The One We Feed

by Kristina Meister

  “Then what is real?”

  “The light. It is the light that gives the moon its value. As long as we live, the light moves through us, reflects off us. When we die, the universe loses another mirror, but the light goes on.”

  Her scowl began to loosen. “Then there is no point? There’s no reason to be here.”

  “No.” He nodded. “There is no reason.”

  She looked away, gaze unfocused, head shaking slightly. In the room, the alarms cut off as the nurses gave up with slumped shoulders and tones of finality, though none of their actions or words made any sense to her.

  That was the end. Gran was gone, all the water in her bucket spilled out. But she’d been spilling it out all the time, drop by drop, into her daughter’s child and that child’s child. Drop by drop to the people, to her causes, to history and a brighter future. Drop by drop, fed to someone else.

  Drop by drop, the moon had vanished.

  “Reesa,” he breathed in her ear, “chasing the moon is the only thing worth doing.”

  The words seemed to echo, rebound, and dance until the vibrations filled both of us and went from a steady amplification to the simple rhythm of two hearts beating in tandem. Drop by drop, I invigorated her with my strength and the individuality of her fellows, until my chest tugged and sent me back into my own body. I was limp, lying over her with my head caught in the crook of her skinny arm. I was panting, I had given her much, but even as I opened my eyes, my breathing reconciled. A tightness grew in my very bones, until I knew the marrow was blossoming crimson.

  I pulled myself upright and, though it hurt to keep my eyes open, watched her face for movement. “Reesa,” I whispered. “Reesa, you have to wake up, now.”

  There was no response from her. I cupped her face in my hands, so pale against her that I frightened even myself. In the garish overhead fluorescence of the recovering lamps, I must surely glow.

  “Reesa, I’m calling you. I know you hear me. This is the time. Wake up!”

  She stirred, one arm jerking spasmodically. Then the mouth opened and the tongue swept across pinked lips. Finally, though we had seen each other many times, our eyes met for the first.

  Relieved, I giggled, not realizing until it happened that I was so happy to see her I was actually weeping. The sobs continued beside the laughter as I shivered against her, delighted, vindicated, exhausted.

  “Good girl, Reesa. Good girl.”

  She reached out, and with a trembling hand, ran her fingers through my dark hair. “You...you ain’t no angel.”

  I looked up at her and smiled, though every part of me was weak. “I’m exactly the kind of angel your Gran would send.”

  Chapter 29

  Testimony

  The Rakshasa had gathered at the windows and were bobbing and fighting for a place to watch their child leader rise from the dead. It took only moments for the effects of the medications to wear off, then Reesa was sitting up, testing her bare feet on the cold ground, her arms wrapped around mine.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Lilith,” I said, smoothing the worry lines on her young forehead with the pad of my thumb. “I know all about you.”

  “Did….” She looked around at the room, “did they tell you?”

  I laughed. “The scientists?”

  She nodded hesitantly.

  “No, my dear. They’re all dead.” I waved at the window where the largest Rakshasa had pulled a chair over so that the smallest could see over everyone’s head. They grew more coherent with each passing second. Soon they would be just like Reesa, able to transform at will, sing if they wished, be under their own command. “They did that, to help me get to you.”

  “For me?” She blinked at them, and, when they responded to her gaze, a soft smile awoke on her lips. “I was afraid of them.”

  “I know. I saw you singing. Your Gran would be proud of you. You summoned Grace like a champ.”

  She looked up at me, confused to her core. “How do you know my Gran?”

  I poked her third eye. “I know her because you do. I know it’s difficult to grasp, but I’m different from any person you’ve met before, and I’ve been trying to get to you for weeks now.”

  The full smile transformed her face. It had been banished from her features for years by suffering, but now she looked like her old self again.

  “My Gran...I know she’s dead, but there was someone….”

  I nodded and helped her stand. “That’s Mara. He’s the enemy. He did this to all of you.”

  “Why does he…?”

  “I don’t have time to explain,” I said, looking back at the laboratory where the other human test subjects were being held. If Mara had any sense, he’d be running away. Despite my talents, I could not be in two places at once. “It’s a kind of magic.”

  “Magic?” she whispered.

  “These monsters, they’re just people, like me and you.”

  With the staggering gait of a zombie, Reesa walked toward the window. She lifted a hand and flicked the window where a twisted nose was pressed.

  “I could tell,” she murmured.

  “I know you hate to do it, but you need to transform. They need you to lead them.”

  She looked at me over her shoulder, a mixed expression on her face. “Why?”

  “Because they love you, because they’re lonely.” I smiled. The window in front of her was suddenly crowded by faces. “Because you can. The world is about to change, Reesa. This army needs a general.”

  She frowned again and looked at the ground as if thinking it over.

  “You were the first person to reach out, to love them, to set aside fear and embrace compassion. Sometimes that is more important than food or shelter or even life.”

  Her sage eyes blinked at me. Suddenly she seemed so much like her Gran it was terrifying.

  “They picked me?”

  “You taught them to.”

  “And Mara’s the bad guy?”

  “He’s getting away, even now. I need to free the others. Can you capture him without killing him? I want you to keep him alive until I can get to him.”

  She let go of the thin blanket half-wrapped around her body and reached for the door handle. Before her fingers found its shiny metal surface, they had stretched. Sharp talons closed around it.

  The Rakshasa crowded her like a protective phalanx, licking her face, smelling her hair. I heard her giggle more than once and was happy in a way I cannot describe.

  Then they were gone, as a group, having decided in low growls and snuffles to track Mara. I wound my way through the last bit of the compound until I entered the prison. Like experimental monkeys in wire cages, humans in simple white gowns waited. Some of them were already past the point of insanity, gibbering to themselves or screaming incoherently. Their solitary guard lay on the ground, a hill of torn flesh; one of the subjects had reached through the bars and drawn words in the blood.

  I sighed and knew that this would take me ages.

  “Go, Lilith,” Ananda said from behind me.

  I turned, surprised. But of course he would already be there. He was the invisible man if he wanted to be. Now I understood why there were so few bodies littering the concrete floor. He had found the way in and begun vacating the premises of all non-essential personal. He stepped over the corpse in front of him with a small shake of his head.

  “I’m sorry. They wouldn’t have helped me if I didn’t give them something,” I said.

  He looked at me, and I was not sure he believed me. “The Sangha chose to harm others. They took that risk. You cannot bend without expecting the break.”

  “Are you sure you can handle them?”

  “Yes. Go. The Rakshasa are running across the flat.”

  “After Mara?”

  “Yes. He ran as soon as the alarms went off. I snuck in behind him. Go.”

  I did not stay to watch him work. I ran through the debris and wreckage as fast as possible, through the vacant office, up
the ladder, and out into the gas station. Mara’s escape SUV had been rolled onto its side. Long gashes split the metal and the gas tank smoked. A Siren lay on the ground, his face gone. Tracks in the sand led to my left. I followed them to the edge of the line of wrecked cars and spotted them.

  A swarm of dark red shapes tore across the vast open space of the dry, stretched earth, tiny ants in a river bed, it seemed. I set out to cover the distance as quickly as possible. The bones shifted as I crouched, my muscles seemed to surge and tug at the reins of my control like war horses. In a sudden burst of bestial energy, I hurled myself forward, my hands, now elongated and clawlike, tore at the ground beneath me, steadying my wild dash.

  Dust flew up around me, pieces dislodged soil. The distant formation was growing ever larger, and in the light of the shimmering moon, it seemed an odd shape: the dark, sloping head, wide, arched ear, and down-curved trunk of an elephant. I blinked for only a moment, and channeled Petula’s strange gift. Like an eagle soaring above, wheeling in tight arcs, I could see Reesa leading the charge, and they were gaining. Mara, wearing the shroud of my sister’s form, scrambled up the uneven surface of the coppery stone, sanguine in the eerie glow, clods of rock coming loose in his hands. Close behind him were the few minions who had escaped our wrath, but they no longer followed out of loyalty, I saw, as one of them shoved Mara aside in an attempt to outpace him.

  With werewolves, it was a universally acknowledged fact. You don’t have to run fast, just faster than that guy.

  Shrubs sped past me, coming to life in shades of deep green as the moon crested formations in the distance. Rays of light shot around the elephant, seemed to make it glow, and revealed Reesa’s horde, scaling the bluffs and crags like mountain goats, sure-footed and fearsome.

  I challenged my new abilities, threw myself into the chase, and, as Mara disappeared into what seemed a long ledge that rounded the eye socket of an overhang, the others close at his heels, I hit the base of the malformed body of the elephant and began my ascent.

  The ground was soft clay, finer than sand. It clung to my hands and feet, stuck to me as it rained down over my head, turning me to frenzied stone. Long ago, some indigene had carved helpful hand and foot holes in the rock face like an eternal ladder, but there was no way I could make use of them. I was much stronger, my strides, even on this near vertical plain, much longer than their ancient ones. I leaped from outcropping to outcropping and, as I found the ledge, heard the shrieks and jackal laughter of slaves unleashed.

  I slid along the ledge, bowed low into the overhang, and rounded the top of the elephant’s trunk, my strange, monstrous arms stretched out for balance. I turned the corner just as Eva’s voice rang out in a wordless cry and discovered Mara, backed against a cliff face, his borrowed face filled with long-deserved terror. The Rakshasa, beasts of his making, had killed his cohorts and torn them to pieces. Blocking every direction, they bobbed from side to side, flaunting their grizzly trophies as if to show Mara what would befall him, snarling with what I knew to be insensate bloodlust.

  Reesa did not lumber or creep. She stood tall and faced him, her refined features and bipedal stance made more regal by the sharpness of her gaze. She advanced on him from the center of the tangle, striding smoothly between the Rakshasa with a poised gesture of her arm. Instantly, the sounds of aggression ceased and long ears pricked in her direction.

  The child stared at the slave master and knew that the tides had turned. I could feel the satisfaction radiating off of her as I came forward. The others tossed their matted heads over their shoulders at my approach and, one by one, moved aside for me. I joined the girl at the head of her brethren and watched Eva’s face contort from terror, to rage, to dismay. She looked behind for a moment, and threw her eyes upward in a dizzy gasp. In one final attempt, she reached for Reesa, and smiled Gran’s smile with my sister’s face.

  “Come on now, child,” Mara whispered hoarsely, glancing again at the terrific drop behind him, “don’t glare at me so.”

  But that was the last thing he should have done. Reesa’s eyes narrowed to bloody slits and her self-control began to wane. Her Gran’s death was the start of her, the beginning of her identity as the leader she had become. Gran’s voice gave her strength, taught her truth in spite of suffering, trained her to think for herself and fight for those thoughts. The ruse would not work.

  I laid my hand gently on her shoulder. The dark skin rippled and flexed beneath my fingers. “No, Reesa,” I whispered in her ear. “Grace, child. Grace.”

  The tension instantly drained from her countenance. Her body released and her pulse slowed. She turned and looked at me, her eyes searching mine. I left her and, with a single stride, put myself between Mara and his creations, my children.

  Eva’s chest was heaving beneath the thin black shirt, her wide hazel eyes brimming with desperate tears. The moonlight caught her precious golden curls and set them alight. Her lips trembled. Tiny pieces of stone chipped away by her heels cascaded down the precipice in staccato clicks, perfectly punctuating her ragged breathing.

  I took her in, this image, different from the one I knew so well, the one of my brave and selfless sibling, arms wide, smile in place, at peace. This wasn’t Eva because Eva was the strongest person I had ever known.

  “Your actions cannot always be a reflection of the loss of your sister,” I heard Arthur say in his gentle teacher’s tone, and I smiled.

  “No,” I said quietly, “they can’t.”

  I crouched low, like a runner in the braces, and launched myself directly at her. In a blink, her arms flew up, the light broke all around us, and the ground began to shake. I struck her full force, wrapped my arms around her flailing limbs with such a terrible strength that she did not struggle, and, with tears in my eyes, I tore her throat wide open.

  We plummeted. My teeth, needle sharp, slid through my own lips and tongue, and our two bloods mingled at her throbbing neck. I squeezed her to me, one final goodbye, I only to the reflection, and saw the ground wheeling toward us, a broken plain of boulders and sloping landslides. I did not feel the impact; it was too great and my nerves did not relay it. My vision blackened. Some part of his body broke open and lanced through my torso with a nauseating crunch.

  When I opened my eyes, I was still moving, sliding from a pile of crumbling shards to the top of a great, flat boulder, stones skipping all around my broken body. As I turned and rolled, my limbs mended. My flesh expelled particulates, and blood seemed to seep back into me. At the base of the little sandpit, I came up into a haphazard crouch in one semi-fluid motion. Mara was a twisted heap of wreckage, still oozing down the hill, but I could see the telltale signs, slow though they were.

  After all, he had never faced real danger; his gifts had always been infallible. It was probably the first time his healing powers had been tested, and now they were augmented by my own and the horde of his making.

  As he reconstructed, the skin seemed a different shade beneath the gore. The structure that formed was tiny, almost childlike, a much different type of human than the strong, unapologetically strident things we’d become. His head was a mess of dark tangles; his face, split like an overripe melon, had the bone structure of the back of a shovel, blunt and sloping. His eyes were glazed and a deep shade of brown, and they stared out at me in unseeing disinterest.

  He was weak. He had terrified so many, seemed so large, so inimitable and menacing; yet here he was, broken, unable to crouch behind the visages of our pasts, haunting us with their faces stretched like masks over his flat skull.

  It disgusted and delighted me all at once.

  I knelt there on one knee, panting with exhaustion, my right hand planted in the loose earth. Fatigue momentarily gripped me, my raised leg buckled, and I collapsed against the velvety surface of a rock.

  My sword leans against the sky.

  The ground shivered again, sending a shower of more small red and brown rocks over us, accompanied by my kindred, racing down the cliff fac
e as fast as possible. Their feet slid and jumped. Several landed on all fours and skidded. Reesa found me and with a single penetrating glance saw that I was uninjured.

  Over her shoulder, Mara began to move, deboned limbs drawn together by the creeping vines of muscle, his body reassembled in ghastly stop motion. His lungs inflated and expelled fluids of every kind in a spatter of crimson. Slowly, his eyes became lucid, his head turned at a sharp, unnatural angle toward me.

  I looked up at the light casting us in shadows, haloing the great elephant’s head, sparkling through the arch of its trunk.

  With a smile, I dropped my eyes to my body. My left hand lay open in my lap, the claws of the Rakshasa slowly receding. My knees bent away from each other, the soles of my feet nearly touching. My right hand was embedded in the soft clay dust.

  “The earth, itself,” I murmured, “will testify.”

  Reesa stood up, a lioness, threw back her head, and howled.

  Chapter 30

  The Floating Door

  “I wish I had time to go through it all for you,” I said hoarsely to Reesa as she helped me stand.

  “Know what I need to know for now.”

  She smiled at me when I looked her way, but a glimmer in her eye told me something was not right.

  “You stole it, didn’t you?” she said, as I reached up and touched my face. “His...power?” When I did not immediately answer, she grinned. “You look just like her, you know. Except that she would’ve been wearin’ a hat on such a special occasion.”

  “True.” I took her hand. “And matching gloves.”

  Mara was sitting with his back against a boulder. The Rakshasa prowled around him in a circle like shadowy sentinels, though all the time, they looked less and less like his monsters. As I approached, they slid aside, took up seats and perches on the rocks around us.