It takes another minute, but eventually, Chief Holton and I are alone.
Lexington’s chief of police eyes Death, then shakes his head. “I don’t know that I fully believed you until now.” He blows out a breath. “Do you need any help?” he asks.
“Even if I did,” I say, “I don’t think you could give it. Not without ending up like George.”
Chief Holton’s eyes move to the man in question and he suddenly looks a decade older, and so, so weary.
“It could’ve been worse,” I say.
The police chief nods. “Think he’ll stay away?” he asks.
I shake my head. Not if he’s anything like me.
“Unless he can be stopped for good,” I say. “I have a feeling he’ll be back. But hopefully I’ll be able to get him far enough from Lexington by then to give you and the rest of the city time to fully evacuate.”
The chief of police nods his head, still looking weary. He looks over to the buildings we so recently occupied.
“You should go,” I insist. “I’ve got this.”
I don’t, in fact, got this, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“And you won’t die?” he asks, scrutinizing the horseman.
By way of answer, I kneel down next to Death and place my hand against what I can of his cheek. “He cannot kill me,” I insist. At least, not while he himself is dead.
Chief Holton blows out a breath, shaking his head. “Sunday School never prepared me for this shit.” After a moment, he jerks his chin towards George. “Someone’s going to have to collect my friend there,” he says. He turns towards the way we came, squinting at the people in the distance. “And there will be more people using this road to evacuate. I can give you an hour to get gone, but not much more.”
Hopefully an hour is all I need.
Jeb turns to go, then pauses. “Thank you for coming here,” he says. “It was an astonishingly decent thing to do.”
I give him a small smile and watch as he turns and leaves, this time for good.
And I’m left alone with Death.
For a moment, all I do is stare at the horseman. He’s badly mutilated, and I’m shocked to find that it bothers me—the injuries, his pain, all of it. He’s not a man to pity. And yet I can’t stop replaying the way he fell from his horse as we continued to shoot at him.
I stand, then back away from the horseman, worried that if I tear my gaze away for even a single moment, he might simply vanish.
In the end, I do have to turn away so that I can retrieve my things. Among them is my bicycle and a borrowed cart Jeb let me hitch to it.
I can’t be gone more than five minutes, but I’m terrified that when I return to the horseman I’ll find another dead body slumped against him—or worse, that he’ll be gone altogether.
I breathe a sigh of relief when I catch sight of Death—he’s exactly how I left him.
I ride my bike and hitched cart up to his side. Hopping off the bike, I move to the back of the cart, where I’ve already stashed my bag and my weapons. I lower the ramp then turn to Death.
Now for the impossible: lifting him.
In theory it shouldn’t be hard, but the man weighs about as much as a goddamned whale, and the moment I get my arms under his shoulders, I’m sure his wings are deliberately trying to smother me, and I keep getting feathers in my mouth, and a half a dozen bloody arrow points are now digging into my skin.
“Why do you have to be such—a—giant—jerk?” I ask as I drag him inch by painful inch up the cart’s shallow ramp.
I’ve barely gotten him fully in when my legs give out and I collapse, his body falling on mine. I lay there for a moment, cursing God that I can’t die. At least then I would’ve never found myself in this motherfucking embarrassing situation.
Eventually, I extricate myself, my hand brushing against Death’s bloody neck and a lock of that dark, wavy hair in the process.
My heart pounds as I stare at the fallen man, and I try to tell myself it’s just fear and not … not—well, it’s not anything else, so there’s no use trying to put a name to it.
I shove Death’s booted feet into the cramped cart and close the back of it.
Once that’s done, I retrieve my belt and sheathed knife from my bag and slip them on.
Just in case things go sideways.
Hopping onto the bike, I put my feet on the pedals and ride out of Lexington with one dead horseman at my back.
Chapter 10
Interstate 64, Kentucky
October, Year 26 of the Horsemen
I don’t know how many miles I’ve gone when I hear the pound of hoof beats behind me. I glance over my shoulder, and there’s Death’s dapple gray stallion, closing the distance between us. It gallops all the way up to the cart before leaning over and nudging the horseman’s body with its muzzle.
My heart is beating loudly because a supernatural horse is shadowing me and it seems like this is where I learn that supernatural horses like to eat humans or something else equally atrocious.
But after checking on its owner, the horse seems content to merely follow us.
I ride the rest of the day and into the night, retracing Death’s movements as best I can. He’ll eventually wake, and he’ll eventually resume his terrible mission, but hopefully I can stop him for a time.
Every so often I hear something clatter in the cart. The first few times this happened, I stopped my bike to try to figure out the cause of the noise. That’s when I first noticed the bloody arrows lying next to the horseman. Initially, I assumed these had been jostled loose by the swaying cart. But as the hours pass and one by one, the bloody arrows that were once definitely inside the horseman are now obviously outside of him, I realize that somehow his body is purging the weapons.
That’s … more than a little unsettling.
I pedal long into the night. My legs have been shaking and cramping for hours, and it’s colder than hell and I probably should’ve stopped miles ago to rest. I’m beyond exhausted.
Still, I push on until I’m literally too exhausted to continue pedaling. Only then, do I angle my bike to the shoulder of the road and let it roll to a stop. Behind me, Death’s horse trails along.
I swing my leg over my seat and slip off, kicking out the bike stand.
All I want to do is collapse on the ground and sleep my exhaustion away.
Have to set up camp. The thought nearly does me in. I’m not entirely sure I have it in me to make a proper bed, let alone set up camp. Still, I stumble over to the cart to at least get a blanket from my bag.
Once I get to the cart, however, I hesitate. I’m pretty sure almost all the arrows have been purged from Death’s body, which means he’s healing—and really, really rapidly.
I stare and stare at horseman’s winged form. One of my hands moves to the knife at my side, and I wait for him to leap up and surprise me. When a minute passes and nothing happens, I force myself to take several long, steadying breaths.
Assuming he can’t die, then … what if he wakes while I sleep?
He broke my neck when he found me a nuisance. What will he do now that I’ve truly hurt him?
I have to be ready for him.
I glance around. Thick trees line the highway—I could sleep hidden somewhere in there … Maybe he wouldn’t go looking for me—or if he did, maybe I’d wake in time.
… And maybe in the light of day, this tree line won’t actually hide me at all. The thought of the horseman spotting me and coming after me terrifies me beyond belief.
I could simply flee. My legs nearly give out at the thought. I have nothing left in me. I spent it all getting this far away.
I don’t know what options that leaves me with.
My gaze returns to the horseman. The few times that I’ve woken up from death, it’s taken me a moment to get my bearings. Perhaps it’s the same for the horseman.
If I were able to wake up just as the horseman started rousing, I might still have the upper hand. But that would mean … that would mean getting in there with him.
No. Absolutely not.
So, fleeing it is.