Darksiders: Riders and Rogues (Book 2)

Chapter Ten A 'Family Discussion'

For a moment, Carina became oblivious to everything, even her current emotional mess of anger, regret, relief and worry. Only a single question pushed through the rest.

Who was Ani?

However another wave of pain, this time from the dagger now lodged in her shoulder, caused the Auralin to squeeze her eyes shut and stifle a groan.
Carefully propping herself up on her elbows, Carina found Nicorus by her side, offering her a hand up.
She hesitated at first, not wishing to show further weakness; especially with Death and Strife around to see it. Carina also cursed herself for being defeated so easily, something Strife wasn't going to let her live down for a while.
But, she wasn't a fool.
Taking the Angel's hand, she gingerly got to her feet.

"Well, you've seen better days, and worse ones. What the hell happened?" Strife asked, being the first to reach them.

Carina wasn't particularly sure how to respond to that at the minute, nor did she exactly want to. But, Strife could be a chatterbox when he wanted to be and therefore continued speaking before the Auralin could answer him.

"And who's this guy?" he asked, gesturing to the Angel with a pistol still sitting in his grasp.

"He's a friend" Carina answered quickly.

She was all too aware of the Horsemen's attitude towards Nicorus' kind, given the history they and War shared during the Apocalypse.
And really, neither rider was exactly trusting to begin with.

"Well, you obviously aren't of the Hellguard, so that's good enough for me; now anyway" Strife stated to the Angel, returning his pistol to its holster.

By now Death had joined them after inspecting where the portal had been. Coming forward, he knelt down a little to get a better look at Carina's injury; gently taking her arm.

"...Crystallised aura...Draegan I'm assuming?" he asked, orange eyes shifting up slightly.

"Right...wait, you know him?" Carina asked, clearly taken aback.

"You kidding? We've heard of that bastard more than once. He's actually pretty infamous at this point" Strife answered with a scoff.
"But he's been keeping quiet for a while up until now"

"Well, he's working with Hell, that's for sure" Nicorus chanced speaking.
"Him and someone called the Undead Wanderer are looking for a vault of some sort"

At the mention of the word 'vault', Carina felt Death's grip tighten, but he quickly let go and stood up. Despite this, she took over for the Angel.

"Right, we didn't hear everything, but apparently there's all sorts of weapons inside it" she paused, hesitating to proceed.

Whether it was the way Death had stood up so abruptly, or how he had since gone somewhat rigid told the Auralin she was treading on thin ice. Yet, she took the risk; though it was a struggle to get the words out.

"N-nephilim weapons"

"Pfft, right. Sure we had weapons, but they were never so special that we'd lock them away in some fancy vault...right?" Strife asked, glancing at his Firstborn brother in hopes of an answer.

But instead, all he received were more questions.
The younger Horseman just knew by how Death stood so tensed up and with his black hair partly covering his masked face that he knew something Strife did not.

"Death? What's this vault?" he questioned.

"Take them back to the Homestead" was all the eldest had to say before turning on his heel to leave.

"No! What are you hiding?"

No response.

Nicorus and Carina exchanged glances, both having similar thought patterns at that present moment of time.
Mentioning the Vault clearly hadn't been the best idea. It was a secret after all, evidently known by only a currently pissed off Death.
However, Strife wasn't far behind.
One of few traits the brothers shared was the unpredictable nature of their anger and how they chose to express it...