Several others protest as well.
“What about Deputy Ferguson?” Someone else complains, and I think he’s referring to George, who’s still slumped over Death.
“I’ll take care of George. Now get going.”
The officers don’t leave immediately. Whatever they were expecting to happen, this isn’t it.
Jeb glares at them. “Do you want me to put you all in cuffs?” he threatens. “Move it.”
That seems to get the crowd going. The officers and onlookers disperse.
It takes another minute, but eventually, Chief Holton and I are alone.
Lexington’s chief of police eyes Death, then shakes his head. “I don’t know that I fully believed you until now.” He blows out a breath. “Do you need any help?” he asks.
“Even if I did,” I say, “I don’t think you could give it. Not without ending up like George.”
Chief Holton’s eyes move to the man in question and he suddenly looks a decade older, and so, so weary.
“It could’ve been worse,” I say.
The police chief nods. “Think he’ll stay away?” he asks.
I shake my head. Not if he’s anything like me.
“Unless he can be stopped for good,” I say. “I have a feeling he’ll be back. But hopefully I’ll be able to get him far enough from Lexington by then to give you and the rest of the city time to fully evacuate.”
The chief of police nods his head, still looking weary. He looks over to the buildings we so recently occupied.
“You should go,” I insist. “I’ve got this.”
I don’t, in fact, got this, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“And you won’t die?” he asks, scrutinizing the horseman.
By way of answer, I kneel down next to Death and place my hand against what I can of his cheek. “He cannot kill me,” I insist. At least, not while he himself is dead.
Chief Holton blows out a breath, shaking his head. “Sunday School never prepared me for this shit.” After a moment, he jerks his chin towards George. “Someone’s going to have to collect my friend there,” he says. He turns towards the way we came, squinting at the people in the distance. “And there will be more people using this road to evacuate. I can give you an hour to get gone, but not much more.”
Hopefully an hour is all I need.
Jeb turns to go, then pauses. “Thank you for coming here,” he says. “It was an astonishingly decent thing to do.”
I give him a small smile and watch as he turns and leaves, this time for good.
And I’m left alone with Death.
For a moment, all I do is stare at the horseman. He’s badly mutilated, and I’m shocked to find that it bothers me—the injuries, his pain, all of it. He’s not a man to pity. And yet I can’t stop replaying the way he fell from his horse as we continued to shoot at him.
I stand, then back away from the horseman, worried that if I tear my gaze away for even a single moment, he might simply vanish.
In the end, I do have to turn away so that I can retrieve my things. Among them is my bicycle and a borrowed cart Jeb let me hitch to it.
I can’t be gone more than five minutes, but I’m terrified that when I return to the horseman I’ll find another dead body slumped against him—or worse, that he’ll be gone altogether.
I breathe a sigh of relief when I catch sight of Death—he’s exactly how I left him.
I ride my bike and hitched cart up to his side. Hopping off the bike, I move to the back of the cart, where I’ve already stashed my bag and my weapons. I lower the ramp then turn to Death.
Now for the impossible: lifting him.
In theory it shouldn’t be hard, but the man weighs about as much as a goddamned whale, and the moment I get my arms under his shoulders, I’m sure his wings are deliberately trying to smother me, and I keep getting feathers in my mouth, and a half a dozen bloody arrow points are now digging into my skin.
“Why do you have to be such—a—giant—jerk?” I ask as I drag him inch by painful inch up the cart’s shallow ramp.
I’ve barely gotten him fully in when my legs give out and I collapse, his body falling on mine. I lay there for a moment, cursing God that I can’t die. At least then I would’ve never found myself in this motherfucking embarrassing situation.
Eventually, I extricate myself, my hand brushing against Death’s bloody neck and a lock of that dark, wavy hair in the process.
My heart pounds as I stare at the fallen man, and I try to tell myself it’s just fear and not … not—well, it’s not anything else, so there’s no use trying to put a name to it.