Chapter Four #2
He was used to most people, including the guards, avoiding eye contact with him.
Those who were brave enough gave him a brief nod of greeting, which was returned with the same curtness.
Outside the walls of the prison, those nods were the equivalent of hours of small talk over coffee and donuts.
He paused to exchange a few brief words with one or two people, and noticed that all of their voices sounded rough from lack of use.
Most of the indoor garden was enclosed by stone walls, but one side of the room was comprised of nothing but an uninterrupted expanse of thick glass with a clear view of the shimmering blue lake.
The light that filtered in through the window would have been enough to illuminate the entire room with its pale blue hue, but the ceiling was also enchanted to reflect an image of the real sky.
No matter how nice it seemed, there was no mistaking that it was still a cage.
The whole time he had been imprisoned there, he had never once seen so much as a ripple caused by a living creature in the lake.
The absence felt wrong. Completely unnatural.
He couldn’t decide if nothing could get close to the prison because of the numerous safeguards that were in place, or if there was something else wrong with the water that made it impossible for living things to survive.
Either way, it was fucking disturbing.
The lake wasn’t merely an obstacle. It was an impenetrable barrier and far deeper than most people realized.
Whether by design or by something far worse, it meant escaping through the water was impossible.
Even if someone managed to slip past the guards and through the numerous safeguards to make it beyond the walls, the lake would surely be the end of them unless they could manage to find a boat to use.
Mordecai had stopped wondering how many desperate souls had tried and failed to escape the prison since its creation. The only thing he knew for sure was he wasn’t one of them. Of course, he’d considered it…briefly. Every prisoner fantasized about it a time or two, but very few actually tried.
Besides, he was too damn lazy to try.
The prison was a labyrinth of hidden hazards, but at least those dangers were somewhat predictable. Still, the longer people remained imprisoned there, the less likely it seemed that they would ever make it out alive.
As if fate agreed with his thoughts, an explosion struck without warning.
One second, everything was normal, and the next, a deafening boom shook the building.
It was so loud it sounded as though the world itself had cracked open.
A violent shockwave tore through the garden, uprooting trees as though they weighed nothing.
Stone benches shattered, and glass that should have been indestructible cracked and fissured.
Bodies were lifted off their feet and slammed against unyielding surfaces.
Soil, leaves, and other foliage were swept into a ferocious windstorm that came out of nowhere, creating a dark cloud that obscured everything in a suffocating haze.
Above them, the ceiling gave way. Massive chunks of stone broke loose and plummeted down, smashing into the ground with bone-crushing force.
The larger pieces destroyed anything unlucky enough to be beneath them, while the smaller rocks caused less significant damage.
Agonized screams and shouted commands ricocheted through the ruins, but they reached Mordecai as though from a great distance.
Everything was muffled beneath the shrill, relentless ringing in his ears.
He shook his head hard, trying to clear the haze clouding his senses, then he forced himself to sit upright with a vicious curse.
Pain flared through him, but quickly faded to a manageable level. After a quick assessment, he was able to relax a little. He had several cuts and was badly bruised, but thankfully, he had avoided any severe damage. Nothing seemed broken, and nothing vital had been crushed or pierced.
For now, he was still breathing.
But the same couldn’t be said for some of the others.
The quiet sanctuary had turned into a bloody warzone in the span of a heartbeat. Massive slabs of fallen stone had crushed some of the inmates, their bodies twisted and motionless beneath the rubble. Others were sprawled amongst the debris in pools of blood or knocked out by the force of the blast.
There were a few who had been lucky enough to avoid any serious injuries. Some wore blank expressions of shock as if their minds had temporarily been shut off, while others glanced around as if trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.
Mordecai started to push to his feet, then he froze when a glowing form suddenly appeared in the center of the room. At first, he could only stare at the male with a mixture of confusion and disbelief. Even as recognition struck, he had a hard time actually believing who he was seeing.
Because Raziel, Death of the Four Horsemen, was supposed to be dead.
And yet, somehow, there he was. His terrifying presence was unmistakable.
Raziel lifted a hand, and one of the inmates on the ground flew into his grasp. His hand clamped around the male’s throat, holding him suspended in the air as though he weighed nothing. The prisoner’s feet kicked as he silently struggled against the unbreakable grip holding him, but it was useless.
There was no escaping Death.
Mordecai’s eyes narrowed. Something about the scene was wrong. Deeply, disturbingly wrong beyond the obvious.
Raziel wasn’t really there.
At least, not in the flesh.
He existed, but not fully. His form was slightly transparent and shimmered with an unnatural glow, like heat rising from scorched terrain.
It was as if he were only a projection of himself rather than in his actual body.
Yet, he could still touch the living, which was evident by the way he was strangling the male he held in his grasp.
While it was pretty fucking cool, it was also totally bizarre.
Raziel had somehow managed the impossible, conquering the boundary between life and death.
And now, he could walk among them in spirit form.
Or perhaps he’d always had that ability.
Admittedly, Mordecai didn’t know what the fuck the Four Horsemen were truly capable of, and he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to find out.
One thing was for certain, though. He was damn glad he wasn’t on Death’s shit list.
“Raziel?” Mordecai’s voice came out as little more than a rasp. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Raziel? Is that you, Raz?”
They had known each other long ago, but he wasn’t sure his old friend would remember him in his current ghostly form. Okay, calling himself a friend might have been a stretch since Raziel was pretty much a loner and as mysterious as one could get, but they had at least been friendly acquaintances.
His breath caught as Raziel’s head slowly turned toward him with unnatural, almost mechanical precision.
There was no flicker of emotion on his face.
No surprise. No curiosity. Not even annoyance at being interrupted.
His expression remained eerily blank, devoid of any thought or feeling, as though his mind wasn’t completely there either.
But his eyes told a different story.
Raziel’s glowing silver eyes had always been unsettling to look at.
They were a pale silver with no distinct pupil, making them look like hollow voids.
Holding his gaze felt like standing too close to the edge of something far too unfathomable to comprehend.
But now they were even more unnerving. The strange light emanating from them blazed with a terrifying intensity that bordered on madness.
Without warning, Raziel drove his hand straight into the inmate’s chest. The man’s mouth opened in a silent scream, but no sound escaped as a glowing blue sphere of light was torn free from his body.
With a chilling indifference, Raziel flung the corpse aside like a discarded piece of trash.
The body hit the ground with a sickening thud before disintegrating into dust particles, leaving no trace behind of who he once was.
Showing no mercy, Raziel crushed the orb of light in his hand, extinguishing it into a burst of tiny sparks that faded into nothingness. For a single heartbeat, the chamber fell deathly silent. Even the rocks and other debris seemed to stop shifting in the heavy stillness.
Then, Raziel vanished.
“Well, fuck,” Mordecai muttered.
Watching a soul being destroyed was pretty fucking horrifying. But what bothered him even more was that he’d missed his only chance of escape.
“Who was that?” Warden Saffron demanded. “And what in hellfire just happened?”
Mordecai debated with himself for a moment. He wasn’t used to giving up information freely, but Raziel’s appearance wasn’t exactly something that could be concealed. His sudden appearance meant there was something powerful at play, and it wasn’t something he wanted to get involved in.
While he wouldn’t call Warden Saffron a friend, the fairy was one of the fairest and most approachable guards in the lower levels.
Mordecai had formed a tentative alliance with him that had served him well over the years.
Giving him the information he wanted now would ensure that Mordecai wasn’t bothered later.