Page 69 of Hell on Wheels

White smoke began to fade as we both climaxed, dissipating as the engine stopped revving. The shadows left us. No longer needed, they rejoined my body, sucked into the void inside me that waited in silent expectation. I would always have them with me, ready to act on my command.

Our breaths mingled as I brushed the hair out of Lark’s face.

“I’m all sweaty,” she laughed, “and naked.”

A gust of wind blew around us, hastened by the will of the shadows.

“Are you?”

She glanced down, her eyes growing round. Big and green, they appeared to shimmer in the moonlight.

“Flint?”

The bike disappeared. We stood, clothed, as the fire behind us smoldered.

“How?”

I tapped the tip of her nose with my finger. “I can’t spill all my secrets.”

She giggled, stiffening when we heard Fred crying out in pain.

“His final judgment begins now,” I promised, clasping her hand in mine.

We walked over to where he lay on the ground, pressing a hand into his stomach. Blood trickled through the gap in his fingers.

“Fuck you,” he snarled when he noticed the cruel smile on my lips.

I didn’t have to reply. It wasn’t necessary.

“We want his soul.”

The sinister voice belonged to Grim, the king of reapers.

When he returned to the Crossroads, I didn’t know. How long did Lark and I linger on my bike?

I took a few steps backward and slid an arm around Lark’s shoulders. “Proceed.”

Grim, Rael, Wraith, Patriot, and several more members of the Tonopah chapter approached. In an instant, their physical bodies disappeared, replaced by the incorporeal form of the reaper. Scythes appeared in each hand. Black cloaks billowed in the wind as they hovered above the ground. I had never seen anything more frightening than those ethereal harbingers of death.

Frankly, I expected Fred to shit himself.

Sadly, he didn’t. The terror of what awaited stole his soul as the reapers’ laughter rumbled the ground beneath our feet.

They swiped through the air with their scythes, moving as one entity as Fred’s soul was ripped from his body. Screams launched from his throat before his physical body puddled.

The shell caught fire and burned to ash. His spirit, sliced into numerous pieces, hung like an inky stain in the air between the reapers. I smelled sulfur. Rotten eggs.Gross.

The earth cracked, popping open as I stumbled, holding onto Lark. We watched the fires of hell burst through the opening and ignite Fred’s soul. His wails of terror and pain fed the shadows. I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Burn in hell, you sick fuck.”

Lark buried her head in my chest. “Is it over yet?”

The ground swallowed Fred’s soul with greedy slurps before closing as quickly as it opened. I heard Lucifer’s praise before everything went silent.

“Well done, my shadow warrior.”

The disembodied reapers lowered to the ground as their physical forms returned. The cloaks and skeletal faces vanished. Only the bikers in their cuts remained.

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