“Do you love James?”
“I hardly know him. We have only spoken twice. But I know he’s very religious, very strict. He’ll expect me to obey him and keep my mouth shut. I doubt he’ll let me meditate.”
“It sounds like a problem.”
“Oh, Master, it’s horrible! I don’t know what to do!”
“Say you could do anything you liked. What would you do?”
“Anything?”
“Anything at all. Say there was nothing to stop you.”
“Well, I love to paint. My father is a stonemason, and sometimes he lets me paint pictures on the walls he builds. But I would love to paint real pictures that people can hang in their homes. And . . .” I stopped.
“Go on.”
“What I was going to say next is impossible.”
“Tell me and we’ll see how impossible it is.”
“My brother, Thomas, makes the most wonderful sculptures. He’s so good he’s been invited by a local businessman to travel to Rome.” I stopped and hung my head. “I want to go with him.”
“And paint in Rome?”
I looked up. “That’s my dream. To be a great artist in the greatest city in the world.”
“Then do it. Follow your dream.”
I shook my head. “You don’t understand, my father would never let me go. I’m a girl, I’m only sixteen years old, I have no rights.”
“You and Thomas are close, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“He knows you want to go with him?”
“Yes. He’s like you. He says I should come with him.”
“Then go, Veronica. Go to Rome.”
“Disobey my father? I can’t. I mean, even if I tried, he’d stop me and beat me.”
“How did you come here tonight?”
“I walked.”
“Did you tell your father? Your mother?”
“I just told Thomas. He helped me climb out our window.”
“That’s how you’ll go to Rome. You’ll climb out the same window. Only when you leave for Rome, Thomas will go with you. It’s simple.”
I stared at the Master in shock. “You want me to break every rule I have ever been taught?”
“Why not? They’re silly rules.” He stopped and spoke in a serious voice. “You’ll never be truly happy unless you follow your heart. The joy you find in the world, the joy you find in meditation, both come from being courageous.”
I trembled. “I feel what you say is true. But I’m afraid.”
“I was afraid when I started to teach.”
“Really? You? I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true. I knew what I had to teach would anger a lot of people. This is a primitive world, Veronica. Angry people do crazy things.”
“Are you saying you could be killed?”
“We may both die at the hands of others. It may be soon, it may not be for many years. It doesn’t matter. What matters is what we do today—that we do what we feel is right.” He stopped. “Wherever you go, Veronica, I’ll be with you. Remember—you were born in this world to be a candle. To light up many hearts.”
His words stirred deep feelings inside me. But I had so many doubts, so many questions. When I went to speak, though, he motioned for me to be silent. He was through speaking. He was telling me I already knew what I needed to know.
I bowed to him and left.
• • •
I have just finished what Mr. Grey has translated of Veronica’s story when Seymour calls. He says they’re at the Mirage, top floor. Brutran has reserved a separate room for each of us. Mine is 1178. I can pick up my key at the front desk. He also says he’s figured out a way to punch through my memory block, if I’m interested.
I have time before Mr. Grey gets out of surgery. I decide to see what my old friend has come up with. During the taxi ride to the hotel, however, the small book haunts me. The Master did not sound anything like the historical Christ. I doubt the story was even about Jesus.
Yet all the tales surrounding the veil tie it to a young woman named Veronica, and the present-day custodian of the artifact, Sarah Goodwin, valued the book so much she went to the trouble to hide it in her bedroom wall. Clearly Sarah believes the story is genuine, and that the Master the young woman spoke to was the same man I saw in the veil.
It is all very confusing.
Still, I enjoyed Veronica, her spunky attitude, and several of the Master’s lines touched me deeply. I find it interesting that the Master taught Veronica the ancient Vedic form of meditation known as Vichara—a Sanskrit term that means “meditation on the Self.” That is the Self with a capital S—the Supreme Self, or the Brahman.
A close reading of the Bhagavad Gita shows that Krishna taught a similar practice. Ironically, Krishna said in the Gita that the technique was difficult for the average person to master, that the constant repetition of his name was an easier path to realization. Having lived in India, I know the majority of yogis consider Vichara a waste of time unless one has been blessed by God. Of course, Veronica, in her own innocent way, made it clear she felt blessed by her Master.
On a lighter note, Veronica’s Master was definitely ahead of his time. Equal rights for men and women? Follow your dreams? If he was indeed Jesus Christ then it was no wonder they crucified him. Also, his remarks about gravity and the true nature of the stars—it is like the man was not just enlightened, he came from an advanced civilization.
The book raises more questions than it answers.
It is frustrating not knowing how it ends.
I go to Matt’s room first. I don’t need supernatural hearing to know he’s playing the game on the other side of the door. I knock and he calls for me to come in.
Matt sits on the center of a king-size bed in a hotel robe. He has recently showered; his long dark hair is still wet. He doesn’t bother to look up as I enter. I let the door close at my back.
“How’s Mr. Grey?” he asks.
“So-so. He’s in surgery. His temporal lobe’s bleeding and his brain has swelled. He’ll be lucky to make a full recovery.”
“Is he in good hands?”
I come over and sit on the bed. “I think so. The surgeon’s name is Dr. Tower. He has an excellent reputation. I liked him. He’s optimistic.”
“Good,” Matt says.
“Are you still mad?”
“I’m not mad.”
“Liar.”
Matt shrugs. “Honestly, Sita, I couldn’t care less what happened today. My problems with you are much older.”
I groan. “Please, Matt, let’s not rewind the Teri tape. We’ve talked it to death, and the truth is we were both responsible for her death. We both made mistakes. I should never have contacted her. You should never have contacted her. I should never have changed her into a vampire when she was dying. And you should never have killed me for making her a vampire.”
“I wasn’t myself when I shot you,” Matt says.
“I wasn’t myself when I slept with you.”
“Now who’s the liar? You knew exactly who you were. You just happened to be in Teri’s body.”
“I didn’t hear any complaints from you while we were screwing.”
Matt shocks me by raising his arm to strike me. He takes it a step further, swinging his fist toward my face. His speed is blinding—I’m not given a chance to duck. All I can do is brace for the blow. I know his strength. I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t break my jaw and send half my teeth clattering across the floor.
But at the last instant he stops himself. His fist makes contact with my cheek but that’s it. Drawing in a deep breath, he withdraws his hand and sits back down on the bed. He moved so fast I didn’t even realize that he had stood.
“Sorry,” he mutters. He picks up his laptop and—it’s hard to believe—returns to playing the game.
“I’ve never seen you hit a woman before,” I say.
“You’ve seen me kill a few.”
“Those were Telar females.
They don’t count.”
He nods, but it’s clear he’s hardly listening.
“What’s gotten into you?” I demand.
“Nothing.”
“Are you sure? Or is it possible that what John said is true? That the game is dangerous.”
“It’s not dangerous.”
“I disagree. It’s pushed you over the edge.”
Matt stops playing and stares off into the distance for several seconds, before finally closing his laptop and looking at me.
“I’m not angry with you about Teri. Not tonight,” he says.
“Well, that’s a relief.” When he doesn’t respond, I add, “Pray tell what I’ve done to upset you this time.”
His response staggers me. The casual way he says it.
“Do you know how close my mother came to killing you?”
I stand from the bed. “That’s a lie! Umara showed me nothing but love and support.”
“That was after you met her. But before that, when my father was still alive, she often talked about killing you.”
“Bullshit. Umara was too mature to be jealous of me and Yaksha.”
“It was never a question of jealousy. Her view was practical. She knew of the vow my father had made to Krishna. To destroy all the vampires before he left this world. She knew who the last vampire was, and why my father hesitated to kill you.” Matt pauses. “For many years, for more than you can imagine, my mother wanted to ease his torment by getting rid of you.”
I tremble. He’s telling the truth. “And you? Did you feel the same way?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t either of you pay me a visit?”
“My father forbade it.”
“Good for Yaksha,” I say.
Matt’s expression darkens. “Don’t taunt me, Sita. Not now, not when it comes to my father. It’s because of you we never saw him again. When he went to kill you, he didn’t go to die.”
“You’re wrong. I spoke to him. He was tired of life. He wanted it to be over. He told me. Those were his words.”
Matt throws his feet over the side of the bed and stands. His old habit returns; he begins to pace. “He wanted to die after he said good-bye to us. After we got a chance to say good-bye to him. You made that impossible.”
“I protected myself. I had a right.”
“Yeah, you had a right. Just like a black widow has a right to kill its mate after luring it into its web.”
“That’s not fair. I tried to kill him, yes, he was trying to kill me. But I never tried to seduce him.”
“You didn’t have to!” Matt yells. “Just being who you are . . . he just had to see you and he was doomed.”
“I don’t understand. Before he came after me, he hadn’t seen you or Umara for a long time. You told me that yourself. He must have already said good-bye.”
“He did that to prepare us. To spare us.”
“I didn’t know. I didn’t even know you two existed.”
“You knew he loved you. He never stopped loving you. My mother knew it, and it was a burden she had to live with for five thousand years. You have no idea what you did to her.”
I nod sadly. “You’re right, I had no idea how much I hurt Umara.”
“And me.”
“And you. But Matt, is it fair to blame me? I loved Yaksha as much as he loved me. And I stayed away from him, and not just out of fear. I kept a distance because I wanted him to have a life free of the burden of the vow he had made to Krishna.”
“Your distance didn’t make that burden any less.”
“It gave him a life. So your father loved me, he loved your mother as well. She was greater than I ever could be, which means my decision was the right one. He got to share his life with someone he cared for. He got to have a child. He had a family.” I stop. “Something I never had.”
It was Yaksha who stole away my family when he made me a vampire. Five thousand years have passed since that night, yet the wound has never healed.
In fact, right now, this instant, I feel I have never missed Rama and Lalita more. I have spent so long training myself not to think of them. But it’s as if my confrontation with Matt has burst a dam inside. I don’t just miss my husband, I long for him: his touch, his kind words, his loving eyes. And Lalita—my daughter used to have to smile at me to make my day complete.
All these feelings—I don’t know what to do with them. Yet Matt is so close, and I wish I could just hand them to him. . . .
“I know.”
“I know.” Matt stops pacing and approaches me, touching the side of my face. “I apologize. You’re right. When I swung my fist at you, I meant to hurt you.”
“Thank God you have such amazing reflexes.”
He continues to stare at me. “You know, we’re alone in this world. There’s no one else like us. You have Seymour and he’s a good friend but . . . when you think about it, he’ll be dead before we know it. Then we’ll only have each other.”
“Are you trying to say you love me?”
His eyes are so powerful, so vulnerable. “Yes,” he says.
“But Teri . . . I can never be Teri.”
He touches my chin. “Let’s not talk about Teri.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Nothing,” he says, and kisses me.
I remember his lips, I remember everything about him. But the last time I was naked in bed with him, I was inside Teri’s body, and the shadow of her memories made it impossible for me to surrender to his embrace.
Tonight I feel no such inhibition. We remove each other’s clothes at hyper speed, before everything merges into dreamlike slow motion where every move transpires between two ticks of the clock. He kisses my neck for hours. I brush his hair for days. And as his tongue slides over my breasts and beneath my abdomen, I feel a year go by. But in all that time I don’t blink, I don’t take my eyes off him. Matt, he is so beautiful; the only man who ever reminded me of Yaksha. Which means I must love him, too.
We make love for two hours, according to the clock.
But I never tell him how I feel.
Why? I don’t know.
He has opened his heart to me.
But I’m afraid to do the same.
A part of me waits and watches.
I fear the night has not yet reached its climax.
• • •
Matt and I lie naked in bed together, my head resting on his chest, listening to his heart pound. It could move mountains, the power of his beat. It’s no wonder the Telar feared him so. He is unquestionably the strongest creature on earth.
“Seymour is waiting for us,” Matt says.
“I know.”
“Did he tell you how he plans to unlock your memory?”
“I was afraid to ask.”
“His idea is clever. He wants to use the telepathic bond you two share—in a hypnotic session. You must have heard of mutual hypnosis?”
“It’s where two people hypnotize each other. The theory is their shared trance allows them to reach deeper levels of the subconscious.” I pause. “Does Seymour hope, with us, that it will work a hundred times better than normal?”
“Yes. It probably will.”
I sit up suddenly. “I don’t know. It could harm him. We’re too close. The stuff I went through at Auschwitz, he won’t be able to bear it.”
“Are you worried about that or are you more afraid he’s going to read your mind and know that we just had sex?”
“That is something to worry about. Maybe I should tell him before we start. We should clear the air.”
Matt smiles. “Relax. Seymour’s no dummy. He had Brutran give him the room between ours. By now he can probably mimic the sounds you make when you have an orgasm.”
“I don’t make any sounds. It’s you who bellows like a bull.”
“Sita, has anyone ever told you how romantic you are?”
“Not in a while.”
“I’m not surprised.” Matt climbs out of
bed and puts on his sweats. “Did Mr. Grey say anything to you about our ultimate destination before they wheeled him into surgery?”
“He made one strange remark. He said we won’t be going to Nellis Air Force Base.”
Matt nodded. “That’s true.”
I reach for my own clothes and begin to dress. “How do you know?”
“I beat the game.”
“What does that mean? Did you win a prize?”
“I reached the goal of the game.”
“Please don’t keep me in suspense,” I say when he doesn’t continue.
“I’m sorry, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. The reason is because I think the game has something to do with what happened to you in the past. And I don’t want to spoil your innocence just before you link minds with Seymour.”
“You actually think you might influence my memory?”
“Yes,” Matt replies. “On several crucial points.”
“You act like I’m blocking everything that happened at Auschwitz. That’s silly. There are a few points I can’t remember, probably because I was so near death. But it’s not like the Nazis cast a spell over me.”
“You thought the same about Landulf of Capua and his alter ego, Dante. You thought you got away clean. But we all know how that turned out.”
“Fine,” I mutter. In reality, I still have trouble recalling the days I spent in Sicily a thousand years ago—Seymour’s record of the events notwithstanding. It’s still hard for me to believe a bunch of Middle Ages barbarians were able to outfox me.
Matt and I have a final awkward moment before we leave to meet with Seymour. We are fully dressed and talking about how we should conduct the hypnotic regression when Matt suddenly steps in front of me and puts a finger to my lips, momentarily silencing me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask softly. I can see he’s troubled, and just minutes ago he was cracking jokes. Lowering his head, he removes his finger from my lips.
“I was just wondering how you felt about what I said.”
He is referring to when he told me he loved me.
“I felt wonderful,” I say.
He nods but he is not looking at me. “Good.”
“You caught me by surprise. Like I said, I thought you were still upset about Teri.”