Thirst No. 2 (30 page)

The baby talks softly to her, infant nonsense. He is not afraid, but fear is almost all I know as I sight along the barrel and squeeze the trigger.

The blast of the shotgun echoes across the bay.

I have blown a hole in the front of the boat

Water gushes in. Kalika grabs the handle of the outboard and turns the boat around. For a moment her back is to me, an easy shot. Yet I don't take it. I tell myself there is a chance I might hit the child. At first Kalika seems to be headed back toward the beach below Paula's house, but then it is clear the miniature island in the center of the bay is her goal.

Perhaps the water is gushing in too fast. Kalika picks up the child and hugs him to her chest even before the boat reaches the island. Then she is tip and out of the sinking craft, scampering up the dirt path that leads to a small abandoned house at the top of the island.

Sliding the shotgun under my black leather coat, I dive off the low cliff and into the water.

The lake temperature is bracing, even for me. But vampires never like the cold, although we can tolerate it far better than human beings can. My stroke is hampered by my clothes and gun, but I reach the island in less than a minute. Shivering on the beach in the rays of the moon, I remove the shotgun and pump another round into the chamber. There is a good chance it will still fire. If it doesn't then this will be the last moonlit night of my life.

I find Kalika sitting on a bench in the stone house at the top of the island. It is not properly a house, more an open collection of old walls. Last time I was here a guide told me people came here for tea during the Second World War. Kalika sits with the baby on her lap, playing with him, oblivious of me and my shotgun. I feel I have to say something. Of course I am not fooled. I keep my weapon held ready.

Yet maybe I am the biggest fool of all.

"It is over," I say. "Set the child down."

Kalika doesn't even look up. "The floor is cold. He might catch cold."

I shake my gun. "I am serious."

"That is your problem."

"Kalika—"

"Do you know what name Paula gave the child?" she interrupts.

"No. I didn't stop to ask her."

"I think she named him John. That's what I've been calling him." Finally she looks at me.

"But you know Mike, don't you?"

I am bewildered. "Yes. Have you spoken to him?"

"No. But I know him. He's a bum." She lifts the child to her breast. Kalika has a voluptuous figure; she could probably bear many healthy children. God knows what they would be like. She strokes the baby's soft skull. "I think we have company."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your friend is coming."

"Good," I say, although I don't hear anyone approaching. "More reason for you to surrender the child." I grow impatient "Put him down!"

"No."

"I will shoot."

"No, you won’t."

"You murdered two dozen innocent people. You ripped their hearts and heads off right in

Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) front of my eyes and you think I can still care for you? Well, you're wrong." I step closer and aim the shotgun at her face. "You are not immortal. If I fire and your brains splatter the wall behind you, then you will die."

She stares at me. We are out of the moonlight. There should be no light in her dark eyes at all. Nevertheless they shine with a peculiar white glow. I had thought it was red the last time I saw them during our confrontation on the pier. But maybe the color is not hers but mine. Maybe she is just a mirror for me, Kali Ma, the eternal abyss, who destroys time itself. My mother myself. I cannot look at her with the child and not think of when she was a baby.

"The body takes birth and dies," she says. "The eternal self is unmoved."

I shake my shotgun angrily. "You will move for me, goddamn you!"

Kalika smiles. She wants to say something.

But suddenly there is a blade at my throat.

"I will take that shotgun," James says softly in my ear.

I am surprised but not terribly alarmed.

"James," I say patiently, "I am not going to shoot the child."

He presses the blade tighter and forces my head back.

"I know that, Sita," he says calmly. "I still want the gun."

I swallow. Now I am concerned.

"How do you know my name?" I ask.

He grips the shotgun and carefully lifts it from my hands.

"We have met before," he says. "You just don't remember me."

"She remembers," Kalika says, standing now, her expression unfathomable.

James points the shotgun at her while he keeps the blade at my throat. Out of the corner of my eye I get a glimpse of it. A dagger of some kind, ancient design, cold metal. James is calm and cool. He gestures with the tip of the shotgun.

"You will set the child down on the bench beside you," he says to my daughter. "If you don't I will shoot, and you know I won't miss. Either of you."

Kalika does not react.

James scrapes me lightly with the knife and my throat bleeds.

"I will kill your mother," he says. "You will have to watch her die."

A shadow crosses Kalika's face. "No," she says.

James smiles. "You know me. You know I do not bluff."

Kalika nods slightly. Really, it is as if she knows him well.

"All right," she says in a soft, perhaps beaten, voice.

"Do it!" James orders.

Kalika turns to set the child down. The baby is almost out of her hands when I see her change her mind. Maybe James sees the same thing, I don't know. But he is ready for her when she suddenly grabs the baby and bolts. Kalika moves extraordinarily fast but James is no slouch when it comes to reflexes.

He shoots her in the lower back.

Kalika staggers but manages to hold on to the child. Keeping his blade tight to my throat, he pumps the shotgun again and takes aim. It is then I ram an elbow into his side. He seems ready for that as well, because even though I have hurt him, he manages to draw the blade all the way across my throat. And he doesn't just nick me. Suddenly my life's

Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) blood is pouring over my chest and James has got Kalika in his sights again and there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop him.

James shoots Kalika in the back, behind the heart.

Kalika is covered in blood. She tries to turn, perhaps to attack, but seeing James pumping again, she puts her back to him once more. He fires a third time, hitting her right shoulder.

Kalika slumps to the floor, her right arm useless now. Still she manages to hold on to the child, to shelter him from the blasts that ravage her body. As I collapse to the floor, James pumps again and points the shotgun at Kalika's head, actually touching her left temple with the black barrel He still has the dagger in his right hand and I finally recognize it.

Ory's knife. I feel his poison once more in my system.

I even recognize Ory's voice when James speaks next.

Funny how I didn't before. Too bad, huh.

"I just want the child," James says to my daughter.

She stares up at him. "Your kind never wants just one thing."

He pulls the trigger back dangerously far.

"You missed me at the condo," he says. "That was your chance. But you will have no more chances if you do not do what I say. Nor will the child."

Kalika stares up at him a moment.

Then she hands him the baby with her left arm.

He takes the infant in his knife arm.

He turns to walk away.

Kalika tries to get up.

"No!" I gasp, choking on my own blood.

James pivots and shoots her directly in the heart. Stunned, she staggers back. He pumps again and shoots her in the exact same spot. Her chest cavity literally explodes. Her white coat and white dress are a mess of red tissue and torn threads. Reaching out a feeble left arm, trying to give it one last desperate try, she suddenly closes her eyes and falls face first on the floor. James stares down at her for a moment and then drops the shotgun and kneels beside me. The infant's face is only inches from my own but I am unable to reach out and touch him. The baby seems worried, but James looks as if he is having a good time.

"What did you tell me?" he asks." 'I will see you again someday. It is not over.'" He pauses. "Yeah, I think that was it. Well, at least you were half right."

I drown in red blood. My voice bubbles out.

"How?"

"How am I here again in a different body? That is a Setian secret, isn't it? But to tell you the truth I never left. Oh, I have transferred many times, into many forms, but that is a small trick for beings such as ourselves." He glances at motionless Kalika. "It is a pity your daughter had to destroy my entire crop of new apprentices. But there will be more from where they came."

"What?" I whisper.

He chuckles. "What am I going to do with the child now that you have led me to him?

Honestly, you don't want to know. Better you go to your grave with no horrific image in your pretty head." He raises the dagger. "Where do you want me to put in the poison? It is a new and improved brand. It is guaranteed to kill even the strongest of vampires. And

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slowly."

"Go to hell," I gasp.

"Sita, I just came from there."

He stabs me in midback and leaves the blade in.

I am too weak to pull it out. To find it, even.

James stands and walks away with the child.

Finally, I hear the infant begin to cry.

17

Red
,
searing pain and black despair. These two colors, these two forms of torture, are all I know for the next few minutes. It is not as if I lose sight of the room, it is just that I see it from another angle. A place of pain and judgment where my soul floats above the boiling cauldron I am sure is waiting for me on the other side. To realize I have been working all along for the enemy, that I was in fact their greatest ally, is too much for me. Death, if it would just involve oblivion, would be more than welcome. But I know there must be a special hell prepared for the one who sold the messiah to the jackal.

From far away I feel something moist and warm touch my lips.

It tastes like blood, very sweet blood, but it is such a potent elixir that I swear I have never encountered it before. Before my mind knows it, my body is hungrily licking the substance. The flow of blood that has been steadily dripping from my throat finally begins to slow. At first I think it is because my body is running out of blood, but then I realize I am healing, which should be impossible with a severed neck, a knife in my back, and Setian poison pumping in my veins. Yet after a time my vision clears and I am able to see normally.

My daughter lies beside me.

She is feeding me her own blood with her cupped palm.

For a moment I think that means she is recovering. But then I see that her horrible wounds have not healed at all. My eyes register my sorrow but she smiles even now.

"There is only enough life left for you," she says.

I push her hand away. "You mustn't. You are the only hope."

"You are." She forces more of her blood down my throat and then rolls me on my side.

There is a sharp pain in my back as she pulls out Ory's dagger. I still feel the poison in my system, however, crawling through my veins and feeding on my internal organs. Kalika opens the vein on her wrist and forces me to feed, and it is as if the current of her life energy overwhelms the poison, and I feel it die inside me. A peaceful warmth steals over my physical form. Already I think the wound in my throat has closed. Yet inside I am still in torment. Even as I sit up Kalika seems to lose strength and lies back down. The massive wound to her chest is still open and I cringe because I worry I may actually see her heart beating, or slowing down. I don't know, of course. I do try to open my vein to drip my blood over her wound, but she stops me.

"It's too late," she says.

This death I cannot bear.

"No," I moan.

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"You see I did not want to harm the child. I just wanted to protect him from the Setians."

"That's why you came into this world?"

"Yes." She raises her left hand and touches my hair. "And to be your daughter."

The tears on my face are so red. They will stain my skin, I think, and I will carry the burden of this loss the rest of my days, out where people can see it. I want to bury my face in her chest but I am afraid I will hurt her more. So I take the hand she touches me with and I kiss it.

"I should have listened to you," I say.

"Yes."

" You never hurt the police, did you?"

"No."

"And you knew Eric had a fatal illness?"

"Yes. His suffering would have been worse if I had not killed him."

My voice is choked. "You should have told me."

This amuses her. "You hear what you wish. You are more human than you know. But that is your greatest strength as well. Krishna loves all humanity as his children."