She emphasized the hand on her chest, as if showing how much of her rib cage was above it. “He doesn’t have a heart.”
I sat silently for a moment, trying to imagine what such a person would look like. Eventually I just shrugged and made some notes in one of Trujillo’s heavy binders. “Mary—I mean, Agarin—said she didn’t have time to wait for Rack. That means he’s probably not here yet, which is the only good news we’ve heard in weeks.”
“But he’s coming,” said Nathan.
“One monster at a time,” I said. “First we have our cannibal; let’s deal with him before we have to deal with him and Rack together.”
“We’re so dead,” said Nathan, shaking his head.
“Think back,” I said, catching Brooke with my eyes. “Think deep back into all those memories, into everything you know about the Withered, or the Cursed, or whatever you want to call them. Which one eats people?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have to know,” I said, and held up the picture again. She shied away from it, scared or disgusted or both, but I kept it up where she’d be forced to see it when she stopped averting her eyes. I’m so sorry, Brooke. “Look at the picture again, Nobody.” I hoped the other name would shock her deeper into the Withered’s memories, forcing her to remember more. “What does it remind you of? Where have you seen this before?”
“You’re freaking her out,” said Nathan.
“She’s half demon,” I said, trying to feel as cold as I could, “I’m not showing her anything she hasn’t seen before.”
“Just … knock it off,” he said, and pushed the photo facedown on the table. “Let’s go through the names instead. What can you tell us about Meshara?”
“He remembers,” said Brooke.
“You’ve told us that before,” said Nathan. “What does it mean? Can he read people’s minds—maybe remember other people’s memories?”
Forman—or Kanta—had possessed a kind of mind reading ability; he could feel other people’s emotions. But the downside was that he couldn’t turn it off. Maybe Meshara was similar, constantly thinking other people’s thoughts? That could explain why he isolated himself so completely from the rest of the world, working a lonely night job surrounded by the dead. No competing thoughts to get in the way of his own. It might also explain why his only friend was an Alzheimer’s patient—maybe Merrill Evans didn’t have enough of his own memories to intrude on Meshara’s.
But then he would have read my mind as well, I thought, and he’d have known that I was hunting him, and nothing he asked me would have made any sense. My brief conversation with him had convinced me that Meshara wasn’t hunting us. I still believed that—the other three might have been, but not him.
“What about Djoti,” asked Nathan. “That’s a name you’ve used a few times, possibly Egyptian in origin. What does Djoti do?”
Rack doesn’t have a heart.… I thought.
“We’re asking the wrong questions,” I said suddenly. Nathan looked at me in surprise. “Forman said the Withered were defined by what they lacked: Crowley didn’t have an identity, Forman didn’t have his own emotions, Nobody didn’t have her own body. They see what humans have and they want it for themselves.”
“She has a body now,” said Brooke.
“You said Rack doesn’t have a heart,” I told her. “What does Meshara not have? What is he missing?”
“He can’t remember,” said Brooke.
I frowned. “You just said he can.”
“Maybe she’s flipping into a new personality again,” said Nathan, and he leaned forward, speaking slowly and loudly. “We want to talk to Nobody—to Hulla. Is she in there?”
“Wait,” I said, slowly piecing it together, “she said it right: Meshara can’t remember, and he can. He doesn’t have his own memories, so he remembers your memories instead.”
“He was the god of dreams,” said Brooke.
“Does he dream other people’s memories?” I asked.
“He takes them,” said Brooke. “Straight out of your head—boop—like a refrigerator.”
“The Sumerian god of dreams was Mamu,” said Nathan. “He was the child of the sun, and shifted between genders.”
I gave him a sidelong glance. “You just know that off the top of your head?”
“Kid, I’ve written two books on Mesopotamian mythology; why do you think I’m on this team?”
“Well,” I said, looking back at Brooke. “I’m glad we’re finally figuring that out. Can Meshara change genders?”
“He has one body,” said Brooke. “A million minds.”
“That might be the same thing,” said Nathan. “Or he might have been some other god of dreams in some other culture. Ten thousand years is a long time.”
“But why does he work in a mortuary?” I asked Brooke. “Why work at night? Why avoid people? Why visit Merrill Evans?”
“Why do you avoid people?” asked Brooke.