TWELVE

The Olympics are two months away. Our gang returns to Missouri, and Teri continues to train in earnest, while helping me with my novel, which I begin to work on with more enthusiasm. The tenor of my book has shifted. Now I’m focused on creating a futuristic civilization inhabited by two types of human beings—those who have subjected their bodies to nanotechnology, which boosts their physical and mental abilities far beyond normal, and a small minority of people who believe it’s best to remain the way nature intended. At the start of the story, the Nanots—as I call them—are in firm control of society. Indeed, it seems that normal humanity is about to become extinct.

I have no idea where the novel is going but don’t mind. I enjoy writing it, and that’s enough for me.

Shanti continues to get her surgeries, and her progress is so rapid that when her uncle pays her a surprise visit he doesn’t recognize her. The poor man breaks down and weeps with gratitude when he holds her in his arms.

Lisa’s state of mind improves when she gets a full-time teaching job at Truman College, taking over for a math professor for the summer semester. It’s apparent to the rest of us that Lisa is at heart an academic type and feels more comfortable in a university setting than in the marketplace.

After Teri makes the Olympic team, I see Matt less often. He excuses himself, saying he’s busy with his music, but I know he’s purposely avoiding me. His absence saddens me, but I don’t dwell on it. It’s almost a relief he’s not around. It makes me crave him less.

The Olympics are in London, and it’s been many years since I’ve left America. Although I was born in India, that country has changed so much in five thousand years it no longer feels like home. Nor does Europe. I came over to the New World with the Pilgrims, and although I’ve been back to Europe many times, if asked I would have to say I feel like an American.

I wonder if that’s why I feel unsettled at the prospect of traveling to London. The sensation comes over me after Teri qualifies for the team and grows as the date of our departure approaches. There’s no logical reason for my sense of dread. I simply feel that if I leave America, I won’t return.

It’s this feeling that pushes me to see Seymour Dorsten.

Ah, my beloved Seymour, I could write an entire book about him and still not express my feelings for him. As I mentioned before, although we’ve never physically met, Seymour’s written several novels about me, most of which have been fairly accurate.

It’s a long story, and I know when we meet he’ll want an answer to the mystery of our relationship. Of course, he’ll have trouble accepting the truth of our psychic bond, because I have the same difficulty. My relationship with him is a puzzle words cannot explain.

I know where Seymour lives, in Manhattan. Even without checking with my sources, I’m always aware of his location. I just have to close my eyes to see through his eyes. It’s been that way since I first contacted him when he was a senior in high school. Naturally, Seymour later wrote that we became friends during that period, but I say it again: We’ve never met.

I tell the others I’ll be gone a few days. I don’t say where I’m going. It’s my way. When I land at JFK, I half expect Seymour to be waiting to pick me up. I suspect he feels me near, because I’ve mentally sent out the thought that I’m coming. This fact is puzzling, I realize. He doesn’t have to believe I exist in order to read my mind. When I deliberately link with him, he starts daydreaming about me, but he imagines the thoughts are his alone.

I’m acquainted with every detail of Seymour’s life. Fifteen years ago, on the verge of dying of AIDS, he lucked out when scientists developed the protease inhibitor. Like millions of people infected with HIV, practically overnight he went from someone with an expected life span of a few months to a relatively healthy young man. That’s not to say he doesn’t still have the virus. Seymour has to swallow a twenty-pill-a-day cocktail to stay healthy. But he’s alive, that’s what matters, and he’s had a remarkably successful life.

Like me, he’s a writer, but he’s a lot more famous, although for some reason he refuses to write under one name, on top of never using his real name. He’s adopted a half dozen pen names. When he writes teen thrillers, he’s Carol Kline. He publishes adult horror under Mike Fresher. Lately he’s begun to put out a mystery series under Harold Boxter, and he recently wrote a nine-hundred-page love story that reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list as Debra Singer. When he writes a Hollywood script, he always uses the name James Hart.

With each pen name, he has a different agent represent him. Because the agents don’t know he has so many identities, he avoids any legal issues. He’s unquestionably the most diverse writer on the planet. His muse knows no limit. His imagination puts my own to shame, and I’ve lived a hundred times longer.

However, despite the millions of books he’s sold, the scripts he’s had made into popular movies, he’s never made a single public appearance. He never does book signings, and his picture has never appeared on one of his novels. His privacy obsession is the one quality we share above all others.

Sometimes I think it is I who dreamed him up.

As I taxi into Manhattan, it’s lunchtime, and I know Seymour is buying a turkey sandwich and french fries at a deli not far from his austere condo, which is located near Central Park. He has millions in the bank but seldom touches them. He’s not into stuff. He enjoys movies, TV, books, long walks. He has a limited social life. In the fifteen years we’ve been connected, he’s had only one serious relationship, with a young woman named Linda Johnson. Not surprisingly, she looked a lot like me. But she left him, the fool, I don’t know why, and he’s dated little during the last ten years.

I spot Seymour as he leaves the deli, carrying his sandwich in a brown paper sack into the park. This is part of his routine. It’s not unusual for him to circle the park twice on foot in the same day. I follow at a distance, trying to figure out how to introduce myself. I eventually give up. I’ll just say hello and take it from there, what the hell. If I give him a heart attack, I can always carry him to the nearest hospital.

He sits on a relatively secluded bench overlooking a wide grassy area. It’s a Saturday. Children play with kites in the distance. Couples hold hands and pass by without thinking twice who he might be.

He’s not classically handsome, but to me he’s perfect. He’s skinny, because of his illness, and his brown hair desperately needs a stylist. He cuts it when it starts to bother him, not before. He has full lips and long lashes, giving him a slight cherub look, and there’s sorrow to the lines on his face that comes more from his depth than from any specific tragedy. There’s also a warmth in his brown eyes I see in few people. As I stand nearby and study him, I feel his loneliness as strongly as his empathy, and know one has given birth to the other. A high IQ didn’t make him a brilliant writer—it’s his heart. No one I’ve ever met has Seymour’s heart.

And he’s never met me.

I walk over and sit beside him on the bench.

He turns and looks at me and blinks.

“Hello,” I say.

He has to find the word. “Hi.”

I offer my hand. “I’m Alisa. Mind if I join you?”

We shake. “Seymour. No, I don’t mind.”

“Thanks.” I take back my hand, almost swooning at his touch. For an instant I felt as if I was in his body as much as my own. He, too, looks rattled. I add, “Do you come here often?”

“Almost every day.” He tries to keep eating, to act casual, but clearly my appearance has shaken him. Yet he does not guess who I am. How can he? I’m a character in a story he wrote long ago—I don’t exist. “How about you? Are you from around here?” he asks.

“No.”

“Just visiting?”

“I have a friend who lives nearby.”

“It’s an interesting city. You meet the strangest people.”

“Do you fit into that category?”

Looking down, he shakes his head. “Not really. But hang around the park and you’ll run into lots of writers, actors, and artists. You just have to be careful to separate the true crazies from the moderately insane.”

“Which category do you fall into?”

“Oh, I’m completely nuts. You don’t want to talk to guys like me after dark. It’s not safe.”

“I know how to take care of myself.”

“You sound pretty confident.”

“Yeah.”

He frowns. “Alisa, forgive me, this is going to sound silly. But have we met before?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You remind me of someone.”

“An old girlfriend?”

“Not exactly. Have you been to New York before?”

“Sure. Our paths might have crossed. You look familiar to me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. To be blunt, it’s the reason I sat beside you. I thought, I don’t know, like we could be friends.”

“I don’t think your boyfriend would approve of that.”

“Who said I came here to see a boyfriend?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I just assumed.”

“At the moment, I’m completely unattached.”

“The way you look, I’m surprised you’re ever alone.”

I reply in a serious tone. “I’m used to being alone. I’ve been alone most of my life.”

He looks over and studies me. “Why?”

“It’s the way I am.” I shrug. “I could ask you the same question.”

“How do you know I’m such a loner?”

“I can tell by the way you sit here. You like to hang out in the park and watch people walk by and imagine what’s going on inside them. At the same time, your mind can be light years away, and you don’t see anyone.”

He’s forgotten his food. He’s a long time answering.

“You’re a mind reader, Alisa.”

“So are you, Seymour.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Maybe.” He pauses. “What’s your last name? If I may ask.”

“That’s a dangerous question.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Pry away, that’s not what I’m worried about.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I call myself Alisa Perne. But that’s not my real name.”

He frowns. “Is Alisa Perne a stage name?”

“Sort of. Few people know my real name.”

“Are you an actress?”

“I’m acting right now.”

“What do you mean?”

I reach over and touch his arm. “It’s been a long time.”

He feels the connection we share, it’s impossible to deny. Yet he denies it anyway. “It’s been a long time since what?” he asks.

“You really don’t recognize me?”

“Like I said, you look familiar, but—”

“You recognize my name,” I interrupt.

He goes very still, turning to stone, inside and out. I feel his shock as if it were my own. But he’s not crazy. He’s smart and rational. He knows I can’t exist, so he doesn’t let me exist. Yet he has a problem. I’m sitting right in front of him.

The pressure is too great. He goes to stand.

“I’m sorry, I have an appointment I have to keep. It was nice meeting you.”

I reach out and yank him back down. I use my strength—he feels it.

“You’re not going anywhere,” I say.

I have scared him. He rubs his arm where I grabbed him. I might have squeezed him too hard. “What do you want?” he asks in a harsh tone.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” I say.

“You think I’m afraid of you?”

“Aren’t you? Seymour Dorsten.”

“How do you know my last name?”

“I know all about you.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“I told you, you’re not listening.”

“What do you want from me?”

“To look at me. To listen to me. You know me as well as I know you. You might even know me better than I know myself.”

He stands. “You’re crazy.”

I stare up at him and speak in a softer voice. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m going now.” He turns away. “Don’t follow me.”

I talk to his back. “Seymour?”

He stops. “What?”

“Please don’t go. I want . . . I just want to talk awhile.”

Turning, he puts his hands on his hips. “Why did you get all crazy on me?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I’m kind of nuts.”

“You seemed all right at first.”

“I was trying to shock you into recognizing me. I guess it didn’t work.”

“How can I recognize you when I don’t know you?”

“Would you sit down?”

“No.”

“Please. I won’t grab you again. I’m sorry I hurt your arm.”

He rubs his arm as he sits back down. “How’d you get so strong?”

“That’s a long story.”

“How do you know my last name?”

“Another long story.”

“Alisa—”

“But it’s a story you know. You’re the one who wrote it.”

“You’re starting to act nutty again. I’m going to leave.”

I offer my hand. Not to shake, simply to hold. He stares down at it a long time, then looks in my eyes. “You have beautiful eyes,” he says, finally taking my hand.

“Thank you. Do they remind you of anyone?”

Again, he lowers his head. “It’s not possible,” he whispers.

I squeeze his hand gently. “At the end of your story, you wrote how you wished it was possible. That I really existed.”

A tear appears on his cheek. He wipes it away and another appears.

“I wrote that a long time ago. It was my first book, about a girl who thought she was the last vampire on earth.” He takes back his hand and rubs his damp eyes. “How did you get a copy of it?”

“You think I read it?”

When he speaks next, his voice cracks. He’s getting close.

“You must have read it. To invent that stage name.”

“I’m not an actress, not really. And I never stole a copy of your book. I never read it, not in the usual sense of the word.”

“Tell me your real name.”

“Sita.”

He gasps. “No!”

“It’s true, it’s me.” I put my arm around his shoulder and move closer. He’s trembling, his eyes keep watering. Leaning over, I whisper in his ear. We sit together in a silent bubble. His thoughts speak to me as if they’re my own. “We wrote the books together. When we join like this, you can read my mind and I can read yours. But we don’t have to be physically close for it to happen. Years ago our minds bumped into each other, and you couldn’t stop thinking about me. That’s why the books you wrote about me were mostly true. I’m the last vampire, and you’re the one who told my story.”

He struggles to breathe. “I never published those books.”

“I know.”

“I printed out a copy, just one, then erased the file. It’s locked inside my desk drawer.”

“I know.”

“You weren’t at my high school. I never saw you there.”

“You made that part up. You wanted to put yourself in the story. A lot of writers do that. We never met, but I was there, at your school. I came for Ray. Remember? You wrote how I met his father, how I killed him, and why I needed to find out who hired him to spy on me.”

“Yaksha?”

“That’s right.” I keep whispering in his ear, but it’s almost as if I don’t speak at all. There’s no need, our connection is so tight. “Yaksha came for Ray and me. He tried to kill us, but in the end he let us go. You wrote it all down, every detail. For a long time, your mind and mine were linked. You followed me to Los Angeles, where I met Eddie. You were there when Ray died, and when I stopped Eddie.”

“You chopped off his head in a freezer?”

“That’s right. Then I changed Joel into a vampire, to save his life. But the FBI came after us, followed by the army, and Joel was captured. An old lover of mine, Arturo, was working with them. I didn’t know that at first, not until it was too late. Joel died and Arturo died, and things got messed up for a while. I made mistakes. Arturo left equipment behind that allowed me to become human again, and I used it on myself. I didn’t know I was pregnant with Arturo’s baby, and I gave birth to a daughter named Kalika.”

Seymour speaks as if in a trance. “Kali Ma.”

“She was a lot like the Goddess Kali. I didn’t know whether she was good or evil. When I changed into a human being, it was like I fell into a weird dream. I thought Ray was alive again and that he was living with me and my daughter. She grew at a rapid rate—she kept needing more blood. I captured a boy and kept him locked in a room and used his blood to feed her. It was never enough. Then, when she got older, she tried going after the baby of a friend of mine.”

“Suzama.”

“The baby belonged to a woman named Paula. She reminded me of Suzama because they were both visionaries. They could see the future. To stop Kalika from hurting Paula’s child, I changed back into a vampire. But my daughter was too powerful; it was like nothing could stop her. That’s when I made another mistake. I sought out the help of a cult that knew about Suzama’s prophecies. They believed she was supposed to be reborn in this time, and that her baby would be a divine child. When I joined forces with them, they pretended to help, but it was all a bunch of lies. Their leader was bent on sacrificing the child in a satanic ritual, and he would have, except Kalika helped me stop them. Remember what you wrote; it was all true. Kalika gave her life to stop them by sharing with me the last of her blood. She wasn’t evil.”

Seymour pulls back, his eyes fixed on me, his gaze bright. My voice, my words, have hypnotized him, but his trance is one of discovery. I know he feels as if he’s staring into a mirror framed with the pages he wrote about me, because that’s how I feel. As I relay the events of my life, it’s like I live them once again. It’s painful to speak of Kalika; I miss her to this day.

“Then you traveled into the past,” he says.

I shrug. “Perhaps. My mind went into the past, even if my body stayed here. There was an evil man, a sorcerer, named Landulf of Capula, who had stolen my blood in order to create a race of monsters. I was sent back in time to stop him from using the blood. It was like I was given a second chance to correct a major mistake. And I was successful.”

“Then you returned to the present?”

“Yes.”

He shakes his head. “Wait. That’s not what happened. You tried to come back, but your body died in the present and you stayed in the past, in India, where you were born. You met Krishna, and he gave you a chance to live a normal life. To have never become a vampire.”

“That’s what you wrote, and maybe in some other universe that’s true. But that’s where your mind and my mine deviated. I returned to the present after I defeated Landulf. Then I went on with my life.”

Seymour is doubtful. “How could I get so much right and yet be so wrong in the end?”

I stroke his hair. “Our thoughts got so entwined, you reached a point where you didn’t know if you were writing about me or yourself. You had an advanced case of AIDS. You were dying. I’m not surprised you chose to kill me at the end of your story. You probably felt we should die together.” I pause. “But you didn’t die. The scientists developed those amazing drugs, and you got better. And as you continued with your life, I left you alone for a long time. I stopped sending you my thoughts.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m a vampire, and so much of my life is about death, even though I’m immortal. I wanted you to be free of the burden of my long life. Free to write stories of your own. Free to love girls who didn’t want to drink your blood.”

“Do you really drink blood?”

“It’s what I am, a vampire.”

“The last vampire?”

Finally, I let go of him and look away. “I don’t know. I thought I was, but I have been wrong in the past, and maybe I’m wrong now. It’s one of the reasons I’ve sought you out. I need your advice.”

He is silent for a long time.

“I want to believe you. But it’s crazy, you know.”

I point to two skyscrapers at the far end of the park. “What if, tonight, I leap from that building to that one. Will you believe me then?”

“I’d have to.”

“Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“I’ll do that tonight. You can watch. Then will you help me?”

“You know from the books how much I love to give you advice.”

“I need it now more than ever.”

He stands and throws his sandwich in a nearby garbage can. He stretches in the sunlight and smiles. “I have two conditions, Sita.”

“What?”

“If you turn out to be the real thing, then you have to let me come with you. And you can never leave me, not until I say so.”

I stand and offer my hand. “Deal.”