The Four Horsemen (The Light Series) (8 page)

I
scowl, “What is that?”

“Sex,
sex without marriage or with a married person, murder without reason or
defense, theft, arson, injury to a person for no reason.”

I
shake my head, “I ate some pedophiles and murderers.”

She
smiles, “You are clean. You may enter the gates of the garden. Eating sin is your
job. It is not a sin. You actually have the right of the God you serve to judge
people’s lives and choose if they live or die.”

“Creepy.”

Wyatt
shakes his head, “So she can’t have sex, even though she is married?”

The
witch smiles, “Sex is sex, Van Helsing.”

“Doesn’t
the goddess control the garden? Why does she care about sin?”

I
look at Wyatt, “We can do it after the garden.” He looks desperate. I laugh,
“Is that why you married me?”

He
cocks his head, “Yes, I stabbed us both in the heart and suffered unending
agony to have sex.”

I
shrug, “Sounds legit.”

He
sighs, “Well, this blows.” He gives the witch a look, “You never answered the
garden question.”

She
laughs, “I don’t make the rules. I just know an original sin will keep her from
the garden and those are the original sins. Sex removes purity of the soul. It
makes us less committed to our goal; we transfer our energy when we have sex.”

I
look at Wyatt, “Willow never had sex.”

He
scowls, “Lillith had sex to have you. She’s in the garden.”

I
give the witch a scowl. She shakes her head, “I don’t know. I just know witches
who don’t have sex, go into the garden. Witches who do can’t get past the
gate.”

Wyatt
points, “This is a double standard.”

I
grimace, “Not if the nixie cleanse her every time she goes back in.”

The
fire witch winces. “I would imagine that is how it is done.”

Wyatt
shrugs but I nudge him, “They are our sisters. We don’t let them die for us.”

The
fire witch nods at Lila. She walks to me and takes my hand in hers. She pulls
her wand again and draws on my palm. She uses fire of course, burning a map
into my hand. “Follow this and it will take you to the air witches. If you are
there, they will come for you.” Lila opens the door with her finger again. She
smiles at us, “Be safe.”

I
nod, “Thank you.”

Wyatt
takes my hand in his and we walk through the garden of the dead. We are more
alive than we have ever been and more relaxed. The girls in my head are gone
but the lack of emotion is there still, like I still can only feel my
piece-of-the-pie worth of love. I wish it were the same for pain.

He
hands me his shirt. I scowl, “You’ll freeze.”

He
laughs, “Yeah, but not every dude is gonna be able to see my wife’s boobs.”

I
laugh until it dawns on me that I am a wife. I am married. I am like the biggest
idiot ever. I just married a guy I’ve known half a year.
A
guy who has tried to kill me.
A guy whose family hates
me.
A guy who I can’t even have
sex with.

Awesome.

I
step into the water in my skirt, shivering instantly. Wyatt kisses the side of
my head, “Did I mention, I love you.”

I
look up at him, and no matter how hard I try, I cannot fight the smile I get. I
know I love him too. I nod and push into the next kiss he plants on my
forehead. We dive into the water and they are there. I hold my hand out to the
brunette who has met us at the shore, “Can you take us there? We followed the
map to here, but it’s over there somewhere. An island I think.”

She
nods once, giving Wyatt a look. I sigh, “He’s mine. Like the baggage I take
everywhere with me.”

She
scowls and Wyatt chuckles.

They
grab my hand but not his. I grab his as I’m pulled away. He laughs when we are
under water again, “They won’t touch me—never touch another woman’s
husband.”

I
growl, “You might have said something.”

He
laughs in the bubbly-weird laugh we have under water, “I forgot till now.”

The
swim is short, like seconds short. We get to a floating dock. It is in the
middle of the ocean. They leave us there. I swim to the dock after Wyatt. He
hops up and offers me his hand. I let him pull me up. We both shiver, huddling
into each other for warmth.

We
are surrounded by mist and the dark night. It is creepy, maybe not quite as
creepy as the earth witches’ house, but still very creepy. I sense movement in
the fog and tighten my grip on Wyatt.

He
turns around, pushing me behind him, and holds me there. The mist moves again,
and I swear I hear a song on it. It’s lovely.

Wyatt
winces. The mist swirls
and forms into a figure and then a
face, and then it’s
gone again.

I
hear the song again. I realize it’s a voice. “Why do you seek us?”

I
look at Wyatt. He frowns, “What?”

“You
don’t hear that?”

He
shakes his head, “Air witches are telepathic. They hear your thoughts and send
you theirs.”

I
sigh, “You have to tell me these things before we get to the dock.”

He
shrugs, “Didn’t seem important.”

I
concentrate and think, “We need your help with the horsemen.”

Something
drops onto the dock. I scream and jump. A massive winged woman walks towards
us. The dock trembles under her feet. She looks like a Viking woman. Strong,
blonde, scary and a little too muscled for a girl.”

She
lowers her eyes on me, and I swear they see right through me with their
brilliance. They are blue in the way the sky is in July on a cloudless day.
They are tranquil and yet harsh.

“Why
do you want to kill the horsemen?”

I
look at her, “I am the sin eater.”

She
narrows her gaze, giving Wyatt a skeptical look. I exhale and my wings pop out.
She smiles instantly and the blue of her eyes is pleasant. The stress is gone
from her face. She nods, “You are the sin eater.”

I
nod, not sure why we are repeating things. She looks at him, “What is he?”

“Mine.”

She shrugs
,
she
doesn’t care about him
. She wants me. She nods upward, “We fly.”

I
wince, “I’m not great at the whole flying thing. I sort of have to be falling
first.”

She
shakes her head, “You fly or you stay.”

I give Wyatt a smile
,
“We fly.”

He
grimaces, “You got this?”

I
nod and offer him my hand. I do a couple squats. The air witch gives me a
confused look. She jumps from the dock, shaking it back and forth. I almost get
seasick and leap up too. My wings try to flap but we fall back to the dock.
Wyatt laughs, “Fly first and then come get me.”

I
let go of his hand, “Ok.”

I
jump up, almost getting it. He grabs my foot and tosses me high into the air. I
flap upward to where she is and shout, “Be right back!”

She
looks
confused,
I don’t think she has many other
faces.

I
dive towards the dock, soaring down. “JUMP!”

He
turns and leaps. I catch his arms but we drag down. He goes under water for a
second, like I’ve dunked a tea biscuit in my tea. I flap hard, really focusing
on the wings. We start to go up again. It takes me forever to get back up to
where she is. She points and takes off. Wyatt is shouting at me but I shake my
head, “Not looking down at you. Sorry. I can’t do this. If I look down, we’re
dead.”

He
starts to climb my body like I am a tree. He climbs around the front of me. I
shake my head, “Stop moving. I’m going to get sick.”

He
shouts back, “You get sick on me, and I’ll pull that damned dagger out of your
heart and put it back in.”

I
sneer, focusing on the flying angel witch in front of me. “God, she’s so
graceful and good at this.”

I
can see his grin in my peripheral, “She isn’t lugging two hundred pounds with
her.”

I
growl, “You need to go on a diet.”

“No
way, baby.
I’m at seven percent body fat
,
I like it there
. I still have an ass in my jeans but not my
old hockey-player ass.”

I
laugh and suddenly the flying feels easier. The better my mood and the less
worrying, the easier it gets.

We
fly through a huge, white fluffy cloud. I lose sight of her and then I realize
Wyatt is walking, and sort of carrying me.

“Can
you touch?”

He
nods, “This cloud is a platform.”

I
shake my head, “Don’t let go though, okay?” I look down at the map on my hand.
We are right over the burning red ember at the end of the line. I look up and
scream, seeing the blonde. She is with other blondes. It’s like Hitler’s angel
army in a cloud city. Where the other witches all have women of all nations and
races, the air witches do not. I swear one girl looks like she might have
exotic features but she has blue eyes and blonde hair. It’s creepy to see so
many of them.

Wyatt
drags his feet. My wings suck in and he’s holding me in the air. We are
surrounded by a white city. It is like nothing I could have imagined.

I
still can’t look down. I’m scared it’s like that tower we saw in geography with
the glass-bottom floor.

The
blonde points at me, “Sin eater, meet the white priestess.”

The
blonde next to her, in the white gown that almost looks like a toga, gives me a
nod. I bow, not sure what else to do. Wyatt shakes his head, “Please excuse
her, she doesn’t know anything. She was raised as a mortal.”

The
white priestess makes a face, “With wings and raised as if you were a human?”
She finds this distasteful, apparently.

“Yes,
your majesty.”

Wyatt
laughs and leans
in,
“Stop. She isn’t your queen. She
is the queen of the air witches.”

The
beautiful, and yet stern-looking, priestess nods, “Your pet is correct. You owe
me no fealty. We serve the same true king. What are you wearing?”

I
look down at the massive black skirt and Wyatt’s black shirt. “What?”

“You
look like one of those depressing fire witches.” Her eyes trail Wyatt’s bare
abs, “His outfit is much nicer.”

I
smile at her lecherous stare. He tilts his head, giving her the smile. Bam!
There it is. Sweet God. I smile when I see her response. She has weak knees and
she’s doing the heavy mouth-breathing thing I always end up doing. He is like
an addiction. She blushes and turns back to me.

I
blank my thoughts, actively working at filtering the dumb thoughts and weird
judgments I constantly have.

I
point at her, “She looks like Nicole Kidman a bit, huh?” Okay, some things get
through the filter.

Wyatt
smiles, “Inside voice, not the outside one.”

She
ignores my idiotic comment and looks down at the cloud-covered floor, “Do you
know how to kill the horsemen?”

I
shake my head, “That’s why I’m here.”

A
sly smile creeps across her perfect pink lips, “You don’t?”

I
shake my head, “No. I don’t know how.”

She
shakes her head as if teasing me, “No. You don’t kill the horsemen. They are
the mighty king’s men. They are God’s horsemen. He has sent them to test his
people. To see who will falter and not stay strong in their belief, in the face
of pain and death and suffering.”

It
doesn’t feel right. I frown, “Are you sure? It seems like they are kind of
evil.”

She
shouts for no reason at all, “YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING, CHILD!”

I
step back. Wyatt steps in front of me, “She knows her gut feeling. If she
thinks it’s wrong, it is. Who told you this was the way it would be?”

She
paces in front of him, suddenly shaken or upset. I don’t even understand why.
No wonder the other witches think they’re crazy.

Her
eyes turn on me, “Those traitors think we are the crazy ones?”

Wyatt
gives me a look. I wince, “Sorry. Weak mind.”

He
turns back to her, “If you ask me, the air witches are the best ones. You have
stayed true to the angels who helped make you what you are. You serve God, as
we do. You fight for the cause of God’s people, like we do. Fire witches are
selfish and don’t even get me started on earth witches.
Slutty
space cadets.
The
nixie are
creepy, very
creepy. You guys are the only ones I trust because we both serve God. Now tell
me, who told you the horsemen were his?”

She
swallows hard, “The angels.”

“Which
ones?”

“Michael.
Our father.”

Wyatt
bites his lip and takes a deep breath, “Michael is the angel of war. He wants
war. He wants to get back to Earth and have a big old war. I’m not saying the
horsemen aren’t God’s. I’m just saying their purpose is extinction. They’re
supposed to kill off the weak and save the truly penitent and suffer the evil.
But they go about it in a dark sort of way.”

”It
is a dark deed that is being done.”

Wyatt
puts a hand up, “I agree, but we can’t let them all loose. The third brings
starvation. People starving and the scripture says the rich will be fine; it is
the already impoverished and the middle class who will die from starvation and
poverty.”

She
nods, her eyes burning with something. She knows something we do not. Her lips
twist into a grin. “The black horse is upon the Earth now. They shall all be
tested.”

“Shit.”

Wyatt
nods, “Double shit.”

“The
horsemen will come for Lillith’s blood.” The priestess laughs as if we’ve told
a joke. I feel like it might be on us though.