The Four Horsemen(29)

I don’t have an answer to that. Constantine comes over so we change the subject. She asks, “What about Mona and that hot guy?”

“Gill, he’s a fae prince.”

“Was.”

I scowl, “What?”

She nods, “He can’t be fae now that he’s out. He’ll just be a regular immortal now. No more fae. Only fae are in the gates. ‘Course now that the gates are broken, who knows. Right?”

I nod, “It is odd they were just open like that. They never appeared they were just there.”

She looks confused, “That’s odd. I don’t think I have ever heard of them just being open. How strange. I wonder why?”

I run the sand through my fingers, “I don’t know. It was odd. The whole thing. Wyatt turned out to be Lucifer, that’s how we knew Lucifer had him.”

She nods, “Peculiar.”

Constantine walks over, “Gretel isn’t back yet?”

Sarah shakes her head, “No.”

He gives me a look, “Well, the horsemen aren’t here either, obviously. I wonder if we have it wrong, and Gretel has it right somewhere else and she’s fighting them.”

I look at Sarah, “Where did you leave her?”

She points, “Back at a river bank.”

I get up and dust myself off. We walk towards the riverbank. Sarah says, “You know she was walking. She wasn’t just at a spot. She was moving and muttering.”

I sigh, “Can’t we just phone her?”

“The only time you ever mention using a cell phone and we can’t, they are all dead. No cell service.”

I laugh.

We all stand there for a minute. Something dawns on me, “I need to use the bathroom.” I turn and walk back to the jet. My stomach slowly sinks. Oh God, why her too?

I can’t believe I was so blind.

I get into the jet and close and lock the door. I rush to where Gretel has the weapons stored and grab my sword from the bag. Constantine must have told her to bring it. I stick daggers in their holders in my pants and grab a grenade. Gretel is clearly badass.

I find a bottle labeled holy water. I tap my chipped nail against it, is it possible?

I pull the label off and carry it to the door of the jet. I unlock it and open it.

Constantine is standing at the bottom of the stairs, “Why’d you lock it?”

I nod inside, “The dust.”

He rolls his eyes, “You are such a princess.”

We walk over to Sarah. She is looking around. I pull the top off of the water bottle and take a drink. The water tastes like mildew. I almost gag but I choke it down, knowing full well I will have diarrhea from this. I pour it on my face, moaning into it, “Oh, that feels good.” It doesn’t. It feels a little slimy ‘cause it’s been in here since Constantine was in short pants and had a heartbeat.

Sarah looks around impatiently. I wipe my face, “God, that felt nice.” I give her a look, “You want a little splash?”

She nods. I cap it and toss it at her. She pours it on her face. I see the steam instantly. She cries out.

“It’s holy water.”

Constantine moans, “Jesus. Why do these Van Helsings make it so easy on him?”

I pull my sword as Sarah starts to laugh. She shakes her red, burned face at me, “You are so easy, Rayne. Such a disappointment.”

I pull my sword, “I figured you out.”

She nods, “I knew it. The minute I made the gate comment, I knew you would wonder.”

I point the sword at her. She laughs, “What training have you had, child?”

I shake my head, “I don’t need training to kill you, that’s my job.”

She laughs harder, “You think you will just know how to use a sword? I am not your mother. She was always soft. I learned how to fight.”

I motion for her to come to me, “Then come and show me what you know, father.”

It feels a little too ‘Luke Skywalker’, but I do it anyway. She walks to me, I fake feeble and let her grab my hand. When she tries to pull my sword, I let Ellie take over. She pushes her hand at Sarah, smacking her fist into her nose and kicks her feet out from under her. She goes down hard, not realizing I have more than my fair share of strengths. It is actually way more than my fair share though. I have five people in me.

Sarah kicks her leg out to trip me, I jump to the side. She is back up instantly and ready.

“You’re more limber than I imagined you would be.”

Constantine sighs, “Kill him or I will.”

She laughs, “Please, Basarab. We both know you don’t stand a chance against me.”

I charge her, she spins, grabbing my shirt and pulling me back. She grabs my sword and stabs it into Constantine. He moans, dropping to his knee. She elbows me in the face. I let her get extra close and pull a dagger from my pants. She smashes me in the face again, and I stab her in the heart. She coughs as I pull a second dagger and slit her throat. Her warm blood spills out onto my hands. She sounds like herself again as she dies.

Constantine gags and pulls the blade from his abdomen, “Possession, wow. He really has become the devil he was labeled.” He coughs and tosses the blade at me.

“We are in the wrong place, aren’t we?”

He nods, “It was she that convinced Gretel that the four rivers met here. Fuck!” He stalks into the desert, bleeding. I kneel at Sarah’s side, brushing my hand on her forehead. She blinks, staring at me and then her eyes look to the side. It is done. She is dead. I killed her.

I feel like adding her to a list of people I didn’t mean to kill. There are far more of them than I am comfortable with.

I get up and walk after Constantine, putting my blades back into my pants.

He is cussing up a storm when I get to the river where he is. I see her on the ground, looking off to the right just like Sarah was.

I don’t need to ask, I know she is dead.

He drops to his knees, “I always imagined it would be me.” He looks at me and I see a single tear rolling down his cheeks, “Or you. One of us deserved the right of killing her. Not Lucifer disguised as Sarah. That is not an honorable death.”

I scowl, “Are you crying ‘cause we never got to kill her?”

He sniffs, “I don’t cry and no.” He sighs, “I hate that she didn’t get the death she had earned.”

I raise my eyebrows, “You are getting weirder by the minute.”

He nods, “Let’s go. The pilot is probably dead.”

I realize I never even checked on him. When we get back to the plane, he is indeed alive and feisty. “We can’t fly with no radar. We could end up getting hit by something a lot bigger.”

Constantine leans in, “You will fly us to Northern Africa or I will kill you.”

The pilot sighs, “You asked me to never listen to you when you get like this. I’m trying to keep you safe.”

I look at him, “I hate flying but I know that if we don’t fly there, we will probably die along with the rest of the world.”

He stares at me for a minute, “Fine.” He turns back to the cabin and slams the door.

Constantine closes the doors, “I really never expected to have so much respect for a human.”

I laugh, “You don’t use your juju on him?”

He shakes his head, “I did. I used it to make sure he would never let me use it on him again. I have a bad habit of being impatient and feisty.”

I laugh harder, “Maybe if you stopped jujuing everyone with your magical eyes, you would respect more people.”

He points at me, “You always were a smart ass.” His grin fades. He looks at me deeply, “You have chosen him, you need to let me go. When this is over.”

I shake my head, “I can’t choose.”

He laughs bitterly, “You never could.”

I scowl, “Did Wyatt and I know each other before?”

He swallows hard, “It wasn’t like it is this time. He was a boy. You met him as Ellie when he was a boy.”

I feel like I should remember that, “But…”

His eyes glisten and I know. He nods, “I should really cut back on the number of people I compel.”

I feel sick, “Oh God. You made me forget him?”

“He was a child, Ellie. A boy. You didn’t feel the way you thought you did about him. It was impossible to love him.”

A tear slips down my cheek, “But you knew I would. You knew I would I love him one day.”

He clenches his jaw, “I am truly sorry.”

I don’t speak. He looks down, “I am truly sorry that I was never the right man for you.”

“He loved me, didn’t he? Even as a kid? He knew?” I shake my head, “How did you make him forget?”

Constantine smiles, “I didn’t.”

I look down, “You lied to me. You made me love you.”

“No. You loved me on your own. You just loved me less and less the more you thought about him.”

I scowl, “He was a kid. How is that competition?”

“He would have become competition. He was a freak of nature. I knew it. Well, I suspected. Stella and I. He stayed young for so long. He never matured until you did.”

“What?”

“When you were born again, they noticed he started aging again.”

I am stunned, “You knew this all along?”

He nods. Gretel and I have always been the worst of enemies, but we had one thing in common.”