*
I was starting to like Elijah and that worried me. I didn’t like anybody, not even my mom when she was alive, not even Max, the kid I used to hang around with. See? Even in my head I didn’t call him a friend. They were all just people, and sometimes they got in the way, and sometimes I could get things from them, and sometimes they wanted things from me. But that’s as far as it ever went, until Marci. Marci I talked to because I liked talking to her—because I liked hearing what she said, and how she said it, and why. In the beginning all I wanted was a sounding board, and Marci’s father was a cop so she had inside information. She was a means to an end, just like everybody else, but over time that changed. Maybe not even while she was still alive. I don’t know. She became more to me than just an informant, or an acquaintance, or a piece of the scenery. She became a person I cared about.
I couldn’t care about Elijah because he wasn’t Marci. It was an insult to her memory that I should even pretend to feel a kinship with anyone after I’d felt one with her. I left the interrogation room in a confused, angry haze, not talking to anyone.
I was downright relieved when the new body was discovered a few minutes later.
The police brought it in through the basement, trying to keep the new death quiet as long as possible; the general public still had no idea it was a supernatural killer, but tensions were high just the same. I thought they were just delaying the inevitable, but nobody asked me. The victim this time was Kristen Mercer, a short, blond woman who looked nothing like anyone on our team. There went that theory. Obviously The Hunter was choosing his victims by some other formula; now we had to figure out what it was.
There was no note this time. We called for Elijah, and the police walked him through the hall with a pole-and-collar restraint, the kind they use for the most dangerous inmates. Nobody wanted to get close enough to touch him.
He stood before the body, which was fresh from a highway underpass, where a homeless man had found it; it hadn’t been cleaned or examined and blood still seeped from the gaping bite wounds. One upper arm was chewed down to the bone, and on her other side, the shoulder and back were missing giant chunks of meat. Her chest was nothing but a bloody hole, and bite marks dotted the rest of the corpse like a pox. You could feel the violence of the attack just by looking at it, and Elijah hesitated.
“Are you sure this is the only way?”
“To talk to the victim directly?” I asked. “We could ask her questions all day if you want, but I’m pretty sure this is the only way she’s going to answer.”
“I thought you were against this,” said Diana.
I looked at Elijah, feeling again that unbreakable knot of confusion and hatred and guilt. It was wrong not to hate him. I needed to hate him. “This is the only way,” I said, and immediately hated myself for echoing Elijah’s words. “I don’t have to like it for it to be right.”
The coroner was a pale woman named Hess; she looked up from her inspection of the body to address Ostler. “It’s a few hours old at the most. Probably died this morning, but I’ll have to do a full exam to be sure.”
“Then we can wait,” said Elijah. “I have until tonight at least—”
“Do it now, please,” said Ostler.
“Can’t we at least clean her up?” asked Elijah. “Or cover her, or something? This is a human being!”
“Like you care about that,” said Nathan.
“She’s a human being that I’m about to become,” said Elijah, his face growing fierce. “When I drain her I’ll have all of her memories—everything she’s thought, everything she’s felt—not just her death but her life, her family, her wedding, her dreams of the future. I will care about her more than anyone in this room.”
“The sooner you do it the sooner we can find her killer,” I said. “It’s just a few hours old—we’re right on his heels this time.” He looked at me, and I looked back coldly. “Stop stalling.”
Elijah took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. Ms. Hess backed away, and we all braced ourselves for whatever was about to happen. How did he “drink” a mind? Would it be gruesome, or violent, or traumatic? How long would it haunt our nightmares?
He put his hand on her forehead, and as we watched, his arm began to tremble.
“No,” he moaned. Nathan stepped back.
“My son!” Elijah shouted, staggering away from the body on the table. “Is he okay? Has somebody checked on him?”
“Where did you leave him?” asked Ostler.
“He’s at the neighbor’s,” said Elijah, tears streaming down his face. “I left him there to go shopping, I … I don’t think I made it.”
“Tell us the last thing you remember,” said Ostler firmly. Elijah hid his face, wailing into his hands.
“My husband,” he cried. “He doesn’t know.”