The One We Feed

by Kristina Meister

  Horror-stricken, I shook my head. “You controlled people, used people, killed people!”

  “A perfect illustration of the previous point,” he said. “Your belief that life is sacred is a component of your identity, based upon the suffering you endured at the loss of your loved ones. It has organically grown over the whole of your lifetime, but you have somehow constructed an ontological proof that I am meant to accept. Well,” he raised two fingers to his temple and saluted me almost playfully, “I regret to inform you that I reject your argument and am, by your own admission, within my rights to do so.”

  Ananda was looking at Devlin with an unfocused glance that worried me. We were all being entirely too trusting.

  “Then you don’t believe that life is sacred?” I pressed.

  “No,” Devlin said, though he was watching Ananda’s every tiny tick for signs of offense. “I know that it is a serendipitous coincidence. One I am most interested to see continue, as I and all my opinions are an integral part of it. If that is what you call ‘sacred’ then perhaps we can agree. I do, however, think the race could stand a bit of pruning in order to stay healthy.”

  Uncertain what to make of the entire conversation, I got up and walked to the rail. Devlin was an Antique. He’d been alive a long time and had been traveling the world, learning things about humanity. My immediate reaction to him was to stamp my foot and tell him he was absolutely wrong, but what if he wasn’t? What if I just couldn’t see the equality of both positions because I maintained one of them? It was impossible for me to be objective, if I was still fighting to save a little girl.

  It seemed that to Devlin, the entire world was just one pattern after another, easily predicted, and thus, uninspired.

  “So,” I said quietly, knotting my fingers up over and over again, “killing someone to get something you want is fine by you?”

  I heard Jinx cough.

  “That is the height of rudeness,” Devlin replied. “I take offense that you believe me capable of it. However, allowing a person to remain true to themselves by adhering to the rules they created is extremely polite.”

  “And the monks at the monastery? You helped someone kill them. Was that polite?”

  Ananda’s cup and saucer clinked against one another.

  “They were fighting a non-existent war, protecting a prophet that I imagine never asked to be one. They spent their lives meditating on the illusion that is life, and somehow I am meant to feel guilty for helping them past it? They made their own rules, and, had I not obeyed them, the Sangha would have hired a more dangerous group, I assure you. The one I suggested was very precise, which is why Ananda is alive today and no innocents were injured.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Out of nowhere, Devlin laughed. “My dear, men filled with hate are regrettably very predictable. It’s unfortunate that such emotions disable any higher brain functions, but so it is. I’m afraid the Sangha are the least likely things on the planet to surprise me.”

  Finally, I understood his game. My resentment and disgust hissed out in a long exhale. I turned around and pursed my lips. Jinx had found another Redbull and was laying at full length on his loveseat. Ananda was still placid as ever, sitting tall, saucer in one hand and cup in the other. Devlin’s eyes were half-lidded in the happiness of a strategy well-executed.

  “Don’t the rules apply to you?”

  He blinked sleepily. “The player can get up and leave at any time. Unfortunately, the pieces are always on the board, unable to see the inevitable patterns their paths will travel. I apologize if this offends your impassioned belief that we are all snowflakes. I certainly do not mean to offend, but I refuse to compromise my own beliefs in favor of yours. A polite person would not make me.”

  And Ananda was always polite.

  I shook my head, lacking any other form of response. It now made sense in a twisted kind of way, but then again, it was only twisted because I did not agree with him. Was that why Devlin had fixated on Ananda? Could it really be that all along Devlin had been waiting for someone who would not pass judgment but be blissfully happy to be his consort?

  “Why play at all?”

  “Introduce myself before Ananda would speak, before I could be of use to him, before the moment he realized I was the only hope he had to succeed in his dharma? You know him. What is the most important thing in his universe?”

  Devlin wasn’t evil at all, not in the slightest. He didn’t maneuver himself into a position of power so that he could harm me or Ananda. He was trying to help by being integral in every plot we faced, even to some extent, controlling the ones who believed they were in control, but why, I couldn’t guess.

  Arthur must have known about Devlin’s involvement! He must have gone where he knew Devlin would strike in order to play off the arrangements that had been made, because surely it could not happen the other way around. There was no way Devlin could account for Arthur, since Arthur was only visible to those who required his assistance.

  But then, how had Devlin come to learn of Ananda? Someone must have told him, and if he could be told about something like that, perhaps he did know about Arthur. Perhaps they were playing off each other, guessing in advance, what the other would do.

  You’re getting ahead of yourself. There’s no proof either of them are that brilliant.

  I swallowed. “You realize that Ananda would have been just as pleased to meet you without the gift.”

  He smiled, “But I would not.”

  So he did want something from Ananda, something that he believed to be critical to his survival, and had been working all along to put himself in Ananda’s debt. But what could it be?

  Devlin propped his elbows on his knees, joining his hands in front of him. For a moment, he sat there, staring at the teapot, his face subdued and eyes faraway.

  “Of all the people in this world, immortal or otherwise,” he whispered finally, “we two are most similar.”

  I overcame my gut reaction and looked between them. Both were placid and nonjudgmental, both were the unwilling leaders of a faith, and both by charisma alone, commanded attention. They were the same, but different.

  I could see Eva’s words looped and swirled on the page.

  The one we feed.

  But if Ananda and Devlin were right, the two halves were one. There was no such thing as opposites, or rather, opposites shared qualities of each other and their “opposition” was just for the other’s benefit. After all, how could light exist without the blackness to shine in, or the dark, without light submitting?

  Whichever one we fed, we were what we were.

  Jinx blinked at me and I woke from my momentary Zen state. When I glanced his way, he was smiling.

  “That’s what happens when you realize that all numbers are derived from the empty set.”

  “Huh?”

  “Fo’ Shiz.”

  My ribs tickled, until I caught sight of the look on Ananda’s face. Ananda usually smiled easily, and often at nothing at all, lacking the concern that seemed to be Arthur’s unique preoccupation. But now, he sat with his face downcast, his gaze resting on Devlin’s knee, wide and unfocused. It was strange how shy he looked suddenly, strange and almost unthinkable.

  “Every single future,” he murmured. “I am....”

  His voice was stifled by the sheer immensity of Devlin’s tactical skill. I was not a tactician either and knew exactly how he felt.

  “Okay, Devlin, you’re a genius,” I said, “I give up.”

  He chuckled and inclined his head at an angle. “Thank you, though I can assure you, it was not my intent to procure such an accolade.”

  “If you want, I could call you an asshole instead.”

  “No, thank you. Genius suffices.”

  He reclined and watched Ananda through his lashes.

  “Okay, so what now?”

  “If you don’t mind terribly, I should like to spend some more time alone with Ananda,” Devlin interjected in such a way
as to hint that if we objected, he might rip our throats out...politely.

  I glanced at the Arhat. “And you, are you okay with that?”

  “I am at peace with anything,” he said, but somehow I remained unconvinced.

  I looked between them skeptically, but it was obvious they had come to the end of what they cared to share with the rest of us. I turned to Jinx. He sat up and got to his feet.

  “You know,” the hacker grumbled, “I would have understood. You could’ve at least told me instead of letting me shit myself every time I got a call from your I.T. guy.”

  “Would the Redbull have been as sweet, I wonder.”

  Jinx chuckled and wandered past me to the stair. I got up reluctantly, but Ananda was too busy pondering his fate to look up. “We’ll come back tomorrow,” I promised, and Devlin was kind enough to nod.

  With a swift pace, I led Jinx back through the maze to the surface, where countless victims and predators were being kept out of the street by the few unaffected minions Devlin had dispatched. As we passed by, they turned from their thankless task of zombie-herding and marked our passing with wonder.

  “Don’t worry,” Jinx muttered to one of them, “it wears off eventually.”

  I practically leaped into the passenger side of the truck.

  “Home, Jeeves,” I joked, mirthlessly.

  I was determined to keep an eye on our new friend, whether he liked it or not.

  Chapter 18

  Bliss

  Ananda and Devlin sat frozen for some time, each in his own corner, reconciling their seemingly unimportant differences. At last, Ananda’s lovely face lifted, and he looked on Devlin with an expression of surprised recognition.

  “It is a great deal of trouble,” he said gently.

  Devlin shook his head. “For you, no such thing.”

  Ananda didn’t ask why but nodded. I thought I understood. Devlin’s visage seemed as if it could not tolerate too many more questions, and Ananda was not the curious type—whatever ground he had, was just fine by him.

  Suddenly, Devlin stood and, in mid-motion, reached out and snatched Ananda’s hand. Without any kind of polite request or invitation, he pulled the Arhat to his feet and unceremoniously tugged him to the stairs. His chest had begun to rise and fall with a quickened tempo, and the veins at the side of his neck were pulsing. He was trying very hard to keep his composure, but I could tell, from my flawless vantage point, that he was quickly changing.

  Ananda followed without protest, though he was not entirely able to keep pace. He staggered once as he was yanked past the DJ’s booth. As if Devlin could barely dam up his eagerness, he came to a shuddering halt and helped his prisoner to stand upright.

  “There are cords…,” he said helpfully, but his voice was strained to the breaking point. They stood there, hands clasped, in close quarters, and a shiver went through his body that was so intense, I thought he might double up. He turned away in impatience and continued to drag Ananda into the bowels of the cavern.

  The smooth plaster of man-made work gave way to the rippling custard of natural stone and from that to the simple wooden prop of a doorway. It stood open on a dark receiving room, just an antechamber of the cave, draped in black velvet that highlighted the branches of a crystal chandelier. A round table with a polished inlaid wooden surface gleamed as if to announce it was a fitting display location; a sad collection of random objects did it no justice.

  Devlin towed Ananda around the table and through the door on the opposite side. There was another room beyond, though it was poorly lit, inhabited by shadows. Furniture neatly divided an open floor plan into several quadrants. A lonely table and chairs here, an unused bar there, all splendid and expensive looking, but all completely wasted.

  Finally, as my nerves were beginning to upset the smooth images of my vision quest, Devlin came up short and spun. With a rough push, he thrust Ananda to the side, until his back rested against the pretty fresco of an accent wall. Gasping for air he didn’t really need, Devlin planted a hand on either side of the Arhat’s waist and leaned inward. The veneer was cracking, his imaginary conceit now so useless that he could no longer manage to put his will behind it. For a moment, he smiled, his finely pointed teeth so close to Ananda’s throat that it made my stomach plunge, then the smile turned to parted lips and the unvoiced laugh to a silent sob. He collapsed against his prize, and, shaking, closed his arms in an almost desperate embrace.

  I watched Ananda’s passive face carefully, but he gave no sign he detected any kind of danger, nor did the perfect calm of his mind seem disturbed. Instead, he sighed and without reserve held Devlin’s head close to his shoulder, his long fingers tangled in the auburn hair.

  “They told me…,” Devlin choked out in a whisper. “I know what you can do.”

  Ananda’s eyelashes fanned across Devlin’s cheek. “Do?”

  Devlin sucked in air and let it out. As if he meant it to be gentler than he could actually make it, he jerked Ananda away from the wall and practically threw him at the large bed in the corner.

  My self-control wavered. The scene dimmed and then recrystalized as if reality were a plasma screen and I had just pressed my fingers to it. The large plain of white Egyptian cotton appeared never to have been used, as, struggling to right himself, Ananda put crisp creases in its unmarred surface. He rolled just in time to catch Devlin as the man crawled over him and pinned him down.

  “You have an ability,” Devlin said. “I know you do.”

  Ananda blinked at him.

  Coming apart at the seams, Devlin shoved the mattress. Their bodies bounced. “You can put people at ease!”

  The Arhat nodded.

  “Do it!” his captor commanded, but it lacked force, resonating with an almost anguished longing. “Please?”

  Without argument or complaint, Ananda reached up and touched the furrowed brow, and, like a man trapped in a fairy tale, Devlin crumpled. His breathing slowed as little quakes here and there let tension seep away. Head resting on Ananda’s shoulder, curled around him like some kind of pet boa constrictor, he seemed to slumber, Ananda’s limbs splayed open beneath his weight.

  “So long,” he murmured, and I knew he was no threat. I knew that touch, how strangely disarming it was, though I had only just begun to think about it. It felt like nothing else, no narcotic or intoxicant. It did not numb or obscure. It was permission to let go, to be safe, because the hand behind it would never be raised against you. Ananda was absolutely at peace, and, because he was, his fingers could beckon and coax out the finest person hiding within even the darkest heart. It was that touch that Devlin had needed.

  Arthur had been right.

  “Do you know who I am?” Devlin whispered in Ananda’s ear.

  “Only if you want me to,” Ananda replied quietly, “but I must confess...I will probably forget it.” It would have to be something like that; after all, he had no head for names.

  Devlin smiled, really smiled, with the contentment of an infant suckling.

  “It was always one war or another, one enemy or another. There was always someone watching, waiting, scheming. No childhood in those walls, no sanctuary, no love. I thought…,” he gave a deep sigh, “we were brothers, after all. I thought that was the one thing that was permanent.”

  In the passenger seat of the car, my body trembled with the cold chill of acknowledgment and humility.

  “And was it?” Ananda’s hand moved, parted company with the grateful flesh for only an instant as he adjusted, pulled Devlin closer, and then tossed the end of the comforter over them both.

  “Nothing ever is, but a child will believe anything.”

  “Would cruelty exist, if men did not believe in it? We give meaning to everything; the process of learning is just that—to ascribe meaning. Children are free, not because they are gullible, but because they believe nothing to be true.”

  “Where were you when . . .?” Devlin whispered against Ananda’s collarbone. “Then suddenly it was
all over, and even that tiny perfection was ruined. We were kidnapped,” his voice halted briefly as if it was still too painful to address, centuries later. “Infidels, they were called, but they were so much worse than faithless. We were too precious, too innocent to be left alone, I suppose. They spoiled him.”

  “And you were alone, the burden of the struggle left entirely to you?”

  “It seems silly to have struggled at all. He’s dead now, so many years.” He burrowed closer, and I could see the great hole he had been staring into all his long life. “My brother is gone, and I am still here, more destitute than when I sat in that cell. At least then, I had rage.”

  Ananda smiled and tucked the blanket around his face with his other hand. “Would it be easier now, with that little demon as your companion?”

  “No, but it was mine. It may not have been useful, or pleasant, or proper, but it was mine. They couldn’t take it from me.”

  “Ah, but they gave it to you.”

  Devlin flinched. “I am a creature of my age. We were all merciless.”

  “Entering the world, we are vulnerable. Very quickly we learn that no matter who she is to the rest of the world, our mother is our caretaker, and no one else’s. Our father is our protector and no one else’s. We are taught this. We are not born to possessiveness. We acquire it. So, too, with hatred.”

  Devlin’s lip curled in a shadow of his usual mockery. “My parents were murdered. One vice canceling out another. I learned I could possess only what was in me, and I hated them with every breath.”

  Ananda’s lips drew together.

  “And then he betrayed us and became one of them. My brother made himself my enemy.”

  The eyes closed. “You speak as if it was all in principle, but really, you suffer from pain, and that is what you despise.”