The One We Feed

by Kristina Meister

  The One

  We

  Feed

  By

  Kristina Meister

  JournalStone

  San Francisco

  Copyright © 2013 by Kristina Meister

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  JournalStone books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

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  The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  ISBN: 978-1-936564-99-6 (sc)

  ISBN: 978-1-940161-00-6 (ebook)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013941612

  Printed in the United States of America

  JournalStone rev. date: August 16, 2013

  Cover Design: Denise Daniel

  Cover Art: Wayne Miller

  Edited by: Dr. Michael R. Collings

  For my mother, Karen

  Who taught me to sing

  Chapter 1

  Déjà vu

  I poked the package of powdered doughnuts and shook my head in disbelief. It was hard to imagine that not four months ago, I had considered these edible when they were actually more fitting as nuclear survival shelters for cockroaches.

  “You don’t seriously put these in your mouth?” I asked the person on the other end of the telephone.

  “Wha’s wong wiff dem?” he managed to say around a mouthful.

  “Besides the fact that they smell like Playdoh?”

  We were the length of the country apart but both sitting in our cars, watching. In the spirit of the occasion, I had purchased stakeout cuisine. I found that the stock at the local quickie mart was really quite varied and that absolutely none of it sounded appetizing in any way. Standing there, reading nutrition facts, I was almost glad I no longer required food to live.

  “I’ve been less grossed out by people who drink blood. Matt, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack.”

  He swallowed laboriously, “Another one? Oh, hell.”

  “You mean you’ve already had one?” I sat back in my car and glanced out the window. Nothing had changed. Big shock. “Were you on a stakeout at the time?”

  “No, I was in the bull pen.” I could only assume that’s what the homicide detectives called their grouping of cubbies down at the precinct. It had a certain scrappiness that reminded me of him.

  “Happy you’re no longer under that kind of stress?”

  “Stress?” he joked. “It was the food that gave me the heart attack, remember?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh yeah, and the exhaustion and responsibility were completely manageable.” For a moment, a pang of loss bit through the cold sarcasm. My sister’s death had been the moment when my carefully tailored life had finally unraveled. Having gotten to know Matt since and see how tired he had been, I was more than a little ashamed that he’d been the person to put me back on my feet, literally.

  In a storm of crackling plastic, Unger opened something new to shove into his face. “Anything new?”

  “No!” I sighed and slid lower in my seat. “I mean, I know I’m supposed to be all-suffering now….”

  “Since your enlightenment, you mean.” He chuckled, as if my evolution into an all-seeing immortal was half-assed. I felt like telling him it was an ongoing process, but it wasn’t like that would have made any difference. Matthew Unger thought of Zen as “that karate shit.”

  “I am so bored! Arthur keeps saying things will happen as they will, but why can’t they happen faster!”

  One sect of the Sangha down, only a few dozen remained. When I had signed up to eliminate immortal strongholds one at a time, no one had said anything about how long it would take. Sitting in this car for the umpteenth night in a row, tired even though it was impossible for me to be tired, I was beginning to think that somehow word had gotten out and they’d all gone to their crypts to hide.

  Or maybe they’re waiting for you to file your taxes so they can schedule an audit. That sounded like something the Sangha would do when they weren’t throwing people in hermetically sealed, padded cells so that they could chew off their own limbs.

  “He’s right. Stakeouts take patience.”

  “Yeah, well, since when has Arthur been wrong?” I mumbled. “What about you guys? How’s Sam?”

  “Making money hand over fist. We underestimated the draw of a detective agency to his coffee shop.”

  “Has he arranged a grouping of mystery and suspense novels at the back for all the wannabe sleuths who come knocking?” I giggled.

  “Blah. There’s a book club that holds its meetings here once a month. They just finished a Chandler. Asked me to speak about police procedures.”

  I smirked. “I imagine fact checking James Patterson was exactly the type of retirement you had in mind.” I plucked the doughnuts off the dash and tossed them into the passenger seat in disgust. “I’ve been sitting outside of a completely normal-looking building for almost three weeks! The dental hygienists are starting to talk. Pretty soon they’ll either call the cops or ask me if I need a cleaning.”

  “What are you waiting for, someone to walk out holding a sign that says ‘Slayers please use side entrance.’ How do you know you’re even in the right place?”

  I glanced knowingly at myself in the mirror. “It’s the gift of the Buddhas to always be internally insightful.”

  “Whatever. I have a hard time with all this philosophical, thoughts-as-physical-things-doing-physical-damage BS.”

  I leaned my head on the steering wheel, trying not to make a Magic the Gathering joke. “If people thought about why their brains follows certain patterns instead of steadfastly upholding those opinions, there would be no reason for conflict, because we would all realize that identities are structures and that certain reactions are preprogrammed by physiology. We gain and lose weight, dye our hair, even get elective surgery. How are we so objective about our bodies that we can do that but for some reason can’t objectify our feelings.”

  He snorted. “You sound like the kid.”

  I approved the remark with a flick to the Batman bobblehead on my dashboard. “The kid” was the only person I knew who made any sense, and, half the time, he spoke in coding languages and mathematical jargon. “Sorry. Perfect memory.”

  “Well, he talks so much, some of it is bound to stick in anyone’s head,” Matthew murmured, but I had stopped paying attention.

  Outside my window, something had finally changed. For the first time in days, a dark car was moving slowly up the street, easing into the narrow loading zone at the front of the cramped, brown-stucco office building. Several men got out, each wearing an immaculate black suit, earpiece, and cuff mic, the old Sangha uniform.

  “Fucking cockmongers,” I whispered. “Smiths.”

  But they were not alone. They dragged a smaller shape that, even amongst the shadows of a moonless night, my perfect eyes could distinguish as a little girl. Tiny though she was, she pulled, kicked, and snarled, her bony elbows and knees turning her from a sweet child into an enraged insect stuck in a web. She had rich cocoa skin and dark eyes, but her hair was patchy and covered in filth. Her clothes w
ere tattered, dirty, as if she’d been held prisoner in a basement somewhere, which she probably had been.

  I felt the chill of recognition weave up through my vertebrae. She was their captive, as I had been, but unlike me she was defenseless. She couldn’t be more than ten or so, and from her bearing I could see she was no deceptively youthful immortal like Jinx. She was a little girl, terrified and alone. A familiar rage set my teeth on edge.

  “Matt, will you call the cavalry and tell them I’ve finally gotten lucky? I’ve gotta go.”

  I heard him click off the loudspeaker, “You got it, Ninja Girl, but be careful.”

  “Come on, I’m invincible.” I turned on the ignition.

  “You didn’t let me finish. Be careful you don’t hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”

  “Aw, shucks.” I hung up and put the pickup into drive, debating what I should do. I could race in and save the girl, or I could just observe. She could be dangerous, like the eyeless monsters in the cellars of the first sect we’d undone, but, ever the Big Sister, I yearned to help her.

  As I came level with the scene, with no time left for indecisiveness, the men turned and looked in the direction of my coasting truck, and the girl, wits evidently intact, made use of the distraction, managing somehow to slip from their grasp.

  It seemed almost impossible, physically, as if she suddenly disassembled and reformed beside them in a robotic, stop-motion kind of grace that left my stomach turning. Her captors were left looking after her in shock, their handcuffs and fists still closed. With a speed I knew had to be preternatural, she darted from the darkness and directly into the path of my truck.

  I slammed on the brakes, expecting to feel the sickening crunch of the massive vehicle rolling over her tiny frame, but with no warning, she leaped into the air and landed, still growling, atop the hood, as elegantly as a winged creature.

  I shot a look at the men, just in time to see them running for her and, not one to question fate, put the hammer down. The girl flattened herself on the hood, feral and lithe in the night, perched like some kind of bizarre hood ornament. In the amber light from the streetlamps, her eyes seemed to glow red, and in them was the expression of wild, animal instinct, of terror. She could not see me, did not know me for a friend. She was mad.

  Emaciated, her bones jutted out at sharp angles to her torso. Thin skin was healing over a split lip. Her teeth were bared, and to my shock I realized that they were much larger than they should have been, and sharper, too. Her hands seemed overlarge, and long, dark claws curving out of her nail beds hooked into the plastic and steel of my truck. Salivating, her back slightly arched, she was unlike any Arhat I had seen before. She didn’t even look like any human I’d seen before.

  As we rounded the corner, the henchmen still bounding after us in my rear view mirror, another car came around the bend. I hit the brake. As I did, the girl was thrown forward.

  I gasped as my seat belt caught, for she was flying through the air, twisting like a cat. She didn’t hit the other vehicle but rebounded off it into a flying leap, arms reaching to grasp at whatever they found first. Before I could even make the turn, she had taken off down the street like a greyhound. Staring after her, my mouth wide, I didn’t even notice the black car growing larger in my mirror.

  It slammed into me going full force and knocked the wind out of me, sending my pickup skidding into the other car. There was a crunch, the sound of glass sprinkling the hard surfaces of auto and road. Smashed between the two cars, I was unable to follow the girl, and, as I turned around and looked at the driver’s face, I could tell that that had been his intent.

  Behind his, another sleek luxury car had exited the parking garage and was turning down a side street, on a collision course with the poor escapee.

  Swearing, I threw open the car door. The innocent driver was shaking his head in wonder as he slid across the seats to the passenger door.

  “What the fuck were you doing?” he was demanding of me, but, seeing he was all right, I didn’t bother to answer. I shot a glare at the Arhat behind the wheel of the black car and decided to show them what they hadn’t seen coming.

  I took a deep breath and flexed every muscle, then with a burst of speed and strength born from complete focus, leaped over the joint where metal and plastic were crushed together, landed like a hare, and took off after the girl.

  I didn’t know where she had gone, but something told me to run and she would find me.

  Trees, homes, and signs whizzed past me as I tore down the street, a dark blur, my eyes tracking right and left, catching glimpses of colors and shapes. I spotted the car, two blocks ahead of me, screeching around a corner, and raced after it. It was skirting a park darkened by trees and shrubs. They were shining flashlights from the windows, searching for barefoot prints in the soft soil. I lurched across the street and, before they could stop me, shot diagonally through the park.

  Behind me, the engine revved. They had spotted me and were moving to intercept.

  Better me than her, I thought, just as I came out between two fence posts and sped through a crosswalk. As they caught up to me, the roar of the engine an ominous growl, I halted like the Road Runner and turned to stare them down.

  The car slowed to a stop, the garish moons of their headlights burning my eyes. I crossed my arms defiantly as the doors opened and closed, expecting them to tackle me at any second. But suddenly a shadow swooped between us. Something wet spattered my face. I leaped back and looked at the cement at my feet.

  The girl’s body lay mangled before me, lifeless. Her blood and brain matter covered us all from head to foot.

  I sat bolt upright in a cold sweat and sucked in air. Sunlight set the border of the heavy blackout drapes aglow. Jinx had his headphones on and was muttering over his computer in French, vogueing like a nutcase with a hand stuck in his red hair and another gesticulating at a webcam. I breathed a sigh of defeat.

  That made three attempts, none successful.

  “Hey, shortbus?” I muttered to the technocrat.

  He swiveled in his captain’s chair. “Progress?”

  “Maybe, but more importantly, how do you feel about powdered doughnuts?”

  Chapter 2

  Fight or Flight

  I tapped my foot impatiently while Jinx picked a random book off the return rack and snickered to himself in intellectual disgust.

  “Noetic science. O-M-G. They don’t tell you that the headquarters is located in a storefront in Petaluma.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Stop being a jerk.”

  The librarian gave me a sympathetic smile, but Jinx was oblivious. “They could learn a thing or two from L. Ron Hubbard,” he muttered as he tossed the book down, “and that’s saying a lot.”

  “The evolution of knowledge is toward simplicity, not complexity,” a deep voice quoted from somewhere to my right. My heart skipped like a stone. I turned, and there he stood, forbearing and regal as always, despite my sidekick’s constant histrionics.

  “Arthur,” I said, my face muscles smiling so broadly that my jaw cramped. No man should ever be allowed to affect any woman as much, but then again Arthur wasn’t just any man.

  “Lilith,” he nodded. “And company.”

  Jinx clicked his tongue ring across his teeth. I cringed. This had become the warning of a rattlesnake about to strike, and my nerves could tolerate only so much. Since we’d embarked on our quest, the uber-geek had begun pacing and speaking in tongues more than a schizophrenic. If not for the Bluetooth device in his ear, I might have been concerned. I wasn’t sure what he was up to, but it seemed to involve slave labor and enough fiber-optic cable to strangle the Kraken.

  I glared at him, daring him to get into an argument in the middle of the library. He rolled his eyes.

  “Yeah, well, fuck you too, Sid.”

  Arthur bowed, and order was restored to my universe.

  He led us through the stacks to a table tucked into a corner. A pile of volumes had been collected, a
nd my mentor appeared to have painstakingly transcribed every card-catalogue number onto a notepad. I glanced at it, marveling at the unexceptional quality of his handwriting. No loops, no funny tildes, just block letters. It was almost disappointing.

  “You know about computers, right? They have these things called spread-sheets.” I giggled, leaning in to peck him on the cheek.

  He shrugged and took a seat. “They don’t like me.”

  Jinx snorted. “Quickest way to kill an AI is to feed it a paradox.”

  My jaw dropped open. It made a kind of sense. I was a real intelligence, and I still had trouble with Arthur.

  “Actually, the technical support person banished me,” Arthur said with a shrug. “Something about interference.”

  I expected Jinx to make another wise crack, but his face was suddenly the home of an impressive scowl. He sat down with a loud thump and folded his hands in a wholly dignified fashion that was so uncharacteristic, it was amusing.

  “Lilith, tell him what you’ve seen.”

  I looked between them and lost my nerve. Two of the smartest people I had met: one the only human to speak fluent binary and the other a living god. As a moment of dizziness overtook me, my recurring visions of a shape-shifting girl suddenly didn’t seem to matter quite so much. Visions were a new thing for me, after all. What if I had gotten something wrong?

  I fell into a chair and took a deep breath. No point in being sheepish. Arthur seemed to be a telepath of some sort, and Jinx would tease information out of me with swearwords I’d never heard before. The details tumbled out of me. I kept my voice low but, recalling her filthy shape as it twisted through the air like some kind of specter, pitched my voice on the edge of hysteria.

  “I’ve tried a bunch of different approaches, you know, projecting forward, doing what I would have done, and every time, she dies. The same way. She falls and hits the ground. I can’t stop it.” I tipped forward and closed my eyes.