by Rhys Ford
“Don’t think like that,” Mal said, covering Kismet’s hand with his own. The young man was slender, his long fingers almost frail in Mal’s mind. “Believe it or not, I think getting shot was good for me. Maybe next time I’ll take time to think. Death’s always telling me to do that. I have to train myself to think before reacting.”
“Hell of a rolled-up newspaper.” The young man slid over the sheets, laying his cheek on his forearms.
“Besides, Min’s really jealous. None of the other Four have ever been shot with a bullet.” Mal wondered why Kismet had pulled free from his hand. He debated asking, but he wasn’t sure how to bring it up. How did someone ask if their touch was repugnant? “She’s always wanted to be the first in something, and here I went and took that away from her.”
“Good, so long as Min’s pissy about it.” Kismet pulled himself up onto his elbows, then rested his chin on Mal’s chest, carefully avoiding the healed-over wound.
Something in the young man’s eyes made Mal ache. There was pain there, a questioning unknown that Mal wanted to soothe away. Touching Kismet’s cheek with the tips of his fingers, the immortal traced along the smooth skin over the other’s cheek before poking at the corner of Kismet’s mouth to pull it upward.
“Are you okay?” Mal asked.
“Yeah. No.” The young man couldn’t shake the memory of the man he struck sliding down onto the pavement, the back of his head caved in and his brains splattered on the cinder block. Tremors ghosted over his limbs, a shaky cold touching his shattered nerves. “I’ve never hurt someone like that before. Hell, I’ve never really hurt anyone that wasn’t hurting me first, but today I really killed someone.”
“I’m glad you killed him.” Mal reached for the other man’s shoulders, pulling Kismet closer. He wanted to offer comfort, hoping to erase the distant pain that lurked in the young man’s eyes. The human came along without complaint, resting against the immortal’s side. “I’ve never had someone outside of the Four do something like that for me.”
“Dude, that guy’s dead.” He resisted being dragged closer, then surrendered, looping one arm over Mal’s stomach. The immortal’s breath stopped for a moment, held tight in his chest. Then he exhaled before moving his hand down Kismet’s spine, letting his fingers brush along the small of the other man’s back. Sighing at the small comfort, Kismet said, “There’s no coming back from that, Mal. I killed him. Shit, the cops are going to know I did it.”
“If that happens, we’ll take care of it,” Mal reassured him. “Death is good at that sort of thing. You think you’re the first one to leave a crime scene? Ari is a master of screwups. Death’s always pulling him out of one mess or another. But really, that man, he didn’t seem all there. Crazy people with guns are okay to kill. I’m pretty sure of it.”
“Remind me not to stand next to you holding a gun,” Kismet replied.
“You’ve got to remember, you’re not crazy.” Shifting, he finally relaxed. The strange feeling of another person against his body was turning into a pleasurable one. Having someone as close as Kismet was at that moment seemed odd, but it was something Mal was sure he could get used to. Cradling the other man felt good, even comforting. “Everything that you saw in the shadows was real. Or rather, is real. I know that no one probably understood, but you’ve got to believe that.”
“Mal, crazy is pretty much what normal people think about other people seeing shit move around in shadows.” Kismet’s laugh was bitter, poisoned from every whisper he’d ever overheard. “People avoid crazy. It’s hard to chant to yourself that you’re not insane when people give you the eye on the bus and keep their kids away.”
“That sounds sad,” Mal said, brushing at Kismet’s hair. “Lonely too.”
“We’re all lonely. Humans, anyway.” Pursing his lips, Kismet reached under himself to scratch an itch on his stomach. “I think it’s why we all have sex. So we can be lonely together for a few minutes and pretend like we’re getting some sort of connection, but it’s not real.”
“Do you really believe that?” The thought concerned Mal. Lying in the bed with the young man beside him, a warmth filled him, lifting his fatigue away. “That you’re alone?”
“Most of the time,” Kismet admitted. “When I hit that guy today, I didn’t feel like that. It pissed me off that he hurt you, and I wanted to hurt him back. Maybe you’re alone until you give enough of a shit to feel something. I don’t know. Mostly I know how much it hurts when someone I like splits because they can’t handle the nuts part. Crazy brings the alone. It just does.”
“I’m sorry. It shouldn’t be like that.” The hitch in Kismet’s voice pained Mal. “I’ve always had the other three, even if sometimes I feel like I don’t fit. But I know I belong. Even if sometimes I feel like I’ve more in common with humans than the Four, I still feel like I’m one of them.”
Kismet slanted a look toward Mal. “You’re human, right? Or were?”
“Death says we are. Human, I mean. Or close to it,” Mal said. “And I feel human. There’s a difference between what a human feels like against the Veil compared to someone who lives behind it. It’s like a silvery tint on the black. It’s hard to explain. I’m pretty good at telling when someone’s human, but I can’t identify a lot of the other immortals. Min’s better at it, but she’s been a Horseman for a lot longer.”
“When all of this started happening, I wondered if I was still human. Or if I was dead. That hit me too.” Kismet’s hand moved up until he felt Mal’s heartbeat below his palm. “There’s been so much shit inside of my head, just gnawing on me. I sometimes just wanted to crack open my skull like an egg and scoop everything out. Anything to make it go away. Then today, after I realized you were hurt, it all became real. It scared the hell out of me.”
“Maybe it’ll go away now that you’re here with us?” Mal suggested.
Kismet snorted. “Nope, still scared shitless. Guess that’s going to take a while to go away.”
“You’ll be fine.” Mal hoped he would be. Something in his guts trembled at the thought of the change to his world, and he wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or bad, but it was welcome, regardless. He felt like he needed a change, something to embolden him. “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of you. Death won’t let anything happen to you if he has any control over it. I’ll help. I promise.”
“Maybe I’m just caught in a bad retelling of I Am the Cheese, and I’m cycling around some loony bin looking for my dead brother?” The young man curved his body tight around Mal’s stomach, feeling each second of his years. “This is insane, you know, hoping that things will be okay. You can’t just wish the crap in the world to go away.”
“Not from what I can see,” Mal reminded him, hitching his hips closer to the nearly fetal young man lying next to him. “You’re safe in here. Nothing can touch you here. It’s one of the sacrosanct things in our lives. Once through the door of an immortal, you’re safe from harm.”
“Even from Ari?”
“Especially from Ari.” Mal hesitantly slid his arm around Kismet’s waist when he nestled in close, his body curling against the immortal. The other man’s casual touch and warm length made his nerves tingle. Shutting away the excitement riding over his body, Mal continued, “You told him where to get off earlier. The only person I know who does that is Min, and she’s rarely on my side. It’s usually the two of them against me. It was kind of nice.”
“He’s a dick.” Shivering, Kismet wondered if the cold along his spine was the return of his addiction or the terror in his belly finally catching up with him. “Are he and Death a thing?”
“A thing? Oh, lovers. Sometimes it’s hard to understand you.”
“Lovers.” The young man nodded. “Yeah.”
“Not now, but they have been. Probably should be,” Mal said. “Sometimes I think the world is spinning out of control because both of them fight about how they feel. But I know that’s not true.”
“Can I ask a weird question?�
�� Kismet blinked, trying to stay awake long enough to see if the addiction would crawl back into his blood or if he would be able to get a full night’s rest. The burn came and went with an unpredictability that often infuriated him. Mal was easy to talk to, far less awe-inspiring than Death. Tucked into Mal’s hold, sleep whispered seductively into Kismet’s ear.
“Sure.”
“Did you pick Mal, or did the others name you?”
“That’s kind of—” The immortal searched for the word he wanted. “—an odd change of subject.”
“It just hit me,” Kismet replied. “Did you come with it? Did you know it was your name? Do you know who you were before you became one of these guys?”
“I chose it. It took me a while to find one I liked,” Mal said. “I liked the way it sounded. Ari’s been called Ari for a while. Min wanted something that was shortened from Famine. And no, none of us know who we were before we become immortal.”
“And Death is just Death?” the young man asked. “He doesn’t have another name?”
“No. Ari calls him Shi sometimes.” Mal remembered the first time he heard Death speak his own name, somber and cold. “Ari is the only one who calls Death something else. He doesn’t have another name. I think he doesn’t take another name because he never wants to forget he’s Death.”
“Glad you didn’t decide to be Len. That’s a suck-ass name.”
“That one never even occurred to me.” He contemplated the sound in his head, then said it aloud. “Len from Pestilence. No, I don’t think it fits. Ari calls me Pest sometimes.”
“Once again proving Ari is an asshole. When you go out to be Pestilence—” Kismet yawned, his eyes heavy. The soap on Mal’s skin didn’t smell unpleasant, more like an oolong tea left too long to steep. “—do the others go with you?”
“Not often. We don’t really go out as a group. Sometimes Ari and Death do. I do a lot of things alone,” Mal said.
The young man’s lashes flickered, drawing long shadows over Kismet’s face.
Fascinated, the Horseman studied the other’s face in the dim light, watching awareness fade in Kismet’s sleepy gaze.
“And you thought I was sad,” the young man murmured, his words husky. “I mean, you all are supposed to be together. What’s the point of being a group of something if you’re having to go off to do things by yourself?”
“It’s just the way I’m called. Pestilence really doesn’t interact with the others. Min is the same way. We do sometimes follow where Ari’s been,” Mal clarified. “A lot of times what we do helps mankind to change for the better, even if it doesn’t seem like it. I try to help people along, make the species as a whole stronger. That doesn’t happen as often as I’d like it to. But mostly I go out and come home before anyone notices I’m gone. It’s not so bad.”
“If you have to go tonight, will you wake me up at least?” Kismet’s eyes watered with another yawn, his teeth glittering sharp in the dark. “I wouldn’t want you to come back and no one was waiting up for you. Ari said he waited up for Death. Least someone could do is wait for you.”
Stunned, Mal barely breathed as Kismet tucked under his arm and nuzzled down into the linens covering them both. Kismet drifted off, eyes closed against the day’s light creeping in around the curtains, rolling into Mal’s embrace. Kismet’s steady breathing lulled Mal’s nerves, the fragile trust between them firm for the moment.
Wrapping his arms tighter about Kismet’s shoulder and waist, Mal lay back. Temptation warred with a cautious trepidation in Mal’s mind, the other’s face a few inches away. Mal bent his head to brush his lips against Kismet’s cheek, tasting the young man in his mouth.
“Sure,” Mal promised the sleeping young man. “I’ll let you know if I have to leave.”
A musky sweetness caught in the back of his throat, heavy with a need Mal didn’t know how to act upon. Burrowing his cheek into Kismet’s drying hair, the immortal surrendered to the sleep that nagged at him. He’d deal with how he felt in the morning, Mal promised himself, letting the small sip of Kismet’s skin run over his tongue.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MAL WOKE hungry, his body craving to restore some of the energy he’d spent healing. The warm form tucked against his ribs gave him a start until he remembered falling asleep to Kismet’s soft whispers. Awash in the sunlight from the penthouse windows, Kismet lay bare of any covers, his feet tangled in a quilt. The purple scarring on his arm had faded to a blush pink, a raw anger raging below pale skin.
The shaggy strands of Kismet’s hair covered one of his eyes, touches of a deep red hidden under a coffee brown. Slender, nearly too thin, the young man’s belly was firm, Mal’s too large T-shirt riding up nearly to his chest. To Mal’s eyes, there was a feral quality to the human’s face, a feline wildness that both invited and repelled. Kismet looked like he would bite as soon as he would welcome a touch, something Mal certainly respected.
Paint clouded the skin under Kismet’s fingernails, midnight rainbow stains caught in chewed-on cuticles. Seafoam ink peeked out from under the young man’s sweats, the orange and reds of the tattooed koi swimming up over his body brilliantly vivid. Mal wondered if the ink could still be felt, the smooth skin alluring and begging to be touched. He’d heard Ari mention once that a tattoo took a while before it sank all the way down. The fish was a lure, vivid and bright, but Mal kept his hands to himself and quietly slipped from the bed.
Turning on the shower, Mal let it warm, waiting until steam poured from the glass enclosure then stepped in. The hot water felt wonderful on his tender skin, the hole in his chest healed over and smooth. He was reluctant to leave the warm water, but his stomach was growling loudly, stabbing sharp pangs under his diaphragm. Dressed in a pair of jeans and a shirt, Mal wandered upstairs to see if any of the others were awake.
Min’s door was open, a Post-it Note scrawled with her illegible handwriting saying she either was in Thailand or, as far as Mal could make out, had been eaten by squirrels. Death’s door was shut, keeping a silent guard against what sometimes raged inside that suite.
A quick check of the pantry yielded nothing he would eat, mostly a collection of fungi and canned foods that were too salty to be palatable. A paper bag on the kitchen counter held soft jeans and T-shirts, a pinned note from Min informing Mal that this would be all she would donate to clothe their pet human, warning Kismet off any further pilfering of her wardrobe.
“Hey.” Kismet’s husky voice rubbed velvet tingles over Mal’s stomach, awakening the butterflies Mal thought had gone into hibernation. Rubbing at his face, the young man yawned, a fleck of toothpaste on his face. Kismet stretched his arms over his head, working the sleep out of his body.
“Morning. Or what’s left of it.” Mal took a quick glance at the clock. After handing the bag over to Kismet, he opened the fridge, making a face at the barren wasteland he found there. “Min left some clothes for you.”
“Thanks.” Kismet tugged Mal’s shirt up over his shoulders, then dug into the bag until he found something he liked. The stripping continued, Kismet standing bare to the morning before dragging on worn denim and a sage green T-shirt from an indie bookstore in Clairemont Mesa. Shoving Mal’s sweats and shirt into the bag, Kismet straightened, finding the immortal staring at him.
“What?” Eyes slightly narrowed, Kismet cocked his head at the other man. “There’s only us here. Does it bother you?”
“No, it’s okay. I’m just not used to having someone else around.” Mal swallowed, trying to erase the image of ink splashed over long stretches of the young man’s body. “We probably should head out and grab some bagels or something. The only things to eat in here are things Min hauled home.”
“You guys go shopping?” Kismet whistled under his breath. “I can’t imagine you guys down at the grocery store.”
“There isn’t a cornucopia that we shake out to get food,” Mal said, teasing lightly. “Shopping is usually something we do only when we finally can’t stand eating take
out anymore. Or if one of us remembers to order groceries.”
“You’re telling me that you’re immortal and none of you cook?”
“Death cooks,” Mal commented, thinking on some of the dishes the other man prepared. “Sort of. He likes a lot of raw things. Ari likes meat chunks that are black on the outside and dripping blood on the inside.”
“Remind me to teach you how to use a microwave.” Kismet shook his head. “Or hell, mac and cheese. You can’t go wrong with instant food.”
“We’ll have to walk. I think Death’s car is in the shop for repairs, and well, Ari’s Mustang has probably been towed to a graveyard by now, and my SUV is still down near the motel.” He hoped his car was still there. From what he remembered of the area, it was an iffy thing at best.
“I have to head back home anyway,” Kismet replied, looking for socks under the clothes. “If you want, you can come with and pick it up. The trolley isn’t too bad this time of day.”
“Shit.” Surprise struck Mal, and an odd pressure filled his chest. “I never thought about you going back there. You’re immortal now.”
“Hey, it’s not like I’m leaving for Europe or something. I’m just down University.” Seeing the stricken look on Mal’s face, Kismet bent across the counter. The young man asked, holding tight to the sock ball he’d found, “Where’d you think I was going to live?”
“I guess I thought you’d be with us.” Mal swallowed his disappointment. Of course Kismet couldn’t stay with them. Ari made his opinion on the subject crystal clear, and Death had yet to be heard, but it appeared that the young man had decided for them. Back out into the world he would go, open to the dangers that now lurked in wait for him.
“Yeah, I can see that happening.” Kismet laughed. “Besides, I’m going to start twitching in a few hours, and somehow I don’t think your roommates are going to want me around then. But breakfast would be good. I think I’ve got a couple of dollars in my jeans.”
