Immortal Rider

Eleven

Kynan sat in the conference room at The Aegis’s Berlin headquarters, his head spinning. His mind was still trying to wrap itself around the information revealed in one of the three scrolls he’d brought to his fellow Elders with the other treasures in the vault Limos had taken him to.

The little artifacts had, so far, turned up nothing, but one of their historians was still researching their origins and could yet discover something useful. Similarly, two of the scrolls had been accounts of battles with demons—interesting, but ultimately, not great archaeological finds.

But the one scroll… Jesus. If what it said was true, it could alter the course of human history.

“So.” Valeriu, an elder who was distantly related to Kynan by marriage, lifted his glasses and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. They’d been studying the scroll nonstop, searching for related texts in their libraries, trying to hash out some of the most cryptic phrases. “We think this could be the key to stopping the Apocalypse. But do we want to risk an Aegi’s life on a hunch?”

Malik, who had fought demons for thirty years throughout the Middle East before being promoted to the Sigil, shook his head. “I do not like it. We have asked Guardians to do things we knew might end in their deaths, and they understand that danger comes with the territory. But this…”

Lance, a Canadian who lost his fashion sense somewhere in the 80s, spun a coffee stir stick on the table. “The Guardian would be a volunteer. She’ll know there’s no guarantee of success.”

Yeah, and that was assuming they’d get a volunteer for this secret plan. What they were going to reveal to the Guardian waiting outside the room was going to knock her on her ass.

Fuck. Ky didn’t like any of this. Life had been much less complicated when he was nothing but a soldier on the Aegis’s front lines. He’d been in charge of a large cell of Guardians, but mainly, he fought demons. Kill or be killed. Simple shit.

Now he was manipulating fate and lives, and none of it sat well with him.

Valeriu leaned back in his chair and stared at the painting depicting a battle between angels and demons. “We have to have faith that this will work.”

“Faith?” Decker, who was usually easygoing, sat in his chair, stiff as a board, his hand skimming back and forth over his blond high-and-tight. “Faith is for people who want to believe in something they can’t prove. I could have faith that I’m invisible, but that wouldn’t make it true.” He shook his head. “You people are making me nervous. You’re dealing with magic and prophecy and shit none of us understand.”

“And you think the military could do any better?” Malik asked.

“I didn’t say that.” Decker’s Southern accent grew more pronounced as he grew more agitated. “But you have no safeguards in place. Until you—we—do, you shouldn’t put a plan in motion.”

Decker had a point. The military’s paranormal unit dealt in the same things The Aegis did, but because it was the military, the R-XR had strict procedures to follow, a chain of command that didn’t allow for deviation, a firm distrust of magic, and safeguards on top of safeguards. The Aegis relied on what the military feared—magic—and had a tendency to act more spontaneously.

Which could be a good thing… or could be very, very bad.

Right now, the R-XR was preaching caution in every move, insisting that now was not the time to be rash. The Aegis took the opposite tack—with Armageddon on the horizon, there was no time for slow and careful.

“All I’m saying,” Decker said, “is that maybe we should concentrate on finding out what Thanatos’s Seal is instead of this cockamamie backup plan.”

“He won’t tell us.” Lance shook his head. “So unless you can translate his weird prophecy, we don’t have a lot to go on.”

Ky ran his fingers over the page in the Daemonica, the demon bible, that outlined the four prophecies for the Horsemen—the four prophecies that would turn them to evil. The Aegis now understood three of the four. Thanatos’s was the wildcard, and all the Horseman would say was that his Seal was in no danger of breaking.

Behold! Innocence is Death’s curse, his hunger his burden, a blade his Deliverance. The Doom Star cometh if the cry fails.

What. The. Hell.

“We don’t have a choice,” Val said. “It’s now or never. Humans are dying by the hundreds of thousands. The R-XR itself has calculated that if Pestilence continues the way he has, in a year, half the world’s population will be dead. Our plan is a Hail Mary move for sure, but it’s all we have.”

“For the record,” Decker said, “I don’t support it.”

For the record, neither did Kynan. But Reaver was MIA and not available for advice, and The Aegis was going to move ahead on this, with or without Kynan’s approval. Ky might as well be there to make sure no one got hurt.

Lance snorted. “Funny hearing a military guy being so squeamish.”

The light blue in Decker’s eyes turned icy, and before tempers went out of control, Val cleared his throat imperiously. “Bring in Regan.”

Kynan refilled his coffee mug while the only female Elder was called into the meeting. She entered, her dark braid hanging over her shoulder, the ends frayed, and he knew she’d been toying with it while she waited outside the conference room. She took a seat, her model good-looks in no way taking away from her natural warrior aura. She was a fighter through and through, literally born into The Aegis.

“Okay,” she said, in her smoky voice. “What is this about?”

Malik cast her a grim look. “First, you must keep this secret, even from the other Elders.”

Regan frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“What we’re about to tell you can’t get out,” Val said. “Of course we trust all our Elders, but the fewer people who know our plans, the less chance of being discovered. Once the first part of the plan has been carried out, we’ll let the other Elders in on what’s going on.”

Lance gestured at the scroll with his coffee stir stick. “This document was discovered in an ancient Aegis vault. We believe that it may hold the key to stopping Pestilence.”

“And what do I have to do with any of this?” Regan asked.

E snt aveveryone exchanged glances. Just when Kynan thought no one was going to speak, Malik chimed in, his voice as grave as the look he was giving her. “Kynan and Arik have been our middlemen for dealing with the Horsemen. But, obviously, Arik can no longer function in that capacity.”

“So you want me to play Horsemen jockey.”

Val choked on his coffee, and Kynan came close to doing the same on his own tongue. “That,” Val wheezed, “is incredibly accurate.”

Regan huffed. “Spit it out, people. What are you saying?”

“We need you to be more than just a middleman. We’ll arrange for you to stay with one of them.”

“Who?”

“Thanatos,” Kynan said.

Lance jumped in before Ky could soften the coming blow. “And we want you to seduce him.”

Regan sucked in a harsh breath, and her normally bronze skin turned pale. “You… what?”

“You need to get him into bed.”

She shoved to her feet. “What the hell is that scroll? Some sort of Aegis romance novel? Underworld erotica? Screw you all.”

“I told you she wouldn’t do it,” Lance said. “She hates men.”

“Just because I shot you down doesn’t mean I hate men, you asshole.”

Lance’s face turned red. “You turn down everyone.” He glanced around the table. “Have any of you ever seen her with a guy?”

No, Kynan hadn’t, but he didn’t give a shit about her love life or lack of it. “Calm down, both of you.”

“I just don’t understand why it’s so important that I climb into bed with… with… a Horseman.” She practically shuddered out the last word.

“Because,” Val said quietly, “that’s the only way you’ll get pregnant with his child.”

Pregnant. Her colleagues wanted her to get pregnant with Death’s kid.

Regan’s first instinct was to start yelling. Or to maybe storm out of the room. But twenty-five years in The Aegis had given her more discipline than that, and she tamped down her angry instincts the way she’d been taught since the day she’d come to the demon-hunting organization as a newborn infant still covered in her mother’s birth blood.

“My answer is no, but tell me why you think Thanatos needs a roll in the hay, and why you think I’m the one who should give it to him.” Jesus. Sleeping with a fucking Horseman?

Val sat back in his leather chair, a signal that a lecture was about to begin. “According to the scroll, after the An s afat tonine Plague that killed upwards of five million in the ancient Roman Empire and was blamed on Pestilence, one of the first Aegi prophets, Marcus Longinus, recognized that if Pestilence was that dangerous before his Seal broke, he’d be a million times worse after.”

Malik nodded. “We know that The Aegis’s focus has long been on Pestilence. But until now, we didn’t know that any concrete plans had been made in the event that the Horsemen’s Seals started breaking.”

“Why would the focus be on Pestilence?” Regan asked, tucking her fingers into her jeans pockets to tamp down her tendency to talk with her hands, which made her appear excitable and stupid.

“Because the Daemonica told us that his Seal would be the first to break,” Kynan said. “The dagger, Deliverance, was forged to kill the Horsemen. But Pestilence has the dagger, which means that none of the others can use it to kill him. That’s where our buddy Marcus Longinus comes in.”

“He secluded himself in a meditation cave and wrote down his visions,” Val said.

Lance snorted. “Of course, we now know that meditation caves were filled with natural gasses that caused hallucinations, so Marcus could be full of shit.”

Regan hated to agree with Lance about anything, but that was exactly her fear. In ancient times, everything was thought to be an act of God—or the gods, depending on the time and the religion. So some dude all hopped up on cave air could see all kinds of crap and think the visions were sent by a deity.

“Okay, so what ‘shit’ did Marcus dream up?”

Val pushed his glasses up on his nose. “He had a vision that the only hope for the world, should the Daemonica’s prophecy come to pass and all the Horsemen turn evil, would be a secret child conceived by the joining of an Aegis warrior and a Horseman. That child will be the savior of mankind.”

“Ah… couldn’t any of the Horsemen do, then? And any Guardian? Why can’t this stupid vision involve Limos and Arik?” She smiled at Lance. “Or maybe you should man up and do the deed. Or maybe you hate women?”

“I love women as much as you probably do,” he shot back, and she rolled her eyes at his lame barb.

She wasn’t a lesbian. She was just… well, she didn’t take chances with sex. For her, an orgasm was a few seconds in which her carefully maintained control was lost… and when you had supernatural abilities like hers, you didn’t want to lose control of them.

“We believe the Horseman in question is Thanatos,” Malik said. “We have a couple of clues. The words ‘From Death will come Life’ are engraved on Deliverance’s hilt and are written here, on the scroll.”

“So you think that literally, from Death—Thanatos—will come life… in the form of a baby.” Regan could really use a stiff drink right now. You know, before she got knocked up and couldn’t drink anymore. Jesus. “And does the scroll explain how a female Guardian is supposed to get close enough to seduce him?”

“No,” Val said, “but Pestilence has put a price on Aegi heads. The remaining Horsemen are more willing than ever to help us, since we’re on the front lines with them. They obviously have a lot of knowledge, things we’re missing, especially their histories since The Aegis broke with them hundreds of years ago. We’ll tell them that we need the gaps filled in, and we want to send a historian—you—to work with them.”

“How can you be sure they won’t want this Aegi to work with Ares or Limos?”

“It’s not a matter of want,” Kynan said. “It’s a matter of practicality. Ares and Cara are busy being newlyweds and training an island full of hellhounds. Limos has her hands full with Arik. Thanatos, on the other hand, is alone, and he has the best library. He’s really the only option.”

“Huh. Well, good luck finding some sucker who wants to sleep with him, because it isn’t going to be me.”

“Regan.” Val looked down at his hands, which he’d folded in his lap. “We can’t force you to do this. But I’m going to ask you to think hard about it. You are one of our greatest assets, and we don’t ask you to do this lightly. We ask because, with your abilities, you truly are the only one who can do it.”

The reminder of what she was sobered her up, real fast. Only the Elders knew about her psychic gifts, and sometimes she suspected that Val knew even more than she did about the extent of them. He’d been the one to argue for her life when she’d been born to a Guardian mother who abandoned her because of what her father was. He’d been the one who had sworn he’d be the one to put her down if her powers grew out of control.

He was the one who had killed her father.

She schooled her expression, refusing to let anyone here see her discomfort. Because yeah, it did bother her that everyone except Kynan was looking at her like she was a bomb ready to blow. Like her, they’d put her abilities in some locked box in their memories, but were now recalling exactly what it was she could do. And what she’d been forbidden to do on the penalty of death.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying, Val.”

“One of Thanatos’s defenses is armor that stores souls,” Kynan said. “When he’s pissed or when he releases them, they kill.”

“Your ability could protect you from them,” Val said. “You’re the only Guardian we could even consider putting in his path.”

She clenched her fists. “For twenty-five years, you’ve trained me not to use my ability. The Aegis kills people like me. And now you’re asking me to embrace it?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “That scroll. Where did you find it?”

Kynan reached for it. “In an Aegis vault Limos took me to.”

“Did it occur to you that it could be a trick? Fake? The world’s first paranormal romance?”

Ky’s mouth quirked in one corner as he passed it to her. “That’s why we need you to verify its authentic sitsnt ity.”

Shit. Of her two abilities, this was the one she was allowed to use, but she didn’t like to, especially not in front of anyone. “You know I can’t tell how old it is or anything. I can only tell you what whoever wrote it was feeling.”

“We know.”

Inhaling on a curse, she unrolled this idiotic thing that supposedly said she should screw Thanatos, and ran her fingers over the ink. Instantly, her body was flooded with emotion and images. Images of hell burst in her brain, horrific scenes of torture and pain and… she jerked her hand away.

“Yeah,” she croaked. “Whoever penned The Biblical Horseman’s Secret Aegis Baby was sincere. They believe the child is important. And they were also a very tortured individual.” She cleared her throat. “How, exactly, will this baby save all of humanity?”

When everyone averted their gazes, alarm bells rang. Finally, Val looked up. “That’s the catch. We don’t know. Apparently, there’s a twin scroll that will explain it. We have faith that by the time the baby is born, we’ll have found it.”

“Oh, that’s just great,” she drawled. “Maybe I should jump off a cliff and have faith that by the time I hit bottom, I’ll have grown wings?”

“So?” Lance prompted, as if she hadn’t spoken. “You going to ride a wild pony?”

God, she hated him. Ignoring the asshole, she turned to Kynan. “What does Thanatos look like?” Visions of a bony old dude who looked like the Crypt Keeper’s twin brother popped into her head.

Kynan shrugged. “If you don’t mind tats and piercings, he’s attractive, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Sorry, I happen to be into women, so Thanatos doesn’t do it for me. But it’s probably fair to say that if I were gay, I’d do him.”

“That’s so helpful,” she said, dryly. “So what are you going to do with this kid? I mean, what happens after it’s born? I’m not exactly mother material.”

“Gem and I will raise it,” Kynan said softly.

“And your wife is cool with that?”

“It isn’t like we don’t already have a child who is part demon. And I do have a huge family full of demons, angels, vampires, and werewolves to help out and keep the child safe. We’ll love it like our own, I promise you that.”

Shit. She couldn’t believe she was actually considering this. But The Aegis was her family. They’d raised her when no one else would—or could. She owed them, and if this was how she could make her contribution to save the world, then she couldn’t say no. Besides, she couldn’t subject another female Guardian to this risk.

Right now, no Aegi outside the Sigil understood the magnitude of what was happening in the world, and very few knew of the existence of the Four Horsemen. Bringing an outsider sg aagn up to speed would take time. Hell, finding the right woman would take time.

“Make the arrangements.” She’d never been one to run away from anything, but right now she needed some fresh air and a moment alone, so she yanked open the door. “And that includes plans for my funeral, because if this doesn’t work, I want a really nice one.”