Authors: Elle Hill
She leaned closer, smiling conspiratorially. “Noticed it doesn’t work on us, huh? It’s because says our metabolism is too high, which is also why we remain a little toastier than your average bear. Of course, it means we’re always the designated drivers.” She rolled her eyes. “Did you know Hunters are vegetarians?”
“Some are,” he agreed. When she raised an eyebrow, he added, “Cor mentioned it when we were planning the party’s menu.”
“Planning a party fit for Clan members?” Mari teased, biting into her sandwich.
“Something tells me a Clan party wouldn’t be very festive,” he said.
She laughed. “They are deadbeats, true. But if you two invite some, I promise not to let their visit get
too
boring.” Over a sweet potato fry, she winked.
After their meal, Mari linked arms with him and led him away from the car. He waited for a break in the chatter before asking quietly, “What lesson do you have for me today?”
Mari chuckled. “Aren’t you the cynical one.”
“So I’m wrong?”
“Nope.” She dragged him down a side street.
Hollywood, with its elegant seediness, had always fascinated Reed. No one had bothered trying to prettify this small patch of glamour set smack in the middle of arid Southern California. Its rare and shocking crops of greenery sprouted from millionaire’s yards and Southern California’s carefully-cultivated and ubiquitous palm trees. Meanwhile, the ground stretched, a dusty connective tissue binding buildings of all sizes, shapes, and states of repair.
Hollywood, like many of its inhabitants, featured an aging, artificial, patchwork beauty. Across the street from exclusive clubs with block-long lines sat Metro stations and tiny Mexican
panaderias
. A block from thriving businesses on Sunset, one could find crumbling tenement housing.
So it was that within minutes of leaving their posh café, Maricruz and Reed turned a corner and entered a narrow space between two low-income housing units. He had grown up in another neighborhood but easily recognized rental housing for poor families.
Whether by design or luck, a lone man stood halfway down the block, propped up against a cinder block retaining wall. In deference to the chilly afternoon, he wore an oversized, dark blue windbreaker and baggy black jeans. Jaunty green flip-flops protected his feet from the uneven pavement.
Dragging on his cigarette, the man stared coolly at them as they drew closer.
“Hi there,” Mari chirped, smiling.
“Hey,” the man said, nodding once at her. His gaze when he turned it on Reed was suspicious, threatening.
“What’s your name?” she asked him.
The man drew once more from his cigarette before snubbing it out along the cement wall. He dropped its tiny carcass on the ground beside him.
“See ya,” he said, pushing himself away from the wall.
“Wait,” Mari called.
“Mari, don’t,” Reed growled. Her eyes twinkled at him above her toothy, brilliant grin.
“What’s your name?” she asked again as the man started walking away from them.
He turned back with an annoyed expression. “Andre,” he snapped.
And then he stopped moving.
“Lesson One,” Mari purred, staring intently at their prey. “You can feed without meeting their eyes, but the connection is ten times stronger when you can see them.”
Reed stood next to her, hands clenched into fists. “All right. Let’s go.”
“Hold your horses,” she almost whispered, a loose smile blurring her features. “The best part of all this is coming. You know all that yummy feeling you get from them without even trying? Imagine the joy of programming them to feed you your favorite meal.”
A small smile curled her lips, cradled her cheeks. “Me, I’m a fear girl. Imagine pushing fear onto Andre here, telling him with your eyes you want him to think all those scary thoughts that wake him up in the middle of the night.
“The less experienced among us often have to speak out loud, so don’t worry if it doesn’t work right away for you. If I don’t want to concentrate hard enough, I can say something like”—she raised her voice—“‘Hey, Andre, see this big guy next to me? He’s not only challenging you on your turf, he actually wants to hurt you bad, make a big point, maybe even kill you.’”
“No,” Reed said, but he felt it. Andre’s fear and anger had sparked before, but now it blazed. Fear crawled through his head, warming him, filling him, coating his insides.
“This guy’s had his eye on you, Andre. He considers you a threat, wants to take you out.” Mari’s voice had grown fuzzy around the edges.
Reed closed his eyes and inhaled raggedly. His mouth watered, his belly trembled, his insides shuddered. All those times Katana had turned to him in fear, helplessness, fury, all those times she’d clung to him and sought comfort, all those times he’d held himself in check, trying to deny himself. He wasn’t a monster, didn’t want to feed on her, on
anyone’s
, pain.
But,
oh
, it tasted good. Reed drank Andre’s terror and anger and knew, however briefly, what it meant to experience intoxication.
“Good way to feed if you need a quick pick-me-up,” Mari instructed in her furried tone.
Reed’s eyes snapped open. His stomach cramping very slightly, he nonetheless shook his head like a dog and stepped quickly between Andre and Mari. Mari tilted her head at him and smiled dreamily.
Andre inhaled and stood in silence for a moment. Reed turned to him, unsure whether to apologize or grab Mari and hurry back to the car.
Andre’s eyes jiggled back and forth between Mari and Reed for a moment before coming to rest on the latter. Jaw clenching, he took a menacing step toward Reed. “You got a problem?” he demanded, waving an arm in emphasis. Reed could still feel his fear, but it was an echo of its previous intensity.
Reed sighed. “Naw, man. We were just leaving.”
“Get gone then,” the man snarled, but Reed felt his relief.
Reed grabbed Mari’s arm and marched back down the alleyway. His long strides forced her into a jog; occasionally, with a quick laugh, she would also skip.
When they reached the car, she turned to him with a knowing grin. “Feels good to give in once in a while, doesn’t it?” she taunted softly, and laughed at whatever expression she saw on his face.
Say what you will about its capacity for nightmares, but her subconscious had a wicked sense of humor. Katana sat behind the wheel of a small sedan, maneuvering it through traffic while a balding, thin-lipped white man hunched over a notepad in the passenger’s seat. Occasionally, he would murmur instructions and scribble notes on her reaction.
She was getting her driver’s license.
“I don’t suppose you know the number on my driver’s license . . . when I pass, I mean?” she asked him.
After a moment, the man muttered, “Turn right at the next intersection.”
“What was my full name again? The pressure of driving has overwhelmed my memory,” she said.
The man penciled something down on his sheet and peered out the window through narrowed eyes.
Aside from Reed, this was the first human she’d seen clearly, and he refused to answer her directly. Still, she found something comforting in chatting with him.
“I considered not driving,” she confided. “Maybe trying to crash into something. But you know, I can’t do it. Dream or not, I can’t fathom trying to cause myself pain or doing something so ridiculously self-destructive. Isn’t the brain an amazing thing?”
“In a mile or so, we’ll merge onto the Five southbound,” the man droned.
Even if this were a memory, some elaborate clue her brain had gifted her, she could be anywhere in Los Angeles County. The Five slashed diagonally through the middle of the county, northwest to southeast. She’d recently driven through lower-middle-class residential areas, past kids throwing balls on the sidewalks and women in cheap, mega-store clothing pushing baby strollers. Now, she passed a few businesses, none large or prosperous, none of them chains, and none familiar.
“Are we near downtown?” she asked her passenger.
He squinted through the windshield and did not respond.
“I like your glasses,” she commented. “I don’t think I need any, or at least not in the dreamworld.”
“Take a right here,” the man directed. She’d reached the onramp to the Five south.
“Good idea,” she commented. “Let’s see where we are in the county.” It amused her to very precisely use her turn signal and to drive slowly, carefully.
After merging successfully onto the freeway, Katana glanced at the man next to her. “As stressful as it can be, I somehow doubt a driving test is the extent of this nightmare.”
The proctor stared through the windshield, pencil poised.
“The Ten!” she cried after a moment. “I knew it!” And suddenly, knowing exactly where she was, the landscape slid into sharper focus. Various freeways merged in this area, forming an insectile tangle of concrete and overpasses. Bright afternoon light shone in silvery waves through the smog wreathing the horizon. In the distance, a clump of buildings stretched, thin and fragile as grass blades, toward the sky. It was urban, science fiction, profane. She’d missed it horribly.
L.A., L.A., L.A.
“I’m vacationing in a fake landscape in my mind,” she whispered. Still, the sun beat against her bare forearm as it maneuvered the steering wheel, and it felt warm and good.
“Okay, take the next exit and we’ll start driving back,” the man instructed in his bored tone.
“Kiss my ample booty,” Katana said, and laughed. “What is there to go back to? Failed brakes? A creepy hitchhiker? Finding I failed my test and the penalty is death by rabid hippopotamus?”
“Right here,” the man ordered, indicating with his pencil the exit. They sped past it.
“Sorry, but I ain’t playing,” she gloated. “You’re on my turf,
señor
.”
Her passenger scribbled in his notebook.
Katana gestured with her left hand. “Angela lives a mile or so off this exit.” And, concentrating, she could just picture a plump woman in her early 20s with porcelain skin and waist-length, straight black hair. “Angela R—Ramirez? Reyes? Rodriguez?” She chewed her bottom lip. “Hmmm. Oh and hey, the college is just a little bit west of here.”
A few minutes later, she pointed out a theater she had visited once or twice. She couldn’t remember the movie titles, but her companion didn’t seem to care.
A car in the lane next to her swerved into her lane, and she pressed lightly on the brakes.
“Really? Brakes not working?” she asked the test proctor, who bent over his notepad, filling it with his (doubtlessly unflattering) observations. “That is such a cliché. A few dreams ago I was doing a Dante and exploring some arctic hell. Failed breaks is kind of yawn-worthy at this point.” In spite of her bravado, the development made her heart knock lightly against her ribs. Luckily, she was on a freeway rather than surface streets. Given enough time, she could coast to a stop.
“Watch out for pedestrians and other unexpected obstacles,” the man murmured in his usual bored tone.
Katana sat straighter in her seat, eyes widening.
God, no, not—
Eighty or so feet from her, a young girl suddenly ran with all her might, tiny legs pumping, right in front of Katana’s car. Maybe five years old, the girl, capped with short blond hair and clutching a lumpy, bedraggled, stuffed purple dog, stopped in the lane and stared at Katana with round eyes.
Katana screamed and swerved madly to the left, not caring if any cars drove next to her. None did. Horror shrieked down her spine, leaving coldness behind. Luckily, since the girl remained in place, she managed to avoid hitting her.
Katana tried to look into the girl’s eyes as she passed her by, but the car moved too quickly.
A moment later, she pressed her left hand to her sternum. She felt her heart vibrating against her fingers. “Don’t do this,” she breathed, voice hitching, to the man next to her.
She could barely hear above the sound of the engine the scratch of his pencil on paper.
The light that streamed through the windows painted her arms pale beige, but it no longer warmed her. Her hands, at three and nine o’clock as the driver’s manual suggested, trembled with sudden cold. Before her, the asphalt wound menacingly like a coiled snake.
What was next? A little boy? A kitty cat? Her friend, Angela? Tendons roped in her hand; the steering wheel cover bulged from between her fingers.
“Please don’t,” she whispered. “I’ll get off at the next exit.”
But, of course, the balding man stared silently through the windshield and the brakes remained unresponsive.
Katana glanced over her shoulder and prepared to change lanes. A silver SUV shadowed her on the left. Grinding her teeth, she pressed briefly on the gas pedal in order to pass the vehicle.
It sped up as well, easily keeping abreast of her.
She tried again to pass the SUV. Once again, it matched her speed precisely.
“You monster,” she whispered.
Even expecting it, she still felt the full impact of horror and panic when the same little girl, purple dog flapping in her hand, sprinted into Katana’s lane and stopped. Her facial expression was serene, her eyes wide and, Katana thought, brown as she stood in the path of death.
Screaming in fury more than fear, Katana yanked the steering wheel to the left, kissing the SUV with her much smaller car. Pain blossomed. Metal crunched, squeaked, and groaned. She relaxed into the patient darkness.
They decided to make it a dinner rather than a reception, mostly because Cor wanted to slough most of the responsibility off onto the caterers. “Even rich people got to eat,” she commented.
“Aren’t you rich?” Reed asked her.
Cor sat straight and batted her eyelashes at him. Today, her blue hair erupted from her head in isolated clumps. “No, silly. My
dad
is rich. I’m just a down-on-her-luck, disenfranchised college student who happens to live rent-free with her rich daddy.”
Reed laughed with her. “I didn’t know you attended college.”
“Hmmph. Well maybe you should listen a little better. I told you the other day.” As eager as he for a break, Cor turned to face him on the couch. “I am officially a third year, undeclared major.”