Children of the Apocalypse Complete Trilogy, page 41
part #1 of Children of the Apocalypse Series
What I needed was for them to respect the fact that I was done fighting. I didn’t want to go into Hell again, I didn’t want to fight the Sins. I wanted to stay in my silence and forget about what we were fighting. The world was on its way to being healed. The others could figure out where the seals were and go into Hell with one of the horsemen. They could trap the Sins, if need be there were other angels that could help them.
I took a few steps and my thoughts turned to Zachariah and how he’d betrayed everything he knew. Mary. I needed to tell her about him. I glanced back at the house, going alone wouldn’t be a great option. As if reading my mind, Pete stepped out of the house.
He caught up to me with a few quick steps. “Look, I know you don’t want to talk, but I don’t think you should be alone. You’ll get trapped in your head and the thoughts will just spiral from there.”
“I want to go talk to Mary, will you go with me?” I didn’t know how to respond to his need to be with me, but in all honesty he was right. All I’d think about would be Ruthie and trace back my steps until I found some way that it truly was my fault.
He nodded. “Of course. Let’s go.” He held out his hand. “We can’t stay long, because your dad’s right, you need rest. You’re pale, the pain is taking ahold of you already. So we go down, we talk to her, we come back. Deal?”
“Deal.” I wrapped my fingers around his warm hand.
We appeared in the house where we’d first met the chorus of angels. Most of the house remained untouched like it’d been before, but we knew that wasn’t where the angels were. In theory there should have been four left, the four that held me down for Zachariah to carve out Sloth’s blood. Now I knew it’d been part of his ploy to gain my trust. I took a deep breath. “Mary?”
I could hear the voices downstairs. I slowly moved that direction. Pete stayed next to me, but didn’t try to support me. I knew that if I needed him, he’d be right there to help me. “Mary, I need to talk to you guys about Zachariah, but I can’t make it down the stairs.”
“I’m coming.” She called back up and I could hear the footsteps on the stairs as she moved up them. She came up with a spear in her hand.
I held my hands up and kept from summoning my weapon. “I’m not here to fight and I swear that the words I tell you are true.”
“Speak.” She met my gaze. I don’t know what she saw there, but the anger in her eyes softened just a bit and the crease in her brow smoothed.
I motioned to the wall. “I need to sit.”
She nodded and I moved over to the wall and used it to guide myself to the floor. “Zachariah had planned on joining Lucile all along. He sacrificed all his angels to Greed to prove his loyalty.”
“There’s no way that he would do that. It makes no sense.” She looked to Pete. “Were you there?”
“No, I wasn’t. But I trust her with my life. I wouldn’t doubt what she is saying.” He leaned against the wall, putting one foot up and crossing his arms.
She looked between the two of us. “Tell me what happened then.”
“I went to Hell with Death to free Famine. Zachariah ripped me away from the part of Hell that Famine was kept in. We fought, but he was teamed up with Greed. She sent hellhounds after us, but the hound missed when it tried to bite me. It bit into Zachariah’s arm instead and I assume dragged him into the damned souls.” I hissed as pain started to settle in my stomach. “I told you that if we found him, I’d let you know.”
She paced in front of me. “How did you escape Greed?”
I went silent and looked at the ground. She didn’t deserve the details on that, I wasn’t ready to speak it out loud to anyone else. “With a great sacrifice.” Was all I could say.
Mary took a step towards me and Pete pushed off the wall and dropped his arms. “Don’t push her on this. If you need to confirm, call upon Death or Famine. She didn’t have to come here and tell you this, she should be resting, but she wanted to push herself and come here to talk to you.”
“She’s wasting her time, since I don’t believe her.” Mary took another step forward and this time Pete stepped in front of me, putting his foot down a bit harder than needed.
“It’s okay, Pete. She’s not going to hurt me.” I cringed as I stood, using the wall to support me. “She’s grieving too. She wants so badly for someone to strike out at. She doesn’t want to face the truth. She can’t blame him so she’ll blame me.”
Mary looked like I’d slapped her across the face. Her jaw dropped slightly. “What do you know about grief?”
“A lot more than I’d like.” I took Pete’s hand. “Let’s go home. I did what I came to.”
Pete took us back to Death’s realm. “You didn’t have to tell her.”
“Yes, I did. She deserved to know the truth. There’s someone else that I need to talk to about Ruthie. Originally I was hoping Mary could help me with it, but maybe your mother can.”
My legs shook and then buckled. Pete caught me. “You need to rest and not worry about this.”
“I need to talk to Michael about Ruthie. He was in love with her. He was the one she bargained with to get Zachariah to work with us.” I tried not to feel weak as I leaned on Pete.
“Rest first, I’ll talk to my mother and see what I can do. At the very least, she could deliver the message to him.” He helped me towards the house.
Dad met us at the door, holding it open for us. “Have a fun little trip?”
“I couldn’t leave Mary not knowing what happened.” I saw a cup of tea on the table. Aeron wasn’t in the room and I wondered where he might have run off to, but of course maybe he was taking my advice and hunting down the Sins without me.
Dad sat in a chair next to mine. I stretched my legs out after Pete helped me into the chair. My dad met my gaze. “She deserved to know, yes, but you didn’t have to be the one that went down there. What’s going on in your mind? You aren’t thinking clear or you would have known that going would put you in danger.”
I motioned to Pete. “That’s why I asked him to tag along. I thought she deserved to know what happened to him. I knew that she wouldn’t hurt me. She may blame me for Zachariah becoming a Fallen, but she would never truly believe in it.”
“You banked on her grief.”
“I did, because I’m also grieving, but no matter how angry I am, I won’t give into it.” I pulled my cup of tea closer to me and blew on the surface of it. “I’m not only physically damaged, I’m emotionally damaged. I still don’t want to go on the field.”
Pete sat down in a chair and put a hand on mine. “Take the time to heal, we’ll revisit you being on the field when you’re ready.”
He was right. Time healed all wounds...right?
Behold, Death
Children of the Apocalypse Book 3
Behold, Death
Children of the Apocalypse
Book Three
A.L. Kessler
29
It’d been two months since Greed killed Ruthie. I continued to stick to my resolve and not go out on the field. The others showed their support by working with me in Death’s realm. The problem being, the daughter of Death should have been in the field with the other Children of the Apocalypse.
I leaned forward on the corral gate and made kissing noises to try and get the white horse to come to me. The corral was where I’d spent most of my past two months, trying to make friends with my father’s horse. A wooden fence made from posts, two to hold each section up and three to form the barriers to keep the horse in, enclosed the corral. On the far end was a stable, and a gate that was always open led into a fenced pasture.
The horse was white from mane to tail, including her eyes. Death’s horse. She was the only thing that made me feel at peace since Greed sliced my guardian angel to pieces with her gold thread.
I closed my eyes against the memory of the blood dripping from the thread and onto the stone floor. The horse whinnied, and her hooves stomped against the ground. I opened my eyes to see her kicking around. It was her usual reaction when anyone but my dad was approaching.
I turned around to see Pete walking towards me. His hair had grown past his ears at this point, sticking down in front of his gray eyes. He stood about a head taller than me and was solid muscle, as expected for someone running around the apocalypse fighting demons.
He waved at me, and I tried not roll my eyes as I turned back to the horse. “Your dad wanted me to come get you; it’s dinner time.”
I leaned against the fence again. “I’m not hungry.” The wind wrapped around us blowing my dark hair in front of my eyes. The first thing I was going to do when the apocalypse was over was cut it off.
“You need to eat something; we’re supposed to go to the human world tomorrow. You can’t fight if hunger is making you weak.” His voice hardened a little bit, and I knew it was because he expected me to argue.
I tapped against the fence trying to get the horse’s attention. She continued to ignore me as she trotted towards the pasture. The pasture held the only green grass in Death’s realm. Surrounded by dead tan weeds as far as the eye could see, the world accommodated the horse’s need. No one knew how the realm worked, but it listened to Death. It was slowly working towards what I needed, but since I wasn’t Death yet, I didn’t hold the same control as my Father did.
“Sammy.” Pete put a hand on my shoulder, and I turned to face him again. “You need to eat; you need to get back on the field now that your legs are healed and you’ve had time to mourn.”
Mourning never ended, and we both knew it. My legs still held the nasty scars from nearly being torn apart by damned souls, Greed’s pets. “I still don’t want to be on the field.”
“Remember when your mother died?” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Remember how much better you felt when you were fighting? How you wanted nothing more than to defeat those responsible?”
I nodded. “And I did, Camille was sliced in two, and my mother is nowhere to be found while my grief still stays. Famine was right, anyone who fights with me ends up dead.”
“No, they don’t. The rest of us are still alive.” He nudged me towards the house, and I started walking over the hill.
“Then maybe it’s those who enter Hell with me.”
“It’s not. Come on Sammy; this isn’t like you. Where’s the hard-headed woman I know? The one who faced Camille without fear, the one who can behead a demon with one stroke of her scythe? Who stood up to Lucile herself and lived through the torture?”
I gave a sad laugh. “I think she’s dead.”
He stopped me and looked into my eyes. “Merely sleeping. We need to get you back into routine and fighting. That will wake her up.”
I rolled my eyes as he turned back around, and we waded through the long, dead weeds. We crest the hill, and the house sat in view. It’d changed since I’d first seen it as the world sought to accommodate us. The building had grown inside, but it still held the red front door and the two windows on either side. When we first started staying here, it had the kitchen, two rooms, and a bathroom. Now it had a few more bedrooms and another bathroom.
We started down the hill and towards the house. Pete had dropped the discussion as he normally did when he knew I was getting irritated. Though a tiny part of me thought that maybe he was right. Just maybe a good fight against a demon was what I needed to move past the emotionless void I was stuck in.
The door opened before I could reach for it, and my dad stood there with his arms crossed. I’d gotten some of my looks from him, but he was blond, and his eyes held their skulls in the irises. “I see Pete wrangled you to dinner. How’s the horse?”
“She’s good, still stubborn, but I think we’re making progress. And yes, I agreed to come eat.” I walked passed him and went to sit at the table. The front door opened right into the kitchen, it always had. The kitchen took up most of the house. Cupboards and appliances lined one side. In the middle sat a table big enough to sit us all now, instead of the one that could fit four.
On the wood top sat plates piled with food. Famine sat next to his son Kaleb. It was like looking into a mirror with the two. They both had shaggy light brown hair and eyes to match, both peeking out from behind glasses. Famine had made it clear through the last few months that he believed I had screwed up. Kaleb was too busy checking stats and keeping track of data that had to do with the apocalypse to really care how much I screwed up.
Aeron, son of War, sat near Kaleb, and his plate was already half empty. His buzzed, military haircut had grown to about his ears, showing off the honey-colored hair. His greens eyes lifted when I walked in the room. “You ready for tomorrow?”
“Do you plan on filling the day with sparring and trying to impale me?” I sat down, my voice was void of humor, but he smiled anyway.
“I figured we’d do a warm up, but I want to explore Mesa City to see how it’s faring now that people aren’t starving to death.” He shoveled more food into his mouth.
I poked the veggies with my fork, trying to find my appetite. “Has it changed much? The death toll seems to be going down, but the plague is still out there causing problems.”
“We haven’t been down there since you and Death came back with Famine. There’s been no need, and we promised we wouldn’t leave our partner behind.” Pete sat next to me, and my dad sat across.
I ate a couple bites and took a moment to let them settle in my stomach. “So I guess we’re all in for a surprise tomorrow.”
“I’m glad you’re up for going,” Dad said. “It’ll do you some good to get out.”
I wasn’t exactly sure if I agreed with him, but I’d let him think I did. There was no reason to fight it. I cut a piece of chicken off and took a bite. My stomach rumbled as I swallowed. Maybe if I pretended things were back to normal, I’d feel whole again.
We all appeared in Mesa City the next morning. The first time I had been here, the dorms stood tall and proud, some were two-stories and some four. The school buildings sprawled across the rest of the campus, and a parking garage sat near the main street. Last time I had been there, everything had been reduced to rubble.
Now, things were in a stage of clean up with backhoes and cranes stationed at each massive pile of debris. I stuck my hands in my pockets and looked around. “It’ll look like new in no time.”
One of my dreams from Wrath came back to me. The hall of the dorm, with my room still sitting at the end. The promise of having a normal life in exchange for working for Lucile. The devil really did know how to play off the wants of people.
Now that Ruthie was dead, going back to normal didn’t seem like a possibility. She’d been part of my life even before I knew she was an angel.
“Sammy?” Pete’s voice caught my attention, and I turned away from where the dorms used to stand.
“What’s up?” I walked over to join them. Death and Famine had stayed behind to discuss plans, but we ventured to the human world just to see how it had changed and the state of things.
Pete motioned to keep moving. “We know they are rebuilding the school, but let’s go see if people are living in actual houses again and not in the walled city.”
I held my hand up. “The parking garage survived right?”
“Yeah, as far as we know. Why?”
“Because if the big machines are running, that means there are places selling gas. My mom’s car might still be there. Assuming no one stole it.” I spun on my heels and started towards the parking garage.
They walked with me. “And you still have the keys?” Pete stayed by my side, while the other two walked behind us.
“No, but I’m betting Aeron knows how to hot-wire a car.” I glanced over my shoulder.
He raised a brow. “And what makes you think that?”
“My mom said that you were trouble, that she’d work with your family. Hot-wiring a car is probably a pretty good talent to have on the battlefield too. Steal enemy tanks and such. Am I right?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, come on, let’s go see.”
“I’d rather not have to walk all over the place.” Kaleb moved ahead of us. “Especially if we have to go back to the walled city. Too far.”
I had a brief moment of wondering if Mary and the other angels were still held up at the house we’d originally found them in. I shook my head. It didn’t matter; I had delivered my information to her right after I found out about Zacharia betraying everyone. She hadn’t taken it lightly, but she had been grieving.
I followed Aeron and Kaleb to the garage. My mother’s SUV was sitting right where I had left it. I’d taken it after her death since my car never came back from the shop.
The back window shattered after a few blows from Aeron’s elbow. We all paused and looked around after the noise. He reached in and unlocked the front door. His head disappeared under the steering column. “Let’s hope the battery is still good.”
He messed with a few wires, and I leaned against the wall of the garage. He cursed a couple times. The steering wheel shook as Aeron hit his head trying to come back up. “The battery is dead. It’s been sitting here too long.”
“Let’s go find a new one. There was a shop down the way; it was the one I had to take my old clunker too. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and one is laying around still.”
Aeron crossed his arms. “This assuming that the shop wasn’t completely destroyed and that the batteries are still good.”
“It beats a three-day walk to the city.” Kaleb shook his head. “Either that or we find us some bicycles and shorten the journey.”
I held a hand up. “We traveled last time because it was important to keep up the facade, right?”
“Yes.” Pete looked up as the beam of a light bounced off the concrete pillar.
“Hey what are you guys doing down here? This area hasn’t been cleared,” a man called to us.
We didn’t run because that would have made him even more suspicious. Aeron stepped up. “You know, being adventurous. We wanted to see what was left of our old stomping grounds.”
