A Mark Unwilling

by Candace Wondrak

Conquest. I shiver just thinking about the deathly beast. And that eyeless face.

  I shake it off, getting my phone out. I notice the instant the screen turns on that the missed calls are a mixture of David and my parents. They do care about me, in their weird, soul-selling way. I inhale sharply as I return their calls.

  Mom answers on the first ring. “Honey, are you all right? We’ve been calling for hours! On the news, there’s—”

  “I know. I’m fine. I’m…in my apartment, safe and sound.” I couldn’t say why I lied; only that I did. If my parents know I’m at David’s shop, they’d ask me to come home, or they’d drive here and get me themselves.

  I don’t think I can handle that much stress right now.

  “Some people are saying it’s the end of the world.” There’s a long, pregnant silence before she asks, “How is it? Your Mark? Has it…started burning?”

  Groaning, I say, “Please tell me that my Mark has absolutely nothing to do with the apocalypse.” Mom says nothing, which worries me. They couldn’t have chosen a regular Demon to sell my soul to? One who pops in and out of reality, cursing Humans and other races? “Whose Mark is it, Mom?”

  There’s a scuffle as Dad takes the phone from her. “Kiddo, just promise us you’ll be safe. Don’t go being a hero again.”

  I stare holes into the nearby wall, memorizing the curving details of a Chinese dragon whose body curls into the numbers 2-0-0-0. “I won’t,” I finally say, though probably not as convincingly as I want. I see David walk down the stairs and mouth the word parents so he knows to keep quiet.

  He nods, disappearing into the back room to offer Deb something to drink. He doesn’t offer me any, however. What a good host. Then again, I suppose I’m not much better, with my food-stealing habits. I put Xena down as I listen to Dad go on and on about how, above all else, I need to stay safe. I decide not to tell them how the Horseman was going to shoot a random girl and I stopped him by simply stepping between them.

  The Mark. It all comes down to the Mark, and who owns it. Who owns me.

  “Dad,” I cut in as he blabbered, “is there anything you can tell me about the Mark?”

  “I’m sorry, Kiddo, but we can’t. Your mother already told you too much as it is.” Dad speaks, “When it’s safer out there, get in your car and come home. It’s best if we’re together through this.”

  Through what, the end of the world? I don’t plan on sitting around and waiting for the end to come, like my parents.

  “I have to go, Dad,” I say, holding back a frown. Once I start frowning, I’m only a few seconds away from a Stallone glare. Trust me when I say that my Rambo face can make nearly anyone run in the opposite direction.

  “Be safe. We love you,” Dad tells me.

  “I love you guys, too,” I say, hanging up and turning to an accusatory David.

  He shakes his head. “You lying liar from Liarsberg. How could you lie like that to sweet old mommy and daddy?”

  “If mommy and daddy hadn’t sold my soul to an unnamable Demon who’s somehow connected to this whole thing, maybe I wouldn’t lie to them.”

  “But no ill-will, right?” His eyes twinkle as we head into the back. News stations play clips of the creature and its rider. Speculation upon speculation. The campus and the surrounding mile have been evacuated. National Guard, Army, FBI—you name the type of armed forces and they’re there. The sad thing is, they’re all helpless compared to Conquest.

  Even though he could easily quash all the men with guns, Conquest seems to have his own fun by galloping through the campus’s empty roads, toppling garbage cans and breaking windows with his bone arrows. Thirty are dead, now. The toll keeps rising as the minutes tick by.

  Xena has her face buried in the plate of spaghetti I stole from David, and I shoo her away, disgusted. I love my cat and all, but I don’t like sharing saliva with her. I peek at Deb’s drawing. So far, it looks like a square.

  What a miraculous display of artistic talent.

  “I’m surprised your phone’s not ringing constantly,” I tell David, shooting him a look.

  Licking her chops, Xena trots to his side, hopping onto his lap. She gives me an unhappy expression. David pets her. “That’s why I unplugged it.”

  I smile. “So your grand-pappy was a Warlock, huh?” I address Deb. Her pencil momentarily ceases its outlining. “How’d that happen?”

  “Lex!” David hisses at me, “You can’t just ask someone about their bloodline!”

  “Why?” I shrug my shoulders. An inhuman thing, I guess. “I’m curious as to how your foreshadowing powers came to be. Is that so wrong?”

  Her light gaze is heavy with emotion. “I never met him. Father says he disguised himself as my grandfather, slept with my grandmother in the middle of the night, and left.”

  Eyebrows coming together, I question, “How’d your grandmother know he was a Warlock, then?”

  “When your first child is born normal, and your second is born with cat eyes, you tend to suspect a few things,” Deb whispers.

  David laughs at her curtness, while I snap my fingers “Wow. Didn’t know you had that in you.” Deb acts proud of her slightly amusing remark, and I add, “Lucky for you, you didn’t end up with cat eyes, too.”

  “No, just constant nightmares and the overwhelming need to draw out the future.”

  “Well, when you say it like that, it sounds terrible.”

  “It is terrible,” she says softly, returning to her work.

  I meet gazes with David, who shrugs. If I ever need comforting, remind me never to go to him. “So, how do we stop this whole end of the world thing?” My head flicks from David to Deb. “Any ideas? Anybody?”

  Deb says an inconsolable “We can’t stop it” while David rubs his chin.

  “I suppose I can crack open the old books. I started to last night, but then I thought I’d get up on my potion orders…which seems pointless, after today’s events.” He looks at me. “Can you read Sanskrit?”

  What in the world is Sanskrit?

  “I’ll take your confused and baffled expression as a no, then.” David gets to his feet, disappearing. When he returns in a few minutes, he carries five or so large books that I’m fairly sure haven’t seen the light of day in two hundred years. “Oh!” He holds up a finger, going to the store area to retrieve something. He hands it to me.

  I study the book, knowing—and hating—where this is going.

  Sitting on the chair beside Deb, David says, “You’re going to want to flip to the back, Lex. I think I recall something about the tattooed men in there from my mother’s Catholic days.”

  Sighing, I flip thousands of pages into the back.

  Book of Revelations, here I come.

  What feels like hours pass. We mute the news station, having enough about the horse and demonic rider gallivanting around my university’s campus. It’s a good thing I’m already jaded and cynical, otherwise I’d be shocked and fearful right now.

  David is busy going through ancient books whose language seems very unreadable to me.

  I turn a page, speaking awkwardly into the silence, “I thought the Bible was supposed to be a happy place, with lots of forgiveness and angels with pretty wings.”

  David’s laugh startles me; I said it as a joke, having no idea it’d be funny. “Clearly, you don’t know much about Christianity.”

  At her spot, Deb’s shoulders shake in a noiseless chuckle. Not one to enjoy the fact that my joke was turned on me, I puff myself up. “And what would a godless Warlock know about it?”

  “More than you, clearly.” When I open my mouth to retort, David notices Deb’s smile. “There’s the elusive creature. I knew it’d appear sooner or later.” Deb quickly realizes she’s acting like a normal person, tilting her head so her hair falls into her face and turns away.

  Whatever witty response I’m readying fails me when I see her reddened cheeks. Is she blushing? In all my life, I don’t know if I’ve ever blushed. People really do that? P
eople blush? I always thought it’s something people do in movies or books.

  David must’ve thought it’s strange, too, for he gives me a what the heck? look. With a nonchalant shrug, he returns to his researching.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket, and my teeth grind. I answer it, snapping, “What?” My thought process is that it’s my parents, calling for the zillionth time. It’s not. It’s not my parents at all. When I hear the voice on the other line, I get to my feet, the Bible falling on the floor. “Sorry, I thought you were someone else.” If I would’ve bothered to glance at the caller-ID, I would’ve seen that the caller is Mr. Agent and not my parents.

  How in the world did he get my number? I wonder if my parents told him when he gave them his card. He isn’t done questioning me yet, I suppose. Although, I do think he should be focusing on the Horseman instead of me.

  As the man speaks into my ear, David mouths, who? We both know no one calls me except him. My parents only call when they’re felling scared or generous. Not too often, except for today.

  “Yeah,” I say, feigning innocence. “I was about to call, then…that thing showed up on campus.” Mr. Super-Agent then says something totally weird it catches me off-guard. “Right now? Uh…sure. I can be there in an hour.”

  David’s eyes practically bulge.

  “Okay,” I say, “see you then.” I hang up.

  “Not to freak out over what could possibly be nothing important,” David says as he waves a hand in the air. “But who the hell was that? Who did you agree to meet?”

  “FBI dude Mike Hess, but I like to call him Agent Awesome.”

  David is not happy. “Who’s that?”

  “He visited me in the hospital, before the Vampire.”

  “You never told me that!”

  “I’m pretty sure I did.”

  “You didn’t!”

  For a while, David and I argue, bickering like children. Deb swallows, uncomfortable with the confrontation, regardless of how close David and I are. We’d never really fight. Bicker, yes. All the time. It’s what happens when you’re three hundred years old, stubborn, and wholeheartedly believe you’re never wrong. Which he is, an awful lot.

  I’m the one who’s never wrong.

  “You can’t go meet him,” David says, pointing to the muted TV. “Not when the world is witnessing that! It’s not safe. Every race is on edge. I can guarantee that some will take advantage of the chaos and do things they wouldn’t normally.”

  Crossing my arms, I stared him square in the eye. “Oh, I’m going. You’re not going to stop me. Supernaturals can go tickle themselves. I don’t care. He might know something.”

  David hadn’t considered the possibility until now. His resolve weakens a tad. “Maybe. Or maybe he’s just a guy following his gut.”

  I stand there, biting my lip. “I’m going. I need a break from that Bible anyway. It’s so dark. With any luck we can stop the next Horseman.”

  “War is coming,” Deb says, her hand flat on the drawing. She covers the square, which now has some littler rectangles inside it. Her drawings definitely take a while, don’t they? “You can’t stop him, no matter what you do.”

  “Cheery,” David says. “Anyways, I’m not going to let you waltz into there alone, not with a Horseman about. If you have to go, I’m coming with you.” He grabs his coat, slipping it on in one, smooth movement.

  “Not in the same car you’re not. What if he sees us together? What if he knows something, gets scared of the crazy Warlock, and decides not to tell me anything?”

  He grins. “I’m crazy?” Shaking it off, he snatches his keys. “Fine. I like wasting gas as much as the next American. Come on, Deb. Let’s do a stakeout.”

  She says, “No. I’m staying here…if that’s all right. I’ll watch Xena and keep an eye on the shop.” Deb practically radiates pureness. She oozes kindness, even if she can get snippy. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that both my cat and the shop would be fine in her hands.

  Plus, if it really is the end of the world, it doesn’t matter that much if they’re not.

  I say “Okay” far too easily for David, who puts up a fight.

  “What? Not okay! I don’t leave strangers in my shop alone—”

  I head for the backdoor. “Well, I’m leaving now.” I exit the shop to the parking lot and get in my car. David is a few steps behind me, muttering in some language other than English. His expression tells me all I need to know. He’s not happy with me, but as my friend, he’s both obligated to support me and far too willing to be there to witness my failings.

  After all, isn’t that what friends are for?

  Friend, I should say.

  Chapter Three

  We arrive at our destination in a little over an hour—a hometown coffee shop near the midway mark between my school and Lakeview. I park my car and head in first, texting David to come in a few minutes after me, order a drink and sit somewhere on the opposite side of the store. I wait until I get the text where he agrees before I venture out of my car and into the shop. A Warlock could make you see certain things, like normal ears instead of his pointy ones, but they can’t control Humans well enough to be completely invisible, unlike the undead Vampires. It’s why he spent so many years of his life perfecting the invisibility potion. If only he had some of that whipped up now, he could hover near me like a ghost and no one would know.

  I shove my hands in my leather jacket’s pocket, using my hip to open the shop’s door. It’s not nearly as busy as it would be if there wasn’t a homicidal Horseman running around. Mr. Agent Awesome sits at a table near the window, sipping on a coffee.

  Sliding into the chair facing him, I jokingly say, “Where’s mine?”

  He looks a little grumpier than he did when we first met. Today his kind lumberjack appearance takes on a Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine one. “This isn’t a date.”

  “It’s a good thing I didn’t get my hopes up.” My reply, though witty, does not elicit further conversation. Instead, Mike Hess sits there, sipping, contemplative. It takes all my strength not to shout why am I here?

  It’s a while until he says, “You were there.”

  “Could you be more specific?”

  His eyes snap to mine, a crazy look in them. More like a grizzly bear than a cuddly Care Bear. “You were there when it rose. I saw it on the footage.”

  Conquest, he means. Trying to hide my worry, I play dumb, “When what rose?”

  “The Horseman.”

  “What footage?”

  At that, he smirks. “We have eyes and ears everywhere, Lexa Blue.”

  Okay, right about now, I decide I don’t like him as much as I thought I did. My demeanor changes. “How did you get my number? Did my parents give it to you?”

  “No,” he answers quickly. “I work for the FBI. I can get anyone’s number.” Another sip of coffee. “Does it hurt?”

  At first, I don’t know what he means, and before I can respond, he reaches across the table in a very uncivilized way and turns my wrist so that my palm faces the ceiling, pulling the sleeve of my jacket. The black Mark is flecked with spots of maroon.

  “Fuck,” he states. Mike Hess empties his cup, stands and says, “This isn’t going to be enough.” I watch him move to the counter and order. “Give me another—with ten shots of expresso.”

  Both the barista and I look at him in questioning horror, but to his credit, the barista does his job and makes it after the man pays.

  Mike sits back down, taking a huge sip, as I say, “Ten shots. Would you like a little heart attack with that caffeine?”

  “A heart attack would be better than what’s about to happen,” he says, pausing to reexamine me.

  Setting my hands on my lap under the table, I see that David has walked in and is currently ordering his own dose of caffeine. Like a good little Warlock, he chooses a table far from us. “How do you know that’s not just a normal tattoo?”

  The way he stares at me makes me feel oddly self-conscious;
something I usually never am. Mike says nothing, taking another sip of his death drink before sluggishly rolling up his right arm sleeve. Roll after roll after roll…it takes him a while to expose his forearm, and once he does, my stomach twists. And not in a good, butterfly, flirty way—more like a bad, nauseous, we’re-all-doomed way.

  A Mark rests on his inner forearm. A black helmet with fire around it.

  “Yours,” I speak once I regain my voice, “is much more reasonably-sized than mine.”

  He doesn’t even crack a tiny smile at my attempt at humor. “Yours has begun to activate. This is worse than I thought.”

  His words are interrupted by loud screaming outside. I meet eyes with grumpy Agent Awesome, and we both hurry outside. David follows, along with the few other customers in the shop. In the parking lot, a man with the same cross tattoo had killed a young man who was getting in his car after ordering coffee, and—much like the one on campus—knifed himself. Only this time, he cut his own throat.

  This…is far too crazy to be a coincidence, which meant…this has something to do with me?

  Most other people scurry to their cars, but I’m motionless as I watch a fire erupt beneath the dead. The flames burn a dark red, and out of the fires appears a beast and rider made of the maroon fire. The horse steps out of the circle of fire, no longer on flames, save for its mane and tail. Its color is a deep red, its eyes black. On its back, the rider clings to the reigns with one skeletal hand. The Horseman has armor similar to the first; however, his helmet is different. Horned, but the horns are made of live fire…as is the blade on his giant, human-sized great sword.

  The kid who was behind the counter at the shop attempts to get into his car, but the Horseman slams his long sword to the ground. A fissure erupts, flames bursting from the cracks, swallowing the car and the kid. The horse breaks into a gallop as it catches up to another group who decided it’s best to run and slices them in half with the flame sword. They don’t stand a chance. They’re dead before their severed bodies hit the ground. So gruesome, I have to turn away.

  The horse leaps onto a car, crushing it in much the same way as Conquest did to the cop cars on campus.