re not watching me so closely—I think I’ll see them all pass through the Keeper’s portal. Even without the Ravaiim blood, I think Creation would be better off.”
“Probably so.” A pause, then, “Even Mortis?”
“Well … Mortis is all but dead. It poses no threat. Perhaps I’ll keep it around, just in case.” Death turned, eyeing the crystalline barrier warily. “Give me a hand with this, War, would you? We have a prisoner to deliver and a rather lengthy report to make to the Charred Council, and I want this place secure before we leave.”
Grudgingly, each aching more than he’d ever confess to the other, the two Horsemen studied the only window to the Abomination Vault.
“And I do expect your help with all this,” Death added, waving at the wreckage strewn across the chamber.
“Hah! Heaven, Hell, and the Grand Abominations are one thing, brother. Cleaning up? You’re on your own.”
“Ingrate.”
“… AN INTERESTING PROPOSAL YOU BRING US, Panoptos.” The rightmost of the Council’s effigies flickered in the hellish glow, the dancing shadows painting a change of expression across the face that the stone itself could not properly manage. “But we question the necessity. We have the Horsemen under control.”
“Of course, my lords, of course.” Panoptos flitted to and fro across the platform—not idly, not pacing, but so that he might address each of the three visages with equal attention. “But Death, at least, has proved his capacity for defiance. Should he do so again in your presence, you can punish him as he deserves, and all is well. Suppose, however, he should rise above himself elsewhere? While wandering on his own, or worse, on an assignment for you?” Phantom wings flapped silently, invisibly, in the wafting smoke.
“Should you grant my Watchers some power of their own over the Riders, as I’ve suggested, you’d need never worry about such things. We can ensure your servants’ obedience at all times, in all worlds.”
A low rumble, perhaps the contemplative grunt of tectonic plates, reverberated from all three idols at once, carrying with it a peculiar burst of intertwined smoke and flame. Then, “You make a compelling argument, Panoptos. Go for now. We shall consider it.”
A quick bow—less a bob of the head than a forward rotation on the axis of his wings—and the creature was gone, soaring down beside the stairs and swooping over the broken, empty earth.
No … Not quite empty, at that.
“Well, well, well. Look who’s come calling! We were just talking about you.”
Death halted his march across the blackened, lava-spotted plains of the Charred Council’s realm. “I’m flattered. Hello, Panoptos.”
“Off to report to your masters then, Death?”
“Something like that.”
“Wonderful! I fear I cannot be there to hear it firsthand, but I’m certain they’ll pass along the gist. And if not, I
’ll get it from the other Watchers. Can’t serve as their favored agent without full knowledge, can I?”
“No, I’m sure you can’t.”
The Horseman began to walk in one direction, the winged creature to flutter in the other. But again, Death halted.
“Panoptos?”
“Yes? What?”
“In all this, we never did discover precisely who sent the demon mercenaries after the Grand Abominations. Obviously, we tipped them off ourselves, there at the end, to ensure they’d be there at the same time as Hadrimon, but who involved them in the first place?”
“A fair question.” Panoptos’s shrug made use of his arms and wings both. “Plenty of factions would have wanted such weapons. Perhaps we’ll never know who it was.”
“Perhaps not.” Death idly tapped a finger on the chin of his mask. “It’s funny, though. You see, whoever it was knew enough to approach Raciel specifically, of all possible allies in Hell. He knew enough to send the demons after us wherever we were—first in Lilith’s old laboratory, and then on the Ravaiim homeworld. Why, it’s almost as though it was someone with access to every single report we made to the Charred Council along the way.”
“Hmm.” Eight of the nine glowing eyes narrowed to slits. “Yes, I can see how it might seem that way.”
“It got me wondering, who could possibly have access to that sort of information? The Council themselves, of course, but the last thing they’d want is for the Abominations to fall into demonic hands. The other Horsemen? Fury is faithful to the Council. So is Strife, for all his posturing.
“But of course, the Council’s most ‘favored agent’ would also have access, would he not? It’s possible, I’d think, that such a creature might have grown resentful at his eons of servitude—slavery, really. And maybe, just maybe, such a creature might find a whole brand-new servitor race, based on him, to be the perfect soldiers for his own army. Why, if only he had weapons of sufficient power to arm them, even the Charred Council couldn’t keep him under their thumb!”
A soft, undulant hiss emerged from the emptiness of Panoptos’s face.
“It’s a fascinating notion,” he said finally. “But of course, even if such a ludicrous, far-fetched tale were true, you would be stuck with an appalling lack of evidence. You could go to the Council with nothing but theories spun of supposition and moonbeams, of course …”