Hunger (5 page)

A very long pause before a relieved smile flitted across his lips. "Okay then." But the smile vanished, and he looked unconvinced.

Damn that Suzanne, putting such stupid ideas into his head!

"I'm still up for a movie," she said brightly, trying to convince him that she was still a good girlfriend. "We could even see that new one you've been talking about. You know, the one with all the gore and blood." She hated horror films, hated seeing killers wielding improbable weapons and slicing off people's limbs. But for James, she'd do it.

He shook his head as he started the engine. "Uh-uh. If you've got something that's making you puke, I'm getting you home. You should be in bed."

Deflating, Lisa looked down at her lap. "Sorry."

"Not a big deal," he said as he backed out of their spot.

"It was probably the Chinese food I had with Dad before," she said, feeling lame. "Maybe it was undercooked or something."

"Could be."

They rode back to her house in uncomfortable silence—James obviously wrestling with dark thoughts, and Lisa fretting over the way James was acting. When they pulled into her driveway, she was all but in tears.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice hitching. "I've ruined everything."

He smiled—such a beautiful smile—and reached over to stroke her hair. "Don't be stupid. I just want you healthy." He emphasized the last word, and he caught her gaze, holding it. "You know I love you, right?"

Biting her lip, she nodded. "Love you, too."

"Leese," he said, drinking her in. "If you need anything, you'll tell me, won't you?"

She nodded again.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"Okay then." He leaned over and kissed her brow, making Lisa feel like a little girl. "Go on in and get some rest. I'll call you tomorrow."

"Okay," she said, and then added, "I baked cookies for you. Let me run in and get them."

"No, don't. If you're up for it, I can come by tomorrow and get them, maybe stay for a while. Bring you some chicken soup," he said, grinning.

Chicken soup
, the Thin voice said.
One cup. Two hundred calories. Ninety minutes on the bike.

She tried to smile, but it faltered around the edges. "I'd like that," she lied.

They said their good nights, and Lisa slunk into her house.

A minute after Lisa shut her front door, a very troubled James drove away.

***

"What do you think?" Death asked. "Should I give her five minutes? Let her calm down first? Maybe give her some time to get ready for her big night out? Or should I throw her to the metaphorical wolves?"

The black horse flicked its ears. The pale horse snorted.

"You're right," Death said. "Girls take forever to get ready. I'll go get her."

But he took his time, first stretching out the kinks in his neck and shoulders from hunching over to play his guitar. As he'd said to the White Rider, there really was no need to rush. Starvation was a slow process. Taking an extra minute to collect Famine wouldn't make any difference at all.

Besides, if the new Famine had a heart attack, that would put a damper on his entire evening. Better to let the girl calm down.

Whistling, Death put away his guitar.

Leaning against the front door, Lisa blew out a shaky breath and mopped her forehead. She was having a truly terrible night, and she couldn't even blame PMS; she hadn't gotten her period in two months. (Last month, she'd quietly freaked out when she'd realized she was late, but two over-the-counter tests had proven she wasn't pregnant. She figured it was just a blip in her menstrual cycle, probably due to stress. God knew, she had more than enough stress to deal with.)

Yes, tonight was right up there on the suckascope, as Tammy would have said. Between the instant ashing of the food at the diner and James asking her if she was secretly making herself vomit, it was all Lisa could do not to scream. Her heart was jackhammering in her chest, and she was finding it hard to take a full breath.
Maybe I should take one of Mom's Lexapros
, she thought, yanking her hair away from her face,
or a cup of tea. I have to calm down.

From upstairs: "Princess? That you?"

"Hey, Dad." The sound of his voice was enough to kick Lisa into routine. She stripped off her jacket and hung it in the front closet, even though she was cold. She would have kept her jacket on, but she didn't want her father to worry. He was a man who liked everything in its place. Dishes belonged in the cupboard; jackets belonged in the closet. She closed the closet door, deciding that a hot cup of chamomile would be divine. And maybe it would even get her warm again.

"You're home early," her father called down. "Everything all right?"

"Not feeling so great, so James brought me back."

She headed into the kitchen, and a minute later, her father joined her. As she stood by the sink to fill the kettle, she noticed that her dad was clearly well into his third glass of vodka on the rocks—his eyes were beady and red rimmed, and he looked like a breath of air would knock him over. Lisa didn't begrudge his drinking; heck, it was Saturday night, and he wasn't driving anywhere.

"What's wrong, honey? Boy, you look pale." Her father touched a hand to her forehead, and she did her best not to flinch. Lisa wasn't a touchy-feely sort of girl. Hugs were rare in her family. And it had taken her weeks of dating James to get comfortable with his casual touches. Lately, being physical with him was an exercise in method acting. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy what they did together, but rather that she simply couldn't believe that he
wanted
to be together with her. Every time James touched her, Lisa had to pretend that she was worthy of his affection. It was exhausting.

"A bit of a stomach thing," she told her father, setting the kettle on the stovetop.

"Mmm. No fever." Mr. Lewis removed his hand, and Lisa released a breath. "Well," he said, "'tis the season for the flu. I'm sorry your night got cut short."

She turned the fire on the burner. "It's okay. I'm going to go to bed early."

"Smart. Want some of the evil pink stuff to coat your stomach?"

Lisa made a face.

"Yeah," her dad said, laughing, "I don't blame you. Still, it might help."

Meh.
"Pass, thanks."

"If you change your mind, it's in the medicine cabinet."

She was about to comment along the lines of
Where else would medicine be?
when the phone rang. Lisa grabbed it before her father could blink. "Hello?"

"Lisabeth," her mother said, sounding surprised and, unless Lisa was mistaken, a little put off. "I'm surprised you're home."

In other words, Lisa was a loser. Shrinking from the quiet accusation, Lisa mumbled, "Not feeling well."

"I'm sorry to hear that, dear."

A pause followed as Lisa waited for her mother to ask what was wrong and Mrs. Lewis waited for Lisa to ask how her trip was. After a full thirty seconds had passed, Lisa's mother sighed. "Is your father there?"

"Sure."

"Put him on, please. I'll see you tomorrow, dear."

"Okay." Lisa shoved the receiver at her father, then shut off the burner with a violent twist of her hand. Her father bleated at her mother, all
Yes, dear
and
Of course, dear
, getting whittled away more and more with every token sound of acquiescence.

Lisa fled.

She yanked open the basement door and nearly jumped down the stairs. The finished basement was her sanctuary: by the back wall, the stationary bicycle—complete with its heart rate monitor and calorie index—waited patiently for her supplication. Exercise was her release, her retreat, her salvation. She worshiped here every day, twice a day. Lisa grabbed her iPod from its charger and coded her workout playlist, then climbed onto the exercise bike and began her ritual of sweat—to hell with her cashmere sweater and boots. It didn't matter what she wore; as long as she wore herself out, she would be fine.

Two songs into her workout, her father climbed down the stairs. "Princess," he called out, "you sure you should be exercising if you're not feeling well?"

"Exercise kills germs," she said over the blare of music.

Her dad wasn't convinced. "I don't think it's a good idea for you to push yourself so hard."

"I'm taking it easy, I promise." And she was—instead of her usual hour on the bike, she was limiting it to forty-five minutes. She had increased the level of the program, but she decided not to tell her father that part.

Maybe he would have argued the point if he hadn't just gotten browbeaten by her mom. Instead of pushing back, he said, "Well, all right. I'm heading back upstairs. You know where I am if you need me."

Sure—her father would be heading for a fourth vodka-rocks in a little bit. Lisa wasn't about to interrupt his buzz; God knew, the man deserved a little happiness while his wife was away.

Thinking about her mother, Lisa gritted her teeth and kicked her workout up a notch. The fourth song came on, loud and proud, and Lisa pushed herself to go even faster. She was so into the burning feeling in her thighs that she didn't notice the temperature drop, nor the subtle change of the lighting.

But when Death spoke, she noticed.

"Seriously now," he said, "
this
is how you calm down?"

Lisa jumped out of her seat from the sound of the inhumanly cold voice, and she whirled around to see the delivery man from last night's dream. She recognized him—the long blond hair that hung in his face, the soulful eyes, the scruff of fuzz that framed his mouth and jaw, emphasizing the cleft in his chin. No uniform for him tonight, though; he wore a red and black striped sweater that looked like something James's horror movie killer would sport, and faded blue jeans that showed his legs to be longer and thinner than Lisa's. Sneakers clad his feet—old-fashioned Converse high tops, untied. He was standing by the stairs, arms crossed casually, a relaxed grin on his face.

Two thoughts struck her immediately: first, that she
knew
him, and not just from last night's dream—it was more like a nagging feeling that he looked like a movie star or a rock star, someone whose picture she'd seen before; and second, he absolutely terrified her. He looked human—actually, he looked sexy—but there was no way he was human. Deep in her heart, she knew this.

"I mean, really," he said. "Don't you think the tea would have been the better way to go? Less smelly, for one thing."

The insult shocked her out of her stunned fear, and she spluttered, "Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my house?"

He laughed softly, his eyes twinkling, and he shook his head. "Really now, Lisabeth. You know who I am."

She opened her mouth to say she most certainly did not, and never mind that he looked familiar because she'd never seen him before, not really, when suddenly it clicked. Humans have a race memory, or if you wanted to get Jungian, a collective unconscious—the feelings and experiences that we as a species have learned throughout the ages. In our souls, we recognize the angels and demons that walk among us, as well as the Old Ones who fall in between those categories. In that moment, Lisabeth Lewis recognized Death—even in his current form, which bore more than a passing resemblance to a dead alternative rock singer.

Lisa's eyes widened as recognition set in, and her breath strangled in her throat. Her legs went rubbery, and she collapsed against the exercise bike, thinking,
Oh God oh God oh God oh God,—

Death let out a sigh. "Come on, now. I'm not Him."

She blinked, his words startling her out of her fear. "Who?"

"God."

"G—" She stopped, and her eyes narrowed. "You read my mind?"

"Not that hard to do, especially when you're mentally babbling in terror." He smiled. It was a warm smile, which offset the cold tone of his voice. "No worries, though. I get that reaction a lot."

"Uh-huh." Okay, so Death was talking to her in the finished basement of her house. Right. "Um, what do you want?"

"Me? World peace. A cure for cancer. Food for the hungry." He let out a chuckle. "Okay, no, I'm kidding. What I want, Lisabeth, is for you to stop stalling and take up the mantle of Famine, like you said you'd do."

"The mantle of..."
Oh God, the dream.
And more than the dream: the black horse; the Scales on the kitchen table; the food in the diner. It all came rushing back, and Lisa crashed to her knees as her mind overloaded.

Time stretched, and for a very long moment, Lisa drowned in panic. Finally, a cold, thin hand offered her a lifeline; it rested on her shoulder, lightly, and squeezed, providing some small measure of comfort (albeit cold comfort).

Blinking, Lisa looked up and saw Death smiling at her. The part of her ruled by hormones couldn't help but notice how damn cute he was. The rest of her screamed that her hormones had a, ha-ha, death wish.

"Come on, Lisabeth," Death said, not unkindly. "It's time to do your job."

The words didn't make any sense. "My job?" Lisa said as Death helped her to her feet. She was a seventeen-year-old high school junior in the suburbs; she didn't have a
job.

"Thou art Famine, yo," Death said. "Time to make with the starvation."

Lisa took a shaky breath. "Look. Ah, I think we had a misunderstanding."

The life slowly bled out of Death's face, leaving it pale and terrifying. So very softly, he replied, "Did we now?"

She swallowed, nodded.

He cocked his head and regarded her thoughtfully. "Let's see," Death said, tapping his chin. "Did the misunderstanding happen as you were overdosing on your mother's antidepressants? Or was it sometime after that?"

Lisa bit her lip and looked at her feet.

"Because, if you prefer, I can put you back where I found you," Death said. "Overdosing. You'd taken three pills when I rang your doorbell. You had twenty-four to go. And then I would have come for you anyway, minus the job offer. Is that what you want, Lisabeth?"

She didn't answer.

"Tell me," Death said, no longer sounding thoughtful. "Do you still want to die? I'm happy to oblige."