It Happened One Doomsday (33 page)

But Hellbringer didn't budge.

In the headlight beams, the ground ahead of them trembled. Small rocks danced on the sand, shaken by the shattering impact of the falling stars. The black Horseman turned his burning red gaze toward Dru.

“Hellbringer, you have to help us.” She put one palm flat on the warm dashboard. How could she convince the speed demon to listen to her instead of the Horsemen?

“Go!” Rane said, grabbing her arm. “We're sitting ducks here!”

Dru awkwardly shifted into gear and pressed down the gas pedal, but Hellbringer wouldn't move. It still waited for its master.

She remembered its desire to run free, its fear of imprisonment. She had to use that to her advantage. “Do you want to stay here, where you were locked up for decades? Do you want to remain a prisoner of those who enslaved you? Or do you want to
go
?” She leaned closer to the steering wheel. “
Mi juras, Infernotoris
. I swear to you, I can set you free. But you have to take us far away from here. As far as you can.
Now.
”

Before she could say more, Hellbringer's engine revved, and they launched forward with neck-snapping acceleration. It was all Dru could do to hang onto the steering wheel and turn them around in a wide circle until they headed back down the dirt road toward the highway.

And directly toward the three oncoming speed demons.

“What do we do?” Rane said. “We can't outrun them.”

“Even in this car?”

Rane gave her a worried look. “D, I love you, but you can't drive like he could.”

It stung, the fact that Rane already referred to Greyson in the past tense. But Dru pushed the pain aside. It wouldn't take long for the other speed demons to catch them.

“Hey, we've still got this Mount Vesuvius thing,” Rane said, picking up the metal box of biotite from the floor. “Let's blow them up like Pompeii.” She shook the box.

“Don't do that!”

“Can you make it go boom?”

“Yes,” Dru realized out loud. In that moment, she knew what they had to do. She spun the wheel again, swinging Hellbringer around and heading back toward the archway.

Rane stared at her, mouth gaping open in shock. “The hell are you doing, D? You can't take us back there!”

In answer, Dru pointed to her purse on the floor at Rane's feet. “There's a big green crystal in there. It's vivianite. Grab it for me.”

Obligingly, Rane dug through Dru's purse. “Jeez, you've got like
everything
in here.” She held up a mashed granola bar, now flattened and bent in half. “Is this even food?”

“Here. Just give me—” Dru reached for her purse.

Rane yanked it away, her eyes going wide. “Wait. You're going to open up the
causeway
? Can you even do that on your own?”

“I think so. Now that I know how. At least, I have to try. I can't let Greyson get behind the wheel of this car. If he does, it's over. Everything's over. And he will chase us . . .” Dru choked down a sudden sob and swiped brimming tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. “He's a Horseman now, and that means he won't stop pursuing us. Ever.”

“Yeah, but maybe—”

“He
will
catch us, sooner or later. There is nowhere in this world that we can go to escape him. So we have to
leave
this world.” Dru fought to keep Hellbringer pointed in the right direction. She had no idea how Greyson had done it so effortlessly. “This is a one-way trip. Once we go through the archway, and I charge up that biotite, bad things are going to happen.
Really
bad.”

Rane's eyes shone in the reflected glare of the headlights behind them. “You're going to blow up the Horsemen?”

“Not them, exactly. Biotite reverses the bonds of magic, destroying any enchantment. I don't know what it would do to the Horsemen, if it would work or not. But I know what it'll do to the causeway,” Dru said with finality. “Total destruction. If we lure them out onto the causeway and destroy it, we can send the Four Horsemen straight back to hell.”

As they hurtled toward the portal, the wild look in Rane's eyes transformed into steely resolution.

“We're going to make it,” Rane said as she pulled the vivianite crystal out of Dru's purse. “You and me, D. Together to the end.”

As they raced toward the archway, Dru swallowed down the hard lump in her throat and held out her hand. Unlike Rane, she didn't have any hope left. But she had to try.

Rane placed the green crystal in her palm, its heavy weight cold against her skin. It started to glow.

42

NEVER COMING BACK

The archway flared with blinding white light.

Hellbringer streaked through the portal like a black arrow fired into the writhing chaos of the netherworld skies. Engine roaring, tires spinning, it soared in a long arc over the black stone ruins and landed hard on the cobblestone road, kicking up sparks.

Rubber shrieked across the wet stones as the long car skewed at an angle, leaning into the skid. Then it straightened out and hurtled down the road toward the glowing line of the causeway.

Immediately behind them, the other three speed demons jumped out of the fading light, one after another: red Mustang, white Bronco, and silver Ferrari. They shot over the shattered foundation of the black fortress and landed on the wet path, skidding. Their headlights pierced the night like the flashing eyes of a pack of hunting animals. Engines growling, they chased after Hellbringer.

Dru gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her fingers prickled. The road had taken so long to travel on foot, and now it flashed past them in the blink of an eye.

Ahead, the causeway led away over the roiling cloud sea. Beneath the fiery madness of the sky, the road stretched razor-straight out to the far horizon, its black stones lit by the ruddy glow of the ancient enchantment that bound them together.

Dru planned to annihilate that enchantment with the biotite crystal. Destroy the magic, obliterate the causeway, and send the Horsemen plunging into the abyss. That was the plan.

If she could power up the biotite crystal on her own without Greyson.

A big
if
.

She'd managed to open the archway on her own, but this was different. Powering up the biotite would require infusing it with her own magical energy, and she didn't know how much she had left.

Over the roar of the engine, Rane said, “Dude, if you nuke the causeway, what happens to us? Won't we go down too?”

“Not if we're fast enough.” Hellbringer hit the lip of the causeway with a metallic bang that jolted up through Dru's feet. “We need to get off the other end before they do. Off the causeway, onto that black rock island with the cave.”

Dru struggled to keep the steering wheel centered on the bumpy road. The causeway had no guardrails. Nothing but the sheer edge separated them from the cloud-filled abyss on either side.

Behind them, headlights burned brighter as the other speed demons closed in. The red Mustang and the white Bronco came up side by side, only inches between them, entirely filling the width of the causeway.

Dru pushed the gas pedal to the floor. Without any landmarks to gauge distance, it felt as if they were standing still but for the roar of the engine and the drilling whine of the bridge beneath their tires.

She risked a glance down at the speedometer, shocked to see it steadily climbing past one hundred miles per hour.

Then 120.

Then 130. The white needle kept rising.

But even as Hellbringer's engine howled up in pitch, the headlights behind them grew steadily closer, burning in the rearview mirror.

Squinting into the glare, Dru saw a dark figure climb out of the Mustang's passenger window.

It was the black Horseman, horns standing out in sharp profile against the glowing sky. He scrambled onto the Mustang's roof, clinging to the metal in the hurricane-force wind.

“Please, no,” Dru breathed.

He grinned a mouthful of fangs that glowed red in Hellbringer's taillights, then bent into a crouch and leaped off the Mustang's hood, arms outstretched. He sailed toward Hellbringer, claws reaching out to grab.

Dru stomped on the gas pedal, but it was already on the floor. She hoped for a miracle, a surge of speed that would widen the gap between the cars, wide enough to make him miss and leave him tumbling down the road face-first.

But although Hellbringer had already buried the speedometer needle at 150 miles an hour, they still weren't going fast enough. The black Horseman caught the edge of Hellbringer's tall back wing. In one smooth motion, he swung beneath it, feetfirst, and landed atop the trunk.

The twin impacts of his cloven hooves reverberated through the car, making Hellbringer sway. For a panicked moment, Dru feared they would swerve over the edge.

“Take the wheel!” Dru said, hunching in the seat.

“
What?
” For once, Rane sounded shocked. “Dude, I can't drive this thing!”

“Just keep us from going over the edge!” Dru bent closer to the steering wheel. “Hellbringer, keep us on the road.”

“Oh,
seriously
.” Hyperventilating, Rane took over the wheel, sliding her iron body into the driver's seat. Her monotone voice took on an uncharacteristic edge of panic. “Hurry!”

Climbing over into the back seat, Dru grabbed the metal box of biotite. Fingers shaking, she pulled the lid open and yanked out the angular dark crystal from its nest of foam rubber. She cradled the biotite in her hands, willing it to charge up.

But there was only the merest flicker of light in its murky brown depths. Without Greyson's aid, her energy wasn't nearly as powerful. She didn't know for sure how much energy the biotite needed, but she clearly didn't have enough.

The black Horseman's bunched fist smashed through the rear window, sending broken glass flying everywhere. A tornado of breath-stealing wind blasted through the shattered window, forced in by the turbulence of their extreme speed. The wind tugged at Dru's hair, grasped at her clothes.

Rane ducked low in the seat. “Take the wheel back! Take it! Let me at him!”

Dru almost did, but that would mean giving up on the biotite. And the crystal was the only chance they had left.

Hellbringer's window tried to reform itself, glass growing inward from the edges of the frame like spreading ice crystals, sealing the black Horseman in place. With a sinister roar, he forced his way through, smashing the glass away faster than it could form.

Dru's every instinct told her to scramble back away from the Horseman, jump over the seat, and squeeze into the front corner by the dashboard. But she stayed put. If there was any trace of Greyson left in him, she needed his power. Now, desperately.

As he fought his way into the back seat, claws digging deep into the upholstery, she realized he was at a disadvantage. The cramped quarters limited the strength he could bring to bear. And she had a fleeting chance to use that against him.

Instead of backing away, she came straight at him. The Horseman thrust out one clawed hand to grab her, and she caught his fingers in hers.

Instantly, she connected with him, as she had with Greyson. Even though the demon had taken over Greyson's body, his soul was still linked to hers.

He was still an
arcana rasa
, and she was still a sorceress.

Without hesitation, she reached out with her feelings and unlocked the vast reservoir of magic within him, letting it flow into her. She deliberately dropped her defenses, drawing in the Horseman's power. It burned, dark and foul, and every fiber of her being wanted to reject it.

But she needed that energy, as much as she despised it. She needed it desperately for the crystal. She soaked it up, every bit she could, and channeled it into the biotite.

Caught by their connection, the Horseman's strength wavered. Beneath his long horns, his furrowed face twisted in rage, then confusion. He slumped, as if tranquilized, and slid down into the back seat.

Dru shifted aside and let him settle into Hellbringer's wide black seat, his clawed fingers still intertwined with hers.

Dru focused all her attention on extracting the seemingly limitless flow of dark magic from him. Its intensity scorched through her, burning like acid as she poured it into the biotite crystal in her other hand.

At first, nothing happened.

But as she held the connection, pinning the Horseman against the seat with her knees, she willed more and more of the infernal energy into the crystal. It began to glow from within. A coarse, primal light, like lava under a bloody sunset sky.

His howl of rage became a strangled gasp. He sagged and collapsed into Hellbringer's back seat, and still she held on.

“Dru!” Rane shouted over the still-roaring engine. “We're running out of bridge!”

Through the windshield, Dru could see the cliff growing closer, like a black wall of stone rushing at them.

Behind, the white Bronco closed in fast, its grill flashing in the chaotic light. The red Mustang swung around to the side, and the reptilian Horseman leaned out the window, raising his flaming sword high.

But the biotite crystal wasn't yet charged. Dru kept pulling the dark energy from the Horseman, letting it sear its way through her soul and sizzle into the ever-brightening biotite. At this point, it didn't matter what scars the energy left within her. She had nothing left to lose.

The intensity of the crystal's glow went from hot coals to bare light bulb, then quickly became too bright to look at. Like holding a fragment of the sun in her hand.

A smoky smell filled the air, the foul stench of burning rock. Teeth gritted, she ignored the scorching pain in her hand.

She charged it further than she had ever charged any crystal. Further than she expected this crystal could take. Any moment, she expected to overload it to the point of fracture.

If that happened, it could release all of its energy in an uncontrolled firestorm, killing everyone inside Hellbringer but leaving the causeway untouched.