400 Horsepower of the Apocalypse
Chapter 25
So that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach wasn’t just fear — it was the sensation of an encroaching horseman. But there was still plenty of fear as Famine’s stripped-down black chopper raced down Highway 44 toward me, and I didn’t sense the electric fire of angelic backup this time.
I staggered a step back. Running or flying the hell away from here sounded like a great idea, but the bus was still stalled on the top of the hill, out of gas.
That is Famine’s doing, Uriel said.
What’s going to happen to those people when Famine gets here? I asked.
Nothing good.
The archangels might not have cared what happened to the Earth and its people, but I did.
I’m done running, I said. How do you feel about kicking some ass?
Uriel skimmed quickly through my thoughts to make sense of my words.
In single combat against Famine and without my full manifestation of power, you cannot win, Uriel said. And killing a horseman alone, before we are gathered for the final battle, is against the laws of our creation… But I believe that we can lead Famine away from the humans.
How? I asked.
I couldn’t outrun a motorcycle — not even a normal one, to say nothing of a horseman’s demonic steed. Famine raced down the double yellow line of the road at me. The matte black paint job seemed to devour the slowly fading sunlight.
I recommend flight, Uriel said. Both literally and figuratively.
I stepped out into the highway and held up my hand, middle finger raised.
“Hey Famine!” I shouted. “Over here! I’m the one you want!”
The gaunt horseman leaned over the stretched-out handlebars of its chopper and pale eyes glared at me from its deep-set, sunken sockets.
You have its attention, Uriel said. Get ready!
Light blazed around me and formed into a pair of luminous wings that spread out from my shoulders. My feet floated up off the asphalt and my cramping stomach shot into my throat. I remembered the lurching, buffeting flight of the helicopter and wasn’t excited about this plan.
Your mortal machines are no match for an angel’s wings, Uriel said. Now fly, Jaz!
Behind me, the bus driver shouted something that sounded like more cursing, but the words came out so fast that they all ran together. A cold, sharp wind whipped out along Highway 44 as Famine closed in.
I didn’t know how to drive a pair of wings any better than a helicopter, but my angelic passenger had an eternity of practice. Uriel was a powerful, looming presence inside me and for the first time since all of this began, I was grateful.
My glowing wings beat once and I shot up into the air like a fired arrow. I had the sudden but distinct impression that aerodynamics, Newtonian physics and other such trivialities didn’t matter much to an angel in flight. I was terrified to look down, but I had to lead Famine away from the bus, or innocent people were going to get hurt.
I forced my eyes open and found the bony black shape of Famine’s steed fifty feet below. The horseman turned its skeletal face up toward me and bone-white eyes gleamed malevolently in its sockets.
Go! Uriel cried.
With a thought, I shot out in the opposite direction along the dark ribbon of Highway 44. The lean chopper revved, growling like an empty stomach as Famine pulled it around in a tight turn and raced after me. Greasy black smoke billowed from the tailpipe and smelled like burnt meat.
I banked along a curve of Highway 44, blasting over a convertible with its top down. A middle-aged driver gaped as I flew overhead, but then her engine guttered and died. The sports car swerved off across the shoulder of the highway and Famine shot past. The convertible’s driver grabbed her midsection and then doubled over, gasping.
We’ve got to get that thing away from people, I thought. Let’s go off road!
I tipped one shoulder and my glowing wings dipped me into a precipitous swoop. The ground below me changed from black asphalt to cracked earth and jumbled red-brown stones. It was the kind of rough terrain that dirt bikes were made for, not low-riding cruisers like Famine’s motorcycle.
Let’s see a chopper handle this!
Famine raced right after me, off the highway and across the desert. The chopper’s out-thrust front wheel plowed through the rocks, blowing them apart into sand and cutting a deep, dark line through the dry ground.
Okay, I didn’t actually want to see the motorcycle handle the sudden off-roading. It was just an expression…! But the demon-bike was making short work of the miles between us and gaining quickly on me.
Nothing can outrun a horseman on its steed, Uriel reminded me.
Which had been great news when I was the one on the back of Leo’s Packmaster and making Spotters and angels alike eat our dust. But what was I supposed to do now?
We cannot battle a fully manifested horseman, Uriel said. Good thing the angel lived inside my skull, or I never would have been able to hear them over the wind screaming in my ears. Not unless you give up your body to me.
Not a chance, Uriel, I thought. But I had another idea. You told me once that the horsemen invest a lot of their power into their steeds, right?
Yes, Uriel answered.
Then Famine should be weaker if we can get it off that chopper, I said.
Yes!
I shared the archangel’s white-hot rush of joy at my idea and something sweet like hope. My luminous white wings spread wider and I pulled up into a steep and sudden rise. The ground fell away dizzyingly below me until even the biggest red-brown boulders became pebbles casting long sunset shadows across the desert floor. Famine was a blade of black metal at the head of a billowing cloud of dust.
Have we lost our minds? I asked Uriel.
Perhaps, the angel answered. But if we can dismount the horseman and keep it from its steed, it may flee the battlefield. Famine was never as brave as Death or War.
“Then let’s do this,” I said.
Famine closed the gap between us all too quickly, tearing through a stand of joshua trees. They twisted and shriveled as the chopper roared past, and then one of the desiccated trees exploded into splinters when Famine slammed right through in a full-throttle charge after me.
Icy wind howled in my ears. I angled myself, then folded my glowing wings and dove at Famine from one side, screaming in absolute terror the whole way. The ground hurtled toward me and I had nightmare visions of being splattered into a smear of red across the rocks, but I spread my angelic wings and pulled up suddenly. Famine reached out for me with ragged fingernails that I would have bet could rip through solid steel. I shouted and kicked frantically, then slammed full-force into the emaciated horseman.
The speed of my sudden dive and the power of Uriel’s luminous wings lifted Famine out of its seat, into the air. But I moved with it, grabbing a double handful of decaying biker leathers. I beat my wings and we sailed together over a rust-colored ridge. Famine hissed like a huge, hungry cat in my grip and pounded one bony fist into my face with the force of a freight train. The blow glanced off Uriel’s glowing aura, but the pain still made my eyes water.
We hit the ground on the other side of the hill hard enough to make the earth shudder and throw up a miniature mushroom cloud of dust. Famine lashed out at me with one stick-thin leg and kicked me off. I flew up and around in a barely-controlled arc, but the horseman’s kick didn’t land as hard as the punch had. I whirled and picked out the distant shadowy plume of the riderless chopper cutting its way across the desert.
I leapt back into the air, beating my wings to get some altitude, but even without its steed, Famine was still eerily fast. The skeletal horseman pounced at me, raking its jagged nails down my back and drawing star-bright sparks off my angelic aura. We hit the ground together like a boulder dropped from high orbit and the shock shivered up my spine, but I remained on my feet — in the center of a sandy crater the size of a hot tub.
Damn, angelic powers were badass. Time to play keep away from the demon-bike.
Famine lunged in the direction of its racing steed, so I threw myself into the horseman’s path — even as every human part of me screamed to run the other way — and clotheslined Famine with one wing. The blow slammed us both back, carving foot-deep furrows into the hard-packed dirt.
Somewhere out in the desert behind us, the chopper hissed like a huge snake.
Famine ran at me in a blur of pale skin and tattered leather. Sagebrush shriveled into twisted gray knots as the horseman passed and the wind howled, cold and barbed. It ripped at me and Uriel’s aura flared again. Without the angel’s help, there’s no way I could have stayed on my feet.
My hand glowed with power and I swung it at Famine, but an engine roared and a streak of black and tarnished chrome slammed into me. I tumbled across the earth, then crashed into a big red boulder. It should have smashed me like an insect on a windshield, but the stone shattered into pieces.
I lifted my face and spat out a mouthful of dust as Famine’s chopper spun to a stomach-churning stop at its master’s side. The bike had torn its way right through the middle of a stony hill to reach Famine, leaving a rough valley between the two remaining halves.
I jumped back to my feet, marveling that I could stand at all after being run over at a bazillion miles per hour. Famine threw a bone-thin leg over the motorcycle’s leather seat and grabbed the throttle in one spidery hand.
My entire body pumped and buzzed with adrenalin, but my guts were still twisted into knots as Famine shot toward me.
We need to split them up again, I thought desperately. Alright, Uriel, what have we got? Flaming sword? Lightning bolts from on high? Give me something smitey!
If we could separate the horseman and steed long enough, we might have been able to overcome Famine, Uriel told me. But we are out of time.
The tightness inside me was worse now than when Famine first appeared. It wasn’t just fear or excitement — something else was coming. But was that my backup or Famine’s? Did it matter? Even if that white-hot surging sensation inside me heralded the approach of an archangel, one touch would give Uriel all the power they needed to take over.
Famine skidded to a stop, hurling sand and stone into the air. But there was no concession or fear there in the thin horseman’s posture as it craned a long neck in the direction of the highway. Famine’s razor-blade slash of a mouth curved into a grin. Whatever was coming, it wasn’t an angel.
“Oh, shit,” I said.
The hot-cold sensation of the approaching horseman made my hands clench and Uriel’s light wavered around me. Who was out there? Pestilence again? I wasn’t in a big hurry to face that disgusting personified disease a second time, but I doubted that meeting War would be any better.
This was not how I wanted to die, and it sure as hell wasn’t what Uriel wanted, either. But there were worse ways to go… At least I would still be me.
I settled my weight into the best fighting stance I knew, ready to show the horsemen every single biting, scratching, crotch-punching dirty trick I learned since grade school.
I am prepared, Uriel agreed. If this is the end, let us fight it to the last.
Another motorcycle blazed through the darkening desert, cresting a stony ridge. It was the Packmaster, all shiny black and red and chrome.
Death?
No, Uriel said. That is not Death…!
I stared into the dying light, but the angel was right. It was Leo! Bullet holes riddled his leather jacket and blood darkened his shirt, but that was his own tattooed skin and Leo’s beautiful brown eyes were wide, fixed on me as he raced down the rocky hill.
“Jaz!” he shouted.
Leo barely slowed as he held out his hand and I tangled my fingers through his. I jumped, beat my glowing wings once, and he pulled me up behind him. I swung my leg over the Packmaster and Uriel’s wings disintegrated into a cloud of golden sparks. I wrapped my arms around Leo and he brought the bike in a tight arc to face Famine.
“Death,” the gaunt horseman wheezed.
Its voice wasn’t loud, but I could hear that name perfectly even over the roar of the two motorcycle engines. Famine’s voice echoed, so achingly hollow that it made my stomach growl and cramp with hunger. I never wanted a cheeseburger so badly in my life.
“War knows your vessel’s heart,” Famine said, leveling one needle-like finger at Leo. “War knows your weakness. You will come to us and the four horsemen will ride together.”
Leo slammed on the Packmaster’s brake, throwing me hard against him, and yanked a handgun out from his ruined leather jacket. It was big and black, with a flashlight mounted under the barrel. I was pretty sure I had seen some of the Spotters wearing sidearms just like it.
“Fuck you,” Leo said.
He aimed at Famine and pulled the trigger. Leo had to know that bullets weren’t going to hurt Famine any more than they had Pestilence, but it didn’t stop him from trying.
Leo’s shots hammered into Famine’s thin body, then clattered to the desert floor in flattened lead discs. We humans are a stupid, stubborn lot, and I loved us for it.
“You will come to us, Death,” Famine said again. “And then the angels will die.”
The skeletal thing that used to be a human woman twisted the throttle, making the chopper kick up sand and greasy black smoke, then tore off in the opposite direction. Uriel was right — Famine was a chicken-shit.
Leo kept his gun trained on Famine until the other horseman had vanished into the twilight, then sagged forward over the handlebars of his Packmaster. The gun fell from his shaking hand. Leo panted hard, eyes squeezed shut. With the sun swiftly vanishing, the desert temperature plummeted, but sweat beaded on Leo’s forehead and dripped down the back of his neck. His grip tightened on the throttle of the Packmaster and the engine revved.
Leo still battles Death for control, Uriel said. His hold is tenuous, Jaz, and may not last.
I pulled Leo around to face me on the motorcycle. Stubble roughened his cheeks and there were deep, dark circles under his eyes. But they were his eyes and they were the most gorgeous thing I had ever seen.
“I’m so sorry I ran away,” I told him. “I was so scared… I still am. But I came to find you. I came back.”
“I don’t know what to do. I… I know I shouldn’t have chased after you,” Leo whispered. “Death wants your blood… But I had to find you. I had to see if you were okay. I don’t have anything else left.”
“Leo…” I said.
His eyes were haunted and he sagged in the seat of the Packmaster. The motorcycle snarled and Leo gasped.
“Jaz, it hurts so much,” he said. “Death is pulling me apart piece by piece. I don’t know how much longer I can hold on…”
“You don’t have to do it alone,” I told him. “Never again, Leo. Whatever happens, I’ll be right here with you.”
Leo looked at me with such painful need and hope in his dark eyes that it made my heart skip. I grabbed him by the front of his battered, shot-up leather jacket and kissed him. Nothing coy or sexy, and nothing chaste. Just pure, raw Jaz right from the deepest core of me, and I forgot all about Uriel and Death. For that moment, there was only me and Leo. His hands were still shaking hard, but Leo wrapped his arms around me and kissed me back.
We didn’t stop for a long time.
