15. A Goddess Once More
A Goddess Once More
We always walk home in silence. I chew over the truths you gave and try to piece them together. You are an Elder, one of five. Mother of Silence comes from a sort of justice.
It’s fractured. I cannot place it all together, even as I try to write it out. I’ve started to do that—to keep a journal of the things I’ve learned of you and of us.
I want most desperately to ask about the venom.
Do those we leave alive just die several days later?
Or is it a venom we use to make another?
I fear if I ask and it’s the latter, we will cease to attend the meetings.
I toy with how to phrase the question to avoid this line of thinking when I decide on something else.
A test.
For centuries I have subdued my prey with words, using our coercion to make them pliable and silent. With just a few words, they follow me to their death with unfocused eyes. Zahra said the venom paralyzes. I will test this.
I wait in the shadows of the empty street. It is the type of street that if a human screamed, no one would come. The shops are closed tight for the night, the moon a mere sliver in the sky.
I grab the first solo human I find and pull them into an alley. My hand clamps over their mouth as they try to scream. Already a command blooms on my tongue, but I stop it short. Instead, I sink my teeth into the human’s neck, right over their throbbing, erratic pulse.
Within seconds they go limp and moan. I startle, nearly dropping my prey.
The moan…It’s not the moan of the exsanguinated—they moan as their life drifts from them, as their body rejects the truth of their imminent end.
This is the moan of a lover in the throes of passion.
The memory of our first kill together, of the first man I failed to coerce, comes barreling back.
He did the same, until you silenced him.
The human sways in my arms, his body shuddering. His lips move as though to speak but he cannot. He is not fully paralyzed, he can breathe. Humans need that to live, and if my bite rendered that useless, all humans would die before we are done feeding.
I resume my feeding, my hand pressed to his mouth to stifle his continued moans. They grow softer the more I take, his strength failing. But I must keep him alive, because this was only part of my test. I let him drop to the ground, frowning at the hardness between his legs.
Is this why you taught me to coerce humans? So they would not have this unsavory reaction?
I remember little about my time before you made me, and I remember how it felt when you fed on me. The ecstasy was unlike anything I’d ever known. Was it because of our connection, or is that the way it is with all humans?
Does our venom excite and paralyze? Or is this man an outlier?
“You will have no memory of this.”
He rises hours later and stumbles from the shadows to his home.
I return every day for a week. His pallid skin warms as the week goes on, his blood restored.
He’s one of several other test humans, each with the same reaction.
Men and women both rendered immobile and lost in lust as I fed. All lived, none turned.
After a week, I am satisfied with my test and return to coercing my prey. The eroticism behind feeding is reserved for you. Every writhe of my prey during that week made my skin crawl and my stomach turn. I was never unfaithful, but the wrongness of it unsettled me.
I write my experiment and results and file it away in my journal.
We sit on our bench during the full moon as Shimon and Menodotus argue over some battle of men. Shimon was turned during a siege of his homeland and left to discover his new body without help or guidance.
“It is a battle worth celebrating,” Menodotus tells Shimon. Shimon waves his hands and makes a noise much like spitting. “Knowing? Yes, that we may avoid such atrocities in the future. Celebrating? Death?”
“Come now, we all cater to death,” Menodotus says, opening his arms wide. “Especially as we live now.”
“We do not live,” Shimon says. “And I’ve never killed.”
Menodotus’s eyes bulge from his head. “Yes, you have. We all have, it is what it means to be lamia.” They all use that word, no matter their culture or heritage. It is the agreed upon word, I suppose, though I hate it.
“I have not,” Shimon is resolute. “It is against my faith to take another life, so I will not. I have not. So I can say we should not celebrate as we remember these battles. Instead, we should learn why they occurred, so we can prevent them.”
“We?” Theon scoffs. “You speak as though any of us has the authority. What will you do, learned scholar? Speak in the forum about the wars from before?”
Bastianos and Zahra laugh, a rare show of camaraderie amongst the two divisions within the group. While there are many small things the group disagrees on, there is one topic that is ever salient.
Humans. Specifically, if we should feed on them.
Theon, Bastianos and Shimon are the most vocal in their opposition of hunting humans.
They instead take from animals. It is not an ideal meal, so they require more than if they took from humans.
Zahra likes to remind them that if they steal food from humans, the humans will starve, and they will kill them in another way.
Just because the blood is not on their hands does not mean they are innocent.
They instead cut her off before she brings it up.
This rift surfaces time and time again as they debate.
It is a topic you’ve grown bored of, like many of their squabbles.
They are circular, the same thought voiced with fifty different words.
The corner of your lip twitches, curling back to expose your long canines.
I share your disgust, though I hide mine behind wide, imploring eyes.
No one asks my opinion and it is just as well, my silence means I do not let on how little I know about you.
“Tell us, Aletheia, what was the world like before humans recorded it?” Essemteu asks. Despite your lively debate in our garden, he speaks only to guide conversation when it becomes too heated.
All eyes turn to you, some curious, some wary.
“Humans have always recorded their history,” you say.
“Yes, but before the paintings on the cave walls or the etched stone,” Essemteu presses.
“How old do you think I am?” Aletheia asks. “How long do you imagine our kind has walked?”
“As long as humans,” Zahra reasons.
“A predator to control their numbers,” Ardashir adds.
Maat’s feather. Balance. They are obsessed with it, this idea that we exist as an opposite to the humans, versus the others who think we stand alongside them.
“Before papyrus there was stone, before stone there were cave drawings, but there are traditions that precede this and continue even now,” you say. No one answers your riddle. Perhaps they don’t understand it is a question.
“Spoken word,” I say. “Songs,” I add. My ears ring with the faraway sounds of worship in my temple, a crescendo of sound that has me shaking my head to clear it.
“Of course,” Essemteu says, leaning back on his bench. He thrums his jaw in thought. “They would not be written. In such a way they could live forever, but also destroyed more easily. A story only lives as long as the teller does. Is this why stories of the Elders are so rare?”
“Yes,” you say, and I am shocked at the clear answer. You love to weave through their questions, picking out bits to answer, leaving others at your feet to decay. You feed us enough to hang on your word, but too little to sate our thirst.
“So you alone hold the tales of our origin?” Bastianos asks. “Regale us, then.”
“You want to know how we were created, I assume?” you say. “Who is the oldest, and how did they come to be? Hmm?”
You’ve captured their attention, like you have every meeting. They lean toward you, drawn to the promise of your words. But will you answer such a direct call? Or will you dance around this, too?
“No Elder knows what the First did to create our kind,” you say, and now I lean toward you, too. “Perhaps she—”
“She?” Menodotus interrupts. He shrinks away when you turn your red gaze on him, pinning him to his seat. The others glare at him as well. How dare he interrupt you? They begged for your audience, for your answers—and this is how they reward you?
“She,” you continue after a long pause, “was the First. She created the Elders, plucking humans she found worthy as she moved across the world. Not every change took, she had to learn as she went. At first, it was in awe of what she’d become. So she named herself Creator and sowed her seed.
“She made many mistakes, as all new things do. She first wielded the change like a weapon, then like a prize. But it was all wrong, and she’d often destroy her own creations.”
Quiet gasps nearly interrupt you, but you continue on. You are not in this room anymore, are you? Are you next to the First, your Creator, watching her make more like you? Or are you watching from above, a narrator more than a character?
“At last, she found the course she liked best—creation for companionship. She no longer sought out the smartest and strongest, but looked for other traits. Beauty, mostly, for she was a vain thing.” Your lip curls again, this time in affection.
You are no omniscient narrator, you were there. You knew this First.
I am jealous of her. She knew you before you were made, she saw parts of you I never will. Did she mold you, or have you been away from her long enough to become your own? I hate that I will never know that version of you.
“The Elders are the creations she let live. They were her companions, her lovers, her confidants.” You stop suddenly, blinking rapidly. You are back in this room, a realization that destroys you.
“Which were you?” Dione asks. Her voice is quiet, yet it rings through the room.
“Which was I?” you ask.
“Companion, lover, or confidant?”
I hate how badly I want to know the answer. What will I do if you say lover? Surely there were others before me, but you do not speak of them, so they do not exist. I am your only living creation, you said as much when we nearly fled Alexandria.
A flame burns in my chest, heating my insides. I need you to answer, I need to know.
“I was her justice,” you say.
She was infamous.
“Is that how you came by your name?” Dione asks. Dione is made bold by the fact she so rarely speaks, that when she does everyone listens. She expects that to extend to you. But you’ve made it clear you don’t wish for them to use that name, and here she invokes the origin of it.
How dare she? I am about to protest when you speak—soft, quiet. Reverent.
“It is,” you say. “I was tasked with carrying out her justice. There were rules.”
“Rules?” Essemteu asks.
“We were the only of our kind. If the humans knew about us, they would hunt and kill us. One—never reveal your true nature to a human. Two—dispose of all bodies in a way they will never be found. Three—you need permission to make another. As time went on, we added others. Four—you may never record evidence of our kind. Five—you must never make a family member or a child.” You lift a finger with each rule, your long fingers splayed wide at the end.
“Those are the rules?” Ardashir asks.
“Were,” Theon corrects. “We’ve no use for rules.”
“Don’t we?” Zahra muses. “We all live by our own codes and laws. We understand secrecy is paramount, and that we cannot go around turning every human. Then there’d be no food,” she adds, the barb aimed at Theon.
You settle back on the bench, your body slumped as if the truth exhausted you. I catalogue every word you said in my mind so I can put it to written word later. You were like the goddess Nemesis, executor of divine retribution.
What happened? I want to ask.
(“Time, and much more.”)
But they’ve moved on and left you reeling on our bench. To them you must look bored, but I see the cracks. I see your need to leave this room, to return to the solace of our grave. Something about this confession unmoored you.
“I would like to hear more about the structure of the Elders,” Essemteu says as we leave.
He hangs back, his pale gaze pointedly on you.
I want to usher you into the night and back to our home where we can fall into each other’s arms and I can make you forget whatever you ran from.
But you allow too much familiarity with Essemteu.
“What of it?” you ask, eyeing him warily.
“Lamia gathering as we do is rare, but it shouldn’t be. Your story proves our origin is in groups. Perhaps a little structure would bind us closer and prevent unnecessary…” He waves his hand as he thinks of the word. “Drama.”
“I am not looking to repeat my previous role…” you start.
Essemteu shakes his head. “No, no, of course not. Ardashir is more fit for that role, I would think.”
“The sword should be held by someone who knows how heavy it is, not someone who enjoys swinging it,” you scold.
Essemteu snaps, pointing at you. “See, that is just it. Your insight into these roles within a group is what we need. Guidance is what I ask.”
“I will consider it,” you say, and push beyond him into the night.
I catch up with you several streets later. You’ve slowed your relentless march to our home. When I am close, you thread your arm through mine, an uncharacteristic public display of ownership. I bite back a smile and lean into you.
“I think they see it at last,” I say.
“Hmm?” you ask, distracted.
“That you are the one to learn from, not the dead humans in their books.”
You don’t speak again until we are home, your fingers sliding into mine once inside the courtyard.
“Does your love fade for me, knowing that I was justice?” you ask.
“I don’t know what that means,” I admit. I have an idea, but I want to hear you say it. I want you to admit what brand of justice you delivered.
“I destroyed her errant creations,” you say. Your gaze travels over my face, reading every muscle that moves.
“You killed others like us,” I clarify.
“Yes,” you admit.
Oh, how I wanted to comfort you then. I wished to be like the poets in the streets, to find the right words to soothe. What could I say in that moment? That I would love you until the end of time? That I would kill every person that crosses you, human or otherwise?
“It changes nothing for me,” I say, because I cannot yet put voice to my feelings.
At the time I thought it was a failing of mine, a lack of the creative mind. It was the right thing to say, but how clumsy it sounded. I adored you, I was begging for your love, and here you were—worrying over mine.
“Elder or not, justice or not, you are always mine,” I add, because I think it is what you want to hear.
(“Not always, it seems.”)
Your mouth flickers, and for a moment I think I have erred. Then you kiss me, soft and slow, your body melting into mine. We fall into our grave and make love until the call of the sun is too strong to resist.