“Yeah,” I said. “I need to know.”
Leo smiled a little. It looked tired and his eyes were still red, but he nodded at me.
“I’d like to get back on the road right now, but we need at least a few hours of rest,” he said. “Then we’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
I shook my head. “If your bike will let us.”
Leo volunteered to call in the anonymous tip to the cops and I agreed. He knew what details to avoid that might implicate his dead friends. I lingered in the doorway just long enough to watch Leo dial 911 and listen to the harried-sounding dispatcher on the other end connect him with the local police.
I didn’t want to make Leo recount the horrors that we had witnessed to a larger audience than was strictly necessary, so I went upstairs to room eleven and dropped my backpack onto the narrow bed, then flopped down into the covers next to it. Had I ever been so tired? Pretty sure the answer was no. Even my worst days at Golden Touch Auto hadn’t involved apocalyptic visions, a highway plague pit full of bikers, and a temperamental motorcycle with mystery malfunctions.
Okay, my last day at GTA technically included the first weirdness with Leo’s Packmaster, but it had been a long, shitty and weird day. I think I was allowed a little hyperbole.
That stupid motorcycle… Maybe I should get up and go take another look at the bike. Leo said that he couldn’t have gotten this far without me, but was that true? I still had no idea what was causing any of his mechanical problems – to say nothing of actually fixing them. All of the steering, surging, electrical zaps and now fuel tank overflow issues made absolutely no sense. They surfaced just long enough to make things difficult for us, but then vanished before I could pin them down and put a wrench to them.
I was tired, though, and trying to wrestle the Packmaster in the middle of the night seemed like a good way to get cut again. I resolved to deal with it in the morning.
I hadn’t taken off my shoes or jacket, but I just threw an arm across my face and figured I would be asleep within seconds. But I found myself staring at the dim, colorless sparkles of light dancing behind my eyelids. Inwardly growling about the Packmaster was easier than thinking about what was going on with the motorcycle’s owner.
How much did I actually trust Leo? Just because a hot guy walks in and offers you a lot of money to run away from home doesn’t make him trustworthy. And then what about his Uncle Carlos? I knew nothing at all about him except that he was a founding member of a criminal biker gang. Carlos had offered answers, but I saw the dead Knights of Hell there in the darkness behind my closed eyes, their corpses bloated and mouths crusted in blood.
Was this worth the remaining twenty thousand dollars Leo had promised me? I left Crayhill to see the world and build a real future for myself, but that future wouldn’t be a very long one if I came down with the plague or whatever had killed Leo’s Knights.
I felt strange. Not sick, but like the hairs were standing up along the back of my neck. Wait, wasn’t I more likely to contract a disease through an open wound or something?
I sat bolt upright in the motel bed and yanked the bandage off my hand. The cut left there by the Packmaster was a scabbed line across my palm, but it was no longer bleeding or even red. Wow, that was fast… I frowned and flexed my fingers. The skin pulled tight, but there was no pain.
That was weird… but there was no sign of infection or creepy blackened veins, either. For now.
My Bonneville was parked right downstairs. I could still ride away from all of this bullshit. As long as I had my motorcycle, I had my freedom. Maybe I could strike out north for Colorado. Denver was a nice big city, chock full of opportunities for a fresh start. One without Leo and his mystery motorcycle or dead biker gang.
But could I really just… leave? I had told Leo that I wanted answers. And I did, but what if whatever had killed Leo’s gang came for their road captain? We couldn’t get any answers from Carlos if we were dead on the highway to San Diego. But how else could I find out what was going on?
Something is coming…
There was a soft knock from outside and I jumped, my heart pounding. I clambered up off the bed and ran to the door. Leo must have decided not to wait until morning to get moving. Unless there was something else he wanted in the middle of the night… I held my breath and looked out the peephole.
Nope. There was a little old white lady at my door. She had to be my grandma’s age, wearing a buttoned-up cardigan and a purple felt pillbox hat like she was on her way to church. She seemed somehow familiar, but Crayhill was small enough that I knew every single person there by sight, if not by name. And this woman was none of them.
The little old lady seemed to stare right back at me through the peephole. She raised one tiny, bird-like hand and knocked again. Maybe she was lost… But before the thought had entirely formed in my head, I was unfastening the chain lock. I opened the door.
“Um, hi,” I said. “Do you need something?”
“Of course,” the woman in the pink knit cardigan told me. “We need you.”
I blinked. “Not to be rude, but what are you talking about, lady? Who are you?”
“This vessel thinks of me as Gabriel.”
“Gabriel who…?” I asked, frowning.
“Gabriel the archangel,” the woman answered. “That name means something to your vessel, too, I believe. It seems to be a common paradigm in this part of the world.”
She stepped toward the door and I moved to block her path, but the woman slid right past me. Holy shit, she was a fast little thing. The old lady glanced around my room without curiosity and then turned back to face me.
“It is time to depart, Uriel,” she said.
“Hey, my name is Jasmine,” I told her. “Not Uriel. And you’re not making a lot of sense. I really think you should go.”
My day was more than weird enough and I just wanted a few hours of sleep, preferably without any demonic dreams. I put a gentle but firm hand on the old lady’s shoulder to steer her back out of my room.
But as soon as I touched her, I almost fell over as blinding light eclipsed my vision. The motel, the parking lot outside, the whole damned universe vanished and I was thrown back into my dream again. I was in a void, a place so vast and empty that I would never be able to properly describe it later. This wasn’t the emptiness of a clear sky or a deep, dark underground cavern. There was nothing.
Yet I wasn’t alone in the darkness. Gabriel was there beside me, a bodiless but powerful presence. I felt the other two archangels there with me… Michael and Raphael.
And facing us were the other four – the enemies.
But it wasn’t time to do battle again. Not yet. Light and formless matter gathered between us in the heart of the great void, growing hotter and denser under the force of our combined will. And then, in an instant, the entire universe exploded outward through the darkness, glowing and coalescing into stars and nebulae and planets, blooming like flowers in a garden. All of creation spread out before us, waiting…
I staggered back away from Gabriel, gasping and grabbing my head.
“What… what the hell was that?” I asked.
“You were always the strongest of us,” Gabriel said. “That is why you lead, Uriel. But your vessel is strong, too.”
Yes, agreed a directionless, sexless voice. I grow more powerful each day, but she has not yielded to my control.
“It may be the horseman’s proximity,” Gabriel said.
“Wait, you can hear that?” I asked. “That… voice?”
Perhaps, said the voice, ignoring my question and answering Gabriel’s instead. Contact with the horseman did awaken me. But this vessel is reluctant to leave him.
“Hey!” I shouted. “Stop that!”
I made a T with my hands, the universal signal to wait just a damned minute. Gabriel looked up at me with unconcern as I turned a quick circle, searching for whoever she was talking to. But there was no one else.
That voice wa
s coming from inside me. Inside my own mind. Shit, was I hallucinating again?
“What the hell are you two talking about?” I cried. “What’s going on? Why is there a voice in my head? What horseman? Is it here?”
“Death is upon us,” Gabriel said. “Leader of the horsemen, our eternal enemies.”
Those must have been the other four… things I felt when I touched her. The four horsemen.
If any of this was actually happening at all. Maybe… maybe I was just dreaming again. Had I fallen asleep on the motel bed? God knew I was tired and all of this was plenty weird enough to not be real.
The four archangels and the four horsemen, said the voice in my head. We shall gather our forces, and then it will begin.
I jumped at the sound of the voice inside me and slammed into the wall. The fire exit map swung wildly and then fell to the floor with a thud.
“Shit, don’t do that!” I said. “Then what can begin? What are you talking about?”
“The final battle,” Gabriel answered far too calmly. “Come, Uriel. Our proximity strengthens us, but it will wake Death as well. We must unite all four of us before the war may finally be waged.”
“What? No! I don’t want to be in a war!” I protested.
Gabriel grabbed my hand in her tiny ones before I could move, but I didn’t feel her lined and folded skin against mine. There was only the sensation of bright fire filling me and then stretching out into long wings of pure light. At least, I hoped it was only a sensation…
“We must go, Uriel,” Gabriel said. Her arthritic hand gripped onto mine like a vice. “Pestilence has already come seeking its brothers. The horsemen hear the call, too, but you know they do not respect the law – even if they helped to craft it. If Death wakes now, it will not hesitate to strike you down and leave us to fight outnumbered.”
“We have waited too long to risk losing the war now,” Uriel agreed.
The voice in my head spoke through my mouth this time. That light, that force from my dreams was flowing through me, filling my very being and shoving me out of it. I floated somewhere in the bright haze, watching and unable to move. Now my body was leading, heading through the motel room door with the weird old lady in tow, and started down the stairs toward the parking lot.
“Come,” Uriel said in a ringing voice. “We must go find the other two. I can sense them only faintly.”
“They may have manifested far across this planet.”
Uriel shook my head. “Then we need to move quickly. We will unite and prepare for battle. And then all of this shall finally end.”
Uriel moved down the steps, propelling my feet with my legs. Bullshit. I did not escape Crayhill just to wind up trapped in my own body by some angel – or a voice in my head claiming it was an angel. I didn’t have a tire iron or even my own arms to swing one, so I struggled and lashed out with everything else… whatever you have left when your body has been taken away. Every thought and sensation inside me was strange, soft and slow, but I resisted the powerful presence that had taken over. I thrashed and screamed and shoved with every last ounce of will.
Why do you fight me, vessel? Uriel asked. The horsemen are the enemy and they must be fought. They must be destroyed.
The archangel was answering me internally, not speaking out loud. That seemed like progress… I grabbed onto that tiny toe-hold and slammed the mental equivalent of my foot into the mental equivalent of Uriel’s crotch.
“Get the hell out of my head!” I shouted.
The words came from my mouth and Gabriel released my hand, looking up at me. My body stood frozen on the concrete steps as the archangel thing inside me yanked back and forth for control.
“Uriel–” Gabriel said.
But then the downstairs door banged open and Leo stalked out. He must have been in the middle of getting ready for bed – Leo was wearing his jeans and boots, but he had pulled his leather jacket on over his bare, tattooed chest and his hair was wet. He held the revolver in his hand, but pointed the weapon down at the ground. Leo narrowed his eyes at Gabriel, then turned to me.
“Jaz…?” he asked. “What the fuck is going on here? Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not! Something weird–” I began, but the old lady stepped between us.
“Uriel, fly from this place!” she said. “You cannot fight Death while fighting your vessel, too.”
Death? The leader of the horsemen? Uriel said that contact with Death had awakened them.
Did they mean Leo…?
A halo of light suddenly surrounded the little old church-looking lady that burned like a star. Apparently, I had enough control to throw my hand across my face and squint as light seared the motel parking lot. When the glow faded, the old lady wasn’t an old lady anymore, or a woman at all.
Or even human.
Gabriel was at least ten feet tall now, a barely humanoid statue made of steel and feathers and glowing light. Four wings stretched out from the archangel’s back like great blades of radiance. Leo’s eyes flew open wide and he staggered, pressing one hand against his temple as though in pain. But the shirtless biker raised his gun and pulled the trigger. The shot sparked off Gabriel’s metal skin and the angel didn’t flinch.
“Uriel, go!” Gabriel shouted in a voice like church bells.
“Now is not the time for the final battle,” Uriel said. Shit, the angel had control of my mouth again. “As soon as I am gone, flee this place.”
Leo ran toward me, but Gabriel was faster and slashed one wing out in a blinding arc of light. It slammed into the nearest vehicle – my Bonneville.
“No!” I cried.
My motorcycle flew through the air toward Leo in pieces. He threw himself under the stairs as flaming chrome rained down over the parking lot and a smoking bike tire crashed through the window of his motel room. My Bonneville was only burning shrapnel now.
“Go!” Gabriel said again.
“Jaz, what the fuck is this?” Leo shouted.
He darted out from behind the motel steps, aimed and shot at Gabriel again. The archangel pounced and crashed into Leo like a lightning strike. They slid out across the asphalt in twin streaks of light and darkness, smashing together right through a parked car.
“Shit!” I cried. “Leo!”
I ran toward Leo like a suicidal idiot. I was back in control of my body. For now, at least. But what could I do? Leo had already shot Gabriel twice, but the angel seemed about as bothered by his bullets as mosquito bites. And I couldn’t get away – my bike was a heap of smoldering slag.
I do not require your vehicle, Uriel said from inside me. Yield control of your body, vessel.
“Shut up,” I told the voice in my head. “Leo!”
I couldn’t see him through Gabriel’s brilliant glow or the smoke billowing up from the car they had smashed into. Was Leo even still alive?
“What the hell is going on out here?”
The suspicious clerk from the Arrow Lodge front desk came stalking out of the office. He was working in the middle of the night in Texas, so he gripped a shotgun and waved it angrily at us. But this was no good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun scenario. This was… mayhem.
“Get out of here!” I screamed. “Run!”
Gabriel rose from the blackened tangle of metal that used to be someone’s station wagon, unfurling four long, burning wings. The motel clerk’s eyes went so wide that I could see the whites all around and he yanked up the shotgun. He pulled the trigger, spraying Gabriel in buckshot.
The archangel glanced back at their new attacker – at least, Gabriel’s featureless glowing face seemed to turn toward the clerk – and swept one wing in his direction. A spreading arc of white light blazed out across the parking lot, sheering right through the clerk like a guillotine… and the front of the office behind him. The cinder-block wall shuddered and collapsed on top of the dead man with a deafening crash.
Holy shit. I had to get out of there. But my Bonnie…! There would be time to mourn my bi
ke later. If there was a later.
But Leo’s Packmaster was still parked in front of his room, though it had been knocked over and spun a few yards away. The exhaust pipe was mangled and the beautiful red-and-black paint job was a scraped, scarred mess, but the motorcycle was more or less intact. It would run long enough to get me out of here.
If the Packmaster would let me drive it… Suddenly, the idea of a motorcycle not liking me didn’t seem so impossible. A tiny church lady turning into a ten-foot-tall glowing angel with wings like an oversized four-leaf clover of death had set a brand new bar.
I ran toward the Packmaster. I didn’t want to leave without Leo, but there was only a crater where he had landed when Gabriel pounced on him. I couldn’t even see the biker’s body.
“Go, Uriel,” Gabriel said in that weirdly resonate voice. “Go before Death–”
Metal chains shot up out of the crater like streamers from a demonic party favor. Each of them was as thick as my wrist and wrapped around Gabriel like boa constrictors. Alright, so it’s a mixed metaphor. You do any better when an archangel is demolishing a low-rent motel right in front of you.
I thought I was doing pretty damned well just maintaining bladder control.
The chains tightened around Gabriel and whipped the angel up into the air. They smashed through a corner of the motel and blasted huge chunks of concrete, shattered vending machine, and cheap towels across the parking lot. The chains slithered through the night and then dissolved away into black smoke.
What the hell was down in that crater? One hand and then a second grabbed onto the edge, and Leo dragged himself up out of the cracked asphalt. The biker’s expression was dazed, but there didn’t seem to be any blood or broken bones.
How…? Gabriel must have hit him at fifty miles an hour. It should have been like getting run over by a truck. But Leo was alive… somehow. I spun on my heels and ran toward the crater.
What are you doing, vessel? Uriel asked.
400 Horsepower of the Apocalypse Page 7