The figure noticed me, and drew its stallion up. Plumes of steam came billowing from the horse’s nostrils, and it pawed with one hoof at the flagstones, making sparks.
The three other riders drifted to a halt as well. Silence pressed down over everything. Even the trapped folk at the center went extremely quiet.
Deal with this, I kept telling myself. At least their attention had been diverted from their prisoners. And that was some comfort to me, although not an awful lot.
There was no further point in trying to stay hidden. So I stepped fully out into their line of sight. Lauren tried to follow, but I signaled her not to. And she took notice and stayed put, thank heavens. There was no sense in both of us getting directly in harm’s way.
Death’s hollow jaw dropped open. There was no tongue, but a voice still came ringing out.
“Devries?”
It was so loud it hurt my ears.
“I know about you!” it went on.
The words thundered around me, echoing between the buildings. I tried to remind myself this was not the true figure of Death, not really. Just some lunatic who wanted to be that.
“You’ve saved this town before, or so I understand. Demonstrate that to me now. Save one single inhabitant.”
He turned his massive horse around, and began trotting over to the captives. I could only watch him frozenly, wondering what he was going to do.
Aldernay and his people were huddled in a tight mass, many of them kneeling. As the Horseman drew closer, the whites of their eyes expanded. The mayor was shaking visibly. Mrs. Dower—his assistant—looked almost on the point of fainting. As for the rest, they were mostly young interns, volunteers. I recognized Joe Norton’s daughter, Iris. She’d just turned eighteen, and lived a few houses away from my own. She gawked up helplessly as Death’s shadow crept over her. A tight fist clenched around my heart.
What exactly could I do to help them? This was on a different plane to anything I’d ever encountered before.
Hanlon stopped before the cowering people and reached down. And I thought at first that Iris was his intended victim. I took a step forward.
But he grabbed hold of the collar of the slim brunette directly next to her instead and hauled her into view.
He lifted her into the air, turning around in his saddle to show her off, the same way that a hunter might show off a trophy. Her limbs flailed frantically, and both of her shoes dropped away. But she was so petrified that when her mouth sprang open, there was only a thin creaking sound.
“This one, for instance?” Hanlon called out. “Are you going to rescue her?”
His empty gaze fastened on me again. And the smile beneath it was more horrible than I could bear. What could I do against something like this?
He extended the index finger of his free hand. And then began to move it to her cheek with a deliberate lack of haste. I knew what would happen when it touched her. All those victims with no wounds? The blood surged in my veins.
“Take me instead!” I heard myself shouting.
Which was, realistically, a damned fool thing to say. But it stopped him for a moment. He considered my proposal.
“Why should I do that?” he said. “I’ll kill her, then the rest of them. And then I’ll kill you too.”
His hand started moving toward the girl’s face again. And she finally found a proper voice. A high-pitched wail of terror rang across the square.
And that was just too much for a person to take. I held my pistol out in front of me and tensed my legs.
But I didn’t get the chance to move. Because a massive thump rang out.
Hanlon’s whole arm exploded into fragments. And the girl who he’d been toying with dropped, unharmed, to the flagstones.
CHAPTER 52
She scrabbled away to safety on her hands and knees, heading for the side of the Town Hall. And would have been easy enough to catch up with. Except none of the riders were watching her any longer. They were staring around, trying to make out where the shot had come from.
I was the only person in the entire square who understood what was going on. In fact, my heart lifted a touch. A Mossberg 590 shotgun had made that sound, firing not pellets but saboted slugs. Which meant that not only was Cassie here, but she was back on our side.
She didn’t show herself, at first. Those angry, spectral faces kept on searching for her in the gloom. The rest of the mayor’s party was still huddled in the same spot. But they’d gone motionless, their heads anxiously raised.
Then Pestilence swung its horse around and, taking out an arrow from the quiver on its back, started trotting up warily toward the north end of the square.
I took another glance at Hanlon. His shattered arm had turned to a vapor gathered around his shoulder. And it was reforming.
There was a sudden movement in the corner of my eye, below the Town Hall’s clock. My sense of relief started to evaporate immediately. Oh my God, was she back there?
While everything else had been going on, Cassie had obviously snuck, unnoticed, right across the frontage of the building. And was now behind one of the stone lions at the entranceway. The Horseman was headed directly at her. And when it found her, there would be no place left to hide.
But Cass is never stupid in a fight. She saw that there was no point staying where she was. She lifted herself smoothly into view. The wings were gone. Her arms were normal. She was back to her old self.
And she wasn’t nervous about these creatures either, the way I felt. Her attitude was the same with anything that threatened our town. She threw herself directly at the rider, running flat out at the thing.
But…did she even understand what she was up against? Fear tightened its grip around me as I watched her.
Her face was contorted, and she kept on firing as she ran. Her aim was as good as ever. Every single one of her saboted slugs struck home. They could have felled a medium-sized tree. But when they hit the rider, they blew clouds of vapor straight out through its back. Which promptly returned to the thing’s body.
As I watched, it drew its bow. I fired a few shots myself, but was too far off.
The string was let loose with a singing noise. Cass didn’t even try to duck. She held the Mossberg up in front of her, sideways. When the arrow struck, it hit the metal, burying itself in one of the holes in the gun’s heat shield.
The Horseman paused, apparently surprised. But then it started tugging at the bow again.
This was going to be a test of speed. Cass was still going as fast as she could. But the rider had already put a new notch to its bowstring. Was taking aim. She wasn’t going to make it. And I was too far away to help.
But I hadn’t reckoned on Ms. Mallory’s quick thinking. She yanked the first arrow out with her left hand. Then she swung the shotgun back, and hurled it with full force.
It didn’t do the rider any harm, of course. But that was not what she’d intended. She managed to knock its aim off, and the second shot flew wild.
Cass was right up to the stamping, snorting white horse in another instant. It shrieked and reared over her.
She ducked around the side of it. And drove the arrow she was holding into Pestilence’s thigh.
Time seemed to stand still, for a moment after that. The faces of the other three were all suspended, facing north.
Pestilence’s face was so covered with shifting sores and welts that it was hard to tell exactly what was going on. But the creature’s eyes got noticeably wider. And its mouth clamped shut—a ridge of pain.
It reached down for the arrow, but did not complete the motion. Abruptly, it was toppling sideways. Coming loose of its saddle, then dropping to the ground.
It tried to push itself back up. And got halfway before it started getting weaker. Dozens of ugly bulges pushed out through its cheeks, its forehead. And the sores and welts were spreading, eating the last scraps of faded flesh away.
It went down a second time. And then its body started falling apart before our very ey
es.
Its horse vanished completely.
At least I now knew how they could be beaten.
One down. But still three to go.
War went howling after Cassie, furious and vengeful, the burning sword in its grip held high. She could see immediately this wasn’t going to be as simple as the first time, and she scrambled back to the Town Hall’s front steps. Reaching them, she scaled a drainpipe. And barely got up high enough in time. The blade lashed at her, narrowly missing her heels.
Famine turned its emaciated face to me. This was the same creature that had done such harm to Vallencourt. Its flesh clung to its skull like thin tissue paper. Its mouth dropped open in an uneven circle. Then it gathered up its reins, and spurred its horse in my direction.
I stared at the ax clutched in its narrow grasp. That was what Cass had figured out. Use their own weapons against them. Then everything came back in much broader focus. The stallion had crossed most of the square before I’d even had time to react.
It was on me. Its massive hooves lashed at my face. I lurched to the side, lost my balance and fell. And that was probably what saved my life.
As the rider went by, its ax came swinging down, making a strange murmuring as it split the air. And it would have sliced my head in two. Its aim was deadly accurate. I felt my hair being ruffled by the passing gust of wind it made. But the blade missed me…barely.
I hit the ground and rolled away. By the time that I was back on my feet, the rider had swung around.
Lauren was still against the wall. It hadn’t seen her yet. She had her own gun out, and was trying to take aim. But everything was happening too fast. And I doubted that a handgun would be any real use, even at this distance.
She hadn’t seen what Cass had done, I realized. There was no view of the north end of the square from where she’d been hiding.
The rider came at me again, leaning over in its saddle this time. It was not going to make the same mistake twice.
But I’d a few more tricks of my own. I waited until the beast was practically on top of me. And when I did move, it was not away from the weapon but toward it.
I threw myself into the broad arc of the rider’s swing. And grabbed the Horseman by its black-cloaked elbow.
Its arm slammed into me. The impact knocked the breath from my body. I felt my feet leaving the ground. But the horse continued forward. And gravity has the same effect, whatever kind of creature you are.
The rider parted company with its saddle. I crashed to the ground a second time, Famine coming down on top of me. For something so ethereal-looking, it landed on me heavily enough to make my ribs flare with agony.
Although what really caught my attention was the sharp metallic clatter that I heard at the same time.
This thing might still have the upper hand. But I had made it drop its weapon. I started feeling around blindly, but I couldn’t seem to find it.
CHAPTER 53
I tried to see what the rider was doing, but a mass of billowing black put paid to that. The folds of its cloak had dropped across me, covering my face. I struggled to get free of them.
The weight on my rib cage became more compressed, narrowing to two sharp points. And I knew what that meant. The rider had already got part way up, and was kneeling on my chest. I tried to shove it off me, jabbing blindly through the cloth. But had no success on that score either.
Both its narrow hands bore down and closed around my throat. And the look of the thing belied its strength. It began to squeeze with awful power and ferocity.
I tried to knock its arms away, throwing punches near its elbows. But the blows felt spongy, ineffective. And its grip didn’t relax even a little bit. Some of the cloth parted finally. I caught a glimpse of its lean face looming over me. And that was when I saw my chance.
I didn’t even hesitate. Held my right palm flat and straight, and drove the tips of my fingers as hard as I could into one of its deathly eyes. That really hurts when you do it to a human. But the figure on top of me wasn’t that.
There was the same lack of solidity again. Although its head did lurch back a few inches. And the pressure on my throat eased off a touch. Which was—I could see—all the chance that I was ever going to get. I immediately began to roll, pushing myself over. That threw it off balance, and I didn’t stop. I went onto my stomach, sucking in breath like there was no tomorrow.
The Horseman’s weight slammed into me again. It might be less than whole flesh when I tried to hit it. But that didn’t seem to be the case the other way around. One of its hands grabbed a fistful of my hair. The other began sliding around my neck, trying to throttle me from behind this time.
I put one of my forearms in the way, to stop that happening. And the creature got really annoyed when I did that, shoving at the back of my head, slamming my face hard against the paving stones. Colors flared behind my eyelids.
Then they slid back open. And locked on something that gave me a slim hope I could still prevail.
The ax was lying right in front of me, gleaming on the sidewalk.
I reached out for it. But the rider had noticed it as well. We lunged for the weapon at the same time, our hands clashing. The ax skittered away. When I tried to grab it a second time, it had gone several inches further than my arm could reach.
The thing on top of me attempted to get hold of it. That gave me the chance to throw it off balance again. It was forced to let go of my hair. I lifted my upper body, and then sent an elbow slamming back.
The Horseman paused a second. Then it began pounding furiously at my shoulders and my back, its knuckles driving into me like cannonballs.
Two shots rang out. The rider paused. Whoever had fired, I didn’t think that it was Cassie. Lauren had let go of the wall, and the muzzle of her gun was smoking.
But the thing had been no use at all.
“The ax—use that!” I yelled out to her.
But there was a real big problem. The thing on my back had heard as well.
I felt the whole direction of its body shift. As it tried to scramble over me, I brought my head up sharply. The back of my skull connected with its chin. Again, to lack of any real effect.
I reached around and grabbed its robes. It reacted to that by landing another punch at the center of my spine. The pain was so intense that something in my nerves seemed to short out. I could feel my body going slack. My grip loosened. Then the rider went across me.
My vision had faded momentarily. I could only make out a fuzzy shadow up ahead of me, a darkened blur that turned out to be Lauren. And she did three things in one continuous motion. She rolled across the last few feet of sidewalk. Snatched up the ax as she went past. And then, coming up on her knees, she slashed the rider across its open palm, just as it was reaching for the weapon.
A flesh wound—that was all that she inflicted on it. But it stopped the creature dead. I struggled out from under it and pushed myself away. I had a pretty good idea what would happen now, and didn’t want to be touching the thing when it started.
The rider was huddled on the sidewalk, a look of astonishment on its ravaged face. It was staring at its injured palm. There was only the narrowest cut, a thin trickle of colorless goop easing out from it. An injury that should barely even hurt. But the effect was considerably more dramatic.
Even the parchmentlike skin seemed to be getting thinner. And the skull underneath started melting away. The rider shrank before my gaze, hunching over and then folding in upon itself. When its mouth came open again, the gums were receding. And the few remaining yellowed teeth dropped out.
The glimmer of its eyes was getting tinier as well, like lights moving away from me. A hand came up, and pawed at its retreating features. Then it all began to fall apart. The whole body was doing that. There didn’t seem to be enough strength left to support its own weight.
The rider collapsed in an untidy heap in front of us, its pieces held together only by the tangled folds of cloth. One finger gave a final tremble. And th
en nothing moved in the slightest.
A rather nicer-looking hand reached down. Lauren helped me back to my feet. I felt like I’d been trampled by a team of oxen. But I got up all the same, although I couldn’t stand entirely straight at first.
“You okay?” she asked me worriedly.
It depended on how you defined that. I gazed at the mess on the sidewalk, then across at her again. She was out of breath, but otherwise unharmed. Pretty startled, it was plain to see. The creatures of last night—viewed mostly from some kind of distance—had been one thing. But this fight had been altogether far too close for comfort.
“Congratulations,” I said quietly, trying to think of something that would cheer her up. “You’ve just killed your first real demon.”
She tried to smile, but it was pretty unconvincing.
“The nuns would be proud of you,” I added.
Catholic school, right?
But I was jumping the gun, wasn’t I? This wasn’t nearly over yet. Another whinny and a harsh metallic clatter brought our faces swiveling around.
Cassie was still up there on the front of the Town Hall, still clinging to that drainpipe. And the Horseman with the flaming sword had nowhere near given up on trying to bring her down from there.
I stiffened with renewed shock. He was halfway to succeeding.
CHAPTER 54
Cass was only just out of reach of the warlike rider’s burning sword. She hadn’t managed to climb any higher, and a quick glance upward told me why.
The section of drainpipe above her had buckled, dragged out of shape by the weight she’d brought to bear on it. The bracket that was keeping it in place had torn loose of the brickwork. If she tried to head further up, then there was no doubt that it would rip free completely. And the fact was, she had nowhere else to go.
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