Path of the Horseman (39 page)

Kade swung his hammer down on any Plagued
close to him, crushing their skulls or snapping their necks. Blood
sprayed and bone shattered, with Kade laughing through it all. He
suddenly kicked Mars, speeding the animal to the left. The flaming
Horse torched the Plagued around it, turning them from dead humans
to pillars of fire.

The Plagued followed him, slogging toward the
tasty human and his Horse, thinking they could catch either.

My brother jumped off his Horse, swinging his
war hammer even before his feet touched the ground. The heavy
weapon slammed into the head of a Plagued on Kade’s right, bending
its neck until its head knocked against its shoulder and the broken
bones protruded from its rotten skin.

While Kade laughed and went to town, Simon
and I broke apart. He darted to the right, white smoke trickling
out of his body and draping over Esuries, whipping over the Plagued
that tried to catch him. Their skin shriveled until their bodies
were too weak to stand. Simon let his Horse take control, reaching
over his back to grab his bow. He rode gracefully, drawing and
aiming his shots so they became direct hits. Plagued collapsed into
wilted heaps of flesh as his starving smoke snaked through the
crowd. The arrows Simon fired weren’t directed at any Plagued near
him. He knew that as long as he was on Esuries and oozing power, he
was safe. So Simon concentrated on the ones attacking Kade and
me.

Not that I was having much difficulty on my
own. Old warnings were shoved into the back of my mind as I sent my
black smoke into Bacillus. It turned into writhing tentacles, like
over grown maggots struggling to get out of a corpse. Each tendril
of smoke sought out Plagued flesh, corroding or bursting
functioning organs and cells inside of the dead. Some choked or
gagged as they were poisoned. Others bled from their eyes and ears
as their brain cells erupted. The rest dropped dead from the
simplest aneurisms.

I was letting it all go, releasing every
ounce of disease and poison inside of me. At my core, that’s what I
was. A virus, capable of infecting and destroying anything I wanted
to. I didn’t care how much power I was losing. I wanted my enemy to
look out of his safehouse and see I was here. Let him see what I
was capable of, and know what a huge mistake he had made.

This was what it felt like to be
unstoppable.

Bacillus brayed and kicked, knocking away the
Plagued choking around him. He wasn’t afraid, because I wasn’t. I
sat above him, slashing at the Plagued who’d avoided the tendrils
of disease leeching off of my Horse and me. Heads were split or
severed, dead blood splattering onto Bacillus’s stark white coat in
thick, coagulated chunks.

Pulling my eyes up from the carnage, I looked
at the hangar across from me. A dozen Soulless stood outside the
garage door, staring with wide, bloodshot eyes as they saw what we
were truly capable of. A couple of them turned and ran back into
the hanger, likely to tell Ciaran that we were here.

While I didn’t really care if he knew about
our grand entrance, I did care about Maddy’s safety. Knowing we’d
found him so soon would force him to accelerate his plans, and
shorten the lives of every human in the compound.

I had to get in there. Now.

“Kade!” I shouted over the moaning corpses.
“We need to get inside!”

“Then go!” he yelled back. “I’m making a
record here!”

Part of me wanted to shout at Kade that I
needed him to come with us, but then I realized we’d have to get a
significant number of humans out of the hangar. They’d never make
it past all the Plagued. While disposing of the Plagued wasn’t
something he wanted to spend his time doing, he was facing
thousands of them. My brother liked a challenge, no matter how
shallow it was.

I had no doubt that when Kade was satisfied
with his work, he’d come running into the hangar looking for bigger
game to hunt.

Trusting he wouldn’t let any Plagued near us,
I sliced my machete through the head of a Plagued reaching for my
leg, then looked at my other brother.

“Simon! Come on!”

He looked at me, then nodded. We both kicked
our Horses’ flanks, charging the front gates of the hangar. Simon
loosed arrows as he rode, taking down Soulless that weren’t fast
enough to dodge his shots. While he used his arrows, I drew on more
power. It exploded off me in a sharp burst, and I concentrated on
narrowing the particles until my locusts could be formed. Once I
had a wall of them, I shot them forward like a swarm of killer
wasps.

The locusts drove into the barbed wire cage,
consuming it with their corrosive mouths. Other locusts slipped
through the open squares of the barbed wire net, hunting down the
Soulless. They tried to turn and run, but my swarm descended upon
them. Their screams were lost in the black haze that devoured them
whole.

By the time Simon and I reached the netted
wire fence, there was enough space for us to get through. I went in
first, dragging my locusts with me so they couldn’t hurt Simon or
Esuries. I jumped off Bacillus, who immediately kicked and screamed
at any Soulless stupid enough to get near him. I pulled the locusts
back into me, no longer needing any power and knowing I had to
conserve whatever I had left. It wasn’t much, but there were only
two Soulless were left standing.

They stared at us with angry, bloodshot eyes,
rushing us as soon as the locusts were gone. I waited for one of
them to rush forward until he was almost on me, then quickly
stepped to the side and slashed the machete across the back of his
neck. His head hit the ground before his body did.

A shriek sounded behind me. I lashed out with
my foot, kicking a female Soulless in the chest before she could
sink her claws into me. She staggered directly into the path of
Simon’s arrow. It
thunk
ed into the side of her head,
dropping her dead.

My brother and I turned to our Horses, who
were still going wild from the excitement. I held up a calming hand
to Bacillus until he stopped stamping his hooves. I rubbed my hand
up and down his muzzle.

“Stay here,” I told him. “Don’t let anyone
but Kade or Mars past.”

Bacillus huffed and dipped his head, butting
it against mine. He was telling me to be safe. Luckily I didn’t
have to ask him to do the same.

I left my Horse and looked at Simon, who had
just stepped back from Esuries. My brother nocked another black
arrow into his bow and started for the side door of the hanger. I
followed him, gripping the machete tightly. Simon pressed his back
to the wall, seeing the door was left slightly ajar. He looked at
me and I nodded. I stood on the other side of the wall, then kicked
it in as hard as I could.

As it flew inside, Simon turned off the wall.
He fired an arrow into the hanger, then drew and launched another
one. He nodded to me, and I turned into the hangar. As soon as I
set my foot inside, the door I’d kicked was shoved back in my
direction. I swung out of its path, though Simon was locked on the
other side.

The Soulless, who must have been hiding
behind the door when I kicked it, leaped angrily at me. He snarled
and slashed his oily black claws at me, forcing me to back up so I
wouldn’t get ripped to shreds. I didn’t know where I was or how
close any other Soulless were, so I decided to get rid of the
problem in front of me.

I let the Soulless swing his claws at me in a
wide arc, then stepped in so he couldn’t bring his hand back. I
shoved the machete into his throat, feeling it crunch and scrape
against his spinal cord. Hisses and heavy footsteps approached my
back. I pulled my machete free and grabbed a knife from my belt. I
spun on my heel, readying my throw, when the hissing Soulless
slammed into me.

I was knocked off my feet, landing on the
hard concrete floor. The Soulless snarled and opened his mouth,
showing me rows of razor sharp teeth. He crunched down, eager to
sink those teeth into my throat. I twisted my head to the side,
letting him slam headfirst into the concrete. Once he was dazed, I
curled my arm up and plunged the knife into the back of his neck.
It dug in between his vertebrae, slicing his nerves and paralyzing
him. I twisted the blade to immobilize him further, then took the
knife back. I rolled us both, then stabbed the serrated blade
through his right eye. There was nothing he could do to stop
me.

More hisses came from around me as the three
hidden Soulless made themselves known. But the front door opened,
and Simon stalked through. He shot one with a movement I could
barely register, letting it drive straight through the Soulless’
eyes and out the back of his skull. A second Soulless woman raced
along the edges of the hangar as her ally fell, jumping on stacked
wooden crates and speeding to his left. Simon heard the racket she
was making and turned in her direction, drawing another arrow right
as she pounced.

He stepped aside just as the arrow stabbed
into her heart. The Soulless landed flat on her face pushing the
arrow through her back.

By then, a third Soulless that had a good
seven inches of height on Simon was in front of him. He swung his
claws down in a deadly arc, and I was certain that Simon wouldn’t
be able to dodge.

At the last second, my brother twirled around
the Soulless, letting him stumble past and expose his back. Simon
drew an arrow over his shoulder, drew it against the string, and
fired the bolt into the back of the Soulless’ skull. The tip of the
arrow punched through the Soulless’ mouth, killing him
instantly.

Simon took another arrow out and rested it on
the bowstring, ready to pull back if anything else leaped out of
the shadows. I was already on my feet and walking toward him,
holding my machete at my side.

Nothing emerged. The grey walled hangar,
doused in pale light from the dusty skylights overhead, was vacant
except for unmarked crates shoved against the walls. Directly
across from us was the remainder of the hanger, which likely held
offices, locker rooms, and a kitchen or something.

“We need to find the survivors first,” Simon
said.

I looked at him, reluctantly understanding
what he was saying.

Think about the bigger picture. Save as many
as you can. Put your emotions away for now.

The problem with that was obvious, though. If
anything happened to Maddy while I was saving other humans I didn’t
know or care so strongly about, I would never forgive myself.

But then again, she was the kind of girl who
would want others saved before her.

Selflessness. It was a weird thing.

Holstering my knife and nodding my agreement
to Simon, we jogged toward the office door at the back of the
hangar. We watched the support columns spread throughout the hangar
until we were sure there weren’t any Soulless lurking behind them.
When we reached the office door, we stood by the walls and repeated
the same tactic we used when we first entered the hangar. This
time, nothing jumped out at us.

And the office was a dead end.

There was a cheap metal desk, a plastic and
faux leather chair with tears in the fabric, a dented metal
cabinet, and papers carpeting the floor. There were no other doors
or windows. Nothing to indicate that this was anything other than
an abandoned air hangar.

But it had a barbwire net surrounding it.
There were Soulless guards inside and thousands of Plagued trying
to get in. Bacillus led us here, and I trusted him. I had not come
all this way for nothing.

I stalked through the tiny office, shoving
the chair aside, kicking the papers, and forcing the desk to the
side of the wall, not caring how loud it shrieked as metal dragged
across metal. As I was pushing the desk, I felt it bump into
something. I stopped moving, looking at the floor where it was
stuck. I pushed it again to make sure I wasn’t imagining
things.

There was definitely something striking the
table leg.

Simon beat me to the blockage, kneeling down
and using one hand to hold his bow while the other brushed aside
the papers.

A metal hoop was stuck on the floor. I rushed
to his side, helping him push away more of the papers. Soon we saw
it, the door that led underground. My heart leaped to my throat.
They had to be down there. They
had
to be.

Simon stood up and nocked an arrow, letting
me grab the metal hoop and pull. It jerked, but didn’t open. I
tried again. And again. And again. Nothing happened.

“It must be locked from the other side,” I
said, dropping the hoop against the floor. “My locusts are going to
have to open it.”

“Then you might want to step back and let
them do that.”

I looked at Simon. He rolled his eyes like I
was an idiot. “If that’s the entrance to Ciaran’s hideout, do you
really think he’ll leave it unguarded? If there aren’t any Soulless
waiting down there, I’m willing to bet there’s some kind of trap.
So stand the hell back and do whatever you have to do.”

Simon was right, and I was glad he was here
to talk sense into me. Getting myself blown to smithereens would
seriously ruin this rescue operation.

I stood up and backed away from the trap door
with my brother, who was still keeping an arrow nocked in his
bow.