The Very Best of Tad Williams by Tad Williams

back on, either. Your ventilator’s off.” The room suddenly seemed very quiet, nothing but the distant sound of cars splashing along out on Jones Street, distant as the moon. “What happened to Edward?”
    The old man looked surprised. “I don’t...Nate, what are you saying...?”
    The gun was out of Nightingale’s coat and into his hand so quickly it might have simply appeared there. He leveled it at a spot between the old man’s two bushy white eyebrows. “I asked you what happened to Edward—the real Edward Arvedson. I’m only going to ask this once more. I swear I’ll kill him before I let you have his body, and I’m betting you can’t pull your little possession trick again on a full-grown, healthy man like me—especially not before I can pull the trigger.”
    Even in the half-light of the desk lamp, the change was a fearful one: Edward Arvedson’s wrinkled features did not alter in any great way, but something moved beneath the muscles and skin like a light-shunning creature burrowing through the dark earth. The eyes fixed his. Although the face was still Edward’s, somehow it no longer looked much like him. “You’re a clever boy, Nightingale,” said the stranger in his godfather’s body. “I should have noticed the ventilator never came back on, but as you’ve guessed, this sack of meat no longer has a breathing problem. In fact, it no longer needs to breathe at all.”
    “What’s happened to him?” The gun stayed trained on the spot between the old man’s eyes. “Talk fast.”
    A slow, cold smile stretched the lips. “That is not for me to say, but rather it is between him and his god. Perhaps he is strumming a harp with the other angels now...or writhing and shrieking in the deepest pits...”
    “Bastard!” Nightingale pulled back the trigger with his thumb. “You lie! He’s in there with you. And I know a dozen people who can make you jump right the hell back out...”
    The thing shook its head. “Oh, Mr. Nightingale, you’ve been playing the occult detective so long you’ve come to believe you’re really in a story—and that it will have a happy ending. We didn’t learn new ways to possess the living.” The smile returned, mocking and triumphant. “We have learned how to move into the bodies of the recently dead. Quite a breakthrough. It’s much, much easier than possession, and we cannot be evicted because the prior tenant...is gone. Your ‘Uncle Edward’ had a stroke, you see. We waited all around him as he died—oh, and believe me, we told him over and over what we would do, including this moment. Like you, he caused us a great deal of trouble over the years—and as you know, we dead have long memories. And when he was beyond our torments at last, well, this body was ours. Already my essence has strengthened it. It does not need to breathe, and as you can see...” The thing rose from the wheelchair with imperial calm and stood without wavering. Nightingale backed off a few steps, keeping the gun high. “...it no longer needs assistance to get around, either,” the thing finished. “I feel certain I’ll get years of use out of it before I have to seek another—time enough to contact and betray all of the rest of Edward Arvedson’s old friends.”
    “Who are you?” Nightingale fought against a despair that buffeted him like a cold wind. “Oh, for the love of God, what do you monsters want?”
    “Who am I? Just one of the hungry ones. One of the unforgiving.” It sat down again, making the wheelchair creak. “What do we want? Not to go quietly, as you would have us go—to disappear into the shadows of nonexistence and leave the rest of you to enjoy the light and warmth.” The thing lifted its knotted hands—Edward’s hands, as they had seemed such a short time ago—in a greedy gesture of seizure. “As you said, this is a war. We want what you have.” It laughed, and for the first time the voice sounded nothing at all like his godfather’s familiar