She skimmed through it, finding nothing but an overuse of words like annihilation and obliterate, before discarding it with a growl.
Forty-one books of the same theme and style later and she wanted to scream. No mention of Patrick or Steven Watkins in any of them. Forty-one books and all she had to show for it was a headache, a growing detestation for the word “thou”, and an insane urge to round up the authors and give them all a damn good beating. Seriously, were there no decent writers in the Realm?
Running her fingers through her hair, she pulled another book from the shelf and read its title. Of Men and Demon. Catchy.
She flicked through its pages, made, she suspected with a curl of her nose, from cured flesh, scanning each one for anything of—
The brother who cannot walk in the sun shall cast a shadow on the shifting grains of glass, and the shadow shall be of blood.
Fred’s heart smashed against her breastbone and she read the sentence again.
The brother who cannot walk in the sun shall cast a shadow on the shifting grains of glass, and the shadow shall be of blood.
The brother who cannot walk in the sun shall cast a shadow? Surely that had to be a reference to Ven, the only vampire she knew of who could withstand sunlight? But on the shifting grains of glass? Grains of glass? She gave the book’s cover another look, noting the author. The last Fate. Cautious excitement tingled in her veins. Maybe the old biddy finally sprouted something of significance, instead of the usual cryptic mumbo-jumbo she’d been known for before her unexplained disappearance.
She reread the line, trying to garner more information from it before reading the paragraph before it. A growl rumbled in her throat. Nothing relating to or referencing Ven or Patrick at all. Just forty or so sentences carrying on about the relationship between seraphim and archangels and how they interacted with virgins of mankind’s sixteenth century.
The next ten paragraphs after the tantalizing line were the same. The last Fate really seemed to be hung up on the sex lives of the upper-order angels, describing their mating rituals in great detail and an awful lot of very purple prose.
Fred huffed into her fringe again. It was as though the line about Ven just popped out of nowhere.
She read the rest of Of Men and Demon word for word, hoping there might be something else, but there wasn’t. Damn it.
The Powers alone knew how many books later, and she was beginning to get well and truly pissed off. Nothing. Nothing! Just a waste of time, an even bigger headache and an entirely rational desire to strangle just about every author in the Realm. Once she’d put them back together after tearing them apart the first time, that was.
She threw the latest disappointment aside and glared blankly into the empty fireplace. “Fuck.”
There were ten books left on the shelves. Ten tomes containing the sum total recorded knowledge of the Realm and the world of man.
Scrunching up her face, Fred conjured the thinnest—Death and Lust in the Time of Genesis. She cocked an eyebfrow. A book dedicated to her. She grinned. This could be, if nothing else, entertaining.
The first chapter was dedicated to her antics before the Powers intervened. She chuckled. The author—anonymous, of all things—seemed to have taken quite a few liberties with the facts. Half of what they’d attributed to her after the Creation she had nothing to do with. To believe the author’s account, she’d been a right psychotic bitch.
Making a mental note to discover who “anonymous” was later on, she continued reading. The rest of the book read like a trashy human gossip mag. Hearsay and conjecture making up most of the word count, with the odd illustration—mostly of her morbid cloak-and-scythe persona—thrown in for good measure. Nothing entertaining or illuminating at all.
Damn, damn, damn.
She slammed the book closed…just as a line leapt out at her from the pages.
The Cure shall face the Disease o—
A tingle shot up her spine. What was that?
She jerked the book open, frustration eating at her. Damn it, what page had she been on?
“Somewhere near the back of the book, Fred,” she muttered, fanning the pages. “Opposite an illustration of you and the other Horsemen, remember? You curled your lip at the way the artist had depicted you—all dead and gross and male.”
She whipped through the book, searching for the illustration. Where was it?
Her pulse burst into furious life. There. Tenth page from the last.
Giving the hideous artwork a quick look—For Pete’s sake, male?—she read through the page of text opposite it, looking for the line that had caught her eye.
Yadda, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah. The Cure shall face the Disease on the shifting dunes and the end shall begin and the beginning shall end. Blah, blah, bl—
Fred’s stare locked on to the disconnected sentence.
She read it again.
The Cure shall face the Disease on the shifting dunes and the end shall begin and the beginning shall end.
What did it mean? It wasn’t written in the snarky past tense, adjective-heavy style of the rest of the book, nor was it obsessing about her so-called achievements an eon ago, and it bore no relation to anything else written before or after it.
Fred gnawed on her bottom lip. Who the hell was anonymous? Another Fate? One of the earlier sages now long gone?
She studied the words again. What did they mean?
The Cure. Nope. Nothing.
The Disease. Pestilence. Had to be. He’d never taken a human name, considering himself far too superior to do so, but referred to himself often as the Disease, usually with self-absorbed arrogance.
On the shifting dunes… Hmmm. The beach? Surely. Or maybe the desert?
Fred pulled a face. Damn it. There were a lot of deserts in the world and most of them had been the site of one important event or another.
She moved onto the rest of the sentence.
The end shall begin and the beginning shall end.
What the fuck did that mean?
The end. She chewed on her lip again. Could be the Apocalypse? Or the final episode of Cheers?
Frustration, hot and thick, rolled through her and she let out a roar, her inner demon surging briefly to the surface. This was useless.
She stared at the fireplace again. This was getting her nowhere.
Then go see the only element of the equation you know.
Fred groaned. By the Powers, why hadn’t she thought of that before? Pestilence was confined to the Realm. All she needed to do was speak to him and she’d get her answers.
A distasteful knot twisted in the pit of her belly at the thought. The last time she’d talked to her colleague he’d made some preposterous offer to become partners in an even more preposterous scheme, trying to sweeten the deal by suggesting they become partners in bed as well.
The memory made Fred screw up her face. She couldn’t think of anything worse than sex with ol’ sick and weedy.
Nevertheless, she had to see him. He’d sent a nikor after a human. That alone demanded some interrogation. The task of assigning an end to a mortal’s life fell to her and her alone, not the First Horseman. If nothing else, she needed to give him a damn good dressing down. No one stepped on her turf without facing the consequences.
Putting Death and Lust in the Time of Genesis aside, she returned her boots to her feet and drew an image of Pestilence’s place in the Realm to her mind.
A shimmer rippled through her body, a tingle through her being, and then she was there. Standing in ol’ sick and weedy’s master suite, the stench of disease, burning tallow and rotting bones seeping into her lungs with each breath she took.
Her gaze fell immediately on his throne and a surge of contempt heated her blood. The Powers had ordered Pestilence to get rid of the thing. Not only did it offend Their very existence, it was an affront to the Order of Actuality.
She studied it, nose curling. It was fucking hideous and gross, as well. She’d heard rumors of so
me of the things he did on it, some of the acts of debauchery and depravity. She shuddered with disgust. How she’d been born of the same source as him was beyond her.
“This is a surprise.”
The reedy voice behind her made Fred jump and she spun about, fixing the thin man standing in the doorway with a dark glare. “I thought you were ordered to destroy that thing, sicko,” she snarled, watching Pestilence walk toward her.
He looked the same as he always did. Small and scrawny. It was a trick. She knew that. His inner demon was almost as powerful as her own. Almost. Why he chose to inhabit such an offensively weak form was still a mystery to her. It didn’t do him any favors. Still, she’d heard he had no trouble getting laid. Maybe the lower-order she-demons liked their men…wimpy?
“Do you often make it a habit of trespassing in other people’s private space, Death?” he asked, his pale eyes roaming over her with glowering conceit. “Or is this a treat just for me?” He stopped but a mere foot before her, the sickly sweet stench of his body heat curling around her like fingers of fog. “Perhaps you have reconsidered my previous offer?” He flicked his gaze to the massive bed beside the throne before returning his eyes to hers. “I am ready whenever you are.”
A shudder of revulsion rocked Fred and she ground her teeth. “I’m afraid my tastes and your tastes differ some what, Pestilence.” She fought to contain her contempt, remembering why she was there. It wasn’t to point out his depravity. It was to get some answers.
His pale stare drilled into her and she struggled with the urge to fidget. Of all her fellow Horsemen, Pestilence was her least favorite. War she could deal with. He knew his place, knew his job and stuck to it. His moral and work ethic were of the highest standards and he knew the definition of personal grooming. He was also a very considerate lover and had a dry wit. Famine was a little irritating, but still likeable. She had a warm personality and a weakness for kittens. She just needed, in Fred’s opinion, to eat a little more, and maybe lighten up a bit when it came to places like Zimbabwe. What that country had done to her, Fred could never work out. Still…both the Second and Third Horsemen were preferable to the First. And neither of them had tried to grope her during their last gathering.
Pestilence raised an eyebrow before moving to his throne, lowering himself onto the disgusting piece of excessive furniture with slow flourish. “’Tis a pity. I am sure you would more than enjoy what I can do.”
“Guess we’ll never know, will we, sicko.”
His eyes flared vomit yellow. “Do not call me that.”
Fred let out a sigh. She needed to get a grip. Antagonizing Pestilence would get her nowhere. “I saw some of your handiwork in the world of man today,” she commented, trying to keep her voice light. “I’m just wondering why you thought it acceptable to send an aqueous demon after a human not slated for death?”
She didn’t mention Patrick’s name, wanting to see Pestilence’s reaction first.
It was not what she’d expected.
He laughed.
“Did I?” His thin chest rose up and down with his deep guffaws. “Oh, that was not my intention.” He wiped at his eyes, his lips stretched in a wide smile. “I sent the nikor to deal with a water sprite who has been stepping outside her place. It must have got its orders wrong.” He chuckled again, fingering the knucklebone of the throne’s armrest. He slid his gaze to his bed before returning it to her, giving her a pointed look. “I was a bit distracted while giving them.”
Fred narrowed her eyes. She didn’t believe him.
“Hmmm.” Turning her back on him, she crossed his room, trailing her fingers over the edge of one elaborate bone candelabra. “Tell me, Pestilence,” she said, knowing he studied the sway of her hips. “What do you know of the Cure?”
Silence answered her question. Heavy silence, followed by a soft rasp as he shifted in his seat. “The human band? Not much, I am afraid. Their music is not to my taste.”
Fred rolled her eyes. He was hiding something. She could hear the delaying tactics in his lame joke and the deception in his voice.
She turned, fixing him with a level gaze. “Really? I thought they’d be just your cup of tea. All dark and gloomy and pessimistic.”
The comment drew a hiss from the First Horseman. His eyes flickered yellow again, his nails gouging into the throne’s armrest. “You think you are so much better than me, don’t you, Death?”
Fred gave him a cold grin. “Of course I do. Now, tell me why you sent a nikor after a human today?”
In a blur of diseased air, Pestilence left his throne and stood before her, his thighs brushing hers, his breath fanning her face. He stared up into her eyes, his body trembling with what she guessed was suppressed rage.
“Call it an exercise, shall we? I was flexing my puny muscles.” He leaned in closer to her, and she choked back the overwhelming urge to gag.
“Why?” he went on, face twisting with contempt. “What does it matter to the great Fourth Horseman? What does the pathetic human mean to you?”
A tight knot of tension formed in Fred’s stomach at Pestilence’s snarled question and she faltered. What did Patrick mean to her? What did it matter? Since when had she become so concerned about the fate of one mere mortal?
Since you first saw that mere mortal on the beach, Fred. Fighting to keep Peabody alive. Doing everything in his power, everything in his soul, to defy you.
A wave of warmth flowed through her and she grit her teeth in dismay. Damn it, she was falling for Patrick Watkins.
“What exactly do you want, Death?” Pestilence snapped, jerking her from the sudden, unnerving realization. “I am growing bored with this visit. Either strip and climb onto my bed or remove yourself from my presence.”
Fred snorted, a cold, powerful rage building in the pit of her belly. “Strip and climb onto the bed? I would rather let the hounds of hell mount me than be touched by you.”
“You should not say such things, Death.” Pestilence’s eyes burned. “Not to your equal.”
A laugh burst from Fred’s throat. Sharp and contemptuous. “You are not my equal, Pestilence. You will never be my equal. No matter how many eternities pass, you will always be a piss-weak little demon with delusions of grandeur.”
Pestilence’s nostrils flared. He stared at her, eyes bulging, lips compressed to a thin, white line. His hands moved in a blur, curling around her neck. “Your time is over, Death,” he stated, the fury in his voice laced with smug confidence. “It is my time now.”
Thick rows of diseased lice scurried up her throat, over her jaw line. Thick, swarming rows of sickness seeking her mouth.
She felt them pour over her flesh. Felt them slip into the tiny dips at the corners of her lips. Felt them stroke her tongue.
And she laughed, destroying each tiny instrument of Pestilence’s disease with a thought. “Is that it?”
She lashed out with her own hands, sinking her fingers into his throat and lifting him from the floor. “You are the First Horseman, Pestilence. Everything you are, everything that makes you what you are, I already am.”
His mouth dropped open, his shocked expression almost comical. Not funny enough however, to stop her teaching him a lesson.
She released the cold.
Every atom of every molecule of Pestilence’s corporeal existence became ice. Instantly and immediately. Bereft of heat and anima. Deprived of vitality and life. The air froze in his lungs, the blood stilled in his veins. He gaped at her, fear erupting in his eyes.
Fred held him off the floor, watching him. She could not kill him. It was impossible for the Horsemen to kill their own, but they could inflict untold pain and suffering upon their fellow entities if they had the strength. Well, she could. She was Death. The Fourth and final Horseman. Everything—including her fellow entities—came before her. Nothing came after.
She drew the life from Pestilence’s being. Pulled it from his form until he wavered on a blade’s edge of expiration, letting him feel the unend
ing, inescapable power of her force.
She held him in a lifeless stasis of icy agony, until the fear in his eyes turned to surrender. And then she released her grip on his neck and dropped him to the floor. “Remember who you are, Pestilence. Remember who I am. When my time is over, so is yours.”
And, before she could do something she would regret, before she broke the cardinal rule of the Realm and rendered her colleague null and void, she transubstantiated from Pestilence’s space.
Glad to be rid of the stench and sight of him.
Without any answers at all.
Damn it.
Chapter Six
Ven paced his brother’s living room, glaring at the floor, the blank television, the clock on the wall…the morning sun streaming in through the wide, open window. He approached the diffused edge of light and stood still, studying the dust motes dancing on the air.
Sunlight.
He hadn’t seen sunlight for over eighteen years. He’d avoided it like the plague, scurrying indoors at the first hint of dawn, hiding from its warmth. Missing it like mad.
This morning he’d not only seen it, he’d stood in it. Felt it.
Survived it.
Great. How the bloody hell am I going to go surfing now?
The irritated question came back to him in a sudden memory of sight and sound. They were the very first words he’d uttered the second he’d realized he was no longer human but a monster of mythology. He’d been sitting in his mother’s living room, a cooling piece of toast in one hand, two bloody big fangs suddenly in his mouth and the shock had been almost too much to bear.
He had little memory of the actual transformation from man to demon. Just flashes of images, really. Sensations. The stunned look on his parents’ faces, the absolute horror on Patrick’s the minute he’d walked into the living room.
They’d still been in mourning over his death a mere six hours earlier. His mum was openly sobbing in his father’s arms, his dad’s eyes red and dry with unshed tears, his kid brother silently staring at nothing.
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