20.3

 

Steve nodded slowly. “Because if the remaining seals stay closed, the world continues on.”

“In a manner of speaking.” The Artist stepped closer to them. This close, Roisin’s skin – her human skin, she reminded herself – began to prickle and itch. She could see that Steve’s did too, for he scratched at his arm as if bitten by a gnat on a summer evening. Paul’s skin was coming out in a rash as well. At least it proved he was still alive and fighting to remain in control. A glance to her right shower the assistant suffered no effect from the Artist’s proximity. That was interesting. It implied whatever was infecting them all needed life -- soul energy – to proliferate.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

The Artist shrugged, his loose scarf swaying with the movement, its colours shifting from the light Arabic pattern she’d first noticed to a coruscating blend of oranges and earth tones, reminiscent of a forest floor under late morning light. Then it was back as before. “Damage has been done,” he said. “The world has changed. Borders have changed. The concept of religion has changed. More people cry out to a god who seems to have abandoned them, without realising their despair is all part of a great plan.”

Steve’s expression was that of someone who’d just seen rat poop in a restaurant kitchen. “What plan? Everyone goes to Heaven?”

“Not everyone.” The Artist shrugged. “The pure of heart, probably. I am but a servant. It is not my place to know the Great Plan beyond my part in it, which is to bring suffering, because only by suffering shall they know Him.”

Roisin closed her eyes. She’d heard this a thousand times before from a thousand different sources and the gist was always ‘God is Ineffable.’ She had more pressing needs right now, top of which was her dilemma about her horse and her life. If she concentrated, she could feel the mantle of her horse inside her friend.

Two heartbeats. Two truths. Two destinies.

Inside her, the pressure began to build again. If she didn’t take the mantle inside herself, then Paul would die, his soul ejected from the bodily shell it occupied. Then the horse would become a separate identity; part of her but not; of one mind but possessing free will. If she took the mantle inside herself, she would be a beacon for the Creator and His angels, and she would be destroyed to return to the single-minded persona of Famine, walking the remnants of the earth to bring suffering to all those rejected by God.

The pressure was inside her head now, threatening to burst her skull like a piece of dymamite inside a watermelon. If she declined to choose at all, it appeared that Famine would choose for her. Roisin cried out.

Steve grabbed her shoulders. “Roisin!”

Her voice was barely a whisper. “I can’t hold them both.”

The assistant whispered, “Then let one go.”

Roisin looked up at them.

Her eyes were not human. Not glowing, like a TV special effect, just… infinite.

“I choose—”

The air around them shifted, thinning, sharpening, as though reality itself were adjusting to make room for whatever choice was about to be made; whatever path the world chose to move through. The artist changed, his robe shifting into a cloak, his paint-spattered boots becoming simple leather moccasins,

Pestilence.

Roisin felt an echoing jolt inside her chest — not in fear, not in pain, but in recognition. The fat stored in her body fell away, leaving her emaciated as she reacted to his full presence.

Paul shrieked as he rolled over, his back arching as if he’d been jolted with electricity. “Oh God.”

Pestilence smiled faintly. “Not quite.”

Steve stepped in front of Roisin, his wooden cross raised. “Leave him alone.”

The Artist tilted his head. “I’m not a vampire. Besides, your artifacts will not work against the Horsemen. We are servants of the Creator, but we are servants of neither the Light nor the Dark.”

The assistant pressed herself against the wall. Her eyes were wide open, as if she was terrified, but hadn’t she been part of the Artist’s plan all along? “You shouldn’t be here.”

He looked at her with mild amusement. “I should always where I’m needed, and I’m needed here more than anywhere in creation.”

Roisin forced herself to stand. Her legs trembled, but she rose anyway, the pressure inside her chest pulsing in two rhythms — hunger and despair: Horseman and Human.

“Why now?” she whispered.

The Artist’s expression softened. “Because you came to the gallery when you should not have done. Because the Nephilim were calling out to you, had you but known it. Because you’re remembering who you are, long before I had anticipated. Because you have a choice to make.”