Knock, knock, knock.
Bune's sharp rapping shattered his moment of reflection. "Avatar! We do not have all day!"
Zac opened the door. "Ready! And feeling much more aerodynamic."
Bune looked him up and down, both heads nodding in approval. "Acceptable. At least you no longer smell like a crypt."
As they walked back down the corridor towards the stairs, Bune gestured to the pile of old leathers Zac had left in a heap by the door. With a casual huff, the Right Head exhaled a short, controlled burst of violet fire. The clothes incinerated instantly, vanishing in a flash of heat and ash, leaving not even a scorch mark on the stone floor.
"Efficient," Zac noted, impressed.
"We try," the Left Head sniffed. "Come. We are meeting the Captain in the stables. He is preparing the mounts."
"Stables?" Zac perked up. "Does this mean I get a pony?"
"You get a war-beast," the Right Head corrected grimly.
As they descended into the bowels of the keep, Zac let his imagination run wild. 'War-beast,' he thought. 'Please let it be a velociraptor. Riding a dinosaur into battle would be the single coolest thing to ever happen to anyone, living or dead. Are dinosaurs demonic? They're basically dragons without wings. Surely they made the cut.'
Bune was a whirlwind of efficiency as they walked. The butler didn't just walk; he managed. With casual flicks of his claws and muttered incantations, he summoned wisps of necromantic energy that coalesced into spectral servants.
"You there, Shade 402," the Left Head commanded a translucent, moaning figure that drifted out of a wall. "The sconces in the east hallway need polishing. Use the ectoplasm polish, not the blood wax."
"And stop moaning!" the Right Head added. "It's depressing the gargoyles."
Zac watched as the ghost floated away with a spectral duster. He wondered briefly how an intangible being could polish anything, but decided it wasn't worth the brain power. He was too busy admiring Bune's command presence. 'He's so authoritative,' Zac mused, watching the sway of the butler's tails. 'Once you get past the whole hydra situation, you realize it's just… options. The Left Head for serious conversations, the Right Head for fun, and both for… well. Variety is the spice of the afterlife, right?'
Bune pushed open a massive set of reinforced wooden doors, and the smell of sulfur, musk, and raw meat washed over them.
The Captain's stables were a cavernous, subterranean cathedral dedicated to beasts of war. The ceiling was lost in shadow, high above iron rafters where bat-winged creatures roosted. The stalls were made of black iron bars thick enough to contain elephants.
And the occupants were terrifying. There were horses with scales like obsidian armor and eyes that burned with green fire. There were boar-like monstrosities the size of rhinos, tusks dripping with venom. In the corner, curled around a pile of bloody ribs that used to belong to something large, slept a massive black warg, twitching in a dream of violence.
But Marchosias stole the show.
The Captain was waiting by a center pen, and he was dressed for war. He had traded his greatcoat for a suit of plate armor that was both magnificent and unsettling. The design was intricate, almost delicate, the kind of armor an angel might wear in a Renaissance painting. But instead of gleaming silver or gold, the metal was stained a deep, matte black, as if it had been dipped in shadow. The pauldrons were shaped like howling wolves, and a cape of tattered grey fur hung from his shoulders. He held his helmet under one arm, his scarred muzzle set in a grim line.
Zac had to audibly swallow his spit. The wolf looked like the villain in a dark fantasy romance novel cover, the kind where the hero gets captured and thoroughly enjoyed. 'Oh god,' Zac thought, his knees weakening. 'If he came over here and tied me up right now, I would just melt into a puddle. I would thank him.'
Marchosias did not come over and tie him up. Instead, he turned, his amber eyes sharp and impatient.
"What are you waiting for, Avatar?" he barked, his voice echoing in the vast space. "We are losing daylight. Get a saddle from the rack and choose your mount."
Zac blinked, shaking off the fantasy. He looked around at the nightmare zoo, then back at the Captain. "Uh, minor technical difficulty, sir."
Marchosias raised an eyebrow. "Speak."
"I've never ridden a horse before," Zac admitted. "My primary mode of transport was a Honda Civic."
Marchosias snorted, a derisive sound. "Horse? These are not horses, boy. These are Bicorns." He gestured to a row of particularly vicious-looking steeds. "And you don't ride them. You survive them."
Marchosias moved with practiced ease, throwing a heavy saddle over the back of a massive Bicorn whose coat was the color of dried blood. He swung himself up, the armor clinking softly, and looked down at Zac from his lofty perch. He looked like a king of the apocalypse, ready to ride out and conquer.
Zac, meanwhile, was looking around like a headless chicken in a fox den. "So… do they have keys? Or a start button?"
Bune sighed, the sound echoing in the cavernous space. "Honestly." The butler grabbed a saddle blanket and a heavy leather saddle, moving toward a neighboring stall. "Here. This one is relatively docile. It only ate one groom last month."
"Docile. Great. Love that," Zac muttered.
Bune saddled a sleek, jet-black Bicorn that watched them with burning orange eyes. The butler coughed politely. "Avatar, if I may suggest haste? The Captain loathes tardiness more than he loathes angels."
"I thought we had an hour just ten minutes ago!" Zac protested, eyeing the height of the stirrup. It was at his chest level. "Do I need a ladder?"
"Just get on the beast!" Marchosias growled from above.
Zac approached the steed. "Okay, nice demonic horsey. Nice Bicorn. Please don't eat me."
He reached out. The moment his hand brushed the animal's flank, the world exploded into motion.
The Bicorn shrieked, a sound like tearing metal, and bucked violently, a convulsion of pure revulsion. A massive hind leg lashed out, catching Zac in the chest and sending him flying backward. He skidded across the stone floor, breath knocked from his lungs.
He looked up from the floor, blinking. 'Oh yeah,' he thought calmly. 'I almost just died. Fuck. That would have been embarrassing.'