by Kim Faulks
His lips moved so fast—a jumble of gurgles until one hissed word tore free… “Kris.”
Kris…Kris…a soft thawack wrenched me from the sight, and a deep growl from Angel followed. Seconds…it had to be just seconds. The plastic sheeting moved on the other side of the atrium, sweeping backwards and forwards as I shoved to my feet.
My legs trembled. Adrenaline rushed. Chuck wasn’t the killer.
Memories crammed in. Cruel, beady eyes. Someone watching me from the other side of the airlock door…the ‘booster’ that Kenya had been giving to the others.
It all made sense…I flinched, stilled as one name raced through my head, Damon. Kris was covering his tracks, killing those who knew the real reason he locked himself in the lab. He’d been feeding them the damn plague.
My body trembled, knees weak. I could still feel his lips, still feel the rush of his fingers…still hear his voice in my mind.
The ring bounced against my side as I aimed at the plastic and followed. My pulse was all I could hear as I stumbled past the plants and shoved through the plastic. Wet boot prints were left behind, leading back the way I’d come.
I shoved forward, forcing my feet to move. He was headed for Damon, ready to end this once and for all. My finger slipped to the trigger guard as I raced past the foyer to the lab.
Angel kept up, striding out as we rushed along the lab’s hallway and hit the doors. The handle was lifted, the door hung open. I grasped the steel and yanked.
There was no sound of a scuffle, nothing. I made for the bedroom and glanced inside. Voices echoed back the way I’d come…the lab.
I glanced at the side door and hurried.
“You sent her out there to die?” Damon’s roar rebounded along the hall. “Goddamn you…goddamn you sonovabitch!”
Muffled words responded. I craned my neck as I slid along the hall and stopped outside the door.
“And Chuck…the blood…the blood on your shirt…” Damon stuttered. “So this was your plan all along, wasn’t it? Mutate the plague and release it out into the world.”
“Yes,” the cold word echoed as I reached for the door handle to the lab. My hand was slick, finger finding the smooth curve of the trigger. I’d never fired it at anyone—never aimed it at anything that wasn’t a wall, or a damn object.
A light filled the hallway, slowly at first until the blinding glow swallowed the walls and the ceiling and closed in.
“I’ll do it,” Kris snarled. “I’ll kill every last one of you. I’ll end it all.”
I gripped the handle and shoved. My movements were slow, and numb, muted like watered-down colors as I lunged into the room.
White stole the space, stainless steel glinted. I glimpsed a dark blue jacket on the edge of a bench, the hood open, sleeves turned inside out and for a second I was back in that cage, staring out into the sea of filthy faces and seeing him.
The man in the hood.
“Don’t you come closer. I’ll blow you all away. I swear I will.”
I jerked my focus toward the button in his hand. He gripped a detonator, finger poised over the trigger.
“Don’t…don’t do it, Kris,” Damon stuttered and lifted a hand, but it wasn’t a call to battle…it was a plea.
Blood trickled from under his nose. His knees buckled, and he fell.
The light from the hallway spilled through the cracks around the door to flood the room.
Kris paled under the glow. He threw a panicked glance behind me and raised a hand to shield his eyes.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” I whispered and dragged the muzzle high. “You’re Pestilence.”
He didn’t answer, only stared into the light. I knew what it was now, knew who stood at my side, who’d come for his soul. I gripped the Bible and burrowed into my pocket.
The gleaming rays bounced off the stone, and for a second the emerald was alive, throwing off vibrant hues of green to fill the room.
“You left this ring for me. You taunted me, used me…You could’ve had me killed. I was right there in the cage, hurting and bleeding. One word and Miles would’ve done it, could’ve saved you all this trouble.”
Kris flinched, gaze frozen by the stunning glow. “I didn’t…”
My gaze followed the wires from the button in his hand to the desk behind him. “Didn’t what, Kris? Didn’t use me…didn’t worm your way into my head? Didn’t watch me behind that damn door as I dressed?”
He swallowed hard and shook his head. Angel growled outside the door. The savage snarl invaded with the light. But it was the bark that made me cower.
It wasn’t of warning.
It was of hate and fear.
Savage snarls turned into sickening howls of terror. Something heavy slammed against the door. But I couldn’t leave him…I couldn’t do a damn thing as Kris lifted his gaze to the door behind me.
“Harlow,” Damon whispered.
The end moved in slow motion. Kris’s eyes widened, his terror was a green glow.
Damon reached for me as Kris stabbed the button in his hand and the bright spark ignited.
“It’s too late,” Kris whispered. “We’re all dead anyway.”
I didn’t hear the click. Didn’t feel the fire.
The blast of air hit me like a blow.
My head snapped backwards, teeth gnashing.
My feet left the ground as the ring slipped from my fingers. I tried to reach for the glow as the light crammed in and detonated with a deafening boom.
* * *
Darkness followed, consuming the light with ravenous hunger.
Fragments filtered through. Flashes of light peppered with the savage howls of Angel.
It was that sound that called to me, that desperation, that need. I cracked open my eyes to stare into thick white smoke. The lab was decimated, chairs embedded into walls—stainless steel tables bent and bowed.
Damon…I sucked in the dust and tried to lift my hand as something warm and slick fell into my eyes. Pain flared, piercing my skull with fangs, as movement came from my left.
Kris rolled, pushed, fragments of concrete tumbling free as he slowly climbed to his feet. Blood ran down his head to seep into the white collar of his lab coat.
He lunged forward, stumbled, hit the ground, and then tried again. He was getting away…he was getting away.
My fingers trembled, pain raced along my arm. Bits of brick and concrete fell as I skimmed my fingers across the mess.
Sharp edges poked and prodded. But I needed the feel of steel. I needed my gun as Kris tried once more to stand.
Shadows turned the bright white into gray as Kris turned toward me. His head lowered, gaze fixed on the ground. He stumbled forward and bent over.
Sunlight glinted off perfect steel in his hand.
I knew the gun, knew it better than I knew my textbooks.
“Should’ve stayed away,” Kris murmured, and wobbled. His finger slipped to the trigger as he took aim.
I stared into the barrel and thought of my dad.
Debris clattered as movement came from my right. He moved with purpose, striding through the missing door to carve a path through the rubble.
His hood was pulled low, but the light cut from the side. He lifted his hand, and something flew from my side. Green sparkled as the ring slipped onto his hand.
“You don’t touch her,” the stranger growled as the ring cast its emerald glow across Kris’s face.
The bastard stilled, and then shook. The gun slipped from his hand, falling to the floor. I had a moment before the shadows closed in…one blinding moment where I saw it all.
Death…disease, as Kris’s skin turned black and split before my eyes. He was alive…for one fleeting second, before he turned to ash and was gone.
Rubble crunched. Footsteps sounded.
Fingers brushed my cheek and then slipped from my jaw to my neck and felt for a pulse. I was lifted, carried, stolen away by the shadows and this man.
I dug my nails into the light a
nd held on.
But with the light came the merciless pain, tearing, shredding…leaving me stranded.
“I’ve got you now, Harlow,” the familiar voice whispered.
I held onto that voice with everything I had.
For he was the Horseman in my dreams.
16
The brutal sounds of barking filled me, and howls so savage they cleaved my head. “Please. Please, enough.”
“It’s your damn dog,” he answered, his breath hot against my neck. A shudder raced through me, carving through flesh to find a home in the valley between my thighs as he finished. “I don’t think she likes me.”
Smells invaded…the sweetness of mint that grew on my window sill. The cold, crisp taste of water and concrete on the tip of my tongue.
I sighed and the movement pushed my spine into the soft downy comforter of my bed. Home…the feeling surrounded me. I’m home.
Hands touched me, flesh on flesh, the slight scrape of a nail as he found my fingers. They entwined…mine…his…knuckles to knuckles as another’s touch skimmed my belly and moved to my thighs.
“Is she ready?” someone asked.
I didn’t know that voice. The thought wrenched me higher, all the way to the surface. I opened my eyes to find him in the dark. He stood beside the window in my room, head turned to the shadows, hood pulled low.
Something moved in there, something that wasn’t quite here…but wanted to be.
“Not yet,” the hooded figure whispered and turned his head toward me. “But she will be.”
Darkness slammed into me, wrapping me in a sinister embrace…and in a second I was back there, fighting the darkness for the light. “You.”
He said nothing, only stood there, waiting while recognition dawned. “I know you…” I whisper. “I. Know. You.”
Memories surface. The sting of a needle in my arm, the rush of sweet comfort as he lifted his leg, one leg kicked high, sole flat against the wall. The light danced across his face, revealing the lower half of his face.
It was those lips. Those perfect lips that seized me as he answered. “I told you it was the last one, Harlow. But you didn’t listen.”
The room spun, melting past into present. The drug, Nirvana…the dreams…blood filled my mind, screams of salvation and sin…the light—my breath caught…and he was…he was…
“Your name,” my voice was hoarse and raw. But I needed to hear the words. “Tell me your name.”
The corners of his mouth curled as he skimmed fingers through his hair and shoved the hood backwards.
Perfect brown eyes held me as he shoved from the wall to cross the room, and I was captured by the sight. Brown no longer seemed adequate to describe the color as he moved closer.
Deep cocoa melted into golden rays that circled an eclipse, and I was stolen, just like the sun. Agony consumed me as I wanted him. So beautiful…so very beautiful in a lost kind of way—the bitter tang of desperation flooded the room.
I couldn’t stand to look at him, and yet I can’t look away. I’m in purgatory, nailed to the bed and yet my body betrays me—trembling, as he answered.
“Pestilence…isn’t that what you want to hear?”
I swallowed hard, dug my heel into the mattress, and shoved. My head smacked into the headboard. I glanced right, to the open Bible beside the bed.
He followed my gaze and snarled. “Reach for it…see if it saves you this time.”
I wrenched my head to where he stood. Brilliant white flashes stole the room, leaving me with a washed-out view. “Get away. Get away from me.”
I take a breath, and then another, and I’m lost…lost to my home, lost to the light.
I’m falling…falling as heavy steps rebound through the room to match the thud of my heart.
Lips brush mine and he whispers against my mouth. “Sleep little lamb.”
17
Pestilence
I ran a finger along her arm as War moved close. Her eyelids fluttered, breath turned panicked and fast.
“The preacher is coming.” War whispered beside me. “He’ll turn her against us.”
Hate filled those words until they were nothing more than chiseled ice.
“She’ll learn to hunt us, learn to hurt.”
A shudder raced through her body, trembling those lips as he leaned down. Phantom fingers gained substance the longer he touched. But he wasn’t quite here, stuck in that place of nowhere, trying…always trying.
“Everything has a price.” I watched his fingers slide over the swell of her breast and, under her smooth, perfect skin, her vein throbbed harder against my fingers.
“Her body betrays her,” War murmured as he moved higher.
Her eyelids fluttered open as he took her mouth, and it’s like I was seeing her for the first time, down there in the darkness…waiting for the end.
I need…her words surfaced, filling me with desire. I need something.
I gave her more than she asked for, and in return she took a great deal more…my desire, my motivation.
Her eyes fluttered open with his touch, but she wasn’t there…not really.
She lingered in that place where we could come to her—the edge of salvation and sin. But this was a cruel blade, one slip…
Her lips parted with a shudder as phantom hands dragged the sheet from her body. War lowered his head, brushing his stubble across her chest and moving lower.
And in an instant, I wanted the lips on her to be mine…sharing was one thing, but having to stand there and watch was torture.
I turned my head to the two figures behind us. Famine and Death watched with hungry eyes.
“She can never know,” I murmured. “Whatever happens.”
They stared at me like a lion with a fresh kill, eyes alight with ferocious desire.
A moan slipped from her lips. I turned back to the bed. My breath caught as War made his move, shoving the sheets aside to slip his hand between her thighs.
His fingers curled, palm cupped, riding high. My hand was on fire as her spine arched and her thighs widened.
The bright flare of light spilled from the corner of the room. I turned toward that glow, feeling the pulsating power deep inside. The blast of raw energy hit me like a fist to the chest. I ground my jaw, and held on while its iridescence swallowed the room.
“Not without a fight,” I whispered, and the lucent glow sent a blast through the room. “We won’t lose this time. Not where she’s concerned.”
Pain roared, tearing through my head. I touched my nose…my fingers came away bloody. This wasn’t the first blow…it wasn’t even the thousandth blow.
He once had the numbers on His side…but not anymore…not anymore. “You can’t have her. Not this one. Not this time.”
The heavy thud against the door sent a boom through the room. Inside that room the hound howled with rage. She’d tear me apart…I glanced at the fading pink scars on my arms and then turned to His glow once more.
Never before had the promise of war been the promise of hope—desire filled me as I turned toward her…but it would be now.
The light shone, rippling with rage and power. But He’d had his day. He’d had his moment. He’d led them to this.
Now it was our turn.
A moan slipped from her lips as War eased away. I stared at his phantom fingers and felt the rush of power. His touch was for her mind only…for in this moment her body was mine.
“Make her ours,” War whispered, eyes alight with hunger. “Make her ours.”
Her breath caught as the Calling raged.
Pages fluttered from the open Bible as I flanked the bed. I reached out, flesh touched leather, and the fire of his words raced, searing my fingers…turning flesh to bone. He wanted her to see my true form…see the devil for who he was.
But there was no pure light.
And there was no evil darkness.
There were only shades of gray.
The Calling filled the room and His light dimmed
.
A smile creeped, stealing the thunder of this battle. I turned my head and reached for the coverings.
Soon…very, very soon.
War waited. War with all his violent beginnings, Famine and Death with the end. My fingers trembled as the Calling pulsed through the room.
Emerald sparkled, throwing fractures of brilliant green light.
She thought the Calling was Him, but she was so very wrong.
She can never know…my own words filled me.
She can never know.
18
A moan filled my head. I caught the sound and swam out of the murky depths to the light. My body hummed, soft, powerful. But there was no pain, no nothing…only fading dreams I couldn’t quite catch—dreams that made my pulse race and my body tingle.
I cracked open my eyes and turned my head, stars sparkled in the sky. I closed my eyes once more, reliving the memory. The clang of pans as Mom fixed dinner, Dad’s heavy boots as he travelled from one side of the apartment to the other, and Justin Bieber blaring through the walls as Sarah dreamt and danced.
It could all be right here…right now. Instead of lost and lonely silence.
I waited for dreams to conjure reality, until the throbbing ache in my bladder opened my eyes. My fingers skimmed cotton sheets as I grasped the covering and yanked.
I slid bare feet from the warmth to touch the cold floor and stood. The room swayed…I tried to remember what happened, tried to piece fragments together.
Flashes came back to me. Shadows and light. A mother holding out her baby, eyes filled with desperation and fear.
I stilled, stole a breath, and walked slowly into the bathroom. My fingers worked on their own, reaching for the button of my jeans and instead found sweats.
Damon…Kenya…
The cage…the bomb.
It all came back to me, stealing me from the safety of my home to the memory of the past. My knees buckled and I hit the seat. I held on as acid rose, twisting and turning my stomach as the last image came to me.
