Lethal Rider

by Larissa Ione

  Wraith and Ares took the lead, and Limos came in behind Than and Regan. “How far do we have to go?” Limos asked, and Regan shook her head.

  “No idea. The sketched map I saw in the vampire’s writings wasn’t exactly precise.”

  “Great.” Wraith tossed his throwing star into the air and caught in between two fingers. “We could spend days wandering—”

  “Shit!” Ares wheeled to the side, narrowly avoiding a massive axe blade. The sharp wedge cut the air with a whistle, followed by the snarl of its wielder.

  The tunnel came alive with movement as dozens of species of demons swarmed around them, crawling on the walls, the ceiling, and flying through the air over their heads. In an instant, a bloody battle broke out, but Than wasn’t going to play games. He had thousands of souls at his disposal, and they wanted freedom.

  He released a hundred, their eager shrieks joining the snarls and grunts of the demons taking damage from his siblings. Wraith went through the demons like a fang through flesh, his charmed status keeping him safe—as long as no fallen angels showed up. Next to him, Regan threw out her hand to touch any demons that made it close enough to her, sending them flying backward in shock.

  Than allowed himself a small smile. His kid was badass.

  So was Regan. She didn’t even flinch at the rush of demons, keeping one hand protectively over her belly and the other at the ready, fingers clutching her dagger. And when a demon with thirty-foot, whiplike tentacles snapped one at Than, nicking his cheek, Regan snarled and struck out with her blade, severing the demon’s limb and sending it screeching into the dark.

  Man, her fierceness juiced him up. She might be almost nine months pregnant, but she was still in her element down here mixing it up in a cavern full of demons. It was strange how right now he wanted to both cocoon her in bubble wrap to protect her and get her naked to get going on those months of pleasure. Except this time, he didn’t want to climax alone.

  The battle was over in under two minutes, but Than had a feeling this was just the beginning. Turned out he was right. They repeated the scenario four more times before they reached a crude stone staircase that led down into a pit lined with colorful tiles that had been arranged into crude mosaic images.

  “What is this?” Limos stepped into the center of a design portraying a hell stallion tearing apart a demon.

  Thanatos threaded Regan’s fingers with his as he led her carefully around other patterns, most depicting violence, others arranged into sex scenes, some reflecting both.

  “Don’t step on them,” Than said quietly. “This is a place of worship.”

  “The demons in the pictures are deities.” Ares nimbly skirted an image of a dozen-eyed horned demon that was rumored to eat three elephants at a single sitting. “They could come alive.”

  Regan tugged on Than’s hand. “Um… so if I step on that one? You come alive?”

  He followed her gaze… and drew a harsh breath. Oh, shit.

  Wraith went down on his heels and stared at Thanatos’s likeness set into the floor with hundreds of brilliant tiles. “Dude. Why are you sucking on some guy’s neck? And why are there vampires kneeling at your feet?”

  A cold sweat broke out over his skin. “Dunno.”

  Limos jammed her sword into its scabbard so hard it threw her off balance. But just for a second. “Wrong answer, Than. I spent thousands of years lying. I’m pretty good at sniffing out bullshit. And brother, you stink.”

  Thanatos exhaled on a curse. “Do you remember your wedding night, Limos? When you begged us to leave your secrets alone?”

  His sister’s cheeks flamed crimson, and as she averted her gaze, shame shrunk his skin. At the time, he hadn’t understood why she’d kept so much from him and Ares, but now that his own past was bearing down on him, he got it. Except that he wasn’t protecting himself. He was protecting thousands of lives.

  “Thanatos,” Ares said, stepping next to Limos, “whatever it is, we can help.”

  No, they couldn’t, but before he could even start to explain, Wraith was up and punching his fist through a stone panel in front of the altar.

  “There,” he said. “Scrolls.” How the hell did the demon find crap so easily?

  Regan moved to the scrolls, an eager, curious light in her eyes. She loved this kind of thing, didn’t she? Finding new things, solving mysteries … admirable traits, but dangerous when you were the one keeping the secret she was sniffing out.

  Very carefully, she withdrew the scrolls and laid them on top of the altar. “They’re so delicate,” she said, as she smoothed her fingers over their smooth surfaces. “This one…” Her finger stopped on the middle of five scrolls. “The author is so angry. Wait. Thanatos?”

  Than moved to her, an ominous sensation dancing up his spine. “What?”

  “He’s angry at you. But why—”

  A screech rang out, and from a hundred crevices in the walls and ceiling, demons emerged, as inky black and elusive as shadows.

  “Fuck.” Than palmed his scythe. “Nulls.” The rarest demon species of all, creatures void of life and souls, shot through the cavern, immune to Than’s souls and every known weapon. Their mouths gaped wide with jagged teeth that took chunks out of flesh with every pass they made. Only Wraith and Regan were impervious, which pissed off the Nulls even more, and every bite into Than’s unprotected head became more vicious.

  “I can’t open a gate,” Ares shouted.

  Limos swiped at her head, dislodging one of the Nulls. “We have to get out of here!”

  Than started to drag Regan toward the entrance, but pulled back when demons poured out of it—some clearly demons, others in human skins.

  Regan screamed, and suddenly, his hand was empty. He wheeled around in time to see her being snatched by a vampire.

  One of his vampires.

  “Markus!” Than lunged, but Markus spun, using Regan as a shield, and Than had to check up at the last second to avoid slicing into her with his scythe.

  Regan shouted obscenities, reaching behind her to claw at Markus’s neck. A blur of Seminus demon slipped behind the vampire, and Markus flipped backward, hamstrung by Wraith’s dagger. Than caught Regan before she hit the ground, but with a shocking amount of agility, she wrenched around and slammed her fist into the vampire’s throat.

  Yeah, he’d let her have the satisfaction of making Markus choke on his own blood. But Than got to make the kill.

  Crunching his foot down on the vampire’s chest so hard bones cracked, he bared his teeth at the asshole. “Who killed Dariq, Markus? Who all is involved in the plot against me?”

  “Go to hell,” Markus wheezed, and then he grinned, his fangs flashing wetly. “Your whore and bastard are going to die.”

  “Wrong,” Thanatos snarled. “You die.” He swept his scythe in an arc like a golf club, shearing off the top half of the vampire’s skull. Blood and brains splattered on the wall, and suddenly, the demons all melted away.

  He turned to Regan to assure himself that she was okay, but the bewildered expression on her face said that everything was not okay.

  “The vampire’s tattoo,” Regan whispered, as she stared first at her hand and then at Thanatos. Oh, shit, she’d touched Markus’s tattoo…“The scroll. Oh, my God.”

  Don’t say it, Regan. Do not say it.

  “You.” Regan looked at Than as if he’d grown a new head. “Bludrexe. Sheoulic for Blood King. Oh, my God, it’s you.” She stumbled backward, catching herself on a blackened pillar. “That’s why the author of those scrolls is so angry at you. A fallen angel didn’t father the vampire race. You did.”

  Eighteen

  Regan was still reeling from what she’d seen and felt in the vampire’s tattoo. Everything suddenly made so much sense. Now she knew why the daywalkers could touch her—they were Thanatos’s creations.

  They were his blood. In a way, they were his children.

  He stood over the mosaic of himself, crimson rivulets dripping down his face, breat
hs sawing in and out as if he’d run a marathon. “Regan…”

  Ares sheathed his blade and moved close. “What’s going on, Than?”

  “This isn’t something I can discuss.” Thanatos’s voice was a low croak. “And what you’ve already heard can go no further than these walls.”

  “Thanatos.” Regan put her hands over her belly to stop the trembling. “These vampires are trying to kill me and our son. I think it’s time we found out what’s going on.”

  For a long time, Than just stood there, his head hanging loosely from his broad shoulders. Finally, he sank against a pillar and stared up at the tiled ceiling. “After we were cursed…”

  “We all went nuts,” Ares said. “You’ve never spoken of what you did.”

  “That’s because I couldn’t. You asked me about my fangs… I got them with the curse.” He blew out a long breath. “I needed blood. I don’t remember much about those first few years, except that I was hungry. I went on a rampage, taking blood from humans… I ravaged entire villages. What I didn’t know is that those I drained past recoverable blood loss but not to immediate death suffered with fever for days before dying … and then they rose as vampires. Daywalkers.”

  “His hunger is his burden,” Regan murmured. “From your prophecy. We always wondered what that meant.”

  Than nodded. “Now you know.”

  “Damn,” Limos breathed. “I always assumed it was your hunger for knowledge. You’re always scouring the globe for books and crap.” She flicked a glance at the mosaic of Than on the floor. “So did you create all daywalkers, or can they reproduce?”

  “That’s the thing,” Than said. “Only I can create daywalkers. But the daywalkers… they created the nightwalkers.”

  “Holy fuck,” Wraith blurted, and Regan nearly jumped. She’d forgotten he was there. Probably because he was lurking in the shadows. “So you’re kind of my … grandfather.”

  Thanatos glared.

  Wraith held up his hands. “Chill, Gramps. I don’t want to sit on your knee or anything.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Limos asked.

  “He couldn’t,” Ares said. “With our Seals broken, we could have used that information to turn the vampires against him, or to hurt him through them … a lot of possibilities.”

  Thanatos nodded. “Harvester warned me to keep it a secret from everyone, including my siblings. Only angels and fallen angels are allowed to create new species. Unauthorized species would be destroyed.”

  “So you made up a legend about how vampires were made,” Wraith mused. “And it wasn’t entirely a lie, because you’re part angel.”

  “How’d you keep the daywalkers quiet?” Ares asked.

  Regan stared at the dead daywalker, whose body was still intact since he was on Sheoulic soil, and realization dawned. “The tats,” she said. “They’re wards of a sort, aren’t they?”

  “Yeah.” Than wiped blood from his brow, leaving behind smooth, healed skin. “I had them all marked with a silence ward so none of them could speak of their origins. The problem is that there are daywalkers in the wild. Wildings, we call them. I’ve tried to gather them all, but there are hidden clans. Some don’t want to have to make the choice of serving me or being destroyed.”

  Wraith snorted. “Imagine that.”

  “It’s a high price,” Than admitted, “but the alternative is that the entire vampire species could be eradicated if the truth of their origins gets out, and that includes hybrids like dhampires and half-breeds like you.”

  “I’m not exactly a half-breed.” Wraith said. “More of a freak of nature. But my mate is fangy, so my lips are sealed.”

  “It might not even matter now.” Than’s voice was dour. “The wildings seem to be rebelling and taking my staff with them. Once the Apocalypse breaks, all old rules go out the window, which is probably what they’re counting on.”

  Limos kicked the vamp’s body. “I wonder if Pestilence has something to do with the rebellion.”

  “He seems to have his fingers in all the pies,” Than said.

  Ares looked down at the scene depicting Thanatos with the vampires. “I’m surprised Harvester has kept your secret. It’s not like her to be nice.”

  “No doubt there’s a reason,” Limos said, her voice dripping with acid. “So what about your nightwalker servants? Do they know your secret?”

  Thanatos’s eyes closed, and Regan slipped her hand into his. This must be hard for him, but she could only imagine that there was also a measure of relief that he could finally share his burden with his siblings. When Thanatos opened his eyes again, he gave her a grateful look.

  “They know. They were all created by daywalkers and somehow found out, either because they were bitten during the day or they learned the truth from a wilding. They’re tattooed with the same nondisclosure spells.”

  Regan returned to the scrolls and very carefully unrolled one. Although she couldn’t read this particular Sheoulic language, she could feel the emotions rising out of the ink. These were definitely related to the texts that had been deciphered at Aegis Headquarters.

  “Can anyone read these?”

  Ares arranged the scrolls in the order they belonged. “Most of this is about the author’s vampire life after his turning. Boring shit. Guy was so emo. Christ, Than, you couldn’t have turned someone less whiny?”

  Thanatos flipped his brother the bird.

  Ares fingered the last scroll. “But this one … This one speaks of our father. The angel’s name was Yenrieth, who the other, darker angel called a Lamb.”

  Regan frowned. “But in Biblical writings, isn’t the Lamb thought to be Jesus?”

  Ares tapped his fingers. “I think the female angel was using it as an insult, but then she talks about …” Ares hissed and stepped back so fast she thought the scroll had burned him.

  Limos and Than both moved forward. “What is it?”

  “I read that wrong,” Ares said. “I must have.”

  “Why?” Thanatos asked. “What’s it say?”

  “The angels fought. They fought about Yenrieth’s children and their Seals. And how Yenrieth… shit.”

  “Shit, what?” Thanatos came up behind Regan and gently tucked her next to him, as if preparing to brace her for what was coming. Or maybe to brace himself.

  “How Yenrieth needed to quit running and accept his fate.”

  “And what, exactly, is his fate?” Limos asked, her violet eyes narrowed into slits.

  Ares turned to them. “In the Book of Revelation, when it talks about the Lamb, it’s talking about Yenrieth.” He ran a trembling hand through his hair. “If the Daemonica’s prophecy fails, we still have to worry about the Biblical End of Days.” Ares looked from Limos to Than. “And our own father is destined to break our Seals and start the Apocalypse.”

  Thanatos didn’t take Regan back to his place right away. He needed sunshine and fresh air, open spaces and the smell of the ocean.

  He also needed some time alone with Regan to gauge her intentions regarding the new information he’d just given her. If she told The Aegis what she’d learned, they could see to it that thousands of their enemies were destroyed in one snap of an angel’s fingers.

  Ares’s beach was the perfect, safe place to have a little chat.

  They stepped out of his Harrowgate into warm, white sand. Regan smiled into the breeze, her cheeks glowing in the sunlight.

  “Where are we?”

  “Greece. Ares’s island. Thought you might like a change from the frigid weather at my place.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “And you figured I’d be more likely to promise to keep your secret if I wasn’t feeling imprisoned and on the defensive.”

  “That too.”

  With a sigh, she walked over to the water’s edge and sank down on one of the stone benches Ares had dotted the shoreline with, where she took off her shoes and let the waves lap at her toes. “By keeping this information from The Aegis, I’d be betraying them.” E
ven as his blood began to boil, she continued. “But you’re my son’s father, and I can’t betray him, either.”

  “Quite the dilemma,” he growled.

  “Quite.” She patted the seat next to her, and he sat, liking being with her like this, even if the topic of the moment wasn’t the most pleasant. “What do you know about your father?”

  He looked out over the huge expanse of blue-green water. He’d always loved it here, but something about sharing such a beautiful setting with Regan made it even better. That, and the fact that being near the baby dimmed the sensation of deaths around the world. He could almost be at peace for the first time since his curse.

  “Not much. He disappeared after we were conceived. If the account in that scroll is accurate, then he was still around in some way for a few decades. But it doesn’t tell me where he is now.”

  “We have to find him.”

  “And why is that?”

  Regan turned to him, her hair curling in soft tendrils around her face. “Your Biblical Seals … they’re different than your Daemonica Seals?”

  He wasn’t sure where this was going, but he nodded. “According to Gethel, they’re metal rings that protect the contents of four scrolls stored somewhere in Heaven. Why?”

  “Because if it’s true that your father is the Lamb referred to in Revelation, we might need him to break those Seals.”

  He blinked. “Why?”

  “You’re to fight for the side of good if your Biblical Seals break, right? The only way to stop the evil Apocalypse might be to start the good one. To at least start it on our terms. To give humanity a chance.”

  Abruptly, he understood how much of a warrior Regan was. How far she was willing to go to save the world, and why she’d agreed to seduce him in order to get pregnant. Some of his anger over what she’d done to him faded, replaced by a grudging respect for her bravery.

  “It would be like fighting fire with fire,” he said. But heavenly fire was just as destructive as what came out of hell.