Path of the Horseman

by Amy Braun

  Simon didn’t say anything. Ciaran could see everything his club members did. They all knew exactly how badly Simon had been hurt.

  “Why are you here, Vance?” my brother asked.

  The demon pushed himself up so he towered above us again. “Oh, you know. Following the boss’s orders. Seems one of our peons coughed up all his internal organs just now. Hell of a mess. Don’t suppose you had anything to do with that, did you, Avery?”

  I stared up at the Butch Cassidy wannabe. “It’s not my fault if he doesn’t pay attention to his allergies.”

  Vance chuckled again. “Excellent point. I’ll make sure the rest of Ciaran’s minions see their doctors.” He clicked his tongue. “Speaking of Ciaran,” he tilted his chin and grinned, “you know who’d like to see you right now?”

  “Please say Santa.”

  “Sorry. Maybe next time.”

  Vance snapped his fingers. A split second later, two more behemoth sized Soulless ran into the basement. They all but tripped over themselves to get to their master, probably thinking they’d get a treat like all good doggies do.

  “Now, I know what you’re going to try and do when we unchain you, Avery. You’ll try to fight, maybe throw a magic trick or two, but my friends here,” Vance nudged the Soulless meatheads forward, one of them moving for my ankles while the other stood by my shoulders, “well, you can see they take up a lot of space. Even if you killed them, I’d have more than enough time to cook your brother and one of the humans. Say…” he turned and looked around, “that one.”

  Maddy shuffled back, pressing herself as close to the wall as she could. Vance laughed. “She’s probably caused some trouble down here, hasn’t she? The prettiest ones always do.” Vance twisted in my direction again. “So my pony friend, are you going to co-operate? Or are we going to play heads or tails over who gets their spine ripped out first?”

  There were a lot of stupid, macho things I could have said. Most of them were on the tip of my tongue, arguing about who would get to go first.

  But then I looked at Simon’s nervous shoulders, and Maddy’s wide, scared eyes, and all my threats and insults died.

  “Aww,” moaned Vance. “I was really hoping you’d do something stupid. You were so much more fun in the old days.”

  I bit my tongue from saying anything else as the Soulless mountains unchained me and roughly yanked me to my feet. The humans were already suspicious and afraid. Josh would be exploding with conspiracy theories, overloading Simon with them until I came back.

  If I came back. I was about to meet the leader of this demonic brute squad, and we weren’t exactly pen pals.

  Chapter 10

  They put a bag over my head when I was dragged to the top of the stairs, probably because they didn’t want to ruin the surprise party. Demons are big on theatrics.

  Personally, I thought it was pointless overkill. I didn’t know where I was, so I couldn’t even guess at the exits. I wasn’t counting my footsteps, since I would have to do it all backwards to find my brother and the humans. That’d be a tricky thing to do if the fiends of Hell were on my ass.

  Demons could be killed, same as anything else. But they gained power by absorbing souls and creating Soulless. It powered them, boosted their strengths and skills until they were nothing short of the Incredible Hulk.

  Armin had been low on the food-chain. Maybe he only got a few dozen Soulless made. Vance was a tough motherfucker, and probably had around three hundred souls to his name. In this pocket of the earthly crisp alone.

  Ciaran on the other hand… I didn’t want to think about how many souls he had taken. He wasn’t a big name in Hell, not even with his true name, but rumor said he was a Paladin who worked for one of the big guys. He must have been, because it was considered a privilege to be topside.

  During the Tribulation, I’d crossed paths with Ciaran as he oversaw his minions and took innocent souls. I tried to stop him, but the coal-eater was efficient. By the time I reached him directly, he and the people he’d been terrorizing were gone. He was always one step ahead of me, and I never thought I would catch up. Now I was meeting him face-to-face for the first time since the chaos started. I was looking forward to this like a cavity looked forward to the dentist’s tools.

  It took nearly ten minutes to get to our destination. Wherever we were being held was a damn big place. A door opened in front of me and I was hauled through. My bitten shoulder swelled with pain, but I didn’t make a sound. They stomped me inside then held me in place. My arms were pulled back and shackled together. I grimaced again, almost wishing one of those stupid Soulless would bite me.

  Guess they saw what happened to their pal Frank. That or they still had some brain cells.

  The bag was taken off my head, and I prepared to get my first clue about where I was.

  This place was emptier than the basement. Grey walls boxed me in. There were no windows, no furniture, nothing distinctive or memorable about this room. Not even a stain or smell. It reminded me of the cell in a psych ward, only without the padding.

  Standing in the dim light of the back wall was a man in a long, black embroidered coat that looked like it belonged in a high-class pirate’s closet. The three-piece pinstripe suit was sharp as a blade. His shoes and were shiny and immaculate. Thick dreadlocks of black and silver were tied in a knot near the back of his neck, draping down like tentacles. His skin was perfectly tanned and free of pores. It was easy to see why so many people gave up their soul for him.

  But if the eyes were windows to the soul, his had a clear view of Hell. Black from lid to lid with two irises that burned like hot coals, their fire ever more intense than Vance’s.

  Ciaran was a literal walking powerhouse.

  “At last,” the Paladin said in a deep, smooth baritone. He sounded like what Lucifer probably sounded like when he had a chat with Eve about apples. “I was wondering when I would see you again.”

  “I was banking on never.”

  Ciaran smirked and started walking closer. The only reason I remained as calm as I did was because I knew how to deal with demons. I even knew Ciaran’s true name. I didn’t think he could do anything to me if I spoke it, but I wasn’t going to test my luck with this human body.

  He stopped a couple feet in front of me. He smelled like bourbon and sulfur.

  “You look well, ironically. And you’ve chosen a human name as well. How charming.”

  I shrugged, gritting my teeth against the pain radiating from my hand and shoulder. “Never had a name before. More like a title.”

  “A suitable one too, I would say. You certainly lived up to it. You and all your brothers. I have to say, you’ve given me no small amount of grief over the last few months, but the rest of your siblings have been just as aggravating. Especially the second oldest one. Kade, I think he calls himself now?”

  I couldn’t stop my grin. “Sounds like him. But I won’t talk to him for you. Kade’s not very good at listening.”

  “Of course not. But that doesn’t change the fact that you and your kind have been getting in the way of my plans.”

  My smile widened. “I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m really not.”

  Ciaran’s eyes blazed, but he held onto his anger way better than I ever could. “You may want to reconsider your apology if you value the lives of those humans in the basement.”

  The smile died on my face while my blood went cold. “What makes you think I care about what happens to them? I just want to know how they survived.”

  “Please, Avery. I have eyes everywhere. Every Soulless you see communicates back to me. You value the lives of those humans, and want to keep them alive.” Ciaran tilted his head, tentacle-dreadlocks spilling off his shoulder. “Do you really believe they were part of your Second Coming? The glorious purpose you were supposed to fulfill?”

  We both knew that I did. There was no point in lying to a demon. Lies were oxygen to them. They breathed them, smelled them, tasted them. Picking one out of me would be
as easy as finding a bowling ball in a pile of rice.

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you take them anywhere. I have very special plans for them, and they’ll be a terrific living addition to my collection. In fact, you all will. Once you tell me where your two older brothers are.”

  Demons might be able to detect lies, but they couldn’t do anything about sidestepping questions.

  “What do you mean ‘collection’?” I asked. “You already have thousands of Soulless. You’ve never shown any interest in the Plagued. What do you want live humans for?”

  Ciaran grinned. His teeth were white and flawless, but his canines were pointed and sharp.

  “Come now, Avery. You can’t expect me to spoil the surprise so soon after notably avoiding my question.”

  Fucking demons.

  “I don’t know where they are,” I told him.

  It was true. I hadn’t seen Kade since he took off on our last day, and Logan could be fucking invisible if he wanted to be. Finding them would make protecting the humans much easier, but it wasn’t like they’d be sitting in the desert holding signs that said “We Are Here.”

  Ciaran read my expression carefully. I could almost feel him in my head, scouring my brain looking for lies or half-truths. Luckily, there was nothing for him to find. If there had been, Ciaran would have found a way to get it out of me.

  “I almost believe you. But almost isn’t good enough in this situation. I need guarantees, you understand. So why don’t we talk to the rest of your friends? Perhaps they’ll be able to shed more light on the situation.”

  Before I could tell him to fuck off and that I wasn’t lying, a bag was being thrown over my head again.

  ***

  My mind was running laps as they walked me back to the basement. What had Ciaran been talking about when he said he was looking for a live collection? For demons, humans were only good to have around for their souls. And what about my brothers and me? As far as I knew, we didn’t have souls. We’d be nothing more than amusement for demonkind.

  Come see the Deliverers of the Apocalypse. Tickets are five bucks at the door. Kids get in free.

  Ciaran might have caught Simon and me by proxy because of the humans, but there was no way he’d get Kade or Logan. They were impossible to control, and literally untouchable.

  I was starting to think Simon might have been right when he said we should walk away.

  A door creaked open and I was led down the stairs. The conversation was cut off, but I recognized Simon and Josh’s angry voices. Dead silence filled the muggy basement when the large Soulless took me into the middle of the room. They held me in place and took the bag off my head. I blinked and let my human eyes re-adapt to the darkness. Everyone still looked fine, untouched since I left them. Laurel’s eyes were redder than before and Ricardo shared the same confused expression as Maddy. Josh and Simon were red-faced from arguing.

  This was not a good time for Ciaran to come down, and the coal-eater knew it. I was turned around to look directly at Ciaran, who was surveying the humans with scrutiny. Vance, who was always quiet when his master called the shots, stood behind Ciaran with a disgustingly smug look on his face.

  “The woman you brought up was impressive, Vance, but this group is better than I expected.”

  “I knew you would be pleased, boss. Bringing you that one,” he pointed to me, “was the plan, but he was on the road when I found him. I wanted to see where he was going, and he led me to another one,” Vance looked at Simon next. “Then the rest showed up, and I knew it was showtime.”

  “That’s when you decided to try and kill me?” Simon snapped.

  Ciaran laughed. “Oh, we never intended to kill you. But Vance knows Avery. He knew that sending Armin to attack you would provoke him to do a little show for the humans.”

  Simon shrank back. I went rigid. The humans watched with confusion and attention. Ciaran noticed their expressions and smiled. He looked at me.

  “They don’t know, do they? They have no idea what you really are.”

  Vance started laughing.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Maddy’s voice was quiet, but she was the only one with enough courage to speak. I forced myself not to look at her. I wouldn’t be able to trust myself if I did.

  “Tell me, my dear, how did the world end?”

  Maddy blinked at Ciaran, too bewildered by the question to be afraid of it. “A virus. Some scientist messed up while working for some regenerative cure, and his patient turned into a Plagued. It attacked everyone else in the lab and turned them, and the virus spread from there. Everybody knows that.”

  Vance started laughing again. “Very clever, Avery. You come up with that all by yourself? Very George Romero.”

  “Fuck you, coal-eater.”

  He laughed even harder. “That stings. I’ll have to start calling you Toxic Avenger to keep up.”

  I built up more breath, ready to spit fire at the sulfur-eating shitbrain, when Ciaran glided over to Maddy. She pushed back against the wall, unable to lift her arms or escape. He knelt down in front of her, close enough to kiss.

  “A very amusing story, don’t you think? So obvious it easily covers up the truth.”

  He reached out and stroked the side of her head, drawing out long honey-blonde strands. Maddy twisted her head away, but her hair was still tangled in Ciaran’s grip.

  “The truth is a much more interesting, and has a far more biblical take.”

  “Biblical?” Josh repeated. “How?”

  The back of Ciaran’s fingers traced along Maddy’s cheek. She winced from the overwhelming heat coming from his skin. Demon’s veins were filled with fire instead of blood. The stronger the demon, the more their touch felt like hot lava.

  “I take it you have heard of the Four Horsemen? The Bringers of the Tribulation, the Great Apocalypse?”

  It wasn’t the question that quieted the humans. It was the fact that Ciaran was asking it.

  “The Horsemen aren’t real,” Josh said after a minute.

  Ciaran finally stopped petting Maddy and stood up. He answered Josh, but made sure his words addressed everyone.

  “Yet you believe a failed virus is plausible, when so many of your science fiction and horror novels dabbled in the subject? I believe the Horsemen were very clever in their trap. While the virus ravaged your world, Famine slipped through the cracks and poisoned your food. War became the greatest killer the world has ever known. Death lurked in the shadows, cleaning up any messes the others made.”

  Ciaran looked directly at me. I wanted to run and stop him from saying anything else, but I couldn’t move. If I did, I would give everything away. Ciaran would win, though I was pretty sure he was going to win if I stood in place and did nothing.

  “But it was Pestilence that destroyed the world. He was the one who created the virus. He merely chose something your kind was familiar with to make it easier for his brothers. He is the true monster. He enjoyed it. All the pain and suffering, he loved seeing it. Wouldn’t you agree, Avery?”

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing. I thought I did, but doubt was flickering on each and every human face, and Simon wasn’t backing me up.

  “Of course not. You’ve spent ages trying to cover up the truth.”

  “The truth is that you’re some crazy fucking demon I had the misfortune of running into once. Trust me, I didn’t think it would happen again.”