I understood then, her student, though I had no itchy collar. Gran was speaking of the acceptance of a paradox. She was talking about Zen.
Reesa had within her the beginnings of a mind much sharper than any teacher gave her credit for. She grasped the idea at once and squeezed it dry for facts.
“So...when you in trouble, then Grace can get sucked into you, and then you can be all calm?”
Gran chuckled and opened the car door. “Well, that’s just about right, I think. The song is about being lost, but suddenly knowin’ where to go, or bein’ afraid, and suddenly knowin’ what to do. It’s about bein’ cautious, and when you can’t be, bein’ fearless. You can plan and plan, but plans don’t always work out, and when that happens, ain’t no point in being scared, because, when you’re feelin’ fear, you don’t see it for the tool it is.”
Reesa followed her, after having carefully peeled off the perfect white socks trimmed with more lace. She bounded up the cement walk and stairs behind her Gran and spun around in the cooling shade.
“What’s that mean?”
“The things we feel are just reactions. They aren’t the world. The world is itself. So when you got Grace, you see through falsehoods, you rise above hatred and fear, you embrace whatever may come.”
“But what if it don’t happen? What if Grace don’t get you? Can you make it, like a dancer dancin’?”
Gran held the screen door open for her granddaughter and just for good measure, spun her past the threshold with a twirl.
“Well, maybe that’s what the song is. It’s the thing that makes you remember Grace. And when you remember it, it fills you up again. It’s why the slaves sang, why the marchers sang, why we sing in church.”
Reesa stopped in mid-twirl and dropped her ballerina arms. A song that was the opposite of a lullaby, a feeling that happened when fear was strongest.
Truly amazing.
She smiled at her Gran. “Will you teach me all the words?”
Gran leaned against the polished wood of the dining table, breathing a bit heavily, but she beamed and took off her hat.
“O’course.”
The shroud of the coma dropped and lifted, and we were in the pit again, among the foul smells, the pressing heat of air already breathed and breathed again, the screams and growls and fear. It was my fault. I had made a connection, and she had followed it like a tether.
She was shaking in the unknown, terrified to even put a hand out in front of her. Gran had always said monsters didn’t live in the dark, that they lived in the light, but how could she believe that? The tremors grew into sobs. Voices slid by her, wrapped around her. Deep guttural cries battered her ears. Her feet stuck to the ground. Her skin dripped with sweat and tears. The stench rose in her nostrils and clouded out reason. Something skin-like brushed her arm with a hiss, and she knew they were considering her.
Her heart beat so fast that it moved her whole body in little jolts. Breath came in gasps. Fear was choking the life from her.
And they came closer.
Shivering all over, the child stared into the dark, and summoned her voice.
“Am...m...mazing Gr...grace,” she stuttered. A growl at her right elbow threatened to turn to a roar. The air moved with the sounds of sniffing. She could imagine a pack of huge dogs circling her, smelling her fear, closing in, and knew there was only this chance.
“Amazing Grace,” she sang. It wasn’t like Gran’s voice. How had Gran’s voice sounded? She fought hard to recall.
I felt a chill. The Sirens had used songs and sounds to hurt and demean; and, even though she was a child, Reesa knew it was important to show them that some songs could free.
Her tone changed from the rasp to the ringing of a bell. She lifted her voice to her Gran. She sang their whole tragic, triumphant life stories in one verse.
And the monsters were silent.
I opened my eyes, for the first time in a while, composed of my own accord. Reesa’s story had begun to make sense; and, the more I knew her, the less afraid for her I felt. The more I knew, the more I understood how dangerous she really was for the Sangha and for Mara.
She was the perfection Mara had been seeking, but like every other immortal I had met, the process had taken so long that the realization of it frightened him.
“She sings to them, but...it’s more than that,” I whispered uncertainly.
Jinx turned and looked at me with a nervous tick of the mouth. “Okay.”
“When can we get to Devlin?”
“Tonight, but Lily, he may already know we’re coming.”
He sounded worried. I smiled. There was a song for that.
Chapter 16
The Greatest Trick
It wasn’t what I expected. I pictured a warehouse rave, but this was almost rural. We had driven for twenty minutes into the mountains, until we were surrounded by greenery and trees that scattered the moonlight in all directions. The coven house was a fairly large property, an estate of some kind, set back from the road by a high stone perimeter fence with an iron rolling gate. It reminded me vaguely of the Vihara, except that I could not see beyond the massive gate and the thickets of trees.
Outside the gate, the narrow terrain of the mountain road was teeming with people waiting in line. A large, lugubrious man in a black vest and leather pants sat inside a fairly sizable guard box that was dwarfed by his bulk. He looked each person in the eye and spoke to them before allowing them through the tiny doorway beside the gate.
Jinx surveyed the line of eager party-goers. “Idiots. Just because you’re an Edgar Allen Poe fan doesn’t mean you should go looking for trouble.”
I tossed him a glance. “Right, because you don’t know these guys at all and totally aren’t planning to talk them into betraying Mara to help us.”
He made a face. I looked back and realized that I couldn’t argue with him. The clientele seemed as varied as that for a costume party. There were perfectly ordinary females in trashy club attire intermingled with people in corsets, coin belts, and even suits of armor. There was only one unifying factor: black. Black clothes, black makeup, black boots, shimmering black stones set in silver bangles. It was as if someone had bled the scene of color until it had all the life of a silent film.
I looked back at the boy dubiously. “So far this isn’t the fiery circle you promised. I mostly just want to run through with a staple gun shouting ‘You should have listened to your mother when she told you it would stick that way!’ You are a big chicken, Jinxy.”
He let out the longest sigh I’ve ever heard, and leaned back in his seat. I had expected a sharp retort, not solemnity. “It’s just a show,” he said. “It’s the front they put up for the people they suck in.”
“Ha!” I laughed appreciatively, but he wasn’t smiling. “Oh, not a pun.”
“This coven’s memeplex is truly fucked and as infectious as the Black Death. ’S’what happens when you know a lot about people’s weaknesses.”
“What do you mean? They’re not pacifistic or mathematically inclined?”
“It’s hard to explain, but they sort of believe that evil is the ultimate good.”
I shot him a wry look. “Did they renounce god while dancing in a furious, naked circle, and then go around drawing pentagrams?”
“No, they’re not like that. This coven isn’t cheesy, at least not in real life.” He fluffed his red spikes. “They believe that by being amoral, by pursuing the negative course in all things, they are somehow balancing out the universe.”
“Wow, that’s comforting. I was all about the ultimate compassion until you said that.” I watched the people pass one by one through the heavy wooden door and could not help but picture Club Trishna’s victims lined up to self-destruct. “And I thought Ursula was bad.”
“Duh. After she started changing, she went schizoid and came here. Got in tight with their mystics. This place is the reason she turned into such a whack job.”
I turned my head so quickly, I th
ought I might snap my own neck. “Shut up!”
He nodded as if he were reading a sermon out loud. “Ursula’s problem was that she didn’t know how to play at shifgrethor the way Devlin does.”
I took the obscure sci-fi reference and laughed about it for several seconds. When prestige and social imbalances were that important to people, I almost felt as if it served them right to have it used against them.
“Is that how they have large, orgiastic parties without having the cops come down on them?”
He snorted. “Devlin owns the cops.” He opened the car door, but hesitated. He turned and put out his hand. “Lily, just remember the rules, and for the sake of Zarquan, will you please not make fun of anything! This guy is fierce, and a social debt is as great to him as a monetary one.”
He slid off the high seat and met me on the other side, where I was moving as methodically as possible to lock the car.
“Seriously?” I tested the handle thrice, just in case. First they go around wearing black and piercing holes in their faces, and the next thing, they’re stealing cars. “You’re telling me that he even tries to use it on immortals, who know he’s just some guy?”
Jinx pursed his lips and hindered my impetuous march toward the gate. “Look, you’ve gotta think about this like an Antique, not like a Modern. Back in the day, you’d get beheaded for not bowing or get a spike through your hat if you didn’t take it off, and everyone was just cool with that. Okay?”
I sighed, tired already of being mocked for my “youth,” but since it was Jinx, and I already felt bad enough about our interaction, I took the hit. “Okay, I get it.”
His hand found my shoulder, and he pushed gently until I had my back to the car. “No, I don’t think you do.”
I looked at him, taken aback at the sincerity on his face. He was really, truly, afraid of this person, but I, being unafraid in all cases, could not understand.
“Just by coming here, uninvited, we already owe him, and because we do we can’t stop playing until he calls an end to it.”
I wrapped my fingers around his smaller hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “Jinx, sweetie, he only has power if you allow him to. I won’t play, and because I won’t there won’t be any confrontation, debts, or anything else. Ignore them, and the bullies get tired of trying so hard. These are the things we learn in high school.”
I slid past him, ignoring the disturbed and foreboding look on his face.
“I fought bigger bullies than high school dickwads, Lily!” he grumbled in a loud voice. “You should listen to me. Or have you forgotten that I spent time in prison for tapping my wine glass with a fucking table knife?”
“Sorry,” I chuckled, walking backward across the road, “stopped reading at ‘Everisté’!”
Rather than let his discomfort infect me, I walked past the line of people waiting impatiently to be admitted, pretending not to notice their glares, and presented myself to the guard.
“Hi! I’m here to see Beelzebub.”
His expression did not change. He just stared at me dolefully until Jinx appeared at my side.
“It’s all right, Ulrich. She’s with me.”
This time, he raised his eyebrow. I was tempted to believe the man was mentally handicapped, but there was a sparkle in his eye that was far too sardonic. I realized then that he was a “glass half empty” kind of guy.
“You don’t haf an appoint-ment,” he said, and it was as if the words had to fight their way through his thick German accent and slow, deep voice.
“I’m dropping in,” Jinx grumbled, with an acidic glance at me.
Ulrich licked his lips. “He von’t like zat.”
“No shit! Just let us in.”
Ulrich looked from my colorful guide, to me, and shook his head in apparent amazement.
“Don’t drink ze punch,” he warned and buzzed us in.
Jinx went ahead of me, while I attempted to peel my eyes from Ulrich’s somber ones. He waited until we were through before he went back to his unhappy business, still shaking his head. I turned and followed Jinx.
I came up short behind him with something of a gasp. I expected to find a normal garden, or yard, maybe a long walk toward a neoclassical mansion littered with lounging cannibals, but instead, I found that the door opened onto a tunnel descending into the very ground. Uneven stairs cut from stone were dimly lit by the wavering lights of what appeared to be old-fashioned gas lanterns.
“No...way,” I murmured, following Jinx like a wide-eyed tourist. He had his hands jammed in his pockets, and his spiky head was slouching down over his shoulders as if he expected an axe to fall from the ceiling at any moment. “You have got to be kidding me!” I said, catching up. “It’s underground? What is it with these people and subterranean vaults?”
Jinx halted and glared at me. “Please don’t embarrass me!”
Unable to stop myself, I laughed outright. “Oh, trust me, I could contribute nothing to that cause.”
“I gave you that one,” he said, rolling his eyes and continuing downward.
The air cooled around us and the smell of earth permeated it. In front and behind us rang the laughter and voices of excited party-goers, clop-clopping in their stilettos like horses to the glue factory.
We met another large man at the end of the staircase. It was as if Devlin did his shopping at the WWF. This guard was wearing leather chaps, a do-rag, and the same expression as Ulrich and was blocking a door, arms crossed. When he saw Jinx, his face lit up.
“Well, now!” His goatee shifted as he smiled generously, his southern accent almost charming. “Didn’t expect to see you here. Devlin’ll be so happy to see you.”
“Why did that come out sounding sarcastic?” Jinx muttered, but he shook the extended ham-hand.
The man grinned and shrugged as he opened the door. The view was obscured by a thick curtain, though the sounds of music and people grew louder. “I would’a loved to see this, but I’m stuck out here.”
“What’d you do?”
He snorted. “Smacked a girl’s ass. I told Devlin that if she didn’t want it smacked she shouldn’t’a put it out there, but….”
Jinx didn’t move toward the door, but stared at the man dumbfounded. “You didn’t actually say that?”
I was surprised to see the large man smile sheepishly. “Naw, but I sure wanted to. He’s one scary drink of water when he’s pissed.”
Jinx chuckled darkly and passed through the curtain with a wave. I followed behind him, noticing that the man’s eyes followed me hungrily.
I scowled. “Keep ’em to yourself and you’ll keep ’em.”
The eyebrows went up, but he wasn’t offended. He held up his hands peaceably and made a tiny bow. “Friend’a Jinx….”
Beyond the curtain was an antechamber, with a reception desk and everything. Painted ladies and men in “guy-liner” sat around on benches upholstered in red velvet, wearing more jewelry than any human had a right to. As we walked up to the desk, their eyes followed us somberly.
The girl behind the desk was dressed, as near as I could tell, in Victorian funeral attire, right down to the lopsided hat with veil.
I leaned toward Jinx and dropped my voice. “Is her name Lydia Deetz?”
He shot a glare at me and made a point of clearing his throat. “We’re here for the main shebang.”
The woman’s shaded eyes looked us over. Thick lashes heavily coated in mascara fanned beautiful hazel eyes. A lovely mouth smiled. “You don’t have an appointment, my dear Jinx.”
I smirked and leaned against the desk casually, finally beginning to see what it was Jinx hated about this place. It was a costume show, and if there was one person who hated being reminded of costumes and fakery, it was a famous mathematician who had to hide behind pop culture symbols and Manic Panic.
“I know, but he will definitely want to speak to me.”
Her chin lifted in appraisal. “Fine,” she whispered, sliding her gloved hands across the ebony surf
ace in a grand swoop that collected several guest passes with some sleight of hand. She deposited them in front of us. “Passes for VIP area. You’re not allowed in any other areas, as I’m sure you know.” Her eyes slid to me. “And if you’re wise, you won’t drink….”
“Yeah, Ulrich already told us,” Jinx said hastily, throwing his pass over his head like he suddenly wanted to get it all over with and planned to hang himself. “Just call ’em okay?”
She propped her head on her hand, slightly annoyed that she had been interrupted in her slowly phrased, dramatic warning. Her other hand pushed a buzzer, and soon we were joined by two goons in costumes similar to Ulrich’s. They turned as soon as they saw Jinx and, as if assuming he knew the way, went about escorting us slightly less enthusiastically. They strolled down the hallway beyond the desk, paying no attention to us.
“Are they all depressed, or is it just me?”
Jinx stepped around two women who were dressed like Wild West brothel attendants and were about to enter one of the many doors. One of their bustles caught momentarily on his studded wristband. When he’d disentangled himself with an overly polite apology, he turned back to me and put a finger to his lips.
“The ones out front are being punished,” he said cautiously, “or are paying him back for help. The girl at the desk has been at the desk every night since she took one of the patrons home and accidentally ate him. That was almost eight years ago. She’s worn black ever since.”
My mouth fell open, and not because I couldn’t imagine her wearing anything but black. “Ate him?” Rage tickled my throat. I had already slain one monster for such crimes. How easy would it be to do it again? “So they’re all murderers?”
“A few of them, but that’s just it; Devlin keeps a close eye on it. It’s like he’s trying to control their vices so they see him as their supplier. It’s cult-leader 101.”
“Wow.”
Inside one of the many rooms along the hall, I heard the distinct moans of sexual pleasure mingled with a few cries of pain. My hackles rose. Goosebumps lifted on my skin, and even though I was surrounded by color, light, and song I already felt drained.
The One We Feed Page 19
