Craving

by Kristina Meister

  He closed his eyes and dropped his chin. “What you envision, that perfect image your mother passed to you of two people growing into one another, cannot happen if there is only one person. What you love is a reflection of your own desires, not a reality.”

  “Then what is the reality?” I argued, as if I had any right to demand that he feel anything. “That desire is the cause of suffering? Isn’t the desire to rid one’s self of suffering going to cause suffering?”

  His lips turned upward in a sorrowful smile. “Yes, but it is a different type of suffering.”

  Exasperated and on edge, I clenched my fists. “What does that mean?”

  Arthur turned and took hold of my wrist. “It means that I feel the same about everyone. There is no self here.” I pursed my lips on the obscenities I wanted to shout, because I knew he was right. I was doing it again, reaching for the stability I lacked, just causing myself to fall farther into the illusion. “If you stay beside me,” he continued, “you will be incomplete. If you reach for me, you will grasp at nothing. If you watch me, you will see only what you want.”

  “Unless I get rid of my ‘self’ and end my suffering.” I nodded and collapsed back into the seat. He was an enigma and wanted to stay that way. Whatever his justification was, I had to respect it. “I get it. It hurts, but I get it.”

  “I don’t want you to be in pain,” Arthur reassured, “but that is the only solution I have. I can’t go backward. Ideas only progress. I am sorry. I want to remain your friend.”

  “Then I can stay close to you?” I whispered.

  “As long as what you seek is within you and what you become is of you.”

  He opened the car door and got out, but when I rolled down the window, he stooped and nodded his head in encouragement.

  “Tell me what I’m about to do is what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Lilith, a river is unforgiving,” he breathed. “If you can’t hold your ground, you’ll be swept away. There is no ‘supposed to.’ Only what is.”

  Chapter 14

  As I waited in line, I watched Unger watch me from the same place where I had first laid eyes on Ursula. The dumpster was pushed back from the alley and the detective leaned against it, smoking a cigarette. Sam got in line several people behind me, and though he tried to give me a glance of support, the face I most wanted to see was Arthur’s. Arthur, however, was nowhere to be found. I assumed he had been positioned in the place where he was least likely to encounter any fleeing villains he would refuse to harm, or any rats he might accidentally squish. The bouncer eyed me as before, though this time I was more afraid than nervous.

  It was exactly as I remembered it, right down to the glowing ankh on my wrist, the garish lighting, and the stockyard. I squeezed through bodies that stank of sweat, was propelled onto the dance floor, and narrowly missed being elbowed in the head. On the stairwell, I pressed myself into the corner and waited. If the timing was right, any minute the security guard would appear.

  He came up the stairs moments later, earpiece in and looking at me as if he were hearing any number of foul untruths from it. “Ms. Pierce?”

  I nodded and let him lead me to the gallows. At the door, I gave a last backward glance to the powerless Sam before I was swallowed by the darkness. Everything was as it had been. I came toward her and could already see the blood coagulating on the surface of her soul.

  As if touched, she looked up and her emerald eyes narrowed. As the mouth twisted into a sneer, I knew that there was no strategy she could not break. There was only one solution and that was to ground myself in that moment and play from the hilt.

  “It wouldn’t do you any good.” She laughed. One of her fingers depressed a piano key and a high C wavered in the air.

  “Let’s cut the crap. There’s no point.” My insides were churning.

  Her laughter was so contrived it sounded mechanical. “What a pity. Tonight’s game is ruined!”

  “Wow, I’m real sorry about that. But I hear blood is calorically dense; you should maybe see it as an opportunity to cut back.”

  She turned and glared at me, her smile affixed and unflinching. “You know nothing, no matter what you can do. You’re weak and stupid, just like her.”

  Looking at her, my imagination went mad. I could see Eva standing where I was, being bullied by this woman and her perfection, and it enraged me. Warmth flooded my face and a determination so vicious took hold of me that I might have punched a hole through steel.

  “A bit defensive, are we?” I shot back. “What’s wrong, Ursula, don’t want to admit you have a problem?”

  She stood up, one gloved hand trailing over the onyx surface of the piano as she moved closer to me. I was certain she’d respond, become furious, reach for her concealed dagger, but instead, she stopped and looked at me bitterly.

  Egged on by her sullenness, I grinned. A change was coming over me. All my life I had sacrificed real happiness for an efficient model of a happy life and I would not do it anymore. I was fighting back and if it had not been her, it would have been someone else.

  “Vampirism wasn’t all it was cracked up to be? Bet it gets pretty lame after a while. How long you been doing this?”

  Her arms wrapped around her narrow body and I knew her weakness. For whatever reason, she hated what she was. It was on her face, in the mockery she made of pop culture, in the name of her club. It was a flaw and she loathed it.

  “You have no idea the immense thing with which you toy so casually,” she said softly. “You have no idea what a fool you are.”

  I shrugged, about ready to give up being me if it stopped people from saying that. “Beats being you.”

  Ursula’s face writhed. “Does it? Alone and friendless, not even able to admit that you didn't care about your own sister enough to stop her! You and I are the exact same creature, Lilith.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment and knew that I couldn’t run away. I would never get to say it to Eva, so why not scream it from the mountaintops?

  “You’re right. I fucked up, but here I am changing how I handle things. And no,” I returned calmly, “I’m not alone.”

  I thought of Arthur, my friend and teacher, and the notion calmed me. I could see the long dark hair, the full mouth, and most importantly, the blue eyes.

  Ursula’s face slackened and her mouth became a crimson O, just before it elongated into a manic, triumphant leer.

  “Truly brainless,” she hissed.

  Before I could respond, the door opened. The contestants were entering to play the game, unaware that they were pawns in an even larger match. As before, I took a seat on the sidelines, but unlike the first time, I was waiting for an opportunity. When she focused her mind on them, I hoped she would be unable to stay with me. Brainless or not, I knew there had to be a way in. Nothing was perfect, not even superpowers.

  I spotted the victim fated to nourish her craving and wondered if ever there had been a time when unseen forces had struggled over my future as Ursula and I were struggling for his. I was tempted to draw his attention and suggest he leave, but knew that if he got out, someone else would take his place.

  The game played out as it had the first time, and though I thought she would at least have been flustered, whatever it was that Ursula had seen in my head pitched her voice higher, enlarged her gestures, and envenomed her with bravado. She was cruel to them, her subtle shrewdness forgotten for voracious grasping, and the magic began to seep from the entertainment. From beloved queen to tyrant, she transformed, and while it happened I could not help but grin.

  Lie with gusto and confess with desperation; the game fed on their greatest fears and desires for belonging, but though they thought of it as sport, it was really a fix. It was a support group for shame-junkies, not a mea culpa. They wanted the consequences, masochists all. As I watched them, I understood and knew that the only way to truly win was to be fearless and need nothing.

  Walk into the river.

  The last round before fi
nals was about to begin and with a serene surety, I got to my feet and took a place in line.

  “You cannot play,” she snarled, and was about to brush me aside when a great cry rose from the audience. I looked directly into her flashing eyes and smiled as Arthur would have done.

  “Let her play!” they chanted, writhing beneath her thumb, ravenous to hear one more secret. She had laid down the rules, but unless she planned on clearing the room, she would have to let me play.

  She met my placidity with ire. “You will regret this.”

  I shook my head. “Desire is the cause of suffering and I can honestly say, Ursula, that I don’t want to win.”

  She shook with anger; her white skin looked almost bloodless. She stared at me, trying to find the outcome of my actions, but I had not foreseen them and she was no fortune teller. As the audience’s fervor grew to pitch, I closed my eyes and slowed my breathing. I reached for my toes with my thoughts and flexed them in my comfortable shoes.

  Spirit Ninja, I thought happily. Arthur would be proud. Until he heard what I was thinking and informed me that even wanting to accomplish something was desire and would inevitably lead to suffering.

  But it’s a different kind of suffering.

  The round carried on while I meditated, ignoring them completely. All that mattered was my turn, and if the game went according to my memory, then everyone before me was about to be eliminated. When I opened my eyes, she was standing in front of me, tossing my mind like a cat burglar looking for diamonds in the house of a pauper. The man beside me was waiting with baited breath to judge me and the rest of the room echoed with shouts and advice for him. The pause stretched into a minute and then two while Ursula glared at me and I smiled back blankly.

  “No one is innocent,” she whispered.

  I bowed my head. “True, but not everyone keeps secrets.”

  Her eyes were almost snakelike in the low light.

  “I do have one, though,” I replied with the most pleasant expression I could manage.

  She saw it just before I opened my mouth, but one hundred watchful eyes kept her at bay.

  “You’re going to kill the winner.”

  The audience quieted until disbelief set in. Then they hollered and hurled insults at me, but I was impervious, because I didn’t have any pride to damage.

  She laughed in my face, but her voice sounded tinny. Furiously, she slashed her gaze across the previous player’s face. “Pass judgment,” she spat.

  “Sh . . . she’s lying,” he said quietly, “isn’t she?”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head slowly. “That would be dishonest.”

  “Get out!” she shrieked. I opened my eyes. Her breast was heaving. She reached out and shoved the man beside me. “Everyone, now! No game! Get out!”

  The contestants stared around at each other and mumbled questions until Ursula took hold of the candelabra on the piano and hurled it at them.

  “Out!”

  In the wake of her spitting, raving lunacy, they cowered, and, dissatisfied with her already, slumped off all too willingly. One by one, they passed through the door while I faced down her hatred with a tilted head and a smile.

  “What’s wrong, Ursula? Didn’t you know the referee is as much a part of the game as the players?”

  Before I could move or step back, she lunged at me. Startled, I tried to step out of her way, but as her body collided with mine, my foot lodged on the candlestick. With a heavy grunt, I crashed to the floor with her weight on top of me. Her green fingernails dug into the skin of my throat as she got her hands around my neck. I pushed at her arms, but she was determined. She wanted blood, and mine would do. Snarling, spittle falling from her mouth, she loomed over me, leering like a jackal.

  “Stupid girl!” She laughed maniacally and pinned me to the ground. Letting go of my throat with one hand, she caught my fist as it flew toward her face. Darkness began to shroud the edges of my eyes and with distant fuzziness I felt something cold slide from her wrist, across our hands, and onto my arm.

  The pain brought me back to myself. It stabbed through my joint and radiated up my arm and through my hand. Her grip around my throat slackened and as sense returned to me, I looked over to find her greedy mouth sucking at the little trails of crimson trickling down my arm like sap. The gold bracelet was lodged in my flesh and her fingers were wrapped around my palm. Like a woman in the desert, she lapped at my blood and I looked on in horror, until something sparkled in the candles.

  Without a thought, in the speed that minds near death are granted, I snatched at it and embedded it into her chest. With a shriek and an impotent gasp, she tumbled backward. I scrambled up, holding my bleeding wrist carefully. Drops slid from my fingers onto the ground in time with the frantic pacing of my heart. I clamped my fingers across the veins and stared at her writhing body in disgust.

  She rolled slowly and with the determination of a wounded lioness, pushed herself onto her knees. The knife stuck from her chest just left of center. Hunched and bleeding, she panted up at me, her eyes burning with green fire.

  Her laugh was almost inaudible, rattling in her broken chest. “We are . . . the Sangha. We . . . are unstoppable.”

  Blood was pooling in my palm. I squeezed harder. “You look pretty stoppable to me, bitch.”

  She was losing strength, her eyes glazing over. “Pathetic,” she slobbered. One hand wrapped around the hilt protruding from her blouse. “You will . . . end up . . . . just like her.” She tipped forward and her free hand planted on the ground in an effort to keep her upright.

  “What did you do to my sister?”

  “Nothing,” she wheezed, laughing until the very end. “She did it . . . to herself.”

  I heard shouting at the door. My hand was going numb. I dropped to one knee and looked the witch in the eye.

  “What did she do?”

  The door thumped with what sounded like the weight of several people and protested with a crack. I reached out and grabbed her hair.

  “Tell me what she did!” I demanded.

  “Ask Arthur,” she mumbled, then she slid out of my hand and died.

  With a smash, the doorframe gave out and Sam toppled through with Unger close behind. The two men looked around and found me when I hit the floor. Sliding in the blood, Sam skidded to a halt beside me and took hold of my arm. Unger’s exhausted face appeared in front of me.

  “Did you touch anything!” he shouted.

  “Just the knife,” I whispered feebly. “She jumped me.”

  His eyes were wide with alarm. He took one look at my wrist and pushed me bodily into Sam’s embrace. “Get her out of here, now. Don’t stop for anything.”

  Chapter 15

  I woke up because a light was cascading through my eyelids as gracefully as a Mack truck. I could see I was in a hospital, but why? My mouth was dry. I tried to lick my lips, working hard to remember, but couldn’t. When I tried to push the call button and my arm resisted, it came back in indistinct waves like a bad dream.

  “Ah, you’re awake,” a voice said. “I’ll get the doctor.”

  A few minutes later, the unmistakable sounds of expensive shoes clattered across the sterile tile floor and the rolling wheels of the low stool rattled closer.

  A politely interested face leaned over me. “Been a long time since I’ve seen one of these,” he smiled, holding up Ursula’s gold bracelet. “They have a whole display of scarificators at this medical museum I visited when I was traveling through Europe.”

  I blinked at him and realized that he would be much less friendly if he knew what had happened. Something was going on.

  “Scar . . . what?”

  He lifted my arm and began to unwrap the bandages around my wrist. “Scarificators. They’re devices circa Edwardian and Victorian England. Designed for bloodletting.”

  I frowned. “Yeah, I kinda figured that.”

  He chuckled. “Tough way to learn.” Skin appeared, marred by a deep circular incision stitc
hed shut. “People used to believe that bleeding was a good idea. They thought it drained the body of whatever disease or bad spirits might be living inside it. It was a real treatment for almost two thousand years.”

  I wiggled my fingers slowly and watched the tendons move. It hurt so bad I almost wept. “Oooow!”

  Eyes glittering in scientific curiosity, he poked my middle finger. “It’ll hurt for a while, but that’s good, it means that the nerves aren’t damaged. It needs to be kept clean and bandaged. In a few weeks, I’ll remove the stitches. This thing”—he tossed the bracelet up and caught it almost lovingly—“has a depth adjustment. It was set pretty deep.”

  “Right.” I groaned and leaned back in the bed.

  “It must have happened during the fight. The woman probably didn’t even know she’d tweaked the setting,” he mused aloud and set the shimmering cuff on the rollaway table.

  I froze. So he knew about the fight, which meant either Unger had gotten me off on self-defense, or I was missing some information.

  “Estate sales are lethal, huh?”

  My stiffness slid away into the inflatable bed. “Ha ha,” I offered out of sheer relief.

  “Well,” he said, lowering himself until he could look at the bracelet at eye level, “I expect you’ll be a bit scarred.” His eyes flicked to mine in expectation. I gave him a gracious smile. “So you’ll want to get rid of it, no?”

  I lifted my eyebrows.

  His tongue traced his lips in expectation. “What do you want for it?”

  “Professional interest?” I chuckled.

  He gave an embarrassed shrug.

  “I’m afraid it’s not for sale,” said that gentle voice from the doorway in its unnamable accent.

  I turned and there was Arthur, smiling as sympathetically as ever.

  “Too bad,” the doctor said with a sigh, “it’s rare and in incredible condition. It’s an antique!”

  Arthur bowed his head. “If you’re a collector, I have some rare books you could buy instead.”