Next of Kin (5 page)

I looked at Rosie, remembering the day we were married, and the long nights we’d spent sick or worried or joyful in each other’s arms. “People,” I said.

“And what happened when those people were gone?”

I stared at her, so close I could almost touch her, and my voice came out in a strained whisper. “It is so much worse than simply being gone.”

Rosie nodded, silent a moment, before speaking softly. “A life can be important because it affects other things, and it can have purpose because of what it accomplishes, or what it intends to accomplish, and those are active words. They have movement and life behind them, and when somebody dies, that life goes away, and it feels sometimes like the purpose and importance goes with them.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Meaning is different. A life has meaning when it means something to someone else, and it can never do that on its own. It means something
to me
. To
you
. When that life is gone, it hurts us and it changes us and it feels sometimes like we’re tearing apart, but no matter where that life goes, or if it even goes anywhere at all, the things that it meant are still there because it meant them to you. And as long as you hold that inside of you, it’s not just
meant
, in the past tense, but
meaning
, in the present. Right now. You asked if making connections was worth it, and I promise you: it’s the only worthwhile thing in the world.”

I don’t know what I was expecting from the meeting. A reunion, perhaps, though I knew it wouldn’t happen. In years, maybe, when her loss had subsided . . . But no. Even if she was ready, I wouldn’t be the same anymore. I might even have forgotten her.

I forgot my way home and drove around in the middle of the night, thinking.

When I went to work again, the three Gifted were there, Gidri and Ihsan and the silent man. Ted was unconscious in the corner, his face bloody, and I ignored Gidri’s cheerful greeting as I walked to Ted’s body and leaned down to check his pulse and breathing. He was alive, but I couldn’t imagine that the Gifted intended to leave him that way for long. I straightened and turned to face them.

“Is this your new plan?” I asked. “I won’t join your army, so you kill my friend?”

“He’s still alive,” said the tall man.

“For now,” said Gidri. “You know how the rest of this proposal goes, so I’ll just sit and wait while you propose it to yourself.” He sat on the edge of the desk, watching me with a dark, laughing gleam in his eye. Ihsan stood beside him, the scar on his face more prominent now than it was before, and in the corner the third man, sharp-faced and ominous, lurked like a shadow.

“Am I really that important to you?” I asked.

“You’re our brother, Meshara.”

“You’ve never cared about that before.”

“How would you know?” asks Gidri, and the wicked grin that spread across his too-handsome face was all the more maddening, because I knew he was right: maybe they
did
care about me, and stood up for me, and I just couldn’t remember it because I couldn’t remember anything. I touched the keys on my lanyard and found myself reciting the litany of maintenance checks for the hearses. Did I still remember it all? Was I missing any steps? Ted would be able to help, but if I didn’t tread carefully Ted would never do anything again.

“We want you on our side, because you’re one of us,” said Gidri. “You belong with us—with the whole Cursed family.”

“Cursed?” I said, looking up in surprise. “I thought your side called us Gifted.”

“I know a curse when I see one,” said Gidri. “We wanted long life, assuming that it would be a good life by default, and we’ve had millennia to learn the truth of that mistake. But unless you’re ready to roll over and die, what difference does it make? Even monsters can defend themselves.”

I looked at Ted, unconscious and bloody. “From the big, scary humans.”

“They’re closer to winning than you think,” said Gidri. “If we found you, they might have, too, and they could be watching us right now. Or someone else, maybe? Someone who’s slowly inserted themselves into your life, gaining your trust, learning your secrets, waiting for the moment to strike.”

I thought about Rosie, but there was no way she was hunting us. I knew her too well—better, literally, than I knew myself. She and Merrill and Jacob were the only people I knew. And Ted. Was that Ted?

I looked in the corner, and it was Jacob. Ted got a new job two years ago. Or was it longer?

I needed a new mind, and soon.

“You look confused,” said Gidri.

“I’m fine.”

“Your memory’s failing,” he continued. “You need a new one. As a token of good faith, allow us to provide one.”

“Who?” I asked, but the tall man was already moving. I tried to step in front of Jacob, but he was too strong, and he pushed me out of the way like a doll and snapped Jacob’s neck with his hands. “No!” I shouted, finding my voice at last, but it was too late.

“I’ll need the skin when you’re done,” said the tall man, rubbing his scarred face, and his skin moved unnaturally across the bones beneath it, like a mask. I sank down at Jacob’s side, feeling again for his pulse and breathing, but he was gone. I tried to remember how well I knew him, but I couldn’t bring the thoughts to mind. Was he a stranger, or my best friend?

I felt the paranoia creeping in, triggered by the murder but rooted so much deeper. Every shadow was an enemy; every corner an ambush. When you can’t remember what lurks beyond your peripheral vision, the world becomes a twisted, threatening madhouse.

I closed my eyes, rage fighting with despair. “You’ve lost now,” I said, shaking my head at their callousness. “Jacob was my only friend, and you said if I joined you he could live. Now you have nothing to offer me.”

“Don’t be so sure,” said Gidri, and the sharp-faced man slipped silently into the hall. Gidri smiled, showing his teeth, and my heart sagged, for there were only two other people they could hold me with. “You were gone an awfully long time,” said Gidri.

“Please, no.”

And then there she was.

The sharp-faced man dragged Rosie into the office, bound and gagged to keep her silent in whatever back room they’d hidden her. She was half awake and stumbling, her coat torn, her clothes disheveled, her scalp bleeding in ragged patches where someone had yanked or dragged her by the hair. I stepped toward her, but the tall man held me back, his hands strong as iron.

“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.