The Black Rider Read online

  “Think of Miss Mabel like a guarding angel. She’s a Nephilim like you. That’s why she told you she’d be there when you got back. She’s not just going to up and die of old age. She’ll go home when her journey is done.”

  “Miss Mabel and I are what now? Was her dad the Antichrist too? Exactly how many of them are there running around?”

  Leif chuckled and started playing with my hair.

  “Speedy, did you only study the Book of Revelations and no other biblical lore when we told you we were the Horsemen?”

  “Did you keep it a big fucking secret my dad was the Antichrist, and Miss Mabel was whatever you just said she was?”

  “You knew he was the Antichrist, and a Nephilim is a child that comes from the union of a human and an angel. Mabel is that. She saw you in the hall of your apartment building. She recognized what you were, and she also knew you were way too young to be living on your own. She didn’t know your father was the Antichrist. She started putting the pieces together when you confided in her. She thought it would scare you away if she told you. She just wanted to be your friend.”

  “How can my father be the Antichrist and an angel?”

  Leif was playing with my hair, and Aeron started rubbing my back. I had a feeling they were about to unload some heavy shit on me and were worried I would flip out. To be honest, I probably was at the rate this was going.

  “Isaiah isn’t an angel. Your mother was. It’s why you can draw the future. You’re a Harbinger, Ariel, just like your mother.”

  None of this was making one fucking iota of sense. Miss Mabel was part angel, and my mother was a pure angel? My mother was an angel who took up with the Antichrist, then just left me with him. That explained why I never remembered a single thing about her in my patchwork of memories that had come back.

  “So, an angel fucked the Antichrist to create a child to help him end the world? What kind of shit is that? I thought angels were the good guys.”

  So, both my mother and father were total shits. They probably didn’t even love each other. It wouldn’t even shock me if he donated sperm in a tube to create me just to get what he wanted.

  “Ariel, an angel didn’t help the Antichrist. A Harbinger sees disasters, then goes to observe them and help with the fallout. Your father captured her and probably cut off her wings so she couldn’t get away. We found his reports. He attempted to make the Rage Mutation with her blood first. He tortured and terrified her, but angels don’t have a blood type like humans. He couldn’t use her blood to engineer something that would infect humans.

  “So, he raped her until she fell pregnant and killed her after she gave birth to you. He harvested what he needed from her body to help him with the Rage Mutation, then threw her in the incinerator. That was the wild card this time. The Antichrist trapped an angel, and he was a lot more careful this time. This was planned out to the T.”

  “What does that mean for me if dear old Dad is the Antichrist and Grandpa is Satan? Am I evil?”

  If Miss Mabel was really half angel, why didn’t she kill me when she figured out who my father was? Why did Aeron and Leif become my online boyfriends? It sounded like I had evil running through my veins. Something in my blood turned people into Rage Heads. Why were they comforting me instead of just snapping my neck?

  “Ariel, Satan is just a fallen angel who wants revenge. Isaiah is the Antichrist, but he’s also a Nephilim, like you and Mabel. He’s half angel, half human. Your mother was a pure angel. You have more angelic blood in your veins than human, and you couldn’t help who your father is. We protect our own. Why would we hurt you?”

  “I thought you were Horsemen?”

  Leif pulled away from me and stood up. I had no idea why he yanked his shirt off until he started glowing with a bright white light, and enormous white wings burst from his back. His feathers looked so soft, and I was wondering if all of this was some Tequila induced hallucination. I chugged a good bit of the bottle.

  “Being the Horsemen are our job, but we are angels too. Angels all have jobs. Your mother must have been a Harbinger if you can paint the future. Mabel’s dad was a Principality. They look out for and guide humans. Mabel should have been called home a long time ago, but her father just kept feeling it wasn’t the right time. I think it was because you two were supposed to meet so you could have a confidant when you ran.”

  “Do I have nifty wings?”

  Of all the questions I could ask after all the shit they just dumped on me, that was the first thing I blurted out. Way to worry about what’s really important, Ariel. I still had a million questions, and the first thing my lizard brain does was ask about fucking wings.

  What I really needed to be asking was how to drop some epic revenge on my father for everything he did. He raped my mother, experimented on me, used my apparent angelic gifts to play the stock market, and he was trying to end the world—someone needed to do something about that. We had the Four Horsemen out there, and one pissed off Nephilim, who just found out what she was and had no idea what she could do.

  “How did it get this far this time?” I asked.

  Leif went to put his shirt back on to join me on the couch.

  “Oh, you can leave that off,” I said, admiring the tattoos on his muscular chest.

  Yeah, my priorities totally went to shit after that Tequila and finding out my Grandpa was Satan. I might as well own it.

  Leif smirked at me, and Aeron just growled.

  “As you wish,” Leif said, diving back onto the sofa with me and resuming playing with my hair.

  “Isaiah played it a lot smarter than those who came before him,” Aeron said. “We had no idea he had captured an angel or had a daughter. Leif and I both got called at the same time, so we thought he was planning some sort of virus again like those who came before him did. We don’t just get called knowing who the Antichrist is either. We had to figure out who we were looking for.”

  “We knew death and disease were coming, or we wouldn’t be here. By the time we narrowed it down to Isaiah, he had built an entire empire. He had labs all over the world, and some were under shell corporations and took time to locate. Hunting Antichrists in the modern world is a lot more challenging than when there’s no internet and international banks to hide your business.

  “We hacked every lab we could find, even the research he wouldn’t want to be found. You have to understand, one way the Antichrist takes over the world is with disciples. A lot of his labs created products with a cult following with carefully branded social media to make it go viral. Instant followers. We couldn’t find anything associated with a virus because he hid you and that lab very well,” Leif said.

  “Kidnapping an angel and creating you was an enormous risk. He knew if we found out, we’d risk everything to get you away from him. That’s why when you ran, he didn’t expose himself searching for you. He most likely knew where you were the entire time and made his move to get you back right when he was about to make his move releasing the tainted supplement. At the time, we had looked into it, and it seemed harmless because we hadn’t found all the research yet,” Aeron said.

  This was still all my fault. Why couldn’t they see that? This all came down to me and the fact that I flirted with them in that fucking chat room.

  “If you had stopped looking for me, maybe you could have stopped this.”

  Aeron grabbed my face and looked deep into my eyes. His silver eyes did that glowing thing again, but now I knew why.

  “Listen to me, Ariel. We both knew he took you because you were important. When we finally found the research that he used your blood in the supplement, Leif knew you could also be the cure. We couldn’t do a damned thing to stop the Rage Mutation without you.”

  “When Dice showed up, we knew war was coming, so we tried to prepare. We had less time to look for you, but we still looked. I set up fortifications around this lab because I knew I would need it. Dice went around helping humanity that seemed worth saving win. That’s why you
have places like California, Gabriel’s Haven, and San Quintin. I went around ending some battles prematurely by killing entire squads. I can’t be in two places at once, so I was unable to stop some bombs that dropped,” Aeron said.

  “We knew things were about to get ugly when people like Isaiah and those like him started calling for peace. That was when Asher got called. Lines started getting redrawn, and countries and cities started disappearing as other countries and cities claimed them. Asher’s hands were tied. If he killed all these would-be dictators, the world would just go to war again. We had to wait, and we had to find you. You’re the key, Ariel. You can end this.”

  “Why is my blood different from any other Nephilim on the planet? If Miss Mabel is also a Nephilim, couldn’t you use her blood?”

  “The other Nephilim out there are the children of an angel and a human. The only thing we can think of is that you are the product of a Nephilim and a pure angel. You have more angelic blood than they do, but you also have the human elements that make it compatible with other humans.”

  “But you don’t know my blood can end all this. It’s just a guess. They terrorized me in that lab when I was a child.”

  Leif just grinned at me.

  “Angel blood reacts when it’s scared. That’s why they were trying so hard. It also reacts when it’s content. I think if I can spoil you rotten and take a few samples, I can wipe out all the Rage Heads. It doesn’t hurt to try, and I have no intention of terrorizing you.”

  “Aeron, you said we were on a time frame. You said something about a few years of peace, and then things would get worse. We only have a few months left. Will you finally tell me what you mean by getting worse?”

  “All the souls from Hell will be released to kill everyone on Earth. There’s a failsafe for that. Angels will come to fight them, and most likely, the Earth will be destroyed. The Book of Revelations talks about rapture and souls rising, but that’s a gigantic lie. It was added to soften the blow if the Horsemen fail and all of Hell is released on Earth. There’s no rapture, Ariel. Everyone dies a horrible death.”

  Well, shit. Even if I wanted to see Miss Mabel and get her to tell me the truth herself, there was no way I could go back to California now. My father dragged me into this mess, being a rapist fuck and experimenting on a child.

  That child would figure out how to stop him and get her revenge.

  Chapter 4

  I

  t wasn’t like I had five minutes to process or get my shit together after finding out I wasn’t human, and my father was the son of Satan. I wanted this to just be over with. I wanted to face my father and introduce him to Smurfette. I wanted to get a few scratches on her from bashing his stupid face in.

  I was done eating. It wasn’t like I could enjoy tacos and guacamole when the pits of Hell could open up if we didn’t get this done. But I needed more of that Tequila because every time I thought I was processing the apocalypse, it just got more fucked up. I grabbed the bottle and started gulping again.

  “Let’s get to the lab!” I said, bolting to my feet.

  The room started spinning. Perhaps I hit the Tequila a little too hard. Leif grabbed me and yanked me back to the couch.

  “Let’s take a little time to deal with our shit first, Ariel. I can’t imagine what you are going through. You wake up to all this, and you can’t remember a fucking thing. We just dumped all that on you, and you’ve had to process some of it all over again. Take some time, Ariel. We used to talk about everything. How are you right now?”

  “I don’t think there are any words to describe what I’m feeling right now.”

  Aeron kissed the top of my head.

  “Since when have you ever had trouble telling me exactly what you were feeling?”

  I shoved Aeron. I was glad he was one of the good guys. And I got why he kept his secrets. He was right. If I hadn’t been here with both Leif and Aeron holding me, I would have flipped my shit out and booted him out of my apartment. I wouldn’t have heard him out, and I’d be in California right now. Would Miss Mabel have finally told me the truth so I ended up where I was supposed to be?

  “Because you have a habit of pissing me off.”

  “I think you like it when I piss you off.”

  I grabbed Aeron and made him look at me.

  “You also do totally amazing things like find me nachos and make me pancakes. You know all my favorites foods, and you got me here safely.”

  “So, do you forgive me for keeping secrets, Speedy?”

  “Wait, a minute. If Miss Mabel is half angel and you’re full angel, why did she beat the shit out of you with her broom when she found you in my apartment? Was that a lie?”

  Leif started laughing.

  “I still think it’s funny you got the shit beat out of you by a Nephilim.”

  Aeron started rubbing the back of his neck.

  “Dude, it’s not funny. You know how strong Nephilim are, even the older ones. Ariel, Mabel wasn’t using her extra senses to look for angels. She was constantly on the lookout for men your father might have sent. She saw me in your trashed apartment and just assumed I was working with him. I had to rip my shirt, popping my wings out to get her to stop beating me because she was so angry, she wasn’t even listening to me.”

  I started giggling. Miss Mabel might be half angel, but she was maybe five feet tall and ninety pounds soaking wet. I was just imagining her going at it with her broom against the Horseman of Death.

  “Hey!” Aeron said, tickling the shit out of me. I shrieked and tried to shove him away. “Mabel is tiny for a Nephilim. They used to be known as giants. It wasn’t like I could fight back and hurt her!”

  I shoved his hands away and moved closer to Leif, who wasn’t in a tickling mood.

  “I never would have forgiven you if you hurt Miss Mabel. I’m not a giant either. I’m tall, but I’ve met many people taller than me. And I don’t think I have super strength either.”

  Aeron poured a shot and leaned back into the sofa.

  “Yeah, you do. When your adrenaline got pumping on the road, I saw it. You were just focusing on fighting to live, but not even a steroid-enhanced athlete could have fucked up those men at the tent the way you did.”

  “Haven’t you noticed you hardly ever get sick, and you heal fast? I see that bandage on your arm. The only reason I brought you here instead of seeing a medic is that I know it’s going to heal right up and not get infected.”

  “You must be a special kind of crazy, Leif. What I got cut with was probably filthy, and Aeron stitched me up in a burnt out building with a needle and thread. There could be all manner of nastiness swimming in my veins right now.”

  “Oh, I’m totally insane, but I’m also right. It’s time you stopped thinking of yourself as some mere human and started thinking of yourself as a superhero. You’re mostly angel, baby, and you will help us stop the end of the world.”

  That part was still a little hard to accept, so I changed the subject.

  “I’d still feel better with some antibiotics and a doctor looking at my arm.”

  I was learning the Horseman of Pestilence was a tremendous flirt, right from that explosive introduction. He grabbed my hand, and his lips brushed my knuckles.

  “You don’t remember this, but when we talked on the phone, I promised to give you anything you wanted when we met. If that’s a doctor, then let’s go get your arm checked out.”

  Aeron was so irritable and grumpy when we met because he didn’t want my memories to come flooding back and I lose my mind. I would admit to not liking him at first. Leif was the total opposite. He was always touching me and flirting with me. He was like Aeron a lot in how they both tried to take care of me and make me as comfortable as possible during the apocalypse.

  My memory loss was hitting me hard. They cared about me, and I cared about them once. We called ourselves boyfriends and girlfriend, even though we had never met.

  They were still operating on all those feelings, and I c
ouldn’t remember them at all.

  Chapter 6

  A

  s Leif walked me through the building, I was still marveling that places like San Quintin, California, and Gabriel’s Haven could exist based on what I saw when I set foot outside that hospital. The Rage Heads were everywhere. Basically, if you weren’t the same blood type as me, you were walking around as a cannibal corpse and that my blood type was a pretty narrow portion of the population.

  It was pretty amazing people had come together to rebuild. Sure, there were shitty people out there who survived becoming a Rage Head. I killed a few of them with Smurfette because they were willing to trade me like a Pokémon card for not killing Aeron.

  I wasn’t ready to process I’d done anything to them with Smurfette that a normal girl of my size could have done if she was fighting for her life. I didn’t just want to see this doctor to make sure my fucking arm didn’t turn black and fall off. I wasn’t ready to believe I had angel blood. Was there even a medical test for that?

  Because deep down, I knew they were right. Even when the entire team came down with the flu, I never got it. There was this massive virus that practically shut the entire world down before all this. I self-quarantined and didn’t go out. I did what I was supposed to do, but I didn’t get sick.

  I had a flash of memory as we walked down the halls. Sometimes, if we were playing a rival when I was playing roller derby, things got nasty as far as body contact went. I took some ugly spills and elbows in unfortunate places, but I was always fine the next day, where some of my teammates were still limping.

  Then, it hit me. That was why they called me Speedy. It wasn’t because I was faster than anyone else on the team. It was because every time someone knocked me down, knocked me clear across the ring, or I took a softball right to the face, I didn’t need to sit on the bench, go to the hospital, or miss a game. I popped right back up and was ready to continue to the game.