Rage (17 page)

She opened her mouth to ask if he was all right, but she inhaled poison. Choking, Missy doubled over. This wasn't drowning in overwhelming emotions, suffocating by wants and needs and desires—she couldn't breathe because the air itself was heavy with disease. Panicking, she tried to stop coughing, and that made her cough all the harder.

Control.

She didn't know if that was her thought or War's or Death's, and it didn't matter. Gagging, she drew the Sword and sliced through the toxic air, parting it in a shower of sparks. Clean air rushed through the rip, flooding over her. She gulped in a breath, and then another. Her throat screamed for water, and her chest burned. But she could breathe again.

Missy stood tall, her nausea momentarily subdued, the Sword naked in her hand. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at the white-cladm an.

H
E ATTACKED YOU,
War whispered.

Around the hilt, her knuckles whitened. How
dare
he attack her? She had come to help.

H
E BETRAYED YOU
. T
HEY ALL BETRAY YOU
. C
UT HIM DOWN.

Her arm trembled with the need to raise the Sword high and slash it across the man's chest.

F
EEL HOW WARM HIS BLOOD IS
. C
UT HIM DOWN.

His white coat would make his blood brilliantly scarlet, like a cardinal in snow. It would be beautiful. Magnificent.

C
UT HIM DOWN!

She gripped the hilt in both hands now. The edges of her vision were tinged with red, and her blood roared in her ears. She could kill him. She should kill him. It would be so easy. She lifted the Sword ... and then she heard it again: that quiet voice, his voice, cautioning her and encouraging her.

Control.

Missy took a deep breath, and she slowly lowered the Sword.

If the man noticed her, or recognized how close he'd come to meeting the business end of her blade, he didn't show it. He continued rocking, and mumbling, and dry-washing his gloved hands. His head hung low; long black hair shrouded his face.

Her anger fizzled and died. She couldn't be mad, not when there was clearly something wrong with him. He didn't try to attack her—he was sick. She sheathed her Sword and took a step forward.

Ares snorted, pawing the ground.

"Stay there," she ordered, not looking back. She sensed the warhorse settling down, felt its tension radiating in nuclear fury. It didn't like her approaching the man in white, not without the Sword raised for battle, but it would do as she commanded. She knew that, just as she knew her name was Melissa Miller.

She took another step toward the man. Now she was close enough to see something glinting in his hair, catching the moonlight and winking silver. The white horse blinked at her, but it didn't move to stop her.

"Excuse me," she called out. "Are you all right?"

The man whipped his head up. On his brow, a silver crown gleamed in startling contrast to his black hair. His face was a thing of horrors—waxy and riddled with growths, his mouth swimming in cold sores. " 'All right,' 'all right.' Always they want to know if you're 'all right' when clearly they don't give a damn. All
right,
" he shouted, spittle flying. "All right
all right!
"

Missy froze, midstep.

"Always all right, always right, always. Why?" he asked, eyes feverish. "Why? Damn you, tell me why!"

Missy held her hands out slowly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upsety ou—"

"Never mean. Never. Never!" he snarled. "Never mean what they say. Why say it? Why put it to words if the words are wrong? Why?
Why?
Tell me why!"

"I don't know," she said, keeping her voice level, hoping he wasn't going to have a seizure or worse. The way he was ranting, he was a candidate for a heart attack. "What are the right words?"

"Words, words. Empty words. Empty spaces." He wrapped his arms around himself and shuddered. "Empty inside."

That, Missy understood. "I wish I could be empty," she said wistfully. "There's too much inside of me. Even when I cut it away, it all comes back."

"Empty," he moaned. "I've lost my me. No one inside anymore. Empty spaces. Empty places. No me."

"I know who you are," Missy said. "You're Pestilence."

He stared at her, and something bright flickered behind his rheumy gaze, cutting through the feverish glaze. "Yes," he said. "Yes. Pestilence. The White Rider. Yes. That is who I am." He peered at her. "War?"

Her lips quirked in a brief smile. "So I'm told."

"I know you. No, not you. I know you, but not you." Fear skittered across his face. "Do I know you?"

"You know War," she said. "Me, I'm new. We haven't met before now."

He nodded slowly. "You're new. New. New is good. New beginnings. I had a beginning once. I had an ending, too, but I didn't like it." He grinned, revealing rotted teeth. "So I got a do-over."

Missy thought she was doing very well, considering the White Rider looked leprous and was more than halfway to crazy. "I got one too," she said. "Guess we're lucky."

"Not lucky. Sick. We're sick." He winked at her, the motion upsettingly intimate. "We're all sick, all of us. Dying a little more every day. The Pale Rider comes for us all. He comes." Pestilence bowed his head again, his shoulders shaking.

"Um," Missy said, fumbling. "What are you doing out here?"

"Here," he said, not looking up. "Here. What am I doing here? I shouldn't be here. I have responsibilities. Many responsibilities."

Remembering Famine's story about the Black Death, Missy said faintly, "I'm sure you do. Maybe you should, you know, get back to, um. What you do."

He looked up at her, held her gaze, and Missy understood that she was looking at the face of madness. It should have terrified her, but it only made her feel sad.

"I used to be a king. But my crown is tarnished," he said, touching the silver band over his eyebrows. It gleamed, as clean as his clothing, making his diseased face even more horrific to behold. "I stand naked before you."

A smell of earth and old parchment, and then a man's voice said from behind Missy, "It was the emperor's new clothes that were invisible. Yours are extremely old, and quite opaque. Which is good, as we're in mixed company."

Missy turned and there he was, Death, the moonlight captured in his hair. His smile softened the shock of his sudden appearance, but even so, she had one hand to her chest and told her heartbeat to slow down. "I swear," she said, "you need a bell around your neck."

"It would clash with my sweater. How are you tonight, Pestilence?"

When the other man didn't answer, Missy pivoted to find the White Rider cowering against the tree, his arms out to shield his face. Missy didn't recognize the gesture he was making with his hands, but she thought it might have been a ward against the evil eye. To Death, she quietly asked, "What's wrong with him?"

"Nothing," he murmured. "Other than everything. He is sickness incarnate. Sometimes, it gets the best of him. Like now."

"Too soon!" Pestilence shouted, his face still hidden. "Too soon! It's not time!"

"Easy now," said Death. "This isn't official. I was in the area, that's all."

Missy found herself lulled by his voice, by his smile—by his very presence. And his words weren't even directed at her.
The Horseman whisperer,
she thought, stifling a nervous giggle.

"Not time!" Pestilence screeched. Fast as flu, he scrambled to his feet. "Not now!"

Death called him by a different name, then, and reached out his hand. "Please," he said.

But Pestilence was already on his steed. With a panicked kick and a "Hyah!" the White Rider and his steed bolted onto the road, heading toward the horizon.

When the dust settled back to the ground, Missy frowned at Death. "You scared him."

"Happens sometimes." He shrugged. "Especially when he's having a bad spell."

She could still hear Pestilence's rambling words, could still feel his confusion and fear. "Is that what this was? A bad spell?"

"A poetic way to describe an inner battle. That's what lured you here. He was at war with his memory." In the darkness, Death's eyes looked almost silver. "Any sort of war will naturally attract you. But coming from one such as him? You were a moth to his flame. Don't take it personally. It's just part of being War."

"Oh." She paused, and before she could convince herself not to ask, she said, "If he's sick because he's sickness incarnate... then what's going to happen to me because I'm war incarnate? Am I going to be at war with myself ?"

"What makes you think that you're not already?"

Pestilence might have been gone, but she felt sick to her stomach. Was violence going to get the best of her the way Pestilence's illness had gotten the best of him?

And if it did, what did that mean for her?

Not brave enough to ask that question, she asked another. "What did he mean, 'not time'? Not time for what?"

"Pestilence is currently of the opinion that there is only one time when the Four Horsemen will gather." Death's voice was low, and cold, and filled with things that went bump in the night. "And that will be for the Last Ride."

Silence, as thick as blood.

"Of course, that's just his opinion," Death added. "It's been known to change, given his state of mind."

"So ... is he right?" Missy asked.

Death smiled serenely. "He is mad but north-northwest."

Missy had no idea what to make of that. "You told me that
apocalypse
was just a word."

"I did. I also told you that words have power. As do actions." Death frowned into the distance. "I should go after him. Last time he was like this, swine flu tore through the place. And you should go home. It's late."

"But you're out now," she blurted. Death terrified her, yes—how could he not? But there was no denying that she was drawn to him, that she longed for his cold touch. Was that because War was Death's Handmaiden? Or was it because she, Missy Miller, enjoyed the way his eyes shone as if he had a million secrets? "And Pestilence is out now. Why shouldn't I be out now?"

He glanced at her, arching his brow. "I've been doing this for a long time. And unlike some, I'm not going through an identity crisis."

Missy crossed her arms and dug in her heels. "You gave me the Sword for a reason. I should be using it."

"I did," he said, rewarding her with a magnificent smile. "And you are."

She tried to ignore the way that smile sped up her heart and made her knees rubbery. She failed spectacularly.

"Good night, Melissa Miller." He bowed, low enough for his too-long blond hair to cascade over his face and hide his smile.

"Good night," she whispered, but he was already gone.

Missy stared at the spot he had been for a long, long time. Finally, she turned to Ares. "Come on," she said. "Let's go home."

Sunday mornings in the Miller house meant oversize breakfasts and weekly planning, and this Sunday was no different. As everyone filled a plate with scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast, Missy's mother had the refrigerator calendar ready to go, highlighters lined up like soldiers. Scheduling was serious business. Missy thought her mother would have been an excellent wedding planner.

Actually, Missy was amazed she could think at all. There was exhaustion, and then there was absolutely wrecked: the sort of fatigue that vibrates in the marrow of your bones and makes you feel like you're dragging a thousand pounds. Missy, so wrecked that junkyards would have begged her for scrap metal, took a sip of coffee and hoped that
this
sip would be the one that shook her out of her near coma. She had to muddle through breakfast. Somehow. She let out a jaw-cracking yawn and nearly spilled her coffee. Blinking hard, she scrubbed the sleep from her eyes. If she passed out in her eggs, Sue would never let her hear the end of it.

But then, her sister was oddly quiet. As Missy sipped, she glanced at Sue, catching her in the act of glaring sullenly at her. Sue's nostrils flared, and then she abruptly looked away, as if the platter of buttered toast were of the utmost interest.

Whatever. As long as Sue sulked quietly, all was right with the world.

"Ready," her mother declared. "Who's kicking it off?"

Missy managed not to roll her eyes. Her dad would go first, as he did every Sunday brunch. Then her mom. Then it would be her turn, and Sue, ever the darling baby girl, would go last. That's where the best was, right? And that's where the fabled nice guys were. Sue would get the nice guy and make their parents blissfully happy, and Missy would be left to fawn over Death—who was many things, but definitely not a nice guy.

No, not a guy at all. A concept in a rock god's clothing.

Missy's mouth twitched into a smile as she imagined Death running his long, cold fingers over her, making music on her body. Would his kisses be cold? Or would they be hot enough to burn away her fears, to turn her dead face to ash and reveal her soul to the world?

Her father started talking, and that got her to stop thinking about Death (especially about doing things with Death that would have made her parents faint). Missy feigned interest as her dad explained in painstaking detail why he'd be working late every night, all thanks to the office launch in two weeks. Next up: her mom, all fired up about a big meeting with company muckity-mucks on Tuesday morning. The girls would have to make their own dinners on Monday night, said Mom, because she would be at the office until God only knew when.

In other words, Missy and Sue would be alone tomorrow night. The unspoken "Don't destroy the house" was very clear. The sisters made the appropriate "You can trust us" noises.

The next ten minutes were all about their parents getting into How Important their work was, and how much it meant to them that the girls understood just what was at stake.
What's
to understand?
Missy wondered as she smiled blandly and nibbled a slice of bacon. Her parents worked hard. They succeeded. She got it. She didn't know why they always seemed so apologetic, even when they were practically glowing with accomplishment. That was just stupid. Do what you need to do, and don't feel bad about it.