See that? he thought wildly. They don’t care. They never care. They promise to protect you but then they leave you they ignore you they look the other way—
A beefy hand yanked his hood back so quickly that the seam popped. And then he was face to face with Eddie Glass.
“Nice stripe,” said Eddie, leering. “Does it come out?” He grabbed a chunk of Billy’s hair and pulled. Hard.
Something in Billy’s head quietly snapped. It was an audible sound, a soft click that flipped off everything that paralyzed him at the thought of fighting back. It was the sound of Billy hitting his breaking point. He looked at Eddie’s face and didn’t see the bully who’d been tormenting him for years.
He saw a target.
Billy lifted his hand, knowing the Bow would already be in his grip. And it was: It felt right, as if the wood had been carved for his hand alone. He didn’t worry about the way the Bow had simply appeared, or about the way the hall was now warping and stretching, pulling Eddie back until the larger boy was twenty feet away from him. The Bow was in his hand and his prey was before him; the time for worry was long past.
The world around him grew silent as he took aim. His fingers hooked on the bowstring and drew it back smoothly, easily. He couldn’t say if the pull was five pounds or five hundred; he pulled, and the string drew back, as naturally as him taking his next breath. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see or feel the bowstring. He believed it was there—oh yes, Billy believed. The bow was his religion and the drawstring, his faith. And the arrow fletching that kissed his cheek was proof of God. His vision tunneled, giving him a clear view of the surprise flickering in Eddie’s piggy eyes.
Billy Ballard let fly his poisoned arrow.
In front of him, Eddie staggered. He blinked, then blinked again, and his wide face suddenly flushed. One hand covering his mouth, he drunkenly turned and stumbled down the hall. He didn’t make it ten feet before he doubled over, vomiting. Around him, other students screeched and leaped out of the way.
Billy lowered the Bow and watched Eddie succumb to another bout of nausea. And then, as the other boy fell to his knees and cradled his stomach, Billy began to smile. He barely noticed how all of the students who’d been accosting him just moments ago were now scuttling away, and when the next-period bell rang the sound seemed muffled, distant. Billy’s gaze was locked on to Eddie’s form, and he watched as the large boy huddled next to a pool of vomit. Sweat gleamed on Eddie’s pimpled brow, and he shook uncontrollably.
Billy knew that Eddie had just spiked a dangerously high fever. He didn’t know how he knew. And he didn’t care.
Soon a teacher—the same one who’d ignored Billy’s plight a few minutes earlier—ran over to help the fallen boy. He didn’t look up at Billy, didn’t seem to realize he was even standing there.
Billy watched as he gripped the Bow tightly. His smile took on a hard edge.
He was done with keeping his head down.
He was done with being afraid.
Billy spun on his heel. Bow in hand, he marched down the hallway, the sounds of Eddie’s feverish whimpers a sweet harmony to his ears.
Chapter 9
Billy Had Never . . .
. . . felt so confident, not even those times as a kid when he’d hit the baseball that Gramps so patiently threw. Seeing the great and powerful Eddie Glass reduced to a vomiting mass of flesh had been a wakeup call.
And Billy intended never to go back to sleep, not as long as he had the Bow.
Head high, white forelock dangling over his eye, he walked past the locker room and headed for the main gym doors. He was late for PE, but that didn’t matter. The handful of stray students rushing to class ignored him, as did the vice principal, who usually had a gimlet eye for anyone not tucked inside a classroom after the bell rang. A small part of Billy’s mind noticed this and thought it odd—the vice principal lived for assigning detention—but the rest of Billy, the newly confident part of him that wielded the Bow, merely shrugged this aside. Of course he wasn’t noticed. Only the Horsemen could see the White Rider.
He thought fleetingly of a girl in red, a girl who spoke lovingly of rage and told him that soon enough, his anger would claw its way free. Was she a Horseman too? Billy felt the answer was yes. He didn’t know the girl, and yet part of him did—he saw her standing over him in the alley behind Dawson’s Pizza, offering him a hand, and just beyond that, like an afterimage, he saw her on a red horse, one hand hefting a sword high as they galloped through the sky, leaving bloody trails in their wake.
But blood wasn’t the province of the Red Rider alone. He knew this, just as he knew the girl in red was War. The White Rider, too, knew of blood. Bronchitis. Pneumonia. Tuberculosis. And so much more. So much to learn. And to teach, oh yes, to show everyone who’d ever hurt him just what he could do now.
Picturing Joe and everyone else doubled over with coughs that left their throats raw, Billy approached the gymnasium. They wouldn’t see him, not even when his arrows pierced their skins. Finally, after years of being tormented by them for no reason he could name, it would be their turn to play the victim, their turn to have their stomachs clench and insides twist from nausea. Their turn to be sick with fear. Or, barring that, their turn to be sick, period.
He grinned. The Bow wouldn’t fail him. However many arrows he needed, he’d have. He knew this, just as he’d known how to strike down Eddie. He would storm inside, a soundtrack of righteous fury blaring in his mind as he’d let arrow after arrow fly. He’d take down Joe first and the PE coach right after, and then anyone else who’d ever picked on him or who’d looked the other way instead of extending a hand. Everyone. Billy laughed softly as he reached for the door handle. He would rain sickness down upon them all and watch their diseases blossom. They’d whimper and groan as they lost themselves to fever and chills, and he’d rejoice in their pain.
That thought stopped him cold.
It wasn’t that he wanted to hurt those who’d hurt him for so long—that was nothing more than justice. What froze him in place was the realization that he would enjoy hurting them.
He’d be no better than Eddie Glass.
Standing outside of the closed gym doors, he pictured Eddie writhing on the floor next to a pool of his own vomit . . . and then the fallen boy looked up at him, a perverse grin twisting his face. Billy felt the ghost of a booted foot slam into his side, and the breath whooshed out of him as he stumbled backwards. Over the sounds of muffled shouts from behind the doors, he heard Eddie’s soft laughter—laughter that sounded frighteningly like his own from just a moment ago.
No. He loathed Eddie Glass. No way in hell would he become him.
With a cry of disgust, he flung the Bow away. It skittered across the linoleum floor and came to an unceremonious halt by the janitor’s closet.
Thou art the White Rider, William Ballard. Thou art Pestilence, Bringer of Disease.
He clenched his fists. It didn’t matter what Death told him, or showed him, or even what he’d done to him. Billy couldn’t wield the Bow. He wouldn’t.
On the floor, the black wood seemed to chide him, telling him to finish his tantrum already because there was work to do. Infections to spread. Diseases to riddle healthy minds and bodies. All he had to do was pick up the Bow and throw open the gym doors, and then Pestilence would do the rest.
Billy tore his gaze away.
Had he really thought he was done with being afraid? At least before, all he’d had to fear was the inevitable daily beating, whether physical or verbal or both. He’d never imagined that he’d be afraid of himself.
Nauseated, he made his way to the bathroom and hid in a stall as fourth period ticked by.
When the bell rang, he went to the lunchroom, his hood pulled down low over his face. Once he got his lunch he sat near the door, alone, numbly eating a PB&J. At the far end of the table, other kids clustered—losers like Billy, wimps who Kept Their Heads Down and took pains to be one another’s shadow. Billy could have
told them that numbers don’t stop bullies if they’ve got you in their sights. He’d learned that lesson back in elementary school, when he’d still had a smattering of people he called friends. Then came the day that Eddie transformed from Just Mean to Mean and Pushy, and Billy wound up eating dirt. He did what he’d been taught and told a teacher, who did nothing about it because she hadn’t seen Eddie shove Billy. Eddie promptly labeled him a tattler. When it became clear that Billy would be the local punching bag for the near future, his friends peeled away like dead skin until only Marianne remained.
Billy Ballard, you were a hero today.
His shoulders sagged. A hero. Yeah, right. What would Marianne say about what he’d done to Eddie? About what he’d been about to do to his entire PE class? He wasn’t a hero. Heroes didn’t fire a weapon at unarmed teens. And if they did, heroes certainly didn’t enjoy it.
Oh, how he’d enjoyed watching Eddie puke all over the floor and then whine like a kicked puppy.
With a sigh, he lifted his carton of milk and drank. He wondered if anyone would see the Bow lying on the hallway floor. Maybe their eyes would slide over it as if it were invisible. Or maybe someone would pick it up, and then Billy would be off the hook—the mantle of the White Rider would fall to that new person, someone better suited for the role. But as he took another bite of a sandwich he couldn’t taste, he understood that no one would be able to wield the Bow but him.
Him, and the Ice Cream Man.
“He’s fallen down on the job,” Death said. “It’s up to you to pick up the slack. Or, if you’d rather, you can convince him to get out of bed. Either way works for me.”
Billy had to talk to Death. He needed help, needed information. Pestilence for Dummies, maybe. Something. Anything. He couldn’t do this alone.
From behind him, a maliciously gleeful voice said, “Hey, look! It’s Birdy! How you doing, Birdy?”
Billy stiffened. His heartbeat slammed into overdrive as Kurt brayed laughter.
Another voice said, “Missed you in PE.” That was Joe, leaning down now so that Billy could smell the mint gum of his breath. “Hear you got you a new look.”
Go away, Billy wanted to shout, but his mouth had locked around his bite of sandwich. His head suddenly ached where Joe had slammed it into the locker door yesterday, or maybe it was the spot that Death had touched, hidden beneath his white patch. His stomach cramped in anticipation of pain yet to come. He screamed silently, the words muted by peanut butter and fear: Leave me alone!
“I want to see.” A hand snaked out and grabbed Billy’s hood, then yanked it back, exposing his stained hair. “You were right,” Joe said to Kurt, sounding pleased. “It does look like a bird took a shit on his head.”
“Looks stupid,” said Kurt.
“So does his face.”
“You don’t want stupid hair, do you?” Kurt clamped one hand on Billy’s shoulder.
Billy flinched, and hated himself for doing so.
“See that? He wants us to help him.”
Joe got right in his face. Billy swallowed tightly and counted the blackheads on Joe’s nose. “You want our help?”
Hoping that the cafeteria monitor would step in, knowing that would never happen, Billy clenched his jaw and said nothing.
“Say it,” Joe commanded.
“You have to say the words, Billy,” the Ice Cream Man insisted. “Say that you agree to wear the Crown.”
No.
He didn’t realize he’d said the word aloud until Joe’s eyes widened.
“Listen to him,” sneered Kurt, giving Billy’s shoulder a squeeze, “thinking he’s too good for our help.”
“Know what I think?” said Joe, his eyes gleaming. “I think he needs more white in it.” He grabbed the milk carton and poured the contents over Billy’s head.
Cold liquid pooled over Billy’s hair, streaming down his face and ears and chin, christening him in rivulets of white. Shock and horror gave way to outrage, and then embarrassment as Kurt and Joe and too many others to count laughed at him.
And then fury, white hot and blinding.
He reached out his hand, and his fingers closed around the familiar width of the Bow. Power surged through him, and he smiled coldly. The part of his mind that would have questioned how the weapon could have just appeared in his hand simply shut down. Pestilence had summoned his Bow, and so the Bow appeared.
Billy stood as time thickened around him, trapping everyone in the cafeteria like fossils in amber. He stepped away from the table, turning slowly to face Joe and Kurt. The two boys stood frozen, one still holding the upturned carton of milk, the other nearly doubled over with laughter. As Billy looked at them, he felt the damp weight of his hair, smelled the sweetness of milk mingling with the oil and sweat of his skin.
He judged them and found them guilty.
Billy pulled back the bowstring he could neither see nor feel, an arrow of disease nocked and ready. Distance warped as he took aim at Joe, who stood now more than twenty feet away, and he let fly. In the same breath he drew, aimed, and released another arrow at Kurt. He didn’t bother to see if his arrows would strike true; of course they would. Pestilence didn’t miss. Instead, he turned to consider the living backdrop of students and the occasional adult scattered throughout the room, and his gaze locked on the cafeteria monitor. She sat, her face mostly hidden by a book, a food-laden fork halfway to her open mouth. A third arrow flew, and this time Billy watched as it buried itself deep into her flesh, then evaporated.
The arrow’s disappearance made Billy blink—and time kicked into gear. The laughter in the cafeteria continued once more, but he ignored it as he saw Joe and Kurt clutch their stomachs, their fingers splayed wide. Kurt’s face paled, and as his belly let out a liquid growl he lumbered to the door, one arm thrown out before him and shouting at anyone who dared to get in his way. Joe swayed and crashed onto the cafeteria bench, his face dripping with sweat, heat and sickness wafting from him like perfume gone to vinegar.
Billy’s head swam as he stared at Joe, who stank of diarrhea and fever. Salmonella, Billy knew, without knowing how he knew. Even pasteurized milk wasn’t always safe. Watch that first sip.
The cafeteria monitor barreled out of the room, her stomach a gurgling mess. The group of misfits at the far end of Billy’s table erupted with laughter, joining the rest of the students in their schadenfreude. No one pointed to Billy or shouted at him or accused him of firing a weapon. No one seemed to see him at all.
And that made him want to shoot them all the more.
He stared at the Bow, horrified by what was happening to him. But along with the horror, there was a building fascination, a sense of wonder. Of possibility. He could finally fight back. With the Bow, he could put everyone in their place. They’d know he wasn’t someone they could push around any longer. And if they didn’t know it, he’d teach it to them, arrow by arrow, sickness by sickness. And finally, wallowing in bacteria and drowning in viruses, they’d respect him. More than that: They’d fear him, the way that he’d feared them for so very long.
It would be so very easy.
No. No. He wouldn’t become what he detested. He wouldn’t!
He lifted the Bow high and brought it down hard against the cafeteria table. And again. And again, smashing the weapon with all his strength. With every contact he screamed his frustration and his fear until his fury dwarfed all other sound. No one saw him. No one stopped him. He was the White Rider, invisible as a germ.
In his hands, the black wood gleamed, unscarred.
Bellowing his denial, he brought the Bow up one final time—and froze as a cold hand gripped his wrist.
“Dude,” said Death. “There are easier ways to get my attention.”
Chapter 10
“You’re Here,” Billy Said . . .
. . . and nearly sagged with relief. Everything would be okay now; surely, Death could see that there had been a horrific mistake and would take the Bow away. Billy Ballard wasn’t White
Rider material.
As if to counter the argument, Joe chose that moment to double over and vomit loudly on the cafeteria floor. Cue the mass exodus: The lunchroom cleared out in a wave of screeching teenagers until the only figures remaining were Billy, Joe, and an all-too-bemused Death.
“Ah, school food,” said the Pale Rider, smiling down at Joe, who was now curled up in a tight ball. “Who knew they had regurgiburger on the menu?”
“Please,” Billy said, “you have to take it back.”
“Fine, it’s not a regurgiburger. We’ll just stick with ‘mystery meat’ and call it a day.”
“The Bow,” Billy said, desperation pitching his voice high. “Please, you have to take back the Bow!”
The Pale Rider’s smile turned sly. “I have to do many things, William, most of them centered around life and death. What I absolutely don’t have to do is claim a tool that is not meant for me.”
“But look what I did!” Billy flailed his free arm in Joe’s direction. “I made him sick! Him, and Kurt, and Eddie!”
“Don’t forget the cafeteria monitor.”
“Yeah, and her! And you don’t know what I was about to do!” Thinking of how close he’d come to attacking his classmates made his stomach drop to his toes. “You don’t know,” he whispered.
“Oh, I know.” Death finally released Billy’s wrist. “All that power can be overwhelming at first. Happens all the time. Well, almost. There was a Famine once who accepted the Scales and attempted to stop the Flood. Shortest tenure of the Black Rider, ever. But she proved her point.”
With Death’s words, Billy saw a woman in black holding her arms high as a mountain of water loomed over her. He blinked and the image was gone, leaving him lightheaded and gasping for breath. He stammered, “What point?”
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