Thirst No. 3 (19 page)

Using my nails, I open the vein on my left wrist and do likewise with her wrist. Pressing the veins together, I let my blood pump into her. I give her thirty seconds’ worth, no more, before I return her vein to her wrist. I close the incision with a few drops of my blood carefully spread over the wound. The operation doesn’t leave a scar.

I let her sleep an hour before carrying her back to her room. I’m reluctant to wake her. I can feel my blood strengthening her system and know it’s best she sleep through the change.

Outside her door, I listen and hear Matt snoring softly. I’m able to slip inside—using her key—and deposit Teri on
the bed without waking either of them. I kiss her good night. I almost kiss Matt, but I figure I’ve played with fate enough for one night.

The Olympic trials for track and field are two weeks later, in Eugene, Oregon. The school year ends for Teri, and once more, as an oddball family of five, we fly to the west coast to see if our budding star can compete at the next level. On the IIC front, all remains calm, and my source in the FBI who has flown off to Switzerland has yet to uncover any new leads on Claudious Ember.

I’m too old, though, too experienced, to be lulled into a false sense of security by the lack of activity. My enemies are still out there, biding their time. The fact—and to me it is a fact and not a guess—adds to my guilt at having Teri and Matt in my life.

Shanti and Lisa are different; they are already involved with IIC. They are safer with me than without me. But my daughter—I cannot help but call Teri that—and Matt would be more secure if they had never met me. Yet when I contemplate moving to another state and walking out of their lives, never seeing them again, I feel a terrible sadness. Plus—and I know it goes against all reason—I feel it would be a mistake. My intuition keeps telling me that I’ve met them for a purpose.

Teri has to go through two preliminary races before she can compete for a place on the U.S. team. In those races something
miraculous happens. She twice runs under 4:20. Afterward, excited, she gushes about how strong she feels. The press shares her enthusiasm. Her success in the opening rounds makes her the favorite to win the trials.

But Matt is cautious. Indeed, his concern borders on suspicion.

“She shouldn’t be running this fast,” he says when we’re alone the night before the final. “She’s burning herself out.”

“She says she felt strong at the end of each race.”

He shakes his head. “She shouldn’t have won the races. I told her to just take third and advance to the final.”

“You know how tricky the fifteen-hundred-meter is, especially at the end. If she hung back, she might have gotten boxed in. Look at what happened to Sharp, the woman who beat her at the NCAA championships. She didn’t even make the final.”

“Sharp had an off day. That can happen to anyone.”

“Coach Tranton told Teri to stay near the front.”

Matt looks doubtful. “Yeah, but he didn’t want her to go to the front and stay there the whole race.”

“I’m surprised at your reaction. I would have thought you’d be more excited about her times.”

He stares at me. “You don’t know her body like I do. Push her too far and it’ll backfire.”

“She pushes herself, Matt. I have nothing to do with it.”

“Sure,” he says, but he doesn’t sound convinced.

Matt’s reaction puzzles me, and I’m tempted to peep inside
his mind and see if there’s something else bothering him. But it goes against a vow of mine not to eavesdrop on the thoughts of those I care about. My attitude is somewhat superstitious, I know, but I see my telepathic ability as a gift that Krishna bestowed on me to keep me safe. The last thing I want to do is abuse it.

Also, I know how disappointing it can be to gaze into another’s mind and discover they’re not as wonderful as they appear on the outside. I’m the first to admit I fantasize about Matt. I’d hate to ruin my dreams by putting his thoughts under a magnifying glass and discovering he’s really a shallow jerk. The same with Teri. The best gifts are those we leave wrapped.

The final for the women’s 1500-meter arrives. The race is run in the cool of the evening. It’s the last race of the day, and the stadium is tense. No one appreciates track like the citizens of Eugene. It’s like they’ve never let go of their native son, Steve Prefontaine, who died having never won an Olympic gold medal, a sad fact I fear I might have had something to do with.

In the early seventies, before the Munich Olympics, I was living in Oregon—where I later met Ray—and I happened to bump into Prefontaine when he was out for a ten-mile run. Since I had on shorts and tennis shoes, and had always admired the guy, I decided to run along beside him.

At the time, I meant no harm. But what I didn’t realize was that Prefontaine was stunned at my ability to keep up with him. From my side, I was just getting in some exercise and saying
hello, but he was trying to beat me. By the time I realized my mistake, he was gasping for air. Naturally, when I finally saw how weary he was, I feigned exhaustion and begged to stop. But it was too late—the damage had been done.

Steve Prefontaine went off to the Olympics knowing that he had been beaten by a girl. I often worried if that’s why he tied up in the straightaway of his race and was passed by three people, finishing fourth without a medal.

In the final, against Matt’s and Coach Tranton’s advice, Teri pushes to the front and sets a brutal pace. I understand what drives her. She’s feeling the fire of my blood. Yet it’s a fire she doesn’t know how to control, and I finally see that Matt’s fears are not unfounded. I have seldom shared my blood with mortals, and I’ve never done so to make someone a better athlete. Have I given her too much blood? Could she really burn herself out? She runs through the first lap in sixty seconds, faster than a world-record pace.

I shout over the roar of the crowd.

“Teri! Slow down!”

It’s as if she hears me, which should be impossible. She turns in my direction. Our eyes seem to meet, and I try to convey to her my fear for her safety. Since I gave her the transfusion, I have felt closer to her. I should not be surprised. We no longer share just the same genes, but the same blood, too. In that instant I feel a psychic bond stretch between us, like a golden thread capable of conquering any distance.

She suddenly slows down.

Teri wins the race by a full second, two seconds shy of a world record. The crowd gives her a standing ovation as she runs a victory lap. There is no longer any question in the minds of the experts. She is now the favorite to win the gold medal at the Olympics.

Afterward, when I hug her and congratulate her on making the team, I feel her flesh still shuddering from the effort she put it through. And I don’t know whether that means she needs more of my blood or less.

The Olympics are two months away. Our gang returns to Missouri, and Teri continues to train in earnest, while helping me with my novel, which I begin to work on with more enthusiasm. The tenor of my book has shifted. Now I’m focused on creating a futuristic civilization inhabited by two types of human beings—those who have subjected their bodies to nanotechnology, which boosts their physical and mental abilities far beyond normal, and a small minority of people who believe it’s best to remain the way nature intended. At the start of the story, the Nanots—as I call them—are in firm control of society. Indeed, it seems that normal humanity is about to become extinct.

I have no idea where the novel is going but don’t mind. I enjoy writing it, and that’s enough for me.

Shanti continues to get her surgeries, and her progress is
so rapid that when her uncle pays her a surprise visit he doesn’t recognize her. The poor man breaks down and weeps with gratitude when he holds her in his arms.

Lisa’s state of mind improves when she gets a full-time teaching job at Truman College, taking over for a math professor for the summer semester. It’s apparent to the rest of us that Lisa is at heart an academic type and feels more comfortable in a university setting than in the marketplace.

After Teri makes the Olympic team, I see Matt less often. He excuses himself, saying he’s busy with his music, but I know he’s purposely avoiding me. His absence saddens me, but I don’t dwell on it. It’s almost a relief he’s not around. It makes me crave him less.

The Olympics are in London, and it’s been many years since I’ve left America. Although I was born in India, that country has changed so much in five thousand years it no longer feels like home. Nor does Europe. I came over to the New World with the Pilgrims, and although I’ve been back to Europe many times, if asked I would have to say I feel like an American.

I wonder if that’s why I feel unsettled at the prospect of traveling to London. The sensation comes over me after Teri qualifies for the team and grows as the date of our departure approaches. There’s no logical reason for my sense of dread. I simply feel that if I leave America, I won’t return.

It’s this feeling that pushes me to see Seymour Dorsten.

Ah, my beloved Seymour, I could write an entire book about him and still not express my feelings for him. As I mentioned before, although we’ve never physically met, Seymour’s written several novels about me, most of which have been fairly accurate.

It’s a long story, and I know when we meet he’ll want an answer to the mystery of our relationship. Of course, he’ll have trouble accepting the truth of our psychic bond, because I have the same difficulty. My relationship with him is a puzzle words cannot explain.

I know where Seymour lives, in Manhattan. Even without checking with my sources, I’m always aware of his location. I just have to close my eyes to see through his eyes. It’s been that way since I first contacted him when he was a senior in high school. Naturally, Seymour later wrote that we became friends during that period, but I say it again: We’ve never met.

I tell the others I’ll be gone a few days. I don’t say where I’m going. It’s my way. When I land at JFK, I half expect Seymour to be waiting to pick me up. I suspect he feels me near, because I’ve mentally sent out the thought that I’m coming. This fact is puzzling, I realize. He doesn’t have to believe I exist in order to read my mind. When I deliberately link with him, he starts daydreaming about me, but he imagines the thoughts are his alone.

I’m acquainted with every detail of Seymour’s life. Fifteen years ago, on the verge of dying of AIDS, he lucked out when
scientists developed the protease inhibitor. Like millions of people infected with HIV, practically overnight he went from someone with an expected life span of a few months to a relatively healthy young man. That’s not to say he doesn’t still have the virus. Seymour has to swallow a twenty-pill-a-day cocktail to stay healthy. But he’s alive, that’s what matters, and he’s had a remarkably successful life.

Like me, he’s a writer, but he’s a lot more famous, although for some reason he refuses to write under one name, on top of never using his real name. He’s adopted a half dozen pen names. When he writes teen thrillers, he’s Carol Kline. He publishes adult horror under Mike Fresher. Lately he’s begun to put out a mystery series under Harold Boxter, and he recently wrote a nine-hundred-page love story that reached number one on the
New York Times
bestseller list as Debra Singer. When he writes a Hollywood script, he always uses the name James Hart.

With each pen name, he has a different agent represent him. Because the agents don’t know he has so many identities, he avoids any legal issues. He’s unquestionably the most diverse writer on the planet. His muse knows no limit. His imagination puts my own to shame, and I’ve lived a hundred times longer.

However, despite the millions of books he’s sold, the scripts he’s had made into popular movies, he’s never made a single public appearance. He never does book signings, and his picture has never appeared on one of his novels. His privacy obsession is the one quality we share above all others.

Sometimes I think it is I who dreamed him up.

As I taxi into Manhattan, it’s lunchtime, and I know Seymour is buying a turkey sandwich and french fries at a deli not far from his austere condo, which is located near Central Park. He has millions in the bank but seldom touches them. He’s not into stuff. He enjoys movies, TV, books, long walks. He has a limited social life. In the fifteen years we’ve been connected, he’s had only one serious relationship, with a young woman named Linda Johnson. Not surprisingly, she looked a lot like me. But she left him, the fool, I don’t know why, and he’s dated little during the last ten years.

I spot Seymour as he leaves the deli, carrying his sandwich in a brown paper sack into the park. This is part of his routine. It’s not unusual for him to circle the park twice on foot in the same day. I follow at a distance, trying to figure out how to introduce myself. I eventually give up. I’ll just say hello and take it from there, what the hell. If I give him a heart attack, I can always carry him to the nearest hospital.

He sits on a relatively secluded bench overlooking a wide grassy area. It’s a Saturday. Children play with kites in the distance. Couples hold hands and pass by without thinking twice who he might be.

He’s not classically handsome, but to me he’s perfect. He’s skinny, because of his illness, and his brown hair desperately needs a stylist. He cuts it when it starts to bother him, not before. He has full lips and long lashes, giving him a slight
cherub look, and there’s sorrow to the lines on his face that comes more from his depth than from any specific tragedy. There’s also a warmth in his brown eyes I see in few people. As I stand nearby and study him, I feel his loneliness as strongly as his empathy, and know one has given birth to the other. A high IQ didn’t make him a brilliant writer—it’s his heart. No one I’ve ever met has Seymour’s heart.

And he’s never met me.

I walk over and sit beside him on the bench.

He turns and looks at me and blinks.

“Hello,” I say.

He has to find the word. “Hi.”

I offer my hand. “I’m Alisa. Mind if I join you?”