Two things happened at once. Pestilence’s human façade shattered, replaced by a skeletal demon of terrifying proportions, and Amy threw off Raziel’s hold and launched herself forward.
Straight into the enraged First Horseman’s shrieking charge. Head back. Arms wide. Her grin as wide and free as the burgeoning brown fire in her eyes.
***
Patrick closed his eyes, breathing in Fred’s subtle scent. He’d never forget it, no matter how long he—
An invisible wrecking ball smashed into his chest, sending him flying backward.
He manipulated the space around him and twisted mid-flight, landing on his feet to glare at the woman across the room from him. “Not fair.”
Fred cocked an eyebrow, studying him from the other side of the “training area” she’d created in her part of the Realm. “Do you think the First Horseman will play fair?”
Patrick rubbed at the white-hot pain throbbing through his body. When it came to Death, the pain always seemed to be white hot. “I don’t think Pestilence is going to attack me with the scent of your sex. At least, I hope he’s not. That would be just wrong.”
Fred folded her arms, her face serious. “No, Pestilence will use much nastier tricks to distract you.”
A sudden shimmer on the air beside her became Patrick’s mother.
Patrick’s stomach dropped. His throat slammed shut. He stared at the tall, slim woman with the laughing green eyes and dark red hair. “Mum?”
The woman smiled—the same smile she’d given him every night of his childhood before kissing his forehead and tucking him into bed. “Heads up, Pat.”
The wrecking ball hit him again, this time harder. He smacked against the far wall, a kaleidoscope of agonizing colors detonating behind his eyes on impact. But before he could drop to the floor, the ball crashed into him again and again and again, his mother watching the brutal assault, her smiling green eyes crinkling with mirth and joy. “I always said you were the weaker of the two.”
Patrick screamed, the ball mashing him into the wall with blow after blow, his mother’s words crushing him far deeper. “Oh, God, Mum!”
Focus.
The single word whispered in his head, barely penetrating the white agony engulfing him.
Focus.
“And to think I had the choice of aborting you,” his mother went on, her smile growing wider. “What was I thinking, letting a pathetic joke such as you live?”
“No!” Hot tears stung Patrick’s eyes. “That’s not true.”
He reached out for his mother, numb with grief, on fire with pain. The ball smashed into him, again, again, again, pummeling him with such force he could no longer draw breath.
“Mum,” he croaked, staring at her through a black fog. “Mum.”
Focus, Patrick.
“It is for the best that you will die.” His mother nodded, her green eyes calm, her face soft with maternal love. “You really are just a disappointment to me and your father.”
“Noooo!”
Fury poured through Patrick. He lashed out with his mind.
But the ball kept hitting him.
Again. Again. Again.
He was going to die.
He was going to—
Focus.
A ripple of control ran through him. He pulled in a long breath. His heartbeat slowed. Thump thump, thump thump…thump…thump…thump…thump…
The ball struck him, smashing him harder to the wall.
His heart slowed further still. Thump…thump…thump…thump…thump…thump…
He pulled a deep breath, stare locked on his smiling mother.
Thump…thump…thump
She shimmered. The ball smashed into him.
He absorbed the blow, stare fixed on the smiling woman before him. “You are not my mother.”
Patrick’s core erupted with golden fire, existence shuddered. He struck out. A tsunami of composed force aimed straight for the apparition.
And then it was just Fred standing before him, her eyes glowing white, tears streaming down her face. “I’m sorry, Patrick. I’m sorry, but I had to.”
He stared at her, his heart rate returning to normal, his heart squeezing in misery. “That was not fair.”
She studied him, eyes unreadable, tears unchecked. “I know.”
He turned his head, unable to look at her. What she’d done was unforgivable. What Death had done was—
Prepare you.
The voice reverberated through Patrick’s anger. He blinked, feeling as if someone had punched him in the gut. Dragging his hands through his hair, he let out a sharp sigh and turned back to Fred.
She watched him, expression pinched and on guard.
He crossed the room to stand before her. “I get your point.” His body and soul felt like he’d been put through a shredder, and he was surprised he was still on his feet. “It’s not going to be pretty and I’m completely unprepared. I just wish I had more time.”
Fred shook her head, the training room around them shimmering back into the small, intimate library in which he’d first arrived. “I don’t think you need it, Patrick. I threw everything at you then and you beat me.”
He studied her for a moment, the thought both terrifying and…and…what?
Fred smiled. “Amazing?”
Patrick chuckled, the lighthearted sound surprising him. “Well, yeah, that’s one word for it.”
“I think it’s a very good word.” Standing up on tiptoe, she pressed her lips gently to his. “You are amazing, Patrick Watkins.”
A soft blanket of warmth folded around him. Sliding his arms around Fred’s waist, he smiled down into her face. “So, I guess I’ve just destroyed the notion held dear by hundreds of philosophers for thousands of years.”
Fred raised her eyebrows. “And what’s that?”
He let his smile turn into a grin. “You can’t beat Death.”
She burst out laughing, and raked her hands down his back to grab his ass. “You can beat Death. But that’s only because she’s in love with you.”
The second the words past Fred’s lips she gasped, her face growing a bright red. She gaped at him open mouthed, her body tense against his, her eyes wide. “By the Powers,” she groaned, “I did not mean to say that aloud.”
Patrick gazed down at her, every memory of pain and despair evaporating in an instant. He pulled her closer to his body, reveling in the infinite energy of her existence, loving the entirely human reaction to her confession. “Does it help if I tell you the feeling’s entirely mutual?”
Pale blue eyes studied him for a long moment. “You know,” she finally said on a smile, “I think it does.” She placed her lips on his again, the tip of her tongue tracing the edge of his teeth with delicate care.
He chuckled into her mouth and threaded his fingers into her hair, holding her to him as he deepened the kiss. Regardless of what Fred said, by his reckoning, he would survive probably a grand sum total of about two minutes facing the First Horseman—if he was lucky. More than anything he wanted to experience the last moments of his life truly enjoying them with the woman he loved.
Fred’s hands smoothed up his back, across his shoulders and back down to his arse, tugging his hips closer to hers as her tongue delved into his mouth, exploring it thoroughly. Wet licks of passion and desire flowed all the way into his core. He dragged his hands from her hair and grabbed her butt, lifting her from the floor without breaking their kiss.
Their time was running out. He could feel it. The itch in his gut had returned, his skin prickled, as if the air was electrically charged. The end raced toward him without remorse or pity.
Let me have this moment. Whoever is pulling the strings, please let me have this moment. Just this one and I will gladly forfeit my life. Just this one moment…
Fred’s heart thumped against his, a soft moan vibrating in her chest.
One moment will never be enough. Let us have an eternity. Please…
Her unspoken pl
ea slipped through his mind and soul like silken mist and his heart squeezed tight. An eternity. Oh, yes. An eternity of—
Death. You are summoned.
The call roared through Patrick’s head and he reeled backward, dropping Fred from his hold and slapping his hands to his ears. Bloody hell. What the fuck was that?
Staggering backward, he looked at her.
“Damn it.” Her eyebrows knotted and she shook her head, worry flittering across her face. “I’ve gotta go. Stay right here. I won’t be—”
She vanished.
Patrick stared at the spot she’d just occupied, the blood roaring in his ears. “Fuck!” he shouted, the curse echoing around the empty space.
Like the deafening rumble of thunder.
Chapter Fourteen
Fred glared at the whiteness, fury turning her blood to mercury. She hated this place. Its ambivalence drove her crazy. “What do you mean, interfering?”
The path of the First Horseman cannot be deviated. The First Horseman must continue his course without interference.
Her eyebrows shot up. “The path? The fuckwit has been messing with the Order of Actuality. I think what I’ve been doing is a little less significant, don’t you?”
Silence followed her outburst and Fred got the sense a collective scowl of disapproval was leveled her way at her choice of words.
“Fuck it,” she muttered, tilting her chin and ramming her fists on her hips. “I’m pissed off. Let’s see the Powers deal with that little piece of interference.”
The First Horseman must be left to choose his path.
Fred ground her teeth. “Are you not listening? Ol’ sick and weedy is messing around with the Order. With the Weave. Shit, he’s trying to bring about the Apocalypse. As far as I know that event has been declared null and void!”
Another pause followed, this one less disapproving and more weighted.
The Fabric of the Order has been rethread.
Fred’s heart stilled. “Rethread? What does that mean?”
Again, a pause.
“This is not good, Fred,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Not good at all.”
The pause continued.
“What does rethread mean?” she shouted, staring into the whiteness. “What’s going to happen? Is Patrick Watkins going to survive?”
Had she thought the previous pause heavy? This one almost crushed her.
“Well?”
The Fabric’s new pattern is indeterminate.
“Fuck, are you kidding me?” She threw up her arms. “You lot are meant to track these things. The pattern is by your design. For crying out loud, the big guy’s omnipotent! How do you not know? Indeterminate? What in the name of all the levels of hell is going on?”
Silence.
“Tell me.”
Silence.
“Tell me!”
Death, you are forbidden to continue your interaction with the lifeguard. You are hereby ordered to resume the ultimate purpose for which you were created. Now.
Fred’s mouth fell open. “I’m forbidden?” She blinked, unable to believe what she was hearing. She was Death. Not a child. No one forbade her anything. “Ordered?”
If you refuse to resume your purpose you shall be confined.
“Confined?”
The matter is finished. Return the lifeguard to the world of man and resume your purpose.
Fred clenched her jaw. “No.”
Silence again.
“This is not right. What Pestilence is doing is not right. If you lot want to sit on your collective thumbs and see what happens then so be it, but I’m not going to.”
The silence stretched.
She glared into the whiteness one last time, shook her head and transubstantiated.
To nowhere.
Fred throat slammed shut. Why wasn’t she back with Patrick?
As forewarned and foretold, The Fourth Horseman has refused a divine command and is hereby confined.
Ice-cold disbelief rolled through her. “What do you mean, forewarned? When? By who?” There was no answer coming, and something told Fred she was alone. She gaped into the whiteness, heart hammering, blood roaring. Muscles frozen.
She swallowed, unable to do anything else. Oh, Shit. Patrick.
***
For the umpteenth time, Patrick walked about the room. Or was it one hundred and ten minutes? Time didn’t seem to exist here. After the initial stunned shock following her abrupt disappearance, and an uncomfortable few seconds still waiting for her to return, he’d explored the library. Discovering there was no exit, he moved about the small space just to keep his mind from his upcoming confrontation with the Disease.
Perusing through a random selection of books pulled from the surrounding shelves had achieved nothing. None of the tomes made much sense, most referencing periods of time long before, as far as he could tell, dinosaurs walked the planet. Those that were dedicated to man were violent diatribes that left an unsavory taste in his mouth and made him long to meet the writers in person.
With each passing minute, his mind tried harder and harder to contemplate his future.
He refused to let it do so, and in an act of sheer desperation, he’d finally dropped into the more comfortable looking of the two armchairs and pondered his past. Or more to the point, his family’s past.
Had his parents known? Had they suspected? On what side did the bloodline come from? His mum’s? His dad’s? His father had run his own landscaping business and his mother had been a high school English teacher and, as a consequence, he and Steven had grown up with a love of the outdoors and a passion for reading. Both brothers had prayed regularly of course, at the altar of the surf gods, and paid regular homage to those deities’ bikini-clad priestesses as often as they could, especially Patrick during his late teen years. But as for church, nadda. They were just two typical Australian boys growing up on the coastline of the world’s largest island.
Nothing in his life had pointed to an ancestry of such…divine…significant heritage.
Except for predicting the future on more than one occasion? Or resuscitating drowning victims seemingly beyond saving?
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, pushing himself to his feet. He shook his head in disgust at the conceited train of thought. “Next you’ll be throwing a barbeque for all the swimmers on Bondi with just one fish, a loaf of bread and a bottle of water.”
Moving around the small room again—damn, what he’d give for a door—he wondered what Ven was doing.
A sudden realization struck him and he bit back a curse. He’d yet to ask Fred what she thought his brother had become. What exactly did a second-order demon mean? Ven was obviously more than he once was and if it wasn’t for the fact they both were now targets for the First Horseman, Patrick would have a wonderful time giving his brother all sorts of hell. He grinned. If he survived this, he was going to pay back thirty-six years of nagging and lecturing.
If you survive this? What if Ven doesn’t survive this?
The black thought sent a shard of numb unease into Patrick’s chest and he ground his teeth. Ven was a target now. The attack from the q’thulu wasn’t just a random incident. Shit.
A desperate sense of helplessness began to build in his chest. Trying like hell to ignore it, he searched the room again, looking for an exit.
What? The one you know isn’t there?
Shit.
He needed to get to Ven. He wasn’t safe. He was—
Stop it.
Pulling in a deep breath, Patrick force himself to calm down. Ven was fine. He was no doubt at this very moment with Amy, sating his long-denied hunger and, knowing his brother, probably sating his other more carnal appetites as well.
Patrick chuckled, dropping back into the armchair and crossing his ankles on the low table before him. “Good onya, brother,” he murmured, settling himself in to wait for Fred’s return. “Enjoy your self.”
***
“Amy!” Ven roared. Just as bleache
d-white talons sank into her pale, bowed neck. The demon shrieked again and a swarm of black locusts spewed from its maw, engulfing Amy in a second.
“This is the power of the First Horseman,” Pestilence screeched, gaunt face a white mask of insane fury and rapture. “This is the might of the Disease, of Pestilence.”
The swarm of locusts turned into a frenzied black cloud, whipping around and around Amy, their wings slicing the air like razors. They raged over her, Pestilence’s arms disappearing into their writhing mass, his hold on Amy hidden by their massive number. “This is the fate of the Cure.” His skeletal shoulders bunched, his arms snapped wide and the wet sound of tearing flesh filled Ven’s ears. Amy’s scream pitched higher, and then died on a thick gurgle. Pestilence grinned, eyes burning with vile yellow flames. “And the world of man will suffer in my wake.”
He turned to Ven. The locusts rose above him, swirling above his head before streaming back into his body through his laughing mouth, his flaring nostrils. Revealing the decimated corpse they’d left behind.
Amy dropped to the floor with a hollow thud, her neck torn open, her face, the face Ven had kissed a hundred times, lacerated and shredded to nothing but a bloody mask of flesh and bone.
Pestilence smiled at him, once again wearing his deceptive human shape. “And so ends the first act of the First Horseman. Now, call…your…brother.”
“No.”
Ven’s cry rent the very air, a tortured wail of absolute grief. His mind cracked, his soul shrieked. The human he’d once been and the Principatus he’d only so recently become screamed with agonized horror…and then, fell silent.
Destroyed completely by the engulfing blackness of absolute sorrow and guilt.
***
Patrick stood frozen, Fred, the Realm, the upcoming battle and his bloodline forgotten.
An overwhelming, total knowledge his brother was dying flooded through him. No words. No images. No sounds. Just a terrible knowledge Steven was dying.
“Ven?”
His brother’s anguish smashed through him, a force of unending grief and hate and guilt.
Death, The Vamp and His Brother Page 23
