Craving (36 page)

“Intentionally?”

“Well, that’s the real question, isn’t it?”

“What’s that have to do with Eva’s bank account?”

Deflated, Jinx threw up his hands. One of them collided with the list of names on the wall. “Look, the disciples of Buddha who were left after his death ended up forming the First Sangha. They told Ananda, still a Stream-Enterer, that he wasn’t allowed to be a part of the meetings, unless he achieved the next ‘stage’ of enlightenment, unless he was liberated. The legend says that he studied hard, meditated for days to achieve the
jhana
, just so that he could recite the sutras. What if he was pissed enough to sabotage their efforts to spread Buddhism? The original Arhat go on, completely oblivious, passing around their pamphlets like Mormons, unaware that they’re spreading a lethal disease!”

Unger stared at the wall. “You think that this
Ananda
guy formed a group too?” At Jinx’s prodding look, he chewed his lip and continued to murmur, “And you think that that group might just be willing to keep their eye on the Sangha, approach one of their assets, and turn them.”

Jinx almost exploded in a rush of air he fluffed and fanned with his hands. “That money originated in an account that was opened by a charity called ‘The Guardians of the Dharma’ which was Ananda’s title! They paid her to recover information from
inside
AMRTA. And the payments began two weeks
before
she started work at AMRTA.”

Something was missing. Why would the Guardians of the Dharma want to hand the Sangha a potential cure for the disease
their leader
created? Most importantly, why had Eva agreed? I could still see the determination in her face as she stood arguing with Arthur in the alley. She had seemed to want the cure as well, which meant that she was probably not an ideal informant for the Guardians.

“I’m not sure about this,” Unger muttered. “There’s a lot missing. Without facts, we can’t be sure. You’re the mathematician. I thought that was your thing.”

For a moment, it seemed that Unger had leveled the boy with the gravest of insults. Silently fuming, he turned on his heel and walked back to his computer. It was obvious he had come to like the astonished admiration with which I greeted his momentous disclosures and did not like being directly criticized. Something told me that was one reason why Arthur preferred him to research on his own.

“I’ve been wading through several thousand years of history. You didn’t even know the Sangha existed before two weeks ago and you expect
me
to have proof? You go find proof! I’ve got stuff to do!”

Eyebrows raised, Unger leaned against the door and took out his cigarettes. Packing them as loudly as possible, he watched the boy ignore him. Soon rings of smoke encircled him and wafted toward the immortal. Sardonic smile in place, Unger tossed the butt on the floor and stepped on it, trying to get a rise out of my colorful friend.

Which he did. “Pick it up.”

The unofficial winner of the stand-off grinned. “So what does
he
say about this hunch of yours?”

Obviously bothered, Jinx slammed the laptop closed. “
He
doesn’t say
anything
, because
I
don’t need the help! Unlike some people, I’m very good at figuring things out
and
I don’t make it a habit of getting into trouble out of which other people have to rescue me!”

There I was, the third party to an argument that was about me, but unable to break it up. I hovered between them, longing to take their hands and force them to shake, to explain to Jinx that I did what I did because I liked Unger, and to explain to the detective that the immortal was not dangerous to me or anyone else.

Was this the point? I was flattered two people cared so much about me, but why was I seeing this when I could in no way change anything?

Unger glared at Jinx, who glared back.

“I didn’t ask her to do it. I didn’t want her to do it. I would gladly trade places, but something tells me they wouldn’t offer.”

I would have smiled if possible. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought he had a crush on me. His protectiveness was almost sweet.

Jinx looked away, shaking his head, “Yeah, that’s easy for
you
to say.”

“I knew her longer than you did, so what’s your problem? If anyone should want to help her, it’d be me.”

“Right. You’re going to rescue one of ‘
us,’
huh? Why does
that
surprise me?”

Stepping away from the wall, Unger started toward him. “I don’t care about any of that!”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Look, you little . . .”

Just then, the door opened and Sam appeared holding a tray. He blinked in the uncomfortable silence and held up the tray as if it was a shield or a peace offering, or both.

“Um,” he whispered in his gravelly voice, “Art thought you guys might want some coffee.”

At mention of the benevolent leader, the two combatants exchanged a glance and, in an instant, came to a truce. It seemed Arthur was astute enough to put
both
of them in their places and remind them why they were there without ever stepping foot in the room.

Sam set the tray down across from Jinx, who snatched up a cup and slurped at it as if he was dying of thirst. “Sweet fucking Christ! If coffee was sex you’d be a motherfucking gigolo, you magnificent, growling bastard!”

With a sigh, Unger sat down next to them and I could feel his resignation. No, the world would not obey the rules he had spent his life upholding; it was a waste of time to hold out any longer. “So what are we going to do?”

Jinx looked up from his cup and glanced between the two humans. They looked back, deferring to the most experienced person in the room, a tiny man with blue hair and a lip piercing.

“Are you a pirate or a ninja, Unger?”

The detective frowned as Sam choked on his French roast. “What?”

“It’s a serious question,” Jinx insisted.

The man blinked.

“Can you be—?” Sam rumbled.

“No.” Jinx looked horrified at the very thought of someone choosing to occupy two diametrically opposed worlds simultaneously. “Look, a pirate would knock down the door with a cannonball. A ninja would find a ventilation shaft. Which is more tactically sound?”

Sam leaned forward in all seriousness. “Depends on what your enemies are.”

A shiny, black nail rose. “And that is why we do our research ahead of time.”

“We don’t even know where she is!”

Jinx got a hand tangled in his spikes. “Wow, you have a low opinion of me. As soon as I saw her face after the vision, I knew. She didn’t walk in with nothing.”

“The drive?” Unger demanded skeptically. “What’s that—?”

“And whe’ do we put da dwive when we wanna see da thtuff dat’s on it?” Jinx carried on in a false voice, still trying to tug his fingers free from his eggwhite-coated head.

“Into the computer,” Sam offered judiciously in place of whatever swearword was about to pop out of Matthew’s mouth.

“Exactly,” Jinx picked the cup back up and cradled it as if it was the holy grail. “If they so much as
try
to access that drive, I’ll swoop in like a motherfucking pterodactyl and detach their fucking heads with my wicked awesome claws.”

“Dinosaur techno ninja,” Unger muttered, rolling his eyes again. “Now I see why she likes you.”

Arthur picked that auspicious moment to enter the room. He had a faraway look on his face and was carrying one of Eva’s red journals. It was as if my spirit jumped in response, and like a series of time-lapse photos, my vantage skipped to his face. Sharp focus made the perfection of his visage almost impossible and though I had no fingers, I wanted to touch him.

I knew he didn’t care about the cure, wasn’t responsible in any way for Eva’s death, and wanted nothing but the best for me, but I could still feel my churning, conflicting emotions, permeated by that pervasive attraction I could not explain. The man was still a mystery, perhaps a more tantalizing one than the sister I’d never known, but he was all I had. Locked in my rubber room, just seeing him was a tremendous comfort.

Jinx turned to him, and before Arthur could say hello, leapt up. “Pirate or Ninja?”

Arthur blinked and glanced at the others.

“That’s not a fair answer, Art! You can only pick the pirate or the ninja, not their accessories.”

“Why?”

The boy gave a harassed sigh, beset on all sides. “Fine, whatever.”

“What did he—?” Unger began.

But Jinx was already annoyed with the metaphor. “Never mind!”

I had a sneaking suspicion I knew what he had answered, though, and it probably flapped colorful wings and asked after crackers.

The parrot.

“Sure shut you up,” the detective laughed.

“Screw you, Dick.” Jinx crammed his headphones deeper into his ears and out of apparent spite, turned up the volume again. “You know, you should probably indulge me, given our current circumstances!” Then the hacker went back to his computer in a mild sulk.

One of Arthur’s dark eyebrows arched slowly. “I take it that he feels he is not appreciated.”

Unger shrugged casually and leaned back in his chair, still holding out hope that the hierarchy was undecided. “I have a feeling he thrives under—”

“You wouldn’t know, you bovine fucktard,” Jinx grumbled under his breath.

“Jinx,” Arthur murmured, coming up behind him to smooth his bristling, blue head, “I am positive whatever you are doing will benefit Lilith. Defensiveness will only slow us down.”

I wanted to smile, to reassure the youthful immortal, even if his research was making things less clear for me. There were so many agendas being pushed, it was less like playing chess and more like Chinese Checkers. As rational as I was, I had never been much for playing games; they just seemed like wastes of time. It probably had something to do with being completely uncompetitive, something my life of sacrifice had beaten into me.

Jinx sighed. “I wish we could be sure she’s alright. It’s been a week, and we have no new info!”

A week?
I could have sworn my memories were recovered in the span of a few moments, that they were just behind a mental door I had opened. It now occurred to me that perhaps the
jhana
wasn’t as simple as a nifty means of doing research. It did something to time, or it took a long while to achieve and slip from.

“If you could enter the
jhana
, it would be easy,” Arthur admonished gently. “All things become clear if one knows what one wants to see.”

Couldn’t you be more specific for those of us
in
it?

He set down the journal and began flipping through the pages, leaning over the boy’s shoulder. To the others in the room, it would seem as if he was trying to look up something, but I could tell from my ever-precise vantage, that his azure gaze was set on the screen.

“I can’t help it if I’m not all aaahaaahaaahaaaaahhhhh,” Jinx sang, waving his hands in the air around his head as if fighting off bees. “I’m a realist. I deal with facts. I zone out when I’ve had that perfect balance of speed and thumping bass and I lay shit down, hardcore. Though, I have to admit that Tibetan monks make excellent sample tracks.”

Unger snickered. “So you can’t do the out of body thing?”

“I spend enough time on the net,” Jinx mumbled, tapping keys to pop open window after window for Arthur’s inspection.

I watched Arthur’s face, watched his eyes narrow imperceptibly, watched him glance up at the Buddha on the wall and arrange all the pieces, visible or not, into a nice, clear picture that only made sense to him. It was fascinating, and even though I could not hear his thoughts, I was happy to watch the gears of his mind turn for once.

“Sam,” he interrupted quietly, “will you contact the monastery and inform them I will be arriving there tomorrow? I need to meet with the head monk, immediately.”

The man swallowed, and for the first time, I saw the scar across his neck as it pulled on the intact flesh surrounding it.

“What’s up?” he growled.

“We have something to discuss.”

His brow furrowed, but he got up from his chair and went out into the hall. Finally, Arthur’s fingers stopped turning pages and formed a bridge across the red
trishna
symbol.

Jinx snapped to attention. “Done and done, Kimosabe.”

The typing began, several more windows opened and closed and to my excitement, the numbers eight and nine were entered into the field for modulus coordinates.

He is among us.

“I am more interested in the rest of the message.”

My consciousness did a metaphysical double-take.

You can hear me?

“Yes.”

Jinx tilted back and winked up at Arthur, while Unger’s face paled.

How?

After a while, the answer arrived of its own accord. I could see it in his still demeanor, his comprehensive knowledge, his exotic features, and the deliberate, practiced way that he moved as if trying not to look as controlled as he truly was. It was as he had said; the older, the more accomplished they were in the art of self-discipline. The older, the stronger.

You’re contemporary with the Buddha, aren’t you?
I marveled.
You’re one of the oldest Arhat, a member of the First Circle.

The dark head bowed as if expecting a reprimand for lying through omission. “Yes.”

In awe, I held my peace, unable to imagine what it would be like to see the mythical man face to face. Would he smile, shake my hand, know me at a glance? Would he say something profound that transformed me into a happy deconstructed mess, or was I already immune to that?

Jinx, impatient, could not stand to wait. “Is she okay? What have they done to her?”

Leaning forward, Unger scowled. “What are you two—?”

The boy waved his confusion aside. “Super powers at work. Butt out, newb.”

I’m in their compound, in a cell,
I told Arthur.
There’s no food or water. I was injured. I thought I would go nuts if I . . .

“Did not go into the
jhana
,” he acknowledged.