Soul of Stone Read online

  “You defy the will of the horsemen?” Death rasped. He ran a slender finger down the curve of the blade on his sickle.

  “I defy the end of the world,” I said.

  Death faced me. His thin lips curved up into a smile. “Then, so be it!”

  He was the first to move in. He swung his sickle, and I raised Excalibur just in time. The blades clanged, a hot, white light bursting outward. The blow staggered us both in opposite directions. I blinked away the blotches temporarily imprinted on my retinas to get a close-up view of an inrushing War, his hammer raised. I pulled out Bam Bam and fired all in one motion. A magic shotgun slug exploded out of her muzzle and sprayed War in the chest, halting his charge. A noise behind me made me spin. Famine was bounding in, fat rippling all over him like sand dunes caught in the wind.

  I aimed Bam Bam. “What in the hell is that?” Alabama ‘Angel Eyes’ Tanner’s soul shouted from within the gun. “Shoot it!”

  I did as I was told. Bam Bam boomed. Famine came to an abrupt stop, the shotgun blast hitting him somewhere in his mounds of flab. I barely had time to catch my breath when the final one, Pestilence, was on me. He came in all claws. I instinctively whirled and swung Excalibur at the same time. The blade cut across Pestilence’s belly as he came storming in. His robes tore, and ancient flesh opened, flecks of rot spilling out. Pestilence raised his hands to the sky and wailed in agony, causing the air to rock with lightning and thunder. The world shook for a prolonged moment. I reeled against it, my heart hammering. Terror shuddered through me. I was suddenly locked in a battle against mythical legends. And there was me thinking my life couldn’t get any worse!

  The wound I’d inflicted on Pestilence caused him to lose control over his flies. They fell away from Draxil’s arms. He collapsed to the concrete on his hands and knees.

  Pestilence finally stopped shrieking like a bitch and got back in the game, his fellow horsemen joining him.

  I faced all four of them, holstering a now empty Bam Bam. They surrounded me in a semicircle while I stood ahead of Draxil, protecting him from them.

  Man, what the hell am I doing? Was I actually protecting a demon from the horsemen? Why? Have I gone nuts?

  “You will pass slow through the Judgement,” Death told me. “First, Pestilence will riddle your body with crippling disease. War will then beat you to within an inch of your life. Famine will starve what is left of you until you are skin and bone. And then I will devour your soul piece by piece over the course of five centuries.”

  I gulped. “Who the hell are you? Sarlacc?”

  “And it’s your tongue I will feast on first!” Death sneered and floated in ghost-like. My back straightened, my eyes widening. Death swiped that sickle at my legs and I jumped without thinking. The sickle sliced the air below me where my shins had been waiting. I landed back down and sent Death a right hook, connecting with his jaw. His ancient head snapped back, and he fell to the side.

  War dived in for some, doing his obligatory roaring. I had about half a second to react before that hammer head came hurtling in. I swung Excalibur as hard as I could toward it. The two weapons clashed on the air, each negating the other. A blinding flash exploded out, and I stumbled, having to duck from the light. War tripped over his own legs, and his ass hit the rooftop. I made sure to seize the initiative. I pushed hard against my backward momentum, shaking off the remnants of the blinding flash. I managed to get myself moving toward War, Excalibur raised.

  “Finish him, Demonslayer,” the voice of King Arthur’s soul possessing Excalibur urged.

  I grabbed the hilt with both hands, envisaging plunging the tip of my blade right through War’s heart. I made it to his sprawled body, his bleary eyes still blinded by the light. I let out a grunt as I thrust my blade back and went to drive it through him. Sharp, biting pain tore across my hands. A harsh buzz filled my ears like the inner sanctums of a beehive.

  My eyes shot toward my hands. They’d vanished in a shimmering black mass. I gasped in shock, the chewing and gnawing pain rocketing. Before I could scream, I was flung off my feet, my body shooting skyward. Excalibur clanged to the rooftop while I was hoisted up into the air by the flies buzzing around my hands. I dangled on the air like a fish caught on a hook, my legs flapping. The flies flew out in opposing directions. My arms felt like they were about to rip out of their sockets. I groaned in pain and looked down; the four horsemen were staring up at me in glee.

  Now they could finish Draxil. I watched on helpless as they approached the demon, who was still on his hands and knees. I struggled against the flies, but the more I did, the more their tiny fangs bit into my flesh. I kicked my legs out, but that was about as much use an ashtray on a motorbike.

  The horsemen gathered around Draxil, readying their weapons to give him an old-fashioned beatdown. All I could do was watch. My mind fizzed with panic. If what Draxil said was true, then Aurora, wherever she was, was about to die, and I was guessing the prophecy of the Dark Bearer would be triggered.

  But that was only if Draxil hadn’t been lying, and as he was a demon and all...

  Well, we were about to find out. Either Draxil was about to be sent back to Hell, or things were gonna get much hotter. As in hellfire hot.

  “Pitiful demon,” Famine sneered down at Draxil. “You thought you could hide from us?”

  “We’ve been waiting patiently for this moment, Draxil. Our Day has finally arrived,” Pestilence said with glee.

  “How we’ve longed to tear this miserable world asunder,” said Death as he raised his sickle. Lightning glinted off its immaculate blade, and my blood ran cold.

  War raised his hammer, a rumble of thunder accompanying him. He probably did that on purpose to try and be all dramatic or something. Asshole.

  I glared down at Draxil with eager eyes. Come on, Draxil! Get up! Do something! The guy was just there on his knees doing nothing. I willed him to get up and fight.

  War let out a cry of rage.

  The markings running up Draxil’s forearms flared into life. The luminescent light sprinted up to the tattoos on his shoulders and across his back. In a split second, he was a darkly glowing mass. His head snapped up; his eyes were two carousels of dark energy. Dark exploded out from him, a black cloud of something...not good.

  All four horsemen were sent flying. The energy shot up toward me, and my legs swung like pendulums. Below me, Draxil was engulfed with that black cloud. The horsemen cowered away from it. Draxil was back on his feet. His body glowed dark. He held his palms up ahead of him. Black fire danced on the fingertips of one hand while some kind of red globule akin to a ball of putty sat on his other palm. He threw that globule like he was pitching a baseball. It hit Famine in his moobs, where it obliterated like a paintball, red splashing across him. Famine opened his mouth, and an inhuman screech tore across the air as the red stuff sizzled and crackled, a stench of barbequed lard floating up to me.

  Draxil didn’t wait around. He thrust his hand toward Death. A stream of dark fire shot out of Draxil’s hand and hit the old man in the chest. Draxil let out a cackle. The SOB was loving it!

  While Death was burning and the red stuff was frying Famine alive, War charged Draxil from the side.

  “Draxil, look out!” I shouted down at him.

  It was too late. War slammed his hammer into Draxil’s side. Draxil growled and staggered away while War wound up another blow.

  Draxil got a grip of himself; the markings on his right arm flared red. A dark fireball burst from his palm and smashed into War. War was thrown off his feet. His back slammed into the rooftop, a sticky, tar-like substance marking his skin where the fireball struck.

  To my sheer amazement, Draxil was getting the better of them.

  And then he did something unreal. While his brothers were getting their asses handed to them, Pestilence decided to rush Draxil from behind. Draxil noticed him at the last moment. He bent down and swiped up Excalibur.

  My jaw dropped.

  Draxil, a demon str
aight out of Hell, was wielding the divine blade. That shouldn’t have been happening. Draxil held Excalibur up shoulder height and pirouetted like a drunk ballet dancer. Although his movement was clunky, it was effective. Pestilence ran straight into the blade’s path. Excalibur cut clean through his neck, lopping off his head. I watched it fly away and bounce across the roof, my mouth agape. Thick, green blood gushed out of the neck stump of Pestilence’s decapitated corpse as it dropped.

  Draxil looked about him. Famine was a maddened gibbering mess, that red stuff still sizzling away at him. War was rolling in agony, his chest scorched. Death was floored, and Pestilence, well, he’d lost his head. Which meant his flies didn’t have any more power. They fell away from my hands, my eyes widening as I fell alongside them. I hit the roof, my legs jarring. I fell back in an agonized heap. I gazed at the dark-gray sky as I waited for the pain to subside.

  A hand shot into my view, making me start. A demonic hand that I recognized. Hando. Only now he was attached to the rest of the demon. I stared at that hand in apprehension. It was offering help, but I’d just watched it shoot fire and red globules. And it was a demon’s hand.

  It slammed the air, adamant for me to take it.

  And I did. I grabbed hold of it. It was hot and sweaty. Draxil lifted me back on my feet while still clutching Excalibur in his other hand. I was about to ask how he was able to do that when Famine howled. He wiggled his belly, and the red stuff dripped off him like melting wax. Next to him, War was busy peeling off his burned skin to reveal healed skin beneath. Death was slapping at the remnants of the dark fire rippling on his body, dousing it.

  And beyond it all, Pestilence’s headless corpse was rising like a zombie. My jaw dropped as it staggered over to its head and picked it up.

  “What the hell?” I gasped as I watched Pestilence put his head back on, the severed flesh at the neck mending itself. Within seconds, all four horsemen faced us once more, their wounds healed.

  “They are immortal,” Draxil said.

  “Now you tell me,” I replied, my heart filling with dread. They got their weapons ready for round two.

  “How do we beat them?” I asked.

  Draxil shook his head. “We cannot. We can only stop them from defeating us.”

  “But if we can’t beat them, we’ll only hold them off.”

  Draxil straightened his back. “Then we’ll fight them for eternity.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t have that much time on my hands.”

  Death pointed a finger at us. “Surrender! And we will show mercy.”

  Yeah right! There was no way I could stay there fighting those immortals for the rest of my life. I had better things to do. I pulled out my Deck of Death from my jacket pocket. Luck was on my side. The joker was waiting for me near the top. I grabbed him, stuffed the rest of the cards into my pocket, and cut the top edge across the air ahead of me. A tear to the Netherworld opened.

  “Okay, time to leave,” I said as I stepped behind Draxil and gave him an almighty shove. The demon staggered into the portal with a surprised groan. I gave the horsemen a quick wave before I jumped through to the Netherworld to join him.

  Chapter 3

  I tore the bottom edge of the joker card across the portal, closing it back up before the horsemen could follow us. I immediately snatched Excalibur from Draxil’s grip and poked the tip into his chest. “Okay, start talking!”

  Draxil frowned. “Where are we?” he asked, gazing around, ignoring the threatening blade.

  “The Netherworld,” I said between heavy pants.

  “Take us back there!” Draxil demanded.

  My face contorted in confusion. “Are you nuts? You said they were immortal. Maybe ‘immortal’ means something different where you’re from, but in the world I live, it means shit that can’t be killed. Going back there is suicide.”

  Draxil straightened his back. “Immortal or not, I’ll still fight them.”

  “Even though they’ll eventually kill you?”

  “Pah, those four couldn’t fight their way out of a Second Circle brothel.”

  I glared at him for a second before an uncontrollable burst of laughter erupted from my chest. I shook my head, the tension melting away. I lowered Excalibur.

  Draxil pointed at the ground. “What is this place?”

  I looked down at my feet. The ground was a lattice of giant bones. We were up high. “We’re on Bone Tower. It must be the Netherworld equivalent of Dark Suits HQ. Never knew that.”

  “We have to get off this thing and destroy the horsemen.”

  “Whoa, easy there, cowboy. I agree with the first part, but the second part doesn’t wash. Why do you need to kill the horsemen?”

  “Because they won’t stop until I’m dead. And if I die, then—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said with a nod. “The Dark Bearer dies. How do I know you’re even telling me the truth?”

  “You have to believe me, Stone. I was formed into the Armor of Agony to absorb the Dark Bearer’s magic. I ate a piece of her magical essence during the ceremony with Beelzebub and Samuel. We are now connected.”

  “Well, we’ll have to unconnect you.”

  “Agreed. We have to find a way. But until then, we’ll need—” His eyes widened. “Behind you!” he blurted. I whirled on my heels. A section of the bones rattled into life and formed into a rough outline of a headless body. It outstretched its arms and raced over to us, its bony feet clacking. I drew Bam Bam.

  “Blast it!” Bam Bam shouted.

  I pulled the trigger. Bam Bam exploded into action. Good thing I’d loaded her with normal slugs. They were just the trick against bone. The slug hit the mass of rattling bones before it could reach me. There was a small crunch, and the bones exploded out in all directions. They pinged across the bigger bones of the roof.

  I turned to face Draxil. “Thanks.”

  He gave me a small nod and grunt in return.

  I looked around us with wary eyes. “We better get off this tower.”

  “Lead the way.”

  I headed toward the gap in the ground, cautious of any more bone monsters that might be lurking around. I started down the bony steps, and we entered the tower fully. The staircase we were on spiraled down all the way to the ground far away. The walls surrounding us were made entirely of bones of all shapes and sizes. “Ugh. This is gonna be fun. Keep an eye out.”

  I kept Bam Bam at the ready, my gaze fixed on the walls around us, expecting something to jump out at any moment. “How did you pick up Excalibur?” I asked my demon pal. “You need divinity to lift him.”

  Draxil cocked his head to the side. “Do not judge a tome by its binding, Stone. Contrary to what my physical form represents in your mind, I am not all bad. I was an angel once too. Like Satan, Beelzebub, Baal, Mammon, all of them. The difference is, I didn’t lose it all like they did.”

  “You’re a fallen angel?”

  “That is correct. I was part of the rebellion against Jehovah. I was cast into the pit of Hell.”

  The wall ahead shimmered for a second, and out jumped another headless skeleton. My eyes widened. It raced up the steps toward me, rattling and skittling. “Shoot the varmint!” ordered Bam Bam. I didn’t need her to tell me. I aimed and pulled the trigger. The blast hit the sucker full on, and there was that satisfying crunch of bones obliterating. They blew out the back of it, whatever was remaining collapsing to the steps.

  “Good aim, Stone,” Draxil said.

  “Thanks,” I replied as I cranked open Bam Bam and fished more slugs from my jacket pocket.

  “So, why did you rebel?” I asked Draxil as I continued down the steps.

  “There was a war. Angel against angel. Lucifer tricked us into joining his rebellion. He lied to us. Spoke to us in a forked tongue. He told us he had knowledge of Jehovah wishing to bring an end to the angels. We believed our very existence to be threatened. Some of the others knew the lies but wished for Lucifer to conquer Heaven over God and there
fore kept silent. By the time we discovered the deception, our flesh had been rendered and twisted, our bodies deformed by the pit. The fact that I was deceived allowed me to retain a sliver of divinity. We were wrong to join Lucifer. We have tried to reconcile with Jehovah, but it has fallen on deaf ears.”

  I nodded my head in understanding. “I know the feeling.”

  “I decided to return the deception. I rose through the ranks of Hell to become a Prince. I had all the delights of the Nine Circles of Hell in the palm of my hand. Death, torture, pleasures of the flesh, it did nothing for me. Left me empty. It was not my intention. My plan was to lead a revolt against Satan. To overthrow him.”

  “Why?”

  “Lucifer reveled in his newfound role as the epitome of evil. He loves being Satan. Loves to be the thorn in God’s creation. We, the deceived, wish to be pardoned. We believed by overcoming Satan and blocking Hell and its minions from interfering with Earth and mankind, it would be proof enough of our sincerity.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Our plan was thwarted by the other Princes of Hell, who betrayed us. I was handed to Satan’s Six Diseased Disciples. I was tortured, cut into pieces, my body used for the new plan Hell had devised to claim the Earth.”

  I nodded. “The prophecy of the Dark Bearer.”

  “Indeed.”

  The stairs above our heads rattled into life, and a bunch of bones fell to the steps behind me. I whirled around to be faced with a small skeletal mountain. I went to shoot when Draxil’s huge fist punched through the bones, causing them to scatter and fall. “Damn things,” Draxil said, pulling his fist back.

  I lowered Bam Bam and continued on my way down the steps. “So, how did the prophecy begin?”

  “It’s a long tale, Stone.”

  I looked over the side of the bone railing. I couldn’t see the ground. “From the looks of things, we’ve got a long time.”

  “Magic,” Draxil said. “It was never intended for this world. Only the angels were to be blessed with it. But when Lucifer was cast into the pit, he passed through Earth. As he fell, he left a residue of his magic within the Earth. Over time, the magic fused with Nature. Nature combined with chaos, and a brief period of turmoil ensued. Volcanoes erupted, spewing forth the magic held within. From it sprung the first borne of magic. A young succubus.”