Dark Destiny (Principatus) (31 page)

An invisible wrecking ball smashed into his chest, sending him flying backward.

He manipulated the space around him and twisted mid-flight, landing on his feet to glare at the woman across the room from him. “Not fair.”

Fred cocked an eyebrow, studying him from the other side of the “training area” she’d created in her part of the Realm. “Do you think the First Horseman will play fair?”

Patrick rubbed at the white-hot pain throbbing through his body. When it came to Death, the pain always seemed to be white hot. “I don’t think Pestilence is going to attack me with the scent of your sex. At least, I hope he’s not. That would be just wrong.”

Fred folded her arms, her face serious. “No, Pestilence will use much nastier tricks to distract you.”

A sudden shimmer on the air beside her became Patrick’s mother.

Patrick’s stomach dropped. His throat slammed shut. He stared at the tall, slim woman with the laughing green eyes and dark red hair. “Mum?”

The woman smiled—the same smile she’d given him every night of his childhood before kissing his forehead and tucking him into bed. “Heads up, Pat.”

The wrecking ball hit him again, this time harder. He smacked against the far wall, a kaleidoscope of agonizing colors detonating behind his eyes on impact. But before he could drop to the floor, the ball crashed into him again and again and again, his mother watching the brutal assault, her smiling green eyes crinkling with mirth and joy. “I always said you were the weaker of the two.”

Patrick screamed, the ball mashing him into the wall with blow after blow, his mother’s words crushing him far deeper. “Oh, God, Mum!”

Focus.

The single word whispered in his head, barely penetrating the white agony engulfing him.

Focus.

“And to think I had the choice of aborting you,” his mother went on, her smile growing wider. “What was I thinking, letting a pathetic joke such as you live?”

“No!”
Hot tears stung Patrick’s eyes. “That’s not true.”

He reached out for his mother, numb with grief, on fire with pain. The ball smashed into him, again, again, again, pummeling him with such force he could no longer draw breath.

“Mum,” he croaked, staring at her through a black fog. “Mum.”

Focus, Patrick.

“It is for the best that you will die.” His mother nodded, her green eyes calm, her face soft with maternal love. “You really are just a disappointment to me and your father.”

“Noooo!”

Fury poured through Patrick. He lashed out with his mind.

But the ball kept hitting him.

Again. Again. Again.

He was going to die.

He was going to—

Focus.

A ripple of control ran through him. He pulled in a long breath. His heartbeat slowed.
Thump thump, thump thump…thump…thump…thump…thump…

The ball struck him, smashing him harder to the wall.

His heart slowed further still.
Thump…thump…thump…thump…thump…thump…

He pulled a deep breath, stare locked on his smiling mother.

Thump…thump…thump

She shimmered. The ball smashed into him.

He absorbed the blow, stare fixed on the smiling woman before him. “You are not my mother.”

Patrick’s core erupted with golden fire, existence shuddered. He struck out. A tsunami of composed force aimed straight for the apparition.

And then it was just Fred standing before him, her eyes glowing white, tears streaming down her face. “I’m sorry, Patrick. I’m sorry, but I had to.”

He stared at her, his heart rate returning to normal, his heart squeezing in misery. “
That
was not fair.”

She studied him, eyes unreadable, tears unchecked. “I know.”

He turned his head, unable to look at her. What she’d done was unforgivable. What Death had done was—

Prepare you.

The voice reverberated through Patrick’s anger. He blinked, feeling as if someone had punched him in the gut. Dragging his hands through his hair, he let out a sharp sigh and turned back to Fred.

She watched him, expression pinched and on guard.

He crossed the room to stand before her. “I get your point.” His body
and
soul felt like he’d been put through a shredder, and he was surprised he was still on his feet. “It’s not going to be pretty and I’m completely unprepared. I just wish I had more time.”

Fred shook her head, the training room around them shimmering back into the small, intimate library in which he’d first arrived. “I don’t think you need it, Patrick. I threw everything at you then and you beat me.”

He studied her for a moment, the thought both terrifying and…and…what?

Fred smiled. “Amazing?”

Patrick chuckled, the lighthearted sound surprising him. “Well, yeah, that’s one word for it.”

“I think it’s a very good word.” Standing up on tiptoe, she pressed her lips gently to his. “You
are
amazing, Patrick Watkins.”

A soft blanket of warmth folded around him. Sliding his arms around Fred’s waist, he smiled down into her face. “So, I guess I’ve just destroyed the notion held dear by hundreds of philosophers for thousands of years.”

Fred raised her eyebrows. “And what’s that?”

He let his smile turn into a grin. “You can’t beat Death.”

She burst out laughing, and raked her hands down his back to grab his ass. “
You
can beat Death. But that’s only because she’s in love with you.”

The second the words past Fred’s lips she gasped, her face growing a bright red. She gaped at him open mouthed, her body tense against his, her eyes wide. “By the Powers,” she groaned, “I did not mean to say that aloud.”

Patrick gazed down at her, every memory of pain and despair evaporating in an instant. He pulled her closer to his body, reveling in the infinite energy of her existence, loving the entirely human reaction to her confession. “Does it help if I tell you the feeling’s entirely mutual?”

Pale blue eyes studied him for a long moment. “You know,” she finally said on a smile, “I think it does.” She placed her lips on his again, the tip of her tongue tracing the edge of his teeth with delicate care.

He chuckled into her mouth and threaded his fingers into her hair, holding her to him as he deepened the kiss. Regardless of what Fred said, by his reckoning, he would survive probably a grand sum total of about two minutes facing the First Horseman—
if
he was lucky. More than anything he wanted to experience the last moments of his life truly enjoying them with the woman he loved.

Fred’s hands smoothed up his back, across his shoulders and back down to his arse, tugging his hips closer to hers as her tongue delved into his mouth, exploring it thoroughly. Wet licks of passion and desire flowed all the way into his core. He dragged his hands from her hair and grabbed her butt, lifting her from the floor without breaking their kiss.

Their time was running out. He could feel it. The itch in his gut had returned, his skin prickled, as if the air was electrically charged. The end raced toward him without remorse or pity.

Let me have this moment. Whoever is pulling the strings, please let me have this moment. Just this one and I will gladly forfeit my life. Just this one moment…

Fred’s heart thumped against his, a soft moan vibrating in her chest.

One moment will never be enough. Let us have an eternity. Please…

Her unspoken plea slipped through his mind and soul like silken mist and his heart squeezed tight. An eternity. Oh, yes. An eternity of—

Death. You are summoned.

The call roared through Patrick’s head and he reeled backward, dropping Fred from his hold and slapping his hands to his ears. Bloody hell. What the fuck was that?

Staggering backward, he looked at her.

“Damn it.” Her eyebrows knotted and she shook her head, worry flittering across her face. “I’ve gotta go. Stay right here. I won’t be—”

She vanished.

Patrick stared at the spot she’d just occupied, the blood roaring in his ears.
“Fuck!”
he shouted, the curse echoing around the empty space.

Like the deafening rumble of thunder.

Chapter Fourteen

Fred glared at the whiteness, fury turning her blood to mercury. She hated this place. Its ambivalence drove her crazy. “What do you mean, interfering?”

The path of the First Horseman cannot be deviated. The First Horseman must continue his course without interference.

Her eyebrows shot up. “The path? The fuckwit has been messing with the Order of Actuality. I think what
I’ve
been doing is a little less significant, don’t you?”

Silence followed her outburst and Fred got the sense a collective scowl of disapproval was leveled her way at her choice of words.

“Fuck it,” she muttered, tilting her chin and ramming her fists on her hips. “I’m pissed off. Let’s see the Powers deal with that little piece of interference.”

The First Horseman must be left to choose his path.

Fred ground her teeth. “Are you not listening? Ol’ sick and weedy is messing around with the Order. With the Weave. Shit, he’s trying to bring about the Apocalypse. As far as I know that event has been declared null and void!”

Another pause followed, this one less disapproving and more weighted.

The Fabric of the Order has been rethread.

Fred’s heart stilled. “Rethread? What does that mean?”

Again, a pause.

“This is not good, Fred,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Not good at all.”

The pause continued.

“What does rethread mean?” she shouted, staring into the whiteness. “What’s going to happen? Is Patrick Watkins going to survive?”

Had she thought the previous pause heavy? This one almost crushed her.

“Well?”

The Fabric’s new pattern is indeterminate.

“Fuck, are you kidding me?” She threw up her arms. “You lot are meant to track these things. The pattern is by your design. For crying out loud, the big guy’s omnipotent! How do you
not
know? Indeterminate? What in the name of all the levels of hell is going on?”

Silence.

“Tell me.”

Silence.

“Tell me!”

Death, you are forbidden to continue your interaction with the lifeguard. You are hereby ordered to resume the ultimate purpose for which you were created. Now.

Fred’s mouth fell open. “I’m forbidden?” She blinked, unable to believe what she was hearing. She was Death. Not a child. No one forbade her anything. “Ordered?”

If you refuse to resume your purpose you shall be confined.

“Confined?”

The matter is finished. Return the lifeguard to the world of man and resume your purpose.

Fred clenched her jaw. “No.”

Silence again.

“This is not right. What Pestilence is doing is not right. If you lot want to sit on your collective thumbs and see what happens then so be it, but I’m not going to.”

The silence stretched.

She glared into the whiteness one last time, shook her head and transubstantiated.

To nowhere.

Fred throat slammed shut. Why wasn’t she back with Patrick?

As forewarned and foretold, The Fourth Horseman has refused a divine command and is hereby confined.

Ice-cold disbelief rolled through her. “What do you mean, forewarned? When? By who?” There was no answer coming, and something told Fred she was alone. She gaped into the whiteness, heart hammering, blood roaring. Muscles frozen.

She swallowed, unable to do anything else.
Oh, Shit. Patrick.

For the umpteenth time, Patrick walked about the room. Or was it one hundred and ten minutes? Time didn’t seem to exist here. After the initial stunned shock following her abrupt disappearance, and an uncomfortable few seconds still waiting for her to return, he’d explored the library. Discovering there was no exit, he moved about the small space just to keep his mind from his upcoming confrontation with the Disease.

Perusing through a random selection of books pulled from the surrounding shelves had achieved nothing. None of the tomes made much sense, most referencing periods of time long before, as far as he could tell, dinosaurs walked the planet. Those that were dedicated to man were violent diatribes that left an unsavory taste in his mouth and made him long to meet the writers in person.

With each passing minute, his mind tried harder and harder to contemplate his future.

He refused to let it do so, and in an act of sheer desperation, he’d finally dropped into the more comfortable looking of the two armchairs and pondered his past. Or more to the point, his family’s past.

Had his parents known? Had they suspected? On what side did the bloodline come from? His mum’s? His dad’s? His father had run his own landscaping business and his mother had been a high school English teacher and, as a consequence, he and Steven had grown up with a love of the outdoors and a passion for reading. Both brothers had prayed regularly of course, at the altar of the surf gods, and paid regular homage to those deities’ bikini-clad priestesses as often as they could, especially Patrick during his late teen years. But as for church, nadda. They were just two typical Australian boys growing up on the coastline of the world’s largest island.