Path of the Horseman (13 page)

Identity covered.

That was when Simon screamed.

My heart stopped at the sound, stopping again
when I looked up and saw that he’d been tackled by the other
Soulless, whose fangs were deep in my brother’s neck.

Simon’s blood was tainted, like mine. The
more the Soulless drank from him, the more he would starve himself.
But he wouldn’t realize what was happening to his body until it was
too late. He would keep drinking from Simon until he thought he was
full. Simon would be long dead by then.

Not on my fucking watch he won’t.

Simon was struggling under the weight of the
Soulless, his metal stake missing from his hand. He pushed and
punched, but it was no use. The humans wouldn’t dare shoot at the
monster, knowing they could miss and kill Simon instead.

My rage and I didn’t have any doubts.

I came around Simon’s side, kicking the
Soulless in the ribs harder than a mortal could. The Soulless
barked and unlatched from my brother. He looked like a construction
worker who’d dressed in the dumpster. Blood smeared along his mouth
and dripped from his chin, his bloodshot eyes radiating anger and
hunger. He roared and tried to launch himself at me over Simon’s
body, forgetting that I had a machete, and was fucking
furious.

I swung the machete like a baseball bat, and
sent his head on a homerun.

Dropping the machete to my side, I looked
down at Simon. Blood was spattered over his neck, but he was
groaning and moving. He raised one of his hands to the wound to
heal it. I didn’t care that he let out some fumes right now. I just
wanted him to live.

Next it was Maddy’s turn to scream. I lifted
my head to see what kind of trouble she was in.

Except that she wasn’t. Her hands were
wrapped around her Sig and Josh beside her shooting down Plagued
while Ricardo and Jerry each finished replacing a tire. No, Maddy
was screaming for me, because I was in deep shit.

I found out just how deep when I spun around,
and was stabbed in the chest by an angry looking Soulless
woman.

Her claws dug in deep and pushed me onto the
ground next to Simon. Her knees landed on my stomach, crushing the
air out of me. She snarled and clenched her fingers tighter. She
must have seen that my blood poisoned her pal when he bit me, so
she was playing it smart and choosing to rip me to shreds. Behind
her, I could see Plagued shambling over, some of them being jerked
around when a Soulless moved to break through. We were surrounded,
the shadows of the dead blocking out the sun and turning the smell
of fresh air into the smell of rot. Their faces were twisted, like
the light was causing them pain, but they pushed on. Either they
were determined to get some shots in the fight, or the demon
manipulating them was eager for our blood. Neither option was
appealing.

The Soulless pinning me shredded her hands
down my chest, turning stab wounds into long gashes. I held back
any cry of pain, not wanting Ciaran to see it. No doubt he was
watching through this Soulless’ eyes and laughing.

Watch this, motherfucker.

When her hands came down again, I dropped the
human act. They couldn’t see me anyway, not with the circle of dead
around me. The machete moved with blurring speed, slicing her arms
off at the elbows. She screamed and twisted, splattering more blood
onto me. I moved the machete into a backswing, slicing open her
neck. She stopped screaming, then stopped existing all together
when I swung again and hacked off her head.

But I couldn’t get up. The smell of blood was
in the air, and the sharks were hungry. Soulless and Plagued
descended, dozens of rotting faces and bloodshot eyes hanging over
me. I batted at them with the machete, but there was no way I could
escape. Beside me, Simon was cursing and fighting, but he was as
trapped as me.

We turned our heads and locked eyes for a
moment. We knew what we had to do. We’d have to be careful about
it, and think of a lie later.

He dropped his stake, and I let got of the
machete. The monsters swarmed.

Their weight was so intense I almost couldn’t
focus. Knees dug into my stomach and elbows poked into my chest. I
couldn’t move my legs. The smell of dead bodies brought tears to my
eyes.

I let the smoke seep out of me, raising it to
the undead driving down for a bite. My poison moved into their
mouths, sliding into their brains. I concentrated and shut down all
the nerves hardwired in their skulls, paralyzing them. Then,
letting my black smoke swirl like a protective shield over me, I
grabbed my machete and started cutting anything overhead. I had to
make it look like I’d gotten stab-happy while I was fighting for my
life.

My smoke drifted higher, paralyzing more of
the Soulless and Plagued.

Pull it back, Avery. Don’t lose control.
Don’t let them see who you really are.

Not an easy task when the dead are literally
smothering you, but I managed.

I took a second to look over and check on
Simon. White smoke ebbed off of him, grazing along the Soulless and
Plagued above him. He held his hands up, holding the smoke in
place. The undead tried to move away as they shriveled into big,
pale raisins. I didn’t know how the hell Simon was going to explain
that, seeing as he was the one who’d been so adamant about us lying
low. But he was alive, and that was all I cared about.

It was weird to be doing this again. A little
over a year ago, we worked as a team. I slipped into the shadows
and infected anyone I touched. Simon worked across the street,
contaminating the food and making it inedible. We didn’t exactly
give each other high fives or pats on the backs when we left the
humans to cry and die, but we complimented each other. This kind of
felt like the old days, and it almost made me miss them.

Almost.

It took fucking forever, but finally the dead
stopped coming. Poisoned Soulless and emaciated Plagued blanketed
us. We pulled back on our powers, using just a little more to heal
our wounds a bit. I still had my machete, so I tried to hack my way
out of the disgusting dog pile. The corpses draped over Simon
twitched as he tried to break free on his own.

It suddenly became easier to move, and I
could hear voices overhead. I stopped slicing and started pushing,
finally seeing the light of day and getting a taste of slightly
fresher air.

Hands shoved past the rotting, poisonous dead
and fumbled along my face. It tickled, and I started laugh. Or I
tried to, anyway. It was more of a hack. The bodies continued to be
pushed and pulled off of us, and then the hands were back, grabbing
my shirt and pulling me to my feet. I was dizzy when I managed to
stand, a small palm pressing against my gore covered chest to hold
me up. I blinked to clear my vision, and looked at the person
holding me up.

Maddy’s cute, angry pout made me grin. She
scowled and pushed me.

“You crazy jerk,” she snapped. “I thought you
were dead.”

“Nah,” I replied. “Just getting my Carrie
costume ready.”

I smiled, and amazingly, she didn’t scream.
She just rolled her eyes and went to check on Simon. Josh was
helping him up while eyeing me suspiciously. Behind them, I saw the
remaining humans huddling by the bus. A few Plagued corpses were
nearby, but the majority were behind me. Looked like Simon and I
had done our jobs as exterminators.

“How the hell are you two still breathing?”
he asked.

“We’re badasses. Duh.”

Josh wasn’t amused. I didn’t care. I stood by
Simon and put my hand on his shoulder. “You okay, Sime?”

Splotches of blood matted his dark hair and
stained his face. His clothes were torn and scratched. His neck had
been healed to keep from dying, but there were still small bite
marks and bruises on his throat. He clutched his stake tightly,
looking ready to drive it through my eye.

“This is why I don’t like hanging out with
you.”

I took my hand back and smirked. “At least
you’ll never be bored around me.”

Simon scoffed and stomped away. I felt a
little guilty. Simon had wanted to be left alone, but I blew up his
home and food stash and nearly got him killed. Somehow I didn’t
think a box of Cheerios could fix this anymore.

Maddy slipped in front of me, looking at my
injuries. I felt a little bit better than road kill since I cheated
with my powers, but I was still dizzy and a little tender.

“Please tell me the bus is almost ready,” I
said.

Her deep blue eyes went to mine. “Yeah.
Ricardo and Jerry are working on the last tires. The exhaust leak
is fixed.” She frowned. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Peachy keen, Mads.”

She blinked. “Mads?”

“Yeah. Everybody calls you Maddy and you
probably get called Madeline when you’re in trouble, so I want to
call you something else. You don’t like it?”

Maddy smirked. “I could get used to it.” Her
smile didn’t last long. “Seriously, how did you survive that? It
was weird. One minute you were moving normally, then the next
you’re the freaking Terminator. You walked off that first bite like
nothing, and you’re still standing after being clawed and pummeled.
There’s no way a normal person can survive that.”

I liked Maddy. I really did. She was tough,
smart, and fun. It made lying to her a real pain in the ass.

“You’ve seen the way the world is. If you’re
not rough with it, you die in it.”

She couldn’t argue that, but she didn’t seem
to believe me. I was too exhausted and sore to think of anything
else, and I didn’t like the way Josh was hovering behind Maddy. He
looked like he was just waiting for me to slip up and make an
excuse so he could punch me.

If he knew the truth though, he wouldn’t
punch me. He would shoot me.

“Well, I don’t know about you kids, but I’m
ready to blow this lemonade stand,” I said, brushing past them and
making my way for the bus. Simon stood by the door, his arms
crossed over his chest as he glared impatiently at me. “The lemons
here turned out to be too sour to–”

I didn’t see him coming until it was too
late. Neither did Simon.

The demon appeared in a spiral of snowy ash,
and stabbed my brother in the ribs.

Right then, I didn’t give a fuck about hiding
the truth from the humans. I cared about the fucker holding the
knife in my big brother’s ribs, and the agony painted on Simon’s
face.

It was a demon I had never seen before, but I
knew he belonged to Ciaran and Vance’s crew. As far as I knew, they
were the only demons on this side of the earth. I didn’t know how
many Ciaran had for his roll call, but he was going to be short one
tonight.

The demon, a barrel chested man wearing a
black overcoat ripped off from
The Matrix,
looked away from
Simon when he saw me running. He grinned and twisted the blade
deeper into my brother’s side. Simon clutched at the demon’s wrist
and tried to pull the weapon out, but the demon was stronger than
he was. He waited until I was just feet away before he pushed Simon
onto the ground.

I swung my machete as hard as I could, but
the demon ducked the blow. The blade smashed into the side of the
bus with a loud
screech
as metal bit into metal. The demon
stepped back, laughing as I tried to pull out the blade.

I didn’t waste a lot of time on that. Taking
out the blade meant turning my eyes to where Simon was lying. That
meant looking at the knife sticking from him, and all the blood
pooling under his body.

So I left the machete in the side of the bus,
and fought back with my hands. My elbow swung wide, just grazing
the demon’s jaw. He kept his hands loose, smiling wide while his
eyes glittered like hot coals. I kicked for his ribs, but he
blocked me. I punched at his head, and he blocked that too.

Demons never held back. They were proud of
what they were, and had no trouble showing off in front of humans.
I was starting to get to that point, rage splintering through my
self-control. If I lost it, I would end up killing every single
person on the resort grounds, and not have enough power to save
Simon.

The demon surprised me by grabbing my
outstretched wrist and pulling me closer. He punched me solidly in
the chest. I was surprised his fist didn’t go straight through me.
I launched my fist into his ribs. The strike connected, but the
demon held my arm in place. He yanked me closer again to head-butt
me, but I lifted my knee and drove it into his stomach. Air left
him in a huff, and the grip on my arms loosened. I swept my arms
around to free them, then clamped both hands around the demon’s
neck.

Try your disappearing act now, asshole.

I slammed the demon into the side of the bus
making sure his head pounded against the rusted metal. I dashed him
with it again and again and again, until his head was lolling
around on his shoulders. Then I tightened my grip, swung him
around, and drove him into the ground.

I pinned him easily, and he was too stunned
to stop anything I did. I held his neck with one hand, then pounded
my other fist into his face.