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.