“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.