Read Online The Worm in Every Heart by Gemma Files - Free Book Online Page B

dust, forgetfulness, sensual excess and nonviolent protest, clinging to their Indian holdings even as the rest of their duskless Empire crumbled—slowly but surely—from within, until their provisional government here was nothing but a skeleton at the feast, last guest left at a singularly unpopular party, still busily stuffing food down its denuded jaws and protesting all the while (whining like a spoiled child, even as the bouncers edge it towards the door) that it is not sleepy, that it has hours yet to revel, wishes yet to make, and room for much, much more.
    At last, however, the British did leave—freeing us to return to the long-postponed business of slaughtering each other over differences of race, creed, history. The Wheel had turned again, as it always will.
    Yes, it burns, burns, burns, this ring of fire. It keeps on spinning. And I hope you find it hot enough for your liking, o my beloved, just as the Lieutenant and I do—and have, ever since that night in 1857, when his mad appetites mingled so very surely with my own immortal ones, along with his stringy white meat. That night, when I bit through him at one swallow—rind to pulp, red juice spurting, like an overripe piece of fruit—only to have the taste of him linger not only in my mouth but in every other part of me as well: Infected, infectious, infecting.
    Before that night, I had no “true shape” to speak of. It was my curse, and my strength—this restless formlessness; this unstinting, innate empathy pulling me forward through the centuries, making every new thing I touched my potential refuge. This much, at least, has never altered. I can still be anything I choose, if I choose.
    But now, whenever I relax my hold, I flow back—relentlessly—into
him.
    Namesake to namesake: The mask and the mirror. Desbarrats Grammar usurped my title, so I made him my prey; I consumed his flesh, and it engulfed me. What was an accidental mislabeling has become a complex truth. Here in the ring of fire, Lieutenant Grammar and I twine tight as mating heartworms, joined at the supernatural equivalent of DNA—the Mutiny that walks like whatever it chooses to. We catch and claw. And at last, almost two hundred years later—as the Wheel, in our case, fails to turn—between the two of us, each only half-there to begin with, something has finally evolved resembling a coordinated whole. Sub lal hogea hai, with a vengeance; so much so that neither of us—former occupier or former occupied—can truthfully tell where we once began, or where we now end.
    For were we ever so very different, really?
    Liars both. Madmen, cannibals. And monsters.
    Ah, but I see you yet stir in my embrace—so slowly, so feebly. Your lips move. Do you wish to refute my words? To confirm them, perhaps?
    Lean closer, then, o my beloved. Do not be shy, but do choose your side wisely. Lean closer, closer. And speak up, I pray thee—for I am still quite deaf in this one ear.

The Guided Tour
    Hell eats its tourists.
    â€”Andrew Vachss
    SIX CARS HAD ALREADY passed me by without a second glance when Lester P. Budgell’s green Oldsmobile finally lurched, hesitated and ground to a halt. Its passenger-side door opened to reveal a balding, paunchy man with a black string tie and a red and yellow checkered shirt. He had Elvis-length sideburns and tarnished silver caps on the wings of his collar. But I was tired. I had been walking along the highway since dawn. And I am also not as young as I used to be.
    â€œThank you,” I said, taking his sweaty palm in my cold one.
    â€œNo problem, ma’am.”
    And then we were off, our tires spraying the blanched dust with dried tar.
    As the scenery blurred and the sun sank below the rim of the windshield, torn by advancing clumps of cacti, he became talkative. I might have reminded him of his mother—it has happened before. He told me about his wife, his children and his job running a