“Unlike my brothers, I have never enjoyed it,” he continues. “I do it because I must, but, Lazarus, it is a terrible agony most of the time.”
Am I hearing him correctly? “But—”
“I am not saying that death is wrong,” he continues, “or that what lies beyond isn’t better. I am not even saying that I don’t believe in my task. But the act of taking someone who is scared of death, or who is happy with life, or who is not ready—and so few are ready—wearies me to the bone. I grimly do my job, but I have never gotten joy from taking a life.”
I am reeling.
“Is there joy in what you do?” I ask after a moment.
He’s quiet again.
“Yes,” he finally admits. “After I release them. When a soul sees what lies beyond, when they truly remember what they are and have been this entire time—that moment is joy.”
Chapter 51
U.S. Route 290, Central Texas
July, Year 27 of the Horsemen
It’s late. Or maybe I’m just exhausted from being in the saddle all day. Either way, my eyes are drooping before we’ve found a house to stop in for the night.
I fight to keep my eyelids open, and I think I’m doing a good enough job, except I’m drifting … I’ll just rest a moment—
I jolt awake when Death catches my body slipping nearly off of the saddle.
“Lazarus?” Thanatos says, a note of worry in his voice. “Are you alright?”
“What?” I blink, forcing my thoughts to focus. The smoky smell of Death’s torch is thick in my nostrils, the scent oddly comforting. “Oh, yeah, just tired.” Even as I say it, I can feel myself drifting back off.
Death pulls his steed to a stop, then swings off.
“What are you doing?” I’m still too sleepy to be alarmed.
Rather than answering, I hear the clink of the horseman’s silver armor. He casts his breastplate off, then his vambraces and greaves. He doesn’t stop until every last piece lays in the dirt off to the side of the road.
Silently, he returns to the horse, swinging back on.
I stare at the armor, the metal giving off a dull gleam even in the middle of the night. “Why did you remove it?”
The horseman settles himself around me. “I’m still looking for a suitable house, kismet. In the meantime, you can sleep safely in my arms.”
It takes my slow mind another minute to realize that he removed the armor for my comfort.
Don’t feel it, don’t feel it, don’t—
Warmth spreads through my core, and I’m touched at the gesture, even though I don’t want to be. It’s not the same weightless feeling I’ve been getting around him more and more frequently. This feeling has depth to it, and it’s far scarier than anything else I’ve felt for Thanatos up until now.
Death clicks his tongue, his steed starting forward again. I settle against the horseman, still unnerved. Thanatos drapes an arm over my shoulder and across my chest, like some sort of makeshift horseman seatbelt.
I lean my head against that arm and let myself drift off.
“I’ve found us a house, Lazarus.”
Briefly, Death’s voice pulls me from sleep, but almost immediately I slip back into it. In some far off region of my mind, I’m aware of being pulled from his horse and carried into a house.
I’m laid on a bed and someone’s tugging off my boots. I stretch a little, then flop onto my stomach. A minute later, I feel the comforting weight of a blanket.
Death’s lips brush against my temple. “Sleep well, … love.”
And I do.
I wake in an unfamiliar bed. An unfamiliar, empty bed.
It’s insane how wrong that empty part feels. I’ve only been sleeping with the horseman for a week—and I use sleeping in the loosest, most sexualized context—but already I’ve gotten used to Death being close.
Rubbing my eyes, I sit up, stifling a yawn. At some point last night, the horseman found us a house.
All around me, books are everywhere. On bookshelves, on top of bookshelves, stacked in piles next to bookshelves.
Someone really likes to read.
Liked to read. They’re no longer around to enjoy their massive collection.
I swing out of bed only to notice my boots waiting for me nearby.
Death removed my boots—and he tucked me into bed—and this must have all happened only minutes after he killed the home’s previous owner. I frown at the conflicted emotions I feel.
Taking a deep breath, I pull on my shoes and leave the room.
“Death?” I call out, heading down the hall. I force myself to not gaze at the family sketches hanging on the walls or the cross-stitched artwork hanging alongside them. I don’t want to feel anything for these strangers whose lives came to a tragic end.
“Lazarus,” Death says just as I enter the living room. He’s lounging on a gray couch, his back against an armrest, his wings draped over the side. His armor is off, just as it was last night, and the sleeves of his black shirt have been pushed up to his elbows. Most interestingly of all, he has one of this house’s many, many books in his hand.
“Why did you not start with this human secret?” he says, holding a paperback novel up. I can’t read the title, but by the cover it looks like a murder mystery. “These are utterly amazing,” he says.
“You know how to read?” I ask dumbly. Not everyone these days does.
“Of course,” he responds, as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. But apparently, even though he can read, he’s never done so until now.
My brows pull together, even as I begin to smile. “Is that what you did all night while I slept?”
“It was either that, or …” His eyes grow hooded.
Or do the one thing we’ve been doing nonstop. Even now, at his look, it all reignites.
Death sets the book on a nearby glass coffee table and rises to his feet. He looks like a predator—a lethal, beautiful predator.
“How I want to whisk you back to that bed,” the horseman says, his form massive and looming. “But you must be hungry, and I want you to have energy for the things I plan on doing to you.”
Heat flushes my face. “Thanatos,” I whisper.
Beyond us, I can hear the scrape of bone and the clatter of silverware coming from what must be the kitchen. My stomach twists. Death’s servants are just one more reminder of all the death that surrounds us. There are bones and books and sketches, and somewhere on this property there’s a grave with fresh bodies piled in it, but there is no one else alive—no one besides me and Thanatos.
The horseman narrows his eyes at my mouth. “You say my name like that when you’re admonishing me. Tell me, Laz, do you not want my tongue to lave your pussy or my mouth to suck on your clit? Should I stop talking about how I wish to drive into your tight sheath until your breasts bounce and you’re moaning my name? And while I’m at it, should I not mention how erotic it feels to have your feet press against my wings as I thrust into you?”
I don’t think I can breathe.
“Humans don’t talk to each other this way,” I murmur. At least, no one has ever spoken to me this way.
“Good,” Thanatos says, cupping my face. “I don’t particularly enjoy your kind’s arbitrary rules anyway—nor their penchant for dancing with their words.” He smiles a little nefariously, though his eyes are serious. “Most of all, I don’t want you to confuse me for some mortal man. I, Death, have chosen you. And you have chosen me.”
Chapter 52
U. S. Route 290, Central Texas
July, Year 27 of the Horsemen
I stare at the world around me from atop Death’s steed, the two of us on the road once more. There’s dead grass and clusters of trees and some rusted cars off to either side of us. Every so often we pass a trading post or a farmhouse or a boarded up building that’s long since lost its use.
No birds chirp, no bugs buzz. Even the air is still. It’s all as quiet as the grave. That’s how it’s been sinc
e Thanatos took me captive, and yet sometimes the wrongness of that silence creeps up on me all over again.
“When you travel, is there ever a particular destination in mind?” I ask.
“I go where the most souls call to me,” he says.
I remember assuming as much, back when I tracked him.
“And where are they calling you now?” I ask, dreading the answer.
“West.”
I have to quell the panic that rises at that thought. West is where Ben is. Specifically, the Pacific Northwest. We’re still thousands of miles away, I tell myself, just to calm my nerves.
“Why did you and your brothers all come to Earth in the first place?” I ask.
“God peers out at the world through many eyes. Yours, these shrubs—” he gestures vaguely to the plants growing near the highway. “The animals fleeing us somewhere off in the distance.
“If you understand that God—or the Universe, if you prefer to call Her that—is everything, sees everything, feels everything, and humans have, up until recently, been annihilating much of this earth—then you realize She has been hurting.
“You can think of your end as the Universe amputating a festering wound rather than letting infection take her whole. That is why my brothers and I were sent here. We must stop humans in order to save everything else.”
Why did I ask this question? The answer is so heavy.
“But your brothers feel that humans should be saved,” I argue. They told me so themselves. There must be something to us that is worth sparing.
“Yes,” Death agrees. “They did. But their opinion is not the one that matters. Mine is.”
And he’s made it abundantly clear what that opinion is.
I try to imagine the world a hundred years from now, cities full of skeletons of an extinct race, the buildings collapsed and overgrown with foliage. It’s not hard to picture—we’re already halfway there.
“What would happen if you decided to spare humanity?” I ask.
“What use is it to talk of such things, Lazarus?” he asks. “I will not change my mind. Not even you and your brilliant mind are capable of such a feat.”
This isn’t the first time Death has made his opinion known, and normally, I would take his answer as a challenge. Now, however, his words worm their way under my skin.
I still haven’t stopped him. Death is still killing, and still as adamant as ever about his need to kill. I’ve had sex with the horseman—many, many times—and it hasn’t shaken his resolve.
I sit there in the saddle for several seconds before my hurt melts away to anger.
What is the fucking point of all of this?
I’m not usually rash, but right now I swing my leg over the saddle and hop off Death’s still-moving horse.
Thanatos is surprised enough by the action that by the time he tries to grab me, I’m already off the steed and walking away.
“What are you doing, Lazarus?” he calls out after me.
I don’t bother looking back at him, my mind and my heart in turmoil, my blood heating with my anger.
Behind me, I hear Thanatos dismount, but nothing else.
“Do you really think you can escape me?” he says conversationally.
I ignore him.
“There is nothing out here besides me.”
Still ignoring him.
I hear the rustle of the horseman’s wings as they spread, then the heavy beat of them as they lift Death into the air.
His shadow moves over me. He turns in the sky, facing me, sunlight gleaming off of his armor.
The horseman lowers himself to the ground, those dark wings smoothly folding behind him.
“What is going on, Lazarus? Is this because of what I said?” he asks. “That was not supposed to—”
“What are we doing, Death?” I cut him off. “What really are we doing?”
I’m weary—I have been for a long, long time. I’ve pretended my exhaustion away because I had to, but now the full brunt of it all comes crashing down on my shoulders.
“You’re ending the world and I’m what? A little amusement along the way?” My eyes prick as I force those words out.
“Of course you’re not amusement, kismet. I care for you above all others.”
“People bend, Thanatos,” I say fervently. “When they care for each other, they bend.”
“I am not human,” he says.
Ah, his old failsafe.
“Fine, you’re not human, and none of the rules apply to you,” I agree. “Just let me go.” I indicate to the road behind him. “Let me part ways with you once and for all.” Then I can find my son and live out whatever brief time we get together.
Death’s jaw clenches.
I begin to walk again, uncaring that I’m going to have to brush past him.
“No,” he says, his wings flaring. “I won’t let you go.”
I throw my hands into the air.
“So you want your human experience and you want your heavenly task,” I say. “And I suppose you want me to just shut up and go along with it all.”
He takes a step forward. “This is beyond me—”
“Stop,” I say. “Stop this whole ‘I’m not a human,’ ‘This is beyond me,’ ‘I’m just following orders.’ You have mocked your brothers for making a decision—”
“The wrong decision,” he corrects me.
“At least they made one. Meanwhile, here you are, thinking that you can play house with me while you end the world? You are the biggest hypocrite.”
“What would you have me do?” he demands, his voice like thunder.
I could tear my hair out. “Make a goddamned decision for once in your life!” I say hotly. “And don’t do it for me—or even God. Do it for yourself. You. You’re evil and loving and gentle and merciless and refined and naïve and wise and complicated. That’s the human in you. Stop pretending it’s not there and acknowledge it.”
He stares at me for a long time, his jaw working.
And this is the tale of how I, Lazarus Gaumond, fucked over the world.
“I am unbending because I am old,” he admits. “I am uncompromising because I have always—always had to be this way. No one escapes death. No one.”
Except for me. Though, considering my situation, one might argue that I haven’t actually escaped death at all.
“But,” Thanatos continues, seeming to weigh his words, “I hear what you’re saying. I have not questioned my own assumptions. I have not thought to until now, when you have asked it of me.” He nods. “I will try. I will do this for you.”
We spend a long moment staring at one another.
“I will not promise humanity some happy ending,” he says, his dark eyes sad. “I cannot give you that. But I can give you happiness. I want to give you that. So, Lazarus,” he says carefully, “what would make you happy?”
It takes me a moment to actually process this turn in the conversation. He actually wants to give me something. Unbendable Death is trying to bend.
I regain my composure.
“Ben,” I finally say, finding my voice. “Ben is what would make me happy.”
“Your son,” Death says carefully. “You would like him by your side?”
“Alive and by my side.” My heart pounds madly. Why am I even entertaining this? It’s a mad, mad idea.
I see Thanatos swallow delicately, and that muscle in his cheek flexes again. Shit, that reaction alone means that he’s serious.
“Then once we hit the West Coast,” Death says carefully, “we will travel north and get your son.”
I can’t breathe, I’m choking on my own hope.
“And then what?” I force the words out.
“And then your son will be with you, with us—alive and well—until the very end.”
I don’t even realize I’m crying until I feel the tear slip off my cheek.
Across from me, Death’s harsh features soften.
In several long strides he closes the distance betw
een us. Reaching out, he brushes away my tears.
“Is this a good cry or a bad one?” he asks, raising his eyebrows.
“A good one,” I admit softly.
Ben won’t die.
I pull away. “I thought …” The words catch in my throat, “I thought you made no exceptions about killing humans.” As much as I want to see Ben again—to hold him again—I want him alive more.
“You have asked me to bend. This is bending, right?”
I don’t know what it is, but I don’t much care, either. The thought of having Ben back in my arms has my knees going weak.
Death seems to sense it too.
He scoops me up like he’s some valiant hero and I’m some helpless maiden. And for a moment, I can believe in that fairytale.
“Come, kismet,” he says, walking us back to his horse. “Let’s make good on my vow.”
Now that I have another goal besides seducing Death, I’m more impatient than ever to get to my son. So when, midafternoon, Thanatos leads his horse off the road, I’m jumpy to get back on it.
“I don’t need to go to the bathroom,” I say, assuming that’s the reason we left the highway.
“That’s not why I stopped us, kismet,” Death says, swinging himself off the horse. He lands with a heavy thunk.
Turning back to me, he reaches to help me off his horse.
I stare down at his hands but don’t make a move to get off his mount. “Then why have we stopped?” I ask.
He gives me a funny look, like it should be obvious. “I made the mistake last night of waiting too long to search for a house. I won’t make the same mistake again.”
A house. Right. Death has got it in his head that I need to be pampered with the most lavish houses, though for him that means choosing places that are sometimes far from the highways he travels. And once we’re there, we’ll stay for days. I can already feel the horseman’s sweat-slicked body gliding against mine as he thrusts into me, and I can picture the exact way his wings will loom over us, closing out the outside world.
My blood rushes through my veins just thinking about it. I want that so badly. So, so badly.
Death (The Four Horsemen Book 4) Page 30