“I’d be afraid of the werewolf,” Teri says.
“I’d let the vampire change me,” Matt says.
“Why?” I ask him, although I’m pleased at his remark.
“It’s clear the vampire has more up his sleeve. I’d trust him as my master more than the werewolf.”
“The human is not choosing either one as his master,” Teri tells him.
“But he is,” I say. “These are ancient beings, and they know only a master-disciple relationship. When he chooses to become a werewolf, the man knows he must obey his maker or else be destroyed. But that’s the choice he makes. Almost immediately after his transformation is complete, the werewolf tells the man they have to hunt down the vampire and kill him. The man doesn’t want to. The vampire has done nothing to them. But the werewolf says the island isn’t big enough for two masters, and he threatens the man. In the end, the two seek out the spot where they believe the vampire rests during the day. They soon find it, too soon. The ease should have made the first werewolf suspicious, but he’s too intent on killing the vampire. He puts a stake to the vampire’s heart and goes to pound it in. But suddenly the vampire leaps up and breaks the werewolf’s neck. Then the vampire is alone with the man, who’s only been a werewolf for less than a day. The man begs for mercy, and the vampire says he would let him live but he can’t.” I pause. “Do you know why?”
“Because werewolves and vampires are natural enemies,” Teri says.
Matt disagrees. “No. That’s not the point of the story. At the start the vampire says there’s no reason they have to be enemies. That it’s foolish.” He nods to himself. “But I know why the vampire has to kill the man.”
Teri glances at both of us. “Why?”
I nod to Matt. “Tell us.”
“The vampire’s merciful but wise. He knows to show mercy twice—to someone who’s already rejected it—would be foolish. Because the man didn’t understand the vampire’s mercy to begin with, over time it’s inevitable that he’ll begin to doubt it again. For this reason the vampire has to kill the man.”
I silently applaud Matt and open the magazine to the last paragraph of my story. There, I let them read my vampire’s reasoning. It’s identical to what Matt has just said. Teri doesn’t know who to be more impressed with.
“I absolutely love that story,” she says.
“It was good,” Matt has to admit.
“Not great?” I tease him.
“Maybe,” Matt says. “There’s one point I didn’t like. You changed the rules of the mythology. Vampires can’t function during the day. If you’re going to do something like that, I think the werewolf has to know ahead of time. To be fair.”
“But I was fair. At the start I said the vampire was wise, and you interpreted that to mean he had an ace up his sleeve he wasn’t showing. You were right. The werewolf and the man underestimated their foe. And that’s why they both died.”
“I wish the vampire had let the man live,” Teri complains.
“The man made himself the vampire’s enemy,” Matt said, staring at me with fresh appreciation, nodding. “You’re right, Alisa, it’s a great story.”
“Thank you,” I reply.
Teri smiles. “I guess it takes a genius to recognize a genius.”
Matt continues to stare at me.
“That’s true,” he says, and I know I have won him over.
FOUR
On the ride back home, I feel the effects of the six Scotch and Cokes I drank. I have to focus on the road to stay on it. But a much more powerful cocktail plagues me: the mixture of happiness and guilt I feel in my heart.
Sitting with Matt and Teri, drinking, talking, eating, listening to Matt play his music, simply being in their company, made me feel like I was with family. What a strange and wonderful experience. It created a mysterious bubble. Even though the club was packed, it was as if the three of us spent the evening alone around a delicious fire. Most of all, it made me feel we belong together.
So says my heart, while my head shouts, Beware! Nothing good can come from interfering with their lives. Plus there is nowhere for the relationship to go. In the end my energy would overwhelm them, my money, my immortality. I am too much of a boss—long ago I recognized this flaw in my character—to hold back from directing their lives. Already I want to call people I know in the entertainment industry and arrange auditions for Matt. He has the talent—he just needs a break.
How easy the fantasies roll inside. How rich his life would be if he was able to work full-time in a field he loved, producing beautiful songs, selling millions of copies while making millions of dollars. Teri wouldn’t have to sleep in a dorm, but could have a house of her own. She could go to Harvard for her undergraduate degree and then go on to Yale Medical School.
Yet all the glorious things I imagine I can do for them are exactly why my brain shouts for me to stop. A young man like Matt could lose his inner confidence by not struggling for success. And Teri’s humble beginnings molded her into the sensitive human being I love. It is difficult for most people to realize, especially parents when it comes to their children, but suffering is often a great gift, not the curse most humans assume it is. The people I admire most have all suffered.
There is a spiritual dimension to struggle as well.
Krishna once said that few people focused on him intensely except when they were in pain. Of course, the remark was impersonal. Krishna was not referring to his form, the events of his life, or even his words when he spoke of himself. He was not a god in need of praise. His idea of worship was infinitely flexible; he saw all deities as himself. Nevertheless, he felt pain gave humans the greatest incentive to focus on the supreme.
It helps me, simply to remember Krishna.
I suddenly feel more balanced.
I come to a compromise inside. I’ll see Teri and Matt for a few years, maybe ten, no more, and then I’ll vanish from their lives before they realize I’m not aging. Under no circumstances will I ever let them know who I really am. Also, I’ll limit how much I spoil them. They’ll never enjoy their success if they don’t have to fight to get it.
By the time I reach home, I feel I can make the relationship work.
I’m fifty yards from my garage when I hear a faint whistle sound.
I throw myself lengthwise across my front seat.
My back and front window explode in a shower of glass. The bullet must have been unusually powerful. The windshields are supposed to be made of bulletproof glass. If I had moved a hundredth of a second later, I would have been missing a head. And even I, Sita, who have the blood of Yaksha and Kalika pumping through my veins, could not have survived such a wound. The person who just fired must know that. He must know exactly what it takes to kill me.
Bullets pound my car. Several hit the windshield. Many more are aimed at the trunk. The sniper is using armor-piercing rounds and is hoping to penetrate the length of the car and kill me that way. He doesn’t know that, by wild chance, I bought a large amount of tools yesterday and have yet to remove them from my trunk. For the first time in my life, my laziness has saved my life.
I want my assailant to think I’ve been hit, so I take my foot off the gas pedal and let my Porsche roll toward the garage door. Fortunately, it veers slightly to the right, bringing me closer to the safety of the house wall. I decide not to press the button that will open the garage door. Instead, I let the front end of the car hit the wall before I leap through the passenger door and make a beeline for the side of the house. My path leaves me exposed for a mere ten yards, and since I can move fifty times faster than any human being . . . I should be safe.
Yet I’m only halfway to the corner of my house when the back of my right thigh suddenly feels like a mass of liquid fire. Somehow the sniper has shifted his aim from my car to my leg in a thousandth of a second. It might be a lucky shot on his part, but I seriously doubt it.
I have to throw myself around the corner of the house. But that doesn’t stop his ins
ane barrage. His bullets are not merely armor-piercing, they must be made of some kind of exotic metal—purified uranium perhaps. They blast through the plaster as if it were made of butter. It’s only when I near the side door that the contents of my garage—another half dozen vehicles—begin to act as a shield against his weaponry. Finally, he must realize he no longer has a shot at me, because he suddenly stops firing.
I open the side door and limp inside the garage.
I collapse on the floor. Blood pools around me in the dark. His bullet has not merely hit my leg, it’s torn away a chunk of flesh twice the size of my fist. By blind luck, he missed the major artery that runs down my leg. Yet he’s pulverized my sciatic nerve, and even I, who can heal instantly from almost any wound, will need time to rest and replace a major nerve. Until then I’m crippled, and he’s still out there, probably closing in on my position.
I force myself to quiet my breath so I can hear what he’s doing. He’s in the woods—I can tell that much right away. But I’m surprised to hear him stay in the trees and not press his advantage. Then I realize just how smart he is. He doesn’t know for sure I’m wounded, and even if he can see my blood, he can’t know the extent of my injury. No doubt he’s afraid to expose himself by crossing the open field that lies between my house and the trees.
I stop breathing altogether and am able to ascertain his exact position. He’s southwest of my house, two hundred yards into the woods. Again, I have to congratulate him on his caution. Even if I had a sniper rifle in hand, he would be a difficult target. It would be hard to get a clear shot through so many trees. But because he’s the one in the woods, and has no doubt cut away clear angles to my house, the reverse is not true. At present, he has the advantage.
I can’t hear anyone else in the forest. Good.
I can tolerate a tremendous amount of pain, but my ruined leg is pushing me to my limit. The tissue struggles to knit back together, but there’s simply too much missing. Ideally, I need a series of transfusions to speed up the healing process. But I doubt my assailant will let me take a blood break.
I think of my upstairs vault. My only hope is to get to my weapons. It’s agony to stand, but I force myself to my feet. My world spins. There’s a cabinet nearby, filled with bathroom supplies, and I grab a roll of toilet paper and hastily wrap it around my wound. Blood immediately soaks through the paper, and I reach for another roll. The bleeding finally begins to slow. It’s not much, but it’s something.
I limp into the house, trying to move as silently as possible, and take a flight of stairs to my bedroom. I’m surprised he continues his cease-fire. I keep expecting his exotic bullets to slam my west walls. Perhaps he wants me to feel hopeless before he spends any more ammunition.
My hope is crushed when I see my chest of drawers lying facedown on the floor and my vault door sitting wide open. The vault’s been raided. He left the ten million in cash but removed every single gun.
That vault was supposed to be impenetrable.
And I didn’t even sense he had been in my house.
Who the hell is this guy?
A mass of bullets suddenly strikes my west bedroom wall. I’m fortunate I hear them coming—otherwise, I would have been cut in half. My foe’s switched weapons. It seems his armor-piercing sniper rifle’s no longer good enough for him.
He’s turned a Gatling gun on me.
The invention of the Gatling gun goes back in time to the battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War, which surprises most people who see it demonstrated on the deck of an aircraft carrier or a navy destroyer. The weapon’s so impressive—most people assume it must be a modern creation. The first time I saw it in action, I wanted to buy one. I love dangerous new toys. But I never was able to find a seller.
Basically it’s made up of a long barrel that’s continually fueled by a dozen or more revolving ammunition chambers. It can easily fire a thousand bullets a minute. The navy uses them to create a wall of flying lead that can detonate any missile launched at their ships. A modern Gatling gun is one of the most deadly weapons on the planet.
Now, to my great misfortune, I have the same wall of lead aimed at my comfy two-story house in the normally peaceful Missouri countryside. As I rush to my stairs, I see a three-foot circular hole rip open behind my bed. It takes an instant to transform my mattress into a dizzy cloud of down feathers. The bullets soar the length of my room and ricochet inside my empty vault. That’s where my assailant assumed I was standing.
I have one chance. I have a second, smaller vault hidden beneath the carpet in my living room. It doesn’t contain as many exotic weapons as my upstairs compartment, but it’s lined with lead, and it’s possible my assailant missed it when he was inside my house.
Dragging my wounded leg downstairs, I tear away the carpet with my nails and hastily spin the dial on the floor vault. I’ve lost so much blood, I have to struggle to remember the combination. But when I finally pull open the door, I feel a wave of relief.
A break at last! My foe has overlooked this vault. I take out a couple of .45 semiautomatic Glocks and stuff them in my belt, along with three throwing knives. But my eyes feast on the one Barringer sniper rifle I have left. It has a powerful sighting scope that’s equipped with a laser, which works well with my superhuman vision.
I grab as many clips of armor-piercing bullets as I can carry, a dozen. Since each clip holds twenty rounds, I figure I’ll have 240 chances to kill my foe.
He must suspect I’m no longer upstairs, because he suddenly shifts his Gatling gun to the living room. Once more, I’m fortunate my ears are able to anticipate his change in attack. Before the bullets even strike the living room, I shove a sofa and china cabinet against the wall to give me a brief umbrella of cover. Then I retreat back to the garage, essentially putting the house between me and him.
I have to go on the offensive. I’m pretty sure he knows I’m a vampire, because chances are he’s a vampire.
It’s the only thing that makes sense. No human being should have been able to hit me when I ran from the car to the house. Sure, it could have been a lucky shot, but what are the odds of that? Just the fact he was able to drag a Gatling gun into the woods indicates how strong he is. The weapon weighs a ton. No, he has to be a vampire.
But who made him? Yaksha would never have done so. He would never have disobeyed his vow to Krishna. And as for Eddie Fender—who for a time had access to Yaksha’s blood—I destroyed him years ago. The only source of vampire blood that seems remotely possible is the U.S. Army.
Joel Drake—an FBI agent I’d changed into a vampire—was the unwilling guest at a secret government facility outside Las Vegas. It’s true I wiped the damn place off the face of the earth with an H-bomb, but it was always possible the general in charge of the camp had shipped vials of Joel’s blood to the Pentagon before I exploded the bomb. Certainly the government connection would help explain where the vampire in the woods had obtained a Gatling gun.
Still, I have my doubts. I even have doubts about climbing on the roof, which would give me my best shot at the guy. My reasoning is simple—he will expect me to go up on the roof. If I fail to take him down with a single shot, he can casually spray the roof with his Gatling and splatter my guts over the grass, all the way down to the lake.
No, I must outwit him. I have to do the unexpected. I’m a sitting duck as long as I’m stuck in the house and he has plenty of ammunition for his supergun. I have to get to the woods, that will even the odds. I assume I know the area better than he does—after all, I live here. If I can reach the trees, I might even swing the odds in my favor.
True, my leg’s healing at a phenomenal rate, but I’m still crippled. I’ll need at least a minute to reach the trees, and he’ll spot me long before that. Unless . . . what? Can I create a diversion of some type?
A minute of frantic concentration gives me a plan.
Stage one—I have to transform my house into a big firecracker. I have materials that can do the trick: natural gas
, a propane tank, the gasoline in the cars parked in my garage. But the key, the trigger, will be the propane tank. Unfortunately, I know enough about the gas to know it won’t explode—like such tanks always do on TV—simply by hitting it with a bullet. My trigger will need a trigger.
The powder in my sniper bullets is not ordinary gunpowder. It’s been soaked in nitroglycerin—that’s what causes the bullets to fire at such a high velocity. Working quietly, I unload two clips of bullets and spread them on an oil rag on the concrete floor. My hands are strong—I’m able to pull the caps off forty rounds without effort. Once I have a pile of powder available, I tie it into a ball and soak it with oil so it will stick to the side of the propane tank that stands outside my garage.
Next, I creep into the kitchen and turn on all the gas burners in my stove and oven. But I kill the pilot light, so the smell of gas begins to fill the room. At the same time I listen to what my assailant is up to. It sounds like he’s using the pause to reload his guns. He probably figures that I’m dead meat—that it’s only a question of time.
Back in the garage, I siphon off the bulk of the gasoline in the tanks of my cars into empty Sparkletts water bottles. The bottles hold five gallons each—I have only four. But I have over a hundred gallons of gasoline at my disposal, so I have to make several trips, back and forth, to spread the gasoline all over my house.
However, I leave each car with at least a gallon in its tank.
The cars are the trickiest part of my plan. When the time is right, I plan to launch them away from my house at different speeds and directions. They are a major part of the diversion I’m trying to create. I use rope and a complex combination of knots to rig the steering wheels to the gas pedals. I’m not worried my Porsche will block the way of the escaping cars. Just before I jumped from it, the Porsche veered to the right of the garage door.
Ah, the garage door—it is almost time to open it. Unfortunately, I have to launch the cars as soon as I open it or else he’ll just blow the vehicles up inside the garage. For that reason, I start all six of the cars before I open the door. It’s a delicate balancing act. The cars are in gear and ready to go. It’s only the closed door and the cramped space that keep them in place.