Death looks as incensed as I’ve ever seen him. Incensed, but resolved. “I will show you the futility of what you ask,” he says darkly.
I close my mouth, my pulse pounding so fast I feel vaguely ill.
He’s going to do it.
“Who would you like me to bring back?” he demands, the same angry gleam in his eyes.
My lips part as we stare each other down. There are so many people I could choose. My friends, my neighbors, my birth parents, my siblings.
But in the end, I choose the one person who saved me. It’s my turn to save her.
“Jill Gaumond, my mother.”
Chapter 62
Interstate 10, Southern California
September, Year 27 of the Horsemen
A muscle in Death’s jaw flexes. He turns on his heel and walks away from me, his boots crunching over the dead shrubbery. I stare after him, wondering if he’s unwilling to do this after all.
“Are you coming or not?” he calls over his shoulder.
Oh.
I follow him, feeling more and more uneasy with every step I take. There’s nothing out here—just miles and miles of desert brush and lonely hills. I glance around me, but all is as it always is.
Thanatos stops and holds a hand out towards the ground. He still looks angry, and the sight unnerves me. I step up next to him, unsure what’s about to happen.
Then I sense it.
My skin pricks as a cool breeze sweeps through, rustling the nearby shrubs. At our feet dirt begins to rise, creating a human-sized mound. Dirt sloughs off the mound, and the hairs along my arms rise as, out of the earth itself, the body takes shape. Hips and legs and shoulders, breasts and fingers and toes and a face.
A face.
I barely have time to care that the woman is naked before I fall to my knees next to her, a sob slipping from my lips. I can’t look away from that face—my mother’s face. One I was sure I would never see again.
For a moment, she lays there, unmoving.
Death glances over at me, his lips pressed together grimly.
And then—
My mother’s chest rises as she takes in a deep breath, and then her eyes flutter open.
“Mom.” My voice breaks, and then I’m helping her sit up, the last of the dirt slipping from her body as I do so.
I should probably give her a second, but just seeing her eyes blink and her body move—seeing her alive—I can’t help but do the one thing I’ve wanted to do since I lost her.
I hug her tightly to me.
“I love you,” I whisper. I barely manage to get the words out before I’m crying. “I’ve been so lost without you.” So, so lost. All of my long-held strength comes crashing down; I’m just a kid who needs her mom.
I feel the light, almost confused press of her fingertips against my arm. Then, next to my ear, my mom lets out a wail. The sound raises the hairs at the back of my neck.
It trails off into a whimper.
“Wh—what is this?” she whispers.
I pull away in time to see her looking at her arms and hands with spooked eyes.
A keening sound works its way up her throat. “What’s happening? Why am I here?” She reaches for her hair, then pulls on it, like she’s considering ripping it out.
“Mom,” I say, glancing frantically at Death, but he’s standing stiffly off to the side. “Mom,” I say again. I catch her hands and squeeze tightly. “It’s me, your daughter.”
To Thanatos, I say, “Can you get her a blanket?”
Without responding, he turns on his heel and heads over to his horse.
My mom’s frightened, wild eyes shift to me.
She sucks in a breath. “Lazarus.”
I press my lips together to hold back another sob, and then I’m nodding, even as tears slip down my face.
“What is going on … ?” Her words trail off into another moan, and my mom’s eyes unfocus. She pinches them shut, shaking her head as she starts rocking back and forth.
“Mom—Mom.” I’m trying not to panic, but I feel my anxiety rising. She seems so distressed. “It’s okay, I’m here.” I practically choke on the words. Just like that, I force myself to gather together my strength once more.
Behind me, I can hear Death’s boots crunching over the parched shrubs as he makes his way to us.
Wordlessly he steps up to my side, handing me a blanket.
“Thank you,” I murmur, shaking it out and wrapping it around my mother.
My mom doesn’t seem to notice. She’s still rocking back and forth, a distant, haunted look in her eyes. As I watch, she brings a hand up to her face and begins to sob.
My heart plummets as I stare at her, feeling both helpless and terrified.
I glance over my shoulder at Death. “Why is she acting like this?” I ask, my voice high and panicked.
“I already told you why,” Death says, his jaw clenched and his eyes hard. “Your mother doesn’t belong here. She knows it, I know it. It is only you, Lazarus, who cannot accept that the dead do not wish to return to life.”
His words are like a physical blow.
I rotate back to my mom and place a hand on her back. “Mom. Mom,” I say. “You’re alive.”
“No,” she moans again, shaking her head and closing her eyes like she can shut out the truth.
I stare at her, aghast, something sick churning in my stomach.
“Death brought you back. He took your life unfairly,” I say.
She begins to laugh, and I think she’s lost it completely, but then she opens her eyes and they sharpen on me.
“Lazarus Gaumond, my beloved daughter, shame on you for doing this.”
For a moment, I don’t react to her words. I simply can’t. Once more I’m that lost, confused child, my heart breaking.
“Now you listen to me,” she says sounding just like her old self. My chest aches—it aches so damn bad—because this is my mom. Not the wailing creature I held in my arms, but this lively, take-no-bullshit woman. And clearly this situation has gone sideways, but only yesterday I would’ve given anything to hear her scolding me.
And now I get that.
“Whatever you have done to bring me here, you undo it.” Her eyes move to Death. “You undo it,” she repeats to him.
He stands motionless.
She turns back to me, her body trembling as though in shock. “I don’t want to be here, Laz. I lived, I loved, and I died,” she says carefully. “And you don’t get to change the rules.”
I suck in a sharp breath, and my tears, which never really stopped, are coming faster now.
She reaches out, uncaring that the blanket has slid off her shoulders, exposing her once more. She cups my face in her hand. “I love you, Lazarus. You are strong and brave and I know you have endured so much more than what should be asked of you. You do me proud. But right now baby, you need to let me go.”
“Mom,” I protest.
“My time has come and gone. Let me go, my sweet girl.”
I begin to sob, my whole body shaking. My mother pulls me in for a hug, and I can feel her own body trembling.
“Let me go,” she murmurs to me over and over, stroking my hair. “Let me go.”
And I’m sobbing in her arms and this is all I get, and I know it’s more than anyone else gets, but I still feel robbed.
Reluctantly, I begin to nod. “Okay, Mom,” I whisper, my voice hoarse.
She releases me, and I rise to my feet, backing up. I suck in my cheeks and force myself to stop crying, even though tears continue to well in my eyes.
I glance over at Death. He stares back at me stoically.
Letting my gaze fall in defeat, I give him a nod.
I sense his own gaze soften on me before he turns to my mother. He doesn’t say anything, but I see the moment his power takes effect.
For an instant there’s a flicker of relief in my mom’s eyes, and then her features slacken as Death releases her. My mother’s body disintegrates before my eyes, s
kin and muscle and bone turning into earth once more. A gust of wind whips up, blowing it away until there is no trace of the woman who was here a moment ago.
I fall back heavily onto my ass. It feels like it was all some sort of horrible dream, but I know it happened, I know that Death called my mom here because I asked him to, and then he released her because I asked him for that as well.
I press my palms to my eyes, and suddenly, horrible, wretched sobs are falling from my lips, and I am violently crying, my entire body shaking from the effort.
I didn’t get to mourn my mother’s death—not really. I threw myself into hunting down the horseman, and it left me so little room to mourn. The only time I grieved was during those quiet hours when I traveled, but even then, it came second to my purpose: to find—and stop—Death.
Now I’m forced to relive my mom’s death all over again, and the wound of her passing cuts sharper than it did the first time.
Thanatos moves to my side, kneeling next to me. Then he’s wrapping his arms around me, holding me close just like he did the night Ben was dying. Then it was comforting, but now it mocks me. He’s the one taking all my loved ones away. I don’t want his comfort, I want him to stop.
I push Death away. “Don’t touch me,” I tell him.
The horseman frowns, but that anger that simmered beneath his skin is now gone. He looks as though he’s the one carrying the heavy burden.
“I see your pain,” he says, “and I hear it, and I don’t like it. It makes me frantic.”
I ignore him, my head bowed as I weep.
After a moment, Death stands. “Bringing the dead back—truly back—is a curse, Lazarus. I know you are grieving, but it is in vain. Your mother is in a better place.”
I pause to look up at him. “My grief is in vain?” I whisper. He’s taken my family from me and now he thinks that the one thing I have left—my grief—should go too?
I laugh at him, but I’m so angry. “How dare you say that. You don’t even know what loss is,” I say hotly, rising to my feet. “You’ve never loved anything enough to care if it goes.”
“Lazarus,” he says, his face fierce, “nothing actually goes. It transforms, but transmutation isn’t actually lost or gone at all. You were you before you had a body, and you will still be you when you no longer have one. A caterpillar might become a butterfly—and a human might become a spirit—but it is still the same essence. It has simply been transformed.
“Lazarus,” he continues, searching my face, “if you could see life as I see it, you would know it is all okay—that it will all be okay. That death is the end of suffering.”
“Life is far more than suffering,” I practically yell at him. “Why do you think we all cling to it so desperately?”
His eyes flash. “Because you know no better.”
I shake my head. “You’re wrong,” I say.
But what do I know? I have never been dead. My mom seemed to prefer it. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’ve been fighting for the wrong side this whole time.
That’s the most chilling possibility of all.
Chapter 63
Los Angeles, California
September, Year 27 of the Horsemen
It’s a hard morning. I feel like I have a sob stuck in my throat, and I’m angry at Thanatos, but then it’s not really him I’m angry at.
I thought I had cracked the secret to life. For a brief instant I’d even entertained the idea that perhaps I could do more than just stop the apocalypse—I could reverse it. But there’s clearly no reversing the damage the horsemen have wrought. So instead I sit in the saddle, my heart heavy.
Death holds me close, his lips brushing my temple every so often. I think he senses how close I am to fracturing apart.
Gradually we enter the eastern edge of Los Angeles, one satellite city at a time. The first thing that catches my eye are the mountains of rusted appliances and vehicles left out here in this bone dry landscape. My gaze sweeps over all of the things people lost use of once they stopped working. Every so often I see a body or two lying amongst the debris, and it’s clear that Death has already flexed his lethal powers.
We pass abandoned shopping centers and sun-beaten neighborhoods, the buildings missing windows and doors and roof tiles and whatever else people might repurpose. The landscaping around the buildings has long since died; all that’s left are the husks of trees and bushes.
The sight of it all takes my breath away.
I don’t know much about this part of the world, but I’ve heard stories about a time when this place was the seat of glamour.
I don’t see it.
Maybe it’s that time and the apocalypse have ground away at whatever beauty was once here, because all I see are collapsed overpasses, boarded up buildings, and mountains of rubble.
And corpses.
The farther into LA we move, the more I see them, littering the highway and sprawled on the sidewalk, their belongings strewn out around them. I even see one lounging on their balcony, their head slumped against their shoulder as though they’d merely fallen asleep.
That ache in my chest grows, the one that makes me feel like all of this fighting against the horseman is futile.
Tell me something that makes this all worth it.
I nearly voice the question, but what would be the point? No answer Thanatos gives will make me feel better, and no arguments I make will convince him otherwise. So I keep my mouth shut and on we ride.
It takes another day for us to hit the literal edge of the United States. And suddenly, startlingly, there’s the Pacific.
I have no words for it. I’ve seen lakes, I’ve seen inlets and rivers, but I’ve never seen the sea.
It’s like a second sky, so vast and blue that it seems to swallow the world whole.
I suck in a breath, all my worries forgotten for an instant.
Thanatos must hear my reaction because he tilts himself in the saddle so that he can see my face. While I take in the water he takes in me.
“What is it that I’m seeing on your face?” he asks.
“Wonder,” I murmur. “I’ve never seen the ocean before.” It’s almost funny, considering just how many thousands of miles I have traveled.
Death is quiet, though a moment later, he stops his horse.
I cast him an offhanded glance. “What are you doing?” I ask.
But he’s already dismounting. No sooner have his feet touched the ground than he grabs my waist and pulls me down.
I frown at him, my brows drawn together in confusion.
“I want to give you a better view,” he explains.
His wings spread wide behind him and, scooping me up, Death lifts us into the air.
Wind whips at my hair and drags tears from my eyes, but the higher up we go, the more that blue ocean takes up my vision, until it’s all I can see.
Thanatos brings his lips close to my ear. “I want to stay here, Lazarus, just for a little while.”
I assume he’s referring to being airborne, but then, not ten minutes later, we’re descending back to earth.
Beneath us, I see a strip of beach dotted with homes. We draw closer and closer to it, then we’re flying over the homes, their roof tiles flashing beneath us. Death lowers us onto the front yard of one of the beachside homes.
I step out of Death’s arms, taking in the palatial home. Bright, blooming bougainvillea creeps up the side of the house. A weathervane sits on top of the roof and a stone fountain is set into one of the walls of the home. These sorts of homes will never cease to shock me—that anyone can live such a grand lifestyle in a time when most people are eking out an existence. As I stare, I can hear the ocean calling out, the waves roaring as they crash upon the sand.
I turn around to face Thanatos.
“Why did we land here?” I ask.
“You need proper rest,” he says, frowning a little as his eyes flick over me.
I don’t know what he sees. I don’t feel worn down by travel. But maybe he�
�s reacting less to my physical state and more to my emotional one. I’ve been carrying a heavy sort of sadness around since I saw my mom.
“I’m fine,” I insist.
Thanatos steps in close, the dying sunlight playing upon his features. “Let me be human with you for a few days—or have you already given up on the prospect of convincing me you are all worth saving?”
My breath catches, and I search the horseman’s gaze.
I had given up on convincing Death. Maybe it was the criminals we encountered, or maybe it was seeing my mother. Maybe it was simply that for all my bending, Death wasn’t changing.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he says, his voice pitched low.
“Like what?”
“Like you are grieving. Like I am the reason for it.”
Absently, I touch the side of my face, unaware that I was looking at him like that.
I drop my hand. I don’t know what Thanatos wants me to do. I have been grieving, and he is the reason behind it. We both know it. I may care for him, I may even, even … love him, but it doesn’t matter. You can love something and know it’s bad for you.
“You fought me for months,” Death says stepping in close. He brings his knuckles up to my cheeks.
“I’m tired of fighting,” I say.
“I’m not asking you to fight, I’m just asking for you to not give up on me.”
“Wouldn’t that be easier?” I say. This might be the most exposed either of us has been with one another. “You wouldn’t have to deal with me agonizing over every lost town, and I wouldn’t make you second guess yourself.”
“If it makes you lose that light in your eyes, then no, it would not be worth it. It would never be worth it.”
Thanatos seems torn in two, his human wants getting in the way of his base nature. And right now, it seems as though his human wants are winning out.
Despite everything, I feel the barest breath of hope.
Maybe not all is lost.
I nod a little. “Alright,” I say softly. “Let’s stay here—just for a little while.”
Death smiles, and the whole world could be crashing down around us and I wouldn’t notice because that smile bewitches me.
Death (The Four Horsemen Book 4) Page 35