It Happened One Doomsday (32 page)

Herein lies the end and the beginning.

“I didn't see these symbols when we were here before. But I did notice this.” She pointed out a rectangular stone laid at the top of the ramp. Hellbringer's headlight beams elongated the shadow of her pointing finger until it looked like a slashing sword. “This one block in particular looks different. See the gaps around it? They're wider than the rest. There's something under this.”

Rane folded her arms. “So you think the Harbingers just happened to leave the most dangerous artifact in the universe sitting out here in the desert?”

“They didn't leave it unprotected. You can be sure of that. The wards on it are probably astronomical. That's why I brought these.” Dru opened her new plastic case of crystals and pulled out her round-cornered rectangle of ulexite.

Taking a deep breath, she pressed the crystal to her forehead.

But to her surprise, hardly anything registered. Multicolored magical residue drifted up from beneath the stone, visible around the edges of the stone block. But it was barely there. Nothing was left but a mere whisper of the power that must have once protected the apocalypse scroll. As if the Harbingers' warding spells had just gone up in smoke. Vanished.

But how?

“Something's wrong. This thing should be locked up like Fort Knox.” A bad feeling gripped Dru as she wedged her fingertips into the gap between stone blocks. “We need to pry this out. Quickly.”

Greyson headed back to Hellbringer and returned with a tire iron.

Rane took it from him, tightened her fist around it, and transformed herself into shining black steel. Then she handed it back. “Ready?”

Together, they pried up the stone block. With a scrape of rock, Rane pushed it aside, revealing a hidden compartment beneath.

Inside, nestled on a drift of fine sand, lay a sinister black cylinder, open at one end, the other end enclosed by a crownlike cap with twelve wicked spikes.

Under the glare of Hellbringer's headlights, the cylinder sparkled. Fine etchings covered its length, depicting massive armies clashing with hordes of terrifying creatures, mountains toppling into boiling oceans, falling stars shooting past a blazing sun whose rays set fire to the lands. And throughout it all, panicked crowds raised their entreating arms to the heavens as they died.

A gust of wind rustled past Dru. It picked up the dust from the scroll's resting place and blew it out in a cloud that twisted in the air like grasping claws.

Heart beating faster, Dru reached into the small compartment.

Despite the fine etchings that covered the container's surface, it felt smooth and curiously light to the touch, as if the passage of ages had worn away its very existence to almost nothing. As she lifted it out, the wind whistled a mournful note over the open end.

Dru peered inside, turning the mouth of the cylinder into the headlight beams.

It was empty.

She stared into it, uncomprehending.

Wordlessly, she looked at Rane and Greyson, and she could see her own shock mirrored in their faces.

“Son of a
bitch
,” Rane spat. “Someone else got here first.”

Dru shook the empty container, as if she could somehow dislodge the missing scroll. “I don't understand. If someone has the scroll, then why is Doomsday still happening? Why haven't they stopped it?”

“Maybe they don't know how.” Greyson frowned. “Or maybe they
want
it to happen. These evil sorcerers, these Harbingers, do you know for a fact that they're all dead?”

Slowly, Dru shook her head no. “You don't think, after all these years . . . ?”

His red eyes scanned the darkness, burning like hot coals. “Wait. Did you hear that?”

Only then did Dru hear footsteps pounding through the darkness. The bright beams of Hellbringer's headlights were broken by the unmistakable reptilian silhouette of the red Horseman. It charged toward them, and a blade of hungry red-orange flames erupted from its claws.

As Greyson pushed Dru behind him, Rane charged directly at the Horseman with a furious yell, fists raised.

The Horseman screeched, jaws open wide, and swung his flaming sword.

It passed harmlessly over Rane's head as she dropped and slid through the sand, feetfirst, and knocked the Horseman's scaly legs out from beneath him.

Dru fumbled with her plastic case of crystals, trying to find some galena. But she'd used it all up fighting the Mustang.

She didn't see the pale Horseman until he was almost upon her. He scuttled up over the top of the archway, his glasslike, skeletal body nearly invisible against the dark sky. He leaped down headfirst, long, sharp fingers outstretched to impale her.

Greyson was faster. He pulled Dru out of the way, his strong arms holding her tight, his wide shoulders absorbing the impact as they hit the ground together and rolled. Where she had just been, the pale Horseman's claws cracked into the stone, splitting it.

As Dru got to her feet, Greyson pushed her behind him again. “When I say so, run for Hellbringer! Got it?”

A single set of heavy footsteps circled around the other side of the archway. A looming white figure strode into the beam of the headlights, his body covered in long spikes, his skull ringed with a crown of horns.

The white Horseman.

Greyson glanced his way, red eyes widening slightly, and the pale Horseman used the distraction as his moment to strike. With a single crunching blow, he sent Greyson tumbling across the sand, then went after Dru.

She scrambled back away from the pale Horseman. He swung at her, his sharp, skeletal arms slicing through the air around her.

She ducked and turned to run. Her foot caught the edge of the open scroll compartment, and she landed hard on her back.

The Horseman threw a lightning-fast blow at her. The long blades of his fingers pierced the stone on either side of her neck, pinning her in place.

He grinned a mouthful of glass needles.

Unable to move, Dru looked around desperately for help. Rane lay on the ground, the red Horseman's flaming sword a mere inch from her throat.

Greyson lay at the feet of the white Horseman. With a muffled cough, he got to his hands and knees. Blood dripped into the sand beneath him.

The white Horseman's glowing sapphire eyes glimmered with evident satisfaction. He raised his spiky arms to point one at Rane and the other at Dru, aiming.

Dru's breath caught in her throat. She had seen how those shooting spikes had punched through the walls of her shop, and she had no illusions about what they would do to her. Rane's iron body might blunt the worst of the blow, but Dru had no way to protect herself.

This was the end.

“Let them go.” Greyson's words came out rough and raw.

All eyes turned to him.

Greyson bared his teeth. They shone in the flickering light of the flaming sword, sharper than any human teeth should have been. His eyes blazed with fiery intensity, and his short horns gleamed.

“Let them
go
!” Greyson ordered again.

The white Horseman ground out a single word: “
Why?
”

Greyson's red eyes flicked to Dru's, and for a moment, she could almost see the tortured decision being forged behind them. Then he looked up at the white Horseman again.

“Let them go. And in exchange . . . you get me.”

40

EVERYTHING IS WRONG

“Greyson!
” His name tore from Dru's lips before she could stop it. “No!”

His gaze left the white Horseman for a moment and cut across the darkness to meet hers. “If I don't, they'll kill you. Both of you.”

Dru fought to get more words out past the hard lump in her throat. “You'll fulfill the prophecy. You can't—”

“You have to stop me.”

At first, she didn't understand what he meant.
Stop him? How?

“You have to find a way. Whatever it takes.” His voice grew husky and harsh. “When the time comes, you can't hesitate.”

Hot tears burned Dru's eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

“Dru, you can do this. You're strong enough. I know you.”

“No,” she whispered, slowly shaking her head side to side. Whatever faith he had in her, she didn't share it. She couldn't be that strong.

“You and Rane can pull this off. You can find a way to stop Doomsday.”

With the flaming sword at her throat, Rane didn't speak a word. She just stared at Greyson, her expression transfixed with growing horror.

All this time, the only thing Dru had wanted was to save Greyson. But now, she'd lost the last shred of hope.

Everything was wrong.

Everything.

A terrible emptiness opened up inside her as she realized they were beaten. She tried not to accept it, tried to fight against it, but it was no use. They had run out of options. If she wanted to live, she would have to let him become the final Horseman.

And then she would have to destroy him. But she knew she couldn't do it.

“This is the only way,” he said.

“No. Let me die.” She couldn't keep the tremor out of her voice. “Because if you become the last Horseman, the world will end. Do you understand? The world will
end
.”

“Not if you stop it.” He fixed her with his glowing red gaze, and it seemed to carry an impenetrable sadness. “Dru, if you die,
my
world ends.”

Too late, she saw how deeply he loved her. She reached toward him, though he was much too far away. She just wanted to touch him again, feel the heat from his body, cling to the strength within him. She had to tell him all of the things that she had pent up inside her, all of the things that she knew she'd never get a chance to say.

For a fleeting moment, she wanted to believe there was some way to save him. Some way that she could outthink the Horsemen and stop this from happening.

The white Horseman held his hand over Greyson's head, as if giving some sort of benediction.

But it was no blessing.

A heart-wrenching shout of sheer agony escaped from Greyson's lips. Every muscle in his body stood taut, and he seemed to grow within his own skin, becoming physically bigger, less human, more menacing.

His skin changed, darkening like a burned-out coal. The arcane symbols of stylized scales glowed white-hot across his hands.

His head snapped back in pain, giving Dru a terrifyingly clear view of his teeth growing into fangs, his horns sprouting and curving away from his skull.

In a few agonizing moments, the searing transformation was complete.

He had become the black Horseman of the apocalypse.

The prophecy was complete.

Lightning flashed, and a crack of thunder boomed out across the desert, followed quickly by another, and immediately another. All around the archway, twisting bolts of lightning blasted down from the heavens, blistering the desert floor. The ceaseless crashing surrounded Dru, but she barely noticed.

The pale Horseman released her, having lost all interest in her, and marched toward the others. At the same time, the red Horseman abandoned Rane to join his brethren.

Immediately, Rane scrambled over to Dru and grabbed her with iron hands, pulling her to her feet.

The clouds above them lit with streaks of blood-red light. Blazing stars descended and punched holes in the cloud cover before finishing their journey in fiery streaks of light. All around them, craters blasted sand and rocks high into the air.

A hot wind blew across the land, carrying the stench of death.

“This is it!” Rane shouted over the noise. “It's starting!”

But Dru didn't answer. For her, everything had already ended.

41

SET THE WORLD ON FIRE

Dru stared in speechless horror at the vile creature that had once been Greyson. With looming horns, vicious fangs, and a rippling leathery skin as black as Hellbringer's paint, he bore no resemblance to the man she had known and trusted.

He got to his feet and pulled off the tatters of his shirt, now split at the seams. His onyx-black chest shone in Hellbringer's headlights.

The other Horsemen crowded in around him. The crystalline skeleton of the pale Horseman, with his long, insectlike arms. The snarling, snaggle-toothed red Horseman, with his swishing reptilian tail. And the jagged, snow-colored expanse of the white Horseman, his crown of horns towering over all of them.

They stood back-to-back, four pairs of glowing eyes staring out at the horizon in all four directions. Surveying the world they were about to destroy.

The desert beneath their feet trembled as falling stars pounded the horizon, throwing up clouds of black dust lit from within by the angry red fires of impact. Lightning flashed all around the archway, illuminating the night with an incessant flicker of blinding light from every direction.

From the direction of the mansion, three pairs of headlights streaked toward them through the night, growing closer. In a minute, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse would climb aboard their speed demons to spread destruction across the world. And Dru had no way to stop them.

Her gaze went to Hellbringer.

Hellbringer.
If Greyson didn't have it, he couldn't ride. If she got Hellbringer safely away, would that be enough to stop the prophecy?

Or would Greyson—now the black Horseman—call it to do his bidding? There was only one way to find out.

“Get into the car!” Dru sprinted around the Four Horsemen and yanked the driver's door open. As she got behind the wheel, Rane climbed in the other side.

Greyson hadn't left the keys in the ignition. But it didn't seem to matter. As if sensing her presence, Hellbringer rumbled to life of its own accord.

“Gah, I haven't driven a stick shift since high school,” Dru realized out loud. “You?”

Rane's dark iron face revealed nothing. “Dude, I don't own a car.”

Dru gripped the wheel with both hands, willing the demon car to feel the intensity of her desperation. “Hellbringer, if you can hear me, we need to go.
Now!
”