Yashodh hates himself, I thought. It wasn’t much of a weakness, but it was a start.
“Rack’s plan is what put us here in the first place,” said Nobody. “We’d been fine for millennia, hidden and surviving, and then he tried to get back into power and the humans noticed us. They fought back. Rack killed twenty-three of them in Fort Bruce, but they killed five of us, and we can’t survive those odds. We have to go back into hiding.”
“So why are you here?” asked Yashodh. “You can go anywhere and be anyone, but I’m always me. I always have a cult. I can’t survive anywhere else, or any way else. They’ll find me, Rack or the humans or both. And if you’re with me they’ll find you, too.”
Interesting. He’d said, “I’m always me.” Did that mean he couldn’t change his shape the way so many Withered could? The FBI suspected that the Withered’s ancient origins were in neolithic Turkey; what I had seen as a vaguely Middle Eastern appearance could easily be Turkish. Was this really the same body Yashodh had had for ten thousand years? What else did that suggest about him? I needed him to keep talking about himself, hoping it could suggest something useful about the way his powers worked. I thought of a new tactic and started talking.
“Strength in numbers,” I said. “Rack’s plan failed because he started poking the bear, causing trouble and getting noticed. But if we stay quiet, if we stay low, then we can survive in the shadows and help defend each other from Rack’s recruiters. Whatever powers you have to fight back, two Withered are still better than one, right?”
Yashodh stared at me a moment, then turned back to Nobody. “What’s with him, anyway? He knows an awful lot.”
“We’re partners,” said Nobody.
“But that’s not like you,” said Yashodh. “You attach yourself to women because you want what they have, and sometimes that includes their men. But once you’ve got whatever it is, you’re never satisfied with it. How long have you been with this kid, without another suicide?”
“People change,” said Nobody.
“Not us,” said Yashodh, shaking his head. “Certainly not you and me. We’re the worst of them—the lowest, the weakest, the most repulsive—”
“But even a weak Withered is strong,” I said. “You have to have something. Hulla’s killed more girls than we can count, but they’ve all been herself. If Rack’s army is still out there, and if they come for us, we can’t fight back. We need your help.”
Yashodh kept his eyes on Nobody, studying her as I talked. After a moment he pursed his lips. “Is that what it is?” he asked. “You’ve stopped killing altogether, so now you’re weak and you think I can help you? Well let me tell you something, human.” He turned to face me. “I’m even more worthless than she is. I can’t fight, I can’t kill, I can’t do anything. I can make people love me, and if it works then life is tolerable; if it doesn’t then no one loves me at all and I have nothing, and what is the point of living? I’ll kill myself, just like she does. Except I won’t come back.” He opened his hands in a sudden burst. “Poof. I’m gone. You want me to fight a war, but it’s all I can do to stay one step ahead of oblivion. You’re better off without me, because at least you’re alive—all I am is not dead yet.”
I felt my hands trembling. Does this mean what I think it does? “You have to have something,” I said. “How fast can you heal?”
He pulled back the sleeve of his shirt, exposing a dull red welt on his arm. “I got this scratch pruning pyracantha bushes last week.” He covered it again. “I don’t heal any faster than you do. And when the armies finally come, they’ll hurt a lot more than a pyracantha.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Nobody. “I didn’t know.” She’d realized the same thing I had. A tear rolled down her face. “I’m so, so sorry.”
I reached into the dug-out pocket in my backpack strap, extracted the loaded magazine, and then pulled the gun from the back of my belt.
“Wait,” said Yashodh, “what’s going on?”
I couldn’t just kill people. Except for when I could. I slid the magazine into the gun, clicked it into place, and shot him in the chest. The gunshot rang in my ears, and Nobody covered hers, turning away and crying. Boy Dog howled, backing into the corner. Yashodh looked down at the bullet hole, moving his mouth, but no sound came out. He looked up, staring at me as if searching my face for answers, and then his body crumbled into thick, ashy sludge. Soulstuff, they called it. In ten seconds he was gone, with nothing but dark, acrid muck sizzling holes in the chair and the rug.
The door opened, and Sister Debbie looked in. “What was that sound?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I thought I saw a bug.”
Nobody was still crying.