Feeder

by Patrick Weekes

  “I watched a lot of Xena reruns growing up,” Maya said hopefully. “My dad was confused about how I always drew Xena and Gabrielle holding hands.”

  “Tia Lake,” Lori murmured. “Of the Lake Foundation.” She pulled out her phone and started typing.

  Iara checked her own phone, which had no signal. “Your phone works?”

  “It always works.” Lori frowned. “I’m doing a search. Let’s see what we get for ‘water monster goddess tia . . .’ ”

  She finished typing, and then her eyes widened.

  “I think I know who she is.”

  “Who? Not what?” Tapper reached over for her phone, and Lori jerked it away from him with a sudden flinch, then recovered and held it out so they all could see.

  In religions native to the Mesopotamian region, Tiamat is a primordial goddess of the ocean, who mates with Abzû (the god of freshwater) to produce younger gods, and later with Kingu to produce monsters. She is presented as both a beautiful woman, symbolizing creation and fertility, and also as a sea serpent or dragon later defeated by Marduk (or in earlier versions, Anu) in an early example of Chaoskampf, the struggle of a cultural hero against a chaos monster that is usually draconic or serpentine in appearance.

  See also: Tiamat (disambiguation)

  “Okay,” said Maya after a moment, “I feel like there’s a geeky thing here that the guys who played the dice games used to talk about, where the red dragon head breathes fire, and the black one breathes lightning—”

  “Please don’t,” Tapper growled. “And the black dragon head breathes acid.”

  “She is a Sumerian goddess,” Iara said. “She is thousands of years old.”

  “She’s a monster,” Tapper said. “She is that giant eel thing we swam past to get here. The human shape is just a disguise.”

  “That’s sick,” Hawk said. “So it’s like a feeder making everyone think it’s a real person, and its real body is hiding down in the dark . . .”

  “None of that matters,” Lori said, her voice quick and clipped. Her phone buzzed in her hand, and she jerked it away to read it. Then she looked at all of them and grimaced. “What matters is that we only have until tomorrow to kill her.”

  “So how does this help us?” Hawk asked. “We maybe know what she is. We don’t know what she wants, except that it has to do with the miracoral.” He pointed at the words etched into the ground around the cluster. “Maybe if we figure out what she needs, we’ll figure out a weakness, and then we can hit her there.”

  Stepping carefully, as though the words on the floor might hurt him, he moved toward the aquarium on the floor. The glow of the miracoral intensified as he drew closer, its warm golden color inviting him to keep coming. Iara could hear the color in some part of her mind, her special gift letting her process the growing light as a song as pure as the chime of a bell.

  Then, from behind them, a woman’s deep voice echoed across the chamber.

  “It seems I was a fool for trying to capture you,” said Tia Lake as she entered the room, her stiletto heels clacking on the floor, “when you were willing to come here yourselves the whole time.”

  09

  LORI

  Lori’s phone had begun buzzing almost immediately, but she couldn’t look away from the woman coming toward them.

  Tia Lake—Tiamat?—was tall and perfect. Her hair was black and silky and tumbled down past her shoulders, her lips were blood red, and her skin was alabaster. She looked ready to order the death of a stepdaughter or negotiate a major business deal, and as she walked into the room, lights came on, tracking her position to put her in a spotlight.

  “You are the Nix I captured, yes?” she asked, and her voice pulled at Lori, just like before. It was worse in person. Her voice was the most important thing in the world, it was Lori’s whole brain, and the question got inside her head and expanded until the pressure threatened to make it explode.

  “No,” came bursting from her mouth, even as all of the others said, “Yes.”

  Lake looked at her with a curious smile, one immaculate eyebrow arching. “You must be Angler Consulting, then.”

  It wasn’t a question, and it let the pressure off of her mind. Lori opened her mouth to lie and found that the words wouldn’t come out.

  “You are Tiamat, ancient goddess of oceans and creation,” Iara said while Lori stammered.

  Lake turned to Iara, her little smile disappearing. “One of many names. Too many. You are linked to the coral, as you all must see. Can you communicate with it?”

  “I do not believe so,” said Iara. Lori saw that her eyes were glassy.

  Then she did look at her phone as it buzzed again.

  Handler: Kk, we need to get out of here.

  Handler: We don’t have a weakness for her yet.

  Handler: & if she can wear heels while deep-sea diving, she’s pretty powerful.

  Handler: Iara has superhearing. Weak vs Lake’s voice.

  “Have you touched it?” Lake asked.

  “No,” Iara answered.

  “Do, please.” Lake smiled gently as Iara turned and lifted her crutches to move toward the aquarium.

  “Stop her!” Lori shouted. “You have to block out the voice! Music or shouting or—”

  “Got it,” Tapper said, and boxed Iara’s ears hard. Iara shouted and fell to the floor, clutching at her head.

  Lake circled them, her face neutral, and stopped before the little aquarium tank with the piece of miracoral in it. It went red as she approached, and when she tapped on the glass, a dozen of the crayfish sprang out from it, pincers flashing with crackling arcs of energy. “It will not answer me. Not yet. Will it speak to you?” she asked Lori, stepping away from the tank.

  “No. It hates me too.” Lori stepped between Lake and the others. As the woman’s attention fell upon her, Lori felt every tiny imperfection hit her with crushing force. One leg of her wetsuit had ridden up ever so slightly and was starting to itch. Her hair was drying in a tangled mess from the salt water. She looked lumpy and frail and weak and pathetic, and she was slouching, but she couldn’t make herself stand up straight. “You’ve been here for thousands of years, feeding and killing. Why do you need the miracoral?”

  Lake’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?” Then she smiled and stepped forward, her heels clacking. Around her the eels started to slither. “No, what are you?”

  “I . . .” Her phone buzzed. She dropped it to her side and squeezed her eyes shut against the hot sting. The others were going to hear.

  Maya was going to hear.

  “I think I’m a feeder,” came the words, lunging out like vomit, “like you. I’m not real.”

  Lake was perhaps ten feet away. “You’re nothing like me, child,” she said easily, “and now that I can really see you, I understand.” She reached out.

  Then wind rushed past Lori, and Lake staggered backward as Tapper blurred into her, fist extended. “Back off!”

  Hawk was there a moment later, carrying a marble statue of a snake coiling around a woman. He yelled as he threw it, and Lake staggered again as the marble shattered against her.

  Lori looked at them in confusion.

  Maybe they hadn’t heard what she was.

  Her phone kept buzzing. It was heating up from doing it so much, and she glanced down.

  Handler: KEEP HER TALKING WE NEED INTEL

  “What are you?” she shouted as Lake recovered. “What are you, really? What do you want?”

  Lake’s face twisted into a snarl of disdain that sent Lori cringing back. “You cannot grasp what I am. I come from a place beyond your comprehension.”

  “What, like space?” Hawk asked, and stepped in with a solid punch. Her head snapped back, but she didn’t fall. Her hands closed on Hawk, long fingernails perfectly manicured and painted the same red as her lips, and she hurled him into a pillar. The eels hissed and creaked and twisted around him.

  “The coral mutated you,” Lake called out. “It must want you for somethi
ng.”

  Tapper flashed toward her, but this time she caught him and slammed him to the floor, and eels slithered around him as he shouted and fought, a blur of panicked motion. “How do I make it scream?”

  “I don’t know,” Lori said, and heard the others echo the words.

  Lake’s face twisted in rage, then went still. “Useless, all of you. Perhaps it will respond to your pain.”

  “Why?” Lori yelled at her again. “Why do you need it?” As Lake’s attention focused on her, she shifted over to the side, away from the others. Under the great mass of oily, dark yellow skin in the shadows, Hawk was still struggling. So was Tapper, at the edge of Lake’s spotlight. “Why do you need the coral?”

  Lake started toward her, her lips pressed into a thin line. “Because you are right, children. I am the goddess Tiamat. I came to this world thousands of years ago, and I am trapped here.” Her gaze pinned Lori in place. “I want out of this pitiful tide pool. I want to return to the deep water.”

  “So leave.” The words tumbled from Lori’s mouth of their own volition. “Just go home.”

  Lake’s hands curled into fists, and the eels nearby hissed and began to slither toward Lori. “I can’t, you idiot child. I am something greater than you can ever know.”

  “You are the giant eel monster we passed in the water on the way down,” Lori said. This time, the words were her choice. “That’s the real you, isn’t it? The eels, your human body here . . . those are just extensions of you.”

  Lake sneered at her. “Correct, little girl, but not what I meant. My body may be powerful, yes, but my mind, my self . . . You cannot lie to me, and you cannot deny me answers when I seek them, because your mind has taken part of me inside you. I am seared into the consciousness of all who behold me. Even the imperfect knowledge passed down in legends contains some of me.” She stopped and gestured sharply at something Lori couldn’t see.

  A moment later, lights came on around it—a bronze bust of Medusa.

  “And as tiny, as insignificant, as you are, your minds pin me to this world. As long as I am remembered, I am captive. Can you imagine what it is like to be trapped,” Lake hissed, “locked into a prison of existence by the flawed and imperfect image of you that others hold in their head?”

  Lori thought of Mister Barkin glaring at her, of Hawk offering to carry Iara, of Tapper glaring at everyone as he sat alone, and the words came out all by themselves. “I think I can.”

  It wasn’t the answer Lake had expected. She paused for a moment, head cocked thoughtfully as she observed Lori. “Then you understand why I need to be free of it.”

  The eels slithered into a circle around Lori. Most were normal size. One was as long as Lori was tall, though, thick and glossy. They weren’t touching her yet. Behind Lake, Hawk and Tapper still struggled under the coiling piles upon them. “How?” Lori asked, hoping Handler was ready with something.

  “For thousands of years, I pulled against my bonds,” Lake snarled, “hoping to no avail that the world would forget me. But then the miracoral came, another visitor from the deep water, and its cry of pain attracted something even greater.”

  “The Leviathan,” Lori guessed, and Lake nodded.

  “I sear myself into this world,” Lake said, slashing her hand through the air in irritation, “but the Leviathan is even larger than I am. Its presence erases, leaving only gaps imperfectly filled, with no memory or understanding.”

  Like the water rising, Lori thought. Out loud she said, “So everything you’re doing to the miracoral . . . You’re trying to get it to cry out. You’re trying to summon the Leviathan?”

  “It will erase this world,” Lake said with a hard smile, “and then I can return to the deep water. But first let us look at you . . .” She stepped toward Lori, and the ring of eels surrounding Lori began to tighten.

  Then a keening wail cut through the air. It started loud, and then turned shrill and painful, and then turned into a buzzing heat in Lori’s ears, and then was a tiny sound Lori wasn’t even sure she could hear anymore . . . and the eels shrieked and fell to thrashing at the sound.

  Iara knelt on the floor, her mouth open wide, glaring at Lake as she finished her wail. “The only freedom to be gained is ours, monster!” Iara shouted, and Lori saw Hawk and Tapper clamber free from the still-thrashing eels.

  Lake let out a slow breath through her nose. “In a moment, little Nix.” She turned back to Lori. “If they cannot help me, perhaps you are the difference I need.”

  She reached out for Lori.

  The great eel that had circled around Lori snapped up, coiled around Lake’s wrist, twisted, and threw her to the floor. “Okay, hi, sorry, I’m not really a good hitter!” the eel shouted as its colors swam back from sickly yellow to blond hair and pale skin and pink swimsuit.

  Lori looked at Maya and swallowed. She’d put herself between Lake and Lori.

  Hawk was there a moment later, his swimsuit covered with ichor, and Tapper was beside him, grimacing. They all stepped beside Lori, fists raised, glaring at Lake as she got back to her feet. Back by the aquarium, Iara whooped a battle cry.

  Lake made a noise. They’d injured her, Lori thought. We have a chance.

  Then she realized it was laughter.

  “I believe I know who you are, Angler Consulting,” Lake said, straightening and flipping her hair back into place. “You hunt things like me, and you fear that you are one, don’t you? You fear letting the others find out.”

  Lori fought it, and her phone buzzed, trying to help, but before she could look down at it, the word popped out. “Yes.”

  The others couldn’t have missed it this time. They were right beside her. She looked away.

  “We knew that,” Tapper snapped. “Quit trying to make it a thing, Dragon Lady.”

  Lori blinked the sting from her eyes and looked over. “You knew?”

  “I see everything, remember?” Tapper looked over at her, his eyes glittering.

  “It doesn’t matter what you think Lori is,” Maya called back to Lake, her voice quavering even as she raised her fists. “What matters is what she wants to be and how she treats people.”

  “She tries hard to be a good person, doesn’t she?” Lake asked, still smiling. She ignored the little chorus of “yes.” “Taking care of her little brother all by herself, making money killing things like me to pay for food and rent. But you, who would deny me the gift of being forgotten, I wonder if you have thought about that, really.”

  It wasn’t a question, and the silence stood for a moment.

  The phone buzzed. Lori looked down at it.

  Handler: Lori, I’m so sorry.

  Confused, she looked back up at Lake.

  “Lori,” the tall woman said, smiling as the name struck like a blow, “it doesn’t really make sense for a girl your age to be raising her brother all alone. What happened to your parents?”

  And from Lori’s mouth, all by themselves, came the words, “Guess it was just one of those things.”

  For a moment she just stood there. All at once the world felt heavy, as though the air itself were congealing around her. She could feel, with the itchy pressure at the back of her neck, every eye in the room on her, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything.

  “What did you say?” Maya asked, her eyes wide.

  “I . . . I . . .” The words wouldn’t come.

  Lake’s smile showed shiny white teeth now. “Where are they? Where are your parents?”

  “Guess it was just one of stop!” Lori shouted. Her pulse pounded in her ears. “Stop making me say it!”

  “The only way for me to escape this living hell is to be forgotten,” Lake said, and now she was coming back toward Lori. “But I am bound in this wretched world. I can force the truth from your mouths, I can take your minds, but I cannot make you forget. You, Angler Consulting, can tamper with minds somewhat. My assistant could not recall how she got your contact information to hire you for the little th
ing at the docks. These adjustments, they leave a gap, a little hole that the world fills in and tries not to let its people remember. Like the rising of the waters.” She smiled. “Or your parents.”

  “Guess it was . . .” Lori bit her lip, forced the words back. Every time she tried to think, something slipped away.

  “Maybe your connection will help,” Lake said. “If the miracoral refuses to scream for me and lure the Leviathan back, perhaps you will help me escape the shallows of this world . . . especially since you are as false as I am.”

  Lori couldn’t think. It was falling away, all of it. The room spun around her. She was a monster who thought she was a girl who thought she was a monster, a monster real enough to cry. Guess it was just one of those things.

  She lunged forward and grabbed Lake by the wrist.

  Look at the microbe on the plate.

  Pretend that as it oozed forward in its own primitive way, you bit down into the plate, crunching the glass beneath your jaws as you heard the screams of the little microbe who could not see you coming and had no frame of reference for your very existence.

  Pretend that as you lean in to get that little microbe on the shattered remains of the plate, you have just a moment to realize how far you have extended yourself, and then, from the darkness where you could not see, something grabs ahold of you, and there are teeth and jaws and where did it come from and you should thrash free but you can’t as something

  spears

  into

  your

  side

  Lori stumbled with a wrenching jerk that felt like pain in a part of the body she didn’t have. The jaws—Handler’s jaws— speared through Tia Lake, and then just as quickly, Tia Lake slid around them, a mass of snakes imitating a person, and the jaws thrashed in pain and—

  HAWK

  “What did you do to her?” Hawk yelled as Lori screamed and disappeared. It was like when she usually did her teleportation thing—or when the thing Tapper had said was driving her pulled her out of the world and into . . . space, Hawk kind of thought . . . but Lori had never screamed before.