The One We Feed (19 page)

“That’s not
making me feel any better.” I sniffed.

“Remember the
rules.” He lifted my face and smiled. “The wild man begins as a great thinker
and over time becomes a monster. But the Lilith, she starts as a monster and
ends up a queen. Her myth isn’t tending toward entropy, it’s tending toward
organization, toward structure. The myth isn’t evolving forward, Lily. It’s
evolving backward. Or maybe I should say, it
has evolved
, or maybe it
devolved
.
This is new to me.”

My mouth
worked around a silent, broken thought, and my eyes drifted up to the sweeping,
giant wing that shaded me.

“How is that
possible, for time to move backward, I mean?”

“How did you
know that Smith had been in our hotel room
before
you took his gift?”

It seemed the
gleaming machinery in my head had ground to a halt. I stared at him in wonder,
and watched his smile grow.

“Why are your
eyes red when you’ve never met a Rakshasa? How did you talk to your sister
before she died? How did you talk to
yourself
, Lily? How is the
Crossroads even possible?”

Arthur had
never explained it, but in his way, he had let me believe that this was simply
how it always went, when a Buddha was made. The future was an open book, so
surely the past was too. I had never pressed for answers, because I had always
believed he would tire of my constant pestering, but he was slipping away now,
and I needed the truth.

Jinx opened
the pamphlet and pointed to an instructive text about the collection. “The
Epic
of Gilgamesh
was lost to humanity for thousands of years. It was
rediscovered in the Ashurbanipal library dig at Nineveh and
translated in 1872. Less than twenty years later, a guy named Bram Stoker took
the Wallachian myth of a winged serpent woman who ate children and crossed it
with a the eastern European lycanthrope, and for the first time in human
history, the Lilith and the Wild Man became one single myth. They’ve been
linked ever since. Just watch that appalling
Underworld
saga, if you
don’t believe me.”

“I don’t
understand.”

The tongue
ring clicked across his teeth. “One myth moving forward and one moving backward
coalesce at the same point. Whoever this Reesa chick is, she’s critical. She’s
Enkidu, and you….”

“I’m Shamhat.”
I pulled my fingers through my hair and wiped my face. He handed me a
handkerchief embossed with the Autobots logo. My tears were forgotten
instantly.

“You’re too
much.”

“That’s why
you like me.”

“And here I
thought I liked you because you were an immortal genius.”

He shrugged
and took my hand, escorting me on. In a room full of the
bas relief
of
some battle, I leaned on a rail and considered all that he had said.

“Why me?”

“Because,” he
grumbled. “When are you going to learn not to ask questions like that? Just go
on about your business and handle your shit. Let the chips fall where they
may.”

“How am I
supposed to do that when you’re whispering in my ear that I’m some sort of
world-changing time-twisting she-bitch from the deepest recesses of hell?”

Snickering, he
pulled a piece of Niccoret gum out of his pocket and shoved it into his mouth.
“Sticks and stones, Lily. Sticks and stones.”

I ruffled his
spikes and wandered toward the exit. Ancient history had lost its allure. I
needed the fresh, zinc-scented air of a world dipped in wifi.

“Answer me
this one: how did you put all this together?”

Jinx trotted
beside me, palming a cigarette as soon as we’d escaped the doors. “Mara had
three lovely daughters, Sirens move in choruses of three, and guess who had
three fiendish wives?”

I glanced his
way. “Who?”

“Dracula, of
course.”

“That’s how
you unraveled the greatest conspiracy ever perpetrated?” I asked, dumbfounded.

The flash of
his lighter sparked in his eye. “You’ll figure it out soon enough. Trust me.”

Chapter
14

Hunches

My soul was restless. I dropped
the Boy Wonder off at the subway station and drove around for a few hours,
until I determined that my uneasiness could be cured by simply developing a
plan and sticking to it. I didn’t have all the information I needed yet, but I
did have ways of getting it.

I drove to the
safe house and parked around the corner from it. If Mara was as intent upon
getting Reesa out of his compound as my visions indicated, then the
responsibility for organizing the migration would fall upon the shoulders of
our overwrought friend, the overseer. What with his failure to protect his
stronghold and his seeming proximity to Bonkersville, I figured he would be the
weak link in the chain.

Leaning back
in my chair, I slid into the
jhana
for some reconnaissance. The elevator
was already repaired, and the door to Petula’s room stood ajar. All of her
possessions had been removed. I floated into the guard room, where the many
camera feeds and computer consoles were usually manned by Sangha agents, but
discovered that the men had vanished and taken the electronics with them.

The Sangha
must have gotten wise since our trespass into their hidden outpost and had
vacated the premises. I should have kept a closer eye on them, made certain
they did not escape, but I had been too busy whining about how unfair it all
was that I had to be the one to do it. As I found each room empty, I tried to
reassure myself that with Petula’s gift it didn’t matter where they ran; all I
had to do was recall their faces, and I could find them.

By the time I
reached the office where I had witnessed the overseer pacing like a crazy
person, I felt it was almost silly to check it too, but knew I should be
thorough. I meshed with the door and came out the other side to a strange
sight. The room was still furnished as it had been. The phone still sat on the
desk. The flat screen television was still mounted on the wall. The overseer
was still pacing, this time with a revolver in his hand.

He had not
changed clothes since the last time I saw him. His feet had trod the same path
so many times that a wear pattern had been carved into the Persian rug. His
head was covered in patchy bald spots, and his fingers appeared to be bleeding.
He no longer talked at full voice but carried on mumbling to himself. He was a
hot mess.

I stayed with
him for a time, lamenting that we could not have encountered each other under
better circumstances. Helping Mara do what he did, imprison and torture people,
was reprehensible, but when he’d first become a member of the Sangha, nothing
could have been further from his mind. He had wanted to make the world a better
place, rescue people from sadness and pain. It just turned out that short of a
revolution in bioscience, humanity could not change how their brains
functioned. His degradation, in many ways, had been predetermined, not in
absence of self-control, but really,
because
of it.

The phone
rang. He did not stop pacing, just lifted the receiver as he walked by and
pressed it to his ear.

“Running away?”
the voice said. It was Eva’s voice, or rather, Mara’s. Despite that, the sound
of it still made my heart soar with happiness.

The Arhat came
to an abrupt and shaky halt. His lip trembled when he finally worked himself
into answering. “I’m done helping you. When you first came to us, I was willing
to have a limited part….”

“Limited?” she
laughed. “There is no such thing as
limited
when it comes to what I do,
you imbecile. Putting one toe past that line is the same as throwing a body in
the pit.”

I could not
help but agree. Morality and ethics were the foundation of human interaction. Once
you ignored them, you pretty much stopped being a part of society.

Unless someone
chooses to let you back in.

The man set
the gun on the desk and wiped the sweat from his brow. “The Sangha will no
longer have any part in this.”

“So you speak
for everyone, do you, Hal?”  

Hal shook his
head. “You tried everyone else before you ever came to me. It’s a surety that
Krsa will have nothing to do with you. You haven’t got anyone else to
strong-arm.”

“So true. Luckily,
I still know where the Vihara is and where to test my new creations when they’re
finished.” The call ended abruptly, but Hal did not put the handset back. He
stared into space until the dial tone died and the angry shriek awoke.

“He’s going to
kill everyone.” The handset clattered to the ground, replaced by the barrel of
the gun.

I sprang back
to my body as if slingshot and jumped out of the car without even making sure
the door was shut. It wasn’t until I was in the elevator that I wondered what I
was doing.

He was a
murderer. No, he was worse than a murderer, he was a slave catcher. He was a
spineless, sniveling coward about to take the easy way out.

That is why he
must be stopped.

Karl had been
a murderer. Moksha had killed my parents. What made them any more or less
deserving? I had been in the minds of others, knew how confusing life was for
them, how sudden and unavoidable certain reactions could be. It was always easy
to condemn, not so easy to try and understand. Understanding was risky. What if
the person went astray? But I was not a person, and so it fell to me to be the
one to try and understand, to salvage something of Hal’s character, if anything
could be salvaged.

When the doors
to the basement swept open, I turned the corner and ran down the hall as fast
as I could. I knew the door was locked but didn’t knock or alert him that I was
coming. I kicked it in with one good swing of my foot and crashed through.

Hal stood by
the desk, gun to his temple, looking at me as if I were purple and covered in
boils.

“Put it down,
Hal.”

He began to
shake from head to toe, but it did not stop him from cocking the hammer. “Stay
away from me.”

I held up my
hand. “You know who I am, don’t you?” I said quietly, taking a step over the
wreckage of the door. “Why do you suppose I’m here? Why do you think I broke in
here in the first place?”

He looked
around in crazed desperation. “To do to me what you did to Karl.”

“I didn’t do
anything to Karl. He’s fine.”

“You’re lying.
Everyone wants to hurt me. You, him, the others. They all hate me!”

“I don’t hate
you. If I did, you’d be dead. Think about it. If I wasn’t able to watch every
move you make, would I be here now? I could have killed you days ago!”

He frowned
uncertainly. The gun shifted a little.

“I’m here
because of Mara,” I whispered.

He sucked in
breath and shook his head. “I’m done with him. If you’re watching, you know
that already.”

“You’re right!”
I inched forward, both hands in the air, my face as tender as I could make it. If
I could just touch him, the standoff would end. “I heard you tell the asshole
to pound sand. Good for you!”

He suddenly
broke into tears and slid along the side of the desk. “You don’t know anything.
He’s going to kill everyone! He
wants
to kill everyone!”

“Why?”

That stopped
him. The gun fell as he considered the answer. “He hates everything.”

I sighed and
dropped my hands. “Do you know how old he is?”

“No. Some say
he’s older than….”

“The Buddha?”
I pressed. When he nodded, I understood. I could see the simplicity of his
thoughts and felt sadness take the place of condemnation. “You thought that if
there was someone older than Buddha, then he might know how to fix your...problem.”

Hal collapsed
into the desk chair and buried his face in his hands, the revolver pressed
against his neck.

“There’s no
shame in that,” I breathed. “But what you did to help him, the choice to assist
him in making more Rakshasa, you know that was wrong, don’t you?”

He nodded. “He
didn’t tell me what he was doing or even who he was at first. I thought...I had
a son once. Even when he told me, I saw that face looking back and…. When he
wouldn’t tell me why he wanted the things he wanted, I...I got suspicious.”

“That’s why
you agreed to let Petula live here?”

He shuddered.

“Why you went
to Devlin to get her?”

He looked up
at me. The expression on his face told me I had gotten everything right and
that he was mystified as to how.

I smiled and walked
to the desk, where I sat down as if we were going to talk about our pets or
playing soccer on weekends. “Devlin’s an asshole, huh?”

He let out an explosive
laugh that turned into another sob. “He took everything. The Vihara used to
have a collection, artifacts, sutras, valuable art. Not anymore. It’s all gone.”

“Devlin
drained you from one side, while Mara strung you along.”

He put his
head back in his hands. “How could I be such a fool?”

I laughed. I
don’t think he expected it. He glanced up as if I had slapped him. I covered my
mouth and tried to appear as friendly as possible.

“The same way
Karl was.”

“Is he really...fine?”

“Well,” I
winked, “if you don’t count being cured.”

He mouthed the
word back to me and perked up, the gun seemingly forgotten. “How?”

It was a
question I had asked myself a thousand times. I realized, as he framed the same
question, that it didn’t matter how. What mattered was that it was possible,
that it was real, that it was mine. How could I be afraid of it? It was mine. I
could save people like him. What was there to fear?

I tilted my
head to one side and pointed at my chest. “It turned out Karl’s logic was
sound, sort of. Moksha killed my parents. There were two of us, my sister and
me. I was too old, already had plans for myself, but Eva...she was malleable. She
may not have been the next Buddha, but she created a way for me to be.”

He swallowed. “You...you
cured Karl?”

My smile
turned to a blush. “I guess. Not entirely sure how it happened or if I can
duplicate it on command, but it’s happened now four times. I’m willing to try
to help you, if you can help me.”

His mouth
dropped open.

“Put the gun
down,” I said with nod, “or I’ll use one of the talents I’ve acquired on you.”

“Why would you
help me? After...after what….”

I laughed
again. The look on his face was its own reward.

“Someone has
to,” I said, when I could catch my breath. “In truth, I don’t know. I just know
that there’s good in you yet.”

He seemed
doubtful of that, but I could see the longing in his eye. He wanted to believe
me, but he’d been burned before.

“You’re a
sucker, not a psychopath.” I picked up the phone cord and reeled the handset
upward, laying it in the cradle. “Call him. You’ll see that I’m telling the
truth. If you tell me what I want to know, I’ll do what I can.”

He looked
between the gun and the phone. After long moments of agonizing uncertainty, he
set the revolver aside, picked the handset back up, and dialed the number.

Karl answered
with the first ring. Without any prompting, he greeted Hal by name and said, “She’s
telling the truth. My abilities are gone, but...I feel different.”

Hal was
perplexed. I pushed the loud speaker button and hovered over the mic. “Were you
eavesdropping?”

“Yes,” he
chuckled. “It turns out I
can
find you sometimes.”

“I let you.”

“Ah.”

“Have you been
checking in on him since our last conversation?” I locked eyes with Hal. He was
staring at me in astonishment. “Making sure he didn’t get in too deep?”

“I was about
to call him when you kicked in the door.”

I raised my
eyebrows at Hal. “That makes two, Hal. Two people willing to understand, if you’ll
explain everything. I need to know about the girl, Reesa, and why Mara is so
terrified of her. I also want to know more about this Devlin guy.”

Hal looked
from the receiver to me and back again. “He’s a seer now?”

“Not quite,”
Karl said. “It’s the
jhana
.”

“I, on the
other hand, have Petula’s gift, William’s gift, and, oh wait, did I mention, I
see the future?” I sighed heavily and stood up. “Tell me you’re working on why
that is, with all your nifty science stuff, Karl.”

“How did you
guess? I spoke to William yesterday. He’s agreed to come by and help us. I’ve
also seen to Petula. She’ll be arriving in a few hours.”

“Thanks.”

“Anything,” he
granted. “And if Hal is willing to drop by when you’re finished speaking with
him, I am more than sure he can help us too.”