Ink and Shadows (42 page)

The fractured steel bit into its mark, sliding up through the creature’s chin and lodging in the striated roof of its mouth. Shaking its head, the wraith fell back, clawing at the embedded metal thorn. Raking its paw on the sharp metal, it bled streams over Min’s prone body, the woman struggling to get clear of the frantic seizures working through the creature’s limbs.

Ari straddled the wraith’s hips, his blades poised. The creature’s neck arched, bending its chin up and exposing the flat of its head to War’s weapons. Plunging the daggers down, Ari felt the soft pop of the wraith’s eyes as he found his mark. Smoke rose from War’s bare forearms, long blistered tracks peeling up layers of skin where the spurting fluids of the creature’s rupturing brain hit him.

“Get her free, Shi.” Ari jerked his chin at Min, her limbs twitching as she tried to pull loose from the tangle of corpses. He clutched the hilts of his blades, hooking the edges under the creature’s brow ridges. Taking a deep breath, Ari met Death’s eyes, the oldest Horseman cradling Min’s shoulders. Winking, Ari pinned the wraith between his clenched thighs and twisted its head about.

Its neck broke under Ari’s hands, the shadows torn loose out of its skin. The skull came free, throwing Ari back, clear of the blood pouring from its shorn throat. A splash caught Ari across his face, cheek taking most of the damage. White bone shone along his cheek, the meat pulled back from under his hot gaze. Bitter curses spilled from the remains of War’s mouth, the edges of his lips sealed tight from the searing acid.

Min pushed Death from behind, urging him toward Ari. Crawling over the littered corpses, Death approached Ari, his pants matted to his skin with Min’s blood. Ordering Mal to help Min and Kismet inside, the Horseman kneeled beside his oldest friend, fear chilling Death’s blood. Sliding an arm under the blond’s shoulders, he strained to lift Ari, the other man’s greater weight pushing a sharp ache into Death’s tired body.

“Hey.” Ari hooked an arm under Death’s ribs. The creature’s gyrations had broken his hip, the cracked bones rubbing raw as he walked. Speaking loosened the seal on his burned lips, tearing the chap and starting a fresh bleed. “Think I can get you to kiss and make it better?”

“That’s you,” Death snorted, picking through the bodies. “Always looking for a way to turn a perfectly good battle into sex.”

Death licked at the tear on Ari’s lips, then sucked the air from the other’s man mouth. Coppery and masculine, Ari tasted of conflict and comfort, someone willing to take on the impossible to protect the ones he loved. The kiss was a small one by Ari’s standards, but it stung down into his soul.

Death stepped back, his mouth momentarily stained red with Ari’s blood until he turned, his tongue wiping away evidence of their kiss.

“Yep. Always happy to turn anything into sex.” Ari licked at drops on his face, the sting of acid hidden in the taste. It burned down into his throat, his spit carrying the wraith’s poisons into his stomach. He’d survive as he always had, healing behind the rancid touch of the Veil’s creatures. For now, he enjoyed the killing and the tender care of Death’s long body on his.

“We do have one problem, Shi.”

“Other than the boy or including him?” Death turned as he approached the door, easing Ari through the opening.

“Ah, didn’t even think about him.” The blond shook his head, banging his blown knee on the wall. Stars bled light into his vision, a red curtain of pain washing anew over his nerves. “We can deal with the boy later. I was wondering how we were ever going to get all of those bodies out of the foyer. That kind of shit is why you never have battles at your front door. You’re left with all the crap to clean up afterward.”

H
OPE
DANCED
along the hills below Peace’s cabin, the sky lit pink with a dying sun. Her shoes were left on the gravel driveway, socks cast aside a few feet away. Her tiny form dipped and weaved among the white daisies blooming along the trail, an unruly bouquet balanced in her slender arms.

Peace’s jaded gaze followed the young immortal’s path, her unrestrained joy as bright as the flowers she gathered.

The painfully thin man shifted his weight, leaning against the broad beam supporting the deck he’d built around the broad-sided cabin. In the distance, a mountain range groaned under the weight of an unexpected snow, the Rockies nearly blue against the graying sky. Charity watched Hope as well, a flat expression on his bitter-etched face.

“How’s the human?” Peace asked, staring out at the seemingly endless stretch of unspoiled landscape around him.

“Drugged,” Charity replied. “He’s in too much pain right now. I’m hoping the boy’s blood will help him heal enough to watch me kill the Four. He might not make it, but I need to try. I owe Faith that.”

“The Four didn’t bring this trouble to your door, Chare.”

“They killed her.” He stared at Peace, the other immortal as silent as the stones poking in the field.

“The Horsemen don’t kill their own.” Peace let the words slip free, cast on the breeze, where they tossed and tumbled. “Death would never let them take an immortal life, even if it were possible.”

“It’s possible. You and I both know it is,” Charity muttered darkly.

The haggard-faced immortal beside him ignored the comment, his attention still on the tiny girl playing on the hills below.

“I need you to watch her.”

“Until the new Faith arrives?” The elder immortal struck a match, cupping his hand around the flame as he lit a hand-rolled cigarette, the flare of coarse tobacco bright red under the fire. A few hard puffs started the cigarette’s slow burn, a wave of his wrist extinguishing the blaze. Carefully tossing the burnt match into a coffee can filled with sand, Peace drew in a lungful of smoke, holding it in until he nearly burst from lack of air.

“No.” Charity shook his head. “Until she leaves us. Hope’s not long for this world. I give it a few more months, and then she’ll be going on. They don’t stay long. You know that.”

“This one’s been here less than a year, hasn’t she?” Peace struggled to remember when he’d first met the girl.

“There’s a reason they say Hope dies quickly,” the immortal reminded Peace.

“What are you going to do then?” Peace drew another mouthful of smoke, savoring its harsh taste.

“I’m going to do what you tried to do before.” Charity turned toward the man, his once mentor and the missing piece of his Four.

“That wasn’t me.” Peace shook his head, long strands of graying hair loose around his rawboned features. “That was another Peace and a mistake. The Four aren’t evil, Charity. They exist just like the rest of us. Because mankind brought them here to serve. They’re as much a part of humanity as we are.”

“They’ve been here too long,” the immortal said, nearly brushing his shoulder against Peace’s in challenge. “Death and War have a hold on mankind. They’re too old… too powerful. How can mankind fight against their age? I think eliminating Death and War would be the greatest blow to mankind’s chains. It would allow humanity to be free of the weight of their purpose. Don’t you think I’m right in that?”

“And you plan on taking the new Faith on this path of yours, once he or she arrives?” Peace snubbed his cigarette into the sand, the pleasure of the smoke lost to him. “You going to poison someone new against the Four? If it were our reason to exist, Peace before me would have succeeded with his mad plans, and I wouldn’t be standing here right now watching you lick the wounds to your pride.”

“The Horsemen are people, like we are. Just older, but still human. We let the legend of who they are bring us nightmares, and we cower before them. For all we know, that Peace was the last one with a clear vision of what we’re supposed to achieve for mankind.” Charity shrugged. “He should have succeeded. I believe we’ve lost our way because we aren’t a Four anymore.”

“And
I
believe you’re full of shit.” Peace’s laugh was a harsh bark, scratching humor riddled with sarcasm.

“You’re just afraid, old man,” Charity said. “You’re supposed to be a part of us. We’re supposed to be Four instead of Three, and you walked away from that. Even before I came along, you turned away from us. I hope there’s something of that bond inside of you that will at least let me try to make things right.”

“I think you’re doing this because Faith left you, not because you think the Four are evil,” Peace responded. “You’re going to wage a war with someone who was born to fight and another who takes souls. How do you expect to win?”

“I don’t expect you to help me.” Charity felt the Veil shimmer. The new Faith was nearly upon them, drawn to Charity’s presence. “Can you at least keep her here with you? Until she goes?”

“Yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem.” Peace’s keen eyes lit up at the flock of birds flying over a far ridge. “I think what you’re doing is wrong. You’ll be pulled back into the Veil, and for what? Nothing. And what kind of Charity can you be, plotting the demise of other immortals?”

“I’m not going to neglect my call, Peace.” Charity sneered. Peace hid in the emptiness along a mountain ridge, tucked away from humanity and ignoring everything but the most insistent of pleas for his presence. “Not like you.”

Hope struggled up the hill, her arms burdened by plucked daisies. A sadness lingered in her eyes, the sparkle of her wide, innocent smile nearly too brilliant for Peace to bear. Hitching his jeans up, Peace left Charity’s side, dismissing the younger immortal with a wave of his hand.

“Do what you’ve got to do, Charity,” Peace muttered, stepping onto the gravel pathway. “I hope to the gods that you don’t become the first immortal Death kills. And if you are, so be it.”

M
AL
PLACED
the last box of Kismet’s possessions on the floor. He was trying not to show his disgust, but the place was a mess. The warehouse loft was a compromise of sorts between the young man and the Horsemen. Taking another look around, he half agreed with Min’s suggestion that it could be made more habitable with a blowtorch and endless accelerant.

Kismet’s refusal to live with the immortals led to long, heated arguments, punctuated by verbal jabs and angry shouting matches. Ari finally threw his hands up in surrender when he couldn’t wear down Kismet’s stubbornness, while Death pursed his lips, calmly outlining his arguments to persuade the young man to live someplace they could keep an eye on him. That led to a few choice words and a couple of hand gestures Mal vowed to learn.

While he didn’t fully understand Kismet’s violent reaction to being cared for, he did comprehend the other’s reluctance to leave the shadow-infested world he’d grown up in. He couldn’t imagine being without the other three.

An expanse of stacked rectangular windows spilled a hazy light into the space, heavy white paint covering most of the glass. Kismet had refused anything but the loft, his stubbornness now nearly legendary among the Four. Paint supplies and finished canvases filled much of the southern wall, horrific creatures leering up at Mal from bloodied landscapes. A few softer images lay hidden under the starkness, the float of a daisy on slate gray rain or the line of a face nearly hidden under crosshatched nightmares.

The loft’s walls were a mixture of white-edged red brick and mottled drywall, its high ceilings spotted with wide-bladed fans. A kitchen had been carved out of a space by the door, a supporting column serving to anchor a long counter bristling with stacked containers. Mal sniffed at the mustiness in the air, spotting the slither of shadows collecting near the bathroom door. The wraiths were slothful, sated from a feeding off the homeless clustered around the trolley station below. Mal shoved his will at the dark masses, moving the serpentine shapes on their way.

Kismet stood at the counter, wrinkling his nose at the furry remains left in a Tupperware coffin, the fridge just starting to hum under newly restored power. After tossing the container into a black plastic garbage bag, he systematically rifled through the small cabinets, debating the worthiness of abandoned utensils and a spare pink dish.

Stacked mattresses served as living room furniture, an angled array of cushions scattered over the too-soft bedding. He’d accepted Mal’s offer of a bed, the low platform boasting drawers he could throw his clothes into, the plastic still wrapped around the box spring. Hidden partially behind fabric curtains strung on framing wire, the bed area would be his haven from the chaos of his captured dreams, the pain of his images cut free from his mind and left on the stretched canvases.

“We can hire someone to take the paint off the windows.” Mal picked at the flaking film, thankful he wasn’t subject to lead poisoning. There was evidence of past attempts to remove the thick covering, irregular scraping along the bottom of one pane.

“Or I can just take off what I want when I can.” Kismet looked up at the other man. Mal’s shirt stuck to his back, beads of sweat spreading between his shoulder blades. With an appreciative smile, Kismet walked over to the contemplative immortal, his fingers briefly stroking at Mal’s spine. “It’ll come off with a razor blade. I might leave some of it on. It depends on how much light gets in. Hey, you can help me scrape it off and tell Death it’s just another training exercise.”

In the weeks since the encounter with the wraith, Mal grimly set to the task of learning how to handle a weapon, spending long hours in the practice studio or at the weights to build his strength. While the Horseman would never attain the breadth of War’s shoulders, his lean body easily adapted to the regime, sculpting hard lines into his long limbs and back. Kismet appreciated the slow change in Mal’s slender form, spending time watching Mal spar with Death just because he could.

“I don’t like this neighborhood.” From what Mal could see through the east-facing windows, the area left a lot to be desired. “It’s too dirty. It’s not a good neighborhood.”

“Hell, Mal,” Kismet replied. “For me, this is a huge step up.”