Lethal Rider by Larissa Ione, now you can read online.
One
Regan Matthews was going to die.
She knew it as sure as she knew the sky was blue. Knew it as sure as she knew the baby inside her was a boy.
Knew it as sure as she knew the baby’s father would be the one to end her life.
Screaming, she bolted upright in bed, her eyes focusing on the glow of the nightlight in the bathroom. It took a second to realize she was awake, safe and secure inside The Aegis’s Berlin headquarters.
The dream had come to her again, the one where she saw herself lying on a floor and covered in her own blood, too much blood. Thanatos, known to much of the human population as Death, fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, knelt next to her, blood coating his hands, dripping from his pale hair, and splashed across his bone armor.
She took a deep, calming breath, forcing herself to relax. Thanatos couldn’t touch her. Not here, in the apartment complex deep below the headquarters building that housed the twelve Elders who ran the ancient demon-hunting organization. Most of the Elders used their apartments only when they came to Germany for Aegis business, but Regan had called this spartan apartment home for years, and despite the fact that she was due to give birth in less than a month, she hadn’t done a single thing to prepare for the baby. There would be no decorating, no toys, no cribs.
She’d always hated pastels anyway.
Her hand, so pregnancy-swollen that she no longer wore her Sigil ring, trembled as she rubbed her belly through the cotton fabric of the maternity nightgown, hoping the baby would stay asleep. He was one hell of a kicker, and her organs were still recovering from his last round of hacky sack.
Regan fumbled in the darkness for the bedside table lamp. Her hand fell first to the hellhound-spit coated Aegis dagger all twelve Elders were required to carry as defense against evil Horsemen, and then to the bit of parchment next to the lamp. She allowed herself a moment to smooth her fingers over the inked lettering. The Latin words were a prayer of sorts, but that wasn’t where Regan found comfort.
No, as a psychometric empath, she could divine information with a touch or, more specifically, feel the emotions of the person who put ink to skin. This particular bit of writing had been penned while the author was feeling serene. Regan had kept the page with her for years, borrowing the emotions of the author like some sort of psychic vampire, and she’d needed it more than ever over these last few months.
With one Horseman turned evil, his Seal broken according to the prophecy in the Daemonica, the demon bible, Earth was falling into chaos. No Apocalypse promised a party, but Regan often wondered why they couldn’t be dealing with the Bible’s prophecy instead. At least in the biblical version, the Horsemen would be fighting on the side of good instead of evil.
But that was only part of why she’d needed the parchment. Her regret over what she’d done to Thanatos ate at her, and while she didn’t deserve anything less, for the baby’s sake she had to find peace where she could.
She allowed the parchment to soothe her for another thirty seconds, thankful to have it. The final page from a tiny book penned by an angel who had given her life to save a Guardian, it was beyond priceless. Regan’s fellow Elders had been after Regan to give it up for years, but they’d have to wait. She wasn’t giving it up until she was dead.
Which might be sooner than she’d like, if Thanatos got hold of her.
She lifted her fingers from the parchment, but before she found the lamp switch, a noise froze her. It wasn’t a loud sound, and in fact she thought the echo of footsteps might be in her head. But what she couldn’t dismiss was the trickle of awareness that filtered through her system, an internal alarm that made no sense.
No place on Earth was safer than where she was right now.
Still, she found herself fisting her dagger and easing out of bed. Heart pounding, she crept across the room and put her ear to the door. Nothing. So why was her entire body quivering with static undercurrents that warned of danger?
You’re just being paranoid. The nightmare about Thanatos must have freaked her out more than usual.
But it couldn’t hurt to check things out. Her Guardian instincts had never failed her, and she’d known more than one Guardian who had paid the price of ignoring that deep-down sense that something was amiss.
As quickly and silently as possible, she tugged on a maternity blouse and a pair of khaki pants, and at her hip she secured her pregnancy-modified weapon belt and cell phone clip. She didn’t go anywhere without being armed. She traded out the dagger with a stang, preferring the double-ended, S-shaped blade in battle.
Clutching the stang in a white-knuckled grip, she opened the door and slipped out into the hallway. The darkness, usually her friend, now became a liability without her Aegis ring, which would have lent a measure of night vision.
Regan put her back to the wall and moved toward the light switch outlined in a faint green glow. But when she flipped it, nothing happened.
“Just a burned-out bulb,” she whispered to herself. She even said it again, but a niggling sense of doubt joined the feelings of danger.
She glanced back toward her room, wondering if her smartest option was to go back inside and lock the door, but duh… anything that was a threat to her inside Aegis Headquarters wasn’t going to be stopped by even a thick slab of wood and a deadbolt.
Besides, she had a secret weapon, one she’d been forbidden to use—unless the baby’s life was in danger.
She crept forward, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling with every step.
“Who’s there?” There was no answer, but then, no demon would happily offer up his name.
The baby had clearly turned her brain to mush, and she’d become a classic horror movie dipshit who got killed in the first five minutes of the film. Awesome.
She thought she saw a flicker of movement ahead, near the entrance to the auditorium. Where was everyone? Even in the middle of the night, Guardians patrolled the building or spent shifts researching in the massive library or organizing worldwide operations. This was The Aegis’s nerve center, and it was never this quiet.