“Oh shit,” Hawk muttered.
“He cannot randomly read a mind,” Caim said. “He must be focused on an individual to do so.”
“I’d prefer not to have my mind read no matter what he has to do. There’s not much up here”—Hawk tapped the side of his head as spoke—“but it’s mine.”
“I agree, there’s not much up there,” Magnus said.
Hawk gave him the finger.
“Astaroth can also astral project,” Caim continued.
“What do you mean by astral project?” Vargas asked.
“He can split himself in two and control the mimicry of himself,” Caim explained.
“Ay dios mio.” Vargas pulled the cross hanging from his necklace out from under his shirt to kiss it.
“He doesn’t do it often,” Caim continued. “The mimicry can’t be killed, but it can be wounded, and he feels those injuries.”
“What if you cut off the mimicry’s head?” I asked.
“Then it vanishes, but he doesn’t die. Maybe his neck hurts afterward or something; I don’t know, I didn’t ask. Astaroth was not one I spoke with often.”
“Why not?” Bale asked.
“He’s an asshole. And I don’t mean he’s an asshole like Raphael can be an asshole. I mean, whereas Lucifer was insane, vicious, and bent on vengeance for all the wrongs he felt he’d endured, and some were valid.” Caim flicked a pointed glance at Raphael as he said this. “I mean, Astaroth was a nasty bastard even when he was in Heaven. The fall didn’t improve his already warped personality. Lucifer killed; Astaroth tortures and maims, allows healing, maims again, and so on.”
“So he’s like the kid who enjoys pulling the legs off spiders,” I said.
Caim’s eyes swirled with color when they met mine. “He’s like the kid who likes to cut the legs off a spider one tiny piece at a time, before feeding the spider to the cat that he later cuts into one small piece at a time and feeds to the dog. Then—”
My stomach lurched sickeningly, and Erin’s hand flew to her mouth. “I don’t want to hear about the dog,” I interrupted and Caim nodded.
I hadn’t seen Astaroth, and I already hated him. Most of the dogs in the Wilds were now feral, but some of them would occasionally creep in to get a belly rub and a scratch behind the ears. A few of them moved around with us, offering protection and giving a warning if something approached. Many canines found their own way now, but we all remembered a time when they were our constant companions.
“Lucifer let Astaroth play with demons to keep him appeased and honed for battle, but he also kept him in check,” Caim continued. “Astaroth was no match for Lucifer’s strength and cunning, and he knew it, but without Lucifer to cage him…”
“He’s free to play with everything and everyone he comes in contact with,” Corson murmured when Caim’s words trailed off.
What would happen if Astaroth got his hands on Corson? What would the malicious angel do to him?
I inhaled a tremulous breath to calm my galloping heart. I couldn’t stand to think of anyone torturing Corson, or any of those I cared about in such a way. Life out here had always been brutal and short, but the destruction of the seals and the rise of the fallen angels had upped the ante.
Demons destroyed; angels tortured before decimating.
I gazed at the small group surrounding me. More demons and humans were establishing a camp nearby, but there were only fifty of us in total. And fifty against a few hundred were not odds I was willing to tempt. I fought when necessary, and I hated backing down, but I hadn’t survived this long by being stupid and staying somewhere when it wasn’t a good idea.
“We have to come up with another plan, get in touch with the other groups and bring them in before we face the angels and craetons,” I said.
“That may not be enough,” Raphael said, and the tone of his voice made the hair on my neck stand up.
“Why not?” Corson demanded.
“The horsemen have joined with the angels.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Corson
“You’re shitting me,” Hawk said to Raphael.
Raphael blinked at him. “I am an angel; I do not shit.”
At any other time, I would have laughed at the look on Raphael’s face as he took Hawk’s question literally, and the way Hawk’s mouth dropped at his response. But when it came to the horsemen, there was no laughing. And to have Wren so close to them.
“You should have revealed that detail first!” I snarled at Raphael. “Lix, go back to where you left the others and tell them to pack up now.”
Wren didn’t edge away from me when I approached her. Standing beside her, my chest nearly brushed her shoulder as I surveyed the forest for any hint of a threat lurking within it. Lix swigged down more of his beer before hurrying away.
“The horsemen? As in the four horsemen of the apocalypse?” Erin inquired as she glanced between Raphael and me.
“No,” Raphael replied.
Hawk and Erin breathed a sigh of relief.
If only it were that easy, I thought before responding, “As in the eleven horsemen.”
The humans and Hawk exchanged dumbfounded looks.
“Eleven?” Wren croaked.
“Yes,” I said. “Humans mixed up what they saw through the veils about the horsemen. They separated the four horsemen of the apocalypse from the seven deadly sins, but they’re all together. They always have been. However, as humans commonly believed, the horsemen weren’t originally heralds of the apocalypse.”
“But now?” Wren asked.
“Now there’s no telling the destruction they could rain down on Earth.”
“Lovely,” Erin said.
“And they all ride around on horses?” Vargas asked.
“You could consider them horses, I guess,” Shax replied.
“I don’t like that answer.” Erin lowered her head to rub at her temples.
“You and me both. I saw too many monstrosities in Hell for that to be a good thing,” Hawk said. “Okay, so there are eleven horsemen. I know some of the deadly sins, and I think I remember two of the horsemen, but not all of them.”
“To humans, the four horsemen are Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death. The deadly sins are Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, and Sloth,” Magnus explained. “To demons, they are all the horsemen and one woman, and we call them by different names. However, when translated, their demon names pretty much mean the same thing as their human names.”
“Why were they locked away?” Vargas inquired.
“Because each of them can influence or create the feelings they’re associated with in others,” I explained. “War can get two or more demons to fight to the death, Pestilence spreads some pretty nasty things around, and Famine could make a demon or Hell creature waste away from starvation with a banquet of wraiths before them. The demon wouldn’t die, but it didn’t exactly live either.”
Wren shuddered beside me when I revealed this.
“Wrath can make any living creature so incensed they destroy everything in their path,” Magnus said. “Lust makes it so sex becomes an obsession. The worst of them all, of course, is Death.”
“No explanation needed for that one,” Wren said. “What seal were the horsemen locked behind?”
“One hundred fifty-two,” I answered. “I knew their seal had fallen, but I’d hoped it hadn’t been in time for them to break out of Hell.”
“We all had,” Bale murmured.
“Are we going to tell Kobal and River?” Erin asked.
“We can’t keep it from them,” I replied. “They have to be prepared for the possibility the horsemen might head toward the wall.”
“I never saw anything resembling a horse exit the gateway,” Wren said. “How did they get here?”
“Don’t forget that another gateway opened in Hungary at the same time as the one here,” I reminded her. “It closed at the same time as this one too, but we don’t know what escaped from that side before
it closed. All the guards established over there were killed before we could speak with them. The horsemen must have been amongst those escapees, and if the angels wanted them in this area of the world, they could bring the horsemen here.”
“Why bring them here when Kobal is here? Why not keep them on the other side of the world?” Hawk demanded.
“Only they could answer that completely, but if you intend to rule the world, then you have to take out its leader,” Magnus said. “The angels and horsemen are here to prepare for war. And don’t forget Kobal has followers on the other side of the world too. Hell is more dangerous than it’s ever been, but Kobal can still take palitons and travel through Hell to fight the craetons over there. The craetons know that. They’re as safe here as they would be over there. However, they probably think we’re at the wall with Kobal and River, and not traveling through the Wilds in search of them.”
“So what do we do now?” Wren asked.
“We prepare to move,” I replied. “Before then, I’m going to see them. I’ll witness for myself what we’re dealing with.”
Wren
Corson hadn’t been at all happy about my insistence to go with him and the others to the gateway, but he didn’t argue too long with me about it. In the end, I thought he knew he would only push me away completely if he tried to dictate what I could and couldn’t do.
That didn’t mean he didn’t stay protectively in front of me or glower at me when I tried to push ahead of him. I glowered back.
Before leaving to see the horsemen, we’d returned to find the camp already packing up and preparing to move on. I’d happily made my way through the Wilders who came forward to see me. I’d shook their hands or embraced them as they greeted me. Malorick may have been lost, but thankfully no Wilders had died while I was away.
When I was done greeting the Wilders, I’d grabbed some bullets for my handgun and a rifle from our supplies. The weight of the rifle on my back and the gun hanging at my side wasn’t as reassuring as it had once been, and I would have given anything for my bow.
The horsemen of the apocalypse, all eleven of them.
I hated every single thing that had crawled from the cesspool of Hell, but this sounded so much worse than an ouro, and I hadn’t imagined anything worse could be possible yesterday.
My gaze fell on Corson’s back. Okay, maybe I didn’t hate everything from Hell, but I hated a good chunk of it.
I pulled my focus away from Corson as we traveled toward the now closed gateway. Ahead of me, Raphael moved noiselessly through the trees as he led the way. Caim strolled beside him before falling back to walk next to Bale.
“Since Malorick is dead, I will fly to the wall to let Kobal know what is going on,” Caim offered.
“Kobal is touring the wall with River to solidify his lead with the humans and to meet with the other palitons; we don’t know where he is,” she replied.
“Then I will follow the wall until I find him.”
She glanced pointedly at his wings. “Any other demon would shoot you down and wear your head as a trophy.”
“Then there would actually be a good looking demon in this world.”
Bale stared at him before focusing ahead once more, seemingly unwilling to respond. Caim smiled at her before clasping his hands behind his back and doing an unusual little skip step that caused the bottom points of his wings to scrape the ground. I couldn’t help but smile over how much he enjoyed annoying everyone he knew.
“We will send some of the skelleins to find Kobal,” Corson stated. “Raphael will go with them as the palitons know the only golden angel on Earth is on our side. If the palitons see black wings though, they’re going to kill without bothering to ask questions. If Raphael goes with them, the skelleins will have eyes above and an easier time of locating us when they return.”
Caim’s smile slid away, and a muscle twitched his jaw. Raphael didn’t look at all pleased with the decision either, but he didn’t protest it.
“They were just ahead,” Raphael whispered, and all conversation ended.
Glancing around the trees, I noted the strange rock formation to my left and the thick briar bushes creeping in on my right. Stealing around a large oak, I rested my fingers against the markings carved into the trunk. We were less than half a mile from the gateway.
I took a deep breath to steady my racing heart. Shifting my hold on my gun, I wiped my sweaty palm on my pants before switching the weapon to my other hand and doing the same thing. I’d been in countless tight spots over the years, this was nothing new, yet I felt as if I was heading toward the end of something.
Raphael gestured with his hand, and everyone knelt behind him. I glanced at Lix, Hawk, Erin, Vargas, and Shax as they edged closer to my left side. Raphael inched forward, and we all went with him. Caim, Corson, and Bale were slightly ahead of us and the closest to Raphael. I knew the minute they saw what lay ahead as their shoulders became rigid. Corson’s talons extended, and Caim briefly dropped his forehead into his hand before lifting it again.
The burning of my lungs alerted me that I’d stopped breathing. Releasing my breath slowly, I slunk forward to kneel beside Corson. A chill slid over my flesh as I gazed at the scorched land before us. Once, in the center of that burnt earth, there had been a large gateway into Hell.
All that remained of the gateway was this circle of dead land. No grass sprouted around it, no vegetation crept forward to reclaim the acreage it had lost. It was as if the damage the gateway created here would last forever, and I suspected that a hundred years from now, if the Earth still existed, this barren wasteland would remain the same.
Hopefully, the monsters standing in the middle of it wouldn’t remain. I gulped as I gazed at those creatures. There were so many of them, each different from the others. The lower-level demons grouped together toward the far side of the clearing. Their more animalistic characteristics made them easy to distinguish from the upper-level demons.
The upper levels stood closer to the angels, their animosity evident in their eyes and postures, but they listened raptly to the angel speaking to them. The remaining fallen angels spread around the angel standing in the center of their loose circle.
If their new leader was Astaroth, then I assumed he was the one standing in the middle. Astaroth held his wings open behind him, and the sun glinted ominously off his blood-red hair. Like the other angels, his face was stunning, but his wings were warped monstrosities. Thick veins twisted through the leathery black flesh of his wings. Those veins pulsed in the sun, revealing what looked like the sludge of rotting corpses pulsing through them instead of blood.
Astaroth used the bottom silver tip of his right wing to point at those gathered around him. Some of the creatures I recognized as manticores, púca, gobalinus, ogres, and rokh. Many of them I didn’t know at all, and some of them were so hideous I couldn’t look at them.
Then there were the five bear-like creatures standing on their hind legs near the lower-level demons. The smallest one stood over seven feet, and the biggest had to be pushing ten feet tall. They had wolverine claws, pig snouts, red eyes, and thick brown coats. Jagged fangs hung down over their lower jaws.
“What is the thing that looks like a bear screwed a wolverine before mating a pig?” I whispered.
“Barta demon.” He spoke so low that I barely heard Corson’s reply.
I hoped to never run into one of them at night, or ever. I forced my attention from the barta and back to those gathered before us. The upper-level demons looked half tempted to rip the heads off all the angels, and I didn’t understand why they were here. They obviously despised the angels, and I’d thought the upper levels followed Kobal.
Leaning closer to Corson, my lips nearly touched his ear as I spoke my next question. “Why are the upper-level demons here with the angels? Aren’t they Kobal’s followers?”
He rested his hand over mine, careful not to graze me with his talons. A little shiver went through me at the contact. Then my heart clenc
hed with terror, not for me or because of the things only twenty yards away from us, but for him.
I can’t lose him. I swallowed the lump in my throat the realization brought with it. I was further gone than I’d ever realized for this man. That terrified me more than all the demons and Hell creatures put together.
“Remember how I told you there was a time when demons walked the Earth, but there were laws they had to follow? The one-hundredth seal housed upper-level demons who broke those laws while on Earth. Kobal’s ancestors put them there, but many of those demons are still furious with Kobal for keeping them locked away. Since being freed, some have chosen not to fight and to pursue a life of freedom. Others have decided on revenge.”
“I see,” I whispered.
I searched the group again, but I saw nothing mounted on horseback. Just as I thought it, the shadows shifted behind the lower-level demons, and red eyes blazed from the forest. I bit my lip to suppress my gasp. Erin twitched beside me, and Vargas grasped his cross. Corson’s hand tightened on mine as he shifted closer to me.
A skeletal horse head followed one set of those eyes out of the shadows. The cold hand of death slid over my skin as more of the horse emerged to reveal its rider. Before I saw the rider’s head, tucked securely in the crook of its arm and clasped against its side, I knew the pale, bony man was Death.
The headless fucking horseman of death.
My clammy skin cooled as I contemplated slinking into the shadows, curling into a ball, and dying.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Wren
And Death rides a pale horse.
I couldn’t recall exactly where I’d heard that. Probably during one of my Sundays sitting in a church pew while listening to the minister speak. I hadn’t been good at sitting still and often fidgeted much to my parents’ chagrin. I’d spent most of my church time daydreaming of riding spaceships to Mars rather than paying attention, but something from those sermons, or my Sunday school days, must have sunk in.
The head of Death’s horse was nothing but bone with two red orbs glowing from its eye sockets. Pale white flesh covered the rest of the horse’s body. Death didn’t use a saddle as he sat tall on the horse’s back. Broad through the shoulders and torso, the black clothes Death wore hugged his frame. I would have considered the clothes skin tight, but if Death’s body was anything like his bony fingers and detached head, there was no skin beneath that clothing.
Hell on Earth (Hell on Earth, Book 1) (Hell on Earth Series) Page 20