Pestilence (The Four Horsemen Book 1)

  “Humans,” he mutters.

  My breathing is coming in heavy pants. I buck, but it gets me nowhere.

  A moment later I hear material rip as Pestilence tears the back of my shirt open.

  The horseman’s fingers hook beneath my linen bandages, the pressure causing me to jerk from a sudden burst of pain as my wounds wake up, and then he begins ripping through those too. He tears the linen apart like it’s nothing more than tissue paper.

  The process hurts. I don’t think Pestilence is deliberately trying to harm me, but every brush of his knuckles or tug against my skin flares up my wounds.

  At some point, it ends. Goosebumps break out across my skin as the cold air of the living room kisses my flesh.

  There’s a pause, and then the horseman’s warm palm brushes against my skin. His touch is only there for a moment.

  “Sit up,” he orders.

  What?

  Clutching the remaining tatters of my borrowed shirt to my chest, I do as he says.

  “Shirt off,” he says, sounding vaguely annoyed.

  I let out a shuddering breath.

  I don’t want to do as he asks if only because, despite how open he is with nudity, I’m not. But now … I’m remembering the way my body dragged across that asphalt, and the remorseless look in Pestilence’s eyes the last time I disobeyed him.

  This is not a human I’m dealing with. He won’t hesitate to hurt me more if I resist.

  And I’m tired of resisting. It just feels so … useless against this unstoppable force.

  I shrug off my shirt, doing my best to cover my breasts with my arms.

  Pestilence’s hand moves to my back, his fingers splayed out. His touch is gentle, but I jerk at the feel of it anyway.

  “Hold this against your front,” he says from behind me.

  I glance down at what he’s offering. It takes me a second to register that the white cloth he’s holding out to me is gauze.

  Bandages. He means to bandage me.

  I let out a shuddering sigh that ends up sounding like a sob. Alright, maybe it was a sob. And that sob turns into a hiccupping laugh, which turns into another laugh. And then I can’t stop laughing, even as tears begin to slip out from my eyes and I’m no longer sure whether I’m laughing or crying, because.

  Because.

  Because oh-my-fucking-God, I shot a man and lit him on fire and even now I want to throw up that I could do that to anyone, even a harbinger of the apocalypse. But the nightmare didn’t end there. I was tied up and forced to run behind the same undying creature that I thought I killed, the same creature that’s killing us all off. And I was then dragged, and my arm was wrenched out of its socket and my back feels like it was torn to bits—not to mention my legs—and I had to watch a man die the most horrific death, and now I’m being patched up when I thought I was going to be physically humiliated, and ugh, this nightmare is not going to end because Pestilence is an ungodly psycho who isn’t satisfied with destroying life as we know it. He must make an example of mine along the way.

  Now I’m no longer laughing, and I’m not even sure you could call this crying. It’s a full body sob, like my mind’s trying to purge everything it’s witnessed

  “I hope you’re enjoying this,” I say through my tears.

  “I am,” Pestilence responds joylessly. “Here.” He passes me the roll of gauze. Still shaking with the force of my emotions, I take the bandages and wrap the linen across my torso, then pass it back. The two of us do this over and over again until he’s redressed my wounds.

  I wipe my eyes, clear my throat, and pull myself together.

  Deep breath.

  It’s all going to be okay—or it isn’t, but that’s okay too.

  Once I trust myself to speak, I say over my shoulder, “I appreciate what you’re doing, but if I don’t clean the wounds, they’re going to get infected.” I mean, they might not, but that’s a gamble.

  I suppose I should simply be grateful for this little bit of kindness.

  “That’s unnecessary,” the horseman says.

  “What do you mean that’s unnecessary?” I ask, trying to riddle out what he means.

  “Your wounds won’t become infected.”

  I swivel more fully to face him. “How do you know that?”

  He looks heavenward, like he’s trying to find both God and his patience in the rafters. “Because I control infection in all its forms.”

  Seriously? So not only can he prevent me from catching the plague, he doesn’t need to clean my wounds to keep infection at bay?

  “Then why change the bandages at all?” I ask, facing forward again.

  “An injury this large demands upkeep for it to heal properly,” Pestilence says. He rips the gauze from the roll and ties it off. “Now, give me your wrists.”

  I do so, oddly mesmerized by the situation—and by Pestilence, if I’m being honest.

  He leans over my wrists, his wavy golden hair falling in front of his eyes as he unwinds the old gauze. At this angle, the horseman looks heart-wrenchingly innocent, which is an odd thing to say about a man, particularly one who has a healthy kill rate under his belt. Perhaps it’s simply that he’s being gentle for once, or that I’m finally getting a glimpse of his (vanishingly small) humanity.

  My brows furrow as I stare at his bent head. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Suffering is meant for the living.”

  I don’t know why I expect a different answer. And I get it. I hurt him, so he hurts me. We’re both just following script. It’s just this moment that I don’t get. Watching him care for me, being tender with me. It’s unsettling enough to expect an answer beyond, I want to make you suffer.

  But if there’s another explanation, I’m not going to get it.

  Chapter 13

  Baths are going to be a problem.

  The next day, I stare Pestilence down, the tub at my back, the door at his. The two of us are crammed inside a small bathroom in the new house we’ve decided to bed down in.

  Like the last home we stayed at, this one is blessedly empty. And bonus: this house has electricity, which means hot water, which means my ass is getting cleaned.

  The only snag is the psycho who thinks that I’m going to run away despite the fact that he’s left me alone in a bathroom before—hell, he’s left me alone in bedrooms and living rooms and kitchens. He knows he’s broken my will to escape him. So I don’t understand why he thinks there’s any sort of need to stay in the bathroom with me.

  “Okay, you have to leave,” I say, staring at the giant man-thing across from me.

  His arms fold over his golden armor. Horseman code for make me, lady.

  “You might not know this, but people don’t watch other people take baths.” I don’t think they do at least. But maybe there’s a whole sexually deviant underbelly to society that I don’t know about. Stranger things have happened—the man in front of me case in point.

  “You want a longer leash, you’re going to have to prove it,” he says, his face haughty.

  “How about all those other times when you left me alone to go to the bathroom?”

  “You were too weak to disobey me,” he says.

  “I wasn’t last night.”

  He just stares at me.

  I throw up my arms. “I’m going to be naked and drenched in water. Do you know how cold it is outside?”

  He doesn’t respond.

  “It’s cold enough to freeze my tits off,” I answer anyway.

  No reaction. Not even a laugh. Figures. Pretty sure his sense of humor is nonexistent.

  “Please.” I’m shamelessly resorting to begging.

  “Please?” he echoes. “Have you forgotten our history? I begged and you denied.” He leans against the door. “Take your bath, human, or don’t, but I’m not leaving this room without you.”

  I seriously consider forgoing the bath. I’m no prude, but I’m not exactly thrilled to by showing the goods to the creature that’s trying to end civ
ilization either.

  But in the end, it comes down to practicality. I’m covered in blood and dirt and who knows what other bodily fluids. I’m a biohazard.

  Giving Pestilence a dirty look, I turn on the hot water spigot and begin removing my clothes.

  He doesn’t have a problem with nudity, I try to reassure myself as I shuck off my pants. I think back to the sight of him buck naked. He doesn’t even know he’s supposed to be embarrassed.

  That reassures me only a little.

  It’s when I reach for the gauze covering my torso that I hit a snag. Wherever Pestilence tied off the linen bandages, it’s beyond my reach. I tug fruitlessly at the wrappings until the horseman peels himself away from the door.

  He knocks my hands away and turns my back to him. I’m about to protest when rrrrrrip, he tears the linen away from my back.

  Once he’s finished, he bends to my ear. “You’re welcome.”

  I make a face to the wall as he returns to the doorway.

  By the time the bath is nearly full and blessedly heated, the rest of my clothes and bandages are gone.

  Pestilence’s eyes flick over my body in that same dispassionate way they did before. I could be a lamp, for all his interest.

  I should be relieved. If he were to instead assess each imperfection of mine, I might die of embarrassment.

  His indifference, however, still gets under my skin. I’m not sure if I want him to be impressed at the sight of my body (ew), or if it bothers me that he feels nothing when he sees a naked woman. Humans have a slew of opinions when it comes to the female body (can’t get fuckers to shut up about it), and Pestilence’s lack of reaction only serves to remind me that he’s something else.

  I step into the tub, the water blessedly hot. I sigh as I sink into it.

  On the other side of the bathroom, the horseman sets aside his bow and quiver, leaning the weapons against the nearby wall before resting his head against the door. His gaze crawls over me, not crude or creepy, but curious and mildly interested.

  I wonder if this is all strange and new for him. Women, nudity, bathtubs, running water—the whole shebang. He’s not just some person who’s been born into this world and takes all these things for granted.

  I sink deeper into the water, soaking in the water’s warmth.

  Been so long since I took a decent bath.

  Most of the time it’s an icy dousing that I have to rush through before I catch my death. Tonight I’m going to stay in here until my fingertips look like prunes.

  “Where are you from?” I ask idly.

  Pestilence’s eyes narrow. “Elsewhere.”

  Of course he is.

  I grab a bar of homemade soap and a nearby folded washcloth, and I begin to wash myself off, starting with my toes. I make my way up my body, scouring my skin until it feels raw and clean. Bits of blood and dirt slough off of me.

  There’s no shampoo or conditioner—not terribly surprising, considering they’re extravagances—so I lather my hair with soap, scrubbing it the best I can with my fingers, knowing full well it’s going to feel funky once it’s dry.

  Better than dirty, I suppose.

  It’s only after everything else is clean that I reluctantly attempt to wash my back. As soon as the cloth scrapes against my back, the wounds cry out. Unfortunately, that’s not even the biggest issue I have. There’s a good portion of my back that I can’t reach, no matter how hard I try.

  And I’m trying my ass off.

  I hear the clink of metal as Pestilence moves.

  I eye him warily as he kneels next to the tub. He takes the washcloth from me, and one of his hands grips my shoulder, causing me to tense up.

  He looks me in the eye. “I’m only doing this because your weak attempts at hygiene are painful to watch,” he warns.

  My lips part, but before I get the chance to speak, he grabs the back of my neck. “Bend forward.”

  I hesitate, annoyed at the way he’s treating me, but eventually I do lean forward, wrapping my hands around my calves.

  His fingers brush my damp hair aside, the touch sending goosebumps down my arms.

  It’s just the chill air, I tell myself.

  I clench my teeth as Pestilence begins to clean my wounds, his touch surprisingly gentle. It hurts anyway.

  “How easily your kind breaks,” he murmurs as the washcloth makes another pass over my wounded flesh.

  It’s the closest he’s going to come to an apology, and I guess it’s good enough. I mean, at least he didn’t try to kill me like I tried to kill him.

  Only because he wants you to suffer.

  Once Pestilence is done, he gives me back the washcloth, then returns to the door, sitting with his back against it. He grabs his bow and rests it on his lap, once more the prison guard.

  The water is grimy and cooling fast, and yet, I’m now hesitant to leave. My back still aches where Pestilence scoured it with the washcloth, and my nerves are rubbed even rawer.

  I’m feeling a little weird towards him. I don’t know whether it’s weird good or weird bad—probably weird bad.

  I pull my knees up to my chest, leaning my cheek against them. “You still don’t know my name,” I say.

  “I don’t need to,” he says, brushing a stray lock of hair from his face. “‘Human’ is just fine.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  His eyes narrow.

  “Sara,” I say. “My name is Sara.”

  He frowns. “What does it matter what you’re called?” he responds. “You’re all the same.”

  “Gee, you know how to make a girl feel special.”

  His mouth turns down. “You aren’t special. None of you are. You’re all vile, violent things.”

  “Says the guy who’s killing off people by the thousands.”

  “I don’t enjoy it,” he says.

  “Neither did I.” The memory of Pestilence bleeding in the road, bleeding and yet alive, it still sets my teeth on edge.

  “Could’ve fooled me,” he says.

  I force out a laugh. “Then you’re not nearly as good at reading humans as you are at judging them.”

  He cocks his head. “Maybe,” he agrees, “but then, I don’t need to read them, do I?”

  He just needs to kill them.

  We’re quiet for a while. The horseman is scrutinizing the pliancy of his bow, and I’m letting the water’s chill sink into my skin.

  “Do you have a name?” I ask. “Other than ‘Pestilence the Conqueror’?”

  He sets his bow aside. “I was not named.”

  I don’t dwell on the fact that implied in that statement is that someone else was around who could’ve named him.

  “Why not?”

  Pestilence’s eyes sharpen on mine. “I do not need a name to have a purpose. Humans are the ones who demand names for every blade of grass on this good green earth.”

  Because naming things humanizes them. And once you humanize something, you are essentially recognizing its existence. But considering that the horseman is on a mission to kill as many people as possible, I can see why he’d have a problem with humanizing anything.

  He wasn’t given a name. I let that sink in.

  Setting aside my intense dislike for the man, there’s a part of me that feels sorry for him. He doesn’t even have a proper name.

  Be happy, Sara. Otherwise, you might risk humanizing him.

  And wouldn’t that be awful?

  “So … it’s fine to call you Pestilence?” I say.

  He inclines his head. “It’s just a name.”

  Just a name. How ironic, considering not a minute ago he insisted he wasn’t named. Then again, maybe I’m the one thinking about this wrong. Pestilence the Conqueror was the name we gave him. It’s not like it was emblazoned across his chest the day he arrived, or something he declared as he was massacring whole cities.

  I stare at the horseman some more. He really hurts my eyes. It’s a good thing I don’t trust pretty men. Because this one is defi
nitely the prettiest I’ve ever seen, and he’s also the worst one of the lot—save for maybe his brethren, but since the world hasn’t seen hide nor hair of them … he remains the worst.

  Pestilence stands, slinging first his bow then his quiver over his shoulders.

  “Come,” he says. He grabs a towel from the rack and throws it at me. I don’t manage to catch it in time, and a good portion of it hits the water. “I know you’ve finished bathing,” he continues, oblivious to the black look I’m giving him, “and I’m eager to leave this latrine.”

  “It’s not a latrine,” I say, standing and wrapping the towel around myself. “It’s a bathroom.”

  He shakes his head as he opens the door. “Bath-room.” He splits the word into two parts. “The irony of the term isn’t lost on me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Only you humans would think it wise to put your privy next to your bathing vessels.”

  Seems reasonable to me. I mean, you shit, and then you bathe. What’s there not to like about the arrangement?

  “Where would you put it?” I ask, tilting my head to towel off my hair.

  He opens the door. “Not next to each other.”

  Oh, that’s real helpful.

  “Of course you would bitch about a problem without actually having a solution,” I say.

  He glances at me over his shoulder, swaggering down the hall. “One doesn’t need to have a solution to recognize a problem when they see one.”

  “Your solution would probably be to burn toilets everywhere. Right? ‘They’re vile, disgusting things. Just get rid of them!’”

  Ahead of me Pestilence guffaws. “Only a human would come up with such a ridiculous solution.”

  “I was mocking you!”

  “I thought mockery was supposed to be insulting?” he says as he glances back at me. “As far as I can tell, you are the one who likened your kind to privies.”

  Ugh. I did, didn’t I?

  “You’re missing the point,” I say.

  “I fail to see how you have one.”

  This is never going to end. The two of us could keep going round and round like this until the end of time.

  “Forget about it,” I mutter, leaving the horseman to go search for clothes.