Darksiders: The Abomination Vault Read Free

with a rather distasteful shot. But at its height? When the Nephilim rode between worlds, trampling whole races asthey passed? A soldier armed with Black Mercy could slaughter armies. This isn’t a pistol, Belisatra. Black Mercy is a handheld massacre, a herald of genocide. You and I, we’re going to wake it up—and we’re going to find the others. If,” he added intently, challengingly, “you’re still game, of course.”
    “Yes …” Again her gaze had locked on the weapon, but now their bond was one of fascinated avarice, not startled revulsion. “Oh, you couldn’t keep me away.”
    Within the hood, teeth glinted in a crooked smile. “Well, then, my companion …” A second flick of the wrist, and Black Mercy disappeared up a voluminous sleeve. “You get to suggest a starting point.”
    “I think I can do that. I …” Her head cocked to one side. “We’ll need to gather my little helpers.” She idly reached out, brushed her knuckles across the nearer of the stone figures. “They’ll try to stop us, you know.”
    “Let them. I know the ways of Heaven and Hell too well for them to—”
    “And the Horsemen?”
    Again he stopped mid-sentence. “The Charred Council’s attack dogs? What of them?”
    Belisatra smiled without an iota of mirth. “You’ve heard of the Horsemen, clearly. And just as clearly, you’ve heard nothing
about
them.”
    “Deadly, obscenely powerful, without mercy, and all that, yes, yes …”
    “I mean
who
they are. The Four Horsemen are the Council’s enforcers, yes. They’re
also
the last of the Nephilim.”
    The other sucked in a breath. “The Nephilim are dead!”
    “As a race, yes. But to the very last? Not quite. And should they learn of your efforts—
our
efforts—I can’t imagine they’ll respond kindly.”
    A few calming breaths, and then, “I don’t much care
how
they respond, really. My quarrel is with the generals of the White City and the Dukes of Hell, not the Horsemen. But after all they’ve done? I’m quite certain that not a single tear will be shed, anywhere in Creation, when the Nephilim have gone well and truly extinct.”

CHAPTER ONE
    T HE ASHES SEEMED TO GO ON FOREVER .
    A thin layer at first, very much like a gentle coating of gray, clinging snow. Deep enough, if only just, to retain the imprints of passing feet—or would have, had there been any.
    After barely a few finger widths, however, the fine particles began to compress, suddenly and swiftly. A light dusting became a shifting grit, then a sucking mire. And below even that, the ash had lain so deep, for so long, it had condensed into a layer as unyielding as any earthen crust. If this world even
had
a surface beyond the omnipresent dust and cinders, it was buried so utterly that it would never again appear to the living.
    It filled the air as well, that ash, casting a constant veil across the face of the horizon. It diffused the light into perpetual dusk, blotting out the lingering embers of what had once been a sun. For those rare few unfortunate enough to pass through, it smelled of burnt oils and singed meats; clung to the nostrils and throat in an oily film. The wind was perpetual across the barren land, unimpeded by mountain or forest or wall, refusing to ever let the choking soot settle.
    Equally constant, audible over the roaring winds only ifone made the effort to listen, came the tolling of an impossible, and impossibly distant, bell. It could not exist,
did
not exist, anywhere in this blasted realm. Only a lingering echo of what once was, it sounded not so much in the ears as in the memory.
    Not merely a dead world, this, but a
murdered
one. What wide and varied life had once thrived here was long since stripped away, leaving nothing behind but death.
    And, more recently, Death.
    He stood at the edge of a colorless dune, before a squat, rounded structure, little more than a blister in the ashes, browned and pitted with age. Even the windswept soot seemed unwilling to