My heart is pounding like mad. I could shoot him now. I’d probably miss, but you never know.
The horseman prowls forward, the tips of his wings dragging along the ground.
“Keep your distance,” I warn.
“Do you really think your bow scares me?” he asks.
“I will shoot.”
“Ah, so it’s you who is scared.” He tilts his head. “Did you not like my touch?”
I think he’s deliberately trying to frighten me, and damn him, but it’s working. Even now I’m remembering how, beneath his hand, it felt as though my life was leaking out through my pores.
“Why were you waiting for me?” I demand.
“Why are you chasing me?” he fires back.
I frown at that. “You already know why. You must be stopped.”
“Must I?” he responds, coming ever closer. “Perhaps it is you who needs to be stopped.”
I need to shoot him. I don’t know why I haven’t released my arrow yet.
“Is that why you’re here?” I ask, my gaze flicking to our surroundings before returning to him. “Because you wanted to stop me?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” he says.
A chill courses through me when I realize I am the only person he can really talk to. I don’t know the nuances of his power, but wherever he goes he kills. Perhaps I am the only person he has ever spoken to.
“You cannot change my mind about coming after you,” I say.
“Who said anything about changing minds?” His gaze sweeps down my body and back up to my face, assessing me. Only, his eyes linger for a beat too long on my mouth, and when they finally do rise to meet my gaze, there are so many emotions in those eyes. I feel like if I stare too long, I’ll fall into them and drown.
“You and I are fated to endure one another,” the horseman says softly as he moves towards me; he’s now no more than ten feet away.
“Don’t come any closer,” I say. “I mean it.”
Reluctantly, Death does stop.
I look him over the same way he did me. I hate that I find everything about him beautiful—from that ancient, tragic face to those strange wings, to his massive frame and his intricate silver armor. It all calls to me.
The corner of his mouth lifts as he watches me scrutinize him.
“What’s your name?” I ask, keeping my arrow aimed at his chest. “Or do you only go by Death?”
“Oh, I have many names.” His gaze returns to my lips, and a muscle in his jaw flexes.
“And what are they?”
“Anubis. Yama. Xoltol. Vanth. Charon. Mors. Mara. Azrael—and many, many others.” His eyes flick to mine. “But for you, Thanatos.”
Chapter 14
Cincinnati, Ohio
November, Year 26 of the Horsemen
“Thanatos,” I echo, letting my guard down for a moment.
He must sense it because he smiles and his eyes burn. The horseman—Thanatos—takes another step forward, and I tense all over again.
“I will shoot you.”
“Then shoot me already,” he challenges.
He doesn’t believe me?
I release the arrow. The projectile glances off his armor and clatters to the ground mere feet away.
And … the horseman now looks pissed.
I’m reaching over my shoulder for another arrow when Death storms forward, erasing the last of the distance between us. Before I can fully nock the projectile, he jerks my bow and arrow out of my hand and casts them aside.
“Hey—!” I cry out.
Even as I protest, Thanatos reaches for my quiver strap. The horseman pulls it off my shoulder and tosses it away from me. I wince when I hear it hit the corpse I was trying to rob.
And now I’m empty-handed against the angel of death.
I tilt my head back and look up, up into the horseman’s terrible eyes. He scowls down at me, that muscle in his jaw still ticking.
“Do you really think you are making any difference?” he says, crowding me until his chest brushes mine. “Following me, shooting me?”
He’s clearly angry, which means I’m at least doing something right.
“People are escaping you—surviving you,” I say, “—so yes, I do think I’m making a difference.”
His expression changes, he looks almost amused. “That was a single city—a city I wiped out only hours after I left your side that day. And I’ve eradicated over a dozen other towns since. Your efforts are sincere,” he acknowledges, “but wasted.”
Before I can respond, Thanatos shocks me by cupping my jaw, his eyes scouring my face. “All of creation falls to me, kismet. Kings and beggars, babies and warriors. Whales and flies, redwoods and dandelions. It all ends. And when it does, I am there to claim it.
“You will not stop me today, or tomorrow—you will not stop me ever. But—despite all sense, I think I do enjoy watching you try.”
He releases my jaw then.
I stumble back as he moves away from me.
“The next time we meet, Lazarus, I won’t be so kind to you,” he warns, his wings spreading wide. “But come for me all the same. I will relish our reunion.”
He leaps into the sky, his massive wingbeats further scattering my arrows across the street.
With one final, parting look, he flies away from me.
Chapter 15
Ames, Iowa
December, Year 26 of the Horsemen
I can’t say how long I’ve been crouching on this partially collapsed overpass, waiting for the horseman to trot down the interstate highway beneath me. Nor am I absolutely certain that the horseman will travel this way, or that my half-baked plan will actually work.
All I know is that I’m freezing my ass off and waiting here was most certainly a bad idea.
I breathe on my gloved hands and rub them together. My nose hurts, my ears ache, and my toes feel like they’re frozen. I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten frostbite on three separate occasions over the last month, and depending on how long I stick to this miserable task, today might mark four.
But watery sunlight has broken through the clouds, and maybe this day will be a little warmer than the ones that preceded it.
I grab my thermos and take another sip of coffee. I am pretty sure the horseman is coming this way. I know he made it to Minneapolis, and I think the next big city he’s set his sights on is Des Moines.
Just as I set my thermos aside, the wildlife sweeps through. Cats, dogs, chickens, deer, birds, cows, elk—I even see a few bison.
The animals rush down the highway and the fields that border it on either side. As quickly as they come, they’re gone, and that deathly silence sweeps over me, a silence I’ve come to associate with Death.
It takes several minutes, but eventually I catch sight of the horseman, casually riding down the I-35, the highway that runs beneath this overpass.
Before he has a chance to see me, I cut across to the other side of the overpass, nearly tripping over broken bits of asphalt as I do so.
I’ve gotten better at shooting my bow, but my fingers are far too numb to successfully shoot the horseman off his steed.
So today, I’m doing something a little different.
I pull myself onto the low wall of the overpass and, placing a hand on the cold concrete, I crouch there, my gaze locked on the highway below. A portion of the overpass to my left has collapsed, creating a bottleneck of sorts right beneath me, one that the horseman will have to pass through. I’m planning on capitalizing on it.
My breath mists as I wait for the horseman.
It takes a couple minutes, but eventually I hear the steady clop of his steed’s hooves as he gets closer and closer. Quietly, I withdraw my knife as I stare down at the highway beneath me.
Now those hoof beats echo, and I tense as he crosses beneath the overpass. The seconds seem to stretch as I wait.
Finally, I see his horse’s dappled head twenty feet beneath me, then I see the black waves of Death’s hair and his si
lver armor as he stares ahead, unaware of my presence.
I leap.
For a moment, while I’m airborne, I realize how absolutely stupid and prone to failure this idea is. But by then it’s too late.
Rather than landing in the saddle, as I’d so elegantly pictured, I clobber into the horseman.
He grunts as I knock him off his horse, the two of us tumbling to the road below.
The whole thing is painful and more than a little embarrassing, but before Death can react, I stab him through the neck.
“Lazarus,” he rasps, reaching for his throat. Blood slips between his fingers, and a small sound slips from my lips.
I’ve fought this man before. I’ve hurt and killed him before. But this is … intimate in a grotesque way. Shooting someone from a distance is far more impersonal than this.
Withdrawing the dagger, I release it as though it burned me, my nausea rising.
Regardless, it’s too late for regret. There’s blood everywhere and the wound I’ve inflicted is too deep. Thanatos’s eyelids droop, and then seconds later his body goes limp.
It’s painfully quiet.
There’s nothing to ease the aftermath of this violent moment.
My shoulder and chest hurt from my fall, and I’m still nauseous from my own violence, but I force myself to get up.
Moving like a creaky old man, I head back up to the overpass to grab my things. When I return to the horseman’s side, I finally notice the smell.
Frankincense and myrrh. I glance up and see Death’s horse standing twenty feet away, the horseman’s torch jutting out of one of the saddlebags. Hazy, perfumed smoke wafts through the air, and a chill passes through me.
I know enough about the horseman to know death won’t stop him for long. The only real way to hold the horseman up is to stick around and kill him again before he wakes.
I’ve been confronted with this issue before. I still can’t stomach the thought, particularly not after what I just did.
You could hold him captive.
The thought causes my breath to still.
I could hold him captive.
It would be like trying to rein in a hurricane. You can’t stop a force of nature.
That doesn’t quell my rising excitement. I mean, who knows? Maybe I can rein him in.
There’s really only one way to find out.
Death wakes on the floor of an abandoned barn. The place smells like mildew and wet animals. Oh, and scented smoke—Death’s horse decided to join us in here. And to be fair to the incense, it does cover up the other two odors fairly well.
I sit cross-legged in front of Thanatos, my body still aching from all the effort it took to get this overly large, winged man in here.
As I watch, his eyelids flutter, then he blinks. It’s a strange magic, watching Thanatos come back from the dead. Stranger still to watch his blood vanish from my clothing and his armor—which I discarded near the overpass—reappear on his body.
Immediately, his gaze hones in on me.
“Lazarus.” For a moment, he smiles, like he can’t help himself. The sight is so shocking that my heart flutters at the sight. “To what do I owe this uncommon pleasure?”
The horseman tries to move his arms from where he lays on his side, but I bound him with a length of cord I normally use as a clothing line. It’s not the thickest stuff, but I made up for it by tying it tight.
He glances down at his bound hands and ankles, his smile slipping away. “You knocked me down,” he recalls.
I try not to wince at the memory of my graceless leap.
His gaze rises to mine. “And then you stabbed me.” Accusation laces his words. “And now …” His attention returns to his bindings.
“You’re my captive,” I tell him as he awkwardly pushes himself up to sitting position. His wings lift at his back as he does so.
Death’s eyebrows lift. “I’m your … ?” He smirks then. “Captive.” He says the word with relish and perhaps a pinch of humor, and maybe I should stab him again. Just, you know, to remind him of the power dynamics here.
He jerks his head back to toss a lock of hair behind an ear, and I jolt a little at the sudden action, my adrenaline rising.
Thanatos notices, and it causes him to grin again.
He clicks his tongue. “That will never do, kismet. How are you supposed to control me if my every movement startles you?”
I narrow my eyes at him.
“This is how it’s going to be,” I say slowly. “We’re going to stay here, together, and if you make any move to escape,” I touch the bow resting next to me, “I will shoot you.”
“I guess I’m trapped,” he says. He doesn’t sound worried. Or defeated. He doesn’t sound like someone who’s gotten themselves into an unfortunate situation at all.
If anything, he seems amused.
Bastard.
“What will you do with me?” he asks, his gaze flicking over my form. Something about the way he assesses me has blood rushing to my cheeks and core.
“I’m going to keep you here, where you cannot destroy any more towns.”
Death’s eyes gleam, but he says nothing to that.
I’ve caught a creature higher up on the food chain than myself. I truly am a fool for even attempting this.
“So then we are to live here?” he asks, glancing around at our surroundings. “Together?”
He makes it sound like the two of us are shacking up like some couple.
My plan is unraveling.
I frown at him. “That’s not how this situation works.”
“Then how does it work?”
“If you move, I attack.”
He flashes me a sly glance, then leans to the left.
“I’m moving,” he taunts.
“Don’t be childish,” I say.
“I wouldn’t know how to be childish,” he counters, “I’ve never been a child.”
I narrow my eyes at him again.
He leans right. “Still moving.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Quick as lightning, I pull out my bow, nock an arrow, and shoot.
He hisses when I hit a wing, the arrow getting caught in his feathers.
“This isn’t a joke to me,” I say. “I will keep shooting you if you don’t listen.”
“Will you?” Death presses, a muscle in his jaw flexing with the pain. “Because I have a feeling your violence only goes so far.”
I have nothing to say to that. It’s so painfully close to the truth, and I have no idea how I’ve become that transparent.
When all I do is sit there and stare at him, he finally says, “Are you going to remove the arrow? Or are you afraid I’ll move?”
I glare at him. “Maybe I want to see you in pain.”
“You don’t enjoy it,” he states, his face growing serious. “Just as I don’t.”
“You don’t enjoy all the violence?” I say, raising my eyebrows. I find that hard to believe.
“I see why you have been put in my path,” Death says softly, ignoring my words. “We are alike in one fundamental way.”
Now he thinks we’re alike? This conversation is growing wilder by the second.
“Duty is duty,” Death says. He settles back a little. “But—to answer your previous question—no, I don’t enjoy it.”
Hours pass and the light fades. It’s hard to make out anything in the darkness, and it’s made me more than a little jumpy. I’m pretty sure I’d know if Death got free—but then, there’s no way of knowing with absolute certainty, not without getting close to him, and that poses its own sort of risks.
“I like this,” Thanatos admits across from me, breaking the silence.
His voice is like velvet, and it should be soothing. Instead, a childlike fear of this thing that lurks in the darkness consumes me, sending my pulse racing.
“You like this?” I say in disbelief, trying to control my voice.
“Sitting with you. Talking with you. Not fighting for once,”
Thanatos says. After a moment, he adds, “The fighting is … I find it exhilarating to be pitted against you, but well, now you know how I feel about hurting you. Talking with you, however—this is intriguing.”
At his words, my fear transforms, and I’m reminded of those stray thoughts and dreams I’ve had over the last months. Ones where Death isn’t my enemy at all, and he looks at me and touches me entirely differently …
I am not right in the head.
I clear my throat. “Don’t say things like that.”
“Why not?” Death asks, curious.
I rub my eyes. “Because.”
Because it makes me want to like you, and that is an absolutely terrifying concept.
The barn is oppressively quiet, and a part of me wishes I could see the horseman’s face.
He is right. There is something intriguing about sitting here and actually talking to this menace.
“We are alike in another fundamental way,” he says after a moment.
And what is that? The question burns in my throat, but I won’t let myself ask it.
And Death never elaborates.
By the middle of the night it becomes clear I’m in over my head.
I’m hungry and thirsty and chilled, and I need to go to the bathroom. But most of all, I’m tired. I’ve lived in a perpetual state of exhaustion chasing this man around the country.
I yawn for the fifth time? Sixth time?
“Better not fall asleep, kismet.” Death’s voice comes from out of the darkness. “That’s when I’ll strike.”
“Better not move, horseman. That’s when I’ll shoot.”
I hear his low, almost sexual laugh. My stomach clenches at the sound.
After a moment, I ask, “What does that word mean? Kismet?”
He’s called me that several times before.
There’s a long pause.
“I assumed you would know,” he finally says. “It is a human word after all.” He adds, “It means fate.”
Fate?
“Why would you call me that?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“You do not know.” Death says it like a statement, and yet I swear there’s a note of surprise in his voice.
“Know what?”
But he doesn’t answer, and I don’t have the energy to press him for more.
Death (The Four Horsemen Book 4) Page 6