Work Text:
The Fourth Horseman
Well, I’ll be damned, Lute thought, unconsciously rubbing at the spot where her left arm used to be. Lilith gave good info.
She stared up at the edifice before her. This was one of Heaven’s secrets, but Lute was glad to see that her people did not hide things the way those filthy fucking sinners did. They hid things in shadows, in darkness, in lost corners and hidden places.
But here, in Heaven?
Angels were smarter than that, better than that. They hid things in plain sight, the way anyone with any fucking sense did.
And so Lute stood before a chapel on the main street of Heaven’s biggest city, a humble little building she’d passed thousands of times over the millennia, and had never noticed before this point.
Lilith was right about at least one thing, Lute thought. You’d never guess, if you didn’t already know.
It was true, too. The place looked like any other little church up here, the holy places that angels built and used as places for worship and praise of the law and light they embodied. While the least building in Heaven was holier than the most sacred places of Earth- to say nothing of their supremacy over Hell’s filth- even angels needed a place of especial holiness for their most important acts. Lute had always liked meditation, and had even gotten Adam to try it, a few times. She’d been winning him over…
She pushed that thought back down. Adam wouldn’t- he wouldn’t want her to be a big old pussy about it. He’d mock her for crying, and wonder where her vengeance was, her anger.
He’d…
He’d encourage her to cling tight to that rage, and keep going.
(For all that she is- and all that she is moments away from becoming- let us feel this one moment of sympathy for her: she had to watch the man she loved die in front of her. Even for monsters, that is an ugly fate.)
Lute blinked away unshed tears, and headed out, her Exorcist mask firmly over her head. Once more was hiding in plain sight proven the wisest of all options; while several people glanced over, no one ran off to tell one of Emily’s guards, no one went to warn anyone that the wanted criminal Lute was on the streets. A necessity; despite Lute being right and it being obvious she was right to anybody with sense, the simple truth was, most of Heaven had rejected her and her people. She doubted they made up a seventh of all Angels.
Lute viewed it as the fault of her and the Exorcists. been so focused on Hell’s moral decay that they’d neglected Heaven. And there was work to be done here! Too many idiots and cowards in Heaven, people who just plain didn’t understand the demonic threat, the need to do something!
Oh yes, the Exterimation would have to be… expanded, once Lute won this war. Hell, they might start on Earth! Why wait for evil to die at all?!? Striking down the filth early… no way that wasn’t a good idea.
Frustrating as it was, that same idiocy was also what gave Lute confidence she could win. These fools saw an Exorcist missing an arm, yes… but they also saw how she was so openly out and about, and told themselves that there was no way that Lute would be marching around so boldly out on the street like that!
Idiots. Just proof that most angels did not deserve their halos. They should have come over and at least questioned her.
But no. Instead, they assumed that she must be one of the traitors, the small handful of Exorcists who had joined their precursor Vaggie, and defected from the army. Cowards and traitors, all of them, they were filth, fucking filth, filth filth filth, she hated them, she wanted to tear them to bits with her hand and teeth and then roll around in the muck and gore like an animal, flap her wings in pools of their warm blood, baptize herself bloody until she was red red red…
The very thought got her blood racing… but that meant she had to calm down, moving away from visions of atrocity before the red bloodstains could reappear on her armor. She didn’t know why they did that; Heavenly power was like that, sometimes, worked in mysterious ways. When her dander was up, when she was really into it, sometimes… sometimes, old bloodstains would appear on her, fresh again. An oddity… and a tell. No other Exorcist, no other angel, no other being had those bloodstains, and if they appeared all of a sudden, everyone on the street would know who she was.
And her mission was far too important for that.
Thus focused, she went up to the chapel, observing it as she approached. It really was innocuous… there was just one tell. Just one, a detail so small that, if Lute hadn’t been told about it beforehand, she’d never have paid attention to it.
And what it was consisted of this- every part of the building was tied to the number four.
The number appeared again and again, repetition writ into the very structure. The building was four stories tall, with its four walls making a perfect square. Four windows on each wall, and four doorways, one on each side. Even the mailbox got in on it; just one mailbox and just one little red flag, but the red flag was scored with four little scratches, almost invisible even if you were looking for them around its edges.
Four… though Lute had only come here to see three. The fourth was dead, Lilith had said, he had been guarding the Tree of Knowledge when Lucifer and Lilith sought to rob it of the Apple, and the duo- after a long, hard battle- managed to slay him, though Lilith would not go into how.
Instead, Lilith had… laughed, when Lute had asked her how four angels, no matter how powerful, could change the course of the war. Four angels, who be on her side, and fight both Emily, the greater part of Heaven, and Hell all at once.
Her answer hadn’t made much sense to Lute at the time. Still didn’t. Not four, not yet, Lilith had said, then grinned in that smug way she had, that way that made her wonder what the fuck Adam had ever seen in the bitch.
(And now she is uncomfortably aware that Lilith used four words… and wondered if that, too, meant something…)
She raised her hand, and knocked once.
(Inside, something stirred, and reached out for a white bow made from the crowns of conquered kings, its arrows tipped with cancer and cold, fever and flu, all the illness of a world made into a single sharpened point.)
No answer.
She raised her hand to knock again, but paused for a moment, a long moment, as her skin shivered, her hairs rose, and she felt the shadow of something… awful, nearby, heard commands in a conqueror’s voice that she could not make out and longed to obey nonetheless.
Very distinctly and without warning, the thought comes unbidden into her mind: I should not be here.
…But Adam is still dead, and Lute will not let him die alone.
She knocks twice.
(Inside, something stirred, and reached out for a set of black scales, on which hunger and gluttony both would be weighed, always to be found wanting, wasted gold spilling from each brazier, gold and silver and dollars and bills, all of them things that could have been spent to stop hunger, and were spent instead on other things.)
No answer. Her gorge rises to her throat, and she almost pukes, keeping it in through sheer force of will and rage and loss.
Another unbidden thought, more urgent than the last: This is wrong. This is… this is wrong.
But Adam is still dead, and she is still alive, and she doesn’t know what to do with that; what, is she to go to Hell, ask for forgiveness, assist Sinners?!? Fuck that, this has to be better!
(And unknown to her, that is what Sera is doing, at this very moment; for all the blood on her hands, nonetheless she is striving to help… and in this, for whatever it is worth, Sera proves herself to be greater than Lute, at the very least.)
So she knocks a third time.
(The last thing inside stirs, and gives a worm-cleansed grin to its compatriots, who respond back with a bared mouthful of burning teeth, and the winning smile of a lying lord; and it reaches out to the door, hesitating, waiting for that last moment, for the final act that will seal the deal, and bring the last of them to life.)
She feels a shadow fall over her, and does not know whom it belongs to; nonetheless there is… fear, in her, for a single moment.
And she hears one last voice, and it… it sounds like Adam, and it nearly makes her turn around.
I love you, Lute- don’t do this, babe.
…But she has gone so far. She…
She can’t turn back now.
Not even for him.
(And maybe that was just her own mind… or maybe Adam, or whatever was left of him, was trying to save the one person amongst all eternity who had ever truly loved him… save her from what she was about to do to herself.)
She knocked a fourth time.
The door opened, and behind it…
“Oh, goodness!” said the bright, smiling angel before her, clapping her hands together. She… looked pretty normal, honestly. Not all that different from any other Winner or Heavenborn. Her outfit was entirely green, as were her eyes- long robes that looked a bit generic, honestly. Sorta short, that was really her only distinguishing feature. “A guest!”
Lute looked her over with a frown.
Fuck Lilith, she thought. She lied.
“…Sorry to bother you,” Lute answered, but the angel before her just laughed.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” the short angel said. “We’ve been waiting, Lute.”
Lute paused.
“You… know who I…?” Lute said slowly, glancing to see if guards were nearby.
“Oh, be not afraid!” the angel said, waving a hand dismissively at Lute’s obvious paranoia. “We’re all friends here.”
“Well said, sweet honey!” came a warm voice, and another angel emerged from the darkness of the house. He was… the most handsome guy Lute had ever seen, damn. He had perfect black hair, he was lean but muscled, and his features were fine. His clothes were black leather with black cowboy boots and a black cowboy hat and fuck, Western shit didn’t even do it for Lute, but she was reconsidering. Even under the murderous rage that just sort of stayed with Lute now, that hadn’t ever really left her since the last Extermination, she had room to briefly wonder if he had a girlfriend.
That question was answered when the short one hopped up and kissed him on the cheek in a rather cute display, flapping her little wings as she did so.
“This is my husband!” she said. “Now, come on in.”
“Yes, do come in,” the man said in his smooth baritone. You could swim in it, guy’s voice was like melted butter. “Let’s have a bite.”
“Of the food, hopefully,” came a third voice, as the two in the door stepped to the sides and waved Lute in.
“Of course!” the man in black answered as Lute stepped inside. “What else?”
Laughter from inside as she entered, finding a vast open space, and a perfectly square dining table, around which were four chairs, one for each side- chairs of green, black, white, and red. Before the red chair was a single covered serving plate, the rest of the table completely empty, the tablecloth design a triumph of four-color coordination.
(Her eyes kept going to the red chair- why that one?)
Already seated at the white chair was a respectable old man of an angel, a perfect patriarch in a pure white business suit. He was old enough for his neatly trimmed beard and perfect hair to be white, but spry enough for a twinkle in his eyes, like a cool grandpa. He had an ivory pipe he was smoking clenched between his pearly whites, and as she entered the smoke curled around, the smell of rich tobacco and
(the sound of polite clapping after a speech; a sensation of standing above others, contempt simmering below the surface of well-timed, perfectly crafted words. He has no weapon at all save words and it is enough to craft a treaty that will steal the land of the broken and the weak, he will sign with his single pen the death of nations into law. The pen is mightier than the sword, and his pen is mightiest of all, a pen shaped like an arrow, and he signs paper after paper to a chorus rising of vae victis! VAE VICTIS!)
Lute blinked, and the vision was gone; but she was so rattled that she could do nothing but obey as the man pointed to the red chair.
“Ah, Lute! Perfect timing,” he said. “Please, take a seat.”
The smoking man stood and pulled the red chair out- the red chair, of course, of course. Somehow she has known it would be red, for her.
She sat in it, and could not help the shaking in her hand, as some understanding lingered, waiting, just out of reach, something she almost saw in the smoke.
“Ready to eat, loves?” the cowboy asked.
“Always and ever, friend!” the smoker laughed.
“But before we eat,” the lady of the house took command, taking her green seat, as her lover took the black. “We should talk, first.”
“A shame, but true,” the man in black said, sighing as he pulled a whiskey flask from his pocket.
Lute was about to ask what he had- she could do with a drink to settle her- but then he opened the bottle and she could smell… alcohol, yes, but…
(the hot cinnamon scorch of fire, of burning fields of wheat; thin bodies of children, sliced to ribbons by the sun, starving to death under the cruel eye of light. Vast deserts and fire, always fire, consuming, burning, ever eating, devouring what could save the starving, denying them sustenance by taking it all for itself)
…No, whatever was in that flask, it was not alcohol.
“You’re scaring our guest,” the lady said, her words only slightly less pleasant as her lover sipped his drink.
“Ah, apologies, little lady,” he said, and she heard the exaggeration on his words, the drawl natural but that much drawl not; he is mocking her, and for a brief second, she thought she saw burning teeth in his eyes.
…What have I done?
“What are you?” Lute asked, and trembled.
The green lady sighed, and reached across the table to gently touch Lute’s hand; but her touch was cold and clammy and wet as a corpse.
(corpses, corpses, corpses! Running soft and fluid with the life that comes after death, the life that is in death, rivers of worm and maggot, oceans of putrescence and decay; the reaper, lazily bathing in the rot, swimming great lazy circles in emblaming fluid and the spilled blood of the dead. Flesh-eating bacteria in every face, gangrene in every limb! The dead, floating with her in pools of their own ruin, the dead, the dead!)
“What you came for,” she told the angel, as the vision faded. “Your weapon against Hell. Heaven’s highest and strongest. The last divine defense.”
…Lute has heard those words before, and somewhere beneath her terror- which was so omnipresent now that it was like pressure, underwater pressure, pressing down unto her bones- she recalled where.
Adam.
(So much of this begins with him, for Lute, who has loved him since she first met him, and found in his bloodthirsty foolishness the perfect match to her brute rage.)
Adam had been old, older than any human Winner and older than most Heavenborn. And he had told her of rumors, of things that had been old when he was young, sometimes, when he got to drinking.
He’d used those last three phrases exactly to describe only one group, people he said scared him the way he scared Sinners.
(I'm a badass, he'd told her, but those guys... those dudes are monsters. Kinda glad my old bitch and her new fucktoy killed one of them.)
“Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” Lute whispered.
Three smiles answered her, on three faces that were not faces.
“Yes,” the green lady said. “Be not afraid.”
“We’re here to help,” the man in black said.
“And we come cheap,” the white-haired gentleman said.
Lute was silent, a while, just letting the revelation flow through her, along with her horror and fear... and a sense of... awe.
This... this was power.
This was power Emily had no idea about, that was greater than what Charlie had; even Lucifer might fall, against this much power...
So she sat in silence, and thought.
And the Horsemen waited.
(Her fate had been sealed since the fourth knock; the third was her last chance, the last moment in the timeline in which Lute might have walked away. She was theirs, now. And when the outcome is inevitable, the immortal can afford to wait.)
“What is the price?” she finally asked… before thinking again on Adam’s words, so long ago. “Where is the fourth?”
“Ah, War,” the elderly angel said, shaking his head. “Lost brother.”
“My brother,” the green lady said with a downcast glance. “My kin.”
“My lover,” the man in black said, turning his face away. “Our martyr.”
“…But that is why,” the green lady said, “you are now here.”
“What do you mean?” Lute asked, still confused.
The three of them, as one, reached out, and lifted the cover of the plate before her.
What was there was not food.
It was a sword, a sword far bigger than should have been contained under that serving cover, a sword that grew even as she looked at it. A sword that shifted constantly, becoming every sword, katana and claymore, shamshir and scimitar, broadsword and sabre, everything humanity had ever made that had no purpose other than to hurt their fellow man. No spear or axe, this; those were tools made for other purposes first, for hunting and woodcraft, later turned to war.
No, this was a sword, foulest of all weapons, for it alone was made as a weapon first. Even knives had started out as tools before being put to murderer's work; only the sword was made, first and foremost, for war.
And this was the weapon most made for war, a butcher's blade that had no equal. She shivered in delight, just imagining bringing this against her enemies. Such a perfect edge! A killer queen, a killer fit for a queen, a queen killer! A weapon to strike down Emily and all who would oppose her!
…A weapon… of War.
Made ready...
For Lute.
Understanding came, mercilessly swift.
Death, Famine, and Conquest.
Who wanted her to be War...
“Me?” she asked, and her voice trembled, but she couldn't stop staring at the sword. She'd always loved battle, loved it so much... and this...
“Who else?” Death answered her, the green lady still smiling. “You’re perfect.”
“Absolutely perfect,” Famine agreed with his wife.
“Indeed, indeed,” Conquest finished.
And now Lute understood, she got it, now; they had been shopping for a replacement. That was the price, the cost, of the Horsemen’s recruitment, the reason Lilith had said not yet when Lute spoke of four; Lute had not arrived, then. She was to join them, to be like them, to become one of them.
...And she liked that idea.
She liked it a lot.
She could see it now, see her riding with this sword held high, slaughtering as she went. Had she not done so for centuries now? But that would look like a game, a stageplay, an act, compared to what she could do with this weapon, and these companions...
As she was mulling it over, she realized a problem with the idea.
“…I’m… crippled,” Lute said, ashamed. “I can’t.”
“You can,” Conquest encouraged her, gently. “Reach out.”
Some part of Lute said no, once more. Some wise part said do not do this.
(Distantly, she thought she heard Adam, screaming.)
But it was hard to hear, and far away, because this sword, it just… it had such power, it was bigger than it looked, it would give her the might to purge Heaven and wipe out Hell and even tame the Earth. She could finally equal the bitch who'd killed Adam, and her father, and Emily, and everyone, she could be the strongest, she could hunt them through the worlds as an unstoppable predator and they her helpless prey, avenge Adam and her own arm and fix all that was being destroyed!
And Lute wanted that power.
She wanted it so much.
So she reached out with her right hand, but stopped as Death tsk-tsked her.
“Now, now,” she said. “Other arm.”
“I don’t have an-“ Lute began, but Death shook her head vigorously.
“Try!” Death commanded her. “Try, and see!”
…So Lute tried, reaching out with muscles that connected to nothing, towards the sword, as she would have when she had two arms.
And to her stunned disbelief, the sword moved.
It touched her left arm that did not exist, she felt it, on phantom fingers- and then it made one, the sword calling up the endless steel of War! Every killing bullet, every sword that ever slew, every arrow that had ever found its mark; from them and more came the metal that wove her a new arm, one fit to hold the sword.
But it went farther, farther, farther, than her arm.
From where the metal, rusted red with blood, connected to her, came gushing every drop of blood ever spilled in battle, washing over her, the baptism she had hoped for.
And for a time
(war, war, WAR! Not war as she has had it but war as humans do it and oh, they are so good at it; her heart leaps and dances as her soul expands. She hears it as music; the pounding of artillery for drums, screams for a choir, the rattle of machine guns a guitar riff! She dances between the bullets, lets the dirt spray onto her face from missed shots, feels the good soil beneath her bare feet as the slain feed it with their corpses.)
Lute knows nothing
(trenches full of stinking gas, cities full of slaughtered civilians, soldier's sacrifices that don't pan out; tanks driving over infantry, to themselves be slaughtered by drones from the sky, snipers taking off the heads of children. The Earth is a world of wonder and Lute thrills to the slaughter of it, and that small part of her that is horrified shrinks ever-smaller in the face of her bloodlust, her anger, her rage )
But joy.
(It grows, that thing that has been with her since the last Extermination, that was always in her but that losing Adam, losing her arm, losing to the filth brought out in full force; she waters it with the blood of wartime dead, she fertilizes it with piles of corpses. It grows and blossoms into a bright and horrid flower from earth so rich, and at last every part of her that was not the rage lies dead at its feet.)
She is reborn.
She awakens some time later, in a small chapel nearby. Appropriate. She is holy, now, holier than she was, holiest, and a shrine makes a fit bed for her now.
She is... changed. She knows how, too; knows... so much, that she never knew before.
She is still herself; but she has More, now. She is Lute, but More.
She is Lute, with War.
She has lost something, in the transition; but she cannot remember what it was, and it cannot have been that important, if she can lose it so easily. If it cannot come with her, into the new her, then it was not worth keeping in the first place.
After all, Lute, for all her determination, could never do what she could now. Before, she was weaker than a Seraphim, weaker than Charlie, weaker than Lucifer, too weak to save Adam at the last moment.
(She does not love him, not anymore; but she is still angry at his death, because anger is all she has left.)
But now?
She stands, the metal clinking and shifting. She is armored from head to toe in red plate; she bears her blade in her restored left, and her wings- six, now, she is equal unto Lucifer- are decorated with bullets and bayonets, linked with the barbed wire that lined every trench in Europe during the worst (and to her, best ) days of World War One.
She stands, and she is tall, tall, tall; tall and glorious.
And her steed awaits.
She steps out of the shrine, to greet her fellows. To see them as they are; to see the smiling skeleton that is Death, acid pouring from the sockets of her skull, to witness the black fire that is Famine, all made out of his own burning teeth, every inch another maw; to see Conquest, whose form shifts to the conquering lords of every nation and every time, only the bow remaining the same, only the will to dominate.
She speaks to her newfound kin.
“So what happens now?” the angel, once Lute, now and forever after War, asked.
“Now, my newest friend,” Death said, “all Heaven breaks loose.”
(And Hell would follow their rules, or die.)