“Meshara.”
I looked up from my puzzle book to see a man standing in the doorway to my small office in the morgue’s garage and two more men behind him in the hall. The word they used was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time; one of the many things I’d learned and forgotten in my vast, patchwork life.
“I assume that’s a name?” I asked.
“Typical,” said the man, walking in and sitting down in the other chair. He was improbably handsome, but pulsing with feral power, like a hyena disguised as a god; the kind of killer that could easily bring down a healthy antelope but chose instead to tear the sick ones to pieces. He grinned, showing off his teeth as if to complete the metaphor in my head. “Understandable, though, isn’t it? I think the phrase is: You’ve forgotten more than the rest of us have ever learned.”
“All of us but Hulla,” said one of the other men. He was taller and broader, with a web of scars across his face that sparked a distant, unformed memory. The third man was whip-thin and silent.
The Gifted had come for me.
“Hulla doesn’t even go by that name anymore,” said the first man, leaning back in his chair. “Calls herself ‘Nobody.’ Can you believe it?”
“Called,” said the second man.
I sighed and closed my book. “Not all of us like those old names,” I said. “Elijah’s good enough for me.”
“It shouldn’t be.”
“I can’t even remember who I was back then,” I said softly. “I certainly can’t remember my name.”
“Meshara,” he said again. “And I’m Gidri, and this is Ihsan and—”
“You know I really don’t have any interest in your little . . . Gifted club, or whatever it is.” I shrugged, not really sure what else to say. “I said as much to the last one, whatever his name was, when he came here a few years ago. Forman, I think? Nothing’s changed since then. If anything, it’s changed in the other direction, and I’m less likely to join you now than I was.”
“Kanta,” said Gidri, “or Forman, as you insist on calling him, is dead.”
I straightened, feeling the import of his words like a blow to the head. “He is?” I looked at the tall man—Ihsan, Gidri had called him. “And you said . . . Hulla, as well?”
“And Mkhai,” said Gidri. “And Jadi. And, as of last week, Agarin.”
“Agarin was . . .” I tried to remember, struggling against the void in my mind. “She was a healer.”
“In name only,” said Gidri, “and not for centuries. Most recently she worked as a nurse, right here in your own city.” He grinned again, flashing his yellow teeth. “If you’ve picked up any infant bodies from the hospital, you’ve seen her work.”
I shook my head, sickened by the thought. “I had no idea.”
“That’s the whole point,” said Gidri. “She was lying low, just like you are, just like all of us are, but that’s not working anymore. They’re fighting back now.”
“Who is?”
“The humans.” Gidri said the word with a wicked blend of disgust and excitement, the way one might refer to a dogfight. A creature worth nothing but scorn had surprised him with its competence, and he was practically giddy at the violent implications. He sat up straight in his chair, leaning forward with tightly coiled strength. “They’ve hated us as long as they’ve known about us, or at least as long as they haven’t been worshipping us, but now they’re fighting back—not just one, here and there like they used to, but organized. A concerted effort of extermination.”
“Kanta organized you first,” I said. “He attracted too much attention.”
“If it wasn’t for Kanta, we wouldn’t even have known they were hunting us,” said Gidri. “How long have you been alone? How long since any of us had any goals at all beyond our basest instincts to hide and survive? For all we know they’ve killed dozens more—there are still so many Gifted we haven’t even found yet.”
“Well, you’ve found me, and I’m alive,” I said firmly, reopening my Sudoku book. I glanced nervously at the third man, whose name I hadn’t heard and who had thus far remained silent. He stared back, unmoving, and I looked at my book uncomfortably. “Go back and tell the others I’m fine, and while you’re at it, tell them to leave me alone.”
“You’re one of us.”
“In name only,” I said, echoing their description of Agarin. “I’ve always been closer to the humans than to you, even since the beginning.” I looked up. “You keep yourselves apart from them, but I can’t. I know them too well—I’ve been them more than I’ve been myself.” I shook my head firmly. “I wouldn’t join Kanta, and I won’t join you.”
“They are hunting us,” Gidri hissed. “Do you love them enough to lie down and let them kill you?”
“I . . .” I started and stopped, unsure what to say. “The more you kill, the more they’ll see of us, and the more they see, the more they’ll hate us. You’re starting a war that can only end one way.”
“With godhood!” he shouted, slamming his fist on the desk. He lowered his voice and hissed through clenched teeth. “They used to worship us, Meshara—they used to worship you. The god of wisdom, the god of beginnings, the god of dreams. They chanted your name in the darkness, dancing naked around the first fires of the ancient world, and now you’re here, hiding and tired and worthless, as scared of living as you are of dying.”
“Maybe it’s time for us to die,” I said, though my voice was weak. I didn’t want to, but his description gave me pause. What was I really living for? After thousands of years and the reigns of kings and the rise and fall of civilizations—why was I still here, when I had no plans beyond the next dose of memory? If my only ambition was the absence of death, was that really a life?
I remembered the hopes and goals and dreams of a numberless host of humans. I remembered nothing of my own. I hadn’t wanted anything for as long as I could remember . . . until Rosie.
“War is coming,” said Gidri, “whether you want it or not, and with it comes death: yours, or theirs.”
“You’re talking about the end of the world,” I said.
“Now you understand,” said Gidri. “Either we die, or we reclaim our place as gods.”
Ihsan’s voice was deep and ominous. “Guess which one we’re choosing.”
The third man, sharp-faced and sinister, merely watched me from the corner.