The One We Feed

by Kristina Meister

  Nature will rise up in defense of him, crap-head, I thought with a smile.

  “When you find that you cannot die, everything seems plausible,” Devlin said in a flat voice. “I drank blood because for a brief instant, I was sure they were not dead but passing their knowledge on to me. In those whirlwind days, it was easy to think. I did not know that soon everything would be duller, pointless, a struggle I no longer had any stake in. My fervor was a death rattle for my short humanity.”

  “I get it,” I said, even though I could not see how a person could celebrate a divine gift by inventing a recipe for blood bread. “Not sure I’d have gone that route, but I get it.”

  “Those were dark days,” he commented in disinterest. Arthur slew a bishop. Devlin seemed to have lost hope.

  Jinx raised a finger, “In the Dark Ages, incidentally.”

  “It’s your contention, then, that Christianity made you a vampire.”

  “What else could it have been?” Devlin mumbled through his fingers. “What other idea is infectious, invasive, and virulent enough to halt the natural life cycle in its tracks?”

  I glanced at Arthur’s perfect back.

  “Oh no, my dear, sadly you have made an error in deduction.”

  I raised an eyebrow at our host as he made one last attempt to save his King. “Have I?”

  “Oh yes.” He smiled.

  The Queen was shifted. Arthur swooped in. The game would quickly be over, and yet Devlin appeared to have come to terms with it.

  “What error?”

  His smile grew until it was a mean-spirited grin. “The ailment of the saints is just an adaptation of the one your friend here began more than two thousand years ago.”

  I blinked.

  “You didn’t realize?”

  I had read the Bible enough times to note how divergent the two Testaments were but had assumed that the benevolent Father of the New was simply a profound cultural revolution. The sudden reversal of Jewish tradition and law had been so severe, however, that it caused the Jews themselves to condemn Jesus. If Jinx was right about different groups of ideas having defense mechanisms to keep out invading thoughts, perhaps the crucifixion had been one such case. The Jews wanted salvation from their persecutors, but Jesus’ ideas had been too merciful. So merciful, in fact, that they might have come from somewhere else...like Tibet? What if the miracles too, had been the product of a greater concentration, a knowledge of the flexibility of reality? What if Jesus had not been the son of god, but an Arhat?

  I locked eyes with the Boy Wonder.

  Under his breath, he strung the words, “Fuck me,” onto a strand of Gallic expletives so rounded that they would have convinced a nun swearing was romantic.

  “I’m afraid it is true,” Devlin smirked. “Of course, I did not realize it until much later. It diminished my faith somewhat.”

  He rose slightly from his chair, and, in a bow, swept his arm over the table. The pieces tumbled in defeat, but Devlin was ecstatic. It seemed the loss had clarified something for him, some cloudy possibility that Arthur was the cornerstone of his own genius.

  “Well done, Grandfather. You have won!” The auburn head shook in mock shame. “Forgive me, I should have asked for the privilege.”

  Arthur’s voice was nonchalant, almost amused. “You may call me whatever you want, but, you should know, I cheated.”

  To someone like Devlin, cheating was but one more possible series of moves that he would have accounted for. No one could out-play him or out-cheat him. Except someone like Arthur, who made it his life’s work to undo every expectation or indeed the need for expectations.

  The scowl was almost imperceptible, it was so brief. “I watched closely. I can assure you that you obeyed the rules.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes.”

  Ananda began reorganizing the board from the arm of Devlin’s chair. “Perhaps, then, not all the rules are known,” he murmured.

  Devlin stared between the two of them for several minutes, looking about as nonplussed as I felt whenever they spouted one of their koans at me. Soon his eyes unfocused, and I knew he’d had some sort of profound realization that only made sense to him, probably something along the lines that the Set of All of Our Meager Earthly Laws was but a small part of the larger Set of All Arthur’s Comprehensions. In other words, it was possible for him to appear to be governing himself by our rules, even as he worked outside them.

  Join the club.

  I huffed on one of my nails and polished it for the fiftieth time; the pattern was becoming old news.

  When Devlin at last stepped away from the table and let Ananda finish resetting it, he was looking at Arthur in a different, much more corrosively interested way, as if melting the flesh off would clue him in on some of his suspicions.

  “Don’t bother, Dev,” I muttered in sympathy. “Won’t work.”

  His eyes flicked in my direction furtively.

  “Yeah, the worst ones are when they work together. Like a tag team match,” Jinx added helpfully, putting an invisible brain in a choke hold. “Can’t think. Mind feels like it suddenly turned into a grapefruit.”

  “Why a grapefruit?” I chuckled.

  “Why not?”

  “Yup, good point.”

  Chapter 21

  Lifeblood

  While Devlin spent hours trying to dissect how Arthur had won their little competition, I explored. It turned out that the Circle was much bigger than it seemed. Opposite Devlin’s corridor, there was another behind the bar. Branches struck out at all angles and were all built out like cubicles. No beds, no possessions. An occasional closet or gathering place, but all in all, the barren, little doorless alcoves looked more like monastic cells than private spaces.

  Very little light found its way in those recesses. Occasionally a drop of water would collide with stone and make the close air ring, but otherwise, it was silent. I walked deeper and deeper into the mountainside, until a dim glow of candlelight behind an escarpment caught my eye.

  A gathering had formed. They crouched on the slanted cave floor or wedged themselves into ledges. A conversation had been going on in voices so low that I had not heard them. With their painted faces and black clothes, they looked like ghouls, and I was alone with them. I hid behind a stalagmite, preparing to book it when the shimmer of the candles moved the shadows just so, but it seemed that one of them had spotted me.

  “Won’t you join us?” a voice said, but somehow it sounded more malevolent than gracious to me.

  I stepped out and found the speaker. She was sitting on a little wooden stool, looking like a macabre princess, complete with black Swarovski tiara. I was under-dressed in my stretch denim and militant button up, but at least if there was a cave in, I’d be most likely to get out.

  “I was just looking around,” I explained.

  Her smile was cool, but her brown bedroom eyes remained fixed on me. “You are more than welcome.”

  “Yeah, so Devlin says.” The others were staring too, and in the minds of the younger ones I could clearly read the traces of unguarded thoughts. They had been talking about me.

  Speak of the Devil.

  “I’ll just leave you to your...whatever.” But as I turned, the little angry personality that so often possessed me spun me back around and gave the woman a dirty look. “You know, it’s not polite to talk about people behind their backs.”

  “I apologize,” she said with a little bow. “We would prefer, of course, to speak directly to you, but Devlin seemed to desire that all of you be sequestered. It is so often the case.” She cast a woeful glance at the others, who smiled and nodded in laconic agreement. “He likes to assess risks before he exposes us to them.”

  “Makes you easier to control, I’ll wager.”

  To my surprise, she shrugged, one shoulder displacing the lace shawl draped over it. “Someone ought to. We are very...precocious.”

  Creeped out, I crossed my arms and wondered how many of them I could take
before I was overpowered. “Well, a man’s gotta relax.”

  She giggled and it sounded like a bird warbling. Like a virus, it spread around their little circle until it struck the wall of my stoicism and died into a whisper. She watched me for the span of a few measured breaths and then got to her feet.

  By her graceful and precise movements, I could tell she was very old, perhaps even older than Devlin. Frowning, I scanned her for thoughts, but her mind was blank. She anticipated nothing, formed no words in her head. She seemed to be observing me with one hundred percent of her faculties – a psychic feat only someone of high caliber could manage. I tried to gauge her talents but found that I could not.

  “You don’t like us,” she said suddenly, the phrase forming in her mouth just as her brain pulled it from the abyss.

  “No, I don’t.”

  She stepped toward me so quickly, it was as if she’d always been that close.

  I stepped back. “It’s not you. I’m sure you’re lovely. Just not a fan of ritual human blood-letting. Not my thing. Personal bias.”

  Their snickering bounced softly around the room.

  She stretched out a beautiful hand. “We are just sampling.”

  “Except when they end up dead.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Hardly ever happens. What do you resent more, that we wish to do it or that they let us?”

  “Not sure, really.” I gave up trying to anticipate her. Her mind moved too quickly, like her neurons were on greased ball bearings. “I suppose I’ve always been curious about that.”

  She clasped her hands in front of her and bowed her head. “To be honest, I have never understood it myself. The church tells us...but that is all just metaphor, perhaps.”

  “It doesn’t keep you alive.”

  “No.” There was a smile on her downcast mouth. “It is more complicated than nourishment. It feels like a search that does not end.”

  I tilted my head and heard the truth resonating through words. “A search for what?”

  “Would that I could tell you, but sadly, I am confounded by it. Perhaps there is something there, in blood, after all, that we lack. Every immortal race I have encountered eventually falls into it. Perhaps it is...inevitable.”

  I thought of mythology, of some legends moving forward and others moving backward, and suddenly, their hobbies seemed less like a decision and more like a curse. As far as we knew, Mara was the oldest. Perhaps his origins were far enough in the past that he avoided such a fate.

  “And the people you...sample?”

  She shrugged again. “Without us, none of them would be able to thrive. Among their own, complexity is forgotten. Here every man is unique. We can see that. We see them as they wish to be seen.”

  “So you’re just letting repressed people...express themselves?”

  She took another step forward. This time, I didn’t move. Trepidation was quickly turning to understanding.

  “If we did not, it would be far worse, you understand.”

  “I don’t.”

  She seemed mildly surprised. “They, too, face their own degradation. They, too, fixate, and worry. They are just like us. It is a mutually beneficial relationship.”

  “Or mutually harmful.”

  “There exists nothing that might make it otherwise.”

  Except me.

  The thought surprised me; I wasn’t sure where it came from.

  “They say you can...see things.”

  “They being . . .?”

  Her head dipped. Dark ringlets dragged across a pale neck. “The Sangha.”

  “Shouldn’t believe everything you hear.” I unfolded my arms and shoved them into my pockets. “We’re not exactly close.”

  “And yet they admire you.”

  I looked around for a closer exit and shook my head. “Since when? Last time I checked, they were trying to kill me.”

  “That is admiration,” she said with a smile, “and not all of them wish you ill.”

  I looked at her and could picture Ursula among them, playing her piano with unerring precision and lackluster polish. “Oh? How do you know?”

  “We have had close ties to them for a great many years.”

  The others began to adjust their positions as if to get a better view of me. One got up and walked a slow arc around my right flank. Unnerved, but in no way intimidated, I watched him from the corner of my eye as he ran his gaze up my arm.

  “And they told you that I am psychic?”

  “Actually,” she said, “they told us to stay away from you. They said there was no telling what might happen.”

  I found the man as he came around my other side and glared. “Good advice.”

  “Which begs the question,” she chuckled. It had a sinister hiss to it that set my teeth on edge. “What are you?”

  I mimicked her shrug, a little less prettily. “Couldn’t tell you. If you ask them, I’m death on roller skates. Ask Jinx and he’ll tell you I’m the solution to all your problems. Don’t want to guess what Devlin’s thinking, but it’s probably a variation on said theme.”

  The curious skulker finished his examination and took up a place at Elvira’s right hand. I realized in that moment that he’d been exercising some kind of gift on me, when he leaned in and whispered something into her ear. She nodded.

  “You have no opinion on the subject? It is happening to you.”

  I cracked my knuckles in a moment of weakness. “Since I’ve acquired this talent, I’ve killed people. Can’t say I’m excited about it.”

  “Typhoons kill people. Floods levels countries. The earth crumbles away.” She took a step with each sentence, until she was within arm’s length and backlit by the candle. “Nature cannot be restrained.”

  “Nature doesn’t have a conscience.”

  “An obvious dilemma, but conscience is a self-serving apparatus of the mind. A safety to make certain we can all coexist, by assuring that we amend trespasses or avoid them altogether. There is no coexistence for the immortals and if we have learned anything, it is that trespass is the only certain mechanism for progress.”

  “So I shouldn’t care.” I shook my head and looked down at my hiking boots. “Sorry, can’t accept that.”

  “Conscience is not the same as caring. Conscience is hindsight, not vision. With a gift like yours, it is unnecessary.”

  “How do you know what gifts I have?”

  She tilted her head. “Everyone knows. Word spreads quickly when half of your race reads thoughts.” She moved slowly past me then, the others close behind. The candle flickered dizzily as they moved out of the chamber. Unable to see in the dark, I followed along mutely. “Your appearance was like a stone dropped into still water. Waves are spreading outward. You will be hard-pressed to meet anyone who does not know of you and the things you can do.”

  When we came out in the main cavern again, to its silent dance floor and vacant bar, she stopped and turned to face me, her little clique of vamps gathered around her.

  “This life had become tedious,” she said. “But nothing is forever. I am glad you have finally appeared, Lilith. I only hope you do not let your affection for humans color your decisions on their behalf.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I think you know.”

  “Who are you?”

  She shrugged. “Flora. Patron Saint of the Abandoned, but then again, that was another life.” I didn’t have time to register surprise at this revelation, nor to recover from it and accept what she’d said. She executed a curtsy and floated out to the reception area. Soon after, her band of succubi had scattered to a round of soft chuckles at my expense, and I was left alone.

  I took out my phone and was surprised to note that I had reception. Devlin must have installed some kind of signal booster. I dialed Karl. He answered almost immediately, as if he’d been expecting me. He probably had been. Since I’d learned he could find me, I hadn’t exactly had negative feelings about it. Though it did make me wonder if he was watching me
in the shower.

  “Lilith.”

  “Tell me you didn’t call Devlin and talk about me?”

  He cleared his throat hesitantly. “I did. I’m sorry. It’s difficult to keep things from him, especially since I needed as much information as possible.”

  “For what purpose?”

  I heard another voice in the background on his end. He replied to it in muffled words then returned to me. “Hal made it here in one piece. I tested him.”

  “And you didn’t think to call me?” I let out a sigh. “What is it with everyone?”

  “I called Jinx. He has the knowledge. He said not to bother you, that he’d explain everything when the time came.”

  “Fine, thanks, I’ll go ask him.” I hung up.

  Hadn’t I proven myself? Hadn’t I gone out of my way to demonstrate how level-headed and self-aware I was? I ran my fingers through my hair and realized that by thinking that, I was in fact proving I was not over being a simple human. Arthur and Ananda had gone into the river and to the other side. So how come I was a superhuman knee-deep in stupidity?

  If Jinx knew something he wasn’t telling me, it was because he didn’t want me to be upset. I was the one who gave him the impression I might get upset. After all, I had crushed a man’s heart while sporting some serious red eye.

  I wandered down the hall to Devlin’s room and found that Arthur had again consented to play. Rather than being frustrated by continued losses, Devlin seemed amused and intrigued.

  “Refreshing,” he muttered to himself as I entered. “I’d forgotten how to lose.”

  “Like falling on your ass,” Jinx shot back, “while trying to remember how to ride a damn bike.”

  “Jinx, we need to talk.” I gave him my serious, you’ve-been-a-bad-boy face. He froze like a mouse in the open. “Karl said the results on Hal came back. You were supposed to tell me.”

  “I haven’t finished my Powerpoint yet.”

  “Very funny.”