400 Horsepower of the Apocalypse
Chapter 29
I grabbed Leo’s shoulder, trying to heave him back up to his feet and away from… whatever the hell was happening here. But Pestilence flicked one scab-encrusted finger and the parking lot heaved like an unsettled stomach. Lightning flashed again, brighter than before, and I staggered as the ground shook beneath me.
“Leo!” I cried.
War stepped forward and Leo stared up at the thing that had been his uncle with tears bright in his eyes.
“You lied to me!” Leo shouted. “You said you could help. You were supposed to save us!”
“I brought you home,” War said. His voice was the auditory equivalent of being hit with a sack full of broken glass and bullet casings. “You were never meant to be alone.”
“You’re not my uncle!” Leo snarled. “Where is Carlos?”
“Gone,” War answered. “Just like you.”
Leo struggled to stand, but War put a hand on its nephew’s shoulder. Leo convulsed, clutching at his head, and screamed.
“Oh shit,” I gasped. “No!”
Leo went suddenly still. Terribly, deathly still… and then he turned slowly to look at me.
Leo’s eyes were gone. Face-to-face with the other horsemen, Death was just too strong. Shadows and chrome grew out across Leo’s tattooed skin, wrapping him entirely in shining darkness. The black of his leather jacket twisted and flowed like stormy waters, closing up over his head in a deep hood. A metal skull gleamed from inside. Death rose to its feet, looming and hooded and terrible — a true Knight of Hell.
“Leo, no…” I whispered.
Death raised one long arm and pointed a skeletal chrome finger at me. I gasped as a chill like claws of ice closed around my heart. I fell to my knees on the shuddering asphalt and tears burned in my eyes.
Uriel, I’m sorry, I thought. I should have listened to you from the beginning. We walked right into War’s trap and now there’s nothing I can do. We lost.
No, Jaz. You were right in refusing to abandon Leo, Uriel said. And all is not lost yet.
I had no idea what the hell the archangel was talking about. How could this do anything but get worse…?
War still had his hand on Death’s black shoulder, and Leo’s uncle grew. Steel and kevlar crawled across its skin, sprouting spines as long as my fingers. Molten, fiery light oozed from its eyes and mouth, and the air all around War shimmered with hellish heat.
“And you brought the archangel right to us,” War said. “Your vessel was a fool.”
The ice clenched around my heart turned into a wild red-hot rage. Leo trusted Carlos with his life, his very soul…! But War had betrayed that trust and stolen Leo away from me. I wasn’t giving up on him without a fight — or at least before kicking War in his big lying cannonballs.
Wings blazed out from my shoulders again and light flowed over me into shining silver armor. Pestilence was the smallest of the horsemen at about seven feet, and War had to be half again that height. I was outnumbered four to one and the horsemen stood together, powerful and united. I was alone.
“The time has come at last,” Death told me in a hollow voice. “Die, Uriel.”
There was another flash of lightning and a crack of thunder like someone had just smashed a plate the size of the moon. A flaming shape streaked across the boiling black sky and landed beside me in an explosion that melted the asphalt into tar.
“Yes,” Michael boomed. “It is time!”
The archangel spread quadruple flaming wings, the body of their motorcycle cop vessel swallowed entirely by golden light. Twin blades of bright fire kindled in Michael’s hands, each of them as long as I was tall.
Gabriel alighted on my other side, cloaked in silver light and haloed with shining wings. The angel who had woken Uriel inside me back in Arrow glowed like a star fallen down to earth. It was hard to believe there was an old woman in a cardigan somewhere under all of that burning light.
“This battle shall be fought as it was ordained,” Gabriel said in their choral voice. “By all eight of us.”
The ground shivered and a widening crack raced out from the sidewalk. I followed the growing crevice back to a little girl standing at the edge of the parking lot. Her hair was braided and tied off with a floppy pink ribbon, but the earth rumbled as she wandered toward us. This kid wasn’t here to sell us Girl Scout cookies…
As the child neared, radiance burst forth, closing around her lengthening body in crystalline platemail and glittering wings that shattered the light into a thousand rainbows.
“We stand with you, Uriel,” Raphael said.
The last angel put a hand on my shoulder. Raphael’s touch was heavy and the shock of it was like being plunged into clear, cold water.
“Together,” Uriel agreed. “We stand, and we fight.”
Oh shit…! I was ten feet tall now, with six wings fanning out behind me. Uriel’s fully manifested glory shone like a sun and my light turned the warehouse parking lot into a blinding white stage. The glow played over the assembled horsemen and was swallowed by their shadows.
Wind howled and the ground shuddered as though in fear. The sky above split open, blazing with a furious aurora of colors, and a thousand windows shattered as the buildings all around us shook. Shards of broken glass melted when they hit the inferno of our heat and rained down in glowing orange drops that burned through the whipping storm of newspapers and trash. Death stared at us with hollow eye sockets and Michael raised two fiery swords.
“War!” the archangel called out. “I have waited all eternity for this battle!”
The huge, bladed horseman laughed, a rumble so deep and loud that it sounded like mortar fire. “As have I. A billion times you and I clashed, Michael, but this will be the last battle!”
No! I screamed inside the prison of my own mind. Uriel, don’t let them do this! You’ll destroy everything!
The archangel’s power coursed all through my stolen body, exponentially stronger than ever before. Pulling a helicopter right down out of the sky? That was nothing compared to what Uriel could do now. How about pulling a planet out of the sky?
And even as Uriel’s manifested might crushed me inexorably into nothingness inside myself, I could feel the entire universe cringing, as though all of creation knew what destruction was about to be unleashed here. Maybe it did… this was why these eight had set it all into motion, after all.
Through Uriel’s angelic senses, I could see bits of reality itself being torn to pieces — just like the blacktop of the parking lot — and scattered out through the void. Worlds and stars and so many lives. Humans were only a tiny part of it all, but even we were so big and so beautiful…
Please, I begged. This world isn’t just a battlefield, Uriel! You’ve seen Earth and the people who live here. We have lives and dreams… I just fell in love. Don’t you dare take that away from me!
All around us, the other archangels raised weapons made of light. The celestial glow blazed in my hand, stretching out into something that wasn’t quite a sword and not quite a spear. But I knew in my bones that the shining edge was sharper than any razor. It could cut through entire galaxies. The roiling daylight sliced into sparkling colors all along its length.
But when Michael leapt at War, Uriel lowered that luminous blade into their path. Michael frantically beat wings of stellar flame and landed next to me again.
Jaz, as we battled for control, I saw this world as I never thought to, Uriel said. Through you, I have felt love… It is a bond like the one I share with the other angels. But different… and glorious.
Michael, Raphael and Gabriel stared at me in confusion, but Uriel had warned me — more times than I cared to remember — that the horsemen didn’t give a shit about the rules or fair play. All they had ever wanted was to tear the archangels apart. Death hadn’t moved or given a single order, but Famine, Pestilence and War strode forward across the melting asphalt. Darkness gathered around them in gunsmoke and swarms of hungry, biting things.
“Uriel, it is time to do battle!” Michael thundered. “Fight beside us!”
I no longer wish for war. I want… chocolate, Uriel said. I want to experience this world.
“What?” I asked.
The question came out of my mouth, even as it resonated with Uriel’s power. I raised my left hand and flexed the smoothly armored fingers. There was no way I had taken control back from Uriel, not surrounded by the other archangels. Uriel had given my body back to me.
Yes, the angel said. I will follow you, Jaz. But there will be no chocolate or anything else left unless you can stop the others from fighting.
“Uriel, what is wrong?” Raphael asked.
But the horsemen weren’t stopping for questions. The warehouse rang with a crashing boom and three motorcycles raced out through the open doors. I recognized Pestilence’s disease-blackened Baracca and Famine’s stripped-down chopper as they fell in beside their riders. The last one was a huge three-wheeled trike that looked more like a tank than a motorcycle. War seized the handlebars in gun-barrel fingers and pulled its massive bulk easily into the oversized seat.
“Stop!” I shouted. “No one is fighting today!”
I stepped in between the two armies of eternal cosmic force and raised my hands. Uriel’s sword of light vanished and both horsemen and archangels hesitated.
“What are you doing?” Gabriel asked.
“You created this universe to be a battlefield,” I said. “But there’s so much more to it than that. There are billions of planets and stars out there, and countless lives that are just as important as yours!”
Famine revved its wheezing engine and hissed at me. “You are trying to deceive us.”
“We do not lie,” Raphael answered in a ringing voice. “Deceit is your weapon, horseman.”
“Well, I’m not an angel or horseman,” I told them. “I’m just a human woman trying to save her universe. Haven’t any of you ever wanted something else…? Something besides killing each other?”
“Our battle is the purpose of this universe,” Michael said. “And it shall be fought in accordance with the law that we all agreed to!”
Pestilence just snorted, releasing a billowing gray cloud of locusts. Raphael burned them out of the air with a crystal wing and the horseman glared.
“This battle is our purpose,” Gabriel said.
“Then find a new one!” I shouted at them. “Humans do it all the time. I hated my life in Crayhill, so I left. And I made a new life… with him.”
I pointed to where Death still loomed, dark and unmoving.
“The vessel is unimportant,” Pestilence rasped.
“Not to me!” I said. “And not to you, either. You all created an entire universe full of things you’ve never seen before. Amazing, astonishing things! Maybe your vessels never showed you, or maybe you just never looked. But if you fight this out now, you’ll destroy everything before you ever have the chance to experience any of it!”
“My vessel… dreamed of becoming an astronaut,” Raphael said. The angel spoke slowly in their chiming crystal voice, as though for the first time.
“Then she was a smart kid,” I said. “You made a universe and she wanted to go explore it. Who knows what’s out there? You can go find out, if you want.”
Raphael stared into the sky, like they could see through the storm clouds all the way to the ends of space. Maybe they could.
“There are other people living out there,” I said. “On other planets. Maybe they weren’t useful as vessels for your fight, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not worth discovering.”
“Yes,” Raphael answered. “I would very much like to see the worlds that my vessel dreams of.”
Michael and Gabriel glanced at each other. At least, I thought that was what they were doing. It was hard to tell… The archangels’ faces were featureless planes of pure, blinding light that then turned toward me.
“What did your vessels want?” I asked.
“To hold her grandchildren,” Gabriel said. “And to meet her great-grandchildren. She didn’t know them yet, but she loved them.”
“You can still do that,” I told the archangel. “You could hold those little lives you helped to make. You might want to turn down the divine light a bit, though, or you’re going to seriously freak them out… But you can go find them. You can love them, too.”
Gabriel gazed across the disintegrating road and their wings folded down against their back. But Michael shook their head and spread four fiery golden wings, pointing burning swords at the horsemen.
“My vessel desired only justice,” the angel announced. “And we will have it!”
Michael swung one flaming sword, but I leapt forward and grabbed the blade in a gleaming metallic hand.
Michael has always been our greatest warrior, Uriel warned me. And our greatest believer. Convince them!
“There’s a whole world full of assholes who deserve justice out there, Michael,” I said. “And you know the human cops have limitations. They sure as hell couldn’t deal with me or Leo today. But maybe you can.”
“There must be justice!” Michael roared.
“You created a universe of beauty and life,” I told the angel. “Destroying it isn’t justice. But defending it is!”
We stared at each other and slowly, I released Michael’s fiery sword. They didn’t raise it again.
“Perhaps… there is a greater battle to fight,” Michael said.
“Yeah, go kick some evildoer ass,” I told them. “And maybe read a few comic books.”
“Comic… books?” Michael asked.
I nodded. “Humans have been writing about superheroes for decades. They might help you figure out the whole guardian-of-justice thing.”
Michael cocked their head, but didn’t argue. I took a tentative step back, then sort of… pulled Uriel’s power inside myself again and looked down at my own small, work-scarred brown hands. I gave the other three archangels a very human thumbs-up. They deserved it.
“I don’t think so,” War rumbled. “We’ve waited since before time for the chance to finally kill the angels and we are not stopping now!”
War pointed one huge finger at me. Famine and Pestilence fixed their sunken eyes on me, too, and I gulped hard. Inside me, Uriel tensed.
The horsemen respect no law, the angel said. Only strength.
Uriel’s power was there within me and if I commanded them to, I was certain the archangels would still come to my aid. But that fight would flatten San Diego. And then the solar system.
War and its massive battle-trike charged right at me. I stumbled a step, but what could I do? The other angels stared at me, waiting for guidance. For me to lay down the law and make the rules… But I couldn’t risk letting the angels and horsemen fight. If we couldn’t stop this, Leo and I had agreed to die.
Now it was time to live up to my end of the bargain.
But what about chocolate? Uriel asked.
Sorry, Uriel, I thought. But if anyone else is ever going to have chocolate again, we can’t fight. We can only die.
Death stared at me from the depths of its shadowy hood. But something shone in the darkness.
“No,” it said.
The single word echoed up through the abyss in Death’s ice-cold rasp. The horseman shifted its immense weight, making the ruined parking lot creak and groan ominously. It clenched its clawed chrome hands into fists as War’s bike bore down on me.
“No!” Death said, louder this time.
The Packmaster raced out across the broken parking lot like a streak of black lightning and intercepted the trike. War’s steed had ten times the mass, but it slammed into the smaller motorcycle like it had hit a wall.
Death moved faster than I could even think. It was suddenly there in front of War, grabbing the bigger horseman around the throat and yanking it down from the trike seat to face him. War’s burning bullet-hole eyes went wide.
“Death…?” it asked.
“No,” Leo snarled. “Death is riding bitch now.”
He yanked his dark hood back to reveal the face of the man I loved. Haggard and drawn, his cheeks rough with stubble — but it was Leo.
My heart skipped and the angels started, but I held out my arms and the other three actually stopped.
“I’m never letting Death hurt Jaz again,” Leo told the horsemen. “And I won’t let you, either.”
“I hunger!” Famine shrieked.
Pestilence hissed at the Packmaster. “No, impossible! A steed would never answer to a mortal!”
Leo turned and flung War at the other two. It carved a yard-deep furrow through the melting blacktop before coming to a stop in a huge burning crater.
“That’s my motorcycle,” Leo said. “And nobody takes my bike from me, not even Death.”
Pestilence and Famine glared literal murder at him, and Leo glared right back. War climbed up out of the crater with a high-caliber grin. I swear it liked that everything came down to this. The biggest horseman didn’t care who it fought, as long as it got to fight.
“You can’t beat us, Leo,” War thundered. “Carlos knew you were weak on your own. You will lose.”
“My uncle was right, but I’m not alone. I love Jaz,” Leo said. “I conquered Death to come back to her and I’ll beat your ass, too.”
“Are you threatening me, boy?” War roared.
“It’s not a threat,” Leo answered. “It’s a promise.”
Leo thrust a chrome-plated hand out and chains shot from his fingertips, striking like snakes at their prey. The links coiled around Pestilence’s bloody red Baracca and Famine’s chopper, and yanked them out from under the two horsemen. Before the riders hit the ground, Leo whipped the bikes up, sending them flying over the western horizon. If I listened hard enough, I bet I would have heard them splashing into the Pacific Ocean.
The violent supernatural storm churning the sky quieted a notch as Leo removed half of Famine and Pestilence’s power… but the apocalypse was only on hold. War charged at Leo, joints ratcheting with sounds like the slide of a handgun racking even as bullets the size of my fists plowed out of previously empty air, firing right at me.
Jaz! Uriel cried.
The other archangels shouted like the entire brass section of a symphony, brandishing weapons and wings of light, but they didn’t move. Not without their leader’s orders. I braced myself. I could not let the angels start their battle.
But Leo’s shining chrome chains lashed out, tearing the oversized bullets apart into smoking lead shrapnel, and then they swirled around him as he met War’s charge. Leo moved so fast that he was a streak of leather and shadow. He slammed into War and the shockwave tore up broken strips of melting black pavement, flinging them through the air.
“You took my uncle!” Leo snarled.
War hammered a barrel-sized fist into Leo’s stomach, but the biker just clenched his jaw. Leo gestured and more chains coiled themselves around the other horseman’s thick arms and legs. The metal plunged down into the quaking earth, anchoring War in place.
“You tried to take Jaz!” Leo growled. “You tried to destroy the entire fucking universe… And I should kill you for that.”
“You can’t kill me, vessel,” War said.
The three-wheeled tank of a bike roared and rumbled, and shot straight at them, but Leo reached out and sank skeletal chrome claws into the front suspension. I know that we were at the end of the world, but I gasped when Leo heaved the whole vehicle up off the ground and swung it right at War. The chains lashing the massive horseman in place kept it from flying back through the already devastated warehouse, but Leo hammered the monster down to its knees. Face-to-face, Leo grabbed War.
“You still want to tell me what I can do?” Leo asked. “I can kill you… but I’m not Death.”
War’s balefully burning eyes narrowed. Famine and Pestilence crept slowly closer, but I wasn’t sure if they were going to jump on Death to save War or just wanted a better view.
“You heard Jaz. We’re not ending the world today,” Leo said. “So get the hell off my planet. Go explore, go see the rest of the universe. Learn something. There are these things called black holes that you’ll love, Famine. But don’t touch Jaz, or you’ll deal with me.”
Leo’s gleaming chrome chains tightened around War and it laughed — a real, whole-body laugh. Pestilence hissed at Leo, but Famine grabbed its arm, fear on the demon’s gaunt face. Slowly, War nodded to Leo.
“The final battle will be fought,” War said. “But… not yet, it seems. There is a universe of weapons and warriors out there. Maybe even more like you. And when the battle is finally waged, I shall destroy all of you. Including Death, if you stand in my way.”
Holy shit, these guys really didn’t play by the rules.
Leo released War, and the hulking horseman stood as the chains vanished, towering up over us again. But I didn’t care — I ran to Leo and threw my arms around him. I was never going to let him go again. The shadows and chrome retreated and left Leo standing in his jeans and leather jacket.
“I love you,” I told him.
Leo pulled me close and kissed me until neither of us could breathe.
“Nothing I find in creation will ever be as surprising as this,” Raphael said.
Michael and Gabriel nodded in agreement. Leo let go of me and stared up at War.
“Uncle Carlos…” he said.
“Gone,” War rumbled. The word sounded almost wistful — if an earthquake could sound wistful. “But he put up a good fight, and I sense his strength in you. If there are more like you on this planet, then it is a world worth exploring.”
“We humans make some badass weapons,” I said. “Although something tells me that you won’t exactly be waiting around on background checks.”
“Speaking of weapons…” War said.
The horseman grinned and looked up. The churning storm clouds were beginning to thin and I heard the whirr and chop of a helicopter rotor above us. There were sounds of racing engines and screeching tires in the distance, too. SPOT had caught up with us again. Michael spread their flaming wings.
“Are these the evildoers you spoke of?” the archangel asked.
“No, don’t hurt them,” I answered quickly. “They just want to save the world.”
“With large guns,” War said, pointing to the helicopter as it descended through the clouds. “I like them already.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Leo told the horsemen. “We’ll see you again in a million years.”
“That might not be long enough to explore all of creation,” Raphael said.
I nodded to the glittering angel. “Take your time. Trust me, we’re in no hurry.”
“Farewell then,” Gabriel said.
“Until we meet again, at the end of all,” Uriel said. The archangel wasn’t in control of my body, but I figured the least I owed them was the chance to say goodbye. “Fly and find the wonders of this world.”
The other three angels bowed to me, multiple wings spread, and then leapt into the air. They flew up past the SPOT helicopter, then through the lightening sky. The angels glittered like stars for a moment before they parted and vanished toward the unknown corners of the universe.
Leo looked back at the other horsemen, his dark eyes hard.
“Go,” he commanded. “Now.”
Famine and Pestilence glared, but War snapped its massive fingers at them. Engines roared in the distance and then the other demonic steeds came racing up the street. They screeched to a stop beside War’s trike, black smoke billowing from their tires. Leo’s Packmaster growled at the other motorcycles — there was only room for one alpha in the pack, and it was Leo. The three horsemen mounted their waiting bikes.
“When I see you two again,” War said, “it will be for the last time.”
“Goodbye, Uncle Carlos,” Leo answered.
War’s burning ember eyes softened almost imperceptibly, but then the hulking horseman laughed like automatic gunfire and stomped on the gas. War’s tank-trike tore out of the cracked warehouse parking lot with Famine and Pestilence scrambling to follow.
A dozen black SPOT panel vans raced toward us, then scattered as the horsemen charged right down the middle of the street. The vans screeched to a stop and squadrons of armored Spotters jumped out, aiming an impressive arsenal of weapons at the retreating demons’ backs. I ran into the road, waving my arms.
“No, wait!” I cried. “Don’t shoot!”
SPOT soldiers shouted and scrambled out of the way as the horsemen drove through. An armored truck bringing up the rear of the caravan couldn’t move fast enough and War’s steed knocked it aside like a cardboard cutout. The big truck tumbled, then came to rest halfway through the brick wall of a bodega.
Diane Owens leapt out of the passenger seat of the lead van. Her arm was bound up in a sling, but she heaved a huge grenade launcher onto her shoulder and turned, tracking the horsemen.
War raised its steel middle finger and I placed one hand on Diane’s arm. I pushed the launcher down as all three horsemen vanished quickly into the distance. I had no idea how those motorcycles might carry their riders to other worlds, but I didn’t put it past them. Diane spun to stare at me with eyes wide behind her glasses.
“Jasmine? Leopold?” she asked. “You’re still in control? How? Why are the horsemen leaving? What happened to the angels?”
“It’s all over,” I answered.
Leo came to stand beside me and settled an arm around my waist. He nodded at Diane.
“For the next million years or so,” Leo said. “The angels and horsemen are still out there, and you might run across Michael and War a few times. Guess you’re not out of a job just yet.”
“You two have a lot of explaining to do,” Diane told us. “Ah… if you don’t mind.”
