Pestilence (The Four Horsemen Book 1)

  “You’re sure we shouldn’t pack the tent?” I ask, throwing one final look at the thing. It looks so lonely next to the remains of our fire. There’s a chance we’ll still be in the middle of nowhere when we stop later today.

  Pestilence follows my gaze, giving it a black look. “We won’t be needing it again. Tonight we’ll find a house to sleep in—or we won’t sleep at all.”

  There’s more than one way to hurt a person. This time I didn’t have to shoot the horseman or light him on fire to cause him pain. All I had to do was act like last night was a mistake.

  And was it?

  I want it to be a mistake, and Lord knows I feel bad right now, but not because I kissed the horseman. Or because I snuggled with him. I feel like crap right now because he’s still giving me the same silent treatment hours later, and it’s freaking working.

  Driving me mad.

  I’ve already told him random stories from my childhood, like the time I chipped my tooth because I literally tripped over my own shoelace, or about how my friends and I had an annual tradition of jumping into Cheakamus Lake as soon as the ice melted from it. I even admitted to him how I developed stage fright. (I fell in front of my entire middle school class as I walked up to the podium—I couldn’t get a word out after that.)

  He didn’t react to a single one, though I know he was listening raptly by the way his hand would tense and relax as it gripped me.

  So I try poetry for a change.

  “‘Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, …’” I begin, quoting Poe’s “The Raven.” I recite the whole poem, and again, I can tell just by the way Pestilence holds himself that he’s listening to me.

  But like my stories, he says nothing after I finish reciting it.

  I move from “The Raven” to Hamlet. “‘To be or not to be, that is the question …’”

  I quote the play for as long as I can, but eventually, the lines get jumbled in my mind and I have to abandon the soliloquy.

  Still nothing from Pestilence.

  I recite Lord Byron (“Darkness”) and Emily Dickinson (“Because I could not stop for Death”) and more Poe (“Annabel Lee”), and the entire time the horseman doesn’t utter one single word. Not even to tell me to shut the hell up.

  I give up.

  “What are you thinking?” I finally ask.

  He doesn’t respond.

  I lay my hand over the one that presses against my stomach, securing him to me. “Pestilence?”

  His hand flexes.

  “Last night I could not decide which you were—a tonic or a toxin,” he says. “Today I’ve discovered you’re both.”

  I wince a little at his words.

  “You have woken in me things I did not know slumbered,” he continues. “Now that I am aware of them, I cannot ignore their existence. I fear I am becoming … like you. Human and full of want. I need this longing to go away.”

  “Longing?” I almost choke the word out.

  “Don’t tell me I am mistaken in this too,” he says bitterly. “Love, lust, longing—you cannot refashion my feelings. I know my heart, Sara, even if it’s alien to you.”

  What did I walk myself into?

  “What do you want from me?” I ask.

  “Nothing! Everything! Fuck,” he swears, the profanity shocking coming from his tongue. “This is so confusing.”

  I’m about to speak when he cuts in. “I want to taste your lips again. I want to hold you like I did in the tent. I don’t understand why I want these things, only that I do.”

  My face heats. Is it wrong to feel flattered when Pestilence is clearly having an existential crisis?

  No?

  Alright.

  “Love, affection, compassion—these are the few redeeming qualities your kind has,” he says, “and now I’m being tempted by them and it is breaking me in two.”

  Ever been stuck in a situation you desperately want to get out of, but there’s no escape? That’s this moment, sitting here on Trixie Skillz and listening to Pestilence tell me about all his feels.

  “I can sense you drawing away from me,” he says. “The more I want from you, the more reluctant you are to give it. And I don’t know what to do.”

  I do. “Stop spreading plague.”

  He laughs humorlessly. “I cannot help what I am any more than you can help what you are.”

  Is that really true though? He spared me, which means he has at least a tiny bit of control over his lethal ability.

  “We are locked into these roles, you and I,” he says, “and I do not know what to make of this misery.”

  He sounds so desolate, so hopeless.

  I squeeze his hand.

  My heart hurts again. This man is so much worse than all the other men I’ve ever known, and yet I feel chafed raw by him.

  I reach up and tilt his head down to mine, and then I brush a kiss against his lips.

  I can feel his sweet agony in the kiss. He leans his forehead against mine. “This is misery, Sara,” he repeats. “But it is the sweetest misery I have ever felt. I don’t want it to stop.”

  I hate myself a little when I say, “It won’t.”

  It’s the middle of the night before we come across a house. We’ve already passed through a city, so it’s not like there weren’t other options, but driven by whatever supernatural force controls him, Pestilence pressed on without stopping.

  As I dismount, I squint into the distance. Perhaps it’s just my imagination, but I swear I see faint specks of light. Another city? At the thought, some residual fear from Vancouver rises up. I can still hear the gunshots, see the panic, and feel Pestilence’s warm blood against my skin.

  The horseman passes me, his armor and weaponry clinking dully as he makes his way to the front of the house.

  He grabs the doorknob and twists, cleanly breaking the lock. The door swings open, creaking as it does so.

  “You know, you could always try knocking,” I say.

  “And allow your fellow humans to grab their guns? I think not, dear Sara.”

  Pestilence steps inside, not bothering to mask his entrance.

  Farther in, I can hear furious whispering, and then stumbling footfalls.

  “Whoever you are,” a man hollers, “you have one minute to get the hell out of my house. Otherwise, I’ll blow a fucking hole in your head.”

  I glance at Pestilence’s form. “Seems like the guy’s going to grab his gun anyway.”

  It’s too dark to see the horseman’s reaction, but I already know he wears a grim look. I hear rather than see Pestilence grab his bow and notch an arrow into it.

  The man’s footfalls get louder as he gets closer. He must be carrying an oil lamp because our surroundings subtly brighten. I can make out a cluttered living room with odds and ends stuffed into every nook and cranny.

  Just as the man steps onto the entryway, his oil lamp coming into full view, Pestilence’s bow makes a small twang. A second later, the man across from us lets out a shout, dropping something heavy—something that suspiciously sounds like a gun.

  “What the fuck!” he yells.

  With another slick sound, a second arrow is notched into Pestilence’s bow. “Move for the weapon, and my aim will be a little better.”

  The man lifts his lamp a little higher, getting a good look at the horseman. He curses as he recognizes him.

  “Get the hell out of my house!” he roars.

  I take a step back, the force of his words enough to drive me out into the night. Pestilence grips my upper arm, keeping me in place.

  “We mean to stay,” the horseman says.

  “Like hell you do!”

  From the hallway I hear more voices. I close my eyes when I realize this is another family. More children I’ll have to watch die. Another set of footsteps heads our way.

  “The devil will dance on my grave before I host you,” the man says to Pestilence. His eyes slide to me. He gives me a cruel, mean look, like I’m less than the dirt on
his boot. “You and your whore.”

  In the next instant, Pestilence takes two strides to the man. Grabbing him by the neck, he slams him against the wall, causing the drywall to buckle.

  A woman—clearly this man’s wife—steps into the foyer, a scream catching in her throat as she takes in Pestilence and then her husband, who’s currently in his clutches. She covers her mouth, her eyes darting back down the hallway where her children are.

  “It is one thing for you to insult me,” Pestilence growls, ignoring the woman altogether, “another for you to insult her.” He jerks his head my way. “One will earn you my ire, the other, a painful death.” He squeezes the man’s neck tight enough to hear him choke. “Do you understand?”

  “Get—out,” the man says.

  Pestilence shakes him a little. “Do you understand?” he repeats, a dangerous edge entering his voice.

  The man glares at Pestilence, his expression full of malice, but he holds his tongue and nods.

  All at once, the horseman drops him, and the man crumples to the ground.

  “Now,” Pestilence says, turning to the woman who’s still watching all of this with her hands covering her mouth, “my companion needs food and a bed.”

  “We have no food or beds to spare,” the man says coldly from where he lays, rubbing his neck.

  At that point, I decide to walk out of the house. Behind me I can hear more threats coming from the horseman. I just don’t have it in me to watch as we ruin yet another family’s life.

  I find a large boulder on the edge of the front yard and I sit there until my hands and nose go numb.

  I hate that I’m seen as in league with Pestilence. I might be attracted to the horseman, but I by no means agree with what he’s doing.

  Eventually, I hear heavy footfalls making their way to me.

  “There’s bed and a hot meal waiting for you inside,” Pestilence says.

  I toe a bit of grass. “I’m fine.”

  “So you’re just going to stay out here all night?” he asks, squinting up at the stars.

  If my body were as tough as my will, I would.

  “Why do you have to invade people’s homes?” I ask instead.

  I know even as I say it that the horseman doesn’t do this because he wants to; he does it because I’m the one who needs food and rest. It’s me he dotes on, even at the expense of his victims.

  “All the world is mine,” Pestilence says. “Even this ogre’s house.” He scowls back at the place.

  Maybe this sick feeling is survivor’s guilt. Or maybe it’s remorse for my shifting loyalties. Either way, the horseman’s words worm under my skin.

  All the world is mine. Of course Pestilence the Conqueror would believe that.

  “Is it not enough to die by your hand?” I say. “Do we also have to kiss it on our way out?”

  Because that’s essentially what the horseman is doing when he forces these people to do his bidding.

  “You rather enjoyed the act, last I remember,” he says softly, his eyes dipping to my lips.

  I’m happy that Pestilence can’t see the flush that spreads across my cheeks. I glance away.

  “Are you mad at me?” he asks.

  I sigh. “No. I just … this is misery,” I say, harkening back to the horseman’s earlier words.

  He studies me for several seconds. “Come inside,” he says gently.

  My eyes move back to him slowly. Now when he looks at me, I notice more than just a pretty face. I see the first stirrings of compassion in his eyes.

  That’s new.

  All my resolve folds under the ardor in Pestilence’s eyes. No one’s ever looked at me that way. I stand, entranced by the look. A whisper of a smile touches the corners of his mouth, as I let him lead me back inside.

  The horseman has learned how to feel. Nothing good can come out of this.

  Nothing at all.

  Chapter 27

  Nick Jameson is a mean, mean man. He didn’t need a horseman to drop on his doorstep for that to be the case.

  Our host’s one redeeming quality, as far as I can tell, is that he loves his family, though even this is a possessive, selfish sort of love. More than once I’ve seen the whites of his sons’ eyes as they dart quick glances at their father, and most of the time his wife keeps her head ducked and her gaze downcast.

  All the next day, Nick watches me, his hate so clearly carved across his face, his lips pressed into a thin line. Pestilence might be the man responsible for spreading plague, but it’s clear who Nick Jameson blames.

  I don’t see anything besides that hate until late in the afternoon. Nick’s wife—Amelia, I think her name is—finds me outside, standing just opposite their icebox, petting Trixie.

  “Sara,” she calls, coming closer.

  I pause, my hand resting against Trixie’s striking white coat.

  “Yes?” My eyes reluctantly fall on her. Amelia’s face is flush with the first signs of fever. Like the rest of the family, the plague is already sinking its talons in her.

  “How did you … how did you come to be in the horseman’s company?” she asks, coming to my side.

  I turn back to Trixie, my hand moving over the horse’s neck once more. “I tried to kill him,” I say emotionlessly. “He doesn’t die,” I add, just in case Amelia or Nick were getting ideas.

  Amelia sidles in closer. “How long ago was that?” she asks.

  “Weeks.” It seems like lifetimes ago.

  “How are you still alive?” she asks, almost wondrously.

  My fingers dig into Trixie’s mane. “It’s his way of punishing me.”

  After several seconds, she says, “So you tried to kill him?”

  I can hear it in her voice, a plan forming.

  I swivel fully to face Amelia. Her eyes are red and puffy, and her cheeks are so pink they look freshly slapped.

  “It won’t work,” I say.

  “What won’t—”

  “Trying to get him to spare you or your family. If you think he’ll save you from death like he has me, I’m here to tell you he won’t. Since he took me, he’s killed everyone else who’s tried to end his life.”

  Her eyes search mine, “why did he spare you?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

  I mean, he keeps saying that I need to suffer, but it’s been a while since he’s actually made me suffer.

  “So there’s no hope?” she presses. “There’s no way to help my family?”

  “He doesn’t know mercy,” I tell her.

  But does he? He feels hate and lust and longing, perhaps he’s felt merciful a time or two …

  Amelia rubs her eyes. “I can’t watch my children die,” she says. “Don’t you understand? I gave them life. I held them inside me, then in my arms. All these years I’ve protected them—so if there’s a way to save them, any way at all, please tell me.”

  Grief once again has me in its grip. I wonder when I’ll get over it; when I’ll be desensitized to all of the pain and suffering around me.

  Her eyes search mine. “Was there something you did—a deal you made … ?”

  I swallow. I think I know what she’s getting at.

  “Amelia, if there was something that I could do, I would.” If giving my body over to the horseman would pay for life, I’d gladly do it. But it won’t.

  A tear slips out from the corner of her eye.

  I take her by the arm. “You need to get inside—”

  “What does it matter?” she says, frustration now coating her words.

  She has a point, though I don’t bother saying as much. Instead I escort her back to her bedroom.

  “Rest,” I tell her, lingering in the doorway. Nick is nowhere to be seen. “I’ll get you and your boys a glass of water.”

  The house is eerily silent as I wander back to the kitchen. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was the only one inside the house. It’s only as I pass one of the sons’ bedrooms that I hear husky, masculine weeping behind th
e closed door. I know without peering inside that it’s Nick, broken by his grief.

  Shortly after I enter the kitchen, I hear the front door open, and then the heavy footfalls of Pestilence, clad in his full regalia. My idiot heart speeds up at the sound. This slow burn I feel for the horseman is agony. Raw, exquisite agony.

  As I grab glasses from the cupboard, Pestilence comes up behind me. Sweeping my hair out of the way, he brushes a tender kiss to the back of my neck, his lips lingering.

  I forget myself for a minute. A long minute.

  “You let him touch you?”

  I startle, nearly dropping the glass cups at the sound of Nick’s voice. I swivel around, looking past the horseman.

  Nick stands at the other end of the kitchen, his eyes bright with the beginnings of fever. There’s such disgust in his expression.

  Unwillingly, my gaze moves to Pestilence, who for once doesn’t wear his usual, stoic expression. The horseman looks vulnerable and guileless and even a little unsure of himself.

  He meets my eyes, and I see that he thinks he’s done something wrong.

  That gets to me.

  I touch his face.

  It’s okay, I want to tell him.

  “Un-fucking-believable.”

  Now my eyes move back to Nick. He might be sick and weak, but he’s lucid enough, and there is such loathing in his eyes.

  “I thought that maybe you were just fucking the freak,” he says, “which is bad enough—

  Pestilence steps in front of me. “You walk a fine line, Nick,” he says, cutting the man off. “I hope you haven’t forgotten my earlier words.”

  Nick gives me a look that lets me know this matter is far from settled, and then he retreats back down the hall.

  I take a deep breath. I have to go back there to bring his wife and sons water, which means I’m going to have to interact with the man again.

  “Every time you shake my belief in human wickedness, a man like that invariably reminds me just why I must eliminate your kind,” the horseman says.

  I have several objections with that, but I voice none of them.

  “We should go, Pestilence,” I say instead. “We don’t belong here.”

  Not you don’t belong here, but we.

  “No, Sara. We stay until the deed is done.”