The best I can hope for at this point is that the next time the scavengers come, they’ll somehow manage to free me. The thought leaves me dry heaving.
I sob a few more times, but my head pounds and my body can’t summon up enough moisture for tears.
Fucking Death.
I curse him over and over.
So when I hear him calling my name, I think I must’ve conjured him with my anger alone.
Lazarus … Lazarus …
Lazarus …
It’s not really him, I tell myself. Dehydration, hunger, and pain have all made me delirious.
“Lazarus!” A man bellows.
My breath catches. Thanatos? Could it be?
The hope that fills my chest is painful, and I’m almost scared to give into it. But then, as I stare, bleary-eyed, up at the hole in the roof, I catch a glimpse of black wings and gleaming armor overhead.
It’s definitely him. No bird could look like that.
He’s looking for me, I realize.
Help. I try to form the word, but my voice is hoarse and weak. I clear my throat.
“Death,” I call out. It’s hardly more than a whisper.
I gather together all my energy and suck in a deep breath.
“Death!” I yell. My voice is still painfully weak and he’s already passed by, the walls of this partially caved-in building hiding him from sight.
Desperation and hope has me gathering together my strength.
I suck in a breath. “Death! Death! Help! Please! Thanatos!” I’m shouting as loud as I can, my pleas interrupted only by my cries as the effort jostles my wound.
I can’t see him, but I hear the thump of those thunderous wings, and I think … I think he’s coming closer.
“Lazarus!” he calls from somewhere overhead.
“Death!” I shout again.
And then I see him once more above me. His wings are stretched wide behind him as he perches on an exposed beam. He peers down into the collapsed building, his dark hair waving like flag in the wind.
“Lazarus?” he says, his eyes scanning the darkness.
“Thanatos.” It comes out somewhere between a sob and a sigh.
I know the instant he catches sight of me. His body goes rigid.
All at once, his wings snap closed behind him. He steps off his perch and drops down from the roof, falling like a stone. Just before he lands, his wings spread wide, slowing his fall, so that he seems to float the last several feet of his descent.
Pebbles skitter as he lands on a pile of rubble, and once more his wings fold closed behind him.
He strides forward over the debris, his silver breastplate shimmering in the shadowy light. His footsteps pause, and I see his eyes fall to me. He takes in my face, then my shredded clothing and the few places where my flesh is still healing. Eventually, his eyes land on the pole jutting through my abdomen.
“Lazarus.” Death rushes the rest of the way to me. He kneels at my side, taking in my injuries again. “Fuck.”
“I didn’t know angels cursed,” I say, my lips splitting as I speak.
His eyes are still roving over me, like he’s trying to process what happened. “How long have you been here?” he asks.
But he knows. He must know. The pole jutting up through me is evidence enough.
“Since you dropped me.” Now that I no longer have to shout, my voice comes out as a whisper.
“Since I … ?” His eyes search mine, and I see the horror creep into his expression. He curses again. “You’ve been here the whole time?” he asks.
I close my eyes and nod.
He makes an agonized sound.
I open my eyes.
His hand cups the side of my face, his thumb sliding over my cheekbone.
“I assumed you’d be more pleased by that,” I whisper.
Thanatos’s gaze is tortured as it meets mine. “I don’t pride myself on being cruel.” His eyes wander to where the rusted pole sticks out of me. “I have been searching for you. I …” He pauses, his gaze moving back to my own. “I was consumed with worry. The sight of you slipping from my arms has not left me all these days.”
“Stop it,” I say.
I don’t want to hear this. I thought I did—I thought nothing hurt more than the possibility of Death leaving me here to rot for all eternity—but I was wrong. We have an unspoken agreement between us—one where we despise each other. I’m not ready for that to change.
His gaze returns to the thick steel bar protruding up from me. There’s a good three feet of it jutting into the sky.
Death gets up and prowls around me, studying the pole. Eventually he kneels back at my side and grabs the thing with both hands.
“Brace yourself, Lazarus,” he says.
And then he twists. The metal groans as it bends beneath his might, and the movement causes the metal to jostle my injury.
I grit my teeth, biting back a pained cry.
With a final screech, the metal bar snaps off. Death tosses the length of it aside. The pole clangs as it lands in the distance, the sound echoing around us.
For an instant, I marvel at the horseman’s unnatural strength. To think I’ve been fighting that over and over again.
Death frowns down at me.
“What is it?” I say hoarsely.
“I’m going to have to lift you, Laz,” he says, shortening my name like we’re friends.
My insides seem to liquefy with fear. I thought I was brave when it came to pain, but after the last several days, I’m not.
But I need to get free.
Pressing my eyelids tightly together, I nod.
“Do it,” I say, opening my eyes.
Death moves in close, his arms sliding under my back. Even that slight movement causes a cry to slip out.
God this is going to hurt.
Thanatos pauses. “Are you alright?” he says, checking in.
I breathe heavily through my nose. “Just give me a moment.”
The horseman does. His arms are still under me, but he doesn’t move.
I turn my gaze towards the images hammered into his breastplate, trying to calm my nerves. There are snakes and headstones, eggs and fanged creatures, spirals and funerary processions—each image spilling into the next. I stare hard at the span of metal covering Thanatos’s heart. On it, a woman is wrapped intimately in a skeleton’s embrace. Just as I’m about to reach out and touch it, Death lifts me.
I scream, the sound driven entirely by the agonizing rip of my wound.
And then the pole is gone and I am free.
Death sits down heavily on the ground, clutching me tightly against him.
I twist my head to the side as I dry heave over and over again, the agony nauseating. And then I cry—I sob—the action doing nothing to alleviate the unbearable pain. I might be free, but my body feels ruined.
Everything hurts so goddamned bad.
“I’ve got you, Lazarus, my Lazarus,” Thanatos murmurs.
In this moment, his words are oddly comforting. I turn my head towards his chest and cry against his armor.
He holds me through the tears.
“It hurts,” I sob. It’s almost ridiculous to admit this to my foe, the one who has hurt me over and over again. Even more ridiculous that he’s the one holding me at the moment.
But he doesn’t seem to mind, and maybe that’s the strangest thing of all.
Death’s hand comes up to my cheek, his palm warm against me. That seems to drive away this pitiful mood of mine.
I try to pull away.
“Be still,” he commands, and for whatever reason, I listen.
His face is solemn as he takes me in. He draws in a deep breath, still staring at me.
Before I can fidget under the scrutiny, my skin begins to tingle. The sensation makes my body feel antsy, restless, like I need to get up and move about. The gaping wound in my abdomen feels warm—and … itchy.
“What are you doing?” I gasp out.
“He
aling you.”
Healing me?
“You can do that?” I say, still half distracted by the slew of sensations coursing through me.
I thought he only knew how to kill.
Though his face is as solemn as ever, his eyes seem to smile when he looks at me. “I can do many things, Lazarus.”
Why would Death be given the power to heal? And on that subject—
“Why are you healing me?”
He doesn’t answer, just tightens his jaw and concentrates on my stomach.
My gaze returns to that strange couple on his armor. Now I do reach out and trace a finger over what I can see of the skeleton.
Thanatos’s gaze drops to my finger.
“Death and life, caught in an eternal embrace,” he explains.
“They look like lovers,” I whisper.
“They are lovers.” His eyes find mine, and I swear they can see straight to my soul.
I swallow delicately, dropping my hand. His own hand still clasps my cheek, and now I really can feel my flesh stitching itself back together.
“What are you going to do with me?” I ask. “Once you heal me?”
His jaw tightens just the slightest. “I have respected you, Lazarus,” he says, staring intently down at me. “Since that first time you came for me, I’ve respected you. I understand placing duty before all else.”
His expression shifts, heat blazing in his eyes. “But things have changed.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, even as the warm, tingling sensation presses against the underside of my skin, continuing to heal my many wounds.
His fingers trail down from my cheek, one of them tracing my lips. “I think you know.”
I want to lose myself in you, his eyes seem to say.
I suck in a breath.
“I’m not going with you,” I say.
“Oh, but you are.”
I stare up at him for a moment longer, and then, all at once, I’m dragging myself out of his arms and away from his healing touch. And despite his words, the horseman does let me go.
I have to bite back a curse at how much everything still aches.
I stagger to my feet.
Across from me, Death’s eyes burn. “You’re still hurt,” he says softly. “Wounded and weak and aching for my touch.”
“No,” I breathe, the words barely audible.
Slowly, Thanatos stands, his gaze fixed on me. He’s never looked at me with such intensity. Not when he hurt me, not when he killed me, and not when I did the same to him.
No, this ferocity seems to be driven by a different—deeper—emotion than anger.
“Return to me, kismet. Let me heal those wounds and soothe that ache.”
The guttural way he says ache … I’m no longer thinking about my wounds.
I shake my head and back up.
Death’s wings spread wide. He takes one ominous step towards me, that look still in his eyes.
That’s all it takes for me to turn on my heel and flee. I’ve run from the horseman before. Today is no different.
Only it is.
I’m tripping over debris, huffing from the pain, but I eventually stumble out of the partially collapsed building.
Holding my stomach, I turn to face the multistory structure just as Thanatos steps onto a gaping window high above me, the few remaining glass shards in the pane crunching beneath his boots. A moment later, he steps off, his wings billowing behind him.
He lands on the ground softly, his gaze locked on mine.
I stagger backwards as he strides forward. My heart is racing because that look in his eyes is still there.
“Thanatos, what are you doing?” I ask. Not five minutes ago, he was being painfully kind. Now he looks possessed.
“Enough of these games, Lazarus,” he says, closing in on me, his expression unnerving.
Games? Nothing about this is a game to me. I’ve died numerous times in the last week alone.
I back up, trying to keep some distance between us.
“Stay away from me,” I say.
“Stay away?” Death’s mouth curves up. “But I thought you wanted me? All those months you spent tracking me.” He opens his arms wide. “Here I am.”
I stare at him for a long moment, feeling completely unbalanced.
This is not how the script between us goes.
Thanatos’s eyes narrow, and his arms lower back to his sides. “You made a mistake, Lazarus,” he says, taking another step forward. “You assumed this whole time you were the one hunting me down. Have you ever considered the possibility that I might’ve set my sights on you? That this whole time I might’ve been luring you in, discovering and learning your mind?”
I continue to move away from him, my heart pounding like mad.
“Why do you think I travel the way I do?” he says. “Criss-crossing your land is not easier than riding straight through it.”
My heart beats madly. I’d always wondered about this, but now that he’s giving me an answer, I find I don’t like it.
“But you’ve always traveled that way—even from the beginning,” I protest.
“I have … warring urges, kismet,” he says. Another step forward.
I’m shaking my head. What he’s suggesting is ridiculous. “The first time we met, you ran from me,” I insist. I know he did.
“I ran from the one persistent desire I have for you,” he says. Another step forward. He looks like a man possessed. “Go ahead,” he urges, “ask what that desire is.”
I keep my mouth shut, my heart jackhammering against my chest. He’s upended all my assumptions of him.
When I don’t answer, Death continues, “I have wanted to take you from the moment I laid eyes on you,” he says. “It was the first human urge that ever rivaled my need to kill.”
I’m backing up just as he’s slowly prowling towards me.
“I have enjoyed our encounters far too much for my own good,” he adds, “but I’m just about done playing.”
Need to get out of here now.
I turn on my feet and begin jogging away, a hand pressed to my stomach against the tugging pain I feel there.
“You think to flee from me, Lazarus?” he calls out. “You, a mortal woman, and me, death incarnate?”
“Yes!” I shout.
I mean, he asked.
Behind me, Thanatos laughs. The sound sends a chill down my spine.
“Everyone tries to outpace me,” he calls out. “Everyone. But no one can outmaneuver me. Not even you.”
I’m no longer jogging, I’m now running, my pace quickening with every step.
“So run, my kismet—I’ll even give you a head start. But make no mistake: I will catch you. Your time is running out.”
Chapter 19
San Antonio, Texas
January, Year 27 of the Horsemen
I can’t say how many times I’ve glanced over my shoulder over the last three days, sure I’m going to see the horseman right behind me. And the few times I’ve encountered hoof beats, I’ve panicked, sure it was Death astride his horse.
But the road and sky remain empty of the horseman. Perhaps Death’s threat wasn’t so urgent. After all, he’s made similar promises in the past, and yet here I am, alive and alone.
The people seated around me in the bustling restaurant eye me with distrust and more than a little distaste.
My hair is unbrushed, my body unwashed, my recently-lifted clothes are ragged and ill-fitting, and the belt that holds my new dagger is far too big. In my haste to get away from Death, I didn’t have time to do much more than take these few items from the dead I passed on my way out of Austin. All I have left to my name are a few stray bills in my pocket—also swiped from the dead—and my mother’s ring.
I’m usually better prepared than this. I’m also usually less spooked.
Just as I take a bite of my scone, I catch the eye of a young woman sitting with her friend. She looks repulsed by me.
I lift my cu
p of coffee and salute her. She looks away quickly.
I prop my legs on the chair across from me and lean back, taking a minute to just clear my mind and listen to the hum of conversation.
For a moment, it’s relaxing. But then I’m remembering the way Thanatos held me close to him, and the way his fingers stroked my skin. And his eyes, his stormy, depthless eyes … the way he looked at me felt like another touch. Everything about him seemed to promise—
The panicked baying of dogs and the screech of messenger birds from the post office across the street cuts into my thoughts.
I lower my coffee just as the horses out on the street go wild, tearing off down the road, some with carts still attached to them. That’s when the true wave of animals sweeps through the town. Outside, people cry out at the stampede of creatures sprinting down the city streets.
“Fuck.”
I swing my feet off the chair. That’s all I have time to do.
It happens just like it did the first time Death rode through.
In an instant, everyone slumps over. Faces hit plates, waiters fall where they stand, the dishes they carry shattering against the ground. I hear the clatter of dropped silverware, and the delayed crash of some final glasses. Then—
Silence.
Heavy, preternatural silence.
I set down my mug, ignoring the fact that my hand has started to tremble.
I stand, the scrape of my chair deafening amidst all that silence.
How? How did he figure out where I was so quickly? How did he get here so quickly? I myself only arrived half an hour ago.
You assumed this whole time you were the one hunting me down. Have you ever considered the possibility that I might’ve set my sights on you?
I’m moving before I can even fully figure out what I’m supposed to be doing. I push through the back doors of the restaurant, entering the kitchen area. A small fire has already broken out, the smell of smoke filling the room. I try not to look at the body that’s slumped over the stove, their clothes already going up in flame.
Instead I grab the knives I see, collecting as many as I can hold.
I re-enter the restaurant’s dining room.
“Lazarus!” Death’s voice echoes in the distance, carrying on the wind.
Death (The Four Horsemen Book 4) Page 9