The Beast That Was Max

by Gerard Houarner

Mani slumped in the backseat. "He found me in the countryside, a child, survivor of a village destroyed by beisac, the souls of the murdered risen from hell to consume the food of the living," she said, her voice faint, shaky.

  "Ghosts?" Lee asked. "How about a Khmer Rouge execution squad? Or were the Vietnamese dropping napalm left behind during the collapse and withdrawal by that time?"

  "My father told the villagers to leave food out as an offering to the beisac. But it was a hard year and there was nothing to spare. Because my people kept the village apart from the larger world, there were no neighbors to go to for help. And misfortune had been so long between visits that many did not believe they would suffer. My father tried to appease the beisac himself, but his pitiful offerings only angered them. They came. Or they angered the Khmer Rouge by filling their minds with lies about my village. Or they gazed into the souls of Khmer Rouge soldiers and drove them mad with reflections of their own hellish rage. Or maybe my people just ran into some bad luck after a thousand years of peace. However your Western minds want to interpret what happened.

  "I saw my mother and father die. My brothers and sisters, friends, even the ox, and the dog, and the pigs. My jacket and pants were still soaked in their blood when Rithisak found me. The screams, I can still hear them today. . . ."

  "Why did this sorcerer want you?" Max asked.

  "Rithisak was drawn to my village by the plague of beisac. He was studying the ways of those spirits to harness their power. He found my trail, tracked and found me, eager to discover how I had escaped alive. I showed him how I made my spirit small, too small for anyone to notice. It was how my father, the village kru, the shaman, taught me to escape the Khmer Rouge—to become like a thing without a soul, rock or deadwood, so no one would think to shoot me because I already seemed dead. My father chose to try to protect the village rather than escape. The others who knew the trick were too frightened by the spirits to remember its casting. They were used to avoiding mortal soldiers, modern machines, not demons. Since I lived with my father's magic, I was used to the terror of rageful spirits."

  "Yeah, I can see why you get along so well with Max," Lee said.

  Mani ignored him. "Rithisak was impressed by my trick, and fascinated by the tracks the beisac left on my soul as they sniffed and prodded the dead thing I'd become. He offered his protection. I was a young girl with no place in the world. The blood, the screams . . . I'd never been alone before." Mani's hand slid across the window as she looked out at the passing buildings. "I've never been alone." She shook her head. "I had to go with him. But I also felt his power, and I knew he wanted mine. He was hungry, like the beisac. I believed myself clever enough to steal his secrets before he could take mine, and make him my servant. With him by my side, I felt I could go out into the world and survive. I played the tricks a girl thinks will turn the heads of older men. I tried to seduce him.

  "He let me believe I was gaining power over him. I exposed my desire, fished for his power. But I discovered he had surrendered nothing of himself to me. I had no hold on him. His desires, his appetites were well protected, and there I was, naked to him in my raw hunger with no place to hide. Nothing more than a small, foolish spirit. I needed him, the pulse of his strength and the calm of his presence, like a poppy addict needs the pipe. I seduced myself. Traded freedom for the illusion of safety. He sank his roots into me, and over time he grew stronger from the pleasure he took from me, and from his use of me as a tool in games with rivals, the government, and drug lords. You've already experienced one of the tricks I learned from him." She straightened, sat up, and shifted her body. The air in the car thickened, the curves of her presence called, tempted, invited.

  "Is it getting hot in here?" Lee asked, then turned to Mani, face flushed. "Listen, when I get back and you get settled wherever they're going to put you, you want to get together?"

  Max fought with the Beast, found himself losing control. "If you want to live through the night, stop that.”

  “That was another," she said, relaxing.

  Max cracked the window open and turned on the vent fan. The twins also stoked the sexual appetite of their prey before the kill. They had never turned the tactic on him, and after the brush with Mani, he knew he could never control himself or the Beast if they ever toyed with him in similar fashion. He counted both the twins and himself fortunate that they handled their powers responsibly. "Is that how you escaped him?" he asked finally.

  "I couldn't seduce him before he showed me how to use my body. He was not so stupid as to teach me skills against which he had no defense."

  "Then how did you escape?"

  Lee broke in. "Who cares? Are you actually buying any of this bullshit?"

  "The only way to find out about who is chasing us is to find out what she believes about him."

  Lee thrust his finger at the road ahead. "Let's just get to Oman's, set up the Nowhere House, and let Rithisak wander the South Bronx looking for her."

  "He will find me," Mani said with certainty.

  Max checked his watch again. "There's still time." Lee looked out the window at Yankee Stadium passing by. "You thinking of setting up an ambush? Why not just race them to the house."

  "We might have to face them anyway. If they can track her outside the Nowhere House, they could wait in the neighborhood until we go out to deliver her to the next pickup." The Beast screamed. "Besides, I'm interested in blood...."

  Mani shifted again in the backseat, stretching her arms and back. Max caught her in the rearview mirror staring, lips parted, at the back of his head.

  Lee waved a thumb in her direction. "What about her safety? Shouldn't we call for backup?"

  "She won't be in danger." The Beast's cry was a steady siren in his head.

  "No, unless we both get killed."

  They looked at each other. Lee laughed. Max smiled.

  The smile evaporated when he glanced at Mani. Blank spaces in her story teased him. Balancing himself between the control of his breathing and the Beast's rage, he said, "The question. You never answered it. How did you get away? What weaknesses did you exploit?"

  "His pride."

  "Shit, I get kicked in my pride every day," Lee said, reaching under the seat and pulling out a gun bag. "You have more than this in the glove compartment, I hope," he said to Max, pulling out a Remington auto shotgun.

  "The trunk, under the panels. We need specifics, Mani."

  "He believes he's invulnerable."

  "Trust me, that's a good thing if you keep getting kicked in your pride," Lee said, loading shells into the Remington.

  "Every year I've been with him, he's grown stronger. His enemies fall, his influence grows. Even in defeat, he finds ways to win. Whether it's a curse whose consequence he turns back on its sender, or a ruined drug deal he gives up to government officials for favors, or a weapons shipment he loses to an enemy of his enemy, he always wins."

  A grudging admiration for Rithisak's skills and good fortune grew in Max. He was a challenge, a test of Max's own skills. He would be fine prey.

  He caught Mani's gaze in the mirror, read the eagerness to please him in her expression. And something else. A prickling sensation rose along the back of his neck.

  "Is he invulnerable?" he asked.

  A smile flickered across her face. A light glimmered in her eyes. "No."

  "How did you use this pride of his?"

  "I submitted, gave him what he wanted. I showed him what my father taught me, and served him in every plot he wove. I became his favorite tool."

  Lee chuckled. "You sucked his dick until it was dry, I'm betting. I hate to tell you that's not what we had in mind."

  "In working for him I worked with the men he dealt with, his allies and enemies. I chose among them, offering what they wanted. Me. Magic. Money. Treasures. And as my skill in seduction grew, I discovered Rithisak's true pleasures—how much young ginger and how many dried chilies to put in his dishes, what song relaxes him, which dance he prefers to see befor
e he drifts away to sleep and dream. One night I danced and sang him to sleep, and then I stole the Sacred Sword he himself stole during the Lon Nol coup d'`etat, a thing one of my Cambodian benefactors wanted. I took film canisters of Cambodian massacres another desired, and records of drug transport routes, bank accounts, and Western dealers. These things bought me safe passage to the West, a new identity, and money.

  "I just arrived in this country, but it's no different than the one I left. They pass me along, from one to another, eager to use me. They pretend to be strong, but I see their weaknesses. The monks' desire for sacred wisdom is as bright as their robes. The Japanese businessmen's lust for competitive advantages sticks out in their pants like raised canes. The refugees, with their wail for justice, are like children crying at the breast of their dead mother. They're blind to everything except what they want. They're not as subtle or guarded as Rithisak, but their hunger is just like his. Just like the beisac. It was different in my village, in the time long ago before the dead came with their craving for our food."

  As her words rolled over him, Max caught a glimpse of his own vulnerability in Mani's abandonment of Rithisak. What would happen if he lost his own tool, the heart of his personal empire, the Beast? Mani had already shown him, whether she meant to or not. The Beast barked a protest, as honest as raw appetite. Max preferred not to dwell on the possibility, no matter how unlikely.

  "Chilies and ginger?" Lee said. "Guess he didn't want a whole hell of a lot." He hesitated as he put the last shell in the shotgun, and a stunned expression crossed his face. He glanced at Max, twitching an eyebrow as a signal. "I can see why this guy is coming after you so heavy, you being his main moneymaker. Must be tough, having people wanting something out of you all the time." He placed the shotgun upright in a custom caddy between the two front seats, opened the glove compartment, took out the gun, and began to inspect it. "Hey, you'll have to excuse me for being so fucking stupid, but I can't figure out how if he had his claws into you on this deep spiritual level," he said, half mumbling, sliding out the clip and chambered round and studying the firing mechanism with fierce intensity, "and you couldn't break out of this hard-on jones for the guy for all these years, what changed? I mean, you're telling us about this slick plan of yours to get away, but how did you get him out of your system to walk out in the first place? Was it a Tina Turner thing—did he abuse you until you broke? Did you invent an antidote for his voodoo on you?" He put the clip back in the gun, chambered a round, turned around in his seat, and aimed at her head. "Or are you still hooked on him? Is this all some kind of game you assholes are running on our bosses, where Max and I are supposed to take a fall?"

  Mani closed her eyes and arched her back, exposing her throat. The curves of her body shifted again, calling.

  Her erotic vulnerability drew Max's gaze from the road. He soothed the Beast with his breathing, and wished he could do the same for himself.

  Lee frowned, pursed his lips. He thrust the gun in her direction. "If you really wanted to get away from him, you could've killed the son of a bitch. It would've saved all of us a lot of trouble."

  Mani was silent.

  "Max?" Lee asked. "How much of this miscommunication crap we've been getting is bureaucratic bullshit, and how much of it is a plan to fuck us?"

  The edge to Lee's voice brought Max into focus. He followed his partner's reasoning with his own intimate knowledge of their charge. He knew from the moment he met Mani that at the end of her seductive lure lay a killer.

  The village massacre had left little for Rithisak to teach her about slaughter, and it was in fact her murderous self he found most enticing. Killing for her freedom would not have been a problem for Mani. The source of her entrapment lay elsewhere.

  Though he could not quite bring himself to believe in spirits and ghosts, the reality of his own Beast and the twins' powers, and Mani's mind-switch trick, let his instincts overcome doubt for the moment. The beisac had tainted her, leaving the residue of a hateful thing resonating within her. But there was a hunger inside her that did not belong to the beisac.

  The death of her childhood world had left her empty. Her savior Rithisak filled it. Her need for that fulfillment was as strong and real as it was the day she became small and let the village's blood spill over her. If the roots of Rithisak's worldly power remained in her, the roots of her emotional stability were still sunk deep in him.

  If she could have escaped or killed him, she would have done it long ago. She had found another way to free herself.

  "She can leave him because his roots are still in her," Max said. "She has a part of him with her." The blinding glimpse of the life in her came back to him. He blinked, eyes stinging. From the glare of oncoming headlights, he was certain.

  "Yes," Mani said. Her voice was a breeze lost in bare branches. In the shadows of the backseat, she was so small she was almost invisible. No wonder the Khmer Rouge, or the beisac, had missed her.

  But the Beast had her fixed. Max knew exactly where she was, what she was.

  "I remember," Max said. "All the things I felt and saw in you, I remember. You gave him what he wanted. You were afraid he was going to kill you after he got it, weren't you? That's why you held out, spent so much time away from him doing his work, finding other ways to be useful to him. But in the end, when you realized you could use his need to your advantage, you gave in. That's when you went ahead with your escape plan. And that's why he wants you so badly. Why you could bargain for your freedom. You're carrying his baby."

  Lee smirked. "Bingo, we have a winner," he said. "Fuck pride and all that shit."

  "I taught him about life, to want a child," Mani said vehemently. Her legs and arms whipped around as she sat up and filled the backseat with her anger. "Before me, he knew nothing of the living world. It was always the dead he wanted, the dead he could control. He tracked me after the massacre because he thought he'd find something in a survivor to dominate the beisac. I showed him what I knew, but it was not enough. My father's way was life; that's the way I was born into. That's what I had to offer. But he corrupted me, turned me into what I am."

  "The beisac changed you before he found you," Max said, dismissing her justifications with a wave of his hand. "Now you're getting what you need from your bond with his child."

  "It's not the same," Mani said, collapsing into a corner like a broken spider drawn in on itself. "I still feel so alone...."

  "The child is enough to fill your emptiness and let you run. You can live without Rithisak, as long as you keep his child with you." Max glanced at Mani in the rearview mirror. In her excitement, she had lost her self-control and her scent filled the car. He smelled a boy. “But Rithisak's son is his future, his legacy, and he can't let that go. That's the real reason he's coming after you."

  "A son," Mani said, looking down at her belly and rubbing it. "Less than a month old, and already you know. I wish you could've been the father."

  "I don't want a child any more than you do. But you needed one, for your freedom. Are you going to make him your tool, as Rithisak made you his?"

  Mani frowned. Her eyes blazed, and rage colored her face. The hunger of the dead reached out for him, tried to snatch him as it had in the street and pull him into her. But this time he was not distracted by her allure. He felt the cold of the grave creep through his flesh, the tug of bony fingers on his heart. His own rage answered, and the Beast's. Their joint roar filled Max's mind and broke her grasp on him. Her eyes widened, her lips parted. As the cry carried on, she shuddered, looked away, and put a hand up between them.

  "I wanted the baby, too," she said, a tremor in her voice. "But not for Rithisak to use like me. I wanted one on my terms, to serve the living, as my father did, and as he wanted me to do. I need him, yes. I may not be able to let him go if he chooses to leave me when his time comes. But by then there may be someone else to fill me." She turned back to Max, gave him the slightest of smiles. "Or if not, the boy may care more for his mother than for the
world's mysteries and dangers." She widened her smile, allowing a thin line of teeth to show.

  "Damn, I must be getting old," Lee said, pushing Mani with his free hand back into the seat. "I almost missed her having an angle. I really do need a fucking vacation."

  The Beast volunteered to toss her out of the moving car. Max held its reins tight, using its energy to fuel his racing thoughts. Lee's comment about the show of respect and honor in having someone important escort her came back to him. She was a trophy, being passed through various circles of power in a kind of ceremony. Max's superiors respected her power and what she was turning over to them. They were appeasing her with a ritual show of their strength. And at the same time, they were displaying their contempt for Rithisak. Without his favored weapon, wandering out of his Asian jungle element and into a Western urban sprawl, no one believed he had a chance to take her back. They were taunting him. And more.

  They were luring Rithisak into a trap, using Mani and the child, and Max, to kill him. And once Rithisak was dead, the people Max worked for could use Mani as another weapon in their wars, controlling her through the child who had allowed her to escape Rithisak in the first place. But as Mani had shown, she had talents against which his superiors had no defense. A dangerous game was unfolding, with players holding different views of reality, conflicting sets of rules and objectives. And at the heart of it all, an unborn child grew in a mother's belly, its potential for power and control already claimed by three parties.

  For once, he had a window on the machinations behind his assignment. He found no comfort in the view. Mani and his superiors were getting both more and less than what they had bargained for, which suited Max as long as he was not in immediate danger. He did not care if Mani had placed herself and her baby into circumstances worse than Rithisak's service. He had killed enough of her type for his pleasure; guilt had never been his burden to bear. If he had met her under different circumstances, she and her child would have known a great deal more pain before dying. But if his superiors had underestimated Mani, then they might have done the same with Rithisak.