The One We Feed

by Kristina Meister

  “Jinx, is this a whorehouse for vamps?”

  “Lily!” he said, looking sharply at the backs of the escorts. “No, it’s...well, see...they come here to have fun.”

  “Who does?”

  “The vamps and...the humans...well, mutually beneficial. Tonight’s punch night, which means they’re being drugged so that….” His voice trailed off.

  “Drugged? Do they know what they’re getting into?” I was suddenly pissed off that Jinx had ever set foot in the place before.

  “If they find out while they’re here, they don’t remember by tomorrow, but trust me, they have fun. These guys are good at knowing exactly what people want and giving it to them, regardless of whether or not they’ll appreciate it. It’s their gift.”

  Shocked, I was quiet for a time. I didn’t want to believe that my Jinx could have earned his keep from such people, but the longer I thought about it, the less content I was to judge him. He wasn’t exactly someone that struck fear in the hearts of evildoers. Perhaps he had had no choice.

  “So…,” I said finally, “you have to sign in to the area you want to...uh...experience? Why?”

  “Because the rules are different for each area,” he responded dully. “Rates are different, expectations are different. And trust me, in the Circle, you want to know exactly what you’re getting into.”

  I put out a hand and ran my fingers over the gaudy wallpaper of pale violet embossed with a black velvet pattern. “What happens if you come in not knowing the rules?”

  “You end up talking to Devlin.” He shook his head, “Last year, this big businessman came in and beat up one of the female guests. Devlin met with him in private after the bouncers got to him. Let’s just say, when he left, he was pale as a sheet and looked over his shoulder a lot. To this day, he pays a monthly stipend that gets laundered through a fake charity. Every time he comes back, he looks like he’s gonna hurl. But he still comes back. He can’t ever escape, because Devlin doesn’t fuck around with horse heads or cement shoes. Mess with him, and your family takes the hit. He’d take out everyone you know, just to get to you.”

  “You’re making him sound like a cross between a Sith lord and Hannibal Lector. Does he have a fluffy white cat or a hook hand?”

  Jinx glanced over his shoulder but said nothing. My humor was not being well-received, but that was how I dealt with things. I couldn’t help it. Times were tough.

  At the end of the hallway, there was yet another door but no guard. Our escort tossed it open, and instantly a tidal wave of sound crashed over us. It was a slow song with a deep rhythm, pulsing like a heartbeat, and it carried to the rafters on the voice of a young soprano. An enormous dance floor was crowded with people in various states of undress, all moving as if they were doing Tai Chi. On the opposite side, a metal staircase led up to a balcony level roped off as a VIP area. To the left, there was a stage, and to the right, a bar. Platforms were scattered about, wrapping around support pillars, and everything from dancing, to drug use, to sex acts was being carried out atop them in full view.

  “Oh...my...god!” I grabbed Jinx’s shoulder and turned him toward one of the platforms at our right. A woman was stark naked, on her knees. “Is she doing what I think . . .?”

  He looked away and fixed his eyes on the staircase. “It’s best not to look.”

  But I was transfixed. I had never, in all my life, imagined the things I was witnessing. I knew there were places where things like this had to happen, but I never thought I’d be in one. I had been tempted to bring Ananda along with me, but standing there now, I was absolutely appalled, and not for the reasons I expected.

  I had gone far enough into the jhana, searched the minds of wounded souls thoroughly enough to know that judging was not something I could accomplish. It took a great deal of self-awareness to see how even pleasure could be terrifying and dangerous, that it could be the sugar in the poison, and that self-awareness was not easily acquired. I blinked and shook my head slowly, feeling sorry for all of them.

  Our guides cut a path through the dance floor and left us at the foot of the stairs. As he put his hand on the banister, Jinx took a deep breath, set his tiny shoulders, and began his mirthless trudge.

  More than a few people seemed to be sitting or lying on couches and ottomans above us, all with the same flawless complexions, shimmering eyes, and stillness. It was almost like a contest for statuesquery. One man, though, was leaning against the railing, watching us.

  He was thin and what the “antiques” might have called tall, though I knew he was only as tall as me. He wore a soft black sweater and grey hound’s-tooth slacks. Auburn hair with a subtle wave rested against his temples as if it had been long until it was hacked off with a dull sword. Deep, brown eyes that seemed eerily intense peered out of faintly olive skin over a long, aquiline nose. One hand was holding what looked like a Bloody Mary, though I was certain it’s only similarity to the actual drink came from the fact that the girl who donated it was probably named Mary.

  I stared at him and felt a strange recognition. I was sure I had seen him before, but damned if I could remember where. It wasn’t since Eva died, because if it had been, I’d recall it perfectly. So it had to be from much earlier on. I was just about to lean in and ask Jinx if I should recognize him, when the man looked away apathetically and turned his focus to the people fornicating below. I pulled my gaze away from him too, until I saw that Jinx was also looking his way.

  At the top of the stairs, we were allowed past the rope. Jinx shoved some female vamps over with a look and plopped down on a leather sofa. Almost as if they’d been prepared for him, a server leaned over the back of the sofa and placed a Redbull into his waiting hand, though his eyes never left the aristocrat at the rail.

  No one spoke. The music pounded and changed. A lower thumping began, perforated by the haunting nasally voice of a very sorrowful young man. As if they were listening to the lyrics about making deals with a merciless deity, the silence on the balcony dragged on for some time, finally prompting me to sit on the arm of the sofa and dip my mouth to the boy’s ear.

  “We just gonna hang out or what?”

  “We speak when spoken to,” he replied, slurping at the can.

  I blinked and rolled my eyes. “He’s not the effing pope!”

  Instantly, the people sitting beside Jinx seemed to slide away from him, get up, and reposition themselves artfully on the opposite side of the balcony, where they could apparently watch me receive my comeuppance. The only person who did not react was the man at the rail. In fact, he appeared not to have heard. He was gazing out over the floor and seemed content to do that for hours.

  Perturbed, disgusted by all that I had seen, and disgruntled that anyone had the audacity to build such preposterous fortresses with such ridiculous security when they were not the effing pope, I crossed my arms and walked over to the man.

  “Look, all this is really great. I mean, really, it isn’t every day I get to see so many people down with the sickness, but I’m on a tight schedule, and I happen to feel that being made to wait is rude.”

  Devlin’s eyes slid to me, but there was no anger in them. In fact, there was no humanity in them. I expected a glare through lowered eyebrows at least, like any self-respecting villain, but he looked about as emotional as a Komodo dragon. He turned slowly to Jinx and leaned against the rail on his elbows, drink untouched in his hand.

  “Jinx, you do not have an appointment with me. I know you know how highly I prize my free time.”

  I let out a huff and tossed my hands in the air. “What is it with you people? What, you don’t think the last five people that saw us didn’t remind us of the same damn thing?”

  I turned and looked to Jinx for support, but he was avoiding my eye as strenuously as he was able. “I know, and I do apologize, Devlin, but please consider, I am a neutral party here. I brought her here because I owe her a debt.”

  Devlin gave a cool smile that was as long-lived as a snowball in h
ell. “Ah, those pesky debts. How they do pile up.” There was no tone to his even voice, but that was what made it so ominous. “Fear not, my friend. I was actually expecting you, though I must admit I was somewhat surprised to learn that I should. Now I understand.”

  So he had been watching us, or Jinx.

  “If I hadn’t come with her, she might have done more damage,” Jinx said. “She’s a bit of a handful.” I was prepared to denounce him right there, until he smiled pointedly at me. “But that’s why we love her.”

  “Then you are working for her?”

  This time, when I looked his way, I found Jinx staring at his hands. “No, I work with her.”

  I wanted to hug him and felt terrible for ever doubting his loyalty to me. I told him so with a glance and then returned my attention to the creature in front of me. He was staring at me, or rather, was considering me like any good iguana.

  “Lilith Pierce,” he said quietly, “one of three.”

  My mouth fell open, “How do you know that?” How could he possibly have seen anything to do with me? Did it have something to do with my weird sense of recognition?

  His smile looked more like a snarl, the lips curling away from incisors that were much too long. It was clear then that Devlin needed no scarificators to draw blood from others. He had crafted himself into a predator by sheer will alone or by some will and a talented dentist.

  “It is deductive reasoning. You cross the path of my dear friend Ursula, and she ends up...well,” he sighed, “then you fall into Moksha’s hands and he becomes as mad as a pancake. Next is Karl, and the Vihara falls to a mysterious act of god.” He enunciated each word with perfection, dividing it from its fellows with sharp little bites. “And you disappear. Then, last night...my colleague Hal also vanishes. It isn’t very hard to trace your invisible steps when one knows your methods.”

  I licked my lips and glanced out over the floor. It was a bit terrifying to discover Devlin had the upper hand already. How did he know about the three Buddhas, how did he know I was one of them, and most importantly, how did he know all those things were because of me?

  “All right, so you know who I am and what I do. So you probably know I need your help. I don’t like it, but since I don’t believe in the Devil, I have no problems making deals with snakes.”

  The leer grew on his immaculate face, punctuated perfectly by his hawkish nose. The eyes seemed to chill me through and through.

  “Unfortunately, Lilith, there is nothing you have that I require. I know it is difficult, but do try to be less self-absorbed.”

  I have to admit it, I was surprised. From the moment the changes started happening, I was plagued by deranged monsters clamoring for the medicine that supposedly ran through my veins. To find that the blood drinker of all blood drinkers did not want it amazed and, quite frankly, offended me.

  I opened my mouth to speak but found that no words came out.

  “It is the only thing those fallen comrades had in common. They all wanted your blood, and they are all paying the price. I would actually prefer that you stay as far away from me as possible, for the present. You understand.” He turned away slowly and went back to admiring his domain.

  “Self-absorbed?” I asked finally. “Oh puh-lease!” Shaking my head in a bit of the arrogance of which I had been accused, I turned to Jinx and dragged him to his feet. “We’re going! Now! Let this freak have his stupid, immature fantasy about what really exists in the world. We’re not going to cater to him anymore!”

  I shot the entire VIP crowd a defiant stare and had begun my stomp down the stairs, when Devlin’s genteel voice carried above the volume of the music.

  “It is a pity.”

  I stopped and turned to him, irate. “What is?”

  He chuckled, and it was the most disingenuous display of emotion I had ever seen. “Well, you destroyed the Vihara, all its treasures inside.” He made a heavy sigh, “Including the legendary Ananda. It is a pity, as I would so have loved to make his acquaintance. But I suppose we will never know what has happened to him.”

  I was so filled with that overwhelming fury that I could do nothing but stand and breathe heavily. Beside me, Jinx was shrinking away. I knew my eyes had gone red, and, in the back of my mind, hoped Devlin saw it too. My hand gripped the rail tightly, leaving a hand-shaped dent behind as it twisted in my grip like warm dough.

  “I would never, ever bring him to a place like this! It would offend everything that he is!”

  For the first time, the grin on Devlin’s face was genuine. It appeared out of the ashes of the other smile, flourished, and then, unchecked, was concealed behind the glass of blood.

  “If he is who they say he is, nothing could offend him, but why don’t you let me worry about that and stop building fences around enlightenment. All things have a price. Everyone faces the worst of themselves sometime.”

  I looked at Jinx. He looked at me. I wanted to ask him if there was any other way, if it would be possible to stop Devlin without a partnership. From the look in his eyes, I knew that the answer was no, at least not short of killing him.

  Fed up, I stormed back up the stairs and knocked the glass out of his hand as I had done to Karl. It spattered the audience below, who thought it was a perk of the Bacchanalian celebration and began to hoot and holler. His hand still curved around its vacancy, Devlin stared at his empty fingers through mere slits.

  “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was not convincing people he didn’t exist,” I hissed in his ear. “It was convincing them that he did. You don’t fool me one bit. You’re just a bully, and I will not be bullied.”

  He said nothing. It was as if he was ignoring me, as if I had offended him too deeply to deserve a response. His hand rested on the banister. His breathing was even.

  Step back, I thought. But it took a great deal of careful concentration to stop myself from hitting him, if only for what he’d helped Mara to do.

  “I’ll tell Ananda what you are, what this is. In great detail. If he wants to come and...make your acquaintance, then he will, but I’m not like you. He owes me nothing, he asks nothing, and so I will do the same. That’s friendship, something you will never know.”

  “My life is so much duller for it,” he replied quietly. Behind him, the other vampires snickered. I shot them a glare.

  “If that’s how you’re going to treat him, then I won’t let him come.”

  The corner of his mouth upturned. “You cannot stop him. If he is who they say he is, he is as curious about me as I am him.”

  I frowned at him and for a moment shrank back. What did he mean? Whatever it was, I was almost certain I wasn’t going to get the answer from Devlin.

  “Now who’s being self-absorbed?”

  He stood up to his full height and turned to face me. “Don’t come back until I have a reason to admit you. You have been the worst of guests, and I am an intolerant host. And if you attempt to consult anyone else for help, I will make certain that your blood won’t purchase a tuna sandwich.”

  Nose to nose with him, I refused to back down. I stared into his eyes with unpolluted contempt until I felt Jinx’s hand tug at my wrist.

  “Come on, Lily.” After repeated himself several times, I relented and made my way down the stairs. At the base, I turned and met Devlin’s parting stare.

  “You should know,” I shouted, “if you want to impress him, he takes hot water with a slice of lemon and most definitely will not drink the punch.”

  Without a backward glance, I wove through the dancers, trying to ignore their exposed limbs that would be so easy to break, their annoying expressions of lascivious ardor. I did not stop moving until I was safely in the tunnel toward the surface, where it I could decompress without hurting anyone. I scowled in the direction of a group of eager S&M fans on their way to the club and, after they had passed, punched a crumbling indentation in the concrete wall.

  The people in the club wanted to be there. They consented to whatever hell t
hey endured, and whatever they consented to was a product of their own flaws. But Reesa and her kinsmen were alone and hopeless. I could only see their faces, their torment, the box of rotting tongues. Devlin’s games, in parallel with those images, were trivial and stupid.

  The dust speckled me and fell to the shadowy floor. Jinx looked from it to my lowered face, stunned.

  “Um...what part of ‘let me do the talking’…?” When my gaze sharpened and drove a spike through his brain, he cowered. “All right, all right! I never liked tuna sandwiches anyway!”

  Chapter 17

  Ontology Recapitulates Phylogeny

  Parked outside the Circle, the following evening, I began to have second thoughts. Ananda had consented to come along, but with every bizarre creature that went through the gate, the less certain I became.

  “Did we have to come at night?”

  Jinx popped an Adderall. “When you make your living off the inequities men hide from light of day, you do business when the market is open.”

  But my inner strategist was screaming that we would be fools to walk the most docile human in history into a pit of monsters by the wan light of a moon. It was just utterly indefensible.

  “You don’t have to do this. I can make him cooperate, Ananda. We have no idea what he wants with you.”

  The Arhat smiled and bowed his head. “He wants what all men like him want.”

  “And what is that?” Jinx scoffed. “Power?”

  “Peace and security.”

  It sounded nice, but it was the last thing I thought he’d say. I looked back at the gate and its fortifications. “How do you know that?”

  “I have seen this many times.”

  My head wheeled around. Jinx and I shared a glance.

  “Mind telling us how it ends?” he grumbled.

  Ananda shrugged. “I cannot see past it.”

  “And you don’t find that the least bit disheartening?”