Breath (24 page)

Xander risked a smile. “Maybe I am.”

“‘Open your eyes.’ It’s good advice. Perhaps I’ll take it.” Death hopped off the railing—and onto the balcony, not over the side and falling thirty stories below, thank God.

Xander’s knees loosened with relief, and he sagged against the wall. Which was right by the railing. Which was the only thing separating him from plummeting to his death. He felt lightheaded, and he thought he was going to be sick. Apparently, now that the crisis was passing, his fear of heights had come back with a vengeance. He inched away from the railing and tried not to vomit.

“Well then,” Death said, sounding almost chipper as he picked up his guitar. “I have to clean up a mess I made. But now that I’m off the railing, Xander, maybe you’ll finally get off the ledge.”

Xander, his back firmly against the wall, blinked up at Death. “Um. What?”

“You’ve shown me a truth.” The Pale Rider slung the guitar strap across his shoulders. “I didn’t consider the possibility that I’d made a mistake, or that my hope still existed in a different form.” He strummed a few notes. “What about you, Xander? When will you be ready for the truth?”

Xander tried to ask, “What truth?” But his throat closed and his chest was too tight and his head began to pound.

Death began to play the opening to “Heart-Shaped Box.” Xander knew that song well. He knew all Nirvana songs well. He loved Nirvana, had once dreamed of growing up to be like Kurt Cobain, of making music that called to a generation, except Xander didn’t have a musical bone in his body.

Xander had lots of dreams.

The song transitioned to the chorus. Death sang about the cost of priceless advice, his voice bordering between petulant and smug.

Xander whispered, “What truth?”

Death must have heard him even over the music, because his long fingers hovered over the strings. As the last chord echoed, he smiled at Xander, patient, knowing.

Waiting.

“The truth you’ve known for a long time,” Death said, “but haven’t been willing to see.”

A sound like a screech of tires, followed by a piercing beep.

Xander clapped his hands to his ears and doubled over, and all he could think was
No
and
No
and
NO.

A still, small voice replied,
Open your eyes, Xander.

Ted’s voice, tinny and distant:
Come on, Zan. Open your eyes.

But when Xander finally opened his eyes and looked up, Death was gone.

But meanwhile time flies; it flies never to be regained.

—Virgil

Bill pressed his shirt tightly onto Missy’s slashed wrist. She was shaking and horribly pale, but he thought that was more out of anger than shock.

“I’m going to kill him!” she screeched, clasping her arm.

“Wait your turn. And lie back down.”

“I don’t want to lie down! I want to get off this island and kill the bastard!”

“You’ll be meeting that bastard real soon now if I can’t stop the bleeding,” Bill said through gritted teeth. “So unless you want that conversation to be very one-sided, lie. Back. Down.”

She glowered at him, but she did what he told her. Small favors. He applied pressure, and she fumed.

“You weren’t this demanding when you were the White Rider.”

“You weren’t this bullheaded when you were the Red.”

That actually got a tired smile from her. “You just didn’t know me very well.”

The blood was soaking through the shirt. “Damn it. Hold this—yeah, right there,” he said, pressing her hand against the makeshift bandage. He quickly removed his belt and tied it around her upper arm, turning it into a tourniquet. He pulled the ends taut, and Missy hissed.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Direct pressure wasn’t enough. Had to go for the main artery. We have to get the bleeding to stop.”

She swallowed and nodded, then turned her head away.

Bill folded her wounded arm, then placed it on her chest, her hand by her chin. “Don’t move,” he told her. “I have to check on Famine.”

“Tammy,” Missy corrected.

“Tammy,” he agreed, and then he pulled himself up and went to the fallen woman’s side. She’d collapsed as soon as Death had removed their Horseman mojo, but Missy had also begun screaming about blood. Bill had made the call to help Missy first—she, at least, was still alive, and for all he’d known, Famine could have been dead.

No, not Famine. Tammy.

He knelt by her side. She was horribly thin—clearly anorexic—and she wasn’t breathing. Cursing under his breath, he placed the heel of his hand flat on her chest, just over the lower part of her breastbone, then placed his other hand on top and interlocked his fingers. Keeping his elbows straight, he pressed down and began to pump. He counted out loud as he pumped, one and two and three and four, pressing on every number and relaxing with every “and.” When he got to thirty, he tilted Tammy’s head back, lifting up her chin, then pinched her nostrils shut. Bill took a deep breath, locked his mouth over hers and exhaled slowly into her.

Her chest inflated.

Good; no obstruction of her airways, at least. Bill would take all the good news he could get. He breathed into her again, then went back to the cardiac compressions, counting out loud with every press.

Missy called out, “Bill?” Her voice was weaker than before. “What’s going on?”

He pumped as he replied: “Tammy’s. Not. Breathing. Giving. Her. C. P. R.”

She cursed, loudly and colorfully.

Bill kept going with CPR. After his third round, he ran over to Missy to check her wound. She was still bleeding. She was going to lose her arm.

No, she was going to die.

Tammy was going to die.

The three horses were probably already dead.

Bill wanted to shout his fury to the heavens. Even after Tammy and Missy died, he would still be stranded on an uninhabitable island, with no cell phone service, no one knowing where they were, all because the three of them had wanted to talk in private. They should have known that there was no place so secluded that Death wouldn’t know what they were doing. Now everyone was dying, and Bill was completely screwed. How would he go? Starvation?

No—he’d die from exposure. It would have to be disease for him, wouldn’t it? How else would a former Pestilence die?

He wished to God that he had the Elder’s voice in his head, telling him what to do. He’d even have taken the King’s insane ramblings. But they were gone; all of the voices of the previous White Riders were silent.

He couldn’t even remember what they sounded like.

Bill exhaled sharply and told himself that it was enough. There would be time for self-pity later, but only if there
was
a later. First things first. He rewrapped his sodden shirt around Missy’s wound, then folded her arm back over her chest.

“Lie still,” he said, pretending his voice hadn’t cracked.

Missy smiled and closed her eyes. “You’re cute when you’re commanding.”

He ran back to Tammy, who still wasn’t breathing, and got back to performing CPR.

Missy’s voice, warbling: “It was an accident.”

Bill, counting as he tried to get Tammy’s heart to work again, didn’t reply.

“I’d been cutting. First time in months. Was too upset to hold the blade right. Got sloppy. Just like he’d promised.” Missy let out a tired laugh. “He told me my family would think I’d committed suicide. That’s sort of funny now.”

Yeah,
Bill thought.
Hysterical.
He kept working on Tammy, kept hoping that she’d start to breathe on her own. Kept believing that what he was doing wasn’t futile, because really, what else could he do?

“Think he’s gonna do it?” Missy asked. “Is this the end of everything?”

“It will be if your bleeding doesn’t stop,” Bill said harshly. “So shut up and try not to bleed out, okay?”

She laughed again, weakly, sounding like an old woman instead of someone maybe pushing twenty-one. “You make it sound like it matters. We’re dead. We’re all dead. He’s gonna kill himself, and take the world with him.”

“Oh, ye of little faith.”

Bill’s head jerked up from the sound of that voice—so cold, yet infused with mirth. Death stood there on the shore, holding his guitar and smiling at them as the wind made his hair dance.

“You’re back,” Bill said.

“I am.”

Beneath Bill’s hands, Tammy’s heart began to beat again. She took in a dusty breath, and then another. Bill rocked back, momentarily stunned, then he growled, “Missy’s arm. The blood loss.”

“Already done, William.”

He scrambled up and ran over to Missy. First he helped her remove the belt from her arm, and then he removed his bloody shirt. The long gash on her forearm was already healed, the pink line one of far too many other lines on her skin.

“What about Tammy?” Bill said, not looking at Death.

“Sleeping.”

“The horses?”

“Have moved on to greener pastures. All of them were old, far older than horses should live.”

His steed was gone. His poor white horse, so nervous and yet so very brave, had been taken from him. No goodbyes, no farewells, no chance for him to thank the horse for being his companion and helping him on his crazy journey as the White Rider.

Bill swallowed his rage enough for him to ask, “Changed your mind about dying?”

“Yes.” A laugh, as if Death were bemused. “Apparently, I
can
change. I’ve come to realize that what I hope for may still, in fact, be viable.”

All Bill could think was that Death had the audacity to laugh. He’d taken something vital from them all, taken it without asking, and he’d killed their steeds and left the three of them abandoned and hurt, and now he had the audacity to laugh. It wasn’t a cruel laugh, either—just a simple expression of amusement.

Death had callously maimed and discarded them, and now he found that amusing.

Bill had never wanted to hurt someone so much in all his life, not even when the school bullies had made him their chew toy.

Missy’s voice, low and shaky: “Still dizzy. Help me up?”

Bill offered Missy a hand, and soon she was on her feet.

“Thanks,” she murmured. Then slowly, deliberately, she staggered up to Death and punched him squarely in the mouth.

Missy’s fist hurt—hitting Death had been so much easier when she’d been War—but she refused to ruin the moment with something as lame as saying “Ow.” She gritted her teeth and bore the pain. That was okay; she and pain were old friends.

He touched his mouth—no blood, no loose teeth, no
nothing,
damn him—and laughed softly. “Some things will never change. You still default to violence.”

She snarled, “And you’re still a bastard.” She’d meant it to come out as a shout, but all she could manage was a harsh whisper. Stupid blood loss.

From behind her, Bill rasped, “How could you do that to us?”

Death looked at Missy, then past her to Bill, to where Tammy lay on the sand. He said, “I was helping you.”

She held her aching hand and glared at him. “You killed our steeds and ripped us apart and left us here to die,” she seethed, “and you think that’s
helping?
”

He shrugged. “It would have been better than the alternative at the time.”

“Which was what?”

“Feeling me die.”

That shut her up.

“Understand me,” he said, his voice cold, passionless. “I meant to die. And not some temporary death, either—no momentary blip off the radar, then all systems go. This wasn’t just coming to the close of a chapter, only to start one anew. This was going to be for real. Forever. Nothing you said or did could have stopped me. I was focused on my own destruction.”

“Dramatic, much?” She aimed for heat and got barely a simmer. “You were suicidal. We get it.”

“You don’t. You three were still Horsemen, still directly connected to me. The best that would have happened is I would have died and you three would have immediately followed. At worst, I would have died, and you would have burned out, leaving you mindless husks. So I severed the connection.” He paused. “I caused you pain. For that, I apologize.”

Missy’s eyes narrowed. “Is that supposed to make it all better? Make our pain stop? Or maybe that brings our steeds back to life? Oh, wait,” she said, snapping her fingers. “It doesn’t do any of that. Screw your apology!”

“You’re angry.”

“You think?” She jabbed a finger in his chest. “You ripped us apart! You killed our horses, you son of a bitch! You don’t get to just pop over here and say you apologize!”

He looked down at her finger, which had gone cold. “It was a poor choice,” he said, gently removing her finger from his chest. That one touch was enough to send shocks of chill up to her elbow.

“Damn right it was,” she muttered.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he said softly.

She wanted so much to read more into his words, his tone, the expression on his face. But he was so very cold, and he’d hurt her so very much. So she folded her arms across her chest and said, “I thought you were going all kamikaze and taking the world with you.”

“Oh, I was. Probably.”

“Probably?”

“Well, maybe. Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “It’s not like I know. I’ve never died permanently before.”

“What do you mean, you’ve never died permanently?”

Behind her, Bill said, “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“Questions, questions. You people and your questions.” He shook his head. “I die quite a lot, Melissa. My forms burn out, and then I’m formed anew—unless I choose not to be reformed. And then, well, that’s the question, isn’t it?”

Missy’s jaw dropped. In the back of her mind, where War used to play, she thought it made perfect sense—of course he didn’t always look the way he looked now. But even so, she was shocked to hear him casually mention that he died. A lot. But before she could give voice to her thoughts, Death was already sliding a glance at Bill.

“I don’t know what would happen to me if I chose not to be re-formed after I died,” he said. “As I mentioned, it’s never happened to me before.”