Dark Destiny (Principatus)

by Couper, Lexxie

  Tears and snot stung the gashes on her cheeks but she refused to cry. If Ven saw her cry he might give up and if he did that, they were both lost.

  “This is all rather entertaining, is it not, my dear?”

  Amy cringed, shying away from Pestilence as he hunkered down beside her. He smiled, yellow teeth dripping saliva. The foul stench of his breath—decay and rot—fanned her face and before she could stop herself, she threw up, blood and bile spewing from her mouth in a violent spurt.

  “Leave her alone.”

  Pestilence laughed, swinging his attention to Ven. “Why, the vampire finally speaks!” He reached out for Amy, stroking the back of her head as if she were a cat. No, change that. She’d seen him playing with a kitten earlier, a tiny little ball of white fluff. He’d touched the kitten with more care than he favored her now.

  “After all this time trying to pull the words from your mouth and all I needed to do was smile at the female?”

  Raz chuckled. “Not as much fun for me though.”

  Pestilence nodded. “True. I have not seen one demon inflict such pain on another since the Fallen Star punished those who tried to change sides in the failed uprising.”

  “Really?” Ven’s laugh sounded more like a choked cough. “I didn’t think my face was hurting Raziel’s knuckles that much?”

  Raziel hissed. “Why you—” He stamped his heel into the small of Ven’s back.

  The sound of snapping bones filled the air.

  “Ven!”

  Ven roared, and for a split second Amy swore she saw his face shift before he slumped to the floor.

  Pestilence laughed again. “I like your spirit, Steven. It is commendable, given the situation.” He stood and walked over to where Ven lay motionless. “It is a pity, all things considered, that you and your brother were not on my side.”

  “I…disagree.” Ven’s voice was almost inaudible, chocked by pain and muffled by the floor. He lifted his head and Amy’s heart stopped. Fresh blood trickled from his mouth and nose, staining his lips and chin. “Even if…” he coughed, and bright red blood bubbled from his mouth. “…even if I was a sad, pathetic fuck…like you, I don’t think…I could…handle the stink.” He pressed his palms to the floor and pushed, lifting his upper body partly from the cold black marble. “Seriously…” He spat out a wad of blood. “When was the last time you cleaned…your teeth?”

  Amy’s throat squeezed tight. “Oh, Lord, Ven, don’t,” she sobbed, shaking her head, reaching out a trembling hand to him. “Don’t…”

  Pestilence’s face contorted. His eyes flashed white, the veins in the side of his neck popped and suddenly Ven went flying through the air, flipping over and over in a blurring arc before slamming face down to the floor again.

  “Ven!” Amy scrambled on her hands and knees towards him, tears stinging the cuts on her cheeks. She shuddered, the disease and insects in her body fighting with her terror. Oh Lord, she needed to get to him…to feed.

  She froze, cold horror flooding her veins. No. Oh, no no no no no. “Ven?” Oh, Lord, please save me, please save us. Forgive me my sins and save us. Please…

  Pestilence swung to her. “I doubt the Trilogy is interested in a sinner such as yourself, my dear.” He flicked a look at Ven, prostrate on the floor. “And I think the bloodsucker will not be of any use to you, either.” He turned back to her. “You see, this is what happens when you don’t eat.” He cocked an eyebrow. “A perfect example of why breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” His expression turned dark, psychotic. “Steven should have known better. Instead, he chose to put his brother ahead of his hunger. The sign of a sad, pathetic fuck if you ask me.”

  Mouth dry, stomach clenching, Amy stared at Ven, willing him to move. Get up, Ven. Please…get up. Move…

  He didn’t.

  Raziel laughed, strutting over to jab Ven’s ribs with the toe of his boot. “I guess that’s what you’d call a wipeout.”

  “Someone…should tell you…” The raspy, stilted whisper destroyed the smile on the vampire’s face. Ven shifted, fingers curling into a fist. “You suck…at comedy.”

  Raziel hissed.

  Just as Ven snatched his ankle and yanked his foot from underneath him.

  Raziel tumbled backward and Ven leapt, crashing him to the floor with a growl that made Amy’s mouth turn to dust.

  What was that?

  The thing inside her, the thing Raziel had turned her into, gibbered and cowered, Ven’s growl petrifying it beyond measure.

  She stared at the two vampires, watched Ven rise up over Raziel and sink his fingers into the other vamp’s neck, his face—the face she loved unconditionally—still completely human, his green eyes the same green eyes she dreamed about every time she fell asleep.

  Yet something in him scared something in her.

  She swallowed, her throat tight.

  “Get off me!” Raziel screeched, bucking under Ven, arms and legs lashing out. The blows bounced off Ven. He barely blinked in response.

  Another one of those growls rumbled low in his throat and Amy shivered, her stomach churning.

  His muscles seemed to grow. Shift. His pale skin darkened, his eyes glowed. The thing Amy had become squealed and tried to flee, but she was frozen, rooted to the spot in fear. Lord, what was Ven doing?

  Pinned underneath Ven, Raziel thrashed and clawed at Ven’s arms, his eyes bulging. “Let…me…”

  Ven’s lips curled and Amy gasped at the row of needle-sharp teeth filling his mouth. He sank fingers that looked more like claws into Raziel’s chin. Forced the now wailing vamp’s head to the side. “Look at her. Look at what you’ve done to her.”

  Raziel stared at her, bug-eyed. “I’m sorry,” he blubbered. “I’m sorry, I’m so—”

  Ven dropped his head down to Raziel’s cheek, his darkening skin contrasting sharply with Raziel’s pasty white complexion, his burning pupiless eyes casting the vamp’s terror-contorted face in a pale fire. “Sorry doesn’t cut it, dickhead.”

  His shoulders bunched. He pulled back his right arm, his hand hooked, as if ready to tear out Raziel’s heart, when a shudder wracked his body.

  And another. Another.

  His skin, almost a shimmering shade of charcoal, bleached to white, the fire in his eyes extinguished and he slumped forward, collapsing to the floor beside Raziel.

  Amy’s heart stopped. “Ven?”

  Her scream was lost in a laugh. She tore her stare from Ven’s still form, swinging about to watch Pestilence clap his hands. Lord, she forgotten he was even there.

  “What a truly amazing display.” He continued to clap, walking over to Ven even as Raziel, bloody and bruised, scurried to his feet. “You really have impressed me, Steven Watkins.” He bent at the waist, snagged a fistful of Ven’s sweat-tangled hair and jerked his head off the floor. “When did you become a Principatus?” He lowered his head, gazing with obvious surprise into Ven’s slack face. “That is a nasty little secret you have been keeping from me. I have never seen one of the Trilogy’s demon hunters in the flesh before, I have to admit.” He released his grip, letting Ven’s head drop to the floor with a hollow smack before straightening to his feet and sighing with melodramatic disappointment. “What a pity you have been starving yourself. I would have enjoyed the challenge.”

  He flicked the still-cowering Raziel a disgusted look. “Steven is exhausted, Raziel. He has depleted his energy reserves and is no longer a threat to you.” Turning to Amy, he gave her a sorrowful smile. “Or you, my dear. The Principatus are not known to show mercy to our kind…no matter how many times they fucked you in the past.”

  “What…what have you…” Amy couldn’t finish. Pestilence’s gaze made her joints scream in agony and her stomach roll with nausea. She struggled to raise her hand to her lips, wiping at the foaming blood trickling from her mouth. Dear Lord, please help us…

  Pestilence’s eyes turned hard. Contemptuous. “What have I already said about that, Amy Elizabeth Mathieson?
”

  Her body cramped. Just like that. Every muscle contracting at once. She cried out, unable to move, unable to do anything but squeal and sob and stare in horror at the First Horseman of the Apocalypse as he bent down to Ven again, jerked his head from the floor and shouted into his face:

  “Now call your brother to me.”

  Pestilence’s breath, as foul as a rotting corpse, blasted over Ven’s face. He looked at the First Horseman through the blood-matted tangle of his hair, his broken body growing weaker with every second passing. “Clean your teeth,” he snarled with a cold smirk.

  Pestilence hissed and what felt like a million tiny lice lashed Ven’s face. Swarming over him, into his eyes, his nose, his ears. He threw back his head, incapable of escaping them, the sound of Raziel’s laughter and Amy’s screams almost drowned out by the screech of minute insects’ invasion.

  The entity within him roared, furious, but his body, starved of food and drained of energy, could not draw on the power to transform. He was dying, and as such, it was too.

  With a million bites of his flesh, the lice disappeared, replaced instead with the sickening caress of Pestilence’s stare. “Call your brother to me.”

  Ven spat, the wad of phlegm and blood writhing with live insects. “Go take a shower. You stink.”

  Amy’s sobs in the background squeezed Ven’s chest, but he could not look her way. If he did the dying entity inside him, the Principatus, would roar in deep-seated rage, and the human he once was would crack at the sight of her suffering and he would surrender to Pestilence.

  With a tsk tsk, Pestilence blew a fine stream of air onto Ven’s feverish face. Fire rained down on him. He felt his skin blister, boil after pus-weeping boil erupting over his cheeks and forehead and lips.

  “Call your brother to me.”

  Ven laughed, the sound more rasping hiccup than anything else. “Go fuck your hat.”

  Raziel laughed again. Pestilence hissed, his teeth flashing in a snarl. He touched Ven’s bottom lip with his fingertip and Ven’s gut erupted in acid. “Call. Your. Brother.”

  Ven coughed, blood spurting from his mouth to splatter Pestilence’s black shoes and trousers. “Fuck. Your. Hat.”

  With another hiss, Pestilence hooked his nails into Ven’s jaw, gouging deep wounds into his weeping skin. “Are you always this stubborn, Steven?”

  Ven managed a faltering smile, feeling the bruised flesh of his lips tear open and ooze fresh pus. “Only with you, love.”

  Snapping upright, Pestilence let out a screech and drove his foot into Ven’s ribcage.

  Piercing agony ripped through him. He ground his teeth, biting back the scream tearing up his throat. Fucked if he was going to scream for the bastard.

  “I have tried to be nice to you, Steven.” Pestilence stormed around him, stopping to give him a wild glare, eyes glowing cat-piss yellow. “But you leave me no alternative.” He dropped into a crouch, grabbed a fistful of Ven’s hair and yanked his head off the floor. “I cannot kill you, as much as I would like and I so wanted to keep the female alive to use as a bargaining chip against the Cure in case your survival was not enough to sway him, but your stubborn refusal to call your brother leaves me with no other option.” He nodded to Raziel.

  There was the sound of a scuffle, Amy screamed and Raziel laughed.

  “No,” Ven cried out, the word nothing more than a choked wheeze. He struggled onto his knees, fighting to get to his feet. Instead, he stumbled back to the ground, Pestilence’s grip on his hair ripping out tufts as he collapsed.

  He watched, sick with horror and rage, as Raziel dragged Amy closer, claws puncturing the column of her neck just above the jugular. A surreal memory flashed through Ven’s head—kissing Amy on that very spot, her sweet, soft body moving under his, her wet sex gripping his length in rapid pulses the very moment he pierced her neck with his fangs and fed on her life force.

  Oh, Amy…I’m sorry.

  His stare found hers and guilt smashed through him. She was petrified and he could do nothing to save her.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. No matter what Pestilence did, no matter what the First Horseman thought, Ven would not give up his brother. He would die, Amy would die, before that happened.

  “Open your eyes, Steven.” Pestilence’s whispered order stabbed into his ear. “Let us see what happens when I fill her battered, diseased body with ants, shall we. Bull ants should do it. An Australian ant for an Australian monster. Quite apt really, particularly when you take into consideration the bull ant’s bite can induce anaphylactic shock in those allergic to insect stings.” He paused, and Ven opened his eyes, staring at Amy struggling in Raziel’s grip. “Did you know Amy was allergic to insect stings, Steve-O? I wonder how the…thing…she has become, thanks to Raziel, will react to a bull ant’s bite?” He chuckled, returning to his feet. “This should be fun.”

  “Leave her alone,” Ven rasped. He tried to shift, to move. The entity inside him screamed. His overpowering hunger roared.

  Pestilence cocked his head to the side. “You have a better option, Principatus. I am more than happy to accommodate.”

  Ven slid his stare to Amy imprisoned in Raziel’s insidious hold.

  Amy…Patrick…Jesus, I can’t…

  Amy’s eyes widened and she shook her head. Don’t.

  “Hey! Pestilence!” she suddenly shouted, struggling against Raziel’s arms. Anger flashed across her ravaged face. “Do you know there’s a church in the USA that has declared the First Horseman less annoying than a hurricane? And another in Italy that’s stated of all the players in the Apocalypse, Pestilence is the least worrisome.”

  Pestilence’s nostrils flared and he swung his head in Amy’s direction. “Excuse me?”

  She grinned back at him, the expression cold and predatory. “In Sweden, the First Horseman is seen as a false agent of the Apocalypse, an imposter riding on the coattails of the other three, more effective and fearsome Riders.”

  Pestilence’s expression grew black. He narrowed his eyes, the knuckles of his fists stretched to a taut white.

  Ven shook his head. “Amy, don’t.” He knew what she was doing and his lifeless heart twisted in agony.

  But she didn’t stop. Her grin grew wider, her eyes fixed firmly on Pestilence.

  “There’s a second-rate rock band called The Four Horsemen,” she shouted, “and only the Second, Third and Fourth ‘Horsemen’ have fan clubs dedicated to them.”

  Pestilence hissed, a ripple shuddering through his form. “How do you speak of such things?”

  Amy shrugged, the action contemptuous and bored at once. “My dad stopped being a preacher when I was sixteen. He found the whole notion of the Apocalypse rather humorous.”

  Another shudder rippled through Pestilence’s body. “Humorous?”

  “Amy, no!” Ven shouted, pushing himself but an inch from the floor.

  Amy’s grin turned cold, the expression triumphant even as her eyes—eyes he’d gladly have drowned in for the rest of his existence—grew lost. Sad. “And in most versions of the Bible,” she went on, “The First Horseman is referred to as Strife. You, Pestilence, don’t exist at all.”

  Two things happened at once. Pestilence’s human façade shattered, replaced by a skeletal demon of terrifying proportions, and Amy threw off Raziel’s hold and launched herself forward.

  Straight into the enraged First Horseman’s shrieking charge. Head back. Arms wide. Her grin as wide and free as the burgeoning brown fire in her eyes.

  Patrick closed his eyes, breathing in Fred’s subtle scent. He’d never forget it, no matter how long he—

  An invisible wrecking ball smashed into his chest, sending him flying backward.

  He manipulated the space around him and twisted mid-flight, landing on his feet to glare at the woman across the room from him. “Not fair.”

  Fred cocked an eyebrow, studying him from the other side of the “training area” she’d created in her part of the Realm. “Do you think th
e First Horseman will play fair?”

  Patrick rubbed at the white-hot pain throbbing through his body. When it came to Death, the pain always seemed to be white hot. “I don’t think Pestilence is going to attack me with the scent of your sex. At least, I hope he’s not. That would be just wrong.”

  Fred folded her arms, her face serious. “No, Pestilence will use much nastier tricks to distract you.”

  A sudden shimmer on the air beside her became Patrick’s mother.

  Patrick’s stomach dropped. His throat slammed shut. He stared at the tall, slim woman with the laughing green eyes and dark red hair. “Mum?”

  The woman smiled—the same smile she’d given him every night of his childhood before kissing his forehead and tucking him into bed. “Heads up, Pat.”

  The wrecking ball hit him again, this time harder. He smacked against the far wall, a kaleidoscope of agonizing colors detonating behind his eyes on impact. But before he could drop to the floor, the ball crashed into him again and again and again, his mother watching the brutal assault, her smiling green eyes crinkling with mirth and joy. “I always said you were the weaker of the two.”

  Patrick screamed, the ball mashing him into the wall with blow after blow, his mother’s words crushing him far deeper. “Oh, God, Mum!”

  Focus.

  The single word whispered in his head, barely penetrating the white agony engulfing him.

  Focus.

  “And to think I had the choice of aborting you,” his mother went on, her smile growing wider. “What was I thinking, letting a pathetic joke such as you live?”

  “No!” Hot tears stung Patrick’s eyes. “That’s not true.”

  He reached out for his mother, numb with grief, on fire with pain. The ball smashed into him, again, again, again, pummeling him with such force he could no longer draw breath.

  “Mum,” he croaked, staring at her through a black fog. “Mum.”