Page 47 of The White Rider
So, I wassupersuspicious about this stench.
I grabbed Leif.
“That smell means something bad. What is it?”
“Fire and Brimstone. He’s either called in Daddy himself or Daddy sent demons.”
Dice just snorted.
“Satan isnothere. They’ve tried this before. He always sends minions because he knows he’s outnumbered.”
“Until he manipulated things to get a Nephilim with Harbinger gifts to tell him he’ll win if he comes,” Leif reminded him.
“Want to place a wager he’s not in there?” Dice asked.
Was I seriously hearing this? My father was human enough that Smurfette could definitely kill him. I doubted she could kill demons or Satan, and I was pretty sure both of them could kill all of us. Angels were so fucked up sometimes.
“No bets,” I said. “How do I kill them?”
“You can’t,” Leif said. “Not with just a baseball bat. Let us handle anything from Hell. There will be a summoning circle. You need to get to it and destroy it, so more can’t come through. Destroy the circle and get behind one of us. We’ll cut a path through them. They’ll be defending him at all costs.”
I didn’t want to ask, but I had to. Satan took my memories. All of them. I didn’t even know my name when I woke up. They were slowly coming back, but would I ever get all of them back? He was the fucking Devil. What else could he do? The Horsemen all had their specific gifts, and I doubted Satan’s abilities were limited to stealing memories from his grandchild.
“And if the Devil is in there?” I demanded.
“Dice is probably right,” Leif said. “This is not the first time an Antichrist has called Daddy for help. Satan isn’t stupid. He can make another Antichrist and learn from what went wrong this time if Isaiah dies. He’s not going to risk his life facing off against us. It was his idea to kidnap a Harbinger to micromanage the outcome. He knows things tend to change when decisions are made. He’s not going to trust a drawing you did when you were a teenager because after you did it, you ran and met us.”
“Demons, though? Why couldn’t any of this involve puppies and kittens? The zombies were bad enough.”
Dice just shrugged.
“Sure, the zombies are new, but you can’t have an Apocalypse without demons, Speedy. Look alive. We’re here.”
We were standing outside two ornate doors. I felt sicker than ever, and the acrid stench of fire and brimstone was even more overwhelming this close. I could hear rustling and these awful keening wails behind the doors. I felt something wet on my lip and tried to brush it off. My fingers came away bloody.
Now, my nose was bleeding, too, and it felt like all my energy was being zapped away. Beings from the bowels of Hell were through that door, protecting my father, and I felt so weak, it was like Smurfette weighed a million pounds. The Oval Office must have had demonic symbols on every surface because it felt much worse here. The Horsemen were bleeding from their eyes now.
They had to be feeling the same thing I was, but they probably thought this was all fun and games instead of being scared shitless like me. They all had these insane grins on their faces as they raised their weapons and lined up outside the door.
“Get behind me, Speedy,” Leif said. “I’m about to blast through all those wards and the fucking door. I don’t know what to expect on the other side. Be prepared for anything.”
“Are angels like my vibrator? You know, rechargeable? Once those sigils are gone, are we going to get our energy back? I feel like utter ass.”
Asher rolled his eyes.
“We have a sigil of our own that we can paint that will give us a boost, but, to be clear… no, weare notlike your vibrator.”
Dice just smacked him on the back.
“Maybe you aren’t, but the rest of us kind of are.”
“Shut up,” Leif growled. “I barely have enough energy to do this, and I need to concentrate.”
We were seriously about to do this, while bleeding from multiple orifices and feeling weaker than newborn kittens. This level just got a million times harder.
It sure would be nice if I had done an updated painting about this scenario because I wasn’t feeling very badass right now.
Chapter 29
