by Matt Turner
“NO!” Simon bellowed. He didn’t have enough time to even run, so he kicked his feet into the ground, hoping that the force of his legs would be enough to propel him forward. It did—he shot at Longinus like an arrow, and slammed into the Prophet’s back with the force of a cannonball. Somehow, his hand brushed against the end of the lance, and the stab that should have taken Amaury in the chest just barely sliced open the fabric of his cloak.
“Bastard!” Simon howled as he and Longinus tumbled to the ground. He rolled onto the Prophet and smashed a fist that could have shattered rock directly at the man’s face. He felt a few of Longinus’s teeth loosen and crack from the force of his blow, but by all rights, the Prophet’s face should have been completely reduced to pulp. He slammed another fist down at the cold face, eager to try again.
Longinus raised his right hand and easily caught the punch. The air rushed away from it with a sharp crack, but there was not the slightest expression of pain on the Prophet’s face. With his free hand, he gave Simon a shove filled with so much raw power that the Horseman was flung nearly five yards back, tearing a small trough in the ground with his body.
“Holy fuck,” Amaury said in dumb amazement.
“You insignificant worms,” Longinus snarled as he rose to his feet. Somehow Simon had ripped away half of the Prophet’s cloak when he was shoved back, and so the Prophet tore off the few scraps that remained. From the waist up, he was naked, exposing an upper torso encased in slabs of muscle. On his right breast, a fist-sized chunk of reddened, raised flesh pulsed and twisted. “You dare challenge me?”
“Goddamn right,” Simon spat. Somehow he found the strength in his wobbly legs to stand back up and assume the unarmed position that he had learned as a child.
“I am Death the Horseman,” Longinus swore. Gone was the cold undercurrent of his voice; now all that remained was a bubbling cauldron of rage. “I am Lord Prophet Longinus of the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace!”
Amaury caught Simon’s eye. As he slid his hand into his cloak to pull out another knife, he ever-so-slightly winked at Simon, flicked his eyes up to the sky, then tapped himself on the chest and pointed to the ground. The message was clear: you go high, I go low. Simon gave him the barest hint of a nod. Without any more warning, Simon kicked himself high into the air in a lunge that would take Longinus’s head clean off, just as Amaury charged forward at his knees, a knife in either hand.
Their plan almost worked.
42
Vera had no time to properly analyze it—she had just gotten pistol-whipped in the face and had her nose broken for the third goddamn time—but she must have just barely brushed against Fritz, for as he effortlessly hurled her at the storm of branches, the Mark on her ankle pulsed. She suddenly had an overwhelming urge to kick NOW and felt her foot connect with some sort of weapon. It flew far over her head, and she opened her eyes in time to see an explosion of flame burst just over the oak barricade that John had built. A few scraps of flame tumbled down onto the thicket, but the majority dispersed in an instant.
“Suck a—” she started to call out in triumph, just before a knife stabbed down between her breasts.
“Tricky little Russian,” Fritz breathed. “Tricky, tricky.” He straightened up and pressed his boot on the knife’s hilt, making it sink even deeper.
She screamed out, louder and louder, as it pierced her chest.
“Vera!” John cried out in a panic. Even though the grenade had largely missed, over half of his thicket was now burning, so he pressed through the dying vines and branches, desperate to get to her.
“God, I love an easy target,” Fritz drawled. He casually pulled back his right sleeve, exposing a strange contraption mounted to his wrist. With his free hand, he slid a finger-sized projectile into an opening on the contraption, then carefully pointed it at John.
Vera desperately clawed at the Prophet’s leg. Her fingers brushed up against his ankle and she felt a brief connection to his mind form—but beneath the jokes and the shallow layer of humor, his consciousness was a steel beast, tamed and chained by decades of iron discipline and cold hate. Her efforts to incite fear and madness in him were as weak as the blows of a fly against a mountain.
“Are you trying to get in my head?” Fritz grinned down at her. “You won’t like what you find in there, Bolshevik.” He stomped down on the knife hilt, smashing it so deep that none of the blade was even visible.
John shot a hand-like vine at the Prophet, hoping to seize him by the throat, but long before he even came close, Fritz fired his contraption. The weapon belched a burst of flame that lit half his arm on fire, but the projectile that shot forward caught John directly in the chest. There was a burst of light and sound, and Vera had only a dim glimpse of the other Horseman being tossed backward like a ragdoll.
Fritz made a noise of disgust at the flames on his arm and slapped them down. “Still needs work,” he said apologetically. “Not quite my best.” He looked down at Vera critically. “You are a Bolshevik, yes?”
Vera could only manage to cough a weak gurgle of blood.
“I guess it doesn’t really matter.” Fritz sighed. He stomped on the knife again, this time burying over half the hilt in her chest. “I’ve been looking for Stalin and Lenin for years, but there’s just so goddamn many of you fucking Judeo-Communists…ah, well.”
He withdrew several star-shaped pieces of metal from a pouch on his belt and hurled them down. One by one, they pierced through her wrists and the palms of her hands, so deep that they wedged themselves into the stone below. “A crucifixion worthy of Longinus!” he crowed in triumph over Vera’s groans. Just for the hell of it, he crushed his boot down on her bloody face and twisted it about.
“Stop that!” John bellowed.
Fritz jerked his head up in surprise to see that the Horseman was approaching from the direction of Longinus’s battle with the two gingers. “I thought I got you.” He frowned, and with that, he slid another projectile into his wrist-weapon and took aim. “This time I won’t miss.”
He squeezed the trigger and laughed as John burst into flame.
43
As fast as Simon and Amaury were, Longinus was faster. He immediately processed their two-pronged attack, calculated Simon’s trajectory, and suddenly launched himself up into the air to meet the older Horseman head-on. Amaury’s knives passed through nothingness, a bare second before Longinus hurled his lance directly like a javelin down at the young man’s back.
“Amaury!” Manto called out, but Simon had no time to see whether or not the lance had impaled his son, for he and Longinus collided in mid-air with a bone-jarring crack. They smashed into the ground in a flailing ball of biting teeth and kicking limbs.
They raged and cursed at each other on the ground, slamming elbows and kneecaps at each other. There was not even a hint of mercy; Simon instinctively lunged for the Prophet’s eyes, hoping to tear them out, but the Prophet anticipated the move, rolled back, and allowed Simon to over-extend himself. In an instant, Longinus twisted behind Simon like a snake and wrapped both of his arms around the Horseman’s throat.
“I am going to break your spine now,” the Prophet whispered in Simon’s ear. His powerful arms began to tighten, and through his graying vision, Simon could swear he could hear the sound of something starting to grate and pop. “Your Master’s little rebellion is over.”
Simon choked and gasped desperately for air as the burning skies above swiftly turned to nothing but blackness in his dying vision. With one last heave, he slammed his head back, hoping to catch Longinus with his skull, but he had no such luck; the Prophet’s grip was so tight that he could barely move even an inch. This is the end.
“War!” Amaury called out in the distance. “Catch!”
Through his tortured eyes, Simon had a glimpse of something metal spinning through the air at him. He weakly raised a hand to catch it—and then Longinus abruptly released him. As nimble as a fox, the Prophet leapt off the ground and intercepted the pr
ojectile, leaving Simon to desperately suck in lungfuls of air as he helplessly lay on the ground.
“My Lance,” he murmured, pressing a button on the metal object’s side that made it extend into the golden lance once again. “Thank you for returning it to me, child.”
“Fuck!” Amaury spat.
“No need to break your spine now, Horseman.” Longinus shrugged. “I have your soul.” He raised the lancehead over Simon’s body, ready to stab it down.
Simon tensed his muscles to roll away, but it was no good; his body was too battered and tired to properly obey his commands. The tiniest smile crossed Longinus’s face as the lance came down.
Without any sort of warning, a ball of fire exploded against Longinus’s back. For an instant, Simon had a glimpse of the expression of pain and utter shock on the Prophet’s face—and then the force of the impact hurtled the Prophet over Simon’s body to explode in a cloud of smoke and dust at the far side of the square.
The lance gently rolled to a halt next to Simon’s fingers. He picked up the shaft, utterly confused. “What the fuck just happened?” he croaked.
Halfway across the city square, Fritz laughed as his missile slammed into the Suicide. I knew the wrist-rocket would come in handy, he thought gloatingly. It was pretty hilarious to watch the Horseman fly something like thirty meters and then crash into the corner of one of the abandoned factories.
“Why don’t I give him another?” he asked Vera. He slid another missile into the launcher, and took aim at the second story of the factory. This time I’ll bury him.
“FRITZ!” an enraged voice bellowed from the cloud of dust and smoke. “CEASE FIRE, GODDAMNIT!”
What? Fritz thought in utter confusion as a tattered, bloodied, and very pissed-off Longinus emerged from the smoke.
“You damned fool,” Longinus boomed in the voice of a Roman centurion, the kind of voice that could cut through even the loudest battlefields. “I’ll crucify you for this!”
“But I hit the Suicide…” Fritz muttered in disbelief. A sudden realization began to dawn on him, and he suspiciously looked down at the Russian whore who he had impaled to the ground.
She was no longer there—only a handful of his knives and throwing stars embedded in the stone of the city square. “What the fuck?” he exploded in confusion.
“Turns out I don’t need to change your mind that much.” Vera grinned.
He spun around to see her standing a few meters away from him on the street, as cool and relaxed as though she were just going shopping.
“Why go to all the work of making you mad or scared when I can just show you what you want to see?”
Impossible. But it was true—she must have altered his awareness, touched him somehow when he was throwing her. Her nose was still broken, and there was fresh blood on her blouse where he had stabbed her with the knife, so he had at least gotten a few good hits on her, but this was still damned embarrassing.
Fritz decided to save the wrist-rocket for later; there was still the possibility that the Vera before him was some sort of illusion—he had no idea of the true extent of her unnatural Horseman powers. Instead, he withdrew his fourth gun, the machine-pistol he had slung over his back, and emptied half a clip at her.
The bullets passed through her like smoke. “Turns out I’m not here after all,” Vera mocked. “Looks like you can’t trust your eyes after all, Fritz.”
His sight was compromised, then. But Lord Prophet Fritz had fought in the dark tunnels of Stalingrad; he had more than one sense at his disposal. He closed his eyes and forced himself to concentrate on the sounds around him while blocking out the distant battle of the disintegrating Fourth Legion. About ten meters away, at his eight o’clock, he could just barely make out the wheezing sound of someone trying to breathe through a bloodied nose.
With his eyes still closed, he spun his machine-pistol in that direction and squeezed the trigger.
44
Vera’s elation at having discovered a weakness in the German’s armor—it turned out, the envious bastard was obsessed with all the things that he wanted to see—swiftly withered away into fear when he simply closed his eyes and spun to face her direction.
Oh shit. She couldn’t help but let out a gasp when he fired a round that shrieked through the air less than a meter away from her head.
“Tricky little Russian!” Fritz laughed. “I found you—”
His mocking laughter suddenly turned into a scream as a golden spear sprouted from his left forearm.
“Found you first,” Simon spat from where he had hurled Longinus’s Lance.
The gun tumbled from Fritz’s hands as he gazed with horror at the lancehead embedded in his arm. “Oh God, no,” he screamed as his skin began to blacken and wither. He desperately jerked his arm forward, hoping to wrench the lance out, but it was no use; the rot had spread down to his left hand, where his fingers were swiftly decaying, and was already making its way past his elbow.
Vera had no idea what was happening to the Prophet, but she took a special satisfaction in it, nonetheless. “I’ll see you in Hell, Fritz,” she taunted.
He gave her a bloodshot glare of pain and hatred. “I’m not done yet, Russian whore!” he spat, and with that, he pressed the strange contraption on his wrist against his left bicep and fired.
The rocket did not actually explode—it merely shot off into the distant flames of Hellfire—but the sheer force of its passing was more than enough to tear a gaping hole through the muscles, bones, and tendons of the German’s arm.
“This isn’t over!” Fritz shrieked as he reached over with his right hand, seized his limp, rotting limb, and tore it away from himself. Entire liters of his blood spilled onto the ground as he knelt and wrenched the lance away from the skeletal remains of his left arm. He tucked the weapon underneath his right, and with a speed that Vera could hardly believe, the Prophet fled.
The nightmarish sight of the one-armed man, still screaming inarticulate curses and vows of revenge as he dove over John’s barricade and into the madness of the still-fighting Fourth Legion, was an image that would haunt Vera’s dreams for quite some time.
45
“Coward!” Longinus bellowed after the fleeing Fritz. “Get back here, you traitor!” But the other Prophet was long gone, vanished in the chaos of the burning city.
“It’s over, Lord Prophet,” Amaury sneered. “You’ve lost your backup, you’ve lost your Lance…you’re about to lose a few more things, I wager.” He reached down and helped Simon back to his feet as Vera began to stride toward them and John weakly emerged from the darkness of the thicket.
“You are nothing but ignorant children!” Longinus raged. “Do you not know who I am? The deeds I’ve done?”
“I feel like you’re going to tell us anyway.” Vera sighed as she took a position alongside Simon.
“I was there at Golgotha when the Jews brought forward their King,” he spat. “I helped slash His back to bloody pieces with the nine-tails. I chose the spot for the execution. And when He was struggling for his last breath, I struck him in the side with my lance so that water and blood poured out!”
The dark Prophet raised his hands in fury to the skies above. “I am Centurion Cassius Longinus of Rome, the killer of Christ, the murderer of GOD!—and compared to Him, you are NOTHING!” He reached into a pocket of his robes, and strangely enough, withdrew an insect—a locust, nearly half a foot long, covered in bronze-like armor. “Giles, bring me the Five Wounds!” he bellowed at it.
“They are on their way,” the locust said in a voice that chittered and clacked with its pincers. Simon and Vera shared a look of bewildered shock. “Good hunting.”
“We need to finish him now,” Amaury growled. He took a step forward, a knife in each hand, then stopped in his tracks at the bizarre sight before them.
Four great clouds of locusts suddenly burrowed up from the ground, chewing and cracking through the cobblestone with their sheer numbers. For a moment, it seemed th
at they would simply fly off into the air, but then the clouds began to darken as each horde of insects coalesced and tightened—and then, without warning, the locusts stiffened and died. Their bodies weakly tumbled to the ground, revealing that there was now a man standing in place of each of the four clouds. But even then, there was something off about the newcomers—their skin was waxy and deathly pale, as though they had not seen the light in a very, very long time.
“What in the blazing fuck,” Vera muttered in disbelief.
The locusts that transported me and Fritz, Simon remembered. Was this what it was like to watch it happen? It was even more disgusting than he had remembered. He wrinkled his nose in disgust as Longinus lifted the locust in his hand up to his mouth and swallowed it down. With that, the Prophet lifted his hand in the air and smiled when the four other men followed his motion.
“We are the God-killers,” Longinus announced. “The Five Wounds of Christ.”
“Annas,” said the oldest man. His face was wrinkled and drooping, but his eyes had a cunning gleam of intelligence about them. The robes he had were flowing and ornate, the mark of a wealthy man.
“Caiaphas,” said the man to his right. He was far younger, and wore the same uniform as Annas. They’re both High Priests, Simon realized. Which made the other two…
“Pontius,” the third man announced. He bore the stern face and the aquiline nose of an ancient Roman noble, but his eyes were faraway and sad.
That left only one more, the man directly to Longinus’s right. He was naked except for a ragged pair of trousers, exposing the gigantic scars and claw marks left on every inch of his exposed body. His mouth was frozen in a twisted snarl, locked in place by paper-white scar tissue, and so it was difficult for him to say his own name. “Judas.”