Path of the Horseman (17 page)

The Soulless shouldered its way into Jerry’s
place, getting into the center of the circle to devour his kill.
The humans turned their backs on the other monsters, panicking now
that they had a hungry tic at their backs. Simon looped the string
of his bow around the Soulless’ neck and yanked him back, driving
his knee into the monster’s spine to bend him further, and finally
pulled the metal stake from his belt and stabbed it into the eye of
the Soulless.

While he was taking care of the group’s back,
I was getting some vengeance from the front. I rushed a the
Soulless woman charging for Gwen, grabbing a fistful of her hair
and pulling her back. She thrashed and screamed, stopping when I
shoved my machete through her spine and out of her chest. I twisted
the blade, yanked it free, and hacked off her head, saving the
human woman.

I heard Josh’s rifle click empty and turned
in his direction. He was going for another weapon, but the lanky
Soulless teenager rushing him was going to be much faster. I gave
into my quicker reflexes, and yanked a combat knife from my belt
and hurled it at the Soulless teen. The monster skidded to a stop
when the knife slammed into the side of his throat. Josh finished
pulling out his sidearm, and put a bullet right between the
Soulless teen’s eyes.

For a split second, I thought we’d be okay.
Sure, we walked into a devastating trap and two of the humans were
now dead, but we were fighting back. The Soulless that Ricardo,
Gwen, and Laurel couldn’t hit were being taken care of by Maddy and
Josh. Simon was a machine, blocking punches and kicks with his bow,
then coming back with brutal stabs with his stake. I was in the
thick of it all, taking on the larger parts of the crowd and
cutting off anything I could. We were wounding and killing
Soulless, and there couldn’t have been that many of them in the
bank.

Then I smelled sulfur and felt the heat at my
back.

I grabbed the Soulless in front me by his
plaid jacket and swung him around, so his back caught the brunt of
the black and red demonfire. The Soulless screeched horrifically as
the flames burned him, the sharp noise going on for so long I was
sure one of my ears popped.

Seeing the demonfire coming from the far
corridor of the bank offices fucked everyone up.

A Soulless lashed out and punched me in the
side of the head, right into the boot of his partner on my left. I
lost my grip on the burning monster before getting my feet kicked
out from under me. I landed hard on the bloody tile, bringing my
arms up in a cross-block when one of the Soulless pounced on me. He
grabbed my arms and yanked them away to punch me square in the
face. My head snapped back and cracked against the tile. His friend
stood at my side, kicking my rapidly in the ribs.

I gave up on the block and swatted Puncher’s
arms away with one hand, using the other to try stabbing him in the
kidney. His friend Kicker suddenly leaped over my legs and grabbed
my arm, twisting it until I felt a painful snap. My hand burst with
pain and I was forced to drop the machete. Puncher hit me
again.

Over my head, the sounds of gunfire lessened.
In its place were the dull
thwacks
of fists hitting flesh,
and muffled screams. Guns and knives clattered onto the ground. I
thought I heard a bow drop.

My unbroken hand was still free, so I put all
my strength into that arm and swung up. A third person grabbed my
wrist and stopped the hit. His skin burned mine, still fresh from
the fire he’d used.

“Silly Avery,” tsked Vance, pulling my arm
back to the ground. “Breaking into a bank when you know it’s
closed. Thought your Bosses taught you better than that.”

I felt a growl building in my chest, right
underneath the magic I was trying to draw out. Vance grinned at me,
his blazing coal eyes flickering when he saw what I was trying to
do. He was one step ahead of me. Literally.

He pulled his boot back and stomped it into
my face. Pain detonated through my skull, and I couldn’t see. Then
I couldn’t feel anything at all.

People who say they’ve had the worst hangover
in their lives should try being kicked in the face by a demon
wearing steel-toed boots. I’d take the consequences of drinking the
family alcoholic’s entire secret stash instead of the pounding that
went through my head when I finally woke up.

My head felt like a lead balloon when I
regained consciousness. I lifted it, and nearly blacked out again.
Fucking demons. They knew just how much pain our not-quite-human
bodies could take.

Eventually I sucked it up and pushed myself
into a sitting position. Something cold was around my wrists, but I
didn’t much care what it was. Until I started bringing one of my
hands to my head, and had it jerk to a rattling stop.

I blinked, my sight still blurring from the
mush in my head. But I could make out the shackles well enough.
Thick iron binds with even thicker chains were looped around both
my wrists and my feet. I couldn’t lift my arms higher than my
stomach. The same kind of slack was on my ankles. I slumped back,
hoping to lean against a wall and quickly learning there wasn’t
one. I had to keep myself from falling by placing a palm on the
cold floor. I didn’t know I used my broken hand until a blast of
pain that went through it, but at least now I was fully awake. I
started taking in my surroundings.

During my demon-induced blackout, I’d been
chained into the middle of a stale, dank basement. There were no
windows that I could see, just dusty, flickering tube lights bolted
into the ceiling. The walls looked like they were made of metal, so
I wondered if we’d been put in a bomb shelter.

Simon sat beside me, awake and furious. He
was chained the same way I was, blood beginning to cake around the
end of his left eyebrow. The lower half of his chin was scraped
off. His eyes were nearly full black with rage. Once I cleared the
pain in my head, mine would probably look the same.

Most of the human survivors were chained to
each of the walls. Their arms were pulled behind their heads and
cuffed in place with even less chains than I had. I say most,
because someone was missing. Josh roughly pulled at his chains on
my right. Ricardo sat slouched on my left. Laurel was a crying mess
across from me. I turned quickly. Maddy was trying to stay calm,
but I saw the tears streaking down her face. She looked angry
rather than scared, but I knew it was a façade.

Gwen was nowhere to be seen, but we heard her
upstairs. We all jumped at the sharpness of her scream, staring
past the lights even after her cry was cut short. Laurel sobbed
wretchedly, and someone’s chains began to rattle.

I sat upright, groaning from the extra pains
in my head and ribs. Damn human bodies.

“What’d I miss?” I muttered to Simon.

His left eye twitched. He really wanted to
punch something.

“The Soulless took the rest of us down, then
showed us Theo’s body. Vance had the Soulless tie us up and throw
us on the bus. They put bags over our heads and drove us to
wherever this fucking place is. Then they dumped us in here and
chained us up. They said they only had enough chains for six of us,
so they took Gwen.”

My heart sank a little. This was what Simon
had been trying to warn me about. I hadn’t known Gwen very well,
except that she was close to Ricardo. She’d been a quiet but sad
woman. I didn’t know if I would miss her when all of this was over,
but I damn sure blamed myself for her death.

Neither Soulless nor demons killed
cleanly.

“Did Vance say what he wanted?”

“Of course not,” Simon spat. “He’s a fucking
demon, Avery. They exist solely to torture you as long as possible.
Trust me, waiting is part of the torture.”

I didn’t disagree, but I’d been hoping for
some kind of silver lining.

“I told you we should have left,” my brother
continued to argue. His voice was beginning to rise. I narrowed my
eyes at him.

“Not the time, Simon.”

“Well, we’re about to be shredded like pulled
pork, so is the good time going to be before we go in the
roaster?”

“Simon–”

“We can still get out, Avery. You know we
can.”

Josh had stopped moving. He could hear us,
and he didn’t like what we were saying.

“We’re not leaving them.”

“How many times am I gonna have to say it
before you get it?” my brother protested. “We are not like them.
We’re the fucking–”

The loud screech of the door above the stairs
stopped Simon from saying something I knew he would regret. We
turned in its direction. For a moment I was glad Josh’s attention
was taken off of me. Though I was pretty sure he was still watching
me out of the corner of his eye.

Heavy feet stomped down the steps, each one
sounding like their owner wanted to pound their boots through the
floor. Its effect worked on the humans, each of them more terrified
than the last. Even Josh was having trouble holding it
together.

I could sympathize. The Soulless that walked
down was
huge.
Frankenstein’s monster huge. Arms as thick as
trees, a nearly invisible neck, and a torso that looked like he
swallowed a wine barrel. Soulless Frankenstein was dressed in dirty
black clothes. His hair looked like oil and his skin was thinner
than most Soulless I’d seen. I could nearly count every vein under
his flesh. His bloodshot eyes were dilated from having just fed. If
that didn’t give away the obvious, the red stains around his mouth
and dripping from his pointed black fingers did.

I didn’t recognize him from the bank, so he
must have been part of the muscle here. He looked at Simon and me,
but he didn’t seem to register us. Someone left him out of the loop
about why we were so special that we got chained up in the middle
of the room.

Frankenstein was still high from feeding, and
now he was looking for his next snack. It happened more often than
not. A Soulless would devour an entire human and feel sated, but
would be looking for the next one just as quickly. They couldn’t
get enough of the taste of human blood, especially now that it was
so rare. If they exploded from engorged stomachs, they died
happy.

The humongous monster made a show of looking
around, but I knew who he’d pick. I was already crunching my body
as much as I could, my fingers stretching for the screws keeping me
trapped to the floor. My broken wrist was swollen under the cuffs,
and I wasn’t doing it any favors. But I didn’t care.

“Hey!” Josh shouted. “Hey asshole! I’m
talking to you!”

Frankenstein didn’t care. His bloodshot gaze
was fixed on Maddy.

She twisted and pulled on the chains, even
though she knew there was nowhere she could go. She tried to drag
her knees to her chest to make herself smaller, but the shackles
around her feet stopped her. Frankenstein took his time, making
each step deliberately slow. Maddy’s eyes started to widen. I could
almost picture the face she was looking at, covered in blood and
smiling with crocodile teeth and wild eyes.

I bent myself in half, dragging my useless
hand under my stomach and trying to work with my good one. I
contorted my ankle, trying to get to the bolts. I still couldn’t
reach. Even if I did, Frankenstein would be chomping through
Maddy’s arteries before I so much as loosened a screw. Josh’s
shouts were getting incomprehensible. Laurel’s cries were turning
into screams.

“I said gimme the knife!” Simon suddenly
hissed. It was loud enough for the Soulless to stop and turn.

Even I looked at him with shock. I didn’t
have a knife in my boot. My belt and machete were gone. All my
supplies had been taken when I was knocked out. But with my hand
near the top of my boot, it looked like I was reaching for
something extra hidden.

I had no idea what Simon’s plan was, until a
slightly guilty look crossed his face, and Frankenstein started
getting closer.

Oh. Gee, thanks brother.

I wasn’t ready when Frankenstein struck me,
but is anybody really ready when someone kicks them in the chin? I
toppled back, but didn’t hit the floor. Frankenstein grabbed the
chain holding my broken wrist and pulled me forward. He knelt in
front of me, and grabbed my throat easily when I stumbled into his
grasp. He dug his nails in deep, poking my skin and getting blood
to bead out of it.

“Bad idea,” growled the bloody smiling
monster.

I tried to grab his hands, but I couldn’t
move. I think Simon swore and Maddy screamed my name, but it all
became white noise when Frankenstein put his teeth into my
shoulder.

New pain coursed through me like an electric
shock, pouring down into my chest and numbing my already fucked up
arm. I closed my eyes and tried to hold the power in, but I knew it
was too late. The Soulless monster had tasted my blood. He was as
good as dead.

Simon did the only thing he knew would work
to save Maddy’s life, but how was I supposed to explain why
Frankenstein, a blood-drunk Soulless vampire, recoiled from me?
What was my explanation supposed to be when he began spitting and
coughing out everything he just ingested? Would they believe any
lies I told them when the monster looked at me with blackening
veins and complete fear?