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APARTMENT 1D
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Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast APARTMENT 1E
APARTMENT 1EUMBRAThere was something living in the walls.Still wearing her only black dress, a rose taken from the cemetery in one hand, her bright pink backpack in the other, she’d watched the stain in her new bedroom. Round and raised in the middle, like a bubble, it was different than the others.And it was alive.She’d known it the moment she’d walked in. Had felt it as she’d turned to put her backpack on the creaky bed. Had expected, when she first saw the stain two weeks ago, to see a face, two eyes, lips, a nose and cheeks and teeth, pushing from the wall.But there’d only been a wide brown circle. A stain that wasn’t a stain. One that wasn’t long and dark like the others. One that hadn’t dripped from the ceiling to the floor. One that sat alone, removed from the others. Just like her.“What kind of name is ‘Umbra?’” were the first words Gran had said when the big lady with the onion bagel breath first dropped her off. The State had decided this was where she had to be
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast PROLOGUE
PROLOGUEThere is a place on Eidolonthat stands five stories tall.Beyond locked doors,dreams dreamt no more,the tenants await their fall.And on this dayon “Eye-da-lon,”which waits five stories tall,vindication sweetfeeds the hunger repleteas the walls inside whisperLet’s eat.
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast APARTMENT 1A
APARTMENT 1ALUCKYMonday, 3:24 PMIt’s said all of Shanghai wept when she died.It’s said over three hundred thousand marched in a funeral procession four miles long that blustery March day in 1935. It’s also said that somewhere in the sobbing throng several women committed suicide. Their silent screen Goddess, Ruan Lingyu, ending her life with a fistful of sleeping pills at the too-young age of twenty-four spawning a grief only death could calm.Whether or not myth wrestled with fact to become legend, and some claimed it did, everyone agreed this was a sad full stop to the short sentence of what might have been a glorious career.A week later, in one of the many squalid shacks that still hug the outskirts of Shanghai, an early birth followed this now iconic end, the young mother’s overwrought anguish shocking her into the delivery of a small, sickly daughter. A dangerous unlucky beginning for a dangerously lucky life.Or at least that’s what little Ruan Liu’s family said.Dec
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER TWOIn a shining villa in the center of Shanghai, her thighs burning, her back aching, and her knees rubbed so raw they all but whimpered, Lucky kneeled, silent, waiting and more exhausted than any almost twenty-four year old should be.The Revolution had arrived almost a decade ago on the heels of a brief, bloody civil war. The Communist storm which had darkened the horizon for years had finally crept in and swept out the poor, the infirm, the religious. And now, outside the city, in the rural areas, thousands were dying in what was feared would be an historic famine. The old and weak falling first. Small children left to starve in the fields under the watchful eyes of hungry prey. The trees plucked of their leaves and stripped of their bark, the birds silent in their absence.But far from the devastation and desolation, Lucky worked.Her father dead and her mother dying, the family had abandoned Bad Luck Lucky. Closed their hearts, closed their pocket books, and closed th
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER THREENestled in a pile cluttering the coffee table sat a discarded pouch of Lipton bleeding into the sunken oval of a porcelain saucer.“It’s good, isn’t it?” Evangelical said. She lowered the mug into a nearby abyss, the porcelain finding the saucer and a watery pool of its own russet-hued blood with a gentle clank.“It can fell armies,” Lucky heard herself saying.And raise kings, came the remembered words from Madame Xuo’s red room.The vengeful wraith of the woman with the white face and a slash of scarlet for lips waited opposite Lucky. From a small, low chair that had once sat in a distant past, she was near the window in the here and now, her eyes low, her tongue crawling with secrets and lies and things best left unsaid.“I’m sorry?” Evangelical said.Madame Xuo stared at Lucky, her knees not kneeling as they rested not on the grimy grey of a familiar carpet, but on ancient boards that were cracked, splintered and covered with dust. Nearby, Yin Ying stood too ta
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FOURHer teeth were missing, she heard someone silently say, a girl from a distant, remembered conversation.Lucky’s tongue felt thick as it moved. Her teeth were safe and sound.She stood in a hall. A narrow hall. One with many doorways and an end that didn’t end, the long space leading to an unavoidable dark.The low table was gone. As was Yin Ying and the brazier. The dragon no longer whipped ‘round the baseboards and the wiggling of her flesh had quieted.The red remained. A haze that snuck along the floor, and climbed the walls, and ducked into the shadows hugging the ceiling.Lucky blinked, and then blinked again. Fingers flexed and her chest rose in a deep breath. Her mouth tasted of sick. And a sour burn stained her throat, stinging her nose when she swallowed.She’d drunk the tea. She remembered. She closed her eyes, the heat of the red room returning.A dragon chased its tail. Two clay pots waited. Madame Xuo sat silent and watching and dead. Then alive, bendi
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER FIVEBelow her, the waves of Hangzhou Bay slapped the pilings of the dock. Around her, men worked, barefoot, the thick denim of their pants rolled up to the knees. Or stood, smoking strong tobacco rolled in cheap paper.She needed help, but couldn’t speak. There’d been a hall. A narrow space with a low ceiling and many doors. The light was red. The walls reflected red. The floor more glowing red. Even the shadows waiting at what could be the end of the hall—for the hall had to have an end, yes?—were red.Madame Xuo had stood in a mountain of bodies. Arms without fists that flailed and hit. Crude legs that thumped the floor as they tried to crawl, and lift, and stand. Teeth too large for mouths that sliced faces in two. Gashes that still whimpered, still wept, still bled.And Madame had spoken. There’d been a warning, and then blood. But the air, it was cool and inviting. There’d been silence, then. And knowing what the future held, she’d stepped into the dark, the shade, th
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SIXWeeks passed.She kept to the alleys and dark corners of Central Shanghai. Silent and still, she’d stand, testing the shadow. Watching its limits, seeing its strength. Encouraging its growth.She’d watch it move as she did. Watched it stop when she stopped. She’d lift her arms and see it rise. Stretch her arms and watch it widen. She’d push her hands in front of her and grin as it stained the ground at her feet.It sighed when she wept. It laughed when she smiled. And fed by her frustration and a lifetime of bitter sadness, it strengthened as their shared anger grew.She learned that, with the move of a hand, she could make the stranger who walked like her father stumble and fall. She learned that, with a simple breath, she could make another stranger, a callous man with cruel eyes like the man from the dock, cough and reach for his throat, his face turning red as he struggled for air.Week after week, she and the shadow grew closer, their bond deepening, the two beco
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Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast APARTMENT 1E
APARTMENT 1EUMBRAThere was something living in the walls.Still wearing her only black dress, a rose taken from the cemetery in one hand, her bright pink backpack in the other, she’d watched the stain in her new bedroom. Round and raised in the middle, like a bubble, it was different than the others.And it was alive.She’d known it the moment she’d walked in. Had felt it as she’d turned to put her backpack on the creaky bed. Had expected, when she first saw the stain two weeks ago, to see a face, two eyes, lips, a nose and cheeks and teeth, pushing from the wall.But there’d only been a wide brown circle. A stain that wasn’t a stain. One that wasn’t long and dark like the others. One that hadn’t dripped from the ceiling to the floor. One that sat alone, removed from the others. Just like her.“What kind of name is ‘Umbra?’” were the first words Gran had said when the big lady with the onion bagel breath first dropped her off. The State had decided this was where she had to be
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast APARTMENT 1D
APARTMENT 1DANNIVERSARYMonday, 3:24 PMWe are a walking history of our failures,” Marta said as she snapped the napkin open and laid it across her lap. “A stumbling catastrophe of unbelievable screw ups that, as you can plainly see, screwed us up.” She laughed, the tight smile on her gleaming lips held a moment longer than needed. “Really, it’s just been an endless array of aborted endings. Until now, I mean.” Her pudgy hand lifted her champagne glass—her sixth, but who was counting?—in yet another toast to the elegant man seated to her side. “And for that, we thank you, Mr. Peabody.”“I promise, this time we’ll get it right,” the stranger said with a small nod.Even here, surrounded by the decay that was Eidolon, he seemed to fit. Untouched by the yellowing walls and the splintered baseboard, the brown stains running from the ceiling or the thin windows that rattled when the wind blew and rain pelted the glass, as it did now, this Peabody was neither tall nor short, neither han
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast APARTMENT 1C
APARTMENT 1CCLICKMonday, 3:24 PMThey’d made love, once, when she was warm. Now she sat at the kitchen table, her silence speaking volumes.“I’m sorry,” he said for the umpteenth time.Nothing.He’d discovered her an hour ago at the foot of the stairs in the lobby.Hair a soft brown, eyes large and kind, skin pale and freckled. She’d sat facing the mailboxes, lost in thought, her lithe body, despite the rainy afternoon, in a sleeveless sundress, her small feet in strappy sandals.Although he saw her many times before, strolling the park or sipping coffee in the cafe, he’d never approached or spoken with her. There’d never been the chance.Until now.And she was perfect.Then again, they always were in the beginning.Not wanting to startle her, he approached cautiously.Seeing him, she stood. “Oh my goodness.” Her heel caught the hem of her dress. “I’m sorry.” Balancing on one foot, her hand gripping the railing, she fought to wrestle it free. “Just let me—”“Here.” He o
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast APARTMENT 1B
APARTMENT 1BBULLETMonday, 3:24 PMFive blue. Seven red. Four yellow.He blinked the sleep from his eyes. Lifted his head from the mattress. Saw the shit hole on Eidolon Avenue he called home. The TV with the cracked screen sitting on the plastic crate. The yellowing walls with the rust colored streaks running from ceiling to floor. The scattered pizza boxes and cheeseburger wrappers. And his friends . . .five blue, seven red, four yellowsitting on the cheap ass coffee table.That’s right, he thought. They were all there.Five blue. Seven red. Four yellow.He stretched and turned to the window. Kicked the sheet away from his legs. It was raining. And late.Fuck.Hated that job anyway.And FUCK his foot hurt.He sat up and turned his leg.What the fuck?A new tat. A snake. A small snake. A fuckin’ cartoon-ass fuckin’ garden snake or something. Some punk ass shit a prom queen flyin’ on Molly would get before getting fingered in the back of some quarterback’s Chevy.And
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER TWELVEI still remember,” Lucky said before taking a long drag from her Echo, the hungry ghosts swarming Eidolon below. “You lied because I still remember.”She’d fled Paris for America. Had given the dark what was promised. Fed its hunger. Had felt nothing, but still had dreams, nightmares, thoughts. Could still see her husband in tenuous shafts of light or the corners of steamy mirrors. Could almost catch his name when she first woke or when exhaustion forced her to stop and think and consider. The guilt was growing. The regret was strong. Had she the chance, the choice, to do it all again, she . . .But no.The thought was banished.A year ago, she’d settled on Eidolon. Soon thereafter, her shadow grew silent. Its hunger no longer drove her. Her ledger black, she could breathe easy.She glanced at the seething mass of vitriol clogging the street below. It stretched from curb to curb, one end to the other. Their bodies, torn and gashed and trembling, reaching as far as
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER ELEVENShe couldn’t stop crying. The tears trailed down her cheeks and onto her chin, the tissue soaked and useless from wiping her nose.“There will be other chances, yes?” Samuel said in his heavily accented English. He kneeled in front of her, his hand calmly stroking her thigh as she sat on the edge of the bed. “And if no, then, perhaps an adoption could be best, I think, no?”Lucky shook her head. No. No children. She would never risk it. The seven children the shadow had stolen over the past four years hadn’t been enough. She could feel it. The dark wanted something more. Something rich with experience.Simple death isn’t what fed this ravenous dark. It savored surprise and regret. The awareness of the end approaching. The panic growing as the limbs became weak and the vision clouded. The overwhelming stillness of the eternal silence as the world grew quiet. The darkness demanded tears, confusion, dread. The last moments of a life lived.A child who was still safely
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER TENThis was in Paris.“She was small,” they’d say. “Chinese or Japanese. Asian, definitely. I think.”“Her hair was sort of dark, maybe,” the other witness would remember, the officer jotting the useless tidbit down.“Was she younger? Older?” he’d say, pen in hand. “What age range would you say she was? Any idea?”A shrug.Twenty years after Hong Kong, twenty years after the leaders of The Triad had fallen in one fell swoop, twenty years after Lucky had entered the warehouse a victim and emerged a legend, she’d become the woman seen, but never remembered.“Yes, it was a woman,” one witness after another would say before stopping in confusion. “But I just can’t . . . I don’t . . . ” and they’d give up, unable to clearly recall the assassin who’d stabbed and sliced and slaughtered in broad daylight.Back in Hong Kong, the Triad was in chaos. Uncles on mainland China, in Canada, even in the United States and as far away as Eastern Europe were all angling to be Father now,
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER NINEIn the warehouse, shamans chanted and priests prayed. Scented smoke filled her lungs and somewhere someone was splashing Holy Water. In the shadows, Father and the Uncles stood.They were trying to take her shadow from her.It was working.She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t think clearly enough or quickly enough to fight. Every word they said lifted the dark. Every prayer they prayed peeled the shadow from her flesh. Every mutter and murmur and sigh stripped the shade from her soul.And it was agony. Her insides clenched. Her skin shrank to the bone. She fell forward, her arms wobbling as they supported her. Her face tensed. As if her eyes were being pulled from their sockets. Her tongue was swelling and her mouth tasted of blood. Her teeth felt like they were being pried from the safety of their homes. Her head was filled with the sound of a great wind, or a great ocean. A keening cry from the earth and the sky as she felt her flesh drawn inward an
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHTIn a warehouse on the outskirts of Hong Kong, Lucky stood, fearless, unapologetic and ready for war.She’d risen too fast. One of the first women invited to officially join, she’d turned them down. “You work for me,” she’d famously said. And she was right. Her shadow made her untouchable. She could say no. She could argue with the Father and the Uncles, as the various leaders of this secret society that ruled Hong Kong and much of mainland China were called.She could do what she wanted. Ignore tradition and duty. Sit first, sip tea first, stand to leave first. Walk out the door when she wanted. No one, not even the most vicious, the most powerful, could even think of challenging her.Yet some did.Years ago an example was made. An example of what could happen if you dared strike Lucky or scream at Lucky or treat Lucky like any other worthless woman. An example that, in hindsight, terrified Lucky herself. One so ominous that it sent a chill down her spine that linger
