The 13th Horseman - By Barry Hutchison Page 0,50

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 glass 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 space 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. “Bloody show-off. Anything else?”

“Not really. He had a smartphone thing. He pushed a button 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 Hellhound?”

“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