excitement, the first true tendrils of fear take root.
Should’ve left with the others, reunion be damned.
Famine doesn’t see me as he passes; his gaze never wavers from the street ahead of him. I feel a wave of relief, followed, quizzically, by a hint of disappointment.
I stare after him and his horse as the rest of my town cheers, acting like this isn’t the end of our world when it so obviously is.
I stare until he’s far out of sight.
Elvita grabs my arm. “Time to go, Ana.”
Chapter 2
Long before Famine and his black steed ever set foot in Laguna, we knew he was coming. It would’ve been impossible not to.
In the weeks prior to his arrival, dozens—then hundreds, then thousands—of people made their way up the highway and through our city. The women I worked with at The Painted Angel joked about walking bow-legged for weeks after the influx of new clients. At the time.
But then some of these newcomers began to talk. They mentioned fruit withering on the vine and strange plants that could crush full grown men, and the very air itself seeming to change.
“Fucking crazy-ass bastards,” Izabel, one of my closest friends, had muttered after hearing the rumors.
But I knew better.
And then Famine had sent an envoy ahead of himself to make demands of our town. The horseman wanted casks of rum. Jugs of oil. Garments and gold and food and a grand house to stay in.
I shouldn’t even know this much. I probably wouldn’t either, had Antonio Oliveira, the town’s mayor, not been a regular customer of mine.
Elvita and I walk in silence. I’m not sure what’s running through her head, but the closer we get to the mayor’s house—the home Famine will be staying in during his visit—the more unease settles low into my belly.
I should be packing up and fleeing, just like I made my friends at the bordello vow to do.
Elvita finally breaks the silence. She clears her throat. “I hadn’t expected him to be so …”
“Fuckable?” I finish for her.
“I was going to say well-fed,” she says drily, “but fuckable works too.”
I raise my eyebrows at her. “You were hoping to throw me at some emaciated bag of bones?” I say. “I’m offended.”
She snorts, daintily. Everything she does is dainty and feminine, all of it meant to lure men in, even though these days, she rarely beds clients herself. That, she saves for the rest of her girls.
Like me.
“You screwed Joao,” she says, “and he was the closest thing to a skeleton I’ve ever seen.”
An unbidden memory of the old man comes to mind. He was little more than a bag of bones, and his plumbing was next to useless.
“Yeah, but he sent me flowers every day for a week and told me I looked like a goddess,” I say. Most customers couldn’t give a shit about my feelings. “I’d screw him until Kingdom Come for that alone.”
She swats me, stifling a grin.
“Oh, don’t act like you wouldn’t gobble up every cent that man was willing to throw at you,” I say.
“God rest his soul, I would.”
At the mention of God, I sober up. I crack my knuckles nervously.
It’s going to be alright. Famine doesn’t hate you. This might work.
This will work.
The rest of the walk is spent mostly in silence. We wind through the streets of Laguna, passing sagging homes and faded storefronts, the plaster chipped in most places.
Other residents are walking the same way we are, many of them carrying offerings.
I didn’t realize so many people knew where the horseman was staying …
Assuming, of course, that they’re headed his way. That’s where we’re going. And here I’d hoped that simply showing up at the Reaper’s doorstep would be enough to grab his attention.
Eventually, the worn, weathered homes and broken cement streets of Laguna end. There’s empty space, and then in the distance, a hill rises, and on it rests the mayor’s house, overlooking the glittering water.
We approach the old Oliveira mansion, with its red tile roof and blown glass windows. For as long as I can remember, the mayor and his family have lived here, amassing a fortune on the ships that move goods up and down the coast.
Up close, the home’s opulence is even more striking—there’s a cobblestone drive and a manicured yard and …
There’s already a line of people congregating near the door.
Motherfucker.
There goes my edge.
Just as we head up the front drive, the home’s double doors bang open. Two men drag Antonio out, his face bloody. He shouts