Rage (9 page)

In her hand, the Sword gleamed as if in agreement.

Missy stroked Ares' neck, thinking wistfully of murder. When she found Adam, she would show him just how much she had been thinking about him. She'd carve her name onto his stomach, brand her kiss on his back. She'd paint his world red in vicious, meaty streaks.

He's probably home,
she thought, nodding to herself. So that would be where she went next: his house. And if he wasn't there, well, someone would know how to find him. Missy would just have to ask nicely. She'd use the Sword to punctuate the question.

She heard sirens in the distance. Maybe the police were finally en route to break up the party, possibly joined by an ambulance or two, coming to tote revelers away to the land of IV drips and white cotton sheets. Nothing like a little jaunt to the police station or the hospital to really build character.

Missy smiled tightly as she sheathed her Sword. Ares pawed the ground, and Missy mistook her steed's action for impatience. "Don't worry," she told the horse. "We'll find him, even if it takes all night."

From behind her: "This is how you squander your power?"

The speaker's voice squeezed Missy's stomach, leaving her suddenly, overwhelmingly ravenous.

She turned to face a woman seated atop a midnight-black horse. The woman—cadaverously thin, and covered head to toe in black, from her wide-brimmed hat to her trench coat to her boots—held an old-fashioned set of scales in one gloved hand.

Missy stared at those scales, and though she didn't recognize them, War snarled a silent challenge.

"I shouldn't be surprised," the woman said. "You've always been one to flaunt yourself like a whore."

Wide-eyed, Missy asked, "Who
are
you?"

"The Black Rider, wielder of the Scales and blight of abundance." The woman in black flashed a smile, her teeth small and white and perfect. "But you may call me Famine."

The cacophony around them was nothing more than static, the chaos of violence reduced to an afterthought. There was the woman in black on her horse, and there was Ares, and there was Missy herself—that was the entirety of the world.

The woman called Famine looked Missy up and down, that dark gaze measuring Missy's worth down to the pound. Missy's stomach plummeted to her toes. It wasn't just that the black-clad woman could see her when others could not, although the naked hunger in the woman's pitiless eyes left Missy's heart pounding. It was the sheer power radiating from the whipcord thin form that reduced Missy's confidence to ash. This was no brute show of strength, bludgeoning Missy into submission; this was a subtle display, the insidious tug of undertow. It pulled her under, squeezing her like a sponge, wringing out her life.

God, she was so hungry.

Stop,
Missy tried to say, but her words fell stillborn from her lips.

Famine watched her silently, her face smooth, her mouth pressed into a thin line.

Missy, dizzy with the need to eat, stumbled backward. If not for Ares standing just behind her, she would have fallen to her knees. She reached for her steed and drew in a shuddering breath. Her fingers threaded the warhorse's rough coat, and she whispered, "Help me."

Ares lunged, snapping its teeth at the black horse. Famine's steed reared back, out of range of those powerful jaws. The woman in black—still holding her scales in one hand—managed to keep her balance. When her horse came down, she spoke softly to it, quieting it. In those moments of distraction, Missy's hunger abated.

Missy murmured to Ares as she stroked it, thanking the horse for its help. She barely heard the steed's snort of acknowledgment; her thoughts were dust motes in a windstorm, scattered and powerless. Part of her wanted to flee, to climb atop Ares and take to the sky, leaving the shadowed woman far behind. But another part wanted to see how the woman's smile looked after Missy punched out her teeth. She clenched her fist, imagining the feeling of flesh against flesh—the give of muscle, the crunch of bone. She could almost smell the tang of blood, the woman's blood, spicing the air.

Her chest was too tight.

She wanted to hurt the woman, to erase her features with her fists and see what lay beneath her skin. And more than hurt—she wanted to draw her Sword and carve a second mouth along the woman's throat, a new mouth that was wet and red and gaping. She wanted Famine's death rattle to sing her to sleep.

Missy's chest constricted, and she couldn't take a proper breath.
No,
she wheezed.
No. That's not me.
She needed her blade, right now. She had to cut and cut and cut until she could think again, breathe again.

But she
did
have a blade, didn't she? It wasn't in her hand, but she still felt it in her mind, reverberating, clamoring to be heard. She listened as the Sword sang to her with the clarity of steel, the simplicity of bloodshed.

Slowly, her panic ebbed. Though her chest was still too tight and her heart was beating too fast, she no longer felt the overwhelming need to open her veins in the moonlight and bleed until she was drifting and empty. She took a deep breath, held it. She could do this. She'd faced down Death himself; what was Famine compared with Death?

"None of us is on
his
level," said Famine.

Missy blinked, nonplussed. Death had also read her mind, so Famine's doing it now was less impressive than it was annoying.

And just like that, Missy's dead face slipped into place, affixing itself to her features seamlessly. "He has manners, at least," she said, her voice tinged with frost. "He doesn't insult people, or attack them."

"Is that what you think? How charming." Beneath the wide brim of her black hat, Famine's eyes glinted, knifelike. "That was hardly an attack. More like a test. You passed, albeit with assistance. Still. Congratulations."

Missy narrowed her eyes.

"As for your other point," Famine said, "I don't make rudeness a habit with my colleagues. But you and I, we go way back. Oh, not you personally, girl," Famine added, contempt coating her words molasses-thick. "You're just the latest skin. And damaged skin, at that."

Cutterslut,
one of the Matts whispered.

Missy ground her teeth and told the memory of Matt to go to hell.

"Yes," said the Black Rider, "Famine and War have a history of conflict. Which, I suppose, is rather appropriate, considering your role. But that doesn't make it any more tolerable. The Four must be in balance."

"The Four," Missy repeated slowly.

"The Horsemen, girl. Famine, Pestilence, War, Death. We are the Riders of the Apocalypse."

Thou art War. Thou art the Red Rider of the Apocalypse.

Oh. Right.

Missy toyed with the notion that she was insane. But no—everything that had happened, that was happening now, felt too real for her to simply dismiss as madness. Unbidden, she remembered the feeling of Death's hand as he stroked her cheek, as intimate as frostbite. Yes, that had been real.

Much too real.

This is why I've always liked you,
Death said.
You're saucy.

She shivered, both from the memory and from Famine's words. No matter how crazy it was, she, Melissa Miller, was War—the latest of who knew how many. And, apparently, along with a warhorse and weapon, the role came with baggage. She eyed Famine, who lowered her gloved hand. The bronze set of scales vanished—poof, all gone.

Being a Horseman, Missy decided, meant magic tricks without the sleight of hand normally required. She could see it now:
WAR THE MAGICIAN, TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS STARTING AT FIVE, WITH A SPECIAL APPEARANCE BY FAMINE
.

The Black Rider let out a soft laugh. "I may see the wisdom in his choosing one so young to wield the Sword. You're not yet so inflexible."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"That's more like it. War tends to be close-minded." Famine sniffed, loudly. "And a bully."

Affronted, Missy replied, "I'm no bully."

"Oh? So the way you forced all those children to experience anger and terror just moments ago, that was out of the goodness of your heart? Perhaps you were teaching them a life lesson?"

Missy opened her mouth to tell Famine she was crazy ... but then she remembered the fights that had broken out in Kevin's house, the catcalls and snarls, the bursts of violence erupting like fireworks. Blood drained from her face as Famine's words hit home. Sucker-punched, she said, "No, I wouldn't. I
couldn't.
"

"You could and you did," Famine said lightly. "We can call it a learning curve, if that makes you feel better."

Missy sagged against Ares. Oh, God—was it true? Had she been the cause of all of the fighting? Of all that anger?

"Of course it's true," said Famine. "I have no need to lie to you."

Her dead face slipped. Missy, floundering, looked up at Famine and struck blindly. "You're saying all this just to hurt me."

"Well, that too," Famine acknowledged. "I despise you. Your pain is my pleasure. And the truth, as they say, hurts."

Missy tried to let the words wash over her and past her, but they had found the gaps between her dead face and her flesh, and they burrowed deep. Her voice cracking, she asked, "Why?"

"The last time we met, girl, I killed you."

Missy's mouth gaped open, but she couldn't think of a damn thing to say.

"It wasn't personal," Famine added. "You were trying to kill
me.
That, in retrospect, probably
was
personal on your part. The time before that, you
did
kill me." In the shadows of her face, her eyes glittered. "As I said, we have a history, you and I."

Missy remembered the sudden boneless weight of Graygirl going limp in her arms. The world shifted beneath her feet. Clinging to Ares, she cried out, "But
why?
"

"You house the very spirit of aggression, and you ask
me
why you raised your Sword high in slaughter?" Famine shook her head. "Your reaction is amusing, but it's also childish. For all that you are a girl, you're also War. Take responsibility for your actions."

A red tide crashed over Missy, tinting her world in shades of blood. She opened her mouth, but it was War who spoke. "I
OWN WHAT
I
DO
, B
LACK, MORE THAN ANY OF YOU OTHERS
."

Famine smiled thinly. "Ah, there you are. I was wondering when you'd show up."

"E
VEN THE
P
ALE
R
IDER, FOR ALL OF HIS POWER, HAS A ROMANTIC NOTION OF HIS ROLE.
" War snorted. "W
E'RE NO STRUGGLING HEROES, NO CRUSADERS OF JUSTICE
. W
E ARE THE HARBINGERS OF THE
A
POCALYPSE.
"

Missy snapped her mouth closed. No, no—that wasn't her!

"But it is," Famine said. "You're no different than the other Wars before you."

Missy shuddered, wanting to tell the thin woman with her face of shadow that she was wrong, that the words that had spewed from Missy's mouth weren't hers. But War had wrapped its arms around her in thick bands and refused to let her go.

Y
OU CANNOT FIGHT ME,
War told Missy, the voice soothing, numbing. Missy felt her body relax—and she panicked. This wasn't the gentle euphoria she felt after cutting a forearm or the tender flesh of her inner thigh; it was an insistent pull, slowly bleeding her will.

"No," she whispered.

The red voice—the Sword's voice—purred in her mind:
Y
ES.

"No," she said again, stronger this time. "That's not me. I won't let that be me."

"You're War," the Black Rider said with a shrug. "There is nothing else to you."

Laughter, in her mind, in her memory, as Adam jeered at her, called her a freak.

Missy snapped her head up to stare at the black-clad woman. "How
dare
you," she said, rage sharpening her words so that they sliced the air between the two Riders. "You look at me and label me and dismiss me. But there's more to me than what you see," she said, her voice rising. "I'm deeper than any preconceived notion you have of me. You think you know me," Melissa Miller shouted to the heavens, "think you understand everything about me, but you have no idea who I am!"

Her words echoed in the still air between them.

The Sword clanged once, shrilly, then was silent. Missy still felt its presence in the back of her mind—a red coal, ready to be stoked into a roaring fire. But for now, it was quiet. A small victory.

Something shone behind Famine's black gaze, darkly, like pearls dipped in oil. For a moment, she seemed not a creature of phenomenal power but instead a woman whose skin was stretched too tightly over her face, as if she were constantly biting back a scream. "Balance," the Black Rider said softly, perhaps to herself. "And where will you choose to plant your feet, girl?"

Missy held her gaze and said nothing.

"You say there's more to you than the Sword," Famine said. "Prove it. I'll measure your words against your actions, and from that I will determine your worth."

"I don't give a damn what you think of me," Missy growled.

"That's a lie. And it doesn't matter." Famine nudged her steed with her heels, and the horse slowly turned away. "I'll be watching you, girl. Do your job. Do it to the best of your ability. And perhaps I will apologize to you, should you show me there's more to you than your urge to bring humanity to its knees."

Missy heard the unspoken promise of what Famine would do should Missy not prove herself. "Tell me," she said, tamping down her anger. "Instead of threatening me, tell me: what am I supposed to do?"

Famine looked over her shoulder at Missy. If there was a hint of emotion on her face, it was shrouded by the wide brim of her hat. "Learn on the job, same as the rest of us. And pray you don't tip the balance against you."

The woman in black kicked her heels, and then she and her steed were gone.

Missy stared at the spot where they had been, her thoughts swirling colors of red and black. The anger slowly leeched away, leaving her empty, drained. She was exhausted down to her bones.