Killing Rites

weight, speak Spanish, and don’t start off every conversation with an Indian by pumping their hands, making eye contact, and asking ’em to tell you how they’re feeling, you can make a niche.”

“Even with the looks?”

“Yeah, well. I told ’em I’m a veteran. Burned in Iraq,” Midian said, then took a long drag on his cigarette, the cherry blooming red and fading to gray. “Actually, I feel kind of bad about that. But I figure passing myself off as a serviceman isn’t exactly the low rung in my hierarchy of sins, y’know?”

“You mean feeding?”

“I mean feeding,” he said. “I’m still trying to get my feet under me on that score. Turns out if you fast for a couple of centuries, it takes it out of you. I’ve been pretty much keeping to goats and rats.”

“Really?”

He looked over at me.

“That was a joke, kid.”

He poured the steamed milk into the espresso, the careful shaking of his hand forming a perfect rose in sepia and white on the surface. When he passed it over, the ceramic was hot against my fingers. His voice made me think of Tom Waits in the later part of his career.

“I’ve been trying to keep a low profile. Mostly I’m just harvesting the kinds of guys nobody misses. Some guy deals smack to middle school kids, no one really cares when he drops out of sight, ou know?”

“Misdemeanor murder.”

“Yeah. I love that term,” he said, then turned and leaned against his counter. It creaked under his weight. His eyes flickered over me with something like sorrow.

“So you want to finish the latte and we can get this over with?”

“Get what over with?”

“I know why you’re here. We don’t have to dance around it. You came to kill me, and I’m not up for dying just yet. So—“

“I didn’t come to kill you. I came for dinner. I didn’t even know you were here,” I said. “Besides, I wouldn’t do that. You’re my friend.”

I had never astonished a vampire before. He crossed his arms. A gust of wind pushed against the RV, rocking it gently on its ruined springs. I felt the breath of cold through the cracked window at the back of my neck.

“Damn. You have got it bad. I figured we were doing that moment of camaraderie for old times’ sake thing before we went all Bushido on each other,” he said.

“Just wanted some coffee,” I said.

“So if you weren’t hunting for me, what exactly brings you to the ass end of nowhere?”

“A bunch of Ex’s old priest buddies are up here. He was hoping they could scrape me clean.” The words came out more bitter than I’d intended them. I took another sip of the coffee. It was rich and warm and soft. Like a coffee-flavored cloud. Midian must have seen my reaction.

“Pretty good, eh? I get the milk straight from the dairy. Makes the difference,” he said. “So that bunch up in San Esteban are Ex’s crew, are they? Makes sense, I guess. I knew he fell from grace right around here somewhere. Add that things have been a little rowdy since we kicked over the Invisible College’s anthill. Anybody around here who’s in the habit of dealing with folks like me’s been doing bumper-crop business.”

“Folks like us,” I said.

He paused, considering.

“Yeah, you put it that way. Folks like us. What does Tofu Boy think about the whole exorcism thing?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I haven’t told him. Can I ask you a question? What does it feel like?”

“What does what feel like?”

“Being a rider.”

He took a long breath and let it hiss out between his teeth. The body he was in had died sometime in the nineteenth century, so I had to take his breath as an editorial statement. I looked down at my hands. I had a scab across the knuckles that I didn’t remember. Something from the fight against the wind demon, maybe. I couldn’t keep track anymore.

“Should I not have asked that?” I said.

“No, no. It’s all right. Just kind of a personal question is all. What’s it feel like? We, it feels … It’s like putting your face underwater. Look, imagine you’re by a lake or something. Nice blue water stretching out to wherever, right? Now you lean over, put your face in water, and open your eyes. Boom, there’s this whole other place with fish and plants and whatever junk the kids threw off the dock last year. This whole world you weren’t part of, but now you can see it. Be part of it. And everything there’s amazing, you know? There’s light and thoughts and sex and hunger and … being. Things exist. It’s gorgeous.”

He rubbed his ear, grinning. I’d never heard him sound excited or passionate about anything before. Maybe food, a little, but this was different.

“And so you dive in,” I said.

“No, kid. You want to. Worse than anything, you want to. But the only thing I can do is push in a little. I’m like an iceberg. Some of me’s in this body, sure, but most of me’s in the Pleroma. I don’t fit here. I don’t belong,” he said. Then, a moment later, “Why do you want to know?”

“Because I wondered. What if … What if I’m not really Jayné Heller at all? I mean I don’t know how long this rider’s been in me. Maybe it always was. What if the real Jayné never took a breath. Never had a thought. What if I’ve been the rider all along.”

“You’re spilling your coffee, kid.”

I righted the cup.

“Sorry,” I said.

“It’s all right. But anyway, the theory doesn’t wash. Who comes and kicks ass when you’re not calling the shots? Who does all this weird magic shit that you can’t? You’re not a rider, kid, no matter how pretty it’d be to think so.”

“Pretty?”

“Sure, that’s the point, right? If you’re the nasty evil boogum, then Jayné still gets to be clean. She didn’t kill that guy. The exorcism comes, and you get cast into the darkness where you belong. She gets to live her life innocent and free of sin. That’s what you’d be hoping for, right?”

The blush started at my neck and crawled up toward my forehead, feeling like a sunburn. It was a dumb idea, and I felt like a stupid kid for having said it.

“It was just a theory,” I mumbled. “Never mind.”

“Nah, I get it. You kill someone the first time, it’s traumatic. And then you find out you aren’t even in control of your own body? That takes a lot away from you. Makes a hell of a one-two punch. I figure you’ve got a right to be on the ropes.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“So how’re you gonna get off ’em?”

The silence lasted a few seconds.

“I don’t know.”

“Ah, jeez. Don’t start crying. Look, you had a bad run. You did your Oh, poor me, and that’s fine. We all get those sometimes. It’s just that being a victim gets to be a habit. You stay there too long, you get comfortable. Gets to where a victim is who you are. So game-plan it. Put on your big-girl panties and tell me what’re you gonna do.”

I took a deep breath. What did I need?

“I need to be all right,” I said.

“Good start, but maybe a little vague, right? How’re you going to get there from here?”

“I don’t know,” I said, choking a little at the end.

I couldn’t help it. I started crying in earnest. Tears and sobs. Head in hands. The whole thing. Midian’s sigh was like gravel sliding off the back of a pickup truck. The cheap, stinking cushion of the couchlike thing shifted under me as he sat down beside me. His arm around my shoulder was weirdly hot and hard as concrete. The smell of his cigarettes almost covered the garlic and onions and fresh basil. Kitchen smells. I leaned against his shoulder.

“It’s okay, kid,” he murmured. “You go ahead if you need to. It’s all right.”

It was bad weather. A storm that came up fast and washed away thought and awareness and then broke. I