The One We Feed Read Online Free PDF Page B

don’t fight back, I don’t care what they want. What about Karl? Have you
been looking for him as I asked you to?”
    Her little
throat wiggled in a hard swallow. “I cannot see him anymore, I told you,” she
whispered.
    “Could he be
dead, too?”
    “I do not
know.”
    It seemed that
this was an egregious crime, indeed. The vein on his forehead began to throb.
I, on the other hand, could not be happier, since her inability to follow Karl’s
movements meant that my influence over him had been effective. He wasn’t dead,
he was Unknowable; and if he was, then he’d taken the next step and gone
through to Parinirvana. My emotions swelled in much-deserved pride.
    The hand
resting on the table swept across it suddenly, and the metal bowl flew through
the air, through me, and slammed against the wall. Its contents spattered over paint
and marker. The images bled together into a great, black splotch on the floor.
    As the water
dripped into the silence, the little girl’s eyes began to drip along with it.
Her mouth quavered slightly, but the man took no notice. He scowled at her
callously and leaned over her, his face inches from hers.
    “If you cease
to produce results, make no mistake, I will get rid of you. Perhaps I’ll let him have you. It would make for interesting results.”
    He stood up
and tugged at his coat, steadied himself with a deep breath, then turned away.
Behind him, the numerical lock clicked shut and sealed her inside.
    I wanted to
follow him, but her sorry, decrepit state drew me in. She waited a few moments
before she slid to the floor and crawled to the black puddle beneath her
bleeding pictures. Sitting cross-legged, she dipped her fingers into the water
and began to hum an inharmonious melody, though her face was still moist with
tears.
    “You will
suffer,” she sang to herself hoarsely, rocking back and forth like a possessed
puppet.
    Her slimy
fingers reached for one of the smudged drawings and peeled it from the wall.
She held it lovingly and then, with a guttural cry of outrage, tore it to
pieces. It was the beginning of a storm of fury that sent me from the room.
    I had seen
many things in my visions, from horrible things happening in real time to
terrible things that were yet to be, but I had never seen anything like her and
was as disconcerted as I could be in my altered state of consciousness. Jinx
was the youngest immortal I had ever met, and he was of another species, so
could she be different too? It was clear that she could scry, but who had she
been talking about? Who was sleeping, and who crying out?
    I floated down
the hallway toward another door that stood open. The man was standing in it,
barking at someone inside.
    “No! He cannot
bring her here. Tell him we have a pest with bright red hair. Hopefully, that
will convince him. With each passing day the bastard becomes more of a difficulty.”
    “Our last
three calls have gone unanswered,” someone replied from inside the room, “though
he has sent another warning.”
    I heard the
package that had just been delivered as it dropped onto a hard surface.
    “More of the
same?”
    There was a
cough. “Yes.”
    “What does he
suppose I can do about this situation that is not already being done?” He made
a disgusted face. “I am in charge here! He thinks he can send me trophies of
his barbarism, and I’ll just buckle to his demands? I don’t care who he is, the
impossible remains impossible! We’ll see what he makes of Jinx.”
    “I doubt one
hacker is going to deter him,” came the reply. “He wants to move her out of
earshot. The creatures are howling again. The girl is in a coma, and she’s
still responding.”
    The man’s brow
rose. I looked closely at his face. He was an immortal with exquisite control,
every bit Karl’s equal, but I could see the heaviness sitting on his shoulders.
He was a man beset on all sides, in spite of the bravado in his voice.
    “Well, we
cannot receive her here, and I will not allow