The Four Horsemen 4 - Death (13 page)

Pierre sat up with a gasp. His heart raced, and he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. He looked around, searching the room for the sight of Oliver or something. Faint light came in through the curtains, alerting him to the rising sun.

“Wow,” he whispered as he climbed out of bed and walked to the bathroom. He got a drink of water before wandering back. “It felt so real, even though I knew it was a dream. It had to be a dream. Oliver’s dead.”

As Pierre started to crawl under the covers, he spotted something on the pillow next to his. He picked up the rose with his trembling hand. Pierre stared at it, knowing it hadn’t been there when he went to sleep. How had it got there? He very much doubted Johnson would have sneaked in to leave it. The butler didn’t seem to be the sneaking type.

Could Death have come in and left it? He shook his head. While Death did seem the type to leave romantic gestures like the rose, Pierre figured the Horseman would have simply joined him in bed if he’d got back already.

Lying down, Pierre held the rose in his fingers and thought about what Oliver said. The ghost was right about Pierre having the chance to change his world. All Pierre needed to do was apologise to his parents and start working on making himself a better person. He could do it. All he had to do was think about what kind of man Death would want. Death wouldn’t want an addict or a man who valued himself so cheaply he allowed himself to be used for drugs or status.

Pierre dozed off for a little while, waking again when his alarm went off. After taking a shower and getting dressed, he carried his bag downstairs, taking the rose with him. Johnson stood at the bottom of the stairs.

“You can leave your bag here, sir. I’ll make sure it gets in the car. I took the liberty of ensuring breakfast was ready for you. Master Almasia wouldn’t be happy if I let you leave hungry.”

“We both know he’s not going to be happy you let me leave period, Johnson.” Pierre clapped the man on the shoulder as he went by.
“It won’t be the first time he’s been angry with me,” Johnson admitted, gesturing to a footman to serve Pierre his plate.
“I’m going to leave him a note on the desk in the study. Can you make sure he gets it?” Pierre took a sip of coffee.
“Certainly, sir. I must say we will miss you here. Master Almasia has been the happiest I’ve ever seen him while in your company.” Johnson bowed slightly before leaving the room.
Smiling, Pierre settled in to eat the massive amount of food the cook had put on his plate. While his heart sang at Johnson’s words about Death being happy with him, Pierre knew the truth. It didn’t matter if Death loved him or not, they couldn’t be together. Death was the Pale Rider, the last of the Horsemen, and the most important one. Pierre couldn’t interfere with Death’s job, no matter how much he might want to.
After finishing, he headed to the study where he found some paper and a pen waiting for him. He sat and composed his thoughts before starting to write. He ignored the tears, even when they splashed down and smeared the ink.
Pierre folded the paper, stuck it in an envelope, and wrote ‘Death’ on the front. He propped it up against the pencil holder for Johnson to find. Pierre went to the window, looking out over the gardens towards the fountain where he’d talked to Oliver in his dream.
Was there something magical about the house? Could it make dreams real or had Oliver simply wanted to talk to him badly enough the ghost created the situation? Either way, Pierre was glad he’d had a chance to talk to Oliver, and actually see the man Death loved.
“Sir, your car is here,” Johnson spoke from the doorway.
“Thank you, Johnson.”
They strolled down the hall together, and Pierre shook Johnson’s hand before leaving. As the chauffeur drove down the driveway one last time, Pierre turned to look back, committing the picture of the country home silhouetted against the blue sky to his memory. He inserted Death into the image, standing at the top of the front steps like he waited for Pierre to come home.
Pierre would use those images to help him when things got tough. He wasn’t stupid enough to believe he could rejoin the real world without some struggles, but he was willing to do everything he had to do not to become the addict he was before.
“Bye, Death,” Pierre whispered as the house vanished from view. “Maybe we’ll meet again sometime, and I can tell you how much I care.”
Facing forwards, Pierre took a deep breath and touched one velvety petal of the rose he carried.

Whirling, Death opened his mouth to shout at Johnson, but closed it when he saw the expression on his long-time employee’s face. Johnson hadn’t been happy about letting Pierre go, but short of locking him up like a prisoner, there was nothing Johnson could have done.

Death sighed and scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry, Johnson. I know you couldn’t keep him locked up here. I’d just hoped he would’ve stuck around, so we could talk.”

Johnson nodded. “Understandable, sir. He did leave you a note. I left it on your desk in your personal study.”
“Thank you, Johnson. Could you have a tray delivered to my sitting room? I don’t feel like eating in the dining room alone tonight.”
“Certainly, sir.”
Death removed his jacket and hung it up before wandering out onto the veranda. He leaned against the railing, staring out over the gardens. The roses were blooming, and he smiled at the riot of reds, yellows, whites and pinks. It had taken him years to get the gardens landscaped the way he wanted. The roses had been Oliver’s favourite flowers, and Death had wanted to honour him in some way that would be around for as long as possible.
A soft knock brought him back into his room, and he called out for the footman to come in. The man set the tray down on Death’s desk and bowed slightly before leaving. After changing into jeans and T-shirt, he wandered into his sitting room and took a seat behind his desk.
He spotted the note Johnson said Pierre had left for him. Death reached out to finger the edges of the envelope. Did he want to read it right now? Should he wait until after he ate? Snorting, he grabbed the note and stood. He didn’t really need to eat, so he could ignore the food.
After moving to the couch, he sat in the corner and stared at the note. Why was he so reluctant to open it? It wasn’t like he and Pierre had an argument or something before Death had left. Johnson said Pierre wasn’t angry when he’d left. He simply seemed determined to begin his life again.
A thought hit him, and he reached over to grab his laptop out of his case. He turned it on, leaning his head back while he waited for the screen to come up. Had Pierre stayed on the wagon and managed to keep sober? Was he surrounding himself with people who cared about him for who he was and not what he could get them?
He brought up his web browser and typed in Pierre’s name. Images and articles began popping up. It had been three days since Death last saw Pierre, and he worried the mortal had got sucked back into his old crowd.
Death read the articles, and a smile grew on his face. It seemed the prodigal son returned home. The news reported Pierre coming home, spending his first night back with his family, and then the next day going to work with Jameson Robertson at Fortescue International Headquarters in London.
“Good for you, Pierre,” Death murmured as he cleared his browser and shut down his laptop. He wasn’t doing any more work for the night.
After returning the laptop to its case, Death picked up the envelope and opened it. He grinned at Pierre’s handwriting, spidery and wild, not staying on the line. There were spots where the ink smudged, and he studied those. Were those tearstains? Had Pierre been crying while he wrote the letter?
He took a deep breath and began to read. When he finished, he folded the paper back up and returned it to its envelope. Death set it down on the end table and pushed to his feet, wandering back into his bedroom. He pulled out a pair of tennis shoes and put them on.
The sun was setting as he made his way out into the gardens, slowly strolling down one path and another until he found himself at the small fountain and the bench beside a bed of blooming red roses. After sitting, Death plucked a rose from a bush and twirled it around in his fingers like he’d seen Oliver do a hundred times.
“You talked to him in a dream, huh?”
Death didn’t care what his sitting out in the garden talking to himself might look like to the servants. He wanted answers and he hoped Oliver would be willing to give them to him. Yet for some reason, there didn’t seem to be any presence in the area like there had been all the times before when Death came to sit on the bench. He only just acknowledged its being there by its absence.
“Have you left me? Was talking to Pierre your last chance to make me admit you were around? Why didn’t you talk to me before this?”
Nothing, and Death didn’t understand why Oliver wasn’t around anymore. It wasn’t like Pierre knew Oliver or would’ve even been able to comprehend what Oliver had gone through in his young life.
“But they did have something in common.”
Death managed not to jump when Lam’s voice drifted in from behind him. He twisted on the bench to meet the angel’s gaze.
“What might that have been?”
“They both loved you.” Lam joined him without waiting for permission.
“Both of them left me. If Oliver had loved me, he would have run off with me. I didn’t care what society thought of us. We could have travelled around the world, and no one would have known any different about our relationship.” Death tossed the flower at Lam. “Pierre should have waited for me to come back. I would have told him how I felt about him, but he left to return to his own world.”
After sniffing it, Lam sneezed and set the rose to the side. “You’re a bastard, Death. You know that, right? You’ve always been an arrogant asshole.”
Death shot Lam a surprised glance. “Such language from one of God’s creatures. You’ve been hanging out with someone in particular too much.”
“Shut up.” Lam punched him on the arm. “Listen to yourself. Oliver left you because he was killed, jackass. It wasn’t like he wanted to get strangled to death by some bastard. Pierre went home, so he could grow up and take his place at the head of the family empire. That’s damn selfish of him, isn’t it?”
Death leant forwards, resting his elbows on his thighs while letting his hands dangle between his knees. “I know I’m a bastard. I’ve been told that many times by hundreds of people. Nothing you say is news to me. I let Oliver down, Lam. I wasn’t there like I should have been when he died.”
“True, he might not have died that night if you were there, but you couldn’t be with him every minute of every day, Death. You have no idea why he was killed, and it might have been something that would have happened eventually anyway. He was a whore, Death, and their life expectancies were never very long to begin with during those times.”
Death hated the fact Lam was right. He’d always known somewhere deep in his brain, Oliver’s death wasn’t his fault. He might have postponed it, but at some point and some time, it would have happened. One thing being the Pale Rider taught him was no one escaped Death. No mortal got to choose his time of death or how he died. Well, unless he committed suicide, but for the most part, the endings of their lives were pre-destined.
“Why did Pierre leave then?”
Lam shrugged. “What did his letter say?”
Death glared at the angel. “How did you know he wrote me a letter?”
“I started in your sitting room and spotted the note on the table. When I didn’t find you there, I came out here.” Lam nudged Death with his shoulder. “I don’t rummage around your personal belongings.”
“I know.” Death rubbed his chin. “I’m just upset because while I loved Oliver, I never really had him in my life. Not like Pierre was for those weeks. Oliver was probably right to say no when I asked him to run away with me. We probably would never have survived it.”
Lam stayed silent, and Death kept talking.
“Pierre didn’t want to be a kept man. He wanted to start living and earning the money he spent. He knew if he stayed with me he wouldn’t have to want for anything, but anything he got he wouldn’t have worked for. He wanted to try and see what a normal life would be like.”
“So it wasn’t like he decided he didn’t want anything more to do with you and just left. He had to go back to his life and make sure he could survive without the drugs and the groupies.” Lam smiled. “I saw the news reports. Sounds like he isn’t doing too badly.”
“It’s only been a few days, but I do think he’s smart enough to handle the work. Oh, he’ll make mistakes, yet I’m pretty sure he won’t turn to drugs to fix the problems anymore.”
Lam turned slightly, and Death looked him in the eye.
“Do you love him, Death?”
Taking a deep breath, Death thought about everything he’d done with Pierre. Not just the sex, which had been some of the best he’d ever had, but all the times in between when all they’d done was sit and talk. He’d learned Pierre had an intelligent mind when it wasn’t dulled by the heroin. Did he love Pierre?
The knowledge he could never see Pierre again tore through his chest, and he gasped, pressing his hand to his heart. His answer was obvious in the pain.
“Yes, I do love him. It wasn’t something I planned, Lam, and I know the rules. I can’t have anything to do with him because he’s mortal.” Death snarled and jumped to his feet. “Why the hell did you let me take Pierre that night? What were you thinking?”
Lam laughed. “I was thinking he might be the one person who could save you from yourself, Death. You were so determined to feel guilty for something you couldn’t prevent, and so determined not to feel any regret for killing the man who raped your sister.”
“I don’t regret St Lucian’s death. He raped Emilia, and from what I found out about him, he would have done it again to another innocent woman. I stopped a serial rapist, even though I didn’t know what that was back then.” Death wouldn’t feel guilt for St Lucian’s death.
“True. So I guess I can’t yell at you for that one. Have you accepted the truth about Oliver’s death? You couldn’t have stopped it or done anything to keep it from happening.”
Death nodded. “By letting go of my guilt, I let go of him. Is that why I can’t hear him anymore?”
The angel shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know anything about that, but I do know this. You’re finally free, Gatian Almasia. Live out your mortal life and try to find love along the way.”
Death’s mouth dropped open as Lam disappeared. He went to the fountain and stared at his reflection in the water. His hair was no longer pale ash grey. It was the black he remembered when he was mortal. There were a few strands of silver streaking it, but a man of his age would normally have those. His eyes were dark blue, so dark that they looked black, yet he could see the pupils and irises.
“What is the meaning of this, Lam?” He shouted into the sky.
“It means you are free, Gatian. You are mortal like your former fellow Horsemen. If you love Pierre, go and find him. Tell him how much you do care for him, and live your lives together. Being able to spend every minute with the one you love is truly a gift from God.”
Lam’s voice played on the wind, holding happiness and sorrow intermingled. Death wanted to shout in triumph, but he bit his lip. While Lam might not be around, it still didn’t seem right to celebrate his being able to find Pierre and confess his love, when Lam couldn’t have anything to do with the being he loved.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
A gentle breeze ruffled his hair before Death turned and headed back to the house. He’d get some sleep tonight, than set about re-entering the world. After that, he’d go in search of Pierre and see if the mortal would still be interested in dating Gatian Almasia, the man formerly known as Death.