“Hey.” Billy offered her a tired smile. “Welcome back.”
“Thank you,” she said, her voice gruff. She propped herself onto her elbow and faced him, gazing deeply into his eyes, then at the silver circlet on his brow. “You stopped him.”
He nodded.
She sighed and bowed her head.
In that wordless sigh, Billy heard her sorrow, her bitterness, felt the pain of her loss. “He wasn’t always mad,” she said quietly. “When he’d forget that he’d been anything other than the White Rider, he did his job well.”
Billy knew this; he’d seen it in the White, and he felt it now, stirring in the back of his mind as Mita whispered to him. “I’m so sorry,” he said softly. “I just wanted to stop him. I didn’t mean—” His voice broke, and no more words would come.
She looked up at him, her face unreadable. “King White is dead, but the Conqueror lives on.”
He hissed out a breath, half denial, half apology.
Famine slowly pulled herself to her feet. Her steed appeared by her side, and she leaned heavily against it, stroking its neck and murmuring something Billy couldn’t hear. The horse snorted softly, and it knelt so that the Black Rider could climb atop its back. Now seated upon her steed, she looked down at Billy, who was sitting in the snow because he was too tired to stand. Her voice clipped, she said, “I look forward to working with you, White.”
And then the black horse leapt into the sky and the Black Rider was gone.
From behind him came the sound of a girl’s laughter. “Don’t mind her. She believes in an economy of words. Actually, for her, that was practically a soliloquy.”
Billy turned and looked up to see a girl in red, standing over him and grinning fit to burst.
“Hello, Pestilence,” she said, offering him a hand. “I’m War.”
Chapter 23
Billy Had a Moment of Dejà Vu . . .
. . . as he stared at the offered hand, not surprised that the leather glove was a dull brown instead of red. It should be red, he thought as he took her hand; everything about the girl should be red.
“The red belongs to the office,” said the girl, pulling him to his feet. “The gloves are mine.”
He blinked at the casual display of mind reading. When Death had done it, that had been . . . well, not acceptable, exactly, but understandable. Having War flit about in his head was just obnoxious.
She squeezed his hand once, playfully, then let go. “I’ve been called worse.”
His mouth pulled into a humorless smile. “Me too.”
War was older than he was, maybe by a year or two, but he was taller. Except for her head and her hands, she was covered in red—not the lush red of cherries or the cheerful red of strawberries but volcanic red, hot red, the red of fast cars and dangerous intentions. He looked down at his own clothing, at the startlingly white leather coat and pants, the boots that nearly blended with the snowy ground—Mita’s uniform, but cleaner. Purer. And, happily, a bit more modern. Maybe before he’d accepted the White, Billy would have felt ridiculous wearing it. But not now. Now the outfit seemed—no, felt—exactly right, as if it were meant for him.
“You wear it well,” said War, smiling wickedly.
He felt his cheeks flush. “Um. Thanks.” Belatedly remembering that she’d introduced herself, he said, “I’m Billy Ballard.”
She looked at him, this girl who was carved from fire, and she asked, “So, Billy Ballard, do you know yourself yet?”
After a pause, he replied, “I’m learning.”
War grinned. “Good answer.” She walked over to a red horse waiting near the far side of the floe, its coat like spilled blood against the backdrop of snow and ice. It looked at Billy—no, it glared at him, glared so fiercely that Billy took an involuntary step backward—and then the horse snorted as War petted its side. She murmured something to it, and then she climbed up in a fluid motion.
Billy blinked again as she settled into the saddle that absolutely hadn’t been there a moment ago. One of her brown-gloved hands now held a pair of reins, and ditto on the not-being-there-before thing.
Okay. That was a neat trick.
“There’s more where that came from,” War called out. “Pleasure to meet you, Billy Ballard!” And then the horse launched itself across the sky in a streak of red, taking the Red Rider far away.
He watched War’s fiery path cut across the horizon, and only after it faded to an afterthought did he say, “How long have you been here?”
A quiet laugh, the sound like snowfall, and then a cold voice replied, “Since before the first living thing took its first gasping breath.”
There was a sense of movement behind him, and then Death was standing by his side, slouching comfortably, his hands resting in the front pockets of his faded jeans. The Pale Rider smiled warmly at Billy, belying the chill of his voice. “Good job saving the world. That’s the sort of thing that wows them on résumés.”
“Thanks.” Billy stared at the pile of ashes that had been the Conqueror, and a lump formed in his throat, one that had nothing to do with sickness. “I killed him.”
“Only technically.”
Death the lawyer. So Billy was only technically a murderer. Yeah, that made him feel worlds better.
“The man who had been King Mita died long and long ago,” Death said. “And the man who became the Conqueror was insane, more often than not, and his bite was poisonous. Would you call it murder to put down a rabid dog?”
The Crown felt heavy on Billy’s head. “If I were the dog, yeah.”
“You did what needed to be done. You saved the world and healed the Black Rider. Be content with that, William Ballard.”
He looked into Death’s bottomless eyes, those empty eyes, and he asked, “Is he happy now? Can you tell me that much?”
Death smiled whimsically. “Do you think he’s happy now?”
He thought of the father who’d mourned his daughter, of the king who’d sacrificed everything for his kingdom. He thought of the man who learned that because he’d run away to save the world, the woman he loved died of heartbreak. Billy didn’t know if there were such things as happy endings, but Mita of Phrygia deserved one. “Yes,” he decided. “Yes, he’s happy now.”
“And so you have your answer.”
No, he didn’t. But he understood that was all he was going to get. Death kept his secrets well.
“Death is in all things,” the Conqueror said. “He is the alpha and the omega, and we exist only on his whim. And he is done with whimsy! I’ve seen the end of the world, and it begins with a sheet of white!”
“That was the Atlantic pack ice, about eight hundred years ago,” said Death. “He’d seen the first pieces forming in the ocean and moving south.”
Billy frowned. “So that’s the end of the world? Icebergs?”
“It is for certain passenger ships.”
“The world echoes his mood,” the Conqueror hissed. “When it warms, he is content with his lot. But when it grows colder, then despair, little boy Pestilence! Despair!”
“He thought that when the world grew colder, that was because of you,” Billy said. “He thought that the world is here only because of you.”
“Did he now?” Death smiled ruefully as he walked over to the pile of ashes. Squatting, he scooped them into his hand and cupped them gently, almost reverently.
There was a pause in which the world held its breath, and words filled the wind in a whisper of frost: Fare thee well, Mita, White Rider, colleague, king.
The ashes glinted in Death’s palm and then shot out of his hand and spirited off into the arctic sky. In Death’s hand, two pennies winked.
Awed, Billy whispered, “Was he right?”
Still squatting, Death closed his fist over the pennies and turned his head to face Billy. The human guise slipped, only for a breath, and Billy glimpsed something beyond his comprehension; then he blinked and the Pale Rider was once again a thin blond man with hands meant for st
rumming a guitar and a voice meant for song. He smiled a smile filled with the mysteries of the universe, and he said, “What do you think?”
Billy had no idea. And that was all right, he decided. If Death really was the start and end of everything, he really didn’t want to know.
“So,” said Death as he rose to his full height and put the pennies into his jeans pocket, “we come now to a crossroads. When you were five, you agreed to wear the Conqueror’s Crown at the right time. The one with whom you made your compact is dead. All previous agreements are forgiven. And,” he added, eyes sparkling with mischief, “some might argue that you fulfilled the terms of that agreement. Either way, you’ve done your job.”
“Um,” said Billy, suddenly sheepish. “I sort of broke the Bow. It was an accident. But, um. Yeah. I broke it.”
“That Bow?” Death pointed to Billy’s left—and there it was, lying on the snow in one complete piece: the unstrung bow, its black wood gleaming, inviting. “It takes more than that to break it permanently. But it wants you to know that it doesn’t appreciate being treated like a baseball bat.”
Billy’s mouth opened and closed, and then it opened again and he said, “Um. Thanks. And, ah, I’m sorry. About the baseball bat thing.”
Death winked. “No worries. The Bow has been through worse. And now, William Ballard, you have a choice.”
Billy held his breath.
“You may choose to remain Pestilence, Conqueror of Health, Bringer of Disease, White Rider of the Apocalypse. Or you may reject the Crown and simply be William Ballard and live your life.”
Billy’s head spun, showing him images too fast for him to follow, leaving him with impressions of people and memories—Marianne and Gramps and his mom and his dad, his Cookie Monster doll and Eddie Glass, Kurt and Joe and the others from school. And now he saw Famine, or Famines—the exotic woman in black who’d held the Conqueror’s heart, and the prim woman in black who’d reminded him of his duty, and the painfully thin woman in black who’d nearly died and had a horse that tried to feed her sugar cubes. And he saw War, both the female knight with her terrifying laughter and the girl in red with her wicked grin.
Do you know yourself yet?
Did he?
“Tell me,” said Death. “Are you William Ballard? Or are you Pestilence?”
No matter what he chose, he wasn’t the same Billy Ballard as before. He’d felt the light of the world flowing through him, connecting him to all living things. He’d seen the impossible and had traveled through time. He’d stood tall and fought back the plague. He’d saved the world.
Marianne’s voice, full of wonder: Billy Ballard, you were a hero today. You hear me? You were a hero.
He felt the weight of the Crown upon his head, felt the mad beating of his heart as he thought of his favorite girl in black.
And then, locking his gaze on to Death’s empty blue eyes, Billy Ballard made his choice.
Chapter 24
And Then . . .
. . . it was the next morning and Billy was getting ready for school. He’d been away for a week and now had fully recuperated, bounced back, turned the corner, got better, healed up, and, all in all, was feeling pretty good. A hot shower to scrub away the last dregs of sleep, a quick tooth brushing to kill off bad breath, a comb through the hair in an attempt to tame it—these were the tools of the mundane, the everyday, the ordinary.
Billy Ballard couldn’t be happier.
He smiled as he looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. The white patch in his hair, noticeably bigger, looked brighter today. Whiter. Maybe with a glint of silver beneath it. He decided that he liked it.
Dressed for the day, and never mind whether he had PE or not—he’d change in the locker room, like the other guys. He grabbed his phone and wallet, threw them into his backpack, and then shut and locked his bedroom door. Keys in his pocket, he walked down the hallway, waving to the ghosts of photographs on the walls. As he went by, the impressions of the past echoed; it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, but a restless one. Over there had been a portrait of his grandparents on their wedding day, and here used to hang a framed shot of Billy and his dad, the Ballard boys, grinning like scoundrels ready to make mischief. He touched his fingers over the spot where his dad’s face used to be, and he felt a pang in his chest—a small sadness, a tiny piece of loss. Billy acknowledged the feeling and then let it go. It was time, he decided, to put those ghosts to rest. After school, he’d talk to his mom about painting the walls, either a new coat of what was there already or, better, something new, lively. Paint was cheap, and he could do it himself—and maybe even Gramps could help. He didn’t have to be a wild conversationalist to hold a roller, and Billy thought the old man would enjoy the activity.
In the kitchen, he gave his mom a quick kiss on the cheek and smiled a hello to his grandfather. Gramps looked more there today, like there was someone home behind his eyes.
“Sleep well?” Billy asked, and shock of shocks, his grandfather smiled and nodded and smacked his toast with his toothless gums, one part mastication and two parts saliva.
“It’s the new meds,” chirped his mother as she offered Billy a bowl of cereal. “They’re not underperforming.”
“Yeah,” Billy agreed, grinning as he poured milk. The meds absolutely were not underperforming, not any more. He had a good feeling that this time, his grandfather’s lucid period would hang around for a while.
Billy had a good feeling about a lot of things.
***
Before PE, Billy would have to experience the joys of trigonometry, biology, and American history, all of which redefined tedium. If Billy weren’t feeling so awake, he’d have had plenty of time to catch up on his sleep.
Walking to his locker to get his books for his morning classes, he noticed that some of the other students in the hallway were casting him odd looks, like they didn’t know how to react. Maybe it was because he was in a great mood, and so he was walking taller, prouder, as if there were an invisible crown on his head. Or maybe it was just because he’d been stricken with potentially deadly bacterial meningitis and therefore had helped launch the school into its brief televised career. Celebrity by proxy. He grinned at everyone, just because, and—second shock of shocks—some of them even smiled back. Sure, they were all from the misfits’ table in the cafeteria. But for the first time in a long time, Billy didn’t feel like a pariah.
A shove from behind, making him stumble.
“Watch it, loser,” said Kurt.
Well. It was sort of comforting to know some things hadn’t changed.
Billy regained his footing and turned to face Kurt, who had Joe by his side. Kurt looked particularly stupid this morning; maybe he’d had an extra helping of dumb for breakfast. Joe just looked mean, but Billy had to admit, Joe rocked that look.
“What’re you looking at, Birdy?” Kurt sneered.
This was the part where Billy was supposed to cringe and try to turn invisible as the verbal abuse hit home. The other students were supposed to point and laugh and get in on the taunting, maybe spice it up with a fly-by noogie. And a part of Billy was ready to jump back into character and play the victim role the way he’d been playing it for years. That part of Billy still had nightmares about the Ice Cream Man, was still desperate to Keep His Head Down and hope that soon, real soon, the monsters would move on to other prey.
But the rest of Billy remembered that he had saved the world.
I even saved you, he thought, looking at Kurt and Joe and not flinching. It’s like the Apocalypse—their words are just words.
And the thing about words? He didn’t have to listen to them.
Billy smiled, because really, he was having a terrific day and not even Kurt and Joe could ruin that, and he kept walking toward his locker.
This time, a hand on his shoulder stopped him and spun him around. He looked up into the piggy eyes of Eddie Glass.
“You just walk away like that?” Eddie said. “My boy Kurt talks
to you, and you just ignore him?” The large boy leaned in close, and Billy smelled something foul on his breath. “Bad manners, Birdy.”
Part of him wanted to cower.
Part of him wanted to run.
And part of him wished he could draw the Bow and riddle Eddie with disease after disease, slam his hatred and fury into him arrow by arrow until there was nothing left of Eddie Glass but a smear on the ground.
He thought he heard a small, still voice telling him to focus.
Billy looked at the bully who had plagued him for years, really looked at him, and he didn’t see a raging giant but just a large boy with anger in his eyes and something to prove to the world, something that had nothing to do with Billy. In that crystalline moment, he understood that Eddie had his own Ice Cream Man haunting him.
“I get it,” Billy said, and he did. He’d spent so many years being afraid of Eddie Glass, and then, after he’d used the Bow in anger, he’d been afraid of becoming Eddie Glass. But now he knew that he’d surpassed Eddie Glass, had left him far behind. Billy had confronted his demon, while Eddie was still pretending that he wasn’t scared.
Billy had never thought he’d see the day when he pitied Eddie.
Maybe that showed on his face, because something lit behind Eddie’s eyes, something ugly and small. “You’re going to get it,” he breathed, getting in Billy’s face.
Billy met his gaze and didn’t look away.
The two faced off, the bully and the bullied, until someone called Eddie’s name. The bigger boy’s eyes narrowed, and he growled, “This isn’t done.” He shoved past Billy to join his friends, walking big and talking bigger.
No, it wasn’t done for good. But it was done for now.
Smiling to himself, Billy finally got to his locker. His favorite girl in black was waiting for him, waving as he arrived.
“So glad you’re back,” Marianne said, grinning. “You wouldn’t believe the stupid assignment we’ve got for history. Get this, we have to compare the Vietnam War to spaghetti, to spaghetti, can you believe that? I’m thinking of saying, Yeah, it’s like pasta because it’s pointless carbs . . .” Her voice trailed off as she searched his face, and an odd smile played on her lips.
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