Page 47 of Patron of Mercy

A small, cynical part of him kept pointing out that the mission had a time limit, and no matter what Lach said, their rekindled relationship probably did too. Lach needed Thanatos to help him find the scythe. Thanatos was a titan like Cronus, and he could locate magic that resonated with his own. That was all Lach wanted from him.

After that, once again, what did any man want with Death?

A glint on the horizon caught his eye, and from the way Lach leaned forward, he figured Lach had noticed it too.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Another boat.”

They continued sitting there together, but as they did, tension bunched Lach’s shoulders.

Thanatos raised a brow at him. “Do you not run into a lot of boats? Seems like something that would happen all the time.”

Lach leaned forward and opened a small storage bin, pulling out a set of binoculars. He stood and leaned forward as though the extra foot would make a difference in what he could see. “Maybe so,” he said, distracted and concerned. “But not usually boats headed directly at us.”

He went to the wheel and made a few adjustments, changing their direction for the first time in more than a day. Fraught moments passed before he checked the other boat again and cursed under his breath.

“Lach?” Thanatos asked. He felt out of place and useless. He was the closest thing to a pacifist among his kind. He was possibly the most useless person to have on your side in a fight, and the way Lach was tensing up, it looked like a fight was imminent.

Lach, still wearing nothing but a pair of loose sweatpants, ran below deck and came back up a moment later, holding a gun. Thanatos wasn’t conversant in modern technology, but the thing looked like it belonged in a museum.

“What are you doing with that?” he asked, and shamefully, his voice squeaked on the last word.

“They’re not just heading this way. They’re coming at us. They changed course to intercept when we turned.” Lach’s voice was tight with concern, but he looked more angry than frightened, and that worried Thanatos.

“I could take us—”

“I’m not leaving Mis.”

Right. That was an excellent point. Thanatos had grown to like the boat over the course of the previous few weeks, and he was sure she was a sentient creature, as Lach kept saying, and not simply an object that he was inordinately attached to. The way she and Lach occasionally argued was unmistakable, and he sympathized with her frustration toward her capricious partner in crime.

He stepped up next to Lach, blanket still wrapped around his shoulders. “Lach, that gun is ridiculous. It belongs in a collection, not a firefight.”

Lach snorted and waved him off. “You should go dress. They don’t get to see you in your underwear.”

Thanatos thought he muttered something about wishing he had a cannon as he headed below deck. As much as such a thing might help them, Thanatos did not like the notion of Lach with access to a cannon.

“I hope you don’t have a cannon,” he told the boat as he searched for his socks. “He’d get himself killed with it.”

There was a rattle above him, and he looked up to find a DVD from Lach’s collection shaking itself loose. It fell to the floor a few feet in front of him.Quantum Leap, the cover said.

He looked at it for a moment, trying to decide if he was getting the right message from it. “He doesn’t want to leave you.”

The cabin door opened, as though inviting him to depart.

He nodded, then stopped and looked at the nightstand where Lach’s wallet and phone sat. Better safe than sorry, he supposed, grabbing them and tucking them into his own pocket. “I understand. I’m not going to do anything drastic unless it’s called for, though. We’ll wait and see.” If a ship could sigh, he was pretty sure Misericordia did.

By the time he found his way back onto the deck, fully dressed, the other boat was mostly visible. It had come from in front of them, likely because if they had come from behind, they couldn’t have caught up with Misericordia. She was every bit as fast as Lach had claimed, after all.

Lach was trying to change course to avoid them still, but it looked as though they were at least fast enough to compensate for that.

“What do we do in a fight?” Thanatos asked.

Lach pulled the pistol out from where he’d tucked it into the waistband of his sweats—Thanatos cringed at how close it had been to rather sensitive bits—and waved it around. “I shoot them.”

“And you’ve got how many shots with that gun?”

Lach frowned in a way that Thanatos could only call a pout. “One.”

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