Still, I cannot blame him for not following me. He mightn’t be killable, but my disease, my power, can certainly bring a river of pain upon him should I will it.
And how he makes me want to hurt him…
“Some might say he deserves to be hurt,” Shadow mutters.
I turn my molten silver gaze down at him.
We ride through the planes of a dry, brittle land, whose earth is orange and cracked all over.
I recognise it. We’re not far from the girl I met. Addie.
“What did Scythe tell you?” I ask.
Shadow is quiet, thinking. Pretending.
“Don’t,” I warn. “I know he told you something—something that is enough to turn you against Death in a matter of a mere night.”
“Scythe said very little.” Shadow’s voice is soft. Cautious, almost. “Yet he felt very much.”
“You read him through the bond?”
“It was difficult not to. Even as I slept, his fear crept into me.”
Could Scythe have known about War’s mission then? It’s enough to strike fear through any of us—the disposable ones. And Scythe is as disposable as me and Shadow.
“No,” says Shadow, and he gives a shake of the head. “It is … more than that. A deeper fear.” He clears his throat, then turns just enough to see me. “He is afraid of Death.”
I grunt.
Bitterness burns my fingertips and heat pools at my ears.
Afraid of Death…
His own steed, so troubled by him that Shadow feels it through the bond. Whatever Death is up to, it can’t be good. In fact, I wonder if I should worry more about him and his schemes than War. At least with War, I have a chance.
With Death, I never stood a chance. I was doomed the day he found me in the vineyard.
Rolling my jaw, I shake off the heat of anger rising within me. But my ears still burn, growing hotter and … wet.
I touch my fingers to my ear, then cringe.
“Already?” Shadow jolts to a stop, his head completely turned around to stare at me. “You did not say anything! Why did you not say?”
I blink down at my fingers, now glistening crimson. Blood, hot and sticky, runs down my neck and clots in my hair.
“I did not anticipate it so soon,” I tell Shadow, but I’m unsure if it’s the truth—mostly, I think I have just been distracted. More has happened during this mission than in any before it.
More than I can handle, apparently.
Shadow is suddenly urgent, alert. “We need to find shelter.”
He stiffens beneath me, head stretched up so high that I faintly remember long-necked creatures I once saw. They were orange and dotted with brown spots, somewhere on the lands.
I wish I could remember. It would be nice to see them once more before my end.
Instead, we see hopping animals with thick tails and brown coats.
A mob of kangaroos come scrambling out of a line of shrubs. Spooked by the nearing plague, no doubt.
Shadow pauses. He knows how I like the animals of this world.
As we watch them spring across the cracked land, my mind seems to freeze. Everything freezes.
All those questions and doubts, the fears I harbour for the end of this mission, the silence of Famine in the bond—all of it just falls away, like ash from the clouds.
This.
This is what we protect when we destroy humans. These beautiful creatures in desperate need of our help to salvage what we can of them. In the end of humanity, we find the flourish of the world.
Destroy one, the many survive.
And if I meet my own end alongside humanity, then I know my existence has had a purpose.
By the time the kangaroos have melted into the blurry horizon, a smile has planted itself on my lips.
“It’s worth it.” I speak my thoughts aloud. “All of what we will do is worth it, Shadow.”
“Yes.” There’s no doubt in his firm voice.
He’s always known it. Shadow has always known what I have not yet realised.
My gentle, wise steed resumes his trot.
Now that blood oozes from my ears like broken sores, there’s little we can do but find shelter. Questions I have will stay unanswered.
I have an appointment with a disease.
The quicker we hunker down, the faster the disease will unleash throughout my body. And I will recover faster.
This isn’t like all the other missions. Time is short now. The more of it I have after the sickness, the better chance I have of defeating War and catching up to Death’s schemes.
I don’t plan on being a victim.
Shadow addresses my thoughts. “You said it was worth it. Have you changed your mind so quickly?”
My kind smile turns cruel. “I will sacrifice my life for every animal in this world worth saving. But I will not sacrifice either of us to Death or War.”
I am Pestilence.
No one will bring me down but me. I control my fate now.
Determination clings to my stony words; “I will find a way to save us, Shadow. And if all else fails, I will ensure we are not the only two to meet our ends.”
My words are punched by a crack in the air.
Shadow tenses beneath me, halting to a stop.
We are silent. Waiting, alert.
“A gun,” says Shadow.
Flames flare up in my veins; rage turning my vision red.
Humans…
“Find them,” I grit out. “I’m in the mood to kill.”
Chapter 16
“Only moments ago, you admitted time is short.” Shadow is cross with me. “And you choose to waste what little we have on chasing gunshots?”
“Humans with guns out here can mean only one thing.” My tone is as stiff as my spine. “A hunter.”
A human, armed, in a misbalanced fight against innocent nature. Unfair fights and dirty tactics boil my blood into the fiery pits of the darkest soul.
“The humans will die from your disease,” he argues. “It is already proving itself to be one of the strongest you have ever developed. You are weakening, Pessie. We must find shelter before it takes over completely.”
I know he’s right. Shadow knows that I know he’s right. Our bond is a curse that way.
But I am stubborn. Always have been. And the call of a cruel human is too much to resist.
If this is my last mission, I will make it one to remember.
“You are bleeding,” he reminds me, and I am suddenly aware of sore spots spreading over my hands.
I look down at them. Faint blue and purple splotches spreading like spilled paint. Bruises forming, ears bleeding.
We don’t have time for this.
Yet, I can’t find it in me to deny these urges.
“Ride,” I command sharply.
Shadow obeys, though I taste the insults burning our bond to a crisp.
“And play nice,” I add with a pat to his neck. “You enjoy this as much as I do.”
He gruffs, but argues no more.
Shadow rides over the cracked plane to the far shrubs, then creeps to a stop.
Ahead, a cluster of dry shrubs gather. Not a fleck of nature’s favoured green in sight. I almost didn’t see him lurking there. The human, sheathed in brown and murky-green clothes—a blend of colour so grim that he’s near camouflaged.
The gleam of an outstretched, narrow-nosed gun gives him away.
I hoped for more than one measly man, but it’s probably best that I don’t have to exert myself too much. Already, I feel the weight of my shoulders slumping me over, and the heat burning just beneath my skin, hot enough to brew beads of sweat.
I study the man’s weapon. I’ve lived long enough to know a gun when I see it, but the nose of this one is thinner than any before it. Not a musket—this is something new.
Still, all the guns in the world can’t bring me down. Not even when I’m at the edge of my end already.
The human hasn’t noticed Shadow and I creeping closer. Not even
as I slide off my steed, my silent feet hitting the hard ground, does he tear his gaze away from his lined-up shot.
As I steal closer to him, the sheer hem of my armour-dress clanking too much for a sneak attack, I follow his aim to a grazing kangaroo with a smaller one tucked into its pouch.
My face twists into flared nostrils and a ferocious snarl.
The man doesn’t notice me yet—but the animals of this plane are smarter. Their instincts haven’t fallen to technology and the reliance of weapons.
Beyond the shrubs, a dozen brown heads shoot up, and all beady eyes lock onto me.
I smile at them. It doesn’t ease their fears. They know better than to near sickness. Like I said, animals are smart—they won’t so much as touch a diseased carcass for a meal. And they can smell the plague on me.
But their attention stiffens the hunter’s back.
My smile is for him now. He turns, slowly, towards me. The gun follows him, until I’m staring down the barrel with just some steps between us, and looking into blue eyes whirling with storms of panic.
“It’s—” he stammers. “It can’t be…”
Whatever he meant to say, I will never know. His words catch in his strangled throat, and his panicked gaze turns wild.
His finger snakes around the trigger.
A memory strikes me—a spear through the head.
It didn’t hurt, it didn’t kill me, but it did something.
Once that spear pierced between my brows, my control over my own body slipped. It was a slip that stopped me from reaching Shadow before the seamen got to him, a slip that choked my power to infect them.
That hit to the brain stunned me.
I won’t make the same mistake again. I won’t underestimate a human’s attack.
Protect the head—all else is stun-proof.
I keep the warning in my mind as he locks me in his sights and, with a furious and terrified cry, gives the trigger a squeeze. There’s a blast just as the bullet zips out of the barrel.
I spin out of the way, letting the bullet plunge into my shoulder.
It doesn’t stop me—not even the bullet that follows, landing in my gut. My snarl smooths into a feral smile, full of gruesome promises and gritty ends. No sickness for this man, no. Not even my pestilence is enough to bring him what he deserves.
So I take him the way I crave.
Dark and bloody.
The human staggers back and drops the gun. He realises he can’t hurt me. But his raised hands and muttered pleas do him no favours. The animals he hunts cannot plea. And if they could beg for their lives, he would not listen. I know his kind.
The human drops to his knees, hands quivering above his head.
“P-ea-z,” he chokes out. “I ‘ave a f-f-fam-a-lee.”
I haven’t smelled such fear from a human in a long time. He must know about me from their ‘news’. Their bonding technology.
It makes this all the easier.
As I slowly crouch in front of him, he recoils. I chuck a finger under his blobby chin, forcing his head up to meet my steady gaze.
“So do they,” I whisper, and turn my gaze to where the kangaroos were gathered before. “They are a family of pure innocence. And yet you show them no mercy—you hunt them for joy.”
I tilt my head, watching him fight the rage that dares touch his wrinkled face.
“Would you like mercy?” I ask.
He nods his head vigorously, gaze downcast.
Slowly, I lean closer, until I can smell the ale on his rotten breath and see the deep black pores carved into his blotchy nose. “Run.”
This human doesn’t need telling twice.
He’s scrambling to his feet in a single hot breath and zipping through the shrubs.
Still crouched, I watch him go. It’s only when he reaches the spot where the kangaroos had been that I unfurl my clenched hands and let it all spill out of me.
Black, pungent disease, billowing over the dry dirt in toxic clouds of smoke, potent enough to choke the life out of Death himself.
Smoke spears apart as it nears him, catching up to his thunderous footfalls. But he’s not quick enough. No one ever is.
I catch him.
Snakes of black smoke snatch his ankles and tear him off his feet. I hear the crack of his body hit the ground. He fights it; screaming, tearing at my clouds of disease that crawl over him.
My stroll is leisurely as I approach his writhing form. Palms facing him, I control the disease enough to prevent it from killing him. That’s not what I want. Not just yet, and not like this.
He deserves no mercy.
“What is the matter, human?” I ask in a mild tone, as though I speak to myself, and not to a hollering man who claws wildly at the black engulfing him. “Is this not fun for you?”
The disease within me battles against my control. Every slither I release doubles inside of me, scraping at my hot lungs, tearing through my veins with a vengeance not even I can match.
But I push onward, until my bare feet stop at the man’s side. He hits out at me. The gleam of metal winks under the sun before it strikes—and he plunges the blade of a hunting knife into my calf.
Raising a brow, I stare down at the knife protruding from my leg. Then, with a hum, I turn my attention back to his face that twists with pain.
I let my smoky sickness harness him, holding him down, but not quite invading him.
“Isn’t this what you like?” I ask as kindly as I can manage. “Sport. One animal hunting another in an unfair match of advancements—for pleasure.”
I press my foot into the dip of his neck.
His hands flail against the hold of my smoke. But the ropes of black are too strong, and all he manages is a string of strangled grunts.
“I suppose it’s no fun being the hunted,” I mutter to myself.
But I know he hears me.
He hears every word that infuriates him, because even with his last moments of life, he will always be what he is.
Entitled.
This man, and too many others like him, will never shed the entitlement they feel to take what they want without consequence. Rape, murder, hunting, the destruction of this world—and they will always believe they are just in their cause.
And that is why I am here.
A curse upon them, and a curse in myself.
With a cruel smile, I call my disease home. Smoke unfurls from around him and races up my legs to melt back into my palms.
For a moment, I study the human.
He tries to catch his breath. Useless swats of his meaty hands do little to rid him of the charred stains I have left on his skin. Boils, sores; cracked and bleeding.
“I spared you from the disease,” I tell him, drawing his eyes to mine.
The second he looks at me, I do it.
A laugh escapes me, and I sink down onto him. My hand finds home as it plunges into his gut. Blood spurts up at me. Warm and sticky, a whiff of metallic wafting up from the wound.
His scream turns into gurgles. I swish my hand around inside of him, toying with his organs. Every flick of the finger forces more blood into his mouth for him to choke on.
Slow and agonising.
“You should have run faster.”
Those are the last words he hears.
I grab a fistful of his intestines and, with a jump back from him, tear them out from his body.
The wails will forever stay with me. I will relish in them for untold time. Forever, if I survive that long. Days, if War succeeds in his task to end me. Either way, those wails will always bring a smile to my face.
I stand there until he screams no more, and raspy breaths take hold. Tears wet his cheeks. Good. A smidgen of justice for the innocent lives he has taken.
It takes longer than I thought for him to bleed out. But when he does, I leave him there. Not to rot. No, he won’t get the chance to soil under the sun. The wild dogs of this land will eat him before his body goes cold.
Taking my slice
of victory with me, I mount Shadow and spare the hunter a last glance. No more brown and green. I only see crimson.
“You are worse,” whispers Shadow.
It takes me a pause to realise what he means—my bleeding.
I graze my fingertips over my cheeks. It isn’t just the man’s crimson blood I see. It’s my own, spilling out from my eyeballs like tears.
Then, my body is thrown forward in a violent heave, and I taste the blood before it slaps onto Shadow’s neck.
“Find me shelter,” I groan, wiping my chin clean of the scarlet vomit.
He does.
Shadow will always find me shelter. For he is my shelter.
Chapter 17
I almost laugh when I see it rise up ahead.
The small-town church where I met Addie.
I wonder if she is still in there, or somewhere nearby. I warned her before I left to find War. I told her to ride out the plague in the safety of underground shelters.
Now I know that, no matter what she does or where she hides, there’s no escaping the end of her kind. Not anymore.
“Why here?” I croak.
I’m sprawled over Shadow’s neck, as limp as a wilting flower. On my heavy arms, blood streaks shimmer gold and black under the departing sun. Brown bile has dried into the cracks of my lips, leaving a foul taste layered over my tongue.
“It was close,” Shadow answers, but I suspect more to his reasons than he admits.
Whatever Shadow’s purpose in choosing the church—close or not—doesn’t take away from the feeling of significance that blossoms within me.
The first time I walked through those doors, I’d just awoken, and was filled with a cruel mischief.
Now, I am at my weakest; the peak that comes with every mission I face, and I barely hang on to the strength that keeps me from slipping into a sick abyss.
“Just as good a place as any,” I mutter.
Shadow’s muscles ripple like gentle waves beneath me. He keeps a slow, gentle pace to better comfort my aching bones. But it only draws out the agony.
At my thought, he picks up the pace until he’s gathered a leisurely trot.
I stare ahead at the dusty church doors as we draw closer.
A gust of wind hits us from the church, and we catch their scent. We smell them before we see them. The dead inside.
Feared Fables Box Set: Dark and Twisted Fairy Tale Retellings, (Feared Fables Box Sets Book 1) Page 40