I feel no light inside me strong enough to resist it.
“He is coming,” I say.
THIRTEEN
There is a knock at the door. I call out to come in. He enters; he is alone, dressed in black, a cape, a hat—he makes a stunning figure. He nods and I gesture for him to take the chair across from us. He has not brought his flute. He sits in the chair near the crate of dynamite and smiles at both of us. But there is no joy in the smile, and I think he truly does regret what is about to happen. Outside, behind us through the broken windows, a hint of light enters the black sky. Ray sits silently staring at our visitor. It is up to me to make conversation.
“Are you happy?” I ask.
“I have known happiness at times,” Yaksha says. “But it has been a long time.”
“But you have what you want,” I insist. “I have broken my vow. I have made another evil creature, another thing for you to destroy.”
“I feel no compulsions these days, Sita, except to rest.”
“I want to rest as well.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You said you wanted to live?”
“It is my hope there will be life for me after this life is over. I assume that is your hope as well. I assume that is why you are going to all this trouble to wreck my night.”
“You always had a way with words.”
“Thank you.”
Yaksha hesitates. “Do you have any last words?”
“A few. May I decide how we die?”
“You want us to die together?”
“Of course,” I say.
Yaksha nods. “I prefer it that way.” He glances at the crate of dynamite beside him. “You have made us a bomb, I see. I like bombs.”
“I know. You can be the one to light it. You see the fuse there, the lighter beside it? Go ahead, old friend, strike the flame. We can burn together.” I lean forward. “Maybe we should have burned a long time ago.
Yaksha picks up the lighter. He considers Ray. “How do you feel, young man?”
“Strange,” Ray says.
“I would set you free if I could,” Yaksha says. “I would leave you both alone. But it has to end, one way or the other.”
This is a Yaksha I have never heard before. He never explained himself to anyone.
“Sita has told me your reasons,” Ray says.
“Your father is dead,” Yaksha says.
“I know.”
Yaksha pulls his thumb across the lighter and stares at it. “I never knew my father.”
“I saw him once,” I say. “Ugly bastard. Are you going to do it or do you want me to do it?”
“Are you so anxious to die?” Yaksha asks.
“I never could wait for the excitement to begin,” I say sarcastically.
He nods and moves the flame to the end of the fuse. It begins to fizzle, it begins to shorten—quickly. There are three minutes of time coiled in that combustible string. Yaksha sits back in his chair.
“I had a dream as I walked by the ocean tonight,” he says. “Listening to the sound of the waves, it seemed I entered a dimension where the water was singing a song that no one had ever heard before. A song that explained everything in the creation. But the magic of the song was that it could never be recognized for what it was, not by any living soul. If it was, if the truth was brought out into the open and discussed, then the magic would die and the waters would evaporate. And that is what happened in my dream as this realization came to me. I came into the world. I killed all the creatures the waters had given life to, and then one day I woke up and realized I had been listening to a song. Just a sad song.”
“Played on a flute?” I ask.
The fuse burns.
There is no reason for me to delay. Yet I do.
His dream moves me.
“Perhaps,” Yaksha says softly. “In the dream the ocean vanished from my side. I walked along an endless barren plain of red dust. The ground was a dark red, as if a huge being had bled over it for centuries and then left the sun to parch dry what the being had lost.”
“Or what it had stolen from others,” I say.
“Perhaps,” Yaksha says again.
“What does this dream mean?” I ask.
“I was hoping you could tell me, Sita.”
“What can I tell you? I don’t know your mind.”
“But you do. It is the same as yours.”
“No.”
“Yes. How else could I know your mind?”
I tremble. His voice has changed. He is alert, he always was, to everything that was happening around him. I was a fool to think I could trick him. Yet I do not reach for the metal rod that will detonate the bomb. I try to play the fool a little longer. I speak.
“Maybe your dream means that if we stay on earth, and once more multiply, then we will make a wasteland of this world.”
“How would we multiply this late in the game?” he asks. “I told you you can have no children. Krishna told you something similar.” It is his turn to lean forward. “What else did he tell you, Sita?”
“Nothing.”
“You are lying.”
“No.”
“Yes.” With his left hand he reaches for the burning fuse, his fingers hovering over the sparks as if he intends to crush them. Yet he lets the countdown continue. “You cannot trick me.”
“And how do I trick you, Yaksha?”
“You are not waiting to die. I see it in your eyes.”
“Really?”
“They are not like my eyes.”
“You are a vampire,” I say. Casually, as if I am stretching, I move my hand toward the lamp stand. “You can’t look in a mirror. There would be nothing there. What do you know about your own eyes?” I joke, of course. I am one bundle of laughs.
He smiles. “I am happy to see time has not destroyed your wit. I hope it has not destroyed your reason. You are quick. I am quicker. You can do nothing that I cannot stop.” He pauses. “I suggest you stop.”
My hand freezes in midair. Damn, I think. He knows, of course he knows.
“I cannot remember what he said,” I say.
“Your memory is perfect, as is mine.”
“Then you tell me what he said.”
“I cannot. He whispered in your ear. He did that so that I would not hear. He knew I was listening, even though I was lying there with the venom in my veins. Yes, I heard your original vow to him. But he did not want me to hear the last part. He would have had his reasons, I’m sure, but the time for those reasons must be past. We are both going to die in a few seconds. Did he make you take a second vow?”
The fuse burns.
“No.”
Yaksha sits up. “Did he say anything about me?”
Shorter and shorter it burns.
“No!”
“Why won’t you answer my question?”
The truth bursts out of me. I have wanted to say it for so long. “Because I hate you!”
“Why?”
“Because you stole away my love, my Rama and Lalita. You steal my love away now, when I have finally found it again. I will hate you for eternity, and if that is not enough to stop you from being in his grace, then I will hate him as well.” I point to Ray. “Let him go. Let him live.”
Yaksha is surprised. I have stunned the devil. “You love him. You love him more than your own life.”
There is only pain in my chest. The fourth center, the fourth note. It is as if it is off key. “Yes.”
Yaksha’s tone softens. “Did he tell you something about love?”
I nod, weeping, I feel so helpless. “Yes.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He said, where there is love, there is my grace.” The sound of his flute is too far away. There is no time to be grateful for what I have been given in my long life. I feel as if I will choke on my grief. I can only see Ray, my lover, my child, all the years he will be denied. He looks at me with such trusting eyes, as if somehow I will still manage to save him. “He told
me to remember that.”
“He told me the same thing.” Yaksha pauses to wonder. “It must be true.” He adds casually, “You and your friend can go.”
I look up. “What?”
“You broke your vow because you love this young man. It is the only reason you broke it. You must still have Krishna’s grace. You only became a vampire to protect Rama and your child. You must have had his grace from the beginning. That is why he showed you such kindness. I did not see that till now. I cannot harm you. He would not wish me to.” Yaksha glances at the burning fuse. “You had better hurry.”
The sparks of the short fuse are like the final sands of an hourglass.
I grab Ray’s hand and leap up and pull him toward the front door. I do not open the door with my hand. I kick it open; the wrong way. The hinges rupture, the wood splinters. The night air is open before us. I shove Ray out ahead of me.
“Run!” I shout.
“But—”
“Run!”
He hears me, finally, and dashes for the trees. I turn, I don’t know why. The chase is over and the race is won. There is no reason to tempt fate. What I do now, it is the most foolish act of my life. I stride back into the living room. Yaksha stares out at the dark sea. I stand behind him.
“You have ten seconds,” he says.
“Hate and fear and love are all in the heart. I felt that when he played his flute.” I touch his shoulder. “I don’t just hate you. I didn’t just fear you.”
He turns and looks at me. He smiles; he always had a devilish grin.
“I know that, Sita,” he says. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
I leap for the front door. I am outside, thirty feet off the front porch, when the bombs go off. The power of the shock wave is extraordinary even for me to absorb. It lifts me up, and for a few moments it is as if I can fly. But it does not set me down softly. At one point in my trajectory fate makes me a marksman’s prized bird. An object hot and sharp pierces me from behind.
It goes through my heart. A stake.
I land in a ball of agony. The night burns behind me. My blood sears as it pours from the wound in my chest. Ray is beside me, asking me what he should do. I writhe in the dirt, my fingers clawing into the earth. But I do not want to go into the ground, no, not after walking on it for so long. I try to get the words out—it is not easy. I see I have been impaled by the splintered leg of my piano bench.
“Pull it out,” I gasp.
“The stick?” It is the first stupid thing I have heard Ray say.
I turn my front to him. “Yes.”
Ray grabs the end of the leg. The wood is literally flaming, although it has passed through my body. He yanks hard. The stick breaks; he has got half of it. The other half is still in my body. Too bad for me. I close my eyes for an instant and see a million red stars. I blink and they explode as if the universe has ended. There remains only red light everywhere. The color of sunset, the color of blood. I find myself settling onto my back. My head rolls to one side. Cool mud touches my cheek. It warms as my blood pours from my mouth and puddles around my head. A red stain, almost black in the fiery night, spreads down my beautiful blond hair. Ray weeps. I look at him with such love I honestly feel I see Krishna’s face.
It is not the worst way to die.
“Love you,” I whisper.
He hugs me. “I love you, Sita.”
So much love, I think as I close my eyes and the pain recedes. There must be so much grace, so much protection for me if Krishna meant what he said. Of course I believe he meant it. I do believe in miracles.
I wonder if I will die, after all.
BLACK BLOOD
For Teli
ONE
I walk the dark and dangerous streets of L.A. gangland. A seemingly helpless young woman with silky blond hair and magnetic blue eyes. Moving down filth-strewn alleys and streets where power is measured in drops of blood spilled by bullets sprayed from adolescent males who haven’t learned to drive yet. I am near the housing projects, those archaic hotels of hostility where the checkout fee is always higher than the price of admission. Because of my supernormal senses, I know I am surrounded by people who would slit my throat as soon as ask the time of day or night. But I am not helpless or afraid, especially in the dark at night, for I am not human. I, Alisa Perne of the twentieth century, Sita of the ancient past. I am five thousand years old, one of the last of two vampires.
But are there only two of us left? I ask myself.
Something is terribly wrong in gangland L.A., and it makes me wonder. In the last month the Los Angeles Times has reported a string of brutal murders that leads me to believe Ray and I are not the only ones with the special blood that makes us impervious to aging and most other human ailments. The victims of these murders have been ripped open, decapitated, and, in some cases, the articles say, drained of blood. It is this last fact that has brought me to Los Angeles. I myself like blood, but I am not eager to find more vampires. I know what our kind can do, and I know how fast we can multiply once the secret of procreation is known. Any vampire I may find this evening will not live to see the light of dawn, or perhaps I should say the setting of the moon. I am not crazy about the sun, although I can bear it if I must.
A full moon rides high above me as I step onto Exposition Avenue and head north, not far from where the last murder occurred—a sixteen-year-old girl found yesterday in the bushes with both her arms torn off. It is late, after midnight, and even though it is mid-December, the temperature is in the midsixties. Winter in Los Angeles is like a moon made of green cheese, a joke. I wear black leather pants, a short-sleeved black top that shows my sleek midsection. My black boots barely sound as I prowl the uneven sidewalks. I wear my hair pinned up beneath a black cap. I love the color black as much as the color red. I know I look gorgeous. Cool stainless steel touches my right calf where I have hidden a six-inch blade, but otherwise I am unarmed. There are many police cars out this fine winter night. One passes me on the left as I lower my head and try to look like I belong. Because I fear being stopped and searched, I do not carry a gun. But it is only for the lives of the police that I fear, and not for my own. A whole S.W.A.T. team couldn’t stop me. Certainly, I decide, a young vampire will be no match for me. And he or she must be young to be killing so recklessly.
But who is this youngster? And who made him or her?
Disturbing questions.
Three young males wait for me a hundred yards down the street. I cross to the other side, but they move to intercept me. One is tall and slim, the other squat as an old stump. The third has the face of a dark angel brought up on the wrong side of the pearly gates. He is clearly the leader. He smiles as he sees me trying to get away from him and his buddies, flexing his powerful biceps as if they were laws unto themselves. I see he carries a gun under his dirty green coat. The others are unarmed. The three jog toward me as I pause to consider what to do. Of course, I could turn and flee. Even if they were in training for the Olympics, they couldn’t catch me. But I don’t like to run from a fight, and I am suddenly thirsty. The smile of the leader will fade, I know, as he feels the blood drain from his body into my mouth. I decide to wait for them. I don’t have long to wait.
“Hey, babe,” the leader says as they surround me in a fidgety semicircle. “What you doin’ here by your lonesome? Lost?”
I appear at ease. “No. I’m just out for a walk. What are you guys up to?”
They exchange smirks. They are up to no good. “What’s your name?” the leader asks.
“Alisa. What’s yours?”
He grins like the young god he thinks he is. “Paul. Hey, you’s one beautiful woman, Alisa, you know that? And I appreciate beauty when I see it.”
“I bet you do, Paul. Do you appreciate danger when you see it, too?”
They cackle. I am funny, they think. Paul slaps his leg as he laughs. “Are you saying you’re dangerous, Alisa?” he asks. “You look like a party babe to me. Me and my stoog
es, we’re going to a party right now. You want to come? It’s goin’ to be hot.”
I consider. “Are you three the only ones going to this party?”
Paul likes it that I’m sharp. “Maybe. But maybe that’s all you need.” He takes a step closer. There is alcohol on his breath—a Coors beer—Marlboro cigarettes in his coat pocket close to his gun. A brave boy, he puts his right hand on my left shoulder, and his grin is now more of a leer. He adds, “Or maybe all you need is me, babe. What do you say? Want to party?”
I look him in the eye. “No.”
He blinks suddenly. My gaze has been known to burn mortal pupils when I give it free rein. But I have held something in check for Paul, and so he is intrigued, not scared. He continues to hold on to my shoulder.
“You don’t want to go sayin’ no to me, honey. I don’t like that word.”
“Really.”
He glances back at his friends and then nods gravely in my direction. “You don’t look like you’s from around here. But around here, there’s two ways to party. You either do it with a smile on your face or you do it screaming. You know what I mean, Alisa?”
I smile, finally. “Are you going to rape me, Paul?”
He shrugs. “It’s up to you, honeysuckle.” He draws his piece from his coat, a Smith & Wesson .45 revolver that he probably got for his last birthday. He presses the muzzle beneath my chin. “And it’s up to Colleen.”
“You call your gun Colleen?”
He nods seriously. “She’s a lady. Never lets me down.”
My smile grows. “Paul, you are such a simpleton. You can’t rape me. Put it out of your mind if you want to be alive come Christmas Day. It’s just not going to happen.”
My boldness surprises him, angers him. But he quickly grins because his friends are watching and he has to be cool and in control. He presses the gun deeper into my neck, trying to force my head back. But, of course, I don’t move an inch, and this confuses him as much as my casual tone.
“You tell me why I can’t just have you right now?” he asks. “You tell me, Alisa. Huh? Before I blow your goddamn head off.”