When I was done greeting the Wilders, I’d grabbed some bullets for my handgun and a rifle from our supplies. The weight of the rifle on my back and the gun hanging at my side wasn’t as reassuring as it had once been, and I would have given anything formybow.
The horsemen of the apocalypse, allelevenofthem.
I hated every single thing that had crawled from the cesspool of Hell, but this sounded so much worse than an ouro, and I hadn’t imagined anything worse could be possibleyesterday.
My gaze fell on Corson’s back. Okay, maybe I didn’t hateeverything from Hell, but I hated a good chunkofit.
I pulled my focus away from Corson as we traveled toward the now closed gateway. Ahead of me, Raphael moved noiselessly through the trees as he led the way. Caim strolled beside him before falling back to walk nexttoBale.
“Since Malorick is dead, I will fly to the wall to let Kobal know what is going on,” Caimoffered.
“Kobal is touring the wall with River to solidify his lead with the humans and to meet with the other palitons; we don’t know where he is,” shereplied.
“Then I will follow the wall until Ifindhim.”
She glanced pointedly at his wings. “Any other demon would shoot you down and wear your head as atrophy.”
“Then there would actually be a good looking demon in thisworld.”
Bale stared at him before focusing ahead once more, seemingly unwilling to respond. Caim smiled at her before clasping his hands behind his back and doing an unusual little skip step that caused the bottom points of his wings to scrape the ground. I couldn’t help but smile over how much he enjoyed annoying everyoneheknew.
“We will send some of the skelleins to find Kobal,” Corson stated. “Raphael will go with them as the palitons know the only golden angel on Earth is on our side. If the palitons see black wings though, they’re going to kill without bothering to ask questions. If Raphael goes with them, the skelleins will have eyes above and an easier time of locating us when theyreturn.”
Caim’s smile slid away, and a muscle twitched his jaw. Raphael didn’t look at all pleased with the decision either, but he didn’tprotestit.
“They were just ahead,” Raphael whispered, and all conversationended.
Glancing around the trees, I noted the strange rock formation to my left and the thick briar bushes creeping in on my right. Stealing around a large oak, I rested my fingers against the markings carved into the trunk. We were less than half a mile from thegateway.
I took a deep breath to steady my racing heart. Shifting my hold on my gun, I wiped my sweaty palm on my pants before switching the weapon to my other hand and doing the same thing. I’d been in countless tight spots over the years, this was nothing new, yet I felt as if I was heading toward the end ofsomething.
Raphael gestured with his hand, and everyone knelt behind him. I glanced at Lix, Hawk, Erin, Vargas, and Shax as they edged closer to my left side. Raphael inched forward, and we all went with him. Caim, Corson, and Bale were slightly ahead of us and the closest to Raphael. I knew the minute they saw what lay ahead as their shoulders became rigid. Corson’s talons extended, and Caim briefly dropped his forehead into his hand before lifting itagain.
The burning of my lungs alerted me that I’d stopped breathing. Releasing my breath slowly, I slunk forward to kneel beside Corson. A chill slid over my flesh as I gazed at the scorched land before us. Once, in the center of that burnt earth, there had been a large gatewayintoHell.
All that remained of the gateway was this circle of dead land. No grass sprouted around it, no vegetation crept forward to reclaim the acreage it had lost. It was as if the damage the gateway created here would last forever, and I suspected that a hundred years from now, if the Earth still existed, this barren wasteland would remainthesame.
Hopefully, the monsters standing in the middle of it wouldn’t remain. I gulped as I gazed at those creatures. There were so many of them, each different from the others. The lower-level demons grouped together toward the far side of the clearing. Their more animalistic characteristics made them easy to distinguish from the upper-leveldemons.
The upper levels stood closer to the angels, their animosity evident in their eyes and postures, but they listened raptly to the angel speaking to them. The remaining fallen angels spread around the angel standing in the center of their loosecircle.
If their new leader was Astaroth, then I assumed he was the one standing in the middle. Astaroth held his wings open behind him, and the sun glinted ominously off his blood-red hair. Like the other angels, his face was stunning, but his wings were warped monstrosities. Thick veins twisted through the leathery black flesh of his wings. Those veins pulsed in the sun, revealing what looked like the sludge of rotting corpses pulsing through them instead ofblood.
Astaroth used the bottom silver tip of his right wing to point at those gathered around him. Some of the creatures I recognized as manticores, púca, gobalinus, ogres, and rokh. Many of them I didn’t know at all, and some of them were so hideous I couldn’t lookatthem.
Then there were the five bear-like creatures standing on their hind legs near the lower-level demons. The smallest one stood over seven feet, and the biggest had to be pushing ten feet tall. They had wolverine claws, pig snouts, red eyes, and thick brown coats. Jagged fangs hung down over theirlowerjaws.
“What is the thing that looks like a bear screwed a wolverine before mating a pig?” Iwhispered.
“Barta demon.” He spoke so low that I barely heard Corson’sreply.
I hoped to never run into one of them at night, or ever. I forced my attention from the barta and back to those gathered before us. The upper-level demons looked half tempted to rip the heads off all the angels, and I didn’t understand why they were here. They obviously despised the angels, and I’d thought the upper levels followedKobal.
Leaning closer to Corson, my lips nearly touched his ear as I spoke my next question. “Why are the upper-level demons here with the angels? Aren’t they Kobal’sfollowers?”
He rested his hand over mine, careful not to graze me with his talons. A little shiver went through me at the contact. Then my heart clenched with terror, not for me or because of the things only twenty yards away from us, butforhim.
I can’t lose him.I swallowed the lump in my throat the realization brought with it. I was further gone than I’d ever realized for this man. That terrified me more than all the demons and Hell creatures puttogether.
