The Four Horsemen_Descent

by L. J. Swallow

  With apprehension, I sit and we both flick through in silence. I spend an hour comparing the stones, but there’s little I can decipher. Tapping my pen on the table, I read over information the Collector passes me for my opinion.

  "Please stop. You're annoying me," he says.

  I do as he asks, and the Collector sits back dragging hands through his blond curls. "I've lost concentration now!"

  "I can take over?" I suggest. "You've a pattern now, haven't you? That should help make out more sentences."

  "I'd rather you didn't until what I've found is clearer." He closes the book with his notepad inside. "Have you deciphered any more?"

  "I can make out a few words but that’s all."

  With a sigh he stares down at the book. "I wish Breanna were here. If what Ripley says is true, this would be clearer and quicker."

  "Are you saying it’s useless us trying to do this?" My stomach leadens. "We can surely find something."

  "Yes, we can. But this will take longer."

  We return to our work and attempt to put together sentences, or match them to pictures. Chaos and Truth are the most common words, but the Horsemen aren’t mentioned as frequently.

  I look up at the clock ticking above a nearby fireplace and rub my eyes. Three hours and my head aches with frustration. I never expected this to be easy but, after days chasing around and weeks not knowing who Verity is, we need answers. They’re in reach. So close.

  But will they be the answers we want?

  The Collector interrupts my thoughts."Joss. I need to talk to you."

  "Did you find something?"

  I’ve seen The Collector lose his impassive attitude once, in Portia’s presence. Twice now, because he’s looking at me as if seeing me through different eyes. He can’t hide his thoughts—the Collector doesn’t want to tell me what he found.

  But he has no choice. He offered to help.

  "Yes. I need you to tell me if I’ve interpreted this correctly." He pushes the notepad across the table, and my hand shakes as I take hold.

  21

  JOSS

  The Collector leaves the room, but I can't.

  I'm trapped by what we found.

  How can I walk through that door, to the barrage of questions, and not cause everybody else's world to fall apart?

  They need to know. They will know. But I can't say the words; I can barely repeat them in my head.

  Do I speak to Vee first?

  Should I explain to her what I've found? Or when we're all together? She gains strength from us being around her. Will that be enough?

  I turn back to the text, to our notes, and reread them. This has to be a mistake. This can't be who Vee is.

  Isn't everything open to interpretation? A theory? Nobody can see the future.

  This doesn't need to happen.

  But what if it's the only way?

  VEE

  I’m half-asleep, the afternoon growing late, and I’m woken by someone walking into the lounge room. The Collector won't look at me and fear seizes my heart. Where's Joss? I watch the door, but he doesn't appear.

  "Are the others here?" he asks.

  "No. Why?"

  I've waited here all day unable to leave. We’re aware the storm gathers in the Atlantic as we listen to the news stories about how quickly it moves and how far the devastation could spread.

  Seth, showing his might, warning us.

  He can destroy us.

  He can hurt the world.

  And then he can end it.

  Seth also sent a message saying he has something special to share, and that if we didn't meet up with him, and bring him answers, he'd begin picking off countries and people one by one.

  Does he know we have the stones now?

  The Collector glances over and when I catch his eyes, he's forced to approach me. I look back as he takes on his game face, like that of a doctor.

  "Where's Joss?" I ask.

  "I think he's still reading."

  "Did you find anything?"

  His face remains impassive, but eyes flicker concern. "Yes."

  "What? What did it say?"

  He scratches his cheek. "I think we should talk when everybody is here."

  I swallow. The other guys need to come back now. I’m surprised they left, but Heath persuaded Xander to walk with him in the nearby park. His pacing and anxiety wasn’t helping mine. Ewan hasn’t returned from looking over what’s left of our house yet.

  "Joss will tell me what's happening." I stand and push past him, ignoring the nausea. Why didn't Joss walk straight out too?

  The door is closed to the room where Joss sat with the Collector all afternoon, and I hesitate as I close my hand around the smooth metal handle.

  Inside, Joss sits with his head in his hands, motionless, quiet. An open book is spread across the table in front of him, beside pens and a notepad covered in scrawled writing.

  He looks up as the door clicks closed and when I see the look on his face, I almost turn and run. He's as hollow as the Joss I lost to the wraith.

  "Joss?"

  He hastily pushes everything into a pile and closes the book, and I walk over and place a hand over his to stop him.

  "What did you and the Collector discover?"

  "I don't know," he says hoarsely. "I don't know."

  "Surely you must've found something. Does it say who I am? Where I'm from?" My mouth dries before I add my biggest question. "Do you know why I'm here?"

  He nods and folds his hands beneath his arms, but he can't hide the shaking.

  "If you can't tell me, can I read what you've written?"

  He glances at the table. "I'm double-checking if this is all correct." I reach out but he stops me, clutching my fingers until they hurt. "Let me tell you what the book says."

  "This is bad, isn't it?" I whisper. "How you feel is flooding from you. Is what you’ve found bad for me, or us?"

  He blinks. "Both."

  "And for Chaos? Do we stop him? Does this say how?"

  Joss lets go of my hands and stands. He turns away, digging hands into his hair and holding his elbows at right angles. For a moment, he's motionless and I watch, stomach churning.

  I'm about to ask him again to talk to me when he spins around. I recoil as he swipes everything from the table and swears, shouting, his despair replaced by rage. I'm the most terrified I've been for days. Calm, measured Joss who holds us all together entered this room, and has disappeared leaving this man behind.

  I reach out to Joss, but he's lost in whatever grips him. Is he being influenced by something again? Was this the book?

  Joss slumps down in his chair and leans forward, head in his hands again, muttering an apology. I approach and wrap my arms around him, instantly feeling the truth.

  No, he's just Joss.

  "You're scaring me." He looks around as I stroke his face. "Don't hide anything from me."

  He nods and strokes hair from my face. "I'm sorry. I should hold things together. That was selfish of me."

  "You can't help how you feel."

  Joss pulls me onto his lap, the way he's done so many times before, when we sit and chat and joke. When we're Vee and Joss, sometimes whispering and annoying the others, and being the relaxed 'us' we can be when we help each other unwind.

  Only the secrets he whispers now destroy my world in a way Seth never could.

  22

  HEATH

  Joss sits next to Vee on the sofa, beating me to the spot, so I sit on the arm on the other side of her. She smiles at me, but her dull eyes betray how much Joss has told her already. I only had minutes to ask questions before he rushed the five of us into the room to talk, and now I know Joss lied when he said only the Collector has answers.

  The room drops into a weird silence, and I look between Joss and the Collector, who chooses to sit in his chair. The one he used when we sat here with the betraying bastard, Seth. The day Seth fooled us that he was helping.

  "What have you found?" says
Xander in a harsh voice. "Everything. Now."

  The Collector looks to Joss. "We’ll tell you everything we’ve found so far, Xander. But we haven’t translated all the text."

  "Fine. Whatever." His voice isn’t Xander, and I know mine would waver too.

  "Okay. We all agree that Vee contains energy unlike anything seen before." Xander gives a curt nod to the Collector’s words. "It is true, Truth has been created to deal with Chaos, but we can't decipher how long ago she became what she is."

  "Only a few months," replies Ewan.

  "No. Before she was hidden," says Joss. "We think her energy has been in the world for years, passed between uh..." He pauses. "’Vessels’ is the word the book used."

  I frown. "Put here by who?"

  "We’re still figuring that out."

  Ewan sinks back. "I don’t know if I can cope with only knowing some of this."

  "Isn’t something better than nothing, though?" asks Joss. "We need a head start in case Seth does gather some intel too."

  Xander takes a deep breath. "I agree. Carry on."

  The Collector pulls the book from his pocket and sets it on the table. He points at a page. "These three words are repeated in the book. Chaos. Order. Truth. We know what that means today, but to other people they are just words, not entities. This suggests Truth and Order have been in the world since the text was written, as well as Chaos."

  "So the demon element? They’ve always existed?"

  The Collector shrugs. "Perhaps, but the word Order has many meanings."

  "So what? How are the three connected?" I ask.

  Joss takes Vee’s hand, and for the first time in days a jealousy stabs deep inside. He told her, and they have a deeper bond because of this. "In this text, Truth can bring the end of Chaos," he says.

  "And the Order?" asks Ewan. "Does she end them?"

  "That’s not clear."

  "So Vee is here to help us and kill Chaos?" Xander sits forward. "We were right."

  "No, Vee is here to close the portals," says the Collector.

  I frown. "They are closed. You mean to keep them closed?"

  "Yeah, that’s our role. What’s so different about Vee?" puts in Ewan.

  "Maybe close is the wrong word." The Collector exchanges a look with Joss. "End the portals is perhaps a better phrase?"

  Joss shifts in his seat and squeezes Vee’s hand tighter. She smiles down at him.

  Okay. Now I’m pissed off he never spoke to me.

  "The Horsemen protect portals," replies the Collector. "You can't close them permanently, not even together, but you've kept them safe for when Chaos and Truth arrive."

  "Oh man, this is confusing," I mutter and my heart beats faster.

  The Collector smiles sympathetically. "Joss and I can't yet figure out everything, like we said. I will keep working on this. Breanna can help once she returns."

  "Go on," urges Xander.

  "The portals needed protecting until the biggest threat to them arrived, and it appears the Horsemen were created with individual powers to take that role."

  "By who?" asks Xander sharply.

  "Something else we need to figure out." Joss’s voice is soft and hesitant. "Sorry."

  "Wait," says Ewan. "We figured out that Truth needed us in order to become stronger. So, are you saying she has a bigger power that needs boosting by us or whatever once the time arrives?"

  "Yes. Which is what we did, I presume?" asks Xander. "So she contains more than just a combination of our powers?"

  The Collector points to the book. "Chaos and Truth are prophesied, in the book. Chaos has to be destroyed when he returns. By joining with the Four Horsemen, Truth is able to do this."

  Xander wipes both hands from his face into his hair. "I'm getting lost here. Is Truth a Horseman or not?"

  "Key," says Vee.

  "What key?" asks Ewan.

  "Me. I'm the key. I can open the portals or lock them."

  "Then what are we?" asks Ewan, face flushing with frustration. "This isn’t anything we believed from reading other books."

  "Guardians," says the Collector.

  Ewan huffs. "Of the portals? Yes."

  "No, of the key."

  His voice rises. "But we only just found Vee! How can the Horsemen have spent years being guardians of something—someone—we only just met?"

  The Collector moves his hand to indicate Ewan should calm down. "We'll figure this out."

  Xander stands. "Figure it out?" he half shouts, and I straighten as a familiar switch flicks and his anger grows. "Stop being fucking cryptic! Vee—a key, or whatever. Us, guardians of her —Truth. What? Is she here to kill Chaos? Or close portals he opens? Or both? How does she do all this?"

  Joss takes a deep breath. "Chaos created the portals when he was having ‘fun’. Looks like someone created us to keep them closed until he could be destroyed. Remember Seth said he’s been away—who knows how long for?"

  The Collector interrupts. "Now Chaos is back and Truth has her purpose. That’s why you had to find her before he did, and to form a bond strong enough to keep you together until she was ready. Truth will destroy the portals and any chance his chaos could enter again, but only if Seth dies."

  "Right. So she’s here, and we help? Good. That’s what I thought." Xander breaks into a relieved smile.

  Something’s off, because Vee and Joss definitely aren’t sharing his relief.

  "Death." We all look at Vee, who speaks in a quavering voice then stands and wraps her arms around herself.

  I dizzy as I point to the book. "You mean me, right? The other Horsemen are mentioned in the book?"

  Vee shakes her head. "No. Seth was right. I'm going to die."

  The world stops. A freeze-frame, like the moment before an explosion blasts through a movie scene. But this isn’t a movie. This is a fucking nightmare. My ears ring as Vee’s words blacken the exploding world for a moment. I don’t look at her. At the others. At anything. I attempt to change her words in my mind, to find a different definition.

  There’s none.

  I wait for somebody to react and I shake my head at the Collector. "That’s not true."

  The Collector’s silence pushes my heart rate and suspicion upwards, before he speaks.

  "Joss is correct. This will kill her."

  Joss swallows and Vee turns her face so we can’t see her reaction. Nothing I see or hear makes me sick. Ever. I might panic, or lose my shit sometimes, but I'm never nauseated by anything. But right now, I could heave the contents of my stomach onto the floor in the spinning room.

  No.

  Fuck, no. They’re wrong. My mind repeats the words, reassuring me with denial.

  Something Xander shares.

  "Bullshit!" he shouts. "Total bullshit! I don't know what you read, but you need to look again! Vee is not going to die. You said she's powerful—more powerful than Chaos—nobody can kill her. Chaos can’t kill her."

  "Chaos won’t kill me, Xander." Vee clears her throat, finding the voice we can barely hear. "I need to release the power we’ve created. That's what kills me."

  Xander's stunned into silence, and I glance at Ewan, whose shock matches. This was supposed to be a battle—kill or be killed—and we were going to win. This isn’t supposed to be this way.

  I turn to her. "No. The Collector just said it. You kill Chaos and close the portals. You have to live to close them, surely?"

  "When I die." Vee clears her throat. "That’s when Chaos dies. The energy inside me is linked to him too, and powerful enough to wipe him out and his portals. Truth contains all the power needed; the raw energy has to be unleashed against him."

  "How?"

  Vee shakes her head and bites on her lip. "I don’t know yet."

  "Then we all die," says Xander hoarsely. "We fight Chaos with Vee and die with her."

  The Collector and Joss exchange another of their bloody annoying, knowing glances. "There's nothing here to say the Horsemen die."

  "Of course
we fucking do!" he snaps. "We can't live without our Fifth!"

  Of everything spoken in the last few minutes, Xander's outburst shocks me the most but his words are chained between all of us, the chain that circles Vee. Not Truth, Vee. He may be saying the Horsemen won't live after she dies, but I hear his other meaning.

  How can we be whole if Vee leaves us?

  "No," says Ewan. "I think we’ll all die. I mean, our existence will be pointless with no portals to protect."

  I'm about to protest that Horsemen don't die, but who knows what the fuck counts as mortality in this situation? If our role was to activate Vee, or whatever, we must be surplus to requirements now.

  "I want to read your notes ," says Vee in a quiet voice. "I need to know everything."

  Ewan breaks his silence. "This is confused prophecy bullshit. We'll figure this out. There must be a way to kill Chaos that doesn't kill Vee."

  "What confuses me," says the Collector, "is Chaos must be half-sure Vee's here to take him out, so why hasn't he hit first?"

  "Seth told me Vee was stronger than him," mutters Ewan. "When he fought me. She can do this. We can do this. Vee doesn’t need to die."

  But despite his words, I can tell his belief is shaky.

  "At least we have time while Seth figures this out," says Xander.

  "Time for what?" I ask.

  "Time to find another way to kill Chaos," suggests Heath. "The Horsemen have kept the portals closed for hundreds of years. We can keep doing that. We just need Chaos gone."

  The Collector sighs. "Not an option, according to this book."

  "Why?" demands Xander.

  "Vee's energy kills him and closes the portals. If she doesn’t kill him, he opens them and everybody dies anyway. It's not an either-or situation." The Collector runs a hand across his head. "I’m very sorry. I don’t know what to say to make this better."

  "We appreciate your help." Vee’s words sound wrong, as if she’s thanking him for a ride home or a mundane task. Not telling her she’ll die. "With everything. Helping Syv find the stone, helping us with deciphering and letting us stay. You’re very kind."