by Dan Wells
He looked up in surprise, but after a moment he sagged back down in his chair. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you know that name. Who’s your informer?”
“Just tell us about yourself,” said Ostler.
Elijah sighed and nodded. “They call me Meshara, though I don’t think it’s my original name. I think we’re older than that. My memory fades without a constant source of new ones and over the years I’ve missed too many times, lost too much of what I used to be. A lot of that, I admit, was on purpose. I’ve done a lot of things I was happy to forget.”
Detective Scott had joined us to listen, his opinion of our wild boogeyman stories somewhat altered by the man-shaped tree who’d injured four of his men before dissolving into sludge. Two were in critical condition but none had died. Yet.
“It started, I think, in a city,” said Elijah. “We were all from the same city mostly, though there were a few from other places around the valley. Rack and Ren were the ones who brought it to us, but I don’t remember where they came up with it—and when I say ‘it,’ I don’t mean an object, I mean the idea. Eternal life. We could become so much more than we were. We could be gods.”
“They’re human?” asked Diana.
“Or at least they started that way,” said Ostler.
Nathan was taking notes at a furious pace, his fingers clacking on the keyboard of his notebook computer.
Potash’s oxygen tank beeped. It reminded me of Darth Vader.
Elijah started tracing something on the table, and I craned my neck to see. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to it, just a nervous tic. “There was a ritual, I guess,” he said. “I don’t remember the details, but I suppose that’s to be expected. We had to give something up—something deep, some part of ourselves that defined who we were. It was a way of giving up our humanity, I guess, so we could move on to something bigger, but that might be my own opinion on it, after the fact. It’s hard to separate my original motives from the ten thousand years I’ve had to reconsider it. Giving it up was a freedom, Rack said—the only thing we were losing were the limits that held us back. I guess I believed him because why else would I choose to give up my memory?”
His face darkened. “I’ve wondered, a lot, what horrible thing I must have gone through to make me think that forgetting everything would be a release. I was just a dumb kid I guess—probably a city elder, honestly, if you think about the life expectancy we must have had back then. But still, a kid in comparison. Ten thousand years is a long time to look back on one decision. It didn’t take me long to replace whatever I’d been trying to forget with a thousand new experiences every bit as terrible. A lot of them worse. The human race is truly, truly evil.” He paused. “And unimaginably good.”
I watched him as he spoke, trying to read his face. Trying to see in him some element of Crowley, or Nobody, or Mary Gardner. Who were they, really? Back in the beginning, if there was one, who had they been?
“I don’t remember where that city was,” said Elijah. “There was a mountain nearby, though I know that doesn’t help much. I went east, I think, but eventually I went everywhere. I’ve lived all over the world. I live here now because it’s quiet, and because I have a steady source of memories I can use without hurting anyone.” He went suddenly quiet. “Except…” He paused again, as if warring with himself over how to say the next thing, or whether he should say it at all. I wondered what he was struggling to confess—we already knew about Merrill Evans—but when he finally spoke again it was a question. “Is Rosie okay?”
Ostler looked at Trujillo, then leaned forward and pushed a button. “She’s fine.”
Elijah’s face looked pained. “Does she … know? About me?”
“No, she doesn’t,” said Ostler. “She’s talked to the police and to a trauma counselor, and now she’s safe at home.”
“Thank you for that.” He leaned back in his chair, his head down. He looked deflated, as if all the life had gone out of him.
“Ask about The Hunter,” I said.
Ostler pushed the button again. “Can you tell us about the cannibal?”
“I don’t know anything,” said Elijah.
“You have the photos in front of you,” said Ostler. “Does any of it look familiar?”
Elijah sighed, then leaned forward to look at the images. “This definitely isn’t any of the three who came to me. Ihsan flays his victims—he was going to flay Ted if I hadn’t stopped him last night.”
“Who’s Ted?” asked Ostler into the mic.
“I’m sorry, Jacob,” said Elijah, shaking his head. “Jacob Carl. I forget his name all the time.”
Ostler frowned. “How long does your memory last before you need to drain another person?”
“A few weeks at most,” said Elijah. “Honestly, that was just a bad habit just now—my memory is sharper than it’s been in … forever, maybe. I’m used to drinking humans with seventy or eighty years of good memory, at the most. Last night I drank two Withered with ten thousand years each. I’ve never done that before. It might last me for months.”
“Then why can’t he remember the cannibal?” asked Diana. “You’d think that kind of thing would stick in your mind.”
“Ask about The Hunter,” I said again. “Use that name, see if it means anything to him.”
Ostler nodded and pressed the button again. “Do you know of any Withered who calls him- or herself The Hunter?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Perhaps the name ‘Hunter,’” she asked, “as first or last name, or maybe part of an alias?”
He thought, then shook his head. “Not that I can remember.”
“Ask about ancient hunters, then,” I said. “Ten thousand years ago his society had to include hunters, right? Was there anyone in the group who hunted for a living?”
Ostler relayed the question, but Elijah just kept shaking his head. “I’m sorry, I just can’t remember. There are too many holes in my memory.”
“There’s an easy fix to that,” said Potash. “Bring him one of the victims and let him go to town.”
“You can’t ask him to do that,” I said immediately.
“Why not?” asked Nathan. “It’s the most perfect thing ever. Do you realize how easy it would be to catch killers if we could just ask the victim: ‘who killed you?’”
“You’re asking him to remember being eaten alive,” I said.
Nathan shook his head. “We don’t know that the victims were conscious—”
“Would you risk it on yourself?” I asked. “If you could experience everything a murder victim went through, but it had to be you doing it, would you still think it was such an awesome idea?”
“When did you get so empathetic all of a sudden?” asked Nathan.
“I’d risk it,” said Potash, and looked at me. “And I know you would, too.”
I glowered at him. “If I did it, it would be specifically because I didn’t want to make anyone else do it. I can be responsible for my own suffering—that’s why we’re on this team in the first place. So we can do the hard stuff and no one else has to.”
“He’s on the team, too,” said Ostler, looking at Elijah through the glass. “He said he’d help us, and this might be the best way to do it.” She pushed the button for the speaker. “Mr. Sexton, it is vital that we learn as much as possible about this killer. Since your memories of him are incomplete, would you be willing to … ‘drink’ the memories of one of his victims?”
Elijah furrowed his brow, and the sides of his mouth drooped down in a mournful frown. “Do you realize what you’re asking?”
“I do.”
He took a deep breath. “Okay, then, but…” He glanced at the photos. “Is Valynne Maetani the most recent?”
“She is,” said Ostler. “Is that a problem?”
“I have to get them fresh,” said Elijah. “Twenty-four hours at the most. This thing that I do isn’t designed for dead brains; the memories start to degrade, I guess you�
�d say. I don’t think I can help you until he kills again.”
“That’s still good,” said Nathan. “Better late than never, right?”
Sure, I thought. Unless you’re the one he kills.
* * *
Stephen Applebaum and Valynne Maetani had both eaten at Pancho’s Pizza the night they were murdered; Ostler wanted to keep that detail secret, to avoid ruining the restaurant’s business completely, but Trujillo insisted that warning people was the best possible thing we could do, even if it meant driving The Hunter away and losing one of our only leads. My thoughts were somewhere in the middle: the pizza place was the ideal way to send this guy a message.
I would have to be extremely careful about the way I contacted him, not just because I was worried about him finding me, but because I knew Ostler would be furious. Any contact our team made with a Withered was supposed to be approved by her and open to the group; everyone knew everything. After the deadly police raid on the mortuary, I was done working like that; I would do this my way, and no one would get hurt but me.
The first step was to get away from Potash, which was harder than it sounded now that he was out of the hospital. He was a special forces assassin who’d been running surveillance on people since before I was born—he knew how to follow people, and he knew how to do it right. He was also dying of a lung condition, though, so I used that to my advantage. He slept at night with a CPAP machine on his face, which was basically a giant oxygen mask that forced air into his lungs. It didn’t restrain him as much as I’d hoped, but it was relatively loud. Asleep, with that on, and with my bedroom door closed, he could barely hear me at all. The first night after we questioned Elijah, I stayed awake reading and waited for him to fall asleep. Around two in the morning I slipped out my back window, shimmied down a power pole, and ran off into the darkness.
I preferred this time of the night. In a big city there might still be a lot going on in the early morning—nightclubs or parties or who knows what else—but in a small town like I’d grown up in, and even a smallish city like Fort Bruce, the entire world was asleep. The bars had already closed, and the early morning businesses hadn’t opened yet. I saw a car here and there, but always in the distance, and only for a moment. The world was silent and empty, and it was mine.
I had a few hours to kill before the thrift store opened—the first step in my plan—so I went to Whiteflower and watched Brooke’s window. She was on the third floor, the highest in the building, so I couldn’t see anything, but it was comforting to watch it. I used to stalk her like this back home in Clayton, watching her possessively. This was different. I didn’t have to dream about her thinking of me, or wanting me, or relying on me, because she already did in real life. I was her actual protector, and my motives weren’t creepy but laudable. Besides, I wasn’t in love with Brooke anymore.
I was in love with a dead girl.
Even though she was gone, I still thought about Marci all the time. I thought about the way she used to look at me, like I was puzzle with one piece left and she just had to find where to put it. I thought about the way she smiled, and the way she talked to her siblings—little twins, a boy and a girl—and the way she used to be more proud of the money she’d saved finding a great deal on some hot new outfit than she was of the outfit itself. She looked good in everything; the savings were the real accomplishment. I thought about the way she’d helped me track a serial killer, and the way she’d seen clues that I would never have seen in a hundred years. The way she’d put the pieces together. The way she’d grounded me to a reality I’d never experienced before.
The way we’d danced and the way we’d kissed and the way she’d died, all alone in a dark bathroom, while the demon called Nobody made her slit her own wrists.
I stood up and started walking, feeling the energy in my hands and feet like a vibrating engine. I thought about Marci all the time, but I shouldn’t. It always made me too excited—too angry. The sheer injustice of it, the wrongness, the powerlessness that I felt reliving a night I wasn’t even there for.… I wanted to punch the light post as I passed it on the corner, but I didn’t. I couldn’t let that rage get loose. I twisted my hands in my pockets and gripped the knife in its nylon sheath and clenched my teeth and thought about nothing. Of darkness. The empty city. The calm streets. The numbers, one by one in my head.
One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen.
Twenty-one.
Thirty-four.
I stopped and put my hands over my face, breathing deep. I wanted to start a fire, a real one, not that fake nonsense in a tiny metal box. But I couldn’t. Not tonight. Tonight had to stay completely hidden from everybody.
I checked my pocket again for money, pausing to count it. Fifty-four dollars and eighty cents. I crouched by a snow bank and scrubbed the coins with snow, removing any trace of my fingerprints that might be clinging to them. When the thrift store opened at five in the morning I bought a used coat, a hat, some thin gloves, and a pair of sunglasses. I walked around the streets in these for another hour, and when the copy center opened at six I bought thirty minutes of computer time and wrote an incendiary flyer about how Pancho’s Pizza was run by the cannibal himself, and that for all we knew the pizzas were topped with finger sausage and people-roni. I was pretty proud of that last one. I signed up for two free e-mail accounts and put one of them on the bottom of the flyers, then printed a hundred copies and distributed them all over Pancho’s neighborhood, an east-side borough called The Corners: shoving them into mail slots, sticking them under windshield wipers, even taping them to windows. I stayed away from Pancho’s itself because I knew the police were watching it. When I was done I took the bus to another part of town, wrote my second e-mail address on my last remaining flyer, and buried it under a small tree in a quiet residential neighborhood. It was just after seven, and no one had seen me. I memorized the location of the tree, made an X in the bark with my knife, and cleaned the blade of sap. I walked four blocks to another bus, rode to the far side of town, and dumped my new clothes in a donation bin. I rode a different bus away.
No one had seen my face, and nothing I’d touched had my fingerprint on it. No one could possibly trace the flyers back to me.
I wanted to stop by an Internet cafe and check the first e-mail address, but I knew it was too early. Even if The Hunter read the flyers and guessed that they were a message, there was no guarantee he would send an e-mail. He was clever, though, and meticulous, so he probably would. Probably. I just had to hope that he read the flyer, guessed what it was, and decided to write me before Ostler caught wind of it and had the e-mail account closed—or, worse, had it monitored remotely. Either way, any conversation that started on that e-mail account would have to move somewhere else immediately, hence the second account. I could give The Hunter the location of the tree, and as long as he got to it first, there’d be no evidence left for whoever tried to follow him. We’d have our own private conversation, with nobody the wiser.
But first I had to wait.
It was nearly eight in the morning, and almost time for Whiteflower to open. I used my last bits of change for one more bus, and walked the final few blocks to the rest home. I was the second one in the door.
Potash was waiting for me.
“Busy morning?” he said.
“You know how it goes.” I sat on the couch opposite him in the lobby. “The carpe doesn’t diem itself.”
“You have those backwards.”
“The eprac doesn’t … me-id … That’s hard to say, are you sure?”
Potash didn’t laugh or sigh or roll his eyes, he just stared. I relied on a very specific set of facial cues to help me figure out what people were feeling, but Potash never seemed to feel anything.
“I had a sausage biscuit on the way over here,” he said. “Three of them, actually. They’re cheap.”
I didn’t know where he was going with this. “Good … for you?”
“Just letting you know I didn’t eat them at th
e apartment, per your wishes.”
Aha. “Thanks.” I still wasn’t sure what we were talking about. Anyone else on the team would have bawled me out for insubordination by now.
“I know you better than you think,” he said, and lowered his voice as he leaned forward. “You take life more seriously than any seventeen-year-old I’ve ever met, but that’s never obvious from the outside. You try so hard to look like you don’t care about anything.”
“I care very much about not caring about anything,” I said. “Thank you for noticing.”
“I think the difference,” he said, “is that you only care about death. If something can kill you or someone you know, you take it seriously. With everything else, you pretend like it doesn’t matter. It’s time for you to take me seriously.”
That sounded incredibly like a threat, and I felt my throat begin to close in nervousness. I deflected without thinking. “Does someone need a hug?”
He put his hand on the coffee table between us, palm down, fingers loose, and I swear no hand motion in history has ever been so menacing. “You will take me seriously because I can and will kill you. You are a sociopathic murderer, and I’ve seen what you’re capable of, and we tolerate you on this team because you’re good at what you do, but you are not the only one who can do it. I do not share whatever maternal attachment Ostler may feel for you. I am not bound by the ethical concerns that inhibit others’ behavior. If I deem you to be a threat, to this team or to anyone else, I will kill you, and you will not see it coming.”
It occurred to me suddenly that Potash had probably killed more people, up close and personal, than any criminal I’d ever studied. Hit men were considered by many psychologists to be serial killers. Why not government operatives?
I nodded slowly. “Thanks for letting me know.”
He stood up and walked to the elevator. “I assume you’re here to talk to Brooke. Let’s go say hello before we head to the station.” I rose and followed him, saying nothing.
I keep two lists in my head: enemies and everyone else. There isn’t really a friends list, just people I can’t hurt, and people I can.