Path of the Horseman (16 page)

I knew I shouldn’t be touching her without
permission, that it was weird to watch her sleep, and that Josh
would flay me alive if he woke up and saw this, but I couldn’t help
myself. When I deepened Maddy’s sleep, I was able to feel her
strong heartbeat. Her vitality and life. She was healthy and pure,
beautiful inside and out. I didn’t have to see her soul to know it
was there, and just as perfect as the rest of her.

I was drawn to Maddy. Every time I saw her,
my heart seemed to lift. I listened to everything she said, just to
hear her voice. When she was near me, I wanted her to be
closer.

If my implanted memories were telling me this
was growing into what I thought it was, I was in big trouble.

“What are you doing?”

I jumped and pulled my hand back from Maddy
when I heard Simon. I glanced over my shoulder at him, probably
looking like the kid whose hand was in the cookie jar. I slid back
to my place by the pillow wall.

“Helping her sleep,” I said. “Thought it was
obvious.”

“Bullshit,” argued Simon.

I looked at him, and could tell he was still
pissed at me.

“You’re getting attached. That is the worst
possible thing you can do.”

“Care to explain?”

“I shouldn’t have to. Think about where we
live. Think about who our enemies are. Hell, think about our damn
brothers. Do you really think she can survive all that?”

I gave him a warning glare. “She’s stronger
than you think.”

“I’m not saying she isn’t. But she’s human,
Avery. One of these days, Logan’s going to come for her, and you
won’t be able to stop him.”

Simon leaned back against the shelves and
crossed his arms.

“And even if none of that was an issue, do
you think she’d be okay with knowing you destroyed her world and
everyone in it? Maddy’s a girl with a heart of gold, but you can’t
tell me she would forgive that.”

At that moment, I hated Simon. I hated him
because he was right. I was even a little peeved at Maddy. She put
good feelings in me, and made me think about the positives in
life.

I should have started talking to Josh more.
Or Logan, the pessimist.

“We need to walk away, Ave,” continued Simon.
His voice was gentler than before. “Now, before it’s too late.
You’re hooked on Maddy, and soon enough I might start giving a
shit. I don’t want to do that.”

“Because you’re a happy introvert?”

“No,” Simon replied without too much
impatience. “Because when these humans start dying, I don’t want to
feel the pain of missing them.”

My expression was neutral, but my heart and
mind were shot. I couldn’t imagine a world without Maddy. Even
though I didn’t believe in this haven she was desperate to find, I
wanted Maddy to survive. She was the kind of person we’d been
hoping would arrive for the Second Coming.

A strong, good innocent soul.

But Simon had a point. The longer I stayed
with these humans, the higher the chance that Ciaran would find
them and kill them. Though on the flip side, if we left, they would
be vulnerable to not just demons, but Plagued and Soulless again.
One of Ciaran’s lackeys might be eating dirt at the resort right
now, but Ciaran probably knew there were fresh human souls on the
run.

No matter what we did, people would die.

“Let’s get them to this haven thing,” I
muttered. “If it’s a trap, maybe we can take out Ciaran and his
Lost Boys. If not, then they’ll be mostly safe. We’ll go from
there.”

I wasn’t going to ask Simon if he wanted to
go with me. I knew what his answer would be.

He read my expression, knowing that I
couldn’t come up with a decision. Not now. Not after I’d seen Maddy
sleep, touched her face, felt all the life inside of her. Simon was
right about getting attached. But the more I let it happen, the
less I wanted to let go.

“You’re going to regret this, Avery.”

“Probably,” I admitted, taking a firm pillow
from the shelf behind me and tossing it onto the ground. I took out
a knife from my belt and slid it under the pillow. “But I’ll worry
about that when shit starts hitting the fan.”

I put my back to Maddy and lay down with the
top of my head pointed at Simon. I folded my arms across my chest
and closed my eyes.

This was the perfect position to fake sleep
in. Maddy wouldn’t know I’d been watching her, and Simon wouldn’t
see that I was getting nervous and paranoid.

***

My human body must have been exhausted
because I did get a few hours of sleep. I only woke up because
someone was screaming.

I pitched upward, holding the knife and
letting my senses sharpen. Maddy and Josh were gone, but Simon was
standing at the end of the aisle looking into the store. He heard
me moving and glanced back.

“Someone’s missing.”

I pushed to my feet and grabbed my rucksack.
“Is it Maddy?”

“No,” Simon replied, shaking his head. “One
of the other ones. That Theo kid, I think.”

Holstering my knife, I walked out of the
aisle and followed the raised voice. Simon was walking behind me,
because what else was he going to do?

The humans were freaking out at the front of
the store. Maddy and Gwen were huddling around Laurel, who had
turned into a personification of panic. She was shaking and crying.
Her breathing was basically a string of sharp gasps, and her eyes
were as red as her mussed hair.

Jerry, Ricardo, and Josh were standing away
from Laurel, looking at the ground like they were incredibly
uncomfortable around the hysterical woman. It was shitty of me, but
I couldn’t say I blamed them. Then I realized it wasn’t Laurel that
was making the guys look awkward.

It was the dragging, bloody stain leading out
of the door.

“He said he’d be right back,” Laurel choked
out. “I was getting my stuff to go with him, and then when I came
back, he was gone.”

“Why was he going anywhere?” Simon asked.

The humans turned sharply, not having heard
us come up. Maddy’s eyes cut to mine. I knew she’d gotten a much
deeper sleep, but she still looked tired as hell. I didn’t look at
her for longer than a couple seconds. Simon’s words continued to
do-si-do through my head.

“He thought he heard a noise,” Josh answered,
likely having heard this already from Laurel and not wanting to
make her repeat herself. “Laurel was about to go with him when she
saw the blood. She ran for us and woke us up.”

“How long has he been gone?” was my
question.

“She woke us up about five minutes ago,”
Ricardo said. “Can’t imagine he could have gotten that far, but
he’s not in the parking lot.”

“And you haven’t been outside yet.”

Josh’s gaze narrowed to the point of laser
beams. “We were just about to.”

“Well, now you’ve got two extra hands. Let’s
go.”

“Shouldn’t someone stay here?” asked Jerry
nervously.

“The whole disappearing thing kinda kills the
appeal of the supermarket, don’t you think?” I pointed out as I
walked to the front door.

It was already open, so crossing the
threshold and getting back outside was a piece of cake. Josh’s crew
hadn’t barricaded the door, because we never had any intention of
staying here longer than a night, and if we needed an exit, we
always intended to use the back doors that were closer to where
we’d hunkered down. The front doors had been nothing more than
locked, and the Plagued weren’t smart enough to flick a switch, let
alone find a door lock.

The night air was cold but welcome to my
lungs. None of the streetlights worked any more, so I was staring
into near pitch blackness. My vision was better than your average
mortal’s, but it didn’t make me Superman.

I stood there for a long time, staring at
darkness but listening for the real dangers. Shuffling feet. Low
hissing. A distant scream. I got nothing but a whole lot of
darkness.

Halogen lights exploded behind me. The front
half of the parking filled with a spooky, pale glow that created
tall shadows in abandoned cars. Now that I was really looking, I
could see bloody fingerprints smeared on their dusty windows.

But the amount of blood in the forgotten
vehicles was minimal compared to the fresh blood stained on the
ground. It trailed deeper in the shadows on the left of the store
like a gory red carpet. Things weren’t looking good for Theo.
Laurel whimpered.

Someone lifted a torch and illuminated the
strip mall in front of the bus. The bloody path narrowed and curved
again, going into one of the shops. I started walking beside the
trail.

Simon picked up the pace until he was walking
right at my side with his bow.

“What do you think it is?” he asked
quietly.

“Can’t be a Plagued,” I mumbled back. “They’d
just attack him. They wouldn’t drag him around. If he were bitten,
we’d have found him beginning to turn by now.”

“So it’s Soulless.”

I looked at Simon. “Could be.”

His dark eye found mine. He caught the “or
demons” missing from that sentence.

“Do you think he’s still alive?” Maddy asked
from behind me.

I hated the urgent hope in her voice. At
least I didn’t have to look at her, so I could mostly skip the
truth. I slowed down in front of the shop where the blood trail
began to turn. My hand went over my shoulder, grabbed the handle of
the machete, and pulled it free.

“We’re about to find out.”

Simon raised his bow, taking out an arrow
from the quiver on his back and placing it against the string. Josh
came up to my left, his AR-15 raised. He didn’t turn his head in my
direction, but I was glad he was in total military mode. There was
a strange comfort in knowing even people who hate you will back you
up for the greater good.

Since I was prepared for close combat, I took
the first steps. I pressed my side to the wall of the shop, which
turned out to be a bank. The doors were open, and the blood was
loosely smeared near the entrance. Looked like Theo escaped his
attackers and tried to run, but was beaten and dragged again. The
windows of the bank were boarded up, so while the things in the
bank couldn’t see us, we couldn’t see them either.

I lifted the machete to the side of my arm,
perfect for swinging, and turned into the bank.

Nothing jumped out at me, but I nearly
slipped in all the bloodstains.

The tile floor was covered in dark red
splotches, though only one of them was still fresh. Angry red lines
were slashed on the walls, like someone had cut a thousand throats
in this building and wanted to leave their work on display.

Copper and sour rot stung my nose. Some of
the humans behind me gagged or coughed into their hands. The light
from their torches brightened the shadows in the bank, revealing
lifeless arms and chunks of human meat in corners and behind desks,
and more blood smears on the office doors. The bodies in here were
probably a sad mix of the people who’d been trapped in here when
the horror show started, and those who thought they’d found a safe
place to escape it.

I took a couple more slow, but confident
steps when I heard the muffled, wet crunching noise. I turned my
head sharply in its direction. It was coming from one of the
offices in the narrow hallway. One of the flashlight beams began
shaking, thanks to someone’s nervous hand. Someone else lowered
their light, and showed a giant pool of blood staining the tile. It
looked like the end of the trail we’d been following.

Sorry, Theo.

I walked into the hallway, following the
noise, ready to make some angry swings and let undead heads
roll.

Funny thing I learned about anger right then.
It makes humans, and beings implanted with human brains, incredibly
fucking stupid.

The office door behind me exploded open, and
the Soulless was on me before I had even fully turned around. He
was a heavy motherfucker, and his way of greeting new people was to
drive his claws into their ribs and start tearing.

I landed on my right side, the machete
trapped underneath me. It was agony to move thanks to the claws
stabbing my side, but I swung my elbow back and clocked the
Soulless in the jaw. He snarled, and after a sharp burst of
gunfire, his head exploded.

Too bad he wasn’t the only one playing hide
and seek.

Every office door smashed open, making the
humans scream and turning the silent bank into a room of chaos.
Soulless men and women shrieked and flung themselves at the humans.
The group quickly moved back to back, a technique Josh had probably
drilled into them on day one. They were brave and as organized as
they could be under the circumstances, but the Soulless were tough
and fast.

I was rolling to my feet, ignoring the pain
in my side, when one of the Soulless lunged forward and grabbed
Jerry’s outstretched arm. The man screamed as he was yanked away,
thrown from the circle and headfirst into a glass window. There was
a sharp, sickening crack that spider-webbed the glass, and blood
slicked down the broken pane as Jerry landed face first on the
floor.