Interzone 244 Jan - Feb 2013 Read Online Free PDF

wasn’t much but it was
home. “Carmel?” his sister called. “Carmel!”
    There was a sound above, as of someone
moving. Then a lack of sound. Achimwene watched his sister standing
impassively. Realised she was talking, in the way of other people,
with Carmel. Communicating in a way that was barred to him. Then
normal sound again, feet on the stairs, and Carmel came into the
room.
    “ Hi,” she said, awkwardly.
She came and stood closer to Achimwene, then took his hand in hers.
The feel of her small, cold fingers in between his hands startled
him and made a feeling of pleasure spread throughout his body, like
warmth in the blood. Nothing more was said. The physical action
itself was an act of speaking.
    Miriam nodded.
    Then Kranki startled them all.
    * *
    Carmel had spent the previous night in the
company of a woman. Achimwene had known there was sex involved, not
just feeding. He had told himself he didn’t mind. When Carmel came
back she had smelled of sweat and sex and blood. She moved
lethargically, and he knew she was drunk on data. She had tried to
describe it to him once, but he didn’t really understand it, what
it was like.
    He had lain there on the narrow bed with her
and watched the moon outside, and the floating lanterns with their
rudimentary intelligence. He had his arm around the sleeping
Carmel, and he had never felt happier.
    * *
    Kranki turned and regarded Carmel. He
whispered something to the air – to the place Ismail was standing,
Achimwene guessed. He giggled at the reply and turned to
Carmel.
    “ Are you a vampire ?”
he said.
    “ Kranki!”
    At the horrified look on Miriam’s face,
Achimwene wanted to laugh. Carmel said, “No, it’s all right – ” in
asteroid pidgin. I stret nomo.
    But she was watching the boy intently. “Who
is your friend?” she said, softly.
    “ It’s Ismail. He lives in
Jaffa on the hill.”
    “ And what is he?” Carmel
said. “What are you?”
    The boy didn’t seem to understand the
question. “He is him. I am me. We are…” He hesitated.
    “ Nakaimas…” Carmel
whispered. The sound of her voice made Achimwene shiver. That same
cold run of ice down his spine, like in the old books, like when
Ringo the Gunslinger met a horror from beyond the grave on the
lonesome prairies.
    He knew the word, though never understood
the way people used it. It meant black magic, but also, he knew, it
meant to somehow, impossibly, transcend the networks, that thing
they called the Conversation.
    “ Kranki…” The warning tone
in Miriam’s voice was unmistakable. But neither Kranki nor Carmel
paid her any heed. “I could show you,” the boy said. His clear,
blue eyes seemed curious, guileless. He stepped forward and stood
directly in front of Carmel and reached out his hand, pointing
finger extended. Carmel, momentarily, hesitated. Then she, too,
reached forward and, finger extended, touched its tip to the boy’s
own.
    * *
    It is, perhaps, the prerogative of every man
or woman to imagine, and thus force a shape , a meaning , onto that wild and meandering narrative of their
lives, by choosing genre. A princess is rescued by a prince; a
vampire stalks a victim in the dark; a student becomes the master.
A circle is completed. And so on.
    It was the next morning that Achimwene’s
story changed, for him. It had been a Romance, perhaps, of sorts.
But now it became a Mystery.
    Perhaps they chose it, by tacit agreement,
as a way to bind them, to make this curious relationship, this
joining of two ill-fitted individuals somehow work. Or perhaps it
was curiosity that motivated them after all, that earliest of
motives, the most human and the most suspect, the one that had led
Adam to the Tree, in the dawn of story.
    The next morning Carmel came down the
stairs. Achimwene had slept in the bookshop that night, curled up
in a thin blanket on top of a mattress he had kept by the wall and
which was normally laden with books. The books, pushed aside,
formed an untidy wall around