Requiem for Prey

REQUIEM FOR PREY
by Sarah Monette

Prey use the word "love" like it means something.

He said he loved me. He asked if I loved him, too. I said I did, because I didn't want to argue. I just wanted to fuck.

I pay for a mass for the dead because I don't know what else to do.

I stand in the back of the church, cold, nervous, smelling fear and incense and mold. The priests are trying not to look at me. It's just me and them and two old, old ladies up in front.

I told them to say the mass in Latin.

They looked at me, the old priest and the young priest. Do you know Latin?

It doesn't matter. I'm not Catholic.

And they leaned away from my smile, like prey always do.

But they took my money.

It's not like he knew Latin, either, but a mass for the dead should be in a dead language. It's not the words that matter.

I'm sorry that he's dead. I can still smell him on me, and I want to get rid of the scent of prey, but I'm going to wait until the mass is done.

Ritual matters.

Death matters.

Love matters, but not like he thought.

I don't know who got him. It might have been me.

They'll find the body in a month or a week. He'll be called John Doe in the morgue. His face will be gone, and his fingers. Maybe somebody will pay to bury him. Maybe they won't. Maybe somebody out there wonders where he is.

He said he didn't have a family. I said I didn't have a family, either. I lied. My family sings with me in the night, blood on our tongues and teeth, blood staining our fur. That's love. Not words.

Prey don't understand that. Dead languages, dead senses, dead bodies, dead masses. It's no wonder they die so feebly.

The mass ends and I slip out.

The sun's going down.

The air smells of rain and cars. And prey.


(This is an old, old piece. An alert and thoughtful reader let me know the link to it was dead. This was the easiest fix.)