Famine (The Four Horsemen Book 3) Read online

  Instead, the tray holding my blood rises and rises. It shouldn’t be a strange sight. There’s more blood on Famine’s saucer after all; his side is heavier. But his scales have never weighed the literal mass of things.

  I suck in a breath. “How … ?”

  How could I possibly be holier than you?

  “It was my mind all along that ruled the scales, not God’s,” Famine says.

  My eyebrows draw together in confusion.

  He’s still holding my hand and blood is slipping down my fingers and onto his skin and the look he’s giving me … like he’s trying to will the answer into my head.

  “It’s not you who has changed,” he says, “It’s me.”

  I search his eyes. “But … you still hate humanity,” I say. Because those scales were never just about me. They were about what I represented—humankind.

  “Not anymore,” he says, repeating his earlier words. “Which is why my brother has risen.”

  I still don’t understand that. I don’t understand any of this. Famine supposedly tried to give up his task … but maybe it didn’t work? And now the fourth and final horseman has awoken and … he’s coming here? The more I process what’s happening, the sicker I feel.

  “What does he want?” I ask.

  “There is only one thing Thanatos ever wants,” Famine says. “Death.”

  Famine

  Death doesn’t show himself. Not in the hours that follow. Day turns to night and still he hasn’t arrived.

  I can feel him out there. There’s no agitated energy, just cold, emotionless determination. He’s coming closer and closer, but there’s no urgency.

  I stare down at Ana from where I sit on the bed. She’s finally managed to fall asleep, our sheets tangled around her legs. She’s absolute shit at sharing blankets. Just that one small detail has my chest tightening.

  How many more things have I yet to discover about her? There’s an entire world contained beneath that skin of hers, and I hunger to explore it all.

  But I might not get a chance to.

  Not without facing my brother first.

  I cannot tell what his intentions are—nor God’s for that matter. That was part of the deal: once we’re human, we live as humans do. The only divine intercession I’ve felt since I arrived was the Angelic word Ana spoke—and perhaps Ana’s miraculous recovery from the injuries my men wrought on her.

  Of course, if Death awoke, perhaps it was God who woke him. I cannot recall what woke me, only that it was time.

  Ana murmurs in her sleep, then shifts. Without intending to, I move over to her and kneel at her side.

  I brush her hair back from her face, my thumb stroking her temple.

  I didn’t know it would be like this. That it could be like this. I had seen humans’ hate, and I had felt the depths of it, but I never imagined they could love this deeply. That I could love this deeply.

  It’s frightening and it’s making me obsessive.

  “Nothing will happen to you,” I breathe. “On my very existence, I swear it.”

  Death can come, but he will not take my Ana.

  My brother doesn’t come that day or the one that follows—or even the one that follows that. It takes him two weeks to arrive in Taubaté. But the moment he does arrive, I know it.

  His power detonates, the force of it so strong that I drop the dagger I was sharpening.

  In an instant, the entire city of Taubaté is just gone, humans dropping dead where they stand. I sense their lifeforces all snuffed out like a candle. Thanatos doesn’t have to touch them to kill them—he doesn’t even need to make their flesh wither away as I must. He simply wills their souls to leave their bodies, and they do.

  It’s that easy for him.

  I’m still reeling from the display of power when I realize—

  “Ana.”

  All at once, I rise to my feet, the kitchen chair clattering to the ground behind me.

  “Ana!” This time I shout her name. And then I’m racing through the house, panic rising like a swell within me. “Ana!”

  What if she’s dead? What if he took her and—

  She comes running out of our bedroom. “What’s wrong?” she says, breathless, her eyes wide with worry.

  At the sight of her, alive, my legs buckle, and I fall to my knees.

  “Famine?” Now she’s the one who sounds afraid.

  She runs over to me. I catch her by the waist and hold her close, my face pressed against her stomach.

  Alive, I remind myself again.

  “I thought he took you,” I say against her.

  “Who?” she says, her fingers slipping through my hair. She tilts my face so that I’m looking up at her.

  “Death.” Even as I speak his name, my fear begins to rise all over again.

  If he didn’t kill Ana, it’s because he has some plan for her. A plan I want no part of.

  “He’s here?” she says.

  I nod.

  Even now I feel him like a pulse off in the distance, though I can’t sense precisely where he is. He must be keeping to the sky, where he knows I can’t pinpoint him.

  “And he’s close,” I say. I don’t bother telling her that everyone else is gone.

  The expression is wiped clean from her face.

  I take a deep breath and stand. I’ve gone over this moment every day for the past two weeks. What to do, what Ana’s to do.

  “Listen to me carefully,” I tell her now. “I want you to hide far away, beyond the fruit trees.”

  “But you said—”

  I said a lot of things in the last two weeks, some of them lies and some of them truths. Amongst them all, I told her that running and hiding were pointless, which they are. Death knows all souls. He’d find us. He’d find her.

  “Fuck what I said. If you stay here, he will kill you,” I say. “That is what he does.”

  It’s not the complete truth. Thanatos could just as easily kill her here as he could several kilometers away. The actual truth is that I want Ana to be far away when I face my brother because I want his focus to be on me and me alone.

  “What will he do to you?” she asks. Her voice wavers.

  “I’ll be fine.” Now I am telling the truth.

  “Can he kill you?” she asks.

  Can Death himself remove me from the face of the earth?

  God help me, but—

  “Yes.” I wouldn’t die, but it would be the end of my existence in this form.

  “I’m not leaving your side,” she says fiercely.

  I feel a swell of love so sharp it’s almost painful.

  “Damn you, Ana,” I say, “don’t make me force you away.”

  Emotions flicker across her face too rapidly for me to follow.

  “I’m not leaving you,” she says stubbornly.

  This woman of mine.

  I pull her in close and kiss her, my mouth rough on hers.

  “I’m not going to die,” I tell her. “He’s my brother, and I know how to handle him. I cannot, however, face him while worrying about you.”

  “I am not a liability, Famine, and I’m not going to let him …”

  She keeps talking, but I don’t hear her words.

  She’s not going to back down. Damn her and her stubbornness.

  Before Ana can finish making her point, I scoop her up and carry her outside.

  “Famine, put me down.” She tries to wriggle out of my arms.

  Only once we’re outside do I set her back down.

  Ana huffs, pushing a stray curl out of the way. “Do not manhandle—”

  Before she can finish, I flick my wrist. In seconds, a soft, waxy-leafed bush bursts from the earth, twining itself around her as it grows.

  Ana’s been a victim of this trick often enough to know she’s not going to like it.

  “Famine,” she hisses. “What are you doing?”

  “Hiding you,” I tell her, “because you won’t do it yourself.” As I speak, a line of plants burst f
rom the ground, creating a road of sorts from Ana all the way to the nearby forest’s tree line.

  Ana’s eyes flash, and the look of betrayal she gives me nearly makes me waver. If I wasn’t such a cold-hearted bastard, I might’ve actually lost my nerve.

  Instead, I flick my wrist again, and the plants begin to move, each one systematically grabbing her before handing her off to the next bit of foliage in line. It’s a strange and unnatural sight, watching the flora spirit away a grown woman into the forest beyond. It’s the thing of human myths.

  What’s not so mythical are the curses pouring from her mouth.

  “You goddamn bastard!” she shouts. “Let me fucking go! Famine, I swear upon your God, I will kick you in the dick so hard you’ll feel your balls in your throat.”

  Normally, the sadist in me gets quite a bit of pleasure from her protests. But right now there’s no joy in it. I stare after her until even her voice fades away.

  I go back inside the house long enough to grab my scythe before returning to my front yard. My gaze goes to the heavens, where thick storm clouds have amassed.

  He’s still out there. Still circling. And damn me, but I cannot pinpoint him with my senses and I cannot clear this sky enough to spot him with my naked eye.

  If I had been level-headed, I would easily blow away the incoming storm. But my feelings are inextricably bound up in Death’s arrival, and my anxiety cannot do more than intensify the already thick cloud cover.

  So I stare at the heavens and focus as best I can on where he might be.

  Minutes pass.

  “Come on, brother,” I murmur. “Let’s end this.”

  As though he heard my words, I sense him lowering himself from the sky. I still can’t spot him.

  In the distance, I hear my steed snort, then the dull pound of his hooves galloping towards me.

  Off in the opposite direction are another set of pounding hoof beats. I drag my gaze away from the sky.

  There, charging up the road is a dappled grey steed. His empty saddle is made of black leather and limned in silver, chthonic images styled across the seat.

  Death’s fabled horse.

  At last, Thanatos has found me.

  Chapter 53

  Ana

  I sit in a cage made of plants, seething. There are sticks in my hair, leaves down my shirt, and stalks up my skirt.

  The plants around me are no longer manhandling my ass, and they are no longer wrapped around my limbs, but the thick, barbed bush that encapsulates me is obviously meant to be a cage.

  After a minute, I stand up and brush myself off, my head skimming the branches that arch overhead.

  Will this plant release me if I put up a fight?

  I give it a test kick, just to see. When it doesn’t fight back—also, yay for living in a time when plants fight back—I begin to push my way through the foliage, elbowing back branches and ignoring the nicks and scrapes I get from the thorns.

  It takes me several minutes, but I get out of that stupid cage Famine wrought.

  Oh man, am I going to rip him a new asshole.

  I begin stalking back the way I came when I hear a loud, thumping noise overhead.

  Whomp—whomp—whomp.

  I glance up at the object descending from the sky. At first glance, it looks like an enormous black bird, but after several seconds, I realize it’s a winged man.

  The dark angel lowers himself to the earth, his massive black wings beating behind him, causing his dark hair to ripple. I catch a glimpse of glowing glyphs crawling up his neck, but it’s his beautiful, solemn face that snags my gaze.

  His feet touch the ground, and his dark wings fold up behind him. He doesn’t carry a sword or a scythe or any other weapon, but I feel as though I can’t draw in enough breath.

  The hairs across my arms stand on end; I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered a being that seems as lethal as this one does—Famine included.

  He strides forward, silver armor gleaming, his gaze trained on me.

  Around him, the underbrush withers away, their leaves curling up and their stalks turning brittle.

  It’s the same sick power that Famine has.

  Only this isn’t Famine.

  There’s only one creature in existence who this could be.

  “Death,” I whisper.

  And he’s coming for me.

  Famine

  I realize my mistake the moment my brother’s feet touch the earth. I sense him, not near me, but near her.

  Ana.

  Scythe in hand, I’m suddenly sprinting, cutting across thick vegetation, the bushes and trees bending out of my way. I run like my very life depends on it.

  But it’s not my life I’m worried about.

  It takes less than a minute for me to arrive where I so recently left Ana.

  Death stands among withered vines and shrubs, facing me off, his wings folded at his back. Kneeling in front of him—

  “Famine!” Ana chokes out. She lunges forward at the sight of me, but Thanatos catches her by the shoulder, jerking her back in place.

  The sight of him manhandling her has me rolling the scythe in my hand. I storm forward.

  “Don’t come any closer, brother,” Death says calmly, his fingers tightening their grip on Ana’s shoulder.

  I jerk to a halt, my eyes focused on where he holds her in place.

  Thanatos moves his hand to stroke Ana’s face, his fingers trailing over her cheekbone. Beneath his touch, she pinches her eyes, grimacing.

  He could take her from me in an instant, and I would be powerless to stop it. I am powerless. The thought stirs up violent thoughts. But just beneath that is another, sickening emotion—dread. Deep, existential dread for Ana.

  I can barely breathe around the thought of her dying.

  Ana exhales and opens her eyes again, her gaze finding mine. She looks oddly calm, but her breath is leaving her in ragged gasps, like she’s only barely controlling her fear.

  “Dear brother,” Thanatos says, “I was hoping our reunion would go a bit differently.”

  I clench my jaw, my focus moving to him.

  “Why are you here?”

  “You know why I am here,” Death says. After a moment that stretches out, he adds, “We were made to end these creatures, not to give in to them.”

  His fingers continue to pet Ana’s cheek. Her body is shaking, and a single, frightened tear escapes from her eyes.

  I grip my scythe tighter. At the sight of her fear, that old hunger rises in me—the one that needs to suck the marrow from the earth. Overhead, clouds stir and churn.

  Death tilts his head, his expression placid. “You surprised me, you know. The others, I was expecting to fail to some degree. War, after all, is made from men’s wicked desires, and Pestilence—well, he has an unnatural curiosity for humans as well. It came as no great shock that that they were felled by these women of fire and clay.

  “But you, dear brother, the great Famine himself, who has killed millions of humans without pause or remorse. I thought that surely you wouldn’t be so easily swayed.”

  Thanatos glances down at Ana, and I have to physically hold myself back from intervening.

  “I cannot fathom what it is about them that draws you in,” he says, sounding oddly intrigued. “I suppose it is in your nature to hunger for things—even things you shouldn’t.”

  He’s still stroking Ana’s face.

  “Brother,” I warn. I can feel myself beginning to tremble. I’m losing my patience and my control.

  But Thanatos has a fire in his eyes. “You and I, Famine, we blink our eyes and civilizations have risen and collapsed. The centuries fall away like petals of a flower. You are the bearer of the divine scales; you know the price of all things. Surely it must be obvious that a single, insignificant life isn’t a worthy trade for your immortality.”

  Finally, we arrive at the reason for this reunion. It must shake even unflinching Death that three of his brothers would choose mortality over dut
y.

  “I am the bearer of the scales, and I do understand the worth of all things,” I say. “It is for me to decide what a worthy trade is. And I have decided.”

  Death studies me for a long time. After a minute, he takes Ana by the chin and tilts her face up to him, studying her features. She meets my brother’s dark gaze, another tear slipping from her eyes.

  The gathering clouds above betray my emotions. I feel a drop hit my cheek, then another splash against my temple.

  “She has a pleasing enough form,” Death admits, “and her spirit is resilient and forgiving, but she will die soon enough. It is the way of these creatures. Even I cannot keep her here forever.”

  She will die soon enough?

  She won’t if I am by her side.

  “I don’t care, brother,” I say resolutely. “I have made my choice.”

  Thanatos sighs, moving his hand back to Ana’s cheek, those maddening fingers stroking her skin once more.

  “I will relieve you of your scales and your scythe,” he says, his voice full of mocking disbelief.

  Still, I nearly stagger.

  He will help me after all.

  “I will even allow you to strip yourself of your immortality and your duty,” he continues, “because you so love humanity.”

  I hadn’t asked for his permission when I first tried to cleave away my immortality, and I didn’t ask for it now, but I’ll—begrudgingly—take it all the same. This is what Death does, after all—he can strip men’s souls from their bones, and he can strip my immortality and purpose from mine.

  “But—” Death adds.

  But.

  That single word steals my breath, and I feel the weight of his tithe.

  “—but your mortality comes at a price.”

  Not many things shake me, but this does. What other hells must I endure?

  “I thought the price was steep enough as it is,” I say. Thanatos himself had been the one to say this was an unworthy trade.

  “You’re in the land of humans. There is no fairness here,” my brother replies.

  Damn him, but I cannot disagree.

  “You want mortality?” he continues. His hand moves to Ana’s shoulder once more. He squeezes it. “Then your female comes with me.”