Path of the Horseman (40 page)

I rolled my shoulders and shook out my hands,
then called up the power resting inside of me.

Even as it manifested out of my skin, I could
feel how much weaker it had become. I was still able to harden the
poison into the locusts, and command them to devour the metal trap
door, but it was taking too long. New beads of sweat dribbled down
my temples, and it became hard to breathe.

My power was at less than half capacity now.
That wasn’t going to be nearly enough to fight Ciaran.

Pushing that ugly thought to the back of my
mind, I focused on getting the locusts to devour the door–

The trap door crunched and burst open with a
small jet of flame. I raised my arm to cover my face and yanked my
locusts back into me, wanting my power as far from the explosion as
possible. Simon covered his face the same way I did.

The dust and burning papers began to settle,
and we lowered our arms, watching the blasted door to see if
anything would jump through it. When nothing did, Simon tossed me
an obstinate look.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I drawled. “You told me
so. Give yourself a fucking gold star and let’s go.”

I marched to the open door and peered down. A
ladder that had been gnarled in the explosion led down to a catwalk
I could barely see in the dark. The ladder was still within reach,
however, so I dropped through the open door and caught myself on
the rungs.

The impact jolted through my arms and legs,
but didn’t keep me from climbing down. Simon stayed where he was
until I arrived at the end of the ladder and dropped onto the
catwalk. The sound of my boots striking the tightly woven metal
echoed through the basement, but nothing erupted from the shadows
and attacked me. I stood where I was, keeping the machete raised,
and looked along the catwalk. Assured I was the only person on it,
I walked to the ledge and looked down.

We had entered some kind of boiler room.
Twisted pipes attached to rounded water tanks. Dented generators
held up powerless circuit breakers and rusted cooling fans. Heavy
and useless boilers and chillers sat in the corners. Oil drums
filled with burning fires sat in the middle of the floor below me,
casting the walls in a menacing, orange glow. The air was thick and
humid, and tasted like copper.

Looked like we were getting closer to Hell
after all.

I waved Simon down without pausing to glance
back at him. I moved along the catwalk until I found another set of
stairs to hurry down. I made it to the bottom floor without
anything jumping out at me, but I had a feeling that would change
soon. I did set off an explosion, after all.

Like the room overhead, there was only one
door in front of me. It looked securely bolted to the wall, but
there was give when I tugged on the handle. I glanced at Simon over
my shoulder. He stood behind me with a ready arrow. I pulled open
the door, and stared down a narrow cement corridor.

I followed it all the way down, sensing Simon
walking behind me. The further down we went, the more echoes we
heard. Murmurs, sobs, and cries followed by shouts the occasional
harsh laugh. I scurried down the hallway, seeing a thick beam of
light pushing against the far right wall. An open door that would
lead me to the humans, barely thirty feet away.

It was a huge effort to control myself, to
not stampede through the hallway and throw myself into the heat of
battle. Catching the Soulless by surprise would probably keep more
humans alive, and hopefully wouldn’t rush Ciaran’s little ceremony
even more.

I was less than five feet away when one of
the Soulless turned out of the room and stood in the light. I
skidded to a stop, as stunned to see him as he was to see me. He
opened his mouth to call for help, but got an arrow in his throat
for the trouble.

His blood squirted only the front of my shirt
as he gasped and gagged. I finished him off with a quick slash of
my machete through his face. His jaw flopped down to his chest
before his bloodshot eyes rolled back into his head and he fell to
the floor.

I didn’t have time to move back even one step
before the other Soulless turned out of the room, hissing and
spitting angrily. Simon’s arrows flew over my head, and shoulders,
but missed their marks because I was in the way. The cluster of
four Soulless reached for me. I leaned back and hacked down with
the machete, taking off at least one clawed hand that was reaching
for my stomach. I lunged with the machete again, but the dark
haired Soulless I was looking to attack pressed against the wall
and missed the blade.

I tried to pull it back, but he grabbed my
forearm and began to crush the bones in my wrist. He clenched
tighter, making me wince as his claws hooked into my skin. I lashed
out a kick that caught him in the ribs, but he didn’t let go.

A second Soulless, who looked like he’d been
a young Asian man before giving up his soul, snarled and darted for
my right side. I jabbed him in the nose when he got into range,
sending him back until Simon finished him off with an arrow.

The Soulless hanging onto me dragged his
claws down my arm, ripping apart the skin and filling the air with
the scent of my blood. It drove the remaining two Soulless
crazy.

Both of them pounced on me at the same time,
shoving me against the wall. I drew up my right arm, pressing it
against the neck of the older Soulless angling for my throat. The
one holding my wrist punched me in the stomach, pushing the air
from my lungs. He roared and went for my throat. I heard a
twang
and felt him suddenly loosen his grip. That didn’t
save me from the older Soulless, who drove his knee into my chin.
My head rocked back, exposing my neck. But my injured hand was
free. I swung a powerful uppercut into his chin, veering him off
course from my throat. I rolled away from the wall and grabbed the
back of his neck, slamming him face first into the cement. After
one more hard slam, I gripped my machete like a baseball bat and
slammed it into the back of his neck. His head toppled off his
shoulders while his body slithered down the wall, leaving a smear
of blood behind. I turned and glared at Simon.

“Thanks for all the help.”

He blinked and tossed a thumb over his
shoulder, pointing to his empty quiver. “Sorry I wasted all my
arrows saving your ass.”

I was working on another argument when I
heard a familiar shout.

“Hey! We’re in here! Help us!”

Putting my machete into my left hand so I
didn’t aggravate my slowly bleeding right one, I ran forward and
swerved into the dimly lit room.

No, room is the wrong word. It was a fucking
kennel.

At least a hundred wire cages lined the
walls, split into two sections and stacked from the floor to the
top of the fifteen foot ceiling. Every single one of them held a
cramped human being. Some were barely clothed while others weren’t
clothed at all. Blood, bruises, and tears streaked their skin. The
sour smells of sweat, piss, shit, and vomit strangled my senses. It
was difficult to tell how long these humans had been here, waiting
to turn into pets for demons, but some of them burst into tears at
the sight of us while the others howled, screamed, and rattled the
bars of their cages.

The voice that had called for help hadn’t
been Maddy’s. I didn’t see her at all. That didn’t put my mind at
ease.

“Avery!”

I turned again, finally spotting him. Ricardo
was in one of the middle cages on the left wall, and looked like he
had most of his sanity. Laurel wasn’t too far from him, but she was
an inconsolable, sobbing mess. I rushed over to the cages. They
were held shut with padlocks, and I wasn’t going to risk using my
locusts on such a small space. Once they got a taste from human
flesh, they would eat through it like acid.

“Simon! See if you can find the keys on the
guards!”

Knowing he would listen to me, I looked at
Ricardo again. “Where’s Maddy?”

His dark eyes widened with fear. He hesitated
in his answer.

“They took her into that room,” he nodded to
the door on my left that parted the cages. “A guy with dreadlocks
and… and Josh.” Ricardo looked at me nervously. He was still coming
to grips with his former friend turning into a backstabbing
monster. I don’t think there are support groups for that kind of
thing.

Simon finally appeared beside me with a set
of keys in his hand. He reached up and unlocked Ricardo’s cage. We
both helped the big man crawl out of his cage. He must have been in
there for hours. The stiffness in his muscles was obvious. I let
him go and stepped back, walking for the door. Simon was following
me. I turned and put my hand on his chest, shoving him back.

“No. You stay here and help them.”

Simon glared, turning only once to throw the
keys and Ricardo. The freed human fumbled to catch them, then
hurried to unlock the other cages.

“You can’t face Ciaran alone. He has Maddy.
He’ll use her against you.”

“Probably, but I can buy you time to get
these people out of here. Ricardo can’t do it himself, and he seems
to be the only other rational person in the room. And we still
don’t know what happened to Kade.”

“Screw Kade,” my brother protested. “He can
handle himself.”

Just as he said it, the basement under the
hangar trembled. The shock of it threw me against the wall and
nearly bucked Simon onto his ass. The bars of the cages rattled and
the humans started wailing.

Ciaran’s ritual was beginning.

“Simon, we don’t have time for this,” I shot
back. “Ciaran has to be stopped now. Get the humans to safety, grab
Kade, then come back and help me, okay?”

It was a shitty plan, but the truth was that
I needed Simon to get the other humans out of here. Fighting Ciaran
would buy them time, and if I died, then my brother would be able
to find Kade. The two of them would be able to take Ciaran down if
I couldn’t do it. Having Simon there was just one more thing Ciaran
could use against me. As if he didn’t have enough already.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” growled Simon.
“You’d better stay alive so I can kick your ass for this
later.”

I didn’t argue this time. Simon held my eyes
for another brief moment, then turned away and ran to help Ricardo.
I twisted away from them and grabbed the cold metal door between
the cages of crying humans. I pulled it open with a sharp tug, and
slipped into the darkness beyond.

The door slammed shut behind me, its echo
seeming to go on for forever. I pinched my eyes shut and tried to
see where I was going. It was pitch black in this hallway or room
or whatever, and I could hardly see three feet in front of me. My
injured hand fumbled around the darkness until it found the frigid
concrete wall. I shuffled forward, not knowing what I would step
on.

All of a sudden, I took a step forward and
felt it disappear under me. I yanked my foot back before I could
pitch headfirst into blackness. Once it was on solid ground again,
I took my hand from the wall and got onto my hands and knees. After
placing my machete in its scabbard on my back, I reached out and
felt along the cold cement until my hand went over the ledge. My
fingers brushed against a metal railing, which had to be a ladder.
I looked over the ledge. This ladder went down at least fifty feet,
but I could see a subtle red glow at the bottom of it. I dragged
myself toward the ladder and swung around, starting my descent.

As I made my way deeper into the darkness, I
heard voices drifting up, bouncing off the walls of the tunnel I
assumed I was in. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, or who
the voices belonged to. I figured it was best to find out
personally.

The farther down I went, the lighter the
tunnel became. I was nearly at the end when another tremor shook
the tunnel. I gripped the ladder rungs tightly, listening to rubble
crack and skitter down the walls around me. Deciding the distance
was safe, I jumped down into the pool of red light below me.

I bent my knees to absorb the shock, reaching
back and taking the machete from its scabbard. The air was hot and
thick down here, and the bright red light was coming from the door
on my right. The last door I intended to take. It didn’t look very
strong, more like one of those emergency exit doors. So I pulled
back my leg and kicked it open.

The door bounced off the wall with a loud
snap as I slid inside. The loud slamming noise behind me carried a
note of finality when the door closed. I barely noticed, given what
I saw before me.

Demonic runes were scrawled in dark red
liquid along the roof, walls, and floor. Tables, chairs, lockers,
and metal shelves had been pushed out of the center of the room and
left in piles along the walls to make space for the glowing pyre in
the middle of the room. Hearty black and red flames flickered in a
carefully laid circle that had to be at least ten feet across.

Hanging from thick ropes above the demonfire
was a small, slender shape. She’d been stripped to her underwear
and tank top, making it easy for her kidnappers to cut deep slashes
down her legs and along the length of her underarms. Her head hung
to her chest, honey blonde hair obscuring her face. I didn’t know
if she was alive or dead, but my eyes refused to tear away from the
blood dripping into the demonfire, feeding the flames and unlocking
the Hell Door further.