For several seconds, all either of us hear is the steady clop of his horse’s hooves.
“Lazarus?” he prods.
“No,” I admit.
At my back, I feel Death go preternaturally still.
“No?” he echoes. “Why not?” Again, something enters his voice, but I cannot tell what.
“Because you’re hell-bent on killing the world, and that makes you the absolute worst choice for a father,” I say.
“Heaven-bent,” he corrects icily.
Is he offended? Why? He literally just told me that the last thing he wants is kids.
I clear my throat. “It doesn’t matter anyway because like you said, it’s not happening.”
A tense silence falls over us. Despite all of his proud proclamations, I get the impression that the mighty Thanatos is actually hurt by my answer.
What a thought.
Chapter 50
Dripping Springs, Texas
July, Year 27 of the Horsemen
We head north, retracing our long ago steps through Austin.
Or at least, what remains of it.
The buildings have fallen, and Death has to navigate us around debris scattered across the highway. I don’t see much of the damage up close since we never move onto city streets, but I don’t see another soul, living or dead.
The smell, however, lingers in the air, and the deep rooted stench of it makes me think that there were recently dead carcasses lying about that either scavengers dragged out of sight … or Death had.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the latter. I know he feels our newfound romance is fragile, and he probably wants to do everything he can to not mess it up—which would include hiding bodies.
Ah, horseman chivalry. What a concept.
We move through Austin, and continue on. The sun has just set when I start seeing standing structures in place of collapsed ones. Untouched land. Even then, however, the houses are sporadic.
“I have made a mistake,” Death admits, out of the blue.
I glance over my shoulder at him. “What is it?” I ask.
“I have been so keen on passing the land I’ve touched that I have forgotten to find a place for us to stay.”
Touched? That’s what he’s going to call the destruction around us?
I’m quiet.
“I don’t like this silence of yours,” he admits. “It feels … accusing. Tell me where your mind is at.”
“I’m thinking that you still understand very little about me,” I say. “Otherwise, you’d know that I’m not upset about the thought of sleeping under the stars.”
Behind me, the horseman pauses.
“But when I first took you, you hated being outside. You were cold—”
“I was uncomfortable,” I agree, “but mostly, I was trying to shame you into letting me go.”
Death’s hold tightens on me. “Never,” he vows.
I grimace as an electric thrill courses through me. I hate that I like that declaration.
I clear my throat. “I’m fine sleeping in a normal house—or outside, provided I have bedding to keep me warm,” I say. “And I was quiet a moment ago because I was thinking of all the cities you’ve … touched,” I say that word derisively.
It’s Thanatos’s turn to go quiet.
“I will find you a … normal house for tonight,” he says softly, not bothering to address the other part of what I said. “But I do not plan on making this a habit. I cannot give you what you most want,”—an end to the killing, he means—“but I can give you this, at least.
A short while later, I notice a cluster of lights in the distance.
A town.
It feels like a small eternity before we actually reach those lights. The gas lamps that run on either side of the road illuminate storefronts so weathered that it looks as though they were abandoned twenty-odd years ago, when the horsemen first arrived. If it weren’t for those gas lamps running through the town—lamps that someone had to light by hand—I would’ve assumed this place was nothing more than the bones of the world that existed before everything went to hell.
“You remember our deal?” I say softly to Thanatos.
The one where he doesn’t kill everyone right away.
“I have not forgotten.”
I can hear the frown in his voice.
His horse only takes a few more steps when the ground starts to tremble, and I can hear glass rattling in the warped windowpanes of a nearby building and the sound of a hanging wooden sign banging into the antiques shop it advertises.
The quaking grows and grows until the gas lamps begin to fall like dominos, their glass casings shattering as they hit the ground. In the distance, someone shouts.