War (The Four Horsemen, #2)(82)

People are beginning to swarm the streets as they try to escape. Children are crying—hell, grown men and women are crying—families are fleeing and it’s all so, so hopeless.

I almost miss the aviary. The birds aren’t making much noise and everything on the streets is drowning out whatever sounds they are making.

I rush inside, and nearly get beheaded by a middle-aged man with an axe.

I jerk back just in time to miss the blade, but only just.

“I’m not here to hurt you!” I say.

He grips his weapon tighter. “You look like it to me.”

I hadn’t thought through the fact that I might look like the enemy. “I want to send out a message.”

The man brings his arm back, the axe blade gleaming. “I bet you do, you filthy liar. Get out of my building. Now.”

“War can raise the dead,” I rush out. “Did you know that?”

“Get out,” the man says again.

“He has an army, but he uses his dead to kill off everyone,” I rush out. “That’s why no one knew he was coming.”

Behind the man, I see a shaking older woman still in her night clothes. Probably his wife.

“Please,” I beg, looking at her. Already, the sounds are getting louder as the army encroaches outside, and the caged birds are beginning to look a little agitated, fluttering then resettling their wings. “I need to warn other cities. There’s not much time.”

“Why should I believe you?” the man says, drawing my attention back to him.

“Because I’ve seen it.”

He still doesn’t appear convinced.

“Look, if I wanted to do you harm, I wouldn’t try to reason with you. If we can get a message out, we can alert other cities.” And just maybe they’ll have time to evacuate before War’s army arrives.

The woman at the back of the building steps up to her husband. “Listen to the girl.”

The man looks harried. “She’s fighting with the horseman,” he objects.

“If you don’t write down her message, I will,” his wife says, a fire in her eyes.

I feel my throat thicken. This is the piece of humanity that I’ve been missing for so long. Bravery in the face of death.

Huffing, the man heads over to a desk pushed beneath the storefront’s main window. “What would you have me write?” he asks, disgruntled.

I turn to face the door, drawing an arrow, prepared to defend this place while I can.

I take a deep breath. “‘War is coming,’” I begin. “‘The horseman has an army at least 5,000 strong, and he’s been traveling down the coast from Israel.’” I continue. “‘He can raise the dead, and his dead patrol every city he’s raided, looking to kill any who survive—’”

The door to the aviary bangs open, and instinctively I release my arrow. I hit the soldier right between the eyes. The woman screams, recoiling back a little.

I grimace, but nock my bow again, pointing the weapon at the ground while I reach out and lock the door.

I call over to the man. “‘—Port Said is already falling as I write this,’” I say, continuing to direct the note. “‘Warn all you can of what I’ve told you.’”

A stone crashes through the window, just missing the aviary owner. He shouts, dropping his pen as the rock slams into the giant cage behind him, startling the birds.

His wife rushes over to him, grabbing some of the thin sheets of paper and pulling him away from the window. As I watch, she grabs a pen and begins scribbling down the same message.

My heart is beating so loudly I can hear it.

This isn’t going to work.

The fighting is right outside. I can hear other houses being raided, other families screaming for their lives. Worst of all are those cries that suddenly cut out. So many innocent people are being butchered, and behind all this carnage is War.

The door rattles as someone tries to get inside. It stops jiggling a second later, but then I see a man’s face in the window, a sword in his hand.

I level my arrow at his face. “Move along unless you want to die.”

Without another word, the soldier leaves the way he came.

I release a breath. So far, I’ve been fortunate, but it’s only a matter of time before my luck runs out.

The man steps into the communal bird cage behind his desk. Rolling up the note, he slips it into a tiny cylinder on the back of one of the pigeons. Once he’s finished attaching the message, he carries the bird to the back of the building and opens the door.

A soldier is waiting for him.

All I hear is a flutter of wings and a choking sound. Then the man is falling and the spooked bird is flapping into the sky.

His wife screams, dropping her pen and paper to rush over to him.

No, no, no.

I lift my bow and arrow, but before I can get a clean shot on the soldier, I hear the thump of an arrow and I see her body recoil. Another arrow follows.

The woman ran to her husband when she saw him killed. She ran to him. War thinks humans are the scourge of the earth, but is there anything so powerful as the way we love?

As soon as she falls, I see the woman who shot her.

I release my own arrow, and it clips the soldier in the shoulder. With a cry, she stumbles out of the back doorway, and now I’m stalking through the aviary, reloading.