The One We Feed (25 page)

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.”

Devlin nodded.
“I saw it later, when it was already too late.”

“But the
principle was
yours.
It was all you had left.”

“I believed he
had betrayed me, but it was so much easier to denounce him for betraying our
creator, to hate them all for that divinely righteous reason.” He lifted
himself then and leaned over Ananda’s welcoming countenance with a fierce
self-loathing. “I fought to regain my father’s armies, to build our nation up
from dust, to smash them to pieces. I did whatever was necessary, and because
of my abandon I was cast aside by the very people I tried to help.”

“Where is
principle then?” the Arhat asked in the mildest of tones.

Devlin buckled
and, without fight, lay back down. “Indeed. At that point, after everything was
gone, my family, my wife, my home, my faith, I realized what I had become, and
I left.”

“So much
better to have nothing, than lose ourselves trying to keep something,” Ananda
whispered like a Greek chorus.

“I had
reasoned so long, anticipated so often, that I could not turn away from it. Everything
became a question of numbers, of motivations, of struggle. My mind plots
without me, keeps me from peace, from rest, from anything but the constant
tally of favors. I am so tired of it, but there was no escape, because I cannot
turn it off.”

Ananda opened
his eyes and found me much too easily. I had forgotten that I was an outsider.

“She could fix
you,” he whispered against Devlin’s forehead. “She has already done so to
several of us, even me.”

To my
surprise, Devlin chuckled. “Your pretty little shadow? Oh, I believe you, but
that would hardly do, would it?” He lifted his face and found Ananda’s eye. “The
queen may be the strongest piece, but someone has to guide her.”

I drifted,
ambivalent, but they were speaking of me and my very real future. I should have
been more curious, but I was lost in Devlin’s happiness.

The dark head
shook slowly. “She has all the guidance she needs.”

“Then what can
I do?” Devlin insisted. “There must be something.”

Ananda smiled
up at me and winked. “Clear the path.”

I took the
hint and evaporated, only to condense in the car. Jinx had dutifully driven
back to our headquarters and was sitting beside me, fiddling with the netbook
as if bored.

“Some piece of
amazing code upon which the future of humanity depends?” I wondered aloud.

He unplugged
an ear. “Nope, NES simulator. Man, I forgot how fucking hard Super Mario was. Why
does the princess keep getting kidnapped anyways?”