TWENTY-EIGHT
We end up in a hole-in-the-wall motel in the Nevada desert, in a small town called Baker. The town is famous for being a place to drive through while on the way to Las Vegas, it being only a half an hour outside of Sin City. In the summer the average temperature is a hundred and ten. In the fall—the present—it drops to a comfortable ninety-nine. I can only assume the people who live in Baker are preparing for an eternity in hell.
We rent three rooms for twenty-five dollars each. Since we stole the truck we arrived in, we park it a mile away to disassociate ourselves from it.
Each room has either twin beds or a queen-sized bed. Shanti and I end up with the latter. We’ll be sharing the same mattress, although I doubt I’ll sleep much.
Our room comes with a creaky air conditioner that blows freezing air for fifteen minutes before stopping for the rest of the hour. It is like it knows how little we paid for the room and it doesn’t want to overwork itself.
I offer to go out and get Shanti a bag of ice.
“You can sleep with it near your head. It will keep your blood from boiling.”
“I’m from India, I don’t mind the heat,” she reminds me. She has just come out of the shower and is combing her long black hair. I’ve showered as well and am sitting in an oversized Lakers T-shirt I bought at a nearby gas station. It’s all I wear, I’m not shy, but Shanti has on a cotton robe she’d be better off without.
“I’m sorry about the mess we’re in,” I say. “I keep fighting to get rid of our enemies, but no matter how many battles we win, the situation keeps getting worse.”
Shanti shakes her head as she presses her dripping hair with a towel.
“I think the situation’s improving,” she says. “A month ago we had the Telar and the IIC both trying to kill us. Now they’re largely out of the picture and we just have a computer virus to worry about.”
“It’s not a virus, it’s a program. And it’s probably smarter than us. I can’t begin to imagine how we can destroy it.”
“If the story about the Hydra’s true, then maybe it’s the immortal head that never dies, and the best we can do is bury it somewhere.”
“Hopefully in a mainframe in Antarctica.”
“If that’s what it takes,” Shanti says.
“I can see a computer program being written so that it could infiltrate the FBI and all the other law enforcement databases and convince them that we’re dangerous people that need to be tracked down and arrested. But what I don’t understand is how fast it went into operation. We blew up the kids and half an hour later we’re on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. It’s like someone tipped the program off.”
“A lot of IIC people escaped the blast.”
“I arranged for most of them to escape. But how many of them knew about the Cradle’s Internet program?”
“It sounds like the thing’s haunting you,” Shanti says.
“It is. Cindy’s remark about a program, no matter how sophisticated it is, still needing a human liaison stuck with me. The woman might be a monster but she’s insightful.”
“So you’re saying there is another Cradle out there?”
“No. Like I said in the van, I think the Cradle would have called in all its resources to fight the Source. Plus, when I joined with the kids, I never sensed them thinking about another Cradle.”
“Could you read their thoughts?” Shanti asks.
“I had a sense of the sum of their minds. Trust me, that last time we went after the Source, they were scared. They thought the Link was going to fry them.”
“Maybe they sensed the virus working in their blood.”
I lower my head. “Maybe.”
Shanti drops her towel and looks distressed. “I’m sorry, I said that without thinking. I know how hard it was for you to give the order to inject them with the virus. That’s the kind of decision I could never make.”
“What would you have done in my shoes?”
“I’m the wrong person to ask.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m weak, I can’t hurt a fly.”
“Making life-and-death decisions doesn’t make a person strong. But when I weighed the risks of letting the kids go, it just felt too dangerous.”
“I understand.”
“How did you feel during the final session? You came out of it looking like hell.”
“Just sitting near it gave me an awful headache.”
“So you did link with us?”
“Yes.”
“What did you experience during the session?”
“I didn’t see things as clearly as you. But I did see images of Egypt and how the Telar were hiding in a temple beneath the sand. I guess because I’ve spent time with her, I felt Umara close at hand. I sensed when she spoke to you.”
Her clarity surprises me. “I didn’t know your intuition was so sharp.”
“I thought you did. Wasn’t my intuition the reason the IIC paid Marko a ton of money to whack me?”
“You have a point. Tell me more about what you saw during the session.”
Shanti returns to drying her hair. “Like I said, I could hear you and Umara exchanging thoughts. You said something about having to die to know the truth and she said you had already died.”
“Then what happened?”
“It was strange, I felt like I was back on that mountain where Teri broke her leg. You were there, and Seymour and Matt. Only it was right after you got shot. You were lying on the ground, dead.”
“Did you see anything else? Did you see my spirit?”
“I think I felt it nearby. But I’m not sure.”
“That was the start of my journey into the underworld.”
“Really? What was that like? Did you see Krishna?”
“My whole experience, it was like a Greek myth. I took a tunnel down into the underworld. There I met people who had recently died, and others who had died ages ago, all wandering beside a black river. It was like the River Styx. There were ferrymen that would take you across the river, but only if you answered the riddle they asked.”
“What did they ask you?”
“That part’s hard to recall. When they would ask a question, if you didn’t get it right, you’d forget it right away.”
“How many riddles did they ask?”
“Three. I remember that much. I got the last one right. That’s why the guy took me across the river. He asked, ‘What’s the greatest secret in the universe?’ I told him that Krishna’s name was identical with Krishna. That’s why repeating it was so magical.”
Shanti is impressed, which is understandable, given the fact that she is a Hindu. “That’s straight out of the Vedas.”
“I know,” I say quietly.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You suddenly look sad.”
“I’m not sad.” I’m doomed, I want to scream. The answer got me across the river but that’s as far as it got me. It was all a bunch of lies, what the Vedic scriptures said, a monster like me could never be saved.
“Try to remember another riddle,” Shanti says.
“I told you, I got them wrong so I forgot them right away.” I pause. “But I do remember this witch. I wasn’t sure why I ran into her. She was in charge of an invisible bridge that crossed a chasm. She kept pushing me to kiss her. If I did, she promised to take me to the other side of the cliff. But there was something wrong about her. I didn’t trust her. Her face was all scarred . . .” I stop. “Oh, Shanti, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that her scars made her a bad person.”
Shanti’s lower lip trembles but she hides it by quickly shaking her head. “That’s all right. People are always judging others by how they look. It gets programmed into everyone that beautiful is good and ugly is evil.”
“Continue with your story. It’s fascinating.”
“There was something else about the witch. She was beautiful to start with. It was only when I got close to her, and said no to her offer, that she changed.”
“Did she ask you a riddle?”
“The ferryman was the only one who did that. But I was told each riddle was supposed to be important. They were supposed to be clues to help a person on their way.”
“How did you get past the witch?”
“It’s funny you should ask. The second riddle came back to me when I was wrestling with her. The ferryman asked, ‘What’s the greatest quality a human can possess? The one quality that can be the most dangerous?’” I pause. “Do you know the answer?”
Shanti makes a face. “That’s tough. There are so many good qualities that, when you take them too far, end up being bad.”
“Say you didn’t take the quality too far. Say you just interpreted it backwards.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t either. That’s why I got it wrong.”
“Then how do you remember it?” Shanti asks.
“Like I said, the answer came to me later, when I was with the witch. It helped me get away from her.”
“What’s the answer?”
“Come on, Shanti! You have to at least guess.”
She laughs as she combs her hair. “I’m going to say discipline. If you’re disciplined, you can accomplish almost anything in life. But if you’re too disciplined, you never take time off to enjoy yourself.” She giggles. “Am I right?”
“You’re close.”
“How close?”
“Well, not that close. The correct answer is faith.”
Shanti frowns. “How can faith be bad?”
“Krishna gave a talk on faith. It’s in Yaksha’s book. It’s brilliant. First he describes how faith can allow you to accomplish anything in life. How a deep confidence in oneself allows you to overcome all obstacles. He explains how absolute faith can even lead to God.”
Shanti nods. “That’s what I was taught growing up.”
“There’s another side to faith. Krishna was probably the first person to use the phrase ‘blind faith.’ He said that faith without experience was useless. To believe something just because you’re told to believe it leads to dogma and deeper bondage.”
“But isn’t that the point of faith? No one can be sure if there’s a God or not. You just have to believe in him.”
“I believe Krishna’s approach to spirituality was more scientific. He said that whatever path you follow in life, you should uncover small proofs along the way so you know you’re going the right way. Otherwise, you could end up chasing illusions.”
“I can’t imagine a talk like that being in the Vedas,” Shanti replies. She continues to look unhappy and I can only assume I’ve trodden on sacred ground.
“I don’t want to get into a religious argument with you. I just want you to understand how the riddle saved me from the witch. When I stopped to consider that I was dead, I realized I could no longer be hurt. That gave me the faith or the courage to jump into the chasm.”
“Where did you fall to?”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Why not? Your story keeps getting better.”
“Trust me, you wouldn’t like the next part.”
The fan inside our air conditioner suddenly screeches to a halt and the cold air stops. This time it’s only been on for five minutes. The room isn’t cool yet, and even Shanti looks unhappy.
“It would be hard to live here. It’s like this place is surrounded by fire,” she says.
The remark rings a bell. I’ve heard it before.
Something like it. About a world filled with fire.
There’s not much to do in the tiny room. Shanti prepares for bed. She brushes her teeth and finally takes off her robe and crawls under the sheets. I sit in the corner with Yaksha’s book. I don’t need the light on to read. I review Krishna’s version of the Hydra myth.
“As Hercules fought the monster, he was almost killed by its deadly breath, but eventually he removed all but one of the Hydra’s heads. The last one could not be destroyed by any man-made tool, so, picking up his club, Hercules crushed it and tore it off with his bare hands. With Iolaus’s help, he wisely buried it deep in the ground and placed a huge boulder over it lest it be disturbed by the future races of man.”
Today, I reflect, I destroyed two Hydras, the Source and the Cradle, and in a sense I cut off many heads. But only with the Source did I follow Krishna’s directions to the letter. When I killed Umara and removed the Telar’s protection.
But what of the Cradle?
They seemed to have no immortal head.
At least none that I knew about.
Unless it was their damn computer program.
“Does my reading bother you?” I ask.
“No,” Shanti mumbles from the bed. “What are you reading?”
“Yaksha’s book.”
“I’m glad you found it.”
“I have you to thank for it. You’re the one who flew it away from Arosa to safety.”
Shanti yawns and turns over in bed and readjusts her pillow. “That’s nice. Good night, Sita.”
“Good night.” I continue to stare at Yaksha’s book, not really reading it, just happy to have the original in my hands. Because I was sure the Telar had taken the original back. That I had only given Shanti a copy to take to the States.
“Shanti?”
“Hmm.”
“When you flew home with the book, and you showed it to Seymour, what form was it in?”
“Huh?”
“Was it the original or was it a copy?”
“I thought you gave me the original.”
“I gave you a copy.”
“I thought you wanted me to protect the original. In case it had secret messages hidden inside it. A copy wouldn’t have those.”
“I didn’t say anything about secret messages,” I say.
“Seymour told me about them. I hope that’s okay. We’ve become close. He shares stuff with me. He likes me to feel like I can help you and the others when I know I really can’t do much.”
“Gimme a break. You’re the one person who could protect me from the Cradle.”
“But I didn’t do anything to protect you.”
“You just had to be nearby. In that way you were like Umara. She just had to walk the earth and all the Telar could live forever.”
“Now that she’s dead, do you think they’ll start to die?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“That’s sad,” Shanti says.
“Not really. Many have lived for thousands of years.”
“I guess.” Shanti yawns. “Good night, Sita. I love you.”
I go to tell her I love her but something holds me back.
It bothers me, her story about Yaksha’s book.
Because it’s not true. I gave her a copy.
I had promised the man at the Swiss hotel, Herr Reinhart, that I would return the original to him intact. At the time I didn’t know he was Telar, and there’s no way I would have pawned off a bunch of photocopied pages on him and tried to convince him that it was Yaksha’s original manuscript. The idea was patently absurd.
Right now, though, I have the original in my hands.
But the Telar never gave it to me. Why should they?
It’s a mystery. One I can’t solve.
It strikes me then how close mysteries are to riddles.
In a sense, they are identical.
A strange déjà vu sweeps over me, and I feel as though the answer to the mystery surrounding Yaksha’s book can be found in the first riddle the ferryman asked me. On the surface, there is no logical link between the two questions, other than the fact that I don’t know the answer to either. In fact, I don’t even know what the first riddle was . . .
Then, just like that, sitting in this hot room, I remember.
Somehow the heat helps.
“What is the most useless human emotion?”
That was it! I told him fear. But that was wrong.
What was the right answer? Everyone in that place agreed that the ferryman wouldn’t ask a riddle that your life hadn’t taught you the answer to. That meant I must know the answer. Why won’t it come to me?
“Shanti?”
“Hmmm.”
“I want to apologize again for comparing you to a witch.”
“You didn’t compare me to her.”
“I meant her scars. I didn’t mean to say they reminded me of your scars.”
“Mine are all gone thanks to you.”
“I know. Your face looks great.”
Shanti hesitates. “Yeah.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Is something about your face still bothering you?”
“Well, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way.”
“I won’t.”
“But sometimes I feel like all the work the doctors have done is just an illusion.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I still feel ugly inside.”
“You’re not ugly. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Not outside, inside. Don’t you ever feel that way?”
“I did today.”
“When you injected the virus in the kids?”
My turn to hesitate. “Yes.”
“I have tons of guilt. Regret. Remorse.”
“Don’t those words all mean the same thing?”
“Yes, they’re synonyms.” I pause. “It’s odd, I had a talk with the ferryman about synonyms.”
“That must have been amusing.”
“There was not necessarily one answer for each riddle. You just had to get the meaning right.”
“That makes sense.” She pauses. “Sita?”
“Yes.”
“I’m exhausted. Can I sleep now?”
“Sure. Sorry to bother you. Sweet dreams.”
“Same to you. Good night.”
I sit in the dark. The air conditioner remains silent. It continues to get warmer. All I have on is a thin T-shirt and the sweat drips off of me.
“A word from me and you will be taken through the red door, where there is only fire and pain. There you will burn. But not like you burned on earth. In the world of the living you were a vampire. There you would heal quickly. But in the world of fire, there is no relief. There is only agony.”
It was Tarana who said that.
“Shanti?” I say.
She sits up in bed and stares at me.
“What’s bothering you?” she asks.
“Why did you lie to me about Yaksha’s book?”
“Lie to you? Why would I lie to you?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“Sita, honestly, I brought the original home. It’s sitting right there on your lap.”
“The first time we talked about this issue, I was in Teri’s body. I was confused. But now that I’m whole again, I’m a hundred percent sure I gave you a copy.”
“Then how did you end up with the original?”
“The question should be, how did you end up with it?”
“I don’t understand. Are you accusing me of stealing it?”
“That would be an amazing trick, to steal it from the Telar.”
Shanti stands, puts her robe back on, and comes over and sits on the seat beside me. Her plastic surgery doesn’t look so good when she’s tired and not wearing makeup. Her scars are much more visible. She reaches for my hand but I don’t take hers.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, worried.
I shrug. “Just asking a few questions is all.”
“No, you’re not. It’s like you suddenly don’t trust me.”
I stare at her. I don’t speak. Silence can cut the deepest.
Shanti grows restless. “Ask your questions and get it over with.”
“How did you block the Cradle?”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“I thought perhaps it was your goodness.”
“But you’ve changed your mind?”
“You know, the first time I was attacked by the Cradle, in Brutran’s house, it used you as an object of focus.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The Cradle struck and suddenly you were on her TV. You picked up a gun and forced it deep into your mouth. You pulled the trigger and blew away half your face. You ended up looking like, well, the day we met.”
Shanti nods sadly. “I remember that day. You were very kind to me.”
“You’re right, I fell for you immediately. That was unusual for me. Normally I warm up to people slowly. But right from the start, I wanted to take care of you.”
“I suppose I cast a spell on you.”
“Like a witch.”
Shanti glares. “If you’re going to sit there and insult me . . .”
“How long were you outside that London motel before you rushed in and saved me?” I interrupt.
“Seymour and I had just gotten there.”
“I always wondered about that morning. That was the worst time the Cradle ever struck me. I felt like I was in hell, literally. It was worse than when I was sitting in Brutran’s house. That always puzzled me. After all, Jolie was in Brutran’s house, and she was one of the leaders of the Cradle.” I pause. “You see what I’m getting at?”
“No.”
“I wonder if you were outside that motel room for an hour.”
“Yeah.”
“Doing what?” she asks.
“I don’t know.”
“What was Seymour doing during this hour?”
“Maybe nothing. Maybe he didn’t know what he was doing. Just like I didn’t know what I was doing.”
Shanti is annoyed. “Are you done?”
“How did you get ahold of Matt’s blood?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The Cradle needed a sample of his blood to attack him. But when I was in the Cradle and we attacked Lisa, I saw she hadn’t stolen it. I saw she was completely innocent.”
“Are you the one who killed her?”
“Yes. She was my sacrifice.”
Shanti stands and there appear to be real tears in her eyes. “You say that so casually. Like her death meant nothing to you.”
“You’re wrong. I feel terrible about her death. Now wipe away those fake tears and sit back down and answer my question. Did you steal Matt’s blood that day he slipped on the pool deck and cut his scalp?”
Shanti sits back down and wipes at her eyes.
“It was Lisa who bandaged his head,” she says.
“I know. That’s why I thought she was guilty. She threw away a lot of blood-soaked gauze when she was done with it. Tell me, did you take it?”
I smile. “You know what’s weird?”
“What?”
“I can always tell if a person’s lying or not.”
“So you’re absolutely sure I’m lying about the blood.”
“Not at all. I can’t tell with you. I get no clear signal at all. It’s like you’re not really in this room. But it was odd Matt was so careless with his blood. I think you had something to do with that. I’m sure it was you who stole it. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t Seymour or Teri or Lisa. You’re the only one left.”
Shanti acts bored. “Anything else?”
“You told Brutran I was dead. From the start, you were the mole. But for some reason she doesn’t know you’re the mole. It’s like you implanted the info in her head. Her whole attitude toward you is bizarre. It’s like she’s afraid of you but doesn’t know why.”
“Do you know why?”
“I’m beginning to get an idea. I think you’re the head of the Cradle. Its immortal head. Oh, I suppose your body can be killed and that would be a pain in the ass for you because it’s a useful tool when it comes to spying on us. But I think deep inside, what you are, can’t be destroyed so easily.” I pause. “Isn’t that true, Tarana?”
Finally, I have spoken the demon’s name, and just as the Lord’s name chanted aloud has immense power to bring light and love, the demon’s name can alter the room so that it feels like it’s filled with poisonous snakes and other vile creatures. The temperature appears to rise twenty degrees in a heartbeat and a smothering heaviness chokes the air.
Shanti smiles, or perhaps it is a sneer.
“Very good, Sita. If you had just named me from the start, you could have avoided all this useless talk.”
“Because when you expose a demon, it loses its power?”
“Who told you that?”
“Umara.”
“Only the host body can be harmed by exposure.”
“So I haven’t actually hurt you?”
Shanti grins and raises her hand and snaps her fingers.
“Nope,” she says.
I blink. An instant passes.
Suddenly I’m standing in the living room of an expensive hotel suite overlooking a large city. It’s nighttime, the skyscrapers are all lit, and even though I know every major skyline in the world, I don’t recognize this one.
The suite itself is five-star. It has the finest accommodations. There’s a wet bar stocked with liquors that cost a mint, a sunken sauna that gives off perfumed waves of steam, two adjoining bedrooms, and huge flat-screen TVs.
Standing by the door is Tarana.
He does not look like I expect.
Does it matter? He can assume any form he chooses.
He is a young man of thirty. He wears a beige suit and has a strong handsome jaw. His hair is black, neither long nor short; he combs it straight back. His eyes are large and dark. They are his most striking feature and perhaps his worst. When I look directly into them, I don’t feel so good.
Yet he smiles when he sees me and crosses the room to shake my hand. His grip is firm but he does not try to crush my fingers. He’s much too subtle for that. You see, I know him, he has been watching me for days, and I have been feeling him. This is the one who has been standing behind me, the man in the mirror so to speak, a very powerful Familiar. How much more he might be, I’m not exactly sure, but I hope to find out.
“Sita. I’ve looked forward to this meeting for ages.”
“I didn’t expect we’d ever meet,” I reply, playing along. Of course we have already met. In front of the Scale, where we consummated our deal to kill Umara. Yet this Tarana acts more cheerful than the Caretaker in the red robe. The key word is “acts.” I know his behavior, like his appearance, can change in an instant.
“Life is like that. Impossible to predict. Can I get you a drink?”
“No thanks.”
“Have a seat,” he says, gesturing to a chair, while sitting on the couch across from me. Out of nowhere a Scotch and soda with ice appears in his right hand. “So how did you know it was me?”
He acts disappointed. “Shanti was just a tool, a convenient puppet I decided to use for a while. Frankly, I’m surprised it took you so long to see through her disguise. That saccharine personality I used around you should have given you a clue. Didn’t I make her just a tad too perfect? I even had her worshipping the same god as you.”
“I admit, I should have spotted her sooner. But how did you two get hooked up? Young Indian girl. She doesn’t seem like your type.”
Tarana gestures upward, as if he’s pointing to the surface of the earth. “One thing you have to know is that they’re all my type. Shanti is a perfect example. That history she fed you was all lies. She didn’t get trapped in one of those arranged Indian marriages where she had to agree to spend the rest of her life with the biggest asshole who happened to come up with the biggest dowry. In reality, Shanti’s fiancé refused to marry her because she scared him. She didn’t spend her days reading the Gita. She was into what you would call the left-handed path. She loved nothing more than to go out late at night and hang around graveyards and perform ceremonies designed to reanimate corpses. Oh, that must sound familiar to you. Isn’t that how Yaksha came to earth?”
“Yaksha started as a demon but redeemed himself in the end.”
“Good for him. I doubt Shanti has much chance of doing that. To make a long story short, it was while she was in the midst of conversing with one of her excited corpses that I took over and we struck up a deal. Nothing too fancy, but you see, I already had my eye on you and I figured she might come in handy later on. She ended up being more useful than even I planned. She was my principal alter ego when it came to the Cradle. She could cast a spell on any of them: Haru, Cynthia Brutran—it made no difference.”
“Is that how she got Yaksha’s book from Haru?”
“Naturally.”
“Is that why Cindy feared her?”
“Brutran never understood why she felt so uneasy when Shanti was around. It was Brutran that ordered the hit on Shanti, not me. But that didn’t worry me. I knew you would protect her.”
“But Shanti’s uncle backed up her story. Or was he just another of your pawns?”
“What do you think?”
“How did Shanti get the acid burns on her face?”
“She did those to herself. It was a requirement on my side to make sure she was serious about our relationship.” Tarana chuckles. “To think how frightened Shanti’s fiancé was of her to start with. Once she fried off half her face, he tried to escape her by moving to England. Too bad she got to him before he could get away.”
“I assume he came to a bad end.”
“Worse than Numbria, if you can imagine. I’ll spare you the gory details. If you’ll answer my original question. How did you know I was the immortal head?”
He is not asking about being Shanti. He is asking how I knew he was Tarana. Indeed, he wants me to think of him as Tarana.
Why?
So I will not guess who he really is?
“Who else would know to come running when human beings started experimenting with arrays, cradles, and links? To be blunt, Tarana, I think you’re the cosmic expert at establishing contact with mortals and feeding them the information they need to know to totally screw up their lives.”
“That’s high praise coming from a monster like you.”
“I was a monster once. I retired from that position long ago.”
“Did you? What about the three hundred syringes you prepared for Seymour to inject? I understand you switched the vaccine for the virus.”
“I did what had to be done.”
Tarana smiles. “A lot of people down here say that.”
“I imagine they do. But if I hadn’t done it, would we be having this conversation right now?”
“I’m sure the question weighs on your heart. A part of you wonders if the Scale would have treated you better if you hadn’t chosen to murder those kids.”
I stop, he’s got me. “I confronted the Scale before I killed them.”
“Surely you realize time has no meaning in that place.”
He’s trying to confuse me, to make me doubt myself. The trouble is, he’s doing a damn fine job of it.
“I’m not here to talk about the kids,” I say. “We had a deal and I kept up my end. I killed Umara. I want to be compensated.”
“You already have been. I’ve kept you from burning.”
“I want more.”
He smiles and takes a sip from his glass. “I admire a greedy woman. What do you want?”
“The Cradle’s Internet program destroyed.”
“Sorry, no can do.”
“It’s just a bunch of code.”
“Code that I happened to write. Let’s be blunt, Sita, you only killed Umara so you could destroy the Telar. I didn’t interfere because it worked to both our advantages. The Telar had run the world for so long they had begun to bore me, and there’s nothing I hate worse than someone who bores me. But the Cradle were my kids. I honestly didn’t think you had the nerve to inject a bunch of children with a deadly virus.”
“Since you hate boring people, I’m glad I was able to surprise you.”
Suddenly angry, he slams down his drink on the glass coffee table, chipping the edge. The outburst reminds me how unpredictable he can be.
“You did more than that! In a single stroke you wiped out years of preparation. Next to the code I loaded on the Internet, the Cradle was my strongest link to the world.”
“You can always create another.”
“Not easily. Matt, Brutran, and the rest of your clowns will be on the lookout for another one. They’ll probably stop it before it can get started.” He pauses. “Unless of course you stop them.”
“What are you offering?”
“The obvious. To continue our relationship.”
“Why should I want to do that?” I ask innocently.
“In case you’ve forgotten, you’ve already been judged. You’re damned, Sita, which means you either play by my rules or you burn.” He glares as he gestures out the window, his anger not far away. “This whole city is surrounded by fire.”
“It sounds like Baker.”
“I assure you it’s a lot hotter than that hick town.”
“Fine, I’ll make another deal with you.”
My quick response seems to take him by surprise.
“Excellent. Your greed grows. Tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you. Then I’ll tell you what I want and you obey me without question.”
“That sounds too much like our last deal. Where I was forced to agree to a contract I never got a chance to read.”
“No one ever gets to read my contracts.” He pauses. “What is it you want?”
“The answer to the first riddle the ferryman gave me.”
Tarana snorts and takes a large gulp from his drink. “You can’t even remember the question. Why should you care about the answer?”
“Humor me.”
“No.”
“I’ll help create another Cradle for you.”
He whirls the ice in his glass. “You’re not asking much in return for such a huge task.”
“Then give it to me.”
He shakes his head. “I’m disappointed in you. I would expect your desires to match your abilities. That Greek myth—the ferryman and his riddles. What a waste of time, even for the dead. One would have thought they could have come up with something better after all these years.”
“I think the riddles endure because they work. They help remind a person what he or she learned in a particular life.” I pause. “As does the Scale.”
He sneers at the mention of the Scale. “We both know how it treated you. Loved your expression when it began to wail. You have to admit it, Sita, it took a pretty dim view of your time on earth.”
Mocking me appears to improve his mood. Still, I feel he is trying to steer the conversation away from certain directions. He is used to being in total command and this moment he is not.
“The answer to my first riddle, tell me,” I demand.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I told you. You don’t even remember—”
“‘What is the most useless human emotion?’” I say.
He blinks, surprised, but then settles down and finishes his drink. Yet when I gesture for him to respond, he shakes his head. “The answer can’t help you,” he says. “Only I can help you.”
“Since it was the first question the ferryman asked, I suspect it could help me a great deal. But if you’re not ready to answer, let’s leave my riddle aside for a moment. Let’s talk about yours.”
He acts amused. “I’ve never stooped so low as to ask a ferryman for a ride across that disgusting river.”
“Maybe you should have. You know what those fire-and-brimstone ministers always say. ‘Pride goeth before the fall.’ In other words, you might benefit from a dose of humility.”
He suddenly stands, his glass still in his hand.
“Need I remind you who you’re speaking to?” he asks.
I carefully shake my head.
He continues. “Then I suggest, if you want to make a deal, make it. Otherwise, you’re beginning to bore me, and you know what becomes of those who displease me.”
I stand and speak in a firm but reasonable voice. If I provoke him too soon, he won’t allow me to finish, and this being his world, he probably will crush me like an insect. On the plus side, I have two cards to play. Both are aces but both have to work.
“Pride goeth before the fall,” I repeat. “That’s the answer to your riddle. That’s the answer you accidentally showed me in that motel room in London. You wanted to take me to the depths of hell to break me. Only you took me so deep I saw who you really are. I discovered your little secret. Only it’s not so little, after all. Actually, it’s so important mankind’s greatest minds have struggled with it since the beginning of time.”
“Stop!” he screams, and throws his drink at my face. His reflexes are extraordinary, greater than my own. The glass hits my chin, where it shatters and tears a three-inch gash in my flesh. My blood gushes out but I ignore it. Already, I fear, I have pushed him too far.
“You’re the one who took me to that place where I saw the truth.”
“Be silent! I command you!” he shouts.
I take a step toward him. “You must have wanted me to see. You weren’t really talking about Umara when you ordered me to destroy the Light Bearer. You were talking about yourself. It’s time to quit hiding behind that silly name, Tarana. I mean, it’s just an invented word, it doesn’t explain who the Light Bearer is and why he fell. If humility is out of your reach, and you must be proud of something, then admit who you really are. We both know who the real Light Bearer is.” I stop. “Don’t we, Lucifer?”
The whites of his eyes vanish. There is only black. I cannot bear to look at him and yet he forces me to do so. I feel I will be sick. The nausea arises from a sudden pressure at the back of my skull.
He speaks softly, in a deadly tone. “Last warning, Sita.”
I smile and raise my arms as if to applaud him. “You are the greatest of the great. The one who was given the divine light. But it wasn’t enough for you. You wanted more. Unfortunately, when you went to war to get it, you had to call upon your great light. You had to dive deep into it. So deep you discovered, quite by accident, that the Lord you were fighting was the same as yourself. Most would have rejoiced in such a discovery, that they were one with God. But you . . . it just made you want to run and hide.”
He turns away so I can’t see his face.
I come close so I can whisper in his ear.
It is the bravest thing I have ever done in my life.
“That is why you ended up in this godforsaken realm. You were too proud to admit you were no different from the Lord. Yet you never told the truth to the others who fought by your side. You damned them for no reason. You fell for nothing, which makes you nothing in my eyes.”
He slowly turns and grips my neck.
“You think you can mock me? How will your Hydra look without its immortal head?” he asks as he flexes his fingers as a prelude to decapitating me. He chokes off my air, and I don’t know how I manage to get out my last words.
“You no longer have any power over me,” I gasp. “You never did. You see, I remember the answer to the riddle, and what it means for me.”
My remark shocks him. He blinks.
His spell wavers as another instant passes.
Suddenly Shanti and I are back in the motel room.
She has her hands around my neck.
I knock them loose and grip her throat.
Finally, my hands are clean.
“Guilt,” I say. “That is the most useless of all emotions. No matter how many people I’ve saved in my life, I still felt guilty about those I killed. It was my guilt that made me feel I didn’t deserve to see Krishna. But it was all a lie, and you, the father of lies, exploited my weakness when you caused me to remember only a portion of what happened when I died.”
Shanti stares at me with genuine fear in her eyes.
Her master has left her all alone.
“What you say is true,” she says, fighting to sound sincere. “Show me mercy now and you will definitely see Krishna when you die.”
I laugh. “You fool! What I do with your miserable life won’t change what happens at the Scale. Don’t you understand? I’m already dead.”
I’m sick and tired of this bitch and her lies.
I rip off her head and throw it out the window.