Apocalypse Assassins: The Complete Series

by D. Laine

  “I am better than them,” he snapped.

  Deciding I valued my life too much to argue his claim, I nodded. And elected not to open my mouth again.

  “I wanted to spill their blood,” Ewing continued in a terrifyingly calm voice. “Master would have loved it. I want to please him, and now I only have one Watcher to offer him.” He turned to me again, his head tilted slightly and eyes narrowed. “You would make an excellent gift.”

  My lips parted, but my throat had run dry.

  “Master loves gifts,” Ewing added, his tone as cold as his eyes.

  I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly he was implying—but I doubted I wanted to know the details. Nor did I want to wait around to see firsthand what was expected of me as a “gift.”

  I twisted my hands, tugging on the restraints behind my back until the harsh material cut into my wrists. It felt like rope—a thick, impossible-to-escape rope. Not without something sharp to cut through it. I quickly glanced around for my weapons, and found them tossed out of reach.

  “Don’t bother.” Ewing crouched in front of me again, putting himself between me and my weapons. “You won’t make it far anyway. They’re almost here.”

  “Who is almost here?” I squeaked.

  “My army. Well, his army.”

  I heard it then—a rumbling noise in the distance, growing closer. A few high-pitched screeches and screams rose above the low hum. Tags. Lots of them.

  “If you’re lucky, there will be enough blood spilled to open the gate,” Ewing told me. “Then you could join my master during his first moments walking on Earth. I think he would enjoy your company. He may keep you around for a while.”

  “In your body,” I pointed out, though Ewing clearly didn’t care, or seem to register the significance. He had obviously lost his damn mind. I didn’t bother to tell him there was no way in hell I would spend the rest of my life in the vicinity of Lucifer—in any way, least of all as his slave.

  But I feared that was the least of my concerns for the time being. Ewing was so focused on spilling blood, I couldn’t help but wonder why. “What did you mean by ‘enough blood to open the gate?’”

  I heard the first shrill human scream in the distance. A gunshot followed, but I suspected there were not nearly enough weapons or bullets to take on the number of tags I heard coming. The Preppers would have no chance. All of their blood would be spilled.

  “My father wrongly assumed there would be enough when he led the assassins to their deaths here,” Ewing explained. “He let Master down that night, and that sealed his fate. But I will be successful. I will get that blood today, and I will succeed where my father had failed. The road will run red with the blood of my sacrifices, and the gate will finally open. It will be beautiful.”

  I stared up at Ewing, partly in awe of the transformation I witnessed, but mostly in disgust. He was the same man I had traveled with and fought alongside of for weeks, but he wasn’t. I saw an excited glint in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. He found pleasure in the massacre of dozens of innocent people in a way that only someone with a purely evil soul could.

  My only hope was that it ended quickly and with little suffering. I squeezed my eyes shut as the first shouts of warning turned to screams of death. The sounds of gunshots—so many gunshots—echoed through the valley beneath us. Still, the victorious shrieks of the tags were louder. No amount of fire power would defeat their numbers.

  Despite Ewing’s proposition to keep me around for a while, I feared Sadie and I would be next. Perhaps that would be better. I would choose a swift death over a life controlled by Lucifer, given the chance.

  The ground beneath me trembled. Over the sounds of death assaulting my ears, I heard a low rumbling noise. It grew louder as the trembling strengthened, both working in tandem to penetrate me to my core, until my entire body shook from the invisible force. It suddenly stopped, and I sagged in relief. Behind me, Sadie strained against the binds, and I knew she was finally lucid.

  Ewing stood and spun in a circle with a devious smile on his face. I could only speculate where the sound came from, and what its sudden arrival meant.

  The rumbling came again, stronger. This time, it reminded me of the sound of speeding train with its horn on permanent blast. I felt as if I sat on the tracks, unable to escape as it barreled toward me.

  I attempted to shrug my shoulders to my ears to block the noise, but I couldn’t reach. I doubted it would have helped. The pressure in the air grew heavy, causing my head to throb and my eyes to water. The ground shook violently, faster and faster, as the train’s horn sped closer and closer, and if it weren’t for Sadie anchoring me, I would have ended up on my back.

  Finding its way to my ears, through all the noise, was the sound of Ewing’s satanical laugh. I squinted up at him to find him rubbing his palms together like a kid in a candy store. His eyes shifted to meet mine. “He is coming!”

  The ground lurched and rolled beneath me, and the horn-like sound faded briefly. When it came again, it sounded less like a horn and more like . . . a roar. Goosebumps instinctively peppered my arms and neck. My heart pounded like a tiny prey in the sights of a hungry predator.

  The world’s most dangerous predator, once banished to the fiery pits of Hell, was coming and no one could stop him. I could no longer hear the screams of the Preppers, nor the tags that spilled their blood. I could only suspect that the deed had been done, and the gate now hung wide open.

  Ewing turned toward the tunnel, where his master would take control of his body. Lucifer would soon walk the Earth. Along with whatever else he brought through the gate with him. Nothing would be spared from their wrath.

  But damned if I would sit here and let it happen without a fight.

  The moment Ewing disappeared into the fog, I twisted around at the waist. “Sadie?”

  She groaned incoherently, and I suspected she wasn’t altogether there yet. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t be much help.

  I strained against the ties around my wrist until they cut into my skin again, deeper. “Dammit!” I briefly sagged in defeat before twisting around to shout over my shoulder. “Use your connection, Sadie. Where is Dylan?”

  It sure would be nice if he made an appearance soon.

  The ground lurched again, more violently, tossing Sadie and me onto our sides, arms still connected at our backs. The sound of the earth splitting beneath my ear and the never-ending roar drowned everything else out. I didn’t hear the sound of my own scream, let alone the sound of approaching footsteps. But I saw them.

  A pair of brown, fresh-out-of-the-box boots stepped out of the fog and into my line of sight. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t look up to see whose feet they belonged to. I could only assume that Ewing had come back for me—as Lucifer.

  His hands were surprisingly gentle when they lifted me up into a seated position. I realized why when I saw that it wasn’t Ewing’s eyes peering down at me.

  “Dylan!”

  “Shh.” He put a finger to his mouth—as if anyone could actually hear anything. I didn’t care to argue with him, though. Not when he produced a knife to cut through the ties around my wrists.

  “Where have you been?” I asked.

  He may not have heard me, but I suspected he blatantly ignored the question. A muscle in his jaw ticked as he moved to free Sadie of her binds. Her head lolled back, and her eyes finally opened. I sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of her face, and placed my fingers to my own. Everything hurt, and I suspected I had just as many bruises as I saw on her.

  “Dylan?” Sadie rasped. “What’s going on? What’s happening?”

  He leaned back to look at each of us. “I’m going to kill that motherfucker, that’s what.”

  “Dylan, he—”

  He put a hand to my cheek, stopping me. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t here, but I’m here now, and I’m going to stop him.” He ran the same hand through his hair with a growl. “I should have known it was Ewing. I knew something was w
rong with that guy.”

  “He’s opening the gate. Lucifer is coming. Now. How can we—”

  This time he interrupted me by covering my mouth with his. It was a hasty kiss, one meant to shut me up. When he pulled away, he said, “We can’t. But I can.”

  I stared back at him, slow to process his words. When they finally registered, I lurched forward to curl my fingers around the lapels of his coat. “No. You can’t—”

  He kissed me again. A little softer and a little longer than the last one. This kiss had two purposes. To silence me . . . and to tell me goodbye. I knew it before he eased away to say, “I love you, but this is something I have to do.”

  “No, Dylan. No. Wait—”

  “I’ll always love you,” he continued, glancing over my shoulder at Sadie. “Both of you.”

  I sat, frozen and in a daze, when he stood. Every fiber in my body wanted to reach for him again, but I physically couldn’t. Something held me back.

  He disappeared into the fog, heading in the same direction Ewing had gone moments ago, and I simply watched him go. Seconds passed before the invisible force rendering me useless weakened. I scrambled to my feet while Sadie sucked in a breath like she had just surfaced after a long dive underwater.

  “The Watchers,” she gasped. “They’re helping him.”

  They weren’t helping him by not letting us stop him. They were sacrificing him. I couldn’t let that happen. Not without a fight.

  I trudged forward, inching closer to the edge of the hillside while fighting the invisible barrier. The fog swirled around me, making each step I took a blind one. Finally, I felt the ground slope downward. The air popped and fizzled like a bolt of lightning zinging all around me, and the Watchers’ restraint finally broke. Sadie joined me, and together we ran down the hillside.

  Neither of us said so, but we both knew where we were going, and what we had to do: stop Dylan before he did something he couldn’t take back.

  The horn noise abruptly stopped and didn’t come back. The sudden silence felt particularly heavy in its absence. The air pressure shifted, becoming unnaturally light, and the carpet of ash at our feet floated off the ground. The fog vanished, and the forest materialized around me. At the base of the hill, twenty short yards away, the ground ran red with blood.

  Tags—so many tags—stood on the highway facing the entrance of the tunnel as if in a trance. Among them, dozens of humans. Not one of them moved as a familiar shape materialized from the shadows and approached them.

  I knew it was Lucifer wearing Ewing’s body thanks to the unnatural sheen of his skin, perfectly coifed hair, and soulless black eyes. His head turned from side to side, appraising each and every person he passed. Though Sadie and I weren’t hidden well, he did not turn in our direction once. He walked toward the patch of woods on the other side of the highway with a casual grace I didn’t expect, leaving the tags and humans rooted to their spots on the road.

  I pressed a hand to my chest, willing my heart to beat at a normal rhythm. My voice, when I finally found it, quivered. “Obviously Lucifer is through the gate.”

  Sadie stared in the direction he had gone. “I can’t believe it was him all along. I feel so stupid.”

  I shot her a sympathetic glance. “He fooled us all, Sadie.”

  “But I should have known. I was blinded by his charm, and now Lucifer is here. Because of him, they’re all here”—she waved a hand at the masses assembled on the highway—“prepared to release Hell on Earth.”

  I glanced at the collection of entranced tags and humans—or so I thought. There was something unarguably unhuman about them. “What are they?”

  “They’re vessels,” Sadie explained. “They’re here to accept the demon they were created to host.”

  “Oh, shit.” Lucifer may have been our biggest problem, but he was not our only problem. I turned to Sadie expectantly. “How do we stop them?”

  “Closing the gate should work.” She angled her head with a grimace. “In theory.”

  Dammit, I hated not knowing what to do. Why hadn’t someone thought to write a how-to manual on this stuff for those of us left to troubleshoot how to stop Armageddon?

  I wished Jake were here—he would know what to do. Or Dylan. Where had he gone?

  I turned, surveying my surroundings. I didn’t see Dylan, or Lucifer, anywhere. But I did spot a bright white light spark to life on the other side of the highway, partially hidden amongst the trees. I stared at it as a strange sense of déjà vu tickled the recesses of my mind.

  I took a step toward the light when it suddenly shot straight up, high into the sky. Only then did I remember where I had seen it before. I knew what was coming next, and I braced for the impact, expecting it to hurt as much as it had the last time. When the blast knocked me backward, the realization of what the light symbolized also slammed into me.

  Before I hit the ground, I knew that my Dylan was gone.

  27

  THEA

  Ringing. Buzzing. A deafening rush of air. Otherwise, silence.

  Beside me, Sadie’s lips moved. I heard nothing.

  She lifted an arm, pointing her finger at something behind me. Blood zigzagged across her hand, dripping to the ground beneath her, from a wound I couldn’t see. I wanted to help her, but the look in her eyes convinced me that her injuries were not as important as whatever she wanted me to see.

  I turned, looking in the direction she indicated, and immediately wished I hadn’t.

  The ground trembled again, different from the way it shook earlier. This time, it vibrated as if from the footsteps of something big and heavy approaching on land. Large chunks of rock tumbled down the face of the mountain that rose above the tunnel’s opening, while its concrete frame fractured from the strong vibrations. Cracks raced up and down the highway, snaking in all directions with every bone-jarring thud.

  Something enormous was about to come through the gate. Thick black clouds billowed from the tunnel ahead of its arrival, bringing with them a suffocating heaviness to the air. A sense of unimaginable evil crawl across my skin like a palpable touch.

  I didn’t need to see more to know that Sadie and I needed to get out of there. Now.

  Grabbing her arm, I stood with the intention of running. I had no destination. Anywhere but mere yards from Hell’s Gate was good enough for now. We made it only a few steps before something buzzed by our heads. We froze, looking to each other for answers. Then I saw them.

  They resembled bats, only larger and scalier and a whole lot scarier—like a bat-lizard hybrid from Hell. A flock of them dove for us again.

  “Sadie, get down!” I swung my longest blade over her head, dropping two of them out of the air. Two more dive-bombed me. Tiny claws shredded the fabric of my coat, easily reaching my flesh. Each razor-like cut burned worse than the one before it, until I felt as if my entire body were on fire. Looking down, I spotted three more climbing my legs, nipping at my pants with their beak-like mouths.

  I kicked one of them off and finished him with the long blade before finding my shorter daggers. Beside me, Sadie jabbed and thrust her trusty knives, cutting down the tiny demons that assaulted her. Together, we finished off the last two.

  Looking around, I counted a total of six of the little bastards sprawled on the ground, and a lot of blood, not all of it from the demons. A steady red stream raced down my arm and off the tips of my fingers from a wound I felt, but couldn’t see. Already, I recognized the familiar signs of blood loss affecting my balance and vision.

  “What were those?” Sadie gasped.

  “The miniature version of whatever is about to come through that tunnel?” I guessed, eying the black clouds that poured from the gate, bringing along other small creatures from Hell. The ground shook harder, each thunderous step louder than the one before it, indicating that the biggest was yet to come.

  Sadie nodded, unfortunately confirming what I had hoped would end up being a joke. “Lesser demons. They’re basically the pets of t
he underworld. We need to close the gate before their owners get out.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. Calvin never . . .” She suddenly stopped, mouth dropped open and eyes wide. Though her gaze fixed on me, I didn’t think she actually saw me.

  I inched forward to lay a hand on her shoulder. “Sadie?”

  “I can hear their thoughts,” she whispered.

  “Who?”

  “Dylan. Except it’s not Dylan’s thoughts. It’s our bond. It’s linking me to them.”

  “The Watchers?”

  She nodded distractedly, eyes still wide and unseeing. “They communicate telepathically. I know what I have to do.”

  “Okay. Great.” I spared a glance toward the tunnel as something resembling a large dog trotted through. It stopped and sniffed the air before running in the opposite direction. “Maybe you could let me know so we can go ahead and shut this gate before these things get much bigger.”

  “Only I can do it.” She blinked, focusing on a spot over my shoulder. “Our energies are connected. Their power flows through me as it does him. It’s how it was meant to be.”

  “Okay, Sadie.” I spoke to her slowly, softly, because she didn’t make an ounce of sense. “You need to explain to me what exactly it is you’re talking about so that we can—”

  “There’s no time.”

  Glancing behind her, toward the tunnel, I had to agree. The ground shook violently now, each step the giant creature made boomed like thunder. My teeth chattered, either from the trembling or out of fear.

  Sadie gazed, wide-eyed but unseeing, over my shoulder. Her lips moved rapidly, speaking either to herself or someone I couldn’t see or . . .

  I read one of the words on her lips and sucked in a breath. “Sadie? Are you communicating with Dylan right now?”

  Or with his Watcher?

  I nibbled on my lip anxiously, unsure of what to do. There was no telling what the Watchers could convince her to do. I couldn’t help but think about Marcus, and what had happened to him when Maria was taken.