Next of Kin

by Dan Wells

  “Rosie,” I said. She looked at me in foggy horror, still confused from being knocked unconscious.

  “You see we still have plenty of leverage,” said Gidri. He stood up and walked toward her. “Who is she, Meshara? Someone from a life you stole? Does she know what you are—or who you think you are?” He reached for her and she shied back, turning to run, but the sharp-faced man slammed his fist into the side of her face, knocking her to the floor. I surged forward, trying to protect her, screaming at Gidri to leave her alone, but Ihsan grabbed me from behind, wrapping me in a parody of a hug, restraining me with unholy strength. Rosie reached out her fingers, trying to crawl across the floor, and the sharp-faced man stomped on her fingers with a heavy black boot.

  “Leave her alone,” I said, as furious at myself as I was at him. It was my fault she was here, my contact with her, my stupid, selfish, reckless attempt to be close to her. They’d been watching me, and they knew I cared about something, and now they were using it against me. “I’ll join your army,” I said, “I’ll do anything you ask, just let her go and don’t ever touch her again.”

  “That started like begging,” said Gidri, “but by the time you got to the end, it sounded suspiciously like threatening.” He moved his finger, a tiny, almost imperceptible signal, and the sharp-faced man kicked Rosie in the ribs.

  “Stop!” I cried, struggling like a madman. “What do you want me to say?”

  Gidri put out his hand, and the sharp-faced man stopped, stepping back against the wall. Gidri crouched down and pulled the gag from Rosie’s mouth, shushing her sobs and stroking her hair in small, soothing motions. “Shh. That’s right. Just calm down. Tell us your name.”

  “Let me go,” she said, curling up protectively.

  “Just tell us your name,” he said softly.

  “Leave her alone,” I said again, but he ignored me. She cringed back from the touch of his fingers on her face, but he touched her cheek again.

  “Just your name,” said Gidri.

  “Rose,” she said finally. Her voice was thick with fear.

  “Have you lost someone close to you, Rose?”

  “This is sick,” I said. “Just let her go.”

  “You asked me what I wanted you to say,” said Gidri, keeping his eyes on Rosie. “I want you to tell this Rose who you are.” He looked up at me suddenly. “Who you are to her.”

  “I’m nothing.” I tried to squirm out of Ihsan’s grasp, but he held me too tightly.

  “You are the opposite of nothing,” said Gidri.

  “I’m a god, then,” I said desperately. “Is that what you want me to say? To take my place in your pantheon of monsters? I’m a god of death and fear,” I said, each word splintering my heart into a thousand brittle shards, watching Rosie’s face shift and wince in terror. “I am Meshara, the god of dreams and nightmares and memory.”

  “Who did you lose, Rose?” asked Gidri.

  “Please, no,” I said. I could never tell her that. Let her be scared of me and terrified of them and traumatized and damaged, but don’t destroy her memory of Billy. Leave her that much at least.

  “Tell her who you are,” said Gidri.

  I am the one who loves you more than anything in the world, I thought, and I will protect you with my life. I closed my eyes and leaned back against Ihsan, resting my head against his face. He shifted uncomfortably, not knowing how to react.

  And then I began to drink.

  I drew his memories through his skin like sweat, draining his mind in a rush that froze him in place, motionless and helpless. He forgot where he came from, what he was doing, and he let go of me. Thoughtless. He forgot where he was, and who. Selfless. He forgot how to stand, how to swallow, how to breathe, and collapsed on the floor in a heap.

  “Holy Mother,” said Gidri, and I leapt at him, grabbing him by the arm, and I wasn’t just me but the tall man as well, an ancient warrior named Ihsan, a paragon of power too perfect for the world to endure, and I was great and I was glorious, and I was proud and scared and lost and tormented. Ihsan knew Gidri’s plan, knew that he had a knife in his boot, and so when he reached for it I was ready, and I laid my hands upon his head and drained it like a bottle, and Gidri ceased to be anything but a twitching vegetable, and abruptly I remembered a hatred so powerful I dropped to my knees—hate for me, for himself, for the entire world. Gidri’s memories squirmed through my mind like maggots, wriggling and biting and turning everything to filth, and then they sunk below the surface and were gone, lost in the fathomless depths of my mind.

  The sharp-faced man rose up, erupting in a forest of angles and blades, slashing at me with a slick brown thorn that opened my chest like a razor. I fell back, reaching in vain to stop him, and I thought I heard voices in the hall. The sharp man turned, listening, and bounded suddenly through the door like a hound of hell. An abrupt thunder of gunfire stopped him in his tracks and shook him like a leaf, and as he fell, a man in black rushed into view to finish him off with a machete. Rosie was screaming, and I managed to pull myself to my feet, oozing ash and blood, and pull her into the corner behind me. Another figure in black, a woman with dark brown skin, rushed past the frenzied blade fight in the hallway and charged into the office, firing at me with a large caliber handgun. The bullets ripped past me, destroying the wall in a shower of wood and plaster. Rosie screamed again, and the woman with the gun stopped, holding the gun on us with unswerving aim, and spoke into the radio strapped to her shoulder.

  “I have one still alive in here, but I can’t hit him without hurting the woman.”

  “So try harder,” said a voice on the radio, and I thought that I recognized it, but I couldn’t tell from where.

  “I need backup,” the woman insisted. “He’s healing.”

  I looked down at my chest, watching as the long, bloody gash slowly sealed itself closed. Thick black grime dripped from the wound and sizzled on the floor: soulstuff, withered and dark. I tried to speak, but my lungs were still reforming; I felt the bitter sear of ash in my throat.

  “Please don’t shoot us,” said Rosie. She had no special reason to trust me, but she knew me better than these sudden invaders with guns and knives, so she stayed in the corner behind me.

  The fight in the hall had drifted outside, but I could tell from shouts and roars and impacts that it was still raging. I wondered what kind of man could stand that long against a Withered. I looked back at the woman with the gun, knowing she could kill me if she tried, and praying that my lungs healed closed in time to defend myself.

  And then the boy from the rest home appeared in the door, dressed in black like the others, and suddenly I knew why I had recognized the voice on the radio. Why was he here? What was going on? His eyes were alert and clever and dead all at once. He walked with a strange, almost trembling gait, as if restraining himself with every step, but I couldn’t guess from what. His eyes roved over the bodies on the floor, the bloody mess of my chest, Rosie cowering in the corner, all with the same predatory detachment. He looked at me for a moment, silent, then slowly lowered himself to crouch over Gidri’s body.

  “You drained them?” he asked.

  I frowned, confused. How could he possibly—

  “He can only drain dead bodies,” said the woman with the gun.

  “Obviously not,” said the boy, and touched Gidri’s throat with a pale finger. “If they were dead, they’d turn to ash. That means he incapacitated them, and draining their minds is the only weapon he has.”

  The man with the machete reappeared in the hall, covered with greasy ash and bloody splinters. The fight was over, and he’d won. I felt a new wave of fear. These were the ones Gidri had talked about, the other side of our shadow war, and they were far more capable than I’d imagined.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Rosie.

  The woman with the gun ignored her, keeping the gun trained tightly on my chest. “Protocol says we kill him no matter what—”

  “Protocol can wait,” said the
boy, and looked at me with renewed interest, the way one would look at an insect pinned to a board. “These aren’t the first people you’ve drained without killing.”

  I felt a wave of shame, the deep, dark secret of a life I’d ruined, and I choked out an answer through my raw, ragged throat. “I never wanted to kill.” My voice was scratched and painful, but I forced the words out. “I thought I could . . . sustain myself without hurting anyone, but it was all wrong. I never meant to hurt him.”

  “Who?” asked the woman.

  “Merrill Evans,” said the boy, and I felt again the horrible sadness of that night, desperate and barely sentient, when I’d searched for a mind and found only my friend, and I couldn’t bear to kill him, so I’d tried what I’d thought was a mercy, and instead I’d damned him to a living hell. I sank to my knees, wishing I could forget, but this wrenching shame was the one thing I could never allow myself to lose. If I forgot what I’d done to Merrill, I might do it again to someone else.

  “I have a shot,” said the woman.

  “Wait,” said the boy, and turned to Rosie. “We’re with a special branch of the FBI, and we’re here to rescue you. We have an ambulance outside.” He gestured at the woman with the gun. “Will you go with my friend, here?”

  “Will you tell me what’s going on?” asked Rosie.

  “Outside,” said the boy, and after a moment’s hesitation Rosie stepped around me and took the woman’s hand, moving toward the hall but then stopping in the doorway. The woman tugged on her arm, but Rosie paused to look at me one final time. She opened her mouth to speak, but then turned and left without a word. Another connection severed, another loved one gone forever.

  The last little piece of my heart broke, and I looked back at the boy with the dead eyes.

  “How did you know about us?” I asked.

  “We have what you might call an informant.”

  “Another Withered?”

  “Friend of a friend.”

  I nodded, watching the pieces slowly fit together, but there was still so much I didn’t understand. “Who are you?”

  “My name’s John Cleaver,” said the boy, and his dead eyes lit up with the hollow outlines of a smile. “Professional psychopath.”

  “Why didn’t you kill me?”

  “The war I assume Gidri warned you about is real,” said John. He gestured at the carnage in the room. “I take it you didn’t like his offer, so I’d like you to hear mine.”

  I remembered a starless night on an ancient mountain, and another offer that had doomed us all. Ten thousand years of loss and pain.

  But I remembered Rosie, too. Our first kiss. A hundred thousand loves from a hundred thousand lives. I could hide, or I could give those lives meaning.

  I closed my eyes, and dreamed of death.

  About the Author

  When Dan was five years old, he got autographs from both Darth Vader and Mr. Rogers. He owns more than 300 board games. He has visited fifteen different countries and lived in three. He was diagnosed with hypochondria as a child, but it’s mostly gone now. He memorizes poetry for fun. He will eat pretty much anything at least once. He collects ugly ties. He is terrified of needles, mediocrity, and senile dementia. When he dies, his wife has specific instructions to play Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough” at his funeral.

  Visit Dan on the web at www.thedanwells.com.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Part 1

  Part 2

  Part 3

  Part 4

  Part 5

  Part 6

  Part 7

  Part 8

  Part 9

  About the Author