Geneva and Magnus appeared next, panting on adrenaline as they rushed forward to claw at my sleeve. “Nick, the number of deaths is skyrocketing on Earth! We've lost four thousand people already!” Magnus exclaimed as he showed me the reaping list. Sure enough, numbers were rapidly ticking upward, moving at lightning speed on the page. Names of fallen Humans covered the page, appearing one by one as they died on Earth.
I changed into my Elemental form and whipped my scythe free. “You two track down Ambermourn through his Shadow Walkers while I try and stop this chaos!”
“You can’t do this alone! This is beyond what we’ve ever seen before!” Geneva wailed.
I squeezed her arm lovingly. “I’ll do what I can, which will just have to be enough for now. Find Ambermourn and that book so we can stop this sooner.”
“Nick!” Odysseus and the other Gods, both Original, current, and soon-to-be, joined us, all in their Elemental forms and ready for the fight. “What do you want us to do?”
“I need to keep damage to a minimum. Life and Wind Elementals: go after Pestilence. Heal as many of the sick as possible. Fire and Water: go after War. Keep the battling at bay by putting up natural barriers between Humans. Electricity: go after Famine. Put up as many barriers and traps around food supplies as possible to keep him from starving people. Earth: do damage control. Heal the planet as rapidly as you can to keep it from falling apart. Death: you’re going to go after Atlas. Keep him from killing off as many people as possible. Resurrect whatever you can or hide Humans from him. I will join each of you as I can to try and tame the Horsemen you are battling,” I instructed over the powerful winds that tore through the field we stood in.
“You’re going to need all the help you can get. Do you think you can get the rulers of Gehenna on your side?” Endymionquestioned as he summoned his own scythe, and he and Seraphine came to my side.
“I have no clue. They follow Atlas’s command as the current God of Death, so they may be turned against us.” I snapped my fingers. “Mom and Odysseus: can you summon the Life Elementals in Caelum to aid in the fight? They can keep the demons at bay for us if Atlas should summon them.”
“On it!” they replied automatically before sending two beams of brilliant light into the sky. When it cracked through the clouds and through to the Life Realm, signaling the warriors above us, a loud horn echoed through the sky. Life Elementals, who bore the glorious wings Odysseus had in his ultimate form, soared through the air and towards us, dressed in golden battle armor. Their swords gleamed in the pale light, and their sharp eyes were ready for the intensity of the situation ahead of us. Mom changed to her ultimate form as well, her body beaming light energy that broke up the oppressive black sucking us in. “Take to the skies and keep any demons you can at bay! Atlas will most definitely summon them, and if he does, we need you as our main line of defense. This is the moment you’ve trained your entire lives for, ladies and gentlemen, so take this as seriously as you can.”
“Yes, Goddess!” they echoed obediently.
I turned to the ex-Gods beside me. “Seraphine, Endymion: find Atlas for me. Send one of your Shadows to find me while I help with the other Horsemen. I will try to contain them to the best of my ability before circling back to you.”
“Will do. Let us know the moment you find Ambermourn,” Endymion snarled before the two dissipated in clouds of black smoke.
“Odysseus: let’s go after Pestilence first. She’s the main one killing so many souls right now, as she moves the quickest.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
I looked over my shoulder to the rest of the Gods. “Good luck, everyone. You're going to need it.”
Odysseus, Mom, Erasmus, Zephryine, Esen, Praxis and I barreled through the Human Realm as fast as we could, following the path of destruction leading towards Pestilence, or Bodhi. We knew where he had been based on the flooded hospitals and corpses lying in piles along hastily dug holes. Humans scrambled to find places to put bodies, which were dropping faster than they could blink. They dug alcoves into fields to pile up the dead, a morbid sight that made Praxis sick to her stomach.
Coughing and hacking filled homes, streets, hospital beds. Schools were closing, businesses were shutting down, and the heads of countries were giving live broadcasts to try and ease the minds of people who had no clue what was causing this mass illness. No one had answers, cures, or any way to stop the destruction taking place, as they did not see the monster gliding through the shadows after them, bringing poison into their homes.
Odysseus, Mom, and Erasmus each split to take over a country and start healing as many people in hospitals as possible, while Zephryine, Esen, and Praxis followed me to the concentrated center of energy that fed this overwhelming illness. In the distance, the dark figure Bodhi had once been changed into a glorious, terrifying being. His long white hair spilled down to his waist, adorned by a crown of spikes and thorns atop his head.
His eyes were covered by a blindfold, and the long white robes he adorned covered his vital areas. His long legs split the robes to allow him to dance from building to building, where he sent swarms of disease-ridden gases through the homes of innocentHumans. These gases carried deadly illnesses that, when struck a Human, made them cough until blood spilled from their throats and noses. Many died within minutes of becoming infected, dropping to the floor in pools of their own blood and refuse.
I paused on the rooftop of an apartment building that paramedics were dragging victims from and loading into packed ambulances. “Guys, I need you to keep those gases away from the Humans. Try to swallow them up or direct them in the opposite direction. I'm going to try and trap Pestilence similarly to how we trapped Pandora.”
“Will that work?” Esen questioned.
I shrugged lamely to his surprise. “He dispels gases from his mouth and hands, so I figured if I can cover those, he can’t keep spreading anything.”
“Don’t get yourself killed!” Praxis teased to lighten the mood, if only slightly, before she and her mother exhaled sharply, then inhaled. That exhale sent a whirling wind from their bodies that spun through the dense air, and when it made contact with the gas Pestilence was spewing, it siphoned the gases up and into the mouths of the two Wind Gods. I knew their bodies could handle the toxins, so I left them to work while I went after Pestilence. Esen went to try and siphon the gases from any nearby Humans that still had a chance at survival.
Displeased by the Wind Gods, Pestilence turned to disrupt their currents, but my scythe came from the thick fog and crunched under his chin to send him flying in the opposite direction. He toppled over and collapsed into an old factory, which crumbled under the weight of his massive form. “Come on, Bodhi, come back to me, buddy! Don’t make me hurt you!” I pleaded.
Pestilence was far from worried about me and let out a hollow, dark snicker. That snicker said it all; I was nothing more than anuisance to his plan, a fly he needed to smack to stop buzzing in his ear. He drew a long bow from his back and licked the arrow before shooting it at me. The arrow, once it locked onto its target, refused to do anything but follow me as I desperately tried to break free of its hold. I turned to try and catch it in my bare hands, but when it pierced my shoulder, a gut-wrenching, agonizing pain filled the pit of my stomach.
“Nick!” Bianca gasped when a clot of blood spewed from my mouth, coating the ground beneath me.
“He poisoned the arrows...!” I wheezed, hacking up more blood viciously. “Bianca! Try to siphon the poison out of me!”
Bianca turned to my Shadows and began pointing at directions she wanted them to go. “Claude, Jackson: get a grip on Pestilence while I help Nick. May, Bex, and Alice: keep him away from us long enough for me to do what I need to.”
“Easier said than done!” Claude groaned before he and Jackson took off to do as she asked.
“Hold still, honey. I'll make this quick,” Bianca assured as she pressed our lips together so she could start pulling the poison from my body.
