Immortal Rider

Fifteen

Ares and Thanatos moved before Limos could blink. In a coordinated swoop, Thanatos grabbed Arik while Ares blocked her. She couldn’t see beyond Ares’s broad shoulders, but she heard growls, grunts, and then a splash.

“Dammit!” Swiping her fingers over her throat, she armored up, covering her nakedness, and slammed Ares out of the way. He grabbed her, but she kneed him hard enough in the groin for him to loosen his grip. She used the split second advantage to lunge for Thanatos, who held a struggling, splashing Arik under water.

“Stop it!” she screamed. “You’re killing him.”

Than’s eyes glowed with golden death. “Yes.”

Shit. Once Than went into killing mode, he was nearly unstoppable. There was no time to reason with him, so she tackled him, grabbing him around the waist and knocking him off balance. It was enough for Arik to get his head above water for a deep, choked breath, but then Thanatos was back at his task, brushing off Limos as if she were no more than a pesky fly.

Ares came at her, and she was done being nice. In an instant, she drew her sword and swung it in a broad arc. Her aim was perfect, and the reverberation from the impact of metal meeting the flesh and bone in Than’s neck jolted her arms. Blood sprayed, coating the sword, turning the water around them red. Thanatos yelped, releasing Arik to slap his hands over the gushing wound.

She ignored his curses and Ares’s shouts of “What the hell, Limos?” and hauled Arik up from the water. He surfaced, gasping for air, relief and furyhe alternating in his expression.

“You jackasses!” she snapped, and then found herself holding Arik back from trying to take a piece out of Than as her brother fought to keep from bleeding out. Oh, her strike wouldn’t kill Than even if he did bleed out, but it would take a good day for him to regenerate. “Arik can’t be allowed to die. You know that!”

Ares snarled, his hand poised over his sword, his furious gaze fixed on Arik. “What was he doing to you?”

“Nothing I didn’t want.” Ares’s hand dropped to the hilt, and Limos, who never panicked… panicked.

“Didn’t Than tell you?” She turned to Than, who still looked murderous. “You know we can’t kill him, you fool.”

“Why not?” Ares asked.

“Yeah,” Arik rasped. “Why not? Not that I’m complaining.”

Than settled down as logic finally wrestled his death haze into compliance. “Pestilence fouled him.”

Well, that was a groaner. Thanatos had never had a knack for diplomacy or tact.

“What?” Arik climbed onto the shore, where he sat, arms across his raised knees. “What do you mean, Pestilence fouled me?”

Limos braced herself for his reaction. “He drank your blood,” she said. “And he made you drink his.”

“I don’t remember any of that. How do you know?”

“He told me. After I found you.”

“Okay, that’s gross and I want to puke, maybe right after I cut his fucking head off, but what does this have to do with not killing me?”

Thanatos peeled his hand away from his throat, which had partially healed and was oozing now instead of spurting. “Pestilence bound your soul to him.”

Arik leaped to his feet. “He what?”

“When you die,” Limos explained, “your soul will belong to him.” Hopefully, it would be a long time before that happened. She just wished she could figure out why Pestilence was holding off. Reseph had never been the patient kind, and turning evil had only made him even more of an instant-gratification sort of guy.

“Son of a—” He broke off to peg her with a hard stare. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

“When should I have told you?” She huffed, her temper suddenly caustic, the result, she was sure, of a bitter blend of sexual frustration, her brothers’ overprotective idiocy, and Arik’s suspicious tone. “Maybe when you were already hating me for getting you thrown into Sheoul? Or how about when you didn’t believe anything I said was real? Or while you were eating something decent for the first time?” She snapped her fingers. “Oh, I know, telling you my evil brother owns your soul would have been awesome sexy talk while you were trying to get into my bikiniint0em".”

There was another low, menacing growl from Than, which she ignored.

She gathered her bikini and wraparound. “It was for your own good.”

She could feel Arik’s anger practically blistering her skin, but it faded quickly, and he offered her a respectful nod of apology or, perhaps, acknowledgment that what she’d said made sense. In her experience, few men were so quick to admit mistakes, but he definitely didn’t seem the type to be ruled by irrational or defensive anger. She shot him a small smile of thanks before turning to Thanatos.

“Why are you here?”

“Because Reaver still hasn’t shown up. I’ve tried to summon both him and Harvester several times. And now The Aegis is playing some kind of game with us.” Thanatos’s hands fisted at his sides. “I want to know if our Watchers know anything about it.”

“What kind of game?”

“They sent an Elder to live with me.”

Talk about an unwanted house guest. “You’re kidding.”

Than splashed water over his throat and then shook droplets out of his hair like a great cat. “Do I look like I’m kidding? Because you know what a practical joker I am.”

A pall fell over them for a second, because Reseph had been a huge lover of practical jokes, and their lives had become decidedly less fun since he turned ghastbat-shit insane.

She cleared her throat to break the tension. “Who did they send?”

Ares flicked his finger over the crescent-shaped scar on his neck, and his armor melted away. “It always seems so wrong to wear armor on a tropical island,” he muttered. “They sent a female named Regan.”

“Regan?” Arik snorted. “Good luck with her. Why don’t you just say no?”

“Because it’s a good idea,” Ares said. “We’ve been out of touch with The Aegis for a long time. This is our chance to catch up on what they’ve learned over the centuries. And she may be able to help us find Limos’s agimortus with her gift.”

“That’s good news.” Arik said, wiping beads of water from his brow. “We know it’s a small cup, but we don’t have its history. Maybe you can shed some light on that?”

“The Aegis and R-XR knows what it needs to know,” Than said.

Arik rolled his eyes. “You arrogant asses. Your stale grudge against The Aegis is blinding you.”

“Human,” Than barked, “you don’t talk to us like that.”

Arik’s eyes went heavy-lidded, his body relaxed and Limos tensed. Reseph used to do the same thing, and that was when he was the deadliest.

“Fuck off, Horseman.”

Limos leaped between Arik and Thanatos, heading off the inevitable. “Lock it down, both of you. Arik’s right.” She glanced at Ares, seeking his support, and he didn’t disappoint. When it came to strategy, he generally didn’t let emotion cloud his thoughts.

“I agree,” he said. “I was reluctant at first, but it’s time we put some trust in The Aegis again. We may have made temporary inroads in our fight against Pestilence, but we’ve been fooling ourselves if we think we can defeat him without the full cooperation of the humans.”

Than’s souls swirled at his feet as his emotions boiled, and before they got out of hand, Limos took his hand in hers. “Brother, stop. You know we’ve got to do this.”

It was strange the way Thanatos had always been the quietest of them, and yet, he truly was the most volatile. Reseph’s emotions had been on his sleeve, Ares’s a little more under control, and Limos’s somewhere in between. But Than… he was an underground spring of emotion that only an idiot would tap.

“We’ve already been working with them,” Than said.

“Yes,” Ares agreed, “but we’ve played it close to the vest. At this point, we have little to lose by sharing whatever information we have.”

There was a tense silence as Thanatos met each of their gazes. “Do what you think is best,” he finally said, but he shot Ares and Limos looks that said clearly, But my privacy is my own.

It wasn’t as if Thanatos’s secrets would be important to The Aegis in the long run anyway. His agimortus didn’t need to be found or guarded. Thanatos could protect it by himself.

Now that the sharing thing had been settled, she turned back to Arik. “So, back to my agimortus. Legend has it that it’s about the size of a sake cup, made of ivory or bone, and engraved with a set of scales. It was made by an enslaved demon race, the Isfets, who used it as a unit of measure. One Isfet used the cup to secure his freedom and a life in the human realm, but the cost was his sister’s life. He had to drink her blood from the cup, which granted him immortality and human form. When his clan found him, they took him back to Sheoul and hid the cup so he could no longer keep it with him… thus, losing his immortality. Over time, the demons died and the cup was forgotten. There are hundreds of theories about where the cup is hidden, but we’ve checked them all out.”

She paused, waiting for Arik to ask more questions, but he was motionless, not even looking at her. “Arik?”

Arik’s gaze was fixed on the forest. “There’s something out there.”

“I don’t see anything.” Ares might not see anything, but he armored up nonetheless.

“I don’t either.” Arik’s stance widened, his shoulders squaring, and a chill shot up Limos’s spine at the battle-ready posture. When he made a protective gesture for her to get behind him, she actually obeyed. As if she couldn’t take care of herself. Oddly, she got warm fuzzies from the idea that he was trying to protect her. “I feel it.”

“What do you feel?” she asked.

“Evil,” Arik whispered. “I feel… evil.”

Hellfire throbbed through Arik’s veins, a searing, screaming warning that evil was within striking distance. The foreign sensation drilled into him, and he moved forward with an almost desperate need to destroy whatever was threatening him and Limos.

Thanatos and Ares were on their own. Which was an idiotic thought, since Limos was fully capable of taking care of herself as well.

Behind him, he heard the unmistakable clatter of armor snapping into place, followed by the hiss of steel clearing leather housings.

Oh, good, and here Arik was with no weapon.

The bushes rustled, and even as Arik opened his mouth to let out a warning, mastiff-sized, four-legged demons burst out of the foliage. Khnives.

Limos shouted something about Pestilence’s spies and buried her blade in one of the khnives’ chests.

Arik wheeled out of the way of the first one, its snapping teeth grazing his arm. Rolling, he grabbed a thick tree branch and nailed the second khnive in the throat, sending the skinless, opossum-like creature slamming into a tree trunk.

“Human!” Ares tossed a dagger, and Arik caught it, spinning in time to jam the blade into a beast’s brain with an upward stroke under its jaw.

Waves of evil buffeted him like a windstorm, growing more powerful as dozens of the demons came at them. The things had long, sharp claws and razor teeth between powerful jaws, but where their deadly abilities lay was in their numbers. Within seconds, Arik and the Horsemen were overwhelmed.

All around them, blood dripped off leaves, streamed down tree trunks, and turned the crystal pool red. Than had unleashed his souls, and the godawful shrieks of the attacking shadows joined the chorus of screams and growls from the dying demons.

Three demons leaped simultaneously, but as Arik slashed at one, another hit him from the side, knocking the blade from his hand and slamming him to the ground. Limos shouted, bringing her sword down in an arc that sheared off the thing’s head. The other two came at Arik’s throat. Snarling, because fuck if he got out of Sheoul to die at the teeth and claws of demons considered by even other demons to be lowlife scourge, he grabbed one around the throat and squeezed.

The thing stiffened and fell dead.

Arik blinked in shock, but who the hell cared why the thing died so easily? He went for the other, with the same result. Another came at him, and this time he didn’t bother with grabbing its throat. He punched the fucker in the face, and it dropped. Time after time, he took the demons out, going through them like a lawnmower.

Eventually, he was standing waist-deep in demons,eephed the fu staring at the carnage around him, and the Horsemen were staring at him. At least the weird sensation of being watched by evil was gone.

“What the hell was that, human?” Ares asked.

“I have no idea.” He lifted his head, his newfound spidey-senses tingling again, but this time without the intensity. “Over there.”

Thanatos moved like a snake, faster than Arik could track as he disappeared into the brush. There was a squeak, a thud, and he emerged, carrying a rat by its tail. “This?”

“Yeah. That was it.” Arik scrubbed his hand over his face, confused as shit. “What the hell?”

Limos winced. “Crap. The blood exchange. Like vampires.”

“Ah.” Ares nodded. “Makes sense.”

“To you,” Arik muttered. “You want to include me in your cryptic conversation?”

Limos sheathed her sword. “Khnives are summoned demons. Spies. A lot of demons can summon one or two, but only a handful of beings could have summoned this many khnives, and Pestilence is one of them. Even as Reseph he could command disease carriers and use them to gather intelligence or spread disease… or he could destroy them at will. The blood exchange gave you his abilities. To what extent…” She shrugged. “Time will tell.”

“I’m still not following. You mentioned vampires.”

“Vampires often transmit their special abilities to those they turn,” Thanatos explained. “But since you didn’t technically turn, I suspect there’s something unique about you. What are you not telling us? Do you have a demon dangling from your family tree?”

As tempting as it was to tell Thanatos to fuck off, Arik wanted to know what was up as well. “No demons in my DNA, but I was bitten by one a few years ago.” He figured he’d leave out the part about how the demon that bit him had been sent by the demon he’d made a bad deal with back when he was a teenager, desperate to end his father’s reign of terror. “The infection from the bite nearly killed me, but Shade saved my life. There was a… side-effect.” He glanced over at Limos, who was watching him curiously. “I can learn demon languages after hearing just a few words.”

“You Aegi are full of surprises,” Ares murmured.

Arik had found that statement to be true enough. “So why did Pestilence send his spies to attack? I mean, if he wants me dead, can’t he do it himself? If he’d come with a few of his minions, I could have been toast by now.”

“You’re right.” Limos frowned. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe it was your charming fiancé?” Arik asked, but she shook her head.

“That doesn’t make sense either. I doubt he knows that Pestilence owns your soul. Satan would want you dragged to Sheoul to die, so he could have your soul. He’d lose it if you died here.”

“So what you’re saying then, is that there’s a new player in town.”

Ares nudged one of the khnive bodies with his foot. “A new player who wants you dead.”

Thanatos whistled. “Sucks to be you, human.”

Man, there were days you just shouldn’t get out of bed.