“I’d run if I were you,” I say to Shane’s back.
All around us, the screams are increasing. People are beginning to run every which way. I can hear someone shouting, “Zombie! Zombie! Zomb—” The voice cuts off in a gurgle.
Shane swivels around to face me just as the revenant finishes dragging itself out of the earth.
He eyes me as I rise to my feet.
“I’ll deal with you in a moment,” he says, pointing his blade at me.
“You won’t though,” I say as the horseman lowers himself to the earth several yards behind Shane. “Death will kill you, and then, if you’re particularly unlucky, he’ll force your corpse to serve me.”
Thanatos lands, standing amongst the carnage like a true angel of the apocalypse. His black wings fold behind him.
I know Death’s aware of me, but his wrathful eyes are focused on Shane. He walks towards the man just as Shane turns around. He nearly loses his footing when he catches sight of the horseman.
“Lazarus is right,” Thanatos says. “You will die, and then you will serve my mate.”
Over Death’s shoulder, the newly risen revenant grabs a man with a ginger beard and stringy red hair.
The bearded man swings the blade he grips at the revenant, slicing through desiccated sinew and shattering several rib bones. The zombie grabs him by the head and twists.
Snap.
Shane curses, staggering back. Meanwhile, Death watches him, a cold, forbidding look on his face.
Seconds later, the bearded man rises, his neck bent oddly, his eyes unseeing.
“Jackson?” Shane says to the man.
Jackson strides towards Shane, his weapon still gripped in his hand. Shane barely has time to block the blow.
“What the fuck, man!” he shouts. But Jackson comes at him again. And then the mummified zombie and a few other newly dead men close in on Shane until he is the center of all their attention. I hear one bone break, then another. Shane cries out in pain, and I can see him struggling against all these new adversaries.
He glances over his shoulder, true terror in his eyes, as they begin to rip him apart.
It takes less than a minute for Shane to die, then only seconds for him to come back to life. His eyes are dull and lifeless; gone is that hot temper and the cruel confidence. Now he moves mindlessly with the others.
The group of them head towards me, but rather than attacking like they have everyone else, the undead circle me, standing guard.
Death’s gaze falls to mine, and I see his vengeance dissolve away into relief.
“Lazarus.”
He strides forward, and the circle of revenants parts to let him through. He takes me into his arms. His hands slide over my back and across my bindings.
“What is this?” As he asks, he rips them apart.
I collapse against him, my body feeling boneless.
Death pulls away long enough to take in my face. His gaze pauses over my swollen eye and my cheek.
For an instant, there’s murder in his eyes, and it might be my imagination, but I swear the screams around us ratchet up.
He reaches out, gently caressing my wounded flesh. “I’m sorry, Lazarus, so sorry.”
Beneath his touch, I feel warmth spread out beneath my skin. My flesh tingles as the pain in my face lessens.
I lean into his hand. “There’s nothing to apologize for.” We were ambushed in the middle of the night. He was a victim every bit as much as I was.
“I should’ve been on guard,” he insists. “I shouldn’t have …” fallen asleep. He can’t seem to get that last part out.
A high, feminine scream drags my attention away from the horseman. All around us, the rest of camp is still getting slaughtered.
The women. My breath catches.
Shit.
I turn back to Thanatos. “Please, stop your revenants.”
His jaw hardens. “Why?”
“Just please do it.”
All at once, the dead fall to the ground.
I shudder out a breath.
“Thank you,” I say. I slip out of Death’s embrace, then rush back down the path.
“Lazarus!” Death calls out after me, but I don’t stop and I don’t respond.
Where are they? Where are they?
Every inch of this place looks the same—just tents and dirt paths and more tents—and I’m disoriented by it all.
I slip in a puddle of blood, nearly going down before I catch myself and continue running.
“Cynthia!” I shout. “Morgan!”
The rest of the camp is silent. Too silent.
I run and run and run.
Eventually, I do find the women. I’m just too late.
They are still tied to their posts—Cynthia, Morgan, and so many others—their bodies slumped over, their lifeless eyes open.
All at once, my knees give out. I let out a frustrated cry, tears pricking my eyes. They deserved better. So much better.
I hear the thump of Death’s wings again, but all I have eyes for at the moment are these women.
I’m breathing hard as the last of the dust around me settles, the silence almost painful.
When I asked Death to stop his revenants, he hadn’t just done that. He also killed off the last of the living.
“Lazarus, what are you doing here?” he asks, approaching me. “Are you—crying?” He sounds shocked by the sight, as though the thought of me crying over anyone in this camp is preposterous. And how would Death know that these women weren’t the bad guys? There’s still so much about us humans that he doesn’t understand.
Tears are dripping from my eyes. “These other women, they were victims, just like us,” I say.
Thanatos glances at the women in question.
“And that matters to you,” he says. It’s not a question, and yet there’s confusion folded into it. They were strangers only a day ago.
“They didn’t deserve to die.”
“Kismet, everyone deserves to die—even that abominable man I cut down only minutes ago.”
He kneels across from me and reaches out, caressing the skin that he just so recently healed.
“To live is to die,” he adds. “That was the agreement you made when you came into this world. You cannot have one without the other.”
Death stands. “All your life, all your suffering, all your loss—it was all for this.” He gestures to the dead around us, his wings spreading wide. “You all have been running towards me your entire life.”
Chapter 57
Interstate 10, Arizona
September, Year 27 of the Horsemen
I assume that the camp I was held at was the last I’d see of the Sixty-Six—or whoever the hell those people were.
But … nope. A week after our last encounter, we run into more trouble.
Off to the side of the highway ahead of us is a large, abandoned warehouse. It’s one of the few structures we’ve seen on this lonely stretch of road.
We’re no more than a hundred yards from it when a flurry of arrows streak away from the structure towards Death and me. I’ve seen enough aerial attacks to know their trajectory is too shallow to hit us, but it still makes me catch my breath.
The projectiles clatter against the weathered road in front of us.
“Halt!” a deep male voice calls out, stepping away from the warehouse. “We have more arrows trained on you.” He points his finger up, towards the top of the building.
My gaze moves to the structure’s roofline. Only now do I notice the dozen men and women posted there, their bows trained on me and Death.
Thanatos’s grip on me tightens, and I know this is their end. I hold my breath, waiting for their bodies to hit the roof.
Instead, Death stops our horse.
“You know,” he says softly, “I have really come to despise bows and arrows.”
The man on the ground continues to stroll out, one of his hands lightly resting on a sheathed blade at his hip. I don’t know what he means to do with that blade; he’s too far away to even throw it at us.
“This here is a toll road,” he calls out, gesturing to the highway. “No one passes without paying.”
Up on the warehouse’s roof, I very clearly hear one of the archers say, “What in the name of the devil … Are those wings?”
A hush falls over the entire group of us—me, Thanatos, the archers. Even the man on the ground just stiffened, like he heard it too.