I pondered that in silence for a few breaths. It was comforting… in a way. Then a thought began to slowly emerge from the murky depths of my sluggish mind. I had never considered obtaining the card the Demon had told me to use. It was as if…
As if I had subconsciously known all along that I already carried one.
But I didn’t typically carry around Tarot cards, so why hadn’t I been concerned about finding one to use? I tried to remember where I had gotten the card. I noticed a stain on the corner and lifted it to my nose. I took a big whiff and smelled anise.
Specifically, Absinthe.
It was from… Hemmingway. The card he had left me to call if I ever wanted another drinking partner. His words whispered in my ear. I may be bored enough to assist you.
An odd, creepy sensation began to squirm up my spine. No way.
God damn it. Cat’s paws.
Having given up all other options, I felt my gaze intensify and begin to pulse with anger, a brief flicker of blue seeming to shade the world around me as my fury grew. I had been used. The card burned to ashes in an instant. Then I was instantly Shadow Walked to the exact opposite of a church.
Chapter 33
R ather than sitting in the peaceful solitude of a confessional booth, I found myself suddenly gripped by the throat and held a few feet above the dirty floor of an empty biker bar. A pale, haunting skull was glaring at me, eyes afire in a green glow behind an authentic bone mask that was etched with ancient, powerful runes, his bony pale hand clutching my jugular.
Not Hemingway.
Death.
One of the freaking Four Horsemen.
A Rider.
I gurgled between his fingers. “I’m here to see a man about a horse.” I croaked.
The room was silent for a second, and then an all too familiar tone of laughter filled the room — Hemmingway’s laughter. “Took you long enough.” He grinned, slowly releasing the pressure on my windpipe, eyes twinkling behind the terrifying skeleton mask. “Bored yet? Ready for another nightcap?” He eyed my bottle, and then snatched it away happily. “Seems you’ve already started.” I shook my head in disbelief as he slowly lowered me to the ground, but he didn’t move away. I managed to remain standing and stared at him. He seemed a lot… bigger, more menacing than the last time we had shared drinks in Achilles Heel.
He took a swig of the liquor straight from the bottle and then leaned in closer, way too close for my taste. You shared a drink in a Kill and thought you knew a guy. He whispered to me, the sound like crackling leaves in the fall. “I’ll grant you a gift. You may be the first mortal to view the world through my eyes in thousands of years. It will change your perception of the world, but it is a gift worth the cost. Remove my mask if you agree to my terms. You will receive the answers to your parents’ deaths.” I reached for his mask without considering the terms he hadn’t yet stated. My fingers brushed the cool bone skull mask and my mind fragmented into a million pieces as I pulled it away from his face.
I found myself floating in a room, time moving as if underwater, everything cast in a greenish hue. I was at Temple Industries. In a familiar storage room. But this room was now off limits. Even for storage. It was the room of my parents’ murder. I saw my father valiantly fighting a Demon, neither of them moving, the battle taking place solely in the mind. My mother lie motionless behind him, but he fought as if to keep her alive. His forearm was bleeding from the self-inflicted cut he had caused to write me his last message. Then a brilliant flash, and it was over. Sir Dreadsalot left the room, looking furious. I saw Charon approach my parents and felt a single tear spill down my cheek. No one had called him. But he had still appeared. It made me glad that I had always paid respects to the Boatman. For some reason, I understood why their deaths were necessary, in the precisely cool mathematical precision of an equation.
I found myself in a brilliantly white world. I squinted against the glare, assessing my surroundings cautiously. Where was I? A couch sat to my right, mirrored by twin accent chairs to my left. The wooden floor stretched off into deeper sections of the house or building, but I was transfixed by what lay before me. I didn’t need to go exploring. A bookshelf was tucked against the far wall, loaded with elaborately designed spines of ancient books. A vase sat on a coffee table between the two chairs, stuffed with flowers, and paintings decorated the walls.
Except… everything was cocaine white. And when I say everything, I don’t mean different things were each a slightly different shade of complementary whitish colors. I literally mean that everything was exactly the same hue of brilliant white — the wooden floors, the painted walls, the vase, the bookshelf, the books, the furniture, the flowers, and even the stems of the flowers. They rested in what appeared to be milk rather than water.
I stood in a cocaine castle.
Even the paintings were white. When I stepped closer, I could see ridges in the design, the painting emphasized with texture rather than color, and it was done so masterfully that I could actually see what the artist had intended.
I glanced down and saw that I was wearing a silver suit, Miami Vice style, with grey gator skin dress loafers. My creepiness factor went up a few notches as I walked up to a window, placing my hand on the sill.
I stared outside to see I was in a vast forest on the edge of a cliff that overlooked a milky white ocean. And, wait for it… everything was also white. The trees, the house, the sky, and the grass.
I lifted my hands from the sill and flinched in shock as my eyes caught the only color I had seen in this strange world. A grey stain rested where my hands had been. I almost had a fit of panic, fearing that the apparently obsessive compulsive owner of the building was about to come introduce himself and see that his perfectly pristine world had been tarnished by his grey-clad guest. I stared down at my hands, wondering why they had been dirty in the first place… and then I found myself just staring, and staring, and staring some more in utter confusion.
My hands were spotless.
I turned back to the windowsill, but the stain was still there. I furiously began rubbing it with my sleeve, but the stain only seemed to increase, as if my suit fabric was the cause of the problem. Realizing I was only making things worse I stepped away hurriedly. My gaze flickered over the bookshelf and my eyes furrowed in thought. Surely…
I strode over to the bookshelf and grabbed the nearest spine, pulling it out, and leaving an alarming grey stain. I opened the book anyway, hoping to see the familiar color of black font. But the pages were blank. Entirely. Well, everywhere but where my fingers touched. Those pages were stained grey with obvious fingerprints. I glanced at the cover only to see a raised title, Through the Looking Glass. But it was also white. I could only read it because the letters had been raised above the surface.
Then I heard footsteps approaching. Big ones. I began to panic, shoving the book back in place, leaving another large grey stain. I turned around frantically, wondering if I could hide my tracks, but it was too obvious in this place. Smudged boot prints also marred the wooden floor, and the approaching steps were only getting louder.
A glowing white form began to step around the corner but the world shattered like a priceless vase before I got a chance to see his face.
I abruptly came back to myself, breathing deeply. I latched onto the bar with shaky fingers, feeling nauseous and dizzy both from the visions and my failing body. The mask lay on the bar beside my hands, and Hemmingway’s familiar face was visible. Although now I knew it wasn’t his real face. Death handed the bottle back to me. I chugged gratefully, scalding my throat, not even caring about what kind of germs I might be sharing with the Horseman by drinking out of the same bottle as someone older than the Bible. I was dead soon anyway. If this didn’t merit a drink, I didn’t know what did. “The effects are temporary, but know that what you saw is how I see the world. Past, future, and present.”
“Where was that last place? The white room? And why was I-”
He held up a warni
ng finger. “You were in a white room?” His voice was razor sharp.
I gulped cautiously at the look in his eyes, nodding once. “Yes.”
“We will discuss that later.” He finally said under his breath, seeming nervous and… resigned. I watched him. What in the world could have terrified the Horseman of freaking Death?
I was briefly reminded of him mentioning something back in the bar where we had first met. Between black and white is not a grey area, but a quicksilver, honey shade; a shiny, enticing, and altogether dividing line. If employed correctly… “It sure looked to me like I was a big flashing, unappreciated grey line.” I muttered.
“Silver. Not grey.” Death corrected, apparently having heard me. I looked up at him with a question. “It is the color of the path you find yourself on. Silver for the path of walking the sword between black and white. Silver to remind you of the sword’s edge you walk across to fight tooth and claw to maintain the god damned line.” He was breathing heavily. But why the hell did he sound so angry about it?
Apparently, that wasn’t for me to understand. Yet. He composed himself, changing the topic. “Seeing the world through my eyes will change you. A storm is coming, Master Temple, and it has a little something to do with the little box your parents dared open. The world will need you in the days to come.”
I couldn’t help myself. I began to laugh. “I’m literally dying. I know wounds well enough to know that mine are fatal. I’m about to meet you on an official level. What could I possibly do to help? And for once, will someone please tell me what in blazes this has to do with the Armory?”
“You may have heard it by a different name.” His smile turned wolfish, drawing out the moment. “Pandora’s Box. Congratulations on being somewhat correct. Even though you didn’t believe it. That was your father’s point in naming it so obviously. Hide it in plain sight.”
I blinked, too flabbergasted to speak for a few seconds. I took another longer pull of the liquor. “Well, if I’m still kicking around in a few hours, I’ll deal with it. I’m out of juice, so I pretty much have zero chance of helping anyone, not even considering my fatal wounds. I figure I have the night before it’s all over. So I’ll let you deal with the Armory.”
Death studied me, considering thoughts that — no doubt — only a Horseman could fathom, and then dropped a freaking bomb on me as I took another pull of the drink, no longer caring how drunk I became. “You have something of mine. I want it back.”
I blinked in response. “Um. What?”
“The bone artifact. In your pocket.”
I reached inside and withdrew the bone Hope had given me to track Demons. The stone that had caused me to also hear millions of souls speaking into my ears when I commanded it to Seek. Death stiffened, staring at the bone with a look of such pain that I was suddenly concerned about my life’s outcome over the next few minutes. So I offered it to him.
He snatched it up. “This is all that remains of my son. Thank you. I thought it lost.” He whispered. My hair tried to climb right off my head and run away screaming. His son? That was a bone from… but his next words saved me from responding. He had pocketed the bone and looked more or less the same as earlier. “The Greater Demon has your friend, the Regular girl. She has been working with the summoner from the start.” My vision pulsed with a blue haze again, and before I knew what I was doing, I flung out my hand and slammed Hemmingway over the bar in a blazing fit of rage. His body hammered into the mirrored wall of liquor bottles with a shattering crash.
I was heaving, shoulders hunched forward instinctively. “How dare you accuse the only person who has helped me during this clusterfuck.” I snarled, instantly ready to burn the world to the foundations of Hell itself. Magic filled my veins, more power than I had ever wielded before, but… different.
Death climbed up from behind the bar and brushed his shoulders off, totally unharmed. He finally lifted his green eyed fiery gaze to me, as if to ask, Really? You want to take on a Horseman? He was grinning. The fury filling me began to wither and die as I considered that.
“With all due respect.” I added sheepishly. “Sorry. It just sort of happened. My magic does that when-” I froze.
Wait a minute.
I didn’t have any magic.
Then I remembered that I had lit the Tarot card on fire with… magic.
“I seem to be telling you this often, but took you long enough.” Death muttered with an amused smile. His form rippled below the chest and morphed into a fog of weeping souls that I was pretty sure made my ears bleed. I clapped a hand over them for protection. Then he walked through the wooden bar, appearing on my side as if it were an utterly normal means of perambulation. The keening wails halted as he solidified.
“So, you were saying something about being powerless?” Death answered, sipping a glass of absinthe. I hadn’t seen him pour it.
I nodded, still trying to freaking wrap my head around the subtle transformation that had allowed him to walk through the bar. And what had the sounds been? “How did I do that? Is it my Maker ability?”
Death didn’t answer my question. “What are you going to do about the Box?” He asked instead.
“Well, even though I somehow managed to use this new power, I don’t really know how to do it again. And I’m still almost dead. I’m on borrowed time.” I was silent for a few seconds, then, “And before I do anything for the world, I need to save a friend.”
Death cocked his head. “You are more worried about your traitorous friend’s life than the fate of the world?”
I thought about it for all of a second. “Do you have proof she betrayed me?”
“Would you believe me if I said yes? Or better yet, would it change your answer?”
I finally shook my head. “No. If she betrayed me, she must have had a good reason. I’m going after her. I need to talk to the Demon anyway. And the summoner. I’ve got a Blood Debt for what they’ve done.”
Death nodded in approval. “Good for you. A man who stands by his oaths. I understand Blood Debts. If you recall, I fulfilled one myself.” I frowned, not understanding. Then it hit me. The memory of the farmer’s tale he had told me in the bar. It was… his story. I shivered, taking a quick pull of the liquor to mask my surprise. Hemmingway continued. “I thought you would have picked up on that by now. The tale was my… origin story.” He said with an amused smile. His face grew serious again. “Fulfilling Blood Debts… changes you. Revenge in itself can be a cataclysmic choice, but declaring it a Blood Debt applies magic to it, making it binding, permanently tying your soul to the act. But it’s too late to call it anything else now. You’ve already declared it to an Angel. At the bar. Where we first met.” I nodded, not sure what he was talking about with magical oaths. I had simply called it how I saw it. They killed my parents. I sought vengeance. Justice. So, a Blood Debt it was.
Death took another drink before speaking. “Just for the record, Othello had no choice. She was coerced into betraying you. The summoner kidnapped her nephew. Four-year-old boy. Blonde. Good looking. Might change the world someday. It’s not his time… but that can always change.” The way he spoke the last comment made an arctic chill run down my spine. Like an accountant talking ledgers. Harsh. Cold. Analytical. Precise. That was a tough way to live.
I felt marginally better that Othello hadn’t betrayed me by choice. I had already dealt with betrayal once from Peter, and wasn’t sure how long I could maintain my sanity if it happened again. I also found a calming swell of power building deep in my chest at the fact that the summoner had also threatened my friend by kidnapping her nephew.
The only person who had been there for me during this whole mess.
“Well, it’s the only thing I know I can control, and it’s my fault she’s been taken. So if the world is going to hell, I’m at least going to ease my conscience. I need to save her.” I thought for a minute as he assessed my words. “Like I said, I’m on borrowed time, and I don’t know how to reliably use my new power.
So, I’m going to borrow your mask. You’ll get it back. I swear on my pow… no, on my soul, I guess, which you will have complete control over once I’m gone. Which is going to happen in the next few hours, regardless of what I do next. One last hoorah.”
For some reason, it never crossed my mind to ask his permission.
This apparently offended him.
And I was severely reminded of where I stood on the totem pole of power.
Death spun faster than I could blink, and suddenly a wickedly scary, familiar looking scythe drew a fine line of fire across my throat. Where the hell had it even come from? He was wearing tailored slacks, for crying out loud. It took me all of a second to realize that I wasn’t headless, but I was sure the whites of my eyes were blaring like floodlights. Death used his right palm to wipe off my blood from the magnificent, gleaming, silver scythe — the weapon granted to him the night he had accepted his new job — and the blade disappeared with a puff of silver smoke. His other hand shifted into a glowing green set of bone claws and he slashed the palm that held my blood. He reached out his bloody right hand to me politely. I accepted the handshake.
And an implosion of blue and green light filled the bar, buffering us on a molecular level as my apparent blue Maker power joined with his green… Horseman-y power. But the force didn’t affect anything in the bar, as if it were only a spiritual implosion. Which was super scary to think about. I knew we were somehow bound now. He didn’t say a word about the strobe light show of our powers melding together. Kind of like how action movie heroes never turned around to watch the explosion, but instead continued walking away from it in slow motion.
After a minute, I pinched my arm. “Huh. That wasn’t so bad.” Death watched me with a raised brow. “I’m going to borrow your scythe.” I stated flatly, since it had seemed to work for the mask. Maybe my charm was working on overdrive to replace the run of bad luck I had experienced over the last few days.
Blood Debts (The Temple Chronicles Book 2) Page 30
