Ink and Shadows (10 page)

A spindly thread of drool clung to its muzzle, stretching down to drag along the cement sidewalk. The rough walk crackled under the spit, small chunks of rock pocked where the end struck. One chip struck Kismet’s face, searing a line across his cheek. Another step brought the monster even closer, its eyes fixed firmly on the artist sprawled out before it. Taking a deep breath, Kismet drew his legs up, waiting for the monster to come near.

Sound returned. Suddenly and overwhelming.

It was too loud. Everything flared to a brilliant volume, shrieking and mingled. Amid the cacophony, he strained to filter out what was immediately around him. He could hear the monster’s heavy breathing, a deep, growling pant in its chest as it stepped closer. Behind him, the couple continued their intense, violent argument, Luis’s fists flying across his girlfriend’s face.

The woman’s screams were loud and pleading, as were the heavy wet thumps of Luis’s hands striking her pummeled flesh. Kismet stared in horror, caught between the descending menace of the growling creature and the woman’s death.

He cried out when her screams suddenly stopped, the rest of the world’s noises continuing on as if nothing had happened.

Her blood splattered on the faded ivory motel walls, a vivid splash of red that dripped onto the sidewalk. Luis’s sweatpants soaked up the blood, red trails creeping up to his knees. He ignored that as well, his knuckles now torn from continuously striking hard bone and muscle. The woman’s corpse began to bleed out, pools of fluids creeping down the slanted walkway.

Nose twitching, the monster stopped in its tracks, drawn by the scent of death nearly as much as by
the young man it identified as its prey. Kismet tried to work his legs free from the lethargy of his brain,
hoping to be able to reach his room door before the creature caught him.

The monster saw the movement and pounced, its jaws open and its giant paws slamming down beside Kismet’s head.

A rumbling sound drew the creature’s ears back, the points swiveling around. A growl threatened to break apart its rib cage, nostrils flaring as it sniffed at the air. The growl deepened, jaws closing down over Kismet’s neck. The young man tried to scream, but nothing came, his air supply cut off by the canine’s fangs sinking through his throat. Choking on his own blood, Kismet thrashed about, convulsing around the wraith’s powerful mouth.

His hands pushed uselessly at the immovable weight straddling his chest, unable to budge the heavy monster. White pain coursed through his body, his mind overloaded by the aching waves. His blood pooled on the fake grass, a small bog filled with miniature green plastic clusters. Where the monster’s teeth broke through his skin, he burned from the acidic dribbles of the wraith’s saliva, a faint popping sound as he cooked around the monster’s hold.

The monster released him, only to bite back down again, firming its grip. As the feeling left his face, he
laughed, a chuckle wheezing through his punctured throat when an all too familiar numbness stole into his
body. If he’d only been willing to die, the pleasant scary feeling of nothingness that he chased with pills
and needles could have been his.

Kismet made a trail behind him, a wetness darkening the cement where he bled. The monster’s legs
surged, dragging its prey down the walkway and toward the parking lot. Panting, he struggled, refusing
to be carried off like a chicken. The monster growled and shook him, hard.

“Not dying like this.” Kismet fought, his weakening hands nearly useless against the creature’s greater strength.

Checkerboard squares swam in front of his eyes, and his stomach clenched at the pain. Every breath became torture, a struggle to pull in air. He vaguely heard the roar of an engine behind him and then nothing as his body began to shut down. Balling his fist, he struck at the monster’s muzzle.

“Fuck you, bitch.” Each word was a torture to mutter, and his hand throbbed where he’d struck against the creature’s hard skull. Pulling his fist back, he was determined to take out at least a tooth before he died.

A
RI
PULLED
himself free of the car, going for his weapon. The hilt slid into his palm, settling against the ridges when his fingers closed over them. Ari moved swiftly. He noticed a ghost watching him through a part in the curtains. She faded when spotted, leaving the imprint of her face against the glass.

The huge wraith snarled, an ominous sound close to Kismet’s numb hearing. He could barely feel his fingers or anything below his waist. The wraith shook him, tossing Kismet’s limp body back and forth on the turf. Clamping down further on Kismet’s neck, it continued to drag him, unmindful of the Horsemen coming its way.

“He’s got that kid,” Mal shouted at Ari, circling around the wraith to its right. The monster’s gleaming eyes tracked Mal, keeping the Horseman in sight. Stopping in its tracks, it sniffed at the air, then dismissed Mal as a threat. It jerked against its prey’s weight, pulling Kismet along another foot.

“I can see he’s got the kid. It shouldn’t even be able to get a hold on him,” Ari yelled back, grabbing at the Veil with his mind to pull it over the wraith. Shadows around them thickened, enveloping the wraith. It shivered from a brush of cold over its body, then adjusted its mouth around the boy’s throat. The air shimmered again before falling back into place.

Ari stood there for a moment, slack-mouthed with surprise. The wraith should have let the boy go, the Veil’s touch overwhelming the creature. He glanced at a sobbing Hispanic man curled up over the bloody body of a dead woman. “Nothing. Shit, this thing is fully Veiled. Let’s see if we can get it to drop the boy.”

To Ari’s experienced eyes, the woman looked recently dead, her limbs still softened with slack muscles. There was too much blood for Ari to tell what happened. Either the monster somehow attacked all three and was only now finishing up with the boy, or other things were at play.

“See if you can get around to the front of it,” Ari directed Mal. “I’ll take it from the back. They’re more vulnerable from the back. Less pointy teeth. You can be bait.”

“I didn’t bring the knife,” Mal reminded him, holding up bare hands. “Look, no pointy thing.”

“What happened to the knife I gave you?” Ari hissed. “I gave you a
perfectly
good knife. What the hell did you do with it?”

“Left it in the car. It’s not like I’m any good at that kind of stuff,” Mal said, taking a tentative step onto the covered cement walkway.

“What the hell are you thinking, going out without at least a knife?” With a disgusted look backward, Ari dismissed Mal with a wave of his hand. “Shit. Fine. I’ll deal with it. Go in to distract it. I’ll get it from the other side.”

Mal approached cautiously, but he was fairly certain the boy held in the wraith’s mouth was dead. A human wouldn’t be able to survive the damage inflicted by the creature. The young man’s face still held flickers of life, a soft moan creaking from his parched lips. He was older than what Mal originally guessed, and his heart convulsed at the pain etched into the man’s pretty features. The monster’s jaws had made nasty work of his neck, delivering fatal punctures to the arteries along his throat. Mal was surprised he’d not yet bled out. Death’s touch wasn’t far from the young man’s soul.

Ari growled at him, “Just fucking kick the thing.”

Focusing a hazy stare on Mal, the boy called out to the immortal. The words were garbled, nearly unintelligible, but the young man’s intent was plain. He wasn’t going to go down without a fight. Swallowing, Mal nodded and started to move closer, stopped short in his tracks by Ari’s warning shout.

“Mal, wait a damned minute! That kid’s not going anywhere,” Ari yelled at the Four’s youngest. “Gods, Pest, you’re such an idiot.”

Looking over the wraith’s body, Ari worked on how best to kill the creature quickly. The bony
plates covering its flanks and underbelly promised to be a problem. He debated driving the dagger into its skull, as he’d done with the wraith in their garage, but the wraith’s bony forehead and heavy brow ridge
gave him pause. “This thing is built like a tank.”

“He can see me.” Mal stood still, whispering in astonishment. Speaking louder, he repeated himself to a distracted Ari. “War, the boy can see me.”

Mal was certain that no sane mortal saw the Horsemen behind the Veil. They had to push past the Veil to be seen, and he’d always carefully chosen the times he made himself visible to humans. He enjoyed the contact when he did but never once interacted directly. Mal never felt more alive than when he spent an afternoon in a coffee house listening to chatter or in the relative silence of a movie theater. Humans were invigorating and fascinating to watch.

But an effort had to be made. Mortals just didn’t see their kind, but here was one, one seemingly untouched by the madness that poured out in a rankled stench from the insane. To Mal, the dying young man didn’t smell insane, just of sour poison and the acrid oil of fear on his skin, and he most definitely saw Mal.

Ari struck at the wraith, sparks flying from the dagger’s edge when it hit the plated armor along the monster’s rigid backbone. A speck of blood boiled from the crevices along the plating, the weapon’s point finding a vulnerable spot between the sections. Fed by the boy’s fluids and fear, the wraith surged forward, a powerful concentration of force barreling past Mal. The boy’s body bounced along, one of his arms catching around an awning post, yanking at his shoulder and stopping the monster’s momentum with a shuddering jerk.

Trying to work its prey loose with a mighty shake of its head, the monster didn’t see Ari moving in, dagger low. With the weapon’s point tipped up, Ari aimed for a soft spot beneath one of the wraith’s front legs, hoping to get at the shoulder muscle to cripple its movements. Nearly slipping on the blood pooling on the cement, Ari’s thrust lost some of its power, the blade slicing up enough into the soft tissue to catch the wraith’s attention. Scenting its prey, the wraith whirled about, jowls dripping with speckles of bloody foam. Head low, it rushed War, intent on the kill.

The young man’s moan tugged at Mal’s resolve. Deciding Ari would be better off without the human in the way, Mal reached in and grabbed the young man’s shoulders, grunting at Kismet’s slight weight. He’d seen enough death in humans’ eyes to know the young man wasn’t going to survive his wounds.

There was too much blood loss, even if the shock didn’t kill him. The boy’s gore spilled onto Mal’s hands, staining them dark. Still, Kismet’s limp form was warm in Mal’s arms, the sticky mess of his life clinging to the Horseman’s cheek when Mal held him up to listen to Kismet’s tortured breathing. Behind them, Ari moved in to protect them, the wraith raging at the loss of its prey.

“What’s your name?” Mal bent close. If the boy died, he would at least know the human’s name. He’d never held a dying human before. His purpose rarely gave him opportunity to see death up close, much less touch it.

“Kismet.” Gasping, the young man choked on a burble of blood spilling up from his lungs.

“I’m Mal.” The absurdity of the conversation struck Mal. Cradling the young man, he tried to make Kismet comfortable.

“There’s a monster,” Kismet croaked with a gulp, swallowing painfully around the holes in his throat. “Watch out for it. Mean fucking thing.”

“We see the monster. Don’t try to talk. You’ll need your strength.” For what, Mal didn’t know. Little by
little, death crept into the young man’s body. Mal figured he would be holding a corpse in a matter of
minutes. The thought of the boy dying hurt Mal. Something in the jut of the young man’s jaw, defiant and
vulnerable at the same time, touched Mal inside. “Hold on. I won’t let you go.”

Mal tried gently to pull Kismet’s blood-matted hair out of his wounds, trying to see just how severe the damage was. He was beginning to think he’d misjudged the severity of the wounds when the young man drew in another rattling breath, easier than the last. The young man’s color was returning to his cheeks, a flush of pink under his skin. Sticky black with drying blood, Kismet’s brown hair was difficult to remove, catching on the jagged ends of the punctures. Hoping he wouldn’t hurt the dying young man even more, Mal pulled harder, risking tearing the tender skin beneath.

With the boy’s hair out of the way, Mal’s breath left his chest, shocked at what he saw. The young
man’s wounds were closing. Even more amazing were the wounds on his torn-open throat, healing slowly but
definitely sealing together. Mal watched, awestruck, as the damaged tissues knitted, tendons edging closer
and binding back together.

A cough worked a clot free from Kismet’s lungs, forcing it out through a shrinking space between torn skin. Kismet’s dark brown eyes rolled back into his head, consciousness leaving him. Mal bent over, finding a steadying pulse and labored breaths being pulled into Kismet’s chest. With a sigh of shocked relief, Mal worked his arms under the young man’s body, trying to lift him clear of the blood puddle under them.

Ari dodged the wraith’s lunge, stepping aside. Turning, the creature snapped its teeth, catching the back of Ari’s thigh. Grunting from the ripping pain, the Horseman regained his balance in time to see the wraith making a tight turn, nails scrambling to gain purchase on the bloodied cement. Ari crooked his head to the side, trying to get a good look at the wraith’s neck.

The plating around the wraith’s neck gaped as it brought its head up, leaping in an attempt to close its slavering jaws about Ari’s face. Mindful of the edge of the concrete walkway, Ari balanced on the ball of his foot and turned sideways, letting the creature’s momentum carry it past him once more.

The wraith’s response was swift, its turn tighter, nearly doubling its spine back over. Screaming a yowl of rage, it built up speed in its powerful legs, pounding the ground with long strides. Ari jumped back, giving himself some distance from the edge of the raised walkway. The wraith leaped, springing upward. Its back legs struck the cement, nails scraping the rough surface. Ready for its attack, Ari placed one palm on the pommel of the long dagger, the other hand cupping the bottom of its cross guards.