by LJ Swallow
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” Xander pants the words out.
Seth drags Heath to his feet, and Vee screams as he snaps Heath’s neck like a twig. The events happen in slow motion, but so quickly there’s nothing any of us could do. Seth stands with Heath’s limp body in his hands.
A new scream echoes around us, this time from Vee, who struggles to her feet and launches herself full force at Seth. He throws Heath to one side and sidesteps until she stumbles back to the floor. With a chuckle, Seth darts away.
Bile rises in my throat. We dreaded this the whole time we were together. The day Death dies. Mustering my last energy, I run after Vee and pull her to her feet, not looking at Heath. We can fix this. Seth will die, and we can fix this.
34
XANDER
I don’t have time to deal with my emotions. My brother’s death. The threat of Hell.
The devastating evil I saw when the angel revealed my memories.
We don’t have time.
I have no doubt, Vee, as she is now, could kill Seth, but will she survive?
The girl with her face now on Heath’s chest jerks with convulsions and blood streaks her face. In the last few moments, her skin became luminescent. She’s emitting power, and the change is killing her.
“How do we do this?” I ask Joss as he approaches. “How do we take Seth down and help Vee when she needs us?”
Joss shakes his head. We’re more lost than we’ve ever been.
“He can’t be dead, he can’t.” Vee grips at Heath’s jacket and I turn my face, unable to look at Heath’s head snapped into an unnatural angle. “He’s Death. He can’t die.”
“Vee. We need to kill Seth,” I whisper and stroke hair from her damp cheeks. “We don’t have much time now the angels are dead.”
Vee wraps herself around Heath and kisses his face, his eyelids, his mouth. Her body wracks with pain and sobs. Vee shakes and more light illuminates her body.
My stomach turns because I know what’s happening to her.
We failed, and there’s nothing we can do.
Vee grips Heath’s hair and keeps her mouth on his, hands on his chest as she curls her body around him. I keep my hand on her back, and Joss sits nearby head in his hands as we watch the girl we love in her own Hell.
“Do you think Hell will still exist when I destroy the world?” muses Seth.
His voice comes from nearby and Vee doesn’t move.
Has she given up?
I close my eyes and turn to him, weak. I’d fight him, but what’s the point? None of us could take him on. We’ll use the last of our energy and time in this world to help Vee. I look to Ewan, slumped on the ground with us, and he nods in silent understanding. Vee’s lost. Too lost to help us.
And I don’t want to live if Vee dies.
Vee breaks from Heath, and a determined strength pulls her to her feet.
“That was a tender goodbye to your dead lover,” scoffs Seth. “Almost brought a tear to my eye. Do the others get a goodbye kiss?”
Vee seizes me around the neck and kisses me, mouth hard on mine. I’d wrap my arms around Vee, but her kiss hurts my heart. Literally causes it to swell with pain, and a sensation of poison spreading through my veins follows. This strange creature half Vee, half Order grips me hard, and I struggle to keep my footing. My heart pushes harder and, with her mouth on me, I can’t breathe.
Oblivion to match what the angels threw me into earlier overwhelms. I sink down with dread flooding through.
EWAN
Chaos always wastes time. He revels in watching others struggle, to watch the pain his acts cause as if he feeds on the suffering. This god doesn’t want a swift and neat ending. He wants to see us broken, the way he once wanted us divided.
But I still have fight left inside.
I will fight for and with Vee.
Seth watches Vee and Xander’s kiss through narrowed eyes, and Xander grips her in an attempt to stay upright. Does Seth know what she’s doing? Because I do. She’s trying to give him Order.
“Okay. That’s enough. You’re making me want to vomit.” Seth steps toward the pair.
No.
Xander survived Seth’s attack. Heath didn’t. Joss almost lost. I’ve no doubt what will happen to me after my next move. But I can’t let Seth interfere with what Vee’s doing.
Am I strong enough?
I muster every ounce of strength in my body and slam into a distracted Seth. I’m twice his human bulk, but half the being he is. Seth loses his footing for a fraction of a second before righting himself and snapping his attention to me.
“Really? Didn’t you learn last time? You can’t touch me, Ewan.”
He steps forward to meet me head-on. I don’t flinch staring down at him—into the void in his blackened eyes. “I’m not finishing this any other way than watching you burn,” he says, his voice growing huskier as he takes on a darker shape.
Seth’s form grows, still human but half as tall as me again. He darkens in the way Vee has lightened and. I take a step back and look up at him.
I won’t back down.
I can’t let him drop his focus on me and realise what Vee is doing.
But I’m fucking terrified.
The figure reaches above his head, head tipped back and both palms open to the sky. Directly above, the grey day becomes night as a black gloom spreads through the sky obliterating the remaining daylight. Sudden, encompassing night.
But this isn’t the night sky. The stars and moon don’t shine in the black. The air around stills. A heat grows around us, and I struggle for breath as the pitch envelops my lungs.
The cloud cracks like thunder overhead, the sound deafening, and blue light crackles to the ground behind Seth. He’s illuminated for a second and then merges back into the shadows.
What the fuck do I do?
Above, blue and purple energy sparks and dances across the dark sky and to the horizon.
Chaos finally reached his end game.
A bolt from above hits me, unlike anything I’ve felt before. I stagger before landing on my knees. Shocks run through me, over and over, and my body sparks with the energy thrown from above. I gasp for air. For the strength, I need to stand and do something.
But what good are Pestilence’s powers against Chaos?
In the corner of my eye, Vee breaks away from Xander and my spirits rise as she turns to us. I hear nothing but my laboured breathing. The air thins as the oxygen leaves.
The last thing I see as the crackling magic above hits me is Vee dropping to her knees beside Xander.
JOSS
Ewan falls at Chaos’s feet, and the triumph on his face flashes in and out of view as the storm above rages.
But this isn’t a storm. This is the end of days. The Reckoning, the angels promised.
The fucking angels.
I glance at Leoc’s blood on my hands and anger heats my skin. The story would always lead to an end here—the Four Horsemen, Vee and Seth. Order and Chaos. But the angels, the double-crossing bastards, tried to make this their own story. They wrote the book and wanted to choose the ending.
But we will create our own.
Vee and Xander remain on the ground and my last hope fades that she somehow passed her power to him. Vee still burns with the same intensity, face smudged by blood and dirt and her body convulsing as she fights against the Order leaving her body.
The fierce emotions from the last few days have faded around me. But there’s a horrific reason I’m not overwhelmed by them anymore.
Heath and Ewan no longer feel.
Heath’s lifeless body rests beside Vee and Xander. Ewan lies in the worst place he’d want to die—Chaos’s feet.
I sense Xander is alive. But he’s on the edge.
“That was too easy,” Seth calls out. “C’mon, Vee. I’ve killed two of them. Where’s this so-called goddess power? Or are you scared you’ll die too? I can make it quick and easy if you want.”
I’m knocked sideways
by a dark bolt from Chaos’s hands. I land awkwardly and the new agony shooting through isn’t from the magic, but the shattered bone in my leg. He walks towards me and looks down.
“You were kinda nice to me once, Famine. Not that it makes much difference now.” He lifts his hands upwards and the blue light darts from above to touch his fingertips.
Chaos looks down as the blue on his fingertips darkens to black, the colour crawling along his arms and to his neck. The black webbed pattern creeps across his face and ends where his eyes become holes holding a vision of his universe. Black. Empty.
The twisted visage Chaos created magnifies the smug, satisfied smile, and he draws his hands back. The magic crackles as more bolts shoot down from the sky to meet his hands.
“But thanks for being the nice guy.”
Chaos lifts his palms in my direction. Focused dark magic flashes across the small space between us. I meet his eyes and stare into the oncoming oblivion. I won’t turn my head away. I won’t cower. He doesn’t get to enjoy my fear in death.
35
VEE
I want to curl up and die. Lose the agony from whatever the hell is happening inside me by yielding. Each time I move, the pressure builds, and Order continues to push at me.
The voice inside grew with the pain. The whispers always in the back of my mind grow louder. Give in. Forget. Let Vee go. The world shifts as if I’m looking down the wrong end of a telescope. The hands in front of my eyes aren’t mine. They never were. The blood staining my fingers from wiping my face isn’t mine. I don’t belong in this body.
But around me, the men who love the person I’ve battled to hold on to fight for me. For us. For the world.
The girl behind the hands, consumed by Order, won’t let go. Each time the men I love touch me, with every word they say, I’m dragged back to who she is. To Vee. Every time they’re hurt, they pull me to them. I’m joined to their hearts and feel their anguish. Their fear. Their love. My power from Famine holds me to them. They'll do anything to stop Vee from dying.
Because this is killing me. My heartbeat slows, and my lungs constrict. Strange dread washes over me as I’m pushed towards what my creators want.
Heath and Ewan are dead. Moments ago, Chaos killed Joss.
We can’t split between four anymore.
I crouch beside Xander sickened that he doesn’t move. The angels were right. Order is too powerful. I haven’t killed him, but will he survive? I wipe my shaking hand across his face, drying my bloodied tears on his cheek from when our faces touched. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I tried.”
I stand to face Chaos.
I have nothing left without them.
“They weakened you through the years, Order,” he says, voice carrying as if spoken through an echoing tunnel. “We need each other now. I’ll give you one last chance to make a deal.”
Order seethes inside, but Vee sees Ewan at his feet, and she doubles over, sobbing.
“For fuck’s sake!” Chaos growls. “Are you holding out hope for them?”
Chaos seizes Xander around the throat and lifts him from the ground, squeezing the life from him with one hand. Xander doesn’t struggle, and Chaos frowns, shaking him. Desperate for a response. A fight.
Vee’s already breaking heart shatters as I watch my failure. Chaos drops the last of my Horsemen to the ground.
“No!” I scream the words, and the volume shocks me.
In front of me is the vision I saw. The Four Horsemen at Chaos’s feet. The world behind doesn’t burn. Because the world I saw destroyed in my vision is mine. Without them, my world no longer exists.
“Come with me. We can be strong. Let go of your human form. You’ve already lost Vee. The guys are gone.” He gestures at the bodies around my feet. “They don’t matter. They never mattered.”
Fury blinds and Order takes control. The light around flashes with an intensity that wipes my vision. I scream as if the light tears at me and let go of the torture that’s gripped my body. I can’t hold on anymore. There’s no point. The light around me grows and transforms me the way Chaos took Seth. I see his form and cling to my dying body, but we both know these selves won’t survive.
Order continues to power through me, and Vee retreats further and further until I’m trapped as if in a tiny cell. But Chaos doesn’t understand. Each time he hurts one of them. Each death I witness doesn’t only strengthen Order—it energises Vee.
The energy streams from my hands as it did before but with a ferocity that knocks Chaos far from me. He yells in a wave of anger that rips through the darkness and against my light. Chaos drags himself to his feet and clutches his stomach. We’re both drawn to the centre of his body, where a white patch glows against the black.
Chaos lifts his arms and face to the sky, and the energy I saw hit Joss builds around him again. He throws his hands out with another yell and the dark power streams from his fingers and into me.
I don’t move. Don’t stumble. The light surrounding me absorbs his Chaos.
Worry crosses his face, and his dark eyes shine black when I step forward.
This isn’t Seth’s face I’m looking into, the way I expected at the end. This is the chaos god who finally revealed his power. The body before me is eaten up by the energy streaming from the sky and into him.
Whoever Seth was, his body dies before my eyes.
I throw more power at him, into the existing Order that glows in his chest. He collapses back. Stumbling as he tries to stand, he falls again. Chaos continues to obliterate his human form as the void grows around him. He throws his hands upwards with another yell. The light that hit Joss falls from the sky like shooting stars, bouncing along the ground in sparks.
The dancing energy hits me, and it travels up my legs. The sparks attempt to crawl across my face, but my Order snuffs them like a candle flame.
The power I hit Chaos with spreads across his chest, obliterating the black and I draw in a breath. The remaining human Seth gasps too, and the light continues to creep across his body switching the web on his face from black to luminescent.
And I smile.
Suddenly, my vision changes. I’m weightless. Part of the universe, amongst the stars. I fight against something ripping my creations from around me. Gleeful. Vengeful. A black hole swirls, sucking away his damage. I hit the invisible force, and everything explodes back to reality.
My body is failing. Each beat of my heart slower than the last but Order doesn’t care. Order wants to take Chaos. To end him.
And Chaos wants Order.
He rushes at me and winds his arms around me, the dark fading my vision as the dying Chaos power hits. But he’s stupid. Arrogant. Believes he can win.
“You’re going to take more if you touch me,” I rasp out as my human lungs lose the air.
“Then you end with me.”
A darkness hits the Order inside. Finds the piece of me Logan once saw—the part of Chaos existing inside. And Order battles to keep him out.
“We could have done so much,” he whispers.
I grab his hands, and we lock together with a jolt. Order streams from me, shaking through my body and I wait for the end. Of him. And me.
He sneers. “You don’t have enough power.”
The polarity shifts and Chaos pushes back, skewering my body. I try to let go but can’t.
“Did you waste your energy trying to revive your boys?”
I push back because the only way to end this is to allow Order to lose the human form. Bowing my head, I push away from Vee and to the inevitable.
Strong arms curl around my waist and interrupt my concentration. Someone behind me swears in pain and drags me away from Chaos. Order fights and strikes out as I lose my grip on Chaos.
Chaos falls to his knees, weakened. I fight my way from the grip on me and turn in fury. Heath drags shaking hands through his hair—hands and eyes matching the faint glow I had before—as he watches me warily.
“What the fuck?” asks Seth in
a weak voice.
“Stop, Vee,” he says. “Not yet.”
Vee surges back as her relieved heart sees hope. Heath’s alive.
Heath grabs my hand and pulls me forward, and I jerk as if we’ve been connected like a plug in a socket too. “You might be Chaos. But you forget I’m Death. And, apparently, you can’t kill Death.”
Chaos scrambles backwards on his arse, staring up at Heath. He catches sight of something else behind and attempts to stand again. He’s too weak.
Somebody takes my other hand and the energy jolts again. “You tried, and it worked.” I look down at Xander’s hand and to his face. To where his eyes shine with a luminescence to match Heath’s.
War and Death connect with Order. Xander and Heath pull back Vee. “The others?” I ask.
Xander shakes his head.
“I’m not running if that’s what you expect.” Chaos manages to stand, the strange half-dark, half-light creature. “You’ve fucked up. Order can’t win if Vee won’t let go.”
He stands his ground as we step forward. Xander and Heath place a hand on his shoulder, and he sneers back at them.
“No,” whispers Xander as the light covering Seth intensifies. “We won’t let Vee go.”
Chaos’s form burns brightly spreading from his feet to his head as we channel Order. We know we’re safe. That Order can use the guys as a conduit too. Xander and Heath snatch their hands back as Chaos explodes upwards like a firework sparking into thousands of blue stars.
I land heavily on the ground and stare up as a hole opens and sucks Chaos’s remains away. Daylight returns. My aching stomach sickens when I recognise what this is. I saw this on the night in Scotland in Ewan’s room. The black hole sucks me in after Chaos.
36
VEE
I don’t know how long I lie on the ground in Heath and Xander’s arms. They talk to me in panicked tones, but I can’t move or communicate with them that I’m alive. Everything is quiet inside my head. I’m the shell I imagined without Order inside. Am I dying?