Thirst No. 2: Phantom, Evil Thirst, and Creatures of Forever Read online

  Yet I caution myself to move carefully. The question isn’t worded the way I would like it to be.

  “By secret do you mean mystery?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “So you could be asking what is the greatest mystery in the universe?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great. I’ve got it. The greatest mystery is that even though every man and woman know they’re mortal, they wake up every morning and know they’re not going to die that day.”

  “Wrong.” The ferryman raises his bony arm and his skeleton fingers are about to brush against my forehead. I know what will happen next. He will tell me to forget and then, a few seconds later, I won’t even remember what he asked, never mind what the answer is supposed to be.

  But this time I’ve had enough.

  I reach up and block his arm.

  “Stop!” I snap. “You’re making a mistake. Krishna himself said this was the answer to that question, and he was supposed to be an avatar, or a divine incarnation. How can you say my answer’s wrong?”

  The ferryman struggles with my arm for a few seconds. It’s like he’s surprised at my strength. But when I refuse to let him touch my forehead he finally lowers his arm and answers me.

  “The question was, ‘What is the greatest secret in the universe?’ You came close with your answer. It would have been the correct answer if I had asked, ‘What is the greatest mystery in the world?’”

  “But I had you clarify your question. You said ‘secret’ and ‘mystery’ were synonymous in this case.” I pause. “You do know what synonymous means, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then explain how my answer can be wrong.”

  “Your problem was that the question was about the ‘universe,’ not the ‘world.’” The ferryman goes to rub his bony hand across my forehead. “Now for—”

  “Wait!” I yell. “I was close, you admitted that.”

  “Yes.”

  “I deserve another chance at the same question.”

  “We don’t give second chances.”

  “You have to give me one. I deserve it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you tricked me. You asked a question I knew the answer to. But you changed one little word at the end to throw me off. That’s not fair.”

  “Who says death is fair?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been dead before. But you hear what I’m saying and I think you’re afraid to give me another chance because you’re afraid I know the answer.”

  “Very few people know the answer to that question.”

  “You’ve asked it before?”

  “A long time ago. Almost no one got it right.”

  “Ask me again, right now.”

  “You already gave your answer. It was wrong.”

  “I’m telling you, you cheated! I deserve a second chance.”

  “No one ever gets a second chance.”

  “Well, I want one. I’m sick of this black river and all these zombies wandering around talking to themselves. And I’m tired of you. I mean it. I don’t think you’re playing by the rules.”

  “That’s a serious accusation.”

  “Well, I’m a serious kind of chick. Now do what I say. Ask the question again, and if I answer it correctly, then you have to take me and my two friends across the river. Deal?”

  The ferryman bows his head and considers for a while. Finally he nods. “Deal,” he says.

  I rub my hands together. “Ask away.”

  “What is the greatest secret in the universe?”

  “That the Lord and his secret names, his mantras, are identical. In other words, when I say, ‘Krishna,’ then Krishna is present. Correct?”

  “Correct.” The ferryman gestures with his pole. “Get in the boat.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  While I’m getting settled, my two friends appear. The young one, the blonde, sits near me at the front, while the wise one sits in the center, which is smart. Her position helps distribute the weight in the boat. Standing at the other end, the ferryman pushes off the shore with his pole.

  “We’re finally on our way,” I say, excited.

  My blond friend smiles. She looks glad for me.

  The wise one simply nods. She appears more cautious.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The boat itself is a curiosity. Except for a heavy pole fastened to the rear, and the oars, the craft appears to have been carved from a single thick tree. The wood’s a deep gray, the texture surprisingly soft. Except for the somber color, it reminds me of balsa wood.

  The ferryman uses his pole to get us going then switches over to his oars. The river’s current is sedate. Facing away from the shore, it slowly pulls us to the right. The black water is like a stream of ink. Even with all the boats coming and going, it hardly ripples. For some reason, I can tell it’s deep, and that it would be impossible to swim across.

  My mind begins to clear the moment we leave the shore.

  I ask the others if they feel the same and they say yes.

  “But don’t count on it to last,” the wise one says. “This is a place of transition. What I think, even what I see, is not necessarily going to be the same as you.”

  “Why’s that?” I ask.

  “It’s just the way it is.”

  “How do you know so much about this place?”

  “I told you, I’ve seen it before in visions.”

  “You’re lucky. I feel like I’m lost in a weird Bardo realm.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” she says.

  The blonde speaks up. “But we passed the riddles. We’re on our way.”

  “I wish I knew where we were going,” I say, as I stare out over the bow of the boat. The black is like a thick cloud, sprinkled with burning lanterns. It makes me wonder if the river even has another shore. Still, a part of me is relieved. It’s good to be away from that haunted beach.

  I can only hope Lieutenant Gregory Holden of the Fifth Army finally figures out his riddle. I have an affinity for men who fought in World War II. I was in Europe at the time and helped kick the Nazis’ butts. Plus Gregory seemed like a nice guy, and he died fighting for his country. You’d figure the ferryman would give him a break and ask him something easy. Like who General George Patton was.

  Eventually, after an hour or so, we catch sight of a massive mound dotted with thousands of red lights. As we come closer, I see that each light is a torch, burning darkly and hanging at the end of an endless number of tunnels that burrow deep into the hill, or whatever the hell it is. Most of the tunnels are located at water level, but a few are up high, definitely out of reach, at least from the river.

  I can’t see any stairs or paths on the side of the mound. More than anything, it looks like a gigantic stone that somehow thrust its way up from the bowels of the earth. Assuming, of course, that the earth is still a factor in this crazy twilight zone.

  The ferryman steers us to a tunnel that’s only two feet above the water and beckons the wise woman to climb out. I try to follow—I want to stick with her—but the ferryman stops me. It’s only then I realize he’s going to drop each of us at our own tunnel and break up our happy family.

  Naturally, I protest, but at that instant the ferryman lifts his head and his hood falls back and I see that his eyes are . . . well, the guy doesn’t have any eyes, just black holes in his head. I decide to sit back down.

  The ferryman spends a long time locating the next tunnel, where he deposits the blonde. I’m not surprised that he leaves me until last. I’m having that kind of day. By now I’m anxious to get away from the guy. Besides creaking when he moves and having no eyes, he starts to make a weird clicking sound with his teeth. It’s probably his version of singing along with the car radio. I’m relieved when he finally finds my tunnel. It’s five feet above the water line but I don’t care, I jump into it, and don’t bother to wave good-bye to the ferryman.

  The tunnel, although narrow, is an improvement
from the original cave I found myself in, the one where I said good-bye to Teri. It appears to have been constructed. The curved walls and flat floor are made of tightly fitted stones, each engraved with runes and symbols that I don’t recognize.

  Like at the start of the first cave, I see a burning torch and grab it, not sure what kind of light I’m going to find along the path. The flames give off a bloody hue; they’re more red than orange.

  I talk to myself as I hike through the tunnel, just a bunch of nonsense, but the sound of my voice hardly carries beyond the reach of my arms. The stone appears to have a dampening effect and it freaks me out enough that I soon shut up. The place is so silent all I can hear is my heartbeat.

  Except I no longer seem to have a heart.

  I stop to check my wrist but can’t find a pulse.

  “Great,” I whisper.

  There’s nothing to do, I have to keep going. Once again, like on the shore of the river, I feel a palpable heaviness that might be signaling an approaching storm if only there were sky. I walk for what feels like hours before I come to the end of the tunnel.

  But it’s an end that brings no relief because the tunnel terminates in a precipice, a cliff, nothing. Yet a hundred yards away, across the abyss, I see that my tunnel does in fact continue. Unfortunately, there’s no bridge, not even a piece of rope, to help me to the other side. It makes me wonder if I pissed off the ferryman by demanding a second chance. Or maybe the bony dude was able to read my mind and he heard exactly what I thought of his clicking teeth routine. Whatever, the ferryman has chosen a rotten tunnel to dump me at.

  Above and below is black.

  I have absolutely no idea what to do next.

  I mean, if I was alive, and feeling my usual vampire self, I’d take a running start and leap across the chasm and probably make it to the other side. But since I don’t have a beating heart, I figure I’m nowhere near strong enough for such heroics.

  “That goddamn ferryman,” I mutter.

  Propping my torch up against the opposite wall, I sit on the floor and stretch out my legs and pray for help. Even though all the books I read on near-death experiences were turning out to be wrong, I was hoping they were right when it came to the power of prayer. For they said that no matter how lousy a place you ended up in when you died, you could always pray your way out of it.

  I recite every prayer I know and nothing happens.

  “At least send someone to ask me a riddle!” I yell.

  Maybe the prayers work, after all.

  A few minutes later something happens.

  A figure appears at the end of the tunnel, across the way. She isn’t carrying a torch but I can see her clearly, maybe because she glows with a greenish light. Her eyes are also green, her hair long and black, and her skin is so white it looks as if she only bathes outside when the moon is full. Her beauty is undeniable. She has sharp features and not a single wrinkle. To top it off, her long white gown has been cut from a fairy tale. She smiles and waves to me and I wave back.

  Privately, I hope she’s not into riddles.

  “Hello!” she calls. “Do you want to come across?”

  I stand. “Do you have a rope?”

  She laughs at my question, like I’m being silly, and then steps over the edge. Inside, I cringe, expecting a catastrophic fall, but she doesn’t go anywhere. Rather, her bare feet appear to step onto an invisible bridge that responds ever so faintly to the pressure of her pale skin. Wherever she puts her toes, for an instant, a bunch of green sparks flash. It takes her only a few seconds to cross the chasm.

  “Do you want to come across?” she repeats shyly, and I expect a blush but her skin remains as white as snow. I feel the coolness of her breath, and her eyes are no ordinary green. They could have been cut from the coral of a tropical lagoon. Staring into them, I feel my thoughts begin to swim. . . .

  “Yes,” I reply, shaking my head to clear it. I gesture to the invisible bridge, if that’s what it is. “I just have to walk across like you?”

  She comes near, lightly brushing my right arm with her green nails. “For you, that won’t work, you’ll fall. I’ll have to lead you across.”

  “Okay.”

  She comes closer, until I feel the soft pressure of her breasts on my chest. Tilting her head to the side, she closes her eyes and says in a husky whisper, “Give me a kiss.”

  I pull back. “I’m sorry?”

  Her eyes spring open. “Don’t you find me attractive?”

  “I don’t know you. I don’t know who you are.”

  She grins mischievously. “You’re a woman and I’m a woman. What does it matter? There are no rules here.”

  “Why don’t we talk about it on the other side?”

  She giggles and shakes her head. “First a kiss, then we’ll talk.”

  “Just one kiss? Then you’ll help me across?”

  “Yes.” She puts her palm over my heart and bats her dark lashes. “Then you’ll be safe with me.”

  The way she says “safe” makes me cringe.

  Her touch feels . . . moldy.

  The woman senses my reluctance. With a sweeping motion, she gestures to the gorge. “I’m the only one who can rescue you. Otherwise, you’ll be trapped here forever.”

  “But why the kiss?”

  She laughs like I’m being foolish. “There is no why. Not here, not now.”

  I hesitate. She’s an attractive woman, and although I’m primarily heterosexual, I have no inhibitions about swinging the other way. Humans make too big a deal about sex, how it should be performed, whereas to me sex is the one area of life that should be free of rules.

  But there’s something about her that disturbs me. For example, her mocking demeanor makes me feel nothing she says or does is genuine. I’m just a pawn for her to play with for a while and then discard. Also, she’s got that Emerald City green-glow thing going. It reminds me too much of Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she was a witch.

  “I don’t believe you,” I say.

  My remark doesn’t offend her. Licking her lips, she stares at me as if I were the best thing to come along since Hansel and Gretel. Her grin swells.

  “Belief doesn’t matter, either,” she says, trying to lick my face. I take a step back and feel the wall of the tunnel on my shoulder blades. The edge of the precipice is three feet to my left, she’s two feet in front, her white dress scraping the floor of the tunnel, her green eyes as cold as ice carved from a Neptunian glacier.

  It might be my imagination but in the blink of an eye her face changes. I had thought her features flawless but now I see scarring on her right cheek, stretching from her mouth to her eye, and I realize at some point in her past she was severely burned. Ordinarily the sight would evoke pity in me, yet the way she keeps staring at me, the smacking sound her lips keep making, leads me to believe her lust for me is actually closer to hunger.

  “I’m not going to kiss you,” I say.

  She keeps her grin but it looks stiff and artificial.

  “Why not?”

  “Like you said, there is no why. Not here, not now.”

  She doesn’t get angry, at least she doesn’t show it. From the folds of her white gown, though, she draws a silver needle and holds it up for me to see. The metal glitters in the light of the torch I left propped up against the wall and I see the tip is stained with blood. She brings it near my right eye.

  “Do you know what this is?” she asks.

  “No.”

  “Your destiny.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s your last and future sin.”

  “How can it be my last sin if I haven’t committed it yet?”

  “Because your course is set and you’re caught in a circle. With this needle you’ll damn your soul for eternity.”

  Finally, she seems to be telling the truth. But I refuse to admit that, even to myself. “You’re lying.”

  “
No,” she gloats, lowering the needle and letting its tip play across my neck, scratching the skin above my jugular. “You know what you put in this needle, and who you chose to give it to.”

  I don’t have a clue what she’s talking about.

  “If it hasn’t happened yet, I can change it,” I say.

  The witch, and I’m now certain that’s what she is, presses her face so close to mine I feel her breath. With every inhalation and exhalation, I see the wounds on her face deepening. Her breath is like acid, her own saliva burns her from the inside out. Her tongue stretches out and she licks the tip of my nose and I feel its sting.

  “Your only hope is to kiss me and let me lead you across the bridge,” she says, and the words appear in my mind before she speaks them. “Then when you reach the Scale, you’ll be under my protection.”

  “What Scale are you talking about?” I ask.

  “The Scale of right and wrong. Of good and bad.”

  “Are you talking about my karma?”

  She throws her head back and laughs. “Your karma! You’ve lived so long you have mountains of karma. No, I’m talking about now, and what follows it.”

  “You mean, tomorrow?”

  The witch ignores my question. “There’s poison in these needles.” Her needle comes to rest above my jugular and I fear she’s going to push it in. Even without a heart, I’m afraid.

  “I didn’t put it there,” I say.

  “Not yet. But you will.”

  “I’m not going to do anything anymore! I’m dead!”

  “Try telling that to the Scale.”

  “That’s what will judge me?” The way she says the word, I just know it’s a really big deal, like God or something.

  “The Scale is both judge and jury. It pronounces your . . . doom.” Her choice of words amuses her and she laughs loudly,

  “Shut up!” I snap.

  Except for a soft sick chuckle, she falls silent.

  “If I kiss you and go with you, I can avoid this doom?”

  “That’s right,” she says.

  She lies now. She is the worst of liars because she mixes in so much truth. “How do I know I can trust you?” I ask.