Dei Ex Machina

by Kim Fielding

  “I didn’t get a wanting-to-hurt-me vibe. I think it was just….”

  “Lonely,” Viktor finished for him. “Yes.”

  “Can we do anything to help it?”

  After Viktor translated, Mrs. Lulić gave Mason the same wide smile as his mother had when he’d informed her his landscaping company was operating solidly in the black. You did good, that smile said. It was nice to receive it. Mrs. Lulić said something to Viktor.

  “Mama says you are good boy.”

  “I’m thirty-three.”

  Viktor shrugged. “She calls me boy too. Dječak. It means she is happy.” He grinned. “When she is angry she calls me other things.”

  Well, Mason’s parents referred to him, Adam, and Nicole as the kids. Carl had been one of the kids too, even after he got tenure. “I’m glad your mother likes me.”

  “She says unhappy spirits can be settled. They want only to know someone cares, maybe.”

  “Can she do this for whoever showed up today?”

  “Maybe. But now… maybe you can call it. It came to you.”

  Mason nodded at the truth of that. “So I just….”

  “Be open. Welcome it, like guest in your house.” Viktor pointed at the dishes on the coffee table. “Give it tea and cake.”

  “Great. Ghost snacks. And then it will… rest?”

  Viktor conferred with his mother before answering. “It might rest. Maybe it has problems, you can solve them. Unfinished business. You find what it wants.”

  Mason didn’t know why this prospect energized him instead of freaking him out, but he nodded. “Okay. I guess I can try that if I get the chance.” He stood, and his hosts followed suit. He walked to Mrs. Lulić. “Hvala. Thank you. This was very nice of you.”

  Instead of shaking his hand, though, she embraced him and gave each of his cheeks a kiss. “Dobar dječak,” she said. “Nadam se da ćete naći ljubav ponovno.”

  “She hopes you find love again,” Viktor said.

  Viktor walked Mason down the stairs and out to the street. They stood awkwardly for a moment before Viktor clapped Mason’s shoulder. “You have phone? I give you my number. You can call if you need me.”

  “Plus I’ll be able to pass on your info to any friends who visit Split. I’ll tell them your tourist services come highly recommended.” Mason handed over the phone.

  Laughing, Viktor punched his number into Mason’s contacts before returning the device.

  “Thanks,” Mason said. “For everything. I’m sorry I thought you might be a serial killer.”

  “I think only America has serial killers. We are too simple for this in Croatia. We would rather sit in cafés all day.”

  “Wise choice.”

  “You know how to get back to palace?”

  Mason pointed. “That way, right?”

  “Yes. Now go. Visit island. See Plitvice. Have good holiday.” He patted Mason again. “Sretan put.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Viktor’s eyes sparkled. “Bon voyage.”

  The walk back to the old city came easily; Mason felt newly buoyant. And he was hungry, so he grabbed a sandwich at one of the places that also sold pastries and slices of pizza. He carried his lunch back to the apartment, intending to eat quickly and head back out for a while. But by the time the sandwich was gone, he felt tired. Not unpleasantly lethargic, the way he had for months. Just sleepy, as if he’d accomplished a major task. Maybe he had. For reasons that didn’t make any sense to him, he’d somehow found closure. He’d ask Pete about it later. The guy had a doctorate in psychology, so maybe he could explain.

  Yawning and stretching luxuriantly, Mason wandered to his bedroom and closed the door. Thick walls kept the apartment cool, and the bed had a fluffy comforter, so he stripped naked before climbing between the sheets. The smooth cotton was nice against his skin. He spent a moment or two rearranging the pillows to his satisfaction, and then he quickly fell fast asleep.

  4

  Latin was not his first tongue, just as Sabbio was not his original name. But he had been young when he was captured—barely more than a boy—and his new masters had quickly beaten their language into him. He’d resisted for a short time, but soon realized it brought him only fresh welts and bruises. And besides, Latin words were generally the only ones he and his fellow slaves had in common. Once his heart acknowledged that he’d never be free again, he found servitude was easier if he forgot his old ways, his old name.

  Latin became his adopted tongue, but not long after he died, he stopped hearing it. The palace was abandoned only a few years after being built. New people entered the safety of the walls a few hundred years later as they fled invaders, and they spoke another language entirely. Nowadays, he sometimes heard Latin within the Italian that visitors spoke, or scattered in French or English, or intoned by a priest in the cathedral, but the language was not far from being the ghost that he was.

  But now, as he floated in the cold depths of the pit, he heard Latin. Veni nobiscum loqui, phasma. Verba habemus pro vobis. Veni, phasma. Come speak with us, spirit. We have words for you. Come, spirit. It was poor Latin, but understandable. And while few sounds ever made their way into the chasm, these words rang clear.

  Sabbio clung to them. Like the toy balloons that sometimes escaped from the children along the Riva, the words carried him upward and outward until he broke free of the hole altogether. He found himself in a bright room where a handsome older woman spoke and two men listened. It was she who had called him.

  For the first time in eons, he was filled with joy. Someone knew of him! Someone talked to him! But as he listened more, he realized the words were addressed not to him, but to another ghost. He was so bitterly disappointed that he very nearly tumbled back into the abyss.

  As he teetered on the edge, though, he recognized one of the men. Sabbio had seen him sitting at a table on the Riva, toying with his wineglass as his companions chatted in English. He was handsome but sad, and Sabbio regained his balance and remained in the room, standing behind the familiar man.

  The man suddenly turned around and looked at him. “Who’s there?” he whispered.

  It was the first time in seventeen centuries that anyone had addressed him. “Sabbio,” he answered. He didn’t think the man heard him, but the woman did. She repeated his name.

  The man reached for him.

  Even though he knew nothing could come of it, Sabbio mirrored the gesture. Their fingertips met—and for the briefest of moments, Sabbio felt. Pressure, heat, the steady beat of a pulse.

  It was too much. He fled, sinking through walls and down to the street. Stunned, he hunched in a passageway. Someone had touched him.

  His mind was still whirling when he heard laughter nearby. He turned the corner and found the two men from the apartment standing on the sidewalk and talking. The one with the very short hair touched the other man’s—Sabbio’s man’s—shoulder, and Sabbio momentarily seethed with jealousy. But then he calmed enough to scoff at himself. He’d had nobody even when he was alive; he certainly couldn’t claim anyone now.

  Still, when the men parted, Sabbio followed the handsome one as he walked quickly toward the palace. The man stopped at a pekarna to buy some food, but instead of eating it right away, he carried it a few blocks into one of the buildings near the palace. Sabbio had watched with great interest as those buildings were constructed, not by slaves but by freemen who joked with each other while they worked, who took long breaks for meals, who went home at night to lie with their wives.

  Now the man entered a large apartment, and although he closed the door, Sabbio easily slipped inside. While the man ate, Sabbio floated, examining the rooms and their contents. He didn’t often go indoors, and when he did, he was always amazed at the sheer number of things people owned—far more than even the wealthy possessed when he was alive. And some of the items were so strange: a box that heated food almost instantly, a kettle that boiled water without a fire, a big glassy tablet on the wall that
showed moving images and played sounds.

  After eating, the man stood to stretch. Abandoning his food wrappers and dirty plate, he entered one of the bedrooms. Feeling guilty yet aroused, Sabbio watched the man strip. His torso was ladder-ribbed and pale, a contrast to his deeply tanned arms and legs. Although he was thin, he possessed wiry muscles. He had little body hair aside from the nest of dark gold curls at his groin, and he was circumcised. A Jew? Perhaps.

  It was barely past midday, but the man climbed into bed, pulled up the covers, and sighed deeply. He was asleep within minutes.

  Sabbio crept closer. He studied the man’s face, even more handsome now that slumber had banished his sorrow and fatigue. He’d mussed his hair on the pillow, and Sabbio desperately wanted to tame the curls with his fingers. Without conscious intent, he raised his hand. And when his fingers touched the man’s head, Sabbio fell inside.

  5

  Mason dreamed he was naked, walking through Split. No big surprise, considering he was already in Split. But in the dream, all the modern buildings were gone. Where the medieval ones should have been, tents and campfires clustered near piles of building materials. The palace itself was only partially constructed, its marble and limestone gleaming in the bright sun. Where the Riva belonged, water lapped against the foot of the palace’s southern façade. Boats floated in the harbor, but they weren’t modern cruise ships or Jadrolinija ferries. Instead, they were narrow vessels with high sterns and large square sails.

  Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people scurried around the palace. Most of them wore nothing but ragged tunics or dirty loincloths. And they worked hard—laying stones, pulling carts, digging holes. Mason winced when he heard the crack of a lash.

  He saw two men nearby who weren’t working. They wore uniforms, with swords at their hips and whips tucked into their belts. They reminded him of every road construction supervisor he had ever seen, just standing there while everyone else labored, talking with each other and laughing.

  Talking in Latin, he realized. Which he didn’t speak. So maybe his dreaming mind was making up gibberish and calling it Latin, or maybe his subconscious had learned a thing or two from botany lessons and from Carl.

  Mason approached the men. Soldiers? Guards?

  “Hey. I’m pretty sure this worksite is not gonna pass OSHA inspection,” he said. But neither of them even glanced his way. Based on their gestures and guffaws, he would have bet a thousand dollars they were talking about getting laid. “Yeah, I know guys like you. Probably can’t even get it up. Or if you do, you’re a thirty-second wonder.”

  Behind him, someone laughed.

  Mason spun around and found himself face-to-face with a naked man. He was probably in his late twenties, a couple of inches shorter than Mason’s five ten but very muscular. His brown hair was severely shorn, his wide eyes were brown shot with green, and his cheeks and chin were lightly stubbled. Even through the thick hair on his chest and belly, Mason saw scars and welts. His uncut cock was soft and plump.

  In a raspy voice, the man said something. A question of some kind.

  “I can’t understand you,” Mason replied.

  The man staggered back a half step. “Can you… can you see me?” Good old English, but heavily accented.

  Mason had never dreamed with such clarity. “Who are you?” he asked, because although he didn’t recognize the man, there was something familiar about him.

  “I’m called Sabbio.” He looked as if he might be about to cry. “Gods, you can hear me!”

  “I… yes. Sabbio. That’s what Mrs. Lulić said. Were you…. Am I dreaming about the spirit she summoned?”

  But Sabbio was shaking his head—not in denial, but disbelief. He dropped ungracefully to his knees, exclaiming quietly to himself in Latin. For some reason, Mason wanted to hold him and give him comfort.

  Instead, he crouched down. “I’m having a dream about Roman times.” He didn’t know why he needed to explain the dream to a ghost.

  “I was alive then,” Sabbio said, his voice cracking. “I died here. And now I am in your dream.”

  Mason let out a long breath. According to Adam’s tour book, over two thousand people had been killed in the rush to complete the palace. “You were a slave?”

  “Yes. But… please. Your name?”

  “Mason Gould.”

  Sabbio frowned slightly. “Mason? Like a stonemason?”

  “I guess so.” His parents had picked the name because they liked it. His father, who had a penchant for terrible jokes and puns, liked to refer to him as my son Mason.

  “I was a mason. A stonesetter.” Sabbio gestured toward the half-built palace walls.

  “How did you die?”

  “I… it was an accident. I fell and broke my leg, and then I grew ill with fever.”

  Mason shuddered at the thought of a slow death from infection without antibiotics or painkillers. “I’m sorry. You were young.”

  “Slaves like me did not live long.”

  Sabbio had apparently found a bit of his equilibrium, because he rose slowly. Mason followed suit. They stood very close—near enough for Mason to smell Sabbio’s odor of sweat and dust, which wasn’t unpleasant, and to see the wrinkles that had barely begun to form at the corners of his eyes.

  “This is a very weird dream,” Mason said.

  “Please! Do not wake up! Not yet. I have not… It has been so long since anyone….”

  It was strange to feel sorry for someone you’d dreamed up, but Mason did. “I’ll try to stay asleep.”

  Sabbio smiled and ducked his head slightly. “Thank you.” When he looked up again, he was frowning a little. “Why are you sad?”

  Mason watched as slaves sweated in the unforgiving sun. One of them stumbled on the uneven ground; a guard flicked him with a whip and then laughed at the resulting yelp. Jesus. “My husband died,” Mason finally said.

  “You… you can marry a man?” Sabbio asked, eyes wide.

  “In California, yeah. We got hitched as soon as it was legal.” He smiled at the memory—Carl dropping down on one knee within minutes after the Supreme Court decision was announced, the rush to get a license in case the law somehow changed again, the ceremony a few weeks later. Carl’s dumbshit parents boycotted the event, but Mason’s parents had hugged Carl so tightly that he later said he’d been almost unable to breathe.

  “You were trying to speak to him, were you not? When that woman called?”

  It took Mason a moment to make sense of the question, and then he nodded. “But she said she couldn’t hear him.”

  “Was his death fast?”

  “Yes.” Almost instant, the medical examiner had said. Lucky shot.

  “Even if he was young, a fast death is good. And I think he must be at peace. Nobody haunts you now but me.” Sabbio’s smile was wistful. “He has you to remember him well, and that is important.”

  “Who remembers you?”

  “Nobody. Nobody mourns a slave.”

  Mason’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. This figment seemed so real. When Mason reached out to settle a comforting hand on Sabbio’s shoulder, the skin was warm, the muscle and bone solid.

  Sabbio closed his eyes and gave a small whimper, which undid Mason completely. He clutched Sabbio in his arms, and Sabbio melted against him almost at once, returning the embrace and burying his face in the crook of Mason’s neck. “Ne dimittas. Please. Do not let go.”

  It had been eight long months since Mason had held anyone. He had no intention of letting go as long as his dream continued. And damn, he’d never had such a real dream, one that made such coherent—if not rational—sense, one so detailed that he could see ants crawling around his bare feet and feel the thump of Sabbio’s heart. When he smoothed his palms along Sabbio’s strong back, Mason felt the ridges and furrows of old lash scars, which made him want to cry.

  Instead, he kissed the soft bristles of Sabbio’s hair.

  Sabbio looked up at him with startled eyes. His mouth hung open sl
ightly, and he was breathing very fast. “Yes. Please, yes, Mason.”

  This time, Mason kissed his lips. Sabbio moaned and eagerly accepted Mason’s tongue into his mouth, grabbing at Mason’s hips as if to hold him in place. Mason kissed him again, harder, so his head swam and his nerves sang. His cock stiffened—rubbing against Sabbio’s answering hardness—and Mason grasped handfuls of Sabbio’s glorious ass to draw their bodies tightly together. He stopped worrying about how odd this dream was and concentrated instead on the lovely rush of his senses and the delicious, hungry noises coming from Sabbio’s throat.

  “I want you,” Mason whispered into Sabbio’s ear, although nobody else could hear them. He hadn’t wanted much of anything since Carl died, and it was wonderful to feel need again. He’d ignore for now that the object of his desire was imaginary. “Can I fuck you, Sabbio?”

  Sabbio shuddered. “Please.”

  They collapsed to the ground together, Sabbio sprawled beneath Mason and still holding him as if to keep him from escaping. As Mason kissed and licked his jawline, his neck, his collarbone, Sabbio writhed, arching up with his hips as far as Mason’s weight allowed. And Sabbio muttered urgently in many languages—some Mason recognized and some he didn’t. The words all seemed to have the same meaning: yes, more, please.

  “Have you done this before?” Mason asked, fully aware it was crazy to question the virginity of his apparition but needing to know. Sabbio seemed willing enough—desperate, even—but Mason didn’t want to hurt him.

  Sabbio looked at him solemnly. “Not in hundreds of years. And never with someone like you.”

  Mason wasn’t sure how to interpret that last part. He knew from Carl’s frequent lectures on the subject that the Romans hadn’t thought about sex the same way modern Americans did. There was no real concept of homosexuality. Fucking was all about power, and nobody back then would frown on a free man who stuck his dick in a man of lesser status. A man who was penetrated, however, was considered weak, emasculated, perverted.