“What have we here?” hissed the nearest Walker, shorter than the others by several inches, and slimmer, swaying left-right, left-right in a way that emphasized how much smaller it was. There were long vertical rips in its grey cloak and Piotr could see surprisingly intact legs beneath, muscles whole and flexing, flashing its pale, mold-riddled skin. Other than the mold the legs looked strong, good for chasing down prey. Piotr shuddered, trying not to imagine this particular Walker not walking, but running, after him; hunting him to ground like a beast.
“Three Riders out past their bedtime? So late at night. What are you doing awake?” It chuckled roughly, and the menace of it raised the hairs on Piotr's arms. This Walker wasn't nearly as mindless as it ought to be, he realized, and it didn't seem as affected as they were by the thin spot of Never.
“It's one of the White Lady's, too,” Elle said softly. “Look, its hands are all scarred up.”
“How many of you escaped?” Piotr demanded suddenly, exasperated. “It seems we cannot turn around before bumping into another one of you!”
“Perhaps Piotr walks in the wrong parts of town then?” suggested the lead Walker, drawing its hood partially off its face. Piotr winced when he saw that half the Walker's face was gone, the left eyelid drooping deeply and the flesh spongy and soapified on the left side.
The lips drawn back were bloodless and chapped and the eyes were unnaturally wide, but something about the Walker's features struck a chord deep inside. It took Piotr a moment before he realized why this Walker wasn't quite as tall as the others, why it was so slim, why it looked so different than the others—he was a she.
Recoiling back a step, Piotr grimaced. He knew that, in theory, some female spirits became Walkers, but it wasn't usual. He'd always gotten the impression that they just didn't last as long as the men, and they hardly ever lasted long enough to reach a position of dubious power among the Walkers. It wasn't that women were incapable of being just as cruel and cold as a Walker had to be, it was simply that even dead, prejudices persisted. Most of the Walkers had been living men in a time when most women were subservient and cowed—any woman who became a Walker had to be twice as cold and cruel just to survive. The fact that these other Walkers were following her was almost unheard of. Of course, since the White Lady, many previously unheard of things had been occurring at a disquieting rate.
One of the other Walkers chuckled when Piotr fell back a step, and the lead Walker stiffened, raising her head sharply and squaring her shoulders. “Problem, girl-flesh?”
“You appear to know Piotr's name, or perhaps Piotr himself,” Lily said. “This was unexpected.”
“Pooey on knowing Pete, he's got a face no one'll forget any time soon. What I'm interested in is the factola that you just happen to be a lady and a Walker,” Elle said, snorting derisively. “Why are you hanging out with these palookas, girly? The afterlife's that boring for you? You shoulda gone up the Top o’ the Mark way. They at least have some appreciation for a nice pair of gams like yours.”
The Walkers behind the leader shifted silently in place. The leader shook her head once, holding out her skeletal, scarred hands.
“Was female,” she corrected. “Now, I am Walker. And you are Rider. Understand me, I am a Walker.” Then, faster than Piotr's eyes could track, her other hand darted out, arcing quickly outward and upward. Without thinking, Piotr stepped into the path of the motion.
“Brave, idiot Piotr,” the Walker hissed under her breath, twisting the sharpened hook in his side. Piotr gasped—the pain hadn't been immediate, but as she twisted and worked the point, his essence felt as if it were being scraped free of his very bones, like she was gutting him alive. For all he knew, she was; the bulk of the weapon was sunk into his gut. Who knew the damage she was doing? “You never change. Never, never. It will be a pleasure to feel you die.” She leaned forward and ran her dry, raspy, rotting tongue across his facial scar. “Again.”
An arrow punched past Piotr's face, embedding itself deeply in her stabbing arm. “Step away from Piotr,” Elle said coldly, another arrow already notched and ready. She'd stepped out of the thin place and her bow buzzed with bright, fierce energy. “He may be a piker, but he's our piker, and I don't take kindly to anyone manhandling him. Understand?”
“Toys,” the Walker sneered, using her free hand to yank the arrow free. It ripped a large, gaping hole in her essence, releasing a puff of foul air like spoiled meat and rotten eggs.
She pushed back and, shaking her head so that the rest of the hood fell down, revealed spare strips of dirty blonde hair that clung wetly to the grisly remains of the vertebrae slanted at the top of her spinal column. “I thought perhaps it was a sign, now that we see one another again, that a deal could be made.”
“I don't know who you are,” Piotr said. “I've never seen you before in my life.”
“Lies,” she sighed. “All from your lips are lies and lies and lies again. I see now how wrong I was. Fine. Worthless boy. Worthless girls.” She glanced over her shoulder, and jerked her chin at the other Walkers. “I am done with these things. Teach the boy a lesson; hurt his girls. Suck their fingers to the bone. Chew on their soul-meat until all the flavor is gone.”
One the others darted forward, pulling weapons from hidden pockets, sharpened fingertips raking the air as they massed toward Lily and Elle.
Then, surprisingly, the woman drew Piotr close, using the hook in his gut as leverage. “The White Lady taught them many things, Piotr,” she whispered in his ear, “but I watched. I learned. She did not know how much, how long I watched. She had no idea how long I've known you, or how young she really was.”
Gasping, Piotr struggled but couldn't move. Small as she was, she was far stronger than she looked; his toes barely brushed the ground. Behind him he heard Lily scream, though whether in anger or pain he couldn't tell. Elle yelled too and there was a loud, sharp clatter as someone knocked over a trashcan on the corner.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” Piotr ground out, twisting painfully on the hook, trying to push his hands against her shoulders and give himself enough leverage to push up and off, to flee the immense pain.
“I hungered. No children, no Lost, for many months; I had become nothing but a shadow, walking the highway. I regretted my choice to take the souls but they were so tasty and I was so scared of becoming nothing before my time. Again and again and again. All your fault.”
“I don't…I can't…”
“I hated you…you never had to worry about tasting the flesh. For you, unending Never. For me? Only pain.” The Walker pressed her rough lips against the cup of Piotr's ear and the smell of her enveloped him in a rancid, rotting cloud. “Cursing my luck, I hunted in the rain, walking the highway, waiting for the death I could smell on the wind. And then the bus crashed.”
She was talking about the accident that had created the White Lady, Piotr realized, horrified, the one where Wendy had to reap the Lost for the first time.
“The Lightbringer took my prey—oh so many young souls!—but I was patient. I watched…I learned.” She chuckled. “I saw what you did for her, Piotr, how you came when she called, and pulled her soul together and stitched it back together after the children ripped her apart. I knew you. So long apart and you were almost exactly the same!” She brushed a hand across his face, fingering his scar, and chuckled. “So much the same.”
“I don't remember—”
“Lies. Lies get you nowhere. But I expect your lies. They are natural as breathing, as sleep. I waited here for many days. I knew you would come back. You always come back, you can never keep away from them, can you? So I offer you this deal: I will call off my Walkers, once her Walkers. If. IF. If you do this for me. Make me whole again, like you did for the White Lady. Stitch me back together and your friends can go free. I will go my way and you yours, like before. We will be nothing to one another again. Do this little thing for me, boy. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be trapped here. You owe me.”
/> “I do not remember,” Piotr said again, this time with more force. It was the wet-meat smell of her that was finally getting to him, the rotten sewer smell combined with her rancid breath and the insistence, the blind, chilling certainty, that Piotr knew something that he didn't, that he was holding out on her.
How did she know him?
He wished he could remember that night. He wished he could remember half the nights he'd had for the last ninety-plus years that Elle swore she'd known him in, or the centuries Lily promised that they'd been friends. Past a certain point—the seventies? The fifties?—it all faded into nothingness…and Piotr hated that. He worried that, if this kept up, one day his memories of Wendy would drift away just as everything else had. He didn't want to forget her.
“I don't remember doing anything to you,” Piotr ground out. “And people keep telling me that I did it, but I don't remember how I put the White Lady together again, either. I don't remember anything! Why can't any of you understand that? I don't remember!”
Then, drawing on unexpected reserves of strength, Piotr lifted up his legs and, jamming his feet into her solar plexus, shoved violently backwards. He felt his essence rip, felt the unimaginable pain of jerking himself free of the hook, and hit the ground with a wet thump.
“So be it,” the woman said coldly. “Have it your way, for now. But you still owe me, and I do not forget your debts as easily as you do.”
Spitting on his prone body, she turned on her heel and fled, leaving Piotr to wonder why she'd run. He certainly wasn't in any shape to hurt her. As he was about to sit up, a second figure leapt over his body—one of the other Walkers—sprinting for the forest.
“You bastard! Come back here!” Elle shouted, dropping to her knees at Piotr's side for balance and letting another arrow fly.
It soared across the distance, cutting cleanly through the air, and embedded itself deeply in the Walker's back. He staggered but kept running, zigzagging down Sutter Avenue as quickly as he could. He was almost to the corner of Sutter and Post, just skirting the edge of the spirit web forest, when a humongous, hulking figure leapt from the darkness. Before Piotr had the time to blink, the creature—what looked to be an impossibly huge wolf, but twisted, somehow wrong—snapped up the Walker and shook him in its mouth like a pet poodle might do to a chew toy. The Walker shrieked, a long undulating sound that wavered in the air, but within seconds the scream was replaced by a series of wet, ripping noises accompanied by hideous growls.
“Go-go-go,” Elle hissed.
Piotr flipped over to his stomach as fast as he could, but the second he put weight on his right foot his leg buckled beneath him. “I can't,” he hissed back, trying to keep an eye on the beast and stay inconspicuous at the same time. It seemed busy for the moment, but Walker meat couldn't be tasty. Who knew how long before it smelled the essence pouring out of Piotr in a river, and came to investigate?
“Oh, hell!” Elle grumbled, yanking Piotr up and over her shoulder in a fireman-carry, half-dragging him as far from the beast as they could manage, as quickly as she could stagger. Piotr was uncertain how long he was jounced along on Elle's shoulder, but she didn't stop until they'd reached the intersection of Mission and Market. There, gasping, she dropped him onto a bus bench and slumped down beside him, swiping the sweat off her brow with a shaking arm. Nearby, the BART rumbled.
“She sure worked you over, didn't she, Petey?” Elle said, coughing as she knelt by his side. “Can you get up?”
“The others?” Piotr asked weakly, waiting for the waves of pain to subside. “Lily?”
“I am fine, Piotr,” Lily said, kneeling on his other side. “It was close at times, but I gave as good as I received. They will not choose to engage us again, mark my words. But how do you fare? Do you need aid in rising?”
“He boogered up his ankle,” Elle explained. “And we've gotta hoof it all the way to Mountain View with Petey-Sore-Paw. We are well and truly up the creek.”
Lily chuckled. “So negative, Elle! This is unlike you. We are called Riders, are we not? Why should we do such a thing as walk?”
“Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but there aren't exactly a surplus of horses wandering these parts anymore, Pocahontas. How, exactly, do you think we should catch a ride with Piotr unable to jump on a car, especially all the way down to Mountain View? Caltrain's not running yet and BART will only get us so far.”
“Simple,” Lily said, pointing down the street where a faded ghost of an image was slowly making its way toward them in the living lands. “We catch the last bus.”
Thankfully it was so late at night that boarding was painless. They slid through the side of the vehicle as it stopped for a brief moment while the driver noted the stop as empty on her log. Huddling in a pair of seats near the back of the bus, Piotr allowed Lily to examine his wounds. When she sat back, her expression was grave.
“You are healing,” she said carefully. “Not as fast as I would like, but there is certainly some closure at the back. I would prefer that we had a Lost to help with the process, but for now you shall be fine if you do not engage in another battle. How do you feel?”
“Achy,” he said honestly. “Somewhat off, woozy…but I think you're correct. It's just a scratch.”
“And your ankle?”
Piotr gingerly twisted his foot from left to right. “Hurts, but not as badly. I have dealt with such before.”
Lily nodded. “Your will is strong; were I to know of these injuries on another Rider, I would say that they would be laid up for many days. I do not think this will be the case with you. You heal quickly.”
Thankful that Lily hadn't chosen to probe into the wound, Piotr sat back and tried not to wince too much as Lily went to check on Elle's cuts and scratches. He felt badly about hiding the full extent of his injuries from Lily, but he knew there was no way she'd be able to open him up and examine what he was sure were cut organs inside. Thankfully, he had no need of organs anymore. The pain would slow him down until he healed the damage, but so long as his slow leak of essence was kept to a minimum and he maintained a bright and strong will, he was sure he'd be fine.
Getting to Wendy, warning her of what he'd learned from Frank, was more important.
Breathing so that the pain ebbed with the movement of air within him, Piotr allowed himself to rest. He didn't know how long they traveled, only that they were heading steadily south, and the thrum of the wheels on pavement beneath him was soothing. Still, it seemed cold, even for a winter night.
After long minutes Piotr shivered, slumped, and slept.
“Petey? Hey, flyboy, wakey-wakey!”
Piotr jerked aside as Elle shook his shoulder again. “Do not touch me, witch. I'll cut your lying tongue from your head!” he snapped, and then immediately regretted his sharpness when Elle, stiffening and angry, raised both hands and took a step back. “My apologies, Elle,” he said, rubbing knuckles against his tired and gritty eyes and wishing his terrible dream would fade faster. “I was sleeping. I am…weary.”
“Yeah,” she said dryly, relaxing. “We noticed. Better wake up in a hurry, though. We're just about at our stop.”
Wendy lived about a mile from the main bus route. Thankfully, Piotr knew the way by heart and was able to navigate toward her house even in his tired stupor. Perhaps it was due to Wendy's mother, or Wendy herself, or perhaps they had just settled in a particularly spiritually rich neighborhood, but many of the trees and plants were unnaturally dense here, many of the homes as solid in the Never as they were in the living lands. He was glad that there were no thin spots; he wasn't sure he could stand the flickering pain behind his eyes much longer.
“Piotr?” Lily asked quietly when Elle stopped to examine a lush bush overflowing with pungent honeysuckle. “Do you need help? You seem to be in some distress.” She looked up at the sky above them and frowned. “This does not appear to be the right direction.”
“Of course it…isn't,” Piotr said, shaking his head. Even though he
could have walked to Wendy's blindfolded before, the exhaustion was finally getting to him. “We just turned down a street early. My apologies.”
“Do you wish me to lead? I am sure that I can find—”
“I'm fine,” he swore. “I am…I am just nervous.”
Lily nodded, understanding, and dropped back a few steps, letting Piotr once more lead the way. Again Piotr felt the guilt gnaw at him. He wasn't nervous. It wasn't what she thought. Piotr rubbed his fingertips against his palm. Part of him was grateful for Lily's concern. Another part of him was uncommonly furious that she was poking her nose in yet again.
Silently Piotr berated himself for an ungrateful fool. His friends cared greatly about him; they only wished to know that he would be fine dealing with his love.
He wished they didn't have to be there, but Wendy deserved to know what she was facing. That was all. She'd illuminated so much about him, about why he was the way he was, why he drifted through the Never like an unmoored raft, tossed by the waves of chance.
Wendy needed this warning about her family. He owed her that much.
“Perhaps just Piotr should meet with the Lightbringer first,” Lily suggested as the three of them finally reached Wendy's front yard. She looked meaningfully between Piotr and the house. “Entering her abode in this manner, without warning or request to enter, seems somewhat rude.”
“I used to feel the same way, but Wendy made it clear many times that her door is always open to me,” Piotr replied simply, dodging the suggestion. He approached the tree beneath her window and prepared to pull himself up into the branches. Part of him did want to go into Wendy's home unaccompanied but another part of him quailed at facing Wendy alone. It was better this way, with Elle and Lily by his side. “Let's go.”
“You have to leave,” Emma said abruptly, pushing to her feet and glancing quickly over her shoulder at the dark hallway leading to the back of the house. “Both of you. Get out. Now.”
Reaper (Lightbringer) Page 10
