19.9

“But that’s really bad.” Paul gripped Roisin’s arm harder. “That’s like the end-of-the-world bad. That’s seas turning to blood and everyone fighting and the righteous go to Heaven and monsters and giant wasps and—”

“Helicopters.” Steve nodded toward the doorway, where the pressure was building again. “Ever since I saw the first footage of a Sikorsky helicopter in nineteen-forty I’ve been expecting the seals to be opened. Helicopters look a lot like wasps, don’t you think? Modern helicopters especially, and even more so now they have efficient single-person machines. Imagine being a twelfth-century writer and seeing helicopters dropping napalm onto Viet Nam. They hadn’t even invented motorised vehicles by then. Wouldn’t you think they were giant wasps spitting fire?”

Paul thought about it, nodding. “I suppose so. Is that true, Roisin? Are we already in the end times?  

Roisin looked at him. Her voice was quiet. “The end of the world started before we were even born, Paul. The first seal released the Antichrist, he who rides upon a white steed and would wear a golden crown.”

Paul stared at her. “Who? There are kings and white horses everywhere.”

“The Antichrist comes in the guise of a force for peace, and yet rider his white horse to spread a plague upon the world, infecting men with the false hope of prosperity while sowing the seeds of global revolution.”

Paul shook his head. “I’m still none the wiser. I thought the white rider was Pestilence. Isn’t that the Artist?”

“He is Pestilence, but not the Antichrist.” She shook her head. “What’s the most famous white horse you can think of?”

“I don’t know.” Paul held his hands up in defeat. “Shergar? What colour was Shergar?”

“Shergar was a bay horse.” Steve shifted his focus from the doorway and the hall beyond, if only for a moment. “Though they never found any trace of him.”

“They probably didn’t check the local dog food canning factory.” Paul laughed. Mose, Roisin thought, to relieve his anxiety caused by the rising tension than any genuine humour. Much as she disagreed with Freud over most issues, he at least acknowledged gallows humour as a means of processing trauma. “You’re thinking too literally. What is a white steed but a means of transport?”

The assistant spoke up suddenly. “A white car? A white plane?” Her mouth dropped open as she made the connection. “Air Force One.”

“The US president?” Paul’s eyebrows went as high as his emphasis on the last syllable. “But they negotiate peace talks.”

“Only so that they can sell weapons to both sides while seemingly remaining impartial.” Steve nodded. “Makes sense. I should have seen that one coming.”

“But that only encourages war.” Paul shook his head. “Why would angels want that?”

Roisin swallowed. “Because the Nephilim are waking. Because the boundaries between worlds are thinning. Because humanity has grown too loud, too bright, too unpredictable.”

The assistant whispered, “And the Horsemen want to stop them?”

Roisin nodded. “Yes.”

Paul shook his head. “But that doesn’t make sense. You’re supposed to cause the apocalypse.”

Roisin looked at him with a sadness that felt older than the room. “That’s the story Heaven tells. Not the truth.”

“So?” Steve stepped closer. “Tell us the truth, then.”

Roisin took a breath, holding down by sheer strength of will the pressure that threatened to tear her stomach and ribs open from the inside. “When the seals open, the angels don’t unleash us. They unleash themselves. The Horsemen aren’t the beginning of the end. We’re the ones who hold the line. We’re the ones who keep the seals closed.”

Paul stared at her. “You’re the good guys?”

Roisin almost smiled. “No. We’re necessary. We’re the caretakers who put out the fires and clean up the trash afterward."

The distortion in the hallway pulsed again — harder, faster, impatient.

Steve lifted his glasses, using them as a prop to point to the doorway. “And that thing?”

Roisin looked toward it. “It’s my horse. The embodiment of Famine. The hunger that balances abundance. The emptiness that keeps the world from collapsing under its own weight.”

Paul whispered, “And it wants to merge with you.”

Roisin nodded. “To make me whole.”

The assistant stepped forward. “But if you become whole—”

Roisin finished for her. “The seals will feel me. Heaven will feel me. And they will come.”

Paul’s voice cracked. “To kill you?”

Roisin shook her head. “To split me apart and retrieve what I have kept hidden inside.”

The room went silent. 

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