Famine (The Four Horsemen #3) - Laura Thalassa Page 0,146
that now surrounds our house snap by the dozens, their trunks crashing to the ground. That’s the only sound I can pick out, but there are others too—too many others. I think our house is making some of them.
Rain turns to hail and lightning flashes from the heavens—coming so fast and from so many places that I can’t make sense of it.
I cover my head as a bloodcurdling howl rises from the depths of the earth, the sound filling the sky, so deafening that it drowns out the roar of the storm.
Far in the distance, several of Taubaté’s derelict skyscrapers begin to fall.
I swallow my scream at the sight. They crumble apart as they collapse, kicking up plumes of debris in their wake.
At some point, the unearthly howl dies away, leaving my ears ringing. Slowly, I hear the sounds of frightened animals. Thousands of birds and bugs have already taken to the skies, but they fly in a confused, agitated sort of way, like neither land nor sky is safe.
A short ways from me, Famine is still kneeling on the ground.
His face is wiped clean of all expression.
Fear—true, undiluted fear, the kind you feel as a kid—floods my system.
“What was that?” I breathe.
I’m not sure he heard me; my voice is too quiet and our surroundings are too loud.
But then the Reaper’s unearthly green eyes move to mine. He holds my gaze for several seconds.
“My brother is awake.” Famine’s face is pale. “Death … lives.”
Chapter 52
Ana
Death lives.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
My pulse is pounding between my ears, and at the back of my throat I can taste the acrid tang of bile.
“Death?” I echo. “As in … your brother?”
He doesn’t even need to answer. There’s no misinterpreting the Reaper’s words.
Just the thought of the fourth horseman has my skin turning clammy. Death doesn’t seem like a lenient horseman.
“But … I thought that you said …” Famine said he was relinquishing his purpose.
Like Pestilence and War.
Oh God.
The Reaper lifts a hand, hovering it over the ground. From the earth a wispy stalk rises. Within seconds, a small bud forms at its tip. It bursts open, a delicate white flower unfurling.
“I didn’t lose my power,” the horseman murmurs.
“Were you supposed to?” What is going on?
When I first noticed the unnatural storm brewing above us, I came out here wanting to know what pissed the horseman off. But he didn’t look angry then so much as agonized, and if what he’s shared so far is any indication, he was trying to give up his task. Presumably for me.
“Why would you do that?” I ask before he can answer my previous question. “You don’t need to be mortal for me. You hate being mortal.”
His gaze meets mine. “Not anymore. Not with you,” he says.
I take all of him in, rain still pelting the two of us. He’s wearing his armor and his scythe and scales are at his side.
“But it doesn’t matter,” he says. “It didn’t work.”
“It didn’t work?” I echo. “Should it have?”
Famine pushes himself off the ground, the plant slipping off of his forearm. He gives me a strange, intense look.
The Reaper closes the distance between us and cups my face, pinning my hair to my cheeks.
“He’s coming here.”
“Who?” I ask, my heart galloping away.
But I know. I know.
I search the horseman’s face. Tell me everything is okay, I will him. Tell me the world is not about to end.
Famine’s gaze is fierce. “There’s something I need to show you.”
He’s still not acting right.
Famine drops his hands from my face, then moves away to grab his scales. After he scoops them up, he takes my hand, leading me back towards our house.
“Death is awake, and he’s coming here.”
There it is.
“Why would he come here?” I ask. Famine made it pretty clear when he told me about his encounter with War that the horsemen try to keep to their own corners of the world.
“Because I’ve been naughty,” the Reaper says.
“You’re always naughty,” I say. “Why is today any different?”
Other than, you know, Famine trying to relinquish himself of his duty.
“You’ll see.”
That sounds ominous.
We enter our house, and he pulls me towards the kitchen. On the countertop are ingredients from my failed attempts at baking—eggs and flour, butter and milk.
With a single sweep of his arm, Famine sends the ingredients careening off the counter. The glass jar of milk explodes and the eggs splatter, and Famine notices none of it.
Instead, he sets the scales on the cleared surface.