FOUR
Late in the night I awake to find Matt sound asleep beside me in bed. All awareness of Teri has vanished. Inside at least, I’m alone again.
In the first century after Yaksha changed me into a vampire, I used to sleep as much as six hours. But that was during the day, never at night. At night I was at my strongest and I hunted.
It was only as the centuries passed that the need to sleep diminished, until I required as little as an hour of unconsciousness to recharge myself. I’m used to taking an hour nap at midday. Yet I know Matt prefers to rest for three or four hours at night. I can’t imagine lying silently beside him for that long. I feel restless and slip out of bed and go in the other room.
I try watching TV, the news, but nothing holds my attention. The suite’s living room haunts me, the area where I killed Ken. Immediately after his murder, I was too busy dealing with his body to dwell on what I had done. Then, seeing Matt, making love to him for the first time, I forgot about Ken altogether.
However, now my eyes keep straying to the spot where I shattered his nose on the tile. I notice the phone has been left off the hook. Matt must have disconnected it at some point, I don’t remember when. The police have probably tried to call. Chances are they’ll come to the hotel, probably early in the morning. It might be wise to leave before they arrive, yet that might make me look more guilty.
I’m unsure what to do, I only know that a young man, with his whole life in front of him, has been wiped off the face of this earth just to satisfy my thirst. Viewed objectively, from a state where I feel not the slightest need for blood, to kill a person simply to satisfy an unnatural bodily urge seems ridiculous. The pettiness of my motive coupled with the brutality of my act makes my guilt feel all the deeper.
I recall having the same thoughts five thousand years ago. Immediately after my first kill, I shared them with Yaksha, and what did he do? He just shook his head and said I would get used to it. And I did.
Now it looks like I’ll have to get used to it all over again.
“No,” I whisper aloud. I can drink without killing. I can take a pint from a person—preferably a large person—then hypnotize them, make them forget. Matt can help me, he promised he would.
Yet the thought of having to depend on another, when I have taken care of myself for so long, depresses me. I don’t want to be Matt’s pet, always having to follow him around. I have to find another way.
I feel the urge to go for a run. My body does, at least. The desire should not surprise me. Teri ran every day of her life. Changing into shorts and a sweat top, lacing up a pair of Nikes, I slip my card key and a credit card in my pocket and leave the hotel.
It’s after midnight. The streets are relatively empty. I run without direction, without purpose, and yet it feels good, so I suppose that is reason enough. I run fast and don’t feel tired. Surprisingly, a portion of my endurance comes from the rigors Teri subjected her body to as a mortal. The girl just won the gold medal in the metric mile at the Olympics. Teri’s legs are longer than my old ones and I enjoy the longer stride. Sweat pours from my hair and into my eyes. My heart pounds. I feel as if I fly over the ground.
An hour goes by. Two.
I’m twenty miles from the hotel when I spot the cemetery.
And here I thought I was running aimlessly.
I have come back to my grave for a reason. Something is happening with my body, something that calls to me. I remember studying my chest wound that morning, how it appeared to be closing, to be healing, despite the fact the body was dead. But is it truly dead? Why should it draw me so intensely if there’s no living spark left inside it?
I don’t stop running until I stand beside my grave.
The plot has been disturbed.
Hell, forget disturbed. Whoever replaced the dirt was in a hurry and didn’t give a damn how suspicious it looked. I don’t have to dig the coffin up to be sure. I know that someone has stolen my body. The mud and dirt are strewn all over the place and I can actually hear my violated coffin groaning under the weight of the earth dumped on top of it. Whoever tore off the lid of the box used a crowbar or an axe, some such subtle instrument, obviously, and cracked the wood in a dozen places.
On the far side of the cemetery, half a mile away, I hear a car start. Summoning every bit of Teri’s finishing kick, I race toward the sound. But I’m too late, all I do is catch a glimpse of a vanishing station wagon.
Yet I see the license plate, a California plate, HJK2622. The IIC and Ms. Brutran have offices in California, a fortress I’ve been to. And faintly, I catch a glimpse of the driver. He looks like a she, like a woman.
“What the hell?” I mutter.
Why would someone want my dead body?
My vampiric blood would be of no use to them.
Who knew I was dead?
Did we have a spy in our group?
A wave of fatigue sweeps over me. I’ve had enough exercise for one night. Outside the cemetery, I flag down a taxi and ride back to the Hilton. I’m practically at its doorstep when I redirect the cab to the Sheraton, where Paula Ramirez and her son are staying. It’s time I talked to John. I feel he owes me an explanation.
Paula answers the door, wearing red and white cotton pajamas. As usual, she doesn’t look surprised to see me. It’s hard to take a psychic by surprise. At the same time, she doesn’t look happy to see me.
“Teri. It’s late. What can I do for you?”
I push her aside and she gives way before me.
“I’m not Teri and you know it, so drop the act,” I snap, glancing around, looking for her son. I can hear him in the adjoining room. He sounds like he’s playing a computer game. Does the kid do anything else?
Paula folds her arms across her chest. “I sensed it. I wasn’t sure.”
“Right.”
“Believe what you want.” She pauses. “How did it happen?”
“That I switched bodies? Gee, I don’t know, isn’t that more up your alley?”
“Sita, stop. I had nothing to do with what happened to you.”
“Can your son say the same thing?”
Paula hesitates. “I don’t know.”
“I want to talk to him. And don’t tell me he’s busy or he doesn’t want to talk to me. I saved his life. My daughter died saving him. Even if he is a divine incarnation, he can stop playing his goddamn game for ten minutes and answer my questions.”
My rudeness is left over from the last time I tried to talk to John, on the Greek island Santorini. That was only a few weeks ago. He wouldn’t even see me.
Paula considers. “All right, let me talk to him, tell him you’re here. But I warn you . . .”
“No threats, Paula, I’m not in the mood.”
She leaves and is gone longer than I expect. But when she reappears she nods and gestures for me to enter the last room on the right, the master suite. As I trudge down the hall to confront John, my anger and impatience vanish. Either I hold the kid in too much awe or else he deserves it. My heart pounds harder than when I was running. My mind goes blank. What does one say to a god?
John sits cross-legged in the center of a king-sized bed with a laptop resting on his thighs. He’s a nice-looking guy, sixteen, close to seventeen, with a mature demeanor that makes him appear older. His hair is longish, dark and wavy, and his eyes are big and dark. He has lowered the laptop screen and removed his pair of headphones and is no longer focused on the computer. His eyes rest on me, or perhaps on a place ten million miles behind me.
I’m in the room two seconds and I cannot escape the feeling that he sees right through me. I stand at attention, waiting for him to make the first move. He gestures to a chair on his right.
“Have a seat,” he says in a calm voice, or should I say a magical tone. Three simple words and a wave of peace washes over me. My frantic heart slows, my whole body is suddenly at ease. I have to grope with my hands to find the chair because my eyes refuse to look anywhere other than at him.
Yet he’s just a kid. It makes no sense. Nothing does.
He stares at me a long time. I stare back.
“John,” I whisper.
He gives a faint nod. “What do you need?”
“I need to know who you are.”
“You ask with words. That’s natural. Your mind is filled with words. Most people think with the language they were first taught. You know many languages, but still, every concept you carry with you, every idea you have, is created from words.” He pauses. “But words cannot describe what I am.”
The way he speaks, the beautiful simplicity of his words, he sounds like Krishna. “Are you Krishna?” I ask.
“Krishna is a word.”
“Krishna is more than an ordinary word. It’s a mantra that’s supposed to embody the vibration of the supreme. Do you represent that vibration?”
“Of course. As do you and everyone else you know.”
“I can think of a few people who have nothing to do with Krishna.”
“You refer to the Telar and the IIC. You consider these people evil. To be disconnected from the supreme.” He shrugs. “But they’re no more separate from the whole than the Light Bearer.”
I gasp. “Lucifer!”
“Yes.”
“How did you know I was thinking of him?”
“I can see it on your face.”
I hesitate. “Something terrible happened to me ten days ago. I took a Telar captive, a woman named Numbria. While I was interrogating her, I fell asleep and dreamed about being trapped in hell. Only it was much more than a dream. I felt like I was really there, as if I was having a vision. At the end of it Lucifer came to me and I saw into his heart, or else he told me what he was. And I understood that he really was the Light Bearer, the greatest of all the angels. He knew it, that was the weird part, but he denied it because he hated God so much, even though he knew he was one with God.”
“Why was the dream so awful?”
I cannot stop the harshness from entering my voice. “It was awful because when I awoke from it I committed an atrocious act. The woman I was questioning—I ate her alive, slowly, horribly, with her screaming for mercy.” I stop. “I haven’t been the same since.”
“You were under the sway of a powerful compulsion.”
“I know, the Array invaded my mind and forced me to do it. But it makes no difference. Ever since I did it, I feel tainted somehow, like I’m now linked to Lucifer and everything he represents.”
“You are. He’s the Light Bearer. He’s one with his God.”
“That’s . . . that’s sick.”
“It’s true. It’s a paradox. The truth often is.”
“Can you take this tainted feeling away?”
“You experienced it for a reason. It will help you later. Best you hold on to it for now.”
“How the hell can it help me?”
John doesn’t answer, but smiles faintly.
I ask the question I should have started with.
“What did you do to me at the cemetery?”
“You were ready to die but you were afraid to die. A part of you wanted to go on living. It was the same with your friend. Only your will was stronger than hers.”
“So you put me in this body?” I ask.
“I strengthened your hold on it. You were already attached to it.”
“But why? If you had just left things alone, Teri would have grown accustomed to being a vampire. She would be here instead of me.”
“When you were alone together in the cave, she asked you to let her be. She did not want to die but she accepted it was her time. But you refused to let her go.”
“Are you saying I’m stuck in this body because of karma?”
“That’s one reason.”
“You’ve lived a long life, through an entire age. You’ve done many deeds, some great, some not so great. But there are still a few tasks left for you to accomplish. Your soul knew that, and for that reason, it was reluctant to leave this world.”
His words are hard to accept. I want to argue with him. But a part of me knows he speaks the truth. “What’s to become of Teri?” I ask.
“She’s dead.”
“But I feel her around me at times.”
“That feeling will pass.”
“That’s not fair. You have to bring her back.”
“You’ve read the Gita. You know the answer to that.”
I nod sadly. “All who are born die. All who die will be reborn.”
“Yes.”
“The Gita also says that whoever thinks of Krishna at the moment of death goes to his abode. What happened to me when I died? How come I didn’t see him?”
“You don’t remember what you saw.”
“Then help me remember!” I plead. “I need to see him again.”
“What will you do if you see him? Will you be able to leave him?”
I understand what he is trying to tell me. “You’re saying I have to complete these tasks before I can go to his abode.”
He nods. His computer beeps and he raises the screen and hastily pushes a button. He turns back to me and sits silently.
“Why do you play that goddamn game?” I remember that Seymour had played the game with John. It was called Cosmic Intuitive Illusion, CII; IIC spelled backward. I remember what Seymour said when I asked what the goal of the game was.
“Survival. But all games are about that. It starts on earth and you have to fight your way out of here to higher, more exotic worlds. The ultimate goal appears to be to reach the center of the galaxy.”
“To let the others know I’m here,” John replies.
“Who are the others?”
“You’d do better to ask what is behind the Array.”
“If I discover that, will I know who you’re playing against?”
“You’ll have a better idea.”
I feel frustrated. “Is all this a play to you? Our struggle with the Telar and the IIC? Do you just watch and wait? At the last moment are you going to make everything all right?”
“This is a world of choice.”
“You’re saying you cannot interfere with our freedom of choice?”
John nods. His computer beeps and he hits another button. I hear an electronic explosion and hope one of the bad guys has bitten the dust.
I know he is about to ask me to leave, so I persist with my questions. But I phrase the next one differently. I make it a statement and verbally force him into the position of Krishna.
“But you do interfere,” I say. “You’ve saved me a number of times.”
John stops playing his game, pushes down the screen, reaches out, and brushes the hair from my eyes. Our eyes lock and I feel I never want him to let go. His eyes are no longer dark brown but a black blue, and so deep, so bright, I feel that if I fall into them I’ll fall forever and never want to stop. His love is blinding; it obliterates everything else. I almost forget why I came to him, what I asked or how he answered. I just feel safe, eternally protected, and he confirms the feeling when he tells me the same thing Krishna did five thousand years ago.
“Sita. My grace is always with you.”