I go still, sharpening my focus on the conversation.
Ahead of me, Shane halts, as do the men holding me.
“What do you mean, he’s gone?” Shane says. I can hear the banked violence in his voice.
“The horseman,” the man says, breathless. “His cage was empty—”
The earth shivers then. Just a little. A few pebbles go skittering and some nearby people look around.
Shane steps up to the messenger, his voice dropping low, “Then where—the fuck—did he—”
All at once, the ground lurches. Shane tenses, and the man across from him stumbles a little. There’s a momentary pause where the earth seems to resettle, but then it begins to shake violently. Tents sway—a few of them even go down. Up ahead, I hear people shout and rush away from a spot up the path where the ground is swelling. The mound grows larger and larger until, all at once, it splits open. From it, a desiccated hand reaches out.
Now the shouts turn into screams, and people are running away from the undead creature rising from the ground.
As I kneel there, I smile.
Thanatos is finally awake. And he’s taking his revenge.
Chapter 56
Interstate 10, Arizona
August, Year 27 of the Horsemen
The revenant claws its way out, even as some of the braver men and women are grabbing machetes and hunting knives and moving towards the creature. Shane is one of them.
In the distance, I can hear more screams starting up, along with wet, meaty sounds. It’s enough to spook my guards. One of them releases me, sprinting back down the path. The other man hesitates, then releases me, backing away before turning on his heel and fleeing as well.
Overhead, I hear the great roar of wings. My heart pounds madly as I look to the sky. I catch sight of Death’s dark form heading towards us.
I smile again.
“I’d run if I were you,” I say to Shane’s back.
All around us, the screams are increasing. People are beginning to run every which way. I can hear someone shouting, “Zombie! Zombie! Zomb—” The voice cuts off in a gurgle.
Shane swivels around to face me just as the revenant finishes dragging itself out of the earth.
He eyes me as I rise to my feet.
“I’ll deal with you in a moment,” he says, pointing his blade at me.
“You won’t though,” I say as the horseman lowers himself to the earth several yards behind Shane. “Death will kill you, and then, if you’re particularly unlucky, he’ll force your corpse to serve me.”
Thanatos lands, standing amongst the carnage like a true angel of the apocalypse. His black wings fold behind him.
I know Death’s aware of me, but his wrathful eyes are focused on Shane. He walks towards the man just as Shane turns around. He nearly loses his footing when he catches sight of the horseman.
“Lazarus is right,” Thanatos says. “You will die, and then you will serve my mate.”
Over Death’s shoulder, the newly risen revenant grabs a man with a ginger beard and stringy red hair.
The bearded man swings the blade he grips at the revenant, slicing through desiccated sinew and shattering several rib bones. The zombie grabs him by the head and twists.
Snap.
Shane curses, staggering back. Meanwhile, Death watches him, a cold, forbidding look on his face.
Seconds later, the bearded man rises, his neck bent oddly, his eyes unseeing.
“Jackson?” Shane says to the man.
Jackson strides towards Shane, his weapon still gripped in his hand. Shane barely has time to block the blow.
“What the fuck, man!” he shouts. But Jackson comes at him again. And then the mummified zombie and a few other newly dead men close in on Shane until he is the center of all their attention. I hear one bone break, then another. Shane cries out in pain, and I can see him struggling against all these new adversaries.
He glances over his shoulder, true terror in his eyes, as they begin to rip him apart.
It takes less than a minute for Shane to die, then only seconds for him to come back to life. His eyes are dull and lifeless; gone is that hot temper and the cruel confidence. Now he moves mindlessly with the others.
The group of them head towards me, but rather than attacking like they have everyone else, the undead circle me, standing guard.
Death’s gaze falls to mine, and I see his vengeance dissolve away into relief.
“Lazarus.”
He strides forward, and the circle of revenants parts to let him through. He takes me into his arms. His hands slide over my back and across my bindings.
“What is this?” As he asks, he rips them apart.
I collapse against him, my body feeling boneless.
Death pulls away long enough to take in my face. His gaze pauses over my swollen eye and my cheek.
For an instant, there’s murder in his eyes, and it might be my imagination, but I swear the screams around us ratchet up.
He reaches out, gently caressing my wounded flesh. “I’m sorry, Lazarus, so sorry.”
Beneath his touch, I feel warmth spread out beneath my skin. My flesh tingles as the pain in my face lessens.
I lean into his hand. “There’s nothing to apologize for.” We were ambushed in the middle of the night. He was a victim every bit as much as I was.
“I should’ve been on guard,” he insists. “I shouldn’t have …” fallen asleep. He can’t seem to get that last part out.
A high, feminine scream drags my attention away from the horseman. All around us, the rest of camp is still getting slaughtered.
The women. My breath catches.
Shit.
I turn back to Thanatos. “Please, stop your revenants.”
His jaw hardens. “Why?”
“Just please do it.”
All at once, the dead fall to the ground.
I shudder out a breath.
“Thank you,” I say. I slip out of Death’s embrace, then rush back down the path.
“Lazarus!” Death calls out after me, but I don’t stop and I don’t respond.
Where are they? Where are they?
Every inch of this place looks the same—just tents and dirt paths and more tents—and I’m disoriented by it all.
I slip in a puddle of blood, nearly going down before I catch myself and continue running.
“Cynthia!” I shout. “Morgan!”
The rest of the camp is silent. Too silent.
I run and run and run.
Eventually, I do find the women. I’m just too late.
They are still tied to their posts—Cynthia, Morgan, and so many others—their bodies slumped over, their lifeless eyes open.
All at once, my knees give out. I let out a frustrated cry, tears pricking my eyes. They deserved better. So much better.
I hear the thump of Death’s wings again, but all I have eyes for at the moment are these women.
I’m breathing hard as the last of the dust around me settles, the silence almost painful.
When I asked Death to stop his revenants, he hadn’t just done that. He also killed off the last of the living.
“Lazarus, what are you doing here?” he asks, approaching me. “Are you—crying?” He sounds shocked by the sight, as though the thought of me crying over anyone in this camp is preposterous. And how would Death know that these women weren’t the bad guys? There’s still so much about us humans that he doesn’t understand.
Tears are dripping from my eyes. “These other women, they were victims, just like us,” I say.
Thanatos glances at the women in question.
“And that matters to you,” he says. It’s not a question, and yet there’s confusion folded into it. They were strangers only a day ago.
“They didn’t deserve to die.”
“Kismet, everyone deserves to die—even that abominable man I cut down only minutes ago.”
He kneels across from me and reaches out, caressing the skin t
hat he just so recently healed.
“To live is to die,” he adds. “That was the agreement you made when you came into this world. You cannot have one without the other.”
Death stands. “All your life, all your suffering, all your loss—it was all for this.” He gestures to the dead around us, his wings spreading wide. “You all have been running towards me your entire life.”
Chapter 57
Interstate 10, Arizona
September, Year 27 of the Horsemen
I assume that the camp I was held at was the last I’d see of the Sixty-Six—or whoever the hell those people were.
But … nope. A week after our last encounter, we run into more trouble.
Off to the side of the highway ahead of us is a large, abandoned warehouse. It’s one of the few structures we’ve seen on this lonely stretch of road.
We’re no more than a hundred yards from it when a flurry of arrows streak away from the structure towards Death and me. I’ve seen enough aerial attacks to know their trajectory is too shallow to hit us, but it still makes me catch my breath.
The projectiles clatter against the weathered road in front of us.
“Halt!” a deep male voice calls out, stepping away from the warehouse. “We have more arrows trained on you.” He points his finger up, towards the top of the building.
My gaze moves to the structure’s roofline. Only now do I notice the dozen men and women posted there, their bows trained on me and Death.
Thanatos’s grip on me tightens, and I know this is their end. I hold my breath, waiting for their bodies to hit the roof.
Instead, Death stops our horse.
“You know,” he says softly, “I have really come to despise bows and arrows.”
The man on the ground continues to stroll out, one of his hands lightly resting on a sheathed blade at his hip. I don’t know what he means to do with that blade; he’s too far away to even throw it at us.
“This here is a toll road,” he calls out, gesturing to the highway. “No one passes without paying.”
Up on the warehouse’s roof, I very clearly hear one of the archers say, “What in the name of the devil … Are those wings?”
A hush falls over the entire group of us—me, Thanatos, the archers. Even the man on the ground just stiffened, like he heard it too.
“Horseman,” I hear someone hiss. That’s followed by low, frantic murmuring.
Death bends his head towards me, his lips brushing my ear. “I take every man to the grave,” the horseman says. “I have compassion for all souls. But I have none for behavior like this. They desecrate what sacredness I do hold towards life, and they desecrate me.”
Thanatos straightens in the saddle. “You will all die,” he announces. “But I will make you suffer for it before I lead you on.”
That’s apparently all the encouragement the spooked group needs. The man on the ground sprints towards the warehouse, disappearing inside just as the archers fire another volley of arrows.
A gust of wind blows the projectiles away. Already the group is reloading and releasing another round. The wind blows these away too.
Heedless of the weapons trained on us, Death guides his horse forward.
“Why aren’t you killing them?” I ask softly as the group reloads once again.
“So eager for their deaths?” Thanatos asks, grim amusement in his voice.
I turn and give the horseman a look. He cracks a smirk, but the moment his gaze returns to our assailants, it dissolves away. I get a chill, gazing on that pitiless face of his.
Just as yet another round of arrows is released—then promptly blown off course—I hear a choking sound come from one of the men on the roof. I glance up just in time to see our negotiator—the man who had fled back into the warehouse—stagger near the edge of the roof. He clutches his throat, then collapses, disappearing from sight.
“Vince!” shouts a woman near him.
Another calls out, “Get your ass up man!”
Vince, however, doesn’t get up.
Two archers leave their posts to check on the fallen man, while the others keep firing arrows and Death keeps blowing them off course.
We’re nearly upon the warehouse when I hear the people above me start to shout.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!”
“What the fuck, Vince?”
I can’t tell what’s going on, not until two people move to the edge of the roof. One of them—our former negotiator—has his hand wrapped around another man’s throat.
Now I know what’s happened to Vince.
“Vince, let Roy go!”
But Vince isn’t Vince anymore.
Roy claws at Vince’s hand where it grips his throat, and the others are trying to pry the two apart, but then amongst the chaos, another man seems to stumble and choke, then fall from view. A moment later, he too rises.
Thanatos stops our horse and watches this all calmly from where he sits behind me.
“Thanatos,” I say.
“Ah, I do so love it when you say my name like that,” he replies.
This time, however, I’m scandalized for an entirely different reason, one that has nothing to do with sex.
“Stop this,” I say.
“Violent lives lead to violent deaths, kismet. This is the tithe I will force them to pay.”
I assumed that being with me was causing Thanatos to soften towards humans, but after Death’s last show of power and now this, I’m not sure anymore. I think perhaps instead I’ve made him human in the worst way.
I reach for his hand, gripping it tightly. “Please.”
My plea falls on deaf ears.
It takes another minute for them all to die, and it’s horrible, so very, very horrible. I can hear their screams, and I can only imagine their confused terror as their former friends kill them. It’s a senseless sort of betrayal.
Once every last one of them dies, and that silence sweeps in, that prickling, jarring silence. All I can hear is my own ragged breathing.
“You could’ve just killed them all at once,” I say. Even though they extorted us and threatened us and likely would’ve hurt us, I’m still unnerved by Death’s cruel power.
“I could’ve,” the horseman agrees.
He clicks his tongue, and that’s apparently all he has to say about that.
Chapter 58
Interstate 10, Western Arizona
September, Year 27 of the Horsemen
When will we leave this cursed desert? We have spent weeks crossing it, and as far as I can tell, we’re still smack dab in the middle of it.
The day starts out hot and the temperature only seems to climb. I sweat, and sweat, and sweat. Just as quickly as it comes, the sweat evaporates away.
I think this corner of the world burned the memo that summer ends.
Death passes me a jug of water from one of the saddle bags. Wordlessly, I take it, swallowing the liquid down.
We’re running out of water. The last two pumps we passed were dry, and I have no clue when we’ll come upon another. It doesn’t help that we just passed the skeletal remains of a horse, its bleach-white bones picked clean by scavengers. In the last few weeks we’ve passed many areas that were largely uninhabitable, but for some reason, I hadn’t felt as close to death then as I do now.
Perhaps it’s simply because it’s been so long since I have seen fields of green grass and moist earth. It feels like we’ve traveled to a place where things go to die.
My panic rises, and I have to tell myself that neither the heat nor the lack of water really matters—I’ll grimly survive it all. But it’s fucking uncomfortable all the same.
As though reading my mind, Death says, “We’ll need to find you water soon. This is no place for you, my Laz.”
My Laz. My heart leaps at the endearment. It shouldn’t, not after all I’ve seen the horseman do, but try telling that to my stupid organ.
I know Death is waiting for me to give in to that rush of emotion I feel for
him. I know he wants me to call him sweet things as well—for me to show any sign that this is more than just flesh and lust coming together. And I know he’s willing to wait.
Even if it takes centuries, even if you and I are the last creatures in existence, I vow to you this: I will get you to love me—mind, body, and heart.
His words still echo through my mind.
And I feel it happening. It has been happening.
I shove those feelings down. Instead, I study the ring Thanatos wears as he holds me in the saddle. The one fashioned from a coin of the dead.
“How does it work?” I ask, running my finger over the face on the coin. “How do you lead people on to the afterlife if you’re also here with me in the saddle?”
I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to voice this question. It’s one of the first ones I ever had concerning the horseman of death.
“I keep telling you, kismet. I am not truly human. I can do things that defy human nature and logic. Just as I can release thousands of souls from their flesh with a single thought, so too can I lead them onwards while sitting here in the saddle with you—just as Famine can make crops thousands of miles apart spoil at the same time. Just as Pestilence can spread disease in several places—and several species—all at once. It is an intrinsic part of who we are.”
I sit with that for several moments.
“Tell me about all the people you have met across time,” I start again.
His lips brush my temple, and I can feel his smile against my skin. He likes my questions and I think he also delights in answering them. Up until he captured me, his thoughts were his alone.
“That would take lifetimes, Lazarus,” he says softly. “I think you want a shorter answer than that.”
He is so literal.
“Give me the highlights—you have met everyone, haven’t you?” I say. “George Washington, Cleopatra and Marc Antony, Genghis Khan …” I could go on.
“For a moment, and nothing more,” he says.
“What is it like? What are they like?”
“Souls are different when removed from their flesh. You want their humanisms—I can’t give that to you any better than your own written histories can, though I will tell you this: George Washington was at peace when I came for him, Marc Antony and Cleopatra mourned for the lives they left behind, and Genghis Khan was grimly satisfied with his end.
Death (The Four Horsemen Book 4) Page 33