Shadow is whining. Distress brings his legs to writhe.
Then, the rapid thump in the air suddenly stops.
Total silence sweeps over the church.
All I can hear are my own harsh breaths and Shadow's soft whines.
Silence is not comforting. It builds a tension in my bones. It chokes my lungs.
But no matter how hard I try, I can't move.
It's just me and Shadow now, facing the humans’ wrath. It won't hurt. Not physically at least. But the pain of watching a loved one suffer can never be measured. Addie knew that.
Not long after the thrum stops, there's a new sound. A gentle pitter-patter on hard dirt.
"Footsteps,” Shadow chokes out.
In answer, I manage a groan.
Not a moment later, the doors are booted open.
Air punches in from the outside.
My head rolls to the side and I look through the doors at the glaring light of midday. The light is blocked by silhouettes. A half-dozen humans, looming in the doorway, hugging new and strange guns to their chests.
I am many things.
I am a murderer, a walking plague, a victim.
I know my odds as I stare them down. Fear creeps up inside me as the soldiers point their guns at both me and Shadow.
Many things—but I am, above all else, Pestilence. So I give a bloody smile and let myself slip away from the bond, knowing that no help will come for me.
If I must suffer this, I will face it with unyielding bravery.
I stare down the barrels—and they fire.
Every gun spits a downpour of bullets.
All over, the bullets plug me. The force is so great that my body thrashes on the floor.
Still, I wear that toothy smile.
Darkness begins to creep into my sight from the edges. I force my gaze between two soldiers, and I see it. The giant bird, resting on the browned grass.
I can feel my smile slipping from my face. Shadow is silent in the bond. The bullets haven't harmed him; it’s the sickness that takes him to a place of rest.
Good.
At the very least, he’s not aware of this. Bullets slamming into every piece of our flesh. Soldiers advancing on us, fools enough to think they have us. Maybe they do. For now…
But I will be strong again. They can cut me up, dissect me, study me, torture me. Hell, they can blow me to smithereens with their bombs, no matter how advanced they’ve gotten.
I will survive it.
The blasts of the guns stop finally.
Two soldiers from the rear run between the others, coming right at me. Each of them carries nets made of thick black rope in their gloved hands.
I let out a shuddering sigh of relief when the one closest to me throws the net over my motionless body. It took them too long to realise I'm not much of a threat right now.
But he is...
The bond tears open. Rage floods through me in its purest form. Familiar, it tastes of fire and power and strength.
Death isn't the one to come to my aid today.
A laugh breaks free from me.
It's so powerful that it shakes my body and spills blood by the buckets all over the floor.
War has come.
Even through my weakness and fatigue, delight dances along my aching bones.
War storms up the steps of the church, his armour stained crimson, and a bloody sword at his side.
I watch as the soldiers turn to face him, guns following their gazes. But I can smell their panic.
They only expected one of us. A sick one.
The humans came for a dying horsewoman and instead they find a very bloodthirsty, murderous War.
War swings out his sword.
The thick blade slices through the two nearest humans and severs them. I don't hear the slap of flesh or their torsos landing on the ground, because the remaining soldiers, in all their fear, light up their guns.
If War was human, this would be a slaughter.
Bullets scatter through the air. Somehow, every one of them seems to plunge into his flesh. These weapons have more power than War's armour anticipated. But that doesn't slow him down at all.
He loves it. The thrill of it. Blood in the air. The bones at his feet.
War is home.
All I can do is lay there, in my own blood, and watch.
I watch as he cuts through arms and legs, tears out throats with his own hands, and even look so hard at a soldier that he turns the gun on himself and unleashes the rest of his bullets into his own gut.
When there's nothing left but steaming organs and fresh blood, War strolls through the pool of death at his feet. Soft leather boots squish against eyeballs and I suddenly sense a kinship in him.
In that moment, I feel regret. Regret that we are doomed to be enemies, when we could be the best of friends.
War crouches at my side, his sword tucked away, and his hands clasped between his thighs.
My body heaves with my uneven breaths.
“Why did you come?” I ask.
He locks eyes with me. “It is not your time,” he says.
And I believe him.
Chapter 20
I wake in a villa grander than anything I've seen in a long while.
It reminds me of the grand homes in Athens, where lavish lives were lived long ago. The room I'm in is whiter than bone, and ribbed columns punch up from a marble floor all around me.
War must have taken me here. He must have draped me over this beautiful button tufted couch, with its dusty pink skin. It reminds me of another time, but it is much too nice to be old.
I try to push myself up on my elbows and look down at my own body, but my muscles cry at the mere thought.
I must have been out for days.
Pressing my chin to my collarbone, I manage a short glance down at myself.
Still, I wear the stains of my disease, but gone are the bullets and their holes.
The pestilence isn't finished with me yet. My bones feel like branches in the winter, brittle, ready to snap. My skin feels like a rotten plum whose juices ooze from holes, and my brain is so sluggish that it takes me too long to open my eyes after I wake.
I slump back on the couch and look around.
A murky glaze distorts my vision and dark grey stains the edges of what I can see. Still, I make out the white marble of the tall fireplace opposite me.
Two steeds are curled on the white-fur mat in front of the fireplace, warmed by the weak flames licking up a too-large log. My heart jumps to my throat when I catch the smooth grey coat of the steed closest to me.
Shadow.
My fingers stretch upward, as if reaching out for him. But he sleeps as deeply as we do during our slumbers.
“Shadow,” I croak.
He doesn't stir.
With a raspy sigh, I wrench my gaze from him and, instead, to the large opening at the foot of the couch. There should be a wall there, I think—but the gap opens to a wide room full of glistening wood tables and cosy armchairs.
I was human long enough to recognise an Andron when I see one—the men’s room, where they lounge and discuss politics, poetry and women.
Beyond the room, I can sparsely make out glowing orbs glittering over a thick black sky. Balcony doors are open and their curtains dance with the breeze from the outside.
War must be out there.
Only the small flames in the fireplace and the winking stars outside give light to the grand home.
Yes, very much like Athens.
Dying fires, small flames, and a bare night sky—the heavy sense of loneliness that comes with their quiet. Am I far from home, I wonder?
For a while I watch the curtains shift over the hard floor, waiting for War to enter from the balcony. He doesn't.
Soon, my eyelids begin to pull against me, growing heavier than my limbs.
I must rest more, I must join Shadow in the place of slumber. Yet, as I let the darkness of my lashes take away my sight, I can't fig
ht the pit of unease that brews in my stomach, not unlike nausea does. War might have saved me from the harmless bullets and horrific memories of torture back at the church, but I don't forget his promise.
War is here to end me too.
And I don't forget my promise either.
I won't make it easy for him.
And it is easy for him—I’m weak, practically paralysed, and near death. All he has to do is stride inside and rip me to shreds, like he did to those human soldiers ...
But then, it is far more complicated to kill a Horserider than a measly human.
Far from comforting, I take these thoughts with me as my eyes shut on the lonely darkness and the even lonelier quiet.
The pit of unease doesn't calm.
No more are the flames whispering quietly over the log. Now, they blaze, charring the wood with their crackling cackles.
Shadow nudged himself closer to the warmth of the fireplace sometime during our rest, and, curled at his side, Brunhella watches me with unveiled curiosity.
I set my mouth into a grim line. When I gave her the name I once wore, perhaps I thought that if the name belonged to someone else, it would not be a reminder of who I was before.
I shake off the thoughts.
This is the first time I have woken in this villa with enough energy to peel myself off the couch.
More days have passed.
Time is told by the scabs creeping in from the sides of my sores, and the growing patches of yellow on my bruises.
Not unsteadily, I force myself to rise, crouched over myself. I twist at an angle that lets me see through the open balcony doors enough to tell that night has passed with the days gone. Dawn stretches up the sky in dusty pink to match the couch and reds, the same shade as the dried streaks of blood all over my body.
My gaze locks onto the open balcony, where there are wood loungers and paper-covered lanterns propped along the banister.
I drag myself to the balcony.
As I expected, once I reach the open doors I see War standing at the banister, staring out at the thicket of trees planted between the villa and the faint outline of a town.
“How did you find me?” I ask.
War does not look over his shoulder at me. He doesn't so much as flinch.
Looking out at what we’ve come to save and destroy, he answers in a quiet voice, “I feel you more strongly than the others.”
My forehead creases as I prop myself against the door frame. I say nothing. The static tension in the bond warns me to tread carefully through this topic.
“Your pain drew me in,” he says distantly, as though speaking to himself. “And I knew the humans found you.”
“How?” I ask. “How did you know that?”
Keeping his back to me, War gestures to the side of the balcony, where a black box is hooked to the wall above what seems to be a squared pool in the ground.
Who, I wonder, would want to bathe on a balcony in front of a reflective black mirror?
The longer I look at the black box, the more it reminds me of a smaller one I saw on the boat as I slaughtered the seamen.
The bond suddenly freezes over as War pushes back from the barrier and rounds on me. His marble eyes flame with crimson fury, but they linger over me for just a moment before he snatches a sleek black device from a lounger, then aims it at the black box. He taps a button on it and the mirror is no longer reflective.
Now, pictures spring to life and move over the screen.
“I had a human show me how to use it before I ended him,” says War as he tosses the black hand-held device back onto the lounger. “They call it a telly-vision,” he adds. “And we are its main attraction.”
From the doorway, it's difficult to really see the images that flicker over the telly-vision.
War sweeps towards me in two long strides and shifts my weight onto him. With him as my wall, I make it further out onto the balcony, and see the screen as clearly as I see the scabs on my arms.
The first image...
It’s me.
On the screen, I'm slumped against a grey wall, old white paint darkened by time and neglect, blood smearing my face, and a young girl at my side who is missing a huge chunk of flesh on her cheek.
“Addie,” I say.
A thick moment passes between us, and I stare, bewildered at the screen.
“She … She must have used her fone—taken another picture of me.”
I don’t recall her doing it. But the fone was tucked in her hand at the church when I found her.
“You comforted a human,” War spits, and pulls away from me.
With a grunt, I crumble onto a lounger. “I offered her mercy.”
There’s no shame in my voice. But there should be—for my mercy resulted in my danger. Whatever kindness I’d shown Addie didn’t matter, for she used her human devices to betray me.
War agrees.
He snatches my arm, hauling my limp body up enough to align our faces, and he snarls at me, “Because of your decision to pity a human, more were alerted to your whereabouts—and your weakness. Look—” He swings his free hand and points at the screen. “—It is obvious you are ill. You wear the same sores that mark that human’s face.”
“I didn’t mean for—”
War cuts me off with a roar, “You might as well have called them to you yourself! You revealed what you should never have—a weakness. Your disease, your fragility, your whereabouts! What were you thinking?”
I have stared Death in the eye and dragged him down. I have battled him with my own plague. Even They have struck me with lightning bolts from the sky, and yet, here I sit.
“Do not raise your voice at me,” I hiss, eyes narrowing into slits. “Do not speak to me as though you are the Conqueror, and I am your follower—never think yourself above me.”
War’s furious face twists into a sneer and he slowly stands straight. Looking down at me, he invites a glint of arrogance into his molten eyes.
I am above you, he tells me with his look alone.
A feral growl rips out from my throat, and I spin my wrist around. His grip is lost on my arm, giving me enough of a moment to snatch his hand and hold, tight.
War blinks at me, brows furrowing with a flicker of confusion. But then, he realises.
Pain is now what twists his face. A strangled grunt claws up his throat, and he falls to his knees.
“Watch yourself, War.” My voice is a venomous hiss, dark and dangerous enough to frighten off a Black Mamba.
Digging my fingers into his skin, I let my pestilence pour through him.
“I am a league of my own,” I spit at him.
War clutches his armoured chest. Twitches start to take his body; convulsions. An agonising symptom of everything I create. A personal favourite of mine.
“If you are so above me,” I whisper, my tone as poisonous as the black smoke pumping through his veins, “prove it—stand against me. Stand up, if you can manage it,” I add with a cruel, weak smile.
This … this is what I am ... and this is draining me.
I shouldn’t continue … but my pride calls to pain.
Then, the balcony tilts—my brain buzzes with the early pull of dizziness.
I let go before I can faint, and I eye him cruelly.
“I didn’t think so,” I say, then purposefully fall back onto the lounger.
I make it seem as though I am comfortable, but inside, my every muscle screams and my mind cries. Blood leaks out from the corner of my mouth.
I wipe the crimson bead away before War can open his eyes.
I watch him.
He is crouched over at my side. One hand grips onto the edge of the lounger, the other presses against his thumping heart. And his eyes are squeezed shut against the blinding pain that slowly subsides within him.
Finally, he looks at me.
Weakness weighs down his lashes, darkening his near-black irises. For a moment, I’m reminded of Death and the bleak chasm of his eyes.
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Then, the silent danger shatters, and War breaks out in a wide grin that bares all of his white, sharp teeth. Teeth made for tearing out throats.
A shiver runs down my spine to my curling toes.
Why does he grin? Should he not be afraid? Furious? Wounded in his ego?
“What?” I snap at him.
My entire body is bolted to the lounger. Even if I want to give him another taste of my poison, or defend myself against whatever ploy he has coming my way, I can’t.
I can’t move.
Still kneeling at my side, War pulls his hand from his chest and reaches out for me.
My skin prickles instantly.
What torture will he strike me down with?
I flinch as his gloved fingers curl then run down my crusty jawline.
“You,” whispers War, “are magnificent.”
Chapter 21
Days at the villa, and my disease hasn’t eased much.
Every sore that heals brings three more somewhere on my body. My back is smeared in them.
Shadow wears the same stains of blood.
By the fireplace, I sit beside him and gently wash the lacerations on his coat with a warm cloth. It won’t speed up the healing process, but I know from washing my own wounds that it soothes.
Shadow lets his eyes sink shut, and gives a flurried sigh.
“Enjoying this?” I ask, a small smile on my cracked lips.
His answer doesn't come. Shadow is too deep in relaxation to summon an answer.
Still, I wipe until his grey coat is clean of blood, pus and sweat. By the time I'm finished, Shadow has slipped back into the place I long to meet him—the peaceful abyss that rests beyond the pain of consciousness.
I'm close to joining him, but I force myself up on shaky legs, wet a cloth for myself, then find War on the balcony.
If he has been avoiding me, he’s made poor work of it. Always, he is on the balcony.
In the brief moments that I have been awake over the past few days, I have spent a lot of time on the balcony.
The villa is not one, but one of many—a row of at least a dozen that stretch along the tip of a hill on the other side of the woods, facing the glittering town.
I call it the glittering town because its lights are always on and shimmering, even in the day.
Feared Fables Box Set: Dark and Twisted Fairy Tale Retellings, (Feared Fables Box Sets Book 1) Page 42