“Bought,” I repeat. Now it’s me who feels hurt—hurt and used and dirty. Forget that this situation was my idea, or that that’s exactly what I did—I bought my fellow humans the barest possibility of survival—it still burns me raw to hear War talk about it like it’s some cold, emotionless transaction.
I get up, completely naked, not really giving a fuck what War sees. “I’m glad we both know that’s all this is.” I begin to pull on my clothes. “I would hate for you to get the impression that I actually want you.”
“Oh, you want me.” The horseman sounds almost smug.
I shove my feet back into my pants. “Fuck. You.”
“Not until you surrender everything.”
Done, done, done with this. I finish getting dressed and begin to walk away.
“You will be riding back with me,” War commands from behind me.
I give him the finger in response.
I’ve barely walked twenty meters when I see movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn just in time to see the zombie from earlier loping towards me.
I manage not to scream, but I’m not going to lie, I pee myself a little at the sight of the creature sprinting towards me.
Behind me, War stands on our blanket, pulling his pants back on as he watches the scene.
“What are you doing?” I yell at War, never fully managing to rip my eyes from the zombie.
The dead man—pretty sure it’s a man at least—is hurtling towards me.
Fuck it—I begin to run.
I make it half a kilometer before the creature tackles me. The two of us go tumbling into the sandy earth.
Dear God, the smell. Like someone is raping my nostrils. I gag a little on it. And now when I do see the creature, I really do scream. This one isn’t as freshly dead as the men I fought a city ago. His skin is a greyish hue and it’s rotting away in areas, revealing his decomposing innards.
The zombie drags me to my feet just as the horseman rides over on Deimos.
He stops at my side, reaching out a hand. “Come, Miriam.”
I glare up at War. “No.”
“Then my man will be forced to escort you home.”
I think I have bits of that decomposing man in my hair. I definitely have them smeared across my shirt and pants.
Going to have to burn these clothes. Damnit.
“At least he’ll be better company,” I say.
War frowns at me, looking frustrated and bothered all at the same time. “So be it. Enjoy the walk, wife.”
And then he rides off.
Bastard.
It takes nearly an hour to make it back to camp, and the entire way the dead man has a grip on my upper arm. The stench of him is too much, and I vomit four separate times. Eventually I simply plug my nose and breathe in and out of my mouth.
In spite of this, I don’t regret my decision to walk back. Not even a little.
Right now the dead man is still better company than War.
I don’t see the horseman again for days. He doesn’t call on me, and I stay the hell away from his tent, spending my time reading, making weapons, and visiting with Zara and her frightened nephew.
So I’m surprised when, on the day we pack up camp, I’m given a horse and instructed to wait for War.
I almost don’t.
I’m no longer upset about the revelation that War’s dead haunt all the fallen cities of the world. It’s terrible and shocking and it makes the horseman even more barbaric than I already imagined him to be, but it is what it is, and now I know.
I’m not even upset about the nauseating walk back to camp—though I had been for a while after I returned.
At this point I’m just pissed off because I’ve been pissed off, and I don’t know, the emotion has developed some inertia of its own.
But then War comes riding through camp, looking like a red sun rising on the horizon, and I feel eager to see him—eager to be angry with him, eager to hear his deep voice and to gaze at that face. And maybe to even touch him. I may not like the guy, but I think I’m addicted to him.
The horseman stops when he gets to my side. His stares at me for several seconds.
“Wife,” he says. I cannot tell what he’s thinking.
“War.”
He gives me a slight nod and takes off again. I follow him to the front of the procession, feeling the eyes of the entire army on us. And then they’re behind us and it’s just me and War and the endless road ahead of us.
The horseman is the first one to speak.
“If we’re to be married, we have to get along.”
“We’re not married,” I say for the five billionth time.
“We are.”
Exasperating man!
“You had a dead man tackle me!” Okay, maybe I am still a little ticked about my walk back to camp. I have a fucking right to be. I smelled like a corpse for two entire days.
“You wouldn’t listen,” he says.
“No, it was you who wouldn’t listen!” I say, my voice rising. Oh yeah, I am so ready to jump back into the arena and fight this man. “You’re so used to commanding people that you think you can command me too.”
“Of course I can.”
I’d throttle War if I could get away with it.
“That’s not how marriage works,” I say, trying to simmer my emotions back down. “At least, not a good marriage—and you want this to be a good marriage, don’t you?”
Why am I even trying to reason with him?
He gives me a long look. “Of course I do, wife.”
“Then you need to listen to me and you need to respect my opinions.” It’s the two most obvious rules of marriage, and yet War is completely unaware of them.
“And you need to respect my will,” he fires back. “As my wife, you should be obedient the few times I demand it of you.”
Obedient?
I’m seeing red.
“Fuck it. I want a divorce.”
“No.”
“I’m not going to be obedient—hell, you don’t even want me to be obedient. I know you don’t.” He’s clearly been around too many misogynists.
War runs a hand down his face, one of the rings he wears catching the light. “Feel like I’m being beaten with my own blade,” he mutters. “Fine. I will try to be more … respectful. To your opinions … even when they are absurd.”
I glare at him.
“And I will listen to your soft mortal wants. But in exchange, you must listen to my will when I give it.”
“I will listen to it,” I say.
I just might not go along with it.
“Good.” He looks pleased.
I just give him a look.
This is going to be a long ride.
I’ve abandoned my rules. The ones for surviving the apocalypse. I don’t know when it happened—whether I left them back in Ashdod, or if they traveled all the way to Arish before I forsook them.
I only know that each one no longer applies to surviving the apocalypse now that I’m stuck with one of the horsemen orchestrating it.
The only rule I still fall back on is Rule Five: Be brave. Every single waking second of my day consists of me trying to be brave when all I really want to do is shit myself and hide.
Unfortunately, out here in the barren desert, there’s nowhere to hide.
It’s a long, lonely ride. The road we take is surrounded by uninterrupted desert. And even though I know that the ocean lingers off to my right, the highway is inland enough that I don’t usually catch glimpses of that blue water.
The summer sun cruelly beats down on the two of us, and for all the time we’ve been riding, we might’ve gone two kilometers … or two hundred. It’s impossible to say.
The only real way I can tell we’re making progress is by the few landmarks we pass—an abandoned house, a barren outpost, a trough of water next to a hand-pump well. Oh, and of course, the few fishing villages we pass by, a cluster of carrion birds circling above them.
E
ventually, the sun dips down ahead of us, and War chooses a place for us and our horses to rest.
After the two of us get a fire going, I begin to fry up dinner. This trip, War’s packed a skillet and some salted meat to cook. I stare at the strips of meat after I lay them out. The sight of them twists my stomach. It looks too much like all those humans whose bodies were ripped open during battle.
Next to me, the horseman sits on his haunches, staring at the fire.
“Why do you have an army if you could simply use your dead to kill off humans?” I ask him while I work.
It seems to me that, with the sweep of his hand, War could annihilate us all, and it would be a whole lot faster and more thorough.
“Why don’t you sing all the time if you have the ability to?” he responds, his eyes flashing. “Why not run everywhere if you can? Just because I have the power doesn’t mean I always want to wield it.”
So he doesn’t want to kill us off that efficiently? I don’t know whether that’s merciful of him or just cruel.
“Besides,” he says, “I rather enjoy camp. It reminds me of who I am and who I have always been.”
Battle brought to life, he means.
“That’s a bit odd, don’t you think?” I say. “You want to remember who you are by gathering humans around you and enjoying their company.”
“No, I don’t think it’s odd at all,” War says, getting up to grab a bottle of wine he’s packed. He comes back with it and two glasses. Sitting back down, he says, “I am borne of men, and I am here to judge them. Naturally I want to be amongst them.”
“So there’s a part of you that likes humans,” I say.
“Of course I like humans.” War uncorks the wine and begins to pour us each a glass. “Just not enough to spare them.”
That is so twisted.
He hands me one of the glasses, and I take a deep drink from it.
“I am a commander of men,” he continues. “Not even death can stop my reach.”
Not even death can stop my reach.
War is right. Even in death he can weaponize us. I remember the revenant who led me back to camp. His eyes were mostly gone, his skin was mottled and sloughing off, and yet he moved as though he were alive.
“How do you control the dead?” I say.
The horseman levels his gaze at me. “We are talking about the powers of God, Miriam. There is no human explanation I can give you.”
“Could you do it, right now, if you wanted to?”
War raises his eyebrows. “You want me to raise the dead?”
That’s not exactly what I asked, and yet now that he’s broached the subject, I’m perversely curious. I don’t know why. It’s ghoulish and frightening.
I nod anyway.
The horseman reaches out, and I feel the ground around me shiver, like it’s ticklish. Several meters away the arid earth shifts, and the partial skeleton of a horse pulls itself from the sandy soil. The creature is missing many of its bones, but it stands as best it can.
It’s hard to say that this is anything other than magic.
The skeletal horse begins to move as though it were alive, even though it looks long dead.
“It’s … not human,” I say.
“I can re-animate both people and creatures.”
The horse ambles up to me, and instinct is telling me to get up and flee. But damnit, I’ve faced worse. So I sit there and let it get close.
The horse bumps its muzzle against my shoulder, and part of me is disarmed by this poor thing that moves like a horse and acts like a horse even though it’s long since breathed its last.
“Are you satisfied?” War asks.
I nod, maybe a little too quickly.
The horse takes several steps away from me, then all at once, it falls to the earth, nothing more than a scattered pile of bones.
Chapter 35
The night sweeps in and the fire burns itself down. Just when the evening air is starting to get a chill to it, the horseman gets up from the fire. I can hear him at my back, removing his weaponry. I still hold my empty glass, and all that wine in my stomach is churning.
This is the first time I’ve traveled with the horseman since our agreement, and out here, without an army around us, my universe feels very small. It’s only big enough to hold me, War, and this uncomfortable feeling that rises in me every time we’re together.
The horseman comes back to me and reaches out a hand. “Come, wife. It’s late and I want to feel your warm flesh against mine.”
That same uncomfortable feeling rises in me. Right now it’s giddiness and a thrill that comes with giving in to the horseman. We’re either all or nothing, enemies or lovers. It’s dizzying. Our bodies get along much better than our mouths.
I take War’s hand and let him lead me to the pallet he made us. There’s just one bed tonight. My abs clench at the sight.
The horseman reels me in close, his hands going to my dark hair as he leans in and kisses me. And the kiss is all it takes to break me wide open.
I’ve shored up all my desire for him during the long day, but now I gasp as his heavy hand moves down my neck and along my collar bone. My own hands find his abs, and God was clearly biased when he made this man because War is perfect. Every hard ridge, every sloping muscle and lean edge—perfect, perfect, perfect.
As he strips me down, I try not to think about the fact that I’m so very obviously not perfect. I have scars from that long ago accident, I have scars from all the skirmishes I’ve fought in since, and I have scars from all the nicks and cuts I’ve given myself for my job. And then there are all the imperfections that I was simply born with.
I’m crudely fashioned compared to this horseman.
But as War lowers me down, removing the last of my clothing, his hands and lips move over me like I am perfect. The horseman slips between my thighs, and as I stare up at the stars, a stupid, awful tear slips out. Because I feel so cherished. So cherished and so goddamned perfect.
It shouldn’t be this way. It shouldn’t.
But it is.
After the two of us have exhausted ourselves, I lay with War on his pallet. Our pallet, I guess—if I’m being honest with myself.
I don’t bother telling the horseman that this feels right. That his ridiculous body somehow fits mine like a puzzle piece.
War runs his fingers through my hair. “Tell me about yourself,” he says.
“What do you want to know?” I ask, glancing over at him. I wish I could see his face in the darkness.
“What makes you love being a human? What are your favorite things? I want to know it all.”
“I like art,” I say carefully, turning back to gaze at the sky. “I like repurposing junk into beautiful objects.”
“You mean your weapons,” he says.
I stretch myself out along his body. In response, War pulls me in close to him.
“That’s just how I was able to make money off of my art,” I say. “But yeah, my weapons are part of it.”
“And why do you enjoy art?” War asks.
I lift a shoulder. “It’s cathartic for me. I don’t know.”
“Tell me something else,” War says.
“I miss the taste of my mother’s Shakshuka,” I admit. I never learned how to cook her exact version of the spicy breakfast dish. There are so many small, simple things like that, that I lost when I lost her.
“What else?”
“My sister Lia wanted to be a singer.” I know War is asking me about myself, but this is who I am—a lonely girl carrying around the ghosts of her family. “I don’t know where she even got her voice from,” I continue. “The rest of us couldn’t carry a tune, but she could. She used to sing when she couldn’t fall asleep at night, and I used to hate it—we shared a room,” I add. “But then at some point, it became soothing, and I’d often drift off to her songs.”
That might’ve been the worst part of all of it when I came back. The silence. There were so many nights where I’d
lay there, on my old mattress, my sister’s bed across from mine, and I’d wait for the song that never came.
After a while, I started sleeping in her bed, like I could somehow suck out the marrow of her from her old sheets. It never worked. Not even when I then moved to my mother’s bed to try to draw some small comfort there.
“Sometimes I carve music notes into my bows and arrows,” I admit to War. “I don’t even know what the notes stand for, or if they’re even accurately drawn, but they remind me of Lia.”
The horseman runs an idle hand down my arm, and I’m reminded about how intimate this whole situation is.
“Do you carve anything else onto your weapons?” he asks.
I glance at him again. “Why do you want to know?” I ask.
“I want to know everything about you, wife,” he says, just as he did earlier.
I take a deep breath. “I draw hamsas for my father.” I can’t even say how many weapons I’ve decorated with the image of an evil eye fitted into the palm of a hand.
“Why hamsas?” War asks.
Unconsciously, I reach for my bracelet, fingering the small metal charm as I focus back up at the sky.
“Hamsas are known among Jews as the ‘Hand of Miriam,’” I explain. “Any time my father would see a piece of jewelry with a hamsa on it, he’d buy it for me—because it was my namesake.” The hamsa I wear is the last bit of jewelry I have from him. Everything else I’ve lost over the last decade. I’m petrified of the day I’ll lose this, too.
“And in honor of my mother,” I continue, “I’d sometimes carve a sword—or sometimes a sword piercing a heart—into my bows. The sword is in honor of what I learned from her books on weaponry, and the heart … well, that one’s for self-explanatory reasons.” My own heart aches now, revisiting all the reasons why I so fondly cherished my family and why I so desperately missed them.
The horseman is quiet. He doesn’t do very well, I’ve come to find, with difficult emotions like grief and sadness.
“It’s strange being a human,” War finally says. “For the longest time, I watched what it was like to be a human, but I never felt it. I didn’t understand the true bliss of touching a woman or tasting food or feeling the sun on my skin. I knew of it, but I didn’t understand it until I became a man.
War (The Four Horsemen Book 2) Page 23