Path of the Horseman (42 page)

I hit the ground hard, unable to think past
the pain. When I tried to call up my power, it didn’t work. The
gifts I’d been granted with struggled to heal me, cauterizing and
knitting my injuries together. My head pounded when I tried to
concentrate.

I had to give up when Ciaran lashed the whip
at me again. It missed its initial strike, getting to my feet and
lurching back, but the demonfire weapon snapped backward and
slashed across my stomach. Another strip was burned from me,
causing me to drop to one knee. Ciaran came out of nowhere,
slamming his knee into my head.

When I toppled onto the ground, my body
refused to co-operate. I dragged myself along the floor, telling
myself not to give up. There was still some fight in me. Ciaran
couldn’t win like this. But I was feeling human. Broken.
Vulnerable. Weak.

The Paladin put one foot on my throat,
crushing it with his boot and nearly breaking my neck.

“You must think you’re superior, don’t
you?”

The demonfire whip lashed over my stomach,
just over the first wound. Scorching agony blinded me. I couldn’t
even scream with my throat trapped the way it was.

“You Horsemen always thought you were above
us all. The humans and the demons.”

Another lash. Another strip of skin torn
away.

“How does it feel to be brought so low? To
feel the pain you brought on so many?”

Ciaran had been too busy torturing me he
didn’t pay attention to my smoke covered hands. He didn’t notice
them slide under the hem of his pants, and latch onto his shin. He
barely felt the smoke enter his body.

Not until I condensed that smoke, and
released my locusts.

“It feels like this,” I rasped.

The swarm of locusts detonated inside of
Ciaran like a nuclear bomb. They spread like a cancer in rapid
motion, devouring every inch of Ciaran. Taking him apart piece by
piece, as he had tried to do to me. The Paladin staggered off me,
but I refused to let go of his leg, even when his whip cracked
against my back. I held on, shoving all my magic into Ciaran and
letting the locusts devour him from inside out.

They were acid in his veins, burning and
corroding every healthy cell they touched. They were the best
disease I ever created, and the most effective. It wasn’t long
before Ciaran couldn’t stand, because there was nothing left of his
femurs. He dropped the demonfire whip, because there was nothing
left of his muscles. He couldn’t breathe, because there was nothing
left of his lungs.

He barely had the chance to look at me and
gasp, “How?”

I was supporting myself on one elbow, holding
onto the last of my strength.

“I’m a disease,” I said. “There’s nothing I
can’t destroy.”

With one last push, I set my locusts on
Ciaran’s skin. The Paladin exploded into a flash of dark red blood,
the freed locusts buzzing hungrily over his splotchy remains.

At least they were feeling cheerful.

I dissolved the locusts and pulled the smoke
back into my skin, forcing them to get to work on me. Now that the
hardest fights of my life were over, I could hardly move. There
wasn’t an inch of me that wasn’t burned, bruised or punctured. I
had maybe a tenth of my power left. There was no way that would be
enough to heal everything I had endured. This human body wasn’t
meant to handle all the pain it had received.

But I heard her voice, and suddenly my pain
wasn’t important.

“Avery! Oh my God, Avery!”

Maddy dropped to her knees beside me, pulling
me into her lap.

“Ow, shit, don’t move me,” I breathed.

“Fuck, sorry.”

I wheezed a couple times. When she figured
out what I was doing, she frowned. “Why are you laughing?”

I grinned. “You’re cute when you swear.”

Maddy’s snicker caught in her throat. Her
soft fingers stroked through my burned, bloodstained hair. “And
you’re an idiot.”

Idiot or not, Maddy still leaned down to kiss
me.

Her lips were soft and warm, filled with life
and sweetness. It made everything I’d been through worth it. Ciaran
was dead. The humans had been saved. Maddy was alive, and deepening
her kiss. She didn’t care what I was. I meant something to her.

What more could I have asked for?

She sat there with me until I told her I
could stand. She assumed this meant that I was okay enough to walk.
I didn’t tell her otherwise. She held my hand and pulled me toward
the ladder, until I tugged her to a stop. Maddy turned around,
looking confused and worried.

“Give me a second,” I said.

“No,” she countered. “You’re hurt. You’re
getting help now.”

She pulled on my hand again, but I slipped my
hand from hers and wrapped it around my middle.

“There’s something I need to do first,” I
told her.

“Whatever it is, it can wait. You’re bleeding
everywhere.”

There was a tremor in her voice. I must have
looked terrible, at least five enormous blisters lining my skin
while my sides leaked copious amounts of blood. I felt about as
great as I looked.

“Sorry, Mads. I need to do this now.”

She took a step toward me, close enough that
I could see the intensity of her denim blue eyes. God, she was
beautiful.

“Fine, if you’re going to be stubborn, tell
me what we’re doing and let’s get it over with.”

Keeping one hand across my stomach, I used my
less bloodied hand to stroke her honey blonde hair. It felt like
silk, and her skin was even softer when my thumb brushed down her
cheek.

“Sorry again, Mads. This is something I have
to do alone. Besides,” I looked at her blood streaked but undamaged
legs and grinned, “you need pants.”

“Don’t you dare make jokes right now!” she
cried, barely controlling herself. “You need help.”

“I’ll be okay. This won’t take me long to do.
Wait upstairs for me. I’ll be there in a fifteen minutes.”

Maddy’s eyes traced over my pale face, all
her defiance turning into worry. “Ten,” she finally whispered. “If
you’re not outside in ten minutes, I’m bringing in the
cavalry.”

I grinned. “Ten minutes it is.”

It hurt to move, but I leaned down to kiss
her. Maddy put her fingers over my lips and slowly pushed me
back.

“Not so fast, tough guy. You don’t get
another kiss until you come outside. Promise me.”

My chest ached, and it wasn’t just from the
wound. “Madeline–”

“Promise me.”

This was the one promise I didn’t want to
make. But it would probably be the last.

“Okay,” I said. “I promise.”

Maddy didn’t relax. Not that I was expecting
her to. She stepped back, watching me like she was hated herself
for leaving me behind.

“Ten minutes.”

I nodded and smiled weakly. “Ten
minutes.”

Maddy stood in basement for a few more
seconds, fighting all her instincts. Then she turned, climbed up
the ladder, and disappeared from my sight.

I waited a full minute, until I knew she was
out of earshot. Then I collapsed.

I crawled on all fours, finally slumping with
my back against a wall. Now came the waiting. He showed up before I
could pass out again.

“Hello, Avery.”

I looked up, meeting Logan’s eyes as he stood
across from me in the darkness.

“If you tell me you’ve been here this whole
time, I’m gonna be pissed.”

Logan shook his head, striding over to me. “I
arrived after you defeated Ciaran. Finding you with my vision was
difficult, otherwise I would have been here sooner.”

He stopped at the wall beside me and sat down
at my side. He rested his forearms on his knees, pulled a cigarette
and silver lighter out from his jacket, flared it up, and looked at
his feet. Cancer was the least of our worries right now.

Logan sighed wearily. “I kept thinking of
ways I could have changed it. A time when I could appear and help
all of you. But every time I did, the ending remained the same. It
was just the scenario that was different.”

“So,” I said. “It’s really that time,
huh?”

Logan nodded slowly, taking a slow drag from
the cigarette. “I am so sorry, brother.”

I believed him. But Logan wasn’t here to save
me.

“Don’t be,” I said. “We knew this would
happen.”

“I’m not just talking about that,” he
admitted. “I’m sorry for not helping when I should have. For
letting this cursed power of mine rule what I am and what I do. It
seems like if I’d just toughed it out and looked at the positives
the way you have, a lot more deaths could have been prevented.”

“Hey, don’t apologize for being what you are.
What you have to do, it’s not easy. We didn’t think about the pain
we would cause you.” I lowered my eyes. “That makes me feel like
the worst brother in the world.”

I could feel Logan’s sad dark eyes on me.
“We’re forgiving each other. I think that makes us good
brothers.”

That was when we fell into silence while
Logan continued to smoke. I sat there in pain, wondering how much I
could get out of him before I kicked the bucket. It wouldn’t be
long now.

“You’re going to be the last person alive,” I
said.

If Logan was surprised by my out of the blue
remark, I couldn’t tell. “I know.”

“Who’s going to tap your shoulder when it’s
time?”

Logan was silent for a moment. “No one. It’s
my responsibility, and nobody else’s.”

“That doesn’t seem fair.”

“Name one thing in life that is..”

I coughed, tasted copper, then spit it out. I
looked up and saw Logan watching me with tired, black eyes.

“Well, are you going to do it or not?” My
demand sounded raspy.

“In a minute.” Logan’s reply was sad, and he
didn’t seem interested in smoking anymore.

“Why waste the minute? I’m in a shitload of
pain here.”

“I know,” said Logan. “I shouldn’t keep you
here, but I can’t help it. I’m going to miss you.”

Those words stung me as much as any other
pain I’d felt tonight. I was almost glad it would be over soon. I
couldn’t take any more hurt.

I grimaced and forced myself to sit up. My
body cramped and burned, the pain sharper than before. Logan
noticed, but did nothing. I breathed as evenly as I could, but the
edges of the world were growing dark.

“I know you won’t stick around after this,
but can you do me a favor?”

“Anything.” Logan’s voice was quieter than
mine. Or maybe that was my senses starting to shut down.

“Make sure Simon takes care of Maddy. Not
Kade. Simon.”

My vision was fuzzy, so I couldn’t see
Logan’s expression with clarity.

“Do you care about her?” he asked softly.

Her smiling face drifted through my mind. Her
laugh whispered in my ears. Her kiss ghosted my lips. It all mixed
together perfectly in my heart, filling it to the brink with
something I never imagined I would experience.

“I love her,” I breathed.

Logan didn’t speak for a moment. “Then I
won’t need to ask him.”

My brother took one last hit from the
cigarette, then flicked the burning stub into the middle of the
room next to Ciaran’s sloppy remains. He removed his gloves, and
looked at me.

“Are you ready?”

I couldn’t see, so I closed my eyes. “Yeah.”
My voice was slurred.

Logan’s hand pressed against my right temple.
His hand was cold, his smoke filtering through my brain turning
into a cool breeze that would put me into the deepest sleep. I
could feel the pain leaving me, along with every sense and feeling
I’d ever known.

“Goodbye, Avery,” was the last thing I heard
before I succumbed to the power of my big brother Death.

***

Dying didn’t feel like I thought it
would.

Yeah, I was cold. Yeah, I couldn’t see a damn
thing. But I could still feel my limbs working. My lungs absorbed
oxygen and released carbon monoxide. My heart continued to
beat.

“You can open your eyes now, Avery.”

Logan was taunting me from beyond the grave?
Seriously? And here I thought we’d parted on a kindhearted
note.

A hand slapped my chest. “Come on, Avery.
Humor me.”

Humor. Fine. I can still do that if I’m
dead.

“Asshole,” I mumbled.

“Sorry. I didn’t catch that. Open your eyes
and say it to my face.”

Knowing the jackass wasn’t going to let up
until I did as he asked, I sighed and opened my eyes.

And found that I could see.

I blinked rapidly, seeing Logan’s pale face
and long black hair, and the basement ceiling over us. I turned my
head– 
actually turned my head
– and wiggled my fingers.
They worked, responding to the commands of my brain. I sat up too
quickly, getting a head rush that almost had me collapsing again.
Logan caught my shoulder, his black gloves back on his hands, and
held me upright. I looked back and expected to see my corpse, the
way most ghosts saw their former bodies.