She releases me, and I rise to my feet, backing up. I suck in my cheeks and force myself to stop crying, even though tears continue to well in my eyes.
I glance over at Death. He stares back at me stoically.
Letting my gaze fall in defeat, I give him a nod.
I sense his own gaze soften on me before he turns to my mother. He doesn’t say anything, but I see the moment his power takes effect.
For an instant there’s a flicker of relief in my mom’s eyes, and then her features slacken as Death releases her. My mother’s body disintegrates before my eyes, skin and muscle and bone turning into earth once more. A gust of wind whips up, blowing it away until there is no trace of the woman who was here a moment ago.
I fall back heavily onto my ass. It feels like it was all some sort of horrible dream, but I know it happened, I know that Death called my mom here because I asked him to, and then he released her because I asked him for that as well.
I press my palms to my eyes, and suddenly, horrible, wretched sobs are falling from my lips, and I am violently crying, my entire body shaking from the effort.
I didn’t get to mourn my mother’s death—not really. I threw myself into hunting down the horseman, and it left me so little room to mourn. The only time I grieved was during those quiet hours when I traveled, but even then, it came second to my purpose: to find—and stop—Death.
Now I’m forced to relive my mom’s death all over again, and the wound of her passing cuts sharper than it did the first time.
Thanatos moves to my side, kneeling next to me. Then he’s wrapping his arms around me, holding me close just like he did the night Ben was dying. Then it was comforting, but now it mocks me. He’s the one taking all my loved ones away. I don’t want his comfort, I want him to stop.
I push Death away. “Don’t touch me,” I tell him.
The horseman frowns, but that anger that simmered beneath his skin is now gone. He looks as though he’s the one carrying the heavy burden.
“I see your pain,” he says, “and I hear it, and I don’t like it. It makes me frantic.”
I ignore him, my head bowed as I weep.
After a moment, Death stands. “Bringing the dead back—truly back—is a curse, Lazarus. I know you are grieving, but it is in vain. Your mother is in a better place.”
I pause to look up at him. “My grief is in vain?” I whisper. He’s taken my family from me and now he thinks that the one thing I have left—my grief—should go too?
I laugh at him, but I’m so angry. “How dare you say that. You don’t even know what loss is,” I say hotly, rising to my feet. “You’ve never loved anything enough to care if it goes.”
“Lazarus,” he says, his face fierce, “nothing actually goes. It transforms, but transmutation isn’t actually lost or gone at all. You were you before you had a body, and you will still be you when you no longer have one. A caterpillar might become a butterfly—and a human might become a spirit—but it is still the same essence. It has simply been transformed.
“Lazarus,” he continues, searching my face, “if you could see life as I see it, you would know it is all okay—that it will all be okay. That death is the end of suffering.”
“Life is far more than suffering,” I practically yell at him. “Why do you think we all cling to it so desperately?”
His eyes flash. “Because you know no better.”
I shake my head. “You’re wrong,” I say.
But what do I know? I have never been dead. My mom seemed to prefer it. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’ve been fighting for the wrong side this whole time.
That’s the most chilling possibility of all.
Chapter 63
Los Angeles, California
September, Year 27 of the Horsemen
It’s a hard morning. I feel like I have a sob stuck in my throat, and I’m angry at Thanatos, but then it’s not really him I’m angry at.
I thought I had cracked the secret to life. For a brief instant I’d even entertained the idea that perhaps I could do more than just stop the apocalypse—I could reverse it. But there’s clearly no reversing the damage the horsemen have wrought. So instead I sit in the saddle, my heart heavy.
Death holds me close, his lips brushing my temple every so often. I think he senses how close I am to fracturing apart.
Gradually we enter the eastern edge of Los Angeles, one satellite city at a time. The first thing that catches my eye are the mountains of rusted appliances and vehicles left out here in this bone dry landscape. My gaze sweeps over all of the things people lost use of once they stopped working. Every so often I see a body or two lying amongst the debris, and it’s clear that Death has already flexed his lethal powers.
We pass abandoned shopping centers and sun-beaten neighborhoods, the buildings missing windows and doors and roof tiles and whatever else people might repurpose. The landscaping around the buildings has long since died; all that’s left are the husks of trees and bushes.
The sight of it all takes my breath away.
I don’t know much about this part of the world, but I’ve heard stories about a time when this place was the seat of glamour.
I don’t see it.
Maybe it’s that time and the apocalypse have ground away at whatever beauty was once here, because all I see are collapsed overpasses, boarded up buildings, and mountains of rubble.
And corpses.
The farther into LA we move, the more I see them, littering the highway and sprawled on the sidewalk, their belongings strewn out around them. I even see one lounging on their balcony, their head slumped against their shoulder as though they’d merely fallen asleep.
That ache in my chest grows, the one that makes me feel like all of this fighting against the horseman is futile.
Tell me something that makes this all worth it.
I nearly voice the question, but what would be the point? No answer Thanatos gives will make me feel better, and no arguments I make will convince him otherwise. So I keep my mouth shut and on we ride.
It takes another day for us to hit the literal edge of the United States. And suddenly, startlingly, there’s the Pacific.
I have no words for it. I’ve seen lakes, I’ve seen inlets and rivers, but I’ve never seen the sea.
It’s like a second sky, so vast and blue that it seems to swallow the world whole.
I suck in a breath, all my worries forgotten for an instant.
Thanatos must hear my reaction because he tilts himself in the saddle so that he can see my face. While I take in the water he takes in me.
“What is it that I’m seeing on your face?” he asks.
“Wonder,” I murmur. “I’ve never seen the ocean before.” It’s almost funny, considering just how many thousands of miles I have traveled.
Death is quiet, though a moment later, he stops his horse.
I cast him an offhanded glance. “What are you doing?” I ask.
But he’s already dismounting. No sooner have his feet touched the ground than he grabs my waist and pulls me down.
I frown at him, my brows drawn together in confusion.
“I want to give you a better view,” he explains.
His wings spread wide behind him and, scooping me up, Death lifts us into the air.
Wind whips at my hair and drags tears from my eyes, but the higher up we go, the more that blue ocean takes up my vision, until it’s all I can see.
Thanatos brings his lips close to my ear. “I want to stay here, Lazarus, just for a little while.”
I assume he’s referring to being airborne, but then, not ten minutes later, we’re descending back to earth.
Beneath us, I see a strip of beach dotted with homes. We draw closer and closer to it, then we’re flying over the homes, their roof tiles flashing beneath us. Death lowers us onto the front yard of one of the beachside homes.