Riders

by Veronica Rossi

  The car was a silver Ford Mustang, covered in dirt. Illinois plates. Tinted windows. No sign of movement inside.

  I motioned for Daryn to stay behind the car, then I tested the driver’s-side door. I found it unlocked and swung it open.

  No one inside.

  My heart rate settled back a notch. I continued to assess.

  Worn black leather seats. Fast-food wrappers on the floor. Keys still in the ignition. I turned them once. Nothing. The car had either run out of gas or broken down.

  I checked the glove compartment. No registration. No papers, but I found a hand towel. A bloody one. The blood was old—the towel stank and was stiff—and there was a lot of it. It’d been soaked once.

  I closed the glove compartment. Daryn was right there.

  “Did—” She paused, glancing at the sky as thunder rumbled. “Did you find anything?”

  I made a split-second decision to keep the towel to myself for now and shook my head. “Stay right here.”

  I wanted to find his tracks, so keeping hers contained was critical. I walked around the car. Sure enough there were fresh footsteps heading into the desert. I followed them a little further, confirming my guess. He had ditched the car and made for the rock outcrop I’d seen in the distance.

  A normal person in distress would have walked along the freeway waiting for help. But he was Death, so. Not a normal person.

  I had a hunch the car was stolen. I had a hunch he was running from something and possibly hurt. The danger factor was skyrocketing.

  I looked at Daryn, reconsidering having her with me. It had seemed like the right choice so far. We were on the road. The Jeep was in sight. That had given me a certain level of confidence. But taking her into open desert at night toward a guy who drove around with bloody towels? That wasn’t something I wanted to do.

  “Head back and wake Sebastian up,” I said, walking over to her. “Park the Jeep so the headlights face the desert. I’m going to take another quick look around here. Meet you back there in five minutes.”

  She nodded. “Okay. Be safe.”

  I watched her until she reached the Jeep, then I headed into the desert. I had no intention of checking the Mustang again, or of meeting up with her and Sebastian until I had Death. She wasn’t going to like it when she realized I’d been less than honest with her, but my priority was keeping her safe. Angry, safe Daryn was better than Daryn in the hands of Samrael any day of the week.

  I took my time as I waded through the darkness. As I put the road behind me, everything reduced to murky shapes, but the lightning helped my navigation, giving me X-ray shots of the terrain. Mostly a good thing, but also bad.

  When the earth lit up, I couldn’t process it all at once. I had to decipher the fading images in my mind. Eventually, my imagination started kicking in with its contributions.

  Why did that cactus look so human?

  Why had the tumbleweed looked like it had feet?

  What was that dark blur across the sky?

  I knew I was getting myself worked up. Not helping was the feeling in my gut that I wasn’t alone. That I was the one being stalked.

  I drew a breath, forcing some steadiness into my veins, and pressed forward.

  Flash. Outcrop ahead on a downslope. Getting closer.

  Flash. I was drifting left. Adjust heading.

  Flash. I was looking at a creature, crouching ten feet away. Staring at me. Black as the night with white eyes and—wings? were those wings?—and a wrinkled face full of torment, full of pleading, and—

  Darkness.

  I’d frozen with the tire iron back, ready to swing. Now, surrounded by night again, I still didn’t move.

  I scanned the blackness around me, ready to attack. Waiting to be attacked. Every muscle in my body brimmed with violence. Overcharged. In a whiteout of mortal fear.

  A breeze swept past me, hot like a breath. It carried a foul odor that made my breath catch. Then the stench was gone. Seconds had passed since I’d seen the thing, but I waited a few more before I brought my arm down.

  My heart was trying to kick down my rib cage. As I searched the desert around me again, I pictured the creature’s wide, pleading eyes. Blind eyes, I thought. They’d been like pearls. The way it had crouched made me wonder if it’d been scared of me—but that didn’t mean it was harmless.

  Was it one of the Kindred? I knew of four. Was it the fifth? Or was that Death? But Death had to be human—that thing definitely hadn’t been—and I hadn’t sensed any change in the signal from the cuff.

  I made my feet start moving again. Every time the sky lit up, I tensed, expecting to see the creature again. Sweat rolled down my back and my knuckles ached from gripping the tire iron, but I made it to the outcrop without further incident.

  Approaching from a slightly elevated slope, I could see the rock formation’s general shape. It was configured like a horseshoe, with the open side opposite me. I had a feeling Death had put himself right at the center. It’d be an advantageous position for him. Hidden. And the opening would be the only place he’d need to watch to spot someone coming. So he thought.

  I looked up, gauging the height of the near ridge. Thirty, forty feet—approximately three stories high. Steep grade, but I could handle it.

  Reaching back, I shoved the tire iron through my belt and started climbing. I couldn’t stop picturing the creature’s emaciated body. How it’d been covered in a leathery black hide. The sharp teeth that had peeked from its withered mouth. I was pretty sure I’d seen black wings folded at its back.

  Was it going to pick me right off this rock face?

  Had it gone back to the Jeep?

  Climb, Blake.

  I channeled my concentration to the task. Rock climbing was problem-solving. Choosing the right holds, finding the right route. I worked steadily and fell into a good flow. The wind grew stronger as I neared the crest, my shirt flapping like a flag. My lungs pumped the damp storm air, my muscles craving the oxygen. Rain was coming soon.

  The climb leveled off just as my hands and forearms started to burn from exertion. Pulling myself onto the smooth shelf at the summit, I shook them out. Then the hair on the back of my neck lifted as I became aware of the energy from the cuff. It felt much stronger now. Sharper, like a radio tuned to a better frequency. I was on the right track—Death was close.

  Brushing my hands off on my jeans, I moved to the edge of the shelf and checked out the view I’d come to see. On this side of the formation, the rocks stepped down more gradually, in levels that dropped to a small clearing down below. I spotted a dark shape there, but I couldn’t tell if it was a person or a sleeping bag. Turning, I could see the small points of my Jeep’s headlights. Farther off, the freeway.

  Gravel hissed nearby. I forced myself not to react.

  Okay. Not alone. The intensifying buzz of the cuff confirmed it.

  Moving slowly, I set my feet and reached back, my hand closing around the tire iron.

  A shoe scraped against rock a few feet to my left. Louder. Impossible to pretend I hadn’t heard it this time.

  “Come on over,” I said. “View’s nice.”

  The footsteps came fast—scuff, scuff, scuff—a flat-out sprint. I spun, caught a glimpse of a dark form blurring toward me. There was no way to dodge aside. To the side was air. I sank down, bracing, and swung the iron.

  I didn’t get in a full swing before he crashed into me. As I flew back, I locked my free arm into his—if I was going over so was he—and we went airborne.

  It felt like we fell for a year, but it couldn’t have been more than a second. We did a three-sixty in the air. I saw a flash of dark eyes. Death grabbed hold of my shirt and threw his fist at my face, but I didn’t feel it. We crashed into rocks—a punch I felt everywhere. I couldn’t believe he was hitting me as we were falling. But that could’ve been because I was hitting him, too.

  We went airborne for another second, then struck rock again. My shoulder took the brunt of our combined weight,
pain exploding in my socket, rattling all the way down into my hand. My grip gave and the tire iron clanged away.

  Our fall descended a few more levels before the slope decreased, putting us into a tumble. I took a hit to the temple that blacked out my vision for an instant. My hands found his neck and I pulled him into a chokehold. But then his fist smashed into my ear and stunned me, and I let him go. When we finally reached flat terrain we flew apart and came up lunging. I remembered a takedown I’d learned in combatives training and tackled him. I thought I had him down, but he buried his knee into my stomach and flipped me onto my back.

  We went on like this for a while. Beating the hell out of each other. Part of me was surprised as it was happening. I didn’t lose fights. In RASP, we’d do this thing called the beef circle, where the cadre would get the class circled up and we’d battle it out, man-to-man, clearing the air of any animosities building up between us with some grappling. I almost never lost in those, even against the bigger, older guys. I’d get worked over pretty good. But I never tapped out. I’ve just always had another gear in a fight.

  But, Death. He was strong and fast and relentless. Even when I’d manage to pin him, I couldn’t keep him there. He was ferocious and I was taking a beating, but it only spurred me on. Because seriously? I was War. My pride was on the line.

  “Stop!” Daryn’s voice broke into the night. “Gideon! Marcus!”

  We flung ourselves away from each other, a human supernova. Panting for breath, standing at a safe distance, we eyed each other. He stood awkwardly, favoring his left leg. I was favoring the entire right side of my body. My ears rang. My knuckles throbbed. Blood gushed from my nose and ran into my mouth.

  Sebastian stood next to Daryn, looking concerned.

  I leaned over and spat onto the dirt. “You knew his name?” I asked her.

  At the same time Death, Marcus, said, “How do you know my name?”

  CHAPTER 25

  I took him in at a glance—black, my height, ripped. Hair as short as mine, shaved almost to the scalp. Worn-out clothes. Cuff on his wrist. A pale cuff—that was all I could tell. Right guy, unfortunately.

  “I’m sorry about him,” Daryn said.

  I looked at her. Him was me? She was apologizing to Death about me?

  “We just came here to talk,” she continued. “We didn’t mean to scare you or to get. Into. A fight.”

  She said the last part like, Gideon is ruler. Of. The idiots.

  “Who are you?” Death asked her.

  “I’m … I’m Daryn. Marcus, I think you’re…” She glanced at me, then at Sebastian, clearly struggling to explain. How often did she have to do this? Fit the incredible into words? “You’re involved in something that we know about.”

  “Nuh-uh.” Marcus shook his head. “You don’t know nothin’ about me.”

  “Just shut up and listen to her,” I said.

  “Man, who’re you telling to shut up?”

  His tone. The hatred in his eyes as he looked back at me. I couldn’t accept them.

  I charged him. He backed away, dodging aside. Why? Why dodge now?

  Then I realized I’d made a huge mistake.

  A cold burn seeped into my fingers and my feet. It spread through my hands like ice water moving into my arms and legs. I locked up. The ground beneath me began to pull away, and a crack split across the desert soil. It went wider and wider, showing a gap in the earth that was endless. My shoes perched on the edge. Any breath I took, even the slightest twitch, would send me over and I’d fall. I’d never stop falling.

  I started shaking, quaking down to my bones. I’d never shaken out of fear before but my body rang like a bell, totally beyond my control.

  “Gideon?” Daryn’s voice was far away. “Marcus, stop!”

  This was it. Death’s ability.

  Fear.

  I considered opening up the rage floodgates on him, but what good would it do to make him more aggressive?

  Daryn was yelling for him to stop. She took a few steps toward Marcus, then staggered and came to her knees. She clutched her stomach, hugging herself, and started to rock. “No,” she said. “No, no, no. Please, no.”

  Anger consumed me like nothing I’d ever felt before. Burning rage that shot through my cold, shaking muscles. The ice that had trapped me splintered, no room for it anymore. Not with the rage roaring through me. The crevasse disappeared in front of me, sealing closed, and I felt power—true power stirring inside me. A singular purpose. Determination to do what was right, what was necessary—and what was necessary right then was to help Daryn.

  And I felt something else, too. Something in my hand that hadn’t been there a second ago.

  A sword.

  CHAPTER 26

  In my training in the Army, I’d been exposed to a variety of weapons. Rifles. Handguns of all makes and models. RPG launchers. I’d shot a fifty-cal a few times—now, that’s a weapon. The fifty’s legit. So I think you can understand, Cordero, when I say that a sword was a little disappointing.

  Sword fighting was fine in the movies, for gladiators or fighting trolls or whatever. But actually using a sword in combat? Nope. It felt tardy by a couple of centuries. Of course I’d just been in an epic fistfight, but everyone knows fisticuffs is a timeless art. Point is I wasn’t thrilled about the sword, but it was better than no sword, so I rolled with it.

  In about a millisecond, I assessed the weapon in my hand. It was made of the same metal as my cuff—smooth, putting off the red halo of light—and the style was a mix of modern and old, a sort of a sleek claymore. Kind of cool-looking.

  The fear-hold Marcus had over me had fallen away completely by then. Same for Daryn, who had stopped rocking. Bastian helped her to her feet. Seeing that she was okay, I turned my focus to making Marcus pay.

  I stepped toward him, doing a badass figure eight in front of me, which I’d perfected with a lightsaber when I was seven and thankfully could still do. Part of me wanted to psych him out a little. The other part of me wanted to get a feel for the weapon. The sword wasn’t weightless, exactly. It was just weight that felt known, like lifting my arm or my leg. Even stranger was that it didn’t feel like I was gripping the sword, but more like the sword was gripping me.

  “You want to mess with me, Death?” I said. “Let’s go!”

  Daryn looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Gideon, what are you doing?”

  I didn’t have a chance to answer. Marcus had just produced a scythe. It materialized in a dusty swirl, extending from his hand to the desert earth.

  A freakin’ scythe.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. Wasn’t Death—the Grim Reaper—always shown with a scythe? Still, this was the first one I’d ever seen in person and let me tell you—a staff with a massive curved blade at the end? Terrifying. This was no ordinary scythe, either. The thing glowed in the night, soft like the moon, but it put off enough light to illuminate Marcus’s face. His eyes were steady and cold. Pure glacial fury. All for me.

  He extended his arm to the side like Looky here, asshole. I’ll see your sword and raise you a scythe.

  A cautious man would’ve backed off. Not me. Yielding would basically have told him he’d won. I was tougher and I’d prove it. If it cost me a limb, screw it.

  “You really want to take on War?” I shrugged. “All right.”

  “What did you say? You’re War?”

  “Yes, he did.” Daryn said. “Now put your weapons down. Both of you.”

  With no warning, Marcus swung the scythe in a low, sweeping arc. The thing had range, clearing eight, nine feet around him. The blade came to within about a foot of Daryn. She stood without even flinching as the sickle sliced past her, but I practically threw up my heart. I was moving before I knew it.

  I shot at him while he was still on the backswing, avoiding the business end of the weapon. The scythe wouldn’t be a close-range weapon. If I could get inside, I’d be safe from the blade.

  Marcus had anticipated my mo
ve, and brought the back end of the staff at me. I saw it coming and blocked with my sword. The sound as the two weapons met was deep. Thundering. A roar I felt in my chest. The collision point sent off sparks, a burst of brightness in the dark. We kept going, dealing and receiving blows. Neither of us was very good then, at that point, but what we lacked in technique we made up for in passion.

  I was in the middle of a follow-through when the strength left my legs suddenly. Wham. Fast. One second I was getting ready to tee off on Marcus’s face, the next I was on my back staring at the thunderheads above. My sword thudded out of my grip. I hadn’t even known I could let it go.

  I turned my head to look for it. That small action took all the energy I had. The sword rested on the desert soil only a few inches from my fingers. I wanted it back, but I was never going to be able to reach it. I had nothing left. Lifting a car over my head would’ve been easier. Straining to look to my right, I got a glimpse of Marcus’s shoes. He was sprawled on the dirt next to me.

  Daryn walked up with Sebastian. She crossed her arms, looking down at me, her blond hair blowing in the storm winds. Her expression was disappointed and more than a little pissed off. “How long will they be this way?”

  “I don’t know,” Sebastian said. “Maybe a few hours? It could be longer. It’s the first time I’ve wiped anyone out this strongly. This is awful. I can’t believe I did this.”

  “They weren’t going to be any help to us dead. Anyway, I asked you to.”

  They kept talking, but their voices sounded farther away. Sleep was calling to me. No. Not sleep. Exhaustion. Fatigue. A huge lack was yawning open inside of me. Lack of strength. Lack of hope. Lack of joy. My body felt brittle, a million years old. And fragile. Like my limbs were made of glass threads.

  A fat drop of rain landed on my forehead. Another on my forearm. Painful drops. Sharp as rocks.

  “It’s starting to rain,” Sebastian said. “Should I pull the Jeep up? I can probably get them both inside.”

  “Sure, let’s,” Daryn said. “But no need to hurry. A little rain won’t kill them.”

  They left us there.