chapter twenty-six #2
“You know, there’s no need for your childish game. I am willing to do this again. This can be mutually beneficial. I am not above a good bargain.” I searched his expression for any kind of reply.
“Look who wants to strike deals now. Was I not a devil to you weeks ago? A creature ? Suddenly, you seem to have a roster of bets to make.” His eyes were either dark or simply tired.
“Maybe it is I who is a devil.” I sat up and crawled closer. “I may be just as deadly as you in a fair fight.”
“I would believe it. You are gifted—just ignorant.”
“Not for long.” I hummed. “I want to know more.”
“What is it you would like to know? I am an open book for now.” He sighed, leaning back against the wall.
“Were you born like this?”
“Yes, but not all of us are,” he answered. “Why do you kill people?”
“I poison men of an abusive nature,” I corrected him sternly. “Do not say it like what we do is the same.”
“You find me abusive?”
“Silas, you eat people. Yes, of course I would consider you abusive.” I shook my head at him. “What did you mean by not all of you are born this way?”
“Some are born, and some are made. It’s a bit complicated.” He shrugged.
“Indulge me.” I moved closer so I could lean on the same side of the nook as him.
“I was born. Two full-blooded Vipera can conceive, but it is difficult?—”
“Vipera?”
“Yes, one of the less offensive names for us through the ages,” he clarified.
“Anyway, while conception is difficult, the efforts are worth it, since we live until we starve to death or have our heads taken off,” he continued.
“The ones that are made are not as sturdy. It’s part of how the blood works if you die while the venom is inside you.
It corrupts every part of your body as it poisons you.
The difference is that corrupted humans get their life span cut in half, since they don’t have the natural capabilities to handle it for very long. ”
“So, I could be one of you if I died after you bit me?” I glanced down at my bandaged wrist.
“You would have to die within six hours of being envenomed,” he explained, “but yes, you would turn, but you wouldn’t be corrupted.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You are what we call a Mellifluous Host.”
“You mentioned it, but it doesn’t quite answer the question.”
“Hosts are just a by-product of our species diverging. That is why their blood is the richest, most sustainable. You are technically just dormant. So we believe somewhere along the way this random mutation made it possible for us to evolve.”
“Dormant?”
“Hosts have all the parts. But the body thinks of them as extra organs—I don’t remember the name.”
“Vestigial organs,” I responded quickly, as my eyes widened in wonder. “So you’re saying the venom makes the body recognize them in its panicked state before death?”
“Sounds right. I don’t know many technicalities about it, but yes. You would not be distinguishable from those that were born if you turned.”
“I don’t have extra teeth,” I pointed out.
He leaned over and tilted my chin up. “Open. I’ll show you.”
The blood rushed to my face, remembering his grip on my jaw the past few times, but I opened up to him. It was a good time to practice trust.
He placed the pad of his thumb on the roof of my mouth and pushed.
“Ow—” I muttered around his finger.
“Feel this?” He guided my hand to the spot he was pressing on.
I smoothed my finger over the top, feeling a protruding V on the roof of my mouth. I nodded.
“They’re under there.” He removed his finger from my mouth.
“Everyone has that.” I frowned.
He grinned and shook his head. “You clearly haven’t stuck your fingers in enough mouths, if that’s possible,” he teased.
“I should have poked you harder in yours,” I grumbled.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he insisted. “Why on earth would you become a poisoner? I’m sure not many people tell their parents their lifelong dream is to become a killer.”
“My father taught me most of what I know, though I doubt he could have predicted how I would use that knowledge now.” I rubbed the back of my neck, flattening my back against the wall as I got comfortable, our shoulders touching as we were confined to the cozy nook.
Maybe I would have felt threatened if this were weeks ago, but his presence now was different.
Like a crackling bonfire. Dangerous—but oh so warm .
“But what made you do it?” he asked curiously, watching me.
“I don’t quite know when I started. I guess I’ve been doing it for a while—” I sighed.
“It started out harmless. The other children in the neighborhood would tease my dear friend Phoebe. Bless that poor child. She didn’t know how to stand up for herself.
Always afraid to make the first move. They pulled her hair and tripped her in the street.
So one day I borrowed some chemicals from my father’s work desk.
I didn’t know what they did or what they were for.
I couldn’t read yet. I only meant to make them eat something distasteful—I put them in their midday meal at grammar school. ” I shuddered.
“What happened?” His eyes were intense but teasing with something like curiosity.
“Two of the boys got sick. The last one went west.” I swallowed.
“You killed him.” He didn’t state it as a question.
“Yes. I didn’t mean to. That was one of very few accidents in my lifetime.” My voice grew quiet, like my subconscious was telling me to stop talking.
“What made you do it again?”
“People needed me. First, it was friends, then friends of friends, and eventually through the grapevine.”
“Did you ever do it for yourself rather than others?”
“I didn’t dare to help myself until it was too late and I got lazy. A miscalculation. One I can’t come back from, and I’ll be making up for it every day I’m alive.”
“Does it eat away at you inside?” he asked, though there was no humor in his tone.
“Every day, like ants digging tunnels—only sometimes I wonder when they will eat away at my nervous system, so I don’t have to feel the emptiness when they are done.” I pulled my knees up to my chest.
He sighed and draped an arm around my shoulder, pulling me in and resting his head on top of mine. “There are worse things out there than you. Like myself. So take some comfort in that.”
“I don’t, but thank you,” I whispered.
“Does Phoebe know?”
“I never told her. She thinks it was karma.” I leaned my head into his shoulder.
He did not ask me to be anything that night.
Not his meal nor his conquest. He did not ask me to be strong or to be smart.
He basked in the presence of just me . There had never been a comfort like this, not in a while and certainly not while someone else was present.
How ironic that the only man who could comfort an aching soul like me would be the worst one I knew.
I awoke the next morning curled up in the nook, a wool blanket draped over me, and not one Creature in sight. The only proof of him was the lingering scent of smoked bay leaf that clung to my hair and a bloom of oleander tucked behind my ear.