Path of the Horseman (12 page)

“Give me the grenade, and get the fuck down.
Don’t give me the “no-man-left-behind” shit either. I’m not playing
martyr. I’m buying you time.”

Josh frowned, then looked out of the window.
Maddy was about halfway down, glancing up and waiting for one of us
to follow.

“If you need a reason to haul ass, she’s it,”
I said.

That was all he needed to hear. Josh reached
into the front pocket of his military jacket and took out a single
grenade. He placed it in my hand and looked at me sternly.

“Don’t blow yourself up.”

“Good advice. Now get climbing.”

Josh looked at me for another second, certain
that he wasn’t going to see me again. Then he hooked himself over
the ledge and started climbing down the ladder.

Free from collateral damage, I swung the
machete. It sliced open the face of a Plagued and cut across the
chest of another one. During my heart-to-heart with Josh, the
Plagued had gotten closer. I’d use the grenade, but I needed a
little more space.

My true nature needed to breathe.

I pocketed the grenade, holstered the
machete, and yanked my power out of my skin. It burst off me like a
shroud of mist, black tendrils shooting toward the Plagued like
spears. They pierced the heads of the Plagued closest to me,
sifting through their glazed eyes and open sores, rising to their
brains and liquefying them. The first ten I hit dropped like flies.
I held onto the smoke, and moved it onto the next unlucky
undead.

To make things go faster, I condensed the
black cloud of poison into darts and shot them into the next
Plagued. They dropped fast from the needle that blew open the
useless brain in their decaying skulls. Ten more taken care of.

I let go of the power, knowing I’d have to
get messy to make my noble little act to buy Josh time believable.
Good thing I liked getting dirty.

There was a lot more space now, so I was able
to rush forward and pulled one of my nastiest tricks. I shoved my
hands against the cold, spongy chest of a male Plagued wearing
tatters for a shirt. The moment my fingers touched it, the smoke
seeped into its skin. I concentrated and let it swirl inside the
Plagued, turning into a ball and completely disorienting its
nervous system to render it defenseless. The ball increased in
size, sweeping up cells and organs, yanking them around to the
middle of the dead thing’s chest. Bones shivered and cracked
inward, something I could see on the outside of the Plagued. Its
torso was taking on a weird, concave shape, and its arms and legs
were beginning to wobble. Once I was sure I had built the ball
large enough, I gave it a final push of pressure, and let it
go.

The Plagued exploded.

Bits of bone and skin slapped against my
face, arms, and chest. Blood painted me. I blinked it out of my
eyes, staring at an empty space where a dead man used to be.

Yeah, that was one of my best tricks. But
man, did it take a lot of work. Controlling the insides of a
person’s anatomy was difficult, but I knew how to do it. I just
wish I hadn’t felt part of my power leave with it.

I blasted two more Plagued with the same
explosive ball, turning my pale skin and white blond hair an
intense cherry red. I was probably going to regret this later,
since there were no rainclouds in the sky and no chance of a
shower. Oh well. It’s always good to practice.

The rest of the Plagued were far enough back
that I wasn’t worried about throwing the grenade now. I hooked my
leg over the side of the ledge and slipped onto the ladder, pulling
the egg-shaped grenade out of my pocket and gripping the pin with
my teeth. I yanked the pin out, flipped up the spoon, and tossed it
into the crowd of lumbering Plagued. I moved faster than anyone
else down the ladder, since I was the only unfortunate bastard left
on it.

Five seconds down, and the grenade
exploded.

The shock made the top of the ladder tremble,
thick smoke and red chunks of dead blood flying through the window.
I held on tightly, making sure I wouldn’t fall. I looked up, but
there didn’t seem to be any other Plagued making their way down.
Still, I had no idea if that one blast had killed them all, but I
wasn’t about to stick around and find out.

I felt bad about Simon’s food stash. There’d
been some good eats there. Hopefully I could find him Cheerios
somewhere.

It took me a couple more minutes to reach the
bottom of the ladder and jump onto the dock. Simon and Maddy rushed
over to me, worry, relief, and horror twisting their faces almost
hilariously.

“Are you okay?” Maddy asked in a rush. “Were
you bitten?”

“Don’t think I’d have made it down the ladder
if I was,” I grinned at her.

She grimaced. I couldn’t blame her. I must
look like Carrie’s sociopathic cousin right now.

Simon was starting up at his former home. His
expression was no longer readable.

“Sorry, man,” I told him.

He continued to stare at the suite floor,
which still belched smoke. “Let’s go,” was all he said before
walking away.

Damn. I was in big trouble now.

Taking the machete off my back, I followed my
brother and the rest of the humans around the dock to the grounds.
Simon had been right. There weren’t many Plagued around here, and I
couldn’t see any Soulless. Any undead that got too close were shot
down by Simon. He needed to vent, and I wasn’t about to stop him.
Especially when he made an effort to recover every arrow he
fired.

When we got to the grounds, things started to
change. Plagued were wandering aimlessly, searching for the loud
noise they’d heard. There were at least fifty of them, each one
more disoriented than the next. Ducks in the shooting gallery.

But gut instinct told me the Soulless that
Simon had seen earlier were still out there. The problem was that
even in the fresh morning sun, I couldn’t see them. They hated the
light, and while it couldn’t kill them like folklore vampires, they
would avoid it at all costs. When we turned into the main grounds
and raced for the bus, I moved to the head of the column with
Simon. The Soulless were under Ciaran’s command, and he wanted to
kill us. Least we could do for the humans was to make ourselves
known to the son of a bitch’s brute squad.

Yet nothing attacked us, even when we got to
the bus. Simon put his bow over one shoulder and drew a sharp metal
stake from under his hoodie, that looked like it was used to pin
tents to the ground, and used it to stab the Plagued surrounding
the bus in the eye or the temple. I took the other side, swinging
my machete and chopping off so many heads I would probably make
Jack Ketch jealous. When the humans finally caught up with us,
Ricardo ran to the side of the truck that had broken down so we
could form a loose circle around him.

Even spread out as they were, the Plagued
could literally smell human flesh from a quarter mile away. Their
hearing was just as good, and every single vacant eyed flesh biter
turned their empty heads in our direction. After that, it was like
watching a bunch of tacks being drawn toward a magnet.

“Fuck,” Ricardo hissed.

“What’s wrong?” Josh demanded.

“The tires got slashed,” confessed the large
man. “I’ve gotta replace them all,
and
fix the stupid
exhaust leak.”

“You got any spare tires?” I asked, gripping
my machete tightly and flicking drops of blood off of it.

I looked at Simon. He caught my gaze, read my
eyes, and nodded reluctantly. He shouldered his bow and took out a
second stake from his belt underneath his hoodie.

“Yeah, but it’ll take a while to–”

“Then stop talking and get working. Everyone
else cover us.”

I thought I heard Maddy asking what we were
about to do, but Simon and I were already launching at the Plagued.
We moved as fast as possible, Simon taking out another metal stake
and started stabbing his stake directly into the brains of the
Plagued while I took off their heads. Gunfire cracked through the
air, more Plagued dropping around us as the humans fired at
them.

Killing the Plagued was easy, but they
weren’t our real targets.

Come on out, assholes. You know you want to,
and I want Ciaran to see what we can do to you.

We didn’t have to wait very long.

Laurel’s scream gave me enough warning. I
spun on my heel, the machete arched as I whirled around. It was a
heavy blade, not designed for throwing, but I had enough practice
that it flew easily when I let go. The machete flipped end over end
and slammed into the Soulless charging Laurel. It didn’t strike him
in the head, jamming into the side of his ribs and upper back, but
I was already running after the blade.

When the machete hit the Soulless, he
collapsed onto its front, screaming and spitting from the pain. It
landed on the ground, scraping his claws against the pavement and
pushing himself up. He saw me coming out of the corner of his eye,
reaching back to grab the machete from his side and tear it out.
The Soulless rose and turned, swung my own weapon at me. I skidded
to a stop and hunched over, the machete slicing through my shirt
and just barely missing my skin. The Soulless, a big bruiser with
pasty skin and tumbling black hair, was not happy about the slice
I’d given him. Even though it was already healing, and would be no
more than a paper cut soon.

He swung his clawed hand up for my chin,
forcing me to tilt my head back and let his knuckles brush against
my face. I snapped out my right arm and blocked his punch to my
ribs, but he planted a solid kick into my stomach. I stumbled back,
ignoring the pain and concentrating on defending myself.

Fighting Soulless one on one wasn’t a problem
when I could just be me. Or at least the human version of me.
Pretending not to be a monster in face of the handful of humans
left meant I couldn’t be as tough. It meant that for them to
believe I was one of them, I had to let myself get hurt.

I slowed my blocks down, being careful to
avoid the claws of the Bruiser Soulless, but taking a lot of kicks
and elbows. He didn’t have the training I did. He was just a big,
strong, and mean motherfucker. But taking the hits like a human did
things nobody but me could anticipate. It let me look for open
shots to take down the Soulless, and it made me look tougher in
front of the humans. It let them see I was fighting for them, and
they could trust me.

Then again, after so many kicks to the head,
you start to give up on being a hero.

The bastard finally got me on the ground, and
was ready to pounce and finish me off. I decided to break my own
rule, and be a little quicker than your average mortal. While the
Bruiser Soulless was jumping for my chest, I reached to the sides
of my belt and grabbed both KA-BARs. I crunched upward as he flew,
shoving my arms out. His face changed in mid-air, but it didn’t
stop both knives from going straight into his eyes.

He was dead when he landed on me, his weight
shoving me onto the ground and sending sharp shocks through my
elbows. I grunted as his dead body crushed the air from my lungs,
turning and shoving him off of me. My head throbbed and my torso
would be a painting of bruises, but I could still move. The other
advantage I had over the regular humans was a higher pain
tolerance. I’d feel every ounce of it, but it would take a lot more
than a performance beat-down to stop me.

I looked back and saw two Soulless sneaking
to either side of Simon while he kept going with his Abe Reles
escapade. I holstered one of my combat knives and grabbed my
machete, running for my brother.

The thin Soulless crouching behind the shrubs
on Simon’s left saw me coming, scowling and hissing angrily. He
changed his direction and hurtled over the brush straight for me. I
waited until the last second, then twisted out of range and let him
run past me. I turned sharply, slashing the machete across his
back. The Soulless howled and whipped around, swiping his claws
across my face. My head twisted from the hit, three lines of fire
blazing across my cheek from where I’d been scratched. The real
pain happened when the Soulless darted forward and sank his teeth
in my exposed throat.

Shit! Not again!

The good news was Soulless bites couldn’t
turn you Soulless. They act like vampires, but really they’re just
blood hungry puppets for demons. The bad news was everything else.
Once they latched onto any part of you, they set out to crush your
bones and suck out all the blood they could taste.

And this bastard didn’t seem eager to let
go.

Pain blinded my vision, my neck burning from
the intense pressure around it. But it didn’t last long, because
this dickhead missed the memo about my blood literally being
poison. The Soulless twitched and jerked away from my throat, his
veins were already blackening. I had to make this quick. I sliced
the machete along his stomach, his intestines busting out at the
freshly open seam. I kicked his feet out from under him, and sliced
off his head the moment his body hit the ground. The black poison
stopped spreading through his veins, blood gushing out from the
nasty stump where his head used to be.