In her dream, Melissa Miller is inside a volcano, having tea with War. Missy doesn't care for tea, but it's what civilized people do, and so she pours hot water into War's porcelain cup and offers the sugar jar. War declines.
Sitting on a throne of molten rock, the Red Rider looms, a massive being in silver armor overlaying crimson mesh. The image of a blood-red sword adorns War's breastplate. Large gauntlets cover powerful hands; enormous boots encase feet and legs meant to kick down barricades. A silver helm covers War's head; the faceguard is elaborate and foreboding to gaze upon, and it completely obscures War's face. A fiery plume at the top of the helm flutters playfully, its feathers ruffling in the volcano's updraft.
Missy sits opposite War. She, too, is dressed for battle: her long-sleeved goalie shirt fits snugly, and her cleats sink into the volcanic rock. Holding the teacup is difficult with her soccer gloves, but she manages.
"HAVE YOU DECIDED?" War asks, lifting the tiny cup.
Missy mirrors the gesture. "No. "
"IT WILL GO BETTER FOR YOU IF YOU DO IT OF YOUR OWN ACCORD. I CAN BE PATIENT, AS EVEN DEATH WOULD ATTEST. BUT EVENTUALLY, PATIENCE WEARS THIN." War's voice echoes in the volcano, and far below, the magma ripples.
"You want me to embrace you," says Missy, frowning over her teacup. "I don't see how that would help me."
"I CARE NOTHING FOR HELPING YOU. THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU AT ALL. I CARE ONLY TO RIDE."
"I must make a thoughtful decision. Pestilence didn't think ahead," says Missy, "and look what happened. "
"THIS ISN'T ABOUT THE WHITE RIDER. AND YOU PUT TOO MUCH STOCK IN THE WORDS OF ANOTHER HORSEMAN. NONE OF THE OTHERS UNDERSTANDS WHAT IT MEANS TO BE IN THE THROES OF PASSION." Within the helm, War's eyes glitter like rubies. "YOU AND I, WE UNDERSTAND THE NEED FOR STEEL, THE URGE FOR BLOOD. WE SEEK OUR PLEASURE FROM PAIN."
"This is not civilized conversation. Drink your tea," says Missy. War sets down the cup. Liquid sloshes over the sides and evaporates in the heat of the volcano. "THE TEA IS WEAK."
(freak)
"YOU ARE WEAK."
(freak)
"You don't know me," Missy whispers, clutching her teacup tightly. "You know nothing of me. "
"I KNOW YOU ARE STRONG ENOUGH TO DRIVE PEOPLE TO THEIR KNEES," says War, "AND YET YOU SWALLOW YOUR RAGE AND COUCH IT IN TERMS OF BOYFRIENDS AND SISTERS. YOU DEFLECT WHEN YOU SHOULD STRIKE. YOU ARE WEAK."
(freak you're nothing but a freak)
Below them, the magma begins to rise.
War, too, rises, offering a gauntleted hand to Missy. "YOU CAN BE SO MUCH MORE. EMBRACE ME, AND I WILL TAKE YOU TO PLACES YOU CANNOT BEGIN TO IMAGINE."
"I have not yet decided," Missy insists, watching the orange-red floor yawn its way closer. She feels oddly content. She is Death's Handmaiden; the notion of dying holds no fear to her.
But War doesn't want her to die. War wants her to live. And that is ever so much harder.
"EMBRACE ME," says War, "AND I WILL GIVE YOU THE WORLD."
"I have not yet decided." Missy sips her tea, but it has gone cold.
"EMBRACE ME," War bellows, "OR I WILL TAKE WHAT I WANT!"
The magma roils, and it reaches for them with fingers hotter than passion. The sword gleams on War's breastplate as the fire takes them.
***
She awoke suddenly, caught in that state between dreaming and fully conscious, and for a long moment she didn't know who she was. A metallic taste lingered in her mouth—spilled blood, spiced with emotion. Her blood; she had bitten her lip in her sleep. As for the emotion, she couldn't put a name to it.
FEAR. THAT'S FEAR YOU'RE FEELING. IT'S QUICKENING YOUR HEART AND TRIPPING YOUR BREATH. IT'S POPPING SWEAT ON YOUR BROW. YOU'RE AFRAID.
Cold words; heated intention. The voice was a thing of frozen fire, chilling her and singeing her until she was nothing more than a cinder buried in snow.
YOU'RE AFRAID OF ME.
No, she thought. Not of you. I'm afraid of me. Who am I? Shivering, she wrapped the blanket around her and swallowed blood. What am I?
A FLAWED SKIN. A DEFECTIVE SHELL.
No, she was more than that. She had to be. She was...
A VESSEL, AND DAMAGED AT THAT. THAT IS ALL YOU ARE.
A notion of being dangled before her, then danced away in a pirouetting of noontime shadow. Back again: a glint of identity, bright as sunlight on metal. Yes, she had it. She was—
"Missy," she said aloud, her voice breaking. "I'm Missy."
Oh, thank God. She had a name.
She closed her eyes and breathed, then breathed some more. She knew who she was: Melissa Miller, sixteen, self-injurer. Beneath her thick comforter, she rubbed her arms, feeling the raised flesh of her scars as she traced their lines. "Scars," she whispered. The word itself was like a cut: the initial smooth motion of the S as she raises the blade; the quick flash of the hard C, biting her skin; the fluid AR as her blood wells; the final, lazy S, leaking out of her, mixed with all the badness that had made breathing so very difficult.
"Scars," she said again, firmer. Instant gratification forever branded on her flesh. When she would cut, she wouldn't think about things like consequence; all that mattered was forcing the Too Much to bend into something manageable, bearable. She ran her thumb along the crook of her elbow, secret rendezvous of too many razor kisses to count. After cutting, it was all about hiding her actions, as if she'd committed a crime.
Laughter in her mind, like the sound of steel ringing against steel.
A crime? Ridiculous. What she chose to do to herself wasn't anyone's choice but her own. She nodded to herself as her thumbnail pressed against her elbow crease, moving back and forth, back and forth. The only one she was hurting was herself; it wasn't as if she were a sociopath in training.
... Graygirl, limp in her arms, her final warbling meow already fading ...
Frowning, Missy shoved the memory away. This wasn't about what she'd done to her cat two months ago. This wasn't about anyone, anything, other than Missy herself.
Steel chimed; a blade sliced through the air, making music in the wind.
She opened her eyes, blind to the anger simmering in her gaze. Yes, she cut herself sometimes. She did what she needed to do, and if people didn't understand that, that was their problem, not hers.
Her lip curled into a sneer. Their problem. They always had a problem, didn't they? Whether it was with her clothing or her attitude, her grades or her scars. They would always find fault with her.
And she let them.
Not my problem, she screamed silently, directing her fury to the heavens as tears scorched tracks down her cheeks. I don't have a problem. I don't!
Tucked away in its lockbox, her razor beckoned.
It would be so easy to take it out, to touch the blade to her thigh and let it taste the salt of her skin, the penny-sweet tang of her blood. She scraped her thumbnail against the curve of her elbow, biting deep. But it wasn't the same.
Don't cut, Erica whispered.
Missy scrubbed away her tears and told her friend to shut up. Her thumbnail, ragged and wet along its edge, rubbed against her cheek. Blood and salt water mixed on her face, pale fluid mingling with red.
Erica's voice again, a whisper, maybe a plea: Crying doesn't make you bleed.
Missy blotted the wetness with her shirtsleeve. Enough. She wasn't about to argue with a memory, not at—she glanced at the alarm clock on her nightstand—3:13 in the morning. Three o'clock, and all's well.
Yeah, right.
Missy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. So she'd had a bad dream and had woken up disoriented. That happened, even to normal people who didn't have Swords and warhorses and a slight crush on Death. A bad dream, and nothing more.
So never mind the lingering notion that she didn't know who she was. That was just a dark corner in her brain, detritus in the soup pot of her mind. Everything would settle back into place and she'd go back to knowing exactly what she was: an outcast, a lone ship with no safe harbor, forced to sail through the shark-infested seas of high school.
Oh, God. How was she going to make it through Monday? Everyone would know by then what Adam had done to her. How was she supposed to walk down the halls? Sit in class? Act normal? She swallowed thickly.
FEAR, War murmured.
No, stop. Monday wasn't for another twenty-some-odd hours. She didn't need to freak about it now. She needed to go back to sleep. That's what normal people did, right? She told her heartbeat to slow down. It ignored her. And now the rest of her body was following suit—she started feeling up, that gotta-move feeling she got before a soccer game. Fight or flight, baby. Monday was coming.
Fight or flight.
She sat up, clutching the blanket to her chest.
Come out and grab the ball, Bella taunted, her voice playful rather than cruel. I dare you.
Missy got out of bed and went to her window. Outside, dappled by moonlight, Ares waited for her. She wished it had surprised her, but part of her had known her steed would be there.
Now? she thought, staring at the red horse. She was supposed to go out now, in the middle of the night, and play War?
The warhorse snorted as if in agreement. Or maybe it was just chiding her to hurry up already; the night wasn't waiting for her.
Waiting for me, Missy thought, turning away from the window. But which me? Did the steed follow the girl with the penchant for razors and withering gazes? Or was it the Red Rider that Ares waited upon? Which face did the red steed see when it looked at her?
Who am I? she wondered as she pulled on a pair of jeans.
If Ares had an answer, the steed kept it to itself.
***
They flew, War on her steed, the two of them ripping a path across the dark sky.
Her hair whipping her face, her heartbeat surging in her ears, Missy gripped the reins and dug in her heels. Escaping her life, even for a stolen moment in a witching-hour ride, felt deliriously good. Up here, with only the stars and moon to bear witness, she didn't have to think of the dread reality that waited for her by sunlight. Up here, she could lose herself without consequence, without needing to reach for the razor or strap on her dead face. There was freedom to be found among the stars. Maybe she wasn't sure who she was. But in the sky, on her steed, it didn't matter. She was. That was enough.
Beneath them, people dreamed, their emotions colored in bleeding reds and harsh blacks, in furious greens and slick yellows. Missy felt them all, experienced those small wars and savored the sensations. Soon she was feeding on those feelings, sipping joy and nibbling despair. Feasting on desire. Gorging on anger. Drunk with emotion, she flew onward. And below, people's dreams turned violent. Some muttered dark things as they slept, things that would stay with them once they woke. In the morning, they would glare at loved ones and find all manner of things unspeakably foul. Their days were ruined long before they even opened their eyes.
Melissa Miller's mouth stretched into a wide grin, but it was War who rumbled laughter.
Soon, though, reds and blacks gave way to white, and the feeling of sickness slithered along Missy's limbs, coating her in rancid butter. She slapped at it, but it dug deep, getting under her skin. Suddenly lightheaded, Missy leaned down to clasp Ares' neck.
Sick. She was sick.
No. Something was making her sick.
She frowned down at the town sleeping below. There. The feeling was centered somewhere down there. She debated whether to fly on and ride past that sickly feeling of white, but something about it had hooked her curiosity. What was the harm in looking? She had her Sword. She had Ares. Nothing could hurt her; she had already been hurt far too much to fear small things like minor dizziness. She nudged Ares and told him to land.
The horse snorted, clearly displeased, but it did as it was told. It was a good steed.
YOU'RE A FOOL TO THINK SUCH THINGS, said War. THE BEAST WOULD KILL YOU AS SOON AS LOOK AT YOU.
Missy remembered how Ares had come to her defense when she had first met Famine.
GIVEN THE CHANCE, YOUR STEED WOULD BETRAY YOU, AS QUICK AS A STAB TO THE HEART. IT'S A WARHORSE. IT KNOWS NOTHING OF COMPASSION. IT CARES NOTHING FOR PRAISE.
They landed before Missy knew how to respond, which was probably for the best.
Ares' hooves touched down in a gallop, and as the warhorse slowed, Missy took in their surroundings. By day, the shopping mall could have been home to a thousand stores, with a million customers tearing through the bargain racks. But now it was just a stage prop: a massive chain of buildings, brooding and dark. The parking lot sprawled, empty, its neat rows of spots grinning. Refuse dotted the lot in clumps, blackheads on the face of the asphalt. It smelled of hollow soda cans and dead cigarettes.
Deeper than the smells, though, was the sensation of illness that she had felt in the air; it was a greasy white coating that clogged Missy's pores. She sneezed once, violently. Wiping her nose on her sleeve, she blinked, then blinked again.
Faint white lines pulsed on the blacktop, threading through the lot and leading out of the shopping mall. Missy was certain those lines hadn't been there a moment ago. Looking at them made her head spin; looking away from them wrenched her heart.
She thought of every horror movie she had ever seen, and she knew that following that glowing trail was a Very Bad Idea. But she also knew she had to follow it; something about that white path called to her even as it turned her stomach.
Well, she thought, if I die, I get to see Death again.
Picturing Death dressed in a dead musician's skin, Missy urged Ares to follow the faint white threads out of the empty lot. A steady clop-clop-clop of hooves on pavement hung in the still air, the background noise of a disembodied heartbeat. The main road stretched away from the mall in a sharp curve, framed on either side by the thick woods of undeveloped land. Deer country, based on the big warning sign to drivers: watch out for jumping deer. If not for the mostly full moon, Missy would have been all but blind. Apparently, roads populated by jumping deer didn't have streetlights.
As they walked, that sense of sickness, of wrongness, grew stronger. Mere lightheadedness became severe dizziness, and her stomach pitched and rolled. Missy darted glances to either side, unnerved by the enormous trees. They stood in the dark, impassive, silently observing the road. Unseen leaves rustled in the wind, the sound like soft laughter. Missy felt their wooden eyes on her, watching her, waiting to see if she would be tempted like Little Red Riding Hood and traipse off the path. Waiting to see if they could show her their teeth.
Always follow the ball, Bella warned. Don't look away too long.
Missy snapped her gaze back to the faintly glowing trail, ignoring the black trees that stood sentry. Though the nighttime air had a bite to it, she began to sweat. This is crazy, she told herself. Alone at three in the morning, out in the night. She should go home, go to bed.
Go home, Adam sneered, and cry to your mommy.
Missy swallowed thickly and nudged Ares to keep going.
About a mile down the road, the path came to an abrupt end at the feet of a man in white, his clothing so bright, it seemed to glow. The man sat in the dirt, his back against a tree, his gloved fingers laced together as he slowly rocked. A white horse, its coat as bright as the man's, stood near him.
Missy coaxed Ares to a halt. Though she hadn't known exactly what to expect, it hadn't been this. But considering how her life had been going the past day or so, she shouldn't have been surprised. Staring at the man, trying to ignore the way she felt like she was going to vomit any second, she slid off her steed. She landed with her knees bent and feet wide, ready to move, to run, to launch herself into the air to block the goal. But there was no soccer ball coming her way; no opposing team player charged her. There was only the man, in his pristinely white coat and pants, rocking in the dirt, muttering.
She opened her mouth to ask if he was all right, but she inhaled poison. Choking, Missy doubled over. This wasn't drowning in overwhelming emotions, suffocating by wants and needs and desires—she couldn't breathe because the air itself was heavy with disease. Panicking, she tried to stop coughing, and that made her cough all the harder.
Control.
She didn't know if that was her thought or War's or Death's, and it didn't matter. Gagging, she drew the Sword and sliced through the toxic air, parting it in a shower of sparks. Clean air rushed through the rip, flooding over her. She gulped in a breath, and then another. Her throat screamed for water, and her chest burned. But she could breathe again.
Missy stood tall, her nausea momentarily subdued, the Sword naked in her hand. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at the white-cladm an.
HE ATTACKED YOU, War whispered.
Around the hilt, her knuckles whitened. How dare he attack her? She had come to help.
HE BETRAYED YOU. THEY ALL BETRAY YOU. CUT HIM DOWN.
Her arm trembled with the need to raise the Sword high and slash it across the man's chest.
FEEL HOW WARM HIS BLOOD IS. CUT HIM DOWN.
His white coat would make his blood brilliantly scarlet, like a cardinal in snow. It would be beautiful. Magnificent.
CUT HIM DOWN!
She gripped the hilt in both hands now. The edges of her vision were tinged with red, and her blood roared in her ears. She could kill him. She should kill him. It would be so easy. She lifted the Sword ... and then she heard it again: that quiet voice, his voice, cautioning her and encouraging her.
Control.
Missy took a deep breath, and she slowly lowered the Sword.
If the man noticed her, or recognized how close he'd come to meeting the business end of her blade, he didn't show it. He continued rocking, and mumbling, and dry-washing his gloved hands. His head hung low; long black hair shrouded his face.
Her anger fizzled and died. She couldn't be mad, not when there was clearly something wrong with him. He didn't try to attack her—he was sick. She sheathed her Sword and took a step forward.
Ares snorted, pawing the ground.
"Stay there," she ordered, not looking back. She sensed the warhorse settling down, felt its tension radiating in nuclear fury. It didn't like her approaching the man in white, not without the Sword raised for battle, but it would do as she commanded. She knew that, just as she knew her name was Melissa Miller.
She took another step toward the man. Now she was close enough to see something glinting in his hair, catching the moonlight and winking silver. The white horse blinked at her, but it didn't move to stop her.
"Excuse me," she called out. "Are you all right?"
The man whipped his head up. On his brow, a silver crown gleamed in startling contrast to his black hair. His face was a thing of horrors—waxy and riddled with growths, his mouth swimming in cold sores. " 'All right,' 'all right.' Always they want to know if you're 'all right' when clearly they don't give a damn. All right," he shouted, spittle flying. "All right all right!"
Missy froze, midstep.
"Always all right, always right, always. Why?" he asked, eyes feverish. "Why? Damn you, tell me why!"
Missy held her hands out slowly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upsety ou—"
"Never mean. Never. Never!" he snarled. "Never mean what they say. Why say it? Why put it to words if the words are wrong? Why? Why? Tell me why!"
"I don't know," she said, keeping her voice level, hoping he wasn't going to have a seizure or worse. The way he was ranting, he was a candidate for a heart attack. "What are the right words?"
"Words, words. Empty words. Empty spaces." He wrapped his arms around himself and shuddered. "Empty inside."
That, Missy understood. "I wish I could be empty," she said wistfully. "There's too much inside of me. Even when I cut it away, it all comes back."
"Empty," he moaned. "I've lost my me. No one inside anymore. Empty spaces. Empty places. No me."
"I know who you are," Missy said. "You're Pestilence."
He stared at her, and something bright flickered behind his rheumy gaze, cutting through the feverish glaze. "Yes," he said. "Yes. Pestilence. The White Rider. Yes. That is who I am." He peered at her. "War?"
Her lips quirked in a brief smile. "So I'm told."
"I know you. No, not you. I know you, but not you." Fear skittered across his face. "Do I know you?"
"You know War," she said. "Me, I'm new. We haven't met before now."
He nodded slowly. "You're new. New. New is good. New beginnings. I had a beginning once. I had an ending, too, but I didn't like it." He grinned, revealing rotted teeth. "So I got a do-over."
Missy thought she was doing very well, considering the White Rider looked leprous and was more than halfway to crazy. "I got one too," she said. "Guess we're lucky."
"Not lucky. Sick. We're sick." He winked at her, the motion upsettingly intimate. "We're all sick, all of us. Dying a little more every day. The Pale Rider comes for us all. He comes." Pestilence bowed his head again, his shoulders shaking.
"Um," Missy said, fumbling. "What are you doing out here?"
"Here," he said, not looking up. "Here. What am I doing here? I shouldn't be here. I have responsibilities. Many responsibilities."
Remembering Famine's story about the Black Death, Missy said faintly, "I'm sure you do. Maybe you should, you know, get back to, um. What you do."
He looked up at her, held her gaze, and Missy understood that she was looking at the face of madness. It should have terrified her, but it only made her feel sad.
"I used to be a king. But my crown is tarnished," he said, touching the silver band over his eyebrows. It gleamed, as clean as his clothing, making his diseased face even more horrific to behold. "I stand naked before you."
A smell of earth and old parchment, and then a man's voice said from behind Missy, "It was the emperor's new clothes that were invisible. Yours are extremely old, and quite opaque. Which is good, as we're in mixed company."
Missy turned and there he was, Death, the moonlight captured in his hair. His smile softened the shock of his sudden appearance, but even so, she had one hand to her chest and told her heartbeat to slow down. "I swear," she said, "you need a bell around your neck."
"It would clash with my sweater. How are you tonight, Pestilence?"
When the other man didn't answer, Missy pivoted to find the White Rider cowering against the tree, his arms out to shield his face. Missy didn't recognize the gesture he was making with his hands, but she thought it might have been a ward against the evil eye. To Death, she quietly asked, "What's wrong with him?"
"Nothing," he murmured. "Other than everything. He is sickness incarnate. Sometimes, it gets the best of him. Like now."
"Too soon!" Pestilence shouted, his face still hidden. "Too soon! It's not time!"
"Easy now," said Death. "This isn't official. I was in the area, that's all."
Missy found herself lulled by his voice, by his smile—by his very presence. And his words weren't even directed at her. The Horseman whisperer, she thought, stifling a nervous giggle.
"Not time!" Pestilence screeched. Fast as flu, he scrambled to his feet. "Not now!"
Death called him by a different name, then, and reached out his hand. "Please," he said.
But Pestilence was already on his steed. With a panicked kick and a "Hyah!" the White Rider and his steed bolted onto the road, heading toward the horizon.
When the dust settled back to the ground, Missy frowned at Death. "You scared him."
"Happens sometimes." He shrugged. "Especially when he's having a bad spell."
She could still hear Pestilence's rambling words, could still feel his confusion and fear. "Is that what this was? A bad spell?"
"A poetic way to describe an inner battle. That's what lured you here. He was at war with his memory." In the darkness, Death's eyes looked almost silver. "Any sort of war will naturally attract you. But coming from one such as him? You were a moth to his flame. Don't take it personally. It's just part of being War."
"Oh." She paused, and before she could convince herself not to ask, she said, "If he's sick because he's sickness incarnate... then what's going to happen to me because I'm war incarnate? Am I going to be at war with myself ?"
"What makes you think that you're not already?"
Pestilence might have been gone, but she felt sick to her stomach. Was violence going to get the best of her the way Pestilence's illness had gotten the best of him?
And if it did, what did that mean for her?
Not brave enough to ask that question, she asked another. "What did he mean, 'not time'? Not time for what?"
"Pestilence is currently of the opinion that there is only one time when the Four Horsemen will gather." Death's voice was low, and cold, and filled with things that went bump in the night. "And that will be for the Last Ride."
Silence, as thick as blood.
"Of course, that's just his opinion," Death added. "It's been known to change, given his state of mind."
"So ... is he right?" Missy asked.
Death smiled serenely. "He is mad but north-northwest."
Missy had no idea what to make of that. "You told me that apocalypse was just a word."
"I did. I also told you that words have power. As do actions." Death frowned into the distance. "I should go after him. Last time he was like this, swine flu tore through the place. And you should go home. It's late."
"But you're out now," she blurted. Death terrified her, yes—how could he not? But there was no denying that she was drawn to him, that she longed for his cold touch. Was that because War was Death's Handmaiden? Or was it because she, Missy Miller, enjoyed the way his eyes shone as if he had a million secrets? "And Pestilence is out now. Why shouldn't I be out now?"
He glanced at her, arching his brow. "I've been doing this for a long time. And unlike some, I'm not going through an identity crisis."
Missy crossed her arms and dug in her heels. "You gave me the Sword for a reason. I should be using it."
"I did," he said, rewarding her with a magnificent smile. "And you are."
She tried to ignore the way that smile sped up her heart and made her knees rubbery. She failed spectacularly.
"Good night, Melissa Miller." He bowed, low enough for his too-long blond hair to cascade over his face and hide his smile.
"Good night," she whispered, but he was already gone.
Missy stared at the spot he had been for a long, long time. Finally, she turned to Ares. "Come on," she said. "Let's go home."