by Dan Wells
Mom stared into my eyes, intense and terrified. “Me.”
The sludge stopped moving.
“Who’s been with him through everything?” Mom asked. “Who’s the only person who’s never left him, and the only person he’s never left? He even abandons himself sometimes, throwing his life away in one idiotic plan after another. But never his mother. Never me. I’ve been there since the beginning, helping him through every crisis, hiding the first demon’s slime from the police, showing him how to control himself and his dark side. I’m the only person he’s ever loved and the only person he’ll ever love, and if you want him to love you, then…” She paused, eyes wide, and swallowed again. “Then you have to take me.”
No! I shouted again, but it was too late; the demon was sliding off, oozing back, shooting out lines to Mom and wrapping itself around her hungrily.
“I knew you were coming here,” she said, watching me as the demon surged up her legs, “and I knew why.” It wrapped hungrily around her chest, dropping me painfully on the ground as it raced upward to her face. “I knew what you were planning, but I couldn’t let you do it. I—” and then it was around her face and flowing into every orifice, her mouth, her nose, her ears, her eyes. I struggled to my feet and dashed toward her, but a black tentacle pulled my leg to the side and I fell, landing on my hurt wrist again and crying out as it snapped audibly. I rolled on the ground, screaming, then forced myself to my knees and looked at Mom. The demon was on her fully now, an amorphous blob no longer connected to me or to Brooke. Her body stiffened as the ooze flowed in, pushing itself inside, the last black tendril disappearing inside just as I reached her.
“Mom,” I said. “Fight it.” I grasped uselessly at her ears and mouth, as if I could pull the sludge back out by force of will. “Fight back!” I shouted. “Push it out! We can save you!”
Mom fell forward into me, then staggered to the side. I put out a hand to steady her but she stumbled away. She clenched her teeth and grunted with effort. “Not … in control … yet.…” She was lurching forward. “Still … me.” She paused and fell to one knee, barely catching herself. She moved stiffly, like a mannequin coming to life. I tried to help her up, searching for anything I could do to save her, but she lurched away. I looked up, traced her path, and cried out.
“No!”
She was moving directly toward the burning car.
“The only … way.…” She stopped abruptly, her head cranking harshly to the side; I leapt forward to pull her back, but she raised a stiff arm and managed to bat my broken wrist. I screamed and fell to my knees, my vision blurring with the pain.
She fell against the side of the car, leaning on it for strength, and rolled to the side to look me in the face. “I love you, John.” Her voice was thick and layered, in harmony with itself—two voices in one. I stood up, reaching for her, but she turned stiffly and ducked into the raging fire of the broken side window. She howled in pain, flinching back and crawling forward all at once, and then she was through the window and falling onto the floor of the car. The flames leapt wildly around her, dancing and roaring.
I stood in shock, staring at the fire, watching numbly as her body rose up in the midst of the flames, writhing and screaming, black tendrils fighting their way out of her body only to shrivel in the superheated air and burn against the scalding roof and windows. She struggled and flailed; she blackened and died; the human and the demon fueled the fire until it sang with joy.
I couldn’t move. I stared at the fire, at the spot in the middle where my mom’s silhouette curled, faded, and disappeared, and I couldn’t budge an inch. There were a thousands thoughts in my head, crowding and jostling for attention until they became meaningless white noise and my head was empty. I was a hole in the world, emptiness given form. I was nothing. I was nobody.
Brooke moved, and my head turned to follow the motion. She was lying on the ground, broken and bleeding. Her leg had twitched; it twitched again. I stooped down and felt her breath on my hand, felt her pulse pumping weakly in her uncut wrist. She’s alive. I stared numbly, too surprised by her life to think about anything else. Her leg twitched again, and I started to think, as if it were the first, primordial thought, that it would be a good idea to pull her away from the burning car. I grabbed her forearms, raised them over her head, and dragged her to the side. Her cut wrist was still seeping blood, though slower than before, and I looked around for something to bandage it with. There was nothing. I took off my shirt, still soaked in gas and blood, and tied it tightly around the open gash.
Mom’s car was just a few yards away, the engine still running, the door still open; she must have pulled up in a rush and leapt out to save me. She saved me. I straightened up, looked back at the burning car, then down at Brooke. She came to stop me, she saw the demon, and she saved me. I took a step toward the burning car, then Mom’s car, then stopped again. Mom’s dead. The demon’s dead.
She saved me.
Brooke moaned. I need to call an ambulance. I bent down and searched Brooke’s jacket, finding her cell phone in her pocket and pulling it out. As I dialed 911 I heard sirens in the distance. That’s too soon. I haven’t called yet. I looked out at the road and saw lights flashing through the trees, red and blue, fire trucks and police cars and ambulances. Officer Jensen was running toward me, and then I was on the ground, kneeling by Brooke, clutching my arm to my chest. What’s wrong with my arm? I think it’s broken.
“John, are you okay?”
I was surrounded by uniforms—paramedics and police. I found a face that looked familiar and talked to it.
“My mom is dead.”
“She’s the one who called us,” said the face. It was Officer Jensen. “She said you were in trouble.”
“She’s dead. She was in the car.”
“What happened?”
“She killed the girls,” I said. “All the suicides, she killed them all.”
“Your mother?”
“No.” I shook my head, suddenly angry. “Nobody.”
The face was pushed away and another face came into view, checking my pulse and probing me with doctors’ implements. “We’re taking you to the hospital,” it said, “you’re going into shock. Can you tell us how you feel?”
“I feel…” What do I feel?
I guess that’s enough.
I feel.
26
Brooke woke up late that night, just as the doctor finished setting my wrist in a cast. She asked for me immediately, and when I walked into her hospital room a nurse was setting down a vase of flowers; there were dozens of vases and flowerpots adorning the room. No one got me flowers when I was in here last spring. Is that because I’m a guy, or because no one likes me?
“Hey, John,” said Brooke. She was pale and worn, her hair limp and flat against her head. There were deep bags under her eyes, and her arms looked thinner than normal. The nurse left, closing the door behind her, and we were alone. Brooke lifted her bandaged arm. “Looks like we’re twins.”
I held up my cast and nodded. “Great minds think alike.”
“And great wrists … I don’t know,” she said. “What happened to yours?”
“Broken,” I said. “You tripped me, then Mom did. Or I suppose technically the, uh, demon tripped me twice.” How much did she know?
“The demon,” said Brooke, looking down. “Is that what they are?”
So she at least remembers that much. “I don’t know,” I said. “Forman called them gods. Crowley hated being one, and Nobody—the one who got you—hated them all.”
“Crowley,” whispered Brooke. “Was he the first one? The Clayton Killer?”
“Yeah.”
“And you killed him?”
I didn’t say anything for a long time, then nodded my head. “Yeah.”
Brooke tapped her bandage. “And now this.” She took a breath. “It was horrifying, you know. All of it. I remember everything.”
“I wondered if you would.”
&nbs
p; “It was like our minds merged together, but I didn’t have any control; we saw the same things, and thought the same things, and remembered the same things, but she was in charge and I was just watching.” She closed her eyes. “The things she thought, John.… Pure darkness. Nothing good about anyone, ever, especially herself. All she did was hate and want, hate and want, over and over forever. I almost wanted you to kill me so I wouldn’t have to hear it anymore.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “Don’t be. You did what you thought you had to do. If I’d known about them before, I probably would have helped you kill the first two.” She shuddered. “Knowing what I know now, I’d definitely do it.”
I stared at her, and she stared back. “What are you saying?” I asked.
Her voice was calm and even, her gaze unflinching. “I’m saying we have to stop them,” she said. “There’s too many, and these three are nothing compared to what else is out there. We have to find them and we have to stop them.”
“But I lost Forman’s phone,” I said. “That was our only link—that was the only way we could find them, and track them, and—”
“I don’t think you understand,” said Brooke. “We don’t need Forman’s phone. I told you, I remember everything.”
I stood silently, processing her words and their ramifications. Everything. I nodded. “Okay. Now try to rest; it’s over for now.”
She laid back in the bed, staring at the ceiling. “No, John. It will never be over.”
* * *
Agent Ostler was waiting in the hall. She nodded as I stepped out.
“The doctor says you’re released,” she said. “You recover from trauma very quickly; the paramedics were impressed.”
“I’ve had a lot of practice.”
“That you have.” She fell into step beside me as we walked down the hall. “Brooke will be in the hospital a few more days. You mother, of course, is dead.”
“Thank you for breaking it to me so gently.”
“Perhaps you can tell me why there was a bullet hole in the roof of your car?”
“I bought it used.”
“Preliminary evidence from the car suggests, very strongly, that someone set fire to it purposefully. Any comment on that?”
“To be fair, it was a very ugly car.”
“Someone broke into Father Erikson’s house a few days ago, then broke into his chapel and forwarded his phone to, believe it or not, Agent Forman’s cell phone number.” She smiled humorlessly. “That number seems to turn up in the strangest places, don’t you think?”
“Or you may have just written it down wrong,” I said, shrugging. “Don’t feel bad; these things happen.”
Agent Ostler stepped in front of me and stopped, blocking my path. “Maybe this will get a real answer. Your mother called me this afternoon, said she had something I’d want to see. Perhaps you can guess what she showed me.”
I blew out a long, slow breath, pretending to think. “The shoe museum?”
“Black sludge,” she said. “She had some interesting theories about it as well. And she was very worried that you were getting yourself into some kind of trouble.”
I spread my arms, gesturing at the hospital around us. “How prophetic.”
Ostler looked at me a moment longer, then scowled. “You still don’t want to talk; that’s fine. But there’s one more thing I don’t understand.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “If my theory is correct, you’ve taken down three of the damn things.” I looked up, and she held my gaze as she spoke. “That’s a better record than any of my people, and we’ve been hunting them for years. How’d you do it?”
I stared at her. Did she really just say what I think she said? I weighed my options and decided to draw her out a little more. “Three what?”
“You tell me. Nobody’s figured that out yet.”
I smiled. “As a matter of fact, Nobody has.” I glanced around; we were completely alone. I leaned forward. “All that stuff you talked about earlier—the fire and the break-ins and everything. That all goes away.” I paused. “After that, Brooke and I have a little proposition for you.”
* * *
Marci’s body was laid out on the embalming table, pale and still beneath the sheet. I pulled back the top with my good hand, exposing her head and shoulders. She was beautiful. I scratched the cast on my broken wrist, staring down at Marci’s face—a face I’d seen a thousand times, ten thousand times, in the real world and in my dreams. I reached out a finger, gently, gingerly, and touched her cheek. It was cold.
“Hi,” I said, uncertain. “I know you’re not really there. This is just your body. Kind of funny, I guess, that the one guy who didn’t want you for your body ended up getting it anyway, and losing everything else.” I rested my hand on the table, looking down. “I don’t mean funny. Ironic? You were the one who was good with words, not me.”
I pulled up the side of the sheet, exposing her arm, and stroked her fingers. “My dad left when I was seven. He was a jerk. He beat my mom, and he hit me and Lauren a few times, and we hated him, but … we loved him too, you know? That’s what you do; he’s ‘Dad.’ I don’t think you can help it. And then he left, and it broke my heart—broke it so hard I didn’t think I even had one anymore.” I held her fingers tightly in my own, staring at her lifeless face. “I’ve never told this to anyone—not to Mom, not to Dr. Neblin, not to anybody. I suppose technically I still haven’t, since you’re not even here, but … it feels good to say it, anyway.”
I looked back at her hand, feeling the ridges and bones of each knuckle, rubbing them between my fingers. “Now my mom is gone too, and I know it sounds totally crazy, but … it’s one of the worst things that’s ever happened to me, and one of the best. She died, and it broke my heart again, and that means…” I looked back at Marci’s face, then up at the ceiling, watching the ventilator fan turn slowly behind its hard, metal grate. “I think that means that I have a heart.” I huffed, half a laugh and half a cry. “Who’d have guessed?”
There were tears on my cheek. I let go of Marci’s hand to wipe them away, then pulled the sheet back over her arm. “Listen, I’m no good at this. I’m still a mess—I’m probably a bigger mess now that Mom’s dead—and I can’t just change overnight. You’re the lucky one in this relationship, getting out before you had to know me any better and see how messed up I really am. But I wanted you to know—or I wanted to tell you, anyway—that you helped a lot. Mom’s death showed me that I’m not as lost as I thought I was and I can still have some kind of normal life, but you’re the one who showed me how. How to live. I’m sorry you’re not here for it, but … wherever you are, if you’re anywhere, maybe it’ll make you happy to know that you helped me.”
I paused, watching her, then leaned down and kissed her—a tiny brush of lips, almost nothing at all. “I think I finally know, now that you’re gone, that I really did love you. I just didn’t know how.” I straightened up. “I guess that isn’t very funny either.”
I pulled the sheet back over her head, walked to the door. “Goodnight, Marci.”
I paused. “I love you.”
I turned out the light and closed the door.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
I DON’T WANT TO KILL YOU
Copyright © 2011 by Dan Wells
All rights reserved.
A Tor® eBook
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wells, Dan, 1977–
I don’t want to kill you / Dan Wells.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN 9
78-0-7653-2249-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7653-2844-1 (trade paperback)
1. Cleaver, John Wayne (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Demonology—Fiction. 3. Supernatural—Fiction. 4. Good and evil—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3623.E4688I34 2011
813'.6—dc22
2010036672
First Edition: April 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-5423-5
First Tor eBook Edition: March 2011
THE DEVIL’S ONLY FRIEND
Dan Wells
A Tom Doherty Associates Book
New York
This, this the doom must be
Of all who’ve loved, and lived to see
The few bright things they thought would stay
For ever near them, die away.
—THOMAS MOORE, “ALONE IN CROWDS TO WANDER ON”
1
I’m good now. I promise.
My name is John Wayne Cleaver and I was born in a little town in the middle of nowhere called Clayton. You know those little towns on the side of the road, the ones where you drive through and you don’t notice them, or maybe you stop for gas and think, “what a dump, who would ever live here?” Well, I did, for sixteen years. And I wish I could say that it was boring, and that nothing ever happened, and that we lived in a sleepy haze of naive innocence far from the troubles of the modern world, but I can’t. I killed people. Not as many as other people, I’ll grant you, but that’s not much consolation, is it? If someone sat next to you on a bus, held out his hand and said, “Hi, I’m John, I’ve only killed a couple of people,” that wouldn’t exactly put your mind at ease. But yes, I’ve killed, and some of them were demons, true, but some of them were people. That I didn’t kill the people personally is beside the point; they are dead because of me. That changes you. You start to look at things differently, at lives and their fragility. It’s like we’re all Humpty Dumpty, held together by tiny, cracking shells, perched up on a wall like it’s no big deal. We think we’re invincible, and then one little crack and boom, out comes more blood and guts and screams than you’d ever thought could be inside a single body. And when that blood goes, everything else goes with it—breath, thought, movement. Existence. One minute you’re alive and then suddenly you’re not.