From Hell with Love (25 page)

“Get your bow ready; we’re not alone,” he said in a hushed tone, deliberately letting his eyes lose focus so he could perceive everything in his vision at once.  He heard Niccolo making noise beside him and knew the leper was taking him seriously.

“What did you see?” Niccolo whispered, but Cadmus continued to look into the shadows surrounding them.  He cursed Andras for picking an out-of-the-way corner during nightfall.

“Eyes.  Yellow ones…” Cadmus trailed off, but his eyes snapped into focus as he found them again, this time on the rooftop across the street.  “There, roof of the building to the right.”

“Where?” Niccolo asked as he brought up his bow and pulled the string back, glancing to the left and right of where Cadmus was looking.

“There, you idiot, right near the edge,” Cadmus urged, but the eyes disappeared again.  “Damn it!”

“I knew this was a trap, I knew it!” Niccolo whispered, but Cadmus just waved it off.

“Look, whether or not it’s a trap, we’ll be fine as long as we keep calm,” the reaper tried to explain, but then he heard a low growl behind them.  He turned around quickly, pulling his scythe along with him in a deadly arc, but it cut right through the shadow with the yellow eyes.  Cadmus was unable to react as a dark extension slammed into his leather cuirass and sent him flying across the road.

“Cadmus!” Niccolo shouted, bringing his bow to aim at the creature who had struck his friend, but when the yellow eyes focused on him, he hesitated.  The creature growled and leapt forward, grabbing the black bow and throwing it aside before trying to dig sharp claws into Niccolo’s torso.  The only thing that kept him from getting impaled was his armor, but the force of the strike was enough to send him crashing to the street.

“What the hell is that?” Niccolo groaned out, but as he turned over and looked up, the creature was standing above him and saliva was dripping from its open mouth.  Only then, with a moment to focus on its appearance, did Niccolo realize that the creature was vaguely human except for the claws on its hands and feet and the dark fur that covered most of its body.  The yellow eyes that had struck fear in their hearts were set in a wolf’s head.  “Damn it, someone let loose a feral demon on us!”

At the remark, the yellow eyes closed to slits and another growl came from the beast’s throat.  Niccolo tried to form the sword in his diseased arm, but he did not have enough time before the creature bent down and grabbed him by the neck.  It roared before hurling his body across the street and into Cadmus’ huddled grey mass.  The reaper had shakily risen to his feet just in time to be bowled over by the friendly projectile and now they were sprawled over each other.  Before either one could react, they were grabbed by their necks and lifted up easily before being slammed into the side of the building.

“I am
not
feral, little Horsemen,” the wolf muttered in a hushed tone, “I chose to be this way.”

“What… who?” Niccolo asked, panicking at the deadly sharp, yellow teeth inches away from his face.

“I’ll be asking the questions, you mongrels.  What are you doing standing here at nightfall?  Waiting for someone?” the demon asked, his attention turning to the reaper on his right.  Cadmus had somehow gathered himself and looked into the demon’s eyes with resolve.  It was enough of an effort for the creature to regard him with some respect.

“Yes, we were told to stand here and wait for Astaroth,” the reaper said, which caused the demon’s lips to curl back into a twisted smile and a sub-vocal noise to issue from his throat.  It took a second for Cadmus to realize the demon was laughing.

“Astaroth?  You were waiting for
Astaroth
?  Please, spare me the idiocy.  Are you part of the Cult?  Were you waiting for the Shroud?” the demon demanded answers, the skin around his teeth pulling back to reveal impending violence.

“Hah, if it were that easy,” Niccolo added, his usual rudeness coming forth once he realized they were just dealing with another demon.  “We could kill him and then we wouldn’t have to run around getting jumped by oversized dogs.”

“Dog?” the werewolf asked, offended by the leper’s comment.  He sniffed deeply at Niccolo’s face and almost gagged.  “At least my face isn’t rotting even after death.  How fitting it is that Hell gave you more of the same once you died.”

“How do you know who I am?” Niccolo asked, totally abandoning his fear even as the powerful demon held him in its grip.  The wolf’s lips dropped down in surprise before pulling back into a smile of disbelief.

“Why
wouldn’t
I?  Some of us actually pay attention, Horseman,” he seemed to spit out, but Niccolo just glared back at him.

“Maybe you’re not worth knowing.  And it looks like
you’re
not paying attention if you’re grabbing us by the throat,” he almost shouted, but the wolf’s grip tightened and caused the last words to come out in a stressed whisper.

“Andras,” Cadmus said, which caused the wolf to snap his gaze toward him.

“What?”

“He told us to be here.  He made us fight in the Pits to help him settle his debts; Nico had to fight Mammon.  Then he told us he would tell Sitri and Astaroth to help us,” he explained, which made the demon stare at him intently.  After a moment, he turned his attention to Niccolo and growled again before releasing his grip on their necks.

“Fucking owl.  He didn’t tell
Astaroth
a thing,” he said before backing away from them and sniffing the night air.

“What, then how were we going to find him?” Niccolo asked, but the werewolf looked back at him and sighed.

“Me.  This is one of the stops on my nightly patrol, when I try to find people connected to the Cult.  Andras
wanted
me to almost tear your throats out,” he said before putting his right hand behind his head and scratching at the skin beneath the fur.  Whatever grudge Niccolo held against the werewolf disappeared as he remembered the owl and his schemes.

“Goddamnit, that’s what we get for trusting him,” he said before looking at Cadmus, who was wiping dirt off of the mantle of his cloak.  The reaper just looked at him and shrugged.

“Look, who cares?  Let’s just follow…” Cadmus said before turning to the werewolf and pursing his lips.  The demon raised an eyebrow before realizing what was going through the reaper’s mind.

“Him I understand, but
you
, Cadmus?  I know I haven’t done
that
good a job of hiding myself,” he growled before walking toward him and bringing his nose close to the reaper’s face.  “Marchosias.”  Cadmus furrowed his brow, clearly diving inside his own memories, and then it dawned on him.

“Oh.  Oh!  That’s…wow.”

“Yeah. 
Wow
,” Marchosias said before turning and walking away from them, darkness creeping along the empty patches of his fur.  He motioned for them to follow with a wave of his hand.

“Are you taking us to Astaroth?” Niccolo asked the demon, who stopped mid-step as the darkness surrounded him.  In that moment, Niccolo realized that Marchosias did not have a shadow trailing him and that it instead was clinging to his body.

“Just follow,” he said, everything on his body had been swallowed into darkness by that time except for those two yellow eyes.  The Horsemen looked at each other and nodded before walking after the living shadow, the three of them blending into the darkness of the alleyway.

***

“Can I just call you Marchos?  Four syllables is a mouthful,” Niccolo asked, verbally jabbing at the living shadow in front of them, but he was quickly met with a violent glare.  The darkness surrounding his face fell away as the violence left them, only to show a confused wolf’s head.

“No.  Just…no,” it said before looking to Cadmus.  “Is he always like this?”

“Pretty much,” Cadmus said before walking forward through the alleyway and tapping the shadow’s shoulder, the surface seeming to flow at his touch.  “Half of what he says can be ignored, but I’ll let you know when that is.”

“People need to hear what I have to say, fellow Horseman,” Niccolo said with an air of importance, but the other two just laughed as they continued on.

“I’m sorry, what?” Marchosias teased as he looked back at the leper with a vicious smile.

“I listen for them, Nico,” Cadmus said, using his scythe as a glorified walking stick once more.  They had already been walking for about ten minutes, ducking and diving into shadows, but Cadmus was getting tired of the secrecy and was falling into old habits.  “Someone needs to translate for you and I was left with the job.”

“I have a friend just like you,” Marchosias said as he shook his head, the shadows falling away from his fur.  “He would say the same thing about me.”

“God, we don’t need two Cadmuses,” Niccolo groaned, but the reaper just stopped and raised an eyebrow.

“I would dare say we don’t need two Niccolos, either,” he teased, but the werewolf interrupted him with a grunt, his shadow having completely fallen away.

“We’re done with that.  Inside, now,” he said as he tapped the blank wall by his side, which rumbled for a moment before falling away to reveal a staircase lit by strange, red fire.

“Oh, that doesn’t look entirely ominous,” Niccolo said as he looked at it, but Marchosias just smiled before walking down the stairs.

“I said the same thing,” he added before disappearing around the bend of the spiral staircase.  “Now, come on.”

“Damn it,” Cadmus cursed before heading through the opening and down the spiraling steps.  Niccolo followed and was surprised by the wall slipping back into place behind him, but eventually he continued down the steps.

“What are
you
upset about?”

“He really is just like you,” Cadmus muttered, which brought a laugh from the leper behind him.

“Well, that’s not too bad!  I was due for some copycats,” he added, but Cadmus just sighed before looking back at Niccolo.

“He’s older than us, Nico, even me. 
You’re
the copycat,” the reaper said before catching up to the werewolf plodding along below them.

“That’s less good,” Niccolo said under his breath before shoving his thumbs under his belt again.  The statement brought a gruff laugh from the werewolf standing by the doorway at the bottom of the stairs.

“Can’t always get what you want, Horseman, now step on through like a good little human,” Marchosias said as he leaned against the doorway and grinned at them.

“Fine,
Marchos
, fine,” Niccolo teased, which brought a glare from the yellow eyes, but the leper was distracted by the room that opened up before them.  Cadmus was likewise taken aback and ended up staring at a man in plain, white robes sitting on a bench on the right side.  When the smaller man looked up, Cadmus realized quickly that he was another demon, but he did not look like an animal like Marchosias.  He was plainly of middle-eastern descent, with dark, curly hair and a beard covering his jaw and cheeks.  His dark skin should have blended into the darkness, but he seemed to radiate with a strange aura.  Then Cadmus remembered Marchosias’ constant companion.

“Phenex,” he said, but Niccolo was staring at the man standing on the other side of the room facing the back wall.  There was a giant map of Dis sprawled along its surface, but Niccolo could not take his eyes off of the demon studying it so intently.  For one, the demon was as white as marble, which was in contrast to the room glowing red around him.  He was also entirely nude except for the green snake coiled around his right arm, its black tongue flicking in and out with no undercurrent of malice.

“I’m sorry, what?” Niccolo asked as he broke his gaze and looked over at Cadmus. 

“Phenex, the firebird.  Marchosias and Phenex are inseparable, even though they’re practically opposites,” Cadmus explained, but he could tell that Niccolo was distracted, so he slapped the leper’s shoulder.  “We’re meeting two of the most powerful demons in all of Hell, Nico.”

“Then who is…” he said before turning back to the naked man at the other side of the room, but Marchosias just grumbled by the doorway.

“That’s who you were trying to find, dumbass,” he said before pushing off the stonework and walking across the room to sit on the bench opposite Phenex.  The kind-looking man regarded the werewolf with curiosity, but Marchosias just shrugged and brought up his knee to his chest.  “Balance, Phenex, balance.”

“Of course,” the plain-looking man said before turning to the new arrivals.  “Can’t have things go topsy-turvy on us, can we?  Come on in, Horsemen.”

“You’re too friendly,” Marchosias growled, but Phenex turned to him and shook his head in disdain.

“You’re too
unfriendly
.  I bet you tried to kill them before bringing them here,” he ventured, which made Marchosias break eye contact.

“If I tried, they’d be dead,” the werewolf said under his breath, but the entire room heard him.  Phenex was about to continue the conversation but was interrupted by a short laugh by the naked demon standing by the map.

“So why didn’t you try?” Astaroth asked as he turned around, which made Niccolo almost cover his eyes.  The last thing he wanted to see was a demon’s genitals, but he was spared the sight.  The fallen’s torso just continued into his legs with nothing embarrassing to draw the eye.

“They told me Andras sent them,” the werewolf said, which made the white demon look at the Horsemen with a slight smile.

“When did we start trusting the owl, again?” Astaroth asked as he walked into the center of the room and crossed his arms, the snake retreating up to his shoulder.

“When I told you to,” Phenex said from his bench, but that just caused the naked demon to laugh softly.

“Far too forgiving, you are,” he teased, but the man just shrugged as he swung his feet underneath the bench.

“Astaroth, we’re here to,” Cadmus started, trying to act with poise, but Astaroth quickly turned his gaze toward the reaper and interrupted him.

“You’ve been looking into the Cult of Ascension and that led you to ask a lot of questions to a lot of demons.  You got that way because you inherited the visions of a certain bird,” the white demon said as he walked forward, stopping only when he was within a few feet of the Horsemen.  Niccolo could not speak as he looked at the radiant fallen angel, especially as he stared into the demon’s golden eyes.  They were just like Lucifer's.