and I'm not making it easy for her. Why? Because what she thinks she knows isn't true, anyway.
“Look,” I say, “a vampire is a creature out of folklore. Stoker made his career out of sensationalizing what is a bit of propaganda that had its roots several hundred years earlier. The old stories were just a way to scare children and keep the locals malleable. It's all true inasmuch as it functions as an effective deterrent.”
“But that doesn't explain what I saw.”
I shrug. “Can you explain everything you see, Mere?”
“No,” she says, “but you're just side-stepping my question. You and I both know what I saw, and you know damn well that's not normal.” She levers a finger at me. “And don't give me that But what is normal? bullshit.”
“Look, you know this as well as I: every story has a kernel of truth to it, doesn't it? All our folklore is based around an effort to explain something, right? You start with a key truth—something you are willing to believe is absolutely swear-to-God true—and then layers and layers of embellishments and other nonsense get piled on top, until no one can really remember what the original kernel was. Or whether it was really true, in an objective sense.”
“If I come over there and punch you in the face, I think we can both agree there's some objective truth to the fact that it'll hurt.”
I smile. “Do you want me to say that I'm a vampire, Mere?” I spread my arms. “I'm a vampire. Do you feel better? Safer?”
“No,” she snaps, “because you're just saying it to placate me.”
“It could also be true.”
“But what if I don't believe in vampires?”
“That makes me a liar, then.” I remember something Talus said to me on the boat. “You wouldn't be the first to think so of me.” I write one more item down before I offer her the piece of paper.
“What is this?”
“A shopping list,” I tell her again.
When it becomes clear that I'm not going to get up and bring it to her, Mere gets out of the chair and takes the list from me. She stands—legs slightly apart, body square to me—as she reads the list. “A loofa?” She looks up and notices my expression. “What?”
I shake my head and look away. She's made her decision already, even if she hasn't mentally accepted it. Her body language has given her away. “A loofa is one of nature's best exfoliators,” I say.
“Why? Oh—” She wrinkles her nose. “Never mind. What am I going to do for clothes? And cash?”
When I stand up, we're close to one another, and we both pause for a second, gauging each other. “I have money,” I say, spoiling the moment. I cast about for my coat and spot it on the floor of the shallow closet. I was going to offer it to her, but the back is a gnarled mess of melted fibers and bits of my skin. “Stick with the robe,” I say. “Be eccentric until you can find some tourist crap.”
“Spoken like a man who has done this before,” she says.
A fragment of memory floats through my head. Yellow lights along a river. A two-spired cathedral with a rounded hump of flying buttresses. Gargoyle skyline. I'm wearing less than the robe Mere's wearing now. “Once or twice,” I admit.
“What if I don't come back?” she asks. “What is stopping me from running to the police?”
“What are you going to tell them?”
She nods. “It's Kyodo Kujira, isn't it? Those pellets. Whoever is behind this is gunning for Arcadia, aren't they?”
“We can talk about it when you get back.”
She laughs. “Of course. What better incentive could there be for me to not run screaming to the police?”
“I can't think of one,” I reply.
The truth is: I need her help, and it'll be easier if she's already decided to stay for her own reasons. I need someone I can trust, even if it is only inasmuch as sharing convergent short-term goals.
Arcadia has been dying slowly for centuries now. As the planet becomes more and more toxic, we inch ever closer to extinction. Whoever is manufacturing this chemical is trying to accelerate the process, and with Arcadia gone, there will be no stewards left.
That sounds like the sort of story Mere might be interested in.
* * *
I follow her, of course, even though I know she'll come back. I want to know if anyone notices her, eccentric style of clothing aside. Have we lost Secutores? Is there anyone