Craving

by Kristina Meister

  “Detective Unger?”

  “I’ve sent them all to him, on Art’s orders,” Jinx said, careful not to startle me. “There’s about twenty in all, but based on the dates, I’m almost certain there’re more that have been covered up.”

  My throat ached and suddenly it was a struggle to swallow. “I don’t understand.”

  “They’re manufacturing a cure,” the creature across from me replied gently. “They hire a person to translate their supposed historical finds, in hopes that that person will incorporate the ideas therein. Inevitably, they do, and in each circumstance, they turn.”

  My wrist pulsed and with a careworn glance, I found it oozing again. “And then what? Why do they all commit suicide?”

  “We don’t know that they do, but it seems like quite a few have. The rest could have been the Sangha disposing of the evidence.”

  He brought up another article, this one from the turn of the century about a man who had apparently drowned. While I stared at the picture in mute shock, he receded into his chair.

  “Whatever the Sangha does to their subjects in order to extract their cure, seems to scramble their minds. Either that, or their brains were already scrambled. That’s all I can figure.”

  “So . . .” My eyes remained fixed on the image. His hair was different, his clothing like a slide from a stereoscope, but that wicked, apathetic smile was the same. “They put the source meme into a person’s hands, wait and see what happens, swoop in like the fucking Gestapo to gain information, fail, and then torture them? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Sure it does.”

  He followed my gaze to the monitor and with a click, resurrected another picture from the past, my past. It was an image I’d been sickened by from the moment I first saw it. The car twisted like warm pretzel dough, the sparkling auto glass scattered on the pavement like rock candy, the splatter of blood over which the photographer had probably salivated, and in the background, a crowd of people. “Local Historian and Wife Die in Drunk-driving Accident,” the headline read, and in the caption, “Robert and Susan Pierce are survived by two daughters.” The mouse directed my attention to a grainy corner of the crowd and with a few waves of mechanical wind to ruffle the pixels into place, I saw what he wanted me to see.

  That same fucking sleazy face.

  “Lily,” Jinx whispered, “Moksha killed your parents and brought your sister here. She was a lab experiment to fix them.”

  “That’s impossible!” I exclaimed, even though I could see the proof myself. My experience with the careless hand of Death had taught me that destruction was random, that nothing was fair. Life was organization and death was a scattering of pieces. The very act of living made the chaos of death unacceptable to me, and the notion that such disorganization was according to someone’s plan, was equally unacceptable. I couldn’t believe in God for that very reason, so why should I grant the Sangha any power in my life?

  “It’s not impossible on our timescale,” Jinx insisted politely, giving me enough time to say such a ridiculous thing, simply because he knew I needed to. “He made sure that all the therapists, advisors, and mentors she encountered were his agents, and when the time was right, and she was prepared, he snatched her up. He’s just their recruiter, going around finding the right type of person. She was just one of many and he’s gotten so good at it, I’m tempted to think she was the last.”

  “Last what?” I gasped. My skin crawled with uncanny awareness as I stared into the smug expression, frozen in time just like its owner. “What are they trying to achieve?”

  “Another Buddha to teach them the final lesson.”

  Winded, I sucked air in great gasps like a bellows. My vision began to darken, and I knew that if I didn’t get a hold of myself, I was going to pass out. It was all just words, surely. I could push them away and be objective, I was sure, but the feelings wouldn’t let me. Like ghosts, they swarmed around my mind, until the anxiety became the only calm place in the storm.

  “How do you know this?”

  He looked away from me. “Your sister had this article in one of her journals. Art found it. He asked me to research it.”

  “Why?” I demanded, fighting for consciousness. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “Eva figured it all out, and even though she believed she wasn’t the cure, that doesn’t mean she couldn’t see who could be. You’re pure, infected but unschooled, standing in the stream, finding your own way across just like the Buddha did. Art couldn’t tell you anything, because any influence he has over you destroys whatever change you’re capable of making. You’re the cure, Lilith. It’s you. At least, that’s what they believe. I think.”

  I shook my head adamantly, unable to speak. His face tilted toward me as if he couldn’t quite make out my thoughts for the first time and was trying to listen. In his eyes was the look of keen scientific interest tempered by his sympathy. It was obvious then, that whatever leap of logic I was meant to make, I hadn’t.

  “Arthur . . .” I attempted, “why would he . . .?”

  “Lily,” he replied soothingly, “he’s one of them too, remember?”

  Chapter 20

  “Have you talked to him about it?” Unger asked me, and to my surprise, his voice sounded more like a mediator than a pessimistic cop close to retirement with nothing to lose.

  Annoyed with him, I spun in Jinx’s captain chair, wishing I could command that photon torpedoes be aimed at the coffee shop. “No! I don’t want to talk to him! You were right and I didn’t listen to you. I feel like such an ass!”

  On the other end, his voice broke up in the bad reception.

  “What?”

  “I said, are you sure?”

  “First you tell me not to trust him and now you’re taking his side? What the hell, Unger, you leave your balls at his place?”

  The man grumbled and I could hear the crackling of his police radio. “Well . . . maybe I was wrong. Lilith, this goes farther than I can see. The evidence in those cases Jinx gave me doesn’t even exist anymore. I’ve done as much research as I can, but I’m stumped. Arthur is the only one who knows what he’s talking about and . . . well . . . so what if he was using you?”

  My mouth fell open in horrified shock. Was everyone losing their minds around me? Why was I the only sane one when I was the one who was supposed to be going nuts? Then again, like my mom had always said, when everyone around you seems nuts, maybe it was you.

  “I mean, he’s trying to save his . . . I don’t know . . . people?”

  I swiveled the chair again. Jinx came through the door, blue plastic glass with swirly straw in hand, sucking at what appeared to be another energy drink. I frowned at him and wiggled my fingers. With a petulant scowl, he did an about-face and disappeared to uncover a canned drink with which he was willing to part. “So what? I’m so not thinking of helping them out.”

  “Well, it’s not like Arthur’s going to hand you over to them,” he replied in an aggravated tone.

  “What the hell?” I gasped. “Since when are you his best friend?”

  “I’m not, but he already said you’d go to them. If he’s in on their conspiracy, then maybe he’s there to teach you to be more generous.”

  Insulted and shocked, I made faces at Jinx’s monitors. “Are you trying to tell me something, Unger?”

  “Just that you could try and see it from his perspective.”

  “You know, I just remembered that my car’s a rental and that my plane tickets are non-refundable.”

  He was on his way somewhere, his attention on his driving; either that, or he was thinking about what he would feel at my departure, though that hardly seemed the case.

  “Huh,” he said mirthlessly, “I forgot you live in California.”

  “Me too, but like I said, I’m starting to remember.”

  The car pulled into wherever it was going and the engine cut off. In the silence, his voice seemed much louder. “So you’re going to drop all this? You’re just going
to leave when you’re in this deep, when everything’s this fucked up?”

  I sighed. “No.” Jinx reappeared as I spun in a lazy circle. A metal projectile was hurled at my face and a thumb jabbed me out of his seat. Instead of sitting sidecar, I got up with my energy drink and wandered toward the stairs. “I know I can’t leave. I know he’s the only one who can explain anything, it’s just that . . . well . . . he’s not. So far everything I’ve learned about what’s really going on has been from Jinx and Eva, not Arthur.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Yes it is. He only told me things when it was inevitable that I would find out, when I absolutely had to know, or when he thought I might run away from him. I’m tempted to stay here and ignore him completely out of spite.”

  “Maybe go look up Moksha when you start sprouting fangs, and ask after their dental plan?” Unger said sarcastically, summing up how my logic would doom me to the fate Arthur had foretold.

  I stormed up the stairs vengefully, thinking of that damn stair-climber in my bedroom back at the house, and marched down the hall in a rage. “Yeah, you know what? Maybe I will. I mean, what the hell? I know I’m not going to cure anyone, so why not just walk right in and say ‘here’s your next failure, jackasses!’”

  I halted outside an open doorway. What lay beyond the threshold had to be an entire store of carefully sorted video games. Eyebrows raised, I backed away and with a shake of my head, found my nerves were cooling off in spite of me, thanks to Jinx’s humorous influence. I popped open the can while Unger gathered his belongings, muttering curses under his breath at my rashness, and sipped at it, marveling that the stuff reminded me of Flintstone vitamins.

  “You don’t want to do that, Lilith,” he admonished. “They’re not shy about killing people, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’ve been learning all kinds of crap about these guys, thanks to Arthur’s guidance.”

  “Like what? And when did he ‘guide’ you?”

  “For your information, he called me on my cell.”

  “What the hell is going on? Am I in the twilight zone?”

  He sighed. “AMRTA is just a front. There are so many shell corporations and false accounts here, that I’d need ten forensic accountants and Elliot Ness to even find where it begins. Whatever they’re doing, it’s a sure bet they’re not just doing one thing, and I’m almost positive that they’re not just doing it here.”

  I opened another door. It was a bathroom, a very nice, large bathroom that seemed cut from one giant slab of dark green rock. It was bigger than my bedroom back home and while I stood in the dry rain-shower, I momentarily pondered the adage that money couldn’t buy happiness. It seemed to me that four hundred thousand dollars could buy me some happiness, in the form of a giant Jacuzzi tub.

  “Wow, Matthew, you almost sounded . . . I dunno, inspired. Getting back your detective lust? Gonna start ending your sentences with ‘see?’”

  “Ha, that was a gangster.”

  “Shut up. So, it’s a big conspiracy, then? Jinx said there were more groups of Arhat than just the Sangha.” I trotted down the corridor, opening doors at random, not entirely sure what I was looking for, feeling like a hero in a story trying to locate that one magical item that would solve all my problems.

  “It’s amazing what a badge can get you, but honestly, Jinx probably knows more than I do. He’s the hacker, after all.” The car door opened and with a grunt, Unger got out. “Hang on.” I heard the phone jostle and Unger turned off the speakerphone. I heard the shuffling of papers, as he juggled everything and kicked the door shut. At the slam, a car alarm blared right beside the mic.

  Annoyed, I tugged the phone away from my ear. “Jesus, Unger, are you trying to make my headache worse?”

  “Sorry.” I heard his trunk open as the alarm continued to drone. “I didn’t know about your parents until today either, before you bitch me out for that too. I called the Fresno County PD and had them fax me the reports, and by all accounts, there wasn’t anything wrong with their car. It was an accident.”

  “Right, the same kind of accident that made me walk right into that fucking coffee shop! What about the drunk driver? Was he even drunk?” I growled, throwing open another door. It was dark beyond. I smoothed my hand over the wall, searching for a switch.

  “According to the file, his blood alcohol level was about twice the legal limit.”

  “Sure it was. Begs the question how he navigated the freeway onramp, huh?”

  “With your kind of abilities, there’s no way to know how much was planning and how much was chance, but honestly, I’d be tempted to believe the kid. I’ve learned recently to never take my own knowledge too seriously.”

  In the background, the alarm continued to grate on my last nerve.

  “Where are you?” I demanded, finally touching the switch.

  “Parking garage at the station. Marks always sets this damn alarm so low. Fucking kids think that having money means a new car every five fucking years.”

  Bright light temporarily blinded me and I blinked. In the fluorescence, I looked around and found an almost identical copy of AMRTA’s records room, in miniature, but thousands of pictures stuck to its white walls. Names were scrawled across thick, black lines drawn to connect the portraits, and each had a list of details beneath it. On the underlit drafting tables sat all kinds of documentation, an entire storehouse of knowledge organized into neat piles.

  Something pulled me inside. My ear no longer heard the screaming car alarm or Unger’s persistently logical voice. Instead, my thoughts were warped and twisted by a feeling. I knew where I was meant to go, because going anywhere else would not be right. I walked past the tables stacked with life stories, ignored all the evidence of their world, my world. I went straight for the photo and its place in the grid work.

  A stalwart me in tomboy fashion, seated on the fulcrum of a seesaw, my arm across her petite shoulders, her face toward me in a smile of admiration, framed by those pretty blond swirls that had darkened somewhat with maturity. She wore a pink gingham summer dress and matching sandals. It had been hot that day in the park, and after that, we’d played on the Slip’N’Slide until the sun went down.

  I reached out and ran my finger around her tiny face. “Hey there, munchkin.”

  I could still hear her giggle, feel that pride from knowing she looked to me for instruction. Now I was there, learning from her.

  My, how the tables have turned.

  “Huh?” he said, and with the word, the car alarm dropped back into my mind and flipped that metaphorical table upside down, jogging a memory of something that had never really happened. My heart jerked, trying to pull itself from me and rush to his aid.

  “Unger, get back in your car.”

  “What?” he grumbled. “Why, you want me to pick you up?”

  “No!” I shouted, the picture and room forgotten. “Just get in and lock the doors!”

  His voice changed immediately. “Oh hell.”

  I heard his feet scuffle, the key ring jingle, and then I heard the crashing sound. Hand to the wall, I shouted his name over and over, but no one answered.

  This is my fault.

  And then I opened my eyes. Jinx was sitting in front of me in the captain’s chair, looking at me as if I had just done something very strange. Frantically, I fished in my pocket for my phone and pushed at the shiny screen, for some reason unable to focus my eyes on the amazingly difficult operations of the convenient device. Braced and tapping my foot impatiently, I heard myself demanding that the phone be answered, and when Sam finally greeted me, I had never been so happy to hear another voice in all my life.

  “Lilith?”

  “Sam, something’s going to happen to Unger! It’s them!”

  He was silent.

  “Please do something!”

  “Where?”

  “Garage at the police station!”

  “I’m on my way.”

  He hung up without saying good-bye, and for that I was
eternally grateful.

  The boy tilted his head in awe and pulled out his headphones. “You just went . . . still.”

  I hid my face in my hands and knew what would happen next. The fun of having a unique ability had worn off and Arthur’s admonishment sank into place.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No,” I mumbled. His fingertips brushed my shoulder and I lost my resolve. Tears fell into my hands and for a few minutes I allowed myself to crumble under the stress I had created by seeking the truth.

  “What did you see?” he asked me quietly.

  With a sniff and a tremor, I sat up and dried my face on the back of my sleeve. “The room upstairs, with all the photos, what is it?”

  He sat back and heaved a sigh. “It’s . . . all the information we’ve dug up.” His fingers got tangled in his spikes for a moment as he debated how to say it. “We’ve been collecting it for the last year or so, piecing it all together.”

  “To take to the cops?”

  “Oh yeah, cuz they’d believe it.”

  “Then why?”

  He pursed his lips and stared at my wrist. “Call it staying organized.”

  I knew he wasn’t telling me everything, but what could I do to make him? Not a damn thing.

  “Where did you get our picture?”

  Jinx turned back to the computers, plugged something in, and began moving files around. He was avoiding looking at me, busying himself. “I don’t know. Art had it.”

  “He knew, didn’t he? He knew what Moksha was planning to do before my sister came here, didn’t he?”

  He froze and swallowed hard. “I don’t know, Lily. I swear.”

  I looked up at him skeptically and was about to say something rude, which I was sure he already knew, when the phone rang. The caller ID said it was Sam’s phone and I answered it instantly, putting it on loudspeaker.

  “Yes?”