Path of the Horseman Page 3

  “And you killed its substitute, didn’t you, Avery? Following orders, and all that? Gotta say, we loved your work. It made it so easy for us to get up top for some fun.”

  Vance leaned forward enough for me to see the glow of his fiery irises.

  “Ciaran would be here to thank you himself, but he’s been real busy lately. Soul harvesting is a lot of work.”

  That stopped every thought in my head. I wish it hadn’t, because Vance started grinning like he’d won free tickets to a striptease at the Playboy mansion.

  I clenched my fists, feeling my power seep though my skin. I wasn’t going to let Vance forget what I was or what I could do. He might be able to kill me, but I could kill him faster, and introduce him to a world of hurt before I did.

  The only reason I wasn’t killing him now was because of what he’d said.

  “How’s that going for him?” I asked, trying to get rid of my nerves. “Can’t imagine the Plagued are full of life and laughter.”

  Vance’s laugh was hearty and rich. It made me want to punch a hole in his head.

  “Oh, Avery, you’re so uncreative.” Vance stood up slowly, suddenly reminding me that he was over six feet tall and had the build of a linebacker. Flames danced in his eyes.

  “What makes you think we’re going after the Plagued?”

  He did it again, the bastard. Vance took all reasonable thought from my head. It gave him more than enough time to open his palm and fill it with swirling black and red flames.

  I ducked the moment I saw the demonfire. I threw myself behind an overturned truck and let it absorb the blast. I could still feel the flames licking the side of the truck, hungry for me. The demonfire twisted, turning into three hooks the size of my arms. I shuffled away quickly, barely missing the hooks as they plunged into the truck, crunching the metal. I hated demonfire, almost as much as I hated the creatures that were able to bend it into any deadly weapon they wanted.

  The heat died down and the hooks disappeared, chasing after Vance’s laughter.

  “Don’t be scared, Avery,” he shouted. “I’m not gonna kill you today. Ciaran’s got big plans for you and your brothers. He just wants to see you squirm a little first. When you see what he has planned, you’ll be begging him to kill you.”

  It had been a long time since I’d been this angry. Not since I realized Heaven had abandoned us and we were trapped on the hell we created until our human bodies finally keeled over.

  I filled my hand with black smoke, ready, willing, and able to give Vance a nasty case of Smallpox. I turned around the side of the truck, drawing up my hand, ready to throw the disease–

  At nothing. Vance was gone. The only evidence he’d been there at all was the haze of ash snowing onto the upended SUV, and the tightness in my stomach. That was just one reason why I fucking hated demons.

  I dropped my hands, the smoke snuffing out into nothingness. I was almost glad the asshole wasn’t here to gloat. I didn’t want him to know he’d rattled me.

  Plagued didn’t have souls. The Soulless traded theirs to become what they were. I was alive, but I didn’t think I had a soul. Which left only one option:

  There were humans that survived the apocalypse. And they were in huge trouble.

  Chapter 2

  There were tons of cars on the sandway, and none of them were useable. If they weren’t smashed to shit, the tanks were bone dry. Unlike Vance, one of the biggest demonic assholes ‘round these parts, I couldn’t teleport. After I recovered my bag from the wrecked Cherokee, it took me three hours to walk into Henderson. That was too much damn time to think.

  When we began the Tribulation, nobody concentrated on anything else. Even Heaven turned a blind eye to their cousins in the Deep South.

  Demons don’t like to be ignored, but they sure as shit pick the right moments to be noticed.

  They showed up out of the blue within the first week, right around the time Simon started starving people. They had probably showed up earlier, but I didn’t think they would be an issue. It wasn’t like we had to worry about Lucifer or Azazel or Abbadon. From what the Bosses Upstairs told us, Hell’s Biggest Badasses were constantly at war. Hell was too damn big for one ruler, but not so big that each domain ruler wasn’t looking at ways to expand his or her territory. Stepping out of the Pit would be a signal that a new territory was open for the taking. That didn’t mean those bastards were sitting on their thrones looking pretty. They schemed and plotted and came up with all kinds of nasty ideas to overthrow one another.

  One of those schemes ended up rising past the flames of Hell, and settling here on Earth.

  We don’t know exactly which demon lord sent up their minions, but in the end it didn’t really matter. Their goal was to take advantage of the lost and hopeless. And they did a good fucking job.

  Countless humans were desperate for help. They were hungry, they wanted to protect their loved ones, they wanted to be stronger, they wanted to live.

  They were willing to sell their souls.

  “Speak of the Devil and he shall come” wasn’t a saying meant only for Lucifer. Speak any demon’s true name, and he’ll come knocking with a grin and an oath to sign in blood.

  Give up your soul, and you live forever. You’re stronger, faster, and the Plague won’t touch you. Of course, there will be some side effects. Your eyes will be bloodshot, your skin will turn virtually transparent, and you’ll develop a taste for hemoglobin.

  Nobody ever reads the fine print during an apocalypse. No wonder the demons were making so many Soulless.

  After killing every human on the planet– or so we thought– our job became kill the demons and the Soulless. The Second Coming didn’t belong to those power-hungry freeloaders. They were sadistic fucks that would smile in your face before tearing out your throat. Aside from appearance, the Soulless no longer resembled anything human. There was no cure for them. They died when their demon master died. Killing them was a mercy.

  Or as Kade would say, “a sport.”

  Having humans alive after the Tribulation changed everything. Everybody knew that demons lied. Except when they told the truth. That was one of their favorite games, actually. Lie to a person continually and completely, until you drop a truth on them that hits so close to home they won’t believe you. Demons know a lot of tricks, and that’s one of the best ones.

  Even if it was true, how was I supposed to believe it? I hadn’t seen a single person, not even my brothers, in half a year. The only other creatures walking around were simply different kinds of dead. If there were any animals left alive, they were damn good at hiding. My virus had been extremely effective, and my brothers were excellent at cleaning up the remains…

  The air of earth tasted even more delicious when we finally ascended from the pit. I closed my eyes and tasted the wind, felt it caress my new human face with the warmth of the sun.

  But I could feel the sin beneath the touch. The smell of oil and pollution tainted the sweetness I had breathed in moments ago. My brothers whispered of the overindulgence, greed, and destruction tainting God’s world. His most beloved creations had ensured its demise.

  We were here to stop them. I was chosen to lead.

  Four Horses stood outside of the gate, eager to ride into battle. I walked to my Horse, a tall, strong white steed with hair the color of fresh snow. I stroked the animal’s thick neck. He bowed his head, watching me with obsidian eyes. He had been waiting for me for centuries. I smiled at him.

  “Bacillus,” I said. “That shall be your name. I cannot imagine a more perfect creature to herald the Tribulation. We shall save this world by erasing all those that are killing it.”

  The steed bowed his head again in approval. I smiled, watching my brothers sweep themselves on top of their Horses. All but one.

  He watched me as he stood by his pale Horse, an old, grey beast with ghostly pale hair. My brother’s eyes were clouded, his mouth turned into a deep frown. It took me a moment to search my memories and understa
nd what was written on his face.

  It was sadness.

  I did not understand, and before I could question him, he lifted himself onto his Horse, and prepared himself for the beginnings of humanity’s annihilation…

  I’d been so caught in the memory that I didn’t even realize I’d walked into Henderson yet, let alone that I’d arrived in a suburban housing district. But I blinked away the past and looked around. Even though it was starting to get dark, I could squint my human eyes enough to see where I was going.

  I knew my brother wouldn’t be in one of these houses, which saved me on search time. Simon was tough, but he wasn’t like the rest of us. He liked to cement himself in one place and never move from it. Simon hated travel. Looking around, I could tell he’d come out of his hidey-hole at least a couple times. Slumped against the white garages of pale, cookie-cutter bungalows, were dead bodies shot full of arrows. Single black shafts were stuck through skulls of vacant eyed Plagued, blood splatter washing against the walls.

  This line of nice, expensive homes was as trashed as every other community I’d seen. The chain-link fence on my right had been twisted and pulled down from countless husbands and housewives dragging their panicked kids to what they thought would be safety. Blood was smeared along the concrete incline, disappearing over the hill and leading to what I imagined was an impressive pile of bodies.

  The houses themselves still retained their white paint, but the parking spaces in front of the garages were either covered in skid marks, oil, broken sedans, or dried gore. Every window in every house was smashed or poorly boarded up. Some of the windows were blackened on the outside from fires that started internally. The road was covered in death. Blood pooled under piles of meat and bones, chewed so badly by the Plagued I couldn’t tell the difference between it and the waste from a butcher shop. Once I passed the hamburgered human, who had been dried out in the sun and no longer reeked of blood, I saw a Plagued eating a corpse.

  The undead creature was on its hands and knees, pulling at the arm of a dead girl. I walked closer, and saw that she couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Chunks of skin were missing from her cheeks. She had no ears and her lips had been chewed off, leaving strings of skin to hang over the width of her yellowed teeth. Her neck looked like it met a combine harvester. Her chest had been cracked open to reveal a dark red cavern of broken ribs and torn organs. Her arms and legs were clawed and torn down to the bone. There was no skin on her fingers.

  She must have been dead for months, but the Plagued woman devouring her didn’t seem to care. It kept gnawing on the dead girl’s hand, ignorant that I was standing over it, watching with my hand clenched tightly around my machete.

  I wondered what this girl had done to deserve Heaven’s wrath. Was she really so terrible that she needed to die like this? Having her pretty face turned into meat for an infected monster? Being left alone so other monsters could play vulture with her corpse?

  I stabbed the Plagued in the head so hard that the machete went directly through its skull. I felt the shudder of the impact race up my arm, listened to the crunch and scrape of bone against metal. I twisted the blade and yanked it out. The Plagued collapsed onto its side without so much as a scream.

  The monster was dead, but I still wasn’t satisfied. I needed to kill something else. I needed to take on a nest of Soulless or fight another demon. I needed to do anything to keep myself from looking at the mutilated girl. As I walked away, I tried to tell myself that the girl was in a better place. Heaven took care of its residents.

  Except that I knew how Heaven treated those it claimed to save. After all, my brothers and I were still alive.

  ***

  I had to give it to Simon– he knew how to live in style after the apocalypse. There’s no shortage of places to call home with so many dead, but Simon picked the best place.

  Ravella Hotel and Resort is right on what used to be Lake Las Vegas. Now it’s just a deep dip in the parched, cracked desert. I approached the tall, dead palm trees and walked into the front doors of the once glamorous resort.

  I made my way through the front lobby of the resort, which looked like a bomb had gone off inside it. The walls were peeling and charred black, paintings and pictures torn from their places during the madness. The floor was a cracked, dull mess of smeared dirt. Fabric couches were ripped to shreds, tables had been toppled and broken with pieces missing. Glass from the broken lights littered the floor. Chandeliers hung crookedly from their chains, one wind gust away from collapsing.

  I thought the lobby was in rough shape, and then I moved into the main grounds.

  Every tree and carefully trimmed brush was now a pile of twigs. The windows of the rooms were blown out, burned, some of them even dripping with what looked like old blood stains. Blood painted the stone paths while bodies lay slumped over chairs, staircases, and banisters.

  The bodies ranged from human to Plagued to a couple Soulless. Most of the Plagued and Soulless had arrows in them, so I paid special attention to them. Simon wasn’t much for physical combat, but he was a damn wonder with archery.

  Which is why I couldn’t understand why there were still some Plagued walking around the resort. Was Simon out looking for supplies? Was he asleep? Were these his roomies?

  Ten of them spread out all over the resort didn’t pose a threat to me, but it was a huge resort. Just because I could see ten now, didn’t mean thirty weren’t lurking behind the gazebos or suite entrances. I hadn’t healed myself from the fight with the Soulless, and walking for close to three hours without food had tired me out. Pulling on any of my powers right now would make me pass out. I needed to find a place to crash, which meant I needed to avoid the corpses and find my damn brother.

  Keeping an eye on the Plagued and the shadows of the towers surrounding me, I meandered through the resort grounds until I found the main path leading to the pool. Sunbathing chairs and their stained pads created a disgusting metal hurtle for me to step over. I hoped there would be some water in the pool, but surprise, surprise, I was let down. The inside was dried out and striped with yellowish brown rings from the dirty water that had once been inside. Some of the white vases and ferns on the sides of the pool were either knocked and smashed at the bottom or teetering on the edge. Lying in the far side of the pool was a pile of three emaciated corpses. I was about to turn away when I noticed something lying under the heap of bodies. It looked like a fresh arm sticking out from the pile of dead legs.

  A living human arm.

  Vance’s words zipped through me again. Was there a person trapped under there? Could it be a human that had survived?

  I didn’t wait to find out. They could be hurt and dying. I jumped into the pool and ran across its length to the pile of bodies. I skidded to a stop by the corpses, dropping to my knees and grabbing the arm.

  It came out with one sharp tug, since it was just an arm that had been severed at the elbow. There was a sliding noise followed by a heavy crash. I spun around, seeing one of the vases had collapsed into the bottom of the pool behind me, spilling dirt everywhere.

  No way the Plagued wouldn’t hear that in this too quiet resort.

  Shit.

  I looked at the arm, trying to see what had happened. Around its wrist, barely visible, was a metal wire. It wasn’t very thick, but it was strong. More than capable of being tied to the shrub in the vase and pulling it off the edge with a little extra strength.

  Double shit.

  I dropped the arm and looked up. I was in the deep end of the pool, so I couldn’t jump back out. But on my right was a metal staircase. I ran for it and grabbed the lower landing–

  The fucking thing shuddered and came out of the wall, screeching like a banshee as the rusted metal skidded down the stone.

  Triple shit. Luxury hotel my ass.

  Dumping the ladder into the bottom of the pool, I looked over my shoulder to the shallow end. I wasted no time sprinting for it, stopping as I watched a Plagued man take a step and tumble i
nto the pool with me.