Ink and Shadows

by Rhys Ford

  Mal suffered through the shift more than she did, still new to manipulating the shadows. His body rippled with the sensation of prickly tendrils wrapping through his pores, and his lungs felt full of quicksand, a burbling mass of silica filtered through his nose and clogging his veins. The drawn thumping of his heart halted his steps, a pressure building up along his chest bone.

  He’d fallen into the ocean once, discovering that the body he’d taken with him from the mortal world knew nothing about swimming. Water flooded into his throat, cutting off any airflow from his nose and mouth. Mal learned several things that day. He couldn’t drown, but water still choked him into senselessness. The drowning paled next to having the Veil pulled tight around him. As his head swam with the threat of blacking out, Mal wondered if his lungs were being ripped clean from his body and if it could hurt much more than what he felt at that moment.

  “Mal,” Min said, slapping at his face. “Stay with me, brat. Step clear of it. That wraith is coming, and someone is stealing your boy.”

  Blinking, Mal followed Min’s pointing finger, spotting a slinking young man leading Kismet out of his front door and back toward the rear of the building. Opening his mouth to shout at the man, Mal wasn’t prepared for the burst of activity from the apartment across the tiny courtyard.

  Mal knew craziness plagued mortals, a creeping disease of the mind that seemed to leak into their features, stretching the elasticity of normal out of their faces. But the broad man coming toward them had left his sanity somewhere in the darkened, cramped room Mal could see through the open door.

  The man’s uneven screaming sharpened when he hit the pavement running. Powerful legs carried the human closer, his hand clenched tightly around wicked-looking black steel. It was obvious he saw the Horsemen from his insanity, or the Veil had thinned so much that they were visible to the casual passerby. The foaming spit across his open mouth lent weight to the former.

  “Gun.” Min identified and dismissed the threat. Unless the madman came at them with a blade or even the butt of the weapon, neither Horsemen had to worry about him. Min quickly located their prey, along with the overly familiar face of one of the Vices creeping around the walkway, hoping to reach the back exit and escape into the alleyway.

  “Fucking Lust.” Min jerked her chin toward the young men, ignoring the raving man careening toward the Horsemen. “You grab the kid. I’ll take care of the Vice. If we hurry, we can make it back to help Death and War.”

  It seemed like a simple plan, at least to Mal’s ears. He’d taken three long strides toward the apartment building when his world suddenly exploded into a shifting slide of time and pain. The madman was so near and easily disregarded when he raised his hand no more than a few feet from Mal’s chest. The pop of a gun report didn’t slow his run. He’d been a Horseman long enough to know he was invulnerable to that threat.

  Mal’s body jerked and turned, his chest cracking open under the torment of a bullet ripping through his skin, burrowing into his muscled flesh. Mal knew what it was like to be knifed, a stray blade sliding into his rib cage during one of his forays into a war zone with Ari, but the pain in his chest was agony. His heart stuttered, his torso ripped apart by the small metal fragment, and blood bubbled up from his throat to fill his mouth. He fell, his knee striking the hard pavement where the wraith’s carcass rotted, a cracked mass of bones bleached gray from being sucked clean from smaller shadows.

  His immediate thought was that he had been shot, an amazing thing that should never happen to a Horseman. His second was that he would finally prove Ari wrong. Something could kill one of them. And he would be the first one to lay claim to that dubious honor.

  Blood spurted over Min’s face, blinding her until she blinked it away. The gunshot still echoed in her ears, her balance thrown off-kilter by the piercing ring bouncing inside of her head. For a brief moment she wondered who had been shot. Min had seen no other human around them besides the boy, and he appeared unhurt, drawn quicker toward the exit by a hurrying Lust. Then the shock of Mal toppling hit her.

  The Veil had ripped apart, leaving Min open and vulnerable to the madman’s weapon. She cried out for Mal as he fell, his throat working to pull in air, mouth contorted in anguish. With a hand clawing at the darkened hole in his chest, Mal’s blood spurted from the wound, leaking out from between his clenched fingers.

  “Sorry, Death.” She clenched her teeth, lifting the mace up above her head as Frazier took aim again, the barrel of the gun pointed at Mal’s temple. The human’s hands shook, his mind unable to get a fix on the Horseman amid the shifting, closing curtain. “I’m going to kill this one.”

  Instincts took over, her fierceness wrenching a battle cry from her shocked throat. Shoulders bunched, she took aim at the human’s head and swung, the mace’s spikes cutting into the mortal’s tender skin. Frazier barely seemed to feel the blow, turning around to aim his gun at the diminutive woman. Min raised her mace for another blow, squaring her shoulders to strike at the man’s jaw.

  Frazier’s eyes rolled back. The sound of his skull cracking was louder than the gunshot echo burning through Min’s eardrums. The give of the man’s skull and its meaty burst of brains over Min’s face gave her little comfort, a sluice of gray and pink ichor running down her neck and filling in the creases of her fingers when she raised her hand to block the splatter. Disgusted by the mess, Min stepped aside to avoid the dead man’s falling weight, his sightless eyes turned upward to stare at the sky.

  She stared at Kismet. The boy stood on the bloodstained sidewalk, mute and in shock, his nerveless fingers dropping the hefty chunk of concrete he’d used to bash Frazier’s skull in. It broke into smaller pieces as it struck the asphalt, powdery white bits dusting over the spilled gore. Kismet’s brown eyes were clouded from the drugs in his system. The young man whispered Mal’s name as he fought to retain his balance, his desperate anger drilling down into Min’s guts.

  “Mal. God, the bastard shot Mal.” Spitting on Frazier’s prone body, Kismet lurched forward. He was about to head toward the fallen Horseman when Lust grabbed his arm, drawing the human back. “Get off of me. He needs help.”

  “Screw that, baby.” Lust yanked harder, dragging the reluctant Kismet back a foot, the boy’s sneakers skidding along the sidewalk with a loud shriek of rubber on cement. “The Horsemen can take care of their own.”

  “Damned human,” Min spat. “This should be you on the damned ground, not Mal.”

  Mal’s soft groan jerked her around, a hiss of breath pushed out of his clenched teeth. Lust took advantage of her distraction and pulled Kismet back, wrapping his calling to cloud the human’s mind. Pulled by his desires, Kismet followed the other man, his thoughts drawn shallow and instinctive.

  Reaching the end of the sidewalk, he stopped, protesting with a mewl about leaving Mal behind.

  “Come on, pretty,” Lust urged. He was made to coax humans into doing what they felt they wanted deep inside of their souls. The young man could put up a resistance, but Lust knew he’d eventually win. “Come along. We need to get you safe.”

  “No.” Kismet jerked back, his face fierce with passion. “I’m not leaving Mal behind. Not when he came for me.”

  Darkness pressed in on the immortals, tendrils of shadow knitting together, reforming the curtain that concealed them from the human world. Behind them, it shoved into Frazier’s body and pushed at his soul, urging it back into the void. The man’s soul tore from his corpse, a puppet of darkness and flat features. It hovered there, a soundless specter. Min glanced at the ghost, merely a minor annoyance compared to the stress of putting pressure on Mal’s wound.

  The spirit tried to reach Min with shapeless hands, passing through her. The ghost folded, unable to hold together under the weight of the Veil, then reformed, struggling to retain some form of existence and continue its work.

  Casting what little power she had over the dead, Min snagged the soul with her mind, holding it away from Mal. Unsure of what to do,
Min turned back to face her younger brother, crouching closer with fingers trembling in shock. She applied more pressure, wondering how much longer he would bleed and when his body would begin to heal over the wound.

  “So much blood.” Mal gaped, pulling his hands up to stare at the redness dripping from his fingers. “I didn’t know we had so much blood. Not inside of us, I guess. And I’ve seen so much before. Why is this a surprise?”

  “Don’t talk.” Min looked for the entrance wound, ripping apart Mal’s shirt. The skin struggled to reform, working to free itself from the chunk of mortality shoved in alongside the bullet. “I think we need to get that thing out of you. Why isn’t it pushing out? It’s supposed to just come out.”

  “You shouldn’t hover over me.” Mal strained to look behind him. “Kismet. We need to go get him.”

  “Don’t worry about Kismet.” Min glanced back at Lust.

  “I can’t let him go.” The wounded immortal hissed from the pain. His mind started to shut down, the blood loss making him swoon. “He’s my friend. Okay, he’s my only friend, but still, mine.”

  The Vice froze, his hand curled around Kismet’s arm. Blood trickled down to Kismet’s wrist, the puncture from his injection site leaking around bruised skin. The young man stood still, set firm and fierce. Stubbornness remained behind as Kismet’s lust faded, his addiction leeched off by his anger.

  Cocking his head, Kismet challenged Lust’s hold, unsteadily rocking as his legs threatened to give way. “Let go. I’m going to him.”

  “Fine, screw this.” Lust spat on the ground, the moisture nearly striking Mal’s face. Shoving Kismet to the ground, Lust fled, heading back to the relative safety of the motel’s walkway. “Keep the damned boy. I hope you all choke on him.”

  “You need to go find him.” Mal bit down on his lower lip, fighting off another wave of pain. He wanted to throw up, his body cramping and a coldness working through his guts. Min dismissed his pleas with a shake of her head, wondering if she could lift his weight into the Mustang.

  “He didn’t go anywhere, Mal.” Min worked her arm under Mal, pushing up with her legs to get under him. The sounds of Kismet vomiting turned her stomach, the foul stench of his purge a sickening wetness in Min’s ears. “Your bitch is tossing his cookies on the lawn behind us.”

  The cooling body of the insane man lay next to them, mortal flies finding his corpse and burying long appendages into the flesh, laying eggs that would probably never hatch. Other wraiths had yet to gather, probably held off by the presence of the Horsemen. The sky above them was empty. Min was glad for it. Mal was more important at the moment.

  “Worried about him.” Mal’s eyes rolled back, the pain nearly taking his consciousness. “I’m tired of being lonely, Famine.”

  The young man was slowly giving in to the shivers, his blood drinking in the final grains of heroin. Mouth trembling, Kismet batted away at the shadows clustering over his face. From the corner of his eye, Mal spotted a slender form huddling just inside of the Veil’s thinning curtain, the ghost of a little boy wearing features similar to the young man he held firmly.

  Frazier’s soul twisted under Min’s hold, pinioned in midair as she focused, straining for the strength she needed. Breathing a sigh of relief, Min reached for the hope she had in her heart and whispered into Mal’s ear, “Stay still. I think I know what to do.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SWEAT BEADED on Death’s face, leaving a wash of dew on his pale skin. Ari slid his blades away, then reached up with a free hand, wiping at the moisture along Death’s cheekbone.

  “Don’t.” Death warned him off with an unsteady hand. “You break my concentration. I don’t know how long I can hold the Veil together here. It’s like trying to weave together broken threads.”

  “Well, at least that’s a good reason to push me off.” Exasperated, he hid his bitterness behind a tight smile. “I can accept that as an excuse.”

  “War.” Death was too weary from holding the shadows around them. He brushed his shoulder against Ari’s, the last of his strength seeping from his body. The struggle with the Veil was draining him quickly, but holding the darkness together would give them some cover until they found Mal’s human.

  “I know. I’m sorry.” Ari ached to touch the other’s face, his hands skimming the air just above Death’s cheek and mouth, longing to trace the paleness of the scar on the other’s nose.

  Death paused, feeling a tendril of panic cross through the remnants of the curtain around them. A calling, strong despite the Veil’s weakness. Ari’s head came up, his eyes dark and searching to pinpoint the pulling on them.

  “That’s Min. It feels like her.” Ari turned back to Death. “What the hell is she doing?”

  “Someone’s dying. Or trying to die,” Death replied. “She’s holding onto a soul. Damn, suppose it’s the boy.”

  “Shit. Come on.” Ari nodded toward the back alley. “The motel is over that way.”

  Running, Ari kept up with Death’s long strides, the leaner Horseman’s legs eating up the distance. Broader, Ari ducked to the side between the tight spaces Death easily passed through. On open ground, Ari pulled away, circling around the corner to head to the front of the building.

  “Damned hells.” Ari skidded to a stop, shouting back at Death when they approached the motel’s side entrance, a long stain of red paint fresh on the concrete divider. “Look at what just crawled out from under a rock, Death.”

  “Shit.” Lust stared up at the blond Horseman, the taller man towering over him. “This is screwed.”

  “Lust. It is so good to see you here.” Death’s face stilled, wiped clean of emotion. The shadows clustered quickly, drawn by the elder Horseman’s power. “War, go find Famine and Pestilence. I’ll take care of this one.”

  Ari halfway turned as he ran down the alley, shooting Death a wink. The Vice backpedaled, sending himself spinning toward the wall. His hands scraped against the rough concrete, a shocked hiss lost amid his surprised stutter.

  “I could say that I was going to deliver him to you.” Lust went for bravado, hoping to bluff his way out of trouble. The Veil was clouded with Death’s call, making it difficult for the Vice to find his own bearings on the world. “But we both know that would be a lie.”

  Death frightened him, plain and simple. Dark crow eyes piercing down into his soul and a mysterious, scarred pretty face that held more than a hint of menace. Slighter than War, Death held his own in the terror department, the end of eternity at the brush of his fingertips. The Veil hungered around the Horseman, visible to the Vice as he pushed at the curtain of shadows around himself.

  “Is there any reason you’re here, Lust?” Death asked. The boy was nearby. Death could smell something odd on Lust, an almost human presence, an overlying taint over the Vice’s sweat.

  Lust grinned at Death’s surprise, astonishment clear on the Horseman’s pretty face. Shocked, Death’s suspicions were confirmed. The human Mal found was definitely immortal.

  “Yeah, it shocked the shit out of me too. I thought he was one of us… well, one of you. He’s definitely an immortal but not enough of one.” Lust’s chilled fear returned when Death brought his dark gaze back to the Vice. “There’s nothing there. No calling to draw on. Nothing at all.”

  “Did you have something to do with this? With what happened to him?” Death gripped the Vice’s arm.

  “I found him like that. I had nothing to do with what he’s become.” Lust shook his head. “I swear to it.”

  A pair of women a few doors over began to kiss behind closed curtains, their arousal clear and clean in Lust’s mind. Grinning, he took the chance of breaking free from Death’s attention as Ari popped his head around the corner, shouting for Death. Distracted by Ari’s urgent cry, Death felt the rush of Lust folding the Veil around himself, tapping into a call nearby, sliding free from the alleyway and out of Death’s reach.

  “Death!” Ari shouted again, his booming voice demanding attention. “
Leave off and get over here. Mal’s been shot!”

  DEATH BENT down over Mal’s gasping body, blood oozing from the Horseman’s chest. Death explored the edges of the wound, carefully holding the Veil around the youngest of them. A sliver of reality, torn from the world, had embedded itself deep into Mal’s heart, disrupting his body’s natural flow. Min paced, a slender dervish around the other Horsemen, her eyes hot on the shivering crouched young man sitting at the edge of the walkway. Frazier’s body lay unnoticed near a pile of trash. Ari hastily dragged the man’s corpse off to the side, then hid it behind a dumpster.

  “It was good thinking to hold the human’s soul here,” Death reassured Min, her face bunched with worry. “I could feel it.”

  “It was the only thing I could think of, and I couldn’t hold it for very long. I screwed up. I told him he had nothing to worry about.” Min’s helplessness rose, her anger fighting to overcome her fears. The hardest of the Four, she struggled with her emotions, angry at herself for dismissing the threat of the gun and then for the helplessness that took her over as she held Mal’s blood in her hands. “I let Mal down, Death. I’m sorry, but I let you down too.”

  “No, you didn’t,” the eldest replied. “You did what you could. It was more than enough.”

  Mal drifted in and out of consciousness, waking long enough to ask after Kismet. He floated back away when Death reassured the youngest Horseman that they’d found the young man safe. The eldest was much more worried about Mal than the shivering, angry young man Ari stood near. The blond Horseman shifted on his feet, his version of pacing off lengths, his back to the concrete block wall of the building and his eyes scanning the streets around them for trouble.

  “We have to get out of here, Death. We have to hide the boy too. I think he’s coming down from something.” Ari checked on Kismet, watching him shiver as the drugs faded from the young man’s veins. “There’s blood all over the pavement, and it’s a matter of time before the cops move down from the grocery store and spread out to find us.”