The Black Rider Read online

  Speedy meant speed healing.

  My roller derby and softball team saw it way before I did, and they gave me my nickname based on it. What was I going to see when the doctor took my bandage off? Now, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to see the doctor. I just wanted to pretend like I was a perfectly normal shortstop who ran a tattoo shop. But I was never normal, was I? I painted the future.

  Leif led me to a different wing of this big white building. It was surprisingly sterile for the apocalypse. Everyone seemed to worship Leif here. They snapped to attention as soon as they saw him, and I was sitting in an exam room in minutes.

  I asked to go in alone. Aeron and Leif had been an excellent support system to me this entire time, and I was glad they ended up being the good guys, but I needed to do this alone. Did the people here know who they were? Aeron and Leif could have answered my questions better than a human doctor could, but I wanted a human doctor because I had questions. It was probably human medical technology that kept me in my coma, though I was guessing my memory loss had something to do with my father, and that was why it was so dangerous to give me information all at once.

  An older man with a kind face came in. He held out his hand to me.

  “I’m Doctor Gonzalez. Aeron and Leif explained to me you were in a long term, medically induced coma. If you don’t mind, I’d like to look at more than your arm. Being in a coma, then ending up out there, has probably been hard on your body. Is that okay with you?”

  Was that okay with me? I should have been asking that question as soon as I woke up. If I had been flat on my back and pumped full of drugs for that long, my muscles should have atrophied. I should have hit the floor when I tried to stand. I was shaky, but I made it to the door, and not ten minutes later, I was fighting my way through a horde of Rage Heads. Why wasn’t that weird to me at the time?

  “Sure. Check out everything. I was kidnapped and put in a coma. There’s no telling what they did to me.”

  Doctor Gonzalez started shining a light in my eyes.

  “Oh, we’ve heard all about you. First, all Leif could talk about was his amazing new girlfriend. When you went missing, Aeron and Leif went a little insane trying to find you. Then the war broke out, and they had to join the fight. Their friend Dice joined up to help, and then all three of them were looking for you in between trying to stop the world for killing each other. No one could understand why until Leif admitted you might be able to help him end all this. I’m glad he found you. Follow my finger.”

  Great. All of San Quintin thought I could stop this, and they all had guns. What if my blood wasn’t the answer? Could my angel blood survive my body being riddled with bullets? I mean, my father killed my mother, so clearly, there were ways to kill angels. What if my fucking blood was a one-trick pony and could only turn people into cannibal corpses?

  Doctor Gonzalez gave me a full exam and took some blood to test. He checked my arm too. I’d never had a cut this big, but I lied through my teeth and said I got it a few weeks ago when he told me it was on the mend, and he could go ahead and take the stitches out. Fuck me. I was some angel mutant.

  “I will run your blood through a few tests to check your levels, but you seem healthy. You’re way too thin, but you’re in a wonderful place to remedy that. No one in San Quintin goes hungry, and aside from some processed junk food that was out there before, we have all the food you could want.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at him.

  “Are you giving me a prescription to pig out?”

  Doctor Gonzalez just laughed.

  “Doctors orders. I want to see you again in two weeks to go over your bloodwork, and I expect to see some weight gain. There’s a little café next door with the best chocoflan in Mexico. It always has been, and the owner survived the Rage Mutation and the war. Celebrate finding Leif and Aeron again by going to eat there. Get the seven-course meal she offers and finish up with the chocoflan. That’s my prescription, along with a lot of good food.”

  “Okay, you’re officially the coolest doctor I’ve ever seen.”

  “Well, my coolness may change, and so may your prescription when your bloodwork comes back. Right now, you seem healthy, but underweight. Your bloodwork most likely will tell me you’re deficient on certain things, and we must get those levels up. Plus, we don’t know what those drugs did to your organs.”

  Well, if my arm had already started healing enough that the stitches could come out, those drugs could have done one of two things. My father knew a combination that would do damaged to a Nephilim, or they’d already started healing themselves.

  Still, it had been an interminable day, and I’d had a lot thrown at me. I was still a little drunk from drinking straight from the Tequila bottle. Did we even have time for me to take a brief nap?

  Chapter 7

  A

  eron and Leif were waiting when I left the exam room. My eyes were drooping, and all I wanted was a pillow. Ever since my eyes opened, the big goal had been to find my missing memories and get to Mexico. I still didn’t have most of my memories, but we finally made it to Mexico. Tall walls surrounded us, and we were safe here. It felt like I could let some stress out and take a nap.

  On the road, and even in California, day time was for travel. It was safer to move when it was light out, or there were curfews in California. Even at my apartment, I couldn’t nap because there was always this driving force to get to Mexico. I’d take twenty minutes, and then we could go to the lab and start experimenting on me again.

  They didn’t even give me a chance to ask. Leif scooped me up and cradled me like a baby.

  “Someone had too much Tequila and needs to lie down.”

  “This one drank me under the table one night in Gabriel’s Haven. Let’s get her to bed.”

  “I can walk,” I murmured.

  I didn’t really mean it. Technically, I could walk, and I could make it to the bedroom, but I was quite comfortable in Leif’s arms. Way too comfortable considering I didn’t remember a fucking thing we ever talked about on the phone. There was just this easiness about him that made me comfortable around him. I wanted to remember him so severely.

  I was in Leif’s bedroom in no time, and he was right, the bed was big enough for all three of us. Was it weird that I didn’t mind sharing the bed when I couldn’t remember Leif? All we would be doing was sleeping. I still wanted to explore where all the kissing Aeron and I had done would go, but it wasn’t really the time, and I wouldn’t do that in front of Leif.

  Leif set me gently on the bed, and he and Aeron stepped away.

  “We will let you nap, Ariel. We need to contact Dice and Asher to move to phase two of our plans now that you’re here.”

  “What’s phase two? And how are you talking, anyway? I never once saw Aeron use a phone.”

  “Angels can talk telepathically. You probably can too. We’ll teach you, but for now, take a nap and rest.”

  The pillow was so comfortable, but I just couldn’t shut up.

  “I want to know about your zombie killing horse. Where does he disappear to when you smack him on the ass?”

  “Always about the fucking horse. Meremoth is from Heaven, Ariel. He goes back there when I don’t need him and appears when I call him. We all have zombie killing horses. We’re the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. You will have to get used to our horses, Ariel.”

  I yawned.

  “I guess a Heaven horse is better than my theory about a demon horse. I still don’t like it when he gets all murdery with me on his back.”

  “Go to bed, Ariel,” Aeron said, kissing my forehead.

  I was asleep before he even left the room.

  I am transported back to my apartment. Things are normal again. I’ve just gotten home from the tattoo shop, and I’m expecting a phone call. I wait for this call every night. I rarely get home until midnight, and the phone call comes like clockwork as soon as my butt hits the couch.

  It is the same tonight. He never makes me wait because he wants to tal
k to me just as much as I want to talk to him. My phone vibrates, and I pick it up on the first ring.

  “Leif!”

  “Hey, beautiful. Did you fill your cancellation?”

  “Yeah, but I wish I hadn’t. It was a six-hour slot booked a year in advance. She couldn’t help getting sick and canceling, but I would’ve put it in my portfolio since we’ve been working on this piece for three months. I called some of my waitlist and took the first person who answered. If I had known what they wanted, I would have skipped them.”

  “That bad?”

  “He wanted a tattoo of Homer Simpson taking Marge from behind, and he wanted it across both ass cheeks. He had the hairiest ass I’d ever seen, and I had to shave it before I could tattoo him.”

  “My perky ass is hair free, and if I could find a bit of skin free for you to tattoo, I want it to be something special.”

  “Oh, yeah? Like what?”

  “Well, when we finally meet, I want you to pick. It’ll make it more special.”

  “You will set me loose on your body with a tattoo gun? What if I decide to play a prank and brand my name on your forehead?”

  “Then I’ll ask you to put ‘property of’ on top of it and wear it with pride. That way, other women know not to hit on me. I’d hate for you to commit a felony because you’re jealous.”

  “Smurfette only hits softballs, not women who throw themselves at you.”

  “You didn’t throw yourself at me. I do believe you accused me of being a stalker.”

  “Well, you kind of were. You lied your way into that chatroom to get close to me because of my father.”

  “We had to, Ariel. He’s planning something big.”

  “Leif, it’s time to tell me how you know that. I know he’s evil, but I ran away from him for a reason. Unless you can give me proof he’s about to do something major, I had no reason to get involved with him again. I want to meet you and Aeron, but I don’t want to get tied up with my father again.”

  “Tomorrow. You, me, and Aeron on three-way. We’ll tell you how we know. Do you trust us?”

  “You know I care about both of you.”

  “Then, promise me you won’t freak by what we tell you. We wanted to tell you in person, but I have a feeling you won’t come to Mexico unless we do.”

  I bolted awake. Leif and Aeron told me they were the Horsemen the next day on a three-way call. To say I took it badly was an understatement. I hung up on them and turned my phone off. I grabbed my weed stash and went to Miss Mabel’s to get high. I didn’t tell her what we talked about. I didn’t confide in her they told me they were the Horsemen.

  She just sat there and let me rant as I said they were both crazy, and I was never talking to them again. She must have known. She had to. She didn’t expose herself, even then. She just gave me advice like always.

  She suggested I paint and see what happened.

  So, I did, and that was where all the horse paintings in my living room came from. I started to realize I had gotten myself into some deep shit. I borrowed Miss Mabel’s well-worn Bible and started poring over the Book of Revelations.

  I can’t believe how dense I was then. I was slowly coming to terms with the fact that Leif and Aeron were in the Book of Revelations, and I knew they were after my father, but I never connected my father to the Antichrist in the book.

  I didn’t call Aeron and Leif for clarification, either. I stayed locked in my apartment, painting, and visiting with Miss Mabel. I went to my softball games and the tattoo shop, but that was it.

  There was a method to my paintings. There was always this massive urge to get them all out, but I always knew when the series was about to end. I could feel it in my marrow that I was done.

  I got home from the tattoo shop and turned my phone off. Leif was still calling, but I was ignoring him. I knew I had one painting left to do, and it would be a major one. I’d already built an enormous canvas before work. I had been itching to get home and put paint to canvas all day.

  That was the night I painted the orgy in the oval office. When I came to and realized that was what I’d painted, I didn’t have the same reaction as I did the second time I saw it. I immediately picked up the phone to call Leif and Aeron to tell them I was coming to Mexico.

  Still, it had been years since I first painted that. The world had changed, and so did I. I was not having an orgy in the Oval Office.

  Chapter 8

  I

  needed to find Leif and Aeron. I needed to apologize to Aeron because I remembered everything about how I reacted the first time I got just a little bit of information. I thought Aeron and Leif were just insane back then. But now? With everything going on and being around Aeron’s horse? I needed to be alone to process things years ago. I would have been petrified now. I would have run away from him, and there was plenty of nasty stuff out there that could have gotten their hands on me.

  I found Aeron and Leif. They were sitting in front of a laptop with a gigantic bowl of salsa in front of them. I felt my stomach practically eating itself. I’d always been a big eater and going hungry on the road didn’t do me any wonders. I didn’t have to go hungry here, and Doctor Gonzalez permitted me to eat as much as I wanted. I wanted to go swimming in that massive bowl of salsa.

  I plopped on the chair on the other side of the table and scooped up a ton of salsa on a homemade tortilla chip.

  “What’s with the laptop? Didn’t the internet die with everything else?”

  Leif just grinned at me.

  “Dice got it back up and running before he left. He’s a crazy mother fucker, but he’s good with gadgets.”

  “Which Horseman is he?”

  “Dice is the Horseman of War and Asher is the Horseman of Conquest. Dice has been slowly gathering up an army. He’s training them in Florida. Asher is right under Isaiah’s nose watching the White House.”

  “You said phase two. What’s that?”

  “Promise not to hit me?” Aeron said.

  “You have a bigger secret than being the Horseman of Death, and I’m the daughter of the Antichrist? I don’t think it can possibly get worse than my parentage.”

  “Well, we’re angels, Ariel. We can fly, or we can just think it and appear somewhere. I could have grabbed you and just popped you to your apartment, but you would have lost your shit, and I was hoping to help you get some memories back on the road.”

  I definitely would not have handled that well at all.

  “I would have beat the shit out of you if I just magically appeared in my apartment.”

  Aeron gave me this crooked grin.

  “Yeah, I know, and getting a beating from Smurfette would be way worse than Mabel’s broom. I might be an angel, but I have a healthy respect for not taking a beating from angry Nephilim. There used to be a time where there were a lot more Nephilim on Earth, and they weren’t nearly as cool as you and Mabel.”

  “So, you can magically appear and disappear. How does that play into phase two?”

  “So, Dice recruited a lot of soldiers during the war. People who were active military at the time, not some backwater yahoo with a shed full of guns and an underground bunker who has been preparing for this their entire life. Remember that big virus when they couldn’t even stay inside a few months and started protesting so they could get a haircut? Yeah, most of them ended up leaving their bunkers because they got bored and got eaten. They are suitable for raiding supplies, though.

  “Dice found hunters and people who know how to live off the land and defend themselves. Florida didn’t get hit that hard during the war. Some military bases ended up intact, and the planes undamaged.

  “Dice and Asher have done this all over the world. There are trained air pilots and operational planes all over the globe, just waiting. Isaiah and the rest of the dictators think these soldiers died in the war, but they’ve really only converted to our side, and we are keeping them hidden.

  “Phase two is me trying to figure out how to kill the Rage Heads wi
th your blood. I’ll make it into an aerosol, and Dice will come pick it up. We will travel to Florida after that. We will distribute the aerosol around the globe, and the planes will release it into the atmosphere, killing all the Rage Heads.”

  “Won’t they just shoot the planes down?”

  It was an excellent plan, but it had holes. I knew air traffic used to be heavily monitored. I hadn’t seen a single plane in the sky this entire time, but someone would notice a fighter jet suddenly taking to the skies.

  “That’s where Asher’s intel comes in,” Aeron said. “They aren’t monitoring air space anymore. They think the military and planes are gone. Isaiah and the rest of his friends in power around the world conscripted a militia of some of the worst gangs in their area for protection. They give them free rein to do whatever they want to people as long as there’s a few of them acting as bodyguards at all times.”

  Leif leaned back on the sofa and put his hands behind his head.

  “They have guns and bullets they scavenged from destroying military warehouses, but if you haven’t noticed, the government went a little bomb happy when the war broke out. They are out of bombs, and they aren’t exactly rolling in people that know how to make them any more or people who can staff shops to make more.”

  “No one is monitoring air traffic either because they think they don’t need to,” Aeron said. “Throughout history, the Antichrist has slipped up, and we managed to stop him. This is how Isaiah goes down. He’s got access to satellites. He could monitor the ground and see what Dice is doing in Florida. He’s gotten messy because he thinks he’s won.”

  “Why didn’t he kill me? If my blood can end all this, why hide me and keep me alive?”

  That was my big question. It wasn’t like he ever loved me. He raped an angel because he couldn’t get her blood to do what he wanted, then killed her after she produced me. From what I could remember of him, he only ever addressed me when he wanted something. He never spoke a kind word to me in my entire life. There were no gentle explanations or pep talks when he took me to that awful lab. He either said nothing or yelled at me when I didn’t want to go. He threw me in a padded room and refused to let me out until I drew something he wanted.