I began to pace, staring down at my phone. I didn’t want to call her in case she was busy saving their lives, but I wanted to call her in case she needed help… saving their lives.
My phone finally rang, and I instantly answered. “Are they okay?” I demanded.
“Yes,” Othello said, voice shaking. “Back to their horrible… man-flu,” she said with forced humor, but the mini-sob ruined it. “Within moments of you leaving…” she trailed off, thinking. “Where are you?”
“Chateau Falco,” I told her, still pacing.
She was quiet for a moment. “That seems to be far enough away… At least you’re no longer killing them. I didn’t believe you were the cause, but…” she sniffed, “you kind of proved that fucking bit, didn’t you?” And I could tell she was on the verge of hysteria.
Not just because I had somehow harmed the Horsemen, but that I had somehow harmed… her boyfriend.
“What can I do?” I asked.
“You can tell me what the hell—” I heard a rattling sound like she had dropped the phone, and then a heated argument. I also heard three men cheering weakly in the background.
Death came onto the phone, voice soft and thready, but no longer alarmingly so. “Nate… You must find the Four Horsemen…”
I gripped the phone tightly, wanting to snap at him. “I almost killed the Four Horsemen a few minutes ago, remember?”
He growled back like an old dog with no teeth. “Find the Mask Maker. He can… explain it better. I honestly… don’t even know where to begin…” I could tell the conversation was draining him, the pauses between words growing longer.
“Matthias?” I asked. “I don’t have time to go hunting for him. We have bigger problems right now.”
Death began coughing – a wet, nasty sound. “No,” he wheezed. “There is no bigger problem than this. Your Mask isn’t what we thought…”
The phone was snatched away again, and I heard a chorus of weak boos in the background, then another round of hacking coughs. “I’m back,” Othello snarled. “Sit down before you fall down, Hemingway!” she snapped into the background. “And stop eating the crackers, Famine! They only throw you into coughing fits!”
“Othello, I have to go. I have to fix this.”
She grumbled angrily. “Fine. I’ll get my answers from these four toddlers,” she muttered. “And Nate? You better fucking fix this. Keep your distance until you do. And call first next time! No more unannounced visits!” There was a pause before the line went dead.
I slowly lowered the phone, staring off at nothing, thinking furiously.
Then I began to pace, feeling restless, not knowing where to begin, but I did know if I sat down I would pass out. Not necessarily from exhaustion, but from hyper stress, feeling overwhelmed and uncertain what to do. Death’s words slithered through my mind like poison.
Find the Four Horsemen…
Your Mask isn’t what we thought…
Find the Mask Maker…
None of that made any sense. I’d almost killed the Four Horsemen just by being in the same room with them. And some very strange things had happened to them at the Dueling Grounds, weakening them. And I’d briefly received some kind of energy boost from them at the end, after they’d… fallen, or whatever it had been.
And the Horsemen couldn’t even touch their own Masks.
And now my own Mask was damaged. Did it need a recharge or something? Had I strained it in my fight against Mordred? I very seriously considered putting it on anyway, because that voice I had heard inside it sure seemed to have some answers – knew all the fine print of the employment contract I hadn’t bothered to read.
I let out a breath. One thing was certain. If I couldn’t ask that voice, there really only was one other person who might have an idea of what had happened. The man who had given me my Mask as a birthday present. “The Mask Maker…” I muttered. “That crazy son of a bitch—”
“That’s no way to talk about your grandparents,” a voice said from the other side of the room.
Chapter 60
I spun instinctively, calling up my whips of elemental fire and ice. They crackled, singeing the rug as I stared at a figure sitting behind the ancient wooden writing desk.
Matthias Temple. The Mad Hatter. The Motherfucking Mask Maker…
He slowly slid a fingertip across the surface of his old desk, smiling to himself at distant memories. He finally sighed and folded his hands in front of him before looking up at me. He looked like a kind, old man, completely unassuming, as if trying to project a peaceful demeanor. But he was a Maker, and he didn’t need his hands to make a bad situation worse. “They’re dying, aren’t they?” he asked tiredly.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, ignoring his question as I took slow, deliberate steps closer. I was done with coincidences, and I wasn’t about to answer his question until I got my own answers for once. Matthias showing up right when I was told to go find him? I hadn’t heard a word from him ever since he’d kidnapped my Knight, putting Baba Yaga and Van Helsing into a deep, deep sleep.
His eyes flickered to a velvet bag on the table. The bag was… shaking, like he had caught a pissed off badger or something. “These began rattling in their bag an hour ago. I’d almost forgotten I Made them, to be honest.”
I frowned at the bag, then frowned harder at Matthias. “Made…” I said, catching onto the distinction. He nodded very slowly, watching me.
Because Matthias was a Maker – a man balancing a symbiotic relationship with a Beast that gave him access to truly unbelievable powers. When he said he Made something, the word usually had a capital letter in front of it. He wasn’t usually talking about Making sandwiches.
“Where have you been?” I asked, changing topics, unsure whether he was a friend or foe.
“Pan chased me around for quite some time. Finally caught up to me and told me he only wanted to help the Knight. Said he knew a cave in Fae where we wouldn’t be disturbed, where he could begin healing him. But I’m pretty sure he just wanted to keep an eye on me. Make sure I wasn’t a danger to you. I think… he cares very much about you, Nate.”
I nodded slowly. Matthias had kidnapped the Knight from Pan, and I hadn’t heard from him in a while. Matthias’ answer sounded like what Pan would do, though. Taking him to a cave in Fae… where I had been born and raised.
“Pan agreed to let me leave when I showed him this,” he said, tapping the velvet bag, and annoying the occupants inside. “So, I’m not a threat to you.” His eyes grew introspective for a moment, and he tilted his head slightly. “At least, I don’t think I am…” He leaned back with a sigh. “It was probably smart of him to keep an eye on me,” he finally admitted, taking no offense in the fact that he obviously wasn’t sure he could trust even himself to make the right call at times.
I let out a slow breath, thinking. They had the Knight, and Mordred seemed intent on hunting down anyone with any ties to the Round Table. Also… maybe a Knight would have insight into exactly what Merlin had done to the Table. The upgrades Mordred had mentioned.
I didn’t realize I was glancing at the actual Round Table until I heard Matthias grunt. “I was never quite sure what to make about that. It has secrets, I know it… I wasted many years trying to learn them, but ultimately failed. I could sense it was powerful, but…” He sighed, shrugging slightly. “What isn’t fucking powerful and dangerous inside Falco?” he admitted, grinning.
The house seemed to purr appreciatively, taking Matthias’ words as a compliment.
Matthias smiled nostalgically up at the ceiling high above. “Ah, it’s good to hear from you again, old girl. Congratulations, by the way. I’d love to meet your boy someday…”
Falco grew noticeably silent, and Matthias sighed sadly.
I, on the other hand, grinned. That had been a big fat, not likely, on the celestial magic eight-ball scale.
I turned back to the velvet sack, walking closer, almost afraid to ask. “Is that for me?”
I asked nervously, fearing the contents.
Matthias grunted. “That depends on if you have the Devourer. If not, I’m going to toss these to the bottom of the stone ocean next to your Fae Cave and hope for the best,” he muttered.
I cocked my head at him, not quite following his meaning. But I did pull the Devourer from my satchel, showing it to him. He winced, his face cast in the dim red glow of the spear’s light, like a curtain of blood.
Taking a leap of faith, I held it out to him. “You need to take this away. Mordred wants it more than anything in the world, and if he gets his hands on it, he’ll have three of his souls back, making him stronger…”
Matthias lifted his hands, leaning away. “The Devourer isn’t the problem, boy. It’s the solution.”
I stared back at him, wondering if he was having part of the conversation inside the padded walls of his mind, forgetting to say it out loud. How was the Devourer the solution? Anubis was going to be rightly pissed when he learned I had taken three of his Nine Souls – if he didn’t know already…
Matthias noticed my look, and leaned closer. “You need to feed the souls to your new Brothers. Or Sisters, I guess…” he added thoughtfully. “I hear you’re quite the ladies’ man.” He smirked absently, a distant smug pride that his descendant had a way with the ladies.
Allegedly.
I blinked at him. “Are you feeling alright, Matthias?” I asked warily. Because he wasn’t making any sense, and he was prone to fits of madness. He’d been locked away so long he’d taken to believing he was actually the Mad Hatter, after all.
“I’m fine. But you may want to sit down for this,” he said, and then he casually upended the velvet bag.
Three… Masks fell onto the table, rattling and humming against the surface, and the coin on my necklace suddenly began to bounce and tingle against my chest. I gritted my teeth, ignoring the slight pain, fearful of what would happen if I took it off so close to these… other Masks.
What if they bonded together like Transformers or something. Power Ranger Horseman!
As Matthias fought to build a perimeter around them with items from the drawers, or the stack of books perched on the edge of the desk, to prevent them from skittering off the table, I just stared, feeling nauseated. They kept angling towards me, like I was some kind of magnet. Or perhaps it was my Mask – the coin tingling against my chest.
“And what are these?” I asked in barely a whisper, having a pretty damned good idea what they were, even if it didn’t make any sense at the moment.
“Um,” he said, corralling one of the more active Masks back towards the center of the desk. “Your new Brothers and Sisters. You have to Make Horseman Masks in groups of Four, you see. Otherwise they won’t work.” He said all of this absently, more focused on keeping them on the desk, like herding chickens.
He had just Made another set of Horsemen Masks, and had forgotten to mention it? Jesus. No wonder the Four Horsemen were sick. Whatever Matthias had done was fucking with them somehow.
I leaned forward, studying them. I slowly waved my Devourer to the right, and the Masks began shifting that direction. I waved the Devourer slowly to the left, and they seemed to grow more agitated, perhaps annoyed, but they did try to change course. They were varying shades of stone – white, gold, and green – and entirely unique from another. But before I could get a closer look, Matthias finally growled, wincing as he snatched them up and shoved them back into the sack. “That’s quite enough of that. Quiet, now,” he commanded the velvet sack.
Surprisingly, they did seem to calm down. Slightly.
“They have to be made in Fours…” I repeated slowly. “And you just… forgot to tell me that when you gave me mine… Then you broke up their little family. No wonder they’re pissed.”
Matthias tapped his temple, grinning guiltily. “I was a little out of sorts back then, but I’m much better now.” He met my eyes, his face hardening. “Would you rather I had handed them all over to you back then?”
Right. I shook my head, waving a hand. I also decided not to give him my opinion about declaring himself much better now. We had enough to fight about already. “Is that why they’re pissed? Because you broke up the band?” Matthias shook his head. “Then why are they so… agitated?”
Matthias pointed a finger at my Devourer. “They’re hungry for Souls. And I’m not sure I’ve been in the presence of Souls that powerful for quite some time. Makes my nose itch being this close.”
My stomach began to rumble queasily. “These Masks need souls?”
Matthias shrugged. “That will calm them down for a while, the stronger the better. But what they really need is owners. Riders.” He glanced at my necklace thoughtfully. “I think they’re a wee-bit jealous of their Brother finding an owner,” he admitted with a shrug. “Something woke them up about an hour ago, and I’m guessing it has to do with your concern over the other Four Horsemen. The older Biblical Riders,” he clarified, frowning. “This is going to get confusing, isn’t it?”
I grunted, recalling how my coin had reacted when they’d been dumped onto the table. But now, my Mask was just giving off a faint humming sensation.
“We already have Four Horsemen. The Biblical ones, as you called them. Is this why they’re sick?” I asked, pointing at the bag. “Because I’m accidentally replacing them with these?”
Matthias scoffed, waving a hand. “Heavens, no. These don’t replace the Bible Thumpers,” he muttered, as if I’d said the dumbest thing in the world.
I gave him a very dry look.
He sighed. “Think of your Four Horsemen – these Masks – as… cousins to the Biblical Horsemen.” I shivered to hear the words, cousins, just like that voice inside my Mask had said. “These Masks were awoken about an hour or so ago, so you did something with your Mask. And if the Four Horsemen are suddenly sick, it’s definitely related to these assholes. They’re leeching power from the existing Horsemen. Jealousy, remember?” he chuckled. “Vengeful little shits, aren’t they?” He slapped the table at that, laughing harder.
“Yeah… fucking hilarious. How do I stop these Masks from leeching off the Four Horsemen?”
Matthias stared at me as if I was purposely being daft. “I just told you. Feed them. That will calm them down for a while. Give you time to find owners. You need to put the souls from your Devourer in the Masks, or else they will drain the Biblical Horsemen entirely. You woke yours up, bonding with it, finally, so now you’re on borrowed time. They won’t stop leeching power until you pay them respect, giving them what they want – Riders. Barring that, feeding them powerful souls will buy you more time.”
“You couldn’t have given me a warning that I needed to start interviews a while ago?” I demanded.
“Consider this your warning. Start interviewing people.” He pointed at the Masks. “For your favorite three people. Or most hated three people,” he muttered. “Whatever you choose.”
I leaned closer. “You’re telling me that if I feed these souls from my Devourer into these Masks, that the Four Biblical Horsemen will miraculously be healthy again? Back to fighting shape?”
Matthias thought about it. “Well, I’m not a doctor or anything, but it sounds about right.”
I grimaced. Of course. But I didn’t really see a negative in it. Getting rid of these souls by placing them into the Masks would mean I could use my Devourer again. That it would no longer be dangerous to carry, fearing Mordred hunting me every time I looked over my shoulder. And like a security blanket, I was feeling pretty damned secure with the blade on my person. Like it had been designed for me, specifically.
Remembering I had found it in Pandora’s Armory, and that it matched the unicorn that had bonded with me, I accepted the fact that I was a target in some vast, universal con-game. Sometimes, all you could do was roll with the con, waiting for the moment you could flip the script and turn it back on the con-man.
And anyway, it wasn’t like I had much choice. Either throw the Devourer in
the deepest section of the ocean where Mordred couldn’t find it – and likely end up killing the Biblical Four Horsemen as the three Masks on the table slowly drained their powers to nothing.
Or… feed these vengeful little shits the souls I wanted nothing to do with anyway.
“I’m going to need to sleep on this,” I told Matthias. “Or at least take a walk to clear my head, making sure I’m not jumping into yet another bad decision.” Because I had just considered that Anubis might have a very strong opinion on the matter. I was holding three of his Nine Souls in captivity, and Ruin had eaten one of them as well. Out of Nine, Anubis had only recovered four. That probably wouldn’t look good in his eyes.
Matthias watched me uneasily, then glanced at the bag, which had suddenly begun to rattle much more angrily, as if realizing I was delaying their meal. “I… well, I wouldn’t wait too long. Right now, you are waving a raw steak in front of a pack of lions, then walking away.”
I nodded, watching the twitching bag. “I’m their brother, though, right?”
Matthias gave me a very dry look. “How well did that work out for Cain and Abel?”
I scowled. “Right. Thanks for that lovely image.”
“Bad things happen when you use a Mask without a soul…”
“Mordred’s still out there. Can’t we just… put this Mask business on hold? I’ve been dragging my feet for years. Why the sudden rush?”
He shook his head. “You woke up your Mask tonight, starting the clock. Now, your new siblings need Riders, or a distraction until you find Riders. Maybe feeding them will give you a year or two. Perhaps three, if you’re lucky. I don’t quite know. I just Made them,” he said, shrugging innocently.
I blinked at him incredulously. Was he really taking no responsibility in this? It was unbelievable.
“It’s also considered very rude to wake a Mask,” he said, pointing at the coin around my neck, “before you’ve chosen Riders for the others,” he said, pointing at the bag. “Anyway, this is all scholarly. No one thought it actually possible. Sure, they theorized about it, but didn’t actually believe it. Not after…” he shook his head. “Anyway, you have three big, fat, juicy souls.”
Horseman: A Nate Temple Supernatural Thriller Book 10 (The Temple Chronicles) Page 36
