The skeletal head Death cradled was made up mostly of glistening bone, but its eye sockets weren’t empty and because there was no flesh on the skull, those eyes bulged grotesquely. Some white ligaments ran across Death’s skull, moving with his jaw and pulling it into a macabre smile as, like an evil pendulum, Death’s eyes swung back and forth over the clearing.
Death said something I couldn’t hear, but his jawbone moved again. More of the horsemen emerged from the woods. It took all I had not to cower as my shoulders hunched and my head bowed. I clenched my bladder when it threatened to let loose. I hadn’t felt this visceral a reaction to something since I’d been huddled beneath the sink, trying not to sob.
I cursed myself as a coward even as the others all slouched a little more. Erin edged back, and Vargas’s knuckles turned white from his grip on his cross. Corson tensed as he edged protectively in front of me.
Taking a deep breath, I lifted my head and forced myself to gaze at the eleven horsemen spreading out behind the angels. Some of the things they rode couldn’t be considered horses with their double heads, multi-hued eyes, and just plain non-horse-like physiques. Others rode horses that could have only come from Hell.
I recognized Lust as she was gorgeous with her flowing white hair tumbling down her shoulders and spilling over the ass end of the gray horse she rode. The horse was beautiful with its thick neck and its head curved so its chin was tucked against its chest. Lust wore nothing, her voluptuous body on full display to all those nearby.
Some of the demons closest to her stroked themselves through their clothes as they stared at her, while others dipped their hands into their pants and blatantly fondled themselves. The angels all unfurled their wings and drew them forward as if they were trying to ward something off.
My skin prickled, and my heart rate increased as Corson’s hand burned into mine. Memories of the way he’d caressed me ran through my mind. Mine, he’d breathed in my ear, and I could feel the warmth of his breath against me once more.
Beads of sweat lined Corson’s forehead as his eyes held mine and his thumb ran over the back of my hand. I could feel his restraint running through his taut muscles, and I found myself hoping he would let it go. I would welcome him into my arms right now without caring who watched us. Hawk lowered his head into his hands. Bale made a move for him but stopped herself before she could touch him.
Death said something and Lust laughed as she tossed back some of her white hair. Like the fog retreating from the sun, my hunger for Corson eased from my body. It didn’t leave completely, but what remained had nothing to do with Lust’s spell; I would always crave Corson’s touch.
Corson’s citrine eyes filled with fury as he stared at the horsemen. Hawk lifted his head and shuddered. Lines etched the corners of his mouth as he gazed across the clearing with hatred in his indigo eyes. The demons closest to Lust stopped pleasuring themselves and backed away from her. We weren’t close to the horsemen, yet I felt the lingering effect of whatever it was that bitch had done to me. To all of us.
I wanted out of here, I opened my mouth to say so, but closed it again. I couldn’t run and hide from this.
One of the horsemen said something else, and they all nodded. If they could all do something like what Lust had done, we were in for a nasty battle. For the first time, I wasn’t sure it was a fight we could win. I suspected Lust had been playing with everyone, giving them only a hint of what she could do. And if War, Wrath, or Death unleashed their malevolence, then what?
I studied all of them again. Some were easy to recognize, like Pestilence with the hundreds of flies buzzing around his head. Large, white, blistering sores marred his cheeks. Black rot surrounded where the end of his nose should have been. The tips of his fingers were also covered in black rot as if he had gangrene or some plague. I didn’t want to know what the things squirming beneath his putrid flesh were.
Pestilence’s horse was the greenish-brown color of bile and also had white sores festering on its flesh. Some of those abscesses ran so deep they revealed the bone beneath. What Pestilence could do to the human race was something I couldn’t think about right now.
The horsemen made such a conflicting range of emotions flutter through me that I could barely think. I focused on Astaroth as he continued to point to different demons, Hell creatures, and riders. From the corner of my eye, I noticed hooves shifting as something more was said, and then one of the horses reared back and turned away from the clearing. The scarlet animal disappeared into the trees with a dozen lower-level demons, a handful of upper levels, and some of the Hell creatures. A few angels rose to swoop out behind them.
Lust turned and went in a separate direction with an entourage following her.
“What are they doing?” I whispered.
“Smaller groups,” Corson replied. “By spreading out, they can affect more humans and demons.”
The other horsemen vanished into the woods until all that remained in the clearing was Astaroth, Death, and a few dozen others. Death lifted his skull and settled it into place on his shoulders. He twisted it to the side, and with a crack of bone, it remained there when he removed his hands.
Astaroth said something more and took to the air. Death stared at him before pulling back on his horse’s reigns. Sunlight glinted off its bony front legs when the skeletal horse reared before running into the air. I gawked after him as Death rose higher, its horse’s hooves thundering across unseen particles of air as Death followed Astaroth into the sky.
“Death can…?” I didn’t know how to describe what I’d witnessed. “Fly?”
“Not fly so much as travel on air,” Magnus answered.
“It’s the only horseman that can,” Corson said. “We have to return to the others.”
The crack of a branch sounded from somewhere on our left. Before I could blink, Corson spun toward the sound and planted himself firmly in front of me. The tips of his talons rested on the ground, and his body became that of a predator tensed to spring.
Through the thin tree trunks, I spotted thirteen upper and lower-level demons strolling through the trees. They didn’t notice us as they drew closer.
“The horsemen are dangerous,” one of the upper levels said.
“They locked us away because we were dangerous too,” another one retorted.
“Not like them. And they locked us away because we broke the laws. We didn’t belong sealed away, the horsemen did. Astaroth won’t be able to control them like he thinks he can.”
“So what do you want to do? Slink meekly away and spend the rest of our lives hiding from Kobal or perhaps join his side?”
“Never would I join him!” The other one’s hatred was evident in those hissed words. “But I think working with the horsemen could result in all our deaths. You saw what Lust did back there, and she wasn’t even trying.”
“Let the angels and horsemen have their fun. Let them ruin Kobal and the palitons, and then we’ll rise to take control of what remains. It’s not like the horsemen can level the entire planet in a day or even a year. They aren’t that powerful. Besides, the angels and horsemen also need the human race and demons if they’re to survive. They won’t kill them all.”
“They’re determined to rule everyone, including us. We’re the ones they’ll turn on after they’ve accomplished what they wanted to with everyone else.”
“I won’t be ruled again,” one of the uppers stated. “Let them come for us, and we’ll tear them apart.”
The lower levels all nodded their agreement. Corson looked toward all of us and gave a jerk of his head in the direction of the demons. Bale reached over her back and gripped the handle of her sword. Hawk, Erin, and Vargas pulled their knives free. Shax smiled while Caim rocked on his heels, and Raphael’s face remained blank. I recoiled when identical images of us shimmered to life nearby, before realizing that they were all a product of Magnus’s ability to weave illusions.
Turning to me, Corson rested his lips against my ear as he spoke, �
��No guns.”
I put my gun away and removed the knife strapped to my side. Following Corson through the woods, we edged closer until we were within feet of the demons. One of them lifted its head; its dog snout wrinkled as it sniffed the air. With the speed and silence of a ghost, Corson rose out of the shadows and plunged his talons straight through the lower-level demon’s throat, severing its head from its shoulders before it could shout a warning.
The thud of the head hitting the ground drew the attention of its companions. The blade of Bale’s sword glinted in the sunlight when it swung out to sever the head of another one. Hawk and Vargas leapt out to take two lower levels down, while Caim drove one of his spikes through the eye of an upper level, and Raphael hit an upper level with a ball of pure white energy. The energy tore through the demon’s chest and took out the one behind it.
Leaping up, Lix hacked the head from another demon. Magnus did some fluid dance around another lower level until he could get behind it and twist its head off with a strange, sucking pop. Shax hit another one so hard its head half tore off before Erin severed it the rest of the way with her knife.
Rising, I jumped onto the back of one turning toward Corson and sliced my knife across the demon’s vocal cords before he could make a sound. My hand wrapped around his forehead, drawing his head back as I finished my kill. I jumped off the demon when its body went limp beneath me. Corson spun and sank his talons into the chest of another. Lifting it, he smashed the creature into the ground and sliced its head off with a swipe of his other hand.
I bent to wipe the blood off my blade as Lix killed the last demon. Sitting back on my heels, I studied the trees and shifting shadows while I searched for any hint that something else might be coming.
“We have to go,” Corson stated. “The blood will bring more of them.”
“If their bodies are discovered the angels and horsemen will know something is hunting them,” Lix said.
“I know of a cave nearby,” I replied. “We can stash the bodies there.”
“We’ll take them there,” Corson said.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Corson
The humans moved through the dwindling line as they gathered their food. The people were unusually reserved tonight, their faces strained and their eyes haunted. Their gazes darted nervously between the man handing out the food and the shadows of the building we’d taken refuge in for the night. Learning of the horsemen had left them unsettled.
After leaving the gateway behind, and disposing of the bodies, Wren had led us to this abandoned school. It was too large for my liking, too difficult to defend, but it was big enough to house everyone. Right now, being outside and exposed wasn’t an option, especially with the fallen angels and horsemen having been so close. They could be miles away by now, but I wasn’t willing to take the chance they were still nearby, not with Wren’s life.
She’s mortal, and the horsemen are some of the worst things to ever evolve in Hell.
My hands fisted as I stared at the night pressing against the windows high up on two of the concrete walls. It would be difficult for anything to scamper up the outside of the building and into the small, rectangle openings, but not impossible. However, we should be able to kill anything that tried before it got too far inside. Above the windows, spider webs hung from the metal, dust-coated beams running across the ceiling. The air held the musty odor of mildew, decay, and something I couldn’t quite identify.
We’d first entered the school through the large room attached to this one. The numerous, rusted metal doors within that room had kept me close to Wren as I waited for something to spring out of one and attack us.
“It’s a locker room,” Wren said before I could ask.
“It has too many hiding spots,” I’d replied.
She’d stopped at a sink and used some of the water from her bag to scrub the demon blood from her hands, before washing her face and rinsing her hair. I’d cleaned myself too, but my attention remained more focused on her as she scrubbed her flesh until it was raw. Setting my jug of water down, I’d clasped her hands in mine. She’d allowed me to hold her for a moment before she’d removed her hands from mine and walked away without another word.
After entering the gym, we’d chained the door to the locker room shut. Two other doors led out of the gym; four demons guarded each of them, two inside and two outside.
“I have a riddle for you, my dear,” Lix said from behind me. I turned to watch as he settled onto the ground beside Erin.
“Let’s hear it,” she replied as she pulled apart her small piece of bread.
“I am the one true horseman of the apocalypse. I destroy more than war, as I continue without life. I am more patient than famine, as I have eternity to ride. I silence more than death, as all will be still. And I spread farther than pestilence, as I act across the universe. What am I?” Lix inquired.
Erin rolled a piece of bread between her fingers as she contemplated his words. “Entropy,” she said and popped the small ball of food into her mouth.
Lix didn’t cheer with his usual enthusiasm when she answered one right. Instead, he patted her leg before rising. “Very good, dear. Very good indeed. One of these days, one of us will stump you.”
Erin smiled sadly at him. “I look forward to it.”
Lix’s bony feet clicked against the floor as he walked over to stand beside me. “The fucking horsemen,” I muttered and ran a hand through my hair to tug at the ends of it.
“And I bet you thought your biggest problem today was going to be a mortal Chosen who goes out of her way to avoid you,” Magnus purred from behind me.
I shot him a quelling look over my shoulder, and Bale’s hand tightened on the handle of her sword. I’d happily knock Magnus out, but Bale would take immense joy in severing his head from his shoulders. The two of them hadn’t gotten along before Magnus retreated from the war in Hell to work on strengthening his ability to weave illusions, hundreds of years ago. Their animosity had only increased since Magnus rejoined us to fight Lucifer.
Most of the time, I barely noticed their antagonism toward each other. Now, I was not in the mood to deal with their bullshit.
It didn’t help that Magnus was right.
I looked at Wren on the other side of the school gymnasium. She sat near the bottom of the wooden stairs that unfolded from the wall. Her damp hair tumbled around her shoulders as she idly tapped her blade against the bottom of her boot while watching the humans moving through the food line. She had to be hungry, yet she waited.
For the first time, I became acutely aware of the passing of time. One more day had passed, which meant there was one less day Wren had to live.
How do humans deal with this constant knowledge of time slipping away? I wanted to stick Wren in a protective bubble where nothing could ever shorten her time further, or better yet, make her an immortal.
While both options were tempting, Wren would hate me for doing either to her. Worse than the knowledge of her death was the possibility of her coming to despise me.
“I don’t like this place,” I stated as people and demons started placing their blankets on the dirt-streaked, tile floor.
“Try having to attend a place like this on a daily basis,” Hawk said from beside me. “I never made it to high school, but middle school sucked, especially with my first name.”
Hawk’s entire name was Sue Hawkson. From what I’d gathered from Hawk and the other humans, Sue wasn’t such a great name for a man to have in the mortal realm, but Hawk’s mother had named him after a song. She’d believed the name would make him stronger.
“That really would have sucked.” Vargas bit into a piece of jerky and chewed it.
“I’d rather face the horsemen than come to a place like this every day,” Shax said.
“So would I,” Hawk replied.
“There are too many openings, too many ways in,” I said as my gaze ran over the large room once more.
“This is the best place fo
r us in this building. It would be too easy for something to see inside the classrooms. They have more windows and only one door,” Hawk said. “The locker rooms—”
“Have too many places to hide,” I said.
The horsemen are close to Wren. My fingers tore into the flesh of my palms. The familiar, prodding sensation of my talons looking to break free started beneath my skin. I kept them restrained as my gaze settled on Wren again.
“There are a couple of interior rooms with no windows,” Vargas said. “But there aren’t enough ways out of them.”
“This is the best we’re going to get right now,” I muttered.
Wren’s friend, Jolie, walked over and sat beside her. Jolie drew her legs up and plopped her elbows on her knees as she said something to Wren. Wren turned toward her before focusing on the dwindling line of people receiving their share of the meal.
Jolie said something that drew Wren’s gaze sharply back to her. Grabbing her bag, Wren pulled it closer to her and dug into it. All the Wilders had some bag or backpack they carried with them while they traveled. They stashed it somewhere whenever they hunted or fought and as far as I could tell, everything they owned fit into their bag.
This treacherous, sparse existence was all Wren had known for most of her life. She knew the peril she lived in, but I wanted better for her for however many days she had left.
“She’s mortal.”
“She is,” Bale said.
I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud until Bale agreed with me.
“I think that might be the least of your problems when it comes to her,” Magnus stated.
I hated to admit it, but Magnus was right. Wren’s mortality was a battle for another day. For now, I had to get my Chosen not to want to kick my nuts into my throat most of the time. I’d probably have a better chance of getting a manticore to agree not to eat everything they could skewer with their scorpion tails.
Hell on Earth (Hell on Earth, Book 1) (Hell on Earth Series) Page 21