Thirst No. 4 (2 page)

Seymour considers. “Do you have access to all her memories?”

His question shocks me. Because suddenly I feel as if a computer file has opened deep in my brain—separate from the Sita file—and I can recall the details of Teri’s life. The sudden flood of her nineteen years on earth staggers me and I almost fall over. Seymour reaches out and steadies me.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“I remember!” I cry out, recalling a dozen Christmas mornings and birthdays in the Raines’ happy household. I see Teri’s parents so clearly, they could be standing right in front of me.

“What’s that like?”

“Confusing. I feel like two people. But it’s sort of nice, too. I feel closer to her than ever.”

“That could be the answer. It’s possible Teri’s gone nowhere. Maybe you’re overshadowing her personality. I don’t mean this as an insult but you always were an egomaniac.”

“You’re saying the two of us are in this same body?”

“Yes.”

I shake my head. “No, that’s not right. Even though I have her memories, I feel like they happened to someone else—to her, not to me. Trust me, I would love to feel her soul inside. But she’s gone, Seymour. She’s just gone.”

He sighs. “Then chances are she is dead.”

I nod weakly. “That’s what I fear.” The words sound so simple and plain. But a mountain of grief stands behind them. Even though I was with Teri when she was dying, I still can’t accept her death.

“You have to talk to John,” Seymour says.

“John doesn’t talk to people. He just hangs out and plays computer games. You remember on Santorini, he wouldn’t even see me.”

“True. But he came to your funeral today.”

“He came because his mother brought him.”

“Then talk to Paula. She’s a seer. Tell her what’s happened.”

“What good would that do?”

“What harm would it do?”

“Paula warned me to stay away from Teri. She said nothing
good would come from the relationship and she was right. She’s always right.”

“I hear ya. Hey, how come you keep putting your hands over your eyes?”

“I didn’t know I was.” I realize he’s right and lower my hands, but I raise them a few seconds later. The glare is bothering me. It appears Teri’s body is more sensitive to the sunlight than my own. Yet she—or it—is not nearly as susceptible as a newborn vampire generally is.

I wonder how much my mind is affecting the new body I’m in, and vice versa. Specifically, I wonder if I’m as strong as I used to be. Going by the way I walk and talk, and the acuity of my senses, I don’t feel nearly as powerful as I normally do.

That worries me. I’ll have to be at full strength to deal with Brutran and the IIC, never mind the Telar. However, there might be some advantage in their thinking I’m dead. I tell Seymour as much but he is doubtful.

“The only way we can deal with those two groups is to hide from them,” he says. “That battle we had with the Telar three days ago proved that. You and Matt hit them with everything you had in your arsenal and they kept coming. Their organization is too big, too deeply entrenched in too many countries. The same with Brutran and the IIC. There’s no way we can fight them. At least not directly.”

I point to the blisters he has on the back of his right hand.

“Are you forgetting about the X6X6 virus the Telar are
planning to release? If we sit back and do nothing, seven billion people will die.”

“I didn’t mean we should find a cave in the Rockies and hibernate. We still have a vial of the T-11 vaccine and we have Charlie on our side. We need to put him in touch with other scientists who can help him reproduce the vaccine on a massive scale.”

“Is that vaccine even working?” I study his blisters more closely. They’re dark and look plump with dead blood. “Have you given yourself another shot?”

“Yesterday. It slowed down the spread of the blisters but it didn’t get rid of them. Shanti has blisters as well, on her face, especially on the skin that she had grafted on. I was planning to give her another dose today.”

“Have you talked to Charlie about what’s going on?”

“I haven’t had a chance. It took all my time to plan your funeral.”

“I suppose I should be grateful.”

“Don’t mention it. But I’m serious when I say we have to keep a low profile when it comes to the Telar and IIC. We can’t fight ten thousand immortals and we can’t fight Brutran’s Array.”

“I wonder how Brutran was able to lock the Array on Matt.”

“Why should he be immune?”

“First off he’s a Telar/vampire hybrid, and his father, Yaksha, was not just any vampire. Matt’s stronger and faster than I am.
Also, we assumed Brutran was able to attack because she collected blood from me at her Malibu office. But I can’t see how she could have gotten ahold of a sample of Matt’s blood.”

“The relationship between your blood and the Array is just a theory of yours. It might be wrong. We’re still not sure what the Array is or how it works. Brutran might be able to target whoever she wants.”

“Brutran went to a lot of trouble to get a sample of my blood. Then she went out of her way to avoid me until my blood had been disbursed to her people. That I’m sure of.”

“Matt could have run into her people in the past, without knowing it. Ask him when you’re in bed tonight. He might remember something.”

“I can’t ask him that. It’s not a question Teri would ask.”

“So you’re going to keep Matt in the dark? How long do you think that will last? You have to tell him the truth.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m afraid. He has a temper. I told you, he was furious at me for trying to change Teri into a vampire, even if it was to save her life. Right now, he’s probably just learning to accept her as a vampire. Now, if I tell him that not only did the change not work, but I just happened to steal Teri’s body in the process, he’ll explode. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to kill me.”

“He’s not going to kill his old girlfriend’s body.”

“He might if he’s convinced she’s not coming back.”

“But you didn’t choose for this to happen.”

“He won’t care! He’s not going to react logically. He’s emotionally on fire.”

“I understand all that. But he needs you and you need him. You two are the only ones who can save the world from these maniacs. It doesn’t have to be now, but at some point you’re going to have to risk telling him the truth.”

“Agreed. Later. A lot later. Let’s give it a few days. Or weeks.” I stare down at my coffin. “I need to be alone for a few minutes.”

He hesitates. “All right.” He turns and walks toward his car. “Don’t do anything disgusting,” he calls over his shoulder.

When he’s gone, I kneel beside the coffin and put my hands on the top. I’m sitting in the same position John was when he did whatever it was he did to my body. Or should I say my old body? Chances are this change is permanent.

The coffin has been nailed shut. Even though I lack my old strength, I’m still a vampire with Sita’s blood flowing through my veins. That makes me stronger than a dozen men combined. I snap the top off without effort and set it aside. For the first time in my long life, I stare at myself from the outside. The effect is overwhelming. I shake, feel a wave of dizziness, and for a moment I fear I will faint.

I look so much like me, and yet I’m a stranger to myself. It frightens me to gaze at my face. I could be staring at a mirror
that lies under a foot of water. I look like a ghost.

I have a hole in my chest, in my heart. The long white dress the morgue has dressed me in does not hide the fact. There is a dark red and gold stain where the material brushes the skin near my left breast. I know I should not touch the wound but feel I must. My shaking hand reaches out and pops two buttons off the dress as my fingers probe the rim of the wound that ended five thousand years of life.

The hole feels narrow, too narrow. Of course I have no clear idea how wide it should be, yet it doesn’t seem right. Plus my dress is stained because the wound is still damp, when it should be dry.

I smell not a hint of formaldehyde. I know Seymour would not have allowed me to be embalmed, on the off chance someone might have tried to steal my blood.

There’s just something about the wound that’s unnatural.

I get the impression it’s slowly healing.

Yet the dead do not heal.

Not even dead vampires.

On impulse, I let go of the bloody hole and reach up with my other hand and open my eyes. Leaning forward on my knees, I stare down into them, and here I note a definite change. They are darker than before. The blue is closer to black, and they gaze back at me with a reflectivity that no mirror could match. However, I don’t see myself in them.

I see Krishna. I see his face, his eyes, his divine dark-blue
light. The weight on my heart partially lifts and I shed my first tears for dead Sita. I finally realize I’m alive only because he wills it, and that this respite won’t last forever, or even a great many days. He has sent me back for a purpose and I have a limited amount of time to accomplish it.

S
eymour volunteers to take me back to my hotel, where I share a room with Matt. Almost immediately after leaving the cemetery grounds, I begin to feel physically worse. I don’t know if my sensitivity to the daylight has suddenly increased or if it’s just because we’re driving east, in the direction of the sun, but the bright glare hurts my eyes. Pulling down the car’s visor and closing my eyes helps, but the irritation remains.

And I have a worse problem.

My guts are cramping. It is as if two maniacs have grabbed hold of opposite ends of my intestines and decided to play a game of tug-of-war. The spasms are so intense I feel they’ll cause internal damage.

I haven’t had such a sensation in a long time. Around five thousand years. Yet I recognize it immediately. I’m experiencing
hunger pangs. A vampire’s hunger pangs. I need blood, Christ, I have to have it soon or I’ll go insane.

Seymour glances over at me. “Are you all right?”

“Fine. Why?”

“You’re squirming in your seat.”

“The sun’s bothering my eyes.”

“Close them.”

“I tried that. It’s still bothering me.”

“Is that all that’s bothering you?”

“You are. Shut up and drive.”

“Sita. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Another spasm strikes. I feel as if my stomach’s trying to tear itself in two.

“I’m thirsty,” I whisper.

“It’s not the Array?”

“It’s this body. It’s young, it has to be fed.”

“Oh shit.”

An uneasy silence settles between us, disturbed by the loud pounding of his heart, the pulsing of his blood through thousands of veins, millions of microscopic capillaries. It’s like the sound is promising me it will provide instantaneous relief—if I just reach over and rip open his skin.

“What are we going to do?” he asks.

“Drop me at my hotel, let me worry about it.”

He’s scared but not as scared as he should be.

“You’re going to have to tell Matt. You’re going to need his help. At least when it comes to getting blood.”

“I’ve been a vampire a long time. I can handle it,” I say.

My hotel is a Hilton. It’s rated four stars and stands on the outskirts of town. Seymour is staying at a Sheraton two miles away. He tries to walk me to my room but I convince him I’ll be okay. The sound of his blood is like the song of the Sirens in my head, calling us both to our doom. My thirst has entered the insane region where I’ll do anything to satisfy it.

I practically run from Seymour’s car.

Matt’s not in our room. He’s left a note. It says something about needing to scout the area for Telar. I hardly read it. I don’t care about Matt or the Telar. Now it’s my own pulse that pounds in my brain like a primal drum that knows only one message:
FEED ME!

Perhaps if I was in my old body, and had all of my ancient power, I might have resisted the urge longer. Alas, I’ve inherited Sita’s soul, I
am
Sita, but for some reason I lack her strength of will.

I pick up the phone and push the button for room service. I order something, anything, it doesn’t matter what’s on the menu. It’s the person who will bring the meal that counts; they are what I’m having.

Nevertheless, waiting for the food to arrive, pacing like an addict in need of a fix, I promise myself I won’t commit murder. I just need a drink, a pint or two, to satisfy my thirst. I’m not going to hurt anyone. I suspect my mind—and therefore my new brain—retains a measure of its old power. When I
finish feeding, I can always hypnotize my victim with my eyes and make him forget there’s a vampire in room 1227.

No one need know. Not even Matt.

A knock at the door. I answer in an instant. The odors of rare steak and a baked potato fill the air. Along with the sound of another pounding heart. The guy delivering my meal is six-six and weighs three hundred pounds. His muscles bulge. He belongs on a professional football team. He has sandy hair and trusting green eyes. He smiles when he sees how cute I am.

“Hi. Name’s Ken. You hungry?”

“Yes. Please come in.” He pushes the sheet-covered cart past me, and even though his head is bent low, he still towers over me. The guy doesn’t just pump iron; he looks like he eats it, in between shooting up with steroids.

Why on this of all days did Superman have to deliver my food? Ken’s size means he has more blood to spare, sure, but it also means he is going to be harder to subdue. It is high noon, the weakest time of day for a newborn vampire. At the moment I’m stronger than him but not by much. I need to use my wits as much as my raw strength to get his blood.

But I’ve lost it, totally, I’m way beyond the point of control. The second he goes past me, I kick the door shut and grab the steak knife from the cart and stab the tip in the side of his neck.

Unfortunately, the knife is for cutting steak, not for killing people. The tip isn’t as sharp as the side of the blade. I cut him,
true, but his jugular remains intact. Ken whirls on me with fear in his eyes, and anger. To say I’ve lost the element of surprise would be the understatement of the year. Pressing his hand to his neck, he quickly backs up. Yet his back is not to the door, and in his haste he moves deeper into my room.