Charlie Huston - No Dominion

He squints.

– I don’t follow.

I shoot him in the foot. Blood sprays.

He stares at it, stares at the place his toes used to be.

– What the fuck?

I stand up.

– Amazing, isn’t it, that moment when you don’t feel any pain?

He drops the syringe, howls.

– And then it hits.

He grabs a pillow from the couch, crams it over the end of his foot.

I pick up the syringe.

– Jesus, Count, how long you been around? Give it a minute, that thing’ll stop bleeding on its own. And the pain?

I slip the needle into the bag of anathema.

– That goes away, too. Stick around long enough, you’re gonna have to live through no end of pain.

I draw some more of the shit into the syringe, remembering Vandewater’s lesson on how much does what.

– What you should be doing is ignoring the blood and the pain. You should be trying to get away from me.

I pull the syringe free.

– That or trying to kill me.

I hold the syringe like a dagger.

– But then again, you’re spoiled rotten.

I stab him in the neck.

– And you wouldn’t know where to start.

For a few minutes, it’s like with The Spaz at Doc Holiday’s. He spins and shakes and foams a little. Finally he falls on the floor, jerking and twitching in time to the spasms in his muscles and the visions flashing through his brain. Addicted at a deeper level now. Addicted to this experience. Helpless in it. The bad dose, he said.

I hope it sucks as bad as the old lady said it does.

I find a little picnic cooler under the sink and fill it with the blood from the fridge. I close the valve on the bag of anathema and toss that in. In a shoe box in the bathroom, just sitting there on the back of the toilet, I find over ten grand in rubber-banded rolls. Cash from the anathema he’s been dealing.

On my way to the door, I stop, look down at the girls. Generally, you don’t want to fuck a guy up like this and leave him with a devoted harem that might come looking for you. Hell, this isn’t their fault. None of it is their fault. But there’s smart, and then there’s dumb.

I put a bullet in each one, up close, in the heart.

I go out the door, a cooler of blood in my hand, a box of money under my arm. I leave The Count behind me, plagued with nightmares, surrounded by his dead brides.

Having done the job. Having started to make the world a better place.

He knew. Fucking Terry knew.

And he was right about knowing me. I don’t like it at all, but he was right. Knowing me well enough to send me over there. Knowing I’d ask a few questions. Knowing what I’d do when I heard some answers. And knowing damn well I’d be ready to take his goddamn job if it meant getting away with it. And, fuck all, knowing it had to be done. The brat needed to be taught a lesson.

You don’t fuck around like that and come out on top. If he hadn’t been put in his place, he would have just done it again. Spoiled kids are like that.

– So what is it?

The fingers of Daniel’s right hand run over the half-empty bag. He rubs a fingertip through a drop of blood that has congealed at the valve opening.

– As Maureen told you, it’s anathema.

– Maureen?

He smears the drop of blood between his thumb and forefinger.

– Sorry. Mrs. Vandewater to you.

I shift my ass on the floor, stiff from sitting here while I’ve been telling him the story.

– OK, it’s anathema. But the other thing, was she right about that? The visions.

– Well, visions.

He brings the fingers to his face and sniffs, grimaces, wipes them on the floor.

– In this batch, no. But in fresh anathema?

He shrugs.

– Certainly there are visions.

I look at the bag on the floor.

– Are they real?

– Simon, of course they’re real, they’re visions.

– But. Do they mean anything?

He scratches his head.

– You’re making it very difficult for me to answer you. Are they real? Do they mean anything? A vision is a personal thing. What can I tell you about what one might mean or not mean?

– Fucking hell, man, do they have anything to do with the Vyrus? Can you learn anything about…about?

– Yes?

– About us? About all this shit? I.

He smiles.

– Simon, I do believe you’re looking for a little wisdom this evening. How refreshing that is, coming from you. How hopeful.

I get up.

– Fuck you.

His smile gets bigger.

– Oh well, back to square one.

He holds out his hand. I take it and he pulls himself up, not needing my help at all.

He takes my arm, walks with me out of his cubicle and toward the stairs.

– I know what you’re asking. I do. But I want you to know, as well. I want you to know that for each of these questions you ask me, there are any number of ways the answer might be approached. Any number of lessons to be learned. That said.

He stops us at the top of the stairs.

– I personally did not find the anathema visions to be either illuminating or useful. Entertaining. Pleasant. A distraction. But empty.

I look at him.

– You?

He looks down, shrugs.

– We were all young once.

He looks back at me.

– Really, everyone was doing it back then.

– She said it was permanent. The addiction.

He releases my arm.

– Honestly, Simon, think. Once in a great while, think. An addiction. In the blood. In the Vyrus. How do you think such a thing would be best dealt with?

But I don’t need to think. I know. I’ve done it.

– Fasting.

He nods.

– Fasting. Starving it out. Killing it. And.

He raises a finger.

– What does that suggest?

– I.

– Think.

– I. No. I don’t. Just tell me. I’m tired and I want to go home. Just fucking tell me. Just tonight. I came and visited like you wanted. Can’t you just? Jesus.

He holds up both hands, palms out.

– Alright, alright. You’re tired. Just this last thing.

He starts down the stairs. I follow.

– The Vyrus, Simon, it’s not general. Not one thing. Not all the same. That boy you saw, the one who died when they tried to infect him? He wasn’t rejecting the Vyrus, it was rejecting him. Because it wasn’t for him. It wasn’t his Vyrus. Each of us, we offer something to it, and in each of us, it changes, becomes unique over and over again.

He stops at the foot of the stairs, faces me, taps a finger against my chest.

– The Vyrus in you.

He taps himself.

– Is not the Vyrus in me.

We continue walking, heading toward the door.

– Anathema: The Vyrus in freshly infected blood, at its most robust as it seeks to take root. It can sustain itself for a time outside a body. But the only body it would ever thrive for, it has been killed, killed when the anathema was harvested. Introduced to a new body, one already home to another Vyrus, the two will go to war. The visions? These are the death throes of the anathema, its longings for the body it should have inhabited. The addiction, its remnants in the blood, struggling for survival. Starve it long enough? And your Vyrus, the Vyrus meant for you, will kill it utterly. This is why the larger doses are so painful. Given time, the Vyrus in its proper place, in its home, it will always win out. But the struggle can destroy the home.

We’re at the door, the cooler of blood and the box of money waiting where I left them.

He points at the cooler.

– This, what’s in there, it’s empty. Outside of a body, disassociated from a, forgive me, but disassociated from a soul, it is only nourishment for the Vyrus. But it is not what it seeks. It seeks transformation. In you. Your Vyrus is incubating in you. Waiting to give birth to something more. We are cocoons for it, Simon. Each of us unique.