Path of the Horseman

by Amy Braun

  In the last six months, I tried everything. I grabbed old Plagued and fresher Plagued, tying them down and trying to suck the infection back into me. I was able to take the virus out, but the poor suckers I tried to save just slumped over and remained lifeless as a rock.

  I could practically hear Logan sighing over my shoulder every time I tried to reverse the Plague, so I gave up. I’d been too good at my job, and now the only thing I could offer the Plagued were mercy killings.

  “You should watch how much power you use.”

  I opened my eyes and took my hand away from my chest, looking over the couch at Simon. He stood in the doorway near the dining room with an armful of food. He walked into the living room and placed juice boxes, beef jerky, crackers, and canned fruit in front of me. It was practically Christmas. Simon reclined back on the sofa across from me, holding onto the box of Cheerios he’d also brought with him. He opened the box and starting eating the circular cereal by the handful.

  Simon was a nervous eater. Yet again, he was unintentionally hilarious.

  Feeling a little stiff but no longer in pain, I reached across the table and grabbed a juice box. I tore it open and downed the whole thing. Two more followed it. Then I went at the beef jerky, crackers, and canned fruit like an animal.

  “Christ, will you slow down?” my brother protested. “I don’t have a lot to spare.”

  I rolled my eyes and spoke while savoring the stale saltiness of the crackers. “Give me a break, Simon. You were always hoarding food.”

  Simon’s nervous graphite stare darkened with just hint of anger. “Yeah, because we’re turning human, and humans die.”

  I slowed down. He was holding the box of cereal like it was a lifeline. I held Simon’s eyes as I slowly slid the remaining food into my rucksack. He didn’t stop me. I took a piece of beef jerky from its plastic bag and started picking at it, processing what Simon had been getting at earlier.

  When we first rose up from the pit, we were forces of nature. Being put in human bodies helped us blend in and spread the chaos, but it also meant we ate up a lot of energy. The more power we used, the more human we became. Turns out the Bosses gave us a single tank of supernatural gas without leaving us a petrol station. They probably did it so we wouldn’t get out of control, which made sense where Kade was concerned. The only thing he loved more than instilling fear and anger into human hearts was trying to tear out those hearts with his bare hands. Infinite power for him would mean the destruction of the whole damn universe.

  But the rest of us weren’t that bad, were we? For all his grim determination and strength, Logan wasn’t homicidal. Simon might want to eat everything known to man, but he would have left some scraps behind. As for me, I admit that at first it was fun to watch the humans run like junior Roadrunners from creatures so slow it took them ten minutes to cross the street, but I liked experimenting with my powers. Pushing the limits and trying new things. The original idea had been for me to simply conquer the humans. Simon would subdue them, Kade would instigate riots, and Logan would clean up the mess.

  As time went on, we learned that humans tended to have a shoot-first-ask-questions-later philosophy when it came to anything they didn’t understand. Showing up like glorious, Heavenly conquerors would have been a great way to meet missiles and bullets.

  So I went with a more subtle approach. A Plague I knew would destroy the world. The only one who got any upfront action was Kade, but that was what he’d been created for. Simon, Logan, and I worked behind the scenes, watching the world burn and knowing it was too late to go back.

  After the Tribulation, I could feel how much weaker I’d become. When I tried to cure the Plague, it only got worse. I refrained from using my power as much as I could, but sometimes I couldn’t help it. When you fight to keep your mortal shell, you jump to last resorts. Mine happened to be on a hair trigger.

  “I thought I’d sent them off,” Simon said when he couldn’t stand the silence anymore. I looked at my brother. He was leaning back against the yellowed couch, munching on the Cheerios the way a brokenhearted teenage girl eats ice cream after being dumped.

  “The Soulless?” I asked.

  Simon nodded. “A few of them came by a couple weeks ago. I managed to shoot them all and dump the bodies, but more came back the next day, and the day after that, and after that, and… You get it.”

  I did. I waited for him to continue.

  “Eventually I had to go down there and dry out all the Plagued bodies. You know how the Soulless can get. If they’re hungry enough, they’ll suck the brain juices from a corpse.”

  Sad. And true.

  “Why didn’t you come looking for me? I was in Boulder City. I wasn’t far.”

  Simon raised his head, revealing a flash of guilt. He lowered his gaze quickly. “You really think I would have made it that far?”

  “For fuck’s sake, Simon, are you kidding? You know who you used to be? Don’t tell me you couldn’t have made it.”

  He set the box of Cheerios down on the table. I could see that he was getting agitated.

  “I’m not like you,” he told me as patiently as his temper would allow. “I never have been. I wouldn’t have made it without getting eaten or lost or whatever. Especially if you’re right, and Ciaran and Vance are out there.”

  “But you didn’t even try,” I protested. “The demons aren’t that tough. We could have taken them.” I took a breath and scanned his face. “How many Soulless have you gotten rid of in the last six months?”

  “Not enough to matter. They’re getting bolder, Avery. I don’t know what Ciaran’s doing to them, but they’re more vicious than ever. If what Vance told you is true, there’s no point in hunting them. If there are any humans left around, they’re not going to be alive much longer.”

  I’d told Simon everything about my meeting with Vance on the way up to the suite. Now I was regretting it.

  “The demons have plans for us. I can’t imagine they’ll be setting up a picnic with strippers and beer. You really want to hide until they find you and kill you?”

  “They’re welcome to try. You only knew where I was because I told you before I left. I’m hard to find.”

  “That’s what I thought too,” I growled.

  Simon scoffed. “Yeah, right. You’re about as subtle as Kade is, and he thinks he’s King Kong.”

  I couldn’t believe this. Vance’s master, Ciaran, was plotting something for us, basically a scripted note saying he was going to blast us off the planet. Simon seemed content with their attempts. He thought he could outrun them.

  “Did you forget the part where the Soulless are connected to the demons? Every time one of those tics looks at you, you might as well be waving hello to Ciaran.”

  “Of course I didn’t forget that,” he snapped. “But I’m not making it my personal mission to start Tribulation two-point-oh. I’m not a threat to Ciaran, and he knows it.”

  “Are you listening to yourself, Simon? You’re really just going to roll on your back and let Ciaran run over you? That coal-eater is after us for a reason, and it’s not just because he hates competition. He’s planning something for any humans left alive. He might have the numbers and a head start, but that doesn’t mean we can’t stop him.” I held my breath, then pulled the Ace from my sleeve.

  “We need to find Kade and Logan.”

  My brother raised his head again, shock and horror trading places in his eyes.

  “You’re joking,” Simon said.

  I looked at him seriously. “You see me laughing?”

  “Okay, two things,” Simon leaned forward, holding up his index finger. “First, Logan won’t be found if he doesn’t want to be, and he does not want to be.”

  I couldn’t argue that. Even when we’d been destroying the world together, Logan had walked a reclusive path. He didn’t have people around him, and that was how he liked it.

  “Two,” continued Simon, raising a second finger. “Kade? Do I really have to tell you h
ow terrible that idea is? You can’t reason with that asshole.” Simon lowered his hand. “Seriously, I’d rather have some Plagued fucker chew my face off than talk to him.”

  I narrowed my eyes, but didn’t argue his point. Logan killed because he had to. Kade killed because he wanted to.

  “He’ll do it,” I assured him. “Kade can’t resist a fight. If we’re going up against demons, can you think of anyone better to have on our side?”

  Simon’s eyes were serious. “No. But I can’t think of anyone worse, either.”

  “Come on, Sime. We have to do this.”

  “What the fuck for? We served our purpose. The humans are dead, and if there are any alive, they’ll either die from the conditions, the Plagued, or they’ll give Ciaran their souls. There is no Second Coming, Avery. If there is, we’re not going to be alive to see it.”

  I clenched my fists. “You don’t know that.”

  “Fine, but you know what I do know? That I was doing okay before you showed up. I didn’t want to be found. I saved your life because you’re my brother, and this stupid mortal brain they put in my head won’t let me forget it. I can’t make myself care about humans. The last time I saw any of them walking around was when I was drying up their lakes. I went into their camps when they were sleeping and tainted their food. I brushed shoulders with them so my touch would make them starve. I murdered thousands of them, Avery. Because that was what I was told to do.”

  Any arguments I’d been working on were killed as I watched Simon give his speech. He meant what he said, getting angry at even the suggestion that we’d made a mistake. Simon had been smart and lethal. He was the black widow slipping down from the ceiling, landing on your shoulder without you knowing, then biting you when you least expected it. You went to knock him off, but he was already gone, and you were already dying.

  Kade saw Simon as a coward, but the truth was that Simon had killed twice as many people as Kade had on his most savage day. Yet under all that anger and conviction, I saw it. The same gnawing pain that was eating me up inside was starting to devour Simon.

  Guilt. It can kill you just as easily as any Plagued, Soulless, demon, or natural element in this fucked up world.

  “We can at least stop Ciaran and Vance,” I tried. My voice sounded smaller than I wanted it to. “Let the humans die on their own. If they are still around, they deserve to die with their souls.”

  Simon wasn’t looking at me when he shook his head. “No.”

  He spoke it as a whisper. I would have preferred that he screamed.

  “I saved your life,” Simon repeated. “I don’t want to save anyone else.”

  Physically, I was stronger than Simon. I could have leapt over the couch and overpowered him, pulled a few punches that would have made Kade proud and forced him to do what I asked. If I’d been angrier, maybe I would have. But right now, I was too tired. My stomach was half full and my body was healed, but my heart felt heavy. My brain couldn’t deal with everything my brother said.

  Simon picked up on this.

  “You can stay here tonight,” he told me. “If you still want to find Kade or Logan tomorrow, I’ll lead you out. Sometimes I leave the resort to get food, so I know the safest ways in and out of the city.”

  “But you’re not going to come.”

  Simon shook his head. “The world’s going to starve, Avery. Might as well eat all the food I can find. No point in wasting.”

  He tried to smile, but it looked uncomfortable on his face. Simon sighed, took his box of Cheerios, and left the living room. At least I had the couch.

  ***

  I had expected all of this. The flames, the blood, the screams. It was all part of the Tribulation, the great cleansing to save God’s earth from the sinners.

  But I hadn’t expected to feel it with a human heart. I understood why we had been given these bodies. It was easier to play the part of the wolf when it was clothed as a sheep. Yet when the time of retribution came, when the first of my victims contracted the perfect, incurable disease, I had not expected to feel pain.

  I did not know what burrowed its way into my heart the day I watched that little boy get bitten by a much stronger Plagued. He screamed and reached out with his tiny hand, begging his parents to save him from where he’d fallen. His father had run back, shoving the adult corpse away from his son. He picked the boy up and ran for safety, unable to silence his child’s screaming.

  I watched them all, trying to rationalize why my pulse felt heavier than normal. The parents hid as well as they could, the father and the boy’s older brother watching nervously with crude weapons while their mother attempted to soothe him. There was nothing to be done. The boy was shaking and trembling and screaming, too weak to hold back the agony placed in him.

  The younger humans always died sooner than the adults. Death came for the boy within eight hours instead of twelve. The younger the victim, the faster the death. T he family crowded over him, weeping at their loss.

  My brother rose, invisible to the remaining members of the human family. He walked over to me, silent as the grave. He stood by my side and watched as I did. There was nothing on his face. Mine felt wet.

  “Tell me he deserved it, brother,” I whispered. He looked at me. “Tell me he had an evil soul, and would have ruined lives if he still breathed.”

  I couldn’t tear my eyes from the family huddling and crying over the dead boy in the dark bus station. Death paid them no attention.

  “You know I cannot see that far,” he answered.

  It was as though a giant fist had been plunged into my chest, gripping my human heart like a vice. It hurt when I breathed.

  “This has to be done,” I tried to tell myself. “There must be sacrifices made for the Second Coming.”

  Death was silent for a long, long time. It felt like hours before he spoke again.

  “Perhaps. But not all of them are justifiable.”

  The boy woke violently. The smell of flesh hit his nose, and he sank his little teeth into his mother’s neck. She screamed in tune with the older boy. Her husband pried the little one off, but held him as though he feared causing further harm to the child. The dead boy thrashed and bit his father’s hand. The older boy ran for his father, raising his hand to strike his brother. He hesitated, unable to see the monster wearing his sibling’s skin. The little boy did not have the same connection. He lurched over and bit his brother’s calf. The older boy collapsed and fought weakly.

  Death left my side, and waited for his moment.

  I tilted my head back, tears streaking past my temples. I watched the dark clouds mix with the rancid smoke from War. I waited for the voice that released me to speak again.

  “You made me instrument of this turmoil,” I told the sky. “Why are you making me feel its pain?”

  I waited for an answer. A sign. Anything to tell me that all of this suffering would be worth it.

  None came.

  The screams behind me were silenced.

  ***

  The sharp bang in my dream woke me up. I rocketed up from the couch, pulling out the knife I’d hidden behind the pillow under my head. My pulse was hammering and my breathing was harsh, but there was no threat I could see. No Plagued slamming into the walls. No Soulless pounding through the door. No demons appearing out of thin air to roast me. Simon wasn’t in trouble. He hated fighting, but he wouldn’t be quiet if he were in trouble.

  I relaxed my grip on the knife and dropped back onto the couch. I sighed and ran a hand down my face. I never technically had dreams. Dreams and nightmares were human things, and I was far from human. All I had were memories, but they might as well have been nightmares.