From Hell with Love (42 page)

“Oh, little man, you are just
too
amusing!” the horse seemed to shout, standing over the leper and meeting the man’s arrogance with respect.  “Who says I need permission to do
anything
?  I’m one of the Horses that bring on the Apocalypse!”

“Well, it’s not the Apocalypse
yet
,” Niccolo said, offended by the creature’s intrusion into his mind.  He stepped back and fixed a frown on the black horse.  “You ever heard of manners?”

“Oh, I
like
you,” Plague said, the green fog flowing out of his eyes.  “You don’t shirk away from talking to me at all.  You don’t think it’s odd to be speaking to a beast destined to end the world.”

“I mean…” Niccolo said, pacing in front of the creature before shrugging.  “First off, that’s not your fault,” he addressed the creature before settling his back against one of the opposite barriers.  “I can’t hold you responsible for what you
might
do.  It’s just, well, I…look, you surprised me, all right?  I thought I was just taking care of Lü Bu’s horse, and then a voice came out of nowhere…”

“You thought someone was playing a trick on you,” the horse added, which made Niccolo nod before continuing.

“Yeah.  And then I got flustered and…  I’m sorry,” Niccolo said before looking away, which caused the horse to approach him.

“Why?” it asked, its face only a few inches away from Niccolo’s own.  Somehow, the leper was not afraid now that it had gotten so close.

“I didn’t mean to speak to you with such…familiarity.  I’m sorry for thinking you were a brainless creature.  I didn’t know,” he said, his eyes looking toward the exit so that he would not have to deal with the horse’s impending insults directly.  He was shocked to feel the horse’s nose against his cheek, forcing him to look at it before it stepped back and stamped the ground.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, little man. 
I’m
sorry I shit all over the floor,” it said with a light chuckle, which made Niccolo shake his head in confusion.

“Wait…what?” he asked, the horse motioning around him with its head before replying.

“I don’t need to do that
at all;
I just do it to annoy that Chinese bastard.  Since the Horseman doesn’t respect his horse, his horse doesn’t respect him,” it said before looking to the entrance and staring at the pile of rotten manure.  “I had no idea he would force you to clean up my mess, so I’m sorry you had to deal with it.”

“You’re…
sorry
?” Niccolo asked, unable to believe what was happening, but soon the creature turned to look at him.

“It’s not unheard of, little man.  Even the strongest and smartest make mistakes from time to time.  Next time Lü Bu tells you to clean up the stables, tell him to fuck off,” Plague said lightly before winking at Niccolo.  “He can clean up his own mess.”

“I can’t really do that,” Niccolo said before crossing his arms.  “He’s the Horseman of Pestilence.  He’s in charge.”

“If anybody is in charge, Niccolo,” Plague said before snorting and flaring his nostrils, “it’s Barbas, and from what I’ve seen in your memories, the fallen prefers you over my master.”

“He’s,” Niccolo faltered before looking into the horse’s burning green eyes, “Lü Bu’s a great warrior, Plague.  Asshole, terrible man, but he’s far more powerful and he could kill me in an instant.”  As he finished the statement, the dark horse stood over him.  Niccolo realized he should have been terrified by the creature, but its presence only brought comfort.  When Plague lowered his left eye to stare at Niccolo, he almost felt a kinship with the hell beast.

“Don’t second-guess yourself, little man.  There’s more to you than you know.”

***

Pain enveloped Niccolo again as he felt the fire flowing around him and searing his skin.  He could even smell his flesh as it cooked, but the infernal pain was nothing to what was happening on his arm.  It broke and twisted in front of him, bending in unnatural ways and coiling around itself.  Eventually the hand turned on its owner and dove against his face, tearing away his skin and causing blood to leak out of him, crimson streams defying gravity and flowing toward the rocky ceiling of Hell.  Niccolo screamed as his mutated appendage struck him again and again, flensing the maimed skin from his face before coiling back above him.  It dove toward his chest, its cruel black claws sinking into his ribcage, and the last thing he felt was the points of four vicious fingers entering his heart.

“Niccolo, you get up right now!” a shout came from the ether, jolting Niccolo back toward consciousness and forcing him to sit up in his cot.  The young soul was breathing heavily as he looked around the barracks, a building he shared with dozens of new recruits.  Although they trained with Niccolo for the Apocalypse, the assassin had never felt a kinship with any of those lost souls.  “Get your clothes on and grab your weapon, you lazy ass!”

Niccolo looked to his left to see Barbas approaching him, his cane tapping against the stone floor.  Instantly, the young soul felt ashamed, as Barbas would not have come to get him for no reason.  Niccolo rubbed the sleep out of his eye before swinging his legs out of his cot.

“I’m sorry, old man, I’ll get out there soon,” he said before stretching, but he drew his hand back as Barbas’ cane rapped against his demonic knuckles.  Niccolo looked at the old man, offended by his actions, but the look on Barbas’ face was enough to force the words back into his throat.

“You
better
, Nico.  Lucifer came to watch the drills today.  I won’t have you proving to the others that I’m not doing my job,” the old man said, using his cane to hold up his weight, both of his hands on the knobby branch.

“What,
why
?  What does
he
care?” Niccolo asked as he jumped out of his bed and set about putting on his clothes.  He had learned soon after his fall that he needed to be intimidating to the other recruits, they were not the nicest of folk, so he slept without his tunic in order to display his scars and twisted arm for effect. 

No one ever bothered him.

“You know
why
, you child.  He wants to make sure we’re ready, and having one of my recruits sleeping in during the drills does not exactly look good.  I run a tight ship, Nico,” he said before pointing a gnarled finger at the assassin, but Niccolo had to laugh at that.

“Oh,
please
, you’re a pushover, Barbas.”

“And Lucifer doesn’t need to
know
that,” the old man said gruffly, watching Niccolo wrap the belt around his tunic.  After just a moment of observing Niccolo, Barbas’ expression softened and he wrapped his fingers around the end of his cane.  “Why didn’t you wake up, Nico?”

“It was the dream again,” Niccolo let out weakly, confident Barbas would know exactly what he meant.  The old man had nursed him back to health after his fall; Barbas said he had never seen anything like it and, from his behavior, Niccolo believed it.  Since those first few days, Barbas had become the uncle Niccolo never had during his first life.  The fallen angel made him feel like he belonged somewhere.

“Into the heart again?” Barbas asked before sitting down on Niccolo’s cot.  Though it contradicted his earlier behavior, the old man would not rush his pupil through this pain.  Niccolo grabbed his boots and sat down before looking at Barbas and nodding.  He put his feet inside his boots and sighed.

“I don’t know why it keeps happening,” he said before looking down at his twisted arm.  The skin was mottled green, yellow and brown, slick without being wet, but the claws were the most disturbing aspect.  Niccolo had torn through walls with his fingers and cut open beasts with an errant slap.  Somehow he had become more of a monster.

“It was traumatic, Nico,” Barbas said as he patted the young soul’s back with his left hand.  “We don’t choose our memories; there’s no rhyme or reason to what remains with us.  We just move on,” he said before using his cane to stand back up.  “Now, come on, the Devil is waiting.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Niccolo said before pushing off the bed and retrieving the long bow from the chest at the end of his bed.  “There’s a lot of strange stuff happening now, though.”

“Oh?” Barbas asked, walking a few steps ahead of Niccolo.  “Like what?”

“Well, Lucifer showing up to watch our drills, for instance,” Niccolo said before yawning and running his nails against his scalp.  “And Plague talked to me yesterday.”  Niccolo had closed his eyes during his yawn and had not expected to walk into his mentor’s back, but when he gathered himself after the impact, he noticed Barbas eyeing him suspiciously.

“
Who
talked to you?” he asked, his thumb running over the curved edge of his cane.  Niccolo shrugged before walking past the old demon, prompting Barbas to walk alongside him.

“Plague, Lü Bu’s horse.  It was the weirdest thing, I didn’t know beasts from Hell cold talk,” Niccolo said absent-mindedly, inspecting his bow out of habit.

“
They
can’t,” Barbas said, staring ahead of them, his mind clearly elsewhere.  The young soul turned to look at his mentor, his mouth agape in confusion.

“But, I heard him,” Niccolo protested, drawing a sharp breath from the man in the grey robes.

“Plague…isn’t just an animal.  Well,
technically
he is, but he’s a bit more than that.  All the horses are.”

“Because they’re part of the Apocalypse,” Niccolo offered, thinking he had figured it out.

“Yes and no, Nico.  Everyone in Dis is practically part of the Apocalypse.  When the horses were created, they were granted…parts of souls.  They can think, they can speak, they can even reason, but most of their power comes from latching onto the strength of their Horsemen.  Usually they draw traits from their masters, like Mercy or Despair, so you can see part of that,” Barbas explained, wrinkling his nose as they entered the cool air of the training yard.  Niccolo could see that all of the archers were showing off their best as a pair of fallen angels looked on.  The young archer tried not to look at them partly out of shame, but mostly just to escape notice.

“Ah, alright.  I guess I’m not so worried about it, then,” Niccolo said before taking a moment to string his bow, pulling the string back a number of times to relax the tension.  When he started walking again, he noticed that Barbas was not moving.

“Could be nothing, you’re right,” the old demon said before resuming his movement toward the crowd of demon onlookers.  “Though I will say that Plague has yet to speak to Lü Bu, and they have been paired together for centuries.  Now,” he said before pointed his withered finger at the field, “take the fifth target, Nico.  And try to hit it at least once.”  Niccolo would have been offended, but the old demon concluded his statement with a wink.  Thinking fondly of his master, Niccolo just smiled and shook his head before walking to his position.

If anyone in Hell was allowed to mock him, it was that old demon walking up to the ruler of Hell.

***

“How do you like the new archers, Scratch?” Barbas asked as he walked up to Lucifer.  The fallen angel had to sigh at his old friend, setting a hand on his hip as he turned to face him.

“Will you
stop
with that nickname?  You and Paimon are the only ones who still use it,” he said before looking out to the archers training in the yard.  Barbas walked up to his side and then set his cane against the mud in front of him.

“When it stops bothering you, I’ll stop using it,” he said with a coy smile.  “So do you think they will be any use during the Apocalypse?”

“Doubtful,” Azazel said with a lazy tone, stepping forward so that Barbas could see him past Lucifer.  “Some of them are missing the target completely.”

“They’re children, Zell,” Barbas argued, but soon he sighed, “but you’re right.  It’s so difficult to teach them anything after death.  It’s like their brains don’t work anymore.”

"They're not true brains anymore, Barbas," Lucifer said before breathing in deeply and looking at Barbas.  “I don't see them killing many angels.”

“Well, what do you expect me to do about it?” Barbas asked wearily.  “I can only tell them to practice so much.”

“You are the leader of the Pestilence Quarter, ya old bastard!” Azazel said with a scoff.  “You could tell them to practice more than
that
.  Look at that one,” he said before motioning at the field with his tail.  “He hasn’t hit the bull’s eye even once.”

“Which one?” Barbas asked, squinting at the blindfolded demon's choice.  Azazel then sighed before walking to Barbas’ side and wrapped his fingers around the old demon’s wrist, using his finger to point at the fifth archer in line.

“
That
one.  What’s his excuse?” Azazel asked before relinquishing Barbas’ wrist and yawning, bored by his sibling's training exercise.

“He’s,” Barbas said, wondering what excuses he could make for Niccolo, “he’s going through some troublesome changes.”

“Uh, yeah, that happens.  Hell and all,” Azazel said as he licked his lips and cocked his head to the side.  “What makes him so special?”

“He only had one eye in life and he’s still getting used to, well, his new sight,” the old demon said, which caused Azazel to scoff.

“You’re telling me he’s crippled by being
better
than he used to be?  Buddy, you can do better than that,” Azazel said, cracking his neck before turning to Lucifer.  “This is why the archers aren’t impressive, Lucy.”

“It’s not his fault, Zell,” Barbas explained in frustration.  He gripped his staff tighter before waving it around the dozen archers at work.  “They haven’t had to deal with the same issues.”

“What issues?” Lucifer asked, breaking into the conversation.  Barbas’ mouth opened in shock a number of times before he could respond.

“He…it’s just different,” Barbas said before turning and looking out on his students, focusing on the poor boy with the mangled arm.  His thoughts returned to their conversation, about how Plague had chosen to speak to Niccolo.  With that revelation, Barbas knew there was more to the child, especially if his suspicions were correct.