The Devil's Only Friend

by Dan Wells

  “Do you recognize him?”

  She sneered. “Gidri.”

  Nathan sat up straighter. “The king guy?”

  “The Withered have a king?” asked Diana. “That’s great news.”

  “Gidri’s not the king,” I said. “He’s the one who wants to be king.” I looked at Brooke. “Are you sure that’s him?”

  “Can’t you tell?” demanded Brooke. Her face was curled up in an angry glare, practically snarling at the paper. “Just look at him.”

  “What does he lack?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Brooke spat.

  “Then … what does he have?” I asked. “What can he do?” It seemed like there were some bad feelings between Gidri and Nobody—she didn’t like any of the Withered, but I’d never seen her this riled up before.

  “He’s gorgeous,” said Brooke. “I hate him. I hate him! I hate him!” Without any warning she tore the photo to shreds, and while I was still trying to figure out what had made her so mad, she leapt forward, snatching Nathan’s notes and shredding them as well. He swore and grabbed them back, taking what he could and staggering backwards, knocking over his chair in a desperate attempt to get out of reach. “I hate him!” Brooke shouted, and leapt for Trujillo’s binder, which I’d been looking through. Diana pulled it away at the last second, and I pushed past her to grab at Brooke’s arms, trying to stop her. She screamed in a rage, no longer capable of coherent sentences, and Diana ran for the door while Nathan stooped down to salvage what he could of his torn papers.

  “Security!” Diana shouted, banging on the locked door and pulling on the emergency cord. I managed to grab Brooke’s wrists and hold them apart, but she lunged at me and snapped with her teeth, missing my face by millimeters. I stumbled backward, trying to avoid her, and lost my grip on her left arm; her fingers raked across my cheek and eye, and suddenly the door burst open and the room was swarming with nurses, catching her and holding her and bearing her backwards, forcing her down onto the bed as she thrashed and howled. I backed against the wall, breathing heavily.

  “She’s crazy!” shouted Nathan. “She should be in chains!”

  The fact that I didn’t kill him on the spot is perhaps the greatest testament to my self-control.

  “Guess she doesn’t like Gidri,” said Diana.

  “You think?” asked Nathan. He swore again, looking at the fistfuls of ripped paper he’d saved as if he didn’t know what to do with them.

  “There’s no way your bad news beats this,” I said.

  “Don’t be so sure,” said Diana. “We got a letter from the cannibal; Ostler wants the whole group to gather at the office.”

  I shot her disbelieving stare. A letter from the killer would be teeming with clues. “That’s bad news?”

  “You tell me,” said Diana. “He mentions you by name.”

  To Mr. John Cleaver, and his Esteemed Colleagues,

  I assume I need no introduction; you don’t know my name, but you’ve seen my work and you know what I am—“what” seems like a much more appropriate word than “who” in this instance, as I’m sure you’ll agree. But seeing my work and understanding it are two different things, and that is why I am writing to you. I do not take these actions lightly. I want you to understand them.

  First, the proof, so that we are entirely clear: the man in the morgue is named Stephen Applebaum, and you found him behind the Riverwalk Motel. He sustained multiple wounds to the legs, arms, and torso, numbering into the midthirties; I won’t bother with an exact number, as there is likely to be some variance in our counting methods. His stomach contents, as I assume you’ve been informed, will have included two slices of pizza—I was too far away to see the toppings—and a chocolate frosted donut. I assure you that his dietary habits helped make my own meal well-marbled and succulent. To help remove any lingering doubt that I am the one who killed him, I bit off the smallest toe on his left foot, then put his shoe back in place; this detail will not be public knowledge, and will be known only to the medical examiner and, I assume, your team. I am not a poseur, claiming credit for another’s work. I am the one you are seeking.

  Now for the explanation. Do not assume from my desire to explain myself that I am on some kind of crusade; I did not kill Applebaum to punish him, and if he was a sinner against some pale set of standards that is none of my concern. I did not kill him because I was righteous, or angry, or vengeant. I did not kill him for something he did or saw or knew. I did not kill him because he needed to die.

  I killed Applebaum because I was hungry. I am a predator, and he was my prey. To deny this is to deny the order of nature itself.

  You will struggle against me because it is in the nature of prey to do so. The antelope will always run from the lion. I don’t blame you for this or even warn you against it, nor will I waste your time with trite glorification of the thrill of the hunt. You will do your part and I will do mine. All I ask is that you remember this: the only animal safe from a lion is a lion.

  Find what the lion fears, and you will have found everything.

  “There is no signature,” said Agent Ostler, lowering the letter and looking at us. “It’s written by hand, in what I suspect is a fountain pen. I’ll make a photocopy as soon as this meeting’s over, and overnight the physical letter back to Langley for handwriting and DNA analysis. In the meantime, we need to figure out exactly what the hell this means.”

  I stood behind the others, thinking. How did it know my name? Had Forman or Nobody contacted another Withered before they died? Had Meshara really read my mind and discovered my identity? Or were Nathan’s worst fears true?

  Was Brooke communicating with the Withered?

  “Obviously it’s a warning,” said Diana. “He said it wasn’t, but how stupid does he think we are?”

  “Practically every sentence was a threat,” said Nathan.

  “I don’t think it’s that simple,” said Trujillo. “What we perceive as a threat, the man who wrote the letter might perceive in a totally different context.”

  Nathan snorted. “What possible context could make comparing us to prey not a threat?”

  “The very context presented in the letter,” said Trujillo. “A lion doesn’t eat an antelope because he hates it, or because he wants to scare it, or because he feels superior. A lion is superior, because he eats antelope.”

  “Lions don’t send letters to the antelope’s friends,” said Ostler. “He wanted us to know something, or he wouldn’t have communicated. This is not just a courtesy call from a helpful serial killer.”

  “Don’t worry about what he wanted to tell us,” I said. I was still embarrassed by my poor analysis of the body, so I was determined to analyze the letter as well as I possibly could. “We can figure that out later, when he sends us another letter. First we need—”

  “How do you know he’s going to send another one?” asked Nathan. “Or do you have some kind of inside knowledge we don’t?” He turned more fully toward me. “Why was your name on the letter?”

  I didn’t flinch away from his stare. “I don’t know.”

  “How does he know who you are?” Nathan pressed. “Or does he know you personally?”

  “Easy, Nathan,” said Diana.

  “If I knew who he was I’d tell you,” I said. “I want to find him just as much as you do.” Almost certainly more, I thought, but I didn’t say it out loud.

  “Why wait for a second letter?” asked Ostler. Her authority cut through Nathan’s accusations, and I started speaking again.

  “I’m not saying to abandon analysis completely,” I said. “Dr. Gentry didn’t let me finish. First we can look at the clues we have: not what he’s trying to tell us, but what he’s accidentally telling us without intending to. This letter is like a window into his psyche—what does it tell us about him?”

  “He’s obviously very formal,” said Trujillo, diving into the profile immediately. He’d probably been planning the same suggestion, but this time I’d said it first. �
��He uses elevated language and vocabulary, complicated sentence structure, and an almost … scholarly politeness.”

  “Contrast that with the nature of the attack,” I said. “The wounds were vicious—you described them as ‘feral’—but this letter was deliberate and intelligent. He obviously has a plan: he figured out where we are, so he could send us a letter, and he figured out who I am. This is not the kind of man who jumps people in alleys and tears them apart with his teeth.”

  “Except obviously he is,” said Diana. “Half of that letter was proof that he’s the killer.”

  “And why is it so important for him that we know that?” I asked. “He knew we’d doubt it, and he wanted to make sure we didn’t. Is he bragging? Did he write to us because he needs … what? Recognition? Credit? Fear? Don’t think about what he wants to tell us, think about what he wants for himself. What does this letter get him?” It all came back to the same thing. “What did he do that he didn’t have to do?”

  Ostler looked at me grimly. “Dr. Trujillo will figure that out. I know you’ve done this before, but he’s a professional.”

  “I can do this,” I said.

  “You’ll still be studying them,” said Ostler, “but I want you on Elijah Sexton. You’ll be assisting Diana.”

  “I can get more done alone,” I said.

  “Elijah went to a grief counseling meeting,” said Diana, ignoring my protest. “We don’t know why. The cops’ surveillance team showed up at the same place, tailing the three mystery Withered, who were apparently tailing Elijah.”

  “He’s not a part of their group,” I said again. “If the new Withered are following Elijah in secret, that’s just more proof that they’re not allies.”

  “Brooke suggested there might be two factions,” said Nathan. “We think this Gidri is leading one of them, so maybe he’s trying to recruit Elijah to his side?”

  “Could be,” said Diana. “If we knew what the two sides wanted we’d have a lot more to go on.”

  “Why would a Withered go to a grief counseling meeting?” asked Trujillo. “I can’t get over that—it feels like such abnormal behavior based on what we know of them.”

  “The counseling group is my assignment,” said Ostler. “I’ll talk to the police and learn what I can about it; Dr. Gentry, you stay with Brooke.”

  “What about Potash?” asked Nathan. “I’m not going back into that room without an armed guard and a license to kill.”

  “She’s a teenage girl,” I said, feeling anger surge up inside of me, but Ostler ignored the comment.

  “If all goes well they’ll release Potash in two days,” said Ostler. She picked up the letter. “You have your assignments; go.”

  8

  Potash got out of the hospital three days later; they gave him a cane, and refused to let him leave unless he used it, but he threw it out the car window almost as soon as we turned the corner. Diana told him to grow up, but she didn’t backtrack to get it.

  “I’m fine,” said Potash, who was sitting in the backseat. I had expected him to have an oxygen tank or something, but he was breathing fine on his own; he had a hefty prednisone prescription, but that was it. “I was in there two and a half weeks,” he said. “If they can’t cure me in that time, what are they even doing?”

  “You’ll be weak for a bit,” said Diana. “I’ve seen this with injured airmen—they spend a few days in the hospital, they neglect their fitness, and they think they can go right back to full capability the first day.”

  “I know what I’m doing,” Potash growled.

  “Do your exercises,” said Diana. “Push yourself, but don’t push yourself too far. John, you make sure he doesn’t work himself into a relapse.”

  “What makes you think I have any control over him?” I asked. “Let’s send him to your place so you can do it.”

  Diana rolled her eyes, keeping her hands on the wheel. “Please stop arguing about this—he’s staying with you, and that’s Ostler’s orders, and that’s final. All his stuff’s at your place anyway.”

  “He doesn’t have any stuff,” I said. “Four changes of identical clothes, and some blankets that have been officially ceded to Boy Dog.”

  “You went through my stuff?” he asked.

  “I was making sure you didn’t have any weapons,” I said. Which is code for “I was trying to find weapons.”

  “Don’t touch my stuff,” said Potash.

  “If you lived somewhere else I wouldn’t.”

  “John…,” Diana growled.

  We fell into an angry silence, and I thought about Elijah instead. How did his powers work? What was he doing? Why was he going to grief counseling, and visiting Merrill Evans, and everything else? What did he do that he didn’t have to do?

  He surrounded himself with death and darkness—the night shifts, the mortuary, the grief thing—and I could understand that. He lived the kind of life I’d love: no entanglements, no crowds, just peace and quiet and bodies to take care of. But I knew that I was different from most people, and most people don’t like those things. Why was he so much like me? Is that why I wanted so badly for him not to be hunting us—for him not to be the bad guy? Because I wanted him to be like me?

  “Diana,” I said, “why would you surround yourself with death?”

  “That’s … kind of a deep question. Are you asking why I became a sniper?”

  “No, I mean if you were Elijah. Or maybe, I don’t know. Why did you become a sniper?”

  “Don’t pretend like you suddenly want to talk about me,” said Diana. “If you just want to brainstorm that’s fine, you don’t have to get all awkward about it because I misunderstood you.”

  “I’m not pretending,” I said. “I just want to know why someone would live like that—is he damaged? Is he scared? Maybe your feelings would help explain his; I’m just grasping at straws.”

  “So I’m damaged now?” asked Diana.

  “You surround yourself with death,” said Potash to me. “Why do you do it?”

  “That’s different—”

  “Why?” he demanded.

  I hesitated. “Because I enjoy it.”

  “Maybe Elijah does, too,” said Diana. “He ‘remembers’ right? That’s his power? Well, maybe it’s like a memorial thing—he likes the solitude so he can pay his respects to the dead people he ‘remembers.’ You told me that was a big part of the job for you when you worked in your mother’s mortuary.”

  “That doesn’t hold together,” I said. “If he liked death for the same reasons I like death, he wouldn’t be at grief counseling.”

  “Because you don’t get sad?” asked Diana.

  “Because death is quiet,” I said. My heart sped up, like I’d gotten a burst of adrenaline from somewhere, but I was just sitting in the car. “Death doesn’t move, and it doesn’t talk, and it doesn’t … make noise.” I almost said “yell,” but that seemed so on-the-nose, it made me grimace just for thinking it. It wasn’t even the full reason. Marci never yelled at me, and she was dead, too, and that didn’t make me happy at all. My dad never yelled anymore, at least not where I could hear him, and he was still completely alive. The answer wasn’t that easy. I mumbled for a minute, wondering what I’d even been talking about, trying to regain my footing in the conversation. “Grief counseling is a thing you do with people,” I said at last. “They’re alive, and you listen to them talk. I would never do that. He’s not like me.”

  “Those counseling sessions are where people talk about the dead,” said Diana. “They remember their loved ones. Maybe for Elijah it’s something more—maybe he needs to remember, in order to survive. It’s all about what they lack, right? So he needs other people’s memories because he doesn’t have his own. Maybe counseling helps keep those memories … fresh, or whatever.”

  “Except he’s only done it the one time,” I said. “We’ve been watching him for weeks, and he’s only gone there once.” And then there was the answer, just staring me in the face. “He’s no
t remembering the dead,” I said. “He’s remembering the living.”

  “That’s not grief counseling,” said Diana. “That’d be some other therapy group.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Nobody goes out of their way to remember the living,” said Potash. “Not unless they’re lost, like with the MIA memorial. The rest of the time we just remember the dead.”

  “We remember the dead because we’re alive,” I said. “Maybe for dead people it’s the other way around.” I felt my eyes grow hot as I spoke, threatening tears, but I gritted my teeth and blinked them away. “And that’s who Elijah spends all his time with: dead people.”

  There was silence in the car for a moment, and then Diana began to nod. “Dead people from this community.”

  “Who else was at that grief session?” asked Potash.

  “Exactly,” I said. “If Elijah is absorbing the memories of the recently dead, those grief counseling sessions would be full of people he knows—or thinks he knows. He might be there to meet one in person, which is why he only started going recently. He’s meeting someone related to a very recent death.”

  “I’m driving,” said Diana, “one of you call Ostler.”

  “I’m already dialing,” said Potash. We waited a moment, then heard him speak. “This is Potash. Do you have the notes from the police about that grief meeting?” Pause. “Read me the list of everyone who attended that night. Hang on a second, I’m writing them down. Delaney Anderson. Rose Chapman. Jude Feldman. Jared Garrett. Susan Roman. Is that all?” Pause. “We’re just following up a lead. I’ll call you if it goes anywhere.”

  I already had the mortuary number tapped in and ready to go. I hit send and waited while it rang.