Thirst No. 1 (13 page)

Cleo was one of the first people I encountered. I was walking in the woods when I found him helping to deliver a baby. In those days that was unheard of. Only women were present at births. Even though he was covered with blood and obviously busy, he took an immediate liking to me. He asked me to help him, which I did, and when the child was born, he handed it to the mother and we went for a walk. He explained that he had worked out a better way to deliver babies and had wanted to test his theories. He also admitted that he was the father of the infant, but that was not important to him.

"Cleo was a great doctor, but he was never recognized by his peers. He was ahead of his time. He refined the technique of the Caesarean delivery. He experimented with magnets and how they could restore ailing organs: the positive pole of the magnet to stimulate an organ, the negative pole to pacify it. He had an understanding of how the aromas of certain flowers could affect health. He was also the first chiropractor. He was always adjusting people's bodies, cracking their necks and backs. He tried to adjust me once and sprained his wrists. You can see why I liked him."

I went on to explain how I knew Cleo for many years, and spoke of his one fatal flaw: his obsession with seducing the wives of Athens' powerful men. How he was eventually

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caught in bed with the wife of an important general, and beheaded with a smile on his face, while many of the women of Athens wept. Wonderful Cleo.

I talk of a life I had as an English duchess in the Middle Ages. What it was like to live in a castle. My words bring back the memories. The constant drafts. The stone walls. The roaring fires—at night, how black those nights could be. My name was Melissa and in the summer months I would ride a white horse through the green countryside and laugh at the advances made to me by the knights in shining armor. I even accepted a couple of offers to jostle, offers the men later regretted making.

I speak of a life in the South during the American Civil War. The burning and pillaging of the Yankees as they stormed across Mississippi. A note of bitterness enters my voice, but I do not tell Ray everything. Not how I was abducted by a battalion of twenty soldiers and tied at the neck with a rope and forced to grovel through a swamp, while the men joked about what pleasure I would give them come sunset. I do not want to scare Ray, so I do not explain how each of those men died, how they screamed, especially the last ones, as they tried to flee from the swamp in the dark, from the swift white hands that tore off their limbs and crushed their skulls.

Finally I tell him of how I was in Cape Canaveral when Apollo 11 was launched toward the moon. How proud I was of humanity then, that they had finally reclaimed the adventurous spirit they had known so well in their youth. Ray takes joy in my pleasure of the memory. It makes him forget the horror that awaits us, which is part of the reason I share the story.

"Did you ever want to go to the moon?" he asks.

"Pluto. Much farther from the sun, you know. More comfortable for a vampire."

"Did you grieve when Cleo died?"

I smile, although there is suddenly a tear in my eye. "No. He lived the life he wanted. Had he lived too long, he would have begun to bore himself,"

"I understand."

"Good," I say.

But Ray doesn't really understand. He misconstrues the sentiment I show. My tear is not for Cleo. It is for my long life, the totality of it, all the people and places that are a part of it. Such a rich book of history to slam shut and store away in a forgotten corner. I grieve for all the stories I will never have a chance to tell Seymour and Ray. I grieve for the vow I have broken. I grieve for Yaksha and the love I could never give him. Most of all I grieve for my soul because even though I do, finally, believe that there is a God, and that I have met him, I do not know if he has given me an
immortal
soul, but only one that was to last me as long as my body lasted. I do not know if when the last page of my book is closed, that will be the end of me.

Darkness approaches from outside.

I feel no light inside me strong enough to resist it.

"He is coming," I say.

There is a knock at the door. I call out to come in. He enters; he is alone, dressed in black, a cape, a hat—he makes a stunning figure. He nods and I gesture for him to take the chair across from us. He has not brought his flute. He sits in the chair near the crate of dynamite

Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) and smiles at both of us. But there is no joy in the smile, and I think he truly does regret what is about to happen. Outside, behind us through the broken windows, a hint of light enters the black sky. Ray sits silently staring at our visitor. It is up to me to make conversation.

"Are you happy?" I ask.

"I have known happiness at times," Yaksha says. "But it has been a long time."

"But you have what you want," I insist. "I have broken my vow. I have made another evil creature, another thing for you to destroy."

"I feel no compulsions these days, Sita, except to rest."

"I want to rest as well."

He raises an eyebrow. "You said you wanted to live?"

"It is my hope there will be life for me after this life is over. I assume that is your hope as well. I assume that is why you are going to all this trouble to wreck my night."

"You always had a way with words."

"Thank you,"

Yaksha hesitates. "Do you have any last words?"

"A few. May I decide how we die?"

"You want us to die together?"

"Of course," I say.

Yaksha nods. "I prefer it that way." He glances at the crate of dynamite beside him. "You have made us a bomb, I see. I like bombs."

"I know. You can be the one to light it. You see the fuse there, the lighter beside it? Go ahead, old friend, strike the flame. We can burn together." I lean forward. "Maybe we should have burned a long time ago."

Yaksha picks up the lighter. He considers Ray. "How do you feel, young man?"

"Strange," Ray says.

"I would set you free if I could," Yaksha says, "I would leave you both alone. But it has to end, one way or the other."

This is a Yaksha I have never "heard before. He never explained himself to anyone.

"Sita has told me your reasons," Ray says.

"Your father is dead," Yaksha says.

"I know."

Yaksha pulls his thumb across the lighter and stares at it. "I never knew my father."

"I saw him once," I say. "Ugly bastard. Are you going to do it or do you want me to do it?"

"Are you so anxious to die?" Yaksha asks.

"I never could wait for the excitement to begin," I say sarcastically.

He nods and moves the flame to the end of the fuse. It begins to fizzle, it begins to shorten—quickly. There are three minutes of time coiled in that combustible string.

Yaksha sits back in his chair.

"I had a dream as I walked by the ocean tonight," he says. "Listening to the sound of the waves, it seemed I entered a dimension where the water was singing a song that no one had ever heard before. A song that explained everything in the creation. But the magic of the song was that it could never be recognized for what it was, not by any living soul. If it was, if the truth was brought out into the open and discussed, then the magic would die

Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) and the waters would evaporate. And that is what happened in my dream as this realization came to me. I came into the world. I killed all the creatures the waters had given life to, and then one day I woke up and realized I had been listening to a song. Just a sad song."

"Played on a flute?" I ask.

The fuse burns.

There is no reason for me to delay. Yet I do.

His dream moves me.

"Perhaps," Yaksha says softly. "In the dream the ocean vanished from my side. I walked along an endless barren plain of red dust. The ground was a dark red, as if a huge being had bled over it for centuries and then left the sun to parch dry what the being had lost."

"Or what it had stolen from others," I say.

"Perhaps," Yaksha says again.

"What does this dream mean?" I ask.

"I was hoping you could tell me, Sita."

"What can I tell you? I don't know your mind."

"But you do. It is the same as yours."

"No."

"Yes. How else could I know your mind?"

I tremble. His voice has changed. He is alert, he always was, to everything that was happening around him. I was a fool to think I could trick him. Yet I do not reach for the metal rod that will detonate the bomb. I try to play the fool a little longer. I speak.

"Maybe your dream means that if we stay on earth, and once more multiply, then we will make a wasteland of this world."

"How would we multiply this late in the game?" he asks. "I told you, you can have no children. Krishna told you something similar." It is his turn to lean forward. "What else did he tell you, Sita?"

"Nothing."

"You are lying."

"No."

"Yes." With his left hand he reaches for the burning fuse, his fingers hovering over the sparks as if he intends to crush them. Yet he lets the countdown continue. "You cannot trick me."

"And how do I trick you, Yaksha?"

"You are not waiting to die. I see it in your eyes."

"Really?"

"They are not like my eyes."

"You are a vampire," I say. Casually, as if I am stretching, I move my hand toward the lamp stand. "You can't look in a mirror. There would be nothing there. What do you know about your own eyes?" I joke, of course. I am one bundle of laughs.

He smiles. "I am happy to see time has not destroyed your wit. I hope it has not destroyed your reason. You are quick. I am quicker. You can do nothing that I cannot stop." He pauses. "I suggest you stop."

My hand freezes in midair.
Damn,
I think. He knows, of course he knows.

"I cannot remember what he said," I say.

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"Your memory is perfect, as is mine."

"Then you tell me what he said."

"I cannot. He whispered in your ear. He did that so that I would not hear. He knew I was listening, even though I was lying there with the venom in my veins. Yes, I heard your original vow to him. But he did not want me to hear the last part. He would have had his reasons, I'm sure, but the time for those reasons must be past. We are both going to die in a few seconds. Did he make you take a second vow?"

The fuse burns.

"No."

Yaksha sits up. "Did he say anything about me?"

Shorter and shorter it burns.

"No.”

"Why won't you answer my question?"

The truth bursts out of me. I have wanted to say it for so long. "Because I hate you!"

"Why?"

"Because you stole away my love, my Rama and Lalita. You steal my love away now, when I have finally found it again. I will hate you for eternity, and if that is not enough to stop you from being in his grace, then I will hate him as well." I point to Ray. "Let him go.

Let him live."

Yaksha is surprised. I have stunned the devil. "You love him. You love him more than your own life."

There is only pain in my chest. The fourth center, the fourth note. It is as if it is off key.

"Yes."

Yaksha's tone softens. "Did he tell you something about love?"

I nod, weeping, I feel so helpless. "Yes."

"What did he tell you?"

"He said, where there is love, there is my grace." The sound of his flute is too far away.

There is no time to be grateful for what I have been given in my long life. I feel as if I will choke on my grief. I can only see Ray, my lover, my child, all the years he will be denied.

He looks at me with such trusting eyes, as if somehow I will still manage to save him. "He told me to remember that."

"He told me the same thing." Yaksha pauses to wonder. "It must be true." He adds casually, "You and your friend can go."

I look up. "What?"

"You broke your vow because you love this young man. It is the only reason you broke it.

You must still have Krishna's grace. You only became a vampire to protect Rama and your child. You must have had his grace from the beginning. That is why he showed you such kindness. I did not see that till now. I cannot harm you. He would not wish me to."

Yaksha glances at the burning fuse. "You had better hurry."

The sparks of the short fuse are like the final sands of an hourglass.

I grab Ray's hand and leap up and pull him toward the front door. I do not open the door with my hand. I kick it open; the wrong way. The hinges rupture, the wood splinters. The night air is open before us. I shove Ray out ahead of me.

"Run!" I shout.

"But—"

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"Run!"

He hears me, finally, and dashes for the trees. I turn, I don't know why. The chase is over and the race is won. There is no reason to tempt fate. What I do now, it is the most foolish act of my life. I stride back into the living room. Yaksha stares out at the dark sea. I stand behind him.

"You have ten seconds," he says.

"Hate and fear and love are all in the heart. I felt that when he played his flute." I touch his shoulder. "I don't just hate you. I didn't just fear you."

He turns and looks at me. He smiles; he always had a devilish grin.

"I know that, Sita," he says. "Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

I leap for the front door. I am outside, thirty feet off the front porch, when the bombs go off. The power of the shock wave is extraordinary even for me to absorb. It lifts me up, and for a few moments it is as if I can fly. But it does not set me down softly. At one point in my trajectory fate makes me a marksman's prized bird. An object hot and sharp pierces me from behind.

It goes through my heart. A stake.

I land in a ball of agony. The night burns behind me. My blood sears as it pours from the wound in my chest. Ray is beside me, asking me what he should do. I writhe in the dirt, my fingers clawing into the earth. But I do not want to go into the ground, no, not after walking on it for so long. I try to get the words out—it is not easy. I see I have been impaled by the splintered leg of my piano bench.

"Pull it out," I gasp.

"The stick?" It is the first stupid thing I have heard Ray say.

I turn my front to him. "Yes."

Ray grabs the end of the leg. The wood is literally flaming, although it has passed through my body. He yanks hard. The stick breaks; he has got half of it. The other half is still in my body. Too bad for me. I close my eyes for an instant and see a million red stars. I blink and they explode as if the universe has ended. There remains only red light everywhere. The color of sunset, the color of blood. I find myself settling onto my back. My head rolls to one side. Cool mud touches my cheek. It warms as my blood pours from my mouth and puddles around my head. A red stain, almost black in the fiery night, spreads down my beautiful blond hair. Ray weeps. I look at him with such love I honestly feel I see Krishna's face.

It is not the worst way to die.

"Love you," I whisper.

He hugs me. "I love you, Sita."

So much love, I think as I close my eyes and the pain recedes. There must be so much grace, so much protection for me if Krishna meant what he said. Of course I believe he meant it. I do believe in miracles.

I wonder if I will die, after all.

TO BE CONTINUED . ..

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CHRISTOPHER

PIKE