The One We Feed

by Kristina Meister

  It was all happening much too quickly for them. As Jinx had said, their gifts were limited, while mine, apparently, were not. Before the car had even reached the intersection, even as it swerved from right to left, smashing into other cars across numerous lanes, I caught hold of the driver’s face. He let go of the wheel, and slammed his foot on the brake.

  There was a moment of stomach-taking imbalance as the sudden deceleration flung me over the hood of the car. Still laughing, I caught the edge of the open sun-roof and held on, as from behind the other SUV slammed full speed into the rear bumper. More glass ricocheted around me. The shriek of tires rang out, as my pilotless vessel swung into a Pitt maneuver and fish-tailed out of control, right into oncoming traffic.

  I pulled with all my strength against the laws of motion. The steel frame shrank from my grasp, warped and smooth. As the undercarriage began to tilt threateningly, I tucked and rolled toward it. Swallowed whole, I found her within, grasping for her chair as a rollover became certain.

  It was as if I could see it all, every tiny movement, happening like a list of things to be read and recorded, slowed and filtered. I grasped the soft leather of her seat and tore through it. Beneath was the firm structure. My hands coiled around spring and metal and held as the car upturned, my feet braced against the front seats. Debris scattered and swirled. Glass rained and swept past tender skin that healed instantly. The sounds became a cacophony too complex for any mind to untangle.

  I was not bothered by the upheaval; my eyes were focused upon hers, my smile unshaken. She looked back in sleepy amazement, just in time to see me materialize.

  Over and over we tumbled. My muscles pulled and tore, rehealed and tore again. Bone bent to the breaking point. Something heavy hit me hard in the small of my back, but all of it was worth it if no harm came to her.

  The rocking stilled, but the car continued to slide until it crashed, full force, into an oncoming vehicle. The roof compressed in upon us. I was forced around her by lack of space, the back of my neck grazed by the headliner. There were a few moments of stillness. I glanced around. In the seat beside her, now wedged between the twisted roof and scarred pavement, a Siren was suffering from a major head laceration. Blood gushed from the wound, and he was too incoherent to heal it. He moaned in ineffectual agony, and the sound of it woke me.

  My sense of self-preservation reasserted itself. I let force drain from my muscles. My legs came loose, slicked by blood seeping from my calves. I buckled and landed on the open square where once a passenger window had been.

  Time to go.

  I unclasped her seat belt and took hold of her other restraints. The fragile chain links fractured in my hands, and in an instant we were free. I cradled her until she could stand upright, and when she had gotten her bearings, I jumped up to the window above my head.

  “Come on,” I called down to her and stretched out my hand.

  She looked up at me in drugged-out shock and did not move.

  I looked around. The scene was chaos. Traffic had come to a standstill of carnage, other vehicles smooshed together and slowly emptying. Behind us, the third SUV had been sideswiped by another vehicle, but from what I could see, the men inside were intact and quickly adjusting to the new situation. Up the road, the first SUV had come to a dead stop. The doors were already opening.

  “Come on!” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you! I’m trying to help you!”

  She blinked at me. Beneath her, the immortal groaned once again. She looked down.

  “My name is Lilith,” I said in what I hoped was a friendly tone. She found my face again.

  Someone behind me shouted. A quick glance over my shoulder told me who it was. Guns were being drawn from hip holsters.

  “We have to go now, Reesa. They’re coming!”

  “Reesa,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “You knew my name.”

  “True,” I said with a smile. “I know a lot about you.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t ask me how, but you told me.”

  Her hand reached up. Fingers wrapped around my arm. One swift tug had us both atop the side of the mangled Suburban.

  The distance between us and our enemies was shortening. A shot rang out and a bullet whizzed past me. I took hold of her wrist, pulled her close to me, and stepped off the edge of the car, putting its diminished bulk between us.

  “Well, Reesa,” I patted her head, “now would be a good time to do that thing you do.”

  She frowned, tiny wrinkles forming in her dusty cocoa skin, until she saw my smile and understood. “I don’t like it...how it feels.”

  “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t like.” I pointed to the building in the distance, a tall set of windows that had been a Virgin Megastore. “That’s where we’re going. Three blocks up on the left is a parking garage. We have transportation waiting.”

  She turned and found it but looked back to me uncertainly.

  I shoved her gently. “Go! I’ll take care of them.”

  But she didn’t move, and the delay was more than they needed. The first agent came around the end of our hiding place at full speed. I reacted without thinking and lunged for him. I don’t think he expected it, as he came up short. I took hold of his collar and pulled him toward me, planting my knee squarely into his ribs. As he folded, I spun and took hold of his firearm. It was just like the one Karl had leveled at me. A chill went up my spine.

  If she wasn’t going to run, this was the next best thing.

  I turned and scaled the wreck and, from its higher vantage, picked out a target. I had never shot a gun before, but it was a relatively easy thing to learn. Pretty much point and click. The man fell forward even as the gun recoiled, but he was one amongst many, and, even though they were now going for cover, they were still dangerous.

  I glanced down. “Reesa, you have to do it now!”

  She was shaking, her arms wrapped around her torso. “But...but I can’t!”

  A second bullet brushed past my left ear, nicking it. I dropped into a crouch and opened fire on the point of origin, a small sedan stopped in the center of the intersection. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know! I have to be angry or something!”

  “What?” A third shot came perilously close to my shoulder. I stood and fired expertly, breaking a window and sending one body out flat, but it wasn’t enough. They were attacking me from two sides, and, no matter how many shooting games a geek had played, one was never really prepared for such an attack. From my right, two guns fired at once, and finally a bullet found me. It hit with a dull thud, somewhere above my knee. Instantly, my leg lost function and collapsed. I toppled back and went over the side, landing on the ground beside her with a thud, bleeding profusely.

  She gasped, but before I could tell her it was going to be all right, that I would heal up without so much as a scratch, something happened.

  My lips parted in a silent cry. Her irises had suddenly become translucent, reflecting red in the sunlight. Her fingers uncurled from around her mouth, but not before I saw the nail beds darken with blood. She sank into a kind of crouch, as muscle shortened and clenched for action, the bones in her legs seemed to condense, and her entire skeleton shifted. Head down, her wild, unkempt hair looked almost like a mane, and when she lifted her face to me, her teeth had lengthened into a row of fangs.

  No shots had come from my gun for several moments. I could hear them shouting to each other, speculating about me. Crowds of people were lifting their heads from behind cars, mailboxes, and newspaper machines, gasping and crying at the violence of the scene. Sirens were wailing nearby as ambulance, fire truck, and police cruiser came to a halt and peace keepers were forced to run through the traffic jam to find the injured. But with any luck, we would both be gone, soon enough.

  Her contortions had sent her to her knees beside me. Her breathing was labored, her skin stretched thin until it seemed almost dark red. Saliva was collecting at the corners of
her mouth, dripping onto pavement. Her voice had gone silent, replaced by a low and steady growl.

  “Reesa,” I whispered, though in the face of her incredible transformation, I was more than slightly daunted. “You have to go now.”

  Her eye caught mine for only an instant. In the span of one short breath, she leaped over my head and hit the ground running. I pulled and pushed myself upright against the roof of our overturned car and got to my feet. As muscle fibers repaired, the tiny metal fragments were strangled and pressed from me, and before she had gotten three or four car lengths ahead of me, my wound was gone.

  I raced after her, catching only a glimpse of an approaching Smith, his mouth to his cuff in a hurried explanation to whoever was at the other end. People blocked the path, jumping up as Reesa flew over their heads like a lioness. I took to the cars, cracking windows and denting hoods as I fought to keep up with her.

  Market Street was filling with bystanders craning their necks for a look, unaware that they were directly in our path. Reesa landed on the sidewalk before a clot of people who had been preparing to cross, threw back her head, and, as if in warning, let out a cry the likes of which I had only heard in movies. Several voices screaming at once, she howled. The sound instantly struck a chord, and like rabbits the tight group of onlookers scattered away from her, into traffic, into each other, anywhere but close to her

  Afraid she might lash out at them, I put on a burst of speed. “Reesa, keep going!”

  Her head swiveled, her crazed eyes found mine, and a red tongue swept over her cracked and stretched lips. Her gaze flicked to the street behind me, but I could not afford to slow and look after whoever might be chasing me.

  “Go!” I shouted, landing in the bus stop like a long-jumper.

  She turned back to the street. Cross traffic cut off our escape, but as I reached her, she had again chosen another way. She went left, racing past mall patrons and all their packages until she had gained speed. Just as a cable car sped into the intersection, she launched herself at it in a beautiful flying arc, hit the windshield, and rebounded into a twist that sent her hopscotching across the street like a skipping stone.

  “Wow!”

  For a moment, I couldn’t figure out where the voice had come from. Then I recalled the earpiece and the prosthetic adhesive keeping it in place.

  “Jinx, she’s on her way.”

  “Don’t slow down now! She’s got company!”

  “Fuck.” There was nothing for it; I would have to follow her lead

  I backed up against the wall and then ran toward the blur of cars. People tripped over each other to stay away from me. I left the ground and, kicking, slammed into a taxi going at least ten miles an hour over the speed limit. Not as gracefully as her, I rolled over his hood and managed to land in an open space of street, with just enough sense and time to crouch and leap out of the path of the oncoming car.

  “Not as awesome,” Jinx commented.

  “Fuck you.” I sent sightseers in all directions like a possessed bowling ball as I got to the other side of the street and realigned myself with the parking garage. “Where are they?”

  “You’ve lost the ones chasing you!”

  “No, Jinx!” I bellowed, dodging a homeless man. “Her! Are they to her yet?”

  “I can’t tell! The SUV is blocking traffic on the cross street and people got out, but I couldn’t see where they went!”

  I found the opening of the garage, a dark cave amongst the shop fronts, and went straight to the stairs. I didn’t bother with all of them but climbed as high as I could as fast as possible. The metal door opened onto blinding sunlight and a roof so packed with cars that it was hard to believe they could be removed by anyone but a master of the Rubix cube. Reesa was standing at the far edge, her back heaving.

  “Got her, Jinx. Reesa!” I called, but she didn’t turn.

  I slowed to a halt and approached her calmly. Her proximity to the outcome I had already foretold was too great for comfort. Hand out, I inched toward her.

  “Reesa? Come away from the edge, please?”

  She didn’t move. Poised as if to spring off, her body shivered like a plucked harp string. Something was holding her attention. Upon the far roof, a figure stood. I examined it, but for some reason, could not quite tell who it was, though only twenty feet or so divided us. If it was one of them, I didn’t have time to wonder.

  “Reesa?”

  Her breathing began to slow. No matter how advantageous it would have been to keep her in that form, I could see that her adrenalin was wearing off. Soon she would be the little girl again. I chanced it, reached out, and touched her shoulder, still hunched in the bearing of a monster.

  “Please step back with me. We have a way….”

  Blonde hair caught the sunlight across from me. Hazel eyes were dancing as a smile that was hers, but not hers, twisted on a face that seemed much too cruel.

  “Reesa,” the figure sang from across the divide. “Come with me, child.”

  The breath caught in my chest as my heart fumbled. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them once more, but what I saw was the same. It was not a mirage.

  Eva.

  “Reesa,” she called again, but it was as if she called to me. Her hand was out, and, if not for the fact that I was holding onto Reesa, I might have tried to take it.

  “It’s time to go, child,” Eva murmured. Her voice carried easily, sweetly slipping into my ear, wrapping around my limbs until I was stuck fast. My hand fell to my side, empty, as Reesa climbed onto the rail.

  “No,” I whispered.

  I could not reach for her. In an instant, she had slipped over the side and was gone. Conflicting desires raged within me. I had fought for both of them, yet one had just canceled the other out. Struggling, I raised my hands to my face and let out a sob.

  “No!”

  But I had forgotten about the others. From behind, the full weight of a man crashed into me. I stumbled forward on numb legs, hit the side, and tumbled over. Eva’s face was the last thing I saw, smiling after me with a villainous grin.

  Chapter 12

  The Piper

  There was only an instant to spare, but it was enough.

  I sat up with a sucking gasp, my lungs fighting as if I had just risen from the depths of the primordial ocean. The ground around us was shaking in a light tremor, the hanging lamp above Arthur’s game table swaying, casting weird shadows on us all. Jinx was beside me in an instant, smoothing the hair from my face even as I sobbed.

  “You’re okay! You’re all right, Lily! It was just a vision.”

  I fought terror, held him so tightly I was sure I was hurting him. Suddenly, my skin warmed, my breathing slowed, and a tremendous sense of peace came over me. It was all a dream, a possibility, but not something I needed to worry about anymore.

  I fell back into an embrace. When I opened my eyes, Ananda was looking down at me sadly.

  “I...I died,” I whispered.

  His smile was faint. “Do not exaggerate. You cannot see your own death.”

  I blinked. Of course not. Even if I had been about to die, the message in a bottle could only come from a living source.

  “She died. Again. That’s six times now. Their security is impossible!”

  He released me. “Ah. I am sorry.”

  Arthur was sitting in his usual chair beside the window, looking at me over the edge of his book.

  “Eva was there.”

  If I had blinked, I would have missed it. His eyes flicked to his cousin’s and then returned to mine.

  “Eva is dead, Lilith,” Jinx said.

  “She was there. She killed Reesa.”

  “That is also impossible,” Ananda whispered. His long, bronze fingers stroked the upper half of my arm, as if to convince me of my own shape. “It is possible to cheat death but not to come back from it.”

  I looked hard at Arthur. I stared until my eyes ached and my body tingled with the urge to rise and pummel the truth from
him. “I saw her body. She was dead for hours. I know she’s dead.” I said it to gauge his reaction, because for me there was no need to say it. Her death was the core and reason for my existence. The most shining hope was not strong enough to resurrect the tiniest portion of her. She lived now on the edge of nothingness, only in my past.

  He sighed and tenderly laid down his book. Something in his face seemed weary then. The swinging shadows seemed to caress his features and stay longer than necessary in the hollows of his eyes and cheeks, painting him like a living momento mori.

  “Eva is dead,” he said. “The one you saw was only a reflection.”

  Beneath my weight, the smooth muscles of Ananda’s lithe frame seemed to flex with the strength of his intake of air.

  “As the Buddha sat beneath the tree,” he intoned like a serene tape recorder, “Lord Mara came to him, riding on a mighty elephant, surrounded by his terrible army. The foulest creatures, they, deformed of body, with gaping fangs and lolling tongues and eyes like burning coals. Mara spurred them to attack, but when even their arrows turned to flowers and not a hair on the Buddha’s head was touched, Mara sent forth his beautiful daughters to tempt the Lord Buddha. This too failed, and in rage Mara approached the very seat of Buddha. ‘I should be here, in place of you, for I am surely more deserving. By what right do you claim this place?’ The Buddha smiled. ‘I have earned it over eons. I have studied the perfections.’ ‘So have I,’ Mara sneered. To him, he called his many followers; they would speak to his merits. He looked upon the Buddha in scorn and said, ‘Who will testify for you?’ Lord Buddha, sitting in his meditation, reached down with the fingers of his right hand and touched the soil. The ground shook, and Mara fell from atop his great height and was afraid. ‘The earth itself will testify,’ the Buddha said, and Mara fled the tree. Thus, the Buddha destroyed Mara, Lord of all Illusions.”