The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Enemy (short story)

 was the fifteenth story in The Book of the Enemy. It expanded upon the narrative author Jay Eales had began in his previous Faction Paradox short stories Mightier Than the Sword and Born Among Briars.

Summary
1953


 * James Sheldrake is born, blind in his right eye and deaf in his left ear. In the maternity ward a couple in black clothes watch him before departing.

1960


 * Gideon Barrow is born, in later years claiming to have been able to recount the entire experience through drugs. A comic book writer, he used this material in his work. What he was unable to recall is a couple in black that seemed to fade into the background, present at his birth as well.

1965


 * Michelle Louise Montague was being brought home by her parents as a couple in black stood in their lounge, looking at the bookshelves, nodding in approval, and vanishing before the Montagues reach the lounge.

Characters

 * Sceneshifters
 * Jim Sheldrake
 * Gideon Barrow
 * Michelle Montague
 * Martin Montague
 * Donna Montague
 * Bobbie Buchanan
 * Edith Neville
 * Del Rictus
 * Leonard Holland
 * Steve Mandrill
 * Jez Splatt
 * Nicola
 * Ricardo do Nascimento
 * Philip Goodman
 * Billy Nguyen
 * Simon Sheldrake
 * Colin Shields
 * Belinda Sheldrake
 * Story
 * Steve O'Dowd
 * Daniel Strunk

Continuity

 * Jim Shelrake's time in Camp Gulliver is expanded upon in PROSE: Mightier Than the Sword.
 * Sheldrake writes a series of back-up stories for a licensed comic based off the Mister E television series. One of them explores Mister E's homeplanet being in a time war with a terrorist organisation known as the Black Sun Brigade whose motivation lies in actions Mister E's people had yet to take. This story is "a shade too close to the truth". (COMIC: Star Death, 4-D War, Black Sun Rising)
 * Imaginary Friends: The Hundred Year War: 1969 has a 1960s spy character named Malachi Yarrow (PROSE: No Enemy But Despair) and an imaginary spy character named X-12. (PROSE: Pre-narrative Briefing S)