Or their boss’s motivations, more accurately.
They ruffled their feathers in unison. “We will accept the cowards’ petitions,” they said arrogantly. I bit back a laugh at the resulting growls, but no one actually spoke out.
I turned back to my guests. “Then I bid you good day.”
I remained seated as they filed out, conversing softly. I watched as they each took one of the envelopes Dean had ready for them on a silver platter. The envelope that contained the questions on my mind.
I didn’t realize I was twirling my coin until a voice spoke up beside me. We were the only two left in the room, I realized with a start.
“Yes, Pestilence?” I asked the Horseman.
“Please call me Conquest. It has less nasty connotations, even if it’s just a calling name.” I nodded, frowning. I had heard the others call him Pestilence, so hadn’t really thought about it. But I knew Famine also had a different name in the books – Strife.
“Okay.”
“May I walk with you?” he asked.
I studied him thoughtfully. This made three. Three of the Horsemen had now confronted me in private. And each time one had done so, it had signified something dangerous about to start.
“Sure,” I said, climbing to my feet. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“The Temple Mausoleum,” he said from beneath his hood.
I stumbled in surprise, but he was already a few paces ahead. “Come on, Temple. If we’re not moving, we’re dying. Oh, and grab a coat. You could catch a cold out there.” He glanced back at me, and I thought I could sense amusement in his tone. “We wouldn’t want that now, would we?”
I sighed, shaking my head. “No, Conquest. I would rather not catch a cold,” I muttered.
But I didn’t grab a coat.
Chapter 15
Conquest was right. It was rather chilly outside. But because I hated being told what to do, I chose to brave the storm in my long-sleeved shirt. We walked towards the giant white tree in silence. I was curious to find out what this was all about, but he didn’t seem to be in a rush to explain. In fact, so far, it seemed like he literally just wanted to walk and not talk.
“So…” I said. “Gunnar’s eye-patch. Know anything about that?” I asked.
“Are you asking if I have knowledge of a Fifth Horseman?” he asked, sounding amused.
“Okay,” I replied grumpily, studying his back since he was a pace ahead of me. It had been worth a shot. Since he obviously wasn’t in the mood to talk, I relaxed, figuring he would get to whatever was on his mind, eventually. I saw Pegasus talking with Achilles under the tree. “Let’s talk to them really quick before we leave.”
Conquest simply nodded, not commenting. I frowned at his back. He had always seemed like a chatty Kathy, making casual jokes around his brothers. A new thought hit me. What if he wasn’t necessarily a fan of me joining them as a Rider – a Fifth Horseman?
That could be… problematic.
The two noticed our approach, and turned to face us.
I wasted no time in pleasantries, rounding on Pegasus. “Where were you earlier? Alex was almost taken,” I demanded.
He tucked his wings in closer to his back, the very definition of regal grace, eyeing Conquest warily. “I was taking a shit, if it’s any of your business.”
Conquest burst out laughing.
I scowled at Pegasus, somewhat surprised at his response. He had seemed so eloquent in our previous interactions. Almost noble. But he was brother to my unicorn, Grimm, who was a foul-mouthed murderer, so maybe Pegasus was simply a good actor, and being around Grimm was bringing back old habits.
“So classy,” I muttered. “But I’m serious.”
He arched his neck. “So was I. He was with you, so I thought I had time to shit in peace.”
Achilles was coughing, unable to hide his amusement. I pointed a finger at him. “I want to know something,” I said accusingly. He stilled, facing me openly. “You searched Alex when you kidnapped him, but you missed this Shit Stallion’s feather. I don’t buy it. But more importantly, how did no one else catch it?”
He shrugged. “I found it. I just didn’t say anything, and in the heat of the moment, they took my word for it. When they seemed about to press the issue, I snapped the Huntress’ bow to distract them. Show someone a bit of violence and they usually overlook things.”
I nodded in agreement. “I’m still surprised no one caught on to you sooner.”
He smiled slowly. “You didn’t either, wonder boy.”
I grunted at that, because he was right. I had feared the worst – that Achilles had switched sides. “I’m still confused about the blood thing. You said you didn’t get blood on your blades, but I saw some on your spear and your sword…”
He tapped his forearm slowly.
I blinked at him. “You… cut yourself?”
He shrugged. “They needed to see the legendary Achilles with blood on his weapons. I obliged them. I did have to cut one or two that were particularly ambitious, but nothing serious.”
“Oh…”
“Did you need anything else?” Pegasus said, stamping a hoof absently.
“Where’s Grimm?” I asked, simply to keep him here for a few seconds, annoyed at his tone.
Pegasus snorted as if smelling something unpleasant. “He’s breaking rainbows somewhere,” he muttered disgustedly, shaking his head and causing the thick rings woven into his mane to rattle and clank together.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s a hobby of his. He finds rainbows and beats on them. They… disturb him.”
I turned to Achilles. “Is he serious or is he fucking with me?”
Achilles studied Pegasus. “I think he’s serious.”
Pegasus stretched his wings for a moment, and then tucked them down into his back, either to show off, or to find a more comfortable position. “Much like you humans need to let off some steam by punching a leather bag or starting a war, Grimm hunts rainbows and destroys them.”
“But… they’re not a physical thing. They’re just light,” I argued.
“Says the wizard who weaves starlight…” Conquest murmured.
I opened my mouth, and then let it close with a click of my teeth. Well… he was right.
“He enjoys stabbing pretty things with his head,” Pegasus muttered. “Rainbows in particular. Now that he has his shadow wings back, he hunts them all over the worlds.”
I nodded dumbly, having literally nothing to say to that, realizing that arguing would only give Pegasus the opening to ask why us humans punched a leather canvas. It was just something to do. And I didn’t want to find out what worlds he was hunting in. I had enough on my plate.
“Is there really gold at the end of a rainbow?” I asked curiously.
“For the lucky, there are sometimes riches. For everyone else, there’s impalement by a fucking lunatic alicorn,” Pegasus muttered.
Conquest chuckled. “Mastercard reference. Nice.”
Pegasus dipped his head self-importantly. I pondered his response. Alicorn. A winged unicorn. I hadn’t really thought about that. Now that Grimm had wings again – for whatever reason they had disappeared for quite some time – maybe he really was an alicorn.
“If you two are brothers, why don’t you both have a horn?” I asked.
“Why don’t all siblings look identical?” Pegasus said, sounding bored.
I sighed. This bastard was a real piece of work. If Alex hadn’t liked him so much, I might have decided to teach him a lesson. Prickly was the nicest way to describe him. “Well, as usual, it hasn’t been a pleasure,” I said. “Remind Grimm that we leave tomorrow.”
I turned my back and began walking away, motioning for Conquest to follow.
I rubbed my arms at the cold, glancing over at Conquest, who chuckled. I forcefully stopped, remembering his advice to grab a coat. “Want me to Shadow Walk us there?” I asked.
An icy sensation washed over me, and we were suddenly in
an entirely different place.
A graveyard.
I gasped, flinching instinctively. I saw Conquest walking ahead as if nothing had happened. “What the hell?” I hissed.
He glanced back. “Faster this way,” he said in response. “We have our tricks, too. And you looked cold, so I hurried things up a bit.” Then he was walking again, deftly maneuvering past tombstones towards the large structure looming before us.
The Temple Mausoleum in the Bellefontaine Cemetery.
We approached the entrance – a large door with a keypad beside it. I typed in the code as Conquest remained a few paces back, eyeing the sculptures decorating the building, because it was likely the most impressive piece of architecture – visually – in the state of Missouri, complete with full-sized statues of dozens of gods, monsters, and heroes from many cultures. The door beeped and I tugged the monstrosity open. We entered, and I let the door slam closed behind us. I turned to Conquest, losing my patience. “What did you want to talk about?”
He studied me, and then tugged back his hood. I winced instinctively, preparing to brave his horrifying mask, but was surprised to find that I was instead looking at the prettiest blonde son of a bitch the world had ever birthed. My jaw dropped open while I stared into his deep baby blue eyes.
He grinned, flashing pearly whites at me. Like a runway model, but beefier.
Being comfortable with my sexuality, I confirmed he was a Mandy – Man Candy. Yum.
Before I could comment, he spoke. “How are the dreams?” he asked, sounding concerned.
I blinked at him, caught entirely off guard. I hadn’t told anyone about them. They weren’t nightmares or anything, just particularly vivid dreams of the Fae world – which was understandable – since I knew we were soon heading back, and as a result, the place had been on my mind a great deal.
“Passing fair,” I said warily, wondering how or why he knew of them.
“You must be cautious of dreams. You carry many powers, and the bleeding effect can be notoriously… dangerous.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, deciding that I needed to walk. And since we were already here, I may as well pay my respects. It would give me something to do with my suddenly restless legs.
“You are a wizard. You were once a Tiny God, or Maker, if you will. You have become the Master Temple, in fact, not just by birth title. You have been cursed, and survived. More than once. You somewhat carry the mantle of Horseman.” He leaned closer, flashing his teeth at me in a contagious grin. “And you do that real fucking well, I might add.” He pulled back, not sensing – or not caring about – my flinch. Even his breath smelled delicious. I had to remind myself that this was Pestilence, and not David Beckham. “You are tainted by your Wild Side from the Fae. And you are a Godkiller. That combination is… unheard of,” he said, finally.
I nodded, having wondered the same thing in the recent past. “I’m… managing. I think.”
“Dreams are one of the first indicators of madness,” he offered. “So, I repeat, how have your dreams been?”
I sighed, walking past statues of my fallen ancestors – great women and men alike. Conquest seemed to be more interested in them than in looking at me. “They have been very vivid. Flashbacks of my fight with Athena. And my time in the Fae…” I admitted.
“And golden light?” he asked, sounding amused.
I rounded on him. “Yeah. That, too. What is it?” I asked, glancing down at my forearms to see the faint golden glow since we had mentioned it out loud, as if it had heard us. I shivered at that.
“Killing a goddess…” he said, sounding distant, “taints you. I wouldn’t call it ichor, but it’s similar. You absorb some of their powers for a time. Or… some of their essence may be more accurate. The Wild Side of you should have protected you from it. Somewhat. It’s mildly concerning that you still display the golden veins.”
“You sound very knowledgeable about this. Has it happened before?”
He laughed, a chiming, pleasant sound. “Of course. You’re not that special,” he said, not making fun of me, but as if trying to politely humble me. “Although I’ll admit, I’ve never heard of one so… susceptible to so many magical infections. You would be a splendid subject…”
These fucking Horsemen were going to be the end of my patience.
“Oh, please explain,” I said tiredly.
“One must always watch one’s loved ones for the first symptoms of madness. Even the good ones must sometimes die…”
Chapter 16
I suddenly felt very, very concerned, but seeing the distant look in his eyes, I simply nodded.
“I wasn’t always a Horseman, of course,” he said, studying the statues around us, even taking a step to glance down at one of the pedestals that contained a book of my ancestor’s accomplishments. Comstock Temple. He had been a famous healer. I found it a little unsettling that Conquest – who seemed very medically inclined – had instinctively known this ancestor would interest him.
“I was an alchemist, and married to a woman much better than I deserved. We were both happy. Very happy. For a time…” he said sadly. “I was obsessed with the transmutation myth – turning lead into gold. And I missed the early signs that my dear wife was sick. Because she considered her sole purpose on the earth was to make me happy. And she succeeded. But when she began to get sick, she hid it from me, not wanting to distract me from my pursuits…”
I swallowed audibly, realizing that each of the Horsemen had truly sucky origin stories.
Did that mean the worst was yet to come for me? That I couldn’t become a Horseman until I had experienced soul-crushing tragedy? I kept this thought to myself as Conquest continued.
“When it became obvious that it wasn’t a passing malady, my wife sought out… treatment, telling me she was off to visit her sister a few towns away. So engrossed in my work, I heard only that I would have uninterrupted time to focus, and that perhaps I would have a solution before she returned, finally able to scoop her up in my arms and devote my attention to her fully, as she deserved.” He was silent for a very long time, as if struggling with the words.
“In my obsession, I never even thought to kiss her before she left,” he whispered softly. “I told myself she would only be a few miles away, likely returning before I knew it, and my newest experiment was on the burner…”
My heart shattered at the pain in his voice, and I fought the urge not to grasp his shoulder in comfort, but his face was hard, merciless, hateful… towards himself. Stating his failure out loud.
“But I didn’t hear from her. For a week. Then two. My experiments had failed, and I decided I needed some fresh air, a change of scenery. I took my horse for a ride, and somewhere along the road, I realized I was entering her sister’s village. Of course, I sought her out, only to find my wife was not there, having died under treatment from the local doctor.
“I met him at his home, arguing that I hadn’t even known she was sick. The doctor said all the right things, consoled me in all the right ways, but I sensed something was very off about him, and I recognized several of the items in his office. Poisons,” he rasped. “Chemicals with no medicinal value…
“I feigned ignorance and left, searching out the local tavern. It didn’t take me long to hear that my wife wasn’t the first woman to die under his care. Children, too. And not just in this town.
“I fled the city, jumping down from my horse in an abandoned field. I raged and cried out, begging for help from God, knowing that without evidence, I had no case, no proof to bring him to justice. When God didn’t answer, I sought my own absolution, and wanting to punish myself further, I did this in the worst possible way – one that would torment us both.” He met my eyes, madness dancing in those sapphire depths, but it was a calm, methodical madness.
The eyes of a rational sociopath. Like Hannibal Lecter.
“I befriended the filthy bastard…” Conquest actually snarled, his fists clenching. “I spent a year by his side
, using my grief to bring us closer, to earn his trust, to get into his inner circle, because word around town said he had doctor friends with similar mortality rates in nearby villages. I shared my knowledge of alchemy with him, showing him my experiments and formulae, slowly, ever so slowly,” he enunciated, panting, “to earn his trust. And then I began asking him if he knew what happened when certain poisons came into contact with a patient. If he had ever witnessed it. I admitted to dark fantasies, declaring that the only true way to understand medicine was to kill with it, to test its limits…
“The good doctor left my home, feigning concern, and leaving me alone for several days.” Conquest looked up at me, face haggard. “Those were the longest days of my life, Nate… Wondering, waiting, yearning for solid proof of the dark nature I suspected. Then, when I thought I could take it no longer, and that I would have to kill him in cold blood, I received an invitation to a private dinner at his home. I accepted, and that was where I met the evilest men of my time… I ate dinner with true monsters. Wolves in sheep’s wool. I laughed at their stories, their experiments, telling them I was finally ready to take that step, and put my skills to the ultimate test. To harm those who came to me at their darkest hours, those most desperate for help, and to record the entire process of the torment I would administer to them. This…” he whispered, as if having to force himself to continue, “was met with a toast. Every man in the room lifted his glass, and at the head of the table, I saw my wife’s murderer grinning proudly, nodding both in approval and welcome. They each signed a document, confirming that I was indeed permitted to practice medicine with their unanimous support…”
The Mausoleum grew silent, and I wondered if that was as much as he was going to say. But I wasn’t about to press him. No fucking thanks. I had different reasons to fear each of the Horsemen, because they were humanity’s darkest angels, but I had never seen a look in the eye like I had in Conquest…
War Hammer: A Nate Temple Supernatural Thriller Book 8 (The Temple Chronicles) Page 8