Authors: Rhys Ford
“The crazy woman is ready.” Kay shuffled over and patted Mal’s bare chest. Switching back to her native tongue, she continued, “Can you understand me?”
“I don’t speak Chinese well,” Mal replied in the same language, his eyes glazing over. “Oh, wait… shit. Where is my head at? I guess… yes.”
“Ah, he’s so young and stupid. Why don’t any of you come over with some sort of sense of what you can do?” The elderly woman removed Mal’s glasses, then dropped the spectacles to Min’s waiting hands. “What have you been doing with this one? Letting him roam free like a water buffalo?”
“We’ve been a bit busy over these past couple of decades.” Ari shrugged off the woman’s criticisms. “And water buffaloes have more sense.”
“Hold him, please.” Auntie Kay picked up her first knife, the thin blade wicked and gleaming. “I don’t have anything that I can give you to sleep.”
“Oh, I can bet that won’t last long.” Mal’s breath shortened, his hands clenched tight around each of the other Horseman’s fingers. “I’m pretty certain I faint at the sight of my own blood.”
Ari’s free hand cradled the side of the younger man’s head, Mal’s damp pale hair wrapped around Ari’s long fingers. The warmth and strength of the older Horseman was a comforting reassurance of the bond the Four shared. Leaning over, Ari pressed a gentle kiss on Mal’s forehead, wishing Death was here to help them hold their youngest together.
“Don’t worry, brat,” Ari whispered. “We’re all here for you.”
R
ED
AND
blue lights flashed across Beckett’s face as he stepped out of the backseat of his town car, his driver closing the door behind his employer. Nodding for the man to wait by the vehicle, the magus approached the motel, noting the barriers of Do Not Pass tape around the covered form of a dead man. The black bag was left partially unzipped, and a pale strong hand flopped outside of the gap.
Pushing his way through a crowd of onlookers, Beckett strode to the crime scene.
He’d purposely chosen an expensively cut suit when he dressed for the excursion, wearing his wealth in fine fabrics and the black town car he had his driver take him in. When the police rang him to tell him of the man’s death, the magus sighed heavily, more disgusted at the failure to secure one addict than losing Frazier’s services. Once again, the motel was a flashpoint for disappointment.
A uniformed police officer pointed Beckett toward the detective in charge, a slightly built, potbellied man bent over a splash of blood on the building’s wall. The detective scribbled a few notes in the brown notebook he held tightly, flipping the pages back and forth as he referred to something he’d written previously. Another barrier of tape roped off one of the apartments, another swarm of serious-faced people standing in the open doorway, their mumbles lost in the noise of the evening.
“Detective Brown?” He schooled his face into a look of careful concern.
Beckett suppressed a smile at the ease the detective accepted the man’s offered hand, a brusque shake and then noises of condolences for the loss of a valuable employee. In Beckett’s mind, there would be no connection with the ruinous fallout of Frazier’s killing. When the detective first called him, he’d panicked that Frazier had killed the boy instead and the now dead man was looking for bail.
“Were there any another victims?” He worked on forcing more disquiet into his low tones, rolling the waves of distress under his words. “I would hate to think that someone else lost their life in this.”
“The manager of the motel.” Detective Brown scratched at the itch creeping across his cheek, his skin rippling with an irritation. “Was there any reason for Mr. Frazier to be down here? Did he make any mention of meeting someone down here?”
“No, none at all,” Beckett replied. It was hard not to stare past the man’s shoulder to the spot where Faith stood. She moved cautiously through the crowd, trying to avoid contact where she could. “I can’t imagine what Frazier was doing down here. It’s very far from where he lives, and I certainly didn’t send him out here on any of my business.”
Smiling flirtatiously at her lover, Faith winked before sliding out from behind the detective, pushing the darkness around her into a trace of lacy black shadows. The minute grains of the drug mixture in Beckett’s system filtered her into a misty echoed image. He had trouble focusing on where she truly was, a halo of her face appearing and disappearing as she moved about.
“What capacity did you employ Mr. Frazier in?” The detective returned to his notes. “Did he normally carry a weapon on him?”
“Yes.” Beckett brushed at a speck on his trousers, touching the fractured shapes of his lover’s fingers where her hand rested on his hip. “He… is… was my bodyguard and a friend. Really, Frazier and my secretary keep me on a tight leash. I’m very rarely late for anything.”
“We need to find out more,” the immortal whispered in Beckett’s ear. “I’ll push to influence him. You’ll just need to ask the right questions. Go slowly. Make it appear as if you are interested, and he’ll be more than willing to be helpful.”
It was so incredibly easy. The whisper of power Faith wove over the human helped pull information from the detective. In a few minutes, the magus learned the manager had been shot, possibly by Frazier’s weapon, and that there was a bullet left unaccounted for, possibly taken with the body of another victim whose blood was splattered over the parking lot’s asphalt and cement sidewalk.
Thanking the detective, Beckett agreed to wait on the side of the scene, insisting that the police officer inform him of anything else he might find in the next half hour or so. Flipping open his cell phone would hide his conversation with the Veiled hovering next to him, Beckett covertly sneaking looks at her face as it floated in and out of his sight.
“So we’ve lost the boy again.” Anger filled him, nearly burning away any reason he might have left. Every step forward he made in securing the addict seemed thwarted, and the bird he’d created was gone. “We can’t risk having anything else happen here at this godforsaken dump. The last thing I need is for them to find the boy stoned out of his mind and haul him off to jail.”
“I don’t think that will happen.” She stared out at the parking lot at one of the police officers who’d glanced in Beckett’s direction. The man rubbed at his eyes, his attention returning to where she stood and not on the man standing near her. “We need to move away from here. The Veil is still too thin. It’s shifting around me, and people might begin to notice.”
He hurried toward the car, allowing the woman to slide in first. Ordering his driver to wait for the police detective to return with any information, Beckett closed the door behind himself, the tinted windows keeping out prying eyes. She pushed out from the shadows and leaned into Beckett’s kiss, her mouth passionate against his forcefulness.
“I hate having stolen moments with you. Not being able to touch you is making me die inside,” Beckett whispered against her neck, feeling her skin slip away under his touch. “I can’t wait until we find that boy and see if the drug worked like it was supposed to. I can’t take much more of this.”
“I hate this too.” The woman pouted, her brow creased with worry at his distress. “But concentrate on what we have to do. The blood out there smells immortal. I wonder if the Veil was so far gone that Frazier actually shot an immortal. Or do you think he shot the boy before he fully crossed over?”
“I hope not.” Beckett sat back against the leather seats, chewing on the edge of his fingernail. “The cops are going to take blood samples from the area. If they run it for any narcotics, they’ll find the heroin if it was the boy that was shot.”
“He’d have to find medical assistance, yes?” She leaned forward, rubbing at Beckett’s leg with a brush of her fingers. “Perhaps that’s something that you can trace down? If he has to go to a hospital or clinic, won’t they have to report the bullet wound to the police? Isn’t that how this works?”
“Yes,” Beckett agreed, his mind scattered with the possibilities. “That’s definitely something that I can follow up on.”
The addict was the answer to their prayers, human turned immortal. He’d spent countless hours trying to perfect the rituals over ground herbs and scorched bones. It had been an accidental trapping of a brownie crossing over one of his tapped ley lines that led to Beckett’s greatest discovery, the existence of immortals and other creatures that drew their power from the shadows embedded in the between space of his world. He owed everything to that chance discovery. It led him to his Faith, and now a means to spend a life with her.
“Let me finish up here.” Beckett spotted his driver heading back across the parking lot, pushing past the crowd to the car.
“You go on.” She pressed a chaste kiss on his cheek, worming her will into his soul. “I’ll just complicate matters. Besides, I don’t know how long I can stay on your side of the Veil. It’s too erratic.”
“Okay.” Beckett’s upraised hand passed through her face, and he watched as she ghosted away from him. Resting his forehead on his fist, the magus composed himself before the driver knocked on the car window. “Faith. I promise we’ll be together. Even if I have to cut the boy open myself and see if it worked. I will get to you.”
F
AITH
STOOD
on the sidewalk, watching as the car slipped away from the curb. Her heart ached, missing Beckett’s gentle touch. When hands closed on her waist, she jumped, nearly swallowing her tongue.
“How are you, sis?” Charity kissed Faith on the cheek, resting his chin on her shoulder.
They’d spent nearly a century together, their lives increasingly hampered by their callings and the general state of humanity. Over time, Faith grew sour about her role, slowly convincing Charity that things could be different. When she fell in love with Beckett, they’d both taken it as a sign that their dreams weren’t outside of their reach.
“I’m fine.” Faith sighed, leaning into her brother’s arms. “I hate humans. Well, not Michael, but I just want to be free of them and live my own life.”
“Careful, love. The more you think about not wanting to be Faith, the greater risk you have of leaving.” Charity pressed a finger to her lips. “The very last thing we want is to lose you. Michael and I both need you to be Faith for just a little while longer.”
“I know.” Turning to slide her shoulders against Charity’s chest, Faith wrapped her brother’s arms around her, cradling his forearms and rocking slightly. The police lights played over the motel’s outer walls, turning their faces red and then blue.
“We’re going to miss having Frazier around. Beckett needs to have a puppet,” Charity said.
“Michael doesn’t need a puppet,” Faith replied with a frown.
“Puppets are good for doing things for you,” Charity reminded her, rubbing his thumb on her pout. “And if you’re going to make faces at me, I won’t tell you what I found out.”
“The police know where the boy is, and we can go get him ourselves as a present for Michael?” Faith mimicked Charity’s grimace back at him. “I knew it couldn’t be that easy.”
“No, although that would be sweet. It’s even better,” the Third of their grouping reassured her, holding Faith tighter. “The blood on the ground isn’t our boy’s but one of the Horsemen. And, I think, the result of our clumsy human’s bodyguard and his gun.”
“Are you sure?” She pulled away, shock registering on her face. “How?”
“I think the boy’s alteration rippled the Veil so much that when the gun went off, it actually struck one of the Four,” Charity said. “I could smell the remains of Hope’s calling and followed it down, a prayer that someone wouldn’t die.
“I’m guessing it was the boy who was calling Hope. Even immortal, he’s still got a soul. I think he still counts as human,” Charity continued, holding up his hand for Faith to see the specks of blood caught under his fingernails. “I was surprised to taste one of us on my fingertips. I’m guessing it was one of the younger Four. I think Death and War would have burned my tongue black with their age.”
When Charity had lifted his fingers to his lips, he’d been rocked back with the power held in that dab of blood on his tongue, far greater than any other immortal he’d encountered. He’d tasted Faith’s blood before, a small puncture wound made by a crazy woman’s fingernails on his sister’s face. Nothing prepared him for the taste of a Horseman. Nothing ever could.
“But that’s impossible.” Faith’s hushed whisper held her heart, wondering at the implications of what they’d done. “Do you think the Veil will thicken and go back to how it used to be? We can’t risk wraiths finding a doorway into this world.”
“I don’t know.” Charity shook his head. “We knew this was going to change things. What we’re doing is going to shake the Veiled world. Once we use this drug to step away, there will be no going back to what we were. We’ll be fully human again with free will and still immortal, if Michael does his job right. That’s what we planned on. You have to keep that in front of your mind.”
“I know.” She breathed in deep, trying to calm her fears. “I am scared that we’ll come so very close and it will all disappear from our grasp.”
“What crossed the boy over will free us,” he reminded her. “It’s nearly been done before. We’ll be the first to succeed. You know once we shake off the calling, nothing can touch us, not even Death.”
“We need to find the boy quickly, then,” Faith asserted. “If the Horsemen are so close to him, they might already have him, and we don’t know what they’ll do to him. They probably were the ones who killed Frazier. War wouldn’t blink at killing the boy if he thought it would mean that it kept the world intact. Not even Death could argue against that.”
“Death would hesitate to kill the boy in cold blood. Besides, he might be immortal by now. Without a calling but still one of us,” Charity replied. “We did learn something from this.”
“What?”
“With the Veil that thin, one of us can probably be killed. We can use that to our advantage.”