“Who?” asked Diana.
“Merrill Evans,” I said, and Elijah closed his eyes. How had it happened, I wondered? Some night, twenty years ago, when Elijah’s mind was fading and he was desperate for more memories to fill it. The only sustenance he really needed, but not a body anywhere to take it from. Perhaps he’d gotten sloppy? Perhaps he’d let it go too long? And then he was stranded, without a mind to call his own, and there was Merrill Evans. “It isn’t really Alzheimer’s,” he’d told me that day in the lobby. Elijah had broken a man’s mind, and that knowledge hurt him more than any death ever could, because he’d done it himself.
I didn’t know how a lot of things felt, but I knew what it felt like to fail someone.
Elijah sank to his knees.
“I have a shot,” said Diana.
“Wait,” I said fiercely. Elijah couldn’t die here—not like this. I looked at Rose. “We’re with a special branch of the FBI and we’re here to rescue you. We have an ambulance outside.” I pointed at Diana. “Will you go with my friend, here?”
“Will you tell me what’s going on?” asked Rose.
I nodded. “Outside.” She hesitated, probably still in shock from the last few hours. But after a moment, she stepped around Elijah and took Diana’s hand. She led Rose out, casting me a glance halfway between hope and fear, and then they disappeared into the hall.
“How did you know about us?” asked Elijah. His voice was better now; he was healing quickly.
I wanted to trust him but I was still too cautious to tell him everything right up front. “We have what you might call an informant.”
“Another Withered?”
Close enough. “Friend of a friend.”
He nodded, as if this made some kind of satisfying sense. “Who are you?”
“My name’s John Cleaver,” I said. I realized that this was the first time I’d introduced myself to a Withered—the first time, maybe, that any official overture had been made between the groups. I wanted to add more circumstance to the occasion but I didn’t have any authority or even a title … and then a sudden whim took me and I couldn’t help the small smile that crept into the corner of my mouth. “Professional psychopath.”
He studied me a moment before speaking. “Why didn’t you kill me?”
“The war I assume Gidri warned you about is real,” I said. I pointed at the carnage in the room, at the blood and ash and destruction. “I take it you didn’t like his offer, so I’d like you to hear mine.”
He closed his eyes. “I don’t want to kill them.”
“You didn’t kill these.”
“Just wait.” He paused, and I wondered what he was thinking about. “They’re my brothers,” he said at last. “Not literally, but … we’re the same.”
“Don’t insult yourself,” I said.
His silence stretched out, broken only by Potash’s labored breathing in the background. After what felt like ages, Elijah spoke again, and his voice was soft and distant.
“We had such dreams, you know. Back in the beginning. I don’t even remember it all now, it was so long ago, but I remember the excitement—the thrill and the power, the dreams of immortality. We were going to rule the world. I guess we did, for a while.” He swept his hand across the cramped, bloody room. “Now look at us.”
“They’re organizing,” I said. “Counting these two and the one in the hall, we’ve stopped five in this city alone, and that’s set them back, but there are others. You know that better than I do. They’re out there and they’re killing, and we need to stop them. You don’t even have to do it yourself, just tell us what you know.” I looked at Gidri and his comatose companion. “Which one was the cannibal?”
“Cannibal?”
“One of them was sending us notes,” I said, “pinned to his half-eaten victims.”
“Neither of them eats people,” said Elijah, and pointed at the Withered in turn. “Gidri steals youth, and Ihsan steals skin. They’ve always gotten along.”
I frowned, fearing the worst but not daring to say it yet. “The thorny guy in the hall?”
“I don’t think he eats at all,” said Elijah.
Potash’s voice was a ragged whisper. “Looks like we’re not done with this town yet.”
10
“I don’t remember everything,” said Elijah.
“Great,” said Nathan. “Two inside sources and they’re both broken.”
“Quiet,” said Ostler.
Nathan shrugged. “He can’t hear me.”
We were sitting in the police station, watching Elijah through a one-way mirror. He was alone in the interrogation room, manacled hand and foot and chained to a hook in the floor. Volunteer or not, he hadn’t earned anyone’s trust yet.