Apocalypse's Horsemen (Devil's Assistant Series - Book 3)

Apocalypse's Horsemen [12]

Chapter Twelve

It was only a few hours later when the last of the lingering souls was claimed by the reapers but, to every being there, it felt as if years had passed. Watching people die was never an easy task but watching people you knew and loved perish was a burden too difficult to even put into words. There was not a single smile or happy face as Lucius and I led the sombre procession back out of the stadium.

In the early morning light, we sent the soulless bodies to the sky by setting the stadium aflame. It felt wrong to let so many be wished well onto their next life without the proper funeral rites, their fiery graves unmarked.  And yet I knew in my heart that the alternative was worse. If we had managed to enter the stadium so easily there was little to hold back those who would wish to do harm, who would desecrate the place where so many had perished.

I shivered and turned my face away from the flames as they quickly spread, consuming everything in their path.

A small hand found mine in the growing light. I glanced down at the small person at my side and gave her hand a squeeze as I met her watery gaze.  Her father was in there. She didn’t have to tell me. I had seen the small child weeping over his body as his life had left him. Already the burden of death was heavy on her shoulders as she met my solemn gaze.

In that moment I felt more hate for these horsemen than I ever thought possible. It was one thing to ruin my life but another to steal the childhoods of innocents. How was harming the lives of others doing anything to help their cause? I gritted my teeth against the violent urge that roaring within me. I wanted nothing more than to strike at anything and everything in my path.

The look of fear that spread across the little girl’s features was enough to temper my heightened emotions.

“Sorry,” I muttered and gave her hand a squeeze. The little girl was not so quick to trust like most I knew.

She frowned and looked squarely at my face for several long moments – watching and judging before she finally turned her gaze away. It wasn’t acceptance though. With that one gesture I knew that she would remain wary of me. My heart ached at the thought that someone so small would even have to worry about such things and yet, in the same passing thought, there was pride. She wasn’t too quick to trust. She would need that skill in the new world that was emerging, one that was never safe from supernatural threats.

A shiver coursed down my spine despite the intensity of the heat rolling off of the building before us. I had only been inducted into this world a short time ago, and yet I could scarcely remember a time without angels, demons and death. And I was sceptical that we could ever restore the world back to the one that we had known before. If the horsemen of the apocalypse existed - if gods and demons existed - what else was out there just waiting to show its banner in this battle to come? It was not a thought that filled me with hope.

“Come on, we must leave this place.” I murmured.

I couldn’t even explain why but as our group remained far too close to the wall of flames that were stretching up to the pale morning sky, I felt discomforted. We had done the right thing in setting the stadium and the dead ablaze but there was no doubt that the huge flames and burning heat would draw out the dark and twisted people that remained in this city like a moth to a flame.

We trekked back to the car. Or at least what was left of the car. Glass littered the ground where all of the windows had been smashed through. The doors had been removed from the shell in their entirety and the main body of the vehicle. It was nothing more than a burnt out carcass. There was no way that the car would be driving anyway.

I stopped the sigh that wanted to pass through my lips. It would do nothing to help our situation. It would only lower the already dour mood that had fallen over the group.