Chapter 4! Now with: More Mastery of Sass, Dead Angels, and Demon Fillets! Come get yours today!
Death couldn't help but notice that as she led him further and further into the rotting concrete jungle of the city the girl still maintained a good deal of distance between them. So she still didn't trust him, not that he could blame her considering that even he didn't really know what he was doing. At least now he understood a good deal more of her apprehension; Survivor's Guilt. Why had she alone been left to live while the rest of her people had been slaughtered like cattle? The fact that she had held this long against it was a testament to her own strength. Most others would have ended their own lives by this point.
Still, it seemed as though the outburst had done her some good. Sure, the twitchiness of paranoia was still there and was unlikely to ever go away, but some of the tension had left her shoulders with the release of so much pent up emotion.
By the time they had stopped walking the sun had risen almost fully into the sky and the heat could be seen shimmering off the tarmac beneath the intensity of its light. Death wished he could have called Despair; His spectral steed would have made short work of navigating the city, but the eldritch wards placed over the Earth by the Charred Council made summoning the beast impossible. Death had probably found the very last portal to the war torn world in all of Creation.
"Hey," the girl called at last, directing his attention to the mouth of a tunnel that sloped down into the depths of the earth, clogged with abandoned cars, "I'm pretty sure the next piece is down there."
"How sure is 'pretty sure'?" he asked skeptically. She didn't sound too certain.
She shrugged. "75% sure?"
He gave her a pointed look. "Does that mean that the other 25% is leading us into a dead end that will do nothing but waste out time?"
"Look, I don't make it my business to go wandering into demon nests, alright?" she retorted. "All I know is that I saw a lot of demon activity the last time I was around here. Besides, we're stuck until we get all three pieces right? So we might as well give it a shot."
"I suppose there's only one way to find out," the Horseman conceded before looking to the crow on his shoulder, "Make yourself useful and scout out ahead for us." Dust cawed and took off on silent wings into the darkness.
"Are you actually coming this time?" he asked the girl.
"Are you kidding me? I'm not staying out here by myself!" she cried, "I'm coming with! But… I'll stay out of the way if things get… slashy."
"Be sure that you do," he peered bitterly down into the depths, "With our luck there will be plenty of demons to get in the way."
"Fantastic," came her deadpan reply as she pulled her rifle from her shoulder to check her ammunition, "this is exactly what I wanted to do with my day."
"It's certain to a lovely time," he said in mock assurance, "shall we?"
"After you, Big Guy."
The sprawling underpass was dank and cold, a harsh contrast from the blistering heat of the surface. The girl and the rider walked in silence, waiting with bated breath for demons to start crawling from the walls. But nothing came.
"What's the big deal?" she whispered, squinting to try to see through the gloom, "Where are all the demons?"
"They are probably further in, guarding the rod. They must know we're looking for them by now," he told her. "Now stay silent. We wouldn't want to tempt fate, now would we?"
Her mouth snapped shut, but he could see her grimace of irritation. Clearly she still had trouble accepting his authority. She reminded Death of War in a way, but he beat the thought down right after vowing to never let the two of them meet. Having two such volatile personalities in the same place? Death suppressed a shudder at the thought.
As he rounded the bend however, Death felt that shudder tickle his spine and stopped in his tracks at what he saw. The girl practically ran into him.
"Hey! What's- oh my god…" her jaw dropped open at the gruesome sight: Angels, dozens of them, plucked of their feathers and hanging like butterflies pinned to a collector's board. Their bodies decorated the walls of the tunnel, painting crimson streaks on the concrete with long-dried blood. And some of them were still alive.
"There is no God for them now girl," he said darkly, leading the way through the gory gallery. Uriel had told him of this, how the soldiers of her Hellguard had been captured by demons, their pain and suffering used like batteries to fuel the dark armies of the Destroyer. Those that still lived were beyond saving. Death could only offer them a quick release from their torment. And so the Horseman went to work, methodically visiting those defeated angels who still clung to life, releasing their trapped souls with a swift blade through the chest. Each smiled with unbridled relief as they finally breathed their last.
The girl trailed behind him at a distance, stepping gingerly over the carpet of blood and feathers, averting her eyes whenever Death's scythe cut through angelic metal. Her revulsion was palpable, but it was not caused by the stench of gore and rot.
"How could they just-" she started to say as the last angel died, stopping to cover her mouth with a shaking hand and swallowing thickly. She tried again, "I know this is war but- this… I think I get it now when they say there are fates worse than death."
Death himself didn't respond. If only she knew what he had done to his own people, perhaps she would not be so willing to follow him.
"Come," he told her, "We must be getting close."
As they trekked deeper the tunnel slowly turned into a labyrinth of passageways that led off further into the darkness. Some had clearly been there before; access and maintenance tunnels that once aided in the upkeep of the underpass. Others were clearly less so, as though they were made by enormous worms tunneling up from underground. In places it seemed as though the ground had split open into a drop down into the fetid waters of what might have once been a sewer. In other places great horns of basalt and obsidian jutted from the walls and floor, a core of magma glowing from behind cracks in the stone and turning the already dank air horribly humid and sticky. It was just a generally unpleasant place to be.
"We're lost, aren't we?" the girl finally commented at one point.
Death bit back a sigh. "We may very well be, yes," he admitted as he fought back the growing irritation.
"Where's Dust anyway?" she remarked, taking note of the crow's absence, "Wasn't he supposed to try and find a way through?"
"Yes, yes he was…" Death issued a sharp mental call and waited impatiently for the sound of flapping wings. Eventually, Dust came gliding out of the gloom to land on the Horseman's outstretched hand. "Took our time, did we?" he admonished the bird. Dust ducked his head and let out a morose squawk. "Did you find something at least?" Once more Dust screeched and took off, swooping into a side passage and perching on a broken pipe to wait for them.
"Great," the girl sighed, "at least the bird knows what he's doing."
"And he's not likely to let me forget it anytime soon… Come, we'd best follow him."
Dust led the way further into the tunnels, until the even the flickering electrics failed to beat away the darkness.
"Shit, I can't see a thing," the girl hissed, "please tell me we're almost there."
"Afraid of the dark, are we?" Death teased, amused with the way the girl's face twisted into a snarl.
"No!" she snapped hotly, "I just don't want to run into something that can eat me!"
"Than I'd stop walking if I were you," the Horseman grabbed her shoulder and forced her to stop just as something large slithered through the intersection ahead.
"Oooookay, I'll stay here then. Come back when all the demons are dead!" she slipped away and hid herself in the shadows behind a concrete barrier. Dust squawked from his perch nearby, nervously hopping from foot to foot.
"Oh, just go," the Horseman told the bird, "It's not like I'll need your help with this anyway." The crow looked offended for just a moment before he took off after the girl. Death could hear the squeak of surprise when Dust no doubt took a place for himself on her skinny shoulder.
The demons never saw the Horseman coming as Death blended into the darkness, moving with unnatural grace and never making a sound until he dropped on a pack of them from above. The girl, watching from a distance as she crept from cover to cover to keep up with him, could've sworn that the Horseman was dancing, dipping in and out of the carnage in flashes of steel and sprays of blood. It occurred to her that this was the first time that she had actually seen him in a real fight and could not help but stare transfixed as Death became a whirlwind, his weapon flowing between two scythes and one so fast that it was hard to keep track of.
Death too had let himself become submerged in the tranquility of battle. Demons and Fallen alike fell like wheat in a field. It was almost too easy. None of them could touch him no matter how hard they tried. In truth he was getting a bit bored. The last of the creatures fell with little more than a casual flick of the wrist. He turned back to collect the girl and-
"Is this what you've been reduced to, Horseman?" the voiced boomed down the corridor, twisted with humor, "A caretakerfor pathetic creatures such as this?" At the end of the hall stood a demon so tall that the great wreath of horns adorning its head brushed the ceiling. The girl dangled with its huge hand wrapped around her neck, kicking uselessly at the beast's massive belly and clawing at the scaly fingers slowly crushing her windpipe. The demon gave her a shake, laughing cruelly when she fell still, head spinning. "Quite small isn't it?" It mused, tilting its head to examine her like a cut of meat, "It would hardly make for more of a mouthful."
"Put. Her. Down," Death said slowly, fists tightening around the haft of the scythes, and took a step forward. The demon put a little more pressure on the girl's throat, forcing forth a small whimper. Death stopped.
"Uh, uh, uh, Horseman," the demon snickered, black eyes gleaming with triumph, "Take another step and I snap this little thing's neck. How much is it worth to you, I wonder?" Death was silent, but remained where he was. The girl's face was beginning to turn blue, her vision going dark around the edges.
"The Rod, Horseman," it grinned, "I know you have a piece of it. If I return it, the Destroyer will reward me handsomely. Hand it over, Horseman, and I may just grant this thinga quick de-"
It never got the chance to finish. With the most fluid of motions, Death threw one of the scythes into a spinning arc, severing the demon's hand at the wrist. The girl came crashing to the floor, taking great gulping breaths and coughing when it failed to properly refill her lungs. Looking up with pain-blurred eyes, she took in the flurry of motion that was Death colliding into the demon's chest and sending them both toppling back into the corridor.
Except suddenly it wasn't Death anymore. An enormous being stood in his place, face cast into perfect shadow by a deep hood and great skeletal wings spreading from its back, keeping it hovering above the ground as it shed thick, bruise-purple mist from the ends of a tattered cloak. In large fingers of bone it held a scythe with a blade as long as the being was tall; which was to say very long, as the being was nearly as tall as the demon it was currently busy carving to pieces. There was a squelch and a horrible agonized bellow as the scythe sliced through the demon's torso like a hot knife through butter, spilling blood and viscera in a thick stream. But the attacker wasn't finished. It shoved the blade of the scythe upwards into the beast's ribcage, pausing for a moment to let it suffer, choking on its own blood, before violently ripping the blade out in a magnificent explosion of violence and shards of bone.
As the demon's body disintegrated into embers and ash the being became engulfed in a cloud of violet mist. Death stood amidst the gore when it finally dissipated. The girl unconsciously flattened herself against the wall when he approached, still seeing that other being every other time she blinked.
"Are you all right, little one?" he asked. She nodded mutely, not trusting herself to say anything without starting to panic. She tenderly touched fingers to her neck, grimacing when they pressed into the purpling flesh of her throat. That would hurt for a while. She pulled herself shakily to her feet and awkwardly tried to clear her throat, only succeeding in bending her double with another coughing fit. She waved him off, croaking something that might have been "I'll live", and followed the Horseman.
Her thoughts wandered as she walked. I just nearly Died, she realized, reaching up to prod at the pattern of blooming bruises around her neck. Yep, they still hurt. A Demon just tried to Kill me. Tried to use me like a bargaining chip with- She glanced over at the huge masked man walking beside her. He had saved her life, protected her like he had promised. He could have just let the demon snap her neck, save him the trouble of dealing with her, but he didn't.
Fingers reached out and tugged on Death's cloak. He turned to find the girl with one hand clenching the fabric and the other hovering uncertainly around her bruised throat. Her face was scrunched with something akin to embarrassment rather than fear or anger. She swallowed, grimacing when the bruises throbbed.
"Thank you," she said quietly, unable to make her voice any louder than a croak, "for… saving my life Big Guy."
Death blinked in surprise. He honestly hadn't expected that level of humility from a tongue nearly as sarcastic as his own. "There's no need to thank me," he answered, "I couldn't very well have let that beast strangle you, now could I?"
She gave a noncommittal shrug.
"Girl, when I said that I would protect you, I meant it. You're not going to die unless I say so."
She pulled a face at his wording, but stayed silent. She didn't think she had the voice to argue anyway.
He chuckled at the exaggeration of her expression. It really was funny the way her expressions could speak for her. "Come, we're getting close, I can feel it."
