The 13th Horseman Part 16

"Pestilence," Drake said. "He's not really my Uncle Bob. I made that up."

Mel nodded. "I didn't think he looked like a Bob."

"Thank you! See? I thought maybe Alejandro ora""

"Not now, Pest."

Mel looked at the two of them, then at the horse. "So, what happens now?" she asked.

Drake's eyes widened. "What, you mean you believe me?"

"I just saw a cat change into a... thing that wasn't a cat," Mel said. "And some kids I've known for ten years become killer robot hula-hoops. Right now, I'll believe pretty much anything you tell me."

Drake found himself smiling. Mel didn't join in.

"So, it's happening?" she asked. "He's really going to destroy the world, like you said?"

Drake nodded. "It looks like it."

"We need to move," said Pestilence softly. "The others will be waiting."

"Uh, yeah," Drake mumbled. "Just a minute."

"We made a deal, remember?" Mel said. "This morning. We made a deal. I thought you were kidding, buta we made a deal. If he's trying to destroy the world, we stop him, remember?"

He nodded. "I remember."

"OK, then. Good," she said. She leaned in and kissed him, just briefly, on the lips.

"What was that for?" he asked, when she pulled away.

"Luck," Mel said. "Something tells me you're going to need it."

The shed looked different when Drake and Pest stepped inside. It took Drake a moment to realise why. The square table at which the hors.e.m.e.n usually sat had been pushed off to one side. Three of the chairs were stacked neatly on top of it. Famine's reinforced seat was half tucked underneath.

"High time you got here," said War as they both entered. He bent down and caught hold of a circle of metal that was set into the floor. Had the table still been there, the handle would have been almost completely concealed.

War pulled and a wide hatch swung upwards, revealing a stairway leading down into a brightly lit chamber beneath the shed. "Famine's already down there," he said. "Getting ready."

"Getting ready?" said Drake. "What do you mean, getting ready?"

"Well, he's hardly going to usher in the Apocalypse in a baggy grey tracksuit, is he?" War said. "He's getting into uniform, like we all should've done ten minutes ago."

"No, but listen, it's not the real Apocalypse," Drake said. "It's Dr Black, the old Death, he's the one doing it."

War blinked. "So?"

"So? What do you mean, so? So it's not the real Apocalypse."

"Who's to say what is and isn't the Apocalypse? For all we know, this was always how it was going to end." He gestured with his head for Drake to go down the steps. "Now come on. Shift it."

It wasn't a single room beneath the shed, as Drake had been expecting. It was a complex. The walls were painted in clinical white, and a dozen corridors led off in a dozen different directions. There were four doors set into the walls, each a different colour. One was white, one was red, one was black and the final one was a pale, sickly green. Black and white squares of vinyl covered the floor, and row after row of fluorescent lights buzzed softly overhead.

In the centre of this room were four leather couches, laid out in a square. A gla.s.s coffee table sat between them, with magazines stacked neatly on top. It looked like the waiting room of an expensive dentist.

Pestilence, then War, joined him at the foot of the steps. "What is this place?" Drake asked.

"It's a... shared area, between the afterlives. We rent some s.p.a.ce from the management company," War said dismissively. He turned to Pest. "Go get ready."

"Righty-ho," Pestilence said. He smiled, but it sat uneasily on him. "See you soon, then."

War caught Drake by the scruff of the neck. "You, with me," he said, marching him towards the red door.

They pushed through into a locker room, with wooden benches lining three of the walls. There were just two lockers. They stood back to back in the centre of the room.

"That's yours, that's mine," said War, indicating which was which.

"How come we're not all here?" Drake asked. "We've all got our own changing rooms," War explained. "I moved your locker in here so we could have a little chat about what happens next."

"What does happen next?"

"Get dressed," War said. He opened his locker and pulled out a gleaming breastplate.

Almost in a trance, Drake opened his locker. The Robe of Sorrows was hung up inside. He unhooked it and lifted it out. The material felt like damp velvet beneath his fingers.

"Do I put it on?" he asked. His voice wobbled. His heart thudded in his chest. He didn't want to be going along with any of this, but every time he thought about resisting, the notion quickly slipped away.

"What do you think?" War snapped. He was wearing the breastplate over his usual leather armour now, and was pulling on a pair of thick leather gauntlets.

Drake's arms, moving almost entirely of their own accord, slipped the Robe of Sorrows over his head.

"It's too big," he said.

A shiver ran down his spine as the black folds oozed and writhed across his skin. In moments, the robe was a perfect fit.

"Oh," he said. "No, it isn't."

"Keep the hood down for now," War told him. "No point putting it up until the big moment."

Drake nodded. He didn't want to put the hood up. He didn't want to wear the thing at all. "You didn't answer my question," he said. "What happens next?"

War closed his locker door with a clang. His breastplate gleamed. His leather gauntlets creaked as he flexed his fingers in and out. "I don't know," he said. "You tell me."

"What? How should I know?"

"You said he was someone from your school. Did he tell you anything? Like what he was planning?"

"No," Drake said. "Just that it was going to be something spectacular."

"Aye, that sounds like him," War said. "b.l.o.o.d.y show-off. Anything else?"

"Not really. He had a smartphone thing. He pushed a b.u.t.ton and said that was that, he'd started it all happening. Then Toxie appeared and attacked him."

War slid his sword into the scabbard on his back. "Oh. So he's dead?"

"He fought back," Drake told him.

"Fought back? Against Toxie? Against a h.e.l.lhound?"

"Yeah," Drake said with a shrug. "Seemed to be putting up a pretty good fight too."

"What did you say his name was, this teacher?"

"Dr Black."

War pulled a face that said the name meant nothing to him. "New, is he?"

"No, been there a while, I think."

"Really? Interesting," War said, stroking his beard. "Right, get the Deathblade and we'll go and meet the others."

"Where is it?" Drake asked.

"It's there, in the locker."

Drake looked inside the empty locker. "No, it isn't."

War was suddenly behind him. "It was there," he growled. "I know it was there."

"Well, it's not there now," Drake said.

War muttered something below his breath. "Doesn't matter," he said aloud. "We'll make do without it. Let's go and get the other two."

Drake wanted to say *no'. He wanted to argue with the horseman, to convince him to call the whole thing off, but it was as if he were hypnotised. So, while he wanted to say *no', what he actually said was: *OK.'

They left the locker room, then stopped abruptly when they saw the other two hors.e.m.e.n waiting for them.

"Ta-daa!" chimed Pestilence, holding out his arms. "What do you think?"

A stunned silence fell.

Pestilence looked like a violent encounter between a motorcyclist and a cowboy. On his bottom half he wore black leather chaps over his usual white trousers. Ta.s.sels dangled along the seams, swishing outwards when he turned to give the other hors.e.m.e.n a twirl.

His boots, which reached almost to his knees, were also leather, but shinier than the chaps. They finished with a large, square heel at the back, giving Pest another few centimetres in height.

The leather jacket he wore was studded across the shoulders. It hung open, revealing a black waistcoat underneath and, below that, a white roll-neck sweater.

There was a soft creak as Pestilence pulled on his cap. Also leather. Also studded, with a chain hanging across the front, just above the peak.

War, at last, found his voice.

"What... in the name of G.o.d... are you wearing?"

Pest looked down at his outfit. "What's the matter with it?"

"That's your official uniform, is it?" asked War, in the tones of someone who was a hair's breadth away from the end of his tether.

"More or less," Pest said. "I just sort of... zooshed it up a bit. It's leather. Very practical, leather."

War shook his head, then turned to Famine. He was still wearing the same faded grey tracksuit as before. "And what's your story?" War asked.

"It doesn't fit," Famine said. "I can't get the trousers past my knees. I ripped the backside right out of them trying to pull them on."

"And what about the measuring scales? You're supposed to appear carrying scales. It says so in the book."

Famine looked uncomfortable. "Yeah, I sort of sat on them."

War's forehead twitched. "You mean you broke them?"

"Not exactly, not exactly," Famine said. "See, I was trying to pull the trousers on at the time, and I didn't know the scales were on the seat, and, well..." His voice trailed off and he gave a wobbly shrug. "I could try to get them back, I suppose, but I might need a hand. And some sort of lubricant."

Pest's face went an interesting shade of green. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"Great," War growled, looking up to the ceiling. "Just great. You've lost your scythe, you've wedged your scales where the sun doesn't shine and youa" he looked Pest up and down. "I don't know where to start. Some b.l.o.o.d.y Apocalypse this is going to be."

"Speaking of which, we'd best get a move on," Pest said. He took a deep breath, then turned to Drake and positioned his mouth into something that wasn't quite a smile, but was a good effort all the same. "You ready, then?"

Drake felt himself nod. The weight of thousands of years of expectation pushed down on him, smothering his will to resist. He was Death, the fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, and he had a job to do.

"Said your goodbyes to everyone?" pressed Pest. "You know, to your mum, and all that?"

"My mum?" Drake mumbled, as if confused by the word. Then his eyes went wide and his head went light, and like that, the spell was broken. "My mum! My mum's going to die. Everyone is going to die!"

Drake's breath came in big, shaky gulps, too fast for his lungs to cope with. "We can't do this. We can't go through with it. We can't."

War shot Pestilence an angry glare. "Oh, well done. Nice work." He gestured with a thumb towards the hatch. "Get upstairs, the pair of you. We'll be up in a minute."

"But... the Apocalypse," Pest said. "What if we're late? We can't be late!"

"What are they gonnae do? Fire us?"

"No, but they could banish us to h.e.l.l," Famine said.

"Aye, just let me see them try it," War snapped. "Now get upstairs. We'll be up in a bit."

Famine and Pest exchanged a worried look, but they both knew better than to argue with War. Drake watched them until they had clumped all the way up the stairs, and out through the hatch at the top. Only then did he turn to the other horseman.

"We've got to do something," Drake said. "We can't let this happen. All the people, we can't just let them die."