And the man …

Not what Nick had expected at all. He looked like a banker or stock broker or something … Normal. Dressed in an elegant navy pinstriped, double-breasted suit, his shirt was crisp and white with a bloodred tie that flashed with something Nick would swear was living skulls inside the fabric. His dark blond hair was slicked back from his handsome face. But it was his eyes that were terrifying. Cold. Merciless. Mean. It was like looking at Death, and since Death tutored him, he ought to know it when he saw it. A frigid green, his eyes were so clear that they gave the illusion of glowing.

Asmodeus was a little more typical. Spiked white hair framed an impish face. His gray eyes showed exactly how mischievous he could be. And he glanced around the room as if he’d never seen it before.

“Who are you?” Nick asked the man in the suit.

A wry smile curved his lips. “I’ve been called many things by many people. But those who want to live usually refer to me as Thorn. And they do so in a reverent tone.”

Not a soothing name by any means. Ranked up there with the Dark-Hunter named Venom, and Venom was definitely not someone you wanted to mess with, either. “What are you?”

Thorn quirked an offbeat, wry grin. “That’s easy … and yet so complicated that I have no wish to venture there with you. Suffice it to say, I’m a carbon-based life form. And I’m one of the deadliest things that call the shadows home. And you, Malachai, are in a place you shouldn’t be.”

“And that is?”

“Azmodea.”

Nick felt ill with that knowledge. How the heck did he get here? Like Asmodeus had said, how could someone go someplace and have no clue how they got there?

Asmodeus grinned. “Unfortunately, it’s not named after me. Rather, I’m named after it. That part kind of blows. Got me bullied a lot as a small demon. Really hasn’t helped my adulthood all that much either. And when it comes to females, I’d really like to find my father and repay him for this hideous name he stuck me with.”

Thorn held his hand up in a dismissive gesture. “Demon, go home or shut up. If you continue to annoy me, you’ll be a stain on my floor. Understood?”

Asmodeus nodded.

Nick was still trying to make sense of everything. “I don’t understand. How did I get here?”

Thorn placed his hand on Nick’s shoulder again. In the next heartbeat, his eyes flashed silver, then red, and settled on a hazel brown. “Nick, your body is lying unconscious on a hospital bed. I cannot stress to you enough that you can’t let yourself do that. Ever. Under any circumstances.”

“What do you mean? I can’t sleep?” That would stink. He had visions of Nightmare on Elm Street dancing in his head. Now where was a sugarplum when you needed one?

Releasing him, Thorn laughed. “That could be entertaining. A Malachai with hallucinations brought on by sleep deprivation. But no. Sleep is different. You’re still in the world of man when you slumber. Half in, half out. Any little disturbance will wake you, and snatch you back to the conscious realm. However, when you’re medically unconscious, you’re beyond the realm of man and are fully on this side of the Nether Realm. Without being anchored in the human realm, your geist, or essence, rather, will automatically bring you here to serve your master. It’s also why you can’t ever take drugs or drink alcohol, my friend. The minute you lose control of yourself and alter your mental state, you open yourself up for others to manipulate and harm you.”

“You could even be possessed,” Asmodeus said with a hopeful note in his voice.

Thorn cast an evil glare at him and he literally retreated two steps.

“Well, he could,” Asmodeus murmured.

Nick gave Thorn a droll stare. “Have no fear about the drinking and drugs, waking up in my own urine and vomit, or freaking out from a psychotic episode doesn’t appeal to me in the least. Have no plans to do either, and I still don’t know what you are.”

Thorn’s features hardened. “Forget Ambrose, I’m the person you don’t want to become. If you want some free advice, and I know everyone does,” he said sarcastically, “stop caring about anyone but yourself. So long as you care more for someone else than you do yourself, you’re screwed. You’ll never stand tall and you’ll always have a weakness that will stop you dead in your tracks and bring you to your knees.” He leaned forward until their noses almost touched. “Always put yourself first, kid. With all the regrets I have, and believe me, I have many, that’s my biggest one. The dumbest mistakes of your life will all come from the choices you make, trying to protect what you love.”

“Wow. Thank you, Mr. Sunshine,” Nick said with feigned enthusiasm. That was the complete opposite advice of his mother, who believed you couldn’t live happily unless you cared about someone. To her, that was the point of life. Making connections. Valuing someone else above yourself. Without that, Nicky, we’re just meat sacks waiting to be free of the misery of our lives. You’ll never know true happiness until you find that small handful of people you’d die to protect.

Nick clapped Thorn on the back. “I’m so glad you came out with your sunny disposition and thoughts to cheer me up, ’cause I just didn’t feel crappy enough today. Thank you, Mr. Sun Meister, Meister Sun.”

Thorn rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to me. Fine. Whatever. I didn’t listen either, and you see what lush and lovely housing it got me.” He gestured toward the sinister hole they were in. “Talk about sunshine … we don’t get, well, any here. And it never fails to amaze me how you can explain everything to someone, right down to the smallest detail. You show them exactly what not to do in order to be happy or successful, and still they don’t do it. They don’t listen. They come up with more excuses than a felon in prison. Fascinating … Disgusting, but fascinating. You can lead a demon to water, but you can’t force it to bathe.”

Sighing, Thorn glanced around the room, then back to Nick. “And right now, we have to get you out of here before someone else, who is not a good friend of yours or mine, senses you.” He cut a pointed stare to Asmodeus. “And no one is going to tell anyone or anything on the other side of that magic wall that you were here, either. Not unless they want to see the truly ugly side of my temper.”

Asmodeus gulped audibly.

Nick was about to speak when something slammed against the door. Hard. And from the deep sound of it, it was large.

And most likely, ugly.

“And look, lucky us, they’re here.” Thorn said something else in a growl that might have been a curse, but the language he used was so strange that Nick couldn’t be sure.

In the flash of a nanosecond, Thorn was covered in scaly armor that had spikes protruding from his shoulders and elbows. He glanced at Nick. “You’ve no real powers, do you?”

“Oh contraire, mon frère. I’m able to annoy all adults in ten syllables or less. Sometimes, I don’t even have to speak at all. I just walk into the room and it rankles them.”

“I can see that,” Thorn said drily.

Nick tensed as armor appeared on his body, too. “What’s this?”

“In the event they get past me and Asmodeus, who is going to fight with me or find himself disemboweled at my feet, let’s hope that keeps them from dragging you off to somewhere you don’t want to go.”

Before Nick could ask him to elaborate, the door burst open.

Thorn let fly a ball of fire into the chest of a tall, black blob. Asmodeus moved to stand in front of Nick and behind Thorn.

Asmodeus flashed a grin at Nick over his shoulder. “Let’s hope they don’t make it through the big guy, huh?”

“Where’s Adarian?” the blob hissed.

With both of his hands on fire, literally, Thorn stood at the ready, but he didn’t launch his fire at the beast. “You missed him.”

“I smell him. He’s here.”

Thorn’s hands flared brighter. “Do you see him anywhere? Now get out before I decide to answer this attack with one of my own.”

“I smell him,” it insisted. It sniffed the air like a bloodhound. Then it froze and turned its black eyes to Nick. “It’s you!” As he started to rush forward, he burst into flames.

Shrieking, it hit the ground and became a dark stain at Thorn’s feet.

By the look on Thorn’s face and the way he immediately went into warrior death match stance with both hands throbbing fire, it was obvious he wasn’t the one who’d caused the demon’s spontaneous combustion.

Out of the burning remains of the demon rose a glistening, translucent shadow. It grew larger and turned denser until it formed the shape of a man. Muscular and fierce, he had dark brown dreadlocks. His locks were shorter than Wren’s, and much more attractive—probably because, unlike Wren, he wasn’t completely antisocial. He actually styled his locks. And his goatee was every bit as perfect. He had sharp, angular features, most of which were covered by a pair of opaque black aviator sunglasses. Dressed all in black, he was even more frightening than the demon he’d killed.

But the oddest part about his appearance was what flashed through Nick’s mind when he looked at the newcomer. He saw him on a black horse in greenish-silver armor that flickered like a living creature. The man held a blood-soaked banner as he gleefully spread out his arm and sent misery to everyone, everywhere he rode.

What the.…

“Bane,” Thorn said in greeting, relaxing only a tiny degree. And as he did so, the fire on his hands turned down to a low, simmering flame. “To what do I owe the honor?”

Bane wiped his biker boots on the smoldering remains of the demon he’d killed. “I smelled a Fringe Guard and wondered what he was doing here, since this is not their domain.” He turned his head in Nick’s direction and quirked a sinister smile. “Now, I understand completely. So this is the baby Malachai Grim’s been teaching. Interesting…”

Nick looked to Thorn to see if this was friend or foe. From Thorn’s reaction-

He could tell absolutely nothing.

Until the fire on his hands finally went out. He gestured from Bane to Nick. “Nick, meet Bane.”

Interesting name. “Bane?” Nick asked. “What? Did your parents not like you?”

Bane let out an evil laugh. “Not really. But that’s all right. It meant that I didn’t have to worry about mourning them after I killed them.”

There technically wasn’t anything threatening in that, and yet …

Bane was not someone you wanted to meet late at night. Especially not when you were alone.

And unarmed.

Take that back, Nick wouldn’t want to meet him in a full suit of Kevlar wrapped in C-4 with a grenade launcher over his shoulder. Even with all that protection on your body, Bane would still be terrifying.

Asmodeus vanished from in front of him, only to reappear by Nick’s side so that he could whisper in his ear. “Bane is a good friend of Grim’s.”

Nick hesitated as his earlier vision of Bane and this latest tidbit came together and forced a realization on him that he didn’t want to have.

No. It wasn’t possible.

Was it?

Nick cleared his throat. “For the record, you’re not…”

A slow, taunting smile curved the right side of Bane’s mouth. “One of the Four Riders of the Apocalypse? Yes, Nick, I am.”

Stunned to the core of his being, Nick could barely accept that. Strange, right? He could handle his boss being an ancient Greek general. Acheron being an eleven-thousand-year-old whatever, and all the rest of the paranormal crap he stewed in.

But this …

It seemed truly impossible. After all you’ve been through, you’re really going to doubt this?

Yeah, he’d seen that episode of X-Files a few times too many, and while he wanted to deny Bane’s words all day long and into the next millennia, he couldn’t.

Scarily enough, it all made sense.

Nick raked a curious frown over Bane. From the tip of his biker boots to the top of his dreads. Aside from the obvious Faith No More wardrobe rip-off … “You look so … normal. Man, would my priest be disappointed.” Father Jeffrey expected the Riders in flowing robes like they had been depicted in some of the Tarot decks Nick had seen the psychics using outside the Cathedral in Jackson Square.

Bane wasn’t amused. “I now understand Grim’s need to pull the heart out of you. And here I just thought it was Grim. Nope. You really are that annoying.”

Nick arched a brow. “And this explains what Grim meant when he said anytime he got together with his friends, it didn’t go so well for humanity. You guys are … bad for crops.”

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