“Yeah. Well, now I know why she never told anyone.”
“She didn’t have to. She talks about you all the time. I don’t know whether Sarah is really that oblivious or just pretending not to notice, but…she does.”
Tristan bit down on her lip to keep from crying. This was not the time to let emotions cloud her mind. “I will find her, Lauren. And I’ll bring her back.”
“I’ll stay here in case she shows up.”
Tristan held no illusions Mira would come home, but there was no reason to stress Lauren out even more.
“Good luck. And be careful.”
“I will.”
Tristan leaned against the wall in the hallway just outside the door. Sarah was long gone, hopefully on a one-way train to New York. Tristan tried to pull herself together with little more than huge, heaving breaths so she wouldn’t burst into uncontrollable sobs.
As much as she wanted to charge out into the night, knives drawn like the superhero she wished she was, she had no time to waste. She needed a plan. Fast. Most of all, she needed Mira to stay alive.
Tristan wanted her there when she slit Blessing’s throat from ear to ear.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The drab gray hotel was nestled between turn-of-the-century multi-story brick and stone structures. Grateful to escape the sulfurous air reeking of garbage and body odor, Tristan entered the lobby. The front desk attendant, a young woman, examined her fingernails with brow-furrowed intensity as a radio on the desk proclaimed Ryan Howard just hit the game-winning homerun. The hotel’s “business center” consisted of one computer on a desk near the Coke machine. Business travelers could afford the DoubleTree or Hyatt over on Broad.
Dontseeme, Tristan thought.
The attendant, paying Tristan no mind, swiveled away from the desk and punched a number into her cell phone, and began jabbering into it almost as soon as the unfortunate on the other end picked up. Tristan walked over to the elevator and pressed the button.
The cops had closed off the second floor, so Tristan got off on the third and jogged down the stairs. The locked door posed a problem for less than five minutes, during which time she inserted the key to Mira’s place into the lock, tapped it with the knife handle, and twisted it until the lock popped open. She dropped the key back into her pocket. They’d never know the difference.
Yellow police tape attached in an X formation blockaded the closed door. Despite the passage of weeks since the murder, the investigators would certainly be back. She wondered if she ought to call them herself, tell them about Blessing even though she had no proof except for some psychic Hunter bullshit that would just get her locked up, and no desire to be part of a homicide investigation. Or to blow her cover. Then more lies, her constant and faithful companions, to tell. Yes, Detective, I’m just on vacation, traveling the country. The cop wouldn’t buy it because she was a terrible liar, not nearly as skilled as the rest of her family. They’d send her to a psych ward like Mira said, or even deport her. Did they deport Canadians? It didn’t matter. She’d be an example for other wayward Canucks.
The plastic shifted, and the letters rearranged themselves into an invitation: Come inside and see for yourself. See what I can do.
Tristan squeezed her eyes shut. A woman sprawled on the bed, her mouth forever frozen in a silent scream, fully aware of the life draining from her body. The cops had called it a heart attack at first, but no one died from a heart attack with that look on her face. It wasn’t like the others, this kill, and there had been thousands over the centuries, perhaps tens of thousands. Somehow, she knew this with certainty. It was a message intended just for her.
She opened her eyes. All in its place, just as it should be. She’d imagined it.
Tristan turned back toward the stairwell. The door clicked shut behind her as though she had never bumped the lock.
You can tell them anything you want. The only person who can do anything about it is you.
You’ll see how special you are…
She pressed her hands to her head. Special. Right. Real special. She’d settle for average.
Either way, time was not on her side. She remembered the fury in Blessing’s face, in each movement. Blessing wasn’t stupid enough to have gone back to the house. Potential hideouts numbered in the hundreds if not thousands; the anemic economy had done no favors to homeowners and businesses all over the city. But it had opened plenty of doors for a monster.
Tristan bumped the lock on the room at the very end of the hall. Management was too cheap to replace the standard locks with electronic ones. Tristan flipped on the lights in her new room. An air conditioning unit blasted cold air into the room. A queen bed faced a cabinet housing an old CRT TV. No refrigerator or microwave. Beige curtains. Beige walls. Beige furniture and carpeting.
She lay on top of the covers and shut her eyes. “I need your help, Shapa. Badly.”
A heaviness like fingertips pressed over her eyelids. Unable to move her leaden limbs, she nevertheless felt the sensation of floating. Or at least of suspension in some other space whose form was impermeable blackness.
And so we do acknowledge the Forces of Light, said the voice of a child with the wisdom of a crone, asking for guidance, direction, and courage to know the Truth as it is revealed for our highest good and the highest good of everyone connected to us. Help me to know Tristan in the Light of the Records, to see Tristan through the eyes of the Lords of the Records, and enable me to share the wisdom and compassion the Masters, Teachers, and Loved Ones of Tristan have for her.
White light infused every pore, down to her bones. When she opened her eyes, Tristan stared down an endless corridor. A blinding white light far in the distance silhouetted Shapa’s massive form. The entire structure of the building, whatever it was, sculpted from a serene blue substance. The walls were not smooth, however; they resembled drawers of some kind, a filing cabinet that stretched for eternity toward the light. Stairs carved into the walls led up to a walkway on each level. No sound except Tristan’s and Shapa’s voices, and even those came from within her own mind. She must accept it, yes, but she had pretended for too long to be someone else. She wished Momma had sent her away the way Mami Treszka sent her own child away. For her own good.
“Where am I?”
In the place where you will find all answers, if you know how to see them. The whole of human consciousness and the house of memories.
No time for riddles. “My…friend is in trouble. I need to know where she is.”
One has made a terrible choice. One fights her destiny. They are both in trouble.
“Blessing is the one behind it all. And you know all this!”
Blessing’s story cannot change, just as mine could not. What can change is whether she forgives herself or not. Whether she embraces what is already written for her.
“I don’t give a single fuck about her. I don’t have time. I have to find Mira!”
We are a danger to everyone around us, though we fight for their very lives. We are meant to be alone.
“No one should have to be alone.”
If you do not accept this simple fact, I cannot help you. You must let Mira go. She is lost. She has chosen a path you cannot follow. It is her life or yours.
“What the hell does that mean? Why does it have to be one or the other?”
Fragments flashed over the screen of her mind, bits of film spliced together into one disjointed vision. A crumbling castle, the only extant relic of its former identity the stone keep atop a desolate hill. Mira, looking out a window, a shadow of the woman Tristan had seen only a day ago. So pale her azure veins stood out against her skin like spilled ink, the circles under her eyes deep as coalmines. Someone stood behind her, impossibly white, a bleach spot on a photograph. A girl. Just a girl and no such thing. Tristan felt trapped under ice, able to see diamonds of sunlight just above her yet incapable of punching her way through. Such coldness. Such emptiness.
“Who is it?” she asked, but
she already knew, for Zsofika had whispered the name in her heart long ago. Á Rem. The Terror.
Yes. You must go there, but not because of Mira. Because of Blessing. You must not let her fail.
“Enough about Blessing!” Tristan slammed her fists against the wall, but there was no pain upon impact, no satisfactory thud of flesh and bone against concrete. She might as well have struck a pillow.
You will understand soon enough. I am sorry, Tristan, but you knew it could never be. You knew there would be consequences.
“Then kill me already, you bitch! I never asked for this!”
Shapa retreated toward the light, her figure growing smaller and more indistinct with each step. Do not let hatred consume you, Tristan. You must fight the darkness. You must accept what you are.
Tristan fell back into herself as if dropped from a great height, and snapped open her eyes. Beyond the window, darkness. She sat up and tucked the knife into the waistband of her jeans, beneath her hoodie. Her stomach growled. She’d not taken in nearly enough blood the other night, but something more formidable than that awful craving commandeered her body.
Tristan ran down the deserted staircase rather than wait for the elevator. Outside, the stillness was that of an entire city holding its breath. Blessing was still here, for now. Tristan sensed her aura, a shriveled and infected thing like a rotten tooth. She walked with brisk intent through the cool night, with all the purpose in the world. She sought courage but not just for battle. That, she thought, would be cake compared to the inevitable and final rejection of a life with Mira.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Even now, Anasztaizia could smell the reek of burning flesh, of air opaque with smoke. A gray mist enrobed the hill, and in it wandered the ghosts of those whom she had burned, their scorched shadows flitting in and out of view like clouds passing over the sun. Trapped there, unable to escape the pull of the castle’s many tragedies. Only the stone donjon, a decaying relic of a time best forgotten, still endured. And if she had been able to forget, perhaps they would not be here at all.
“What is this place?”
“It is my home. But it is not what it once was.” Anasztaizia surveyed her old room. So little had survived, and for that, she was thankful. No furniture or clothing not harvested by desperate villagers or destroyed by the elements, by time itself, were left. No stains to remind her of the defilements perpetrated upon her body.
“You must have been very lonely.” Mira looked out over what was once the bailey, though no traces of it remained. Even the wall upon which the ispán had rotted into dust left behind no vestiges but for a few chunks of wood mostly buried beneath the earth. It was easy, from such a place, to sense isolation.
“Much of my solitude was chosen for me. I made other choices because of my faith.”
“And what about after you became…whatever you are?”
“I have known only one other like me, but I have not seen him since that day.”
“And you never made others?”
“I have found none worthy of such a gift.”
“But out of so many… Why me?”
There were the obvious reasons: the need to lure Tristan to her death, to break her with the sight of her love—the ineffectual, implacable weakness dooming anything human—as a monstrosity. But this girl was perceptive, almost too perceptive. Yongnian surely would have seen in her the light trapped in darkness, the burning, star-like soul imprisoned in its dying flesh cage. Anasztaizia had found kinship with Blessing but only in their mutual hatreds, the shared violations of their bodies. There was something exceptional about this girl, though to reveal such a sentiment to her was to expose weakness. She should not even deign to answer her questions.
“Do not think yourself special. Tristan will come here because of you, because she must.”
“So that’s it. You’re using me to get to her.”
“Of course I am. The fact that you receive my gift is secondary. Be glad I do not kill you when I’m through with her.”
“You know, it’s okay to admit you’re lonely. Who wouldn’t be?”
“Shut up. What do you know of such things?” Anasztaizia clenched her fists so she would not strike the girl. Or tear her to pieces.
“I know that even when you seem to have everything, you’re alone. Maybe more alone than anyone else, because you can’t be yourself. You have to be everyone’s idealized version of you.”
The truthfulness of her words was like worms burrowing into Anasztaizia’s skin. She had been a mimicry of her mother to please her father. A devout heretic to please Gaszi.
A monster to please Yongnian.
Sophia chose me. Yongnian was merely Her instrument for purifying me.
What trickery was this girl playing? Anasztaizia would use her as needed, and then she would wrench off her head and hang it from the window like a flag.
“And when you get sick—really sick—they all leave. No one knows what to say or how to say it. They get too wrapped up in their own pain to deal with anyone else’s. Why do you think I’m here, when I could’ve just let you kill me and been done with it? You and Tristan could’ve had your little showdown back in Philly. I’m here because I don’t want to die. And that’s more important to me than how it will affect my parents, my friends…”
“And even Tristan.”
“Like I said. We’re inherently selfish. Why refuse this chance just so I can die and not be with her anyway? I’m not that noble. Let’s be honest—as a species, we don’t deserve shit, so you’ve probably got the right idea with this “cleansing” of yours.” Mira finally turned away from the window. “Enough with the chatting. Do it before Blessing gets here. I hate that little creep, and I don’t want her to be a part of this.”
“You do understand I must kill you first. Or you must kill yourself.”
She laughed a little, but there was a sharp edge to it. “I’m not brave enough to do it myself. Don’t think I haven’t looked at my bottle of painkillers a million times and thought about it. I’ve sat on the bathroom floor with it in my hand. The one thing that always stops me isn’t because I’m afraid it’ll hurt. It’s not doing it right. It’s waking up in a hospital and seeing the faces of my friends and family. Seeing them judge me, when they have no idea what I’m going through.”
“We are alone in our torment,” Anasztaizia said. “Always alone.”
“I’m such a coward. I couldn’t even tell her.” Tears spilled down Mira’s cheeks.
The display of emotion made Anasztaizia uncomfortable, where hours ago it had merely annoyed her.
“And now I’m going to die either way.”
“It isn’t so terrible, once you accept what is happening. I saw butterflies as I died. Perhaps you will see something beautiful as well.” What were these words coming from her mouth? No one had consoled her. But there was so much fear in the girl’s eyes, fear Anasztaizia had seen in those of her companions and suffered in her own heart.
“Just do it,” Mira whispered, her lips quivering. “Please.”
“Close your eyes.”
Two more tears slipped down Mira’s cheeks as she obeyed Anasztaizia’s order. Anasztaizia circled her hands around Mira’s neck, linking her fingers in the back and pressing her thumbs against her windpipe, which bounced up and down with anxious swallows.
She squeezed.
Mira’s eyes flew open at the onset of air hunger. She clawed at Anasztaizia’s arms, flapped at her as Anasztaizia compressed her trachea. Her attempts at breathing came as short, harsh gasps. Her lips, and the tongue thrust out between them, turned a deep blue. She was no longer consciously flailing in her bid for air but violently thrashing in the onset of a seizure. Close now. Already she did not know what was happening any longer.
The light went out of her eyes, quick as putting out a candle. Her neck, her arms, her entire body, no more than an empty sack. She crumpled to the floor like a pile of discarded clothing.
Anasztaizia knelt beside her
and listened for a heartbeat, for the faintest breath. Nothing.
Mira’s jaw fell open, and her sweatpants darkened with urine. A foul stench arose from beneath her. The life force steamed forth from Mira’s nostrils and mouth, hovering above her for a moment as it contemplated the jail from which it had just fled.
Anasztaizia cupped her hands around the vaporous entity and said softly, “Look. Do you see those eyes? They are the way back, and you must go. You have work to do. You needn’t fear dying anymore; death cannot touch you any longer.” She puffed a breath into the spirit’s ambiguous suggestion of a mouth and released it. It lingered for a moment, shimmering and trembling, as it battled against the compulsion to depart from that body forever.
Then it dove into the portals of Mira’s open eyes, and Anasztaizia clapped her hands with glee. It would not be long, mere hours at most, before the corrupted spirit infused Mira with a new and never-ending life.
~
She should’ve known. Easy prey up there on the stroll. Blessing, with her back to the alley entrance, crouched like a giant spider over something Tristan could not see. Poor form for a Hunter. Much too vulnerable.
And Blessing was too smart for that. It was obviously a trick.
Tristan reached for the knife. At this point, Blessing’s choices were straightforward: tell her where Mira was and live. Refuse and she’d roll Blessing’s head down the alley like a bowling ball. And if it came time for her to make the sacrifice, Tristan would do so willingly. One life or the other, and without Mira in it, hers ceased to have meaning.
She crept up behind her, knowing Blessing almost certainly heard her approach, then dropped down and jerked one arm around her throat. Blessing gagged as Tristan dragged her back a few inches. She trailed the tip of the knife down Blessing’s cheek. “Tell me where Mira is, or I’ll slit your fucking throat. You know I will.”
But Blessing, Tristan realized, had let this happen. In a vulgar display of power, she wanted Tristan to see the body and fear her. Images flashed through Tristan’s brain. It happened so quickly: a streak of metal, one slash to cut out her screams. Stunned, Tristan let her go.
Those of My Kind Page 20
