"A feeling," Damon muttered, chewing on the words like they tasted of copper. He stepped over a jagged root at the edge of the crossroads, his boots kicking up a small cloud of dry gray dirt. "Right. Because when I think of centuries-old warlords with a body count that could fill a small continent, the first thing I think of is a guy who relies on his intuition. What's next? Are we going to read my tarot cards to see if I find true love under a full moon?"
He didn't get an answer. Michael suddenly halted, his heavy leather boots snapping a dry twig beneath his heel. The silence that followed was immediate and total.
"Okay, why the hell are we stopping here?" Damon asked as he caught the sudden, rigid shift in the atmosphere.
To his left, Harry smoothly reached down, his golden werewolf eyes flaring to life as his hands gripped the handles of his dual pistols, the safety clicks sounding remarkably loud in the empty woods. On his right, Nolan didn't say a word; he simply slid a pair of heavy, obsidian-weighted knuckles over his fingers, the dark, warded stone catching the moonlight with a dull gleam.
"Hey, what the hell is going on?" Damon demanded as his eyes flicked between the three of them.
He turned back toward Michael, and the words caught in his throat. The older man's back was to him, but the air around his broad frame was already beginning to warp. The temperature at the crossroads plummeted for a split second before skyrocketing, a dry, unnatural heat radiating from Michael's body. When the hellhound turned his head slightly, his irises were completely gone, replaced by a brilliant, blinding crimson fire that licked at the edges of his eyelids.
"Tell me, Damon," Michael's voice rumbled, the tone shifting into that terrifying, layered resonance that echoed with the weight of a thousand ancient souls. "Haven't you wondered why?"
Damon took a cautious step back, his eyes scanning the empty, dark tree line. "Why what? Why I let you drag me into the middle of a scenic tour of the county line? Yeah, I'm currently questioning all my life choices."
"Why we are standing out here on the desolate fringes of this town, instead of marching into wherever Esther is beside Klaus and Elijah," Michael continued, his voice dropping into a calm, measuring cadence. "Knowing full well that Esther's entire campaign has been designed to corner them."
Damon looked around again, his vampire sight piercing through the gloom. There was nothing. No footsteps, no heartbeats, no scent of ancient witches. Just the wind through the pines. Yet, Harry and Nolan looked entirely tense, their bodies coiled like springs ready to snap.
"Yeah, the thought crossed my mind," Damon said, his jaw tightening. "So why don't you enlighten me?"
"Because this entire trek was a calculated variable," Michael said with a chilling, sharp smirk spreading across his face as he looked out over the empty grass field ahead of the crossroads. "Yes, this is a distraction. This is Esther's true design. She orchestrated and specifically tailored this to separate me from the others. She requires time and space to execute her ritual at the cemetery where the Order thinks she currently is and she knows that as long as I am standing beside Niklaus, her ledger cannot be cleared."
Damon stared at him, dumbfounded. "Wait... if you knew that from the beginning, if you knew this was a massive, glowing neon trap to pull you away from the main fight, why the hell are we standing here like targets at a shooting range?"
"Because an invitation from an old witch should never be ignored," Michael murmured. "And because I wanted to see what kind of trash she dug up to keep me occupied."
Suddenly, a massive, violent pulse of energy erupted from Michael's core.
As a sovereign entity that naturally negates and nullifies the fabric of magic, the pulse manifested as a faint, rippling wave of orange energy. It swept across the open dirt field like a shockwave, tearing through the air and violently shattering the cloaking illusion that had been woven over the landscape.
The illusion dissolved like burning paper.
NEIGH.
The sharp, terrifying sound of heavy hooves hitting the solid earth echoed through the clearing, accompanied by the low, guttural snorts of creatures that didn't belong to the living world.
Damon's eyes widened as the illusion cleared, his trademark look broke with a sudden shock. "Oh, brilliant. Please tell me we didn't just wander into a midnight screening of Lord of the Rings. Because if those are Renaissance Fair cosplayers, they are taking the commitment way too seriously."
Emerging from the shadows of the field were four massive, towering figures mounted on terrifying, nightmare beasts, creatures with skin like charred obsidian and eyes that burned with the sickly green fire.
The first rider galloped forward, he looked more like warrior encased entirely in black armor that seemed to absorb the moonlight. Micheal could taste the thick, suffocating aura of violence and unadulterated rage rolled off his frame, a massive, double-headed battle axe resting against his armored thigh, its blade dark with the stains of a thousand old battlefields.
Beside him rode the second, a gaunt and almost skeletal like figure whose very presence seemed to wither the grass beneath his mount's hooves. A strange, unnatural hunger radiated from his form, a cold void that actively drained the energy and ambient magic from the air around him. In his withered grip, he held a massive, specialized iron needle, its point gleaming with a hollow, silver light.
The third rider moved with a sickening, fluid grace, a rotted shroud hanging over his shoulders. A foul, supernatural stench of decay accompanied him, the air around his horse thick with the invisible weight of a supernatural sickness that made the nearby leaves curl and turn black within seconds. He carried a heavy, spiked flail, the iron ball dripping with a dark, oily residue.
The fourth and final rider sat perfectly still in the center, the undisputed vanguard of the group. A profound, icy chill swept across the crossroads as he moved, a weight so heavy it seemed to weaken the very fabric of the soul just by being within his perimeter. Clutching a massive scythe that curved like a crescent moon, the rider stared down at the four men with hollow, lifeless eyes.
"The vanguards of the old court?" Michael said, his voice entirely unbothered as the crimson fire in his eyes burned brighter, the heat from his skin turning the dirt beneath his boots into dry ash. He simply stood at the center of the crossroads, looking up at the terrifying line of horsemen with absolute, sovereign contempt.
"Esther will not proceed with the final phase of her ritual unless she has absolute confirmation that I am occupied here," Michael said, his voice a low, steady rumble that cut right through the terrifying silence of the spectral riders. He didn't take his eyes off the frontline. "She requires a specific window of time, and she is using this grand display to mask her true movements. Furthermore, she will utilize this exact distraction to secure another vital component for her spell, one she has deliberately led us to believe she did not need."
Damon looked from Michael to the line of mounted nightmares, his fangs clicking against his lower lip. "Great. Wonderful. A magical bait-and-switch. Care to share with the class what this mystery ingredient is, or are we keeping it a surprise for the finale?"
Michael didn't answer. He squinted his eyes, his crimson gaze sharpening as he studied the towering silhouettes of the riders. "It would seem she and Cade have been exceptionally busy."
Nolan took a cautious half-step forward, his heavy, obsidian-weighted knuckles catching the faint red glow radiating from Michael's aura. His breath hitched as the supernatural weight in the air grew heavier. "My Lord... those are..."
Suddenly, Michael let out a deep, booming laugh. It wasn't a dry chuckle or a dark smirk; it was a genuine, echoing laugh of pure amusement that caught Damon completely off guard.
Damon stared at him, his eyebrows shooting up toward his hairline. "Okay, what the hell is so funny? Because from where I'm standing, we're about five seconds away from being trampled by the mysterious dark riders and I left my heavy-duty armor in my other pants."
"Oh, the irony," Michael murmured, his laughter dying down into a chilling, sharp grin. "Cade truly is desperate to project the image of a real hell lord, isn't he? To construct such elaborate choreography just to mimic the old myths." He flicked his eyes toward Damon. "Those are the horsemen, Damon."
Damon blinked, his jaw tightening. "The what?"
"The Horsemen of the Apocalypse," Harry chimed in, his voice tight as his golden werewolf eyes tracked the rhythmic, heavy breathing of the obsidian beasts. His hands gripped his tactical pistols so hard his knuckles turned white.
Michael raised a single hand, pointing at the riders one by one as they sat motionless in the dirt field. "If I am to guess based on their current visual design, I would say that is War, Pestilence, Famine... and Death."
The exact syllable the word Death left Michael's lips, the atmosphere at the crossroads fractured.
Without a sound, without even the rustle of a leaf, the towering rider designated as Death vanished from the center of the field and reappeared directly in their midst. The drop in temperature was instantaneous, a suffocating, icy vacuum that threatened to weaken the very fabric of their souls just by proximity.
Both Harry and Nolan gasped in absolute shock, their training immediately kicking in as they instinctively utilized the explosive speed of the displacement step to vanish from the immediate radius, their blurred forms reappearing yards away in a defensive stance.
But they weren't the targets.
Without a single word of warning, the massive, armored rider designated as war blurred into motion right beside Death. He swung his massive weapon straight at Damon's neck with brutal, world-ending force.
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