Page 48 of The White Rider

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very little kid once dreamed of meeting the president in the Oval Office. Fuck, a lot of kidsdreamedof being president. A few presidents that were elected in my lifetime had proved literally anyone could be the President of the United States, even if they weren’t remotely qualified. My father wasn’t the first.

I was once that little kid. Science and math may have gone entirely over my head, but I adored English and History, and I was good at them. I probably understood the fucking Constitution better than anyone running the country right now, and I hadn’t been in school for a very long time.

This was not how I pictured things when I was a kid. I didn’t picture breaking in because the Horseman of Pestilence used the last of his energy to break the door down and destroy things painted on the walls that were giving me a nosebleed.

It honestly scared me shitless. I liked books about horny demons that had kinky sex with all kinds of people when they were out of Hell. Though I was guessing these weren’t those kinds of demons. Paranormal romance books totally didn’t prepare me for this.

The door blasted inward, and the Horsemen surged inside. These demons weren’t sexy like the ones in my books. They didn’t even resemble a person. Where was my tattooed hottie with the pierced dick? We were met by humanoid black clouds with glowing red eyes. The onlyparts of them that were solid were these wicked fangs and sharp claws.

Okay, that was just unfair. They had the tools to kill me, and Smurfette just passed right through them. They were legion. They just kept popping into the room from this spinning vortex. I couldn’t even see Isaiah because he was hiding behind it all.

Smurfette couldn’t kill these things, but thankfully the Horsemen’s weapons could. Their weapons made the demons turn solid on contact and they crumbled into little piles of black ash on the floor. Focus, Speedy. They gave you a task.

I was trying to avoid demon claws while getting my bearing in what was apparently the Oval Office, it definitely didn’t look like it though. His followers would have some serious questions if they saw how he had redecorated. There was a circle painted on the carpet with black spray paint and this evil-looking sigil inside, and black candles lit at points around the circumference.

I didn’t know a demon summoning circle from my asshole, but if I had to guess, that was it. How were you supposed to break those things? I really should have paid more attention to the various churches my father brought me to when he was buying preachers. Though, if they were willing to jump in his pocket, were theyreallygoing to preach anything that would help me right now?

The only things I had to go on were my books and television shows. What would Sam and Dean do in this situation? Their salt circles could be broken with a little wind, and they could break their demon circles up by disturbing the paint. Fiction had totally let me down when it came to sexy demons, but I was just going to go with Sam and Dean. They hadn’t let me down before.

*-This room waspackedwith demons and theHorsemenimmediately set about hacking them to bits. I was dodging claws, swords, and Asher’s arrows. Smurfettedid not kill these fucking things, she went straight through them and they would let out this ungodly shriek and disburse. Those shady bastards would just reappear again like a nasty case of herpes. Not that I’ve ever had herpes… but I paid attention in sex ed.

The demons must have known what I was trying to do. The ones that weren’t protecting my father were trying to stop me. And the Horsemen were trying to stop them. I just kept swinging. Those claws got me several times, and it hurt like a bitch. It wasn’t like a regular cut. It was like having your flesh ripped open by a burning hot knife that was coated in vinegar.

I didn’t stop. My trash panda shirt was tattered, and I was bleeding in several places, but I made it. I kicked one candle over, and the sigil went up in flames. Oops. Weren’t we trying to save the White House? Leave it to me to set the damn thing on fire.

I jumped back as the flames leapt up the velvet curtains in an instant and spread to the ceiling. A demon raked its claws down my already bleeding back. I screeched and whirled around. I couldn’t kill the thing, but I hoped it hurt when Smurfette went through it.

The demon’s back arched, and it shrieked in pain. It dissolved into a pile of ash at my feet. Aeron was standing there, in its place, with black ash all over him. All I could see were his eyes and the whites of his teeth as he grinned at me.

“Good job stopping them from getting through. Now, get behind me.”

“The Oval Office is on fucking fire, Aeron!”

Aeron grabbed me and yanked me behind him.

“You’re adorable, Ariel. It always does that when you destroy a circle.”

“Not to Sam and Dean!” I shrieked.

I was bleeding everywhere, and those cuts burned like fuck. I was quite content to hide behind the Horseman of Death since he could actually kill these things. The apocalypse had totally ruined my enjoyment of kinky demon romances.

The shrieking demons, the sounds of the fight, and the smoke from the fire I started that was now out had drawn some human Secret Service Bubbas. Some of them flipped their shit and ran, and some of them seemed to believe we were here fighting the demons to protect the president and not that he was the fucker that brought them here.

Wereallydidn’t need their help. Especially when they started wildly unloading bullets into the room. I swear, some people thought guns were the answer to everything, and bringing a gun to a demon fight was stupid. If I wasn’t bulletproof, then my father definitely wasn’t. These fuck douches weren’t even trying to aim. They were just shooting blindly and hoping they hit something.

The demons must not enjoy getting shot at, or they thought the same thing I did. One of those bullets was going to hit the Antichrist and do our job for us. The Secret Service Bubbasshouldhave been on their side, but the demons went after them, anyway.

Their dying shrieks were pretty horrible. Those guys could have put a bullet in me with their careless shooting, and they weren’t the good guys if they were protecting my father. I still wouldn’t have wished that on anyone.

I’d felt the sting of a few demon claws, and I’d probably need stitches. But I wasn’t ripped apart like those misguided men out there.

The demon horde was thinning now that I’d destroyed the circle. I could barely see in the Oval Office. There was still a lot of smoke from the fire, and black ash was in the air. I could see movement in the back of the room.

“Oh no you don’t!” I heard Dice yell.

I could see him frog-marching someone he had in a headlock to the back of the room while Asher picked off a couple ofdemonsthat were headed his way with arrows. Aeron started moving towards Dice,sodid Leif. I was using the Horseman of Death as a human shield against demon claws, so I just went with the flow and followed.