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“I can’t. There’s only one and it’s for you.”
He looks at the seed.
“Is that from your buddy Vidocq? I bet he had all kinds of poisons around. Did he give you that to get me out of here?”
Then he does a kind of clumsy crab walk away from me on the bed.
“Or did you give that to him? Did you kill the Frenchman? You’re psycho, Stark. You know that? You’re a goddamn psycho.”
I sit back down in the chair.
“Kas. You’re eating this seed. It’s not going to kill you and you’re going to thank me when it’s over.”
“You’re going to have to kill me to make me eat that thing.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
He cowers in the corner where his bed meets the wall.
“Get out of here or I’ll tell Alessa and she’ll never let you back in here.”
I consider that possibility for a minute. Then I consider another one. Candy’s advice not to kidnap people. Respect their boundaries. Listen to them. But then I think of Janet. And what she said after we got back from her being the main event at a sacrifice. What comes to mind is this: Like me, Kasabian isn’t exactly people. And sometimes you have to make a kid cry because they need a shot.
I grab him.
“Open your mouth, Kas.”
“No.”
“Open it.”
“No.”
This time he says it with his teeth clamped shut.
I say, “You need your flu shot.”
He frowns.
“Before I just called you a psycho, but you really are one. You’ve gone around the fucking bend.”
I lunge at him; get hold of his fat, stupid face; and start prying his jaws apart. He squirms and screams and grunts. Also, he’s pounding me in the balls with his one good hand.
But, in the end, I’m stronger than him. I finally get his teeth enough apart to shove in the seed. Then I push them back together so he can’t spit it out.
“Swallow,” I yell. “Swallow.”
He shakes his head frantically.
Finally, when I can’t think of anything else to do, I grab the side of his head and bang it into the wall. When he’s a little dazed, I pour whiskey down his throat. He thrashes around, and whiskey goes all over him, all over me, and all over the bed. But he finally swallows the damn seed.
Horrified, he looks at me with tears running down his face. Or maybe it’s whiskey. I took some in my eye and I can’t see really well right now.
“Well, that’s it,” he says. “The end of the line. Hell, maybe I deserve this. Killed by the monster I helped make. Yeah, that’s it. You finally got the last of us. The people you crawled out of Hell to murder. I hope it feels good. You know what? I don’t even hate you anymore. You’re doing me a favor. Fuck this life. Even when Manimal Mike made his goddamn Tin Woodsman body for me, I’ve been miserable. This is good. I’m ready to go. Thank you, Stark. You’re a real pal. A pile of festering puke, but a real pal.”
He closes his eyes and lies back on the bed.
“Kas, just shut up and let it happen.”
