Thirst No. 3 (28 page)

“I don’t suppose you used his blood to bring me back to life?”

“True, that was your version. It was me Kalika impaled with a sharp stick. It went through my heart. I should have died. But when my daughter left me for dead, I injected myself
with a syringe of John’s blood—directly in my chest—and I lived.”

“That should be proof enough he’s no ordinary child.”

“I never said he was ordinary. But is he Christ? Is he Krishna? Those are much more serious questions.”

“You always speak of them as the same.”

“To me they’re one and the same. They taught the same thing. They lived similar lives. They even died the same way. To skeptics like Teri, this means they’re nothing but fables. I was lucky I had the advantage of meeting one of these fables.”

“I thought Krishna died from an arrow to his heel, like Achilles.”

“History has a habit of mixing fables and facts. There is a story in India that says Krishna was completely divine, except where his feet touched the earth. It was only there he was vulnerable—hence his death from an arrow to the heel. But if you travel in India today, you’ll find a number of ancient paintings and murals that depict Krishna as being crucified between two criminals.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“In the West, people have trouble with the idea there might have been more than one divine incarnation. Indians accept the concept easily. It’s seems logical to them, and less dogmatic. They have a word for such beings. They call them avatars, or ‘those who descend.’”

“Where do they descend from?”

“I was sitting near Krishna when he was asked that question. I actually spent more time with him than you described in your books. His answer was fascinating. He said between earth and his realm were fifty levels, with earth being the lowest and his being the highest. He said a few of the older races in the galaxy had evolved through these fifty levels. When I asked if there was a chance I could move on to these higher worlds, he said yes, but first I’d have to pay the price of my long life here on earth.”

“What did he mean?”

“I don’t know, I was afraid to ask.” I lower my head, feeling a sudden powerful desire to be with Krishna. “Sometimes I feel I can’t keep paying.”

Seymour hugs me. “Teri will forgive you. She loves you.”

“I think I terrify her. Besides, Matt won’t let me near her.”

“The Sita I know wouldn’t let anyone stand in her way.”

“The Sita you know doesn’t exist. Besides, Matt’s right, she’s safer away from me.”

“Hey, how come you don’t worry about my safety?”

“You’re just a writer. All you do is make up shit. That makes you expendable.”

Seymour laughs. He doesn’t disagree.

Soon after, we dock at Santorini. The ferry slides into the harbor like a hand into a glove. The entire lower level of cars exits in minutes. From the Athens airport, we’ve brought with us an Audi convertible. Even I, a creature of darkness, have
to admit you should never visit the Greek islands and drive around with a roof on.

There’s too much to see. Besides the sparkling ocean, which is seldom out of view, the stark countryside and the whitewashed brick buildings create a timeless aura. I visited Santorini a century ago, and it hasn’t changed. I’m not surprised Paula Ramirez sought out such a peaceful environment to raise her son in.

Yet I’m disappointed she moved here without telling me her address. Paula’s another person who thinks I’m dangerous. I had to use my CIA and Interpol contacts to locate her. I understand, though—I probably would have done the same in her position. I’ve saved her child a couple of times, but he’s the one who’s supposed to save the world.

If Suzama’s prophecies are accurate when it comes to John.

That is a big
if
.

I let Seymour drive to Paula’s house. He notes my reflective mood. “Does she know we’re coming?” he asks.

“No.”

“Will we be welcome?”

“The wolf at the door is never welcome.”

“Would you stop that crap. John’s alive because of you.”

“He almost died because of me. Paula knows me as well as you do. She sees how violence stalks me. She hasn’t gone out of her way to keep in touch.”

“Why are we going to see her?”

“We’re going to see John.”

“Why?”

“I told you about that lead I found in Numbria’s bag. The address in Arosa, Switzerland. I’m pretty sure Yaksha spent time there, with his wife. Now that’s he’s no longer there, I think the Telar have a base in Arosa.” I pause, knowing I have yet to answer his question. “I have to check it out.”

“Cool. I’ll go with you.”

“No.”

“You can’t stop me from coming.”

“Can’t I?”

“You took a vow in Central Park. You said you’d never leave me.”

“Then you have to release me from that vow. Numbria said there are five thousand Telar on earth. How many do you think there will be in Arosa? There’s no way I would be able to protect you.”

“You talk like you’re walking into a death trap.”

“It’s a possibility.”

“Then don’t go, Sita. Leave Europe, run and hide. You’ve spent most of your life in hiding and it’s worked out pretty well. I’ll go with you.”

“The Telar are fixated on me. They won’t leave me alone until I’m either captive or dead. Plus they’re a danger to humanity. This has gone way beyond me and my personal safety. It’s the same with Brutran and the IIC. They might be worse.
Look at the way the Array twisted my mind, and Brutran and her cronies weren’t even in the same country. Imagine if they aim their weapon at the president of the United States.”

“Who says they haven’t?”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

Seymour is thoughtful. “It puzzles me how Brutran was able to focus the Array on you even though Numbria was in the same room. Your mind was obviously more powerful than hers. Yet you lost all control, while she remained relatively sane.”

“It puzzled me for a long time, ever since I was in Brutran’s home in California. I think I’ve figured out the answer. When I first visited IIC, they didn’t know I was coming that day, but they were probably worried I’d show up eventually. They had killed Jeff Stephens, Lisa’s boyfriend. They had killed Randy Clifford too, Lisa’s ex. Randy was the one who’d hacked into their files and discovered they were collecting info on me. It didn’t sound like they knew what I was, but they suspected I was older than any normal person. Putting all these facts together, they must have assumed there was a strong chance I’d force my way into their Malibu office. So they set a trap.”

“You told me about your first meeting with Brutran. You two hardly talked.”

“You’re right. On the surface it didn’t seem like much happened. But then I began to examine my entire visit there. When I burst in and demanded to see Brutran, they didn’t
throw me out like you’d expect. They told me to sit and wait and the boss would be with me in a few minutes. They kept me waiting a long time. Eventually a woman came in with her daughter, and we talked in the waiting area. Then the woman did something odd. She asked if I’d watch her daughter while she went to the bathroom.”

“How old was the girl?” Seymour asks.

“Three or four.”

“The woman had known you about ten minutes?”

“You see why it was strange. Of course I said, sure, no problem, I’ll watch your kid. But the woman had barely left and the kid started moving all over the place. She was out of control. She lifted up a vase and smashed it on a glass table. She cut her hand pretty bad. I was picking out the shards of glass when her mother returned. Well, you would have thought I was choking the child. The woman went nuts and grabbed her kid and bolted out the door. Yet there was no real reason for her to leave. She was supposed to have this important meeting with Mr. Brutran.”

“What was the setup?” Seymour asks.

“Oh, it was brilliant. You know how careful I am with my blood. To get it, you practically have to kill me. But by using this child to collect it, they made me drop all my defenses. I had nothing to pick the glass out of the girl’s hand with except my fingertips. I pricked my own skin in several places. By the time the woman fled with her kid, several of my fingers were
bleeding. I ran to the restroom and washed away the blood and bandaged my hands. The cuts healed quickly. But the damage was already done.”

The light dawns for Seymour. “They had samples of your blood from the drops on their floor. They might even have siphoned blood from the pipes in the restroom, if they had prepared their plumbing ahead of time.”

“Make no mistake, the pipes were prepped to catch my blood. The whole thing was planned down to the last detail.”

“How did they get the child to break the vase on cue? They could have trained her, but that would have taken time.”

“They didn’t have time and they didn’t need it. They have the Array. They must have briefly focused it on the girl. Even before she broke the vase, she was fidgeting.”

“How does having your blood allow them to focus the Array on you?

“Since I don’t know what it is, I can’t answer that question. But I’ll give you another reason why I know that stealing my blood is the key to understanding that first meeting. When I finally got in to see Brutran, we talked briefly before she cut our meeting short. I could tell she wanted to talk more, only later, away from the prying eyes inside that building. At the same time, she felt secure there. No one sees her without having guns aimed at them.”

“But you said she didn’t have security at her own house.”

“Exactly. I expected her house to be a fortress, like her
work. But she lives alone, with her kid, maybe a husband. None of it made any sense. Then I realized something odd about the timing of our second meeting. After we first met, she stayed inside her office two days in a row. I know because I watched her from a spot back in the hills. I had her under observation the whole time. She never went home—she just kept working.”

“She’s obviously a workaholic.”

“I said the same to Lisa. But Lisa told me she’d never seen Brutran stay at the office overnight. Don’t you see? Brutran knew I was watching. She knew I was waiting for her to leave the building so I could get her alone. Only the next day she wasn’t afraid to be alone with me.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t see what this has to do with your blood.”

“I think the woman needed that extra day to load the Array with my blood so it could be used as a weapon against me. That’s why she wasn’t afraid to meet with me the second time, after two days had gone by. At that point, she knew she could focus the Array on me.”

“You’re making some pretty big leaps in logic here.”

“You wouldn’t have thought so if you were with me. She didn’t blink when I walked into her living room. She knew she had the upper hand.”

“But you beat her. You escaped.”

“Barely. And look what happened to Numbria.”

Seymour hesitates. “What did happen?”

“I was gripped by a overwhelming compulsion to drink her blood. To eat her alive. To torture her to death in the most painful way imaginable.”

“The compulsion gripped you within seconds?”

I frown. “Not exactly. It seemed to start while I was asleep. Only I wasn’t asleep.”

“What do you mean?”

I take Seymour’s hand. “You know, I’ve never believed in the devil. The last two thousand years, all the time the church was talking about Satan, I assumed they were trying to create a bogeyman to scare people into doing what the church wanted. Now I’m not so sure. The thing that came into that room—the only way I can describe it is to say it was demonic.”

“Did you actually see a demon?”

“It was more like I was given an insight.”

“Into what?”

“Into Lucifer.” I let go of his hand and press my palms against my closed eyes. I feel a headache coming on. I need to change the subject. At the same time, I have to express my fear. Seymour’s the only one who can understand it, and I can see even he’s struggling with it.

“What was the insight?” he asks gently.

I fight to get out the words.

That the Light Bearer knows he’s the same as God.

But they don’t come. I can’t speak them.

“It was not important,” I whisper.

“Did you feel the same way in Brutran’s house?”

“The evil element was stronger when I was with Numbria. And I felt . . . what it made me do was sacrilege. Like I defiled myself by being unable to resist it.”

“Nonsense. You did everything you could to resist it.”

“Did I? Or was there a part of me that wanted to drink her blood?”

“Listen, you’re a vampire, it’s natural for you to crave blood. But that doesn’t mean you wanted to hurt her.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

“Is that why you want to see John? Are you looking for absolution?”

It’s hard to admit. “Perhaps.”

“Sita. You’ve done more than anyone else in the world to try to protect people.”

“Protect them from what? Myself? Other vampires like me?”

“I’m not a priest, but don’t they say there can be no sin without the intention to do wrong? The fact that Numbria died . . . It sounds cold, but she was just collateral damage.”

“Try telling her that. But you can’t, can you?”

I’ve gone too far. Seymour can’t accept what I’m saying.

“Do you honestly think the Array is connected to Lucifer?”

I shake my head. I can’t argue anymore. My headache is worse. We’re outside beneath a crystal blue sky, weaving through the beautiful hills of Santorini, the shimmering waters
of the Aegean Sea never more than a mile away. Yet I somehow smell the odor of fire and brimstone, and still hear the cries of the damned.

Paula lives near the airport, another artery through which visitors come to the island. She supports herself by renting low-powered motorcycles, the most popular way of getting around on the islands. She has a large stock, a hundred bikes, and makes more money than she can spend. I know all this from the spies I hired to find her. Paula and John have lived on Santorini for over a decade.

Her home is a block from her shop, a modest one story with a clay tile roof and brightly whitewashed walls, which makes it indistinguishable from 90 percent of the houses on the island. She’s quick to answer the door when we knock. She smiles when she sees me, but I feel the expression is forced.