It was a long way up. After reaching the surface level, an auxiliary ladder helped speed things a bit, but it was still like scaling a sheer cliff. I heard banging and whistling as I ascended, maybe screams.

  I had no idea what awaited me, only that I’d never climbed so fast in either of my lifetimes.

  Wind pushed against me as I neared the top. All the lighting flickered if it hadn’t broken already. Flakes of something dithered about in the darkness—ash or snow, I wasn’t sure.

  Up and up I went, until the ladder grew slick with ice. The cold might’ve forced me to lose my grip if I wasn’t immune. Strands of my hair clung with frost, all of it a telltale sign of what that cat’s presence revealed to Chapelwaite—forces of Hell had arrived.

  Pushing through a hatch, I climbed up onto the observation deck at the top level of the monument. It took all four limbs to fight through the gusting wind to roll out onto the flat surface.

  A blizzard raged all around, snow whipping and obscuring everything. Giant chunks of white stone flew in spiraling patters, belonging to the pointed top of the monument. This breathtaking structure was being torn apart, turning this once enclosed viewing room into a literal platform.

  Before I spotted Rosa, I saw them. Arrayed before me, floating amidst the storms atop their Hellish mutant steeds, were the three Horsemen we’d encountered outside Golden River.

  The first sat atop a black horse, and wore a cloak to match. Now that we weren’t riding side-by-side at train speeds, I saw him more clearly. There was no skin on his yellowing bones. He had no eyes with which to stare back at me, yet a million pairs of them did in the form of writhing maggots.

  According to Godshalk’s book, this was Plague.

  Beside him, Pestilence stood, a fluttering mass of locusts. Much of the wind blowing across the platform appeared to be originating from the beating wings of his mount, a demonic-looking dragonfly with glowing green eyes.

  And the third—one I knew all too well—Calamity, though I hadn’t seen him up close yet. He sat upon a blood-red horse marked with black stripes not unlike a zebra, and his eyes shone with hate. Long fangs protruded from his jaw, almost like the tusks of an elephant. Though instead of being crafted from bone, they had the appearance of metal—copper, bronze, or something of the like.

  None of them spoke—I wasn’t even sure they could. Frozen locusts and bones swirled around their hosts. None were attacking either. Just watching as if waiting for a theater show to begin.

  “Rosa!” I yelled to her, fighting the wind to reach her side. She stood at the edge of a ruptured stone wall, looking out at the Horsemen, nothing between her feet and a five-hundred-foot fall to her death. Somehow, she was unharmed and unmolested amidst the torrent.

  “I hoped you wouldn’t follow,” she said without looking back at me. Her voice carried on the strong wind, empowered by it. Enough that I began to wonder if this storm was the Horsemen’s doing, or hers. Did she have this completely under control? Were they under her control?

  “Rosa, I convinced him,” I said, taking her hand. “He promised to help you.”

  “It’s too late, James.”

  “Like hell it is!”

  “Don’t you get it? I figured it out below while you spoke. Why Death never came for us.” She held out her hands and stared at her palms. Frost spiraled over them with radiating energy.

  “What are you talking about? We have to go!”

  I grabbed her hand. When she pulled away, a burst of her eldritch power repelled me like I’d been blasted in the chest by a shotgun. I flew backward, wondering if the burst would take me far enough across that platform that I wouldn’t land on solid ground—that I’d understand what would happen to a Black Badge’s body if it fell hundreds of feet to a stone bottom.

  However, I came to a jolting halt and slid half-a-dozen feet before my back slammed against something solid.

  “You’re not listening!” she yelled. She met my stunned gaze, and her expression wasn’t one of fear, just somber resignation. “Death didn’t come because it was already here.”

  Those last words didn’t only come from her. They were echoed by each of the vigilant Horsemen, their harmonious voices deep and resonant and familiar—Chekoketh. Whether there was trace of a hellmouth nearby or not, I wasn’t sure. But with the knowledge of what ran through her veins, I don’t think it mattered. She was a direct connection to both Heaven and Hell.

  Wendigo’s words echoed through my mind, “Wherever a man goes, Death is his companion.”

  I knew now. I understood. And despite my desperation for it not to be true, I couldn’t shake the fact that it was.

  “You son of a bitch!” I drew both Peacemakers and aimed at the first two Horsemen I could, as if my silver would be worth a damn against them. Pestilence and Calamity didn’t even balk in the face of my wrath.

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  “That’s what they want for me,” Rosa said. “To be the fourth of their kind. To claim Death’s mantle.”

  “More than you could ever offer, Crowley.” Chekoketh’s laughter made the world rumble. “What joy it brings to watch you fail. The Hand of God who defied Heaven and Hell.”

  “It’s you who failed, Chekoketh!” I shouted. My words smelled like bullshit coming out of my mouth. What chance did I have in this moment? How could I possibly compete against such forces as Death and Hell itself?

  Again, I extended my hand for Rosa, only this time, guilt racked her features. She mouthed the word “sorry” then turned back toward the Horsemen.

  I’d lost. Never in my life had that thought even crossed my mind—that I couldn’t win.

  “Would you have her run for eternity?” Chekoketh continued speaking through his pawns. “Would you waste such a miracle born from Lilith’s sacrifice? Hand her instead to the angels who abandoned you?”

  Denial clawed at my insides. “She’ll never be yours!”

  I nudged her aside and started shooting. Chunks of black tar spilled from Plague’s cloak as bullets tore through. Bugs went fluttering upward from Pestilence, only to re-find their place within his undulating form. Calamity received the rounds like an old friend, and they got caught within a torrent of his being, then spewed outward from him like they’d been shot from his own weapon. Silver slugs whipped past me, and one grazed my arm. Though the pain coursed through me, I didn’t just ignore it, I fucking welcomed it. Let Heaven and Hell come. Let all the angels and demons gather together in one place and let me burn them to the goddamn ground. I’d die trying to stop them from hurting her, from taking her.

  “Stop it, James!” Rosa yelled.

  I ignored her. But before my last rounds were emptied, she grabbed the barrel of the gun in my left hand. Smoke rose from her palm, yet she showed no emotion as her skin burned.

  “I said stop!”

  Her eyes shone Hellish blue. I realized then that it wasn’t smoke, but steamy vapor as the Peacemaker turned to ice in her grasp. My attempt at pulling its trigger caused the beloved firearm—the one that once belonged to my closest companion, Big Davey, the man who stood to stop Ace alongside me when the bastard moved to rape and murder Rosa and her mother—to shatter into countless tiny shards.

  I staggered back, gawking at the broken pearl grip still in my palm. A single bullet remained in the pistol in my right hand, barely enough to take out a werewolf, let alone three primordial evils.

  “Just listen to me!” Rosa demanded, panting.

  Words didn’t come. Just a look that I hoped told her I was ready to finally listen.

  “I made a decision,” she said. “For me. For us. To finally end all this insanity.”

  I looked between her and the looming Horsemen. Whatever minor damage I’d done in my onslaught was undone immediately, as the broken chunks of their beings slowly reformed. Their monstrous steeds hissed and clicked, all manner of earsplitting noises fit only for the underworld. They drew nearer.

  “Please don’t tell me,” I said to her.

  “I had to, James. Once I figured it out, I knew. This is why I exist. You’ve said it yourself. Heaven, Hell, it’s all the same. Two sides of the same coin. At least with this power, maybe I can do some good.”

  “With them?” I pointed accusingly at the abominations. “I know you’re scared, Rosa, but I didn’t take you for a damn fool. There’s no good in Chekoketh. Not one bit.”

  “Says a murderer and a thief.” Chekoketh spoke through the nearing Horsemen, his booming voice making my very bones vibrate. “Who are you to speak on morality? You lesser beings invented it, and you aren’t even counted among them anymore.”

  I pushed his words away—had to—and held Rosa’s gaze. “Listen to me, whatever he’s promised, it’s a lie. It’s not too late.”

  “I can give her the power she craves! The power to destroy wicked men! To dominate them. I will deliver the Hand of God known as Ace. He comes as we speak. The vengeance you never could offer will be hers by my magnanimous hand.”

  “Who cares about Ace!” I implored her. “Don’t do this, Rosa. Don’t give up. Judas will help you. I know he will.”

  “And trade one evil for another?” Rosa scoffed.

  “It ain’t that simple.”

  “The Betrayer cannot even help himself!” The monument quaked as Chekoketh snickered. “You would deny your love her true power? What loyalty do you owe my enemies? None. You cling to her like a maggot to a carcass, sucking her dry, Crowley. You’re lucky she wishes you unharmed. Shargrafein will be irate, but I don’t mind. I’d rather you suffer in the watching. She’ll learn to enjoy it, as she has learned to worship me.”

  Any other time, it would have bruised me to my core to know that Shar had been in bed with the trickster demon all this time. Who cared now? I’d never much cared for her anyway. She’d always been more vinegar than honey, you know, like a goddamned demon.

  I filtered Chekoketh out of my thoughts and vision and focused only on Rosa. Those radiant green eyes.

  “Is that what this is about?” I asked her softly. “Me?”

  “He promised to leave you alone.” Rosa tried to look away, but I didn’t let her. I holstered my remaining Peacemaker, took her by the hands, and squeezed.

  “I don’t care about me. Rosa, I don’t care. Let the demon do whatever he wants. Let him torture me for eternity, but don’t do this. You’re better than this.”

  “What a pitiful display.” Chekoketh laughed, his Horsemen so near now the stone of the monument frosted in inch-thick ice. “Do not fear, my queen. I will purge you of mortal weakness. I shall sit upon the throne Lucifer squanders—the one built upon the blood and bones of angels and men alike. Those who formerly swore allegiance to the White Throne will flock to me, and you, blood of Lilith, you will lead my armies as we claim all the realms in my name.”

  The Horsemen extended what passed for hands to Rosa. Locusts hummed around us. Bones clattered. Wind roared.

  “Please, Rosa,” I begged, my voice cracking.

  She stared at me with regret in her eyes. “This is what I get for thinking I could have a normal life.”

  My mind jumped. She’d said something similar back in Dead Acre, after we’d been reunited for the first time in decades. After I’d saved her from the necromancer and avenged her late husband.

  “Ain’t no such thing as normal,” I’d said then, and again now.

  “Not for us.” She smiled, sad and pitiable. “But thanks to you, I can handle myself.”

  She pulled me into an embrace and kissed me with all her passion. I don’t reckon I’d ever had a kiss like it. I couldn’t feel a damn thing, but what did that matter? My brain could fill in the blank spaces.

  Next thing I knew, I was kissing her back with the same enthusiasm. All our problems, all the troubles of the world… they melted into that moment of this thing I’d craved but dared not act on for so long. It didn’t even register that this was a goodbye kiss until a gunshot cracked.