Not a chance. Leo’s my only shot at making it through this thing alive.
I shuddered and internally braced myself to fight Uriel for control of my body. I still wasn’t exactly sure how to do that… But despite the archangel’s ominous words, there was no sense of gathering power inside me… Just that faint, sunburn sensation that I had felt all day.
In all the panic of police and phones and guns, I had almost forgotten about the feeling. I pushed myself off the bed and went to the lamp in front of the window to squint at my skin. No burn, and the sky outside was dark and moonless, though it glittered with a thousand silver stars. I sure as hell wasn’t getting a sunburn now…
What is that? I asked inwardly. What am I feeling, Uriel?
The angel was quiet, though, and I wasn’t really in the mood to get into another weird mental debate with them. I actually felt almost alone inside my own head, and it was a nice change of pace.
From the washroom, I heard some muttered Spanish that sounded like swearing followed by the hiss of running water. I paced in front of the window and rubbed my hands against my jeans. Even without Uriel’s voice in my head, my thoughts were chasing each other around in circles.
Leo and I were possessed by ancient, powerful magical entities that absolutely hated each other. There were unmarked but heavily armed whackjobs after us, and now we were running from cops, too. Well, at least Leo was familiar with that last part.
I spent my whole life wishing I could run away from Crayhill. But somehow, none of my dreams or fantasies had involved my body being taken over by an archangel and hitching a ride on the back of Death’s steed. I was pretty sure this fell under the heading of being careful what you wish for.
I leaned against the window, cheek pressed to the glass, and watched the stars sparkle outside. In the next room, the shower shut off and the bathroom door swung open. I smelled warm, wet air and soap as Leo stepped out. His reflection moved across the dark window in front of me and I watched a few droplets of water winding their way down the muscles of his chest and stomach.
Leo was rubbing a towel over his head, drying his hair, and I don’t think he saw me staring. I managed to get my eyes under control by the time he was done and had tossed the towel back into the bathroom. He stretched, lacing his fingers behind his neck and showing off every inch of tattooed chest.
“Much better,” Leo sighed. “Do you want a go?”
At the shower. Leo was asking if I needed a turn washing up. I shook my head, though.
“No, I’m alright,” I answered. “I wasn’t the one wrestling the Packmaster all day.”
Leo dropped his hands back down to his sides and then gave me a long look that I struggled to interpret. He walked across the motel room and made no move to retrieve his old shirt or get a new one.
“Want to go to bed?” Leo asked.
Was I imagining the invitation in his question? I didn’t know, but Leo took a step closer to me, not toward either of the beds. He stood close enough that I felt the heat coming off his skin. There was an electric charge in the room and a hot thrill ran through my whole body.
I turned away from the window to look up at Leo. If his eyes smoldered any more, he was going to spontaneously combust… But then I stopped. I remembered our kiss last night, but I also remembered the visions of Uriel and Death fighting endlessly, impossibly through the void before the universe. Leo froze, too, a troubled look on his face.
“The gun,” he said. “Shit, I forgot.”
Leo went back to the bathroom and then came out holding his revolver. He replaced it on the bedside table with a sigh. I sat down on my bed.
“So… how about some TV?” I asked.
Leo nodded a bit unconvincingly and we both climbed into our separate beds. I pulled off my shoes, then leaned against the headboard and busied myself puzzling out the remote controls. It took a few minutes to get the television turned on and find something besides late-night infomercials.
Finally, I settled for a bland sitcom and slipped under the bed covers without getting undressed. Sleeping in jeans wasn’t very comfortable, but if anything went wrong – and something always went wrong – I didn’t want to make a run for Leo’s motorcycle in a t-shirt and panties. I left my socks on and made sure my shoes were right next to the bed, too.
Leo sat up, watching the television without seeming to really see it. He kept his shoes and shirt nearby, too. The biker looked like he wanted to say something a couple of times, but remained silent. So I pulled the blankets tight around me and fell asleep staring at the door.
My dreams were full of angels charging through Cibola Forest at shadowy demons on motorcycles. Fire burned so hot that the trees were dancing blades of blinding white. All I could see against the incandescent flames was Leo astride his Packmaster and a halo of seething metal chains lashing out at me like a nest of angry oversized snakes. I flew at Leo on six outstretched wings, bright angelic power blazing all through me. I dove, slashing through cruelly barbed chains with a sword made of light until I reached Leo… and kissed him.
Finally, the rising sun woke us. Without our cell phones and unwilling to trust the sleepy clerk at the motel’s front desk to manage a wake-up call, Leo and I had left the curtains open, and now the sunrise stabbed metaphorical golden knives right into my eyeballs. It wasn’t as early as a morning at the garage back in Crayhill, but I still groaned and stuck my head under the pillow. We had stopped late last night and dreams of flying into some demonic war didn’t make for very peaceful sleep.
But hey, we actually got to sleep through the night in beds! Unless I wanted my nightmare to come true, though, we had to get back on the road to San Diego.
I heaved myself out of bed with a grunt while Leo pulled on his boots and yawned. He offered me a fresh t-shirt, this one branded with the Harley-Davidson name and shield logo. It was huge on me and hung like drapes. That much fabric flying in the wind on the back of a motorcycle would get real annoying real fast, so I twisted the hem up into a knot just above my navel. I was a little self-conscious about displaying so much skin, but I felt Leo’s eyes on me and he didn’t object.
It didn’t take us long to pack. After two nighttime attacks, we didn’t have a lot of stuff left. I considered the gun still sitting on my nightstand. Finally, I picked it up – carefully – and held the weapon out to Leo.
“I don’t have any way to carry this thing,” I told him. “I mean, unless I want to just stick it in my jeans. But that doesn’t seem very safe.”
“It works in a pinch, but not particularly well,” Leo admitted. “I’ll hold onto it.”
He took the black semi-automatic and tucked it away into a pocket. I wondered how much safer that was… Leo didn’t seem to have holsters for those guns. If any of the dead Knights of Hell had carried their weapons more securely, Leo hadn’t collected their holsters. And remembering the Knights’ contorted bodies and their blackened, bulging veins, I couldn’t blame Leo for not touching them.
“But, uh… keep that gun nearby?” I suggested.
Leo nodded and then we headed out into the little truck-stop town to get a quick breakfast. Outside, my impromptu midriff seemed like an even better idea than it had in the motel room. The early morning was warm and growing swiftly hotter. It was already too hot for leathers and Leo stuffed his jacket into one of his saddlebags. He pulled the gun from his pocket, gave me an apologetic little smile, and then thrust it into the waist of his jeans.
I smirked at Leo, but the back of my neck prickled with the sun’s heat. Already? We had just stepped out the door… I eyed the sky. A few fluffy white clouds obscured the sun, but were swiftly burning off in the bright morning warmth.
“Let’s grab breakfast to go,” I said.
“Yeah,” Leo agreed. “Something feels…”
“Weird,” I finished.
Leo nodded slowly and rubbed his temple with one hand.
“You know what? Forget breakfast,” he said.
Leo
put on his helmet – riding without his jacket was questionable enough – and swung one long leg over the Packmaster. The engine purred in immediate answer. At least the motorcycle seemed to be in a good mood today and I jumped quickly onto the back, circling my arms around Leo’s waist.
The bike was in a good mood… God, my life had gotten strange in the last few days.
Leo took us back out onto Highway 44 and we moved west, toward California. I watched the road for more police cars. Why the hell had that cop tried to pull us over yesterday? Were they looking for Leo? He had robbed a bank… Which was the least of our problems right now, but the cops might not see it that way. So I kept my eyes peeled for flashing lights.
The sun rose higher overhead as we drove across the border into Arizona, and shadows shortened under the trees and road signs. The warm morning became the hot one I had predicted and both Leo and I were soon sweating.
Something still felt… off, though. Alternating flashes of hot and cold raced all through my body. The waves of feverish heat weren’t just like a sunburn now, but more like I was standing way too close to a raging bonfire. But the chills were deep and icy, as cold as a northern wind. You know those cartoons where a dark rain cloud follows some sad sap around? It was as though the sun and that animated cloud were warring to see who could get me to claw my skin off first.
What the hell is this? I asked. What’s going on?
Uriel remained silent inside my head. The angel had been strangely quiet since last night. Why? It wasn’t like Uriel to pass up a chance to pick a fight with me. I actually worried a little bit about them.
The day only got hotter as we drove. Heat shimmer turned Highway 44 into a black river of mirages and cars were pulling over on the gravel shoulder with their hoods up, steam billowing from their radiators. A few cranky overheated drivers shouted at Leo as he wove his way through the slowing vehicles, but even their curses seemed lackluster and tired.
A huge green Cadillac slowed down next to us, then began angling into our lane. Another car honked urgently, but the big land-yacht continued sliding across the highway. Leo swerved around the Cadillac, but I turned to stare. The driver wasn’t on his cell phone or anything – he was doubled over in some kind of coughing or sneezing fit. His car kept drifting until it went all the way onto the shoulder… then over and into a ditch on the other side.
Leo braked to a stop and swung the Packmaster around. The motorcycle growled hungrily beneath us as Leo eased it back along the edge of the highway toward the crashed car. Its rear end stuck up out of the roadside ditch, tires still spinning. The main airbag had deployed and was now deflating like a giant scoop of melting ice cream. The middle-aged man inside seemed uninjured – it hadn’t been a high-speed collision – but there was definitely something wrong. He was too pale and his head lolled forward. The man coughed again and clutched at his throat.
“What the hell?” I asked. “Is it heatstroke?”
“No,” Leo said.
His voice was tight and I could feel his body tense so hard in front of mine that his muscles were trembling.
“It’s something else,” Leo growled. “Something’s coming…”
Another car slewed and skidded to a stop halfway over the double yellow line. A pickup truck heading the other direction plowed right into it, sending both vehicles spinning out across Highway 44. That cold sensation inside me was tightening into a knot of uneasy ice in the pit of my stomach… even as it felt like my skin was on fire.
“Shit,” I said. “We need to–”
What? Call the police or an ambulance? Neither Leo or I had cell phones anymore. And even if we did, being here when cops showed up was a really bad idea.
A slick, shiny red motorcycle suddenly appeared out of the heat shimmer, slicing its way through the scattered cars like a bloody knife. It was a Baracca Cavallo V4, a professional-level street racer. Packmasters were more big, brutal cruisers, but that Baracca was all about speed.
The bike’s rider didn’t match his motorcycle at all. He wore an expensive but wind-rumpled gray suit instead of protective leathers, and no helmet. The man was tall, thin and white, with short pewter hair that had probably been meticulously styled before he climbed onto the back of the Baracca. He looked a lot more like he belonged in a boardroom than astride that road-rocket.
“That’s him…!” Leo growled in a voice that sounded like a thunderstorm.
“That’s who?” I asked.
“The man I saw in the vision. When we found the Knights.”
Pestilence! Uriel snarled from inside me.
“Oh, shit,” I said.
The cherry-red Baracca sliced smoothly toward us between stalled and crashed cars. The driver of the crumpled pickup staggered out of his truck, clutching at his throat. He fell to his knees as black lines crawled up the sides of his neck. The man’s eyes bulged and then blood ran from them like horrible scarlet tears. My whole body was burning and freezing, and I couldn’t stop shivering.
“Leo, we… we have to go!” I said through chattering teeth.
But if Leo heard me, he didn’t move. He was a knot of tensed muscles as the other biker stopped in the middle of the highway. Pestilence dismounted and the red Baracca’s kickstand snapped itself out as the horseman in the charcoal suit walked toward us. The Cadillac driver began vomiting all over his steering wheel. Pestilence’s skin was an ashy white-gray color, but its wide eyes were pure and unreflecting black, more like empty sockets than actual eyes.
“Death,” Pestilence said. “I have been searching for you.”
Its voice was so loud that I wanted to clap my hands over my ears, and it buzzed like a nest of wasps. I could feel the sound crawling over me and the acidic urge to throw up clawing at the back of my throat.
“Leo? Leo, that’s Pestilence!” I gasped. “We have to get out of here!”
I shook Leo. At least, I tried to… but Leo was a big guy, all tensed muscles under those tattoos. I might as well have tried to shake a statue. Leo’s hands clenched into fists so tight that the leather of his gloves creaked. Sweat soaked his shirt and it clung to his skin.
“No! That thing killed my friends,” Leo snarled.
He jumped off the Packmaster and charged the horseman closing in on us. Leo grabbed his revolver from the waist of his jeans, whipped it up to aim at Pestilence, and pulled the trigger. He thumbed back the steel hammer and fired again, over and over, until the cylinder clicked empty. But Leo’s bullets punched right through the insurance adjustor or whatever the man in the gray suit had been before Pestilence took over. But it didn’t fall or even slow in its march toward Leo.
Something dark seeped from the wounds… No, not seeped. Crawled. Insects buzzed as they poured out of Pestilence’s body. I wasn’t close enough to see what they were – flies or locusts or some unknown species – but thousands of them crawled from the ragged gunshot holes and flew up into the air. Bugs swirled in a shifting, chittering cloud that blotted out the sun.
“Leo, let’s get the hell out of here!” I cried.
“Death, control your vessel,” Pestilence said in a monotone buzz.
Leo flung his empty gun aside with a shout, grabbed Pestilence’s fog-gray silk tie and punched him right in the face. Leo was well over six feet tall and more than two hundred pounds of muscle, but the blow barely rocked Pestilence.
“It is time, Death,” said the pale horseman. “Lead us against the angels and we will claim final victory.”
The insects still pouring out of Pestilence darkened the sky like storm clouds. Leo hauled his fist back for another punch, but Pestilence seized his broad shoulders in an embrace like a long-lost brother.
“No!” I shouted.
Leo’s fist dropped to his side again, but it didn’t unclench. A rictus smile spread across Pestilence’s stolen face and Leo turned around to face me. I never realized how much emotion there was in Leo’s brown eyes – anger and pain and surprising warmth – until it was gone.
L
eo’s eyes had vanished, leaving only black, bottomless pits like the sockets of a skull. And those empty shadows stared right at me. The Packmaster growled like a hungry wolf.
Death is manifest, and it will not wait until all eight are gathered to begin the battle, Uriel said. You must give me control of this body, vessel! Now!
If I gave up control, I was just as lost as if the horsemen got their hands on me. Shit!
I jumped off the Packmaster and backed away, shaking and probably sobbing. There was no way Leo’s motorcycle was going to run for me, not with its master glaring literal death down the highway at me. The livid green-black sky boiled with insects.
“Uriel,” Pestilence rasped. “Face us.”
Flashes of red and blue lit the cloud of bugs and the sharp wail of a siren finally tore my attention away from Death’s empty eyes. Another motorcycle roared up the center of the road from the opposite direction as Pestilence. It was black and white, with a stout cop sitting astride the leather seat. My body burned with ethereal fire as he cruised up the highway without even glancing down at the crashed cars or fallen bodies. Heat shimmer caught the police bike’s colorful staccato lights and smeared them out into a glimmering cloak.
No, not a cloak. Wings.
That is the one your mythology calls Michael, Uriel said. My greatest warrior.
Uriel seemed to somehow swell within me, suddenly taking up more space inside my head. I threw my hands over my ears as though I could physically hold the archangel at bay, but I felt Uriel’s light coursing through my body like a fever.
“No! I… I thought you didn’t want to fight yet!” I shouted at the new angel.
The motorcycle cop stopped his bike and had to kick out the stand as he dismounted. Only the horsemen could control their vehicles by will alone, apparently. Michael strode toward me, shiny knee-high boots hitting the asphalt with a sound like gunshots.
The shimmering glow streaming behind him grew brighter – though the storm cloud of buzzing insects above us was still eclipsing the sun – and spread out into four long glowing wings. They weren’t feathered, exactly… unless feathers were made of fire and molten glass.
400 Horsepower of the Apocalypse Page 14