“Horseman,” I hear someone hiss. That’s followed by low, frantic murmuring.
Death bends his head towards me, his lips brushing my ear. “I take every man to the grave,” the horseman says. “I have compassion for all souls. But I have none for behavior like this. They desecrate what sacredness I do hold towards life, and they desecrate me.”
Thanatos straightens in the saddle. “You will all die,” he announces. “But I will make you suffer for it before I lead you on.”
That’s apparently all the encouragement the spooked group needs. The man on the ground sprints towards the warehouse, disappearing inside just as the archers fire another volley of arrows.
A gust of wind blows the projectiles away. Already the group is reloading and releasing another round. The wind blows these away too.
Heedless of the weapons trained on us, Death guides his horse forward.
“Why aren’t you killing them?” I ask softly as the group reloads once again.
“So eager for their deaths?” Thanatos asks, grim amusement in his voice.
I turn and give the horseman a look. He cracks a smirk, but the moment his gaze returns to our assailants, it dissolves away. I get a chill, gazing on that pitiless face of his.
Just as yet another round of arrows is released—then promptly blown off course—I hear a choking sound come from one of the men on the roof. I glance up just in time to see our negotiator—the man who had fled back into the warehouse—stagger near the edge of the roof. He clutches his throat, then collapses, disappearing from sight.
“Vince!” shouts a woman near him.
Another calls out, “Get your ass up man!”
Vince, however, doesn’t get up.
Two archers leave their posts to check on the fallen man, while the others keep firing arrows and Death keeps blowing them off course.
We’re nearly upon the warehouse when I hear the people above me start to shout.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!”
“What the fuck, Vince?”
I can’t tell what’s going on, not until two people move to the edge of the roof. One of them—our former negotiator—has his hand wrapped around another man’s throat.
Now I know what’s happened to Vince.
“Vince, let Roy go!”
But Vince isn’t Vince anymore.
Roy claws at Vince’s hand where it grips his throat, and the others are trying to pry the two apart, but then amongst the chaos, another man seems to stumble and choke, then fall from view. A moment later, he too rises.
Thanatos stops our horse and watches this all calmly from where he sits behind me.
“Thanatos,” I say.
“Ah, I do so love it when you say my name like that,” he replies.
This time, however, I’m scandalized for an entirely different reason, one that has nothing to do with sex.
“Stop this,” I say.
“Violent lives lead to violent deaths, kismet. This is the tithe I will force them to pay.”
I assumed that being with me was causing Thanatos to soften towards humans, but after Death’s last show of power and now this, I’m not sure anymore. I think perhaps instead I’ve made him human in the worst way.
I reach for his hand, gripping it tightly. “Please.”
My plea falls on deaf ears.
It takes another minute for them all to die, and it’s horrible, so very, very horrible. I can hear their screams, and I can only imagine their confused terror as their former friends kill them. It’s a senseless sort of betrayal.
Once every last one of them dies, and that silence sweeps in, that prickling, jarring silence. All I can hear is my own ragged breathing.
“You could’ve just killed them all at once,” I say. Even though they extorted us and threatened us and likely would’ve hurt us, I’m still unnerved by Death’s cruel power.
“I could’ve,” the horseman agrees.
He clicks his tongue, and that’s apparently all he has to say about that.
Chapter 58
Interstate 10, Western Arizona
September, Year 27 of the Horsemen
When will we leave this cursed desert? We have spent weeks crossing it, and as far as I can tell, we’re still smack dab in the middle of it.
The day starts out hot and the temperature only seems to climb. I sweat, and sweat, and sweat. Just as quickly as it comes, the sweat evaporates away.
I think this corner of the world burned the memo that summer ends.
Death passes me a jug of water from one of the saddle bags. Wordlessly, I take it, swallowing the liquid down.
We’re running out of water. The last two pumps we passed were dry, and I have no clue when we’ll come upon another. It doesn’t help that we just passed the skeletal remains of a horse, its bleach-white bones picked clean by scavengers. In the last few weeks we’ve passed many areas that were largely uninhabitable, but for some reason, I hadn’t felt as close to death then as I do now.
Perhaps it’s simply because it’s been so long since I have seen fields of green grass and moist earth. It feels like we’ve traveled to a place where things go to die.
My panic rises, and I have to tell myself that neither the heat nor the lack of water really matters—I’ll grimly survive it all. But it’s fucking uncomfortable all the same.
As though reading my mind, Death says, “We’ll need to find you water soon. This is no place for you, my Laz.”
My Laz. My heart leaps at the endearment. It shouldn’t, not after all I’ve seen the horseman do, but try telling that to my stupid organ.
I know Death is waiting for me to give in to that rush of emotion I feel for him. I know he wants me to call him sweet things as well—for me to show any sign that this is more than just flesh and lust coming together. And I know he’s willing to wait.
Even if it takes centuries, even if you and I are the last creatures in existence, I vow to you this: I will get you to love me—mind, body, and heart.
His words still echo through my mind.
And I feel it happening. It has been happening.
I shove those feelings down. Instead, I study the ring Thanatos wears as he holds me in the saddle. The one fashioned from a coin of the dead.
“How does it work?” I ask, running my finger over the face on the coin. “How do you lead people on to the afterlife if you’re also here with me in the saddle?”
I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to voice this question. It’s one of the first ones I ever had concerning the horseman of death.
“I keep telling you, kismet. I am not truly human. I can do things that defy human nature and logic. Just as I can release thousands of souls from their flesh with a single thought, so too can I lead them onwards while sitting here in the saddle with you—just as Famine can make crops thousands of miles apart spoil at the same time. Just as Pestilence can spread disease in several places—and several species—all at once. It is an intrinsic part of who we are.”
I sit with that for several moments.
“Tell me about all the people you have met across time,” I start again.
His lips brush my temple, and I can feel his smile against my skin. He likes my questions and I think he also delights in answering them. Up until he captured me, his thoughts were his alone.
“That would take lifetimes, Lazarus,” he says softly. “I think you want a shorter answer than that.”
He is so literal.
“Give me the highlights—you have met everyone, haven’t you?” I say. “George Washington, Cleopatra and Marc Antony, Genghis Khan …” I could go on.
“For a moment, and nothing more,” he says.
“What is it like? What are they like?”
“Souls are different when removed from their flesh. You want their humanisms—I can’t give that to you any better than your own written histories can, though I will tell you this: George Washington was at peace when I came for him, Marc Antony and Cleopatra mourned for the lives they left behind, and Genghis Khan was grimly satisfied with his end.