Page 11 of The Black Rider
After everything he’d done to me, I wanted to know some of his dirty secrets. Yeah, I was a petty bitch. I wanted to know something big and nasty, like when he was alone, he walked around the house in a muumuu and bunny slippers. I wanted something to knock him down a peg in my head because right now he was this evil monster who had taken so much from me and used to me to try to end the world.
“Tell me one of his secrets.”
“He didn’t get the Nephilim super strength. He got charm and cunning because that was what he was made for. The Antichrist was designed to build acolytes and followers. He’s brilliant and can charm his way in and out of any situation, but his body is weak like a human. He’s super sensitive about it. He loaded up on steroids before the Rage Mutation hit, and he stockpiled them for after. Now, he’s trying to find a doctor in the middle of the apocalypse because his cock isn’t working right,” Leif said.
“He’s got a wife, but she’s not willing. She was a captive of a gang in D.C. He wanted her, and they didn’t want to give her up. Basically, they traded her to him for more guns and ammo, but she’s getting a reprieve from him because his cock stopped working.”
I sighed and lost my appetite for that delicious salsa.
“That story started out so good, and then you tell me he’s got a woman captive that he’s raping, and I can’t do a fucking thing about it.”
Leif just grinned at me.
“You ignored a major part of that story, Speedy. He’s got human weaknesses, and he’s running low on steroids now. You’re a Nephilim with super strength. This means when Isaiah meets Smurfette, he will be one dead Antichrist, and you’ll get your revenge,” Aeron said.
“You will let me be the one to kill him? That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
Leif just grinned.
“We’ll all hold him down while you beat him to a pulp. No one said it had to be one of us that killed him. I believe you earned that right.”
Yeah, I did. And I had a feeling when they were done going through that flash drive, I was just going to be more pissed off.
Chapter 9
I
wanted to get to work. I wanted to pour through that hard driveandget my blood to Leif at the same time. I wanted all the Rage Heads dead so we could storm the White House and kill my father. Leif and Aeron had totally different ideas.
“Come on, Ariel. Doctor Gonzalez said you needed to gain weight. We’re taking you out to eat. I can’t use your blood unless it’s healthy. Isaiah needed you terrified to create the Rage Mutation. I think the answer to reversing it is healthy,happyblood. So, we’re taking you on a date.”
“Do we really have time to be dating if we are on a time table before they unleash hell on Earth?”
Aeron pulled me into a hug.
“Ariel, we’ve been fighting our way down the West Coast for weeks. Just take five minutes to enjoy San Quintin. We had a date planned when we all finally met, and we didn’t get to have it. Let’s have it now.”
I had a flash of memory. We spent weeks planning what we would do on our first date. We would book a weekend at a resort I certainly couldn’t afford, but apparently, Leif and Aeron could. We would pretend to be posh and luxurious while subtly offending as many people as possible without getting kicked out.
“You’re right. It’s not a fancy resort, and my memory is still fucked, but we do need to celebrate meeting finally. What’s the plan?”
“Dinner and a movie still work during the apocalypse,” Leif said.
“Get the fuck out. There are no movies during the apocalypse.”
Aeron just winked at me.
“There’s supposed to be no crying in baseball either, but it happens. We’ve got movies. They are just repeats.”
Leif stood up and stretched.
“Aeron is an insufferable movie geek. He throws movie quotes into regular conversation all the time. You should have seen this big mother fucker’s face the first time he saw a movie after we’d been called for another Antichrist. It was like total awe.”
“Then we can definitely do a movie. What are we watching?”
“We have to watch them in Leif’s room, butonlythe greatest movies ever made. I was raiding for supplies and hit up a house with the entireDie Hardbox set in DVD.”
Leif groaned.
