Chapter 9 #2
I recoil and he laughs at my expression.
“Oh boy. A do-gooder. Shame.” He shakes his head extravagantly.
“Too bad. That’s a sweet little power you’ve got yourself!
If you feed it.” His scowl is sudden, comprehensive.
“Look at you—you’re weak!” He leans too close.
“You’re pale and sickly! If you let yourself do what’s natural for you, imagine .
. . You’re playing by the wrong rules, kid.
The wrong rules. It’s their world now. .
. . But we shouldn’t just roll over and take it.
You know what I mean? Gotta stick together, what’s left of us.
Gotta fight back.” He slaps the table. Liquid sloshes.
It’s a good thing there’s so little in the glass.
Now he looks grim. “So few of us left is the problem. But I survived. I’m still here.”
“It feels like a curse,” I say, almost to myself. “My power has always felt like a curse.”
“Oh, it is,” he answers immediately. “Of course it’s a curse. All my kids got it.”
My head is a dryer, my thoughts tossed around and around, blasted at high heat.
“Who cursed us?” I manage to say. “Was it you?”
Is Dick Face really going to give me the answers to every single question I have? Just like I have fantasized about so many times. Is there a cure? my mind is yelling. Is there a cure? Can I be normal? Will I ever be normal?
He hiccups a laugh. “Me!” And then, “You think you’re the only one? The only one who got cursed?”
“Who . . . did the cursing?” I try.
“I’m the one who got cursed!” He jabs himself in the chest with a finger.
I wait.
“Oh yeah. Big-time. This whore.” He shakes his head, says a word in that other language. I can’t tell if it’s a swear or a name.
“A witch?” I suggest. Listen to me. What’s my next guess, an evil fairy who didn’t get invited to my christening?
“A witch! A witch!” he chortles. Apparently this is hilarious.
“No, you American.” He says it like it means baby, moron.
“Much more than a witch. A . . .” Another word I can’t understand, with a twirl in the sound.
“She loved me.” He looks pleased at the memory.
“What? I was very hot. Very hot. You don’t believe it now.
Fuckin’ fallow. But I was perfect. I’ll be better, later.
Oh yes, she loved me. Obsessed with me. Jealous type. They all are!”
He snarls—a jarring, painful expression, showing oddly narrow gray teeth.
“Caught me looking at some girl. I don’t know.
Something stupid. She got all emotional.
Women. Puts this curse on me. On my seed!
All my offspring have to be like me—they have to ‘bring about the suffering of others.’ That’s what she said.
I’m pretty sure. I swear, she turned into a bass right there.
” He inexplicably pronounces it like the fish.
“There was a boom, thunder!” He claps his hands sloppily.
“A bass? Like with a really low voice?” I correct. He’s a singer (or was one), he should know better.
“No, like the fish. A big fish.”
I can’t tell if he’s joking.
“Just like you guys do in your movies. Drama. Lots of drama. They loved their drama. I miss it, Trellis. You said your name was Trellis?”
“Tempest.”
“Oh, that’s much better! I’m not always good with names. But that’s a good one.”
I’ve found it: the one thing my parents have in common, aside from a love of exceedingly amplified electric guitar.
“She was something else, though. . . .” A wicked grin flickers across his desiccated face. “And wowie, the body on her. Well, one of them, anyway!” He chuckles to himself, shakes his head, reminiscing.
It occurs to me belatedly that I should be recording this entire conversation. On the app Grub told me to use. How did I forget? I know how. I am completely and utterly overwhelmed. I grope for my phone in my bag, can’t find it, as usual.
“Where is she now?” I ask.
He looks wistful for a moment. “Maybe gone forever. But man, if she showed up, you’d know it. That’s real power. . . .” He seems to be drifting.
“How many of us are there? How many, uh, children do you have?”
“Damned if I know! Who can keep track?” He slurps down a green bean.
“But you think there are a lot? And they are all . . . like me?”
“Oh yeah. They’re like you. And better than you.
” He picks up the oval plate, tips it back so the remaining green beans slither down into his mouth, some of them falling on his face.
He chews. “That’s the whole thing. It’s just us left, far as I can tell.
Just the fam.” His accent is thicker now, ornamenting some of his words in interesting ways. Where is he from?
Two thousand years old. He isn’t from anywhere that’s anywhere anymore.
“What do you mean?” I press.
“The rest are all gone. Hiding, maybe. They don’t tell me!”
“Who are the rest?”
“I told you! I just told you about her. The old ones! The firsts. The, y’know . . .” He waves a loose-fingered hand, searching briefly for the word: “immortals.”
“But you’re still here.”
“Right. I slipped through. Not a big enough deal, I guess!” I don’t even have to ask again, he’s just telling me now: “Not one of the big guys, so didn’t bother putting in all that effort to kill me.
There used to be packs of those murdering assholes.
Called themselves the Army of Light or some shit.
Hadn’t heard about ’em in a long time, but looks like there are still one or two, just waiting around.
Pigs. Can’t leave it alone.” He leans close, breath smacking my face.
“Just let us have a little fun, right? And how come they changed all the rules? How come this One True God comes in. . . .” His voice drops to an abrupt whisper. He looks furtively around.
He is scared of . . . God? I can’t follow any of this. I can tell I’m losing him. He’s too drunk.