The Four Horsemen (The Light Series) (17 page)

Constantine walks
over, “Gretel isn’t back yet?”

Sarah shakes her head,
“No.”

He gives me a look,
“Well, the horsemen aren’t here either, obviously. I wonder if we have it
wrong, and Gretel has it right somewhere else and she’s fighting them.”

I look at Sarah,
“Where did you leave her?”

She points, “Back at a
river bank.”

I get up and dust
myself off. We walk towards the riverbank. Sarah says, “You know she was
walking. She wasn’t just at a spot. She was moving and muttering.”

I sigh, “Can’t we just
phone her?”

“The only time you
ever mention using a cell phone and we can’t, they are all dead. No cell
service.”

I laugh.

We all stand there for
a minute. Something dawns on me, “I need to use the bathroom.” I turn and walk
back to the jet. My stomach slowly sinks. Oh God, why her too?

I can’t believe I was
so blind.

I get into the jet and
close and lock the door. I rush to where Gretel has the weapons stored and grab
my sword from the bag. Constantine must have told her to bring it. I stick
daggers in their holders in my pants and grab a grenade. Gretel is clearly
badass
.

I find a bottle
labeled holy water. I tap my chipped nail against it, is it possible?

I pull the label off
and carry it to the door of the jet. I unlock it and open it.

Constantine is
standing at the bottom of the stairs, “Why’d you lock it?”

I nod inside, “The
dust.”

He rolls his eyes,
“You are such a princess.”

We walk over to Sarah.
She is looking around. I pull the top off of the water bottle and take a drink.
The water tastes like mildew. I almost gag but I choke it down, knowing full
well I will have diarrhea from this. I pour it on my face, moaning into it,
“Oh, that feels good.” It doesn’t. It feels a little slimy ‘cause it’s been in
here since Constantine was in short pants and had a heartbeat.

Sarah looks around
impatiently. I wipe my face, “God, that felt nice.” I give her a look, “You
want a little splash?”

She nods. I cap it and
toss it at her. She pours it on her face. I see the steam instantly. She cries
out.

“It’s holy water.”

Constantine moans,
“Jesus. Why do these Van Helsings make it so easy on him?”

I pull my sword as
Sarah starts to laugh. She shakes her red, burned face at me, “You are so easy,
Rayne. Such a disappointment.”

I pull my sword, “I
figured you out.”

She nods, “I knew it.
The minute I made the gate comment, I knew you would wonder.”

I point the sword at
her. She laughs, “What training have you had, child?”

I shake my head, “I
don’t need training to kill you, that’s my job.”

She laughs harder,
“You think you will just know how to use a sword? I am not your mother. She was
always soft. I learned how to fight.”

I motion for her to
come to me, “Then come and show me what you know, father.”

It feels a little too
‘Luke Skywalker’, but I do it anyway. She walks to me, I fake feeble and let
her grab my hand. When she tries to pull my sword, I let Ellie take over. She
pushes her hand at Sarah, smacking her fist into her nose and kicks her feet
out from under her. She goes down hard, not realizing I have more than my fair
share of strengths. It is actually way more than my fair share though. I have
five people in me.

Sarah
kicks her leg out to trip me
,
I
jump to the side
. She is back up instantly and ready.

“You’re more limber
than I imagined you would be.”

Constantine sighs,
“Kill him or I will.”

She laughs, “Please,
Basarab
. We both know you don’t stand a chance against me.”

I charge her, she
spins, grabbing my shirt and pulling me back. She grabs my sword and stabs it
into Constantine. He moans, dropping to his knee. She elbows me in the face. I
let her get extra close and pull a dagger from my pants. She smashes me in the
face again, and I stab her in the heart. She coughs as I pull a second dagger
and slit her throat. Her warm blood spills out onto my hands. She sounds like
herself again as she dies.

Constantine gags and
pulls the blade from his abdomen, “Possession, wow. He really has become the
devil he was labeled.” He coughs and tosses the blade at me.

“We are in the wrong
place, aren’t we?”

He nods, “It was she
that convinced Gretel that the four rivers met here. Fuck!” He stalks into the
desert, bleeding. I kneel at Sarah’s side, brushing my hand on her forehead. She
blinks, staring at me and then her eyes look to the side. It is done. She is
dead. I killed her.

I feel like adding her
to a list of people I didn’t mean to kill. There are far more of them than I am
comfortable with.

I get up and walk
after Constantine, putting my blades back into my pants.

He is cussing up a
storm when I get to the river where he is. I see her on the ground, looking off
to the right just like Sarah was.

I
don’t need to ask
,
I know she is dead
.

He drops to his knees,
“I always imagined it would be me.” He looks at me and I see a single tear
rolling down his cheeks, “Or you. One of us deserved the right of killing her.
Not Lucifer disguised as Sarah. That is not an honorable death.”

I scowl, “Are you
crying ‘cause we never got to kill her?”

He sniffs, “I don’t
cry and no.” He sighs, “I hate that she didn’t get the death she had earned.”

I raise my
eyebrows,
“You are getting weirder by the minute.”

He nods, “Let’s go.
The pilot is probably dead.”

I realize I never even
checked on him. When we get back to the plane, he is indeed alive and feisty.
“We can’t fly with
no radar.
We could end up getting
hit by something a lot bigger.”

Constantine leans in,
“You will fly us to Northern Africa or I will kill you.”

The pilot sighs, “You
asked me to never listen to you when you get like this. I’m trying to keep you
safe.”

I look at him, “I hate
flying but I know that if we don’t fly there, we will probably die along with
the rest of the world.”

He stares at me for a
minute, “Fine.” He turns back to the cabin and slams the door.

Constantine closes the
doors, “I really never expected to have so much respect for a human.”

I laugh, “You don’t
use your juju on him?”

He shakes his head, “I
did. I used it to make sure he would never let me use it on him again. I have a
bad habit of being impatient and feisty.”

I laugh harder, “Maybe
if you stopped
jujuing
everyone with your magical
eyes, you would respect more people.”

He points at me, “You
always were a smart ass.” His grin fades. He looks at me deeply, “You have
chosen him,
you
need to let me go. When this is over.”

I shake my head, “I
can’t choose.”

He laughs bitterly,
“You never could.”

I scowl, “Did Wyatt
and I know each other before?”

He swallows hard, “It
wasn’t like it is this time. He was a boy. You met him as Ellie when he was a
boy.”

I feel like I should
remember that, “But…”

His eyes glisten and I
know. He nods, “I should really cut back on the number of people I compel.”

I feel sick, “Oh God.
You made me forget him?”

“He was a child,
Ellie. A boy. You didn’t feel the way you thought you did about him. It was
impossible to love him.”

A tear slips down my
cheek, “But you knew I would. You knew I would I love him one day.”

He clenches his jaw,
“I am truly sorry.”

I don’t speak. He
looks down, “I am truly sorry that I was never the right man for you.”

“He loved me, didn’t
he? Even as a kid? He knew?” I shake my head, “How did you make him forget?”

Constantine smiles, “I
didn’t.”

I look down, “You lied
to me. You made me love you.”

“No. You loved me on
your own. You just loved me less and less the more you thought about him.”

I scowl, “He was a
kid. How is that competition?”

“He would have become
competition. He was a freak of nature. I knew it. Well, I suspected.
Stella and I.
He stayed young for so long. He never matured
until you did.”

“What?”

“When you were born
again, they noticed he started aging again.”

I am stunned, “You
knew this all along?”

He nods. Gretel and I
have always been the worst of enemies, but we had one thing in common.”

I sneer, “Keeping me
and Wyatt apart?”

He nods.

I feel sick. I don’t
even know how to respond. I knew I hated her for a good reason.

I turn and watch out
the window, desperate to be off of the plane and back in London.

“I am sorry. I just
love you so much.”

I nod, “I know.” And
it’s true. I know he loves me. He is just such a
monster,
he has a hard time being normal with showing it.

He takes my hand in
his and kisses it. It makes me feel worse.
All this time.
All this time, Wyatt and I knew each other from before.

I lay back and wish
the dead would take me, but they don’t. We land in Northern Africa, and I walk
off the plane to something I never expected to see, peace. There is no smoke,
riots, fire, or death. There is silence, sand, and wind. We are the only people
here. The sun is setting but the air is still warm.

I look around, feeling
the history and the heartache instantly. Liana and Ezara know this place. I
look back at Constantine, “This is the place.”

He knits his eyebrows
together. I point at my heart, “Liana and Ezara.”

He nods, “Like a
beacon?”

I nod. I go left but
it fades so I turn right. I walk for a while until I come to a riverbank. It’s
muddy and sandy. I fly across. Constantine jumps it. I smile, “I thought you
couldn’t cross moving water?”

He rolls his eyes,
“That’s witches and it’s not even true.” He takes my hand in his and pulls me
along. I veer us right again. We don’t need a marker for where to go. The
scariest thing I have ever seen is there on the horizon. I know then, we are in
the right place.

The dust of the sand
kicks up as the hooves beat against the soft ground, coming towards us. They
almost shake the ground they are so large. A white horse, a black horse, a
fiery-red horse, and a pale-grey horse all ride to us. The riders do look like
the cast of
Dementors
from Harry Potter, evil and
grim-reaper like.

They carry swords,
axes, and hammers. I gulp, “What now?”

He squeezes tight,
“Pull that sword and give me the dagger down your pants.”

I pull it out and pass
it to him. I hold my sword steady, “Come on, Ellie.” I feel her fill me up, but
even she is trembling at the dark skies behind the horsemen. They barrel down
on us.

I am shaking when they
finally get to us. They ride in a circle around us. It is so
familiar,
I swear I have dreamt of it. I drop to my knees, bowing my head to them.

I hear a scream in the
air. It is a man’s, “Come to me horsemen, see that I do not fear you. I am
worthy of the gifts you have to give. Not like her, I would face you in battle
and earn rewards!”

I don’t lift my head
but I can’t help but wonder why the man behind me is such an idiot, or am I a
coward? No he’s a moron. He can’t win against them.

A horse stops and the
rider drops to the ground. He walks to me in his huge metal boots.

“Rise!” His voice is
like the nixie, but completely opposite and evil. I stand, not lifting my head
to look upon him. I have a bad feeling.

“You would not look
upon me?”

I shake my head, “You
are death.”

“I am conquest. I am
the first rider.”

“I would look upon
you. I would look upon you and kill you.” I hear a man’s voice over the wind
and the horses. I see Constantine’s feet near me. He isn’t moving. He must be
doing the same as me. The man behind me has to be Lucifer.

“You would face me?”

The man screams in
pain, and I feel like maybe for once, I have made the right choice.

The second horse stops
and the rider dismounts. He walks to me in all his state, “Would you face me?”

I shake my head, “No,
my lord.”

He walks past me. The
man screams in agony again. He says words but they are muffled and make my skin
crawl. I wish he would die. I hate that I wish that, but I cannot listen a
second longer. The third horseman jumps down and stomps to me, “Will you face
me?”