Ink and Shadows (32 page)

“I’m not going to move for a bit.” Ari met Min’s eyes. The woman slid back down to grip at Mal’s hips, holding the youngest steady. “You figure out what hurts more and where.”

Mal lay there, two of his companions on his body while another, two others, remained outside. At that moment, he wanted just a shred of the eldest’s self-control. His mind clouded with what would happen to Kismet if he pulled away from his calling, falling back into the Universe’s embrace. Going away didn’t terrify him, not as much as he thought it would, but regrets suddenly filled Mal’s thoughts. He’d never know what it was like to be kissed by a mouth not paid for by Ari’s charms or money. Or even sharing a quiet meal with someone who didn’t spend most of their existence elbow-deep in humans’ shit.

A pang echoed in his chest, and his heart twisted with pain. Besides the ache of his wound, Mal could feel the foreign slice of reality embedded in his muscle, Kay’s metal knife a few centimeters away.

“To the left. My left.” Mal closed his eyes. Fear remained in his thoughts, reminding Mal to focus hard on staying. A single devout wish to be gone from the pain would send him under, his body whisked off to wherever immortals disappeared to after they’d given up. “It’s under Ari’s hand. Right near the third finger down.”

“There it is.” The blade hit metal, a fragment of a whirlwind spinning up from around the bullet’s misshapen form. Kay exchanged her knife for a pair of long tweezers, then slid them carefully past Ari’s fingertips. Shards of metal clung to the reality caught inside of Mal’s body, wrapping tight around the injury. “You have to hold still now. I don’t know how deep this is. It’s going to hurt when I dig around. I don’t want to stab your heart while I’m doing this.”

“Is it that close?” Ari sounded worried to Mal’s ears, faint and distant. “Death needs to be here.”

“He stays outside, or I cut your fingers off and let him heal up around them.” Kay’s voice bounced off Mal’s hearing, a tinny, high-pitched sound.

The shadows crept closer, a different sort of darkness that Mal couldn’t get a focus on. Acting mostly on instinct, Mal strained to hold the Veil down, hoping it would ease the shadows back into the corners of the room. Frustrated at the lack of response, Mal pulled on his control over the Veil, slapping back at the wraiths hovering close. The darkness lingered, graying out slowly until nothing remained but a powdery dusting of ash that eventually faded away.

Ari’s face blurred back into a familiar bad focus, a wavering blond curtain filled with a tan balloon. His vision watering his surroundings, Mal snorted, delirious under the pain’s influence. Min said something to him, the words barely out of her mouth when the loud sound of the bullet hitting something hard pinged in Mal’s left ear. Ari slid his hand free of the gash in Mal’s chest, his fingers covered in blood. Although still out of focus, Ari’s smile was clear to the youngest, Ari’s face pressing in tight.

“She’s got it, brat.” Ari’s contagious jubilance nearly deafened Mal, his eardrum ringing. “There you go.”

Min patted Mal’s stomach, a hard blow on his abdomen, her hearty slap nearly rocking the air from his body. “How do you feel, Mal?”

“Like shit.” Mal groaned, his chest aching. “But much better. Thanks.”

“Not a problem, Pest.” Ari patted Mal’s shoulders with both hands. “Just remember, I could have had your heart in my hand, and I left it right there.”

“You know something.” Mal coughed, his body closing the incision swiftly. The excruciating pain of his nerves stitching together brought the ache back to his teeth. “The next time you tell me that something isn’t going to hurt me, it might take me a few centuries to do it, but I am going to kick your ass.”

“You keep thinking that, Cooties.” Ari laughed. “Finish patching him up, Kay. I’m going to tell Death our Pestilence is okay.”

D
EATH
LISTENED
to the still world around him. The morning was far from breaking, and the sounds of traffic had slowed down from the main street. The aroma of cooking oil and heavy spices from the restaurant they sat behind prodded a rumble from Kismet’s empty belly. The boy’s lean frame worried Death. Seeing the immortal look his way, Kismet gave Death an unapologetic shrug when his stomach growled again.

Except for a brief bout of Min’s swearing, they’d heard nothing from the shop for a few minutes.

Death knew if Mal had taken a turn for the worse, Ari would have insisted he join them, defying the woman’s demand that Death remain outside. The eldest Horseman wouldn’t abandon Mal in his pain. Only the promise of much-needed help kept him out, a vow he would easily break to be at Mal’s side.

“Is what happened to me normal?” Glancing at the man’s emotionless face, Kismet broke their silence, chewing on his lower lip. “How often does this stuff happen?”

Death had almost forgotten about the boy sitting next to him, a stone-quiet sentinel. The ground around them was thick with shadows, wraiths drawn in by Kismet’s apparent newness to the Veil. To the larger slithering creatures, the boy would appear to be a weak, tasty meal, an easy piece of pretty meat they could chew off in small bits. Death’s steady strength had kept them a few feet away, but with his focus on the shop, the wraiths crawled in tight.

As the Horseman watched, a stray pseudopod sometimes craned into the clearing, hoping to snag the tiniest shred of Kismet’s blood or flesh. Pushing against the Veil, Death forced the shadows back. Unwilling to attach itself to a greater predator, the wraith pulled in, slinking back into the darkness.

Sighing, Death resigned himself to handling Kismet like the Courts guarded their young, keeping the children safe until they grew strong enough to peel back the outer layer of the Veil themselves.

“No,” Death replied, wondering if the boy realized he’d been stalked by the minute shadows. “Do you have any idea?”

“Not really,” Kismet said. “It wasn’t like there was a cake sitting on the table saying Eat Me.”

“You know
Alice in Wonderland
but not the Bible?” Death contemplated the gaps in Kismet’s knowledge. “Society has changed. There was a time when people only knew religious texts. It’s funny how things turn over.”

“
Alice in Wonderland
was much more interesting.” The young man shrugged. “Try reading the Bible stoned. All you do is fall asleep, then dream about snakes and animals marching onto a boat. And remember, public schools. No mixing God and school.”

“You never went to church?”

Kismet’s laugher bounced against the walls around them. “Dude, church is where you go to find soup, not God.”

“Well, I’m guessing someone did this to you. I don’t think this is something that you did to yourself,” Death surmised. “Mortals don’t become Veiled. Even people who dabble in the Veil don’t ever fully cross over. They’re anchored to the world they’re born into. It’s troubling, but we’ll have to learn how to deal with it.”

“Shit, I can’t even deal with living in the world I knew,” Kismet scoffed. “How the hell am I supposed to live between it?”

“I don’t know,” the Horseman admitted. “I’ve looked for a calling in you. There’s nothing there….”

“I don’t know what that is. A calling, I mean.” Kismet shrugged. “Is that what Mal was talking about when he said you got pulled into doing things? Or is my mind just cracked?”

Death leaned back, resting his hands on the curb. The cement was cold on his bare skin, the graveled grit harsh against his hands. A short, ironic laugh broke through his contemplation. He’d never had to explain who he was before. He was Death. His calling always came with a shudder of fear from other immortals, and any human who could see beyond the Veil fled long before he could approach.

“No, your mind isn’t playing tricks on you. Something happened to bring your body over to where your mind could see,” Death replied. “There are humans who can naturally see past the Veil and into the shadows. A lot of times, these people are insane, or at least right on the very lip of sanity. Some of them are what we call Seers, people who can manipulate the shadows around them or see the creatures who live behind the Veil.”

“Like ghosts?” Kismet turned his head, pulling his knees up. “I keep seeing ghosts. Well, I call them ghosts. People that I never knew, but then, well, Chase.”

“The little boy that follows you? Is that Chase?” Death grunted at Kismet’s astonished nod. “I’ve seen him behind you. Don’t look so surprised.

“Ghosts are souls that are trapped inside of the Veil. It’s like a curtain that we can peel back so we can be seen, but it’s usually always there,” Death said. “When the dead resist leaving, they can get tangled in between the real world and the Veil, trapping themselves here.”

“Does he know he’s dead? Chase, I mean.”

“A lot of the time, they don’t know they are dead, or they walk over a familiar path over and over, just reliving that echo of their lives. Or sometimes, a soul attaches to a single person,” Death continued. “I’m gathering he’s attached to you. Does he follow you where you go?”

“He’s my brother. Was my brother.” Kismet swallowed.

He could still taste the juice their mother made that night, ordering them to drink it all. It had been cloying, a familiar heavy taste that always meant she would have company that evening. He’d refused to drain the glass, letting his younger brother drink the remainder of the too sweet concoction.

“My mother… I was six or seven… and she liked to have men over but didn’t want us to be awake for it. I think she used to give us something to make us sleep, but one night, Chase didn’t wake up. And then, all that was left of him was that shadow.”

Kismet’s heart clenched. He could still smell the sour odor of his brother’s cold form lying on the bed’s blood-soaked covers. Coughing, he’d turned over onto his stomach, crying from the pain and shaking Chase awake. His brother’s eyes were open, a dull staring blue rolling around scarlet-yellowed whites. When he slept, Kismet dreamed the spider webbing of red vessels along Chase’s eyes, the mattress soaked through with bodily fluids.

“Ah, classic tragedy of infanticide.” The immortal caught the odd look Kismet gave him. “What is it?”

“Most people, when they hear about something sad, say I’m sorry or something.” He smirked.

“I’m not people.”

“True.” Kismet said. “It’s kind of ironic I’m sitting here talking about shit that bothers me with Death. So my brother’s a ghost?”

“Yes.” Death wondered how long it would take the other three to come out. “And yes again, it’s ironic.”

He’d never been good at talking to humans. He usually left such things to Ari. The boy’s questions took his mind off Mal’s pain, but Death’s mind whispered hot thoughts. He should have protected their youngest member more or given him better skills to defend himself. If Mal survived this, Death promised himself to take better care of Mal.

“Is he ever going to go away?” the young man asked. With Chase gone, Kismet could stand the other shadows that reached out for him. His guilt at wishing his brother would leave closed up Kismet’s throat, tightening it with unshed tears and unspoken emotion. “Chase. Not Mal.”

“No. Maybe not.” Continuing gently, Death tried to break the artist’s heart carefully. “He has to find his own way out.”

“Is that what’s going to happen to Mal if he dies?” Kismet’s eyes watered at the thought of the amiable blond Mal becoming a shadow.

He’d tried not to get attached to anyone. Friends were fine to have, but they faded off, mostly without saying good-bye before they drifted away. Relationships were dangerous, an opening up to someone who could reach in and shred his heart with careless abandon. That was a lesson Kismet didn’t want to relearn at this point in his life. Kismet’s mind whispered that with Mal, it would be different. The Horseman was as lonely as he was, maybe more so, but the artist’s heart shrank back in terror, erecting hard barriers before hope could lodge into the chinks.

“No,” Death said. “When an immortal dies, we simply aren’t here anymore. Our bodies and our souls rejoin the Universe. No one really knows. I can’t even tell you where any souls go. All of that is beyond our knowledge. We have a calling to attend to here, but anything past the death, we can’t see.”

“So you help everyone die, then?” Kismet rubbed at his forehead, lack of food and the ebbing of heroin in his system giving him a headache. “Wouldn’t that make you like Santa Claus? Everywhere at once?”

“I don’t have to be there. Just by being, I’m helping people die,” Death said. The boy’s presence was a comfort, a shared worry over Mal. “I’m sure a lot of people don’t see it that way, but it is an assistance.

“Natural or human disasters kill thousands in a few moments. The souls of violent deaths usually don’t know they’re dead and remain here.” The Horseman contemplated what he did for a brief moment.

“I have to be at those mass deaths to get them to cross over before they become too entangled in the Veil and are trapped here on this side of it,” Death explained. “If there are too many in one spot, then the Veil breaks, and well, you’ve seen what happens when the Veil breaks. It’s easier for wraiths to cross. It becomes very dangerous for humans then.”

“Sounds like a shitty job.” His stomach growled again. Kismet couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Worrying over Mal killed his appetite, but the word hadn’t yet gotten to his innards.

“It’s the shittiest job we have,” Ari said, stepping clear of the doorway.

Death stood, advancing on the Horseman. Ari caught at his friend’s waist, hugging the lanky man tightly against his body. Death returned the embrace before pulling away, unspoken questions on his tongue.

“It’s okay. He’ll be fine. Kay’s just letting him heal up a bit and forcing some tea down his throat.”

“I want to see him,” Death said.

“Me too.” Kismet started to rise, shoved back down to the cement by Ari’s hand on his shoulder.

“You stay there, kid. He’ll be out soon, Shi.” Ari glanced down at the shivering young man at his feet. “She’s bathing Mal down with some smelly potions and soap to help with the healing or prevent him from ever being laid. I’m not sure which.