Loss (11 page)

“I want to see.” A hand snaked out and grabbed Billy’s hood, then yanked it back, exposing his stained hair. “You were right,” Joe said to Kurt, sounding pleased. “It
does
look like a bird took a shit on his head.”

“Looks stupid,” said Kurt.

“So does his face.”

“You don’t want stupid hair, do you?” Kurt clamped one hand on Billy’s shoulder.

Billy flinched, and hated himself for doing so.

“See that? He wants us to help him.”

Joe got right in his face. Billy swallowed tightly and counted the blackheads on Joe’s nose. “You want our help?”

Hoping that the cafeteria monitor would step in, knowing that would never happen, Billy clenched his jaw and said nothing.

“Say it,” Joe commanded.

“You have to say the words, Billy,” the Ice Cream Man insisted. “Say that you agree to wear the Crown.”

No.

He didn’t realize he’d said the word aloud until Joe’s eyes widened.

“Listen to him,” sneered Kurt, giving Billy’s shoulder a squeeze, “thinking he’s too good for our help.”

“Know what I think?” said Joe, his eyes gleaming. “I think he needs more white in it.” He grabbed the milk carton and poured the contents over Billy’s head.

Cold liquid pooled over Billy’s hair, streaming down his face and ears and chin, christening him in rivulets of white. Shock and horror gave way to outrage, and then embarrassment as Kurt and Joe and too many others to count laughed at him.

And then fury, white hot and blinding.

He reached out his hand, and his fingers closed around the familiar width of the Bow. Power surged through him, and he smiled coldly. The part of his mind that would have questioned how the weapon could have just appeared in his hand simply shut down. Pestilence had summoned his Bow, and so the Bow appeared.

Billy stood as time thickened around him, trapping everyone in the cafeteria like fossils in amber. He stepped away from the table, turning slowly to face Joe and Kurt. The two boys stood frozen, one still holding the upturned carton of milk, the other nearly doubled over with laughter. As Billy looked at them, he felt the damp weight of his hair, smelled the sweetness of milk mingling with the oil and sweat of his skin.

He judged them and found them guilty.

Billy pulled back the bowstring he could neither see nor feel, an arrow of disease nocked and ready. Distance warped as he took aim at Joe, who stood now more than twenty feet away, and he let fly. In the same breath he drew, aimed, and released another arrow at Kurt. He didn’t bother to see if his arrows would strike true; of course they would. Pestilence didn’t miss. Instead, he turned to consider the living backdrop of students and the occasional adult scattered throughout the room, and his gaze locked on the cafeteria monitor. She sat, her face mostly hidden by a book, a food-laden fork halfway to her open mouth. A third arrow flew, and this time Billy watched as it buried itself deep into her flesh, then evaporated.

The arrow’s disappearance made Billy blink—and time kicked into gear. The laughter in the cafeteria continued once more, but he ignored it as he saw Joe and Kurt clutch their stomachs, their fingers splayed wide. Kurt’s face paled, and as his belly let out a liquid growl he lumbered to the door, one arm thrown out before him and shouting at anyone who dared to get in his way. Joe swayed and crashed onto the cafeteria bench, his face dripping with sweat, heat and sickness wafting from him like perfume gone to vinegar.

Billy’s head swam as he stared at Joe, who stank of diarrhea and fever. Salmonella, Billy knew, without knowing how he knew. Even pasteurized milk wasn’t always safe. Watch that first sip.

The cafeteria monitor barreled out of the room, her stomach a gurgling mess. The group of misfits at the far end of Billy’s table erupted with laughter, joining the rest of the students in their schadenfreude. No one pointed to Billy or shouted at him or accused him of firing a weapon. No one seemed to see him at all.

And that made him want to shoot them all the more.

He stared at the Bow, horrified by what was happening to him. But along with the horror, there was a building fascination, a sense of wonder. Of possibility. He could finally fight back. With the Bow, he could put everyone in their place. They’d know he wasn’t someone they could push around any longer. And if they didn’t know it, he’d teach it to them, arrow by arrow, sickness by sickness. And finally, wallowing in bacteria and drowning in viruses, they’d respect him. More than that: They’d
fear
him, the way that he’d feared them for so very long.

It would be so very easy.

No.
No.
He wouldn’t become what he detested. He
wouldn’t!

He lifted the Bow high and brought it down hard against the cafeteria table. And again. And again, smashing the weapon with all his strength. With every contact he screamed his frustration and his fear until his fury dwarfed all other sound. No one saw him. No one stopped him. He was the White Rider, invisible as a germ.

In his hands, the black wood gleamed, unscarred.

Bellowing his denial, he brought the Bow up one final time—and froze as a cold hand gripped his wrist.

“Dude,” said Death. “There are easier ways to get my attention.”

Chapter 10

“You’re Here,” Billy Said . . .

. . . and nearly sagged with relief. Everything would be okay now; surely, Death could see that there had been a horrific mistake and would take the Bow away. Billy Ballard wasn’t White Rider material.

As if to counter the argument, Joe chose that moment to double over and vomit loudly on the cafeteria floor. Cue the mass exodus: The lunchroom cleared out in a wave of screeching teenagers until the only figures remaining were Billy, Joe, and an all-too-bemused Death.

“Ah, school food,” said the Pale Rider, smiling down at Joe, who was now curled up in a tight ball. “Who knew they had regurgiburger on the menu?”

“Please,” Billy said, “you have to take it back.”

“Fine, it’s not a regurgiburger. We’ll just stick with ‘mystery meat’ and call it a day.”

“The Bow,” Billy said, desperation pitching his voice high. “Please, you have to take back the Bow!”

The Pale Rider’s smile turned sly. “I have to do many things, William, most of them centered around life and death. What I absolutely don’t have to do is claim a tool that is not meant for me.”

“But look what I did!” Billy flailed his free arm in Joe’s direction. “I made him sick! Him, and Kurt, and Eddie!”

“Don’t forget the cafeteria monitor.”

“Yeah, and her! And you don’t know what I was about to do!” Thinking of how close he’d come to attacking his classmates made his stomach drop to his toes. “You don’t know,” he whispered.

“Oh, I know.” Death finally released Billy’s wrist. “All that power can be overwhelming at first. Happens all the time. Well, almost. There was a Famine once who accepted the Scales and attempted to stop the Flood. Shortest tenure of the Black Rider, ever. But she proved her point.”

With Death’s words, Billy saw a woman in black holding her arms high as a mountain of water loomed over her. He blinked and the image was gone, leaving him lightheaded and gasping for breath. He stammered, “What point?”

“That you people are worth saving.” Death was no longer smiling. “And yet here you are, demanding that I take back the Bow—which, by the way, does not appreciate being bludgeoned against the table.”

Suddenly queasy, Billy repeated, “Appreciate?”

“Would you like it if someone tried to break you into splinters?”

Eddie’s boot, slamming into his side and nearly cracking a rib.

Billy’s throat went very, very dry. “No,” he said hoarsely.

“Of course not. So treat the Bow with respect.”

He held the weapon at arm’s length, wanting to hurl it away but afraid to let it go. “You said yesterday you needed my help. If this is it, then I’m not helping you. Get someone else to be Pestilence, someone who’s okay with making people sick.”

“Usually, I’m rather open-minded about who stays a Horseman. If those chosen decide not to wield their symbols of office, I find someone else. But your case is different, William. You were chosen by the White Rider. Behind my back, which I don’t appreciate, but I understand why he picked you.” He wagged a finger in a no-no-no gesture. “Never antagonize kings. Their memory is long for grudges.”

The words made no sense. The only kings Billy knew were names in his history textbook.

“As for your help, well, I already told you what I need you to do. Either be Pestilence, as you agreed to be when you were five, or get the White Rider out of bed and back on his steed.”

“That’s not me
helping
you,” Billy shouted. “That’s you
forcing
me to make a choice I don’t want to make!”

“I suppose it’s a matter of perspective.” Death shrugged, the perfect image of slacker-may-care whatevertude. “I don’t want to make the choice, either. I find the entire situation distasteful. The White Rider played us both, but you’re far too caught up in your own drama to be mindful of that.”

Billy felt his cheeks flush.

“I had this notion that you’d spare me from choosing your fate by doing it yourself. Foolish of me.” Death grinned, showing far too many teeth. “No good deed, and all that. Let’s be clear. If you don’t help me by making the choice yourself, I will choose for you.”

Of course he would.

“Decision time, William Ballard. You stand at a crossroads, and now must choose your path. Will you wield the Bow of the White Rider? Or will you call the Conqueror back to duty?”

It didn’t matter; whichever path he chose was paved in White.

Billy squeezed his eyes shut and shook as emotions surged through him—anger, first, searing every nerve; on the heels of that, resentment, slathering over him like balm.

He took a deep breath, and with the air came a quiet focus, a sense of quietude, of clarity. He breathed, and he opened his eyes, and then he turned to face the Pale Rider. Locking his gaze on to Death’s empty blue eyes, Billy Ballard made his choice.

***

The hospital room was no different from last night: small and stale, with machines scattered haphazardly and a single, narrow bed with crisp white sheets. At first glance, the bed was empty. But as Death closed the door behind them, Billy saw the unmistakable form of the Ice Cream Man, a white blanket covering him from chin to toe. His ruined face was all too visible in the harsh florescent light.

Staring hard at those waxy, pox-ridden features, Billy swallowed thickly. “What’s wrong with him?”

“All manner of things,” Death said idly. “The White Rider houses all diseases. There are any number of things wrong with him.”

“So you don’t know why he won’t get up?”

“Oh, that. Easy peasy. He’s not home.”

Billy frowned at the Pale Rider, who was leaning casually against the door.

“He’s not here,” Death said, tapping his own head. “His body is well enough, all things considered. But his mind has gone wandering to a place where even I cannot seek him. He’s lost somewhere in his past. It’s up to you, William, to find him.”

In a world where a horse can be a car and travel halfway across the globe in a matter of minutes, the notion of time travel was almost quaint. Billy was surprised to find himself rather blasé about the whole thing. Have Bow, will time travel.

“Return the White Rider to himself,” said Death. “Find him and bring him home.”

(
You find your way, and you come back home
.)

Thinking of his grandfather, Billy set his jaw. Ice Cream Man or no, the Conqueror was just another old man who’d gone wandering. And if there was one thing Billy had experience with, it was tracking down wandering old men and bringing them home again. “Okay,” he said, determined. “How do I find him?”

“You are Pestilence; he is the Conqueror. White beckons White. You can’t help but find him, wherever he is. The more difficult part,” said Death, “will be convincing him to return.”

“I’ll do it,” Billy insisted. No way was he going to be stuck being Pestilence. “I’ll get him back.”

“Then touch the Bow to the Crown on his brow. And think White thoughts,” Death added, perhaps whimsically.

Billy looked hard at the Ice Cream Man, the nightmare man of his past, and he held out his hand, knowing the Bow would be there. As his fingers closed around the black wood, he thought,
I’m going to find you. Whatever it takes, I’m going to find you. And I’m going to make you take back the Bow.
His heartbeat quickened, but not from fear. A hum of power danced along his skin, but it didn’t come from the Bow.

He could do this.

Chin high, Billy Ballard touched the tip of the Bow to the silver band half hidden on the Conqueror’s forehead. And the world erupted in White.

Part Two

Into the White

Chapter 11

He Sees the End of the World . . .

. . . and it arrives on a sheet of white/

/he drapes her in a white
chiton
, her favorite, even though he’s always preferred her in green/

/he is surrounded by lush greens and earthy browns, here in the heart of the Greenwood, and peace settles over him as he smiles, content, for here he’ll stay, away from the world with its never-ending diseases and hunger and battles/

/he’s seen centuries of battles, of wars erupting over the face of the world like a pox/

/the pox has ravaged his kingdom, but now he wears the Crown and wields the Bow and he will make it right, he will set the balance in his people’s favor/

/he holds her favor, this woman in black, with her whip-thin smile and set of balances in her hand/

/and she tells him the Four are out of balance and he must return, but he cannot, he will not, not even for her/

/not for the woman in red with her laughter of fire and blood, handmaiden of the one who shall lead them in the end/

/he sees the end of the world, and it arrives on a sheet of white/