The sounds of weapons filled the air. Sounds of death.
Ichabod had literally stood in the shadows, doing nothing as innocents lost their lives, and as Indie… I shook my head, clearing it. My anger was out of control.
I leaned forward. “We’re through here. You’re not taking her from me this time. I’ve seen your true colors. Your Beast. And I’ve learned a few things since last we wrestled.” I leaned closer, allowing a bit of madness to dance in my eyes. “And I’ve come to the realization that I prefer battling in this world over the Dueling Grounds.” I winked ominously.
“Nate…” a familiar voice whispered from behind me.
I slowly turned, limbs suddenly leaden.
Indie stared at me, shaking as she tried to support herself on one arm, the other clutching the arrows. I turned to Mallory, mouth open to command him to heal her.
“No!” she hissed. “Don’t touch me.” My mouth remained open, and I realized after a few seconds of staring, that she wasn’t just whispering in pain… but whispering in downright fury.
“I don’t understand. Let us heal you,” I began, pleading.
“No.” Her tone was an iron fist to my stomach. “You don’t get to do that anymore.” She leveled fiery eyes at me, then turned to Ichabod. She scowled a bit, and I saw her eyes shift to the smoky, coalescing dark depths of a Grimm. Her arm almost gave out as she turned. I instinctively took a step to help her, and was hammered with a fist of raw power.
Except, thanks to my cuffs, nothing touched me. But by the venomous look in her eyes, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she had just tried to kill me.
“Lucky you,” she spat blood onto the floor. With grunts and groans, she climbed to her feet. An arrow slammed into the ground between her and me, a warning from the Huntress. Indie chuckled in dark amusement, but other than that, didn’t acknowledge the threat. She stood facing me, finally lifting her head to meet my eyes. They still shifted with the smoky darkness, little flickers of light like distant lightning in those murky depths. “You ruined everything.”
I couldn’t help it. I let my emotions fly. All the rage from knowing she was in town. She not calling. Me loving her. She disappearing for months. Pain. Sadness. Confusion. And white-hot rage. “What are you talking about?” I shouted back, torn between outrage and love. “I saved that kid’s life!” I pointed at the chimera.
“And indirectly killed how many more?” she shouted right back. “Basically guaranteeing that thousands more would die in the years to come. Months to come.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t work like that…”
“It works exactly like that. You’re so used to being the hotshot. Getting your way. Thinking yourself a hero.” Her leg almost gave out as she clutched her abdomen in a spasm of pain. “But, you are wrong.”
“Indie, listen. I might not know everything you’re talking about, but you don’t know what he’s done!” I pointed a finger at Ichabod. My hand was shaking.
“At least he can make the hard decisions.”
I wanted to hit something. Hard. But I took a deep, calming breath. This was Indie. She had been misguided, led astray by Ichabod. “Look, we can figure all that out later.” I took a cautious step closer, letting out a small smile. “You came back…” I began.
“Stay away from me!” she screamed. I froze, stunned. “I have more important things to do than play house.” Her glare was frigid, like the Winter Queen had looked at me. “Or was me not calling you upon my arrival somehow unclear?”
I stood there, lost as I stared at my fiancée. “Indie—”
“No. I choose him. At least he’s trying to do the right thing, the tough thing. Take care of the big picture, and not just put out small fires. We could have stopped them, Nate. The group Rumpelstiltskin worked for. But you ruined that. To save one life.” And she stumbled over to Ichabod. I wrung my hands in frustration, not knowing what to do. What to say. I scratched at my chafing wrist absently as my mind stumbled for anything I could say to convince her of the madman before her.
Ichabod’s gaze settled on my cuffs, and he grimaced. He flung one hand up at the canopy above us, and touched Indie’s arm. The ceiling of the tent made a large cracking sound, and the two were suddenly gone with a second crack of power that signified him Shadow Walking.
And I howled in outrage as the circus tent finally came down around us.
My friends screamed as our world exploded in flames and sparks.
And the beasts were now all unconscious, or under Tory’s thrall.
Defenseless from the rain of fire and embers falling down towards us.
I flung my hands up into the air to cast consecutive blasts of air into a dome protecting every living body in the pit. The spherical force expanded until it hammered into the falling tent around us. The canvas, support poles, and cables tore free, snapping free from the quarry floor, and vaporizing to ash. Then two more domes of light – even stronger than the first – flew out of my hands, until the fire was entirely gone, and only the night sky hung overhead. Stars like shiny diamonds rested on a bed of dark velvet, faint gossamer clouds like transparent cotton candy drifted lazily by.
And I realized I was lying on my back, finally exhausted, or overwhelmed with grief.
Or something.
A broken heart, perhaps.
I heard a horse’s hoof stamp down by my head, and then a sharp, hard object wedged itself underneath me like a fulcrum, propping me up. I didn’t react, simply staring up at the sky as voices shouted all around me. Shadows of motion flickered around me, but I refused to focus on them, admiring the simple beauty of the cosmos above. The hard fulcrum suddenly flung me up into the air, and I landed on hard, but yielding, feathered flesh, my world tilting crazily for a second. I didn’t allow myself to focus on the montage of shapes and colors that represented the pit, my friends, and the horse. I heard more feathers snap out, rattling in the wind as a lamenting neigh cracked the night, silencing the protesting voices of my friends all around us.
I wrapped my arms around my ride, and decided to rest, closing my eyes for a moment.
I felt reality shatter to pieces around us as the horse bolted forward, and only silence resided where we now traveled. I cracked an eye open, mildly curious, and realized we were in the stars. In the darkness. In the cosmos.
In moonlight and sunbeams.
And I felt at peace for the briefest of moments before closing my eyes again. I heard four more sets of hooves racing up beside me, and my level of comfort increased. An honor guard…
Chapter 63
I opened my eyes to a dystopian world of fire.
I sat on the heights of a mountain that didn’t exist in the real world. And I could see all of St. Louis. Not just a lot, but all. I climbed to my feet. I could see for miles – dozens of miles – and what I saw made me want to empty the contents of my stomach.
Fires raged through my once great city, smoke cloying the air. No electricity illuminated the cityscape – only flame. The St. Louis Arch was now twin jagged spires of twisted metal. I let my gaze wander. Pulverized skyscrapers. Rivers putrid with the rotting bodies of both man and beast. The earth oversaturated with blood, like a nightmarish swamp. But the fires still raged on, many in colors that were not possible… well, not humanly possible.
Abandoned vehicles filled roadways: tanks, sedans, and even wreckage from planes. A nearby train lay on its side, grain spilling from its torn cars. The grain was rotten.
Bodies lay everywhere. And weapons of all types lay discarded and forgotten near those bodies: guns, swords, knives, spears, shields, riot gear, and shell casings. A shitload of shell casings. Only one building stood unharmed.
A church.
And crows blanketed the earth, filling the air with hungry caws as they feasted on the buffet of death.
Millions of them.
Someone cleared their throat behind me and I flinched in surprise, spinning.
A flickering white campfire crackled in
a small pit, and four figures sat in a circle around it – all hooded, and leaning forward. Despite the bright fire, their faces remained shadowed. Five large beasts stood silhouetted in the shadows of the fire, a dozen or so paces away, calmly munching on a fresh deer. I bit my tongue. They were horses. And one of them was Grimm, my unicorn. Eating raw flesh.
Understanding dawned, and my sense of alarm doubled.
The Four Horsemen.
Then memory came whispering back to me.
They had escorted me from the quarry.
And they obviously wanted to talk.
I approached them warily. “Thanks,” I said, sitting down on a vacant log. “I wanted to get away for a minute anyway. Clear my head. Find something positive to ponder.” I flicked my head to my destroyed city. “That’s just not doing it for me though,” I muttered.
Pestilence spoke. “It’s a vision. Of what will be. Or what could be.”
I stared at his three Brothers, waiting for them to back him up, or clarify the cryptic comment. None of them did.
“Very helpful,” I grouched. We sat in silence for a time, watching the fire. As I stared closer into the flames, I realized I could see a tiny winged warrior fighting his counterpart – an Angel and a Demon. Dozens of nearby humans were mowed down as a casualty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time as the two battled above. Then a figure on horseback galloped through the fire, mercilessly destroying the Angel, the Demon, and the surviving humans, leaving no one behind. Then the apparition faded away, leaving a normal campfire once again. Well, a normal white campfire.
I lifted my gaze to find the four figures staring at me intently.
“There is a storm coming,” Death murmured softly. “Or has already come, depending on how you look at it,” he amended, waving a hand dismissively. “The girl warned you once.”
I frowned at him for a moment, then turned back to the destruction below our mountain. “The Apocalypse?”
Another voice piped up, a bit too cheerful. “Our first day on the job,” he chuckled.
I shot him a look, finding his jovial attitude misplaced. But a mask of lava stared back at me from within the cowl of his hood. Obviously, no expression was found there. “What girl? I have a lot of girls warning me of one thing or another,” I complained, memories of Indie creeping up like poison in my ears.
“Pandora,” Death answered. “She warned you of the storm. And the embers. The sparks.”
I nodded. “Oh, right. I nudged that down on my to-do list. Because I wanted to go take care of some other things. You know, less obscure, more obvious necessities.”
He leaned closer. “There are no more obvious necessities.” He waved a hand at the death and destruction blanketing the world below, proving his point.
“Fine. And what does that have to do with me, exactly? I’m just a man.”
“You’re a vessel,” War corrected, his mask flowing with moving lava beneath his hood.
“A vessel for what?” I asked, recalling Shiva’s conversation.
The Horsemen grew silent, and I scowled at all Four simultaneously. Pestilence spoke. “Well, that’s yet to be determined, Firestarter… But let’s just say a vessel to begin this… or end it. Or prevent it.” Then Pestilence chuckled. “How’s that for obscure?”
“Grimm! We’re leaving.” I stood to leave, having no patience for humor. Or word games.
The figures grew agitated, arguing animatedly as they climbed to their feet. I had forgotten how tall they could appear, easily ten feet tall. And horrifying wings that resembled their persona poked out from their backs, all different.
War, with his red and white samurai mask of molten lava. The spines of his wings like red-hot branches tearing through his robes of burning coals. No skin stretched between the spines, so that they more resembled fiery branches. But they probably worked.
Pestilence, with his The Walking Dead zombified mask that oozed with pus and phlegm, disease and parasites. His robes were rotten, full of holes and green stains. His pale wings shot out from behind him, rotten skin riddled with maggots and vermin.
Famine wore his scarecrow mask – complete with bloodstains on the torn and ravaged burlap sack-textured surface – and his robes were seemingly made of dead corn husks, desiccated branches formed claws that reached out from the sleeves. Wings like dried cornstalks sprouted out behind him.
And Death, with his traditional bone mask, skeletal wings flaring out behind him, again with no skin between the spines. His robes were a death shroud. Like one big great black doily.
And me. A reborn wizard. A temporary Horseman. No wings. What a crock of shit.
I pointedly began searching the area immediately around the fire, pacing. “What are you doing?” Death asked, softly.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Looking for a bush,” I snapped, turning back to my surroundings. The Four shared a concerned look, as if fearing I had lost my marbles. I’d had just about enough of that from my friends over the past few days. “If I’m a Horseman, I’d really like to meet my employer. Hear it from Him. So, I’m looking for a Burning Bush.”
Death rolled his eyes, finally understanding. “It doesn’t work like that…” he sighed.
I shrugged. “Then I decline. I like to meet the men I work for. Before I go kill people for them. Eliminates misunderstandings.”
Death grabbed my arm, but not with hands of flesh.
A skeletal claw that felt like frozen steel gripped my shoulders, and squeezed urgently. “You must go talk to her. She is outside of…” he glanced up at the skies of flame, “His purview. She can give you some of the answers you seek.”
I locked eyes with him, studying the flickering purple flames behind the haunting skeletal mask. The bone was aged ivory, with scratches, claw marks, cracks, and what looked suspiciously like a bullet impact. But they were just cosmetic damage. Whatever weapons had hit that bone had no doubt shattered on impact, leaving only small scrapes in its wake. Which was a bit alarming. Who had attacked him? And what had happened to them? And if Armageddon hadn’t started yet, how had he been attacked? And what was the bone made out of? I had heard once that a Maker had made the masks for the Horsemen.
I shook off the bone claw, and made as if to leave. “You must be careful with your choices, Brother. You have many before you. You’re full to the brim with them.” I turned to see Famine staring at me through his scarecrow-like mask.
I burst out laughing. “That’s rich. Famine, telling me I’m full. Jesus…” I muttered, shaking my head.
He nodded at the irony, lifting his hands in a defeated gesture. “You have eliminated one path to destruction. Freeing your Beast.” My Maker’s power, I thought to myself, hand checking my hip for the cane. It was still there, although the connection was gone. The Horseman saw this, but didn’t comment. “But many more choices lie before you. Or behind you, considering.”
I frowned at him. “What are you babbling about?”
Famine shook his head one time, staring at me meaningfully. “Talk to the girl.” Before I could question him, he turned away, speaking over his ratty-robed shoulder. “Tell her I said, hello.”
I laughed again, great big belly laughs. It was just too much. I wiped my eyes with a sigh after a few seconds. “I’m not too good at talking to women, apparently. I can’t even keep one around for longer than a few months. I’m worthless. Just a helpless man, fumbling around.”
“And a butterfly in Los Angeles sets off an earthquake in Tokyo. A ripple in a pond can still reach the shore,” he said, still walking away.
I grinned at his back. “Goodkind said something kind of like that once.”
Famine paused, then shared a pointed look with his Brothers before turning back to me. He approached slowly until he stood only inches away, leaning close, practically having to fold himself in half to do so. “Is he a Scribe of God?”
I shook my head, trying not to flinch under the intensity of his mask. “No. Never mind.”
F
amine straightened back up, cocking his head at me. “Just be wary of your powers. I smell Elder on you.”
“Wait, you can smell Elders? What the hell are they?” I begged, thinking of Carl.
But Famine was finished. War approached, holding out a hand to lead me to Grimm. I complied, studying his mask of living fire out of the corner of my eye. “We see things,” the Horseman finally murmured.
I flinched. “You can see them?”
“Aye. We can see everything. Those white bastards are dangerous.”
“Really,” I replied dryly. “I know they’re dangerous. I’ve seen them kill. Those knives…” I shivered, remembering Boris’ fate. “I have them under control.”
A lava claw latched onto me, and white crackles of energy lit up at the contact, apparently preventing the fire from burning me. War frowned down at it, and then smiled, nodding in approval. “Horseman, alright.” He met my eyes. “Back to the Elders. When every supernatural nation in the world – Angels, Demons, Gods, Beasts, Makers, Witches, and Wizards – teams up to take out a group of… things, you might want to pay attention.”
We walked another few steps before I finally cracked my knuckles in frustration. “Pay attention to what?” I roared. “How the hell am I supposed to know these things? There’s no record of half the creatures I’m warned about. I just find myself in the middle of it all.”
I sensed him smiling. “No, you put yourself in the middle of it all.” He turned his fiery face my way, and I felt the heat, a soothing glow. But I was entirely sure I should have felt second-degree burns. Yet more proof that something was happening to me. Something I couldn’t explain, but that many other people seemed to intimately know. “I truly can’t decide whether you are the unluckiest son of a bitch God ever created, or…” he trailed off, staring up at the sky.
Beast Master: A Novel in The Nate Temple Supernatural Thriller Series (The Temple Chronicles Book 5) Page 34