stood in the driveway, both as big as his kitchen, both brand new. Drake made a mental note never to let Mel see where he lived.
“Wow, is this your house?” he asked. “Yeah,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’d invite you in, but my parents are Devil Worshippers.”
“Really?”
“Nah. Well, my Dad’s not.”
A statue in the middle of the neatly cropped lawn caught Drake’s eye. It stood twice as tall as him, reared up on its hind legs. “Hey, another horse.”
“Oh, yeah, my whole family’s into horses,” Mel said, following his gaze. “I used to have one.”
“What happened?”
Mel drew a thumb across her throat and made a sound like the snapping of bone.
“Oh, right,” Drake mumbled. “Sorry.”
Mel shrugged. “She was ill. It was her time. Horses die, and them’s the facts.” She looked at the house, then back to Drake. “So,” she began, “see you tomorrow?”
“Assuming no more check-ups.”
She smiled her crinkled-nose smile. “You look pretty fit to me,” she said, then her face fell. “I mean... fit like healthy, not... you know? Though, I mean, not that you’re not...” She pointed with a thumb towards her house and smiled lopsidedly. “I’m just going to go,” she said, turning and crunching her way up the drive.
Drake watched her until she had disappeared inside the house. Then he watched for a few seconds more, in case she came back out again.
When he was sure she wasn’t going to, he turned and looked in both directions along the leafy street. “Right, then,” he muttered, recognising nothing. “How the Hell do I get home?”
Drake lowered himself on to the fourth seat. It had been pulled into place at the rickety table, between Famine and Pestilence, and directly across from War. The three men barely paid him any notice as he sat down. Their attention, instead, was fixed on War’s hand. It crept slowly across the table, a short coil of red rope clutched between his trembling fingers.
“Careful,” Pestilence whispered, then he clamped a rubber-gloved hand over his mouth to stop himself saying any more.
“Of course I’ll be careful,” War said through gritted teeth. “I’m being careful.”
War took a deep, steadying breath, then he – carefully – hooked the rope in place. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse watched, none of them daring to speak a word until—
“Buckaroo! ” cried Famine, as the plastic donkey kicked its back legs, showering the tabletop with a selection of brightly coloured bits of plastic.
“Bugger it,” War muttered. He looked up and met Drake’s withering gaze.
“You quite finished?” Drake asked.
“Aye, well, we are now,” War said. “You here to start your training?”
“I don’t know,” Drake said. He leaned back in the chair. “I want you to explain it all to me first.”
Pestilence cleared his throat. “Right, well, you see the donkey there?”
“Not Buckaroo,” Drake said. “I meant explain...” He gestured around at the shed. “Everything.”
“I know,” said Pestilence, smiling sheepishly. “Just my little joke.” He began packing the game away into its battered box.
“Where do you want me to start?” War asked.
“Start at the beginning.”
War shrugged, rolled his eyes and stroked his beard all at once. “Fair enough,” he said. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
Drake frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light,” War continued. “And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.”
“Right, stop, stop,” Drake said. “What are you on about?”
“Genesis, chapter one,” War replied. “You said to start from the beginning. Want me to keep going?”
“Is that the Bible?”
“Aye,” said War flatly. “That’s the Bible.”
“Well, what are you telling me that for?” Drake asked.
“Because we’re Biblical characters,” War said. “You said ‘start at the beginning’, so I was starting at the beginning.”
Drake snorted. “Biblical characters? Come off it. The stuff in the Bible’s not real.”
There was silence in the shed. Drake looked round at three equally reproachful expressions. “It’s not, is it?” he asked weakly.
“Of course it’s real,” War growled. “It’s all true. Well,” he added hastily, “some of the translation didn’t work out too well, but most of it’s close enough.”
“What... Noah’s ark, the Ten Commandments, all that stuff actually happened?”
“Well, there are only four commandments, really,” Pest said. “And they’re more suggestions than what you’d call actual commandments, but yes.”
A nervous grin spread across Drake’s face. “Nah!”