Rage (6 page)

"I'm trying," she whispered.

"You're dying," he corrected. "Try harder."

Missy gritted her teeth and imagined Bella counting her down—
Six seconds, go!
—and propped herself onto her elbows. The world spun. Dizzy, she grabbed on to the door frame and pulled herself up, slowing bringing herself to her knees. She planted one stockinged foot, and using the door frame for balance, she was able to stand. She couldn't feel her feet.

The box was right there, on the edge of the high shelf. She reached up for it and couldn't quite touch it. She thought very, very dark thoughts.

On her bed, Death chuckled. "You're cute when you're going into irreversible shock."

Panting, Missy grabbed a bare hanger. Her fingers were slick with blood, and the hanger nearly slipped free.

Don't drop the ball,
she heard Bella scold.

Her arm tingling, her fingers numb, Missy reached up. The hanger brushed against the box, but that wasn't enough to jostle the package loose.

Come on,
she thought,
come on!
Maneuvering the hanger, she hooked it under the white box. And then she slowly pulled.

The box slid forward.

Come on!
she thought again, her heartbeat pounding in her ears, behind her eyes. She kept pulling the hanger out, excruciatingly slow. The white box crept forward, and now a third of it peeked over the shelf's edge.

Her vision started to dim. Her arm, already heavy, suddenly weighed a thousand pounds and the bones in her legs turned to gelatin. Using the last of her strength, she yanked the hanger out. The momentum pulled the box out farther, and it balanced there on the edge of the shelf for a long moment—tantalizing, untouchable.

And then it crashed to the ground.

Missy didn't feel her legs give out. One moment she was leaning against the door frame, and the next she was sprawled on the floor, the box next to her bloody hand. Her head no longer felt heavy; it was blissfully light, lighter than air, as if it could just float away. The pain from her cuts had vanished, like magic, and so had the feeling in her limbs. Sweat dotted her brow, gleaming among the spatter of blood by her eyes.

She was so very cold. So very tired.

"Either take the box, Melissa Miller, or take thy rest." Death's words echoed in her bones, frosted her soul. His voice soft, he commanded: "Choose now."

Choose.

Missy rolled her head to stare at the package on the floor next to her. The box was longer than she had remembered, and she briefly wondered how it had fit atop her closet.
Doesn't matter how,
she decided as she dragged her hand over to the fallen box.
It fit because it was supposed to fit.

Just like she was supposed to take the box.

As her fingers brushed against it, the white package turned the red of ripe cherries.

She couldn't see Death, but she heard the smile in his cold, cold voice. "The choice is made. Open the box, Melissa Miller."

With those words, heat flooded her limbs, bringing with it newfound strength. Missy, no longer dying, rolled onto her hip and pushed herself up until she was on her knees. The cheerfully red package lay in front of her like a birthday present. She lifted the lid off the box.

Inside, a sword rested against a backing of ruby-colored cloth. The weapon looked nothing like its more modern cousins; for one thing, it was too short, and for another, it wasn't steel or iron but something redder, like bronze. The straight blade plumped in the middle, with one end coming to a wicked point and the other extending into a hilt. It was the
idea
of a sword, there in its once white box.

"Oh," Missy breathed, enamored. The sword radiated age and, stronger than that, power, and as she stared at it raptly, she felt something akin to awe wash over her. This blade was no mere sword—it was a Sword, meant to be revered.

"It's beautiful," she whispered.

"It's yours."

"Mine?" Impossible. She couldn't own such a treasure.

"Yours," said Death. "The Sword is your symbol of office."

That got Missy to tear her gaze from the weapon in its box and stare at the figure on her bed. He bore more than a passing resemblance to a certain dead alternative rock star, but Missy understood that his appearance was nothing more than a whim. He sat there in a red and black striped sweater, frayed along the hem of one of the sleeves, the collar of a white shirt jutting out along the neckline. His blue jeans were torn and patched; his Converse sneakers looked comfortably broken in. Everything about him, from his outfit to the messy long blond hair, appeared casual, familiar.

Everything except his eyes. Beneath the startling blue, they were bottomless. She could get lost in those eyes and never know it until she was already far, far gone. His eyes were haunting.

"Thou art War," Death said, his voice cold and, appropriately, grave. "Thou art the Red Rider of the Apocalypse." And then, warmer: "Rock on."

Missy opened her mouth and then closed it with an audible snap.

War.

She knew she shouldn't be calmly sitting on her bedroom floor, being told by Death—by a very attractive Death—that she was now War of the Apocalypse. She knew she should be terrified. She realized she might be certifiably insane. She understood all of this, and none of it mattered.

She beheld the weapon in its box, and she longed to touch it, to feel its weight in her hands. No, it wasn't just a weapon. It was power incarnate; it was passion given form. It was glorious.

And it was
hers.

"Yes," Death said. "It is."

It didn't even make her blink that Death had read her mind; this was a day in which the impossible was accepted as commonplace. She stared at the blade in its cherry-red box, and she felt it staring back, assessing her. Accepting her. She was War, and the weapon,
her
weapon, called to her, its voice a metallic song that reverberated in her mind like the clang of steel against steel. It was hypnotic.

"Pick up the Sword. Feel its weight in your hand," Death said. And then, as an afterthought: "And brace yourself."

Missy closed her fingers around the handle and lifted the Sword free from its box.

Emotions slammed into her, riding her body and screaming along her skin. Anger in its various forms took her first, chewed her up and spat her out: fury, scalding and insistent; jealousy, a gnawing hunger; hatred, cold enough to freeze her blood. Happiness, then, had its turn, soothing her where rage had left scorch marks: joy, blissful and light; kindness, a warm balm; the giddy touch of glee; a tickle of contentment. Love washed over her in a gentle rain, only to burn her as it transformed into lust and, hotter still, ecstasy. On its heels came the soft chill of vulnerability, and the wrenching emptiness of shame.

All of that and more, all in the space of one breath to the next.

Missy's body jittered as the elations and sorrows of every living thing jolted through her like lightning. She tried to scream but couldn't do more than grit her teeth against the tidal wave of sensation.

Control,
Death whispered in her mind.

Control? That was a bitter joke. Proof of that was tattooed along her arms and legs and stomach.

You cut yourself in reaction to an abundance of emotion,
Death said, unflappable.
Act instead of react. Control.

Tears squeezed from her eyes as she pushed against the Sword, against the surge of emotion. It was like trying to hold back an avalanche with her fingers. She couldn't do this.

"Of course you can," Death said aloud. "You have before."

She thought of the glass jar of her heart, how it would bottle her rage and sorrow and aching embarrassment and allow her to swim through her life without being pulled under.

Of
course
she could do this. She had been doing it for months.

Snarling, she pushed once again, shoving the emotions back into the Sword. They flowed off her like wasps washed away in a sudden storm, stinging her even as they rushed past. By the time she was done, she was sweating freely and shaking like a junkie.

And damn if she didn't feel
good.

The Sword, perhaps in reaction to her catharsis, winked ... and transformed into a long silver sword with a flared cross guard. The hilt now sported a leather-wrapped handle, oxblood red, counterbalanced by a circular silver pommel.

Grinning, Missy hefted the blade high. It was neither too heavy nor too light, and it felt as if it had been forged specifically for her hand.

The Sword hummed in her grip, singing of blood and fury, of passion unrestrained. As she brandished it, the weapon showed her visions of the world tearing itself apart in its need to uncover a savior, images of a figure in red—of Missy—holding the Sword aloft like a beacon on a stormy night.

Yes,
she thought joyously.
Yes.
That was the truth of it: everyone,
everything,
was filled with wants and needs and urges, and most people spent their lives denying themselves, talking themselves into stifling banality. They didn't realize how they were suffocating their potential until it was nothing more than a stillborn dream. With the Sword, Missy could show them the truth, and more. She could spread the gospel of war and lead them to enlightenment. They would meet their savior in a river of blood.

She let out a ferocious laugh, one that left her throat raw.

"Control," murmured Death.

Oh, she was in control. More control now than ever before.

His voice, like a caress: "Are you, now?"

Yes.

Her gaze was transfixed on the Sword, and she drew it close to her face. She saw herself reflected in the blade: her eyes shone wickedly, hinting of murder, and her smile was twisted into something grotesque. She blinked and the reflection vanished, replaced by the glimmer of cold steel.

The dark vision acted like a splash of ice water, quickly sobering her. She dropped the Sword as if burned, and it landed on the blood-streaked carpet with a muffled thump. The Sword's image lingered behind her eyes, and she shuddered violently. She whispered, "What was that?"

"You. Nothing more, nothing less."

She turned to face Death, who was sitting up on her bed, watching her intently. Part of her squirmed from that considering gaze ... but another part of her, the one that had relished holding the Sword, enjoyed his attention. More than enjoyed it, based on her body's reaction. She crossed her arms over her chest. Her voice husky, she said, "That wasn't me."

"You are War. The passions of all living things call to you, and you to them. And your own passions are more ... extreme." He emphasized the last word, turning it into something enticing.

She rubbed her arms, even though she wasn't cold. If anything, she was feeling much, much too warm. "You picked the wrong person. I'm just a—"

Freak,
Adam jeered.

"—a girl," she said bitterly.

Death smiled, a slow curving of his lips that made Missy's heart beat faster. "Your past is meaningless," he said, "and your future is waiting to be defined. Don't condemn yourself to mediocrity just yet."

His words rang with the promise of salvation, and for a wonderful moment, Missy felt hope bloom.

But then she thought suddenly of Graygirl, heard the cat's final, pitiful cry before she died in Missy's arms.

Missy's eyes burned with unshed tears. She wanted to curse, to shout, to beg for forgiveness, but the words refused to come. No matter what Death said, her past couldn't be erased. She bore her sins like scars.

"That's one thing I'll never understand," said Death, shaking his head. "Why do you people insist on suffering?"

Missy had no answer.

"Don't feel bad. I don't have an answer, either, and I've been doing this for a long, long time." He held out his hand to her.

Missy took a deep breath, and then she accepted Death's hand. It was firm, and cool, and as he helped her to her feet, a gentle numbness spread through her body, as if her dead face had encased her like a mummy.

"Come on," Death said, smiling softly. "The night is young, and there's much to do."

Missy followed Death out of her room, feeling as if she were traveling in a dream. Around her, the world was out of sync—she heard her parents in their bedroom, the sounds of their lovemaking tinny and peppered with static; the photographs on the walls had faded into background floaters, their colors leeched away. Missy's head buzzed, not unpleasantly, as she noticed these oddities. It made sense that the mundane trappings of the world appeared dim and out of reach; by accepting the Sword, Missy had become more real, perhaps even surreal. It wasn't that she was alone because no one could relate to her; rather, she had transcended the glamour of the ordinary.

It was possible, she reflected, that the soda she'd had at Kevin's party had been laced with something exotic and she was tripping her fool head off.

Death glided sinuously down the stairs, and Missy drifted after him, a fleshy balloon filled with helium kisses. She was filthy and shoeless, and that was irrelevant. She had nearly died, and that, too, was irrelevant. She was War, the Red Rider of the Apocalypse. She was beyond concerns of bare feet and grime. Melissa Miller followed where Death walked, leaving her life behind her.

They came to a halt by her front door. Death glanced back at her, an unreadable smile on his face. "War," he said, "meet thy steed." And then he opened the door and motioned outside.

At the bottom of the front stoop, a horse waited.

Missy sucked in a startled breath. She had seen horses before, but none of them had come close to the powerful creature standing in her front yard. Tall to the point of monstrosity, proud to the point of nobility, it stood, limbs locked, nostrils flared. From muzzle to mane to flank, it was the color of spilled blood—all but the eyes, which were the black of nightmares. Missy felt the horse's hatred slap her, sensed its silent dare for her to approach.

No, not a dare. It was
hoping
she would step forward. It wanted to tear her apart.