“Lucifer.”
“Oh crap,” Kessley says, pushing herself against her seat hard.
I place a hand on her arm. “Don’t worry, he’s not real. It must be a projection or something. He can’t get to Earth, remember?”
“But he can send demons here, right?”
I squeeze her arm. “We’ve beaten five armies of demons already, Kess. We can handle a few more.”
“Dante Banner!” The Devil’s voice rattles the car and my teeth. The sound reverberates through my stomach. “Show yourself!”
I reach for the door handle.
“Don’t,” Vicky says. “It might be a trap.”
A ball of lightning comes to life in my hand. “I’m prepared.”
I can almost feel her shaking her head in disbelief as I step out of the car.
The slamming of two more car doors tells me my friends are following.
“Okay, I’m here!” I yell at the huge monster rising from the cracked asphalt.
When he doesn’t answer, I place my free hand on my waist. “What do you want?”
He narrows his eyes, and flames burst out from under his skin. “You know what I want. And you could have been a part of it. But you declined my offer, so I decided to send you a gift.”
A voice inside my head is screaming at me to back up and run. But I can’t. Satan is taking desperate measures to either get me on his side or destroy me. Now that the first didn’t work, he’s going to throw more demons at me. Well, good for him. We’re ready.
“I don’t want anything from you,” I hiss at him. “And if you’re so scared of me, staying away might be a better plan than sending me more armies to take out.”
Lucifer chuckles. An unnaturally low sound with no joy in it.
“You stupid boy,” he says. “I’m not sending you any armies. I’ve got something much better than that.”
I give him my best poker face, but he sees right through it, judging by the way he shakes with laughter.
“Yes, you laugh now,” I say through clenched teeth, “but you’ll never win. The prophecy says I’m going to beat you, and I will.”
A giant hand moves up to support his red chin. “Oh yes, the prophecy. I’ve heard it.” He leans forward, and it takes all of my will to stay where I am. “You do know that all prophecies come from crazy people who mistake the voices in their heads for that of my father, don’t you? Relying on things like that is a bit like...” He taps his chin. “Well, like fighting the Devil with a drunk ghost by your side.” He smiles sweetly at me. “Wouldn’t you say so?”
To my surprise, Kessley doesn’t storm past me. The only thing I hear is a loud, indignant huff behind me and some mumbled words I can’t make out.
“Your words and threats don’t impress me, Lucifer. You can send whatever you want my way, but you will always be trapped in Hell.”
He tilts his head, flames burning in his eyes. “You know, Dante, I like you better than your father. You must have inherited your wits from your mother, because your daddy was such a boring opponent. He never spoke back to me. This…” He moves his finger from his chest to me and back. “This is nice. I will miss our little get-togethers when you’re dead.”
“Whatever,” I say with a loud sigh. “Are you going to send someone to fight me or not? Because I’ve got more to do.”
He laughs again. “I am. And I’m sure you’ll like them a lot. You met two of their brothers already, and I have to say, your tactics against them surprised me. You’re a smart boy. It’s such a shame you’re on the wrong side.”
Brothers? The word echoes through my mind. It bounces against my skull harder and harder. Oh no, please don’t let it be true.
Vicky’s voice pierces through the echo of Satan’s words. “Dante!” she hisses. “Get back here!”
The Devil leans back, reaches inside the hole in the road and pulls out the last two creatures I wanted to meet. They seem tiny in his hands, but once he releases them and drops out of sight with a laugh that sounds like thunder, they grow to full height.
They are both on horses, one white, one black, like their riders. The rider in black is wearing motorcycle clothes hanging loosely around his bony body. The sight of his face and hands makes the hairs on my arms rise. His skin is stretched way too tight over his bones. His eyes lie deep in the sockets, and his lips are a barely visible line around the few stumpy teeth he shows in a grin. He’s like a skeleton brought back to life.
The other one looks a lot healthier but just as intimidating. Instead of slouching, like his brother, he sits up straight and proud. A bow and a quiver full of arrows rests on his back, and a golden crown is placed on his white hair. His pale hand lazily strokes his horse’s mane.
“The White and the Black Horseman of conquest and famine,” Charlie whispers from behind me.
His voice trembles with fear, and I flex my fingers as the same feeling seeps through me. Then I ball my hands into fists. No, we won’t let them intimidate us. We defeated two of them already. We can do it again.
CHAPTER 20
I hear my best friend ripping open a chocolate bar and munching on it as if he’s afraid someone will take it from him. The rest of us stay still. I can almost hear the cogs in everyone’s brains squeaking.
I turn my head slightly and whisper, “Maël?”
Very slowly, she starts to move. My muscles tense as she whispers the words that will freeze the Horsemen in time. Hopefully.
I thrust my elbow back to nudge Charlie, who’s still munching like a madman. “Stop that, enough is enough.”
“But I need the energy,” he says between bites. “And I’m freaking hungry, man.”
The moment he says the word “hungry”, the emptiness in my stomach hits me like a ton of bricks. Very light bricks. I stretch out my hand behind me. “Give me one too.”
With a dissatisfied grumble, he slams a bar onto my palm. I gulp it down in two bites, but the hunger is still there. From the corner of my eye, I see Vicky reaching into her endless pocket and pulling out snack after snack. Chocolate bars are yanked from her hands and not just by Charlie. Suddenly, everyone seems to be famished.
While I bite down on a cookie Vicky hands me, I eye the two Horsemen. They haven’t moved since they got here, and it’s not because of Maël’s spell, which can’t be working yet. What are they waiting for?
It’s only after my third cookie that it hits me. Around me, everyone is fighting over the last snack, meanwhile complaining about an insatiable hunger.
“I’m always craving for something greasy,” Charlie says, “but this is crazy, you know?”
It’s actually Maël’s sudden urge to devour a handful of potato chips that wakes me up.
I turn and grab Vicky’s wrist just as she’s about to dig into her pocket again in search of more food. “The Black Horseman is playing with us. If we don’t stop, we’ll eat ourselves to death.”
Vicky looks at me curiously before shaking her head. “No, Dante. We will die if we don’t eat. Don’t you feel that? The emptiness in your stomach?”
I let go of her arm and nod. “Yes, I feel it.”
There’s no use trying to stop them. They’re all under the spell of the Horseman of famine. And although none of the ghosts can die from either hunger or overeating, I’m sure the Horseman of conquest has a solution for that. I don’t know why I’m the only one “awake”, but I can’t let the Horsemen know, so I pretend to search for food and grab my stomach every few seconds while my mind goes into overdrive. I picture the two men on their horses and focus on cold. Maybe I can create a layer of ice around them to block their powers.
When I reach Kessley and pretend to beg her for something to eat, she squeezes my hand hard, meets my eyes and winks.
At first, I just stare at her, then she pulls herself free with a hysterical yell. “Get away from me! You can’t have my food!”
Behind me, the Black Horseman chuckles. The sound s
ends chills from my neck down to my ankles.
I press my hand against my stomach again, but this time, I stretch my fingers. Kessley gives me a convincing angry look before dropping her gaze to my hand. I pull in my thumb and then another finger, counting down to zero. With a small nod, she acknowledges it. I see her muscles tensing. It would be better to discuss some sort of plan before attacking, but there’s no way to do that unnoticed. It’s up to the two of us to break the Black Horseman’s spell on our friends, and we will do it.
While the last two seconds count down, I picture a huge, powerful wave appearing out of thin air next to the two Horsemen, rising above their heads and slamming down on them like a flying bulldozer.
I pull in my last finger, and Kessley and I turn to face the Horsemen as one. To my surprise, the wave I created in my mind is already rising beside them. But they don’t move, distracted as they are by our sudden attack. I bring the wave down on them and conjure another one on their other side, blocking their escape. The horses neigh and rear.
I wonder what Kessley is doing, but I need to focus to keep the waves under control.
From inside the wild water, I can see the White Horseman raising his arms. Slowly, the drops move away from him. I grit my teeth with the effort of keeping the water where it is. I can only hope I’ll be able to trap the two Horsemen in there until everyone is awake again.
Thankfully it doesn’t take long. As I expected, the Horsemen need all of their focus to fight us. I can hear hushed instructions from Vicky behind me. The Horseman’s hold on my friends has been broken.
My thoughts move back to Kessley, and immediately I lose focus. Drops of water fly everywhere as the Horsemen break free of their makeshift prison. Then, just as suddenly, the water comes to a halt midair. The horses stop rearing, and the Horsemen take the reins, preparing to attack.
Freeze! I think as hard as I can, aiming my thoughts not only at the Horsemen, but also at the water. The edges of the waves change into ice, and the Black Horseman shivers. More ice, more cold, I urge.
Both Horsemen shake their heads to lose the drops of cold water hitting them when Maël loses control.
“Keep trying!” I call out to her. When there’s no answer, I turn my head to see what’s wrong.
Behind me, I find a lot more people than I expected. It’s no longer just my friends backing me up. Or… actually it is, but instead of one Kessley, there are about a dozen of her.
How the heck is this possible?
The Kessleys all wink at me while my other friends stare at her.
Suddenly, I remember the thoughts I had when performing the spell to add another ghost to my Shield. I was thinking I could use more than one ghost. So that’s why I got Kessley. She’s not only a shapeshifter, she can also multiply herself.
I almost throw back my head in laughter. This is the best surprise ever. Taylar looks pretty pleased too. The odds are turning quickly.
“Your tricks don’t work on me, Horsemen,” a dozen Kessleys say in unison. “I’ve been tricked too many times in my life. I’ve learned to protect myself.” Every single Kessley raises a sword, that must have multiplied with her. “Leave and you won’t be harmed.”
I turn back to face our enemies.
The Horsemen frown at each other and start to laugh. They haven’t noticed their horses moving in slow motion yet. They’re too focused on us, on their task to kill us.
I see Maël tearing her gaze away from the Kessleys. The tip of her wand starts to glow again. This time, it’s not only her spell and mine that hit the Horsemen. The black rider has lost his power over all of us. A grease ball hits his sunken cheeks, and he tumbles from his horse. When he struggles up, panic falls over his face. His hands fold around his horse’s head.
“Void, my baby! What’s wrong?”
The White Horseman holds out his arm and points at Maël. “It’s that wretched woman. Don’t worry, I’ll take her out.”
Taylar and Gisella rush forward to protect Maël. The voice of the African queen rises until it fills the air around me, and I can’t hear anything else anymore. I see the White Horseman’s lips moving but can hear no sound.
When someone nudges me in the side, I almost shriek in surprise.
“Shh, it’s only me.” Vicky leans close to me. Her words tickle my ear. “I’ve got an idea. Can you cast a simple invisibility spell on one of the horses?”
Without ingredients? Is she kidding?
She shoves a bowl filled with herbs in my hand and a candle in the other. “This should be enough. We’ll only need it to work for a little while.”
I nod and walk backward until several Kessleys hide me from the Horsemen’s view.
Charlie takes my place, and Gisella lifts her arms and calls shadows from all around us to her. While Maël keeps slowing the Horsemen and their horses down in time, Charlie’s grease sticks to their arms and legs and blocks their view. A giant shadow drops down on them and forms into a wall, strengthened by Charlie’s grease. Taylar takes several steps to the side and holds up his shield to protect the Kessley copies.
I see Vicky explaining her plan to one of the copies. She looks up and gestures at me to hurry.
“Okay, the spell,” I mumble to myself.
When I dig into my memory, I find only part of it. I thought I was getting better at remembering lines, but I guess my memory doesn’t work so well under stress. It doesn’t matter anyway, because the spell I used on Mom and me before won’t work now, since anyone could see the shadows wrapping around the horse to make it invisible. I’m guessing Vicky wants me to turn the horse invisible without the Horsemen noticing. So I need a different spell anyway. I’ll have to make it up.
Cracks are appearing in the wall that Charlie built around the Horsemen.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Come on, give me some good words.
“You think you can stop us?” the White Horseman bellows. “We’ve been around for centuries. We’ve beaten all kinds of Mages.”
Not the chosen one, I think, but I don’t say it out loud. They are trying to distract us, and it won’t work. I won’t fall for it.
Another look at the herbs in my hand gives me the inspiration I need. I practice the spell in my head a couple of times before saying it out loud.
With a lightning ball, I light the candle, press my hand into the bowl three times and cast the spell in a whisper.
“Herbs of power, three times three,
listen to my plea to thee.
Turn the white horse from the rider
Invisible, like a tiny spider.
Herbs of power, listen well.
Help me with this secret spell.
Make no sound or magic spark,
let this spell release no mark.”
While I repeat the words twice, I see Vicky staring into one of the Kessleys’ eyes until she blinks out of sight. I smile as their plan dawns on me. Vicky helped Kess to turn invisible so she can sneak close to the Horsemen and take on the shape of the white horse. I’m not sure why yet though. I hope their plan works.
The herbs swirl around in my bowl when I say the last word. A breath of wind blows out the candle. Nothing else happens. At least, not that I can see or hear, which is exactly what I was hoping for. Only problem is, that because of it, I have no idea whether it worked or not.
A small explosion interrupts my thoughts. I hold up my hand to protect my face. Slivers of shadow and hardened pieces of grease rain down on me.
When I look up, the walls separating us from the Horsemen have shattered. Gisella is reeling in the shadows for another attack while Maël’s mumbling grows louder again. Charlie is munching on something indefinable. His energy must have run out. Taylar is picking up stones from the side of the road and hurling them at the Horsemen as a distraction.
I hold my breath as I watch the Horsemen fight Maël’s power. Although they can still speak normally, their movements are broken up in phases, like an online v
ideo loading bit by bit.
“You can’t hold us forever,” the Black Horseman says, stroking his horse with almost robotic movements.
Then it happens. Without any warning, spark or sliver of smoke the horse under the White Horseman vanishes. The Horseman blinks in surprise, but before he can react, he topples sideways.
Now the horse is clearly visible. It’s lying on its side, moving its head wildly from side to side as if in pain.
The Black Horseman’s gaze shifts from his brother’s horse to us. “What are you doing?”
With the bowl still in my hands, I walk to the front of the group. “We warned you to leave us alone.”
The White Horseman doesn’t respond. He drops onto his knees and buries his face in his horse’s neck, sobbing loudly. “No! Stay with me, Victory. Don’t give up.”
The authority and confidence in his voice have changed to pure horror and fear.
The Black Horseman rises to full height and steps in front of his horse. He stretches his finger in my direction. “I will kill you for this. And it will be painful.” I hold up the bowl and let my finger hover above it. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Who will heal your horses if we’re all dead?”
The Horseman opens his mouth… and closes it again.
One of the Kessleys steps out next to me. “This is your last warning. Leave now or your horses will die.”
While the White Horseman is still sobbing against his horse’s head, which is actually Kessley’s head, his skeletal brother balls his hands into fists. His sunken eyes darken, and I can see the muscles of his jaw move.
“Don’t think for too long,” I say, lowering my finger into the bowl. “We’ve got things to do.”
The Black Horseman still doesn’t answer. I can tell by the look in his eyes that he’d like to make a hobby out of torturing me.
A quick glance at the white horse tells me Kessley is fine, but I don’t know how long she can keep this disguise on.
The Sixth Ghost: a supernatural urban fantasy action adventure (Cards of Death book 6) Page 13