Thirst No. 1 Read online

  “You believe that?”

  I hesitate, but it is true. Why can’t I accept the truth? “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he told me he would if I listened to him. And because it has been so. Many times, even with my great power, I should have perished. But I never did. God blessed me.” I add, “And he cursed me.”

  “How did he curse you?”

  Now there are tears in my eyes. “By putting me in this situation again. I cannot lose you again, my love, but I cannot keep you with me, either. Go now before Yaksha arrives. Forgive me for what I did to your father. He was not a bad man. He only wanted the money so that he could give it to you. I know he loved you very much.”

  “But—”

  “Wait!” I interrupt. Suddenly I hear something, the note of a flute, flowing with the noise of the waves, a single note, calling me to it, telling me that it is already too late. “He is here,” I whisper.

  “What? Where?”

  I stand and walk to the wide windows that overlook the sea. Ray stands beside me. Down by the ocean, where the waves crash against the rocks, stands a solitary figure dressed in black. His back is to us, but I see the flute in his hand. His song is sad, as always. I don’t know if he plays for me or himself, but maybe it is for both of us.

  “Is that him?” Rays asks.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s alone. We should be able to take him. Do you have a gun?”

  “I have one under my pillow over there. But a gun will not stop him. Not unless he was riddled with bullets.”

  “Why are you giving up without a fight?”

  “I am not giving up. I am going to talk to him.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  I turn to Ray and rub the hair on his head. He feels so delicate to me. “No. You cannot come. He is less human than I am. He will not be interested in what a human has to say.” I put my finger to his lips as he starts to protest. “Do not argue with me. I do not argue.”

  “I am not going to leave,” he says.

  I sigh. “It may be too late for that already. Stay then. Watch. Pray.”

  “To Krishna?”

  “God is God. His name doesn’t matter. But I think only he can help us now.”

  A few minutes later I stand ten feet behind Yaksha. The wind is strong, bitter. It seems to blow straight out of the cold sun which hangs like a bloated drop of blood over the hazy western horizon. The spray from the waves clings to Yaksha’s long black hair like so many drops of dew. For a moment I imagine him a statue that has stood outside my home for centuries. Always, he has been in my life, even when he was not there. He has stopped playing his flute.

  “Hello,” I say to this person I haven’t spoken to since the dawn of history.

  “Did you enjoy my song?” he asks, his back still to me.

  “It was sad.”

  “It is a sad day.”

  “The day is ending,” I say.

  He nods as he turns. “I want it to end, Sita.”

  The years have not changed his appearance. Why does that surprise me when they haven’t changed mine? I don’t know. Yet I scrutinize him more closely. A man has to learn something in so many years, I think. He cannot be the beast that he was. He smiles at my thought.

  “The form changes, the essence remains the same,” he says. “That is something Krishna told me about nature. But for us the form does not change.”

  “It is because we are unnatural.”

  “Yes. Nature abhors the invader. We are not welcome in this world.”

  “But you look well.”

  “I am not. I am tired. I wish to die.”

  “I don’t,” I say.

  “I know.”

  “You tested me with Slim and his people. To see how hard I would fight.”

  “Yes.”

  “But I passed the test. I don’t want to die. Leave here. Go do what you must. I want nothing to do with it.”

  Yaksha shakes his head sadly, and that is one change in him—his sorrow. It softens him somehow, making his eyes less cold. Yet the sorrow scares me more than his wicked glee used to. Yaksha was always so full of life for a being that would later be labeled the undead.

  “I would let you go if I could,” he says. “But I cannot.”

  “Because of the vow you took with Krishna?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were his words?”

  “He told me that I would have his grace if I destroyed the evil I had created.”

  “I suspected as much. Why didn’t you destroy me?”

  “There was time, at least in my mind. He did not put a time limit on me.”

  “You destroyed the others centuries ago.”

  He watches me. “You are very beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It warmed my heart to know your beauty still existed somewhere in the world.” He pauses. “Why do you ask these questions? You know I didn’t kill you because I love you.”

  “Do you still love me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then let me go.”

  “I cannot. I am sorry, Sita, truly.”

  “Is it so important to you that you die in his grace?”

  Yaksha is grave. “It is why I came into this world. The Aghoran priest did not call me, I came of my own will. I knew Krishna was here. I came to get away from where I was. I came so that when I died I would be in that grace.”

  “But you tried to destroy Krishna?”

  Yaksha shrugs as if that is not important. “The foolishness of youth.”

  “Was he God? Are you sure? Can we be sure?”

  Yaksha shakes his head. “Even that does not matter. What is God? It is a word. Whatever Krishna was we both know he was not someone we can disobey. It is that simple.”

  I gesture to the waves. “Then the line has been drawn. The sea meets the shore. The infinite tells the finite what is supposed to be. I accept that. But you are faced with a problem. You do not know what Krishna said to me.”

  “I do. I have watched you long. The truth is obvious. He told you not to make another of your kind, and he would protect you.”

  “Yes. It is a paradox. If you try to destroy me, you will go against his word. If you do not try, then you are damned.”

  Yaksha is not moved by my words. He is a step ahead of me; he always was. He points to the house with his flute. Ray continues to stand beside the window, watching us.

  “I have watched you particularly close the last three days,” he says. “You love this boy. You would not want to see him die.”

  My fear is a great and terrible thing in this moment. But I speak harshly. “If you use that as a threat to force me to destroy myself, then you will still lose Krishna’s grace. It will be as if you struck me down with your own hands.”

  Yaksha does not respond with anger. Indeed, he does seem weary. “You misunderstand me. I will do nothing to you while you are protected by his grace. I will force you to do nothing.” He gestures to the setting sun. “It takes a night to make a vampire. I am sure you remember. When the sun rises again, I will come back for you, for both of you. By then you should be done. Then you will be mine.”

  There is scorn in my voice. “You are a fool, Yaksha. The temptation to make another of our kind has come to me many times in the long years, and always I have resisted it. I will not forsake my protection. Face it, you are beaten. Die and return to the black hell from where you came.”

  Yaksha raises an eyebrow. “You know I am no fool, Sita. Listen.”

  He glances toward the house, at Ray, then raises the flute to his lips. He plays a single note, piercingly high. I shake with pain as the sound vibrates through my body. Behind us I hear glass break. No, not just glass. The window against which Ray is leaning. I turn in time to see him topple through the broken glass and plunge headfirst onto the concrete driveway sixty feet below. Yaksha grabs my arm as I move to run to him.

  “I wish it did not have to be this way,”
he says.

  I shake off his hand. “I have never loved you. You may yet have grace before you die, but you will never have that.”

  He closes his eyes briefly. “So be it,” he says.

  I find Ray in a pool of blood and a pile of glass. His skull is crushed, his spine is broken. Incredibly, he is still conscious, although he does not have long to live. I roll him over on his back, and he speaks to me with blood pouring from his mouth.

  “I fell,” he says.

  My tears are as cold as the ocean drops on my cheeks. I put my hand over his heart. “This is the last thing I wanted for you.”

  “Is he going to let you go?”

  “I don’t know, Ray. I don’t know.” I lean over and hug him and hear the blood in his lungs as his breath struggles to scrape past it. Just as the breath of his father struggled before it failed. I remember I told the man that I could not heal, that I could only kill. But that was only a half truth, I realize, even as I grasp the full extent of Yaksha’s plan to destroy me. Once he used my fear to make me a vampire. Now he uses my love to force me to make another vampire. He is right, he is no fool. I cannot bear to watch Ray die knowing the power in my blood can heal even his fatal injuries.

  “I wanted to save you,” he whispers. He tries to raise a hand to touch me, but it falls back to the ground. I sit up and stare into his mortal eyes, trying to put love into them, where for so many years with so many other mortals I have only tried to put fear.

  “I want to save you,” I say. “Do you want me to save you?”

  “Can you?”

  “Yes. I can put my blood in your blood.”

  He tries to smile. “Become a vampire like you?”

  I nod and smile through my tears. “Yes, you could become like me.”

  “Would I have to hurt people?”

  “No. Not all vampires hurt people.” I touch his ruined cheek. I haven’t forgotten Yaksha’s words about coming for both of us at dawn. “Some vampires love a great deal.”

  “I love . . .” His eyes slowly close. He cannot finish.

  I lean over and kiss his lips. I taste his blood.

  I will have to do more than taste it to help him.

  “You are love,” I say as I open both our veins.

  ELEVEN

  Ray’s sleep is deep and profound, as I expect. I have brought him back to the house, and laid him in front of a fire I built, and wiped away his blood. Not long after his transfusion, while still lying crumpled on the driveway, his breath had accelerated rapidly, and then ceased altogether. But it had not scared me, because the same had happened to me, and to Mataji, and many others. When it had started again, it was strong and steady.

  His wounds vanished as if by magic.

  I am weak from sharing my blood, very tired.

  I anticipate that Ray will sleep away most of the night, and that Yaksha will keep his word and not return until dawn. I leave the house and drive in my Ferrari to Seymour’s place. It is not that late—ten o’clock. I do not want to meet his parents. They might suspect I have come to corrupt their beloved son. I go around the back and see Seymour through his bedroom window, writing on his computer. I scratch on his window with my hard nails and give him a scare. He comes over to investigate, however. He is delighted to see me. He opens the window and I climb inside. Contrary to popular opinion, I could have climbed in without being invited.

  “It is so cool you are here,” he says. “I have been writing about you all day.”

  I sit on his bed; he stays at his desk. His room is filled with science things—telescopes and such—but the walls are coated with the posters of classic horror films. It is a room I am comfortable in. I often go to the movies, the late shows.

  “A story about me?” I ask. I glance at his computer screen, but he has returned to the word processor menu.

  “Yes. Well, no, not really. But you inspired the story. It comes to me in waves. It’s about this girl our age who’s a vampire.”

  “I am a vampire.”

  He fixes his bulky glasses on his nose. “What?”

  “I said, I am a vampire.”

  He glances at the mirror above his chest of drawers. “I can see your reflection.”

  “So what? I am what I say I am. Do you want me to drink your blood to prove it?”

  “That’s all right, you don’t have to.” He takes a deep breath. “Wow, I knew you were an interesting girl, but I never guessed . . .” He stops himself. “But I suppose that’s not true, is it? I have been writing about you all along, haven’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  “But how is that possible? Can you explain that to me?”

  “No. It’s one of those mysteries. You run into them every now and then, if you live long enough.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Five thousand years.”

  Seymour holds up his hand. “Wait, wait. Let’s slow down here. I don’t want to be a pest about this, and I sure don’t want you to drink my blood, but before we proceed any further, I wouldn’t mind if you showed me some of your powers. It would help with my research, you understand.”

  I smile. “You really don’t believe me, do you? That’s okay. I don’t know if I want you to, not now. But I do want your advice.” I lose my smile. “I am getting near the end of things now. An old enemy has come for me, and for the first time in my long life I am vulnerable to attack. You are the smart boy with the prophetic dreams. Tell me what to do.”

  “I have prophetic dreams?”

  “Yes. Trust me or I wouldn’t be here.”

  “What does this old enemy want? To kill you?”

  “To kill both of us. But he doesn’t want to die until I am gone.”

  “Why does he want to die?”

  “He is tired of living.”

  “Been around for a while, I guess.” Seymour thinks a moment. “Would he mind dying at the same time as you?”

  “I’m sure that would be satisfactory. It might even appeal to him.”

  “Then that’s the answer to your problem. Place him in a situation where he is convinced you’re both goners. But arrange it ahead of time so that when you do push the button—or whatever you do—that only he is destroyed and not you.”

  “That’s an interesting idea.”

  “Thank you. I was thinking of using it in my story.”

  “But there are problems with it. This enemy is extremely shrewd. It will not be easy to convince him that I am going to die with him unless it is pretty certain that I am going to die. And I don’t want to die.”

  “There must be a way. There is always a way.”

  “What are you going to do in your story?”

  “I haven’t worked out that little detail yet.”

  “That detail is not little to me at the moment.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right.” I listen to his parents watching TV in the other room. They talk about their boy, his health. The mother is grief-stricken. Seymour watches me through his thick lenses.

  “It’s hardest on my mother,” he says.

  “The AIDS virus is not new. A form of it existed in the past, not exactly the same as what is going around now, but close enough. I saw it in action. Ancient Rome, in its decline, was stricken with it. Many people died. Whole villages. That’s how it was stopped. The mortality rate in certain areas was so high that there was no one left alive to pass it on.”

  “That’s interesting. There is no mention of that in history books.”

  “Do not trust in your books too much. History is something that can only be lived, it cannot be read about. Look at me, I am history.” I sigh. “The stories I could tell you.”

  “Tell me.”

  I yawn, something I never do. Ray has drained me more than I realized. “I don’t have time.”

  “Tell me how you managed to survive the AIDS epidemic of the past.”

  “My blood is potent. My immune system is impenetrable. I have not just come here to seek yo
ur help, although you have helped me. I have come here to help you. I want to give you my blood. Not enough to make you a vampire, but enough to destroy the virus in your system.”

  He is intrigued. “Will that work?”

  “I don’t know. I have never done it before.”

  “Could it be dangerous?”

  “Sure. It might kill you.”

  He hesitates only a moment. “What do I have to do?”

  “Come sit beside me on the bed.” He does so. “Give me your arm and close your eyes. I am going to open up one of your veins. Don’t worry, I have had a lot of practice with this.”

  “I can imagine.” He lets his arm rest in my lap, but he does not close his eyes.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask. “Are you afraid I will try to take advantage of you?”

  “I wish you would. It’s not every day the school nerd has the most beautiful girl in the school sitting on his bed.” He clears his throat. “I know that you’re in a hurry, but I wanted to tell you something before we begin.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I wanted to thank you for being my friend and letting me play a part in your story.”

  I think of Krishna, always of him, how he stood near me and I saw the whole universe as his play. “Thank you, Seymour, for writing about me.” I lean over and kiss his lips. “If I die tonight, at least others will know I once lived.” I stretch out my nails. “Close your eyes. You do not want to watch this.”

  I place a measured amount of blood inside him. His breath quickens, it burns, but not so fast or hot as Ray’s had. Yet, like Ray, Seymour quickly falls into a deep slumber. I turn off his computer and put out the light. There is a blanket on the bed that looks as if it was knitted by his mother, and I cover him with it. Before I leave, I put my palm on his forehead and listen and feel as deep as my senses will allow.

  The virus, I am almost sure of this, is gone.

  I kiss him once more before I leave.

  “Give me credit if you get your story published,” I whisper in his ear. “Or else there will be no sequels.”

  I return to my car.

  Giving out so much blood, taking none back in return.

  I feel weaker than I have in centuries.