Eternal Rider

Fifteen

“That angel is an asshole.”

Kynan laughed, and Arik wanted to deck him. Would have, too, if he hadn’t been freezing to death in the middle of God-knows-where. Reaver had flashed them to some featureless expanse of ice and then disappeared without so much as a “Good luck,” or a “Hope the Horsemen don’t kill you.”

“You should have seen Reaver when he was still fallen,” Ky said.

“He was even more of an asshole?”

“Nah. He was just grumpier.”

“I don’t think I like angels,” Arik muttered.

Kynan shot him a sideways glance. “You don’t like anybody.”

“True.” Arik tugged his jacket tighter. He supposed he should be grateful that the angel had been able to flash them here instead of Kynan’s using the Harrowgate. Humans couldn’t use them while conscious—they came out on the other side dead. But Kynan, thanks to his invincibility charm, could travel through them, and unfortunately, Ky would have to knock Arik out in order for them to leave here. The idea was not appealing in the least.

Arik squinted his eyes against the bright sunlight glinting off the snow. “You know we could be walking into a slaughter.”

Kynan shrugged. “I’ll be fine.”

“That’s comforting.”

A blast of icy wind took the sting out of Kynan’s chuckle, mainly because it numbed every part of Arik’s body. “The Aegis and Horsemen have a long history of working together. You know, before we betrayed them. We should be able to talk it out.”

“Should. Great.” They tromped through the snow. Ahead, there was only vast wasteland on top of more vast wasteland. “Are you sure we’re in the right place?”

“Yeah, human, you are.” The deep, rumbling voice came out of nowhere, and both Arik and Kynan instinctively drew weapons—Kynan palmed an Aegis stang, and Arik pulled his pistol.

“Show yourself,” Arik called out.

Suddenly, a giant dun stallion was rearing up, and Jesus, Arik damn near got his head smashed in by one flailing hoof. The beast came down, and his rider, a big male with sandy hair wearing some sort of ivory plate armor, raised a gauntleted hand in greeting.

“I looked and there before me was a pale horse,” Arik murmured. “Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him.” He stared in awe at the huge male described in Revelation. “You’re Death.”

The dude rolled his yellow eyes. “Thanatos. I don’t become Death unless my Seal breaks.” He wheeled the horse around and muttered, “Fucking humans always fucking up prophecies.”

What a douche. Arik was totally over his awe. He glanced at Ky. “I guess we’re just supposed to follow?”

Kynan shrugged, but Thanatos snorted. “I’d keep to one side of my stallion. You don’t want to be behind him when he passes gas.”

Yep, a douche. They trudged another fifty yards or so—hard to tell when there were no landmarks—and out of thin air, a massive castle shimmered into existence, rising up out of the snowy landscape like an iceberg in the ocean.

“You can only see it because I’m letting you.” Thanatos dismounted and gave the horse a fond pat on the neck. “To me.” The stallion dissolved into a thin line of smoke, did a loop-de-loop, and then shot inside the Horseman’s gauntlet. Freaky.

Kynan’s dark brows drew together as he stared at Thanatos. “What kind of armor is that?”

“Lava beast scale.”

Jesus. Few humans had ever seen the massive demons that lived deep inside volcanoes, but they supposedly fed off the misery and death eruptions caused. Legend had it that their scale was fireproof and impenetrable by conventional weapons and that with every death its wearer dealt, it would become stronger. Arik would love to outfit a tank or APC with that shit.

They followed the Horseman across the inner bailey. An arched entrance sized for a T-Rex opened up into the keep and a chamber larger than a high school gymnasium. Against the far wall, a blazing fire burned in a hearth, and tending to it were two beings Arik thought might be vampires. In front of the hearth was a trestle table built to seat at least two dozen people, but right now there were only two… a brown-haired male in leather armor and a black-haired female in a fuchsia, blue, and yellow… muumuu? They had been concentrating on a game of chess when Ky and Arik entered, but were now casting dark, intense glares their way.

Fuck me, this is not my idea of a good time. Nope. Arik wasn’t good at negotiation. Not when it involved sensitivity and talking things out. His idea of negotiation involved firepower and who had the most and best.

In this case, the other guys had the biggest dicks. That never did sit well with Arik.

He scanned the room, taking note of the layout, exits, potential weapons. He was startled when he noticed a woman curled up in a recliner, dressed casually in jeans and a University of Missouri sweatshirt. She glanced up from the ancient-looking book she’d been reading to watch them with curiosity… nothing even close to the hostility they were getting from the other three.

The male and female at the table stood as Arik and Kynan approached.

Leather Armor Guy spoke harshly. “Your names.”

Bristling at the male’s abrupt demand, Arik gestured to Kynan. “That’s Kynan. He’s a Guardian. I’m Arik. R-XR.” He figured they didn’t need to know about his Guardian status, given that they hated The Aegis, and Arik liked his head on his shoulders.

“I’m Ares.”

Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. Arik stared at the Horseman who would be War.

Ares cocked his thumb at the female. “Our sister, Limos.”

I looked, and there before me was a black horse. Its rider was holding a pair of scales. He’d known Famine was female, but he hadn’t thought she’d be so hot.

Damn, this was real, wasn’t it? Arik was standing in a room with three of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

“It’s pretty awe-inspiring, isn’t it,” came Thanatos’s deep, dry voice, and Arik blinked.

“What?”

“Your jaw was open and you were gaping like an idiot at them,” Kynan said, a little louder than he really needed to.

“Tool,” Arik said under his breath. He nodded at the seated female. “Who’s she?”

“Not your concern,” Ares said, his voice as icy and forbidding as the landscape around them.

Thanatos put a restraining hand on his brother’s shoulder, and Arik wondered how close he was to getting his ass kicked.

Limos moved closer, her flip-flops slapping the floor, her off-the-shoulder muumuu swishing around slim, shapely ankles. “You two have a lot of balls coming here.”

Kynan gestured to Arik. “He does. I’m charmed. Nothing can hurt me. Or my balls.”

“Really?” Limos came at Kynan, swung, and Ky didn’t even flinch. The female Horseman’s swing went wild, and she stumbled, nearly fell. “What the hell?”

“Told you. I can’t be harmed.”

She jammed her fists on her hips. “That’s annoying.”

Limos was like nothing Arik would have expected. No, he’d been thinking more of a mannish Amazonian-type warrior. This female was ultrafeminine, had breasts that made her dress a fucking work of art, and she didn’t look as if she could handle a weapon if she had to. Maybe she’d get scarier once her Seal broke.

“So why are you here?” Ares asked. “Reaver said you wanted to help, but The Aegis hasn’t been on our side for centuries, and I don’t even know what the R-XR is.”

Arik studied the brown-haired warrior. His expression revealed nothing, and neither did his flat eyes. But somehow Arik knew he was lying about not knowing about R-XR.

Kynan cleared his throat. “We know that Pestilence has been loosed. We want to discuss how to stop him.”

“If we knew how, we’d have done it already.”

“So you don’t want to usher in the Apocalypse?” Arik asked.

That earned him murderous glares from the three of them. Ares clenched his fists as though imagining Arik’s neck in their grip. “We want to prevent our Seals from breaking and stop Pestilence’s rampage. But even if we knew how to stop him, we wouldn’t tell you.”

“Because we could use the knowledge against you.”

Limos snorted. “Aren’t you a brain surgeon.”

Arik ignored that. She might be hot, but he wasn’t into smartass immortal women. “We can still help to prevent your Seals from breaking.”

“How much do you know about our situations and Seals?” Thanatos folded his arms over his broad chest, code for, say the wrong thing, I dare you.

Kynan picked up on the body language as well, and he kept his voice even, businesslike. Arik hoped Ky knew more than he did about what might be the “wrong thing.” “Honestly, not much. We have a copy of the Daemonica, so we’ve read the prophecies, but they’re pretty obscure and aren’t a lot of help.”

“So you need information from us.” Ares studied them, the cold calculation in his gaze measuring them for deception. And maybe for a coffin. “Why should we trust you? Why should we believe that you don’t want to destroy us?”

“Because,” Kynan said, “the ranking members of The Aegis know the history we’ve shared, and if you’ve paid any attention at all to the way The Aegis has changed in the last few years, you know that we’ve become more moderate.”

“We don’t need your help.” Limos imperiously waved her hand in dismissal, her long pink and yellow-painted nails flashing. “Be gone.”

Arik didn’t think. He reacted. “You fools!” He seized her wrist to stop her from walking away. “We have resources and—”

Next thing he knew, he was flat on his back, with Limos straddling him while holding a dagger under his left eye. Ares and Thanatos were on either side of him, both leveling swords at his throat. Ares’s huge boot was on his forehead.

“Ares.” The hushed, shocked voice came from near the fireplace. The unnamed woman. “Please. Don’t kill him.”

“I’d appreciate it if you left him alive, as well.” Kynan’s words were casual, but Arik knew him well enough to recognize a rare note of concern.

“Here’s the thing,” Limos said, in an eerily chipper voice. “Don’t touch me.” For emphasis, she squeezed her knees, which were parked on either side of his ribs, and the air whooshed out of his lungs. Pain was a blistering firestorm in his upper body as his ribs cracked. He gritted his teeth, refused to make a sound, but yeah, he got the message.

The brothers backed off as suddenly as they’d attacked, sheathed their blades, and Limos leaped to her feet. Then, with a shit-eating grin, she offered her damned hand.

“S’okay,” he wheezed. “Floor is surprisingly comfortable.”

Kynan cleared his throat again. “If we’re done with the ball-busting, maybe you could tell us what it’ll take to earn your trust.”

There was a long pause, and then Ares said, “Give us the hellhound.”

Kynan tensed. “What makes you think we have a hellhound?”

Smart move, not denying that The Aegis had the beast. A lie would compromise the trust Kynan wanted to build.

“Doesn’t matter.” Ares’s hand flexed over the pommel of his sword, as if he was still wanting to draw blood. “But we want it.”

Arik sat up. Not without difficulty and a lot of pain, but he thought he managed to not look too pathetic. “Why?”

“Because they’re so cuddly and cute,” Limos purred, her violet eyes glinting with mischief. Chick was weird.

Kynan jammed his hand through his hair. “We can’t give up the hound.”

“Give us the fucking dog or we take it.” Frost formed on Ares’s words. “And we will take it.”

“You’re bluffing,” Kynan said. “You don’t know where we’re keeping it.”

Inky shadows billowed up from the floor around Thanatos’s feet, and for a heartbeat, Arik swore he saw faces in the murky depths. “We will know soon enough.”

Brittle tension winged through the air, thickening with each silent second. Arik pushed to his feet, clenching his teeth to keep from grimacing. Ares’s hand now gripped his sword hilt. Thanatos had settled into a fighting stance, and Limos was standing there twirling a strand of glossy black hair. Somehow, she made the innocuous gesture seem dangerous. Like she could strangle him with that single lock.

The other female was gripping the book with white-knuckled ferocity and worrying her lower lip.

Unease wound its way through Arik’s veins. This shit was going to go critical, and fast. “Maybe if we knew why the animal is so important to you, it would be less of an issue for The Aegis.”

Ares locked gazes with Arik, and he got the impression the dude had been given the job of War for a reason. There was a general in that big body, someone who knew not only how to fight, but how to win at any cost.

“The hellhound is mine.” Everyone swung around to the female who had been so quiet. “I’m connected to him.”

“And who are you?” Kynan asked.

“She’s the woman your Aegi were going to torture to get information about the hellhound they’d shot.” Ares moved to stand next to her, and though he didn’t touch her, there was a definite protective quality to his posture.

Kynan scowled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about… wait.” He zeroed in on the woman with such intensity that Ares bared his teeth. “In South Carolina? Three nights ago?” When she nodded, Kynan exhaled slowly. “A Guardian died that night. They said you were a demon—”

“Cara is no demon,” Ares said. “Your Aegi are idiots.”

“Hal—the hellhound… he killed your Guardian,” Cara said. “He was protecting me from them.”

Protecting her? A hellhound? Now Arik had heard everything. “I don’t understand how all of this ties together.”

Ares swung his head around to Arik. “How much do you two know about the agimortus?”

“We know it’s a trigger,” Ky replied. “An event. We know that Sin was the bearer of Pestilence’s agimortus, and when she started the werewolf plague, it set into motion the events that broke his Seal. We believe that the bearer of your agimortus is a fallen angel.”

Ares traded glances with his brother and sister, and after nearly imperceptible nods, Ares put his hand on the other female’s shoulder. “This is Cara. She’s the bearer, and she’s human.”

This time the exchanged glances were between Arik and Kynan. “So her death is what will break your Seal, and no doubt Pestilence wants her dead,” Arik said.

“Which is why we’re guarding her, Einstein.” Limos didn’t even bother looking at him. She was too busy studying her toes, which were painted the same pink and yellow as her fingernails. Apparently, she was the ADD Horseman.

“We have a little problem, though,” Ares said. “Humans aren’t meant to bear the agimortus. It will kill them. But she bonded with the hellhound you have in captivity. It lends his life force to her, which is buying time. But every time you hurt the animal, it weakens her.”

Kynan let out a juicy curse. “I’ll arrange for its release.”

Arik eyed the vamps near the hearth. “I assume you’ve made sure your, ah, minions are no threat to Cara.”

“Our staff is loyal,” Ares said tersely. “They understand the consequences of betrayal. But every other demon in the underworld is a danger to her.”

“Not every demon.” Kynan’s blue eyes became chips of ice.

A muscle twitched in Ares’s jaw, as though he was fighting the urge to mouth off. “The majority then,” he ground out. “They want out of Sheoul and they crave dominion over humans. You can’t trust any of them.”

Yeah, Arik felt about the same way. Even though his own sister was a werewolf who was mated to a demon, he hadn’t ever gotten over his prejudice.

Kynan’s body went bowstring taut, and before the guy went off in defense of his wife, his in-laws, and his unborn child, Arik stepped forward. Which hurt like fuck. Fuck with broken ribs.

“So what else can we do, besides letting the hellhound go?” Arik took a couple of shallow breaths. Still hurt like fuck. “We could help guard Cara.”

“Having our demons and your demon killers in close proximity isn’t ideal. What we could use is a fallen angel. One who hasn’t entered Sheoul.”

“Ah.” Arik gave up trying to be all manly and wrapped his arm around his chest to keep his rib cage from splitting open. “We have tons of those to give out.”

Limos tapped her flip-flopped foot in annoyance. “Pestilence has been slaughtering them left and right. I estimate that there are only about half a dozen remaining. He’s determined to bring about the Apocalypse, in case you hadn’t figured that out.”

“Yeah,” Arik drawled, “we were unclear on that. Glad you set us straight.”

“We’ll see what we can do,” Kynan said quickly. “What about your Seals? How can we prevent them from breaking?”

Thanatos snorted. “Don’t worry about mine. It will never break.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have complete control of it.”

Arik frowned. “So what could break it?”

“That’s not for you to know.” The shadows flitting around Thanatos seemed to grow more agitated. What were they? “Let it go.”

Touchy. Arik nodded at Limos. “What about you, Bonecrusher?”

Limos grinned. “Still feeling the power of my thighs, are you? Keep taunting me, and I’ll do it again. Only I won’t stop until your upper body is nothing but lung marmalade.”

Now there was a horrific image he’d take to his grave. “You going to answer my question?”

She shrugged one tan, curvy shoulder. “Nope.”

Thanatos regarded his sister with amusement before turning back to Ky and Arik. “Limos’s agimortus is an object. It’s a small ivory bowl. Any Horseman who drinks from it will break her Seal.”

“Seems like an odd requirement,” Kynan said. “Why is that?”

“We don’t know,” Limos replied, but the way she said it, with a slight trail-off at the end of her sentence, left a question mark in Arik’s mind. She might not know, but he had a feeling she had a theory.

“I’m assuming it’s well guarded, at least,” Kynan said.

There was a lot of weight shifting and sheepish expressions. “What?” Arik looked between the Horsemen, lingering for an extra second on Limos. It really was a great view. “It’s not being guarded?”

“We don’t know where it is.” Thanatos’s admission was delivered with a stare that dared Ky or Arik to snark back.

Arik snarked. “Oh, that’s great. You lost it? Pestilence could be toasting to success with it as we speak.”

Limos shook her head, making her long black hair swish in a shiny wave. “We didn’t lose it. It’s never been found.”

Kynan scrubbed his hand over his face. “We need to get the hellhound situation handled. Do you guys have email? Can you shoot us all the info you’ve got on this bowl?”

“And how do you think you can find it if we haven’t been able to?”

“We may have access to information, maps, histories, that you don’t. It can’t hurt.” Arik paused. “So… are we going to work together? Or are you going to be stubborn until we’re all doomed to Armageddon?”

There was a long, strained silence, and then Ares nodded decisively. “We work together. But no one else is to know the locations of our residences.”

“Deal.” Kynan handed Ares, Thanatos, and Limos cards with his information on them. “Unfortunately, no one in The Aegis but me can travel through Harrowgates, so we can’t deliver the hound to you, and I can’t transport a cage of that size on my own. Call me in an hour and I’ll have coordinates to the Aegis facility where we’re holding him.”

Ares nodded. “There’s one more thing.” He slid questioning glances at both Limos and Thanatos. Limos inclined her head sullenly, but Thanatos tensed up. If his jaw got any tighter, teeth were going to break. “Besides Limos’s bowl, Pestilence is seeking a dagger. We call it Deliverance. It resembles a miniature sword with a horse head as the pommel. Its eye is a ruby. The dagger was forged in metals from a rock that fell from the sky and was tempered in hellhound blood. We helped The Aegis craft it after we were cursed, and we entrusted them to keep it, but it was lost.”

“It doesn’t sound familiar,” Kynan said, “but I haven’t gone through even a tenth of our histories. Why is it important?”

“You asked how we could be stopped. The dagger is the only thing on Earth that can destroy us, and only if wielded by another Horseman.”

Realization dawned, and Arik whistled. “That’s why you wanted The Aegis to hold it. You didn’t want one of you to go evil and destroy the dagger before it could be used.”

“Yes. Deliverance was meant to be returned to us if one of our Seals was broken.”

“And Pestilence wants it so you guys can’t have it to kill him.”

Ares gave a sharp nod. “I believe Pestilence is torturing Guardians to get it.”

Kynan cursed. “That explains our missing Guardians.”

“He delivered one of the bodies to me this night. I’ll have Reaver take it to you.”

“Thank you.” Kynan inclined his head. “If there’s nothing else, we’ll get to work.”

Arik and Kynan strode out of the keep. The second the heavy wooden door closed, Arik hugged his ribs and groaned. “Fuck, that bitch is strong.”

Kynan’s mouth twitched in mild amusement. “You know how to pick ’em.” He slapped Arik on the shoulder. “Since I have to knock you out to move through the Harrowgate, I’ll take you to Underworld General. Eidolon can heal you.”

The idea of letting a demon fix him made him ill, but he was in too much pain to argue. Besides, Shade, Eidolon’s brother, had already healed him once. Saved his life, in fact. And the damned demon never let him forget.

“Let’s do it.”