Halo Breaker, page 3
The face continued to shift and move like wet black paint, but I could undoubtedly confirm that it was a woman. Her massive breasts sagged low, looking like rotten melons. Her obsidian armor looked more like a part of her skin rather than a chest plate, as I had earlier assumed, because as she took a threatening step forward, her breasts swayed back and forth and the obsidian armor crinkled like living metal as it readjusted.
“Give me the Halo,” she growled, sounding surprised to see the Halo in my hand, “or I will lay waste to Castle Dracula and all your pretty toys, and my wendigo will finally eat his fill.”
I knew very little about wendigos, but what I did know was enough to make my stomach roil. They were insatiably greedy and hungry, never able to fill the aching void of starvation in their guts. I wasn’t sure where they had come from or how they were made, but some believed they were malevolent spirits who possessed humans and forced them to crave only human flesh. Cannibalism with a healthy dose of karma.
A greedy and insatiably hungry monster working for one of the Sins.
“Well, Titty Galore,” I drawled, grimacing at her grotesque chest, “you must be Greed.”
She gave me the briefest of nods. “I. Am.”
“I didn’t take you for the sentimental type,” I said, twirling Envy’s Halo around my wrist in a playful manner. “And the surprised look on your shit-smear of a face tells me you crashed my party for a different reason entirely.”
She snarled at my apparently correct assumption but her shifting face tracked the Halo like a dog eyeing a raw steak. “A trade then,” she suggested in a strangely confident tone. I felt my pulse momentarily quicken, not liking her implication.
The wendigo continued to battle and gobble vampires and werewolves behind her, letting out it’s agonized honking blast as the meals it consumed evaporated to smoke. Was that thanks to the Dueling Grounds or part of the wendigo’s curse? I focused back on Greed. “Let me guess. I give you the Halo in exchange for you leaving Castle Dracula with your hangry deer?” I mused, pretending to consider the trade while my mind searched for alternatives. Asterion was still fighting but he was moving sluggishly. Gargoyles screamed through the air but they looked like those fighter planes in the King Kong movies as the wendigo angrily swatted them away, more annoyed than anything.
We were losing.
Greed laughed and I looked up to see her shaking her head. “No. I came for the Divines. Give them to me and we will leave,” she said, chuckling wickedly.
She was easily three or four times my size, and I knew my vampire and wizard’s powers wouldn’t be enough to shut her down. But I had to defeat her here. Even if it wouldn’t be permanent, it would inspire confidence in my people. I saw Alucard zipping through the sky in my peripheral vision, clearing exits for the human residents at Castle Dracula to escape the Coliseum. I managed to bite back a smile, realizing he was wearing his Horseman’s Mask. Of course! But I needed to keep her talking first. Find out what she knew.
“You won’t find me such easy meat, Horseman,” the Sin said in a serpent-like hiss, following my eyes to look up at Alucard. “Envy covets, whereas Greed takes!”
“Well, I’m glad that you fell for my trap here,” I said in a pleasant tone. “I mean, I worked so hard to lure you in and here you are,” I lied. “Now I don’t have to waste time hunting you down. Like your spider minion I cooked in the dumpster. I ripped his skull open with my bare hands.” I smiled, glancing down at my claws. “Well, I used these to crack that particular chestnut, first.” I swept my gaze over the battle raging through the Coliseum. “As you can see, the Divines are not here to laugh at your deal so how about I give you a counter-offer?” I grinned as I looked up to stare at the space above Greed’s head where I could see a flickering silhouette of her halo. “I don’t want to trade. I really want a matching set, you see,” I said, taunting her with Envy’s halo. “I will let you die. Like your sister did when I sliced her head off. That’s the deal.”
Greed laughed wickedly, but I saw two pinpoints of red fire flare up behind her smeared face. Her eyes. Mentioning her sister had pissed her off and she’d tried to cover it up with a laugh. So simple, these unholy beings. They were emotional, fickle things.
“I can return for the Divines, but if you want Claire Stone, you will give me my sister’s Halo.”
The sounds of chaos and violence abruptly muted and I heard a sharp ringing in my ears. “You…have Claire?” I rasped in a cold, dead voice, feeling like my soul was about to rip out of my chest.
Greed chuckled. “Don’t worry. She is not lonely. The wendigo and her have been sharing meals together,” she said meaningfully. The wendigo…was feeding on Claire. “He is an excellent dinner companion—”
I hurled a blast of fire at her. It struck her in the chest and washed over her armored melons. She hissed in outrage as I summoned my angel wings and leapt into the air to kick her squarely in the face. She fell back a step, snarling. She spat a bloody gobbet of black blood onto the earth and it sizzled.
“If Greed takes, then take that, bitch,” I laughed.
6
She sneered at me through bloody teeth. “Of course, I could be lying. She might already be dead, her flesh filling my wendigo’s stomach and her bones draped over my throne. At least Envy managed to take out Solomon and the pathetic cat before she failed,” she laughed, referring to Last Breath. I hovered before her, flapping my wings instinctively. My gauntlets and wings wouldn’t be enough. I could already feel them waning as a result of my injuries, even though I’d fed upon Kenai, I was still at only a fraction of my usual power. It definitely hadn’t healed me as well as it should have. Was that because he was a bear or because Sanguina was on a walkabout? I blocked out the pain of my seared stomach and fragile arm. I felt deep throbbing pain in my thighs as well. I needed my Horseman’s Mask, but I needed it at the right time.
“I don’t know why Envy saw them as such a threat,” I admitted, “but she paid for her crime. Her head is on a spike at the Castle,” I said with a grim smile. “Bet you didn’t think you guys could be taken down so easily.”
“The reason you will fail is because you don’t understand Envy’s gambit. She wasn’t punished. She sacrificed herself for the cause. On purpose and with full intent. Why else would she have given Claire to me before completing her project and confronting you?” she asked, cackling.
I kept my face blank, processing her words. What the hell was she talking about? What was Envy’s project? Was she lying to confuse me? I needed to keep her talking as long as possible, but I also came to the sudden realization that killing her here would be pointless. Neither of us could actually die here. It was simply a battle of our egos. A warm up for what would come later. And if Envy had indeed sacrificed herself purposefully, what was Greed’s angle now? Was this attack intentional as well? How could I throw a wrench in her plans?
She hated me but she didn’t fear me right now. She knew she couldn’t die here. That was the only explanation. She knew about the Dueling Grounds. I needed to change the game.
“The Divines will never serve you,” I vowed. “They don’t even serve me!” The fighting had bled into the arena proper and I saw hundreds of demons fighting werewolves and vampires.
“With the right leverage, anyone will serve,” Greed snarled. “The Divines will—”
“Never serve you, Sister,” a new voice said. I turned to my right to see Lucky in the arena with us, less than ten paces away and glaring up at Greed. Fuck. The Anghellian had arrived. He wore jeans and a fitted tee, his long hair flowing in the wind. His face was utterly calm and he walked through the chaos and fighting like a specter, completely oblivious and apart from the carnage as if they were repelled from reaching him. I saw the Four Divines tearing into the enemy. Xuanwu’s black form zipping about with his frosty sword almost too fast to see and Qinglong’s serpentine blue dragon form hurling spears the size of trees out of thin air, laughing as they hassled the wendigo, assisting Samael and Lilith. My godparents were in their greater demon forms, almost as tall as the wendigo, but even they were having a hard time pinning him down—
Wait. Samael and Lilith were supposed to be helping Ryuu with the raids on the nephilim hideouts! I scanned the chaos but didn’t see Ryuu anywhere. What the hell?
Zoe and Bai had joined the vampires and wolves; the Red Phoenix and White Tiger ripped through the demons with blasts of fire and explosions of metal spikes like they were paper, but more enemies kept pouring in.
I cursed under my breath. Goddamn the Anghellian. Goddamn the Divines. They were all supposed to be tucked away safely at Xuanwu’s estate where Heaven and Hell could not reach them!
Greed was staring at Lucky with a baffled frown. A brave human without any weapons was strolling up to one of the strongest demons in Hell without a flicker of fear.
She has no idea what he is, I thought to myself. I still have a chance to fix this.
Lucky held up a hand and the Four Divines immediately stopped fighting, turning to face him in silent obedience. Greed gasped, her face shifting from the Divines to the human who had just apparently commanded them. She turned all of her attention on Lucky and I could practically taste the greed in her posture. Control the human and control the Divines by proxy. Lucky had just shown Greed a vulnerability.
And as powerful as Lucky was, his body was basically as fragile as any human. He had a potentially world-ending right hook but a delicate glass jaw.
Shit. I couldn’t let her get him. He didn’t control the Divines but they had seemed to adopt him as part of their family after he’d assisted me—barely—in saving Zoe and Bai from Purgatory.
Me? Still no love from the Divines for my efforts, but that was neither here nor there. I wasn’t bitter.
I wasn’t afraid that Lucky could die because we were in the Dueling Grounds. None of us could die here. But she could take him, which was infinitely worse. My only solution was to take her out, but that was no longer enough because she had seen Lucky. If I killed Greed here, she wouldn’t actually die. She would wake up in her hideout, now having information that would put the Divines and Lucky in grave peril.
She needed to die—for real—before she had the opportunity to share the information she’d just learned. I had to get Greed out of the arena and kill her. Now. Before the Divines or Lucky killed her here inside the safety of the arena—
Greed hurled a blast of black fire at him and he absently swatted it aside, sending it into a horde of her own demons, transforming them to black sand. She grunted in disbelief at the bored expression on his face. He snapped his fingers and the Four Divines resumed their fighting. The wendigo honk-screamed again and I heard disgusting chomping sounds and screams as he ate my people alive while battling Xuanwu and Qinglong.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The ghostly apparitions of Pride and Michael flickered into view over Lucky’s shoulders and I groaned. Greed’s eyes twinkled with a longing so deep that it overwhelmed her surprise. “What are you?” she demanded, and I could practically taste the hunger in her voice. There would be no chance at getting her off his scent now. She would do anything to get her hands on this mysterious creature.
“I’m Lucky,” he said, facing her with a distant look on his face.
Greed started hurling more blasts of fire at Lucky in rapid succession and I saw his apparitions grow larger and more menacing as they started gathering power to hit Greed back with a haymaker of their own. No! I couldn’t let anyone kill her here in the safety of the Dueling Grounds.
I started hurling blasts of my own fire and ice at Greed in hopes of distracting her from Lucky but she’d been expecting it and held up a shield with one hand as she continued lashing out at Lucky.
I saw Ryuu sprinting towards us and my heart skipped a beat. Him too? Who was watching the captured nephilim? He was covered in blood and held his black blade at his side, intending to stab Greed in the spine from behind while Lucky and I distracted her. I gritted my teeth, focusing on Greed. I couldn’t let Ryuu or Lucky kill her.
I called up a massive ball of air and hurled it directly at Lucky. He’d been so focused on Greed that it struck him like a train and sent him cartwheeling thirty yards away where he slammed into the wall of the fighting arena. I grimaced, knowing I would pay for that later.
Greed cocked her head at me as she drifted down to the ground and summoned a massive black sword to her hand. She frowned suspiciously, glancing at the motionless Lucky with concern.
“You fucked up, Greed,” I said, slowly drifting back down to the ground.
“Oh?” she asked, amused. “Do enlighten me. Because I so enjoy passing the time by listening to the desecration of your followers who are not in the safety of the arena. I will return for him.”
Fuck. She really did know how safe she was in the Dueling Grounds.
I calmly turned my back on her and let out a sigh as I surveyed the chaos behind me. There had to be a few hundred demons in the stands, but Alucard was doing an admirable job keeping them back. “You brought a friend because you are a coward.” I let my shoulders sag. “Which means you have something to lose and that you are afraid. Envy covets. Greed takes. But Despair breaks,” I said, lifting my hand to the side and summoning a massive ball of white fire to throw at Lucky, who was only just now stumbling to his feet. “I would rather permanently break my toys than share them.”
“You cannot do such a thing here in your Coliseum, White Rose,” she snarled hungrily.
I shrugged. “Watch.” The ball of white fire screamed as it ripped through the air for Lucky.
Greed snarled furiously and I felt her lunge to strike my spine. I slipped on the Mask of Despair and made the ball of fire racing towards Lucky wink out of existence.
I spun to face Greed as the transformation took over my body.
I clapped my hands together before me in a praying pose and I caught the tip of her giant black blade between my two palms as the Mask of Despair latched onto my face with the sensation of a thousand silky, groping fingers. My lower body transformed to mist and I calmly rose up into the air, still trapping her sword despite her quivering, straining muscles trying to jerk it free or force it forward into my chest.
I smiled. “How does Despair taste, angel?” I asked in a chiming, singsong tone. Then I tore the sword from her hands and swung it like a baseball bat, cracking her across the jaw with the massive hilt. She flew across the arena just as Ryuu reached her back and lunged forward with the sword known as the Angel Killer.
His black katana struck only empty air and he snarled furiously, glaring up at me.
I blew him a kiss. “I love you,” I said.
Then I tore through the air after Greed as she slammed into the bleachers and through the walls of the Coliseum.
Beyond the protections of the Dueling Grounds.
For both of us.
7
I grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off her feet as I hastily tore open a Gateway behind her. It opened up into a distant night sky high above a sleeping city. I used my other hand to punch her in the forehead as hard as I could. I felt her skull crunch as she flew free from my grip on her throat and through my Gateway to…
Well, St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, naturally. My mind had a sick flair for poetic justice. Maybe the Conclave would finally realize who the real enemy was when I dropped a Sin at their front doorstep.
“We’re here for the midnight baptism!” I shouted, my voice booming through the night sky like thunder.
Greed flew through the open night sky and slammed into one of the fountains, obliterating it in a spray of water and rubble as she rebounded, skidding across the cobblestones. I winced. Damn it! I hadn’t intended to damage any of the beautiful architecture. I also realized that the famous destination was not as sleepy as I had hoped. A few dozen tourists screamed and ran from the sudden chaos. It was still late in the night so there weren’t too many people, but even one was more than I had hoped for.
I saw a few couples with strollers and my heart broke. Fuck. I needed to change locations. Now.
I dove through the Gateway after her and I felt my Horseman’s skin protect me as I ripped through the protective wards that the Shepherds had placed over the Vatican grounds. I hit the ground on one knee that was aimed for Greed’s chest, but she’d rolled away at the last moment.
The cobblestones around me shattered and Greed stumbled to her feet with a horrified look on her face. The smeared, blurry mask over her face was no longer there, having broken after my punch. Instead, I saw the face of an emaciated, gaunt-cheeked woman who reminded me of a crack addict. Her forehead was a shattered mess, leaking black and yellow blood and her legs wobbled as she glanced left and right, trying to determine where we were and why there were so many screaming people racing in every direction.
She’d obviously wanted me to keep her confined to the safety of the Dueling Grounds.
I heard a shout from the sky behind me and I saw Greed’s eyes flick upward as they widened in terror.
I glanced back to see Ryuu falling from my Gateway, his Shadow Skin acting like a parachute as he pursued me across the world. I gritted my teeth in annoyance that I had forgotten to close my Gateway, but I was secretly grateful. He could look after the tourists and keep them safe. I rose to my feet and abruptly felt a wave of exhaustion ripple through me. A very strange, alien sensation in my Horseman form.
What the hell?
I spun back to Greed and tackled her, ripping open a Gateway behind her. Icy snow from a lonely forest in Alaska whipped through the hole in the air, but Greed batted me aside with a powerful claw. I felt my armor ripple strangely, as if flickering in and out of existence. I hit the ground hard and this time there was no imagining it. I actually saw my armor flicker in and out of existence, and my legs materialized for a moment rather than remaining in their mist form.
